The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1880-12-23

ira session. The people have already
paid for, or been saddled with the
debt for having the Legislature work
done, and they should not pay a
second time for the mere chance of
having it done. It might serve as a
bid for extra sessions hereafter. We
doubt if any profit accrues from OK.
ira sessions except to those who are
paid for holding them. It would be
best not to have even another regu-
lar session until new legislature is
elected, in view of the neglect or in
competency of the present one.
The poll-tax is simply a fraud and
a humbug. 1t is neither uniform nor
eqnal. Only the property holders,
as a rule, pay it. 1t is tax on vo-
tiers, but its payment is not required
as a prerequisite to vote. It is a
law with no means of enforcing it
against the voter who owns no
property; and every property owner
should resist its payment, because
property owners only are forced to
pay it.
The present constitution may be
the "poorest7 we ever had, not ex.
cepting the constitution of 1868; but
what guaranty have the people that
another convention would not frame
a worseq The principle objections
urged against the constitution of
1868, were, that it was framed and
imposed on the people by Radicals,
and that the salaries of officers were
too high. But in remedying these
defects, a Democratic convention
gave us one still more defective, and
the first legislature elected under
it misrepresented the people-see
extract from the Marksville Review.
The people paid for q good constitu.
ton, and did not get it; they elected
a legislature that misrepresented
them. Whom therefore are they to
trusti Should they be taxed for the
chance of another good constitution
that they may be worse than the
present, and for an extra session of
the Legislature that has already mis-
themf Wisdom says
they should not. They had better
bear the evils they now have and
know, than pay for further and may
he greater evils hereafter. If we did
not have another constitutional con-
vention in fifty years, nor another
session of the legislature in ten
J ears, it would be just so much gain
for the taxpayers aud people gener.
ally; for they may rest assured of
one thing, that the politicians who
make the laws and rule the country,
will look after their own interests
first, and that of the people after.
wards-whenever they have the op-
portunity. Constitutional conven-
tons and sessions Of the legislature
furnish the opportunities, therefore
the fewer of them we have the better.
MORE UNCoNsTITUTIoNALITY.
New Orleans States.l
Our new Constitution has received
another terrible blow. This time
Judge Monroe givesita knock down.
He decided yesterday that Art. 3 of
the debt ordinance renting the in.
terest on the State bonds due Janu.
airy l, 1880, and transferring the tax
collected for that purpose to the gen.
eral fund, is In violation of the Con.
stitution of the United States, since
it impairs the obligations of an ante
cedent contract. The relief which
the State expected to receive from
the scaling of the debt as provided
by the Constitution in this debt ordi-
nance will not be extended to the
amount promised by this remission