Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1886-05-15
NO. 35.

Il
those participating in the ceremon-
les. Mr.. Davis simply proclaims
himself a petrified Bourbon. The
lessons of the war and its results
have no meaning to him except of
physical defeat and frustrated plans.
He recognizes no great principle
settled. He cannot understand that
the political distractions which grew
out of the civilization of the slave
system, have been unequal to the
practical demands of government.
He is too prejudiced and proud to
acknowledge that the ideas of Wash.
ington and Hamilton have been vim
dicated-that the refinings Of JEFF
ferson and of Calhoun. have proved
abortive, and that our free institu-
tious cannot exist unless there is To-
Gated supreme power in govern.
ment to compel obedience from
States and people. There is no dan
ger, however, of these negations of
Mr.. DAVIS changing the current OF
public convlction-reyersing the
verdict of Appomattox, of resurrec-
ting the ghost of the Southern Con-
federacy. They only go to show
what !" fools we mortals be- some
times and how the preconceptions
of early life may be so crystalized as
to be imperyious to the modify.
ing influences of generation of
benedictions flowing from crushed
hopes and ruined ambitions.
One thing the South has not yet
practically learned in It's full mean
ing, and that is that slavery, and all
things emanating from it, was a
curse. When she shall grasp the
fact that State Sovereignty and
free trade were the outgrowths of
the slave system, and that the South
can never pass to the position she
should occupy as an integral part of
the Union until these relics of the
peculiar institution are rooted out
and utterly iepudiated, then we
may expect new and more
beneficent dispensation, and wiser
comprehension of our duty and des-
tiny and higher ideal of the pur-
pose and mission of government.
1t is not inapposite here to men
ton the fact that in all the supreme
tests to which the Democratic creed
has been subjected it has proved a
failure. AS we have stated it was
founded IN dreamy speculations and
not in the practical tests of govern
ment experience. So long as the
ideas which constituted it were the
subject of theoretical discussion
mere intellectual refinings, there was
plausible in them, as they
presupposed higher and purer re-
lation of human conditions than has
ever yet been realized. They as
sumed that community was law
unto itself-that it had reached a
degree of perfection that did not re-
quire the restraint of supreme pow.
er or the interposition of a force to
check its communistic tendencies.
But when they had to encounter the
stern realities of practical experience
they were found wanting and to be
mere distractions, furnishing food
for the theorist, but unequal to the
wants of great government insti-
tuted to promote the welfare of all
the people. A sovereign govern
ment within sovereign govern.
ment was contradiction in itself.
Two supreme powers could not exist
in the nature of things, and when
the issue was joined whether the su.
preme power of the central govern
ment or the supreme power Of the
separate States was to prevail. the
supremacy of the central power was
asserted, and finally acknowledged.
To this State sovereignty fallacy,
may be traced all the faIlacies Of the
Democratic party. Secession, free
trade, State banks and their kin.
dred impractical notions have sue
to the sovereignty of the
after they had been tested
and failed. They were inconsistent
with the grand purposes of a gov.
ernment of the people, for the PEG.
pie and by the people, and the per-
petual nature Of the institutions
which have their source in the con.
stitution.
1t is these exploded fallacies
which Mr.. Davis and those who may
think with him would vitalize, if
there is any meaning at all in what
they proclaim. They fail to recog-
nize the logic Of events-the lessons
Of history-that chattel slavery,
the inspiring source of all these
dreamy creations, secession, freetrade,
State currency, have been repudi-
ated, in the practical destruction of
the theory upon which they were
based. They seem to be incapable
0f praSpinO tho condifiopo ,.rose..k