The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1871-04-22


gress have just Issued the following ad.
dress:
To the 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 Radi,
cal party, and we feel called upon to
utter few words OF warning against
the alarming strides they have made
towards the
GENERALIZATION OF POWER IN THE HANDS
OF CONGRESS
and the Executive. The time and at,
tention Of radical leaders have been
almost wholly directed to devising such
legislation as will in their view best pre-
serve their. ascendancy, and no regard
for the restraints imposed by the con.
stitution has checked their reckless and
desperate career. The President Of the
United States has been formally an.
nounced as a candidate for reelection.
The declarations Of his selfish support,
ers have been
ECHOED By A SUBSIDIZED PRESS,
and the discipline of party has al,
ready made adhesion to his personal
fortunes the supreme test of political .tealty.
The partizan legislation to which we re-
fer was decreed and shaped in secret
caucus, where the EXTREMIST couhsels
have always dominated, and was adopt
ed by subservient majority if not with
intent, certainly with the effect to place
in the hand of the President the
power to
COMMAND HIS owN RENoMINATIoN,
and to employ the army, navy and mill,
tia at his sole discretion, as the means
Of subserving his personal ambition.
When the sad experience Of the last
two years, so disappointing to the peo,
pie and to the generous confidence of the
country, is considered in connection
with the violent utterances 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, public Offices
have been multiplied beyond all prece.
dent to serve as instruments in the per-
petuation 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
dishonorable compliance. Hence
ENORMOUS DEFALcATIoNs AND WIDESPREAD
CORRUPTION
have followed as the actual consequen-
ces of this pernicious system.
By the official report Of the Secre.
tary of the Treasury, it appears that
after the deduction of all proper credits,
many millions of dollars remain due
from ex-Collectors of internal Revenue
and no proper diligence has ever been
used to collect this. Reforms in the
revenue and fiscal system, which all ex-
perience demonstrates to be necessary
to the frugal administration of the gov
ernment as well as measure Of relief
to an overburdened people, have been
persistently postponed or wilfully neg
iected Congress now adjourns without
even having attempted to reduce taxa
ticn, or to repeal the glaring imposi-
tions by which
INDUSTRY 10 CRUSHED AND IMPOVERISHED.
TIE Treasury is overfowing, and an
excess Of eighty millions Of revenue is
admitted, and yet instead Of some meas
ure for present relief, a barren and de-
lusive resolution is passed by the Sen,
ate to consider the tariff and excise sys-
TENS hereafter, as if the history Of
broken pledges and pretended remedies
furnished any better assurance for fu-
ture legislation than experience has
done in the past.
Ship building and the carrying trade,
once q source Of national pride and
prosperity, now languishing under a
crushing load Of taxation, and nearly
every other business interest is
STRUGGLING WITHOUT PROFIT.
to maintain itself. Our agriculturalists,
while paying heavy taxes on all they
consume, either to the government or
monopolists, find prices for their own
products 80 reduced, that honest labor
is denied its just reward, and industry is
prostrated by invidious discrimination.
Nearly two hundred million acres Of
public lands, which should have been
reserved for the benefit Of the people,
have been voted away as grants to cor.
porations, neglectisg our soldiers and
enriching handful of greedy speculs-
tors and lobbyists, who are thereby ena-
bled to exercise the most dangerous and
corrupting influence over State and Fed
eral legislation. II 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 Con-
gress has conferred tine most despotic
powers upon the Executive, and provided
an official machinery by which the lib.
critics of the people are meuaced and
the sacred right OF local selfgovern-
ment in States ignored, if not tyranically
overthrown. Modelled upon the sedition
laws, 30 odious in history, it is at varl.
ance with all the. sanctiied 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. Trumbull, OF Illiaois,) the
ANNIHILATIoN OF STATES.