The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1867-03-13
Negro Government in the South
The End Of Freedom in the North.

IN bl0Ou, duiu tHcy SONeEHett AlilGHS LOT
hundreds of years, well and wisely
Bnt Rome was convulsed for ages with
civil wars. private murders, usurpa-
tions and wrongs, while the luminous
and transparent code of Justinian was
in full force in law. Paris smoked
with blameless blood under DEGREES
couched in lofty and gentle phraseolo-
py. How does the law read is for the
lawyer; but ,chat. is ii made for? is a
question for the people.
BY many the astonishing measure for
The dissolution Of society in the South
which has been offered to the President
for approval by the two Houses of Con-
gress is declared to be unaccountable
as fact, except upon the hypothesis
that the Jealous partisans through
whose urgency it has passed, fearing a
popular reaction in the North and West
nnfavorable to their personal and party
ascendency, have recourse to this stu
pendous innovation as an expedient for
offsctting the popular will at their sew
eral homes with the full political
weight of the sovereign States of the
South; the scheme to become practical
bic through the unnatural and shameful
substitution of negro bodies polite, one
for each State, in the place Of the con
stituent people, the brethren and peers
of the North. Can this be7 If so, his
tory is dumb of all example, blank of
all precedent, and ignorant of all ana
logue for such an oppression. Car
thage, indeed, was destroyed, for Rome
dared not let her remain. Fear impell-
ed crime else impossible, even to that
unsparing and unprincipled people-a
crime, too, against race divided from
them by mountains and seas, and by
the more insuperable barriers of in
stinctive repugnance, without affinity
of blood, of langtidge, Of religion, or of
origin. Yet even these Romans, as
Scipio foretold, by this crime darkened
the national conscience, and drove each
other downward, step by step, into fl
nal desolation. Then, if this scheme
be the real animus of the bill, is a
Southerner, more than Carthaginian
or a supporter of it, better than a Ro-
man. All mankind bear witness that
submission to a conqueror is calami-
ty so great that the sterhest of them
have, among the cruelest nations, gen.
orally contemplated the yanquished
with compassion, and frequently with
tenderness. The exceptions are exhib-
tied to our youth only for adherence.
Yet this would be so much worse, that
the vanquished must be denied the mis-
cradle privilege of obeying their subju-
gator, and be subjected to the nnheard
of shame of being governed by his del
egates, consisting of their own freed
negro slaves! No man is bad enough
we care not what tyrant's name he
bears in human annals-to impose Oh
his fellOw-man such burden gratui-
tousIy. Only some object in the highest
degree stimulating to his evil nature
could crafty the most unfeeling human
being to thus dishonor the arm of
strength and blacken the name of man
hood. 1t is creditable to the con-
science of the American people that
they are slow to believe such motive
for such bill. They are told on the
stump that the object of it is to restore
the Union, and that the object is not to
abolish white bodies politic-in the South,
and yet organize the negro population
into the semblance of States for the
purpose of controlling them against the
will of their people; that it is not the
object to strike forever from the Union
the equal sovereign members in half the
territory of the nation, and erect in
their stead a hideous and barbaric
mockery of constituent sovereignties,
for an equal fellowship with the bril-
liant communities of the NOrth--in
word, that it is not the object to commit
the liberties of white men to negroes
But what is the object7
1t cannot be to restore the Union, for
the word does not, nor the idea, appear
in the bill. The possibility of its res
toration, even after compliance with at
least twenty substantive conditions,
enumerated, dramatically, in four Or
fye,) every one of which is grossly I'M
constitutional, yet which q helpless
people might prefer to utter outlawry,
is studiously guarded against by pro-
vision under which the fulflllment of all
possible conditions would amount to
nothing at all for the tolerance of that
unhappy people is expressly committed
to the pleasure of future Congress-
Thus, even the very obedience so inhu-
manly, because SO unnecessarily, exact
cd, is made as hateful as possible by
cutting off all rational incentive to it.
But the bill does not pretend to aim
at restoration of the Union. Its plain
sense Is, a bill to prevent restoration of
the Union. Think of it! A war offour
years, and nearly two long, anxious,
and disastrous years since its total ces-
sation, all having been suffered for the
Union, and the only measure projected
on the subject by the Radical party-a
measure not even pretending that the
Union, is saved, or ought to be saved
To believe in the expediency Of, such a
bill is to believe that every volunteer
mustered iii tile name of the Union was
defrauded into a reasonable opposi-
UOn TO a treaSOnaDle reDeiiol, ViiaC
every tax dollar, every enhancement of
prices, every burden Of the war, was a
swindle, that every soldier who perish
ed for the flag Of the Constitution was
cheated of his life by the most uncon-
scionable, the most prevalent, and the
most enormous fraud of all history
Surely, this cannot bel There must
have been a nUnion cause; !" the Union,
the Constitution, the laws, must have
been in issue, and 1t must have been
these, and not the ignoble and traitorous
partisanship, the covert and baleful
impostures and the extravagant and IL
lasory chimeras of q throng of aspiring
demngogues, that triumphed through |
SO much gore and so much anguish.
The object of this bill is to provide
d means of permanently defying pub
lie opinion. If. by the very men who
talk of impeaehing the President, it
WAS conceived possible that he would
abuse power, not one fthem would ex-
pect to keep his head on his shoulders
hffnr sncb a ,naos,,re had hann nyDand- /