The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1870-03-24
The New GoreF-mmemt---Wh tIas
People Have N Right 10


AM14M0s
We have mentioned the relief which
the intelligent people Of our State, upon
whose shoulders are mainly devolved the
burthens of government, have realized in
the restoration of civil authority notwith-
standing their repugnance to the agents
appointed to administer it and the cor
rupt and violent means by which the new
order Of things has been established.
We may say further that they have no
disposition to PREJUDICE the action of those
who have thus been invested with power,
though they are not encouraged to hope
for wise and beneficial legislation by the
career of the partizans of the same school
in the other newly reconstructed States.
The responsibilities which rest upon the
legislation and executive departments are
so weighty and involve considerations of
such vast magnitude, that the most ex-
perienced statesmen might well approach
them with diffidence, and it is to be re-
GREETED that the first talent and the highest
order of capacity in the State have not
been brought into requisition to perform
them. 1t is a great undertaking to frame
code of laws and adjust them to an or
der of things entirely foreign to the pre-
vious condition and habitudes of the peo-
pie for whom they are intended. The
protection Of person and property-the
maintenance of chartered rights-the ex-
ecution of justice with impartial hand,
are the principal objects of government.
And to administer the laws the people
will need faithful and efficient agents.
Above all other things they will need an
honest, enlightened and capable judiciary ;
which, to Gov. Alcorn's credit be it said,
they have been promised.
A new system of public schools is to be
established. 1t is right it should be-
The education of the masses in govern
ments deriving their authority from the
people is an object too important to be
overlooked. But care should he taken
that the burthen Of this responsibility
should not be thrown upon any particu-
lar class, and that the line which nature
for her own wise purposes has drawn
should be strictly maintained. In the
ton a proposition to establish separate
schools, with equal privileges for the two
races, was voted down on the motion of
negro member; and the inference was
warranted that the public schools, supper
ted by the property and labor of the State,
were to be used for the destruction of the
distinctions in society which race and
color have established. We trust that
this intention has been abandoned. Any
system founded upon this pernicious idea
will arouse indignation and become a
perpetual source of discord. The white
people of the State may not be able to
resist the imposition and collection of
taxes for purpose so abhorrent, but fur
ther than this they will not become par
ties to the scheme.
In the expenditure of public money,
the taxpayers have right to demand
ECONOMY. In their poverty and misfor-
tunes they would look upon it as boon.
With the ravages of war still standing
like grim spectre over the wreck of their
prosperity, and struggling against adverse
fortune to rebuild their waste places they
are not in a condition to be taxed for any
other than the strictly legitimate purposes
of government