Year: 1875

4Stt NCtC lkttC.


The Republican majority in the
House has finally broken down the
last bulwark of the rights of minorities
in Congress for the sake of foisting
upon the statute book the scheme of u
minority CT American citizens. That
scheme is to fonent Civil Strife
throughout the South, vindicate the
present usurpations, justify the misuse
of federal bayonets aud mislead North
ern sympathies to the end of the re-
election of Grant, or Grants choice,
to the Presidency of 1876. The origin,
the use, the necessity of the rule bro'
ken down were so fully and clearly
shown on the floor of the House on
Tuesday that we need only refer to
the debate itself for the proofs Of
them. The mischief and injustice of
the rule put in its place are too plain
for argument. A majority in Congress
should doubtless have its way at last


Had the Civil Rights bill been the
honest purpose Of the Republican
party, they might have made it o
statute last winter under the repealed
rule. The Civil Rights bill is now de-
sired by Butler as mere instrument
to provoke Civil Strife. Not Civil
Rights but Civil strife is now
the infamous plot by means OF which
the Radicals hope to keep their hold
on power.


We need not go much into parlia-
mentary technicalities. Nobody needs
to be told that the rule of the majority
is only prevented from becoming the
| tyranny of the majority by system of
checks and balances which even an
unchecked and reckless majority con
sents TO impose upon itself in view
of the chance that it may one day be-
come a minority. From the Consti-
tuition of the United States down to
Cushing's Manual the laws of repre-
sentative government arc Qualifications
of these checks and balances. From
a session of Congress to town meet
ing no numerous assembly of equal
men can transact business without
them. To strike one of them down is
the extreme measure of a secure and
unthreatened majority. In the case
before us it has been the work of a
ma jority which sees itself melting day
by day into q minority, and which
seems to forget its own interests of
next year, with the hepermanent interests
of all minorities.


But the cunning men who have
made this attack upon the rights of
the mlnorities with which they are
shortly to be numbered do not forget
their own interests. Nobody who
reads Buffers talk about making n
rule "for an exigency," nobody who
reads of Blaine indecently wrangling
from his high place with members
upon the floor, need be in doubt OF
their object. What seems to be de-
liberate preparation of fetters for
their own coming weakness is last
desperate clutch at their own vanish
ing power. The body of legislation of
which the Civil Rights bill is one
member puts the absolute control OF
all the Southern States of what was
once this Union into the hands Of the
President of the United States. Whether
there will be any scruples to temper
his use of it for his own advantage
may be judged from what he has done
i'll Louisiana. He has strangled State
that his worthless kinsman may be
powerful in it, and his worthless
creature Governor of it. Who need
doubt that he Will strangle dozen TO
perpetuate his own hold upon the
power which he has SO long and so
shamelcssiy shown that he considers
not Il trust but perquisite = This
control once given into his hands. he
can play the desperate game to which
his foolhardy counsellors invite him
with loaded dice.