The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1868-11-03

3
| oaice-holders Sent Home to Vote.
The act of granting furlough to Office
holders to 20 home to vote 10 q sign of the
times. Itis, we believe, new, if We except
the election Of 1864, when ofice-holders
and soldiers were furloughed to vote for
Mr.. LINCOLN. So
In old times, the idea prevailed that upon
the occasion Of Presidential election the
people in Federal Office were on trial, and
the ofice-holder who took q conspicuous
part in the canvass was the object Of the
severest censure. It was thought unbe-
coming in an officer of any dignity even
to vote. We have known conscientious
gentlemen, hol ding responsible positions
under the Government, to absent them
selves from the polls from feeling OF deli
cacy on this very point. The idea was just
and proper. Each election is q trial OF men
and measures. The people are the jurors,
and they should be left free to exercise
their judgment unbiased by any extra
neous causes. Neither intimidation nor
seduction should be allowed to reach them
in any form. 1t would be inconsistent with
the nature of freedom and republicanism
that it should.
This healthy order Of official accounta-
bility-this fair mode of ascertaining the
public judgment-has by degrees been in
fringed upon as the Government grew in
power. Prior to the war all respect for the
healthy usages of early days had not en-
tirely disappeared. There was still little
reserve and sense Of delicacy in official Cir
cles. But even then it was mainly but q
lingering outward show Of feeling which
had little real existence; and now we have
all pretension thrown off, and the open par
ticipation of office-holders in the elections
their taking part in framing the pubic
Judgment upontheir own acts-receiving the
sanction of Departmental orders.
We suppose it is all right-all in conform
ity with the. inevitable tendency of things
Power is not thing to lie passive and inert
while under trial. It will not permit the
Judgment to be adverse if it has strength
enough to prevent it. The Federal Govern
ment is no longer that weak, subordinate
agent which the States in the original char
ter, under which it was created, INTENDED
it to be. It has grown too great to submit
any longer to that subsection. 1t has
turned the States, and put them where 1t
was. Naturally, its impatience of the
vexatious interference of the States has IN
creased, and will continue to increase until
some man will one day spring into the
chief position of the Government and put
in full force that entire independence of all
State control which has been gradually de-
yeloping itself in the Federal Government
for twenty years, and which is now on the
eve of full maturity. -.--.-------
Government IN times past can look to this
revolution without pain. Yet it is one
which even our ancestors, had they been
less devout and more practical, should have
looked for as unavoidable. PATRICK HENRY
foresaw it !; and yet even DANIEL WEBSTER,
so late as 1910, in what was almost idola-
try, looked forward to the endurance of the
Government in its republican form as long
as the world lasted with hope which was
so strong that it amounted almost to convic-
ton. He is hardly cold in the grave be-
fore it is essentially dead republic.
The schooling Of three years has hardened
us to the event. We know that much OF
happiness, much of virtue, much of perso,
nal liberty and independence, are gone,
never to return; but we may look forward
TO national ACKNOWLEDGMENT perhaps IN
exampled, and we may console ourselves
by the reflection that such condition is In
separable from arbitrary authority.