Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1871-08-19

Who can mistake the meaning of these
preparations, for the next Presidential
election Who doubts that warning and
rebuke are needed now to prevent the Ad-
ministration from carrying out its purpose
by force? If the warning be not given
by the people, or fail Of its proper effect,
can we hope for peace? 1t seems to us
an error to suppose the American people
tame enough to be kicked under the yoke
of despotism, or ignorant enough to be
jugglcd out of the great inheritance of free
government which their fathers left them.
We complain of our present rulers for
lawlcss usurpation Of power. Power not
delegated is always abused. In this, as in
other cases, usurpation has been accom-
panied and followed by corruption.
Frauds without number, and almost with
out limit, have been committed on the
public. Men Of the worst character for
common honesty are permitted to
occupy the highest places OF the money
collected from the people, aud not stolen
before it reaches the Treasury, large por-
ton is squandered by Congress on party
favoritcs, or corrupt rings, and on base
combinations Of public plundercrs. The
enormous extent to which this financial
corruption has been carried will become
manifest to any one who compares the ex-
penditurcs of the Government during the
six years which preceded and the six years
which followed the civil war. Both were
periods Of peace, and there can be no cx-
cuse for more than a small increase cores
ponding to the ratio in which the popula-
ton has advanced. But where the ordinary
expenditures for the fiscal year ending
June |. 1870, exclusive of Indian annu-
ties, pensions and interest on the public
debt, were Sl4s.669 ,922 IS, for the years
ending June |, 1860, the expenditures for
the same purposes we're but S55,9lS, lSS
-. Here is Shown the difference between
the ordinary cost Of carrying on the Gov
eminent when its agents are honest, and
the cost Of the same thing when its agents
are so destitute of moral principle as to
disregard all legal limitation upon their
own authority.
A free, unpervcrtcd representative Gov
crnmcnt is simple in its machinery, easily
maintained, and dispcnses its blessings
like the dcws of Heaven, unseen and UNI
felt, save in the beauty and freshness they
contribute to produce the secure tran
guilty of regal establishment may some
times be compensation for the burden it
imposes but rotten republic is at once
the most costly, the most oppressive, aud
the most unsteady of all political struc.
lures.
10 support the extravagant corruptons
fan Administration like the present. and
at the same time pay the pensions and the
interest on the debt, would require heavy
taxation at best. But the party in power
has contrivcd to make the taxes doubly
burdcnsome by their mode of levying and
collecting them. Great gangs of unneccs-
sary officers are supported and tattened out
ofthem. They are in many cases imposed
not with any view to the supply Of the
public Treasury, but solely to operate as
bountics for the benefit of individuals and
private corporations. While the mouth
of labor is thus robbed of the bread it earns,
the fortunes of monopoists and ring
masters are hidiously swelled, and their
rapacity inAamed for still further agsrcs.
sion upon the rights of the industrious
masses. The necessity of revenue reform
is admitted on all hands, and by none
more freely than by candid supporters of
the so called Republican, party in Congress !;
but the majority is so completely controlled
by private interests that considerations of
public duty have no influence upon them.
No people can be wholly enslaved so
long as they have the protection of an in.
dependent and upright judiciary. The
Radical party, feeling this, have tried by
all means, fair and FOUL to make the fed
cral judiciary an instrument to aid them
in their crusade against the law of the
land. They have filled the inferior courts,
especially in the South, with their most
uuscrupulous partisans. Again and again
they have constructed and reconstructed
the Supreme Conference.-The by rcduc-
ing, and sometimes by increasing the
number of judges-always with view to
make majority which could be relied on
to indorse their Unconstitutional legisla-
tion. When the judgments of that august
tribunal sustained the ancient principles
of liberty and justice, its authority was
denounced, disobeyed and contemned.
They have iuterposed in pending case
with legislative decrccs to take away the
jurisdiction of the court, and prevent it
from protecting citizen whose plainest
right they desired to invade. We solemly
trust that they have not yet succeeded,
and will never succeed, in bending the
court Of last resort to their foul purposes.
Their socallcd reconstruction laws are
series of experiments for the reduction
Of the southern States to the lowest con-
dition Of political slavery, hoping thereby
to make them instruments for the enslave.
ment of every other section. To this end
they have not only refused them repre-
sentation in Congress, but forced them to
be misrepresented by persons who came
there to get oppressive laws enacted against
them. They have steadily struggled to