The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1879-03-27
A. COMPROMISE PROBABLE.


Radicals and Democrats will reconcile
their differences on the appropriation
bills by a compromise of the political
legislation proposed. 1t is thought that
the President will not veto provision
abolishing the use of United States
troops in political canvasses and at the
polls, abolishing the test oath for jurors,
and prohibiting the use of United STATES
marshals in elections, and that the Dem
ocrats will agree to allow the continuance
Of the appointment of one supervisor of
election from each political party for
every election box, who shall be allowed
to witness the proceedings during every
election at which members Of Con-
gress are voted for, but abolishing the
rights of supervisors to make ar
rests under any circumstances. Upon
this programme it is understood that the
irrepressible conflict ~ which the Re-
publican organs have been narrowing
the country with accounts Of is not to
take place at this session of Congress, at
least. There is no real objection, practi-
cally, to the continuance of supervisors
of elections with the abridged powers
above set forth, except that it is COM
promise Of principle, and as such admits
a practice which may be taken as pre-
cedent to sustain any future legislation
which dominant party may see 6t to
enact with regard to elections. The
theory of the government, as understood
and administered for more than three
quarters of a century, when the govern
ment was pure and just, denied the right
of the general government to interfere
or control the States in the conduct of
elections in any manner whatever.
The result of the war;, it is true, has to
a large extent abridged the rights of the
States, and abolished forever the doc
trine of State sovereignty, but it is yet a
problem whether the Union of States
has been converted into a nation whose
law is the absolute will of the federal
government. Such construction would
be much to be deplored in every section,
for the peculiar feature of the American
republic which has promised it perpetui-
ty and high order of freedom is the check
and conservatism which is afforded by
the separate State governments, the
operations of which, to be of any
value whatever, must be free and
untrammelled by outside interference or
dictation. The sovereignty of the States
in an absolute sense is an exploded idea,
and it is we'll for it to be so if the people
of.the Union have the wisdom and patri.
otism to erect upon the ruins of this
absolute sovereignty the important and
grand system of constitutional State
sovereignty, which is by no means in-
consistent with the results of the war.
This modified idea of sovereignty may
be defined to be the absolute right Of the
State to exercise all powers not taken
from it by the Constitution of the United
States, which of course requires that
powers shall be exercised so as not to
conflict with the Constitution. This is
the object which the statesmen of to-day
ought to seek to establish, and in this
point of view we think Congress should
plant itself squarely upon principle,
denying to the General Government
the right to oversee and control State
in its exercise of its rights under the
constitution and laws Of the general gov
ernment. This is the only thing which
will save the free institutions of America.
If the general government has the right
to interfere in elections, as it has fire.
quently done; if the Federal Courts have
the right to set at defiance and annul the
process of the State Courts, as they have
repeatedly done; and if the Judges of
the Federal Courts have the authority to
supervise the manner in which State
Judges exercise even the duties imposed
upon them by State laws, as Judge Rives
has recently attempted in Virginia, then
the government will soon become not
only centralized but tyrannioal in pro-
portion as the administration is disposed
to usurp authority. These are the evils
which menace our government, and
against them it is the duty of the Demo
cratic Congress to contend. In order to
check this unjust course of the govern
ment, it is necessary to meet it squarely
and uncompromisingly. If it is right
that these things should be, none of the
present laws should be interfered with.
If it is wrong for them to be, so then the
whole of them should be repealed. To
compromise now will be to strengthen
the Republicans by admitting the prin-
ciple for which they contend, and with
much show of reason they can 60 before
the country claiming that the Democratic
party comedies the right of interference,
but wishes to repeal the particular Sec
tions which are thought to be in the way
of its party success. We hope no COM
promise will be made, and that the coun-
try will be called upon in the next can
vass to decide whether 1t intends to pre-
serve liberty or to pave the road for
despotism. Upon such an issue the De
mocracy would have immensely the ad-
vantage, and, with proper candidate,
would carry tho country with easy tri-
umph,