Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1877-08-03

licaa, returns to the subject OF the in
dictment (?) Of the Louisiana Returning
Board in his paper last week, but we
notice no improvement in his manner of
treating it. He INDUCES in the same
slap-bang style as ever, making yehe-
mence of assertion stand in the place of
argument and founding fimsy conclu-
sions upon very imperfect and erron-
eous statement of the facts of the situa-
ton. He does not endeavor to point
out how the President could have con-
stitutionally and legally prevented Wilt
and his Bourbon associates from going
before the courts of Louisiana, and in
the forms prescribed by law, securing
the indictment of the Board. He still
assumes, however, that this was posi-
BILE, and taking upon himself the charac-
ter of catechist, he asks triumphantly:
Suppose Mr.. Hayes had recognized Governor
Packard, Immediately after his Inauguration,
| as the legally and lawfully elected Governor of
Louisiana. does the BULLETIN suppose Mr..
Wilt and his associates would have ever dared
to attempt to indict the Returning Board2
Does the Republican presume that
Packard would have assumed dictatori-
al powers, and by force of arms would
have impeded the action of the Courts
in Louisiana in the case presented? On
no other hypothesis can we see how it
would have required much daring for
Wilt or anybody else to have filed an
information in Court, or presented tes-
timony before grand jury for the pur-
pose of indicting even Packard himself.
1t would be the province Of the Court
and jury to determine the suffciency of
such testimony, but no merely execu-
tive officer, be he President or Governor,
would have had the right to step in and
delay or embarrass it, in any territory
not under exclusively military rule.
The assumption of the Republican,
therefore, that Packard, as Governor,
could have prevented the Indictment Of
the Returning Board-by the by, they
were not indicted-is ridiculous and alb
surd. We again ask our friend Lucas
to give us his theory of how the Presi-
dent, by the legal exercise of his power,
could have prevented any citizen of
Louisiana from accusing any other citi-
zen of crime before the Courts.
Shifting his ground, our slashing
friend attacks the President from an
other position. He says:
Instead of acting promptly in the case, Mr..
Hayes raised a commission without legal au-
thOrity, no precedent and without right. in our
opinion, and sent them to Louisiana to ascer-
says, but in reality to steal Packards legisla-
ture away from him as is very clear now, and
report the same to the President.
The above accusation has it's founda-
ton in INSCRIPTIONS partisanship and
no Republican paper does itself credit
by echoing it. 1t is not warranted by
fact in single particular. The disinte-
grafton of Packards legislature was in
evitable from the moment when it was
known that his impotent government
would not be upheld by the army. Does
our friend Lucas realize in what con-
tempt he places Packard's legislature
when he intimates that half dozen men
sent there from other States could
" steal it? The Republicans postulate
that if Mr.. Hayes had done the right |
thing, Packard would be Governor of
Louisiana to-day, and men of Republi-
can principles could express their minds
without being shot like dogs" descends
to the level of bombast when we remem-
Der how powerless the bayonet govern
ment proved to be for the protection of |
life and free expression Of Republican
opinion. Any friend of the policy is
well content to contrast its results even
in this particular with the regime that
preceded it. AS to our future political
course, about which our friend Lucas
has so much solicitude, we hope he will
not borrow trouble. He may be assured
that we shall be ready to " take the back
track when we find that the policy is
not the thing to paciicate the country.
but as things look to us now we feel
in saying to Mr.. Lucas that
it will be him and not us that will have
to perform the retrograde movement.
When the time comes let not his parti-
san feelings prompt him to become i'm
and irreconcilable.