The Portland daily press., 1872-10-26
A Unsuitable Exercise of Power

A Justifiable Exercise Of Power.
Rumor has it that, warned by the example
of Georgia, the President will send what
troops are available into the Southern States
to prevent any outbreak of violence week
from next Tuesday. 1t is a matter of regret
that circumstances should require the Presi-
dent once more to exercise those exceptional
powers which have been conferred upon him
in great emergency. The people are very
properly jealous of the exercise of such high
powers by democratic magistrate. They
will not endure any unnecessary assumption
of them, and even when resort to them is
universally acknowledged by patriotic citi-
zen, to be justiiable, degree of reluctance
and hesitation ON the part of the executive
is both becoming and useful. There is
nothing in the life Of the late Mr.. Seward
which will be longer or more widely remem-
bered to his discredit than his yain-glorious
boast that by ringing his '1ittle belp' he could
cause the arrest of citizen in any part of the
country without any preliminary proceedings
whatever. Gen. Grant is fortunately free to
an astonishing extent from that kind of van
ity. No man ever lived who gave less evil
dences of exulting in the exercise of arbitra-
ry authority. He delays till the last moment
recourse to the military arm of the govern
ment, and restores the supremacy
of the civil magistrate as speedily
as safely may be. 1t is no small part of the
good fortune of the American people that,
during the period when it was necessary to
confer OH the Executive powers almost alb
solutely dictatorial, the Presidency CHANGED
to be filled by men who from temperament
and principle were so singularly free from
tyrannical instincts. The powers conferred
on Mr.. Lincoln were portentous, but in the
hands of that good man they only served to
give one more Illustration of the elasticity of
our institutions and the ease with which they
can be adapted to the most startling emer-
gencies. The extraordinary powers conferred
on Gen. Grant in REFRESHING disorder and up
holding civi! and political rights in the South
ern States have been used with equal moder-
alton. The Ku-Klux act Of April goth 1871,
authorized the President to make use of the
army and navy practically at his discretion
in breaking up combinations to resist the
laws in any part of the United States. The
same act also empowered him with the same
end in view to suspend the writ of habeas
corpus. The passage of the act was all
that was required. 1t executed ITSELF
In only one unimportant instance
in the State of South Carolina
has the writ of habeas corpus been suspended
and that only over few counties for short
time. The Ku-Klux, finding that violence,
robbery, arson and murder, which by local
tradition are species of popular amuse-
ment, were high crimes severely punishable,
under the laws of the United States, disband-
ed, and needed no more discipline till Gree
leysm famed the expiring embers of seces-
sion and rebellion into fame once more.
Exciting elections, in which partizan feeling
has been intensely excited have passed, and
''ths military tyrant" at Washington has
never so much as thought ofresorting to the
autocratic powers ready at his hand to fur
ther the political fortunes of himself or his
friends. But the time has now come when
itwould be cowardly to allow the fourteenth
and fifteenth amendments to be violated and
the rights of people to be overthrown by vio-
lence and bloodshed, from too sensitive q re-
gard for public opinion and dread of hostile
criticism. In Georgia not mach more than
half the cote Of the State was utroscn. Yet
the Democrats had over sixty thousand ma
jority! The widest charges of frauds con-
United by Republicans in Pennsylvania,
when hundred times magnified, sink into
insignifcance beside the mere statement of
the Georgia case we have given. But proof
is abundant that the result was brought
about by organized terrorism and violence
supplementing fraud, and that Mr.. Greeley's
friends rely upon like means to give him the
rest ofthe Southern States. Let the Ku-
Klux law, which Horace Gre eley only last
year wanted ''made stronger, but which
Congress at its last session emasculated by
allowing the section authorizing the suspen-
sion of the hdbeas corpus to expire by its own
limitations, be enforced-what there is left of
it,
THE SAN JUAN controversy between the
United States and Great Britain, which has
inst been decided nv the Emneror of Ger