New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-04-30
A PASSIONATE STATE.

This is what the New York Herald calls
Louisiana. We apprehend it is Just APP
pellation. The organization of parties
has been based on despotic determine
ton to rule on one side and wary defense
on the other. The speeches of the DEM
ocratic leaders have sparkled with anger
The resolutions of it's conventions have
breathed war to the hilt. The partisan
leaders have demanded of the press bitter
and vindictive articles, and the sensation
| rats hasten to put into ferocious type
with horrible head lines the deeds Of v;o-
lence which a down trodden people
| should perpetrate to regain their lost
salaries. Whether to attribute this
extraordinary Indignation to the heat of
our climate, to this imminent tendency to
refer all questions of political difference
to the lamp post, or to a rabid greed of
living by salary on the labors of others We
do not know. The climate of Florida Or
Texas is nearly as warm as our own, the
mixture of races is about as cosmopolitan
in California or New York as here, but in
neither Of these States is the division of
parties as intense and as intolerant as
here
We do not consider anger any element
of courage. We are satisfied that sour
rility is the last, the lowest and least for
midable ammunition of refuted error.
What statesman ever permitted the smoke
of wrath to obscure the accuracy of an
argument aimed at an abuse or griev-
ance? What General watching the tide
and chances of battle ever raved against
the enemy whose feints he watched or
whose force he was preparing to foil?
Fancy General Grant foaming with rage at
the Wilderness, or Lee stimulating his
own courage, and that Of others, by abus-
ing the enemy. Men like Napoleon or
Andrew Jackson, of violent temper or
despotic rule, were upon the battlefield
calm and vigilant. The temper of these
men fell and their selt-control rose with
the emergency. Petty politicians can not
simulate such men. Their sole capital is
popular prejudice, and in nothing do they
show their contempt for the people so
much as in binding their sense of justice
by disturbing their honest judgment.
The most serious consequence of .'the
passionate nature attributed to our State
hog ioap in IN. aIcaroa &c o,,, ,;.r 500,
resentatives from the halls of legislation
for nearly two years The passionate
conflict for the State patronage rendered |
it dangerous to the claims of the Fusion
Governor to recognize the legality Of any
act performed by his opponents. Hence
we found the Fusion press and partisans
denouncing the "Kellogg Legislature"
the pseudo Legislature" and taking
every means, public and private, to de-
stroy public obedience to the acts Of the
government There were a few city and |
country epresentatives-Mr Estilette
was, we believe, among the lat.er-wlo |
bravely took their seats in the Legislature
repudiated by partisan clubs and dis
missed from public trust. Attempts were
made by force Of arms to nullify the State
government. and even to create a vacancy
il the executive Office By pistol shot
The government was opposed until the
compromise was carried by force Of pub
lie opinion. There is still smoldering
hostility to the constituted authorities,
liable to break out at any provocat.on.
The passionate antagonists of order have
barely paused in their inappeasable fury
to grab few moutLfuls OF back salary
which they neither earned nor acknowl-
edged to be legal, before plunging anew
into strife never to end until they shall
have wrested the treasury key from those
to whom the people have intrusted it.
We find this passionate policy still con, |.