National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1875-03-01

acter and influence in the Union since its re-
construction are yet SO blinded by prejudices,
or, more frequently, mistaken idea Of self
interest, yield themselves instruments of such
unhallowed, effort, and when we regard the
essential loss of national dignity, to say moth
ing OF the hindrance that attends the progress
of the States growing out of these multiplied
and improbable agitations, the want of fore
sight and right conception of government by
Federal Constitution amounts to the political
blunder Tallyrand stigmatized as crime. This
hue and cry of State rights, as contradis-
tinetiVe to the Federal, is eminently unconsd-
tutional and humiliating to our self-respect as
a corporated body of unities, one and un-
Invisible, and if continually exercised
must be ultimately subversive of the faith and
ends republican government should seek to
establish. For instead of that sentiment of
cohesion and political morality to be incul-
Gated, this sensational legislation familiarizes
the national mind with spoliation and turbu-
lence, of which comes "war and rumors of
war"
The Federal Constitution, rightly inter
preted, admits of no such distinctive arrogan-
cies as an analysis of this Home Rule theory
Enthusiastically shows. History repeats itself to
prove that abstractive principles, howsoeVer
good, have failed of successful application in
government; that there is a law ofprinciple and
another of exigency; a law of theory amenable
to and only to be interpreted through that of
experience:
"If science, reaching its arm from pole to
pole and goaded on by insatiate curiosity, can
make its advances only by the toilsome accu-
mutation of facts; if art, welded to the free
dom of the ideal world, can proffer no instruc-
ton save its masterpieces; if, in short, in all
things even the individual mind in its free
inquiry has but classified and generalized facts,
what wonder that the collective mind of a
nation-often clouded by ignorance, occupied
with life's necessities, impeded by custom,
misled by artifce and fettered by force-has
advanced only as stirring events have carried
it forward and has comprehended," inter-
preted, applied "pOlitical systems only as it
has received them glowing in the furnace of
reality"
Truth would have persisted from among
men had it rested on formulas alone" And
our Federal Constitution, the accumulated
wisdom of ages, amended, enlarged, applied,
reproducing the decentralizing ideas given
forth by successive civilizations; combining,
eliminating and intensifying them as changing
circumstances have demanded, has thrown
them in multiplied protective provisions around
the life, liberty and possessions of the individ-
ual citizen, establishing therein an indivorce-
able union of interests that all the cant of
Home Rule can never infringelor weaken.
1t is a WEAKNESS surprising our limits or in
clination to show the incendiary stuff with
which these agitators of the rostrum and the
press seek to fan the fame of insubordination;
but we desire to say there is significance in the
revival of this battle-cry, unperceived by
the masses. For it is not often thus that,
Influenced by the seeming justice and plausi-
bility of measure, one stands arrayed under
political colors not their own, and we hold this
recuperated cry of Home Rule auxiliary, and
the trump card with which these political b.
hemians hope to win their way to prominence
and place in the coming campaign. But, If we
mistake not, the American mind is sufficiently
discerning in its judgments to perceive the un-
stability of thus governing seeking to govern,
by political agitation, that as a method it is
inconsistent with free press and legislation,
and carries with it its own defeat.
CALHOUN.