Litchfield enquirer., 1874-07-02
S675.1Ol Tn county whose grand list scarcely reaches twenty millions seems pretty hard load.
Congress.

6~N~'o SiOSCu Ou 4ueSuay O1 1aS6 week. III
 has attempted rather more than it les per
 formed; and the most important work Il
 attempted-the imitation of the currency
 was luckily prevented by presidential
 veto. Its action on the question of con
 gressional salaries, accomplished after
 much vacillation, was considerable i'm
 provement on the Grab of their predeces-
 sors, though by no means a creditable
 piece of legislation. Several investiga-
 tions have been conducted with vigor and
 impartiality, and have led to important
 results. The extraordinary contracts granted to Sanborn and the extraordinary proceedings under those contracts have occasioned the withdrawal nf Secretary Richardson and Sawyer, and Solicitor Banfeld, and to the cancelIing of the con tracts themselves. But the investigation has led to the still more important result of an entire overthrow of the system of molties, of the iniquities of which the Sanborn contract is the most fragrant in- stance. Whether Congress may not have gone to an opposite extreme and left no sufficient safeguard against smuggling is a question that few months experience will no doubt decide.
 The investigation into the conduct of affairs by the officers of the District of Columbia territorial government disclosed a most disgraceful amount of extrava- gance and corruption; and Congress did the right thing with commendable dis patch ny a complete overthrow of the gov ernment whose rottenness the investiga- tion had fully proved.
 Little was accomplished in the matter of regulating interstate commerce by rail- road. An important bill passed the House by small majority and was evidently forced through by the pres sure of Western public opinion, winch congressman would have liked to disre- gard had they dared to do so. The Senate Committee on Transportation made a re- port, but no action resulted from it. We imagine that this style of dallying with a great question will hardly satisfy the peo- pie of the West, and that good many Changers will take seats in the next Con- gress who will fight their battle against the railroads with more vigor than has characterized the session just ended.
 |. The course of Congress regarding the finances has been so much discussed by press and people during the past half year that any additional comment of ours can hardly prove of much interest. Vest ern, Southern and Pennsylvania Congress- men, in the interest as they seem to imag- inc of their respective sections, have at tempted to infate the currency and have been baked by the President. From pre- sent indications we judge that the people of the West are by no means as unanimous in desiring imitation as Messrs. Morton Logan and others have represented. The fall elections will perhaps call out an ex- pression opinion that will settle this much mooted question.
 In one important respect this Congress seem to have fallen far short of the deci- sive action which the time requires. The Louisiana investigation, the evidence submitted by South Carolina taxpayers, and the disgraceful Arkansas imhroglio- establish the fact that no republican gov ernment, in the true sense of the term, exists in at least three of the reconstruct ed Southern states. South Carolina is plum dered by rings of thieves who monopolize most of the executive, legislative, and per haps judicial positions in the state. Heavy taxes are wrung from an impoverished people and divided among the plunderers. It is proved beyond peradventure that the present government of Louisiana is an usurpation never elected by the people. In Arkansas, no one knows who are their legitimate state officers, and there is not the least certainty that those who now hold the most important official positions were ever elected to them by the people. The state constitutions of Arkansas Louis jana are apparently framed with view of giving the government in power the op- portunity of defeating the will of the peo- plerby making up fraudulent returns. It is not too much to say that there is no depotism this side of Asia that would not be preferable to the tyranny of ignorance and fraud that prevails in several of the Southern States; and it does not become the Republican party who have always fought the heresy of State Rights to say that Congress cannot undo the evils they have done by way of Reconstruction. Such outrageous caricatures of republican government as cumber the ground in many Southern States must be short lived; and we much prefer that they should be reformed under law of Congress, or con- stitutional amendment, to violent internal revolution which will probably remand the blacks to years of subjection only less harsh than that of slavery.
 The judges held their annual meeting for assignments and appointments this week. MT. Ransom is reappointed clerk of the court for this county and James Huntington, States Attorney, and the fol- lowing assignment of judges is made for our Supreme Court: Sept. Term, Hitchcock.
 Nov. Sanford
 Jan. Granger.
 Apr. '' Loomis.
 1AA