Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1872-04-16
NUMBER %.
From the Lynchburg Virginian.l
The Liberal Republican Movement in
New Ynrk

We publish to-day the reponse of certain
New York Republicans, Horace Greeley among
the number, to the call for convention of Lib
eral Republicans, to be held at Cincinnati on
the first Wednesday of next month. 1t sets
out with the assertion that: ''We, Republicans
of New York, wish to express our concurrence
in the principles lately set forth by the Liberal
Republicans of Missouri and, in the paper
signed by Mr.. Greeley and his associates, we
find enunciated the following sound principles
to which we, though not Republican, in the
party sense of that term, can give our hearty
assent. These New York Republicans say:
''We believe that the time has come when
the political offenses of the past should be par
doned that all citizens should be protected in
the enjoyment of the rights guaranteed to them
| by the Constitution that Federal taxation
should be imposed for revenue and so adjust
ed as to make the burden upon the industry of
the country as light as possible; that a reform
in the Civil Service should be made which will
relieve political action from the influence of of
ficial patronage that the right of local self
| government, the foundation of American free
dom, should be reasserted, and the encroach-
| ments OF Federal power checked and we also
| believe that at this time special duty rests
upon the people to do away with corruption in
! Office"
Now, we endorse every word of the above,
to the dotting of an 4 and the crossing of t.
There is nothing in it that we could wish to al
ter, if we had the power. II is in bold antag-
onism to the policy and practice of the Radical
party, and will secure the hearty concurrence
of Southern Democrats, Conservatives, States
rights men, or whatever else they may be call
ed. Every man who believes that test-oaths,
disability acts, and disfranchisement for past
political offences should now cease to disgrace
the statute books of the Federal and Stategoy-
ernments, can go for that. Every man who
desires to see the Constitution other than q
dead letter, can accept it. Every man who
believes that Federal taxation should be for re-
venue alone, and not to pamper any one class
OF people or States at the expense of others,
must approve it. Every man who honestly de.
slres to see reform instituted in the civil service
of the country, and the reign of thieves and
robbers brought to an end who desires to have
an Administration inaugurated that will not
leave such in Office, simply because they are its
partisans, will endorse it. Every man who be-
lieves that the States have some rights that
Congress and the Federal Government are
bound to respect and that among these reserv-
ed rights is that fundamental one of local self
government, which would make such laws as
that which the present incumbent of The Presi-
dental office dictated, impossible, will give it
his cordial assent. In short: every man, and
every Southern man especially, who has felt or
seen the heavy hand of Federal power laid up
on himself or others, and has witnessed the un-
due influence and alarming encroachments of
that power during the last few years, will stand
ready to cooperate with any party of men
pledged to secure the reforms to which Mr.
Greeley and his associates commit themselves in
the paper upon which we have commented
This platform of principles will be accepted by
the whole South. But will it be equally accepta.
BILE to the North? That is the question. Can
it carry majority of the Northern States? We
doubt; but, at any rate, we favor the oo-opera-
tion of Democrats, Conservatives, Liberal Re.
publicans and all others who believe, with the
signers to this call, that "the time has come"
when these reforms should be secured, and the
Government snatched from the corrupt hands
into which it has fallen, and saved from the
still greater dangers with which it is threaten
oJ