Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1866-08-16
The Spirit OF the New Orleans Mob.

The New Orleans papers, and those at
the North which feel under the necessity
of excusing the late riot, devote them
selves with great zeal to the discussion
of the legality of the constitutional con-
vention. They would like to have it I'M
derstood that If the convention was le-
gally extinct and thus had no right to
act for the people of the State, it was a
very proper thing to mob and murder
the members who undertook TO resusci-
tate the convention. They also make
much of the fact that the negroes armed
themselves to protect the convention,
acting on the advice of DR.. Dostie and
other jealous advocates of negro suffrge.
1t may be admitted that the assembling
of the convention with the avowed pur-
pose to disfranchise the eX.rebels and
enfranchise the negroes was provoca-
ton, and that the marching of armed
bands of negroes through the streets
and their gathering in and around the
hall where the convention was called
was another provocation. But neither
circumstance justites or excuses the
mob. There never is a mob unless there
is somebody TO be mobbed and some eX-
citement to popular passion and vio-
lenCe.
The accounts go to show that not only
the dispersion of the convention by Vio-
lence, but the murder of the leading
members, was preconcerted. The state
ments of those who are most decidedly
against the convention are quite as de-
cisive to this effect as those of the other
side. There would have been no serious
riot and no loss of life if the police them
selves had not led on and inspired the
lawless work. Indeed they themselves
were the chief murderers. They beat,
shot and killed men after they had sur
rendered. After they had driven part
of the negroes into the building where
the convention was assembled and dis
persed the rest they might have arrest
ed the delegates and as many of the ne
groes as they chose without further con-
test; or, if they were not aware OF the
fact, they might have awaited the arri-
val of the United States troops, who
were momentarily expected, and who
would have ended the trouble.
But this was not in the programme.
They went there to punish and kill the
men who dared to meet for the purpose
OF establishing negro suffrage, and when
admitted to the hall they fred upon the
unresisting people there, and endeav-
ored to kill those who passed out as
prisoners. After their bloody work was
ended, many Of them boosted of the
number they had killed and wounded.
That Mayor Monroe was in the plot, and
inspired and encouraged the massacre,
II he did not in so many words order il,
there is every reason TO Believe. His Of
fetal documents connected with the at
fair are full of the spirit of lawlessness
and murder.
The moving impulse of the mob was
not disloyalty they approve and
sustain the government as now admin
istered, and claim the President as on
their side-but opposition to negro suf-
frage and equality, and bitter hatred to
the special friends of the negro, and es-
pecially to the Yankees who are labor
ing for his social and religious eleva-
ton. The respectable people of New
Orleans deprecate the idea that they are
to be held responsible for the mob, If
the popular opinion is right in New Or
leans the policemen and their assistants
in the assassination will certainly be
ferreted out, arrested and punished, and
all concerned in the bloody affair, from
Mayor Monroe down, will be rendered
forever Infamous. The President, too,
if he would make it clear that the mob
cannot claim him as on their side, must
cooperate so far as he has the power in
the punishment of the rioters. And it
must be made evident that in ordering
United States soldiers to aid the local
authorities, he did not give intentional
support to the mob party. That, as it
turned out, 1t gave them actual moral
support, cannot we'll be denied. How
federal interference in the affair can be
justified at all, beyond helping to pre-
serve the peace, is yet to be seen. But
having manifestly gone further there is
the greater necessity that the President
should demonstrate his disapproval of
the mob in the most decisive and unmis-
taxable way.-Sprmqfe1d ReVuBlicaa.