he only
qualification stated for these officers is that they must be "loyal."
They may be persons in the military service or civilians, residents of
the State or strangers. Yet these persons are to exercise most important
duties and are vested with unlimited discretion. They are to decide what
names shall be placed upon the register and from their decision there is
to be no appeal. They are to superintend the elections and to decide all
questions which may arise. They are to have the custody of the ballots
and to make return of the persons elected. Whatever frauds or errors
they may commit must pass without redress. All that is left for the
commanding general is to receive the returns of the elections, open the
same, and ascertain who are chosen "according to the returns of the
officers who conducted said elections." By such means and with this
sort of agency are the conventions of delegates to be constituted.

As the delegates are to speak for the people, common justice would seem
to require that they should have authority from the people themselves.
No convention so constituted will in any sense represent the wishes of
the inhabitants of these States, for under the all-embracing exceptions
of these laws, by a construction which the uncertainty of the clause as
to disfranchisement leaves open to the board of officers, the great body
of the people may be excluded from the polls and from all opportunity of
expressing their own wishes or voting for delegates who will faithfully
reflect their sentiments.

I do not deem it necessary further to investigate the details of this
bill. No consideration could induce me to give my approval to such an
election law for any purpose, and especially for the great purpose of
framing the constitution of a State. If ever the American citizen should
be left to the free exercise of his own judgment it is when he is
engaged in the work of forming the fundamental law under which he is to
live. That work is his work, and it can not properly be taken out of his
hands. All this legislation proceeds upon the contrary assumption that
the people of each of these States shall have no constitution except
such as may be arbitrarily dictated by Congress and formed under the
restraint of military rule. A plain statement of facts makes this
evident.

In all these States there are existing constitutions, framed in the
accustomed way by the people. Congress, however, declares that these
constitutions ar