National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-01-14
The Next Acknowledgement

Amid all the discussions of the several
Cabinet places nothing is said as to who
is to be Acknowledgement. And yet, as
this place shall be well or indifferently
filled, so will the administration of Gen
eral Garfield be a success or failure in
the most important part of the work eX-
pected of it. The present Attorney-Gen-
eral is thorough Republican, and de-
serves, as he has, the good opinion Of the
country for his good intentions. But he
has been hampered throughout by a
Democratic House of Representatives
which failed to make appropriations, to
say nothing Of the causes which have led
to the selection of feeble or adverse sub
ordinates in the Southern States.
The incoming administration will have
smoother sailing 1t will probably have
the support of both Houses of Congress
from the beginning. There will be no
entangling alliances with law-breakers by
whose seeming grace the country was
saved from a revolution of which it had
been in no danger, and there will be no
excuse for allowing the offenders against
law to select District attorneys who are to
withhold indictments or marshals who
are to avoid making arrests.
We hope the Acknowledgement that is
to be will be a man of thorough insight
into character; man of iron will and
nerve: man devoted to human rights
and the laws enacted in their behalf; a
man who cannot be humbugged by a
plausible cut-throat or deceived by the
false pretenses of perfidious men. We
hope he will be man of rare judgment
in selecting subordinates, and able to
discern earnestness as distinguished from
bluster. Then we hope he will be al
lowed to control the affairs of his De-
partment, and that no miserable desire
to accommodate Senators who despise
our laws and countenance resistance to
them will be allowed to control a single
appointment.
The plain English of the case is that
the Republican party believes in the
Fourteenth aud Fifteenth Amendments
to the Constitution, which were adopted
to make secure the freedom which eman-
cipation gave to the blacks. The Dem
ocratic party does not believe in those
amendments. They are the written law,
to sustain which will be the highest and
most determined aim of our party until
resistance to them shall cease. Contempt
for and disobedience to them are
the unwritten law of the Democracy.
If we mistake not, General Garfeld's
administration is to test the power of the
written law against the unWritten law.
The Democratic South does not believe
we are in earnest. They have had good
reason to doubt our sincerity. Our his
tory has stained pages telling of faithless-
ness and desertion of these amendments.
The Southern Bourbon bloodhound
fawned and declared that he did not like
blood. But we have learned that "when
he fawns he biteS," and now all laW-abid-
ing men everywhere are ready to restrain
him. Our election laws as they are, or
as they may be amended, are to be en-
forced. Violations of them are to
be prosecuted. Foul play, fraud, bull
doing, false counting, intimidation, re-
sistance to the election laws-all
are to be met with the power of the law.
Offenders must not have milk-and-
water men to deal with. Our district at
torneys and marshals must be made from
the best material and above them must
be a minister of justice who will sustain
them in rigid performance of duty, and
cause their removal for any falling short
in that regard. If collisions are to come
let the strength of the Nation and those
who resist its laws be tested. Let us have
stalwart, able, and true Attorney-Gen-
eral.