546 



NEW YOKK. 



NITROLEUM. 



tive power of the Government to determiae at what 

 time the State, by the establishment of a govern- 

 ment, republican in form tinder the Constitution, and 

 the ;omplete abandonment of its rebellion, and the 

 return to loyalty of its inhabitants, may safely re- 

 sume the exercise of its rights and privileges under 

 the Constitution which have been inert and sus- 

 pended by its own wrong; and the doctrine that such 

 State has kept perfect and unimpaired all its rights 

 and privileges while in rebellion and war, to be used 

 at its option, and is itself to judge when it is in prop- 

 er condition to resume their enjoyment, is false and 

 pernicious ; and the other doctrine, that the Presi- 

 dent is alone sole judge of the period when such sus- 

 pension shall be at an end, and the State permitted 

 to resume its power in the Union, is equally un- 

 souud. 



Resolved, That the pending amendment to the Con- 

 stitution, proposed by Congress, which defines citi- 

 zenship in the United States, and the civil rights of 

 citizens, which equalizes national representation 

 among the several States, which disables from na- 

 tional or local office at the pleasure of the people 

 represented in Congress those who, having taken 

 an oath to support the Constitution of the United 

 States, shall have engaged in rebellion against the 

 same, and which declares the validity of the public 

 debt of the United States, and invalidates every 

 debt incurred by any attempt to overthrow the 

 Union, is essential to' engraft upon the organic law 

 the legitimate results of the war, commends itself by 

 its justice, humanity, and moderation, to every patri- 

 otic heart, and that when any of the late insurgent 

 States shall adopt that amendment, such State 

 should at once, by its loyal representatives, be per- 

 mitted to resume its place in Congress. 



Resolved, That in pursuance of these principles, 

 the late insurgent States were required by the Presi- 

 dent, subject to the approval of Congress, to accede 

 to certain conditions including the ratification of the 

 constitutional amendment of emancipation, which 

 works a change in the constitutional basis of repre- 

 sentation prejudicial to the equality of the States in 

 Congress ; that the continued absence of ten of the 

 late insurgent States in Congress is due solely to 

 their refusal to recognize this change, and that their 

 claim to enter Congress before that change is ac- 

 knowledged, is a demand that a bloody attempt to 

 dissolve the Union shall -be rewarded with increased 

 representation of political power. 



Resolved, That inequalities of guaranties of person, 

 and political liberties are dangerous to the peace of 

 States and the welfare of freemen, and that we shall 

 sincerely rejoice if the adoption of the constitutional 

 amendment shall tend to that equalization of all poli- 

 tical rights among citizens of the Union upon which 

 the future peace, prosperity, and power of the United 

 States must depend. 



Resolved, That the President of the United States, 

 in denouncing as unconstitutionally incompetent the 

 Congress whose lawful authority he has officially 

 recognized, convicts himself of usurpation of power, 

 and that the tragical massacre of faithful citizens in 

 Memphis and New Orleans should admonish him that 

 his policy encourages a spirit fatal to national tran- 

 quillity, and which indefinitely delays the restoration 

 of the Union. 



Then followed resolutions complimenting 

 Governor Fenton for his efficient administra- 

 tion, approving the other candidates, etc. 



An interesting question, involving the right of 

 an officer in the late Confederate army to vote 

 in this State, was decided at the November 

 term of the King's County Supreme Court. It 

 same up on a mandamus, issued against the Re- 

 gisters of the First District of the 17th "Ward 

 of Brooklyn, commanding them to register the 



name of Augustus Wheeler as a voter at the 

 ensuing election, or show cause why the same 

 was not done. It appeared that "Wheeler is a 

 native of Georgia, and during the war served 

 as an assistant-surgeon in the Southern army, 

 but had been an inhabitant of New York for 

 one year, and of King's County for six months, 

 and claimed the right to the elective franchise, 

 which the registers refused on the ground th.it 

 he had been a Confederate soldier. After a 

 full hearing, Judge Gilbert decided in favor 

 of Mr. "Wheeler's citizenship, and his right to 

 vote. 



The official vote of the State for Governor 

 was as follows: Fenton (Republican), 366,315; 

 Hoffman (Democrat), 352,526 ; majority for 

 Fenton, 13,Y89. The vote on the question of a 

 constitutional convention stood: for the con- 

 vention, 352,854; against, 256,364; majority 

 for the convention, 96,490. The State Con- 

 stitution of 1846 provided that the question of 

 a constitutional convention be submitted to a 

 vote at the several elections in 1866, and every 

 twentieth year thereafter. 



NICARAGUA. (See CENTRAL AMERICA.) 

 NITROLEUM, or NITROGLYCERINE. 

 To the peculiar class of compounds character- 

 ized by their tendency under certain conditions 

 to sudden disruption, so that gases contained in 

 or generated from them are allowed to resume 

 with violence their proper volume a class of 

 bodies hence known as detonating or fulmin- 

 ating, and of which several other nitrogen-con- 

 taining compounds afford marked instances 

 nitro-glycerine is at least one of the latest addi- 

 tions; while it is doubtless the most powerful 

 of such explosive agents as yet brought into 

 practical use. This substance, discovered by 

 Sobrero in 1847, and first experimented with 

 as an explosive for blasting by Alfred Nobel, a 

 Swedish engineer, in 1864, is a heavy liquid, of 

 oily consistency, and of an amber or brownish 

 color. It has been known, among other names, 

 as "Nobel's blasting oil," "glonoin oil," and 

 (most commonly) " nitro-glycerine ; " while the 

 unquestionably preferable term, nitroleum, has 

 recently been applied to it by Colonel Shaffner. 

 Nitroleum is produced by adding glycerine 

 in successive small quantities to a mixture (ac- 

 cording to one account) of 1 volume of nitric 

 acid (sp. gr., 1.43) and 2 of sulphuric acid (sp. 

 gr., 1.83), the acids being meanwhile artificially 

 cooled. Upon subsequently pouring the mix- 

 ture into water, the oil, at once insoluble in and 

 heavier than that liquid, separates and collects 

 at the bottom of the vessel. Although, as yet 

 the accounts given of its composition differ some- 

 what, still this oil is probably glycerine in which 

 a certain number of atoms of hydrogen are re- 

 placed by the compound radical NO 4 ; and its 

 formula (O. S.) has been stated as Co H 5 (NO 4 )a 

 Oe. In presence of nascent hydrogen, sulphydric 

 acid, and alkalies, nitroleum separates into 

 glycerine and (it appears) nitric acid. Its spe- 

 cific gravity is 1.6 ; and it is readily soluble in 

 common alcohol, ether, methylic alc.ob.ol (wood 



