Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1876-10-04
Gen. Williams.

tIoh, recently, the Iresluent, Ueh.
\. s. Williams, on taking TIE chair,
made the following remarks:
] thank you Tor the honor o.
making me your chairman at this
the first gathering in your genera
headquarters. / congratulate YOU
upon the completion of this com.
modious central gathering place.
Let US dedicate it to the cause oil
"retrenchment and reform'-to the
purposes of fair, honest and patri-
otto discussions of the vital politi-
cal issues. Let us leave opponents
the ribaldry Of personal defamation,
the utterances of infamous partisan
falsehoods and the nevarious work
of exciting the rancor Of sectional
hatred and malevolence for party
purposes.
Fellow-citizens, VIC are fast drift
ing towards Capitalization of all
governmental powersin the control
Of the Federal authorities at Wash
iDgton. That which our forefath-
ers were most jealous of the reserv-
ed OF the States TO manage and
control their domestic affairs, has
become a subject of derision and
contempt with the legislative and
executive department of the Fed
eral government. The decisions of
the Supreme Court Of the nation,
TO these unconstitutional assump-
tons Of Federal power are con-
temptonsly disregarded. Federal
bayonets are sent by the President
into sovereign States to overthrow
Legislatures and place partisan ia
vorites in supreme authority, as
was instanced in the State of Louis
lana. The Senate Of the United
States sends its select committee
into Mississippi to investigate its
domestic election, because forsooth
the Republican party had lost votes
there. In nearly eightycounties this
committee found that some irregu-
larities, not clearly political, had
occurred in three counties near the
State Capital, and the notorious
Redpath, its clerk and chosen de-
tectise, wrote out report that this
sovereign State (as sovereign and
independent as is the State of Mich
igan) ought to be reduced to state
colonial vassalage. A Massachu-
sets Senator, chairman of the COM
miLtee signed and presented it to
the Senate, where It lie, buried so
deep in public contempt, that even
partisan bitterness and sectional
hatred dare not touch its putrid
corpse.
And now, on the eve of Presi-
dental election, comes the new mil
itary order of the President, "quar-
tering large bodies of troops" upon
the South to act in concert with |
a swarm of United States Marshals
in this work of intimidation and |
oppression.
Mr.. Scott Lords resolution,
passed by the House, which de-
clares that the civil courts should |
protect the rights and privileges of
all classes and conditions, is in
sort of cold-blooded derision, in
into this "bayonet order"
as authority for using government
troops and hireling partisan officials
and not courts of justice to enforce
laws and decide important consti-
tutional rights. This process of
contemptously overriding the
rights of States by both executive
and legislative acts is as yet for
pure partisans reasons, limited to
the Southern States, and little by |
little the Northern mind is brought /
to admit, and then IN the zeal of par
to defend Federal usur-
pations that four years ago would
have shocked and appalled, the
whole public mind. Federal bayo-
nets in our State Houses culling
out obnoxious members Squads
Of Federal soldiers traversing in
ca-cerating citizens upon the Volt
ton of an irresponsible official I'M
der the pretense of protecting the
purity of elections f! An unknown
and bondless detective, furnished
without authority of law, with over
4 hundred thousand dollars from
contingent funds, and sent into our
commercial capital to purify the
,oll lists on his own unguarded ex-
,enditure These are fearful
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