In response to this the governor, evidently unwilling to allow the
matter at issue between us to rest without a renewal of argument
and protest, at once addressed to me another long telegraphic
communication, evidently intended to be more severely accusatory and
insistent than its predecessor. Its general tenor may be inferred from
the opening words:
Your answer to my protest involves some startling conclusions,
and ignores and evades the question at issue--that is, that the
principle of local self-government is just as fundamental in
our institutions as is that of Federal supremacy. You calmly
assume that the Executive has the legal right to order Federal
troops into any community of the United States in the first
instance, whenever there is the slightest disturbance, and that
he can do this without any regard to the question as to whether
the community is able to and ready to enforce the law itself.
After a rather dreary discussion of the importance of preserving
the rights of the States and a presentation of the dangers to
constitutional government that lurked in the course that had been
pursued by the general Government, this communication closed as follows:
Inasmuch as the Federal troops can do nothing but what the
State troops can do there, and believing that the State is
amply able to take care of the situation and to enforce the
law, and believing that the ordering out of the Federal troops
was unwarranted, I again ask their withdrawal.
I confess that my patience was somewhat strained when I quickly sent
the following despatch in reply to this communication:
EXECUTIVE MANSION.
WASHINGTON, D. C., July 6, 1894.
While I am still persuaded that I have neither transcended
my authority nor duty in the emergency that confronts us, it
seems to me that in this hour of danger and public distress,
discussion may well give way to active efforts on the part of
all in authority to restore obedience to law and to protect
life and property.