The President of the United States has made up his
mind that he cannot allow Republican institutions to be imperilled in the Southern States of the Union, and acting on the clause of the Constitution which gives him the power to interfere in extreme -cases, he has authorised Mr. Belknap, the Secretary for War, to -order the Federal forces to be in readiness to interfere whenever the whites and the negroes come into violent collision. It is noticeable, however, that the President has, at the same -time, instructed Mr. Belknap to take the opinion of the Attorney-General on the legal and constitutional line of action. The Federal power, it must be remembered, has already inter- vened in Arkansas and Louisiana, and whatever political mischief the intervention may have done, the public peace has, up to the present at least, been kept ; and that is the first neces- sity everywhere. The American Government cannot allow Civil -war to recommence in deference to a constitutional etiquette. The Ohio Republican Convention takes special notice in its " platform " of the troubled condition of the South, and ." denounces " the recent outrages, but does not, so far as we can gather from the brevity of a cable telegram, fix the blame for the disorders upon either of the hostile factions.
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