The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1880-11-26
HITTING THE NAIL ON THE HEAD.

Our able and esteemed contemporary, the
OuACHITA TELEaRAPII. has suddenly AVA
koned to the fact that the public interests
require an extra session of tho legislature.
1t even comedies that there were cogent
reasons for this step when it was urged by
the States and a few other papers several
months ago. Indeed SO imperfect has been
the legislation of the last session and so
cumberous the machinery of that extraor-
binary and ludicrious instrument, called
the constitution of 1870, that the TELEaRPH
declares it would DO willing to see second
constitutional convention called. We do
| moo think our contemporary is far wrong,
and If the prese mt tumble of jobbery, ignor-
| ance, folly and demagoeism called a con-
! stitution exists eighteen months longer
without a call from one end of Louisiana
| to tho other for new convention, it will
be simply bebause we have reached that
point where constitutions are of no conse-
quence.--N. o. States
Why should eighteen months of
confusion, uncertainty. and public
injury be permitted to entail their
disasters upon the State before the call
is made? Already the impracticability
of the Constitution of 1879 is visible,
and its defects confront one at every
step onward. Its absurlitlcs, contra
dictions, and irreconcilable provisions
are in proportion to its bulk. 1t ii
were less ponderous it might have
been less imperfect. So many plumbers
less space, and nothing demonstrates
the fecund ingenuity of its makers in
mystification SO completely as the con-
test over the City government of New
Orleans, now about commencing.
We copy the foregoing, heading in
cluded, from the Louisiana Democrat.
The paragraph from the States had
escaped our notice until found in the
Democrat.
The position of the States, favoring
an extra session of the Legislature
while the presidential election was
pending, we thought and still think,
was unwise. We do not understand
that the municipal affairs of New Or
leans were in such a hopeless muddle,
or of such grave importance as to re-
quire an extra session of the legisla-
ture for the especial purpose of termi-
mating the middle, which we under
stood to be the position of the States
pending the presidential canvass.
Our contemporaries will concede that
the TELEGRAPTI was one of the frs,
newspapers of the State, if not the
first, to urge the formation eff a new
Constitution, and we are keenly alive
to just sense of the responsibility
resting upon us for the STEP We are
no less sensible of the fact that the
present Constitution is not what was
expected by those who urged its forma-
ton, nor of the fact that the identical
disaster q rev Constitution was intend
ed in measure to assuage has in real
ity occurred, to-wit; the election of g
Republican President. In farseeing
policy, the trainers of the new Constit-
ution would have done their work let
ter. They did not, and the people are
left, as dependence, either upon the
Legislature, or upon another Constitu'
tional Convention. AS we said, we
would willingly see new convention
called, but 1t is our judgment--let it be
worth what it may-that an extra ses.