Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-08-20
General HancOcks Letter.

The letter of General Hancock ac-
cepting the Democratic nomination for
the Presidency is published. The
brevity would be commendable were
there not painful consciousness on the
part both of the reader and the writer
that the resort to glittering generalties
is caused by General uancock's almost
total want of acquaintance with the
political questions now at issue before
the country.
The ostentations declaration that the
amendments to the Constitution are
parts of that instrument, and as such are
inviOlable, the reader will understand,
has been forced as a necessity upon
General Hancock by the recent publica-
tiOn of his letterto Mr.. Glover, in which
he cordially approved the Democratic
platform of 1868, in which those amend
ments and the whole series of Recon-
struction acts were declared to be un-
constitutional and void. The publioa-
cation OF that letter has compelled the
General to make this declaration that
the three amendments are part of the
supreme law of the land. His previous
atiirmance of the uncOnstitutionality of
the Reconstruction acts he permits to
stand. To do otherwise would be to
stamp his own record at New Orleans
with the hand ofresistanCe and violation
of the law of the land,
General Hancock avoids, ignores, the
great question at issue between the
Republican and Democratic parties, as
to the Nationality of the United States.
lie carefully refuses to recognize such
Nationality, or to even admit that if
elected he will be the Executive of a
National Government. His theory that
the Government of the United States
is made up in part by the local Govern
ments of the States is an attempt to
| give the doctrine of State-supremacy,
as opposed to National sovereignty, a
new application. The Governments of
the States have no central or directing
authority, in any form, as part of tho
Government of the United States
They exist and exercise all their DOW
ers in subordination TO the National
authority. They are purely local Gov
ernments of purely local political cor
porations, and when the exercise of
powers by the State Governments and
by the National Government clash or
NoAho III CbhulOl bub olhl6 dulnOflIy,
being of necessity the inferior, must,
from a like necessity, be subordinate,
and must be silent. Where General
Hancock got his idea that the
State Governments are part of
the Government of the United
States we do not know; but the
use Of such language looks like
an attempt to assert the pernicious
doctrine of State-supremacy, and that
the Union exists by the permission of
the States, and that it is the creature
of the States. The Union is a National
Union; it has a National Government,
and General Hancock cannot by any
form of words obscure that fact, nor
divert the attention of the country
from the other fact that the Democratic
party deny the Nationality of the
Union and the supreme National char
acter of the Government. The Nation
ality is the main pillar in the edihce OF
American independence, and on the
preservation of that Nationality expe-
rience has shown depends the National
safety, not only against foreign foes,
but also against domestic insuireotion,
rebellion and the cost and horrors OF
civil war.
! General Hancock will find that he