en an unlawful combination is made
to interfere with any of the rights of natural citizenship
secured to citizens of the United States by the national
constitution, then an offense is committed against the laws
of the United States, and it is not only the right but the
absolute duty of the national government to interfere and
afford the citizens that protection which every good
government is bound to give.

General Hawley, in an address before a college last spring, said:

Why, it is asked, does our government permit outrages in a
State which it would exert all its authority to redress,
even at the risk of war, if they were perpetrated under a
foreign government? Are the rights of American citizens more
sacred on the soil of Great Britain or France than on the
soil of one of our own States? Not at all. But the
government of the United States is clothed with power to act
with imperial sovereignty in the one case, while in the
other its authority is limited to the degree of utter
impotency, in certain circumstances. The State sovereignty
excludes the Federal over most matters of dealing between
man and man, and if the State laws are properly enforced
there is not likely to be any ground of complaint, but if
they are not, the federal government, if not specially
called on according to the terms of the constitution, is
helpless. Citizen A.B., grievously wronged, beaten, robbed,
lynched within a hair's breadth of death, may apply in vain
to any and all prosecuting officers of the State. The forms
of law that might give him redress are all there; the
prosecuting officers, judges, and sheriffs, that might act,
are there; but, under an oppressive and tyrannical public
sentiment, they refuse to move. In such an exigency the
government of the United States can do no more than the
government of any neighboring State; that is, unless the
State concerned calls for aid, or unless the offense rises
to the dignity of insurrection or rebellion. The reason is,
that the framers of our governmental system left to the
several States the sole guardianship of the personal and
relati