The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1875-06-10
STATE RIGHTS AND WRONGS.

We are often surprised to hear tn
f1ippant declarations Of a certain clas
of politicians-generally of the ex
treme Radical hue-in regard to tn
question of State Ris ishts. They com
placently asseverate that the war ha
killed State Rights, and that by its re
suits we arc now Nation instead o
Confederation of States. If tn,
theory is pursued to its legitimate re
suits, an American citizen, to-day, il
in no respect superior to the Russian
serf In the interest of the truth o
history, of the right, and Of the people
We maintain that the war settled
nothing except the question of slavery
which was merely incidental, and the
assumed right Of State peaceably te
secede from the Union. 1t has settled
the question of the right of peaceable
secession, as claimed by the ultra wing
Of the State Rights party, but nothing
more. That the Union shall not be
dissolved if the Union can prevent it
is the substance of the proposition es.
tablished by the bloed and treasure
expended in the late unhappy conflict
As far as we can see now, we cordial.
ly say. $50 mote it be-" But always
regarding the rights Of the people, oi
the individual citizen, as above all red
tapeism or written forms, suggested
by party factions for selfish purposes,
we have few remarks to offer upon
the subject of State Rights, and then
upon State Wrongs, which we hold to
be unanswerable.
Without the States the Federal
Goyernment4ad hever known exist
ence. Without the Federal Govern
ment the States had never known the
Union. The patriotic and philosophic
trainers Of the Constitution lived and
moved and had their being in an at
mosphere far above the foul air that is
poisoned by the fetid breath Of Draw
ling placemen, who attempt to prove
their patriotism by the violence with
which they profess it. They were
truly the founders of our free institu-
tions, as the men who won the battles
Of the Revolution were the fathers of
the liberties those institutions embody.
The rights of the American colonies
as they were wrested from England's
grinding grasp were neither more nor
less than the ordinary attributes of an
intelligent civilization, that spurns the
logic of the "divinity of kings" aud
the law of mans subservience to man.
Those rights are to-day hanged, be-
cause they are unchangeablc. They
are the rights men bring with them
into the world, and leave with poster
ity when they die. They are given to
us by the God who gave us being.
And all civilized mankind have the
same claim to them that they have to
the air they breathe, the waters they
drink from natures fountains, and the
light that falls Oh all the earth. They
were, and they are, and they will ever
be, essential to the organism of all
society that carries cut the canons of
civilization 10 their natural results.
and conforms its rules to the mental
and moral dignity of man. Such
were our colonial rights as wrung
from the mother country. And such
are still the rights of the States as thew
were incorporated into the body-poli-
tic when the Union was formed.
When we say rights Of States, we
mean those privileges, prerogatives,
and immunities that fall exclusively
within the sphere of the government
of each State of the Union, within it.
self, separate and sacred from Federal
power-regulated by the State Coasti-
tuition. We mean that the State is the
supreme power in all things except in
30 far as it is controlled and estopped
by the Federal Constitution, strictly
construed. We mean that neither the |
Executive, the Judiciary, nor the Leg
islative Department of the Federal
Government has legal right of justifi-
cation in interfering in the affairs of
State, unless that interference is sus-
tanned beyond cavil or doubt by the
express words of the Federal Consti.
tuition. We mean that such interfer-
ence, without such authority, is arbi-
trary, revolutionary, and reasonable.
We mean that the rights of the States
are the rights of the people; that the
rights of the people are the basis of
The Government; that the Govern
nent itself is founded and ground
ID to principles antipodal to the
policy of the present President
md the party that sustains him.
If the States have lost their rights.
he individual citizens who compose
he States have lost theirs and if the
Individual citizen has lost his rights,
where isAmerican liberty to be found 2
Where is the boasted Republicanism
If the Republicans? That the rights of I
he States haye not been respected or
ecognized by the Federal Govern
nent, or rather by the party that has
resumed fer years past to constitute
tself the Government, no man can 6
eny who has the slightest acquaint-
nee with the events that have been i.
assiag like sombre shadows over the
ountry since the Inauguration of
resident Grant, supported by his
National Assembly" that called itself I
Congress. That Congress strampled
pom the Constitution whenever it
teod in the way of any of the parti-
an purposes of the Administrations,
nd when il has hesitated or halted in c
he work of desecration, the man with j
he military bOots-the Emperor in
he White House overlapping and t
corning all logic, liberty and law, all /