The Washington union., 1857-06-11
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. IN NEW ORLEANS.

KNOW -NOIHlNGISM IN NEW ORLEANS.
The once powerful know-nothing party, which at
one time threatened to become national organiza-
ton with numbers sufficient to check if not defeat,
the triumphant and progressive masses of the de-
mocracy, has dwindled away until il has finally be-
come petty turbulent faction, confined to three
cities of the Union where their combinations against
the peace and good order of their respective com
munties are matters of painful notoriety The re-
mains of know w-nothingism to be found in the
cities of Baltimore, Louisville and New 0reansnot
lifeless exactlyfor they occasionally exhibit spas
modc vitality, such citizens recently wit
messed, and under circumstances which have excited
the indignation of the whole country.
In New Orleans where the democrats are largely
in the majority, the know-nothings still maintain
their supremacy by the old appliances of threats, in
Limitations, murderous violence, and the unblushing
cousion of partisan police. Hundreds and we
may truthfully add, thousandsof democratic voters
are literally disfranchised by the frauds and armed
opposition of their know-nothing oppressors. So
hopeless is the regarded by political friends
in that city that at the last municipal election, held
on the first of this month, they made nominations,
preferring nominal defeat rather than engage in
contest which would have terminated, as they
thought, as several previous contests had termina-
ted-in the triumph of fraud and force and the sac
ri6ce of many valuable lives. The reasons for the
non-action of majority party are thus clearly and
emphatically stated in the Louisiana Courier of the
I'd instant
THAT nothing like fair election has been possible in
New Orleans for years past is fact that have dwelt
upon much that there is scarcely necessity of
stating it, with its proofs in detail We refer read
ers conemporaneous accounts of the brutality, vio
ence and unscrupuousness OF opponents in the
duct of elections which have taken place during the past
two yearsto the choice of commissioners of election
from members OF their party excusivelyto the
taordnary taken by those commissioners to
cea themselves from public view while taking votesto
the illegal obstacles thrown in the OF naturalized
yotersto the exclusion of the votes of hundreds of such
under false pretences by who chose to obey the die
tates of the paid pettfoggers OF the know nothing
party rather than the plain requirements of the awto
systematic assaults made upon naturazed democrats be-
fore each election with the knowledge connivnce of
partisan police, whose places and pay depended upon
the success of the party which appointed them--to
attempts to stie the liberty of the press and mob
democratic printing ofice-to the ransacking of
private domcs and public institutions under the pre-
tence of searching for armsto paradng through the
city mornings felections by bands of disguised thugs
assaults made upon voters at the polls without the
slightest protection from the poiceto the assumption
by vain, arrogant, and ignorant municipal officer,
through an insulting proclamation, of the sole right of
conducting election which sheriff ordered to
hold and which he endeavored to make arrangements
hold properly and fyto the gross and utter failure
of that municipal officer to fulfil his boastfu promises
and to the countless of violence committed in
luence of that failure When distant readers recall
these things they will not wonder that made
nations for the election of yesterday
We cannot believe that this frightfu condition of
affairs ran much longer continue i'm an American
city. New Orleans, like our own too-long afflicted
city, will yet throw off the incubus of know-noth
ingism.