The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-01-12

In numbers and responsibility the meeting
at the Cooper Institute realized the most san
guine expectations. The tiresome resolutions
having been introduced at an early stage were
listened to by the vast audience with praise
worthy patience, but will be found rather
heavy reading by the few who do not
skip them in the morning journals
The meeting derives all its importance
from the speeches, and especially the
able, temperate speech of Mr.. Evarts, which
was the great feature of the evening. It is
fortunate that the first two addresses. after
the brief Introductory remarks of Mayor
Wickham on taking the chair, were by such
eminent republicans as Nh. Bryant and Mr.
Evarts, who occupied most of the time until
nearly ten o'clock and gave q non-partisan
tone to the occasion. We will try to restate
such OF the points and arguments presented
during the evening as were received with
most favor by the meeting and elected the
warmest applause.
marked feature Of the best speeches was
the broad line of discrimination they drew
between the general question of the legiti-
macy of the Kellogg government and the
military proceedings which have so deeply
stirred public feeling. It was the sense of
the meeting, so far as it could be gathered
from the heartiness and unanimity of
its responses to particular features in
the reasoning Of the speakers, that
the general political condition of the
South is an entirely separate question,
which should not be mixed up with the un-
warranted and dangerous interference of the
federal army with the organization of o State
Legislature. BY keeping these subjects dis
tinct the whole force of the augmentation
was converged to point upon which there
ought to be no conflict Of views be-
tween political parties. President Grant was
held responsible for this unconstitutional use
of the army, not as having planned and di-
rected it at the outset, but for his strong and
unqualified Endorsement after it had been
done. Sheridan was leniently dealt with by
Mr.. Evarts, because his remarkable and most
astonishing kilograms ceased to be his and
became President Grants as soon as the latter
had communicated his full appreciation
The tendency of the meeting was to fasten
the whole responsibility upon General Grant,
and to arraign him, not for his original sup
port of Kellogg, not for his opinion of the
White League, not for his political sympathy
with the Louisiana republicans, not for the
encouragement he gave to the Returning
Board when it was manipulating and talsify-
ing the returns and counting in men who
had never been elected, but solely for the
employment of federal soldiers to drag men,
bers of the Legislature from their seats. By
narrowing the arraignment down to this one
point and fixing the responsibility upon the
President alone the republican speakers at
the meeting were able to steer clear of
party questions and put the discussion
on the high constitutional ground on
Which citizens feel not as republicans
or democrats, but as Americans and lovers of
liberty. It was judicious to place republican
speakers in the front and give them the
audience during the best part Of the evening,
and they were prudent and wise in avoiding
topics on which there is any reasonable
ground of difference among citizens of
their own party. Mr.. Evarts indeed
conceded that the great outrage which
he condemned might justifably be turned
by the democrats to party advantage If the
republican party should uphold the indefen-
sible conduct of the President, but that it
would be unreasonable to regard them as the
Presidents abettors without allowing them an
opportunity to show their attachment to those
principles of freedom which have always been
held equally dear and sacred by all men born
on American soil and nurtured in the tradition
of liberty.
The peril of such military interference with
the rights of Legislative bodies was placed in
striking light by some of Mr.. Evarts' illus
trations. In arguing that this is as much the
affair of every other State as it is of Louisiana
! he showed that the same kind of military
violence would be no worse if exer-
cised in the electoral college of
State than it is when exerted in
q State Legislature. The votes given for
Presidential electors in q State are counted
and declared in the same manner as the votes
for State officers; and it, when they had as
sembled as an electoral college to cast their
votes for President the same kind of ques-
tons should be started as to their right to
seats, and the Governor of the State should
successfully invoke the assistance of the
federal army to dispense or remodel
an electoral college, such interference might
change the result of Presidential election
question in which the people Of all the
States have an equal interest. There is no
prete1t for excusing the employment of the
army to change the political complexion
! of fba clo trro Of Sfa.o oh
would not be equally good for en-
ploying it to reconstruct the Electoral
College of a State, and, by reversing
the choice of that State for President in q
close election plunge the country into the
horrors of civil war; If this had been the
6 p<aeidaxatial olacticx, Tia IL,