Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1873 — The Louisiana Appeal. [ARTICLE]

The Louisiana Appeal.

The long-talked of address to the people of the united States by the Warmoth Committee of Louisiana is at last made public. We shall take occasion hereafter to examine this statement at length. Just noir the pertinent question seems to be, .What has the public to do with the inter-. nal affairs of Louisiana? We believe the cry from these men has been that they wanted no interference irom the outside world. What do they hope to gain, then, by this appeal? Their principal grievance seems to be that the courts of their owq State, haviiig all decided against them, and the Supreme Court having dismissed their proceedings fora review, the President will not interfere with his solitary power and bring these judicial rulings to naught If the politics of Warmoth and Kellogg were reversed, the former being an Administration man and the latter opposed to the party in power, who imagines that we should hear any denunciations of the President for his course in this matter? Suppose that Kellogg and his friends, being Democrats, had sought to restrain the Republican Warmoth from what they deemed an illegal act, and had appealed to the State and Federal Courts, both of which had decided against him; and sup pose, in spite of this, the President had recognized Warmoth, and refused to give ajdor countenance to the decision of the courts? What a howl of righteous indignation would have gone up from the “Liberal” press at this open disregard of judicial authority of the land. And yet this is precisely what they desire done in the case before the country. Let4t be understood that for his plain discharge of a coristitu tional duty the President is recklessly assailed and vilified by these men. The New York World, in referring to the President’s action in Louisiana, cites the following decision of the Supreme Court in the case growing out of the Dorr rebellion in Rhode Island, where there were, as in Louisiana, two governments claiming Federal protection. The opinion was announced by Chief-Justice Taney, who ought to be good authority with those who are now assailing the President: “ By this act (the law of 1795) the power of deciding whether the exigency has arisen upon which the Government of the United States is bound to interfere is pfaen to the President. Ho is to act upon the application of the Legislature or of the Executive (pf the State), and constquetdly he must determine tchal body of men constitute the LegisMure, and who is.the Governor, before he can act. The fact that both' parties claim the right To the ' government cannot alter the case, for both cannot ne entitled to it. If it is an armed conflict, like the one of which we are speaking, it is a case of domestic violence, and one of the parties must lie in Insurrection against the lawful government. And Mz President must, of necessity, decide which it the Government, and which party is unlawfully arrayed against it, before he can perform the duty Imposed upon him by the act of Congress."’ If there had been no action of the courts in Louisiana it might have been a delicate matter for the President to decide which was the rightful - Legislature and who was the legal Governor, but even then he would have been compelled to determine the question. But in recognizing the Kellogg party in this instance, he had not only the evidence that they put forward in their favor, and which was, to say the least, as good ns that of the other party, but he had three judicial rulings to the same effect to guide him. To have overborne these and set up his own dictum in the case, even had he entertained views of that character, would have been a grave exercise of power that we hope never to see attempted, save in cases es the utmost necessity. The Committee have not improved their case by this high-sounding appeal to the people of the United States.—Chicago Inter-Ocean.