New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-04-14
NEW ORLEANS REPUBLICAN, SUNDAY, APRIL l3 1872 8

harsher legislation has been demanded, and
the endorsements of martial law have been
resOrted to with needless severity. : But the
texture of this rule and failure thus i'm
posed must be held to show forth the ami
mating impulse that accredits it's work.
The political ideas which are accepted at
the North are the selfsame which have thus
had unrestrained vent in dealing with the
South, and this might well crowd into its
Consciousness that mighty language OF the
Earth spirit in Goethe
| AT the roaring Loom of Time ply
| Weaving for Ged the garment thou seest Him by -
Now, l submit to you If theory OF a
national policy and power, which has de-
veloped So ruinously elsewhere, is not dan
gerous everywhere! l ask you whether
| public opinion that has sustained so much
| of spOliation, and shown itself so inditfer-
ent to the limitations of rightful authority
abroad, may not possibly be the parent
cause of cOrruptions springing into such
alarming magnitude at home! DO not
such infections, like curses. come back to
rOost and may not the plumber OF Erie
corporations and venality in so many Legis-
latures, from Albany to Topeka, have a
closer connection than might at first be sup
posed with programme OF political thought
and action thus set on high, as type
of the public conscience? Could the
two hundred and fifty millions, pill
LACED by the carpet-bag governments
have been permitted. except under dis
solute political morality, that connived at
Tammany in a ten million steal! Could
that violence, done the constitution, in sus-
| pending the habeas corpus, have proceeded
from any other than an atmosphere satur-
| ated with constraint of elections and dlcta-
ton to electors, under presidential auspicesE
And as a fitting sequel, also, to such in
quest, may it not be worth while to con-
slider if the moulding of such dependencies
on administration favor as Louisiana and
South Carolina, ruled by an uneducated,
| int1amed negro vote, may not have sl2nl-
ficance in the electoral college or the deli
beration of Congress that will silence the
protest even OF Massachusetts herself,
| should the exigencies of an election de-
mand a war with England
1t will not be contended with any truth
| that the great mass of Northern men SYM
pathize with the anim0sities thus perpetu-
| ated, or that they would willingly foster
dangers thus threatening to all tree society.
Bat it is true that they have surrendered
the leadership of public opinion to party
| organization because it carried them sate y
through the perils of civil war, and have not
been alert to prevent that control from TAX
ing shape utterly at variance with the free
opinion in which it was founded. 1t Is.
therefore, only by an appeal from the party
|
thought of the North can come; and it is
only by arrestlng that tendency in national
| administration to extreme Capitalization
| that any influence can be given to such
| reawakened conscience. The duty was
| plain in the first instance to take measures
| for confirming the results of the
| war by fundamental law: but it was net
| for mere acts Of reconstruction that the
| evils now SO apparent necessarily resulted.
l am sure that such results, transforming
| our whole republican system, were never
| contemplated by many of the most resOlute
who gave those acts their support. Having
seen the outcome, having held the mirror
up to nature and witnessed the workings,
having analysed the light passed through
this distorted reorganization and detected
there unerring spectrum lines of despOtic
rule, is not the duty equally plain with us
as Republicans TO reatfirm those axioms
and that ordering of our government in
which heretofore has ever been found safety
for our freedom and elevation for our mo-
ralities.
Let us then search out again that virtue
of the government of our fathers, which
consisted in recognizing its true lineaments,
and tolerating no departure from its admit
rable adjustment of parts, its balance OF
powers, its rigid restraints. The very ge
MUS of our feGeral constitution consists in
reconciling local freedom and federal unity.
The principle of national sovereignty is
now too firmly established to be again as
sailed: let us see to it then that the CORE
spending principle. independence of the
States within their spheres, be likewise
maintained. And. especially, let us guard
that no contempt for local government or
equal rights. or self help prepare the way
for one of those splendid mockeries of rule
which, under pretext of caring for all, in
the end ruin all.
Gentlemen of the convention, in looking
abroad over the country there are many
signs which toreteii the coming of great
political changes: not merely such as come
from the defeat of one party and the tyi-
umph of another. but changes likely to in
press the politics of the future with the re-
quirements of better government. more
elevation of purpose in its aims, and wider
comprehension of what belongs to SOCIAL
regulations, and what to the endorsements
OF law than has hitherto prevailed. OF
those indications there are none more signih-
cant than the very widespread dissatlstac-
ton that is every where manifested among
Republicans who have hitherto acted in
concert, and who would naturally overlook
many minor faults of the administration.
but who are now seen from Iowa to Texas
deliberately breaking ranks. They assert
with much truth that the results reasonably
10 have been expected from so long con-
tiruance of Republican supremacy have not
been attained. and that the prospect is not
reassuring. When party leaders demand
that new campaign snail be conducted
simply upon old issues, and take no step to
meet urgent wants, to correct growing
abuses, or to repair grave errors OF policy,
such distrust is not only pardonable, but
commendable. With great unanimity the
rishtfulness of scrupulous observance OF
the public faith in meeting obligations of
the national debt has been recognized, and
let me say in passing that | yield prece-
dence to none in that behalf: but some how
it is felt that the rapid retirement Of bonds
in advance of necessity has not been &C
complished through stricter economies in
the service, and wiser measures of public
revenue, but rather by maintaining an ex-
cessive burden OF taxation upon tue people.
Even the syndicate. Scriptural allusiOn
though il possess, for aught we know. does
not raise any vision of turning the money
changers out Of the temple. They see.
and especially those of the valley
OF the Mississippi, that in the original
placing of that burden its weight has
been cast upon the agricultural and produc
ing sections, While the attempt has been
successfully made to evade its equal bear
ing upon mOneyed centres and capitalized
industries. They find that great corpora
tons have the ear of Congress: that subsi-
dies are the tavOrite tancies at Washington;
that public lands are gwen away by the
province. while doubled in price to settlers;
that a so-called internal revenue system
sends abroad a needless army Of officials,
while tariff. the scandal OF an educated
age, is inaccessible to any genuine reform.
A brilliant writer has recently written a
book to inquire Does protection protect p
in view OF the mutual overreaching there
illustrated; but much more pertinent in
qutry would be Does the revenue pay"