American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1872-04-20

authority, in the shaping of all local organi
zati9n, open control of large bodies of de
pc.:d5:!ts, Interference to sustain worthless
officials, and ruthless violation of the right.
o. persons. There the failure to build new
civil and social order, replete with illustra
tioi.s OF concord and progress, has been most
signal and unfortunate. There the race
which was liberated has been kept solidy
arrayed against the rest of the community
under corrupt appliances, with constant fer
ments, TO coritrdl stth States hi tile interest
of the Administration. There the substance
of entire sections has been plundered, debts
mort ging generations of labor contracted
taxes levied to the point of confiscatiOn-all
done under agencies upheld hv tie National
Government. There, whenever the system
itself has created new disorders, as in the
nature of things it could not fail to do, still
harsher Legislation has been demanded, and
the endorsements of martial law have be-"
resorted to with needless severity. But the
texture of this rule and failure thus imposed
must he hold t" shaw forth the animating
impulse that accredits its work The polti-
cal ideas which are accepted at the North are
the self same which have thus had unre-
strained vent in dealing with the South,
and this might well crowd into its Conscious
ness That rightly language of the earth
spirit in G"tthe
= At the roaring Loom of Time ply,
| Weaving for God the garment thou see'st him by"
Now l submit to you if theory of nation
al policy and power, which has developed so
clstW ncTC Is not dangerous every
where. / ask You whether public opinion
that has sustained muck of spoilation,
and shown itself so different to the limita-
| tons of rightful authority abroad, may not
possibly be the parent cause of corruptions,
springing into such alarming magnitude at
home. Do not such infections, like curses,
come back to roost, and may not the plum
der of Erie corporations and venality in so
many Legislatures, from Albany to Topeka,
have closer connection than might be at
first supposed, with programme of politi-
cal thought and action thus set on high, Il
type of the public conscience. Could the
two hundred and fifty millions, pillaged by
the carpct-bag governments, have been per-
mitted, except under a dissolute political
morality that connved at Tammany in a
ten millon steal1 Could that violence done
the Constitution, in suspending the habeds
corpus, have proceeded from any other than
an atmosphere saturated with cOnstraint of
elections and dictation to electors, under
| Presidential auspices. And as fitting Sc
Quel, also to such inquest, may it not be
worth while to con slider if the molding of
such dependencies on Administration favor
as Louisiana and South Carolina, ruled by
an uneducated, infiamed negro vote, may not
\ have significance in the Electoral College,
or the deliberation of Congress, that will
| silence the protest even of Massachusetts
herself, should the exigencies of an election
| demand war with England?
| 1t will not be commended with any truth
| that the great mass of Northern men sympa-
| thize with the animosities thus perpetuated,
or that they would willingly foster dangers
thus threatening to all free society. But it
is true that they have surrendered the lead
ership of public opinion to party OrganiZa-
ton because it carried them safely through
the perils of civil war, and have not been
alert to prevent that control from taking
shapes utterly at variance with the free Opin-
ion in which it was founded. 1t is therefore
only by an appeal from the party to the peo
Pile that any readjustment of the thoughts of
the North can come, and it is only by arrest
ina hot tom in Nuf ISfr
ton to extreme Capitalization that any influ-
ence can be given to such reawakencd con-
science. The duty was plain in the first in
stance to take measures for confirming the
results of the war by fundamental law; but
it was not from mere acts of reconstruction
that the evils, now so apparent, necessarily
resulted. am sure that such results, trans
forming our whole republican system, were
never contemplated by many of the most res
olute who gave those acts their support.
Having seen the outcome, having held the
mirror up to nature and witnessed the work
ings, having analysed the light passed
through this distorted reorganization and
detected there unerring spectrum lines of
despotic rule, is not the duty equally plain
with us as Republicans to reaffirm those aXl-
Oms and that ordering of our government in
which heretofore has ever been found safety
for our freedom and elevation for our morali-
ties.
Let us, then, search out again that virtue
of the government of fathers which
consisted in recognizing its true lineaments
and tolerating no departure from its admra-
BILE adjustment of parts. its balance of
power, its rigid restraints. The very genius of
our Federal Constitution consists in recon-
Cling local freedom and Federal unity. The
principal of nationa sovereignty is now too
firmly established to be again assailed; let
see to it then that the corresponding
principle, independence of the States within
their spheres, be likewise maintained. And
especially let us guard that no contempt for
local government, or equal rights, or self
help, prepare the way for one of those SPLEEN
did mOckeries of rule which, under pretext
of caring for all, in the end ruins all.
Gentlemen of the Convention, in looking
abroad over the country, there are many
signs which fortell the coming of great po-
ltical changes; not merely such come
from the defeat of one party and the tri-
umph of another, but changes likely to i'm
press the politics of the future with require
ments of better government, more elevation
of purpose in its aims, and wider compre-
hensiOn of what belongs to social regulation,
and what to the endorsements of law, than
has hitherto prevailed. OF those indications
there are none more significant than the
very wide spread dissatisfaction that is ev-
erywhere manifested among Republicans
who have hitherto acted in concert, and who
would naturally overlook many minor faults
of administration, but who are now seen
from Iowa to Texas deliberately
breaking ranks. They assert with much
truth that the results reasonably to have
been expected from SO long continuance of
ed, and that the prospect is not reassuring.
When party leaders demand that new cam
paign shall be conducted simply upon old
issues, and take no step to meet urgent
wants. to correct growing abuses, to re-
pair grave errors of policy, such distrust is
not only pardonable, but cOmmendable.
With great uniformity the rightfulness of Il
scrupulous observance of the public faith in
meeting obligations of the National debt has
been recognized, and let me say, in passing,
that yield precedence to none in that be-
half but somehow it is felt that the rapid
retirement of bonds in advance of necessity
has not been accomplished through stricter
economies in the service, and wiser measures
of public revenue, but rather by maintaining
an excessive burden of taxation upon the |
people. Even the syndicate, scriptural allu |
sion though it possess, for aught We know, |
does not raise any vision of turning the
money changers out of the temple. They |
see, and especially those of the valley of the |
Mississippi, that in the original placing of
that burden its weight has been east upon |
the agricultural and producing sections, |
while the attempt has been successfully made |
to evade its equal bearing upon moneyed cen |
tiers and capitalized industries. They find |
that great corporations have the ear of Con |
gress; that subsidies are the favorite fancies |
at Washington; that public lands are given |
away by the province, while doubled in price |
to settlers; that n so-called internal |
revenue system sends abr Dad n needless |
army of officials, while tariff, the scandal |
of an educated age, is inaccessible to any |
genuine reform. brilliant writer has re
Gently written Il book to inquire docs pro-
lection protect, y in view of the mutual over
reaching there illustrated, but much more |
pertinent inquiry would be ''Does the rev.
enue pay" considering the urgent need there