The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1855-11-19
nntraee. At rsw Orleans.

all good citizens that an exciting election had
passed off harmoniously. But at a late hour
at night, while the votes of one ward were
being counted, and just at the close of the
counting Of the votes of another, a body of
men seized the ballet boxes and destroyed
them. 1t is charged that these men were
Know Nothings. Ofwhatever party they may
have been, they foully disgraced their party,
so far as it is in the power of the acts of such
rufians to disgrace any body that most bitterly
condemns the outrage There are bad men in
every party, and the only thing left for par
ty is, when outraged by the acts ofthese men,
to condemn the acts in proper terms, and dis
avow all party connection or sympathy with
the men and their deeds. If any portion Of
the Know Nothings of New Orleans were gull
ty of such an offence as that imputed to the
ruffians who destroyed the ballot boxes, we
trust they may be recognized and brought to
prompt and severe punishment. We all know
the American party has principle enough to
and as strongly, as they would in the actions
Of their enemies-and that constitutes one
prominent difference between the two par
ties. If foreigners commit the basest outrages,
even to the shooting down of American citi-
zens peaceably walking along the streets of a
city, and trampHng the American flag in the
dust, they are defended by their Old Line Anti
American political friends. But there is no
such disgusting spirit among the American
party. If any of them commit outrages, their
most wronged-the great mass Of their party
who are determined friends Of law and order.
: The following article from the New Orleans
Bee, speaks in proper terms of the outrages in
that city and will most certainly find warm
response in the hearts Of the American party
all over the country:
When at the close Of the election on Mon
day, we penned the article which appeared in
yesterdays paper congratulating our fellow-cit-
liens on the sobriety, moderation, and absence
of illegal violence which had distinguished
most of the districts during the exciting con-
test, little did we imagine that when the
darkness of midnight should be substituted
for the broad light Of day, outrages would be
perpetrated far exceeding in their moral as
and riots so generally apprehended, but so
happily avoided. In brawl or street en-
counter human life may be taken The un-
truly passion of an armed man may prompt him
to avengo an insult by fatal stab. or pistol
shot. Such excuses are deploTable, but may
be somewhat extenuated upon the. score Of
strong provocation and sudden and uncontrol.
+ able wrath. But the destruction of ballot
box the deliberate overthrow the great index
of popular sentiment-the attempt to evade OF
nullify the verdict of the people by the per.
petraton of the grossest violation of law, it is al
act so atrocious and objectionable, that the
most leniently disposed can find no justifca-
ton forit. 1t involves a more deadly stab al
the right of suffrage than any of the wholesale
and Infamous frauds which have been hereto.
fore committed in New Orleans. 1t is no cure
for the evil-no preservative of the purity O
eIections-but it is direct incentine to bold
and wicket men to spun all the restraints o.
order, to pollute every canvass with violence
and to render the peaceful contest at the bal
lot box dreary mockery and jest.
The breaking of the ballot-boxes in the 18th
/ land 9th precincts is an outrage at which every
good citizens is Justly indignant, and none more
so than the mass of the American party. We
have not seen a solitary individual who does
moi. express his detestation of these dsgraceful
} deeds. Who the authors of them may be is
a mystery. That they did not belong to any
decent class of persons in New Orleans is en-
tirely evident. Nobody knows them. Nobody
is prepared to point out a single individual
, amongst them. But be they who they may,
, whether Ameicans or Notwithstanding on
f their own knayish suggestions, or as the agents
of others higher than themselves, we do not
scruple to denounce them and their acts as
worthy of universal reprobation. The civil
authorities owe it to to them selves and to the
city to put in execution every possible means
of discovering the desperadoes and rufians,
so that they may be consigned to the stern re-
tribution which the law provides for those
guilty Of such heinous offenses
1t has been said that at both the precincts
in question large numbers of fraudulent votes
were received. Of this we know nothing, but
granting tho allegation to the full extent claim
led, we would ask whether lawless violence is
the remedy for fraud. Isit not clear that from
the moment we cease to regard the ballot-box
, as inviolable, and dare to tamper with contents
, we surrender the whole question of universal
suffrage, and annihilate this mighty conserva-
tive power-this palladium of republican free
dom? What miserable farce does an cleo
ton become; to what sorry burlesque does
it degenerate, if the record ofthe popular will
is to be preserved or DESTROYED, Just as it hap
: pens to suit them. For our part speaking in
! behalf of. thousands of Americans, who say:
Better, far better, to dedicated even by fraud
and dishonorable Vaccinations, than lay yio-
lent hands on the sacred repository of right Of
suffrage.
; This is the third time'.within our recollection
/ thut ballot-box in New Orleans has been
broken and its contents destroyed 1t hap
pened in the Third District some ten or twelve
years ago. 1t occurred in 1854 at the Seven
tn. Ward, under circumstances so intensely