The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-10
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
Editorial Opinions of the Lending Journals
Upon Current TOpics-Compiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
FUNCTUS OFFICIO.


From the NJ Y. Tribune
The Hon. Garrett Davis, who was dele
gate to the Capital Convention at st. Louis
and who voted against the removal of the ma
tional seat of government ''to some place in
the valley of the Mississippi river, has given
his reasons for that vote, in a long letter to
the Governor of Kentucky Mr. Davis takes
the ground that, however much we NAV de-
sire to carry our national gods from the Dis
trict of Columbia, we have no power in the
premises When Virginia and MARYLAND ceded
each portion of its territory to the nation.
they did so forever. When the United States
accepted this territory, they took an inaiena-
BILE estate, and were bound to use it for the
purpose and upon the conditions of the ces-
sion for all time to come Mr.. Garrett Davis
states this doctrine in two languages Eng
lish and the Latin-as follows:-''When the
States have ceded the necessary territory
they cannot withdraw or abrogate their ces-
sions and so when Congress has accepted
them, it cannot repeal or abrogate its accept
ance No one will deny that the cession of
the States and the acceptance by Congress
concludes any further action of the States,
and their power over the subject then be-
comes fuRctus obtci0; and it is equally true
that the associated power of acceptance by
Congress, when executed, is exhaustive and
JuRctuS CDici0;" and, therefore, there is
nothing more to be said or done about the
matter. Congress is powerless. Conventions
are in vain. Delegates can do nothing. The
capital is like an obstinate old woman
''when it is sot, it's sot." 1t is as immovable
as the everlasting hills, and is firmly bedded
in the mud of the district by some irrepeala-
BILE law of constitutional inertia.
Mr.. Davis might have safely left the dis
cussion at this point, but he INDUCES, after
his dry logic, in various poetical and histori-
cal suggestions. ''Shall public buildings"
ba ayclairnc tsxyhoco stvIa ord pooopiGoanoa
command the admiration of every traveller;
shall halls, made historical by eloquence and
craftsmanship, surprising the Roman forum
and all the learned seats of Athens in their
palmiest days, be abandoned to bats and
owls p We fully agree with Mr.. Davis in his
answer:-''The noblest reason and sentiments
of man answer, MOI AS we write,
melancholy picture of the ruined Capitol
presents itself to our minds eye, with
a special and particular fox looking out
of each unglazed window; with whole
colonies of owls trying in vain, by solemn
looks, to keep up the reputation of the
edihce for wisdom; and with focks of bats
fitting in the twilight of the crumbling corri-
dors. The foxes bark, the owls complain to
the moon, and the rustic Of the bats suggests
the wandering and uneasy ghosts of departed
congressman. 1t may be long before Lord
Macaulays New Zealander will arrive to in
spect the ruins; but even the generation
nearest to our own may furnish Volney OF
Layard to philosophize or to photograph in
Pennsylvania avenue. Meanwhile, the capi-
tai having been removed to st. Louis, she has
Ito use Mr.. Davis vigorous words) 'taken to
her bosom moral leper, the Government of
the United States" and her ''frenzied popu-
lace" is continually frightening honorable
members out of their senses by the perpetra-
tion of 'the widest and bloodiest excesses."
Mr.. Davis final argument against the pro-
aH &c ba oh
that, if we wait long enough, Washington
will become like the ancient City of Rome,
which subdued ''Italy, Gaul, Germany, Bri-
tain, Greece, and Macedon;" which "carried
her arms in triumph to Carthage, and, under
Is walls, vanquished the great Hannibal;"
hich pushed them VIGOROUSLY over the
ominions of the Ptolemies to the Pyramids
nd Thebes;" which ''subjugated Syria; l"
which ''swept across Mesopotamii;" which
passed over long buried Babylon;" which
built her fortified camps on the banks of
the Indus, where Alexander terminated his
conquests and blubbered like school-boy
because he had reached the nil ultra of ambi-
ton! All this achievement required, as Mr..
Davis coolly observes, only twelve centuries
from the time when Romulus 'located on the
Tiber." But
''What was Goose-creek once is Tiber now."
We have made fair start in a classical di-
teCtlOn, ana III the year OF our LORD 3OOJ, II
we will but watt Washington will (Mr. Davis
thinks) run the parallel of Rome in the
duration and splendor of metropolitan his
tory"
This may be very good way of mitigating
the ardors of Occidental ambition; but we
fear that those who have this movement in
hand will not care the drippings of a whisky
Jug for Mr.. Garrett's talk about the Tiber,
Carthage, Hannibal, the Polemies, Mesopo-
tamia and Alexander; for, although they are
well-seasoned and respectable names, there is
no spell in them to prevent st. Louis from
running away with our seat of government
provided she does not find it an impracticable
back-load. A good, solid, common-sense
argument against the change-such, for in
stance, as its enormous expense, the nation
being still heavily in debts worth all Mr.
Davis fine writing about Rome and Athens,
the bats and tho owls. The single fact that
Washington is practically more nearly a centre
now than upon the day Of its foundation, is
worth all the fine things which Mr.. Davis car
find in all the classical dictionaries which
have ever been printed.
THE BURLINGAME TREATY AND ANTI
CHINESE LAW
gf.,