The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-08-03

and punishment Of known offenders, while
retaining the moral support of the State and
the country.
Governor Holden has chosenanother course,
and one so fagrantly wrong that it is impos-
sible to respect his motives, and at the same
time credit him with a judgment BETTING his
position. We must conclude either that he is
PLAYING the part of a reckless partisan, and
without regardto decency or right is preparing
TO control the State election on Thursday
or that. Welding to bad advisers, he forgets
his duty to the people whose servant he is,
to the State whose interests and honor he
has sworn to protect, and to the law whose
majesty is superior to even his pretensions.
One or the other of these conclusions seems
inevitable. How else shall w comprehend
the hasty proclamation of martial law, the
organization of motley troops-not the la wful
militia-under the command of a Tennessee
colonel, the refusal to obey orders of regular
courts, the arrest of citizens without warrant
u their detention without trial-fnd,
finally, the declared purpose to try these
prisoners by a military court, with a man not
far removed from an outlaw at its head?
1t is not possible to watch without indigna-
ton the progress of the record which Cover
nor Holden is making for his own condemna-
ton. The method he has adopted for organ
izing troops-the neglect of the constitutional
provisions in this respect, and the departure
from the non-partisan attitude becoming a
matter at once SO delicate and SO momentous
may account for the aversion with which
these troops are viewed by the people gene
rally. They are q partisan force, under the
direction of a Colonel Kirk, whose antece-
dents are odious, and whose character and
temper display the license, recklessness, and
cruelty of an unbridled partisanship. This
man Kirk Governor Holden has in
vested with many of the powers of
a military dictator in the counties that are
unhappily subject to his sway. His will is
warrant enough for the arrest of respectable
citizens; he keeps hem prisoners without in
forming them of the cause of their arrest;
he threatens to shoot officers of the law who
may enter his camp with writs of habeas
corpus; and on at least one well-attested oc-
casion he inflicted torture upon a prisoner.
For these infamies Governor Holden is re-
sponsible. He asserts practically that the
habeas corpus act is suspended, though the
Chief Justice decides that it is not; and he
has so overawed another of the judges that
his court shrinks frora a contest in which
the material power of the Government
is arrayed against the officers of justice
and the moral power of the law. The whole
spectacle is disgraceful to the Governor and
humiliating to the country. For it shows
that the Executive of q reconstructed State
may usurp functions not contemplated by the
Constitution under which he was elected,
and may become the despotic master of a
people whom he is supposed to serve.
1t is unfortunate that the Governor, who
has placed himself above the law, is never
theless able to boast of the support of the
Government of the United States. For what
purpose are national troops sent into North
Carolina? Infamous as Holden's orders are,
infamous as the conduct of his minion, Kirk,
has been, we have yet to hear of the first
attempt at armed resistance to either. There
is martial law without an nsurrection-a
great display of military force to crush in
surgents who nave no visible existence.
There is no conceivable use for the United
States troops now in the State, unless it be
to keep guard at the polls on Thursday in the
interest of Holden. But are bayonets pro-
per adjuncts of the ballot-box, even in North
Carolina? Can President Grant have properly
studied the position in North Carolina when
he allowed Holden to make United States
soldiers the instruments of a cruel tyranny?