The south-western. [volume] (Shreveport, La.) 1852-1870, 1869-09-01
Dent on the War Path.

Dent ON the War Path.
\ The telegraph Of late has had good deal to sa,
about letter which Judge Dent has written to Secre
tary Boutwell, in which he scores him most unnerci
fully for bis interference in political matters ap
pertaining to his Office Below we give the letter il
full. The breach wdens
| " Hon. Geo. Boutwell, Secretary of the Treasury:
Sri shall make little apology for asking you
attention to my letter. and less for the nature of its
contents. You were the first to deny the political or
thodoxy Of my friends and Myself, and by all the
rules OF the forum entitled TO defence Again
you hold an Office of the Republic, and your acts
therefore, legitimate subjects of criticism by the
humblest citizen thereof But in some respects we
are alike for instance both asprants for place
with this dference-you aim to be the next President
with every of success except in the opinion
of the people; while seek humber place, with my
hopes in disastrous eclipse, except in the Judgment OF
Mississippi So, in the probable results Of the future
we both stand adverse to the judgment of the country
= In the pursuit of your ambition you unscru-
puous as to the means OF your success Your organ,
the New York Sun, in the same breath ridcules the
capacity of your MASTER and dwells with emphasis on
your peculiar fitness for the Office.
9 Your excellent tool Mr.. Tullock became so reck-
less in the manipulation of your department in the in
terest of your anbition and defiant of the wishes
of the President and the country, that to your
self from an explosion OF popular indignation you
Ionnu IL 10 MIN another sphere
OF scandaous activity where his talents might be ex-
erted with equally good effect and less efrontery
Virginia, Tennessee Mississippi and Texas not to
mention anything so humble as myself were obstruc-
tons in the way of your success because through
President Grants intervention in excluding the pro-
scrptve clauses from their organic laws these States
are brought into the Union firmly welded to lis sup
port Now, this il in direct conflict with your system
atised plans for what Gen. Grant gets in the next
election, clearly Mr.. Boutwell, will not get; and there
fore you have denounced the Conservative Republi-
cans who are 70" Grant that you may obtain the pro-
scriptive Republicans, who are for Boutwell, and by
some strange, dexterous management and occult pot
ica strategy, you have worked upon the confidence
of the President to him to flourish the club
with which you intend to break his head BY inducing
him to join you in denuncation of the Conservative
Republicans, party created by his magnanmity and
triumphant through his management.
But, sir your purpose is easily discerned, and has
twoold object namely, to destroy the National Re-
publican party in the South and then to reconstruct
from its shattered fragments Boutwell, party with
no Richmond in the field to strike for your crown
But you cannot succeed in this scheme of desperate
enterprise, you mean to ruin-a result from present
appearances, much more likely to be reached
"?onr official intervention for Wells, for instance,
gave $4,000 majority to Walker. Your letter to
Stokes gave Senter to Tennessee by an overwhelming
vote Of 10000. Your marvellous political sagacitY
now active in Mississippi and Texas will report your
and defeat superadd to these results of your unap-
proachabe folly the imposition these States of your
iron clad OATH and the alienation is complete leading
them all in the outStreched arms of Democracy
I" But the consequence of your folly does not end
here. Ohio and Pennsylvania and others will follow,
decide their political Status in October and the North
will echo back the condemnation of the South and
peal in your this fact-that there is still left
enough of the incorrupbe virtue of the Republic to
you for wanton repression of that most sacred right
the elective franchise
" But, sir, this will not deter you from your mad
course. You will still persist until every prop that
supports our party is stricken away, and the whole
grand superstructure umbles about our ears in hope
less ruin.
"When you appointed Secretary of the Treas
ury and unanimously confirmed by Senate of every
shade of political opinion, did you not take an oath to
administer your office impartiay, and for the exclu-
sve objects of its creaton-to collect the revenue and
control the finances of the country? Is not that office
the property of the nation and yourself only clothed
for time with little brief authority Then sir how
do you explain this perversion of its legitimate uses
and functions into means and instrument of oppres-
sion and compel the election of obnoxious rulers upon
the people Of the South? Is such course consistent
with your oath of Office Or do you call this great
moral ideas But, Mr.. Boutwell,, though you have
thus prostuted the powers of your office for purposes
of oppression, without the warrant of conscience or
law may be that you tell by what authority
you presume to pronounce upon my political ortho-
doxy. Who constituted you the infalble hope of Re-
publieanism Who gave you the authority to hurl the
political anathemas of the party? Again, what right
had you to commit the Administration to you policy
Have you to learn yet that you oalY part of the
and not the whole of it. though your
friends believe that monomana has seized your mind
on that subject and that you verify believe yourself
the State? Very respectfully LEWIS DENT"