The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1877-08-23
The Reduction of the Army and the
Establishment Of Militia.
From. The New Orleans Democrat.
I,1 ,1.e,,1NcnoN Aurret 8 1877

From The New Orleans Democrat.
WASHINGTON, August 2, 1877.
If the strike and riots which have just
disturbed the country shall prove insult:
fcient to arouse the American people tc
full sense of the dangers upon which
they have been driven by the unconstitu-
tional and centralizing policy of the Re
publican party, with the habits of profit.
gacy its political methods engendered
and the monstrous brood of soulless mo.
nopolies its 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 oi
expending our resources of denunciation
upon the mobs which have already been
suppressed by canister and hunger, we
will demand of those in authority and
entrusted with legislation remedy fo;
the evils in 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 deadlier evils
will spring up around us and strike their
pernicious roots deeper and more firmly
into our institutions. The wild riotings
which so recently startled and terrified
the country were but "the forests OF
gourds that overtop the infant cedars and
aloe trees, but like the prophets gourd:
wither on the third day." The riots
caused much suffering, destroyed much
property, and resulted in the loss of q
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
monopolies of the country, and to eman.
cipate trade and industry from the special
and 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 to the existing
order of things. We hear, also, of the
necessity of giving the Federal govern
ment control of the railways and tele'
graph, and, indeed, of every essential to
centralized government, with an igno-
rant and uncouth 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 and unscrupulous agencies
which had worked their misery, and
combined, would crush them under their
heel as though they were worms of the
dust.
COMMUNISM AND GENERALIZATION.
If in the midst of all 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-
ious. 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 pertinacity by many of the
ablest generals of the country, and we
need not be surprised if, 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.
I 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 q standing army
nor the propriety of turning over to the
general government the. control of the
railway and telegraph lines, nor of other
wise concentrating power and patronage
at Washington. What they do suggest
is the necessity of reversing the central
izing policy of the Republican party,
and returning to the strict Democratic
theory of government.
THE ARMY.
I have never been so thoroughly con-
vinced as I 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 it becomes necessary for the gen.
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 selfgovernment. The States may
continue for time to exercise by suffer
ance that right, but it 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 orgrnized militia. 1t is a
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 necessity is a
certain indication of the decay of civic
virtue among the people of the common
wealth, or Of the disgraceful imbecility
of its administration.
realize as fully as any one the impor-
tance of preserving civil order and re.
pressing lawless violence; but I confess
that when the arm of the President 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
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