Year: 1874

In Louisiana, without any war, without


pretence from any party of necessity or of


authority to put aside the regular political


machinery so familiar in every State, there is


agovernment in power that was notoriously


not elected by the people. Not only is gov


ernment not chosen by the people OF that


State in power over them, but this govern


ment has the countenance of the United


States officials, has received their effective


assistance and counts upon receiving 1T again


if needful and consequently there ls no
organized open resistance to It's authority.
These are altogether new facts In the his
tory of our country. In nearly hun


dred years experience OF the States
of this Union it is observable that


the political practice has been so uniformly


true to the theory of the laws that there is


scarcely any precedent of absolute violations of


the constitutional compacts OF the people.


Once upon time it was thought that systems


of government written on paper were utopian


moonshine, and that States could not practi-
cally be kept from anarchy and ruin by these
paper schemes of political possibilities,
ships were kept from the CULTS and shoals by
the navigators' charts. But the experience of
all these free States coming into existence one
after another, and each one governed on q
prearranged constitutional scheme, was a
convincing evidence that practical govern
ments could be organized as well in that
way as by thousand years of strife and con-
hict. II was furthermore an evidence that
States could be governed better originating in
this way than by the old system of growth, for
the true objects of government were kept
more distinctly in view, the true interests of the
governed made the only changes effected in
the law, and the will of the whole was evenly
and uniformly the common inspiration of
power so that in hundred years, in little
union of States that has grown to a vast
empire, although there have been charges of
fraudulent practices at elections, there
is scarcely an instance of absolute
defeat of the will of the people
and there has been only one great
revolution, while in countries of far less e1.
tent, governed by the stable and conservative
systems of antique type, revolutions are do
mesticated and anarchy has it's seasons of reg
ular recurrence.


But now we have the new fact of govern
ment set up and sustained, not by the will of
the people, but in defiance of that will and
not as an act Of superior force, deriving it's
authority from war, for there is supposed
to be peace. How is q government
thus established to be accounted for?
And xutxy 20 f,of fhn
which operated so well for three or four
generations seems to give out finally? Is the
apparent failure of government by the people
in Louisiana dependent upon causes that are
of common application over the whole coun-
try, and if So must we apprehend that
popular government is in such condition
with us that the presence of a few political
sharpers in any State may endanger the
liberties of the people of that State? Is the
nation politically sound when few Pinch
backs, with unscrupulous colleagues in au-
thority, can neutralze and overcome all those
principles that are in the charge and keeping
of the people for the protection Of the SOW
ereignty of every State2 1t is our opinion that
the causes which have been most efficient in
giving success to political scoundrelism in
Louisiana are strictly local; but also that
other causes, also very effective in the case, are
national and of common and universal apph-
cation in every State. The strictly local
causes are the consequences of the war; the
others are the consequences of the supremacy
of the republican party.


Rebellion and war, which apparently no
political wisdom can avert, make sad havoc
with those liberties for whose defence they
are invoked and these are of course the
primary causes of the trouble; for the events
which disfranchised and displaced from their
leadership the superior classes Of the Southern
people also gave political power to great
numbers of men scarcely possessed of human
intelligence, and thus an opportunity was gra


tuitously furnished to the worst types Of


political adventurers. Persons who would


be card sharpers and confidence swindlers


IN wealthy capitals take to politics in commu-


mites where there is nothing to plunder but


State treasury. If defeat and consequent


chagrin coincide with repressive laws to drive


from public life all the men who have the


confidence and respect of people, and the
ignorant and newly enfranchised are induced


to support the vultures Of political craft, a


premium is practically placed on the success


of these latter, and the State becomes their
prey. These causes apply only at the South,
and there they are not restricted to Louisiana.


But the dangers due to the supremacy Of
the republican party are general Success is
proverbially more difficult for both individuals
and nations to endure than many reverses;


but there never was before q success that, like
that of the republican party, seemed to have
thoroughly debauched the moral sense of all
who had share in it. Nearly every man
prominent or conspicuous in that party seems
to have regarded its success less for its ikeli-


hood of giving effect to certain line OF politi-


cal action and of impressing certain political


rrip oipec on the life of the nation than aS a