Year: 1879

Congress adjourned yesterday under cir
cumstances which relieve the members
OF any apprehension that they will
be reeonvened in another extra ses-
sion. President Hayes has satisfied
himself that the democratic majority
is so fixed and immovable in its refusal to
appropriate money to pay deputy marshals
for services in connection with the elections
that he sees it would be an idle ex-
pense to the Treasury and a useless annoy
ance to members TO reassemble Congress
for the accomplishment OF an object
which is an evident political impossibiiity.
The democrats have taken position on fed
eral interference with elections from when
they cannot, or at least will not, recede. IL
would have been foolish and pig-headed
to call another extra session when 1T IS
SO absolutely certain that the democratlc
majority would not modify their ultlmatum.
We commend and indorse the wisdom OF
the President in not persisting IN boot
less contest, which, however long con-
tinued, would leave the dispute in
precisely it's present position. Between
the constitutional veto of the President,
which enables him to block Congress, and
the constitutional power of Congress over
appropriations, which enables it to block
the President, the only practical solution
lies in declaration of the national will
through the ballot box.


The people must ultimately decide this
controversy between the President and
Congress. Whatever force there may be
in the arguments on either side the
as conclusive. It is their unquestion-
able prerogative to say whether federal
troops shall or shall not be employed at
the polling places and whether supervi-
sors and deputy marshals shall be paid for
services at the polls. by the theory of our
government it is the right of the people to
control, and they alone can decide con-
troversy between the Executive and Con-
gress


Had the democrats been less impulsive
and impatient they would have adjourned
this question of troops at the polls and the
employment of federal supervisors and
deputy marshals IT in the important
election of 1880 they should succeed in
electing the President and a majority of
Congress it would be in their power
to etface from the statute book every
trace and vestige of the federal election
laws If they have made mistake it con-
sists in attempting to shake the tree and
gather the fruit before it is ripe and
ready to fall. Nobody doubts that as
socn as the democratic party is in
full possession of the government all fed
eral interference with the elections will be
abolished. Had Mr.. Tilden been counted
in as President instead of Mr.. Hayes
to the same status which existed for
the first eighty years after the organ
ization of the government. Whenever, IN
any Presidential election yet to come,
the democratic party gains full control
of the government, nobody can doubt that
the federal election laws, which are not yet
ten years old, will be repealed and
members Of Congress be chosen in simple
pursuance of State laws. Had the
democratic party been content to adj
jorrn this question until they can
elect President and Congress of their own
way of thinking they would have pursued
wiser and more prudent policy. The fed
eral election laws would then be repealed
as matter Of course, and the country
would accept the inevitable without agita-
ton or remonstrance. But the democratic
party, which is so divided on financial
questions, felt the necessity of a new issue
on which the party could be united, and
selected the repeal of the election laws as
the issue best fitted to consolidate the party.
Whether they have made mistake is
question which will be decided by the re-
suit of this years elections.


If the democratic party should be signally
successful in the elections of the present
year its policy in the extra session will be
vindicated. In that event President Hayes
will be placed in an awkward predicament.
II the democratic party gains strength in
the coming State elections its majority in
Congress will insist, even more strenuously
than it has done in the extra session, upon
nulliiying the election laws by withholding
money for their execution, and further
vetoes will be a plain defiance of the
popular will. And yet the positions
which the President has taken in his
recent vetoes would compel him to
persist in policy that had been
repudiated by the people, which would
carry the present issue into the Presidential
election. This would make an awk-
ward situation for the republican party.
But if, On the other hand, the
elections of the present year should
be series of signal successes
for the republicans, not only Will
the vetoes of President Hayes be vindi-
Gated but it will be evident that the new
issue thrust upon the country by the demo-