Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-10-14
STRIDES TowARD DEsPorIsm.


thrown into Jail, treated with every
circumstance of ignominy and insult,
and carried off to distant. town for
trial-this is the work which the ad-
ministratiOn of President Grant is
doing to-day in Alabama This work
is not confined to Alabama, for it was
done in Tennessee in almost as Of
fensive form, and Notwithstanding
the emphatic protest Of Gov. Brown
against this assumption to deal with
alleged criminals in this State, where
the local authC rites have been prompt
and vigorous in their efforts to ferret
out and punish criminals, Attorney
General Williams persists in holding
and trying the citizens arrested in Glib
son county by the United States courts.
The assumption of authority by the
Grant administration, In matters of a
purely local character In the South, is
at last beginning to awaken some
uneasiness among thoughtful people
in the North. If the Federal authori-
ties may arrest and try men charged
with murder in Tennessee or Alabama,
they may do so in any State North Of
the once famous Mason and Dixon's
line; for the enforcement act, under
which citizens of Southern States are
arrested, hand-cuffed and dragged to
distant parts TO be tried by courts or
gained to convict, applies equally to
the States Of the North. The gloved
iron hand that has been striking down
State governments in the South, and
arresting and imprisoning citizens
upon evidence that would not authorize
a magistrate to hold a man for trial,
may yet turn upon and throttle the
very men who are applauding Grant in
his strides toward despotism. This
work, cruel as it is illegal, is now being
done in the South for the purpose of
furnishing dishonest demagogues in
other States of the Union with material
for persaading ignorant voters that
the Southern States are still. after ten
years Of peace under a Radical govern
meut, mere hot-beds of rebellion, that
the war to restore the Union has re-
suited In making the Union impossible.
and that there is no choice left to the
people Of the United States save be-
tween anarchy, on the one side, and
personal government, disunion in Its
worst forms, and despotism, on the
other side.
Touching two of the murders in Ala
bama, for which certain parties have
been arrested and others, are to be ar
rested, if the victims can be found, the
Mobile Register remarks:
The truth no doubt is-as all the
evidence goes 70 show-that Billings
was murdered for the money which he
claimed to have upon his person, and
that Iyey was murdered because he
was a dangerous and turbulent man,
who had ridden armed through the
streets of a peaceful village, threaten
ing to visit it with fire and blood. One
Of these men would have been muir
dered in any dark alley Of New York,
and the other would have been lynchcd
IL the most peaceful community IN
Illinois. The county IN which these
murders were committed lies IN a State
whose Governor is a Republican, IN a
circuit whose judy, is a Republican,
and who WAS himself a Federal officer;
in a population where the juries may
be composed Of negro 5, and where the
processes Of courts have never been IN
terfered with. The State Of Alabama
and the county of fSumter are able,
willing, and ready to investigate and
punish these murders.
Is it possible to imagine a more
monstrous violation than this, we viii
not say Of the constitution and laws Of
the United States, but Of those princi
pies Of public law and public order for
the maintenance and defense Of which
the constitution and laws of the United
States were professedly called into be-
ne? No man, who has any regard for his
reputation as man and lawyer, will
pretend that the Federal cCnrts have
ANY jurisdiction over these cases. Even
Postmaster General Jewell is re-
ported by the Washington CORES
pondent Of the NelC York Mall to have
remarF ed to Spencer and Hays, of Ala
bama, few days ago, that IF Ivey
had been attending to his official duties
instead of distributing incendiary and
infammatory speeches among the
negroes, he would probably never have
been molested." The parties who were
arrested charged with the murder of
Billings proved an abb by respectable
white witnesses, but negro swore that
he saw them in an equivocal position
toward the murdered man; and upon
this testimony the United States Com
missioner held them for trial Such a
proceeding would disgrace the most in
competent magistrate in the State. The
Nelo York Tribune shows clearly the ille-
gality of these proceedings in the fol-
lowing paragraphs:
The action Of the Federal Govern
ment in REFRESHING disorders in Ala
bama. Tennessee, and other disturbed
districts" of the South, threatens TO
bring us face to face with a new prob
lem quite as difficult of solution as that
of the war of races. If any such reign
of terror really exists IN the recon-
structed States as the paTtisans Of a
third term would have Us believe, all
good citizens viii be predisposed to
approve the most vigorous measures for
its overthrow. But there is grave dam
Ger lest. in an inconsiderate zeal for
the enforcement of Il certain statute,
the President may be led into the
usurpation Of powers which do not be-
long to him. In sending a small part
of the army to those localities where