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The President,
at the request of the Governor of South Carolina, who is unable to keep
order in the State, has summoned the illegal combinations—know as the
Ku-Klux—to disperse within twenty days; and he has also sent a message
to Congress asking for such legislation as may effectually secure life,
liberty, and property in all parts of the United States. We gather from
the context that this request is designed not to supersede the local
authorities, but to provide for those cases of which the United States has
constitutional cognizance, such as offenses against mail-carriers and
revenue collectors. The report of the committee which has appointed to
consider the recommendations of the message will, of course, open debate
upon the whole subject. We beg the Republicans in the House of
Representatives to remember that this debate will make an issue of the
most vital importance for the Presidential campaign. Any error would be
disastrous; and as opinion in the party upon the subject is not unanimous,
there must be the greatest care that the policy recommended can be
justified at every point before the people.
If the Constitution empowers the
United States to keep the internal peace of a State without the
requisition of the State authorities, let it be done at all hazards. But
let the constitutional provision which authorizes it be made plain. To the
questions whether the United States may not rightfully defend the lives of
its citizens the reply is conclusive: "Yes, in the way its
fundamental law provides." But if the reader of these lines in the
State of Iowa is injured in his person or property when not officially
acting for the United States, does he appeal to the State or to the
national courts? Is he willing that the United States should decide just
when the local authorities are unable to protect him? Indeed, does not the
Constitution expressly forbid the national government to decide that
question by providing that the State authorities shall call for assistance
if they wish it? If those authorities are themselves lawless, and refuse
to ask assistance of the nation, the United States have still the right
and the power of protecting their own agents and functions, and defending
them at all costs.
Meanwhile, also, the Government
of the United States has the indisputable constitutional right of
enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment. It has made large numbers of persons in
the Southern States voters, and it is bound to protect their political
rights to the last. But in doing this with the amplest force, let Congress
consider the essential disadvantage of continuing any kind of
proscription, and by a general amnesty remove forever the feeling of
injustice which is the fruitful source of so much evil. By a declaration
of amnesty, and by a vigorous and ample provision for the defense of
rights which nobody questions the duty of the Government to defend,
Congress will do what the best and most earnest Republicans desire—Republicans
who can not but feel that there must yet be great disorder in parts of the
Southern States, disorder which only time and moral influences can
restrain, and who believe that the policy which we suggest would be
conclusive evidence that the party does not repose upon its victories, but
carries its old spirit of constitutional liberty into the new issues of
the hour. |
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