The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1880-08-26
Address of the Democratic Executive
Committee 10 the People Of South
Carolina.

COIlHlittcC W INV i CopA0 VI S""eAA
Carolina.
The Democratic party has again pre-
sented to the country its platform of
principles and its candidates for office.
The record attests the good faith and
honesty of both.
The platform is q plain and simple
assertion of the principles of the Consti-
tuition as it is, and officials of the gov
ernment selected from and by the Demo-
cratic party are guided by it in the con.
duct Of their Offices.
The duties of each officer are prescribed
by law, written law, and when they are
faithfully performed it is the law that
rules, and not the individual who hap
pens to personate it. Indeed, the faith
full discharge of official duty is necessary
to this rule of law, on which depends
the peaceful enjoyment by the people of
all the liberty, justice and regulated
order that their system of government is
capable of afording. Honest observance
of official obligations is necessity to the
maintenance and perpetuity of this gov
ernment of the people by the people.
Should our government of law, faith.
fully administered, fail to meet tine de-
mands of the people, the mode is plainly
prescribed by law for such alteration
and amendment as may, from time to
time, become necessary. Any stretch OF
official power, to meet any supposed de-
mand, is to that extent the exercise Of
unlawful or arbitrary power, and to that
extent destructive of our governmental
system-is, in fact, substitution of per-
sonal for official power, which is antago'
nistic to both the letter and the spirit OF
our institutions.
However worthy the motive or urgent
the emergency may be the exercise OF
personal power by even the most patriot
ic officer should be watched and checked,
as it opens the way for faithless and de-
signing officials to use the machinery OF
government for its subyersion.
It is to maintain these principles in
the conduct of the government that the
Democracy is arraying its strength fol
the coming conflict.
Whatever may have been the original
object and purposes of our great antago
mist, the Republican party, however
honest and patriotic its platforms and
candidates may once have been, it would
seem that their organization was cap
tured in the hour Of their triumph by
faithless, self.seeking officials, whose
construction of the Constitution as tc
their mowers would have made the mis-
guided but patriotic old Federalists
against whom Jefferson waged war an(
raised the people in their might, stand
aghast with horror. The old ship tha
was steered through the stormy sea o
rebellion without the loss of q spar hat
barely reached smooth water when sht
was boarded by these pirates and usce
to plunder and destroy what she wa!
built to protect. Its flag which wa:
borne with such enduring pluck throug
the bloody battles of protracted war
was seized by treacherous hands ane
made the standard of an arbitrary power
infinitely more dangerous to American
institutions of liberty than the armeo
array of the world. Under the shadow
of its folds the old fortress of the Consti
tuition was dismantlcd and its armamen
moved to "camp outside" Govern
mental organization was subordinated tt
party organization, Constitutional power
was suppIanted by extra-Constitutiona
force, and the mandates of party wers
substituted for the laws of the land.
Is it strange that this mode of con-
Quoting q constitutional government
should render necessary the expedients
of fraud and force? The employment
of both is prime necessity to it. It is
an impossibility without infamous be-
trayal of trust on the part of officials
sustained by the force of extra-constitu'
tional organization.
The practical result of all this is dl
facto centralized government, the powers
of which are limited only by the discre-
ton of its officials.
Thanks to the wisdom of the fathers
of the republic, the exercise of this dis
cretionary power is curbed by obstacles
Inherent in tue matchless system itself
which they framed. The officials
through whom tie powers of government
are operated are all, from the President
to the humblest municipal officer, sworn
to support the Constitution and laws Of
the country; and the extent to which
arbitrary rule is practicable is in proper.
ton to the faithlessness of these officials
Where all are true to their trusts it is
impossible. Where all are faithless ar.
bitrary government is fully equipped
with the machinery necessary Tor its
complete administration.
When, in the recent past, our State
government, under the control OF the
Republican party, was converted into an
engine of oppression, degradation and
ruin, we were experiencing the full oper'
alton of this centralized government
The sworn officials furnished by the Re.
publican party, so far from interposing
the natural obstacles of our government
tai system to the administration of un:
lawful government, themselves destroyed
the barriers of the law and added theil
share of arbitrary power to the tide OF
tyranny that engulfed us all.
This method Of conducting government
is the only one known to the Republicans
of South Carolina.
Driven well-nigh to despair, the free
born citizens of the State resolved to
unite their strength in supreme effort
for relief. They succeeded in restoring
the power and authority of law in the
State, and thereby placed her on q plane
with the other States of the Union. But