Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-01-03

to deny the existence of auy reserved
rights on the part of the States, and which
would empower it to ride roughshod over
their most cherished institutions, charters,
privileges and laws.
The effect of these changes in the form
OF the government cannot be salutary. On
the contrary, it threatens the country with
dangers to the full as serious as those which
secession involved. For between the logi-
cal Outcome of unchecked Capitalization,
and the logical outcome of unchecked de-
Capitalization, there is no room for choice.
The centripetal and the centrifugal forces
are equally destructive if unregulated, and
the tyranny of democratic absolutism and
the insecurity of incoherent and conflict
ing States are alike fatal to liberty and
progress. The growth of Capitalization is,
as we have shown, no mere Pigment of the
imagination, but portentious historical
fact 1t must be so treated, and it be-
hooves thinking men to reflect upon the
consequences of policy which is now in
active operation before their eyes, and
which, if not interfered with, must
unquestionably produce far more i'm
portant effects in the future than
it has in the past The assumption
by Congress of rights belonging to the
|
States must, in the first place, lead to an
impairment of the efficacy of the laws, and
diminution of the protection, which
the State affords the individual For it
involves distinct weakening of that chain
of responsibility by which alone represen-
tative government is kept from abuse and
decay. By removing the control of State
affairs to distant province they are with
drawn from the supervision of the people ;
they are placed where sinister and corrupt
influences can with greater secrecy and i'm
punity attempt their manipulation they
are converted into agencies whereby the
debauching of Federal Senators and Rep
resentatives may with dangerous facility
be accomplished. At such distances
local vigilance cannot be exercised,
while the restraining influences of
public opinion must be altogether
lost upon body the merest fraction of
whose members can be directly affected
by the sentiment of any particular State.
We live in time when perhaps undue ap-
prehension is manifested because of the
rapid growth of great corporations. Undue
alarm indeed this would be if the just
limitations of federal jurisdiction as laid
down in the Constitution were still held to
or respected. But by no means without
warrant if Capitalization is to make Con
gress the sole regulator of all corporate mat
tiers, irrespective of the sovereign rights
of the States, and if the great corpora
in the lobby at Washington. For it must
be realized that the progress of democratic
absolutism is certain to be accompanied by
venality corresponding exactly to the
destruction of responsibility which it pro-
duces, and that when the Constitution and
Courts fail to afford adequate protection,
capital will avail itself of whatever aeen-
cies are best adapted to supply its needs.
Thus usurpation must engender corruption,
and both together must breed that mingled
contempt for, and fear of, the people,
which, springing from demagogism and
dishonesty, leads naturally to absolute
despotism. The fatterers of the people
end always by betraying them. 1t is the
most rampant worshipers of the Demos
who are ever the first to send popular lib
erty to the shambles. Out of the ashes of
that fierce fire which a century ago seemed
to have consumed every bond and restraint
upon the people of France, rose the bitter
despotism of Napoleon, by process not
less natural, and by laws as simple, as the
process and the laws which control the de-
7elopment of any plant from any seed.
The United States to-day are fast driving
on to the fatal rock of Contradictions
The maintenance of republican form of
government is incompatible with the full
development of the doctrine now accepted
as the supreme law of the land. The
progress of distant territories like those on
the Pacific is equally incompatible with
government at Washington. These are
serious considerations, and as such we
commend them to the thoughtful.