Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-05-05
The Brewer Bill.

proposes 10 I1fOulDlt al old-O Va SOAA4 u "a
nifty from imposing tax on commercial
travellers, and authorizing United States
officials to summarily arrest any State
officer collecting such tax, and cause HIM
to be brought to trial in United States
Courts for a misdemeanor. We learn
that several of our merchants have al
ready signed this paper, and that in
other localities similar petitions have
been circulated and received the sane
ton Of business men.
We have no war whatever to make up
on commercial travellers OF ''drummers, 3"
but we are satisfied that when prominent
citizens of our city signed the aforesaid
petition they did it without thought, for,
trifing as it may seem on the surface,
this bill involves a very serious prin
ciple. Under the guise of regulating
interstate commerce, the bill in question
deliberately proposes that the Federal
Government shall override all State and
local laws imposing taxes upon drum
mers, and that United States Marshals
shall be able to defy the rights and digni-
ty Of the States, and summarily arrest
and bring to trial, as criminals, duly quail
lied State officers executing the plain
laws Of their commonwealth according to
their sworn duty.
1t is needless to say that this would be
law full of dangers to the State and to
our people. When the trainers of the
United States Constitution provided that
Congress should have power to regulate
commerce between the States, they
never dreamed that such power would
be stretched to the limit contemplated
by this bill Indeed, it is a great stretch
Of the imagination to designate the
visits of commercial travellers to a State,
there to make bargains for houses in
other States which they may represent
as interstate commerce. They sim
ply come to sell goods under the laws of
the State as would any merchant, and if
the principle that they were to
be specially privileged persons, ex'
empt from the operation of State
taxes, what would prevent every
business man and storekeeper in this
city who may purchase his goods in
other States, to be sold either IN Georgia
or Florida, frsm refusing to pay the IL
cense tax imposed upon him by Georgia
laws upon the same pretext-that
such a tax was an interference with
interstate commerce? To our mind
such an idea is absurd. If a State
has not right to levy license taxes upon
any man doing business within hel
limits, and if that is privilege which
devOlves upon the Federal Government
that creature of the States-alOne,
then we might as well at once abolish
State lines; acknowledge that we are q
nation with the biggest kind of an IN
that the General Government is all SUI
preme, and the sovereign States which
compose it, and first created it, are mere
provinces.
The great trouble which we are suffer
ing from in this country now is the notion
which the Republican party has been in
dustriOusly endeavOring to establish evel
since its accession to power, that this il
a centralized paternal government, whose
mission it is to regulate the interna
affairs OF the States-in other words, tina
the creature is superior to the creator
1t was just this identical principle
upon which Grant acted wher
he maintained his minious il
power in the several States of the
South at the point of the bayonet, anC
| took possession with his soldiers of thu
Legislature Of Louisiana, and declared
who should and who should not be the
rulers of that sovereign commonwealth
Surely the Southern people have haC
their fill of the paternal idea in this gov
eminent, and yet here in Savannah on
people are deliberately signing a petition
to take away from State the right tC
regulate her internal affairs, subordi-
nate State to Federal Courts, and sub
ject State officials to the power and per-
haps insolence Of Federal Marshals.
Every step, no matter how apparently
trifing, looking towards an increase Of
Federal power over that of the States
should, be MOST jealousy guarded
against, and if this Brewer bill becomes
a law if will be a dangerous step to
wards Capitalization. AS we have re
marked, we have no warfare to make
against dIummers, but il the State law
imposing taxes upon them is impolitic
oppressive or unjust, the Federal Legis-
lature is not the body to remedy the
evil. The Legislature of the State is the
power to be appealed to, while il
the tax is of local character,
the local authorities are the proper
persons to consider the grievance, and
if our business men favor the repeal OF
taxes on commercial travellers they have
their remedies at home, and not in Wash
ington. 1t is sincerely to be hoped that
neither Colonel Black nor any Other
Democratic Representative in Congress
from Georgia or elsewhere will so fal
forget the dignity and sovereignty OF
his State, or the rights of his fellow citi.
zens, as to give his countenance to any
such dangerous measure. Take away
from a State the right to regulate her
own commerce, and at once her
sovereignty is destroyed, and she
becomes simply a province of a central
lied government Let such principles as
these be generally established and the
transition from a Federal republic to 3
consolidated empire becomes very easy
of accomplishment.
The correspondence between the State
DEPARTMENT at Washington and the Rus