at the North until this whole slavery question can be forever settled. Your relations with the government of the United States at one time ought to enable you to know what its resources are when all its energies are put forth for their development, which I know (and for reasons that I could give you) have never yet been exercised. Now if, upon review of the actual situation, you can persuade yourselves that there is a reasonable prospect of ultimate success, then there may be some justification for a farther trial at arms; but if no such reasonable hope can be indulged, then, in my opinion, it is both wicked and criminal to prosecute the war any farther at the bidding of those men who would sacrifice what is left of the country to take the chance of saving themselves.

You must have observed one thing-that those men who would adopt a universal system of abolition have no slaves to set free; that those who would set fire to the cities on the approach of the enemy have no houses to burn; that those who would die in the last ditch, and live on roots and berries in the mountains, are the men who do not take their places in the ranks of the army; and those who would take all the cotton, tobacco, and gold in the country for the use of the government, have neither cotton, nor tobacco, nor gold to be taken; these are not the men who have the largest stake in the country, and are not the men who should control it; and, as far as Congress is concerned, they pass their conscript laws, their impressment bills, and levy their taxes, when a majority of that body not only have no constituencies upon whom their laws can operate, but who are not themselves subject to the provisions of their own laws, even to the payment of a tax that they unconstitutionally, fraudulently, and impudently impose upon others.

What conscript officers, what impressment agents, and what tax-gatherers have you in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Western Virginia, and other portions of the South? And what right have a body of refugees, who have neither constituents nor homes to which they dare go, to assemble in Richmond and keep us in an eternal war to save themselves from harm and find themselves a home at the public expense.

It is supposed that because the people are afraid to speak out that they do not grumble and complain of this, or that it has not weakened their confidence in the authorities by which they are oppressed? If so, let me assure you it is a woeful mistake.

I have written to you freely, and in a spirit of confidence and friendship, and marked it private, because I have no opinions for public use,

which would only subject me to unmeasured denunciation and abuse by those who have every thing to gain and nothing to lose by a continuation of the war; but if I were a member of the Confederate Congress, these are the views I would enlarge and enforce, because I know they represent the views and feelings of seven tenths of the people of this state, who think the experiment of separate independence is a failure, and has been carried quite far enough, but among whom are those who would be the first to cry out "treason" until they knew they were safe in proclaiming their true and honest sentiments-if there is any honesty left in them. I am very respectfully and truly yours,

THE CONGRESSIONAL TEST-OATH.

JOIN M. BOTTS.

The oath required (by the Act of 1862) to be administered to all officers of the Federal government, but which is more generally known as the congressional test-oath, has given rise to a good deal of feeling in the South, and its constitutionality has been assailed with some bitterness, especially by those against whom it operates, and who are thereby disappointed in their confident anticipations of being able to slide out of offico in one government into office under another, and, like other weak vessels, be kept "RIGHT SIDE UP WITH CARE" all the time.

In regard to this question a number of gentlemen of intelligence and respectability did me the honor to seek my views, which will be found in the following correspondence:

Hon. JOHN M. BOTTS:

Charlottesville, September 5, 1865.

DEAR SIR,-The undersigned voters of the county of Albemarle, sincercly desirous of being represented in the next Congress of the United States, naturally feel much anxiety as to the probable effect upon their chances of representation of the congressional test-oath.

We are not unmindful of the grave questions that may be raised as to the power of one Congress to bind another by the prescription of tests of membership, or the still higher question as to the right of that body to add to the constitutional tests of cligibility; but the crisis is one of too much moment to authorize us to trust our dearest rights and interests to a favorable solution of these problems, and we therefore deem it expedient to seek for some explicit information in regard to them.

Confiding in your judgment of public affairs, and your facilities for a fuller knowledge of the probable course of events than we possess, we re

spectfully ask your opinion as to the chances of the repeal or relaxation of the existing test-oath in favor of Southern delegates.

We know full well that, in the peculiar circumstances of our case, inability to take the congressional oath may well consist with the most thorough loyalty; but this may not be enough for those who have our destiny in their hands, and wo do not want to throw our votes away.

Very respectfully, your obedient servants,

W. II. SOUTHALL,
JAMES H. BURNLEY,

J. J. BOWCOCK,

WILLIAM T. EARLY,

T. W. WOOD.

G. PEYTON,
THOMAS WOOD,

IRA GARRETT,

C. H. PRICE,

Auburn, near Brandy Station, September 12, 1865. GENTLEMEN,-Your letter of the 5th was not received until the 8th, in which you ask my opinions on the several points therein contained touching the elections and qualifications of members to the next Congress.

The presence of a houseful of visitors, together with a correspondence. with which I am literally overwhelmed, and which it would require half a dozen secretaries to keep up with, has, until this moment, put it out of my power to give you an answer. Each of the points presented, and all of which I have seen raised by one or more of the candidates who offer their services to the country, arc, I think, not well taken, and are of plain, clear, and easy solution.

1st. As to the power of one Congress to bind another Congress by the prescription of tests of membership.

It is difficult to perceive under what strange delusion the idea could have arisen that one Congress could not bind a succeeding Congress by any law it might choose to pass until that law was either repealed by tho succeeding Congress or pronounced unconstitutional by the proper judicial tribunals of the country. If Congress can not bind its successors, then we should have no laws beyond the period for which Congress was clected, and there would be an absence of all law until each was re-enacted by the succceding Congress. And if this be true, which no man can deny, in what consists the difference between this and any other law? Even if it be admitted to be unconstitutional, still it is the law of the land until repealed or declared null and void by the tribunals constituted for that purpose. And the next question is, Is the act of July 2, 1862, requiring each member of Congress to take the oath therein prescribed

before he shall be admitted to participate in the Legislature of the country, in violation of any provision of the Constitution? I think it is clearly, distinctly, and unquestionably within the constitutional power of Congress to require this oath to be administered to every member of the body.

It is not pretended that there is any provision of the Constitution in terms forbidding it; but it is assumed that, because the wise men of the last century who made the Constitution deemed it essential to require certain qualifications which should in no wise be overlooked or dispensed with, such as that no one should be permitted to participate in the Legislature of the country who was not of a certain age, and a citizen of the United States for a certain period, and an inhabitant of the state at the time of clection, and who should be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution, that therefore it was intended to forbid all who might come after them from availing themselves of the right to impose such other conditions and qualifications as the experience and wisdom of their successors might prove to be judicious and necessary; such is not my reading of the Constitution, such is not my judgment of the purposes of those great and wise men who were framing for us a form of government which they declared to be, and intended should be perpetual.

What is the language of the Constitution?

"The senators and representatives before mentioned, and the members of the State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution; but no religious test-oath shall bo required as a qualification to any public trust under the United States."

Here, then, is to be found the prohibition, and the only prohibition on the action of Congress—that no religious test-oath shall be required. If it had been intended that Congress should prescribe no other oath than that to support the Constitution, is it not patent to all men's minds that they would have said so in terms? The true reading of this provision, as it seems to me, is that Congress may prescribe such other qualifications as their wisdom and experience may hereafter suggest; but they shall not omit this one all-important oath to support the Constitution, and they shall not prescribe any religious test-oath for members of Congress and others.

Again, if this clause of the Constitution is construed as fixing the only qualification that can be required for members of Congress, it equally applies to the state executive, to all members of the State Legislature, and to all judicial officers in the states, for they are all embraced in the same clause, and the same provision is made for each; and as this is declared

to be the supreme law of the land, any thing in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding, it would necessarily follow that no other qualification could be attached to any of the state officers enumerated; and if it is to be inferred that this was intended as a limitation on the power of Congress over the qualification of its members, it is equally to be inferred that it was a limitation on the powers of a state, either by law or Constitution, to impose any other qualification upon the legislative, executive, and judicial officers of the states. Where, then, did the framers of the State Constitution of 1830 derive the power to require that a senator or delegate should be of the ages, respectively, of thirty and twenty-five years, and an actual resident and freeholder of the district or county, etc., that they represented? And from what source did they derive the right to confer upon the Legislature the power to require any elected member to swear that he had not fought a duel, or sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel, etc.? Where would the framers of any State Constitution get the power to limit the time of a judge to a certain age, and say he should not be capable of holding such office after he had reached the age of seventy?

But again, in another article of the Constitution, it is declared that "each House of Congress shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members"-that is to say, they may prescribo when and how they shall be elected, and what returns may bo required, and what qualifications may be established, except that they may not be required to conform to any religious test-oath. But the power is also given to Congress to expel a member. If, then, the House can expel one that has already been admitted to his seat for accepting a bribe, for the commission of any infamous offense, for perjury, murder, arson, or treason, why may they not also exclude from taking a seat any who have been guilty of the same offense? And if certain partics labor under suspicion of having been guilty of bribery, perjury, murder, arson, or treason, why may they not be required to purge themselves of this suspicion before they are allowed to take a scat? It is ridiculous and absurd to say that a person having committed one or all of these offenses must first be admitted, and then on the moment, and at the instant, he may be expelled. The very fact that Congress is empowered by the Constitution to expel for cause establishes their right to affix a qualification or qualifications other than those already prescribed by the instrument itself, and it must be clear to all reflecting men that the same qualification for holding a seat may be prescribed for taking a scat in the first instance.