New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-11-18
WHAT TIE aoyERuoR SAID.

WHAT THE GOVERNOR SAID:
Representative Sheldon is not satished
with the after-dinner speech which Gov
ernor Warmoth delivered on the cutter
Wilderness last Wednesday, and he writes
rs letter on the subject, explaining the
matter that disagrees with him. What
General Shsldon says will be. found in.
another part Of the REPUBLICAN this
morning, and it will repay perusal be-
cause the author explains matters that he
is fully conversant with, in way that
imparts valuable information in q very
terse and interesting style. General Shell
don is one of our Representatives which
the State may feel justi6able pride in,
for he knows his business and attends to
it, and his opinions are sought after at
Washington. And yet even as able
q man as he is can enter
upon rash conclusions and draw
unjust differences about speech that
was heartily uttered and indifferently re-
ported. Governor Warmoth, like every
other man, needs to have his utterances
measured by the circumstances that at
tend their delivery and if he used strong
language on board the Wilderness, it was
because the occasion justified it. He was
not speaking to body of irresponsible
men, incapable of acting upon the evils
that were being described, but he was adj
dressing the very parties that were probably
to blame for the ruin which they were then
examining. He was talking very plainly
to congressional delegation, and he was
telling to the agents of the people their
own short comings in q measure of great
public necessity. Congress was and is to
blame in just these two points which the
Governor mentioned, and he took occa-
sion in the presence of delegation of
Congressman to explain his dissatisfaction
with the policy which consented to the
appointment of a committee to investi-
gate violations of the law and refused to
appoint committee to examine into an
evil which towers above Ku-Klux raids as
the mountains tower over the foot hills.
He was not talking to an infammable
meeting of citizeus, but he was talking
plainly to private and reasonable party
Of gentlemen assembled to hear the truth
and to provide against very great evil.
Governor Warmoth merely said that the
South had but little to hope for from
Northern Congressman, which is an asser-
ton that General Sheldon does not gain
say, but merely deprecates as the effect of
human selfshness. Numbers and major
tiles will always command advantages,
says the Congressman, and this is merely
q repetition, in another form, of the SEN
timent uttered by the Governor, that the
South, weak and under the ban, has but
little to hope for from the strong and lusty
North. Congress, which should overlook
the entire country with an impartial eye,
refuses to send committee to examine
the levees upon our inland sea unless the
members will pay their own expenses;
and standing in front Of this committee,
discussing the derelictions of Congress
before Congressman, talking about the in
justice of the nation in sight of the very
levees that the nation had ruined and
which it ought long since to have repaired,
the Governor of the State was justified in
being palmer in his structures than if he
had been addressing miscellaneous and
powerless crowd. He spoke the anguish
Of the people to the agents of the people
themselves, telling them directly that they
and their associates were responsible for
the suffering which threatens the COM
munity.
More than that, he was counseling with
the representatives of Louisiana. It was
their business to demand for the State
ample appropriations; and this demand
they should enforce by refusing to vote
appropriations to other sections until the
South had been accepted as partner in
the national treasury. As to the limited
allowances made under the showing of
General Sheldon, the State of Louisiana
can not accept of them as at all common
surate with our necessities or our rights
in the matter. The Mississippi river is
national concern, draining twenty-five
States directly or indirectly; and yet Con-
gress did not appropriate to this mighty
stream, the highway of half the people
of the country, as much to keep its
mouth open as it did to improve one har-
Dor in the North inaccessible except at
high water.
The Governor is not man to sleep
upon his rights, and he talked on the
Wilderness as he would have men act in
Congress- The Southern representatives
should insist at all times and in all places
upon the appropriations necessary to the
South, because victories are as often won
by boldness and maneuvering as they are
by main strength. We were as weak be-
fore the war as we are now, but by COM
bining with other sections the South
to obtain her due share of the
general expenditures.
What was said on the Wilderness will
have this good effect, that it will call the
attention of the North to the injustice
which Republican Governor lays at her
door, and it will agitate Congress with a
better disposition in our behalf. A little