Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1879 — The Struggle for State-Sovereignty. [ARTICLE]

The Struggle for State-Sovereignty.

The YriAwie has'eonteadefl from to« velry outset bf the present Congfefoiottal controversy tilfo toe purpose of the Democratic agitation for the amendment of the Army la#> and. the repeal of theqjjlectibn law is to reimpose ■ the tire AmerrctaTi people. Mr. ciaine s Democratic side, mu<t aid, in impressingthia View foe matter u)>on the general public. W’ith £he directness, and fore*, anfl aptness which hreehiteacteristic of Mr. Blaine’s public utterstripping the Democratic ease of every pretense that the proposed apolitical legislation iameqpqsary-to remedy Any existingovilw’prerent iafiiy itopenfling abuses. Thqjnethod adopted by the DqmooratsQd secure their purpose is one that coiiTfl scarcely be excused by the' ntmoafcdnr«BcJi wf the- National welfare, aafl yHita iim is noJiigher or I tyjti»'-i>racwpsJ,tolUi to fifoHnon the, National lawsfne stam’p or ataie”lii- 1 pnmpnjf | abandonment in theory of mi the practical achievements in the way of National existence that were

wrought out by the war, is the immediate scope ot the proposed Democratic legislation. Success to this extent would soon be followed by a similar abandonment in practice. The telling point in Mr. Blaine’s address was the absolute demonstration that there is hot in the existing condition of things so much a* a suggestion of danger from military despotism, though such an apprehension constitutes the refrain of ail the speeches on the Democratic side. The use of the sword and bayonet to influence an election either North or South is a ludicrous assumption in the face dT'tho actual size and disposition of the United Stales army. The statistics*produced by Mr. Blaine cover the entire area in which a menace of armed interference to control elections would be possible, and include about 41,000,000 out of the 45,000,000 or 46,000,000 people now estimated to be the population of this country. The total number of troops within this vast domain is less than .8,000, and they are distributed so as to guard eleven signals and forty-live fortifications. There are about sixty soldiers to 1,000,000 people, and, if they were all detached frbm their regular duties and permitted or used to interfere with elections, every individual soldier would be Required to intimidate about 40,000 able-bodied voters. The chivalrous people of the Southern States are especially exempt from the danger of military despotism, as there is only one soldier to overrun and terrorize every 700 square miles. There is not a solitary military despot—not so much as a high private—in Delaware or West Virginia; not one in the Old Dominion jftate outside of a school of instruction at Fortress Monroe; only thirty in North Carolina, twenty-nine in Georgia, thirty-two in Alabama, fifty-seven in Arkansas, a couple of hundred in Louisiana, about half as many in South Carolina—all occupied in guarding United States property — and not one in Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky or Missouri! In the State of Texas there are none except those guarding the Rio Grande border, and the people of that State are constantly complaining that the force is too small to protect them from the ravages of the Mexican banditti. And this is the actual condition of things on which the Democratic orators base their rhetorical flights about “ the iron heel of military despotism.” The bare statement of these facts is enough to show that there is not the smallest occasion for any such alarm as the Democrats set up in explanation of their attack upon the use of troops to keep the peace at thajpolls. jwi— are other circumstances which confirm the cfeffSCtions from these facts. There has been no effort, either on the part of President Hayes orrtey anyone under his Administration, to call upon the United States troops to keep the peace at elections; and if the scenes of violence enacted in South Carolina, Louisiana and other Southern States have not prompted such action, it is not easy to predict any state of things that will induce the civil authorities to avail themselves even of the existing authority of the law. Again, it is evident that the Democratic movement is not directed against possible armed interference at elections, since, if that were the purpose, the Democrats would accept Mr. Blame’s amendment, which prohibits the appearance within a mile of a poll-ing-place of any person armed with a deadly weapon of any kind. That Would be an assured protection against all armed interference, whether of United States troops, or State troops, or volunteer organizations of bulldozers. But it is not protection against, but license for, armed interference which the Democrats are seeking. If they can put the United States laws in such a shape that no civil officer of the Government may call upon National troops to keep the peace at the polls, then they will have secured immunity from Interference for their own companies of “ Red-Shirts,” “ Whitq-Liners,” and other organized, armed and drilled bull-dozers, who may terrorize the people and intimidate voters to apy extent that may be necessary; Neither Mr.. Withers nor Mr. Wallace—one from the South and one from the North—who undertook ‘to reply to Mr. ‘Blaine, was able to deny his statements or weaken the force of his argument. They admitted that there were no abuses urging a change in the law stands. They were compelled to confess that they were fighting on the ground of State Sovereignty. “The preservation of the peace at the polls should be left to the control of the State,” said Mr. Withers; “ its protection rests with the States, and the Federal. Government has nothing to do with it,” added Mr. Wallace. These .two sentences makeup afair statenfopt is » blunt denial of the right of the National Government to supervise, regulate or protect the National elections from any fraud or violence which any State, of any city under sanction of the State authorities may see fit to perpetrate or condone. To this end the Election law mpst be so amended that National supervision will be merely nominal and Utterly inefficient; the power to call upon Government Marshals or Government troops to protect Supervisors or to keep the peace at the polls must be repealed; and, finally, the jurors’ test oath must be expunged from the stat-ute-books in order that juries may be made up to acquit in ,any case where arrests have been or shall be made, for frapds already ciommitted. The scheme is very complete and consistent, but it is palpably a scheme for State-Rights’ nullification, and it must be resisted in every part as well as in its entirety. A trfomph of State sovereignty in themanipblatidn and control of National elections will make the way easy to all the other Southern schemes which depend upon the recognition of that fatal doctrine.—Chicago Tribune. —A Cornish miner was recently found dead in a mine and was duly buried, A neighbor of the deceased the Jiext night areamed that agentlerffoß in a cairiage and pair hpd driven up to she house of the mother of the deceased, and said her son was not dedd, but had been buried alive. This dream being noised abroad, the next night seven or eight men went to the graveyard, dug up the coffin and carried It to a chapel. They unscrewed the coffirt lid, and there was the body of their comrade, apparently still liv; ing and breathing. So convinced were they of this that they sat him qp, and, wmle’some attempted to revive him by stimulants am) friction, others ran off to the nearest eurgcon, twqmiles distant.. The surgeon arrived and examined foe body, amid great excitement, and then Btatetl that the man was dead, and had bfeeh dSad iorriiS days: United drops of perspiration are pore relations.