The New York herald., 1874-12-23
President Grants nIississippi Proela-
nation.

assistance IN suppressing domestic violence
1t is ridiculous for him to command ''said dis
orderly and turbulent persons to disperse and
retire peaceably to their respective places OF
abode within five days hereof, when there is
no disorderly collection of people IN the State,
either armed or unarmed, to whom such .
command can be addressed 1t is true that
the law requires him to issue procama-
ton containing such a command before en-
pioying troops in State to put down resist
ance to its government That provision fixes
the Interpretation of the law. 1t limits the
authority of the President to cases of actual
resistance by assembled bodies of insurgents.
4 The very terms of the law preclude him from
interposng unless the State government is
assailed or threatened by men who may
properly be commanded to ''disperse" and
''retire to their respective places of abode"
But how can they disperse if they have not
assembled, or retire to their homes if they
have not left them? The law obviously
never intended that the President should full
inmate proclamations against fictitious or
merely constructive Instructions 1t requires
this preliminary action in order to prevent
hasty intervention and needless expense. By
prescribing the substance of the proclamation
it defines the conditions that must exist to
justify Its issuance. 1t is not legally permis-
sible for the President to act under circum-
stances which render the prescribed proclama-
ton absurd and ridiculous, as General Grant
has done in the present instance.
A great English statesman once protested
against making the extreme medicine of the
constitution its daily food" The inter-
vention of the federal government to
protect a State against domestic violence
is the extreme medicine of our constitution. to
be resorted to only in those rare desperate
cases when all the ordinary remedies have
been employed and have failed. Every State
has its own militia, of which its Governor is
the commander-in-chief The State Governors
are charged with the execution of the State
laws, and have full authority to call forth the
militia for that purpose whenever resistance
becomes too powerful to be put down by
sheriff's posse. The federal government is to
be applied to only as last resource when
the military force of the State under the
command of the Governor is inadequate to
subdue the insurgents Why did not Gov
ernor Ames call out the Mississippi militia
Why should the federal government be SUBJ
jected to the expense of sending troops from
great distance to do the work which, under the
regular operation of our political system, be-
longs to the local militia? Why should this
great reproach and scandal be brought upon
republican institutions? The great merit
and chief beauty Of the republican theory is
that the government, being the free choice of
majority OF the people, will always have the
preponderant physical strength OF the COM
munity on Its side, and is, therefore, self-sus-
tanning except in very extraordinary emer-
gencies. Ii an insurrection should spring up
in one OF the counties of New York or Massa-
chusetts it is inconceivable that the Governor
would make such disgraceful display of i'm
becility as to assemble the Legislature and
apply for federal assistance as the first step
toward its suppression. Instead of this he
would call forth few regiments of militia,
order them to the county in which the dis
turbances existed, and make short work of the
not done in Mississippi? Governor Ames
makes practical confession either of his own
utter incompetence or OF the inability of the
militia OF the whole State to cope with one ;.
insurgent county. 1t is preposterous-it is
absurd to the degree OF being grotesque-for
Governor with all the militia of the State at
his command, to get frightened out of his wits
and paralyzed into imbecility at movement
in one town of single county, and summon
the Legislature to make pusillanimous ap-
plcation to the federal government for help.
This reasoning proceeds on the hypothesis
that there is an actual insurrection in the city
OF vcksburg. But it is a hypothesis which has
no foundation in fact, and the trepidation and
poltroonery of Governor Ames and mis- Legis-
lature is even more contemptibly ridiculous
than if he quailed in terror before small
local nsurrecton. If the negroes Of his own
party who assembled in the rural towns of the
county and marched to Vicksburg with arms
in their hands for an illegal purpose had re-
mained at their homes there would have been
no disturbance Of the public peace. AS soon
as these negroes were dispersed" and
compelled to retire s'to their respective
places of abode" tranquility was at once re-
stored, and vicksburg has since been as quiet
and orderly as any town in the United States.
When the Mississippi Legislature assembled,
under Governor Ames' call, to make an apph.
cation to the President there was no insur-
rection anywhere within the boundaries of the
State The President is in danger of making
himself butt of public derision if, at the
beck of every inefficient State Governor, he
feels bound to warn insurgents to disperse
when it is notorious that no insurgents are
assembled, and to bid purely imaginary peo-
pie to retire to their respective places of abode