New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-04-30
TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.


1t was a part of the burden of the South
Carolina complaint that in certain sections OF
the reconstructed States the white population,
embracing all the education, intelligence, and
wealth of the community, was taxed for the
support Of Government in which 1T was not
represented. The inhabitants of South Caro-
lima are divided into two strongly contrasted
and inharmOniOus races, one holding all the
power and the other bearing all the burdens,
the whites paying the revenue and the blacks
spending or stealing it. Because tins IL so,
the taxpayers complain that they have not
republican form of government, and they
ask Congress to help them.
No doubt their case is hard one. but 1t
does not stand alone. Under the ordinary
election system OF the United States, minOri-
ties are always taxed more or less without
representation, although the injustice of such
a condition of things is not very keenly felt,
except when it happens that the Taxpayers
are virtually united on one side, and the nom
tax-paylng majority forms a compact and
aggressive party on the other The trouble
in South Carolina does not arise from the
fact that the negroes are ignorant and powerful
and the whites are weak. 1t does not spring
from any irreconcilable antagOnsm OF race,
nor from any radical unftness of the colored
people to perform the duties which citi-
zenship has suddenly thrust upon them.
1t is really attributable to the in
reference of outside political Adventures,
and the mischievous meddling of the Federal
authority. If the State had been left to her
self a natural equilibrium of parties would
soon have been established and the ex-master
as well as the ex-save would have learned
that the two races are bound together by
community of interests and are naturally each
Others best friends and allies. But on the
plea of political necessity the rulers at Wash
ineton sent their pro-cOnsuls and favorites
into Charleston and Columbia and babe them
administer the government of the State, en-
listing the whole colored population as their
mercenaries From that moment the white in
habitants became the subjects of the worst
form of despotism; that is to say, despOtism
carried on for the private benefit Of the indi-
yidual rulers. Precisely the same usurpatiOn
was committed in Louisiana, only different
agency was employed in it; and similar
violation of the right of self-government was
| perpetrated in Arkansas and Alabama. What
representation have the taxpayers of Louisi-
ana in the fraudulent government of Kellogg
and Durell7 What share have the tax payers
of Arkansas in the miserable travesty of gov
eminent now performing at Little Rockf
We need not go so far away, however, to
| trace the dangerous tendency toward Federal
| interference which has heea perceptible eyer
since the war in political affairs and of late
seems to have grown stronger than ever. The
| Federal Administration has undertaken even
to regulate the government of New-York City.
The gaugers and tide-waiters whom paternal
President has set to rule over us assume the
right to make and unmake our municipal
charter at pleasure. In contempt of the
wishes of the people, i'll opposition to the
protests of the Mayor, they seek to reconstruct
our local executive departments, to control
the police, to manage our expenditures, and
to take care of our money. The pretense of
course is that all these things are done by
the Legislature, but everybody knows that
they are done by the political agents of the
Federal Administration. Everybody knows
why they are done, and knows that the voters
and taxpayers of the city are not consulted
in regard to the disposition of their own af-
fairs; they have merely to pay their taxes
and the CustOm-house undertakes to manage
everything else.
Gen. Dix understands so well the principles
of local sclf-government upon which the whole
system of American administration rests that
we have no great fear of the success of the
pending schemes to take possession of the
metropolis for the benefit of Washington
politicians But the Custom-hOuse movement
is the symptom of o serious public disorder
which threatens the nation With countless