New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-02-06
AN IRATE GRANDFATHER,

Somebody's grandfather has found in
the Times vent for that loquacity which
the REPUBLICAN could not conscientiously
discharge. Grandpapas are proverbially
retrospective and lugubrious, always look
ing back and mellowing the past by dis
NAL comparisons with the present. The
robust and healthy have to listen through
an instinct of respect to these veterans
but they often think that this garrulity
could be wisely dispensed with, for the
evils that aff1ict us are great enough with
out being magnitied by septuagenarian,
whose very infrmities prove that he, at
least met with quite as many temptations
in his manhood as men do now Our re-
gard for the past, which is to us what it
has been to all the generations Of our race,
restraints us from exposing its follies and
misfortunes unnecessarily: our sympathy
with the present constrains us to say in its
praise that it is not worse than the past;
and our interest in the future induces us
to hope that it will be improved by what
has been done in both the past and pres
ent, imperfect as they are known to us all
to be.
The grandfather whose garrulity found
an organ in the Times prefaces his account
of the Downfall of the American Repub-
lic'' with an act of justice in this, that
he says the REPUBLICAN refused to pub
lish his lugubrious recitation Of events and
suggestions that are partly historical and
partly imaginative. If he had founded
his conclusions on his facts the produc-
ton might have met with favor, but when
he related a series of events that the
public is familiar with and coupled it with
results that common sense will say at
once could not have emanated from the
causes that were paraded as then predi-
Gated, our respect for grandfathers in
general reduced us to the necessity of re-
fusing to publish the effusion.
Grandfather sets forth such a correct
summing up of the origin of our local
troubles, to wit: that the Southern people
refused to be reconciled to the government
that treated them so leniently after it had
their gigantic treason against
its existence, and they carried this wicked
ress SO far that they actually refused to par
ticipate in their own affairs; first, because
they were stubborn and disconnected: and
because they refused to accept of
a new political element that was generated
out of the war. So far SO good. A nat
Jlral law says that what men neglect that
they shall not enjoy. Having abused a
good government first, and then refused to
take an interest in any government because
it could not have the precise thing that it
are two reasons that ought to be
sufficient of themselves to account for the
downfall of the community that suffers it
self to thus 60 into decline; but, as the
tumor that destroys finger from healthy
body can not be said to have killed man,
so the weakness that is imputed to Louis
lana, even admitting its existence should
not be used as an argument to demonstrate
that the republic has been oyerthrown by
its poison. This allusion, however, is
merely incidental, our intention at present
being limited to design to explain our
own case without defending the Union
from destruction by a rheumy grandfather.
Recurring, then, to the preservation of
our own immediate political autonomy,
we say that the facts set forth by grandpa
are the identical evils that have produced
the prostration which at present prevails.
No people can expect that government to
be good which they proverbially neglect,
out of spite at its origin. This being ad-
mitted, our present doleful status is ac-
counted for at the expense of that very
class of people that ought to have done
better. They allowed all their perversity
full sway, and 10 the consequences.
But If one portion of the community
neglected its interests, may We not find in
grandfather's homily an admission that
another portion of the same society took
hold of the government md saved it by
to it, He contesses to some
thing of this sort when be charges that
education must be difused, and knowl-