Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1898-05-05

!, 81 Tug EhafqueUte sSluD: ms Is the
most cosmopolitan city en- the face
Of the globe. Every citizen of Chi
cago admits the faet. Within IS
limits allages Of history are repeated,
all nations and races are repre-
sonted. x** Fl
In this cosmopolitan character aud
in the heterogeneous clements Of its
population, Chicago but typifies the
nation, of which it is, the great con-
trail oity. ~ 1t is the genius and
mission of our country to take these
heterogeneous elements, these frag-
ments ofyaried and ofttimes antago-
nistic races, and weld and fuse them
into ono homogeneous people, whose
great achievements shall be equal
I rights and universal liberty.
Is this achievement within the
{ reach Of man2 Yes, thank God, it
is; made so by the grand conception
&aof a written Constitution and a per-
manent and Independent judiciary.
# The fathers may not have foreseen
81 the marvellous mingling of all races
within our borders which the century
has accomplished, and yet if they
had foreseensit they could not have
devised a wiser system of govern
mont than that which placed in or
ganic laws limitations upon the pow
ers which a majority may exercise,
and created a tribunal separate from
the law making body to determine
at the instance of any citizen whether
those limitations have been passed
Power to make a law, and at the
Same time to declare that that law
docs not transcend any constitu-
tionak limitations is equivalent to
power to ignore those limitations
whenever temporary ,exigency may
demand.
1t is true that in Great Britain
liberty abides without any written
constitution. There is no organic
instrument which the people have
lifted up above their representatives,
=, beyond VIII, 10 terms and limitations
+ those representatives may not 60.
The will of the people, be it ever so
changing, is, as expressed from day
to day in the Legislative enactments
of Parliament, the supreme and in
coEtestable law. If, as one of the
English judges said to a friend,
"Parliament should enact that Lord
Salisbury might without compensa-
tion take possession of TIawardcn
Castle, and oust thercfrom it's present
proprietor, William e. Gladstone,
the courts will be bound to enforce
that as the law of the land"
But Parliament never does such Il
foolish and unrightcous thing; and
why? Because of the checks and
counter checks III her Legislative sys-
tenn growing out of the essentially
different character of her two legis-
latives bodies, because of the conscr-
vative nature of the single homogc-
neous race-the Anglo o-Saxon-which
fills the land and controls the govern
. mcnt, and because of the limited suf-
frage which restricts the power to
tho more conservative Of even that
race. BY reason Of these three facts,
" despite the monarchical form of gov
crnmeEt, despite the G1scnac Of any
constitutional restraints, liberty finds
stable abiding. lace in the English
Islcs.
In this country the legislative
bodies of the nation, though diffcr-
emily selected, represent the voters.
Wo have universal suffrage and a
population as heterogeneous as the
different races Of tho world will per-
nit. An unrestricted and absolute
legislative freedom would certainly
sweep on to dcspotism Of the mob,
whose aespotism is always followed
by the man on horseback.
Let no ono misunderstood me or
inhpute an intent to assert that our
Institutions are perfect. The order
which rcigns in Warsaw is not tho
great end of political existence,
True, / do not stop to discuss what
changes, social and political, ought
t4 bo made. | conCcdo that many
~ necessary, made so by rapidly
v;frying conditions of life, and very
III kely to become more imperative in
tlhe days to come. Those changes
m8y be. c.radioal and far-reaching, and
I Nm glad 10 note that the best and
me 4st earnest thought is being givon
toNtho consideration of what ought
TO Rbo done. All insist upon is that
thepfy shall bo wrought out by the de-
liWYerate action of the whole people
inHF tho appointed way, and not foistcd
HtHpon us by any crowd that NAV han