Centre Democrat. [volume] (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1848-1989, 1880-09-02
GARFIELD's FRIEND ON HANCOCK.
PARIS, July Is, 1880.


TO the Editor Of the World: SIR
A cable dispatch reached me at Lon
don, whence answered it more briefly
perhaps than you expected, but |
thought intelligently enough. Your
later dispatch, which came to me here
yesterday, now reply to by mail.
inferred from your interrogatory
that some evil-disposed persons had
been attributing to me the authorship
of the orders and letters issued by
Gen. Hancock while he commanded
in Louisiana and Texas. My denial
by telegraph was intended to cover the
whole ground. neither wrote those
papers or suggested a word of them !;
! had no prerognition of his views on
the subject to which they relate and
heard nothing from him about it un-
til he had taken the public into his
confidence. Indeed, my personal ac-
quaintance with him was then very
slight, and our relations not at all in
innate. The opinion that I would
offer or he would require my aid in
producing such an order as his No.
40 is absurd. His determination to
stand by the Constitution and the
laws needed no expression but what he
could give it better than any man
alive. 1t was not an essay on rights of
man that was wanted at that critical
time. The spoken act of patriot
soldier in high command alone could
save civil liberty from the destruction
with which it was threatened. That
was what Hancock did, and it was the
timeliest life that the great cause ever
got from any hand except that of
Washington.
/ hope my admiration of the order
in question and the gratitude / have
felt to him for issuing it can be reason
ably accounted for without supposing
that | framed or had any share in
framing it. The belief was general
among the friends of constitutional
liberty, and expressed by many others
as strongly as by me, that General
Hancock had done much, and done it
bravely, to rescue the Nation and save
it alive, first from secessionists, and
afterwards from the more dangerous
and more unprincipaled oligarchy into
whose hands it fell after the war. At
the date of his service in Louisiana the
beau ideal of Strong government"
was in full operation at Washington,
conducted by men who claimed to be
absolute masters of the country. State
rights, and as a necessary consequence,
individual liberty, were violently trod-
den down, and the Constitution which
should have made us free was habitu-
ally over-ridden and insulted. What
those men called "the government"
was not only wondrous strong, but cor
rupt beyond all example in modern
times. Between its force and its fraud
the people were powerless, and their
despair was aggravated by an indefna-
BILE dread that the whole army might
at any moment be used to sink the
Nation into still further degradation,
If below that lowest depth of lower
deep could be reached. 1t was in
these circumstances that Hancock
spoke out those words of truth and
soberness which treasured the friends.
OF free government and inspired them
with new hopes. All who were near
enough to watch the current of that
unequaled contest between abolition
ism and law can remember how the
enemies of the Constitution were star
tied and scared when they found that
the most brilliant General of the Union
had officially declared himself opposed
to their savage policy" They could
not go upon him, nor send upon him,
nor in any manner destroy him, for not
only was the law Of the land on his
side, but the army was found to be full
ofsympathy with it, conspicuously gal
liant and faithful leader. So they we're
fain to content themselves with harm-
less sneers and petty prosecutions. But
they removed him from the place
where his devotion to the Constitution
was specially interfering with their
schemes to subvert IL. When they
made up their minds to strsngle the
liberties Of State, disperse a legal
Legislature by brute force, to inaugu-
rate for Governor : shameless adven-
turer known to have been defeated Mt
the polls, or to pin the people down
with bayonets while they were plum
dered BY alien thieves who claimed to
be their representatives and officers,
somebody else was employed to do the
infamous work. Still more carefully |
did they avoid his presence when the |
whole nation was to be swindled at .
Presidential election. It was for such |
reasons that the heart Of the country
to Gen. Hancock as it's pre- |
=