New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1877-05-12

put parties upon On equality and protect
them to great extent from the dangers
of imposition and fraud Just as able at
torneys put an intelligent and an ignorant
guitor on substantially the same footing
before a jury, so do freedom of speech
and of the press. while not at all compen-
sating for the ignorance of the masses,
place parties on an equality and protect
the people in the main from imposition
and wrong. The instinct and the pur-
pose of the masses being honest and in
the right direction, politicians are COM
PEELED to recognize that fact, and address
themselves to it, and could not, if they
tried, for any length of time, palm a
fraudulent policy upon them. There is
no community so ignorant as to be for
any length of time successfully imposed
upon by fraudulent premises and meas.
ures. The degree of common sense is
everywhere about the same. There will be
found in every county and in every neigh
borhood some men of sufficient intelli-
| gence to take a generally correct view of
what is right and what is to their in
| terest.
Another fact which the enemies of re-
| publican government in Europe have
been slow to recognize is the conserva-
| tism of the masses of the American Peo-
| pie. The enemies of republicanism have
through centuries opposed it upon the
| ground that the people are governed by
| passion and impulse, variable in their no
tons, pulling down tomorrow what they
built up to-day, and incapable of a steady
purpose or policy. The experience of a
hundred years with the American people
has demonstrated tine fact that the great
mass are opposed to change-are steady,
conservative and consistent in their views
and will not consent to any alteration in
their fundamental plan of government
| except upon the clearest convictions, es-
tablished by long experience, of the neces-
sity for change. While we have new
schemes of government and of civil and
social polity springing up among those
who claim to be the educated and learned
members of society, and in fact are, these
proposed changes hardly ever reach or
| affect the people. These schemes spring
up one after another and are usually very
| short-lived. New schools are formed in
politics and philosophy among those who
assume to constitute the upper classes of
society, and succeed each other in quick
| succession; yet the great mass of the peo-
pie are unaffected by them. 1t is I'M
doubtedly true in this country that the
great middle class, compromising the
large majority of the American people,
are the conservative preserving class-the
balance wheel in our machine, keeping it
in steady motion, rejecting new schemes
and sudden politics, while the restless
ness and the spirit of change, which have
always been the argument against repub-
Ecan government, exist chiefly in that
class who claim to be above the people
oYaH tn tho
The late election fer President showed
not only that the great purpose for
which the Electoral College was origin
ally created had utterly failed, but that it
is artificial, complex, liable to derange-
ment and accident, and gives rise to o
number of questions which may decide
the result of an election, and yet have
no connection with the merits of the
controversy. The constitution provides
that no person holding an Office of trust
or profit under the United States shall
be appointed an elector, the object be-
ing to preserve the independence of the
electors and their total separation from
government influences in the discharge of
their duties. The system in actual use
by which electors are pledged before their
election to vote for particular candidates,
| renders all questions of eligibility unim-
portant, and yet the fact that an eleetor
in Oregon held very unimportant post
Office on the day of his election gave rise
to great trouble, anxiety and prolonged
discussion. Like questions were raised
as to the eligibility Of an elector in Flori-
da, on account of his having held small
office, and another in Louisiana-of
unimportant and almost wholly unknown
to the people at the time of the election
and came near deciding the final result
Experience, as well as reason, now sug-
gests that the rubbish of the Electoral
College be brushed away entirely, and the
people allowed to vote directly for the
the man of their choice for President or
Vice President. Now the people can not
vote for him, but must vote for others
who are pledged to vote for him. All
this requires that there shall be no po-
litical conventions or caucuses which
shall place in nomination the persons to
be voted for as electors, so that all the
people of the same way of thinking may
vote for the same candidates for electors.