Southern sentinel. [volume] (Plaquemine, Parish of Iberville [La.]) 1848-1858, 1853-06-18
The Evils of Political Excitement.

For the last twelve months or more, our Par
ish has been in a continued fever of political
agitation, engendered by and consequent upon
the accession to power of the Democratic par
ty. There are times when excitement of this
description seems necessary and indispensable
to the purity and perpetuity ofour institutions.
passed, becomes a curse instead of benefit to
society. At all times, perhaps, it is right that
private citizens as well as public men and
journals, should calmly and impassionately con-
tend for those principles and those interests to
which they are attached, and which are con-
nected with and dependent upon party power;
but when attempts are made to excite the pas
sions of community, through party feeling,
upon matters and results which really have
none of the principles and measures of a party
connected with them, it is high time that good
and moderate men frown down such incendiary
endeayors. When the hour of political agita-
ton arrives that personal feelings, and private
callings and interests, are outraged in the adj
vocacy of party views, it is time that some mo-
nitor steps in to point to the evils Of such a
course-be that monitor the Press or the moral
sentiment of community. Has such an hour
arrived in our Parish? We ask reflective minds
10 answe the question.
We do not hesitate to say that the Press is
responsible for a great deal of this wild and
unnecessary excitement, growing out of the
strict party lines that have been drawn. An
Editor has a holier and a loftier duty to perform
than wandering to the passions of his readers,
by connecting just so much of personal allu-
sions and invectives with his political Trades as
to excite hatred or wound the sensitiveness Of
honorable minds. 1t is difficult, we admit, for
a man at all times to sit in an editorial chair
and calmly and deliberately advocate the legiti-
mate principles and interests of his party, as
we'll as the true interests and prosperity of the
country, with a breast entirely free of all per-
sonal prejudices and antipathies. No one, per-
haps, is perfect in any profession-and no edi-
tor probably can be perfect in this respect. We
ourself may have errors of this description. But
it has been and shall ever be our aim to keep
clear of them-so 10 conduct our journal that
we give vent to no harsh and embittered feel
ings while endeavoring to sustain the rights of
party and the success of its candidates, but
rather to throw oil upon the troubled waters
of political discord, that man may meet man
with smiles instead of frowns, and content
ment and good will, instead of apandimonium,
be spread everywhere throughout the eommu-
nifty.
Let courtesy and dignity characterize the
Press-and malice, and envy, chickering's and
low passions, be discarded by the editor, and
discountenanced by the people, and much of the
evils of political excitement to which we have
alluded will be done away with. The motto
of the Press should be, that, while contending
for political supremacy, we should be ever care
full not to tramp'e upon the feelings and social
relations of life.