The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-02-07
MORE CONGRESSIONAL MALIGNIrY.

becoming law without the signature of the
President, which declares the sense Of an
act of the previous Congress, "to restrict the
jurisdiction of the Court of Claims" etc.
This act provides that the original act ''shall
not be construed to authorize the settlement
of any claim for supplies or stores taken or
furnished for the use Of or used by, the ar
mics Of the United States" or for any dam
age or injury done by the military authorities
or troops of the United States, when such
claims originated in one of the so-called in
surrectionary States. The true sense of this
law is simply that the people Of the Southern
States have no rights which the United States
government is bonnd TO respect. The theory
on which it is based is that all the people of
those States were public enemies-'loyal"
and "disloyal" alike-and the doctrine
is implicitly asserted that public enc
mics may be robbed Of their pro-
perty 0d Hbitm by the troops
of hostile government Now this doctrine
is no longer held by any civilized nation. 1t is
the doctrine of barbarians and savages; Of the
hordes of Attila, or Genghis Khan-not of
the governments and nations which boast that
the horrors Of war have been mitigated by
the recognition of private rights, and by the
establishment and observance Of a code which
draws a distinct line between property which
is capturable, and property which is exempt
from capture. 1t is false in morals, and false in
law, that all the effects Of hostile people are
Justly liable to seizure, coniscation and de-
struction by an invading army. 1t is false
that private rights exist only at the grace of a
conqueror. 1t is false that the armies of the
United States had q right to take or destroy
private property without compensation to the
owners. The very object with which the
federal government pretended to prosecute
the war contradicts such a theory. 1t was
proclaimed that the armies of the United
States invaded the South in order to
compel obedience to the Constitution and
that very Constitution declares that private
property shall not be taken for public uses
without adequate compensation. It was
declared that the armies of the Union came,
inthe spirit Of fraternity and love, to restore
an erring people to their relations with tho
general government; but this law implies
that they came in the spirit of devils, and
with the motives of robbers; that they came
to Cypress, to plumber and to destroy; to
annihilate, and not to establish rights to
enslave, and not to protect Such confess
sion is an acknowledgment of wrong, injus-
tice and outrage. The true mission of a
government is to defend and protect the
rights of property and of the person. If the
armies of the United States did not come on
behalf Of such a government as that, they
had no right to come at all. The assumption
that their mission was simply mission of
conquest, and that the right of the conqueror
is to despoil the conquered of his property,
and to deprive them of their personal rights,
is an open confession of fraudulent pre-
lenses in the beginning of the war and
shameless avowal of doctrines and practices
in its prosecution, which would disgrace a
Comanche or Tartar.
But the shocking iniquity Of this law is
made more conspicuous by its application to in
dividual cases. 1t may be true in law that
the whole population of a hostile State are
public enemies; but it would be nationally
presumed that those who pirate so glibly of
"loyalty would exempt "loyal people from
the severe operation of this legal fiction. Even
if it is right and proper to rob and plumber
"rebels, surely it is not becoming to a great
and magnanimoUs government to rob and
plumber those who have never wavered in
their attachment to the sold flag" Take, for
instance, a case which has come to our knowl-
edge. 1t is that of lady who never faltered
in her devotion to the Union. Living in the
heart of Louisiana, she was a rare exception
to the public opinion by which she was sur
rounded She loved her own people; she
sympathized with their wrongs; she deplored
their affections; but she was, like few others,
conscientiously opposed to the act of seces-
sion. OF course she was not an active poll
tician; and being only woman, she could not
even if she had desired, reimburse herself by
plundering her neighbors, like the "carpet-
bag vagrant and mendicant~ loyalists for
whom Congress has so tender a regard. Her
property was taken by the United States
forces; and now, when she claims compensa-
ton, she is met by a law which declares that,
as an inhabitant of an insurrectiOnary State
she was public enemy, and that public enc
mics may be plundered and robbed with i'm
punity. Such is the justice of the radical
United States Congress. 1t squanders mil
lions for the support of lazy and thriftless
set of barbarians and refuses to pay its just
indebtedness to those whose property it has
taken and used.
THE BoNDHoLDERs' CANDIDATE.-The radi-
caI ,ewsnopers az the North ore attepon4iny