Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 8, Number 84, 14 June 1879 — THE EXPLANATION OF THE "STALWART" TENDENCY. [ARTICLE]

THE EXPLANATION OF THE "STALWART" TENDENCY.

It is undeniable that there has been and is atendeusy among many Republicans to hold the theory that President Hayes has in some way betrayed his trust in regard to the management of the South, and that General Grant is a much safer man to have at the head of the Government because he could be trusted to keep the South in order. It is equally certain that these beliefs rest upon no frets. For the Constitution of the United States prescribes what the Executive may and may not do, and while Hayes could only do more than he has by usurping authority he does not possess, (•rant could do no more than Hayes without perpetrating a similar infraction of the organic law. The beliefs of which we speak are therefore incapable of being justified by argument. When examined seriously they evince a purpose to ignore the Constitution, or an ignorance of what its limits are. Yet these beliefs are held, and by men who certainly are not ignorant of what the Constitution enjoins. The explanation of this apparent anomaly i», we think, to be sought in the events which the suppression of the rebellion gave rise to. Iv fact, though not in theory, the close of the rebellion found the South a conquered country. The preservation of the Union made it necessary to attempt, as soon as possible, to restore harmonious constitutional relations with it, and the efforts of Northern statesmen were directed persistently to this end. But tiie logic o; facts is always more powerful than that 01 theories, and despite all talk it was felt that the Southern States were really not what they had been before. The sword had passed over them, and had changed their relations to the Union, and however strongly Con-

stitutionalists tried to shake oft the normal influence of the fact, that influence continued to control the most vigorous political leaders, and gave its color to the situation. And we believe that it is the survival of this feeling that the South was subjugated, and ought therefore to be treated a3 a conquered country, that is apparent in what has been called the " Stalwart " theory. Despite all the efforts which have been made to that end, it is as yet impossible to overcome the conviction of the fact that the South was the vas3il and not the peer of the North, after the war, and that the treatment extended to it was not in accordance with the principles which mankind had ever been guided by under similar circumstances. We thus have in one of the political heresies of the time a survival of the confusion which the war introduced to the national life, and which has produced so many evil conseqnences in other directions.