The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-05-04

even. II us members SlOUlQ De CHOSEN
by popular vote. Mr.. Hoar says, with
out a him OF protest, but doubtless
with real satisfaction-that 1.-The doc
trines OF state rights and strict con
struction" Of the written law. the fun
damental, the constitution. ARE over
thrown" Is this true? Can it be that
the republicans (Hoar's party have SO
overthrown the constitution, changed
its meaning. as TO deprive the o
ereign commonwealths-no longer SOW
ereign he says of their rights, and
the organic law made a rope OF sand,
! with no fixed meaning. but liable to BIS
twisted, stretched, perverted by parties
in the ascendant to mean any thing
| they may please? II this is true, then
we have no states, but a large nation
a tyranny, a central power without
limitation.
Hoar admits that at present there is
no honest election of representa-
tives and senator's" Then why not
change the mode as to senators and
put a stop in the whole north Of buy
ing up the laboring classes with money
or compelling them to vote as ordered
by the bosses? He thinks the senate
as now constituted is really the bind
ing band Of the nation-holds the states
together. If his contention is true at
this point then the senate is responsible
for destroying the rights of the states
and obliterating the strict construction
Of the constitution in spirit and in let
ter. His words are:
But for the constitution Of the SEN
ate as it exists, these states would be
separate nations, each with it's stand
ing army; each seabOard state with its
navy; a line of custom houses along
every frontier; and a history made up
of eternal wrangle, strife, and war.
This condition of things would last
until, one by one, the smaller states
became the prey Of the larger states,
to repeat again the Old Worlds story
of disappointment"
The senate is a great institution"
you see. Professor Woodrow Wilson
showed clearly that the country was
really governed by the congress-both
hOuses-and through committees. But
we may not follow the senator farther
in his interesting defense Of the body
Of which he has so long been a distin-
guished member. He makes a wise re-
mark in passing that "the history Of
no people is heroical to it's mugwumps."
Very true, doubtless. He thinks we'll
Of the American people as a whole
says they "are as intelligent a people
as live or as ever lived" While this
is perhaps true, it is very certain that
many millions of them are not intelli-
gent and need to be educated, and es-
pecia1ly as to the, nature and charac-
ter of the government under which
free government, the workings of a
tariff tax to rob them under the forms
of law, the true principles Of finance
50 far as the money Of the cOnstitu-
ton is involved, and other public ques-
lions of gravity, in which their liberty
and prosperity are involved. With
better education and a clearer insight
in government they would not long toll
crate usurDers like Reed, or corrup-
tionists, or the wholesale ~bulldozing
and purchase of factory operatives, or
of sweeping, reckless extravaganza in
the congress-, or the multiplying Of
places for henchmen, and other abuses
and rascalities that stamp the govern
ment as a fraud and a failure.
Strange to say, near the close Of his
paper Senator HOar sees thai a ma
ton may T0can ruin, and that the
states are not absorbed and destroyed.
His words are these: "But the constl-
tutional principle which requires the
most carful preservation of state au-
thority, and the most jealous limita-
ton in the exercise Of national power,
is sound and salutary and must not be
forgotten"
There is more of the statesman ir
that than in anything he has written
! But we would like to know if the sen
ator did not applaud Cleveland wher
he took his army and invaded Illinois
against the protest of the governor.
The country lost it's head right ther
and there. OF all acts there was more
of usurpation in that--a greater infrac.
ton of the rights of a sovereign com.
monwealth than any thing else tina
has occurred in the history of the fed
era1 government. And the whole coun
try-nearly every newspaper justified
and applauded the act. The Messen
ger was one of the very few in tn
south hat denounced it. There wa
scarcely a newspaper in all the nortl
that did not praise and magnify. tn
deed. This country needs a class o
public men if it fulfills it's mission; i
must have honest, wise, conservative
truly patriotic. liberty loving an,
rigid economists to serve it.