Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1871-04-26
,,oUADDREss
by the Dem mocrais OF Congress. {, 7


by the Democrats OF Congress-. y
The Democrats in Congress have Just
issued the following address: fAA,f1'
To tho People Of the United States:
Our presence and official duties at
Washington have enabled us TO become
fully acquainted with the actions and
designs Of those who control the Radical
party, and we feel called upon to utter
few words of warning against the alarm
ing strides they have made toward cen
tralization Of power in the hands of
Congress and the Executive. The time
and attention Of the Radical leaders have
been almost wholly directed to devising
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 reck-
less and desperate career. The Presi-
dent of the United States has been
formally announced as a candidate for
reelection. The declarations Of his
selfish supporters have been re-echoed
by subsidized press, and the discipline
of party has already made adhesion to
his personal fortunes the supreme test of
political fealty. The partisan legislation
| to which we refer was decreed and
shaped in secret caucus, where the ex-
tremest counsels always dominated, and
was adopted by subservient majority,
if not with the intent, certainly with the
effect, to place in the hands of the Presi-
dent power to command his own renom-
ination, and to employ the army, navy
and militia, at his sole discretion, as a
means of subscribing his personal ambi-
ton. When the sad experience of the
last two years, so disappointing to the
hopes and generous confidence of the
country, is consideredin connection with
the violent utterances and rash purposes
of those who control the Presidents
policy, it is not surprising that the
gravest apprehensions for future peace
of the nation should be entertained AT
time when labor is depressed, and
every material interest is palsied by OPP
pressive taxation, the public Offices have
been multiplied beyond all precedent to
serve as instruments in the perpetuation
of power. gFfg q NtfBTlN FfWEFff q
Partisanship is the only test applied
to the distribution Of this vast patron
age. Honesty, fitness and moral worth
are openly discarded in favor of truck
ling submission and dishonorable COM
pliance. Hence enormous deialcations
and widespread corruption have fol
lowed as the natural consequences OF
this pernicious system.
BY the official report of the Secretary
Of the Treasury it appears that after the
deduction of all proper credits, many
millions of dollars remain due from ex
collectors of the internal revenue, and
that no proper diligence has ever been
used to collect them. Reforms in the
revenue and fiscal systems, which all ex-
perience demonstrates to be necessary
to frugal administration Of the Gov
ernment, as well as q measure of relief
to an overburdened people, have been
persistently postponed or wiltully neg
lected.
Congress now adjourns without having
even attempted to reduce taxation or TO
repeal the glaring impositions by which
industry is crushed and impoverished.
The treasury is oyeraowing, and an ex-
cess of eighty millions OF revenue is ad-
mitted, and yet, instead of some mea-
sure of present relief barren and de-
lusiye resolution is passed by the Senate
to consider the tariff and excise systems
hereafter, as if the history of broken
pledges and pretended remedies furn-
ished any better. assurance for future
legislation than experience has done in
the past. Ship building and the carry
ing trade, once sources of national pride
-. ,,n,, 1ann,,;cb un1ar a
crushing load of taxation, and nearly
every other business interest is strug-
Cling, without profit, to maintain itself
Our agriculturists, while paying heavy
taxes on all they consume, either to the
Government or. to monopolists, find the
prices for their own products so reduced
that honest labor is denied its just re-
ward and industry is prostrated by in
yidious discrimination. Nearly 200, 0O0,
900 acres Of public lands, which should
have been reserved for the benefit Of the
people, have been voted away to giant
corporations, neglecting our soldiers,
enriching a handful of greedy specula-
tors and lobbyists, who are thereby en-.
abled to exercise a most dangerous and
corrupting influence over State and Fed
eral legislation. If the career OF these
conspirators be not checked, the down
fall Of free government is inevitable, and
with it the elevation Of military dicta-
tor on the ruins of the republic.
Under the pretense of passing laws to
enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, and
for other purposes, Congress has con-
ferred the most despotic power upon the
Executive, and provided an official ma
chinery by which the liberties of the
people are menaced, and the sacred |
right of local self-government in the
States is ignored, if not totally over
thrown. Modelled up to the sedition |
laws, so odious in history, they are at |
variance with all the sanctifed theories |
Of our institutions, and the construction |
given by these Radical Interpreters to
the Fourteenth Amendment is, to use the |
language of an eminent Senator-Mr. |
Trumbulhof Illinois-an annihilation |
of the States" Under the last enforce |
ment bill "the Executive may, in his |
discretion, thrust aside the government |
of any State, suspend the writ of habeas !
corpus" arrest its Governor, imprison |
or disperse the Legislature silence its |
Judges, and trample down its people un-
der the armed heel of his troops. Moth
ing is left to the citizen or the State
which can any longer be called a right
all is changed into mere suferance.
Our hopes for redress are in the calm,
good sense, the "sober, second thought
Of the American people. We call upon
them to be true 10 themselves and their
posterity, and, disregarding party names
and minor differences, TO insist upon a
decentralization OF power, and the re
striction of Federal authority within its
just and proper limits, leaving to the
States that control over domestic affairs