New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-05-20
Is MURDER A POLITICAL OFPENsE?

IsMURDER A POLITICAL 0FPENsE?
We have scrupulously RETAINED fror
saying anything which might in the re
hottest manner PREJUDICE the verdict of
jury in the case of the United State
. against J. W. Cruikshank and others
under indictment for murder The e1
traordinary position taken by certain Q
our journals in regard to the ofense i'm
Piled in this indictment compels som
comment upon the part of those who thinl
there is no political palliative in taking
human life.
The statement of the offense by ths
Picayuae is as follows:
These have been due TO- strong convic
ton that the acts done at COlfax in the mem
| Orable cOflict of 1873 were provoked by the
violences and challenge made by the col
Ored people of the parish OF Grant, insti
gated by certain demagogues, to the white
people, to try the question of the superior
ity of the races by an appeal to arms II
was conflict of the two races, provoked
by the colored people, who began the
ARRAY, and when they were beaten. and
severely, and even cruelty handled, fell
back upon the law and the power of the
United States, and now appeal to the juris-
dictiOn of the federal courts to avenge the
wrongs and punish the excuses Of their
| victoIs.
| This incorrect statement, both by
suggestion and suppression, is at once
unwise and erroneous. 1t is unwise on
| the part of those who use it, inasmuch as
it abandons entirely the original ground
of defense, that the killing was lawful,
| inasmuch as it was inflicted in the execu-
ton of legal process. We may here re-
peat, however, that this killing could not
have been justified on the ground stated,
because sheriff has no power to call on
persons living without the municipal
jurisdiction, within which the sheriff can
alone act, to enforce any process within
that jurisdiction. The posse conaitatus Of
one parish can not be recruited legally
within the jurisdiction of another parish
The coming of men from Caddo or Bos-
sier into Grant parish was illegal. These
men were trespassers and invaders, not
lawful force to execute lawful process.
But lawful justification seems, ins the
paragraph quoted, to have been waived
OF abandoned.
The case is to be tried as a political
offense. The facts as undisputed are
that the claimant of an Office within the
parish'of Grant enlisted body of men in
great part from other and even distant
parishes; that this invasion, calling itself
posse, assaulted those who maintained
another claimant of the disputed Office;
that they defeated them with but the loss
of one or two killed and wounded, and |
that after the conflict the victors shot,
drowned and otherwise put to death some |
sixty or seventy Of those who maintained |
the one man for the Office of sheriff
against the other man claiming the same
office. The pretended posse, recruited
chiefly without the jurisdiction of Grant
parish, defeated the real posse composed
Of residents within the jurisdiction of
Grant, and put them to death as penalty
Of obeying the forms Of law. There is
nothing political in this statement.
1t is, however, represented this was
mere trial of proves between the races,
provoked by a challege made by the col
Bred people Of Grant parish. There is no
such evidence in the facts or in the plead
ngs. There was challenge to decide the |.
title to all offices by wager of battle, butt
Gould not have been by the colored people
Who held the Offices. 1t was given by the
Fusion party, and published through its
organ, the Picdyune The challenge was
substantially this: ''Letthe United States
Keep its hands off, and We will clean the
Republican party out in twenty-four
hours This was an ignoble appeal to
he stronger force of the United States to
its protection in order that the
rmed, drilled and desperate men famish-
ng for Office, might shoot and hound
and timid laborers into
surrender of their claims to adj
minister the State government But was
not challenge? Was not the tele-
,raphic demand of faction" and "agita-
ion" coming from Washington, to
efer the question of Office to bloody
rbitrament, a challenge? Was not
he assault, Immediately afterward, upon
be police station at jackson square
challenge? The demand at the Fusion | .
aob meeting, of the Fusion party, that
hey should kill the office holders,
ollowed by the sack of gun stores and
be attempted assassination OF the person
n the executive chair-was this no
hallenge?
These, followed by the arrests and
rails in May last. and by the invasion
f Grant parish, were challenges. How &
1ere they responded to? By an orderly i
bedience to the laws and dependence ,
pom the civil and military power of /,
he State and federal governments to {
xecute the laws. Since the wolf tore out I
ne vitals of the lamb for making muddy c
he stream below where the wolf was 1
rinking, there has been no more wanton I
erversion of cause and effect to Justify 7
predetermined wrong. +
But having postponed the defense of
gal justification, the paragraph pro-
eeds to treat the shooting of unarmed
Glow citizens in cold blood and without