The Red Cloud chief., 1884-03-14
TO What End2

~ VU8t EQQt
The testimony already taken before
the investigating committee of the
United States Senate. establishes the
fact that the death of. p. Matthews, Of
Mississippi, was not an act of individual
assassination, but IN incident in the
course of IN armed instruction and
organized rebellion against the author.
ity of the United States, extending moi
merely throughout Copiah County, but
into several of the surrounding coun-
ties. 1t is not necessary in order that a
mob movement may have the character,
in law, of armed insurrectiOn and rebel.
lion that tie people engaged in it shall
contemplate an overthrow of the exist
ing form Of government and the substi.
tuition of q new one. as the Southern
rebels did in 1861. Shay's whisky
rebellion was a complete rebellion.
thought it contemplated only the defea,
of the enforcement Of . single Revenue
law. The Copiah County Rebellion
aimed to defy by military means and by
armed force the authority of the United
States in several counties. to the end OF
defeating in those counties so much of
the Reconstruction acts and of the
amendments to the Constitution of the
United States as gave the colored race
civil and political rights, and especially
the right to vote. For this purpose the
white insurrectionists adopted essen
TALLY the same military means as were
adopted in 1861 by the rebellion led
by JEFF Davis. They organized forces
which publicly proclaimed defiance to
Federal law as their object. viz, that
no man should be permitted to cor
ganize the blacks against the whites in
COpiah County," meaning that no white
man should be permitted to favor and
cooperate with the blacks in the exer-
else of the political rights given the
latter b. Federal law. They well knew
that under existing Federal law every
man had the same right to organize
blacks for party purposes as to organize
whites. Their crime was the same as
Calhoun's would have been had he in
1884 organized an armed force to re-
sist the collection of Federal duties, an
act for which President jackson de-
clared he would hang Calhoun higher
than Haman should he attempt it.
Their crime was simply and BADLY
treason and rebellion ags inst the author
ity of the United States.
1t is quite immaterial that the authors
OF these crimes imagine that now that
the States are reconstructed and in the
Union no power can punish treason and
rebellion in the United States. 1t is
equally as immaterial that the Govern
Or of Mississippi neglects and refuses to
oifhor nrocorvn nrNar or RI COLL rnAnt tho
President of the United States to do so.
The precedent set by the United States
in some thirteen cases in 1860, of sup
pressing rebellion within a State with
out waiting for a requisition from the
Governor thereof, and, indeed, where
in nearly every case the Governor and
Legislature formed part of the rebellion,
must eaectually set at rest the old no
ton that the United States derives its
power to suppress armed instruction
in a State from the request of the Gov
ernor of that State.
The Constitution of the United States
makes it indeed the duty of a President
to suppress an instruction within a
State on the request Of its Governor,
eve though the insurrectiOn be not
against the United States at all, but
only aimeu to subvert or resist the State
authorities and State laws. Such a case
was that of the Dorr instruction in
Rhode Island. 1t did not attack Fed
eral authority. and in such cases it may.
and even then possibly in some cases it
might not be prudent or necessary to
await the request of the Governor.
The COpiah County case. however. is
obscured by no such question. The
object of the instruction was and is to
defeat and overthrow the authority of
the United States in those counties and
largely throughout the State in the
matter of colOred men voting. In this
case the sovereignty of the United
States is as directly assailed by Ras
Wheeler and his hundreds ''of travel
ing clubs" and his committees of
twenty-four from each Supervisors
district" who ride around with bands
of music, firing their cannon into
negroes houses. shooting and hanging
colOred men unless they promise to
vote the Democratic ticket. and pour
ing their buck-shot into white Repub-
licans of high character and uni
versally loved. as it was assailed by
Beaurcgard and his nineteen thousand
troops firing ON Fort Sumter. The
state of instruction in this case began
when these illegal bodies began to or
ganize; it continued as one uninter-
rupted act of the same Instruction, so
to take in every murder as an in
cident in the general crime. The fact
that it is a continuous and locally con-
trolling instruction is proved by the
fact that the whole populace bow to it.
including the courts and the Grand
Jury, who become accomplices in the
by refusing to find bills or
even to investigate. The armed insur-
will constitute a continuing
crime until the authority of the Gov
ernslent is restored and the partici-
pators brought to punishment.
The Presidents omission to do so BY
means condones the right or lessons
the duty of Congress to pass laws re-
curing him to do so. The failure of
the present Congress to pass such q law.
would not lessen the duty of the next
TO do so.
One point the people of the South and
the Southern Representatives in Con-
gress may as we'll understand. There
a latent power in the people of the
United States which will keep on grow
ing in will and determination until Ras
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