Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1879-07-05
THE WORK OF THE EXTRA SEES
Sion.


1%It is necessary to state that |
the first part of the following article
was written before the writer had |
learned the proceedings of the last
two days i'm Congress. These have
been so different from what was an
ticipated that considerable mOdifi-
cation is required of the positions
we had taken under an erroneous
hypothesis. These notifications
are made in the part of the article
which follows the line of asterisks.
After so keen party struggle as
that just closed by the adjournment
of Congress, it is natural to look
back and study the acts of the ma
tional Legislature with the purpose
of estimating their prospective con-
sequences. In other words, the
two questions are necessarily sug-
gested:
What has Congress done?
What will be the effects of it?
What Congress has done will be
pronounced much or little according
TO the way in which it is estimated.
If we are to answer the question by
looking at the measures passed the
answer will be s'little indeed" Be
sides passing the appropriation bills
in regular routine, the statute-bOok
contains the following provision
The money appropriated for the
army is none of it to be expended
in paying any part of the army
while it may be used "as n police
force to keep the peace at the polls
of any State"
That is all that appears on the
United States statute-book, and if
that were all, it would indeed be
little enough, for it would not re-
strain bold and INSCRIPTIONS eX-
eeutive officer for a moment from
doing whatever he might desire
with the army at the polls land it
is Just possible that a similar clause
may escape the Presidential veto in
reference to the pay of Assistant
Marshals appointed by the Presi-
dent.) 1t is evident that the refusal
of pay to soldiers while engaged in
keeping the peace at the polls is not
going to stand in the way of an un-
scrupulous President ordering the
mer wherever he may want them.
No soldier dare refuse an order be-
cause obedience to it may make his
pay uncertain for day or two; and
the President himself has said that
the Deputy Marshal clause in the
judiciary bill will not tie his hands
at all. But such as they are, there
is the legislation of the extra session.
But it is not on the pages of the
statutes at large that we are to
seek the work of the extra session /;
the way in which great constitu-
tional questions have been put and
argued, and the position taken by
the two great parties in reference to
them, this, for good or for evil, will
in the future be looked upon as the
work of the extra session, fraught
with incalculable results as regards
the balance of power under the Con-
stitutiOn. For good or for evil, we
say, and we confess ourselves una
BILE to determine whether the good
or evil will predominant. If we
were writing mere party editorial
our task might be easier, but we
are aiming at something higher
than this.
The debates of the extra session
have virtually OccasiOned a new
reading of the Constitution, and that
reading, if it stands, must exercise
immense influence on the future of
the nation, long after the present
party struggles shall have become a
matter of history or oblivion. By
this new reading, unless we are
taking a strangely erroneous view
of it, the money power has been
transferred from the legislative to
the executive branch of the Govern
ment, from Congress to the Presi-
dent.
1t would have been a small thing
If an empty, arrogant cOXcOmb like
COnkling had told us (as he did tell
us) that Congress had nothing to do
with the appropriations but to vote
them exactly as the various depart
ments have made the estimates for
them. This is in substance what
he did say, and no enc was surprised
or alarmed-fOr it was Mr.. COnk-
ling that said it. But very shortly
afterwards Messrs. Thurman and
Bayard and General Hampton took
what was virtually the same posi-
ton. They cOntended that under
no circumstances must Congress adj
journ without making the appropri-
ations. To say this beforehand is
to say to the President that he may
draw up the appropriation bills
himself, or at least prescribe the
terms of them at his pleasure. He
has only to veto them one after
another, as he has been doing all
this extra session, until one is pre-
sented to him which suits him, and
then pass it when it has become not
a measure of Congress but his meas
ure; and so the Government of the
United States ceases to be repre-
sentative Government and becomes
a bureaucracy; a mere administrat-
i've system carried ON at the discre-
ton of the executive departments.
That this is not the Constitution
established in 1889, that Jefferson
and Madison and even Hamilton
did not so understand it is manifest
from the fact that whenevera stand
ing army was objected to in those
days as furnishing the means of
despOtism, the answer was given
that Congress votes the supplies on
which the pay and transportation