The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-02-17
WE HAVE BEEN KICKED.

Mark NEEDLE was always in search of a
kicking not, perhaps, because he was pos
sessed of a congenital liking for the process,
but because kicking actually inflicted on his
person, was supposed to be transmutable into
a profitable suit for damages. In the case of
Mr.. NEEDLE, or of any other individual pos
sessed of a similar ambition, it would be easy
enough to decide the fact of the kicking. But
in regard to nations and governments the
decision of this important question is more
difficult. To be kicked seems at present to
be the normal desire of " the best govern
ment the world ever saw !" but to kick gov
eminent which subdued " the most gigantic
rebellion recorded in history" which spent
three or four thousand million dollars in
three or four years, and which can raise ar
mics and navies as easily as an horticulturist
would raise peas, is luxury too costly to be
INDUCED in, even by the bloated aristocracies
and insolent monarchies of Europe. Yet
manifest destiny requires that at some time
or other we be kicked. How else are we to
find decent pretext for extending the area
of freedom? The question is, then, continual
ly ,arising- we been kicked? Has the
constructive foot of any foreign prince, po-
tentate, or power, infringed upon the sacred
national person?
1t is gratifying to know that this momen-
tous question may, on our own theories, be
now answered in the affirmative. We are
informed by the justly indignant gentleman
who does the Havana kilograms, that we
have certainly been soundly kicked. in the
person of our representative in that city.
The captain. general has refused to recognize
that supereminent official otherwise than as a
commercial agent, and is actually incarcera-
ting the persons of American citizens without
giving them chance for trial To be sure,
according to law and usage consul is simply
a commercial agent. To be sure, we once in
sisted on this very point when we brought
Spanish consul before Judicial tribunal in
this CITY, on charge of having instigated the
abduction of Rey ), to be sure, in the few days
that have elapsed since the captain-general
began to incarcerate Americans, even the
most rapid processes known on this side of the
Gulf would give prisoner very little chance of
trial to be sure, during the four years of the
war, Englishmen and Frenchmen, and Span
iards were imprisoned for days and months
and years, without any chance of trial but
then England and France and Spain were not
going round the world in Mark Meddle-
some manner seeking whom to kick them.
They could not afford it, especially with a
country which sailed so many vessels, and
raised such big armies as the United States.
The case is very different with us. The pros
pective grandeur of the republic requires that
we be kicked-the national life would become
enfeebled by inanition if we were not occa-
sionally kicked-the old flag would never
wave beyond the confines of our pent up Utica |!
if somebody did not kick us. How grateful, |
then, it must be to every aspiring and "trooly |
loil" soul to know that we have been kicked |
and for the celebrity with which intelligence of |
the important fact has been communicated to |
an anxious public, the patriotic telegrammer
of the Associated Press at Havana is entitled |
to the national thanks.