The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-09-30
A LOGICAL FATALITY.

leader takes occasion 10 oPPoeo ~
extreme measures of his party, lot his design
be what il NAV. he is compelled to borrow
arguments from his political opponents with
which to sustain his position. This was hrst
and most sienally illustrated in the case Of
Andrew johnson when, soon after his acces-
sion to the presidency, he underworld to put
down the brakes and check the Radical ele-
ment of the party which elected him an
element which, before rather abstract than
practical became with the close of the war
suddenly impetuous and ferocious beyond
previous example. Pleading for the Consti-
tuition, for the cause of representative govern
ment, for the indestructibility of Statehood
as the only true basis of federal Union, and
for the precious muniments ola free American
citizenship, and against the congressional
policy of obstruction, and subyersion, and
Capitalization, he was logically constrained In
so doing to preach old-fashioned Democratic
doctrine. He could not do less, in urging
valid arguments against that policy, than to
talk like Democrat. And very naturally he
was denounced by Republicans of the Stevens,
Sumner and Greeley stripe as a renegade,
traitor, a comprehend" While from their
standpoint this denunciation was not incon-
sistent, it was for him as conscientious Pre-
sident who respected his office and his oath,
the highest credit which they could have
awarded.
So. when the seven Republican senators
stood by their oaths and maintained their sena-
torial independence in the impeachment trial,
refusing to recognize the President as a great
public criminal TO be punished by deposition
and official disability because he had repu-
dated the extreme views of his party, they,
too, we're inveighed against as recreants and
| deserters who were on the road to the enc
mys camp. And it must be said that, in SO
far as they were right, and in so far as they
| defended their course by sound reasoning,
they stood on Democratic ground and
spoke according to Democratic doctrine.
A like example is presented when a member
of one of the reconstructed governments in
the South attempts to tone down the over
weening presumption and bride the reckless
precipitancy of his more extreme associates.
| Gov. Smith, of Alabama, for instance, when
he vetoes the bill for the appointment of
| OlCCiO16 W hSe,AoAdbuAO, WHICH
he recalls the delinquent Legislature together
to pass registration law, and when he denies
that there is any necessity, as alleged by the
Radical majority of the same Legislature, for
sending federal army into Alabama to main
tain the peace against the illuminated white
citizens of that State, puts himself, so far as
all this goes, in Democratic shoes, assents to
| - IL
tests, and repeats and corroborates Demo-
cratic testimony.
And Governor Warmoth, of Louisiana, for
instance, in his VETO message regarding the
social equality bill, is indebted for all the
| good reasons he adduces against Che measure
to the political philosophy taught for years
| past in the Democratic party, ard with which
| all the instincts and tendencies of the poll
teal school commonly known as Radicalism
are in direct and necessary conflict. What
| Gov. Warmoth says about the degradation of
| criminal law py making Fhoen +n1nUs c-Anaos
--;---~~ -, 4laA r,nhlin conscience,
and what he says about the impossIolnty of
enforcing social equality by warning against
the social tastes, inclinations and habits of
the people, have been substantially said q
thousand times heretofore by Democratic
! writer's.
The fact is that whenever Radical recoils
from the miscellaneous designs of his fellow
Radicals, and whenever a number of Radi-
Gals, appalled, at the evils which they have
done and the still greater evils which would
follow the uttermost development of their
dogmas, voluntarily pause, it is to Demo
cratic teachings that the one must look for
reasons to justify himself in thus recoiliRg,
and the others for reasons to justify them in
thus pausing. In short, Radical cannot plead
against the continuance OF wrong and OF
pernicious fallacy and folly, without bearing
testimony to the truth and benefcence of
Democratic ideas and Democratic policy.