Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1880 — Dangers of Centralization. [ARTICLE]

Dangers of Centralization.

During the discussion, in Congress, of the bill to define the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, Representative- Townshend, of Dlinois, delivered an able and. logical speech upon the dangers of centralization, in the course of which he said; Ab I have already intimated, this question brings up the old issue, which has ever been the true line of demarkation between the Democratic party and its opponents —the question of home rule and of centralization ; the question of the Government of the many as against the rule of the few; the question which.divided Jefferson and Hamilton. The long life of the Democratic partv is mainly due to the position which it has ever occupied upon that great, question. In my judgment it has been enabled by its fealty to the true Jeffersonian principle on tills question to survive so many disastrous defeats, and it will by means of its adhesion to this position live as long in the future as it furnishes brave and true men to lead in the battle for the freedom and happiness of the people. It is strange that while all Europe is now advancing toward constitutional liberty there is a strong party in this country seeking, by desperate means, fair and foul, to turn this home of freedom back toward centralization and despotism. While the wires down under the sea bring us tidings that the Czar of Russia, the most absolute of the monarchies of the Old World, contemplates calling the notables of the empire together for the purpose of framing a constitutional form of government we find on this floor successors to John Hancock and Samuel Adams advocating a doctrine which is destructive of our constitutional form of government. When the old Federal party, the progenitor of the present Republican party, first a strong centralized Government, we had strong, brave and true men, like Jefferson and Madison, who, by the help of the people, were able to crush it. Would to God had such men in our midst to-day, in place of some of the timid time-servers who have neither the courage nor the inchnation to denounce in fitting terms tins the constitution and the nghta of the people of the States! We see the Federal judiciary men cringing before it and talking abou temper of the opposition party no attempt should be made to * eßlßt K tion the unpending disaster. Was tins the language of Jefferson when he saw at commencement the stream which has since into such a volume as threatens to ingulf the constitution? No, sir. Let me read those who lack courage the utterances of that tearless apostle of liberty. He said in 1821: It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression, ™ germ of disaohiUon of our Federal Government tain the constitution of the Federal judiciary, an sible body (for impeachment is scarcely a scarecrow), working like gravity by night and by day, gaintag a little to-day and a little to-morrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the fieldlot jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one. f ■ , ■ And again in 1822: The foundations are already deeply Hd by their decisions for the annihilation of constitutional State rights and the removal of every check, every counterpoise to the ingulfing power of which themselves are to make a sovereign part,