The daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1873-1877, 1875-01-08
From the N. Y. World, Jan. 5.
The Strangled State.

Two hundred and thirty-iour years ago
yesterday Charles Stuart went down
to the house of commons in person
and demanded the arrest of Ppm,
Hampden, Hollis, Haslerig and Strobe.
of General DeTrobrland, entered the
legislature of Louisiana and demanded
the election of five members of that body.
The five members of Louisiana were as
strictly the champions OF free government
as the five members of the house of com
mons, and the whole political welfare of
these United States is bound up with the
success of the cause for which these men
are fighting. What happened to Charles
we know. The least and highest that can
happen to Grant, If Republican liberty is
to survive on this continent, is to be fol
lowed at the end of his term of public
office into the obscurity from which he
emerged at the beginning of it by the exc
crations Of all the people,
We hope there is no American man who
can read the news from New Orleans with
out thrill of shame and rage. There is
no doubt in the mind of any man in Lyuisi-
ana that the five men for whose election
Beforehand called yesterday were the
| chosen representatives of the lawful voters
of their districts. There is no doubt 10
the mind of any man that with the cause
of which these men were the accredited
champions rests the only hope not alone OF
good government, but of Republican gov
eminent, In the state of Louisiana. The
! miserable imposture OF government under
which the state has groaned so long from
the creature of fraud has become avowedly
the creature of force, The miserable usur
per Kellogg is more plainly than ever be-
fore seen to be the puppet of the yet more
f1agltious usurper, Grant. who has now
employed the military power which is in
trusted to him to maintain the liberties
and defend the rights of his countrymen
in putting both to an open shame. The
troops of New Orleans we're no,
there as a police. There was no pretepce
that they were needed to preserve
public order. They were there only to
prop the government which Grant had sci
up over the people of Louisiana, and which
the people OF Louisiana, were the soldiers
iOf the United States Withdrawn from theil
degrading work, would sweep from power
forever in an hour. Their commander ex
pressly said that his instructions were tc
obey the orders of Kellogg. 1t was wei
Tor the speaker of the house to say, as he
did, that Louisiana had not a Republican
form Of government
We can have nothing but praise for the
spirit in which the representatives of Louis
lana yielded to the tyranny which they
could not resist. We say deliberately tina,
there was no reason why they should not
have resisted, and resisted to the death
this foul outrage upon law and liberty, ex
cept the hopelessness Of resisting. A ris-
ing yesterday would have had consequent
ces which are pitiiul and terrible even to
think OF. These consequences were pres
ent to the legislators of Louisiana, who not
only yielded with decency when they could
not resist with hope, but who have thus far
stayed the hanCs of their constituents
But we say also that, terrible as would have
been the consequences of resistance yes
terday, they are less terrible than will be
the consequences of submission on the
part of the people of the United States
to the outrage which has been perpetrated
upon them all through the people of Lou
lslana. For that Submission, or any toler-
ance OF this last and worst outrage of the
traitor who sits in the Presidents chair
which stops short of driving him from into
darkness and disgrace, will be confession
that the American people are no longer fit to
have the liberties which in that case it will
not take them long to lose; and it were
better that the cutters of New Orleans
should run with blood than that republican
government should be exchanged through
cut the country, as it has been exchanged
IN New Orleans, for the rule Of stupid and
sordid tyrant.