The Plymouth Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1869-1941, 1869-12-16

THE weary and tragic wandering of the
Radical party amongst the accusing
sepulchres of its murdered victims, to
watch and guard these sepulchres lest the
victims rise from their shrowds and call it
to judgment-this is the memorable, ever
recurring drama enacted at Washington
with every meeting Of Congress. The
party has made itself the Wandering Jew
of politics Impelled by an innate sense
of guilt which it will not confess and can
not quiet, it seeks refuge in new wrong
at each succeeding session, to find that
every new wrong, instead of bringing the
coveted peace, only gives fresh remorse
and sharper terror. At times, like the
tabled traveller, it imagines it has escaped
the avenger, and sits down to rest but
rest brings reflection; and the avenger
rises in its own bosom, and with scorpion
lash drives it forward again through the
dismal labyrinth of original, amendatory,
and supplementary reconstruction cata.
combs which it built for the sepulture of
its victims.
When the first session of the Forty-first
Congress adjourned, there was nota haunt
ing apparition visible, and the high priests
and necrOmancers of the party imagined
they had finished their weary task at
last. But they return to their halls in the
Capitol to linda raw head on each desk, and
an audacious skeleton in each curule chair.
The spectacle is annoying, and forthwith
the necromancers begin again their in
carnations. The session is but five DAYS
old, and there are already three new nails
brought forward to secure the lid of the
Reconstruction coffin. A saying has gone
forth that the Supreme Court will open
the coffin and steal away the corpse by
| night; it is therefore proposed in the
Senate TO kill the Supreme Court, and
bury 1T ia the same grave with the liberty
| it has sworn to protect. Heretofore this
| shabby work was left to such awkward
| journeymen as Mr.. Drake, while the law
yers of the Senate stood aloof from the
despicable work which their consciences
and legal convictions would not permit
them to participate in. But the Journey.
men have failed to do the business, and
the case has become so desperate that
Trumbull, of Illinois, consents to throw
aside his conscience and his scruples,
and come forward to the rescue, with
a bill which fOrbids to the Supreme Court
all jurisdiction of political cases % AS
the word political" in this country, has
a wide and undefnable Specification, and
as nearly every law in the land, affecting
personal rights and duties, may have it!
origin in a political policy, an insuperablt
difficulty meets the learned Judiciary Com
mittee of the Senate on the threshold, II
the shape of the question: What is a DO
litical case? The only way that Mr.
Trumbull can devise for getting around
this troublesome query is to answer it il
detail by appending to each act of Con
gress which Congress may wish to keep
out of the courts hands the words: "Iht
is political law; hands Off" OF cours,
as the bill makes Congress the interpretel
and expounder of its own acts, with powe
to decide what ones are political and wha
ones are not; and as Congress, in passin.
any law, thereby approves and confirm
tit may declare all its acts political, ant
thereby rescue them from the reviewin,
inquiry of the courts.
MonstrOus as is this theory, and inexor
ably as it hurries Congress on to the proc
lamation and assumption of its absolut
and unchallenged omnipotence, it has LEI
itself no alternative. 1t has not the pa
triotism to confess its errors and 90 BAG
to the safe starting point; and it canno
, stand still. 1t is compelled by the yer
law and logic Of wrong to go forward i
wrong, and this it will continue to do unit
it finds the people across its path.-Ni,
{ souri, Republican, Dec. 11M.