Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1868-07-29
Democratic Anarchy.

/ Ex-Gov. Orr of South Carolina. in hi,
speech at the inauguration of his successor
says:
% 1t is idle to expect any relief in regard
to universal suffrage from the Democratic
party. If the Southern governments in
1870 are declared void, the States will be
left in a condition of anarchy. If the Su.
preme Court declares them to be unconsti-
tutional, he asks what constitution will be
in force, and what officers rcinstated' =
Gov. Orr strikes here at the root Of the
difficulty. Blair says the reconstruction acts
have been declared void by the Supreme
Court, but in this he is little ahead of the
times, at least,-no such decision having
been given. Blair also says these laws are
unconstitutional and void, and if he were
President he would so treat them. President
johnson says in his recent veto of the cleo
| toral college bill
| 90 All the state governments organized in
| those States under the acts of Congress for
that purpose, and under military control, are
| illegitimate and of no validity whatever, and
| in that view the votes cast in those States for
President and Vice-President in pursuance
Of the acts passed since the 9th of March
1867, and IN obedience to the sO-called Re-
construction acts of Congress cannot be legal
ly received and counted, while the only votes
IN those States that can be legally cast and
counted will be those cast in pursuance of
the laws in force in the several States prior
to the legislation by Congress upon the sub
ject of reconstruction. -
The Democratic platform affrms the same
doctrine.
This Democra tic doctrine leads directly
as Gov. Orr says, to anarchy There is no
logic or analogy or precedent that assails the
validity of Congressional reconstruction that
does not assail with still greater force Presi-
Dental reconstruction. If Congress cannot
interfere with the restoration of order in the
Southern States. the President certainly can
not. If the present State government there
ought not to be recognized, those which pre-
ceded them through the johnson machinery
of provisional governments, have no claimsto
more consideration. Behind them is chaos,
anarchy or the old rebel governments re-
vived, with all intermediate legislation, rati-
ication of constitutional amendments. and
other acts done to purge themselves some
what of the guilt of treason and conform to
| IHe HtN OIucI vi tuIilSs. NOIu anu Vi no erect.
Then slavery is not abolished, the whipping
post still stands, and the master can send his
chattels once more to the auctioneer's pen
| and g larrup his .own niger as in good old
| Democratic times
| 1t is to this anarchy, his reversal of every
step in the progress Of the nation toward its
higher and nobler future, this going back
into the darkness out Of which the nation
has just emerged-a darkness lit at last by
the lurid fires of the most Internal treason
that ever assailed any government-that Sey-
mour and Blair and the New York Conven-
ton, and Brick Pomeroy, and Gen. Hampton
and Gen. Forrest, and their rebel friends, in
vite the people of this republic. And they
call this law and order and civil liberty
Republicans will go forward with the repub-
lie, let who will 90 backward with the Dem
ocrats to the anarchy and the old tyrannies
that would follow a Democratic victory.