The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1880-10-14

Judge Jere s. Black, of Pennsylvania, has
recently written letter to Augustus Schell of
New York. from which we make the following
copious extract t= r-.
The impulses of friendship and the duties of
fair political opposition alike require me to
speak Of Gen. Garfield. Intellectually he is
first among the politicians of his party ; not
the sharpest or strongest, but the most gifted
and best cultivated. His private life is stain
less, and in everything unconnected with poll
tics his behavior is regulated by principles of
the soundest morality; but in public affairs he
does not act upon his convictions. When he
passes into the domain of politics his conscience
loses its 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 high place in the affections of
the party he belongs to.
Treachery to his country is fidelity to his fac
ton. If at any time in the last fifteen years he
had given way to his own sense of right, sup
ported the constitution and laws in a spirit of
pure Justice, refused to defle himself with cleo
ton frauds, withheld countenance from eXecu-
tive corruption, or denounced the forcibie in
stallment of thieves in state offices, he would
have converted himself into Democrat, and
been expelled from the communion of the anti
constitutional party. This moral prostitution
to bad political purposes is far from being un-
common. Men naturally good have yielded to
it in all times and in all countries where there
is party unprincipled enough to demand it
and strong enough to reward it. But Gen.
Garfield's public career furnishes more striking
examples of it than the history of any individ-
ual have known. Let me give you case.
After the war; at time of perfect peace, in
the State of Indiana, where no war had ever
been certain military officers, being instructed
from Washington that they were above the civil
authorities, had kidnapped and were about to
kill three citizens, for no offense defined by law
and without the pretense of a trial by Jury. If
this could be done, there was manifestly no Sc
curity for life or property. Plainly it could not
be done without a fiat violation of the constitu-
ton, which in express terms forbade it. But
the men who then ruled with a rod of iron in
sisted upon it, and we could not be sure that
the Judges, State and national, might not be
subdued by their influence. The hearing of the
cause before the Supreme Court was a great
crisis in the history of our country. There was
q place in the argument which nobody
could nil SO well as Gen. Garfield, and brought
him to help us in this desperate extremity
| to rescue American liberty from the utter de-
struction with which it was threatened. He
responded with noble alacrity, and made a
| great argument, in which he proved not only
| the continued existence, but the inestimable
| value of the constitution. He demonstrated
| that the right of trial by jury at all times and
allplaces was indestructibe, and that any officer
| civil or military, would violate his oath if he
attempted to put the military above the civil
authority He affirmed the whole Democratic
doctrine on the subject, and showed 1t
| to be incontestibly right. His sincerity was
undoubted; for, like the rest of us, he en-
| gagged in the cause as a labor of love, without
fee or any reward except the thanks of true
men. Such were his true convictions. But
when he came to deal with the same subject i'll
his political capacity he surrendered everything
to his party. He voted for q military despotsm
and regular system of kidnapping and mur-
der in all the States of the South In the same
act we're other provisions, which he certainly
understood to be in direct conflict with every
article and every section of the constitution. In
all this ne did not transgress, like others, in
ignorance and passion. He sinned against
light and knowledge, and on cold calculation OF
partisan policy. It is an infinite pity that such
a man should not only be false to his country
but false to himself.
What makes all this very much worse is his
denunciation of Gen. Hancock for saying that
the military was constitutionally subordinate
to the civil power, and that liberty still the
inheritance of the American people for these
were propositions which he himself had assert
ed and knew to be true. 1t might be expected
that the course of q man so influenced would
frequently defect from the straight path, and
one great alteration we cannot but remember