The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1897-12-09
POWER OF THE PRESIDENT.
Gise of the Authority OF the Execu-
tive of the United States.

follows in an article on Absolute
Power"
Down to 1868 each state had said for
herself: My people shall be free from
arbitrary arrests; their liberty and
prosperity shall be secure; their rights
equal; the law impartially admins
tered; the stranger within my gates
protected from wrong as fully as my
own sons Now came back for a brief
moment to the scene of action the peo-
pie to the United States to say, by the
fourteenth amendment. that thence
forth every man should have their
guarantee that the state would mot re-
cede from these obligations, but they
should forever and forever be the foun-
dation stones of American Institutions
WAS the great change welcome one
to every state? You well know that it
was not. Only absolute power, the
absolute power of three-fourths vote
under written constitution-the abso-
Lutte power of congress with the right
in each of its houses to determine on
the qualifications of its own members.
and the admission of members from any
recalcitrant state, with the right to-
pack the jury even by admitting to.
statehood a row of mining camps on
barren mountains, and giving to Ne.
vada an equal vote with Virginia or
Observation-Disclosures is what forced the.
fourteenth, if not the thirteenth, amend.
ment into organic law.
But there it is. 1t was a slight mat
ter that it FASTENED the day of negro
suffrage and paved the way for the.
fifteenth amendment, passed two years
later. Whenever and wherever the,
American negro has education enough
to enable him to cast an intelligent
vote he will cast that vote, and he ought
TO cast it. And whenever and wherever.
he has not such education he ought not
to vote, and, in the long run, he will
not vote. Mississippi and South Caro-,
lima have put themselves upon solid
ground in saying that education must.
be condition of suffrage. 1t is no,
new doctrine. In the north there is,
more than one state in which such has.
been the law for nearly half a CELL.
fury.
The great change wrought by the
fourteenth amendment has been to,
concede and perpetuate to the United
States vast and far-reaching national
powers; to unity and centralize its,
government, for good or i'll.
IF absolute power has risen up i'm
the United States, and for the United
States, during this century, to a height
our fathers never contemplated, it is be-
cause we have departed from our Anglo.
Saxon inheritance of individualism, be-
cause the people demand more of their,
government and have given it more.
when Coleridge declared that
Z" We receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live"
he spoke what is, above all things. true
of free institutions. For each Of them
the individual citizen has parted with
something. They are the great result
of a common contribution. and what
ever they give back we whOreceive have
paid for, are paying for, whether we
recognize it or not
- as N'llO1 Nv Ism tlIall " LOut TIE
fourteenth amendment, colleetivism
that ratified it, collectiwism that en-
forces it. Does it protect Individual
rights, as in no land under the broad
heaven they were ever, in auV age, pro-
tected before? Yes, but only by the
sacrifice of other rights of individual
ism, only by extension of the sovereign
ty of the union. ~ the. cost of the SOW
ereignty of the state, only bx giving to
the courts new authority to control
legislatures, and congress new power
to control the citizen; only bv giving
to the president new laws to execute,
of such kind as put him forward into
fields before unoccupied.
''In the impeachment trial of Andrew
johnson, one of the managers of the
prosecution described the president
as nothing but the constable of con-
gress.' Had that impeachment been
successful, the comtemptuous taunt
might have seemed simple truth. 1t
was not successful, because all honest
men, not blinded by party passion, felt
that the president held great constitu-
tional functions, which made him. in
his sphere, little short of the dictator of
the republic.
Il am glad that we have so great an
officer. The foe that threatens Ameri-
can institutions to-day is not absolut.
ism, but anarchy; not the tyranny of
a man, but the Tyranny of the mob
To meet it we need tire strong hand of
power. If we were not a nation be-
fore the civil war, we have been since.
A nation must have a head. | have
no fear that the president of the United
States, absolute as he is, within his
sphere, will ever act the part of Caesar.
The foundations of American liberty
are laid too deep. The checks of the
constitution, backed by the sentiment
of ii free and intelligent people, are
ample for any strain.
"Proudly and safely rides the ship of
state into the opening hNrbor of the
twentieth century; prouGer and safer
because one hand, and one hand ONLY,
is On the wheel" -Yale Law journal.
COrned Beef CrOauettes
Two cupfuls of mashed potatoes, one
cupful of canned cornvd oeef. one onion.
one ego Mince the bA.g md pniOp ,,ar,,