The daily gazette., 1876-01-12

port.
1t was clearly the duty of the Senate
to determine the qualifications of its
own membere, and, in order to do 80,
1t had to determine which was the
legal Government of Louisiana. On
the other hand, there are not two sets
of State officers in Mississippi. There
are not two rival Legislatures. There
are not two rival Senators. The Leg
islature has elected no one. But, by
one of those stretches of authority
peculiar to the Radical politicians,
Morton seeks to establish a similarity,
and evokes the Louisiana case as pre-
cedent. 1t is false assumption. Itis
a false argument, and both the asump-
ton and the argument have sprung
from false heart and mind corrupt
ed by moral and political debauchery.
But the resolution proposes to dc
more. 1t takes the judicial power
from the courts and lodges it in the
Senate of the United States. If the
Enforcement act has been violated the
Federal Court sits undisturbed In Mis-.
sissippi, and the offenders can be pun
ished. If any violence has been done
to citizen, the State Courts are also
open for the redress of the grievance.
The Judiciary Department of Missis-
sippi is wholly in the hands of the
Radical party. There are not in the
wide borders of the State, unless a
change has been affected by the recent
election, six Democratic officials
From Governor down to constable, all
over the State, every judge, every JUS
tice, every judicial, every ministerial
and every executive officer sympathize
with the Radical party. Such men
made the State laws; such men are
charged with their enforcement. Nor
is there single. official or attache of
the Federal court, high or low, in the
State of Mississippi who is not Radi-
cal. If all this violence has existed; if
citizens have been outraged in their
privileges or in their persons, why are
such courts and such officers made.
quate to enforce the law and restore
them their violated rights Why
must this new judicial power be con-
ferred upon the Senate of the United
States upon eg parte falsehoods and in
fagrant vocation of the plain letter of
the written law?
| No, the statutes of the United States
and the statutes of Mississippi bristle
with hostile enactments intended to
aid the Radicals of the South, and to
suppress the Democrats. There are
Radical officials of the most unscrupu-
lous type in every part of the State
ready to enforce their hard and bitter
provisions. There are juries composed
of negroes, inflamed by swarm of
roguing agitators, with their natures
| still further brutalized by seditious
teaching; there are judges who are
ready 10 go to any extreme of outrage
to indulge their hatreds and avenge
their private wrongs, and it is as fool
lsh as it is false 10 say that such tribu
nails are inadequate to punish the
crimes charged.
The truth of the whole matter may
be found in the fact that Morton sees
the sceptre departing from his party in
the South, and is resolved to restore the
black carnival of corruption in that desc.
| lated section at the cost of the destruc-
tion of the Constitution of his country
Grant, as anxious as he is to secure the
| ascendency of his party in the South,
dared not fly in the face Of public senti-
ment by furnishing troops to Ames dur.
ing the canvass. Morton mas greater
courage, but it is a courage that braves
| lnfamy. He enters readily into those
dirty party engagements from which
more honorable men shrink with horror.
He lives in the wrong age and in the
wrong country. He would have been
the Barere OF the French Revolution
''The vessel of State" he would have
said, can float into port only on waves
of blood He would have rejoiced in
sticking the fingers of women in his hat.
in jerking the limbs from infants, in fill
ing his pockets with the ears of young
girls. He would have cried for innocent
| blood with the eager and earnest thirst
of hungry tigress. He would have
gloated in the Office of carrying the head
Of child upon pike. Like Barere.
baseness is an instinct with him, and
from party in adversely to party in
| prosperity was as strong as nature in
her meanest mood could make it. He is
| as false as a courtesan and as cruel as
Caligula. Public sentiment, elevated
by religious enthusiasm, should wire
lash of scorpion tongues and send the
wretched cripple scourged and bowling
from the presence of the people he has
sought to embroil, and from the face of
a country he has dishonored and de-
graded.