Year: 1878

A CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT.
| New Orleans Democrat.]


Two or three of our country contem
poraries have recently evinced dis
position to assail the Democrat for its
assaults upon the late Legislature.
The able and ingenious speech of
Senator White, made in the closing
hours of the session, has proselyted
these journals and furnished them
with their thunder. We have no desire
| to underrate the merits of Mr.. Whites
speech, nor the extent of the retrench-
ments it was intended to point out.
We have read the speech with great
care, and though we cheerfully concede
that every proposition in it is correct,
still it furnishes us no reason to reverse
the judgment we have pronounced
upon the General Assembly, and which
the great mass of the people have in
dorsed, that is, that it failed in its
pledges, and is deserving of little else
than public condemnation. Indeed,
were the Democratic party to plant
itself upon the record Of that body
and attempt to defend it, it would
meet with inevitable defeat in the
coming elections.


What most astonishes US in reading
Mr.. Whites speech is that Il body
composed of representatives of the peo-
pie, who found it practicable, by pidd-
ling legislation, to reduce the indirect
burdens under which the people have
so long suffered over two millions of
absolute necessity of striking ut the
very root of the evil and substituting
for the present cumbersome and ex-
pensive governmental system simple,
nexpensive and constitutional system.
This saving of $2,1S5, ,475 per annum,
shown by Mr.. White, did not enable
the Legislature to reduce in the least
the burdens of taxation. A reduction
of Il mills is indeed provided for; but
that reduction was based rather on
the belief that the Mofiett register tn X
would more than supply the void,
than that there would be any reduc-
tion in the expenses of the govern
ment.


That more might have been done
Mr.. White admits, but he affirms that
the constitution was a bar to further
retrenchment. Mr.. White is entirely
right here. During the session of 1877,
in the midst of civil revolution, with
a usurpatory and rival Legislature in
operation, with the capital Of the
State swarming with hostile federal
troops, the Legislature enacted nearly
every single measure of retrenchment
which Mr.. White has mentioned.
Nearly every single dollar of the $2,-
1s5,47 which Mr.. White shows to
have been saved by the acts of the late
Legislature, was saved by the legisla-
tion of the session of 1877, when the
Democratic majority in both the Sen
ate and House was overwhelming. OF
the legislation of that session there
has been little or no complaint, and
no defense of it, so far as its measures
of retrenchment are concerned, was
needed. But it accomplished all that
could be accomplished under the present
constitution. Therefore, when the ses-
sion OF 1878 assembled, in the midst
of profound peace, there was nothing
more to do in the line of retrenchment
The Legislature, then, had the choice
of going on with the cumbersome and
expensive system of government we
had wrested from the Radicals and
exercising no functions except the
drawing of mileage and per diem and
enacting bills to incorporate villages
and fire companies, or of calling u
convention and giving the people an
opportunity to correct the incurable
abuses of the present system and estab
lish constitution of their own.


The Legislature preferred the former
course. 1t refused to call constitu-
tional convention, refused to repeal the
charert of a single monopoly, and now
it presents the record it made in the
session of 1877 as defense against the
attacks of the people upon the ignoble
session of 1878, which was run by the
Lottery Company, a ring of bond
holders, and the Radical minority, re-
inforceed by enough "fishy" Demo-
Gratis to constitute majority. This
is a brief summary of the reasons of
the public discomfort and the almost
general odium that has fallen upon
the session of 1878.


The Legislature had a great work
before it, but it was not equal to its
sphere of duty. The people demanded
a large, enlightened and patriotic pol
icy of reform, a constitutional conven-
ton, the extinction Of the horde of obi
GUS and oppressive monopolies which
disgrace our civilization and cripple our
industries, and they were given a batch
of amendments, the adoption oswhich
will involve everything in confusion
and give US no relief. When we COM
plain, we are met with the response