New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-07-29
THE PEOPLE GOVERN.

1t is the great merit Of a representative
government that, when left to the honest
ballot, the people will govern the partl'
sans. In Louisiana the public sentiment
of the majority has been bullied and
browbeaten. It has been arrested and
reversed by fraud and force OF arms, YET
the true will of the people will rise, as
the shrub borne down by the storm, and
yindicate the native rectitude Of its pur.
poses by growing straight up to God.
It was the will of the people OF Louisi-
ana to accept the result Of the war. They
had attempted to place their construction
upon the constitution under the Union.
They had made strenuous struggle to do
the same by force Of arms They
had been driven into secession
and subjugation. However contrary to
their sense of right, however injurious
to their vested interests, they accepted the
conditions imposed by the arbiter they
| had chosen. Such concession from such
disastrous causes excited the sympathy
even of those who had been the agents
and instruments of this inevitable de-
cision. An amnesty was granted for all
political offenses. No State trial of po-
litical offenders was held. Public and
private aid was extended the sufferers by
the war, the famine and the food. The
nation stood ready to condone seces-
sion, and to reinstate secessionists as
equal citizens of the United States.
The majority of the Southern people
accepted these terms. The Demo-
cratic leaders who had ruled the
United States and monopolized the pow
ers of the Confederacy, claimed that the
Southern people had enlisted under their
command for life and posterity. The
leaders repudiated the will Of the South
ern people. They resisted the constitu-
tional amendments and the law of equal
rights. Owing their own political rights
to amnesty, they instantly prescribed all
who did not unite with them in nnllifying
the laws. The disaffection Of these DEM
ocratic leaders led many Of the people
into the Ku-Klux organization. They
measured the strength Of conspiracy
against the force of the law. Many OF
these misguided conspirators were sent to
the State prisons in Albany and else
where, and the people confirmed in their
honest convictions that the results Of the
war were final. Such was the popular
sentiment of the Southern people, except
in so much as it was in Louisiana kept
down and restrained by the armed and
domineering Democracy.
!. This party retugeeing from South Caro-
Nina, combining foreign element hostile
to republican government, and avowing
the right of instruction and assassina-
ton to defeat the election Of men or the
operation Of laws not satisfactory to the
White Canelia party, has alarmed the in
dustry and capital of the country. The
people Of the State have determined to
put down this revolutionary party. That
they have done so is shown by the plat
form adopted at Baton Rouge. We have
shown in our comments Of yesterday that
this platform is recognition Of every
cardinal principle which the Republicans
have maintained. It is a fat contradic-
ton of every doctrine the White Liners
lave ever taught
The people Of Louisiana have there
spoken out. They have rebuked those
who have led them into civil war and po
ltical anarchy. These White Line poll
ticians, after having done their worst to
defeat the business interests and sense Of
Justice of the people, have surrendered
and pretend to support the Baton Rouge
ticket and platform. They are insincere
There is not one word in the platform
which they have not opposed, and if
the nominee for Governor shall stand
up to the declarations attributed
to him, they would find themselves
arrested for mutiny and disafection
before he had been in Office a month.
The sole hope of the insu-rectionary ele-
ment consists in getting the control Of
the campaign, committing acts in oppo-
sition to the platform and playing yiceroy
over the chief whom the conservative
people have chosen to represent their
adoption of Republican principles. They
will not succeed, and the Conservative
people Of Louisiana will find in the ed
ministration Of MIR. Packard the only real
executor Of the Republican doctrine laid
down in the platform Of Baton Rouge.
Truly, the people will come to their own,
and govern in spite of the White League
usurpers