The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1875-01-20
THE LOUISIANA MESSAGE.

THE LOUISIANA MESSAGE
The country has become accustom-
ed to surprises since Grant has been
President and Landaulet Williams
has been the law officer of his Gov
eminent, but it may safely be affirm
ed That no one anticipated such de-
graduation of the Chief Executive as
is exhibited in the Message to the
Senate on Louisiana affairs. The
subject had assumed national pro-
portions because of the long contin-
ued discussions over the legality of
the State Government, and latterly
the active interference of a high mil
itary officer and his troops in the Or
ganization of the popular branch of
the Legislature had provoked an in
tense and widespread fervor through
out the country, that displayed itself
in public meetings and Legislative
declarations in many States. The
President is called on to justify his
official acts and those of his subordi-
mates pertaining to our State, and he
sends to the Senate such a response
to it's resolution as never was spread
before the eyes of the, American peo-
pie before.
1t is not sufficient to say that the
Message is totally deficient in JUST
fication. It is so wanting in that
tone that ought to characterize State
papers, so manifestly the work of a
partisan pettifogger in it's crude reel
tai Of events, and one-sided deduc-
tions, and perverted statements, and
is pervaded throughout so thoroughly
with the animus offs lawyer holding
q brief, and a bungling lawyer too,
that it is natural to fix its paternity
in the Department of Justice.
This then is all the President and
his Attorney General has to say in
our condemnation and in justification
Of their protracted persecution. We
have no hesitation in saying this
Message completes our vindication.
If the highest officers of the Govern
ment, brought at last to bay and con-
fronted by an aroused public, clamor-
Gus to know what justification they
can make for their revolutionary pro-
ceedings, can only repeat charges of
outrages long since proved to have
been manufactured, and furnish up
state accounts of imaginary murders,
then the strongest case that can be
made against US is very weak. The
President would have done much bet
ter, and would not have forfeited his
dignity so much, if instead Of en-
trusting the preparation of his Mes
sage to his law officer, he had en-
gagged literary compiler to arrange
the leading editorials of the New
Orleans Republican and sent them to
the Senate.
Whom the gods would destroy,
they first make mad. If dementia of
a political partyis the sign by which
we shall know it's coming destruc-
ton, then the Republican party is
approaching it's dissolution. No
word and no act could have so solid
ly welded the Conservative sentiment
Of the American people as the mis-
sion of such a mountebank as Sheri-
dan in such crisis, and the manner
in which he has executed the trust.
The country read with amazement
official utterances of the second Off
GER in rank of the army, that display
ed such ignorance of civil govern
ment and of military subordination,
that it stood aghast. The shock
thus communicated is now 'intensi-
fed by the knowledge that the Adj
share the ignorance of
its subordinate and participate in his
infamy.
The President and his adherents
are possessed by an infatuation that
has produced judicial blindness. -
They are insensible to the lesson of
the present hour, the import of which
IS of stupendous meaning. The
events of this month in New Orleans
constitute an epoch. They will be
forever memorable in American his
;ory. The future historian of Con-
Government on this con-
;inent will expound the lesson they
each. The indignant cutlery of the
American people in reprobation of
the outrage upon the Legislature of
Louisiana in 1875 has it's parallel in
the unanimity with which the ances-
tors Of that people responded a brave
defiance to the command of Major