Year: 1868

luton.


Chief Justice Chase, in charging the Grand
Jury of the West Virginia district, called atten-
ton particularly to the fourteenth amendment.
as part of the organic law and as constituting
main reason for exercising peculiar vigilance
in regard to frauds on the revenue. No doubt
the constitution does guarantee the public
debt; it even provides that it ''shall not be
questioned" and, moreover, under the same
head, the constitution provides that neither
the United States nor any State shall ever
assume or pay any part of the rebel debt. All
this is in the fourteenth amendment and the
fourteenth amendment has the same validity
and force as any other article of the law.
Chief Justice Chase, therefore, is quite right
in saying that the constitution gives to the
debt character of ''invioable obligation"
and equally right in discharging an oblique
rebuke at the quasi repudiators. This is hon
orable to his morality. Nevertheless it is, per-
haps, more patriotic than philosophical. We
stand at the edge Of another revolutionary
abyss. Only this fact has brought the word
reputation into use; for with the people in
their senses, with the people keeping conscious
of fixed points in politics and preserving their
high sense of financial honor, reputation
would not be possible. But the next revolu-
tionary plunge will make reputation possible,
and revolution will not stop to consider what
laws guarantee the debt. In former days the
constitution threw its veil of inviolabe sanctity
over some other things also, but did not save
them from the iconoclastic spirit The con-
stitution guaranteed the peace of the Union,
the position of the States, even the indestructi-
biity of the States but we have had war in
spite of all that and States have been degraded
to sort of political pupilage. Let no one
fancy, in view Of our recent history, that the
constitution can exalt any principle or any
fact above the reach Of revolutionary hands
the only hands that menace the debt.


We are plunging fearfully toward the dis
organization Of what remains of our system.
Appearances are in no sense favorable to the
thought that our difficulties are mainly over.
War will not be rekindled, but we may have
state of political disorder worse than war. The
excitement of the Presidential election is
scarcely begun-we only see the initiation OF
the canvass but this indicates that the counter
revolution impels the people against the now
dominant party. With this evident at the CON-
mencement whittier may not the tide carry us
before its force Is spentp Changes as great
and sudden as those that gave power in Rome
TO the plebeians in one year and to the aristoc-
racy In the next may be In store for US, and
in these changes all that makes q nation great
Is often trampled down, for one faction oblite-
rates what II hates and the next what the
former left. We are in these rapids. Politi-
cal opinion Is 80 unsteady, 80 Auctuating, that
II Is ready to move on the impulse Of some
epidemic fear or hope, and Grant may 90 in
by an overwhelming majority, while It is at the
least equally likely that Seymour will do the
same. He therefore strangely ignores the
history Of nations who feels positive conf
dence that law guarantees anything at such o
time. All the moral force of law presupposes
more definite ideas Of right and obligation
than are possible in political chaos. All that
h clear beyond the more immediate future Of
the struggle is that the nation cannot die
There is too much irrspressible vitality for that