The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1871-08-10

PEOPLE FOR THEIR OWN PERsEcUTION-THK
GOVERNORS OUTRAGEOUS ABUSE OF TRUST.

THE EMPLOYMENT or THE MONEY OF THE
PEOPLE FOR THEIR OWN PERsEcUTION-THK
GOVERNORS OUTRAGEOUS ABUSE OF TRUST.
EDIToRs CLARION 1t seems then that
the use of the money of the taxpayers in
the prosecution of Mississippians for of
fences against the Federal statutes by Gov.
AIcorn is openly avowed. AS an index OF
the state of public morals in high places. it
is fact profoundly to be lamented. As an
evidence that men in place think that the
Spartan virtue, which used to be required to
win high Offices and political renown, are
no longer so required, either in semblance
or in fact, it is matter of the most humiliat-
ing significance.
The hero of grand poem Is made to read
in blazoned letters on the gates of He'll:
He who enters here leaves hope behind"
Upon the door of Radicalism may well be
written, "The Southern man who enters
here abandons decency forever
The State Of Mississippi has her own
courts to pass judgment against those who
violate her laws. She has her officers to
represent the State in the ascertainment of
guilt. In those courts they are presumed
innocent until the contrary is proved be-
yond reasonable doubt, and it is the duty
of the attorney for the State, not so much to
prosecute as to see that justice Is done be-
tween the State and her offending citizen.
He ought to be as much the attorney of the
accused as of the State, to see that a fair trial
is had, and no advantage taken of the rights
of either.
But we now find the great State of Mis-
nnnUprfp6 iufn q Of
her own citizens who are presumed TO be
innocent, the very men contributed to pay
those taxes now being used to employ coun-
sci to prosecute them in Courts of juris-
diction as totally foreign to the laws of the
State they pay taxes to sustain as the juris-
diction OF the Courts of the German EN-
pire is to the government of the United
States.
The government of this great State first
presumcs these citizens guilty-against the
recognized theory Of law-and then employs
counsel to convict them, using the money
of the State, thus making the State, in a
certain sense, guilty of maintenance of
prosecutions-and malicious ones too
against her own citizens, and thus encour-
aging the fomenting of such prosecutions,
the scales against her own people:
This is all too shameful to dwell upon
too contemptible-too disgraceful to the
dignity of sovereign State and to the
prophecies of the gubernatorial Office
What then shall be said of the deed when it
is morally certain it was done by Governor
of Mississippi in trucking to the mere
behests of party, and to insure the enjoy
ment of the reward of infamous political
treason? To call it disgusting would be
shameful flattery. Truly in becoming
camp-follower ofthe "thieving adventures
for the sake of stray office or two out-a-
begging for the want of enfranchised brains
to hold them, our present Governor has
abandoned the commonest instincts of
political decency.
His career has been ''ofr and on We see
him at one period trying to restore himself
to favor with home people, and then we
find him bending the supple hinges of the
knee to carpet-bag power. One day he
writes as a Governor should, that Mississip-
pi can take care of herself and her criminals
by the power of civil law and civil officers.
and the next day begging for picked cavalry
and Ku Klux convictions in Federal courts.
The 'thieving adventures" put him where
he is by the negro vote which they organised,
and now the poor man-longing for his old,
respeetability- haing alienated the affections
of the "vagabOnds." has become bewildered
in the mazes of his own variegated treason,
and is whirled, purposeless, in all directions
upon the shifting current of a mad despair.
Let him continue his dizzy evolutions with
the changing eddies, and let the people
select rulers with fixed principles who
navigate by the compass of political integ-
rity. MIssIssIPPIAN.