The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-01-04
SATURDAY EVENING. JAN. 4, 1873
REpUBLrcANrsM VS.. ABsOLUTIsM

III Is curious 10 ODSVTNc WIFI NLaV dNiu-
ty extremes meet; how minds that are
seemingly the widest apart irreslstibly
rush to the same conclusions, and pose
themselves on the same magnetic lines OF
opinion. 1t seems to be a law which OBJ
tains universally, and which is as appllca-
Bile to mind as matter, that whatever runs
into extreme oppugnancy should, in the
end. return to like conditions of harmony.
As Joy and pain are the nearest emotions
which can be made the subject Of repre-
sentation in music, so whatever is the
most adverse and opposite in nature,
whether it be the two poles Of the magnetic
battery or the highest mental conditions OF
antagonism, ultimately harmonlzes itself on
the same scale of meditation. 1t IS this
which renders human nature so enigmatcal
and selfcontradictory; which makes man
riddle that no existing intelligence can
fully solve. But the great Law-giver has
fixed our mental equator, from which all
lines of meridianal difference must finally
center in single point of conveyance.
This may be the millenal point of our ex-
istence, at which the prophetic lion and
lamb shall repose under the same shade,
and the mythical kite and dove perch in
amity on the same Dough. Of this, how
ever, we would not too confidently venture
an opinion.
Certainly no two things can be more
absolutely antagonistic than the principle
of absolutism in government and that
of democracy" as understood and ex-
pounded by the political Hotspurs Tor fire.
eaters) of the South ten or twelve years
ago. Then the demand of the Democracy
was raised almost heaven-high, that the
Federal government should keep its hands
off the territories even, after they once
organized for the purposes Of local self
government. Absolute non-inlerventon,
not only in the affairs of the states but the
territories. was the demand that shivered
the Charleston Convention, and threatened
to SILVER the Union in 1860. and that pre-
ciptatcd four years. bloody conflict.
But the most remarkable results of this
conflict are to be found in the radical
changes which Democracy has undergone
in the South in respect to non-intervention
by the Federal government. We find the
same distinguished publicist and jurist who
twelve years ago assumed the diplomatic
task of instructing the Republican party,
ON the occasion Of its first advent to power
in its duties as to non-intervention in the
states passing their little ordinances of Sc.
cassion, now demanding of the same party
at the hands of its President and Congress
such absolute intervention with the affairs
Of one of the states as the most imperia
form Of government would justify its ruler
in exercising; which is, TO set aside the
DEGREES of the Federal court, displace thu
Governor of the State, as if Louisiana wer,
amere provincial appcndage to the centra
government, and her officers clothed will
no higher authority than that derived from
military appointment made by the Presi
dent himself.
This is carrying the absolutistic princi
Bile in government to the utmost verge 0
It's exercise by the Roman emperors, aftel
liberty had ceased to assert its supremac,
at the hands Of the Roman people. TIL
Republican party, while discarding the ex
IRENE state rights doctrines of the Calhoun
school, by which it was sought to breal
up and destroy the Union of 1887, still ad
heres to the fundamental principles on whic
that Union is based, and values them to
highly to deliberately and systematical
cast them aside for the Old World absolu
tism at this late day. Republicanism, a
understood by the party in power and dc
signed to be practically exempliGe
in their administration of tn
Federal government, neither II
cosnizes, nor can recognize, any otht
origin or foundation Of governments
authority, than that upon which til
doctrine of local self-government is in
pregnably laid. Not to accept this do,
trne is to assert the right of some or
man, or class of men, to rule over I'll
people by divine authority, which is t
fall back upon the absolutistic dogmas
the Old World, and recognize the divir
right of kings, instead of the Go,
given right of the people to NAL
and unmake kings as they please.
was not Cromwell who overture
the English Commonwealth by IL
establishment of Protectorate, nor Gen
Ial Monk who reinstated the Stuarts, b.
the English people themselves. Nor W
it Napoleon who dashed out the brains of Il
French Republic, but the people wi
had never fully accepted it. "Fioe la pc
pie" was the Napol eonic hatchery tn
shook every throne and dynasty in Europ
Absolutsm is the weakest possible subtle
fuge for power, and has shown itself to
SO in all the ages Of the world. III
strength and durability of government d
ponds upon its republican workings-up,
the recognized right Of the people to ha
and exercise the powers delegated by the
whenever their behests are not full
obeyed.