The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-19

time being control society, and have estab- |
lished safeguards intended to protect the |
people from any possible consequences Of
these social and political revolutions.
The danger from bad political precedents
which we are pointing out is not imaginary.
1t already lifts itself in imposing proportions,
and we stand face to face with it. The events
of the past two years show beyond doubt
that as fast as the Democratic party has OBJ
tanned power in the States, it has been quick
to apprehend the nature and force of the
precedents which a Republican Congress
has repeatedly set for Its study and imitation.
When the same party reaches the position of
ascendancy throughout the nation and grasps
the reins of the General Government, we Ioay
expect q series of Legislative measures, ter
rible perhaps in their results, but each find
ing an example and a counterpart in some
existing statute. The House of Representatives
first used the process of impeachment as a
means of Furnishing political opponent, and
with the avowed purpose of achieving a
party success. State legislatures have been
eager to copy both the act and the motive;
and impeachment which the Constitution de-
signed as the last sanction by which the dis
cretion of executive and judicial officers
might be restrained within Just limits, may
be considered in future as an ordinary and
ready instrument in the hands of party ma
jority to accomplish partisan ends; nay, the
acts of the Arkansas Legislature during the
past winter have covered this most solemn
proceeding with an odium from which it can
hardly be rescued. How meek and tame were
the Republican protests against the reno val of
Governor Holden, compared with tho thun-
ders which would have been uttered had it not
been for the attempt to get rid of Mr.. John
son. Again, the previous question" which
was invented to cut off factious opposition
and to put an end to discussion which had
alr A. Il
been used as a whip to gather in and control
party majority and as gag to stihe all de-
bate The retribution has already begun in
several of the States, and will some time
doubtless be consummated upon the floor of
the House. The appeal to the public made
during the past winter by Republican men,
bers of the Indiana Legislature who had re-
signed was throughout curious document,
but no portion of it was more curious or more
refreshing than that which bitterly complained
of the tyranny of the Democratic maj iority
in the use of the previous question, aud in
the prohibition of debate upon matters of the
highest Importance to the State. A vision
of Thaddeus Stevens ought to have appeared
to the writer of this address and to have
stayed his hand as he penned the inconsistent
complaint. The readiness with which the
New York Assembly rejected the claims of
Mr.. Twombly and seated Democratic men,
Der in his place, finds many parallel in the
acts of recent Congresses, and the process
will probably be repeated upon larger field.
We have already said that the Ku-zlux bill
itself may perhaps be made the precedent for
some future fugitive slave law, or for some
other statute which shall equally violate the
Constitution, political science. and good
morals. The suggestion was reasonable, aud
its accomplishment is not at all improbable.
If the Democratic party should come into
power, it is certainly within the range of pos
| sibilities that it should endeavor to uphold
and sustain the liquor interest by Congress
sional legislation directed against State pro-
hibitory and license laws. Such measure
| could be easily patterned after the present
| Force bill; the State laws could be declared
void; the States enacting and sustaining
| them could be described as ''abridging the
| privileges and immunities of citizens of the
| United States" and as denying to persons
| the equal protection of the laws" inter-
| ference with the free manufacture and sale
of liquors could be pronounced crime.
| punishable by the national courts, and resist
| ance could be overawed and put down by the
military. In favor of the legality of all this
an argument might easily be made, plausible
enough at least for all those who should de-
sire to be convinced. The United States is
bound and has full authority to protect it's
citizens in all their rights and privileges; the
right to acquire, use, and dispose of pro-
perty is as sacred as the right to life or
liberty, and, equally with the latter, de-
mands protection from the General Govern
ment; intoxicating liquors are the subjects
of property, which draws after it all the
incidents of complete ownership;
the fourteenth amendment has made
the way clear for Congress
to interfere; and the State laws which wholly
prohibit or partially restrain the free use and
traffic in this species of property, are directly
opposed to the wholesome provisions of that
amendment. This principle has already re-
ceived the judicial sanction and support of
one of the advanced members of the United
Statos Supreme Court. Mr. Justice Bradley
has declared a statute of Louisiana null and
void which incorporated company for re-
ceiving and slaughtering animals, and gave
it certain privileges and immunities which
were denied to all others engaged in the same
business. According to that learned Judge,
the fourteenth amendment was aimed at all
State laws which abridge the rights and prlvi-
leges of citizens as such and under its be-
nign protection are included not only the
rights to life, liberty, and property, but also
what he magnihcently called 1.-THE sacred
right of labor"
If we should object, as we certainly should,
that the whole matter of the manufacture,
use, and sale of intoxicating liquors was
within the purview of police regulation, and
that the subject of internal police was CON-
mitted exclusively to the State authorities,
We should be met by the ready answer that
, all this might once have been true, but that
the Fourteenth Amendment, as construed by
a preceding Congress, had swept within the
domain of national legislation the function
, of personal protection, and that snct
protection could not stop at life