New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-06-06

| the strengtn ana PATRIOTISM OF the gov
eminent; yet they only have to read the
speeches of men like jefferson Davis to
become convinced that the ''cause" which
impelled them to rebel against the govern
ment in 1861 still lives with them, and, il
we can believe Mr. Davis, sis more pre-
cious than life"
| There can be no stronger evidence of
humane government in the United States
presented than the fact that representa-
| tives of the '1ost cause" can live and
boldly proclaim to their admirers that
members of the government whose lenity
they have experienced are conscious of
their inferiority, and fear the return of
justice, as experienced under Democratic
rule. Mr.. Davis, in a speech lately made
to his Georgia friends at Augusta, said of
the congressional committee appointed
to investigate Ku-Klux outrages in the
South
Filled with that jealousy which springs
from the knowledge of their inferiority and
of the justice OF your pretensions, and con-
scious OF broken covenants and violated
constitution, they mistrust every movement
and tremble with fear when they think that
right may again prevail.
This language given in France under
the same circumstances would cost Mr..
Davis his life. But here he is permitted
to live and revile those who have spared
him, because that is the best refutation of
his charges Of alleged wrongs and oppres-
sions by the government upon the people
OF the South. The language he applies to
a congressional committee is no doubt
meant to have a broader bearing. He in
tends it for the ruling party in the coun-
try; for the very large majority of the
American people who have favored a cen
tralization of power sufficient to defeat the
right of a State to withdraw from the
Union; sufficient to overcome rebellion
and abolish slavery; sufficient to make
freedom national instead of slavery.
Well might the American people tremble
with fear if there was danger of Mr.. Davis
ideas of right again prevailing. He was
the head and front of the great rebellion
that was to extend slavery and make it
national instead of sectional. He drew
the sword, not to sustain the compact en-
tered into by our forefathers in Philadel-
phia, in behalf of freedom, but to sustain
the compact entered into in Montgomery
in behalf of slavery. 1t was an unholy
compact because it not only struck for
slavery, but it struck at the integrity ofthe
republic; it struck at the liberty of whites
and blacks.
Therefore when Mr.. Davis refers to the
rights which were fought for and obtained
at the point of the bayonet in the first
revolution he certainly cannot mean to
convey the idea that he and his confeder-
ates, in rebelling against the United
States government, were contending for
those same rights. Our revolutionary
sires did all they could to unite and har-
monte the people of the colonies in order
to break down the power of the English |
government over the colonies. The lead |
ing men of the colonies worked for this |
union and concentration of power in
the interest of freedom. What did Mr. |
Davis and his followers do? They worked
to disunite this same people in the inter-
est of slavery. They arrayed one section
against the other and brought ON terri
bic civil war, in which, after four years of
slaughter freedom was victorious. Mr..
Davis has not verified the scriptural say
ng that he who would live by the sword
shall perish by it. He lives to tell the
of his great crime that he was
light and that the government and people
who have spared him are wrong 1t is well
hat he is dealing with humane govern
nent.