The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1894-10-03
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.
If our memory is not at fault we
promised through these columns as
far back as 1892, during a contro,
versy with Mr.. Theodore Hol zhauser,
that if it ever was attempted to call
a constitutional convention without
assurances being given that the work
Of this convention would be referred
back to the people for ratification or
rejection, we would oppose the pro-
position for the calling Of such
convention. We now redeem that
promise.
In the first place we have always
been and always will be unalterably
opposed to the idea Of delegating
the right to use the elective franchise
to any set of men, under any circum-
stances, no matter how deep IN the
science of constitutional laws they
might be. We claim to have the IN
telligence to think, and from those
thoughts to draw our own conclu-
sions and form our Judgment from
which we can act as it may dictate
and conceive to be for the best inter
est of the whole people. We cheer
fully accord this right to others and
demand that it be given them
whether they be our political friends
or whether they be our political foes.
According to our judgment the
greatest and grandest achievement
of the Tillman reformation is the
teaching of the people to do their
own thinking on questions OF poll
tical nature efeeting all theinterests
of the people, as we'll as those OF
generations yet unborn, and giving
them the opportunity to personally
express their choice for men and
measures at the ballot box uninfu-
enced by the wire pulling of politl-
clans and untrammelled by the cum
bersome and disreputable practices
of the convention system. To deny
the people this right now will dim the
lustre which is now and ever will
cluster around the policies of the
Tillman regime and it is virtually an
admittance, and will be regarded as
such in the years to come, that the
people are not to be trusted with a
voice in their own government.
Another reason why We oppose
the convention, as it is proposed to
to be held, is that it is the most i'm
portant issue with which the people
has had to deal since the days of re-
construction. An issue before which
all other issues pales into insigni6-
canoe in point of Importance, even
that of white supremacy becomes
secondary to it when the risks and
mistakes liable to creep in from the
misuse and abuse of a body whose
authorotity is only delegated but
whose only limit to infict great
wrongs upon the people, if it is to
the interest of members of the con-
vention to betray the trust reposed
in them, is only restricted by their
wills and opportunity, for, the re-
straining influences of an appeal to
the people for ratification being with
drawn, the doors are to fraud are
thrown wide open, and the barter of
the rights, the life, the liberty and
property of the citizen invited. The
State constitution is an instrument
which guarantees to every citizen
certain rights and privileges in the
pursuit of profit and pleasure which
no statutory law can abridge or
take away from him, and without the
power to exercise this right Sreemen
are relegated to the condition of serfs
and slaves; therefore, this instrument
is too sacred aud too dear to the
hearts Of the people to be impiously
or hastily tampered with by a re-
stricted number of persons. 1t is
such an instrument that the work of
amendment, abridgement or change
of is provisions should invite the CO.
operation of all the wisdom of the
State, irrespective of factional lines,
elicit the widest possible discussion
and the most thorough education of
the masses on the merits OF dement's
of the proposed amendments, restric,
tions or change, and no better way
to do this in our opinion can be
found than by submitting amend
ments to the people at every State
election and have them discussed pro
and con from every stump and
around every freside.
It's said that the rue blue In6epen
dents will support Sampson Pope for