The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1871-04-27
ADDRESS
OF the Democratic Members
of Congress.

the 21st inst:
To the People Of The United States:
Our presence and official duties at
Washington have enabled us to be-
come fully acquainted with the actions
and designs of those who control the
Radical party, and we feel called upon
to utter a few words of warning
against the alarming strike they have
made toward the Capitalization of
power i'll the hands of Congress and
the Executive. The time and atten-
ton of the Radical leaders have been
almost wholly directed 10 deyising
such legislation as will in their view
best preserve their ascendency. and no
regard for the wise restraints imposed
by the Constitution has checked their
reckless and desperate career.
The President of the United States
has been formally announced as cam
didate for reelection. The declara-
tions of his selfish supporters have
been echoed by subsidized press, and
the discipline OF the party has already
made adhesion to his personal for
tunes, the supreme test of political
fealty. The partizan legislation to
which VIC refer was decreed and
shaped in secret caucus, where the ex-
tremest counsels always dominated,
and was adopted by subservient ma
jority, if not with the intent, certainly
with the effect to place in the hands of
the President. power to command his.
own denomination, and to employ the
army, navy and militia at his sole dis
cretion as means of snbserving his
personal ambition. sf
When the sad experience of the last
two years, so disappointing to the
hopes and generous confidence of the
country, is considered in connection
with the violenbSutterances and rash
purposes of those who control the
Presidents policy, it is not surprising
that the gravest apprehensiOns for the
future peace of the nation should be
entertained.. At time when labor is
depressed, and every material interest
is palsied by oppressive taxation, the
public offices have been multiplied be-
yond all precedent, to serve as lnstru-
ments to serve in the perpetuation of
power. Partizanship is the only test
applied to the distribution of this vast
patronage. Honesty, fitness and moral
worth are openly discarded, in favor
of trucking submission and dishonor-
defalcations and wide spread corrup-
sequences of this pernicious system.
By the official report of the Secre-
tary of the Treasury it appears that
after the deduction of all proper credit
many millions of dollars remain due
from ex-collectors OF internal revenue
and no proper diligence has ever been
used to collect them. Reforms in the
revenue and fiscal systems, which ali
experience demonstrates as necessary
TO frugal administration of the gov
ernment as well as a measure of relief
to an. .overburdened people have been
persistently postponed or wilfully neg
lected. Congress now adjourns with
out even having attempted to reduce
taxation, or to repeal the glaring inn
positions by which industry is crushed
and Impoverished. The treasury is
OVERLOOKING and an excess of eighty
millions of revenue is admitted, and
yet, instead of some measure of pres
ent relief, barren and delusive reso-
luton il passed by the Senate to con-
slider the tariff and excise systems
hereafter, as if broken pledges and
pretended remedies furnished any bet
ter assurance for future legislation
than experience has done in the past.
Ship building and the carrying trade,
once sources of national pride and
prosperity now languish under the
crushing load of taxation, and nearly
every other business interest is strug-
Cling without profit to maintain itself.
| Our agriculturalists, while paying
heavy taxes ON all they consume, Ell
ther to the government or to monopo-
lists, find the prices for their own pro-
| ducts so reduced that honest labor is
denied its just reward and industry is
prostrated by invidious discrimina-
ton. Nearly 200,000,000 acres of the
public lands, which should have been
reserved for the benefit of the people,
have been voted away to giant corpo-
rations, neglecting our soldiers and
enriching handful of greedy specu-
lators and lobbyists, who are thereby
enabled to exercise the most danger
Gus and eorrupting influence over
State and Federal legislation. tfi554r5 !
If the career of these conspirators
be not checked, the downfall of free
| government is inevitable, and with it
the elevation of a military dictator, on
the ruins of the Republic. Under the
pretence of passing laws to enforce
the Fourteenth Amendment and for
other purposes, Congress has conferred
the most despotic powers upon the
Executive and provided an official
machinery, by which the liberties of
the people are menaced, and the sa-
cred right of local self government in
States is ignored, if not tyranically
overthrown. Modelled up to the Sc
dition laws SO odious in history, they
are at variance with all the sanctifed
theories of our institutions and the
construction gived by these radical in :
terpreters to the Fourteenth amend
ment is, to use the language of an en-
i inent Senator, (Mr. Trumbull of Illi-
nois) an annihilator OF the States
Under the last enforcement bill, the
Executive may, in his discretion,
thrust aside the government of any
state, suspend writ of habeas corpus
arrest its Governor, imprison or dis
perse its Legislature, silence its Judges
and trample down its people under
the armed heel of his troops. Moth
ing left to the citizens of State which
can any longer be called right; all
is changed into mere sufferance. Our
hopes for redress are in the calm good
4 sense, the sober second thought of the
| American people. We call upon them
to be true to themselves and to their
post, and disregarding party names
and minor differences, TO insist upon
1 "a decent equalization of power, the
restriction of Federal authority within
its just and proper limits, leaving to
the States that control of our domes-
tic affairs which is essential 10 their
Happiness and tranquility and good
I government.
Everything that malicious ingenuity
could suggest has been done to irritate
the people of the Middle and Southern
States. The gross and exaggerated
charges of disorder and violence, owe
their origin to the mischievous minds
of the political managers in the Senate
and the House of Representatives, to
which the executive has, we regret to