The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-07-14
CIVIL LAW sUPREME."

to our people it well may Oe. FOR almost
EIGHT wears they have been strangers to those
indispensable muniments of right and to
those healthf1l and benefcent conditions of
peace and prosperity, which are to be found
only in the subordination of the military to
the civil authority, of organized force to or
gained reason. They nevertheless may well
experience some difficulty in at once verify
ing the announcement by the facts around
them. 1t is needless to point specifically to
the causes of this difficulty. Let us trust
that they will disappear instantaneously be-
fore the order of General Buchanan pro-
claiming the reinstatement of civil affairs
upon their legitimate basis. Let us all labor
pressed by the commanding general in relin-
gushing the supreme control which he has
hitherto exercised in this State.
Assuredly every good citizen will heartily
respond to his desire that an era of good feel
ing and ofmutual forbearance, an era of tran
quill and prosperous days, will be the sequel
to the extraordinary transition which his
order signalizes. Nor will any good citizen
fail to appreciate the imperious expediency
which commands us to so act hereafter as to
demonstrate to the world that it is no fault of
ours if our eyes may not yet behold expand
ing the golden gates of the wished-for era,
and if our feet may not yet touch the smooth
and shining track which ascends its delecta-
BILE mountains.
Gen. Buchanan, in the most public and
solemn form, declares that "the provisions
of the reconstruction acts of Congress cease
TO operate in Louisiana from this date" that
military authority will no longer be exer-
cised under the reconstruction acts in said
State" that this event "restores Louisiana to
her former position among the other States,
and to all her rights under the Constitutions"
and that hereafter his military subordinates
will not "interfere in civil affairs, unless
upon a proper application by the civil au-
thorities to preserUe the peace, or under instruc
tons duly received from the commanding
general"
Thus we have the explicit, unqualified, and
formal testimony of the authority charged
with the execution of the reconstruc-
ton acts, that these acts, completely
executed, have expired, and that the
State occupies her former position in the
Union, and is Invested of none of her rights
under the Constitution. The declaration is
fact not less than as a constitutional theory,
it is the logical center from which to judge,
henceforth, the relations of the State to the
federal government If Louisiana is really in
the Union on her former footing of equality
under the Constitution, then her people have
the same right in respect to the regulation of
suffrage, the same right in respect to change
of the organic law, as Massachusetts or New
York, Pennsylvania or Ohio.
And if that is actually her position, interior
ence in her affairs by federal military author
iiy is admissible only upon those condi-
tons which would render such interference
admissible in the case of the State which has
been without interruption, and without ques-
ton in the Union. The nature of those con-
ditions is indicated in article four, section
four, of the federal Constitution, wherein it
is provided that the United States shall pro-
tect each State "against invasion, and, on
application of the legislature, or of the
executive when the legislature cannot
be convinced) against domestic violence" 1t
has always been held that such applications
for military aid from he United States must
necessarily be addressed to the president as
''commander-in-chiefo of the army and navy of
the United States, and of the militia of the
several States, when called into the actual
service of the United States" Nobody ac-
quainted with constitutional law, and with
constitutional precedents, will deny that these
deductions flow logically from the important
declaration by the commanding general that
this State is in the Union an clothed &C ,ord-
ingly with all her rights under the constitu-
ton.
1t is devoutly to be hoped, however, that
no occasion will arise for invoking the inter-
ference of the federal military authority, on
any condition or under any pretext Our
people want peace as an indispensable re-
quisite to prosperity. Unless exactions are
made upon them which are humanity impos-
sible, unless burdens are heaped upon them
which are humanity insupportable, they will
not think of rghting even grievous wrong
inequality and injustice, save by peaceful
| means.