National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1875-01-22
". J. MURTAGH.. Editor and Proprietor.
RIDAY Observation-Disclosures "a, 1875.
WILL THE STATES RIGHTS DEMOCRACY
SUCCEED IN OVERTHROWIEG THE Gov
ERNHFNTf


SUCCEED IN OVERLOOKING THE Gov
ERNMENTl
At no period since the people of the
United States, through their representa-
tives, proclaimed their purpose to maintain
the Union inviolate, and to maintain it if
necessary by war, has there been politi-
cal assemblage upon which rested mightier
responsibilities than devolve upon the Re
publican caucus of the House of Repre-
sentatIves which meets to hear the report
of the committee of nine and to determine
its policy with regard to the Southern con-
dition.
The two periods to which we refer, the
Inauguration of the war policy Of 1851, and
the present, have points of similitude and
of contrast eminently suggestive.
Tosuppress rebellion in the South against
the Government was the object in 1861 to
suppress rebellion in the South against the
laws and Constitution of the United States
is the object now That was to vindicate
the integrity of the nation by force of arms;
this is to assert it by force of law. The
evil to be remedied is substantially the
same, as either involves in its successful
issue the overthrow of the Government and
the destruction of the nation.
The same conflicting theories with regard
to Federal powers and State sovereignty,
which from the adoption of our Federal
Constitution had arrayed political parties
against each other Jill they eliminated in
civil war in 1861, are now arrayed against
each other by the same parties and along
the same geographical lines, and if not
settled by one war must inevitably lead to
another. as war is the only arbiter which,
in the last resort, can settle such contro-
versy.
1t was commonly supposed after the war
that the settlement of this question in favor
OF Federal power was one of the results of
the war, and that this was so accepted and
received Of all men, but as soon as the Demo
cratic party South recovered from the
shock of its overthrow in war it planted
itself upon its ante belEum platform-it
sounded as its key mote the old battle cry
Of Estates Rights and Capitalization, d"
which was readily responded to by its
Copperhead allies at the North, and the
political issues, the clashing of systems,
are now the same. and the array of parties
identical with those that have once pre-
cipitated the country into war and cost it
rivers of blood and oceans of treasure.
The two theories are irreconcilable and
hostile; they cannot coexist. One or the
other must become the recognized theory
of our Government, and if the question
has not been settled by the war we have
had, then we will be forced to another war
to settle it. One of the results of the war
was the abolition of slavery, the emanci-
patton of four millions of slaves and max
ing them citizens, with equal civil and
political rights.
The Congress of the United States has
enacted laws for the protection of these
rights, and it is against these laws, and
those who are the objects of protection
under them, that the Southern Democracy
have concentrated their attacks. This ex-
ercise of Federal power over citizens resid-
ing in the States is q much more essential
Of fI,oir Of GtotaCS
than any act of the Federal Government
before the war, and the effect of these Fed
eral laws, when submitted to in many of
the Southern States is to give the control
of the State governments to those opposed
in political opinion TO the Democracy ard
also to give the representation from such
States in Congress to the same political op-
position. The irritations of this condition
are multiplied and infamed by the fact that
the class who lead the Southern Democracy
controlled the political power in the South
ern States before the war, and that those who
were formerly their slaves, in the changed
condition, are instrumental in keeping them
out of place, and putting others into power.
This was gall and NORWOOD to proud,
high-spirited, ambitious men, already
writhing under the humiliation and disap-
pointments of the war, and by means Of
the sympathies which naturally they could
enlist in the minds of large proportion of
the white people of the South, and also
reaching many in the North, they have or
ganized a Democratic party in the South
more intense in its convictions, more fatal
in its purposes, and more dangerous in its
power than the Southern Rights party in
1861. Covering themselves under the pre-
text that they constitute all the intelligence
and all the wealth of the South, and that
they are being oppressed and crushed out
by ignorant and corrupt rulers, con-
trolling almost the entire press of the
South, and by that means reaching
the popular ear and enlisting pop
ular sympathy in the North, they have
entered upon a career of lawlessness and
crime which in the deliberation with which
it is planned, the audacity with which it is
proclaimed and defended, and the ruthless
cruelty with which it is conducted. finds no
parallel in history. Throughout several
of the cotton States an armed, oath bound
secret organization exists, whose oath binds
them to eternal hostility ITO the friends of
the niger government, as they call Re-
publican government; who cooperate with
each other in the same State and in differ
ent States; who by fraud and violence, in
the interest of the Democratic party, and to
assert its ascendancy, have suppressed free
suffrage, have seized the governments of
several Southern States, have shot and hung
and whipped colored people and white Re-
publicans, for political purposes, by hun.