The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1874-12-23
The Mission Of the Democracy
JUDGE BLACKS LETTER TO THE DEMO.
CRATIC BANQUET.

| SAAAAS DANSOIAs
PHILADELPHIA, December "a
Democratic banquet was given at the
Continental Hotel tonight. The fol-
lowing letter was read from Judge
Black:
! PHILADELPHIA,
Dec. 2. 1S74.(
GENTLEMEN -
am honored by your invitation
to the dinner of Democrats to-mor-
row evening at the Continental Ho-
tel, and beg to believe that nothing
prevents me from attending but an
imperative duty which calls me else
where.
| think I can understand how sin
eerel.y you all rejoice over the great
political events Of the last two
months. If you wish to know what
my feelings are I must decline to tell
simply because | can not do justice
to the subject. Democracy-which
is the common sense and common
honesty Of the nation organized for
public purposes-was supposed by
its enemies to be etfectually killed.
1t was but natural that the heart of
every patriot should burn within him
when he saw it rising again, facing
the oppressor with front as deter
mined as ever, and denouncing cor
ruption in high places with the same
mighty voice which in former times
went over the land like the tones of a
triumph.
But let US not merely congratulate
ourselves upon the recent past
Think nothing done until the work is
finished. The victories of this year
will put only one House of the Fede-
raj Congress into our hands, and we
must wait a year to realize even that
Our perfect independence must be
achieved in 1876 by struggle which
will prove that we are worthy to be
descended from the men who pro
claimed the rights of the States and
the liberties of the people a hundred
years earlier. If We fail We must
sink into servitude even more de-
grading than that which we have en-
dured for the last dozen of years. If
we succeed, then will this puissant
nation, like the awaking Sampson,
"Shake her invincibIe locks" and
start the new century under auspices
so grand that nothing can arrest her
free career.
We must bear it always in mind
that the triumph of Democratic prin-
ciples means the restoration of con-
stitutional government on a basis
which will give absolute security to
the rights of men against the nights
Of men. The broken walls of the
Constitution are to be built up anew
and made too strong to be thrown
down again by the ruftiiaus Of the
"higher law" Our opponents them
selves will become reconciled to the
principles Of American liberty when
they pass into the minority and find
the magnanimous Democracy taking
every possible precaution to guard
them in their weakness against
the oppression which they inflicted
upon us in the days of their power.
Peace will come, too, sectional strife
will be ended, and the public robbers
who now swarm over the Southern
States will cease their nefarious oc-
cupation when we revoke the license
which the appropriate legislation"
of the last nine years has given them.
| But we cannot reasonably hope to
accomplish the object of our mission
without much labor and faithful ex
ertion after the machinery Of the
Government shall be put into our
hands. Fifteen years of domination
by an anti-constitutional party has
utterly demoralized every branch of
the public service. These corrup-
lions have become so numerous and
so diversified, have sent their top
roots so deeply, have been practised
so openly, and have become in GER
tain sense so respectable, that for
many of them a mere change of ad-
ministration will not speedily furnish
a remedy. But the abuses may be
ended by the impulsion of the same
moral force which carries their au-
thors out of public life. When Her.
cules undertook the task of cleansing
the Augean stable he did not see the
fork or the shovel, but turned the
current of river upon it and so
swept all it's filth to the sea. The
stream of public opinion if rightly
directed will in like manner aid a
Democratic Administration. This
hydraulic method of reform being
necessary, the freedom of the press
and the untrammelled right of the
people to speak their sentiments
should be seduously encouraged and
securely guarded.
If l should close here you might
misunderstood me. | have not the
least idea that we ought to unsettle
anything which has been fixed and
determined, or take from any human
being a right vested in him by exist
ing laws. We propose no counter
revolution. While we mean to be
lust, we are determined also to be
liberal in the broadcast sense of the
word. The faith ofthe Government,
no matter by whom pledged, is, ire
vocable. The whole civilized world
knows that the public credit is safer