Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 May 1879 — Centralization and State Rights. [ARTICLE]

Centralization and State Rights.

We have heard a great deal in recent years from Democratic writers and speakers of the dangers of “ centralization.” No doubt the word itself strikes on the average Democratic ear with the sort of mysterious tesror always conveyed to the uneducated mind by strange and polysyllabic terms. Every person has heard the story of how a celebrated English wit silenced a foulmouthed fish-worn an by calling her “ a parallelogram.” If be had called her a fool, a drab or a liar, so far from being silenced she would have come back at him with greater violence than ever; but “parallelogram” overcame her, because she did not know what it meant. So probably the average Democrat is impressed and alarmed by the talk about “centralization,” because he is as incapable of understanding what it means as he would be of understanding a clause of the Constitution if some person should read it to him. If ho could be made to understand that centralization is the word applied by dem-o agogues to every exercise of legitimate power by the General Government, he might, perhaps, wonder why any danger should spring from that source, and it might even occur to him that a Government without any of the powers of a Government would be no Government at all. Yet that is precisely the sense and meaning of the term as used by Democratic writers and speakers in reference to politics. There has not been a single act of the Government during the last nineteen years that has not been denounced as centralization. Every effort of the Government to coerce the States, to suppress the rebellion and to preserve its own existence was called centralization; the raising of troops, the equipping of armies, the enforcement of the draft, and every step in prosecution of the war were denounced as centralization. The emancipation of the slaves, their subsequent investiture with the rights of citizens, the acts to enforoe civil rights, the legislation to secure free ana fair elections, the laws to punish Ku-Klux-ism and .election frauds—all these and a score of other measures that might be named, have all been denounced under the same comprehensive and mysterious term, until one might suppose that the sort of Government desired by the Democracy is a Government without any power or authority whatever, and without any means of enforcing the law or making itself respected at home or abroad. There is another political influence at work in this country far more dangerous than this Democratic bugbear called centralization. It is the influence which made the original articles of confederation a failure; which came near preventing the adoption of the -Constitution; which baseverbeeuoperating to undermine and destroy the Constitution since its adoption; which taught the doctrines and instilled the principles that led to 1 ’ the rebellion; which nerved the arms and pointed the guns of the Confederates during four years of war, and which has resisted every effort of the Government since the war to restore the Union and establish its authority on a solid and enduring basis. We mean State rights. If our present form of government is ever destroyed it will not bo by the centripetal but by the centrifugal power. There is infinitely less danger that the rights of the citizen ana of the several States will be trampled upon by the General Government than there is that the power and authority <rf the General Government will be sapped, weakened, and destroyed by the specious doctrine of State rights. Imperialism and centralization are imaginary dangers; that of State rights and State sovereignty is real. The contest now going on in Congress is but one phase of it, in which, the Democratic party denies the -right of Congress to pass any Jaws or the General Government to exercise any authority to preserve the peace at the polls in National elections, to punish frauds on the ballot-box, or prevent violent interference with such elections by individuals or organizations acting under the protection of State laws. For it must be remembered that this entire controversy concerning the right of the General Government to regulate elections refers not to State elections, but to elections for Members of Congress, and on this issue l the Democrats maintain that the National Government has no rights whatever in the premises. This is but one of many phases of the doctrine of State rights, & doctrine which, is utterly incompatible, not only with good Government, but with any Government at all, and which is now the central idea and ruling principle of Democracy.— Indianapolis Journal. —Of Miss Julia E. Smith, Of Glastonbury, Conn., whose marriage has been announced, a story is told Jn Jpartford that suggests her independence. Some time ago; being a stockholder in one of the Hartford banks, she called in at the institution a month or more before . dividend time and said that being in ! town she would take her dividend then. The President remarked that no dividend had been declared, and that she was a month ahead of time. Nevertheless, she demanded her money. “I don’t do things as people do, sir,” she said; ‘Tm a law nnto myself, sir, and r H take my dividend now/’ “Well, ma’am, you may be a law unto yourself,” was the answer got, “but you’re not a laiV unto me,’ r and instead of . gettdng^e£.dividend shejjot „ rangy. “ y, _ L _. > Whsn you wake up at night andhear the baby crying; look out for dangerfar there is a rock (ahead. i