The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1871-05-05

The Democrats in Congress have Just
issued the following address:
To the People Of the United .Natcs:
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
toward centrallzatiOn of power in the
hands of Congress and the Executive.
The time and attention of the Radical
leaders have been almost wholly di-
rected to devising such legislation as
Will, in their view, best preserve their
ascendancy, and no regard for the wise
restraints imposed by the Constitution
has checked their reckless and despe-
rate career. The President of the
United States has been formally an
nOunced rs candidate for reelection.
The declarations of his selfish support
ers have been re-echoed by a subsid.
Ized press, and the discipline of party
has already made atihensiOn to his per-
sonal fortunes the supreme test of poll
tical fealty. The partisan legislation
to which we refer was decreed and
shaped i'm secret caucus, where the ex-
tremest counsels always dominated,
and was adopted by subservient ma
jOrity, ifnOt with the intent, certainly
with the effect to place i'm the hands
of the President power TO command his
own denomination, and to employ the
army, navy and militia, at his sole
discretion, as q means of subscribing
his personal ambition. When the sad
experience of the last two years, so dis
appointing to the hopes and generous
confidence of the country is considered,
IN connection with the violent utter
ances aEd rash purposes of those who
control the Presidents policy, it is not
surprising that the gravest apprelicn-
sion for the future peace of the nation
should be entertained. At time
when labor is depressed, and every
material interest is palsied by oppres-
sive taxation, the public offices have
been multiplied beyond all precedent
to serve as instruments in the pcrpetu-
alton of power.
Partizanship 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 dislonoral!e COM
pliance. Hence enormous ,Iefalcations
and wide spread 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 ofall proper credits, ma
/ nv ilItNnc If Intl l.. r.
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 experience demonstrates to be ne
ceSsary to frugal administration of
the Government, as well as O measur-
of relief to an Overburdened people,
have been persistent'y postponed or
willfully neglected.
Congress now adjOurns without hav-
ing even attempted to reduce taxation
or to repeal the glaring impositiOns by
which industry is crushed and impov-
erished. The Treasury is overflowing,
and an excess of eighty millions of rev.
enue is admitted, and yet, instead of
some measure of present relief, bar
rem and delusive resolution is passed
| by the Senate to consider the tariff and
excise systems hereafter, as if the histo-
ry of broken pledges and pretended
remedies furnished any better assurance
for the future legislation than expert
ence has done i'm the past. Shipbuild
ing and the carrying trade, once sources
of national pride and prosperity, now
languish under crushing load of tax
alton, and nearly every other business
interest Is struggling, without profit.
to maintain itself Our agriculturists,
while paying heavy taxes on all they
consume, either to the Government or
to mOnOpOlists, lind the prices for their
own products so reduced that honest Ia
Dor Is denied its just reward and indus
| try Is Frustrated by inviduous diserim-
inatioD. Nearly 200,0OO,OOO acre of
| public lands, which should have been
reserved for the benefit of the people
have been voted away to giant corpora
tons, negiecting our soldiers, erich
ing handful of greedy Spectators and
lobbyists, who are thereby enabled to
exercise most dangerous and corr,Ipt-
ing influence over State and Federal
| legislation. If the career of these con-
| splrators be not checked, the downfall
OF free Government is inevitable, and
with 1t the e.evatiOn of q military die
tator 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 dcspOtic pOwerupOn
the Executive, and provided an official
machinery by which the liberties of
the people are menaced, and the sa-
cred right oflOcal self government I'm
the States is ignored, if not totally
overthrOwn. Modelled up TO the sedi-
ton laws, so odious in history, they
are at variance with all the sanctified
theories of our institutions, and the con-
strtiction glveu by these Radical inter-
prefers 10 the Fourteenth Amendment
is, to use the language of an eminent
Senator-Mr. TrumbulI, of IIlinois-an
"annihilatlon of the States.u Under
the last enforcement bill, "the Execu-
tive may, in his discretion, thrust aside
the Government of any State, suspend
the writ of habeas corpus,n arrest its
Governor, imprison or disperse the Leg
lslature, silence its judges, and tranpIe
down its people under the armed heel
OF his troops. Nothing is left to the
citizen or the State which can any
longer be call a right-all is changed
into mere sufferance.
Our hopes for redress are i'm the calm
good sense, the "sober, second tbought''
OF the American people. We call up-
on them 10 be true to themselves and
their posterity, and disregarding party
names and minor differences, to insist
upon decentralization of power, and
the restriction of Federal authority
within its just and proper limits, leav-
ing to the States that control over do
mestlc affairs which is essential to their
happiness and tranquility, and good
government.
Everything that malicious ingenui-
ty could suggest has been done to irri-
tate the people of the Middle and South
ern States. Gross and exaggerated
charges OF disorder and VII =nce owe
their origin to the mischievUu5 minds
ofpotential managers in the State and
House of Representatives., to which the
Executive has, we regret 10 say, lent
his aid, and thus helped to infiame the
popular feeling. In all this course of
hostile legislation and harsh resent
ment, no word Ofconciliation, of kind
encouragement, or fraternal friendship.
has ever Been spoken by the President
or by Congress to the people of the
Southern States. They have been adj
dressed only in the language of proscrip-
ton.
We earnestly entreat or fellow-citi-