The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-07-12

pie nave been placed in the power and
wealth of one central government?
Should the government of the United
States continue, as it began, a repub-
lie of republics a representative gov
ernment whose constituents are self-gov-
erning states, dependent upon the demo-
cratic principle for a secure autonomy?
Appomatox did not destroy the origi-
nal form of the government of the United
States. as Waterloo destroyed the gov
which the Confederacy was founded had
no Waterloo" The Confederacy was not
an isnf but truth; not revolution
but a development.
The form of the federal government
and the principle upon which it rests
are co-equal. They can never be dis
jointed in the very nature of things.
Reconstruction failed because the form
of government resisted the anarchstic
movement which it represented.
The fundamental principle of federal
organization republic of republics as
serts itself to the confusion of timid
souls in most unanticipated exposures.
Take for example, the states of vast
area beyond the Mississippi Texas is
approximately the area of France, with
natural capacity to support a prosperous
population surprising France. Califor-
MIA is about the size of Texas. There
are number of those great states on
that side of the river.
Congress did not intend to fortify the
fundamental principle of dederal govern
ment but when it fixed their boundaries
those states were planted forever and
SO fixed in their own sufficiency that
they are able to maintain it at all
| hazards.
| A new principle was proclaimed in the
| art OF civil government. Let us give
| our understanding a long lease with 1t.
| | wish the reader would refer to the
| copy of the Declaration of independence
| to be found in volume one, Messages
and Papers of the Presidents The doc
| ument apepars there exactly as Jefferson
wrote it. 1t is photographed from the
original that Mrs. Madison carried off
from Washington to save from the Brit
ish in 1914.
Page 5, first line of the closing para
graph reads, I'VE, therefore, the repre-
sentatives of the united States of Amer
ica," etc. Not the people of the United
States, but the States united The sug-
gestion forced by the Typography hes in
the use of the lower case, the small let
ter ''u"
General Washington certified to Con-
gress sitting at New York, that the
constitution was "done in convention by
the unanimous consent of the States pres
ent the 18th day of September, In the
year of our Lord etc. The consent of
the states prevailed to determine to the
end The action of one state had no
recognized connection with that of an
other state.
True. the constituents of the represen-
tative government formed in 1887 were
states in the wild forest. The property of
Massachusetts was in the waves of the
sea- the property of Virginia was in to-
bacco plantation, the property of South
Carolina was in rice swamps. But the
vitality of the principle upon which the
representative government was founded
possesses the constituent states as effec-
lively In the conditions of the twentieth
century as in those of the eighteenth.
The revival of the fundamental principle
is due to the energy and constancy of
the states that formed the Confederacy
through fun generation, after Appomat-
tox The wisdom, the patience of their
energy and their constancy in this season
OF reconstruction" intended to ex-
tinguish that fundamental principle. is
second in importance TO no lesson of pro-
fame history.
friend assured him that while the
House of Representatives dallied day af-
ter day with the question, whether he or
Aaron Burr with the same number of
electoral votes should be President his
supporters were organizing to put Burr
out by force of arms and to put him in
as the people intended.
We have seen how the southern states
elected Tilden. in 1876. by the help of four
northern states. and how they consented
to accept the defeated candidate, Ruther-S
ford B. Hayes
Acceptance of Appomattox, acceptance