The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1877-01-25
The Political Situation.

MIR. Watterson, NJ. c., from Kentucky
and editor of the Courier-Jou1mah has
written remarkable letter to his paper
from Washington. = He sketches the
Radical conspiracy and its master-spirits
with graphic power, showing that the
plot has lost nothing of its vigor and the
movers of it none Of their determination:
Indeed, some recent events at the South
have given aid and comfort to the enemy.
We give Mr.. Watterson's conclusions a
conspicuous place. They are as follows ::
"The people must act for themselves.
Without their support the House of
Representatives is powerless. A COR
poral's guard may disperse it. The ar
rest of half q dozen of its members would
demoralize it. Anything, everything is
possible to those who oppose themselves
to the conspirators. But unless the peo-
pie act there will be no need Of violence
on the part of the conspirators. They
will proceed without regard to precedents
or facts with their plan to put the de-
featcd candidate for President in the
White House, leave Congress to pursue
its policy of impotenJ protest, and, hay
ing weathered the 9TH of March, saywith
omplacency to such a question, What
are you going to do about it?'
"Is there no peaceful remedy! L thlnk
there is. There is the right OF position,
which, adequately presented and urged,
becomes power. The Democrats 40
not include civil war in the list Of their
resources. Civil war is not red-tape
affair. 1t does not come in the regula-
ton way. Nor is it likely to happen
ever until all the peaceful methods for
the redress of grievances have been ex-
hausted. The Democratic party plants
itself upon the law and the facts. 1t de-
clares that the vote of no State shall be
counted without the consent of both
houses of Congress. No State vote has
ever been or ought to be. Since the
foundation of the Government to the
present time. including the evidence fur
nished by the Republican leaders them
selves, all authority sustains this position.
On it the Democratic party plants itself,
and means to stand until it is driven OFT
at the point OF the bayonet. 1t is for our
people to determine, therefore, whether
this shall be done. If they will rise in
their might, and, exercising the peaceful
right of petition, memorialize the Senate
to do its duty, to do that which every Re-
publican member of the Senate is COM
mitted to, and will send q hundred thou
sand petitioners to Washington on the
14Lh of February to present the memo
rial in person, there will be no usurpa-
ton and no civil war The consplrators
will be thwarted. There will be Repub-
licans enough in the Senate to defeat
them, and we shall have the Presidential
result settled by well-establishcd Consti-
tutional methods. Otherwise those Re-
publican Senators who wish to do right,
Seeing that the country is going to sub
nit, will submit too, and we shall drift
into new era of popular discomfort, the
end Of which no man can see.
"The Convention called to assemble in
Louisville should consider these things.
There is little complexity whatever in the
situation. All that I have written here
may be relied upon with absolute assu-
rance. 1t is no pleasure to write such
things but they should be written simply
and distinctly. If the Convention wishes
to do something, let it take ground firm
ly, not noisily, for the joint right of the
two Houses, fortified as it is by all prece-
dent; and having thus memoralizcd the
Senate, let it provide for the presence OF
at least ten thousand unarmed Kentuck-
ians in this city on the coming 18th OF
February. Less than this will be Of no
avail. So much, supplemented as it will
be bv other States, will secure through
civil agencies the peaceful settlement oi
the most dangerous issue that ever men.
aced the existence Of free government y