New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-08-20

foul wrongs can not be ignored and CON
oealed. They will forever obtrude them
redress.
But ONE HIGH WAY TO PEACE.
Let me say to this class of people, and
the men of the South, there il but one high
way to reconciliation, and that 10 open,
inscribed these words: Equal rights 10
all; to all equal protection of the laws;;'
and if the southern people will waik IN
that highway they will arrive at the tenn
pie Of peace and find uubroken rest
WHY THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CAN NOT BE
TRUSTED.
The Democratic party can not be safely
trusted with the control OF our government
for manv reasons, q few Of which l will
briefly state:
l. Because the vital element of the party,
the men who control it's action and destiny,
were traitors, and did everything in their
power to destroy their country. No man
who ever deliberately betrayed his country
should be entrusted with its government.
To forgive rebels is one thing: to put them
government into the hands of men who
sought its destruction by armed rebellion
would be insanity. These men accept. the
government only as a military necessity.
They do not love it, are not proud of it,
care nothing about its credit, and its very
existence is Q rebuke to them. But this
does not diminish their desire to get control
of the government, to recuperste and
repair their shattered fortunes. The
North is somewhat different though
scarcely better. Sympathizing fully with
the South, and entirely subservient, it asks
nothing but Office and leaves Measures and
policies to the South. Upon economic
questions tiat pertain alike to al parts OF
the country, while opposing whatever is
and all that has been done. it has not even
q suggestion to make, and is utterly bank
rupt in ideas. With individual members OF
talent and intelligence, as an organization
it has the confusion of ideas and the feeble
ness of grasp which belong to the sensibility
of age that has outlived everything but its
passions and the memory of evi. deeds. 1t
can not escape from the past, and all it's
traditions are evil. It can not point to one
of its leading measures in thirty years that
has not been condemned by the voice Of
mankind. The other day in the Senate
asked the question, What good thing the
Democratic party had done, or proposed to
do, in the last twenty i've years g. and said
I would ) ield the floor to any Democratic
Senator who would answer. The Senator
from Delaware, Mr.. Salisbury, accepted
the challenge, and named the appoint
ment of investigating committees by the
present Democratic House of Representa-
tives. The answer was an awful con-
fessioD, which was painfully felt by
every Democrat present The distinguished
Senator felt the necessity of saying some
thing, and could think of nothing but the
appointment of smelling committees to
enable the rebels to find ont whether we
could not have put down their rebellion
more cheaply than We did. The fugitive
elave law in 1850: the repeal of the Missouri
compromise in 1854; the border ruffisn out
RACES in 1866; the Lecompt0n constitution
and the bred Scott decision in 1857; it's de-
NAL of power to suppress the rebellion in
1861; its responsibility for the rebellion by
sympathy and encouragement; its resist
ance to every war measure; its efforts in
1854 to bring about the abandonment of the
war; its protection to treason and con-
spiracy in the Northern States; its opposi-
ton to the constitutional amendments; it's
encouragement to the people of the South
to resist reconstruction, and its defense of
the Ku-Klux, White Leagues, and every
form Of organized violence in the South.
present an untroken series of infamous
measures which will grow darker and
darker by the lapse Of time.
INVESTIGATIONS.
The House of Representatives during the
late session instituted twenty-six lnvestiga-
lions into the accounts and conduct of gov
eminent officers. A majority of the COM
mittees charged with these investigations
were differed and managed by Confederate
soldiers, and the sole purpose of all seems
to have been the manufacture of reports to
damage the Republican party in the ap-
preaching election. For this purpose the
rules of evidence were ignored, hearsay
statements and unsupported rumOrs re-
ceived in testimony, the telegraph violated,
private books and papers seized, the rights
Of citizens trampled under foot, and lunaric
asylums and penitentiaries ransacked for
Witnesses. Inf0rmers were encouraged and
employed, and the most incredible stories
received with avidity, although contradict
ed and scattered to the winds the next day.
Any Titus Oates, who would by q Nun
chausen statement implicate the President
in whisky frauds, or other crimes against
the government, was welcomed a. q bene-
factor, and treated with the most delicate
and assiduOus attentions.
THE 1NoU1s1rIoNs.
The most of these investigations were
conducted with closed doors, so that the
victims, whose names were to be black.
ened, would know nothing of what was
going ON until they got it through the news
papers or other indirect channels; and when
some of them demanded to be heard and
confronted with their accusers, it was re-
fused until the ISLANDERS had been sent over
the country, and then granted in such q
manner as to make their defense impossible
or imperfect. The attempt to drag down
the Secretary of the Navy and to cover him
with scandal without his knowledge, the
reluctance with which they yielded to his
stern demands to be heard, and their re-
fusal to consider evidence which was offered
in his vlndication, constitute one of the
darkest pages in parliamentary history.
These committees deported themselves as
lawless bodies, recognizing no public or
private rights which they were bound to
respect, and were distinguished from the
secret tribunals of the Inquisition only by
the absence of the thumb screw, the rack
and the stake.
The single case of Secretary Beiknap
gave the Democracy more joy than the
birth of Savior, and they managed to
keep it before the country continually for
nearly six months. This man had always
been Democrat, and entered the Cabinet
by the personal preference and confidence
of the President. without ever having been
connected with the Republican party.
1t is impossible now to fix the cost of all
these Investigations. have heard no esti-
mate putting it at less than half million
of dollars. Investigations set on foot for
the purposes of truth, Justice and the pun