The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-12
SPIRIT or TIE PRESS.
Editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
upon Current Topios-compiIed Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
GENERALIZATION.

From the NJ Y. World
Many of our Republican contemporaries
are disposed to make it an issue of fact,
whether their party is Justly chargsable with
tendency to consolidate all political powers
into the hands of the General Government.
Much has recently been said on this subject,
which evinces the sensitiveness of our oppo-
nents to the charge itself, but there has been
very little said that amounts to a refutation.
The following OBJ servation of the Bgen5Bg
Post appears to comprehend a sort of admis-
sion as to the past, and kind of promise of
amendment as to the future-
Whatever tendencies to Capitalization are found
in the Republican party, as every intelligent public
man knows, have been occasoned by the require
ments and experiences OF the civil war, and even
then accepted reluctantly, instead OF being seized
ambtousy. Since the war ended Congressional
legislation has steadily been restoring to the States
tile powers which had been for time held in trust
10y the General Government in the interest of the
people and this work would have been completed
much sooner If the population of the States formerly
In rebellion had cordially endeavored to establish
and maintain order among themselves.
1t thus seems to be admitted that during
the war there mere strong tendencies to CEN
tralization in the Republican party; but this
is accompanied by the assertion that these
tendencies, or the measures to which they
led, were accepted reluctantly, and not seized
ambitiously. If this were true, it would
afford a very lame and impotent excuse for
what has been done since the war was closed.
But it is true that all those tendencies to CEN
traliZation which have been manifested by
the Republican party under the require
ments and experiences of the war were invol-
untary and without ambitious motives I'M
mediately on the cessation of hostilities the
people of the Southern States everywhere
exhibited a desire to resume their
proper relations to the Union, and
to accept the result of a defeat of
their efforts to establish separate confeder-
acy as conclusive on the question of State
secession. All that they asked was that the
Federal Government should act consistently
with the Northern ideas of the character of
the Union. They did not insist that slavery
should be retained, for they knew that in
some form and by some action it must be
removed. They were very we'll aware that
two courses were before Congress-one of
them being in accordance with that view of
the Constitution which the North had gene
rally maintained, and the other being en-
tirely outside of any view of the Constitu-
tion which had ever been maintained by
anybody excepting few of the extreme radi-
cal leaders, who insisted that the Southern
States could be rightfully treated as con-
quered enemies, just as if they had been
foreigners entitled to no present standing as
citizens of the United States. This
last was the course adopted; and it
was not, and could not be, adopted without
ambitious motives. 1t afforded the means of
what was called Reconstruction" and that
reconstruction, with all the oppression and
disfranchisement which attended it, and all
the assumption of powers which the Post
delicately calls ''holding of powers in trust
by the General Government in the interest of
the people" was matter of calculation and
design, as so much machinery for the extern
sion and consolidation of the political power
of party. There was just as much of a
'trust" vested in the hands of Congress, in
respect of the powers of local government
which it seized and exercised as there is
when any superior power, whether it be a
public force or private robber, seizes and
appropriates what does not belong to it,
Wien and qChere did the people of the South
ern States surrender into the hands of the
General Government those political powers
which every rational theory of our Constitu-
tion acknowledges to belong only to the
States themselves? IT, at the immediate mo-
ment of the downfall of the Confederate
government, there was an apparent necessity
for the preservation of social order by the
aid of the military power of the United
States, that necessity was but for the mo-
ment, and it needed only to be acted on
within very narrow limits; for there existed
all the while the political capacities and sove-
reign characters of the States themselves,
and nothing was wanted but to recognize
their magistracy of all kinds as the rightful
trustees of the powers of local government,
and to afford them such temporary aid in the
preservation of public order as the circum-
stances of the moment required in the
several localities. But this did not suit the
designs of the radical leaders. They would
recognize nobody as being rightfully the
trustee of any political power, however
local that power might be. They chose, vol
unfairly chose, to suppress all State authority
in those communities, treating its actual
officers as provisional only, and making pre-.
paration to sweep away the whole existing
machinery of State government, in order tc
make room for governments that were to be
creatures of Congress and of its own making
The ostensible excuse was that the whole
Southern magistracy were tainted with re
bellion. If this was true, how did theil
rebellion vest in Congress the politica
powers of the people of those States, to b,
held sin trust" for a time, and then to b'
''restored" in such quantity aud form anC
with such conditions as the trustee Nigh
choose 1t is q strange notion of trust
public or private, even if it arises out of
necessary exercise for the time being o
powers and rights that belong to another, t.
hold that the trustee may not only OK
ercise those pewers and rights as the
were when they devolyed upon him, but tina
he may appropriate to himself more or les
of their substance, change their essentis
character, and give them back upon cond
tions originating in his own will and tendin
to his own profit. Was it done Reluctantly,
or was it done ''ambitiously?" The very fac
that the reconstruction measures were S
shaped as to exclude whole classes of whit
men from all participation in the work {
making the new constitutions for those States
and to include in that exercise of politi CT
tha xnhOla hndu Of admit nnaia