New-York tribune., 1875-02-26
4 MEASURE OF PROTECTION.

1t is announced that the Republican men,
bers of the Alabama Legislature have united
In O memorial to Congress praying for the
suspension of the writ Of habeas corpus " in
"order that they may be protected from their
"political opponents" Alabama Republicans
have required q great many curious con-
trivances of late to protect them from their
political opponents. The Hon. Charles Hays
could not get through his last campaign
without the invention of a roll of murders as
long as the catalogue of LeporellO. Other dis
tinguished statesmen protected themselves
with bacon-Government bacon destined for
the sufferers by the Mississippi overflow, and
diverted by some mysterious process to
the back-cOuntry, where there was no
distress from the flood, but great
deal of political agony and anxiety of
the most poignant character. The testimony
taken by the Committee of the House of
Representatives which recently investigated
the affairs of Alabama developed the preva-
lence of other methods of protection of which
the public has had vague and insufficient in
formation.
All Republican Alabama seems besct with
the idea that the chief duty of Republican
Administration in Washington is to nurse the
Republican vote in the States Yesterday we
saw Federal marshals securing the country with
reams of warrants of arrest; election officers
calling upon the Federal troops to force voters
into line at the polls; Federal office-holders
bidding the negroes come up to the county
seat and vote the straight ticket under the
supervision of their Republican friends, lest
they be sold again into slavery; colored
women forming themselves into peripatetic COM
mittees under Federal patronage and patrol
ling the towns to keep their husbands away from
Democratic meetings and finally the whole
Administration party clamorlng to have cleo
tiOns upset and civil government superseded
by the military because timid negroes had
been frightened by some drunken bully, or
faction fight had taken place, such as always
used to rage on election day in the Sixth
Ward of New-York. To-day the Radical
statesmen of Alabama propose that the best
guarantee of personal liberty shall be abol-
ished in order that the most violent of the in
Auences we have mentioned may have full
sway, unchecked by the safeguards of the
law. Tomorrow they may ask for a new
election law, something like the precious de-
vice adopted by Mr.. Kellogg in Louis
lana, which shall save the people the
trouble of choosing their Governors
and legislators, and trust everything to
the Federal Administration. The same
idea underlies all these schemes, which
is the handspring of the miseries of the whole
South,-the idea, frst that the educated, in
telligent, active, industrious. well-todo pOpu
lation of the reconstructed States is not to be
trusted with the right of self-governmcnt
which belongs to all American communities
and secondly, that it is the business Of some
body in Washington, after the destinies of the
States have been intrusted to the cOlored
people, to step in and stffen the backs of those
weak brethren, furnish them with ideas, sup
ply the defects of their ignorance, and then
put the taxes where they will do the most
good.
Has the attempt of the President to protect
political opponents been SO successful that
Alabama need clamor for the same sort of in
terferencef 1t has brought Louisiana so low
that not man in the Union can look upon
her misfOrtunes unmOved. 1t has kept Ar
kansas on the verge of civil war; and still
menaces that unhappy State with revolution
as soon as Congress is out of the way. When
Boss Shepherd is called upon for legal
opinion in opposition to the Attorney General,
and incltes the President to contradict in q
special message his own proclamation, it is
impossible to foresee what wrong what in
justice, what melancholy travesty of despotic
government may be the next step in the pro-
tectlve programme.