New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-06-22
Our Foreign Population.

Our Foreign Population.
Every rejecting and we'll disposed person il
this country, of foreign birth, must deeply re-
greet the course of conduct pursued of late years
by great majority Of our naturalized citizens
and those who expect to become 80. Increasing
year by year in numerical strength. and natu
rally apt to be governed by feelings and preiu
dices acquired in the countries of their origin
they have, through strange infatuation, acted
as if with the purpose Of obtaining an extra al
lowance Of privileges and immunities by playing
into each Others hands, so to speak, and build
ing up distinct foreign feeling and influence
They have banded together, cultivated and fos-
tered an anti American spirit, alike dangerous
to themselves and repugnant to our institutions,
and have, by letting loose the widest and most
licentious passions, produced in different parts
Of the country scenes but little short Of anarchy
and civil war.
Politicians have not been slow to appreciate
the weight and Importance of the foreign vote
: when controlling Influences should unite it for
either Of the great political parties struggling
for ascendancy in the country. This was not a
difficult matter, Every budy knows how it was
accomplished, and the poor dupes themselves
must begin TO see, and unless they alter their
conduct, will seen bitterly feel, how completely
they have been deluded and betrayed They
have been beset by artfnl demagogues, their
prejudlees of country and race appealed to,
their condition here misrepresented, their i'm
portance to our country, ourselves and our poll
tics, magniGed and enlarged upon until they
verify believed themselves Indispensable to orr
political existence and the sole architects and
supporters of our greatness among the nations
of the earth In itself this might be but a
harmless vanity which it would have been well
enough to indulge and laugh ut, but the conse-
quenees have been most deplorsble, aud have
finally brought about a condition of things
which our foreign population should have
dreaded above every thing, Not satisfied with
the power thrust into their hands, they became
the tyrants Of the party to which they owed
their Importance: foreign caueuses, from which
the purity of the English tongue was banished,
must be held to consider the selection of candi.
dates; no ticket could receive their sanction and
co operation unlessi it afforded an opportunity for
the display of their foreign prejudces and predi-
lections; they must vote for somebody born in the
old country or they would vote for nobody !;
there must be a proper representation Of some
parts of Germany and all parts Of Ireland ; and,
finally, after their eaprices had been consulted,
their Whims gratifed, and the certainty of sue
cess secured thereby, their conduct at the polls,
their riots, violence perjury and drunkenness,
Disguised honest men and brought odium and
disgrace upon whatever party they supported
This course of conduct has been steadily pur-
sued for number of years; it has become a
frightful evil, which rapidly increased in extent
each year, and grew more formidable at each
election it has reused spirit of resentment
and indignation among the native population
throughout the land, which, unless their
character and conduct undergo complete
change, may not be pacfed until the foreign
classes find themselves deprived of the power to
abuse and pervert blessings and privileges which
would be extended to them in no other country
under the sun.
The best and most intelligent classes of the
native population of this country are probably
quite as much opposed to political as to religious
intolerance, but they cannot long submit to a
ment upon their rights. They can not submit
to see their elections converted into turbulent
and violent outbreaks, ending perhaps in muir
der; they can not submit to see the laws and
the sacred rights Of suffrage repeatedly tram
pied under foot, and the ballot. box made an
instrument of continual fraud and perjury;
they can not submit to be insulted, iostled,
beaten and driven from the polls by bands of
men whose unintelligible accent testi6es that
they have not lived in the country sufficient
time to acquire the rights of citizenship; they
can not submit to condition of things, finally,
which fills the journals of the day with accounts
ofassaults and batteries, outrages upon persons
and property, crimes of every shade Of atrocity,
and fanatical outbreaks like those which have
recently dIsgraced the cities of New York and
Brooklyn.