The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1877-03-15
The Army in Politics.

The closing hours of the Forty fourth
Congress will pass into history as memo
rable for the vindication of the right of
the peoples Representatives to hold the
purse strings of the nation, and in the
exercise of that right to check Executive
encroachments. After prolonged and
angry struggle over the Presidential
question, which had seemingly divided
the Democratic party during the last
days of the contest into two wings, they
we're reunited in an instant and welded
together in solid mass when this great
principle was assailed.
The Army bill reported by the commit
tee of the House contained two leading
elements. First, a reduction of the force
from twenty-five thousand to seventeen
thousand men; and secondly, prohibi-
ton against the President using any part
of the money or the troops thus granted,
in sustaining illegal governments in
South Carolina and Louisiana. Twenty
years ago the Republicans, then major
ity in the House, tackled on similar
condition to the Army bill, making it
applicable to Kansas.
when free speech and free immigra-
ton into that Territory were to be de-
Tended, the Republicans of that day, in
the freshness of their youth and in their
fidelity to the principle which called that
party into existence, demanded that a
Democratic President should not use the
army to aid or abet in the extension of
slavery. They were right then. Now,
when it is proposed to curb the Execu-
tive and to defend the rights of the
States against oppression, to protect lib
erty and to put down tyranny and fraud,
some of the same men and the same par
ty, grown corrupt, and loose, and demor-
allied, turn around and renounce the
very principle which gave them ghe only
claim to popular confidence and sup
port.
The Senate, led by Blaine and seconded
by all the extremists, would neither &C.
cept the reduction of the army nor yield
to the clause prohibiting the use oftroops
to maintain Packard and Chamberlain.
Nor would they even submit to any
diminution of tie great pay emoluments
now received by our superhuous Gener-
ais and their magnificent stats. Repeat
ed conferences we're in vain. The revo-
lutionary leaders who are now striving
for the possession of Hayes, and are
inimical to every suggestion of concil-
iatory policy, determined to, force this
issue, and thus to drive the more moder-
ate wing of the Republican party into
line.
The House of Representatives stood up
bravely and faithfully to its duty, and
insisted upon maintaining its position
and the Army bill was lost by the obsti-
macy of Hayes professed friends in the
Senate. No injury will be inflicted on
the service or on the country by this
mishap. We rejoice at the failure, be-
cause public attention will now be drawn
to the huge military establishment which
the people are required to support by
oppressive taxation, and to the disgrace
| full abuses which have grown up under
it. The money for the army is already
appropriated for the current fiscal year
to the S0th of June, or four months
ahead. There is abundant time for re-
Election, and if an extraordinary session
of Congress be required, why, let it come.
Meantime, the Fraudulent President will
have shown his hand by acts, and his
intentions for the future can be better
gagged than is now possible.
During the last eight years, the army
has been used as great machine to pull
down honest and set upfraudulent gov
ernments in the South; or in other
words, to uphold one party and to defeat
another. The spectacle recently pre-
sented in South Carolina, florida, and
Louisiana, was not only humiliation to
American character, which has submit
ted tamely to these repeated scandals
under Grant, but was an outrage upon
the name of free institutions. Step by
step we have been following in the
beaten paths which lead to military des-
potism.
Now, when a Fraudulent President
has been installed in Office, who sooner
or later must fall into the hands of the
most desperate leaders, and who is al.
ready ruled by the corrupt counsels of
John Sherman and his Ring, the House
of Representatives, speaking and acting
for the people, will take no cheap pro-
fessions and canting phrases for guaran-
tees. They have locked the doors of the
Treasury after the 1st. of July, and Hayes
cannot repeat the burglary by which lie
entered the White House, without being
confronted with penalties that he is not
anxious to seek. If he and his friends
mean what of late they pretend, what
need is there of this great standing army
with an expenditure of more than forty
millions year?-Ne,c York Sun.