The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1879-03-04
SOMETHING ARoUr PUBLIC DEBT
70 the Editor Of the Democrat.

SOMETHING AMOUR PUBLIC DEBT.
| 70 the Editor Of the Democrat
without desire TO engage In discussion
Of the ahstruse topic Of public credit and the
cOrrelative subjects, would still be pleased
10 he enabled by your courtesy 10 say few
words on our State debt and the excessive
taxation II necessitates
Louisiana, IA we all know. probably more
than any State, has suffered from the effects
OF rascality and imbecility. Freed from Rad
teal domination, Mississippi and South Caro-
lima set to work TO repair damages by enact
ing remedial laws and submitting their re-
spectlve public debts to judicial investigation
But with us II Ia different. We seem TO have
escaped from the sway Of rascaity only to
pass under the yoke of imbecility. Our con
dition II growing worse instead Of better, and
blush To admit,it is our own people who
would fasten irrevocably the shackles left
upon our limbs by Radicallsm.
n Ia a proposition 1t would be absurd TO
deny, that excessive taxation Is the greatest
evil a people can endure. IL partakes of the
very essence of oppression. We Of Louisiana
need notstudy political science to learn this
IL is taught by every fact In our experience
Taxation has almost completely destroyed
the value of our real estate, has bansbed
capital, crippled energy, retarded enterprise,
and produced an apathy in public sentiment
and popular decentralization which must
always prevail In a tax-ridden community.
An opportunity to correct these evils being
at last presented to us, how do we propose to
Certain journals and public men, with q
blindness almost miraculous, are pertinael-
ously demanding tho imposition of fresh bur
dens. while other prominent citizens' are
A.. 4
lawyers 10 the convention to maintain the
debt in Its present shape and perpetuate the
5% mills interest tax In other words, leading
citizens, through motives Of interest propose
to improve our furlorn condition by prolong-
ing the causes which produced It. Are the
masses" working in an opposite direction
Are the men who have the most at stake Il. o.
the right to keep what they earn doing any
thing To prevent all this, or are they being
bullied into inaction by the high-sotlpdipp
existing contracts, and the likeP
1t is very difficult for q plain man to I'M
derstand how Warmoth and Kellogg and their
respective legislatures could be usurpers, in
truders In Office etc. az our people declared
them TO be, and at the same time the debts
they created he sacred obligations. / am not
capable Of drawing these nice metaphysical |
distinctions. | do not exactly see The vast
differences, which, | am told, exists between |
tueedfe dee and freedtG dun. To nv limited /
vision 1t seems as If the acts share the char |
aeter of the officials enactng them | re- |
member that when | rlskcd my life on the |
fourteenth Of September. when on the ninth /
Of January | turned out n second time. gun
In hand, II was not merely 10 depose the midi |
rtdudt Kellogg. My action was not directed /
against the man | joined my comrades In |
arms to destroy a system of evils denom-
mated "henoggtsm," to pull down that mon
ument OF corrupt Legislation and fraudulent
debt which had been erected and was being
added TO- did not then recognize the sacred |
of any special act of that legisla-
ton, whether 1t related to bonds or ANYTHING
else. And, as far as j can see now, nothing
has TRANSFERRED since to change the character
Of "kelloggsm," to transform crime Into
virtue, or metamorphose Illegal acts into
sacred obligations.
1t has been apparent for some time
70 every student Of Jurisprudence that
national iurists that a State cannot so
Tar delegate its sovereignty as TO en-
power q Legislature TO Issue a bond that will
be binding on the people any longer than the
elect to have Ii SO, and III the legality
of bonds SO issued has been recognized. Il
was because they were issued to meet some
public exigency. In brief the legality was
very much In the same way as the
Of the legal tender act. I'm
The face of these assumptions, what value can
4 debt have which was created by legisa-
lure never legally constituted, but called into
being by United States marshals, aided by
the military power Of the general govern
ment2 But says ID. q. t., "the present
iebt was made a contract between the bond
holder and the State by constitutional
submitted to and ratified by the
people" If ID. @. l.. was not distinguished
wit might think he was in earnest. But he
Is evidently abiding in n jocuar way to the
in which that amendment was count
I'd In by old Wells, and intends it as u pointed
when he speaks Of Wells action as
"a popular ratification"
The illegality of the greater part of the
''State debt" seems 50 clear that ] can only
account for the attitude of our famous law
yers on the ground that, having read the
Civil Code SO often, they Mt length believe
hat claw Is the solemn expression OF legsIa-
tive will" Ii may be well forus to consider
This question in selecting our delegates and
send such lawyers who believe that an act,
though clothed with all manner of solemnity
md containing bushels OF Legislative WILL"
may be null and void nevertheless.
In conclusion, desire to say that am not
2 repudationist. | am in favor of pa,Ing
The legal debt Of the State for the same rea-
son that oppose the recognition of fraudu-
lent bonds. All | would have the convention
say to the hOndhoIder Is what Diogenes said
% Alexander the Great Stand out of the
light. SPES.