New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-11-26

society to pass sentence of death upon
any of It's members who should violate
its sworn obligations. Such offender being
thus under interdict. members were de-
tailed to put him to death. This was &C.
complished with the secrecy and certainty
Of the Thug worship of silva. The doomed
man might cross the sea as Fosco did, or
abscond as Cotina is said to have done.
but the awful obligation Of the political
coterie in the one case. and the pledge of
vengeance in the other was inevitable.
Recently We have republished an executed
sentence Of assassination by political
society in Italy. Now. to-day, the same
principle is in operation in our own land
of law and equality.
What is that principle? In country
like India or Italy. in which there was no
law except the unbridled rule OF an order
established by caste or by conquest. the
people did not have access to any legal
remedy. In the greater part Of Europe
the people were emancipated from serf.
dom, endowed with the right of habeas
corpus and trial by jury. These rights
were obtained by prolonged struggle. at
different dates and in different modes.
from the Instruction of Wat Tyler to the
radical revolution Of France. The mode
Of redressing these grievances was. it will
be observed. very different. The one was
by popular remonstrance and open resist
arce. Another mode was by secret ASSOC
Citations and assassinations. It was well
described as 'despotism tempered by as
sassination." 1t was, perhaps, the only
way that absolute power could be con-
trolled, by secret, irresistible and inevita-
BILE violence. 1t is the misfortune Of cen.
turtles Of public injustice which has driven
the Italian people to take the law Of ven-
geance in their own hands. The Oldest
civilization does from disagreement
what an Indian savage does from instinct.
But there is no such excuse for any in.
telligent citizen of the United States to
unite himself with an association, open or
secret, which VOWS death to any political
officer who shall controvert the purpose of
that society? And yet we have such an
association. An association which pledges
itself to exclude from the polls class of
citizens authorized by law to vote-which
has slain men for the crime of holding
office under law-which has, through one
of its organs, openly advised men to kill
obnoxious officials elected according to
forms of law-whose members darkly
intimate that if the Returning Board shall
find a majority Of Representatives con-
trary to what the association has decreed,
that such members may be found, like
Nicolo Cotina, the Sicilian, putrid
corpse, with paper by his side bearing
even date with the returns promulgated
by the board to which he belongs.
This is our political vendetta, as secret,
as violent, as irresponsible as that under
which Count Fosco fell or Nicolo Cotina
rotted.
We wish the PicayAse in its next at
tempt to show ''that the South has changed
but little in its people: that its people are
still those in blood who fought for their
country in 1776, one hundred years ago."
Let it ''prove its sons to be heirs to the
blood and ideas of the men of the revo-
luton and the proudest days of the
Union" and then show if there ever was
a political assassination in the South or in
America during the period to which it
refers. The White League, with its VEN
delta, is not American. It is not an in
stitution Of the men who made revolution
openly; who, even in the act of secession,
did nothing secretly, but published their
reasons to the world. 1t will be for the
essayist Of the Picayune to consider
whether the adoption of this practice of
effete despotis:ns does not lend some color
to the otherwise unfounded series of
Northerners against Southerners," whom
hey still seek to deride as foreigners to |
American ideas, inimical to the constitu-
ton of this country and unacquainted
With and unworthy Of American institu-
ions.