Southern sentinel. [volume] (Plaquemine, Parish of Iberville [La.]) 1848-1858, 1850-06-29
The Congress of 1850.

SUI
We find the following remarks in an ex.
change without any credit attached to them
We are sorry we cannot give the name of the
paper in which they originated. . In relation to
our National Legislature, since the commence.
tnent OF the present session, truth was never
more powerfully or beautifully spoken. Let
every newspaper in the Union endorse .ucb
sentiments, and demagogaes will shrink from
public gaze as readily as bats from the light of
Jay. The Press must "come down" upon the
men who are tampering with our rights and
interests for their W glori6cation. They are
vile and selfish, and whatever their talents or
party bias, the people should call upon them
to come home, that others might fill their pla-
ces-honest and straightforward men, who
know nothing but the interests Of their gov
eminent while in the congressional halls Of
their country's capitol:
Our EPITAPH YET TO BE WRIrrEN.-The cpl
taph on the grave of the man who died of
the doctor, u was well-I wanted to be bet
ter-and here l am" is more frequently ap-
plicable to the political patient who dies of
the partizan quack doctor, than to the victim
of hypochondrism, who falls a prey to his
morbid decisions. We have an excellent con-
s%titution, as the libertine said when he broke
it down by excuses. We have q noble u
Mon, framed on a principle of admirable har-
mony. We have a people intelligent, patient
and good natured, who think no evil can be-
fal US, because we gained our independence
in l776, and whipped the British in 1872"
We enjoy prosperity till the cup even over
flows the brim, and bubbles up to blind US
with the sparkling foam. Every man is a
sovereign, and we wish that we could say
that every sovereign was aman; but this would
libel humanity.
What then do we want! We want to be bet
ter, like the individual who took physic in
health, and died of his own want of something
better to do. We have an e~xcellant c%onstitu-
tion-on paper, and we make an excellent one
in practice. We send a congress to make
needful laws for the good of the Union, but
they forget their mission, and transform them
selves into a constitute assembly" to ~forestall
the people in the choice of rulers. We have
a population of integrity, sterling intelligence
and patriotism, without the ofensiveness of
cant, and who would maintain the republic in
all the might and majesty Of its noble pro-
portions, if allowed their proper weight in
the great movements of the day, and who
stand one thousand to one in numerical re-
lation to that pigmy demagogueism which
to manage public affairs for its
own selfish ends, instead of the good of the
now obsolete and forgotten. After
a six months session of Congress, what has
d~emagogueism lone for the country! Are
the new States admitted into the Unions No.
Are the territories organized? No. Has the
business of the country advanced one step!
No. Why not! Because demagoueism has
been busy with its own affairs; those of bad
to mend them-those of no charac-
tiers trying to gain one-those Of good char
acteFs trying to make them better, but bias
ting them by their blunders. Who ever
dreamed in the days, Of Patrick Henry and
Thomas Jefferson, that Congress would talk
for six months ON their own private affairs
and questions of analogous characters? Is
this our boosted age Of progresss When
Prince President Of the French Republic
makes a practical constitution, in opposition
to the written one, he surrounds himself with
10000 bayonets. When the demagogues Of
Yankeedom attempt the same thing, they
must depend on the power Of a metal not so
cold as steel, but sharper than a serpent's
tooth, and whose suasion does not involve the
infraction Of a moral Pfinciple.