History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United StatesBarnes, William Horatio
History
History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States
Barnes, William Horatio
United States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1869; United States. Congress (39th : 1865-1867)
"'The jurisdiction conferred by this section on the officers
and agents of this bureau to cease and determine whenever,
the discrimination on account of which it is conferred
ceases, and in no event to be exercised in any State in
which the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has not
been interrupted by the rebellion, nor in any such State
after said State shall have been fully restored in all its
constitutional relations to the United States, and the
courts of the State and of the United States within, the
same are not disturbed or stopped in the peaceable course of
justice.'
"Will the Senator from Indiana admit for a moment that the courts in
his State are now disturbed or stopped in the peaceable course of
justice? If they were ever so disturbed, they are not now. Will the
Senator admit that the State of Indiana does not have and exercise all
its constitutional rights as one of the States of this Union? The
judicial authority conferred by this bill applies to no State, not
even to South Carolina, after it shall have been restored in all its
constitutional rights.
"There is no provision in the bill for the exercise of judicial
authority except in the eighth section. Rights are declared in the
seventh, but the mode of protecting them is provided in the eighth
section, and the eighth section then declares explicitly that the
jurisdiction that is conferred shall be exercised only in States which
do not possess full constitutional rights as parts of the Union.
Indiana has at all times had all the constitutional rights pertaining
to any State, has them now, and therefore the officers and agents of
this bureau can take no jurisdiction of any case in the State of
Indiana. It will be another question, which I will answer, and may as
well answer now, perhaps, as to what is meant by 'military
protection.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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