The Daily Phoenix

Another Plan of Adjustment.

Plans for the adjustment of the vexed question of "North and South" are as thick in Congress as the most ardent could desire. We hope one will be hit upon after awhile to relieve the anxieties of the people. The Washington correspondent of the Baltimore Gazette writes:

If the announcement of Mr. Banks, on Friday, that a plan of adjustment was in embryo which could meet the sanction of the President, created in the mind of every one hopes of sincerity, even on his part, such hopes were utterly dissipated upon its introduction on Saturday. The project of Stevens, with all its audacity and atrociousness, possessed at least the virtue of honesty—that of Banks, (a synopsis of which I append,) while it is equally violative of the Constitution, while it equally subjects the Southern States to the worst form of military rule, while it equally ignores the Executive and judicial branches of the Government, yet sneakingly attempts to veil its purposes, and, avowedly, is a mere snare to entrap the President, so that his pre-ordained expulsion from office may fall with less appalling force upon the public mind.

The bill of Mr. Banks is in direct conflict even with his own speech, delivered immediately preceding its introduction. In that harangue, he distinctly declared that the plan he was foreshadowing was based upon the "constitutional amendment," which he gratuitously assumed had already been adopted by three-fourths of the represented States, while his own State yet stubbornly rejects it. Yet his bill violates every provision even of that amendment. It will be seen that it, in terms, remits the unrepresented States to the condition of the Indian Territories, and contemplates a form of government, even for a favored section, substantially the same as that repudiated as totally unendurable by the wild tribes of savages themselves, who have just been mercifully placed under the control of the War Department, to save them from the still more horrible rule of civil agents and commissioners whose tyranny has been enforced by the bayonet.

The bill sets forth that the form of government now existing in Louisiana has never been recognized by the Congress of the United States, and that it fails to secure rights to loyal citizens; and provides for a commission of three persons—one to be appointed by the Senate, one by the House of Representatives and one by the Secretary of War—who shall be authorized to proceed to the State of Louisiana, with authority to replace the political organization now existing there.

The commissioners shall, without delay, secure a registry of all male citizens over twenty-one years of age, without distinction of class, color or former condition of slavery. All so registered shall be allowed to vote, provided they have estates valued at $100 or upwards, or can read or write or were born within the State, or have contributed, by payment of taxes, to the support of the Government. Exception is made in the next section against every person who, as a member of Congress or other officer of the United States, or member of a State Legislature, or Governor of a State, or had held a judicial office, had taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and had subsequently engaged in rebellion against the United States, or had held office under the late Confederacy, or had participated in any pretended secession convention, but Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of its members, remove such disability.

After the registry shall have been completed, the commissioners shall, by giving thirty days notice, call an election for delegates to a convention, to be composed of a number equal to the number in the State Legislature prior to the late rebellion, and to which convention shall be submitted the question of the acceptance of this bill, and of the ratification of the constitutional amendment; and the convention shall then proceed to form a State Constitution, republican in form, which shall be submitted to a vote of the people; and if ratified by a majority of them, it shall be submitted to Congress, and if approved by Congress, Louisiana shall be admitted to all the privileges in the Union. An oath of non-participation in the rebellion and of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States is prescribed to be taken by all voters, and the judges of the election are empowered to refuse the vote of any person disqualified by the bill.