Daily Los Angeles herald., 1884-01-26
senator Edmunds and the bloody
shirt.


The sharp passage between the Messrs.
Edmunds and Lamar, in the Senate of
the United States, the other day, will
jar OH the sensibilities of the people of
this country. There is nothing in the
present condition Of our national poll.
ties which warrants any Northern Sena.
tor in bullying his associates of the
South, and even the members of Sena-
tor Edmunds's own party will not respond
TO his ill-advised initiative. What the
average voter wants nowadays is per
ception, on the.part Of political leaders,
Of the fact that we have again become
homogeneous nation, and that the war
has been ended for almost twenty years.
Nearly all voters, either Of the middle
age or Of the younger generation, have
been readers Of the political history Of
the United States, and the more intelli-
gent Of them know that when the Ameri.
can Union was formed causes were at
work which threatened grave trouble at
very early stage Of its career. The two
great leaders of American opinion at that
time were Thomas Jefferson and Alex
ander Hamilton-men whose views diff
fered Numerically; yet any reader Of
the writings Of these gentlemen will dis
cover that they had grave doubts Of the
perpetuity of the American Union. While
upon this matter it is worthy of note
that the original articles OF confederation,
which were replaced by the Constitution
OF 1857, and which were done away with
In the short span of little more than q
decade, started out to establish per
petual" union. II is worthy of remark
that, in the constitution under which we
now live. the words perpetual union"
were dropped and wero significantly re-
placed by those OF "more perfect
union." In other words, the wise
trainers Of the Constitution of the United
States, finding that the perpetual
union" had only lasted a mere decade,
concluded that the second edition Of the
Articles Of Confederation might en-
counter somewhat similar mis-
adventure, and they did no. dare,
therefore, to employ the same
phraseology. This proved to be strik.
ing instance in which men builded wiser
than they knew. But that there were
elements Of discord in the original liga-
ture which bound the States together
none knew better than the contrivers Of
that matchlcss and beneiicent constitu-
tion. As Blaine, from his seat in the
Senate, told Senator Hoar, of Massa-
chusetts, our first peril was from the
Federalists of that State, who hung out
beacon lights to guide British ships in
the war of 1912. The second also occurred
in the old Bay State, nearly forty years
later, its assembly having passed reso.
luton to the effect that, Texas being in
the Union, Massachusetts, was out. Tho
last, final and memorable danger to the
perpetuity OF the Union was in the war
Of the Rebellion.
Happily we have escaped all these
perils, and it is the sense of the sober
second thought of the American people
that it is high time that it should be
realized that we are again one people.
They want no resurrection of the old
plantation manners of the South in its
hsy.day by naughty New England
Senators, who think that they are still
lording it with the war rampant, and
all the old sectional hatreds at their
beck and call. If Senator Edmunds
aims to help in whooping up a bloody
shirt campaign, he commits grave
error of judgnent, in our opinion, and
in this case our judgment happens to be
enforced by that of the Plumed Knight
of Maine the latter no bad authority
on the current phases of our politics.