The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1875-03-17
OUT OF JOINT.

To those who are accustomed to
think of government carried on &C
cording to certain established forms
and by rules, the binding force OF
which is acknowledged, these times
must appear sadly out Of joint. We
have all been under the delusion that
the United States was the country
par excellence where law was para
mount, and arbitrary power could not
be exercised-where nothing could
be law, unless it was made so in a
prescribed way, and where so mary
safeguards surrounded the liberties
of the citizen that they never could
be seriously endangered. But the
events of the last decade give a rude
shock to all these pleasant fancies.
1t is generally conceded that there
was never quorum at any time in
the House of Representatives Of this
State in its late session, or in other
words that it had not enough mem
bers present to pass any law. But
there are acts with all the outward
marks of laws published in the Off
cial journal-signature Of one man as
Speaker, another as Lieutenant Gov
ernor and the approval of a third as
Governor. They look like any other
veritable laws in print. How are you
to determine that tn y are not laws,
but only spurious counterfeits?
1t is also perfectly we'll known that
a large number of acts that were said
to have been passed last year were
never passed at all. The legislating
Body dispersed, but the negro Clerk
under the manipulation of the Ring
kept on passing laws and cooking the
journals to show they had been pass
ed, and the printer put them in the
book, and judges expound them, and
the peoples rights are affected by
them.
Again the men who sign these
laws, if ever the Legislature was
properly constituted, are very GER
tainly not the officers they pretend
to be, no more than Sypher was a
Representative Of this State in Con-
gress, yet he voted on bills and help
ed to do the legislation of this great
country for two years in a Body that
finally declared he had no business
there, and so they act the part of
Governor ETC., and as much virtue
and vitality is given to their official
acts as if they were chosen by the
people. Not only is this true of
those two branches of the govern
ment, but we have constant demon
stration of its truth in the judicial
administration of this District. The
person who holds Courts and decides
cases here was not elected Judge.
On the contrary he was beaten by
heavy vote, and the law prescribes
that a Judge shall be elected and
never once says that the man who
gets the fewest votes shall act as
Judge, and yet that is the case here,
and in future times how much will it
benefit any debtor, sold out under
Judgment rendered by him, or Grim
inal who has lost his neck or his lib
erty by his sentence, that he was
not really and legally the Judge, and
that he had no more right under and
by the law to hold that place than
the criminal whom he sentenced.
When the Fathers of a century ago
put their heads together to devise
for the national and
State governments they provided all
the machinery as they fondly believed
for starting and keeping in place a
government of the people by the peo-
pie, but the recent experience of their
descendants has proved how flimsy
is this fabric when any serious at
tempt is made to tear it in pieces
A man may be now called to answer
for a crime which was made by a Leg
islature that never had a quorum, and
by a Judge, and hung by
a Sheriff who were never elected, and
nobody is guilty of murder. 1t had
been thought and was often boosted
that the old tyrannical system of ma
king DEGREES by a King, stand in place
Of laws, and have the force of them,
had passed away. And so it has in
free England, but in the model re-
public that every one is expected to
admire and praise, who will say it is
not possible there.
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