Year: 1879

|


which are not quite consistent with the


public welfare, the leaders of the national


republican party are tolerating too much


loose talk among their hottest headed follow


ers about violent resistance to Governor Gar


celons count in Maine. For example, it is


proposed to set up legislature in oppo-


sition to that which will be organized


under the certificates of election proceed
| ing from him and his Council. and yester-


day it was reported from Washington that


an anonymous appeal is circulating there
for volunteers to support such revoiu-
| tionary establishment at Augusta by force.
| We are disposed to be very indulgent
toward reasonable displays of indignation


about what has happened in Maine, but
| this is going too fast and too far. There


has been too much toleration shown OF late
| years toward redressing political injustice
| by political violence. 1t is time to stop 1t.
| The popular will in Maine certainly has


been reversed by technicalities, some of
them OF the most trivial nature. Advan-
tage has been taken of the carelessness of
local officers to disfranchise thousands Of
voters for slight irregularities in returns
for which they were in nowise responsible.


In other cases equally slight formal errors
on the part of the voters themselves have


been made to work the same result


But nobody-not even Senator Blaine
contends that Governor Garcelon and his
Council have violated the letter of the law.


The Governors address to the public justi-
flying their course by citation Of the consti-
tuition, the statutes and the decisions of
the Supreme Court of Maine, stands un-
contradicted. Their whole offence consists
in an unjust exercise Of legal discretion
with which they were invested by the peo-
pie of Maine themselves. 1t resembles ON
excessively severe sentence imposed by a
Judge within the discretion which the law
allows to the Judiciary in respect to
most offences. Before the count was
completed application was made to
the Supreme Court of the State
to put limits to this discretionary
authority of the Governor and Council, and
decision was rendered that it was abso-
lutte. The Court in its opinion referred to
them as s'the final Repositories of the trust
and power from the people, which they were
bound to exercise ''upon the responsibility
of their official station and the sanctity of
their official oaths." So they have exer-
cised livery much as judge might send
a hungry man to prison for five or
ten years for stealing loaf of
bread. Indignation in either instance
is commendable, but not violence.
Nothing has been done in excess of the
authority which the people themselves
conferred upon the magistrate. resort
wrong-rescuing the thief from the
custody of the Sheriff and turning him
loose in the one case, or setting up a
revolutionary legislature and sustaining
it by force in the other-would be
equally unreasonable. There is q series
of peaceable and lawful proceedings
possible in Maine before resorting to
anything revolutionary, and before it is
exhausted an ample remedy for the tenn
porary injustice will be found and applied.
The first of these proceedings is suggested
by Governor Garcelon himself in the ad-
dress to the public to which we have al
luded, and consists in an appeal to the
honor of the Legislative body con-
stituted under his certificates of cleo
ton. 'Let it be remembered" he
asks in this address, '4hat the decision of
the Governor and Council is not final. The
constitution of Maine makes the Senate and
House Of Representatives respectively the
final arbiters of the election of their own
members. All the lists or returns which
laid before the Senate and House of Repre-
sentatives on the first Wednesday of jan
uary annually, and they shall finally deter
mine who are elected"


The popular sneers at the possibility of
justice being volunteered by the Legislature
thus constituted are disrespectful to the
people of Maine, by whom two-thirds of its
members incontestably have been elected.


The changes from the popular choice which


have been effected by Governors Garcelon's
! count do not affect more than third of the
Senators and Representatives. We also deem
them unbecoming any citizen whose faith in


the superiority Of patriotism to partisanship
| in our country has withstood the shocks
of recent years. We at least shall not in


dulge in them nor countenance any action


founded upon premature assumption that
majority in this body will hold on to
dishonest advantage which has been gained
| by legal technicalities that plainly defeat
the will of the people. At the same time,


recollecting the miserable experiences
which many of the States in this Union


have undergone since the civil war and that


to which the whole nation was subjected


in the last Presidential election, we
cannot censure these sneers with the
severity we would like. We cannot


Danish from remembrance that the whole
! nrocess of reconstruction was ACCOMPLISHED