The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1871-04-29
Address by Democratic Mem
berS of CcnSreSS.

duction. and clearly sets forth the sins of
the present national administration under
the weak and inefficient leadership of Grant.
1t will repay a careful perusal:
WAsHINGToN, April 20. 1871
Our presence and official duties at Wash
ington have enabled US to become acquainted
with the action and designs of those who
control the Radical party, and we feel called
upon to utter few words of warning against
the alarming strides they have made towards
Capitalization of power in the hands of Con-
gress and the Executive. The time and
attention of the Radical leaders has been
almost wholly directed to devise such legis-
| lation as will, in their view, best preserve
their ascendency, and no regard for the wise
restraints imposed by the Constitution, has
checked their reckless and desperate career.
! The President of the United States has been
formally announced as "a candidate for re-
election. The declarations of his selfish
| supporters have been echoed by subsidized
| press, and a discipline of party has already
made adhesion to his personal fortunes, the
| supreme test of political fealty. The parti-
zan legislation, to which we refer, was de-
creed and shaped in secret caucus, where
| the EXTREMIST CGunsels always dominate and
was adoped by a subServient majority, If
not with the intent, certainly with the effect
20 place in the hands of the President power
| to command his own nomination, and to
| employ the army, navy and militia at his
sole discretion, as means of subserviug his
! personal ambition. When the sad expe-
rlence OF the last two years, so disappointing
to the hopes and generous confidence of the
country, is considered in connection with
! the violent utterances and rash purposes of
those who control the Presidents policy; it
/ 5 not surprising that the gravest apprehen
| sions for the future peace of the nation
should be entertained. AT a time when
| labor is despiscd, and every material interest
is palsied by oppressive taxation, the public
offices have been multiplied beyond all pre-
cadent to serve as instruments in the perpet-
uation of power. Par.izanship is the only
| test applied to the distribution of this vast
! patronage. Honesty, fitness aud moral
| worth are openly discarded in favor of truck
! ling submission and dishonorable compliance.
! Hence enormous defalcations and widespread
corruption have followed the natural conse
| quenccs Of this perncious system. By the
| official report of the Secretary of the Treas
ury, it appears that after deduction of all
proper credits, many million of dollars
remain due from E1-Collectors of internal
Revenue, and that no proper diligence has
ever been used to collect them. Reforms in
the revenue and postal system. which all
! experience demonstrates to be necessary to
| frugal administration OF the government
as well as a measure of relief TO an over
burdened people. have been persistentIy
| postponed. or artfully neglected. Congress
now adjcurns without having even attempted
to reduce taxation, or to repeal the glariEg
lmposltions by which industry is crushed
| and Impoverished. The treasury is over
| flowlng, and an excess of $50 900 900 of
| revenue Is admitted, and, yet, instead of
| some measure OF present relief, a barren and
delusive resolution is passed by the Senate,
| to consider the tariff and excise systems here
after. as if the history of broken pledges and
pretended remedies furnished any better
assurance of future legsIa ton. than expe-
rience has done in the past. Shp-bulding
and the carrying trade, once sources of
national pride and prosperity. now languish
under crushing load of taxation and near
ly every other business interest is struggling
without profit to maintain itself
Our agriculturalists, while paving heavy
taxes on all they consume, either to the
government or the monopolists, find the
prices for their own products so reduced
that honest labor is denied its reward, and
industry is prostrated by invidious discrim-
ination. Nearly 200, ,O0O, 900 acres of public
lands which should have been reserved for
the beneht OF the people, have been voted
away to e liant corporations, neglecting our
soldiers, and enriching handful of greedy
spectators and lobbyists, who are thereby
| enabled to exercise a most dangerous and
| corrupting influence over State and Federal
legislation. If the career Of those copspira-
| tors be not checked, the downfall of free
government is inevitable, and with it the
elevation of military dictator on the ruins
of the Republic.
Under pretense of passing laws to enforce
the Fourteenth Amendment and for other
purposes, Congress has conferred the most
despotlc power upon the Executive, and
provided an official machinery by which the
liberties of the people are menaced, and the
sacred tight of local sclf-government in
States is ignored, if not tyranically over
thrown. Modelled upon the Sedition laws so
odious in history, they are at variance with
| all the sanctlhed theories of an institution
and the construction given by Radical inter-
| prefers to the Fourteenth Amendment is. to
use the language of an eminent Senator (Mr
| lrumouil) "f Illinois, "an annihilation of
| the States" Under the last enforcement bill
the Executive may, in his discretion, thrust
aside the government of any State, suspend
the writ of hGbsaS corpus, arrest its Governor
lmprison or disperse its legislature, silence
It's judges, aud trample down its people
under the armed heel Of his troops. Nothing
is left TO the citizen or the State which can
any longer be called right All is changed
into mere suiferancs. Our hopes for redress
are in the calm good sense. and the sober
second thought of the American people. We
call upon them to be true to themselves and
their posterlty. ana disregarding party
names and minor differences, to insist upon
a decentralization of power. and the restitu-
tion OF Federal power within its just and
proper limits. leaving to the States that con.
| troll over domestic affairs which is essential
to their happiness and tranquility and good
government. Everything that malicious
ingenuity could suggest has been done to
irrltate the people of the Middle and South
! err States: Gross AID eyaaoerateS CHI rc.c