The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-06-22

OF crime which General Butler assailed with
such ferocious criticism. What we see now
has always been seen. When the government
passes law that is virtually the oppression of
people or of any class of the people-a rich
business class like our importers, especially
there is sure to be revolution just as when
we have law against selling ardent spirits or
forbidding certain form of worship Laws
OF this nature inevitably generate revo-
luton. 1t will come in the form of smuggling,
OF the illicit selling and drinking of spirits,
of conventicles and hidden religious cere-
monies. What is far worse, we have public
opinion of sympathy, which practically con-
dones the offence and makes the enforcement
of the law impossible There were never
such fragrant violations of law as when the
tax upon whiskey was two dollars gallon.
This tax was SO far from being collected
that the selling price of the article was
seventy-five cents a gallon. And yet all the
resources of government which was power
full enough to suppress the rebellion, could
not collect this tax. No one has been pun
ished for defrauding the government out Of it.
We saw the same in the taxes on champagne
and spices, on silk and tobacco. No one
knew better than General Butler that millions
were withheld from the Treasury on these
articles alone, that no one was ever punished
and that there is not to-day power or tact or
skill enough under our laws to collect the
taxes upon those commodities as they existed
during the war. General Buffers plan is not
q remedy, but an increase of the evil
This being so, we see only in his furious
speech angry, destructive criticism So far
as Phelps, Dodge & Co. are concerned, if they
are not guilty of criminal violation of law,
then their treatment is simply an atrocity A
private firm, established for many years, with
good name and high business credit, are not
merely compelled to pay large sum of money,
but are assailed in an elaborate speech by one
of the ablest and keenest men of the country,
who protects himself from any answer or judg-
ment by a constitutional privilege. If this
house is innocent of the charges made by
General Butler then the nation owes
its members public and ample reparation;
for if an assault like this can be made, with
out any possible accountability, then we have
no tyranny in the world to be compared with
the tyranny Of legislation. Congressman,
sheltered behind the constitution, irresponsi-
BILE for words spoken in debate, may shoot
poisoned arrows into every business. Some
how we feel that in this and other respects the
speech of General Butler is q culver of poi
soned arrows, wounding not only the credit Of
old and honored merchants, but the good
name Of the country. Speeches like these,
violent incisive, merciless and able, with
the effects OF nitro-glycerine in their devastat-
ing criticisms, are read with avidity by oil who
hate liberty and America as the home of lib
erty. General Butler is perhaps the only
man in Congress who could have made such
speech, as he is perhaps the only conspicuous
American who will not mourn that it has been
made. If what he says is true he does not
show us the remedy. If what he says is false
then he shows the existence of the evil of
Legislative RIGHTEOUSNESS for which there can
be no remedy. Whether true or false such
speeches are not wise. They are aimed at the
credit and honor of the country, of the coun-
try which Is our father, in whose presence, no
matter what the sin or failing, it is always our
duty to initiate the filial devotion which has
been deemed worthy of sacred record, to walk
backward with averted gaze and hide the
shame.