Baton Rouge tri-weekly gazette & comet. [volume] (Baton Rouge, La.) 1865-18??, 1865-12-14
The Louisiana Legislature.

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copies the following from the Mobile
Register, of the 7th, and says that it
might not be injudicious to apply
the Registers suggestions, with slight
notifications, to the Legislature Of
Louisiana now in session:
In view of the telegrapbic intelli-
gence from Washington received yes
terday, we respectfully suggest to
this body whether it would not be
wise to adjourn for thirty days and
await future developments before en-
tering upon a path of Legislation,
which, at present, is at best but
blind path. The constitutional
amendment and all the other require
ments of the powers at Washington
having been complied with, there is
no other national duty to be per-
formed. AS for the rest, it is impos
sible to legislate effectively and in
diligently until it is known what is
to BE- the status of this State and its
people. This knowledge is all to
come. Under present lightsit is not
Safe or prudent to legislate on the
negro question. The Legislature may
do much harm, but it can hardly do
any good until it is better advised as
to the future.
We do not mean to suggest, adds
the Bee, that our Legislature should
adjourn, in view of the complexion
given to the political situation by
the recent developments at Wash
ington. We mean that it should ad-
iourn the consideration of all ques-
tons appertaining to the field of
National politics, or calculated to en-
gender political discussion and agi-
tation, and address itself assiduously
to legislation of practical character
such as is called for by Immediate ext
gencies. The labor question is I'M
doubtedly one of those which exact
instant attention; but it is also one
which, though in itself, as matter
of State domestic policy, not legiti
mately included in National politics,
demands such circumspection and
delicacy of treatment, on account
of the party and sectional bigotry
which encompass it with difficulties
and dangers, that it is almost to be
doubted whether it is prudent or
profitable to deal with it legislatively
at all.
But if dealt with, we are persuaded
that it should be dealt with by gen
eral laws that would give no prete1t
to the party in power to raise the
cry that Louisiana is trying to re-
enact slavery by class Legislation
against the blacks. AS regards their
legal rights as well as responsibilities,
there is perhaps no way more advisa-
BILE than that recommended by the
Alabama Legislature in the message
of Governor Parsons. To declare by
express enactment that the negroes
shall have the same legal protection,
in respect to labor and in all other
respects, as the whites, coupled with
the same legal obligations in the
matter of labor and in all other mat
ters, would leave the negrophilic agi-
tators totally without ground of com
plant or cavil on the score Of legal
justice and equality tor the negro. IL
they should demand more than equal
protection for him, they would in so
doing proclaim his inferiority. To
give him more protection would be
incompatible with the theory Of his
freedom. He had more protection
in former days, and, as some thought,
was comfortable and we'll content as
be could be in no other situation
but he was a slave.
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TEL III ENUr