Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1907-03-07
STATES RIGHTS DOCTRINE.

Roosevelt on States rights, as recently
expressed in a speech made to Harvard
students. The expression of the Presi
dent which is exciting so much alarm in
the minds of our contemporaries is as
follows:
States rights should be preserved
when they mean the peoples rights,
but not when they mean the peoples
wrongs; not, for instance, when they
are invoked to prevent the abolition of
child labor or to break the force of the
laws which prohibit the Importation OF
contract labor to this country; in short,
not when they stand for wrong and op-
preston of any kind or for national
weakness or impotence at home or
abroad
To those who recognize the fact that
States rights means the peoples rights
there can be nothing wrong discovered
IN the remarks of the President. When
asupposed constitutional right is dis
covered to be a constitutional wrong
the sooner it is abandoned the better it
Will be for all concerned. Too much
injury has already been inflicted upon
our country by attempted enforcement
of the extreme States rights doctrines
Of the followers of Thomas Jefferson
to make it possible or probable that the
people of the United States will ever
again permit party that subscribes to
those doctrines to get control of the
nation.
The most precious of all the States
rights which the several States intend
ed to reserve when they entered the
Union is the right of local self-govern-
ment.
The Norfolk Virginian- Pilot. in a
lengthy and able editorial assailing (as
usuaD the President because of his ut
terance, States rights should be pre-
served when" says:
To say that State shall administer
the police power reserved to it in ac-
cordance with the judgment or whim
u Congress or the President of the
United States, or to suit the views of
other States, on pain of having the
prerogative shorn of its fullness or ia
ken away, is to deny all meaning and
force to the tenth Amendment to the
Constitution, and to proclaim that the
beneficiary of grant is not bound by
the conditions thereof"
Does our Norfolk contemporary mean
to say that the police power reserved to
State can be exercised in accordance
with the whim and judgment of such
State and in derogation of the rights
and welfare of the people of the other
States that have become parties to the
Federal compact? Was or is that the
spirit and intention of the tenth Amend
ment to the Constitution? Does it Ii
cense any State, that may so elect, to
exercise its police power or the great
right of local government in an
immoral and insane manner, regardless
of the sound judgment and happiness
of the people of the other States? Or,
does it permit any State to so use its
police power and other reserved rights
in manner that will be offensive and |
injurious to majority, or even a rea-
s0nable minority, of the citizens of that
State?
AS we have said before, the most
highly priced right that was claimed to
be reserved to the people was that of
local self-government How have some
of the States appreciated and used that
right, notably Virginia? The very per-
sons in this State VINO are now raising
such hue and cry against the Presi-
dent because of his recent utterances
10 favor of nationalism have about
completely deprived the people of Vir-
ginia of their most sacred right, that of
local self-govemment. The Virginia (
Democrats, who pretend to have such a
veneration for States rights doctrines.
have trampled the rights of the people
under foot. By fraudulently made
partisan Constitution, made under the ,
pretext of getting rid of negro suf- c
frage, they have robbed one half of the t
white men of the State of the elective i
franchise. Not only have they done !,
his, but they have made local self-gov- =
srnment farce by taking away the |
light of the people TO elect heir local Q
ulcers and giving the power of appoint
nanf 70 a r1arfisan Governor and ,,..,.t; %