The Idaho world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1864-1918, 1871-05-11
idaho WORLD.
ADDRESS
N THE DEMOCRATIC DELEGATION IN con-
!. - l.>-.-.s..< !, ~ xxrrpIn N PE0PIE

M ADDRESS
OF THE DEMOCRATIC DELEGATION IN CON
IA GREssTo THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
WASHINGTON, April. 2O.-The Democrats
in Congress have just issued the following
address: -xxY afggTa Ell
TO the People Of The United States:
Our presence and official duties at Wash
inpton have enabled us to become fully &C
ouainted with the actions and designs of those
who control the Radical party, and we feel
called on to utter few words of warning
against the alarming strides they have made to-
ward the Capitalization of power in the hands
of Congress and the Executive. The time and
attention of the Radical leaders have been al.
most wholly directed to devising such legisla-
ton rs will. in their view, best preserve their
ascendancy, and no regard for the wise res
traints imposed by the constitution has checked
their reckless and desperate career The
President Of the United States has been for
mally announced as q candidate for reelection
The declarations of his selfish supporters have
been echoed by a subsidized press and the dis
cipline of the party has already made adhesion
to his personal fortunes the supreme test of po-
litical fealty. The partisan legislation to which
we refer was decreed and shaped in secret
dominated, and was adopted by a subservient
majority, if not with the intent, certainly with
the effect, to place in the hands of the Presl-
dent the power to command his own re-noml-
nation and to employ the navy, army and mill.
tia at his sole discretion as q means of subsery-
ing his personal ambition. When the sad ex-
perience 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 Is not
surprising that the gravest apprehensiOns for
the future peace of the nation should be enter
tanned At time when labor is depressed and
every material interest is hampered by OPP
pressive taxation. public Offices have been null
tiplying beyond all precedent to serve as in
struments in the perpetuaton of their power.
Partnership is the only test applied to the dis
tribution of this vast patronage. Honesty,
fitness, and moral worth are openly discarded
in favor of trucking submission aud dishonor
able compliance; hence, enormous detalcations
and widespread corruption have followed as
natural consequence of this perEicious system.
BY the official report of the Secretary OF the
Treasury, it appears that after the deductions
of all proper credits, many millions of dollars
remain due from the ex-coectors of internal
revenue, and no proper diligence has ever been
used to collect them. Reforms in the revenue,
which all experience demonstrates to be neces.
sary to the frugal administration of the govern
ment Us we'll as measure of relief to an over
burdened people, have been persistently post
poned or wilfully neglected. Congress now ad-
journs without having even attempted to re-
-duce taxation, or to repeal the glaring imposl-
tions by which industry is crushed and impov-
erished. The treasury is Overlooking, and an
excess of $S0,000,000 revenue is admitted, and
yet, instead of some measure of present relief,
a barren and deluslye resolution is passed by
the Senate to consider the tariff and excise
systems hereafter, as if the history of broken
pledges ard pretended remedies furnished any
better assurances for future Legislation tMn ex
perience has done in the past The shipbuild
ing and carrying trade, once sources of nation
al pride and prosperity, now languish under the
crushing load of taxation, and nearly every
other business interest is struggling without
profit to maiatain itself Our agriculturalists,
while paying heavy tax on all they consume.
eitherto, the government or the monOpOllsts,
find the prices for their own products SO re-
duced that honest labor is denied its just re-
ward, and industry is Frustrated by invidious
Nearly two hundred million
acres of public lands, which should have been
reserved for the benefit of the people, have
been voted away to giant corporations, neg
lecting our soldiers and enriching handful
of greedy spectators and lobbyists, who are
thereby enabled to exercise most dangerous
and corrupting influence over State and FEEDER
al legislation. If the career of these conspira-
tors be net checked, the downfall of free gov
eminent Is inevitable, and with it the elevation
of a military dictator on the ruins of the re-
public. Under the pretence of passing laws
to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment. and for
other purposes, Congress has conferred the
most despOtic powers upon the Executive, and
provided an official machinery by which the
liberties of the people are menaced, and the
sacred rights of local selfgovernment in the
States ignored, if not tyrannically overthrown.
Modelled by the sedition laws so odious in his
tory, they are at variance with all the sancti-
fed theories of our Institutions and the con-
struction given by these Radical interpreters
to the Fourteenth Amendment is, to use the
language of an eminent SenatOr-Mr. Trum-
bull, of Illin0is-'an annihilatOr of the States"
Under the last enforcement bill the Executive |
may, in his discretion, thrust aside the govern
ment OF any State; suspend the writ of habe- |
as, corpus; arrest its Governor; imprison or
disPerse it's Legislature silence its Judges,
and tfample down its people. Under the armed |
heel OF ms troops nothing is left to the citizens
or State which can any longer be called
right; all is changed into mere suffrance Our
hopes for redress are in the calm, good sense
Of the sober second thought of the American
people. ,We'call upon them to be true to them
selves and TO their past and, disregarding par
~ name and minor differences, to insist upon
2 decent equalization of power, the restriction