New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-07-24
NIB. TAYLOR BEATTIE'S LETTER.

We hasten to correct the statement
of the Bulletin that Mr.. Taylor Beattie
has given his views to the public
through the New Orleans REPUBLICAN. u
The letter was published in the Thibodaux
Sentinel, from which we copied it. Per-
haps it was thought that if left to the
obscurity of village weekly the manly
avowals of Mr.. Beattie might have been
concealed. As the circulation of our
neighbor does not 60 ont of town, and
the Thibodaux weekly has no circula-
ton in the city, there is no reason to
suppose that the matter appearing in one
of these sheets could ever be seen in the
other. But the letter having got abroad
it becomes necessary to the "British
Blondes" that it should he deprived of all
consideration in the eyes Of the people of
Louisiana Hence, writer's for the Bul-
letin say:
We don't suppose anybody cares con.
tinental shinplaster tor the reasons"
which prevent Mr.. Taylor Beattie from
giving 'his reasons" for his very 'unsea-
sonable" course in going over to the dar-
keys, body, breeches, conscience and all.
It is also added upon the same author
ity that Mr.. Beattie is renegade Louis
ianian."
We do not suppose that this rather an
onymous anathema will have any effect
deroga:ory to the character or obstructive
to the purposes Of Mr.. Beattie. Yet it
furnishes another example Of the attempt
ed dictation toward the ex-Confederates to
whom we referred some days since. We
do not consider that Mr.. Beattie is men,
Der Of the Republican party at all, but it
seems an outrage thus to assail him for
expressing his opinions upon pending po-
itical questions.
But to repeat ourselves it must be that
this question of free agency must come
up in politics as in polemics. Has any
white man in Louisiana right to take
any party position without dispensation
and permission from the Office ring in
New Orleans? That is the question. So
long as such men as Beattie shouldered
their muskets, left their homes and gave
their lives and limbs in defense of the
home guard, as also of those other hotel
warriors who braved the perils of war at
Nassau, Paris and Niagara, they were pat
ted on the back and called brave fellows.
True, the hotel heroes did murmur little
when Lee surrendered some seven OF eight
thousand muskets to the superior forces
of General Grant, and General Johnston
capitulated an untenable military district
to the irresistible force of General Sher.
man. These officers might certainly have
prolonged the war until the last cargo Of
cotton and blockade goods should have
been landed. But when the Confederate
soldiers in the field who had alone made
the war formidable, returned home after
the surrender they were at once drafted
by the hotel heroes into the Democratic
State rights party and ordered to vote for
Mcclellan and Frank Blair whom they
had just been fighting. They were next
transferred into the Fusion movement and
assigned to duty under Warmoth and
Sheridan.
This Liberal brigade having been de-
cimated and demoralized by the Repub-
ican victories, the ex-Confederates were
subject to somewhat contradictory COM
mands. First the Democratic Central
Committee ordered them to report for en-
rollment and orders to Messrs. Zacharie,
Booth (Senator), Ellis and others of the
National Democratic party. Scarcely had
these battle worn soldiers been served
with their headquarter assignmentto duty,
when they received imperative commands
from the ex-Democratic ex-Fusion camp
to abandon all other organizations and
fall in under the lily white banner of the
Chambord Bourbons. These ex-Confed-
crate men are soldiers accustomed to
discipline and acknowledging obedience,
but they are Americans and have the
sense and spirit of gentlemen.
They choose to act on their own
responsibility and not to take direc-
ton from the European legion" the
blockade runners, the "twenty-nigger" or
liver disease exempts, or any other body
of self-constituted commanders. The
REPUBLICAN has explained that the
Democratic lease on the Southern vote
has lapsed with the war. The act of
emancipation is applicable alike to the
minds as the bodies Of men. The e1-
Confederate like the Granger soldier of
the West, does not belong in property to
the old clique Of politicians; they can not
say: at is true have lost my negro
slaves, but thank God, my political serfs
are as obedient as ever"
The Louisiana ex-Confederate will no
doub: act for himself Being in most
cases cotton planter, be can not see why
he should shoot the laborer in the field,
or drive him into the net of rival planter
in Arkansas or Texas.
1t will do as well, perhaps, for hero
OF Niagara to be without place in the
State House as for the ex-Confederate
cotton planter to have fields vacant of
labor. There would seem from our late
extracts from the St. Mary parish Enter
prise, disposition to throw of the rule
Of this dictatorial city, as it is called. The
cotton CHANGERS will very likely make their
own politics and the war on labor will be
no part Of their strategy: