New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1852-08-18
WEDNESDAY MORNING, AUGUST IS, 1862
THE .NEW CONSTITUTION VINcDL
sTf4YrED 5.

votes were cast by some of our representatives
aeainst the basis of total population, all recog-
mixed that the rights and salvation Of NewOr-
leans were involved in its victory or defeat.
Even those of the city delegation who voted
against this basis, admit that they did so upon
general principle; and intimate that they
would, in Justice to their constituents, have
voted for the total population basis, had they
not been certain that the electoral basls-lust
slstrsctly in itself, but by sectional prejudlces
against New0rleans unfairly clogged with an
ungenerous design of restriction Of our CITY
representation--cou not be carried through
the Convention.
They chose to yindicate their abstract opln-
ion, when they were certain it would work no
positive wrong to the great interests they
represented Disappearing Of the total popula-
ton basis they yet fully recognized the agitous,
unprogressive and unrepublican features Of our
present Constitution, and, carefully providing
for speedy and reasonable amendment, they
were not averse to one unwelcome feature, so
easily to be remedied, in an instrument destroy
ing 50 many old abuses and calculated to give
new and powerful impulse to the energies of the
State. In this spirit, at the close of the Con-
vention, they unanimously voted for its adop-
ton.
They thought, perhaps, like sensible men,
that it was better to bide their time and the
PRONUNCIATION Of the popular will, for the oblit-
Grafton of one Objectionable clause, rather than
run the risk Of falling back into the Egyptian
darkness of our present ante-diluvian barba-
rian and unprogressiva Constitution. They
were not willing to blow up the temple, because
the portico was not in the purest style of art;
and they remembered-the larger number hav-
ing read the Constitution of the United States,
rs men might read the Bible, from earliest
childhood the principle of the basis Of
total population was the leading feature Of our
national and organic law Of Union, which could
not be touched, in injury or diminution, with
out shivering our Confederacy into fragments,
We 70 further. We tread upon delicate and
dangerous ground. We have every right I'd
claim to be called, in every instinct and in every
impulse saving always what is to us religion,
the sentiment of American nationality South
ern man We have been warmed into the pow
ers Of manhood by no Northern sun. All that
NE are is Of Southern growth, all that we know
is Of Southern teaching From our innermost
heart we abhor, despise this eternal farrago OF
slayeholding and free-soil interests. But We
cannot and will not shut our eyes to the intro
duction Of dangerous doctrines into the slave
holding States We dislike all argument upon
the points they involve. We have always re-
garded slavery as positively existing institu
tion, for or against which it was the purestnon'
sense to argue, as against the light of day, the
color Of the Mississippi currents or the annual
reproduction of crops.
But with these feelings (and we shall hereaf
ter quote from the earlier fathers Of the Repub-
lie to sustain what we are about to say we have
no hesitation in pronouncing every argument,
yet adduced against the total population basis,
in discredit Of the new Constitution, essentially
abolitionist in tendency and deduction. Any
such argument would delight John P. Hale, OIL
s. Chase, we shall sustain what we say. We
have our own arguments against the basis o
total population and shall give them, shortly
Il But when men complain that the total popula
ton basis places the citizen upon level with thu
slave, and that the electoral basis is the only
one which is right, we say that there is the ech'
Of Hale's, Stewards, Chases, Van Buren's, But
ler's outcry of g the slave power" There is NJ
use Of any humbug or fummery in the premises
Three-ffths Of the slave population go to make
up the basisiof the representation of the slave
holding States in Congress- Does this fact de.
grade the free white citizen to the level of the
negro''! If it does, the furious, aa capta,,dun
outcry against g the total population basis il
Louisiana is deductively logical or correct. L
it does not degrade g the free white citizen totht
level of the negro in national matters, how cal
it so degrade (or in any way injure him) in Stat
matters We ask the question, and we CLAIM
an answer. ..
We wish no indirect countenance of abolition
list principles in Southern slaveholding States
and we are, and ever have been, moderate -oppos
ed to Nashville Conventions, and in favor Of Com
promise. But we do say, and say most positively
that when we pronounce decree of sccrn, deri
sion and outlawry upon the principle that slaves
should enter into a basis of population-when We
pronounce it here, in Louisiana, slaveholdins
State-when we claim that the estimate of slave
population in an electoral basis is q disgrace tt
the white man-we do say, under such state
Of things, we would rejoice the hearts of Hale
Chase, Van Buren,, Butler and their abolition
list associates. We attack the very principle OF
which the Southern States consented to unit,
with the Northern.
Why, what's the daily argument Of bitter anti
slavery men? 1t is this that our bond of uniol
degrades the Northern freeman into what il
equivalent to our sSouthern negro cattle
Shall we, Louisianians, have the argument Q
Hale, Greeley, Seward, Chase, etc., urged sue
cessfully in our own slayeholding State'
Besides look at common sense. John Smitl
owns thousand slaves : he votes. John Brow
owns two, three or none he votes John Brown
owning few or no slaves, puts in vote which
as good as the vote Of John Smith owning on
thousand OR forty thousand slaves In othe
words, under the total population basis, til
vote Of the poorest street laborer counts as mue
az the vote Of the largest slave-owner.
What remains Sectional questions and sec
tional prejudices. What are they? How al
they to operate' If we are, upon the adoptio
Of Constitution, to fight sectional battle
our State is to be split up, in this, upon loo
prejudices and conflicts, we say Cfor reasons
our own, preferring the electoral basis) in t
name of heaven, let US know why we are,
citizens Of q common State, to be thus singular
srrayed in hostility. Thus far, we recognize