The Reconstruction Act
In the case of the Commonwealth of Virginia vs. the State of West Virginia in reference to their claims of jurisdiction over the Counties of Jefferson and Berkeley, Judge B. R. Curtis made an able argument in behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia, which, at the request of the Supreme Court of the United States, has been written out and printed. Judge Curtis suggested that the theory by which the reconstruction acts are maintained is radically false -- the theory that Congress has by conquest acquired absolute and unlimited power over the States lately in rebellion, and he expressed the apprehension that the action of Congress Upon that theory “must hereafter he attended with consequences deeply injurious to the preservation of constitutional government in our country." We quote the following passage from the argument:
“Upon the plainest principles, when the United States suppressed the rebellion in
Virginia, it suppressed it in the performance of its constitutional obligation, as well to the lawful government
of that State as to the government of the United States. If the word conquest can have any application, it was
a conquest of territory to restore the lawful government of the State to the actual possession of its constitutional
powers as well as to restore the government of the United States to the actual possession of their constitutional
powers. And the assertion by the United States of an absolute and uncontrollable authority by conquest over the
territory and people of that State, and over the lawful government of that State, which the United States was bound
to restore and maintain, is as inconsistent with good faith and with the public law of the world, as it is with
the Constitution of the Union. I deny the power of Congress thus to destroy the State of Virginia; and if it shall
be found that this recent legislation of Congress has that extent, I respectfully insist and submit to this court
that Congress exceeded its power."
(The Pittsfield Sun newspaper, dated June 20, 1867, transcribed by Pam Rathbone)
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