The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-02-11
Condition OF the state OF Louisiana-
Duty OF Congress.

mittee Of the United States Senate, which was
appointed to make inquiry. and which has
evidently neglected no means Of obtaining
Trustworthy testimony as TO the facts. There
has been no election in that State since the
above date, and it follows therefore, that the
Congress of the United States is by the report
of the Senate committee in possession OF the
knowledge that State of this Union is IN the
hands of persons who pretend, but without
any right or any good legal claim. to be In
authority over its people, and who have
usurped the power and functions OF govern
ment without any better reason than one that
q footpad might assign for taking travellers
purse
/ In such case what becomes of those i'm
perative mandates of the constitution which
declare specifically what ''shalr' be the course
of the general government whenever the peo-
pie of any State are oppressed by power to
whose authority they have given no consent2
Is the constitution of the United States abso-
lutely waste paper? has the public mind of
the nation lost altogether that consciousness
every vital law and in the presence of which
government functionaries dare not neglect an
obvious and indisputable duty2 There is
man in the lobby of the United States Senate
who claims to have been elected to seat in
that body by the Legislature of the State of
Louisiana; and the Senate knows by the re-
port of its own committee that at the very time
of such pretended election that State was
without "any government whatever" yet the
man is not secuted as an impostor. On
the contrary the Senate gravely con-
siders his case, and one member of respectable
Western reputation resolutely argues that the
man is entitled to the seat he claims And
the body which pretends to have elected this
man, and calls itself the Legislature of Louisi-
ana, as we'll as the man who calls himself the
Governor, which persons are supported in
their usurpation by the armed power of the
general governmental these and the pre-
tended Senator keep themselves so promi-
nently in the public eye that Congress An
not for moment ignore the crime against a
sovereign State; and yet it is doubted if it
will deal with the subject, although distin-
guished Senator declares in his place that
Congress is ''bound to take legislative notice
of the component parts of this Union and their
condition" Has Congress any duty to per-
form in regard to that oppressed State2
By the constitution the United States is
required and obliged ''to guarantee to every
State in the Union republican form of gov
eminent )" and to protect each State against
invasion, and. on application of the Legisla-
ture, OF of the Executive (when the Legisla-
| ho
violence" No clause in the constitution has
been more heard of lately than this one; but
it cannot be repeated too often, as there seems
such supreme need that persons in authority
should be made acquainted with it In another
part of the constitution it is provided that to
this, as to ''al other powers vested by this
constitution in the government Of the United
States" effective operation shall be given by
appropriate acts of Congress. An act of Con-
gress, therefore, must illuminate the latent
power; and, in virtue of this provision,
Congress has full and adequate power to
snake all laws which shall be necessary
and proper" tor protecting any State
against domestic violence Congress
has hitherto, as argued by Senator Carpenter,
only provided by law for the protection of
States against "insurrection" is against
domestic violence of the most extreme and
least doubtful kind. By the statute of 1872 and
that of 1875, which re-enacts the former, and
by the statute of 1907, which merely author
ICES the use Of the army and navy where the
''militia" was called for in the previous acts,
the protection provided is from IAN insurrec-
ton in any State against the government
thereof" but for protection against forms of
domestic violence that are not less outrageous
in their effect if less extravagant in their dem
onstration no provision has been made
yet it cannot be doubted that these are, under
the constitution, equally within the power of
Congress.
Louisiana is now, therefore, in the hands
of an authority which never received any war
rant from the people of that State to which
was never given at the polls the sanction from
the people that is the one necessary condition
of Legitimate political power in every State of
this Union. 1t is, then, clearly and beyond all
peradventure without that republican form Of
government which the United States is obliged
to secure to every State by the terms of the
original compact Of union, and Congress is in
official possession of the knowledge of this
fact and of every step of the process by which
the usurpers reached their power. Here, then,
is fact in violation of the great stipulation
of the constitution that has been used to cover
the passage Of the reconstruction laws that
afforded the legal ground upon which Con-
gress substituted its own power for the sover-
eighty of the States that were rescued from
the armed power Of the Confederacy; but the
clause stands as dead letter when the power
from which State must be rescued is a plum
dering oligarchy that governs in the name of
the republican party, and perhaps divides
what it gathers to the satisfaction of the law