The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-01-28
ABUSE THE PLAINTIFFS COUNSEL"

"When you have no Defense" said an old
lawyer to young practitioner, "abuse the
plaintiffs counsel" The advocates of the
hexarchical charter are acting upon this un-
scrupulous principle, with an abundance OF
zeal that is only equalled by their plentiful
lack of wit For example, one of these pro-
fessional vilifiers. engaged in the impossible
business of defending an indefensible cause,
says: 1.-The New Orleans Tribune and another
of our contemporaries is immaterlal
which-are the only city journals that oppose
the adoption of the new city charter. The tax
payers and property holders generally, who
are striving to introduce an important reform,
will of course form proper estimate OF the
reasons of this strange opposition"
Unlike our time-serving contemporary, the
CRESCENT (Which is meant by the above
mysterious allusion) has given its reasons,
from the first, openly and truly, for its course
in relation to the charter in question. There
can be nothing +" strange" in its opposi-
tion," for those reasons are entirely sufficient
to convince all tax payers and property hold
ers who are open to conviction, that the pro-
iected government is not fit one for free
people, and that it is adapted in remarka-
bic degree to subserve the worst purposes of
corruption as well as of despotism. When the
CRESCENT has so explicitly exhibited the OBJ
jectionable features of the proposed charter,
when it has so fully and conclusively set forth
the considerations which induced it, and which
should induce every enlightened, bold and
honest public journal, to oppose this charter,
''the taxpayers and property holders gen.
orally" of this city may form proper estimate
of the reasons which impel the desperate adj
vocates of the measure, while evading reply
to our arguments, by calumnious innuendo to
assail our private motives. Even if we were
conscious of private considerations in this
case they would have nothing to do with the
question under discussion. That question is
simply this Does this charter, concocted as
we have heretofore indicated, propose good
or bad system of government for the city
We have asserted, and have sustained the
assertion by arguments which no other jour-
nal has attempted to controvert, that it pro-
poses a system which would be essentially
wrong in theory, and which could hardly, by
moral possibility, fail to prove most perni-
cious in practice.
The intimation that we are, Enthusiastically,
almost alone in our opposition, has not the
least terror to our imagination. To be right
at all hazards, and if need be even in a mi
nority of one, is the glory of honest and fear
| less journalism.
As to the peculiar motives of the New Or
| leans Tribune in condemning the charter
which is now under incubation in the carpet
bag Legislature, they are none of our business.
Only it is but just that we should say in this
connection that, as much as we have detested
and denounced the mischievous notions Of
the Tribune on the subject of social equality,
we have observed with qualification that il
has uniformly opposed the plundering and
monopolizing schemes of carpet-baggery and
scalawagery, inside or outside of the Legis.
lature. Why, then, should its opposition to the
charter, in common with the CRESCENT, be
1 tsctranCa p"