The Placer Herald

The radicals manifest a sort of detestation for the right of self-government in the States. They are enamored of centralization. All this is very natural; because centralization is the way to their end, while the right of local self-government is the lion in their path. It is natural to them, but not the less monstrous and destructive to the people.

There is nothing, as the Cleveland Plaindealer says, more certain than that the prosperity of the nation is largely due to the fostering and developing influence of the State form of government. Who will deny that the idea of being incorporated under specific governments which immediately represent themselves, is a chief inducement to carry great numbers of people out into remote wilds and almost desert waters! Thus have Colorado and Dacotah and Nebraska and Oregon been supplied with an enterprising population. The emigrants to those distant sections of country go under the stimulating thought that they will soon emerge from the territorial condition and have a government of their own selection which will consult and provide for their immediate necessities. They do not undervalue the protection of the General Government, neither do they swerve in their allegiance to it, but they know that it is to their own institutions, laws, and chosen agents, their local wants must look for countenance and support.

The competition between the States, during the civil war, to furnish troops; the noble rivalry between the soldiers from different States, and the great results which have followed, might have commended State organizations to the revolutionary party. They have not done so however. Nothing it seems, will satisfy the reckless radicals but the establishment in our land of a gigantic imperialism which shall overshadow the entire continent. This tremendous centralization is to be sustained by large armies, and its will to be the "supreme law of the land."

It will be an evil day for all of us; an evil day for human freedom; an evil day for the peace and well being of men, when this great scheme is consummated. Let us heed well that we present in time an unbroken front against so huge a revolution of our political system. Events move rapidly now-a-days and a year's lethargy may be sufficient to seal our ruin. If the year 1865 shall dawn upon a renewed lease of authority in the hands which have already so terribly perverted the high trusts confided to them, it looks as if we might close up the chapter of American history, and begin to study the initial page of an Austrian system begun in this New World.—Louisville Journal.