The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1880-10-06

natural ascendancy In the poPuIa
heart. First, the Federal House c
Representatives was redeemed the
the Senate, and in 1876 an over
whelming majority of the people al
tested their devotion to free prin
ciples by voting for a Democrats
/ President. This looked like sue
cessfuI, win dication of free govern
ment, but it was not. The anti-con
stitutionaI party has an advantage
which more than connterbalance
the strength of the people. 1t car
cheat at elections, it can falsify the
count, it can forge returns. There
the respect that makes calamity o.
SO long life
We are about to repeat the exper'
iment. We may be swindled again,
but there is not any doubt that our
honest majority is greater than it
was before. The issues are all with
us and the accidents are not against
us. Our candidate is not only un-
exceptionable, but admirable, and
has the unbounded confidence of the
whole country in his talents, integ.
rity and patriotism.
The impulses Of personal friend,
ship ard the duties of fair political
opposition alike require me to speak
of General Garfield. intellectually
he is the first among the politicians
of his party-not the sharpest or
strongest, but the most gifted and
best cultivated. His private life is
stainless, and in everything uncon-
nected with politics his behavior is
regulated by principles of the sound
est morality. But in public affairs
he does not act upon his convictions
when be passes into the domain
of politics his conscience loses It's
grip; and for his party he is willing
to do any wrong which will promote
their interests, or play any card
how false soever which will win
them power. This surrender of his
moral and mental integrity is the
condition upon which he holds his
high place in the affections of the
party he belongs to. Treachery to
his country is fidelity to his faction.
If at any time in the last fifteen
years he had given way to his own
sense of right, supported the Con-
stitution and laws in q spirit of pure
Justice, refused to defile himself
With election frauds, withheld his
from executive corrup.
lion or denounced the forcible in
stalment of thieves in State offices,
ne would have converted himself
nto a Democrat and been expelled
rom the communion of the anti
party.
This moral prostitution to bad po-
itical purposes is far from being un'
Men naturally good have
yielded to it in all times and in all
countries where there is a party un
enough to demand it and
strong enough to reward it. But
Garfeld's public career
more striking examples of
t than the history of any individual
have known. Let me give you a
case: After the war-at a time Of
perfect peace-in the State of Indi-
ana, where no war had ever been,
certain military officers, being in
structed from Washington that they
we're above the civil authorities, had
and were about to kill
three citizens for no ofense
defined by any law and without the
pretence of a trial by court or jury.
If this could be done there was man.
Ifestiy no security left for life Or
property. Plainly it could not be
done without fat violation of the
Constitution. viii ch in express terms
forbade it. But the men who then
ruled us with rod of iron insisted
upon it and we could not be certain
that the judges, State and national,
might, not be subdued by their infiu-
snce. The hearing of the case before
the Supreme Court was d great cri-
sis in the constitutional history Of
our country. There was place in
the argument which nobody could
fill so we'll as General Garfield, and
l besought him to help US in this
desperate extremity to rescue Am
erican liberty from the utter destruc-
tion with which it was threatened.
He responded with noble alacrity,
and made great argument in which
he proved not only the continued ex-
istence, but the inestimable value Of
the Constitution. He demonstrated
that the right of trial by jury at all
times and all places was indestructi-
BILE, aud That any officer, civil or mil
itary, would violate his oath if he
attempted to put the military above
the civil authority. He affirmed the
whole Democratic doctrine on the
subject aad showed it TO be incon-
testibly right. His sincerity was un-