The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-02-21
"PRIDE's PURGE"

| Inc way N WHICH tue long pdr1ameuV VI
England came to be converted into the
@Rump," is full OF suggestion bearing upon
the present coDjuncture in the United States.
No sooner had the parliamentary party sue
ceeded in resisting royal encroachments upon
English liberty, than the radical extremists Of
that day proceeded to concentrate all the
| powers Of the state in the hands of a fanatical
and unbridled faction, and thus to create a
| despotism more CALLING than had been
threatened by the Vaccinations of Charles
and STAFFORD. They found it to be neees-
sary preliminary to this usurpation that they
should purge parliament. Its Presbyterian
members were too liberal and tolerant, and
stood in the way Of the grim and gloomy
hierarchy which the Independents were bent
on establishing. These extremists of the
English parliament, like those who now play
fantastic tricks in the United States Congress,
took the military as far as they could into
their conspiracy. BY this means they Sc
cured a very useful tool in the person of Col
onel Pride, who, at their instigation, sur
rounded the House of Commons with a
couple Of regiments, and arrested in the pas
sage forty-one Of the more obnoxious of the
Presbyterian members, and drove from the
hall one hundred and sixty other members
suspected Of supplementary designs and ten
denotes. After this none but the most furi-
GUS and determined of the Independents
were admitted and thus it was that this ex-
purgated parliament, co tanning only those
select and privileged spirits the truly
loyal" of that day, obtained the historic
name Of the 'Rump."
The moral parallel between the present
United States Congress and the Rump parlia-
ment Of England is more striking than the
historic parallel between them. The expur-
gators Of Congress have not sought to clear
its halls of supplementary members, through
the agency of military minions, simply be-
cause they have not had occasion to invoke
military violence for such q purpose. They
have obTiated the occasion by the easy,
though bigh-handed, plan Of excluding from
Congress all who do not sympathise with their
sentiments and who are not ready to give ac-
tive assistance to their schemes And thus
they have constituted and maintained a rump
Congress without administering dose of
"Pnde's Purge" That they are morally
capable, however, of applying this heroic
remedy is perfectly plain. The case has not
up to the present time, called for the applica-
tion-that is all.
Let us return to the English Ramp.
"Prides Purge" did not save the faction
whose power it was intended to confirm and
perpetuate. Violent purges, indeed, whether
for political or for medical purposes, never
have, and never can, conduce in the long run
to inauguration and longevity. On the con-
trary, the constitutional weakness which they
entail is preparation for cholera and col
lapse, for atrophy, syncope and examination.
The Cromwelian purge was the legitimate
sequence and catastrophe to the heroic prac-
tice of Pride; and so the Rump perishedunder
a still more heroic administration of its own
medicine.
1t is easy to continue the parallel between
the two Rumps But to do so, we must pass
from the actual to the potential and pro-
phetic. The faction of extremists in Congress
must so on tO the end substantially repeat
ing the history of its English prototype. No
military mlnlons which 1T may gain, though
Gen. Grant should head the list of them, can
avert this destiny. Its utmost exhibition of
power viii hereafter be spasmodic, morbid,
maniacd. Even now, one Of the frankest of
its advocates in Northern journalism, divining
this fatal secret admits that it "has three
days of habbiness for one day of strength"
To be sure, with the cooperation of all the
public yillainies and Of all the unscrupulous
ambitions Of the hour, and by dint of con-
spiracy and perfdy, Of audacity and violence,
1t may appear to superficial observation to be
fortified to the point of invincibility. But
the future and fate are against it; and the
time will come when, before the storm of /
popular indignation, or before the glance Of |
the final eXpurgator, it will be as weak as a
wet rag and as low as the dust on which pre-
destined cOnquorors tread.