Alpena Weekly Argus

The Last Louisiana Outrage.

The indignant protests which the action of General De Trobriand, says the Free Press, under the order of Kellogg, in dispersing the legal Legislature of Louisiana at the point of the bayonet, called forth from the members who were made to feel the weight of military authority, will be caught up and echoed all over the country.

It may be that the volumes of popular indignation will be lost upon the President and his advisers, at Washington, and upon the Louisiana conspirators against the peace and good order of a State, for they have apparently closed their ears to the popular voice.

Behind these, however, stands the Republican party, an organization which, through its members, exercise control in the legislative branch of government.

Whether that party in Congress can afford to wink at the violent measures by which a minority is maintained in power in Louisiana—whether it will again allow the people of a sovereign State to be struck down by force, and their rights and liberties to be torn from them by the bayonets of United States troops—are questions which forcibly present themselves.

The Republican party, like any other, only possesses strength and power through the support it receives at the hand of the people. The people make parties, and they unmake them as well.

Already the popular confidence has been largely withdrawn from the Republican party; and though its members still cling to the places in the governmental superstructure which popular favor has heretofore assigned them, the time will soon come when they can be shaken off and buried in deserved oblivion.

Louisiana is bound and fettered; but all of her sister States are not, nor are their people deprived of their potent influence. The ballot, though it may be worthless in Louisiana, is effectual to redress grievances in the nation, for the sway of bayonets is not complete over all the land.

And, while down-trodden Louisiana must submit to the oppression heaped upon her, the people will be sure to avenge her wrongs at the first opportunity.

Small consolation this, perhaps, to the people of a plundered and a prostrate State; but it is the best which can be offered.

Grant, with the bayonets of United States troops, can uphold fraud and sustain usurpation, without hesitation and without delay; but it takes time for the popular remedy to be applied to ills such as those which Louisiana suffers.

Once applied, however, that remedy is thorough and efficacious. Republican Congressmen will be wise, therefore, if they remember that there is a power superior to Republican Presidents and Republican Congresses, which will finally pass upon the Louisiana outrage, and that the Republican party organization, if it continues to sustain the infamy, will melt away in the blaze of the burning indignation of the people.

Who can look with calmness upon the spectacle presented in the Louisiana State House on Monday? Baffled in securing the organization of the House of Representatives, which they thought the fraudulent action of the Returning Board assured them, the Republicans had recourse to the weapon with which they have heretofore cleared away the obstacles to their assuming power to which they never had a shadow of a claim.

Very convenient were United States troops to their call, and very complaisant were the commanders of those troops in using them to purge the chamber of obnoxious members.

Who has a right—the people of Louisiana know too well who has the power—to judge of the qualifications of members of a Legislature save the Legislature itself! Yet in Louisiana a Federal General, backed by Federal troops, forces his way into a State House, at the request of the Governor of a State, and at the beck and nod of authorized persons summarily ejects legislators from their places.

What would be thought when the Forty-fourth Congress meets, and a Democratic House of Representatives is organized, if General Sherman, with a military force at his back, should enter the chamber, and, with Babcock to identify members and Clerk McPherson to call any roll he pleased, summarily eject enough Democrats to give the Republicans the majority!

Such a conjecture is wild and impossible, it may be declared. This is no doubt true, and yet to do this would be only doing in the nation what General De Trobriand—or, we should say Grant—has done in the State of Louisiana.

Where will this thing end if Governors of States are to dictate who are the members of the Legislature? Can Governor Taylor, of Wisconsin, or Governor Gaston, of Massachusetts, do as Governor Kellogg has done in Louisiana? Would troops be granted either of them to disperse a majority and enable a quorumless minority to organize, admit members to seats and call itself a House or Senate?

Certainly not, every one would answer. But what is the difference between Kellogg and Taylor? Why should the former be made an autocratic despot through the sustaining power of the Federal government, and the latter is deemed a constitutional Executive with limited powers?

There are at present in New Orleans three members of Congress sent thither as a committee to inquire into affairs in that State. They have already taken much testimony relative to the late election.

But more important than what they have drawn out by investigation and inquiry, is that which has fallen under their personal observations. They have little need to make inquiries concerning the way the Kelloggites obtained control of the Louisiana House of Representatives, nor have they to take anybody's say so for it.

They are all able and thoroughly honest men. They cannot but see the straits to which Louisiana has been reduced by the vindictiveness with which Kellogg partisanship has been sustained.

They cannot but be startled by the last crushing blow which has fallen upon the people. As true American citizens interested far more in the welfare of the country and in the perpetuity of free institutions, than in the fortunes of Kellogg and his crew, they cannot fail to present a plain unvarnished picture to Congress of the way force has been used to deprive the people of Louisiana of their rights, and they cannot but insist that Congress take decided steps to remove the iron heel from the prostrate State.

If they do not do this they fail in their duty; and Congress will be guilty of aiding a crime against free government if it does not take prompt action in the premises.

And if Congress should prove derelict and unfaithful to its high duty, Louisiana must wait until the people of the nation, who have not heard her protests in vain have an opportunity to rise in their might and assert their power at the ballot-box.

At the very worst, out of the tribulations of Louisiana will come the complete overthrow of Republican rule.