Year: 1871

country, may be advised OF the facts


as alarming as they are unusua.


among the American people, and


may Judge Alright of the nature o1


the offense and the remedy to be


applied. ~ go


On the second day of July, the


State Central Committee Of the Re


publican party issued their call for
a State convention, to assemble in


New Orleans, on August 8.


The resolution. as presented by
Mr.. Ray a member ofthe committee,
and adopted by the committee, spe-
cited the hour-12 Nj. of that day
and the place-the Mechanics
Institute. This resolution, before
it was sent to press, was mutilated
by a surreptitious omission of the
hour and place, and as the call was
printed, no place of meeting or
hour was named. As the time of
assembling the convention drew
near, this irregular and unprece-
dented omission excited attention
and caused frequent applications
from the people to be made to the
Central Committee, asking them to
correct the omission and to name
the hour and place of the meeting.
This just and reasonable request
they evaded, and deferred answering,
until the morning of the conven-
ton. To seem to shift the response
bility OF any evil motives which be
ascribed to them, they passed, a few
days before the meeting of the CON
vention, resolution, empowering
the President of the State Central
Committee, at his individual dis
cretion, to fix the hour and the
place OF meeting, and give notice
thereof, leaving with him the arbi-
trary discretion to delay such notice,
if he saw fit, even to the last minute
Of the day liked by the committee
for the notice.


This action was in itself good
cause for the representatives Of the
people to have taken the matter
into their own hands, and to have
issued their own call, naming the
time and place of meeting. But
with a fOrbearance unexampled
and snfferance of nsrlrpation most
patient, they awaited the action of
the State Central Committee until
the last day. 1t has been the Gus
tom Of Republican conventions for
years to assemble in the Mechanics,
Institute, where there is a public
hall open to all the people. This
hall was then, as always, at the SER
vice of the convention. Judge of
the surprise of the whole people
when, on the morning of the last
day that notice could issue, Mr..
Packard, United States marshal,
issues a notice designating the
United States Custonhouse as the
place of meeting. Ian ' la


Unusual, extraordinary and i'm
proper as this action was-sug-
gestive as it was of federal officious-
ness and interference, and calculat-
ed as it was to alarm the people
it was but the least and the most
inOffensive of a series of acts which
followed close upon the heels OF
each other, of the most fragrant
usurpation.


1t was announced by the COM
mittee that the public would be ex-
cluded from the Customhouse build
ing, that no delegate should be ad-
until he had fled his creden-
tials with them and received at their
hands a ticket of admission, and
that even then, after all of these un-
heard OF precautions to secure a
packed convention, secluded from
and beyond the reach of the public
eye, i'll the dark recesses of the
United States CustOmhouse, the
committee capped the climax of
their daring and unblushing out
RACES by declaring that they would
recognize no person as a delegate,
for the purpose of preliminary or
ganization, except those whose
names they themselves had placed
upon a roll, thus undertaking to ex-
clude at one stroke ninety, of the
one hundred and sixteen delegates
elect.


Notwithstanding all this we your
delegates, for the sake of thu unity
OF the party. and in order that the
total responsibility of any division