Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-09-27


with the sanction of party, committed
crimes against the liberties and guaran-
teed rights of citizens, and entailed hu-
initiation and disaster on independent
commonwealth. If the crime of the as
sassin and the humiliation and anguish
it has caused shall put an end to this ty
ranny of party, the life that was taken
will not have been given IN vain.
Another revelation brought about by
the crime and the condition of affairs it
gave rise to, is the bureaucratic charac-
ter of the government. For months the
head of the republic lay helpless, and
gradually his splendid mental powers
relaxed, and he was no more part Of the
government, save in name, than the tod
ding babe. His constitutional successor
waited for the signal that came not,
and shrank from determining his duty
for himself. The vast engine of govern
ment ran on, however, though its pilot
was blind to its working and powerless
to direct them. As yet there
are no evidence that his guidance
was greatly missed, and while some
of the parts of the machinery may have
dragged, the motion of the whole was
not slackened. 1t was owing to therami-
fications of the civil service and the dis
cipline exercised over it that the second
empire fiourished in France. In this
bureaucratic character of our govern
ment is found the secret of long con-
tinued party supremacy, and the expe-
rience of the summer has plead for hon
esty and capacity in the civil service
more eloquently and convincingly than
all the studied arguments and carefully
digested opinions that have been put
forth upon the question.
In the notifying fact, too, that par
tisan selfshness left a link in the chain
of succession unsupplied, and exposed
the country to the peril of anarchy in
case the Vice President shared the fate
of his superior, is furnished another
lesson, which the new Executive has
been, happily, quick to grasp.
Reflection will make evident much
else calculated to instruct the public
mind, but the crowning lesson of the
tragedy is the rebuke to the apostles of
Capitalization and the apOlogists of the
''strong man" Never was the truth
more clearly demonstrated that this is a
government of the people, for the people,
by the people, than during the last
strain to which it was subjected.
While the tyranny of our majorities
has hesped up humiliations that will
forever preclude Boosting on the
part of the sensitive American
citizen, the calm and community of sor-
row that seized upon all classes of the
people from one end of the Union to the
other begot an identity of thought and
unity of hope worthy Of the best days
Of the republic. The quiet, the dignity,
the calm confidence of the people in the
future of the government, would have
abashed the most daring ambition that
might have yearned to profit by the OPP
portunity which, if presented in other
lands, might have furnished another
Cromwell or a second Bonaparte. The
crisis we have weathered has proved the
potency of public opinion, which COM
handed the waves of faction to stand
still, and exacted from the legion of
lesser functionaries undiminished fidelity
and unrelaxed industry.
Though in the past some of our Elk
ecutives have been clothed with the
meaner functions of the despot, no full
crowned Cromwell will ever be welcom-
ed in this republic. Our liberties may
be sapped under the forms of law,
but as long as the stronger COM
monwealtbs of the Union retain
their identity and autonomy the
weaker cannot long be shorn of
their independence. This individuality
of the States, the legacy of our fathers,
battled for so valiantly in the forum and
the field, measured by the greatest intel
lects and defended by the best blood of
the nation, though withheld at times by
the strong from the weak, is the COM
mon heritage of all. If there ever was a
doubt that il would be treasured, the
murder of Garfield has removed it.
Though in the heat of debate, and
under the requirements of party service,
he waved reason aside, yet, as first
choice of the people, as protector of
their interests, he was heedful of her
mOnitions and asserted his better self.
His life, filed with triumphs of genius
and achievements of purpose, was
crowned with the recognition of the
duty which his immediate predecessors
ignored. In resolving to be the Presi-
dent of the whole people, he rebuked
his party and invited his sacrifice. But
in taking such a stand he recalled the
people to their peril, and, though he is
dead, his purpose lives, and TO its exc
cution his successor is bound.
This broad land is too vast, its prom
ises are too great, its destiny too splen-
did for the federation of the hate, inius-
tice and impediments of party selfshness.
We can bury our past and need not re-
call it save for the warnings its sorrowful
experience affords. Parties will govern
and reap the rewards of victory while
the government endures, but the teach
ings of the last terrible experience have
made impressions that will not soon wear
away. and, perhaps, the deepest is the
conviction that all must feel that we are
all heirs of our fathers wisdom, and
sharers in the fruit it is destined to bear,
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When President takes the oath of
Office it is the custom to present him an