The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1878-05-31
KEYS LETTER,

ment tn n seat In Mr.. Hayes Cabinet he hat
merely local reputation and influence and
when he was suddenly called into prorni
hence the people of all the Southern
States. except that In which he re-
| sided had to be told who he was
and were as ignorant of his antccedents
rs were those Of the North Beyond the fact
that he was Southern man and the conciia-
tory disposition Hayes manifested in calling
n man from that section and n Democrat 10
his Cabinet, his appointment imported moth
ing. and certainly tho administration has
gained no additional element ~ strength from
any personal influence Mr. Key may have had
b. give IL. IT no had 20 personal strength
| before going into tho Cabinet he has certainly
| gained none since he has boon thore There
has certainly boon nothing in his course since
his connection with tho Hayes administration
to mark him as the Distinctive roprcsontati Va
of tho South, OF to Justify him in assuming
TO speak to the Southern people in that char
acter
Had he truly represented Southern senti-
mcnt and attempted to compel n recognition
Of II in tn" policy Of tho government. he
would have been forced to assume an aggros-
siveness that would necessarily have com
PEELED his resignation The very fact that he
has remainod SO long in the Cabinet Is itself
conclusive proof that he is there In no repre-
sentative capacity. He has not boon able to
commit the South to Hayes policy. nor to
the support and defense Of his administra-
ton or his title. and anything he may say or
think in regard thereto will havo no other
w irh "a hat yuhi Mr. owe ind NJ
opinions may carry with them Any inllu-
enco that may be attributed to his lcttor on tho
hypothesis of his apostleship Ia falsely at
tributed, Get this assumption appears to he
tho sole Justification for the attention II has
attracted for outside Of this IT. is misoraby
weak and poor affair. 1t will be regarded
simply as a manifesto from tho administra-
ton and but another proof Of the fact all
along believed by the people Of the South.
that Mr.. Key cares more for his scat in the
Cabinet than TO be regarded us their repre-
sentative. feels more solicitude about Hayes
good opinion than theirs, and Is capabe Of
almost any subservioncy that will keep him
in his position. Indeed. It is stated that his
removal was contemplated at an early day,
and that this purpose has been abandoned
AS for the letter itself we know not what
more we can say of 1t than that 1t is the same
miserable plea of expodency, the same crng-
ing appeal to the fears of the tmid and the
Of individuals that one might
expect from any prOcurer or beneficiary of
fraud. He begins by declaring in advance
that it is proposed by the Democrats
50 soon as they have majority
in both houses of Congress to arbi-
trarily Dust Hayes and install Tildcn There
is nothing in the Potter investigation, nor in
tn" circumstances Mt tending it, to Justify any
such assertion, nor is it Mt all probable that
any such course will be attempted That
Hayes will be driven from his scat eventually
we sincerely hope and believe, but It will be
done by a public sentiment that will be the
of a full disclosure of the Infamous
frauds by which his usurpation was estab-
lished and of his completely In them. IF what
is asserted, and what a vast majority of the
people believe to ba true, can be made
to positively appear and that in
fanny Mr.. ConkIing says is the Just
due OF Hayes and his administration,
can be attached to 1t, then, nothing less than
this can wipe out the dishonor to which the
country has been submitted But we deny
that there Is ono word or incident connected
with this investigation 50 far that justifies
the slightest apprehension of any such arbi-
trary course as Key suggests.
1t is hardly necessary to rcfute his second
position that the title of Hayes was settled
lawfully and constitutionaly by the Electoral
Commission. The merest tyro knows THAI
no such tribunal nor process as that IS known
to the constitution, and therefore that it has
settled nothing.
But Mr.. Key goes on, in the excess of his
to say:
The Forty-sixth Congress will have no
more right to ignore him and to recognize his
defeated contestant, Mr.: Tilden, than Mr.
Hayes would have to send file of soldiers to
the House OF Representatives to unSeat a
Democrat whom he might consider to have
been wrongfuly seated or fraudulently
elected.
This suggestion is clearly the distempered /
creation of a guilty conscience. There is GER
tainly nothing In the resolution under which .
the investigation is ordered that intinates
the course here limited at. The proposition
came from Kellogg, and was suggested to I
him by the course Hayes, advised by his (
Secretary of State, pursued in Louisiana. II
it was good enough for Louisiana it may be !
available for Federal purposes, and it will be |
if the same popular feeling and tetermina-
ton aetuates the people of the whole
that controlled those OF Louisiana |
under similar circumstances. Mr. Keys ap- |
peal to the experiences of 1861 is hardly /
worthy of consideration. Even If his prog
nostications were just and reasonable, the
Southern people are not the woodcock to be /
caught with such springes. There is not the
slightest danger of civil wal or bloodshed, and |
these cannot result from 40 open, honest, fair
and fearless course upon the part of the
Southern Democrats. The solemn warning,
then, with which Mr.. Key closes his letter is
entirely unnecessary ard amounts to nothing
more than very tram earent bluff. There is
nothing whatever sedes5nal in the question,