Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-05-28
THE FuTURe CoNrIIcr

.iOn 80 as 10 increase largely the pres
ent powers of Congress over State in
stitutions, should be read in connection
with the following writ issued by the
United States Circuit Court Of South
ern Illinois,
The President Of Tie pnfted States to the
Circuit COesrt Of Sanganaon county,
"a the State Of Illinois:
GREETING: Being informed that
there is now pending before you suit
and prosecution, in which the People of
the State OF Illinois are plaintiffs and
the Chicago and Alton Railroad CON-
pany are defendants, which suit was
commenced In the Circuit Court of said
county of Sangamon against the said
defendants, to subject it to the depriva-
ton of certain rights, privileges and
immunities secured to It BY the Consti-
tuition of the United States, under a
law, statute, ordinance, regulation,
custom, or usage of the State of
Illinois, and that the said suit and
prosecution was commenced by sum-
mons, and that said suit has not been
tired, and we, being willing, for GER
tam reasons, that the said suit and
prosecution, and the records and pro-
ceedings therein, should be certified by
the said court and removed into our
| Circuit Court of the United States, in
and for the Southern District of ILL.,
nois, do, hereby, command you that
you certify and send the records and
proceedings aforesaid, with all things
concerningthes same, to the said Circuit
Court of the United States, together
with this writ, so that you have the
same at the United States Court house,
IN the city of Springfield, in the said
district, on the LIST Monday of June.
1874. next, In the said Circuit Court
then and there to be held, that the
said Circuit Court may causeto be fur
Their done thereupon what is right and
according to the laws of the United
States should be done.
Witness the Hon. Morrison r.
Waite, Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court of the United States, at Sprin-
field, aforesaid, this, the 18th day of
May, in the year Of Our Lord, 1874,
and of our Independence the ninety
eighth year. ]. A. JONES, Clerk.
State corporations, like railway and
turnpike companies, banks and manu-.
featuring establishments, colleges and
schools, are to pass beyond the control
of State laws and of the people where
they exist, into the hands of non-resi-
dent parties, whose homes are in dis
tant States and Territories. What the
British Parliament was to the old thir-
teen colonies in securing to remote
provinces a wise and satisfactory gov
eminent, Congress and its Federal
Courts will be to the people of all the
subjugated States. Each is expected
to surrender its right of local self gov
eminent, to become an unknown atom
In a mass of centralized des-
potism. Thus far the promoters
of this scheme have been successful;
but they cannot stop where they are.
Like Caesar, they have crossed the Rubi-
con, and their ''irrepressible conflict"
must go on to unlimited power, or an
ignominious defeat. We must either de-
fend manfully and successfully the old
Jeffersonian right Of local self-govern-
ment, or we must surrender it to cease
less encroachments. Toomany citizens
prefer party to liberty. We say, with
Thomas Jefferson, that the voters of
Tennessee should govern the State of
Tennessee, as an inalienable right,
knowing best what viii promote their
own happiness. The Radical party
says, no; the voters Of thirty-six other
States and ten territories must do this
governing work, because the idea of
self-government is false and snare,
The party in power at Washington CO.
verify assail the fundamental princi-
pies of our republican system of linn
tied representative government. They
leave no large powers in the hands of
the people and of the States, but
usurp every prerogative, and trust to
the party organization and the free use
of money to sustain them.
The three States of Illinois, Iowa
and Wisconsin have undertaken to con-
troll railway companies within their re-
spective limits. Speaking for the peo-
pie of Illinois, the Prairie Farmer says:
eff they pass laws and attempt their
enforcement, there are three men In
the State-Treat, Drummond and
Blodgett-either one of whom can, by
a Judicial fiat, put stop to their exc
cution, and all because they are federal
judges, appointed by the President and |
confirmed by the Senate, their term of |
Office being for life. So far, then, as
concerns railway reform, through the
regulation by law Of passenger and
freight charges, it is as if Illinois was
a conquered province, ruled by three
men receiving their commissions from
Washington, and in no way an
swerable to the government or
the people of the State" The
sacrifice of State control over all local
interests, as the UNION AND AMERI-
CAN has long cOntended, will be found
serious matter. 1t is revolution in
its worst form. No foreign power out
side of Illinois can govern the people
of that commonwealth so well as they
can govern themselves; and the princi-
pie applies equally to the citizens of
every other State. Resistance to Fed
eral encroachments is the proper slogan
of freemen everywhere in the Union.
Even New York, the most populous of
the States, would have, with its voters
undivided in sentiment, the weakness
of being only about one-tenth of the
whole. According to the thoroughly
conservative, Democratic idea of local
self government, there can be no liberty