Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-09-10
A PLEA FOR STATE RIGHTS.

! Il FLEA Fur DIAIE RIGHIS.
Edward n. Vallandingham makes q
| plea for state rights in Bedford IS Maya
zine for the current month. AS q result
of the war he finds that active interest in
that doctrine has fallen very much into
| allegiance, and the number of those who
look and long for that terror of the
fathers, ga splendid government, is
increasing.
1t may be as he saws that the failure
of secession has produced sort of leth-
argy among many who previous to the
war made ardent advocates of the state
rights doctrine, but there are we
imagine but limited number, esps-
cially of the younger generation, who
are as apathetio and listless in the matter
of an independent and anonymous state
government as Mr.. Vallandinham Rp-
pears to think. He hears, as we all do,
only the clustering and believing of the
loud mouthed and the cranks who de-
mand Federal interference and control in
all manner of things; who are satisfied
with nothing as 1t is, and who believe
that Federal law is omnipotent to cure
every evil and effect every desired re-
form. These cranks and eager enthu-
siasts have their representatives in con-
gress who work INCREASINGLY to broaden
and extend Federal jurisdiction and
power and to trench upon the rights of
the state to regulate the most
ordinary affairs of its domestic
concern. Senator Blair is the represent
tative and spokesman in congress of that
class. He would give the Federal gov
eminent controlling voice in the matter
of education. His educational bill was
only the entering wedge for such i'm
perinl and obnoxious interference with
the affairs of the people. His resolution
offered in the senate repeatedly for put
ting God il the constitution, is only an
effort to inaugurate Federal interference
in religious matters. This idea, though
thinly yelled is made still more obvious
in his Sabbath regulation bill submitted
to congress in various forms. The same
can be said of his design to enforce
temperance by Federal prohibit,on. He
has his aids and lieutenants IN
and out of congress, all of whom
believing in concert, make a great
noise. But it is very much like the
croaking of frogs or the yelping of
wolves. Itsounds worse than it really
is.
There is infinitely more power for good
in the quiet conservatism of the mil
lions who go quietly about their business
saying nothing, than there is power for
harm in the carping and whining of the
croakers, or the political activity of the
Intermediates and marplots who seek to
make the general government every
thing, and the state nothing. While
these latter are not by any means
to be despised, for their num-
Der is not small, there is more
danger to the state to be unprecedented
from the decision of the supreme court,
than from Iue mhcniuaLlOns of
cranks and zeslots. Recent decisions,
the Nagle case, the decisions
affecting the Mormons of Idaho, and the
original package case show that.
These cases are not lost on the people. |
Coupled with the mischievous aggressive |
ness of political knaves and cranks,
these decisions have awakened general |
popular interest in the question of state |
sovereignty. Popular wrath slew the
force bill, and will do the same for any
similar measure designed to enoroach
upon the rights of the state. State SOW
ereignty is reality, and when it is not,
chaos is come again.
Equnl to n. b.