The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1874-06-21
y The Great Speech
g Mr.. Lamar, Of Mississippi, on the Louis
s. lana Contested Election.

Vigorous vindication OF the Southern
People and Arrangement Of Presi.
Dental Usurpa ions.
The following extract from the powerful
Speech Of the Hon. L. G. C. Lamar, recently
delivered in the United States House of Rep
resentatives, ON the Sheridan Pinchback con
tested election case, will richly repay pc
rusal:
Mr.. Speakes, the point at which Govern
ment affects most vitality the interests OF a
people for veal OF woe is its fiscal action
e The fsc is the State" once said great
French statesman, The function of collect
ling and disbursing the revenues places the
:eDtire resources of community at the
npmmand of those in whom it is invested.
has in all ages been the machinery by
hich arbitrary governments and those who
lie them can plumber people and raise
themselves to the greatest degree of riches
md splendor. According to the views of a
teat American statesman and profound
thinker, Mr.. Calhoun, even in the best regn-
lated governments, the action of this part
Of. the system naturally divides society into
two antagonistic classes-those who pay the
taxes and bear the burdens of government,
and those who receive the taxes and are
supported by the government the latter
class being interested in swelling the reven-
ues and expenditures to the highest amount
and the former in keeping them down to the
lowest figure. There is but one principle
by which the people who bear the burdens
Qf taxation can keep themselves from being
despoilcd and ruined by those who impose
a nd ha a ia hal n
which will not permit taxes to be imposed
except with the consent CT the taxpayers-
or IN other words, which makes the tax.
consumers the men who impose and receive
the taxes, responsible to the men who pay
them.
Such was the relation of these two classes
of the South befor the war Men Who i'm
posed the taxes were responsible to the peO
4 pie who paid them. The consequence was
their governments were models of republi
can simplicity and prudential economy anG
/ virtue in the administration Of affairs.
Z, Sir, the events since the war have reversed
these relations. When, in order to consum
mate your policy, you divided the Southern
Epcduntry into military districts, your militia J
<commanders distressing the purposes of thu
Son rhern people and knowing the negroes
k8re incompetent to manage the affairs o
overnment called to their aid and installed
Ito all the Offices of the States, from the
Xhighest to the lowest, q set of men from the
North who were strangers to our people, not
h possessing their confidence, not elected by
them, not responsible to them, having no in
a terest in common with them, and hostile tC
1 them to o certain extent in sentiment
|. am not going to characterize these mel
| by any harshness Of language. l am speak
ink Of a state of things more controlling
than ordinary personal characteristics. Even
If it were true that they came to the South
for no bad purposes, they were put in pc
sition which has always engendered rapaci
ty, cupidity, corruption, grinding Oppres
! sion, and taxation in it's most devouring
form. They were rulers without RESPONSE
S. bility, in unchecked control of the matera
resources of people with whom they haG
Lot sentiment in sympathy or an interest
4 in common, and whom they habitually re-
!, garded and treated as rebels who had for
q feited their right to protection. These men
Z thus situated and thus animated, were the
fisc of the South. They were the recipients
s. of all the revenues, State and local. Not &
dollar of taxes, State or local, but what went
4 into their pockets. The suffering people OF
IL whom the taxes were laid could not exer
else the slightest control, either as to the
h amount imposed or the basis upon which
they were laid. The consequence was thai
in few short years eight magnificent Com
hnOnwealGps were laid in ruins. This cOndi
stiOn of things still exists with undated
~ rigOr ia those Southern States. For when
aShY our reconstruction measures, you deter
lined to provide civil governments for thes'
States, the machinery by which these mel
i carried their power over into those civil
gov rnments was simple and effectual. I'm
der yous policy generally-I repeat, my pur
pose to-day is not arraignment-under tina
/ policy you disenfranchised large portion
I Of the white people of the Southern States
81 The registration laws and the election law
in the bands of these men kept still large
proportion away.
s. But there was an agency more poten
still.
/ By persistent misrepresentation a major
ity in Congress was made to believe tina
the presence of the United States arm!
would DO necessary not merely to put these
ssgovernments in force, but to keep them il
I operation and to keep them from bene
snatched away and worked to the oppression
and ruiz Of tho black race and the few loya
men who were there attempting to prOtec
their rights. Thus, was introduced int
those sO-called reconstructed civil govern
! ments the Federal military as an operative
and predominant principle. Thus. with I
i. quick, sudden and violent hand, these mel
tore the two races asundor and hurled on
1 in vi0nnt antagOnism upon the other an.
to this day the negro vote massed into al
organization hostile to the whites is an in
strument Of absolute power in the hands O
these men. These governments are in ex
ternal torn civil, but they are in their essen
tial principle military. They are called gov
{ ernments, but i'll reality they are Fedora
Z. executive agencies. Not one of item ema
mates from the uncontrolled will of the pee
pie, white or black; not one which rest
upon the elective principle in its purit!
They have been aptly styled by distiu
d guished stat esman and jurst in Mississippi
]. (Hon. w. p. Harris) State governments with
out States, without popular constituencies
3 For they are as completely insulated fror
the traditions, the feelings, the interests
and the suffrages OF the people, white an
! black, IS if they were outside the limits o