The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-04-25
THE CONSTITUTION MINUS OFFICES.


The course of the carpet-baggers since the
election in this. State affords an additional
proof that, all along, they have not cared
rush for the Constitution in itself, as an in
strument for guaranteeing the political equal
ity, and for promoting the material and social
advancement of the colored people. They
valued it solely as one of the means of secur-
ing to themselves monopoly Of public
offices and emoluments. Another means ne
cessary to the same end, was the almost unan-
imous vote in their favor of the colored suf-
fragans. The ratification of the Constitution
needed to validate the election OF their
official tickets, and both these events were
indispensable conditions to their scheme OF
ACCOMPLISHMENT and plumber. They conf
IDENTIFY calculated upon both. But it happens
that while the Constitution is ratified, their
official tickets are in large part defeated.
The grief and fury which they manifest at
this result are as extravagant as they are
indecent. The demonstration has a very
plain significance which the public would do
well to note. Colored voters, especially,
should carefully consider what it means.
For when the carpet-baggers exclaim against
the result of the election, they virtually
denounce the ratification of the Constitution
as fraud and an outrage, for no other visi-
BILE or conceivable reason than the fact that
this ratification was not attended by the
uniform success of the carpet-bag candidates
for the various offices. And denunciation in
this case necessarily comes home to the
colored voters, all of whom the carpet-baggers
had expected to make use Of in the election
as a pack of stupid and servile dupes, but
many of whom, it appears, possessed suti-
cient sense and independence to vote against
the carpet-bag candidates while voting for the
Constitution This must be clear beyond
question when it is considered that the col
ored voters had majority in the State of
about thirty thousand, and that it was in their
power, therefore, to elect carpet-baggers ex-
clusively to the offices, as well as to ratify the
Constitution. Consequently, the defeat of
carpet-bag candidates and the ratification
of the Constitution are both the work of the
colored voters. And, hence, when the disap-
pointed carpet-baggers denounce the result of
the election as infamous and insuferable,
they in reality accuse the colored voters OF
having committed an act of infamy which
ought not to be tolerated, and which will be
rebuked and annulled by central authority, if
the appeals of carpet-bGggery prove Success
! full in that quarter.
| AS to the outcry of defeated candidates
against the Democrats, that is essentially illog-
ical. The Democrats worked and voted both
against the Constitution and the official
tickets of carpet-baggery. They received
enough aid from the colored voters to defeat
some of the latter, but not enough to de-
feat the former.
A considerable and respectable number OF
the colored people believed precisely as the
Democrats did-that the carpet-baggers were
a scurvy and pestilent set of interlopers and
| vagabonds, who had no other object in rela-
| ton to the Constitution than to make it 8
mere stepping-stone to assist them to power
and spoils. But some of this class of colored
voters, while resolved to reject office-seekine
carpet-baggery as en- enemy to the interests
of all honest people without respect to race
or color, concluded to accept the Constitution
for such special advantages as it secured, o.
seemed to secure, to the colored population
Thus it has come about that, though thu
Constitution is carried, the carpet-baggerf
have not got all the offices. They hav,
been pronounced by colored voters t
whom they offered the Constitution as brib,
to be unfit to administer it after it was adopted
Colored voters have preferred to confd'
this administration to Democratic candidates
running against the carpet-bag ticket, al
though the same candidates were also opposed
to the Constitution. For this the carpet-bag
gers threaten to upset the election, which,
vicious as to candidates must also be viciou
as to the Constitution. A curious common
tary, truly, on the morality and consistenc.
of carpet-baggery.