The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-19
THE COMING REVOLUTION.

From the NJ y. World.
We touch bottom. The descent has been
long, and to lovers of the Constitution most
painful. But there is point beyond which
the American people will not allow their liber-
ties to be invaded, their supreme law to be
violated, by any party, under any pretext, or
in the name of any cause, however specious.
We believe that peint has been reached and
passed. The powerful resistance made by
some of the ablest Republican leaders to the
usurpation of power by the Executive, to the
prescription of men like Sumner, to the abuse
of patronage, to the refusal of Republican
caucus to permit bills for removal of taxation
to be even considered, and finally to the utter
prostration of civil power at the feet of SOL
dier who would be dictator if the people we're
as bringing and subservient as the majority
of ''his faithful Senate proves, we feel as
sured, that large body of the Republican
voters will no longer sustain the usurpers at
Washington in their assaults upon the rights
and interests of the people. These leaders,
brave as they may be, have not so sharply
contended against the majority, in the face
of prescription never surpassed for bitter
ness, without ample assurances of support
from the people. They are not men to speak
thus strongly without arousing public atten-
tioh and fixing the convictions of thousands
of thinking men. The measures which they
denounced were so extraordinary that only a
plain exposure was needed to arouse against
such deeds the indignation of all thoughtful
and patriotic citizens. That exposure, if
made by Democrats alone, would scarcely
reach the mass of Republican voters. But it
will reach them when made by Republican
leaders so prominent and influential. We look
forward, therefore, with confidence to a
general and overwhelming reaction against
that power which has SO misruled the country.
1t is high time. Year after year radicalism
has become more daring in its disregard of
every constitutional obligation; more open in
its assaults upon the rights of the people and
their local self-governments; more rapid in
its strides towards Capitalization of power;
more shameless in its defence of monopolies
and contempt for the interests of the millions
who labor and are robbed of their earnings.
Starting with false policy towards the
South-a policy of repression, severity, and
force-instead of that statesmanlike libe-
rality by which alone the bitterness of
feeling left by a civil war can be re-
moved, radicalism has tried one expedient
after another in vain. Each measure has
aroused greater irritation of feeling and
ended in more conspicuous failure; each
failure has forced the party to choose be-
tween total reversal of policy and the adop-
ton of measures still more harsh. Shame to
confess that they had blundered drove some
forward, vindictive feeling some, desire for
misinformation, and utter want of statesman
ship made many the facile tools of desperate
demagogues. There are men who deliberately
calculated upon the irritation and violence
which harsh measures would provoke at the
South as a means of reviving the war spirit
at the North and as pretext for resort to
more shameful abuse of power. Under these
influences radicalism has been hurried for
ward in a mad career which, in the nature
of things, could end only in its overthrow OF
in military despotism. Each new measure oi
repression strained the Constitution still fur
ther. One after another the safeguards o.
individual liberty and the rights of local self
government have been broken down. Be
tween the Ku-klux bill, which empowers th'
President to suspend the habeas corpus anC
use force whenever he pleases, and nilitar.
despotism more absolute than that of Russia
there is but a single step and a narrow one
Let the next Presidential election pass with
out reaction and rebuke, and that step vii
also be attempted
We rejoice, then, that reaction seems sur