The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-01-24

General Grant Fires q shotted salute
for the First Monstrosity-The Louis
lana Case.
The President is opening bis campaign
against the monstrosities, and begins with one
OF the greatest. This is the Louisiana diff
Guilty. He proposes to refer it TO an authority
very competent to settle it, if fair play Is Sc
cured-the people of the troubled State. He
will recommend it is reported, that Congress
order a new election. IL il far from just in
principle that an issue once decided at the
polls shall be tried over again because the
beaten party has been able to confuse the
result in the minds of people not generally
gifted with very clear vision. Parties beaten
at the polls would be commonly well satisfied
to have new elections ordered regularly. But
it may be doubted if those who had carried
the day would SEQ tho subject in the same
light; for, to say nothing of the fact that the
losers might by the results of the first trial be
taught at what places exactly they had
cheated too little. and be able to profit
by the lesson. the bald fact of GUST
ing the victors of their sovereign right
as an elected government is open to
serious objection. But in view of the atti-
tude of the President the Senate and the
republican party toward Louisiana, the OPP
pressed people of that State will. we are of
opinion, accept gladly the chance for solu-
ton which can but prove them in the right in
their assertion that they are now governed by
usurpers. In assuming that the people who
oppose the present government will vote it
down at the polls, we repeat however the res
ervation made above. They will do it if they
have fair play. And this is an especially i'm
portant point in the case; for we must remem-
Der that the person whose fraud may be ex-
posed at the election are the men in power,
and who will, we suppose, be in power on the
day when the election occurs United States
troops may be held ready to suppress dis
turbances, but this fact cannot affect any one
Of the hundred ways in which authority may
incline the beam toward its friends; and if
cases are made for the federal courts, why, we
know what United States judges are in recon-
structed districts.
Intelligent persons who have examined the
subject have universally as little doubt that
the carpet-bag party was beaten in the Lou
isiana election as they have that the same
party was beaten in the recent Texas election;
yet the decision of the people was disregarded
and the defeated party was placed in power
and sustained there by federal bayonets, on
the order Of federal Judge who has since re-
signed to escape impeachment ALI this was
done under the power to guarantee to every
State government republican in form" ALI
the political crimes nowadays are committed
in the name of liberty. 1t was in the name Of
iberty-to preserve the people from the
tyranny of the anarchists-that Louis Napo-
leon ordered the shooting on the boulevards;
and it is in the name of liberty that the
reactionists at Versailles are now strangEng
the French Republic, for they say the continu-
ance of the Republic is inconsistent with the
maintenance Of order, and, of course, that order
and liberty are inseparable. In Louisiana,
therefore, we only had the local application of
q gigantic political irony, expressed in many
other places also, that liberty should be mutt
lated and pulverized for her own benefit. In
defence of this great outrage in Louisiana the
supporters of the usurpation humble some
considerations of the State census. No other
defence has ever been made that had particle
of reason in it, and even this defence is very
fimsy. They argue that the vote for the
McEnery party is inconsistent with the de-
auctions they make from the State census,
and on no better ground the election in
nominaly sovereign State is set aside by
armed force, and an authority is established
in defiance of every law upon which popular
liberty depends. Political adventures, used
to every hazard and ready for every extreme
| gather at an unknown place to scrutinize the
returns of the election, and some of their
number are fresh from terms Of involuntary
labor in State prisons. They assume that
only white men voted for the McEnery ticket
and then their problem is 10 prove
that there are not so many white voters in the
State as will make up the total McEnery vote
and their own white vote. For this they rely
| upon the State census. Any fabric of reason.
ing made to prove out of a census a problem
not contemplated in the making of the census
is one part figures and three parts forced
inference. An ingenious reasoner can prove
| to himself whatever he pleases with such
material, and, generally speaking, men who
have boarded some time at the public ex-
pense in the reformatory establishments do
reason ingeniously rather than honestly. An
election goes therefore on partial partisan
dishonest examination of census and not
on the votes cast at the polls and even Sena-
| tor Morton was willing to accept q statistical
inference as of more weight than an election
by the people. 1t is a circumstance that
| must be remembered against him.
But though the Louisiana people are busted
of their right, and must now, by going to