The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1877-11-08
licious forms of human food. Why
should not the British workmen have
cheaper food? Why should not our far.
mcrs have a great market? Why should

cheaper 1OOQ ny Suoulu HOl Jul 1at
mcrs have great market? Why should
not our carriers have the transportation
Let us remember that commercial ex-
changes must have some element of mu-
tuality. Whoever obstructs the means
of payment, obstructs also the facilities OF
sale. We must relax our barbarous rcve-
nue. system so as not unnecessarily to re-
tard the natural processes of trade. We
must no longer legislate against the
wants of humanity and the bencfcence
of God. Applause.
The election now impending involves
the choice of the State officers who COM
pose the administrative boards. Gov
Robinson's Administration has been
characterized by incorruptible integrity,
by wisdom and ability, and by unswerT-
ing fidelity to the reforms that have re-
duced the State taxes one-half; that are
rapidly extinguishing the State debt;
that have retrenchcd two and half mil
lions a year of the expenditures upon
public works; and have purified our
great official trusts. lie needs and has a
right to have the cordial cooperation of
those officers, which, in the Government
of the United States and other systems,
form the Cabinet of the chief Executive.
In my Judgment the gentlemen in nomi'
nation will cooperate in the reform poll
cv which had the honor to inaugurate,
and which Gov. Robinson is consum-
mating. | think that their election and
the changes that will take place from the
constitutional amendments, adopted in
1876, will give him more united sup
port in the Canal Board than l was able
to receive during my administration. |
have the more satisfaction in avowing
this conviction because believe that any
nominations that did not promise such
cooperation, would be disowned by the
Democratic masses.
The election, although for State Off
GERS, has relations to national politics, to
which know you will expect me to al
lude. You are all quite aware Of the re-
suits of the contest Of 1876. Voices:
"We are sick of it," "We know you got
robbed" No, did not get robbed the
people got robbed. Great applause.
/ had, on one hand, a course of laborious
service, in which health and even life
might be imperilled; on the other hand,
l had a period of relaxation here and
abroad to recuperate from the exhaustion
that in YOUR service I had incurred, but
to the people it was Il robbery OF the
dearest rights of the American citizen.
The condemnation by the people of the
greatest political crime in our history, by
which the result of the Presidential elec-
ton of 1876 was set aside and reversed,
is general and overwhelming. Her sister
States might afford to have the voice OF
New York frittered away or its express
sion deferred. 1t could not change his.
tory; it could not alter the universal
Judgment of the civilized world; it could
not avert the moral retribution that is
impending. But New York herself can
not afford to have her voice unheard.
The Declaration of Independence, the
Bills of Right, and the State Constitu,
tions all contain assertions of the right OF
the people to govern themselves and to
change their rulers at will. These decla-
rations had ceased to have any meaning
to the American mind. They seemed to
be truisms which there was nobody to
dispute. The contests known to us were
contests between different portions of our
people.
these declarations, it is necessary to carry
ourselves back to the examples of human
experience in view of which our ances-
tors acted. They had seen the govern
mental machine and a small govern
mental class, sometimes with the aid of
the army, able to rule arbitrarily over
millions of unorganized, isolated atoms
of human society. In forming the Gov
eminent of United States they endeavor-
ed to take every precaution against the
recurrence of such evils in this country.
They kept down the standing army to
nominal amount. They intended to
limit the functions of the Federal Gov
ernment so as to prevent the growth, to
dangerous dimensions, of an office-hold-
ING class and of corrupt influences. They
preserved the State Governments as
counterpoise to act as centres of opinion
and as organized means of resistance to
revolutionary usurpation by the Federal
Government. Jefferson, the leader OF
liberal opinion, in his first inaugural, re-
cognized this theory. Hamilton, the
representative of the extreme conserva-
tive sentiment, in the FSleralisf, ex-
Rounded it with elaborate arguments.
Madison, the father of the Constitution,
enforced these conclusions. :.
The increase of power in the Federal
Government during the last twenty years,
the creation of vast office-holding class,
with its numerous dependents, and the
growth of the means of corrupt influence,
have we'll nigh destroyed the balance of
our complex system. 1t was my judg-
ment in 1876 that public opinion, de-
handing change of administration,
needed to embrace two-thirds Of the peo-
ple at the beginning of the canvass, in
order to cast majority of votes at the
election.
If this tendency is not arrested, its in
eyitable result will be the practical de-
struction of our system. Let the FEEDER
al Government grasp power over the
great corporations of our country and ac-
ouire the means of addressing their in
terests and their fears; let it take juris-
diction of riots which it is the duty of the
State to suppress; let it find pretexts for
increasing the army, and soon those in
possession of the Government will have
power with which no opposition can sue
cessfully compete. The experience OF
France under the Third Napoleon shows
that, with elective forms and universal
suffrage, despotism can be established
and maintained.
In the canvass of 1876 the Federal
Government embarked in the contest
with unscrupulous activity. A member
of the Cabinet was the head of a partisan
committee. Agents stood at the doors of
the pay offices to exact contributions
from official subordinatcs. The whole
otfice-holding class were made to exhaust
their power. Even the army, for the first
time, to the disgust of the soldiers and
many of the officers, was moved about
the country as an electionecring instru.
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