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House. Here are 226 members; a quo
•nm 1 i-f: majority of a quorum, and snf
fi.-icnt to'pass the bill, fifty-eight. Here
that eighteen members out of
<ixtv six 'U the Senate and fifty-eight out
f .>26 in the House may check out
cvet-v dollar in the Treasury. This then
is an excessive power. The proportion
n f t j ie Senate required is only twenty
‘ riv’H (27) per cent, and of the House
Icenh/-*™ (2«) per cent. Now Ido not
sii y that all appropriations only receive
this fragmentary indorsement, but I do
that as a matter of law any appro
priation may pass upon it, and as a mat
ter of fact, as the journals will show it,
that a very large number, if not indeed
the great bulk of appropriations, do not
receive a majority vote of the whole num
ber in each House. In this fatal facility,
then, we see the real bane of Federal
iinance, It is not the “rings” that are
beggaring the republic so much as this
excessive appropriating power. The
power is the thief, and the “rings” but
receive the stolen goods. Strike down
the thief, and; in homely phrase, the re
ceiver would have to shut up shop. To
do so we must restrict a power, which,
comparatively harmless iu the purer days
of our country, is now beyond all bounds,
and to this end there is imperatively re
quired the adoption of an amendment to
the Constitution prohibiting the passage
of any appropriation bill save on a two
thirds vote of each House, as borne upon
the roll Then, instead of 18 out of 66
in the Senate, and 58 out of 226 in the
House, it would require 44 Senators and
151 Representatives to pass a money
bill. But, it may be said, such an
amendment is not needed. The Consti
tution has already provided in this mat
ter, and thoug h a small per cent, of each
House may indeed pass an appropriation
bill, the President can veto it, and then
it would take a two-thirds vote to over
ride the veto and render it into law.
This would be forcible did it not in the
first place assume that the President
and Congress would always be in antag
onism, and, in the second place, altogeth
er ignore that strategy by which a ma
jority guards against an apprehended
veto of a money bill. The corrupt ap
propriation is “sandwiched in” between
other appropriations absolutely neces
sary for the support of the government,
anu as the President has no power to
pick and choose he is forced to approve
the bad in order to preserve the good.
Notable instances of this strategy might
be adduced, and therefore it is said that
the only way to lay the axe at the root of
this excessive appropriating power is by
a limitation in the nature of the amend
ment hereinbefore described. As sub
sidiary to it, and to guard against some
possible dangers in the way of “sand
wiching,” a clause might be added giving
the Executive power to approve any ap
propriation and disapprove any other ap
propriation in the same bill, the disap
proved sections to be returned r as in the
case of any other veto.
But there is a second excessive power
which is scarcely less in need of restric
tion than the first. It is this. By pre
cisely that small per cent, of each house
whether money can be appropriated out
of the Treasury, new states can be ad
mitted into the Union. Now, while a
State may be almost powerless in tne
House, in the Senate it is equal, the
least with the largest, the little starvel
ing territory of yesterday lugged in on a
party need with the great States that
iought through the revolution and bear
an empire each within their borders. In
the making of laws, ratification of treat
ies, confirmation of officers, decision of
impeachments, and overriding of vetoes
each State is on a par, and on a par for
ever. In every other point but this the
Constitution may be amended, but here
amendment stops. “No State, without
its consent, shall be deprived of its
equal suffrage in the Senate ,” is the sole
limitation upon the amending power.
Once a State always a State, unless
Statehood be self-renounced. Consider
ing, then, the powers of a State and how
irrevocable these powers are, the vital
necessity of some restriction on the pre
sent excessive power of admission can at
once he seen. How that power has been
abused, we have of late witnessed. One
paltry territory after another has been
brought in, contrary to the interests of
the elder States and, as is believed, in
opposition to the wishes of the people cf
the territory itself; one State has actual
ly been dismembered, and now we be
hold still others admitted to pack the
Senate against returning law, economy,
and place. To provide, then, new guards
for our future security, and to see that
this power of admitting States shall not
again be wrested Irom its original de
sign into an instrument of party becomes
the dictate of prudence, and in the Con
stitution itself we find, by analogy, the
remedy we need. It is provided that no
member of either House shall be expell
ed save on a two-thirds vote of that
House; and if we but amend the Consti
tution by saying that no State shall be
admitted save on a two—thirds vote of
each House, as borne upon the roll, we
shall have erected an ample breakwater
against the recurrence of those evils we
have seen flow from the present exces
sive power of admission.
DOUBTFUL POWERS.
First, of what may be called the doubt
ful powers in the Constitution is the re
eligibility of the President, doubtful not
as a matter of law, the right being in
dubitable, but on grounds of propriety.
Ihe temptation is that the incumbent
will use his office to procure a re-election,
and the operation of this blandishment
have been such as have led men at al
most every stage of our constitutional
history to regret the absence of a res
trictive provision. So long ago as
1829 President Jackson, in his message,
deemed it “advisable to limit the service
of the chief magistrate to a single term of
either four or six years,” and, at the
present day, it is understood that both
the outgoing and incoming President
take the same view.
The second doubtful power opens the
whole question of the civil Tenure-of-
Office act. This is simply whether, un
der the Constitution, the President has
the power to remove the appointees of
the Executive department. At various
stages of our political history the point
has been raised, and though, until the
passage of the Tenure-of-office act of
March 2, 1867, the decision has always
been that the President had such power,
that decision has only been by legisla
tive act, and therefore subject, by a sub
sequent like act to be reversed. What
is wanted, therefore, is such action as
shall forever settle this moot point, and
such settlement is only to be obtained
through the medium of an amendment to
the Constitution. In considering the
nature of this amendment there comes
up the matter of a civil service. That
the Executive should have the power of
removal is abundantly evident; if by
nothing else, by the very great evils that
have followed since it has been taken
out of his hands; but, in considering the
question of its restoration, it is proper
to fake into account that even in the
hands of the Executive it has been found
productive of ills against which, in a fi
nal determination of this matter, it is
eminently proper to guard. If the Ten
ure-of-Office act has produced widespread
official profligacy, so also has the Exe
cutive power of removal, in turn, been
the occasion of much public demoraliza
tion. It was out of this power that there
grew the hurtful maxim, to the victors
belong the spoils, by which, on the ad
vent of each new administration, the pub
lic service was portioned out to reward
party merit; and, therefore, in seeking
for an amendment to avoid the Congress
al Scylla, it behooves us to look to it that
we run not on the Executive Charybdis.
Between the two, however, appears a
safe channel, and this, it is thought is to
be found in an amendment asserting the
power of removal to be in the President
for cause, such cause being easy to as
sign as would leave the power of removal
potent for the good of the civil service,
while rendering it almost unavailable for
mere party purposes.
Still further, in this general subject of
doubtful powers, comes the subject of a
revision of our system of electoral col
leges. That it is not infrequently the
case that this mode of electing the Pres
ident results in a selection that would
not have taken place on a popular vote
is indeed true, but there would seem no
method of redressing the inequality. To
do away with the electoral college system
would be to strip the smaller States of
very much of their power, and it is against
human nature to hope, therefore, that
they would ratify an amendment to that
effect. The rejection of ten States is
sufficient to defeat any proposed amend
ment, and one of this nature would al
most infallibly fail in at least thirteen.
All things considered, the system, while
not what could be desired, is yet endur
able, and for remedy of its defects we
may safely trust the meliorating influen
ces of time. If petty States can be kept
out of the Union in future, those now in
will, in a few decades, be large com
munities, and thus lose their present in
centive to oppose the change. As in law
it is to the interest of the State to have
an end of suits, so in this matter of the
Presidency, the main thing after all is to
have a President, and if he be a good
President the country will not now carp
at a few votes more or less. Natural
growth will in a few years furnish a re
medy, and thenceforth theory and prac
tice move on smoothly, hand in hand.
Note. —This article will be concluded
in the next number of the Banner of
the South.
NEW ORLEANS (LA) CORRESPONDENCE
OF THE BANNER OF THE SOUTH.
New Orleans, March, 1869.
Banner of the South :
As it is always in fashion to speak of
the fashions, I cannot resist the tempta
tion of sending you the following clip
ping from a late paper on
OLD TIME FASHIONS.
It is a remarkable fact that female ex
travagance in dress, has been a favorite
subject for editorial satire and denuncia
tion ever since newspapers were estab
lished. We fiud in the New York local
journals of a century ago just such squibs
as appear at the present day about
paniers and waterfalls. The spirit of
display on the part of the women rnd of
railery on that of the men was as strong
then as now. The monstrous hoop skirt
which came like an Egyptian plague
upon the women about ten years ago and
which has just gone out of fashioe, is of
great antiquity. Like the great comet,
it strikes athwart the horizon once a
century. It broke out out in the Court
of Charles II in the seventeente century,
it appeared again at the levees of George
II in the eighteenth, and the Empress of
the French revived it for the benefit of
the nineteenth. We extract, from the
old Gazette., a newspaper notice of the
advent of hoop skirts in New York one
hunderedand sixteen jmars ago.
“Iheir petticoats are now blown up
into a roost enormous concave, and rise
more and more every day. The super
fluity of head dress lately abandoned,
seems to have fallen from its. hight, only
to extend the breadth of the lower
parts. The women pretend that these
wide bottoms are airy and proper for the
season. Others pretenn that their whale
bone and hoops are to keep off the un
due approaches of our sex.
Should this measure become general,
we should soon feel the want of street
room. Congregations already begin to
be pinched ffir room, and should the men
fall into the scheme of trunk breeches by
way of reprisal, man and wife could no
longer sit in the same pew.”
It will be seen that some of our stand
ing jokes upon the hoops are a hundred
years old. Yerily, there is nothing new
under the >un. In a later paper the
indignation of the printer breaks forth
against the French and English, dress
makers :
“These foreign invaders first made the
attack upon the stays, so as to- diminish
them half down the waist, exposing the
breast and shoulders. Next they turn to
the caps, cut ©ff the flappets and tabs(?)
and bored and padlocked the ears. Next
came the wide hoop and French, pocket
holes ; and last of all, they have lately
shortened the rear ol women's gowns, so
that the heels and ankles are exposed
even to the very gusset and clock. O,
shame, sham© !”
The following advertisement appears
in the Gazette of January, 1769 :
“Stays. Richard Norris from London
makes all kinds of stays and stumps ,
turned and plain, with French and
Mecklenburg waistcoats, laced overcoats,
German jackets and flips. Ladies uneasy
in their shapes, he fits without any en
cumbrance. Growing misses inclined to
risings in their hips and shoulders he
likewise prevents, by means approved by
the Society of Stay makers in London.”
A correspondent in the Gazette com
plains that the negro women ape their
betters by wearing hoops of monstrous
size, to the great inconvenience of
promenaders. In another number we
read that their having been shocks of an
earthquake at Guilford, Conn., the wo
men there have laid aside their hoop
skirts, with much remorse for their
frivolity and vanity. This was probably
meant to be satirical.
These antique reminiscences bring up
others on subjects that afford wholesome
food for thought in these later days, as
witness this other clipping from the same
source, on
NEGRO SLAVERY.
So-called “slavery,” or the holding of
negroes in domestic and legal subordina
tion to the white race, existing iu this
city, New York, from the first Dutch
settlement. The right to hold slaves
was barely questioned before the Revo
lutionary war, and the existence of the
institution does not appear to have pre
vented the moral or material progress of
the whole people, both black and white.
New York flourished like a green bay
tree, her limits extended, her wealth
increased, and her citizens improved in
culture of intellect and refinement of
manners ; and all this iu spite of the
blighting touch of slavery, of which we
have heard so much of late years. Pious
Boston also larrupped her own niggers,
and yet was not blighted. Strange that
negro slavery should exist in the North,
thrive ; and exist in the South, and the
South wilt. Hut then when it was a
domestic institution of the North, there
was not an anti-slavery agitation’unsett
ling things.
In old New Amseterdam it was really
a domestic institution. It was interwoven
with the very fibres of society. Side by
side w ith every feature of the time, we
find the negro playing his subordinate
part. The wealthy burghers owned
from five to a dozen slaves, and these
filled up the great kitchens at the back
of the houses and performed all the
menial service. W e notice in the old
records that the negroes exhibited all
the traits observable in their descendants
at this day. They were lazy and shift
less, and disposed to lie and steal from
their birth, as if by natural instinct, and
at the same time affectionate and faith
ful in their attachments to their white
owners. It was the custom when a
negro child had reached the age of three
years to solemnly present it to a white
child of the family, of the same age and
sex, on New \eur s day ; and thus mas
ter and servant grew up together almost
n om infancy, and the relation thus formed
frequently presented spectacles of affec
tion and confidence on both sides that
lasted through life.
The slave trade was a lucrative branch
of business with New York and Boston
merchants. The latter city, and New
port, Rhode Island, supplied the South
ern colonies with most of their negro
slaves, and the large fortunes of many
of the foremost humanitarians in New
England were built up from the prooeeds
of this Southern traffic. Guinea negroes
were the first brought into New York.
The confinement of the voyage bred
diseases among them, and comparatively
few of the original arrivals survived the
first year of importation. Strange mala
dies would break out, baffling the skill of
the old physicians. Though so numer
ous in the olden time, but few descendants
of the negro slaves still exist. They
have died out like the Indians.
Alter the. English conquest, we find
fiequcnt ordu&sinccs p&ssccL for the ro£ii*
lation of the conduct of slaves in the
city. As the inhabitants increased, a
class among the negroes grew up who
wei e \icious and addicted to drinking
and gambling. Low house*, kept by
white men, in the suburbs afforded them
the opportunity for these idle indulgences,
ouch a place was Hughson’sj.. where the
alleged negio plot of 1741 was concocted.
As early as 1682 the following law ap
peared on the city statute-book :
Wheieas, Great inconveniences arise
from frequent meetings and gatherings of
negroes and Indian slaves on the Lord’s
Day and at unseasonable tours,
rude and unlawful sports to the dishono°
ot God and profanation of His holy day,
and the disturbance of the peace of His
Majesty s subjects, many ot whom are
temptea to become spectators-,, and neg
leot their duty. 6
Revolted, that no negro*or Indian
slave piesume- to go or absent themselves
Irom their masters’ houses on* the Lord’s
Day, without the said masters’ leave in
writing ; and it shall be lawful for the
sbeiifl or other officer to seize such negro,
etc., and carry him to be severely whip
ped, etc.”
In 1722 a law was passed by the Com
mon Council “restricting slaves, negroes
and Indians from gambling with moneys ;
if found gambling with any sort of money
copper pe&nies, copper half-pence, or
copper farthings, they shall be publickly
whipped at the public whipping-post iu
this city (front of the City Hall, corner
of Wall aud Nassau streets.)”
The usual auction place for the public
sale of negroes, in the colonial times,
was in front ot the coffee-house, at the
lower end of Wall street. Cannot Sister
Beecher Stowe hunt up the “block” and
place it beside that stolen from the
Charleston mart at the close of the last
war ?
PoorCuffee ! his happy days of slavery
are gone forever, and henceforth his own
shoulders must be burthened with the
cares that were heretofore borne by “old
Massa or Missus.” In our hebdomadal
mortuary reports the same sad strain con
tinues—which has been noticed for many
months—to the disadvantage of the poor
African. This week’s list, for instance,
shows a total of 94 deaths—63 whites
and 31 blacks; a proportion of 33 per
cent instead of the old time figures of 8
to 12 per cent. A fearful increase in
their taking ofi. Well may poor Sambo
cry out, “save me from my (Yankee)
friends;” for it seems, of a verity, the
touch of the Puritan is death.
Your “Tyrone” observes that some
Northern papers have noted the fact that
our scalawag and buzzard legislators
refused to pass a city vagrant act, lest a
majority of their honorable (!) selves
should be picked up thereunder. What
will be said of the sequel to this farcical
fact; that, on the last day of the session ,
after their own carpet-bags were
packed, ready for flight in the next
morning s train, they reconsidered and
passed the said act! The cunning and
treacherous varlets! thus to fashion a
club that suited for their own skulls, and
leave it to be used on their more honor
able brethren, who are not ashamed or
afraid, but boldly stay, and ply their pro
fession.
Ihe great Grant has given another
evidence of his stupenduous general-
S -iuj cco | dingto the telegrams, he has
wi ) rawn his financial lieutenant-general
ewart from the front, thus showing
wiu called the perfection of military
science-—the ability to conduct a safe re
treat in the face of the enemy. Laurels
to the hero!
Another admirable military trait is
promptness; and beheld how unhesita
tingly he has “let us have peace ” by
sending the burly Sheridan hither to en
force it. No doubt we shall soon have
the “little bell,” the bastile and other
peaceful paraphernelia re-established, for
che purpose of keeping order amongst
any inclined to he unruly.
By all means, let us have peace.
Percy Vere.
FANNY FERN ONMASCULINE BEAUTY
WHAT CONSTITUTES A HANDSOME MAN.
Well, in the first place, there must be
enough of him; or, failing in that, but
come to think of it, he musn’t fail in
that, because there can be no beauty
without health, or at least to my way of
thinking. In the second place he must have
a beard; whiskers as the gods please, but
a beard I insist upon, else one might
as well look at a girl. Let his voice
have the dash of the Niagara, with the
music of a baby’s laugh in it. Let his
smiles be like the breaking forth of sun
shine on a spring morning. As to his
figure, it should be strong enough to
contend with a man, slight enough to
tremble iu the presence of the woman he
loves. Os course if he is a well made
mao, it follows that he must be graceful,
on the principle that the perfect machi
nery moves harmoniously, therefore, you
and himself and the milk pitcher are
safe neighbors at the table. This style
ot handsome men would no more think
of carrying a cane than he would use a
parasol to keep the sun out of his eyes.
He can wear gloves or warm his hands
in his breast pockets, as he p'eases. He
can commit the suicidal-beauty act
ofturnmg his outside coat collar up over
his eyes on a stormy day, with perfect
impunky; the tailor didn’t make him, and
as to his hatter, if he depends on this
handsome man’s patronage of the “latest
spring style,” I fear he would die
of hope deferred; and yet—by Apollo!
what a bow he makes, and what an ex
pressive- adieu he can wave with his
hand ! Fui all this he is UOfc cOUCeited
for he hath brains!
But your conventional “handsome
man’! of the barber’s window, wax
figure-head pattern; with a pet lock in
the middle of his forehead, an apple
sized head, and a raspberry moustache
with six hairs in it, paint pot on his cheek,
and a little dot of a “goatee” on his chin
with pretty blinking little studs in his
shirt bosom; and a little neck-tie that
looks as if he would faint were it tum
bled, I’d as lief look at a poodle. I al
ways feel a desire to nip it up with a
pair of sugar-tongs, drop it gently into a
bowl of cream, and strew pink rose leaves
over the little remains.
Finally! my readers, when Soul mag
netises Soul, the question of beauty is a
dead letter. Whom one loves is always
handsome; the world’s arbitrary rules
notwithstanding; therefore, when you
say “what can the handsome Mr. B. see
to admire in that stick of a Miss J.?” or
“what can the pretty Miss B. see to like
in that homely Mr. C.?”you simply talk
nonsense—as you generally do on such
subjects. Still the parson gets his fees
and the census goes on all the same.
Anecdotes of Pius IX.—The Pope’s
sense of humor is proverbial in Rome,
and he gave a good example of it the other
day to the corporation of bakers, who
asked an audience of him, in order to
remonstrate against the new and excellent
public even established by Colonel
Blumenstihl, and which supplies far
better bread on much lower terms to the
people, being made by machinery, and
of corn bought wholesale and sold hon
estly. This interference with the dishon
esty gains of the Roman bakers, who
have long enjoyed ? amonopoly, was of
course, although a great popular benefit,
a grievous injury in their eyes. “Holy
Father,” said the spokesman, “it is very
hard on us; we have worked so lono 1 for
the public benefit.” (“Abbiamo fanto
faticato per il bene publico.” “E troppo
vero, iiglio mio,” replied the Pope.
“Adesso e tempo chesi repose un po, e’
lasciare faticare gli alrri.” (It is quite
true, my son. It is high time you rested
a little, and let other people work.)
5
