Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1879-07-25
The Great Issue of Next Year.

The issues of that contest are already
made. We do not have to wait fol
their enumeration by the National con
ventions of the parties. The extra ses
sion of Congress was designed to make
these issues, and it has made them
They are presented on different qucs
tions and in different forms, but all
embody one single thought, so far as
the Democracy are concerned, and
may be written in two words-these
words are estate sovereignty" The
doctrine is contained in every political
measure for which the Democracy in
Congress contended, and its utterance
found in every bill introduced and
every speech made by Democrats dur.
ing the session. These were briefly
summarized by Mr.. Garfield, in the
House, on the 9th of June, and quota
tions made from the record to sustain
them.
They are: First, there are no Nation
al elections; second, the United States
has no voters; third, the States have
the exclusive right to control all elec-
tions of members of Congress; fourth,
the Senators and Representatives in
Congress are State officers, or, as they
have been called during the present
session, ambassadors or "agents "
of the State; fifth, the United States has
no authority to keep the peace any
where within State, and, in fact, has
no peace to keep; sixth, the United
States is not Nation endowed with
sovereign power, but is a confederacy
of States; seventh, the States are SOW
ereignties possessing inherent supreme
powers. They are older than the
Union, and as independent sovereign
ties the State Governments created the
Union and determined and limited the
powers of the General Government.
These declarations embody the sum
total of the Constitutional doctrines
which the Democracy has avowed dur
| ing this extra session of Congress.
These propositions form body of doc
trines which are more extreme than
was ever before held on this subject,
except, perhaps, at the very crisis of
secession and rebellion.
And these have not been set forth as
abstract theories of government. True
TO the logic of their convictions the
majority have sought to put them in
practice by affirmative acts of legisla-
ton.
First, they have denounced as uncon-
stitutional all attempts of the United
States to supervise, regulate or protect
National elections, and have tried to
repeal all laws on the National statute
book enacted for that purpose. Second,
following the advice given by Calhoun
in his political testament to his party,
they have tried to repeal all those por-
tions of the venerated judiciary act of
1889, the act of 1882 against nullifica-
tion, and the act of 1861 and the acts
amendatory thereof, that provide for
carrying to the Supreme Court of the
United States all controversies which
relate to the duties and authority of any
officer acting under the constitution and
laws of the United States. Third, they
have attempted to prevent the Presi-
dent from enforcing the laws of the
Union by refusing necessary supplies
and by forbidding the use of the army
to suppress violent resistance to the
laws, by which, if they had succeeded.
they would have left the citizens and
the authorities free to obey or disobey
the laws of the Union as they might
choose.
The counter propositions, which are
equally well condensed by MIR. Garfield,
and which embody the doctrines of the
Republican party are these: First that
the Constitution of the United States
was not created by the Governments of
the States, but was ordained and estab-
lished by the only sovereign of this
country-the common superior of both
the States and the Nation-the people
nar 1CnlU 4haX III
States is Nation, having a Govern
meht whose powers, as defined and
limited by the Constitution, operate
upon all the States in their corporate
capacity, and upon all the people;
third, that by its legislative, executive
and judicial authority the Nation is
armed with adequate power TO enforce
all the provisions of the Constitution
against all opposition of individuals or
of States at all times and places within
the Union.
From the close of the war until
within the past twelve months it was
supposed that this issue was forever
settled. The Democracy did not dare
TO make the issue in the North in the
Presidential contest in 1876. 1t was
supposed that the doctrine of the right
of State, in her sovereign capacity, to
determine whether she should remain
in or withdraw from the Union was
settled forever by the rebel surrender.
Now we are told by the Democracy that
nothing was settled except the superior
resources of the North.
The Natchez San, of date June 80,
in a well written editorial, defines the
position of the Democracy as follows:
"The late war of the Confederacy
settled nothing, that is, settled no prin-
| ciple of Government, except that the
strongest rule. Its result could not
contradict facts. and it is certain that
the very arguments once used to pre-
vent the adoption of the Constitution
by the States, are now used to over
throw that Constitution.
"That this United States is, as its
name denotes, a union of sovereign
States in confederacy, and that this
is no Nation; that the Federal Govern
ment is strictly bound by the Constitu-
tion establishing it; and that the SEN
ators and Representatives in Congress,
and the President, are servants having
no original, but only granted powers;
and that each State is sovereign in its
own people and over its own territory,
are facts which were urged by Wash
ington, Madison, Monroe, Jay, Hamil-
ton, and by all the patriots who lived
at the inception of our Government.
Nothing can contradict these facts.
No Southern Democrat can afford to do
so, unless he can afford to stultify him
self, or, in plain English, write himself
down an ass. For the facts are sus-
ceptible of close proof, and our bitter
and long war was not undertaken on
slight grounds, or on mistaken grounds,
but upon grounds as clear as light, and
its result settled only the fact that the
enemy had the better resource.
"We have not been writing mere
rawlings for some months past, but the