The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-07-24
CALL FOR MILITARY AID.

When the sitting legislature assembled for
organization, the pampered and spoiled crea-
lures of despotism who constituted its ma
jority turned, with not unexpected insolence,
to heap insult and indignity upon the military
authority to whose instrumentality they owed
whatever eminence and power of their own
they could boast. While they were then
staggering in affected independence of fed
eral protection, the CRESCENT took occasion
to say that they would be plunged into dis
may and despair if they should be, in fact.
as wen as in theory, left to take care Of them
selves by the entire and final withdrawal of
mliltary interference on the part of the fed
eral government. This remark was met by
carpet-bsg scribblers with ribald tests and
sneers perfectly appropriate to their vocation.
But Its prophetic truth is already attested by
the carpet-bag leaders in the legislature.
Even thus early their fears have got the bet.
ter of their arrogance, and they are now seen
praying for aid from the military authority
with an abjectness quite in keeping with the
lnsolent swagger with which they but recently
treated it.
Inc JOINT resolution, passed day before yes
terday, requesting the general of the armies to
furnish troops for the preservation of peace
and order in this State, is simply petition
that the people of the State shall again. for
the benefit of carpet-baggery, be put under
the military duress which attended the exc
eutlon OF the reconstruction acts. While the
authors of this resolution pretend to consider |
reconstruction an accomplished fact, while |
they pretend to represent the people of the |
state and to belong to a civil government |
which is in itself complete and self.sustain-
ing, the resolution is, both in form and gene
raj purport, scandalous contradiction of ali
these pretenses For it not only confesses
the intrinsic impotency of the present State
government by appealing for help to federal
power, but it calls for this help at the hands
OF Gen. Grant, just as though he were still,
by express authorization of the reconstruction
acts, experimenting the enforcement o. those
acts.
The Federal Constitution provides that the
United States shall protect each State against
domestic violence, on application of the le-
slslature, or of the executive, when the legis-
allure cannot be convened" But Gen. Grant
s not the United States, nor the supreme
central authority, if the United States have
constitutional existence any longer. In this
'ase there is no domestic violence" except
what the State suffers in the usurpation of its
government by men who look elsewhere than
Imong its people for the means of maintaining
heir rule. Nor is there the least need, at this /
moment, that they should invoke extraneous
Id. Our people, for reasons of their own, are
esolutely submissive. Their thoughts are
ternly set on peace, as long as peace is hu-
lanly possible Even the organized brigand-
ge contemplated by carpet-bag legislation
Ill not stir them to forcible resistance. There =
no foundation in reality for the fear which
felt or affected by the authors of the before
lenhoned resolution. If these men are ter u
ned, their terrors are merely the phantoms
injured up by minds fostering with the q
9nom Of criminal thoughts.
But let us not, in accounting for this reso- IL
tion, impute too much to the inspiration of ca
ar. There is plenty of reason to suspect al
at 1T is device concerted between the OF
dleal managers at Washington and the car SC
'tbaggers in Louisiana, and intended to
rye as pretext for subjecting our people II
rtually, if not formally to martial law. so co
ganlzed and enforced as to cover all the m
'ud and violence which might be necessary of
carry the State for Grant and Colfax. OF tn
urse, as IA ical and carpet-bag moralitysud nj
cency go, Gen Grant is, of all men. and of so
authorities, the proper one to be applied to 60
the military aid needful to the success of mi
S pleasant scheme. Nj