The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1877-08-23
The Reduction Of the Army and the
Establishment OF q Militia.
WAsuINGToN. Aug,s, . 1877.
FROM the ke,r Orieans Democrat.


ficient to arouse the American people to
full sense of the dangers upon which
they have been driven by the unconstitu-
tional and centraIiziDg policy of the Re-
publican party, with the habits of profit
gacy its political methods engendered,
and the moustrous brood of s0u!iess mo-
nOpolies "a administration created, there
is little prospect of peace for us in the
future.
No such uprising Of any class OF the
population has ever occurred in any civ
ilized country without an adequate cause
and if we are wise and just, instead of
expending our resources of denunciation
upon the mobs which have already been
suppressed by canister and hunger, wo
will demand of those in authority and
entrusted with legislation remedy for
the evils III our system which have excl
ted the working people to law breaking
and violence.
If such remedy be not promptly dis
covered and applied, far deadlie- evils
will spring up around us aud strike their
pernicious roots deeper and more firmly
into our institutions. The wild rotings
which SO recently startled and terrified
the country were but "the forests of
gourds that overtop the infant cadars and
aloe trees, but like the prophets gourds
wither on the third day." The riots
caused much suffering, destroyed much
property, and resulted in the loss of a
number of lives. That is all they did in
the way of harm, and they are over now
but new life and vigor have been Impair
ted to the centralizing ideas of the late
administration.
We do not hear so much of the
measures of craftsmanship necessary to
control the Overgrown corporations and
moEop0lies of the country, and to eman-
cipate trade and industry from the special
end unwise legislation, which are at the
bottom of our late troubles, as we do of
the need Of a great standing army to
suppress insurrection and compel the
submission of the people 10 the existing
order of things. We near, also, of the
necessity of giving the Federal govern
ment control of the railways and tele-
graph, and, indeed. OF every essential IN
centralized government. with an igno-
rant ard Ill couth aristocracy of monopo-
lists, with the manners of the slums, out
of which three fourths of them sprang !;
of army officers and corrupt and subser-
Went politicians. Many even of the
miserable fools who composed the howl
ing mobs of last week, cried out for this
combination and concentration Of the
powerful aud unscrupulous agencies
which had worked their misery, and,
combined, would crush them under their
heel ss though they were worms of the
dust.
COMMUNISM AND GENERALIZATION.
IF in the midst of ell the turmoil, and
following its cessation, we had heard only
of Communism, there would be little to
apprehend. The impracticability of
Communism renders its advocates, ex-
cept as rioters and robbers, quite innox-
i0us. But the theories of government,
to which the troubles have given such
aggressive prominence, while threatening
to our free institutions and to the peace
and security of the country, are not only
practical theories, but extremely fascina
ting theories.
The policy of largely increasing the
army in particular is advanced and urged
with renewed peftinacity by many OF the
ablest generals of the country, and we
need not be surprised il, when Congress
assemblies, we find many halfwitted
Democrats and Democratic papers crawl
ing on their knees to apologize for with
holding the appropriations for the army
asked for at the last session, and ready
and eager to concede any demand the
administration or the Republican leaders
may make for an increase of the army
and navy.
1 trust, however, that the common
sense of the people will see the folly of
all such propositions. The late riots do
not suggest the need of standing army
nor the propTiety oi turning over to the
general government the. control of the
railway and telegraph lines, nor of other
at washington. What thew n"o do pAsaUnags surgess
is the necessity of reversing the Genital.
izing policy of the Republican party.
and returning to the strict Democratic
theory Of government.
THE ARMY.
have never been SO thuroughly con.
vinced as am now that the army should
be abolished, or at least reduced to the
number of men needed to defend the
frontier and protect the public property.
When u becomes necessary for the gem
eral government to interpose to preserve
the peace, maintain the laws and protect
property in the several States, there will
be an end of the principle or right of
local selEgovernment The States NAV
continue for time to exercise by suffer-
ance that right, but il will be by suffer
ance only. The time of the utter de.
struction of the right will depend upon
the caprice or convenience of the central
power at Washington. The surest safe.
guard of the public peace, the safest
power to aid the civil authority in time
of public discomfort, and at the same
time, to preserve and protect the rights
of the States and the liberties of the peo-
pie, is we'll Organized militia. 1t is
scandalous shame that the Governor Of
any State of the American Union should
have found it necessary to call upon the
Federal government to repress disorders
within its borders. Such q necessity il
certain indication of the decay of civic
virtue among the people of the common
wealth, or of tho disgraceful imbecility
of its administration.
realize rs fully as any one the impor-
tance of preserving civil orde- and re
pressing lawless violence; but / confess
that when the arm of the Pre.i1aat was
invoked by Governors of sovereign States
to maintain their authority, and the reg.
ular army was called upon to fire upon
and shoot down American citizens, the
Federal government assumed, to nv i'm
agination, at least, much of the grim and
ff0r5;daa::H5 aspect of dcspo:is;f, and I
could not represe a sentiment of con-
tempt ior the degraded STATES 100 feeble
and spiritless to maintain their own