Year: 1879

Louisville Courier-Journal.1


Judge Ballard, in his remarks about the
shooting of Judge Elliott, said:


He was at the capital in the performance
OF his official duty, and regret to say that for
the performance Of that duty, and almost in
the very act of performing it, he was assassi-
mated. This terrible deed is, think, without
parallel in this or any other civilized coun-
try. 1t has justly excited much Indignation
here, and it will excite Indignation and horror
throughout the civilized world. No one can
feel the shock more keenly than I, and no one
deplores the deed more than I. 1t has put
stain upon our fair name which can not soon
be wiped out"


There is not man in Kentucky who has
the slightest intuitive conception of the
necessity of the reign of law, who does not,
with Judge Ballard, regard that deed as
gaping wound in the honor of the State. It
has left stain upon Kentucky's s name which
nothing but q most active, most aggressive
campaign against crime can wipe out. We
must sit, Mortified at the crime, and hear the
taunts of those who have ever sought to cast
reproach upon Kentuckians. Tothese taunts
concerning lawlessness and the insecurity of
human life we can not reply, with this last
great blot upon our record.


Crime, it is true, runs riot in the northern
States as we'll as in the South, but we do not
find elsewhere in this country the record of
the assassination of judge for conscien-
tiously performing his duty on the bench.
We have, in Kentucky, become, in measure,
accustomed to read the details of the bloody
deeds of masked marauders, shooting af-
trays in broad daylight and other acts of
lawlessness, but the Frankfort affair is one
which exhibits in all its horror the natural
sequence and elimination of the spirir of
lawlessness which has prevailed, with but
few attempts to curb it, in this State, for q
good many years. The shot fired
by Buford signifed the brutal de-
fance of the law on the part of
the whole lawless element in the Stae. Bu-
ford represented in his own person that ele-
ment. When he pulled the trigger of his
shotgun he simply practically expounded
the spirit and purpose of INSTRUMENTATION.
It was deed which, of all others, should
awaken the people of this commonwealth to
realization of the peril of unexecuted law.
1t should arouse every representative man
in the State to demand that the safety of the
people shall be absolutely insured by the su-
premacy of law. For in the supremacy of
the law, in the sacredness of the bench, in
the yielding of the popular will to the law
can the social fabric alone be preserved from
disintegration.


The frankfort tragedy must not be made
only the groundwork from which to point
brief moralizing. There is something to dc
besides contemplating the shame which ou1
indifference has wrought. Back of this
bloody Frankfort deed, back of all the mur
ders and lawlessness which manifest them
selves in this State, is the unrestricted prac
tice of carrying concealed deadly weapons
No State in the Union has more stringent
law against the practice than Kentucky. We
regret to say that no State in the Union il
more Indifferent to the execution of such law
Did our last legislature mean anything
when it passed additional measures for the
public safety in amending the statute relat
ing to the carrying of pistols and othe1
weapons? Surely if Kentuckians ever ex
pect to get their State out of rut, and sen6
her spinning along the ringing grooves O
progress by bringing immigrants and capi
talists within her borders, the law must b.
made supreme. The revolver must becom'
recognized as mark of reproach and shame
like the indelible brand fixed on the brow O
the murderer Cain. He who bears weapons
habitually must have stigm,
set upon him. He who talks O
shooting others to avenge his personal griev
ances, must be given to understand tina
such talk is for communities where brute
force violence is the supreme rule of con
duct.


Let rs begin at first principles. Publi
sentiment can make it stlnging disgrace
for man to walk about among> his fellow
men armed like an arsenal. Kentucky j
not ready to be remanded to savagery. I
rests with her people to say whether sh
will have peace and law and order within
her borders, or violence and bloodshed.