OCR Text |
Show A MILITARY DESPOTISM. Another step in the march of republican re-publican diepulUm has been taken. The joint committee of the congressional congres-sional republican caucus has determined deter-mined to recommend to the caucus a revival of the old kuklux laws and other radical lciaUtiou, which places in the hands uf the president the power to overate and regulate the rotate elections in the south, and to suspend the writ of habeas corpus at hi.i pleasure. He is empowered to appoint deputy United Slates marshals mar-shals and supervisors of elections, ' with full power to conduct elections,! count ballots, supervisa returns and arrest persons who may attempt to intimidate voters, or unlawfully interfere in-terfere with the lawful conduct of elections. He is also to provide for a registration of voters, and it is mude unlawful for any of the reconstructed stales to impose or collect au excessive exces-sive poll tax us a qualification for voting at any congressional election. There are also clauses against the exhibition ex-hibition or use ol deadly weapons to intimidate voters, etc. This bill, il passed, will placo the control of southern politics in the hands of the president of the United States, enabling him through his appointed ap-pointed ma'shals and inspectors to control every eie-ition precinct, admitting ad-mitting only such voters as they may deem qualilitd, giving a prelercnoo in all cas;a to republicans, and by a proper distribution of troops, creating a reign of terror, which in many cases may lead to violence and bloodshed, blood-shed, which will furnish a pretext for the suspension of the writ of habeas corjniz and the declaration of martial law. Tho electiuus last (all throughout the southern states were quite as peaceable, and eo far as we have heard as fairly conducted, as those in the northern states. The Louisiana special committee in their report to the house, mude no complaint of unfairupsj or intimidation of republicans repub-licans at the polls in the state; neither did the special Arkansas committee complain of the election there, and no such complaints were made in any other of the reconstructed states. Mississippi, Florida, and South Carolina, Caro-lina, wcro carried by tha republicans, which are probably all the southern states they are entitled to in a fair vote, the others being largely democratic. demo-cratic. This atato of affairs, if al-lowed'tfe al-lowed'tfe continue, (and popular revolutions revo-lutions never go backward, until they have accomplished their ends), would give the republican party no chance to perpetuate itself. Hence the necessity of investing the president presi-dent with the power of manipulating ;the southern elections, by means of a horde of officials nppointed by him and paid from the treasury of the United States, and by empowering hiin to use the army, suspend the writ of Zi'jlrus rorpuj, etc. Whether thu bill can bo forced through congress during the short .tpriKt-Temnininji ,f tt( republican party, or not, is a question which depends, not on the democratic opposition, op-position, but on the strength of the caucus decision to bind senators and members. The two-third rule no longer protects the minority by enabling en-abling them to delay action on an obnoxious measure; and there will probably be little difficulty in securing secur-ing the bare majority required in each house to pass the bill, in which case there is no doubt that it will receive re-ceive tho signature of the president, and become a law. The bid is evidently intended to make Grant, or whoever he may support sup-port for that ohice, the next president of the United States, and is likely to accomplish this result unless public opinion is so strongly and un- partisanly expressed against the revolutionary re-volutionary measure, that Grant will fiud it dangerous to attempt enforce it. Whether the people are ready to insist in a manner that he even cannot can-not misunderstand, that the executive shall confine himse'f to his legitimate duties, ia a question for the future. Onco we should have said that such a th'mg as the submission by the people to a tyranny like that attempted at-tempted by the congressional caucus committee would have been absurd and impossible; but after what we havo seen of popular pusillanimity within the lust decade, we are not so certain but that almost any outrage could bo committed by an ambitious military ruler. |