New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-06-07
Communicated.
THE TIME.SERvING DEMOCRACY.
EDITOR REPUBLICAN:

EDITOR REPUBLICAN:
In your issue of this date l find short
article on the fourth page in which you ask
What are we to think of the Democracy
when its organs deliberately declare that
the acceptance of the constitutional amend
ments was foreseen to be inevitable three
years agoe" To my mind, sir, the answer is
| plain. 1t is that it teaches what it does not
| believe, and makes issues for the chances of
| getting into Office, which it knows it must
! ignore at the threshold of Office. Its pab-
ulum, out of office, is agitation; in office,
spOils 1t deceives the people to get offices,
and then deceives them to keep them.
Again you ask, 'If they, told the people
two years ago that the amendments were
utilities, which were inevitably bound to
be Overthrown, when they did not believe
what they were saying, who is guarantee
that they really mean what they say to-
day?"
You are too we'll informed not to have
read some law, and trust you will pardon
me for recalling to your mind paragraph
in the law of evidence which seems to have
escaped your memory when you penned
this question. Heretofore they have been
testifying by affirmation, which, of course,
left a choice of cross-examination and
doubt, the benefit of which they always
claimed, when the case went to the jury of
their countrymen. The hope of success and
the prospect of avoiding detection lured
them beyond the sanctions of plain truth.
But the case is widely different now, Mr..
Editor. The general rule of law is first,
las to FORM, that the party shall be required
to take an oath judicially administered.
There are two exceptions to the general
rule" says Starkie, ''the case of declara-
tons made by person under the apprehen-
sion of impending dissolution" is one; the
other it is unnecessary to mention.
The author continues: 1.-THE principle
upon which this exception stands is very
clear and obvious land am astonished that
you did not remember it,. 1t is presumed
that person who knows that his dissolu-
ton is fast approaching, that he stands on
the verge of eternity, and that he is to be
called TO an immediate account for all that
he has done amiss, before Judge from whom
no secrets are hid will feel as strong
motive to declare the truth, and to abstain
from deception, as any person who acts
under the obligation of an oath"
The application of this idea is not diff
cult. The party is only making dying
declaration, and we must presume that
standing on the verge of eternity, with
nothing in its history to recommend it to
the mercy of a just Ruler, it now speaks
the truth. But should it revive, the un-
clean spirit which has apparently gone out
of the Democratic party may leave tenn
porary amelioration; but, like the man ir
the parable, it will go and take unto itself
seven other spirits, and its last state will be
worse than the first.
l believe, Mr.. Editor, that the Democracy
is now honest in what it says, and that it
says it not because it would prefer its being
so, but, because conscious of approaching
death, it is afraid of HI. l know that you
will rejoice with me in one thing, which is,
that consideration, like an angel" has
come 'and whipped the offending Adam
out of it, Yours.
OCCASIONAL
New Orleans, June 8, 1871.