The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1872-04-16
COLUMBIA. s. G.
Tuesday Morning. April Is, 1872.
Speech OF Gov. Gratz Brown.

" Il
Of Missouri. may be with propriety
termed, opened with the first speech OF
the campaign before the Liberal Repub-
ioan State Convention of Kansas, held
at Topeka, in that State, on Wednesday
last The Convention was large and
enthusiastic body, and comprised num-
ber OF the most prominent Republicans
in the State. Resolutions denounoing
military encroachments upon civil au-
thority, demanding revenue and civil
service reforms, general amnesty and
reservation of the public lands for the
benefit Of actual settlers, were adopted.
lO7 delegates, headed by T. j. Parrot,
were elected to the Cincinnati Conven-
tion. The length of Gov. Browns
speech, which takes up three columns of
the Louisville Courier Journal, forbids
our giving it in full, which We much re-
gret, for it is finished production, re-
plete with sound philosophical views of
the dnngers that beset Republican liberty
in this country, the drifting toward mill
tary despotism that has characterized
Grants administration and of the false
political ideas engendered by Radical
Republicans, and which have been car.
MED TO full fruition in the wretched re-
constructed governm nts in the South
srn States. He says that the liberal Re-
publican movement is an effort to join
hands in friendship after the bitter and
bloody strife that has just ended; an ef-
tort for all sections of the Union to unite
and insist that policies of peace shall
prevail. and not hatred; to stamp out
the corruptions that fattened while we
fought, and demand that constitutional
rule shall once more be established, and
that the limits of State and national au-
thority shall be respected as of old; the
military give way to the civil order, and
the people enjoy their own again. Of
the change which undue partisanship
has worked into the original framework
Of our Government, and the necessity to
break away from all pnrty shackles, he
speaks as follows:
apart from the imperative necessities
already stated, there oonfronts the pub
lie consideration connected with pre-
sent Republican organization which
breeds serious alarm with all rejecting
men who value the substance of things
more than any form. That consists in
the transformation which its partisan
ship has impressed upon the Govern
ment itself. To state it plainly, ours is
no longer Government of three co.or-
dinate branches leach Independent and
q check upon the other, as our fathers
framed it; but within the structure has
been established another Government.
intangible to the law, merging all de.
partments into one will, known as that
OF the party, and within the party has
been erected despotism, ruling all it's
membership to its own ordering, known
as executive favor. Thus it results that
those barriers against abuse of power,
Bet up with so much care, are all broken
down, and replaced by subtle machine
~ whose secret springs few may Know.
Under republic in name, we have to-
day packed judiciary and subseryient
Congress, dominated by military chief
tain. This fact, which is visible to all
who will look-this fact, which sets at
naught the defences of charter rights
shis fact. which puts to blush the claims
ct party fealty-this fact. which arraigns
the very method Of that interior ruling
organization-this fact. I say, necessi.
tatss revolt from established routine
to attain any free patriotic expression.
There can be no liberty of utterance
where ostraciem falls upon the best and
Dravest who dare to dissent. Tradition
has it that amongst the ancient Locrians
he who proposed any reform did so with
halter around his neck. by which he
was suspended if the law was not adopt
ell. Here the hanging begins before the
investigation is permitted, and admins
tration cartoons against Sumner and
Schurz surpnss in malignity tho imple-
ment OF Tweed or Connolly.
''rhose, therefore, like yourselves,
who have chosen another method OF
canynssing the views of the Republicans
OF this nation, find full warrant for any
latitude of procedure in the surveillance
thus set by official mandate over any |
questioning. For this reason the con-
vention at Cincinnati, instead of evai-
ing, challenges rebuke for its irregulari-
ty. 1t does not pretend to be copy of
its rivals at Philadelphia or elsewhere
4 NntA @vrv~ L