Press enter after choosing selection

The Views Of Senator Beck

The Views Of Senator Beck image
Parent Issue
Day
24
Month
August
Year
1877
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

[From bis epeechat Maysville, Ky.l The wrongs, tlie frauds, the usurpations of tlie Radical miers have been so often and so successfuliy cxposed that a large majority of tlie States and people have condemned and repudiated them, and to-day a Democratie President would be presiding over tlie republic but tor the most scundalous and unblushüig fraud ever perpetrated in modern Instory. which was only rendered possible by the most shameful cowardice aud irnbeeility on the part of the Democratie leaders. We have again verified the adage that " an army of stags led by the liou is braver than an army of lioiis led by a stag." But our principies nre not impaired, nor our positions weakened, eilher by tlie frauds of our oppononta or the cowardice of our leaders. "Truth is migiity, aud public justice cértain;" even those who profitëd by the wrong have been compelled to do hoinage to the justice of our demands, and remove the iron heel of the Federal soldier from the necks of the last of the prostrate States of the South. All the leading Republican papers ure demanding an iucreuse.of the Federal army. To all such ideas the Democratie party are absolutely and unalterably opposed. No evil can be worse than that proposed by the Bepublican press nnd partj ; it is an end of liberty regulated by law ; it is the boldest and most unblushing demand for a centralized, consolidated Government which has yet been advanced. An army, such as is demauded, under a President like Ge. Grant, would become at once masters of tlie situation. When it strikes, as it is f ar more likely to strike thau any other organization, the death-knell of liberty ■will liave struck; the Prsetorian Guarde will name and maintain -tlie Emperor. I bnow of no instanee under Rndical rule in which Federal soldiers have not been the ready tools of their masters. Gen. Terry destroyed the Legislaturo of Georgia. Sheridau and De Trobriand crushed out liberty in Louisiana. All wcro ready to march on Washington, and eject, if necessary, a Democratie House of Kepresentatives last winter, under the lead of their niasters. We have had enough of Federal bayonets regulating State affairs, and will not lay the liberties of the people, their constitutions and rights, at the feet of any dictator. It is the height of impudence íor a party that has triven to break down State authority, that lias absolutely prohibited in niany of the States the arming and equipping of State militia or volunteer military orgauiziitions, to pretend that the men of the State are not to be trusted with preserving the peace within their own borders. Do they pretend that the materia) of which the regular army is composed is more patriotic, more Inteliigent, more devoted to inaintaining' the rights and preserving the lives, liberty and property of tlie people than the citizens of the respective States who may be organized on tlie cali of their Governors for that purpose? They read history strangely if they arrive at such conelusions. The Democratie party stands by the constitution and all its provisions, and will provide means to enforce them, without the danger of a great standing army The iraniers of that instrument were wise enough and far-seeing euough to provide for all such coutingencies as have recently arisen. The neglect of aud contempt for its provisions, uuder the consolidating process of the Radicáis, has oaused the disgraceful scènes we have just pasi;ed tlirough. Article 2 of the amendment to the constitution adopted by the First Congress provides: A well-regulated militia being neceBaary to the security of a free State, tho right of the people to keep and buar arois hall uot be intringed. Mr. Jefferson, in his flrst inaugural address, among other invaluable principles wliich he laid down íor tlie guidance of tlie people, said: A well-rcguliited militia i our best reliauce in time of peace, and for the ftrat nioments of war, till regulara may relieve them. Warned by the lossous of the past, and recoguizing the wisdom of the fathers, the Democratie party will do all that is necessary to organize and maintain in eaeh Stute a " well-regulated militia," with officers in all regards equal to tliose in the regular army, wlio will recognize their obligations as citizens even wheu acting as soldiers, and with men iar superior to the niass of the Federal soldiery - a militia that will have the respect of tho people, and which will cintillo the State authorities to suppress promptly all sorts of lawlessntss. We make no war on the regular army, as such. We resist the uses to wliich it has been put, and we will abolish it altogether rather than see them repeated. The ballot-box must be kept sacred from the bayonets ; State and Federal Legislatures and courts must not be broken up by Federal soldiers, no matter who orders these thiugs to be done ; but we will maintain such a standing army as will protect our frontier, guard all tlie Federal proper,ty, and do all that the individual States camiot and ought not to do. That done, a militia organized, equipped and paid by the State, composed of such material as each State has in abuudanee, will not only never strike eioept for Iiberty and lnw, but will be both abifi and willing to suppress all wlio oppose or seek to overthrow either. Decadence of the Hepublican I'arty. It is not only decaying, it is dying. A little more than n quarter of a eentury ago the great Whig orator of New England stood in Funeuil Hall, just as he aud his party wcre on the verge of dissolution - for they died together - -pleading with the Whigs of Blassachusette for the continuaiïce of tlie Whig organizatóon. Thé iilol of New England said: " II' to Whig party is disbanded, what will beeome of me?" The question which Daniel Webster asked, with the grave just ahead of hini, is the question which some Republican statesmen in 1877 are asking, and about it lies the secret of tho opposition to the Southern policy of Mr. Hayes. The Blnines and tho Mortous are among the men who are not too blind te see that the surrender of the two Southern States of South Caroliua, aud Louisiiuia was the ilnal capitulation of tlie Republican party. By that slender tenure alouo did it hold ite power. Ou that brittle thread hung itslife. The lust Southcru State gone, and they well knew that tho Republicau party was gone forever. The sagacious liepublicans whose public life or whose political convictious, have been wrapped up in, or circumseribed by, the lile of tfoé Republican party, are naturally onwilling- to let the party die without another strnggle. The Blaines and the Mortons are each inquiring: "What will become of me?" On the 27th of July Senator Morton, in Oregon, recited Iiis bloody-shirt speecn. It was the same speech, but it was not delivered with that zest that has characterized it for the lust ten yeaxs. He plnintively irefaccd it by saying that "wearenowat a period of retrogreaKi'on." He gazpd sadly on the last remeininfi hopiB of the Republican party, sunvmlered by Hayes to the Democracy, aud wailed : " We are now at a period of retrogresKÍon."' With automatic rhl torio, Jiowever, or as a reminiscence of the past, or because it has become as a ewcet morsel nnder his tongue, he repeated his account of the purposes of the Democratie party. It is : 1. To pay all the rebel claims for Iosse8 during the war. 2. To pension all the rebel soldiers and their widows and orphans. ;i. To par their late owners, or their heirs, for tlie loss of all the slaves. 4. To pay the rebel war dobt. Two weeks af ter Morton was tlms painfully and pathetically tulkiug about a i "period of retrogresión" n the plaina I of Oregon, Blaine was talküjfr fot peace on the banks of the Kennebec, old Ben Wnde was growling on tlie shore oi Lake Erie: "I suppose we must have harmony," and a band of recatótemt Kepublioans were issuing a manifest,, from our State eipitil denoúncug the abandonnient of tiifi Bepubhr. to the enemy, and fived;iys after Morton'g Bwan's song tak Kepublinan party jn Ohio had fletl for salvation to a " Bureau of Indnstry." The dissolution of the Kepnblican party, however, is not to be laid at the door of Mr. Hayes. It was the iiievit. able late of a party whose ïnisskm was ended, of an epheineral organization tbat had no wholesonie ideas to feed on It was not tlie Southern policy dt Ur Hnyes that practically brought tiie Republican party to an end. The work has been in progrese for yoara. That party has been subsistiug the negro. It has been oa the war. The war and the negio could not always last. They hnvc sus. tiiined the parly tweWe yearn. Nothin less than a miraele like that whicli mul. tiplied the loaves and flshes could enable it to feed on them longer. The p;issiom of war for a time could sweep everj. thing beforo them; but all wars niiu( end. The f ate of the negro, " the ro. manee of our history," could enlist miliions of hoartfl, but the law has done all it can for the negro, and the Bepubliaa party is bncome either his master or, ja effect, his enemy. lts usefulneBg g ended, but its destruction was notac. comjjlished by the surrender of tra States to the Democratie partj to whicii they belong. It was a longer proces "The slow poison of corruption," tf which Stanley Matthews told us fouj years ago, wliile presiding over tlie Cij. cinnati Convention, liad been doingfo work. The party in its origin had jj one purpose and for the accomplist. ment oi that and during üio firet 5w bloody years of it career it gathereduntj itselt' 'men of all beliefs, so that fe ngreed uponthe one question. The que tion dead and buried, it was natnul that the organization without at errand should gradnally orsuddenlyd intégrate. It has been by superhumu exertions, by the employment of akucit omnipotent agencies, by falsehood aai money and the bayonet, by the use of a colossal patronage, by playing wiüi derilish skill upon the passions and prejidices of men, that the Bcpublican paitj has been kept alive so long. It dies hard. Drowning, it has grasped tai, and somehow has magnifled theminlo planks, and kept itself above wakr. Jft need only mention the common-school system, which no party opposes; tlt "rebel debt," which does not esist; thf " rebel claims," which are forbiddeuto be paid by the constitution; the mment for slaves, of which nouc but Bepublieans speak, to illusfcrate our me ing. Now, the party in Ohio has grasps] at a "Bureau of Industry" in the hope of prolonging its Ufe, and in rai State after Stat lias been slippÈ nway from it. lts popular majontt of three-quarters of a million liaebsi changed in four years to an opposite mt jorityof a quarter of a lüillioa. Ithu lost one branch of Congress and almos lost the other. It is entirely disb&ndíí in several Soutliern States and helple in all. It is a mass of wranglers in ík North. The leaders are quarreling aid the followers are disnffected. lts President occupies his seat without a valid title, and is in the hands of strun? ae: who fought the Republican partv H terly four years ago, and who can lare little love 'for it now. Iteadmüiistïajk, onder instructions from these geutltnta, has entered a jilea of guilty to one grave count in the indictment agauist it by adocting the Democratie policy. ft abuses of power have exaspérate lie people wliom they have oppressecl. It is not strange, under the circumstmw, thrtt Morton should send fromtbePa slope the lament, "We are now at a period of retrogi-ession, " or that Bhiw, by the Kennebec waters, sluwld gnmlj talkof the need of "peace." The end is at hand.

Article

Subjects
Old News
Michigan Argus