^ 37S 
 
SENATOR FROM liOUISIANA. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 HON. TIMOTHY 0. HOWE, 
 
 OF WISCONSIN, 
 
 ^ENATE OF THE UnITED StATES, 
 
 FEBRUARY 17, 1875. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICB. 
 1875. 
 

 WaBt.Bes-Ste&.3oc. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 OP 
 
 HOX. TIMOTHY 0. HOWE. 
 
 Tbe Senate liaviu<r under consideration the following resolution submitted by 
 Mr. MoRTOX on tlie 8th instant: 
 
 Resolved, That P. B. S. Pinchback be admitted as a Senator from the State of 
 Louisiana fer the term of six years, beginning on the 4t)i of March, 1873 — 
 
 Mr. HOWE said : 
 
 Mr. President: the pending resolution brings to tbe considera- 
 tion of tbe Senate tbe election whicb took place in the State of Lou- 
 isiana in 1872. The Senator from New York [Mr. Conkling] the other 
 day referred to that election as the dismal swamp in our politics. I 
 think I have traversed that swamp ; at least I know that whereas 
 I was once on one side of the swamp I am now on the other side ; 
 wherefore I think I can tell tbe Senate something about that por- 
 tion of our political geography. I concede that it is a tangled maze, 
 but it is not without a plan ; and I propose this evening for the first 
 time to state my view of that plan. 
 
 It has been said that the story of that electioti is " a thrice-told 
 tale." That may .be true ; and yet I want to tell the story oace more. 
 I shall of course have to say some things that have been said l)y others, 
 and better said ; but nevertheless the story I shall tell of that'electiun 
 is a story I have not yet heard told. 
 
 Mr. President, inthesummer of 1872 Henry C.Warmoth was governor 
 of Louisiana. He had been elected by tbe republican party in 18(18. 
 By the democratic party lie was probably hated more thoroughly, if 
 not more justly, than any man in the State. Suddenly, and some 
 months before the election of that year, the voice of ]irophecy rang 
 through the Union predicting that, however other States might go in 
 November, the State of Louisiana would go for the democr.itic ticket, 
 aud that the Legislature of that State the winter following would 
 send Mr. Warmoth to the Senate of the United States. 
 
 Close upon the heel of that prediction came intelligence that Gov- 
 ernor Warmoth was doing his utmost to secure tbe success of that 
 jjarty which had so ])itterly opposed him. The assertion was every- 
 where made that under the anomalous laws of Lotiisiaua tbe result 
 of an election there depended less upon the disposition of the voters 
 than upon the resolution of the governor, tliat liis control of tlie ma- 
 cliinery of election was so absolute that victory was sure to alight 
 upon whatever standard he carried. 
 
 If, as is stated. Warmoth did bargain to deliver the State to tbe 
 enemy, he certainly did his best to keep the bargain. His first move- 
 ment was to select f)ne H. P. IJlancliard for State registrar. Upon that 
 ofiicer by law ilevolved the duty of making a registration of tbe vot- 
 
ers of tlie Sliite. To aid liini in tliat work lie api)oiiitcfl a supervisor 
 of elections for each parish in the State outside of New OrleaLis. Mr. 
 Blaiioliard proved an able lieutenant, but not altogether a trusty one. 
 He has since pul)lished under his own oath a detailed statement of 
 the frauds he caused to be perpetrated in the course of rejjjistration. 
 To repeat tlie catalogue here would be tedious. It is enough to say 
 tliat if there is any single fi-aud possible in registration not enumer- 
 ated in his schedule it is one invented since 1872. 
 
 His story is so monstrous that it would challenge credulity itself 
 if it were uncorrol)orat.ed. But it is so corrol)orated as to defy un- 
 T)elief. The matchless rascality of the man is manifest, whether he 
 did the things he swore he did, or swore he did the things he did not 
 do. Such a man was not likely to be employed to serve the State, 
 but very apt to be employed to betray it. And one who would 
 betray his State would not hesitate to l)etray his coconsjiirators 
 when inspired thereto either l)y thirst for gain or thirst for revenge. 
 His story is corroborated bj' the circumstance that to many of the 
 parishes in the State he sent practiced cheats from +he city of New 
 Orleans to act as supervisors of elections. That could not have been 
 necessary for any honest purpose. Capable sui)eivisors might have 
 been readily found in every parish. Unscrupulous ones seem not to 
 have been everywhere available. The great planters in the parishes 
 were nearly all democrats but were not all rogues. New Orleans liad 
 a surplus and New Orleans was drawn upon to make up the defi- 
 ci(Micy. His story is corroborated also by numerous witnesses who 
 testify to s])eciiic frauds in various ])arishcs. liy artifices too numer- 
 ous to mention great numbers weie excluded from registering who 
 ought to have been registered ; great numbers were registerefl who 
 ought not to have been. By a singular coincidence it ha]ipened that 
 the voters who were not registered were repul)licans, and the regis- 
 tered who were not voters democrats. 
 
 To show that he meant business and to prevent the unregistered 
 from voting, Mr. Blauchard issued private instructions to his super- 
 visors in the following terms: 
 
 You will please direct (loiiunissioners of election to receive no votes upon the 
 affidavits suiiplied by the radical paitv under the enfoic(>nieiit act unless tlie per- 
 son apidyiii;; or oU'eiing to vote is known by themto have been wrongfully deprived 
 of registration. 
 
 Mr. Blanchard's story is corroborated by th(> fact tliat he was asked 
 to consent tliat one of tlii' three coinniissioncrs of election at the ditt'er- 
 ent voting ])recincts should be a icjiubjiean, and he refused it. 
 
 Such a minority representation could of course do no wrong. It 
 could not even prevent wrong-(h)ing. It could at most only aid the 
 detection of wi'oiig-doing. 
 
 His story was also corroborated by another circumstance. Under 
 the enforcenurnt act, so called, of 1872, the circuit court of tlie United 
 States a.p])oiiited supervisors of elcM-tion in many of the parishi^s and 
 voting precincts. Those officers coiihl not control the voting or the 
 counting of the votes. They could only sci-utinizo those acts. Ac- 
 cordingly Mr. Blauchard sent a secret circular to his siijiervisora, in- 
 structing them to count the votes lor electors and nuqnbers of Con- 
 gress first, and then to cniint the votes for State olficers, '' bearing 
 in mind," he added, "the fact that the United States supervisors of 
 elections and dei>uty marshals have no right whatever to scrutinize, 
 ins])ect, or be |)resent at the counting of I lie State and parish vote." 
 Clearly .such inspection could have lieen objectionable only to a dis- 
 hontist count. An honest count would have courted scrutiny. 
 
His story is further corroborated by the strange results of registra- 
 tion in many localities. Of those results two specimens nnist suthce. 
 
 The parish of East Baton Eouge had a white poi)ulatiou In 1870 of 
 6,471. The white voters registered in 1872 were 1,482. Its colored 
 population was 11,342, and its colored vote registered was only 1,559^ 
 exceeding the white vote by less than one hundred. 
 
 The parish of Orleans had a total population iu 1870 of 191,418. 
 Its male population more than twenty-one years of age was 47,737. 
 The male citizens more than twenty-one years of age were .18,586, 
 showing that 9,151 males more than twenty-one years of age were 
 unnaturalized aliens. Yet in 1872 the State registrar not only regis- 
 tered 20,581 colored voters, but registered 34,501 white voters. Thus 
 the voters registered in 1872 numbered 17,496 more than the voters 
 found by the census two years previous. 
 
 Unless Mr. IjI.i iichard was more liberal in registering colored voters 
 in the parish of Orleans than his subordinates were in any other par- 
 ish, that whole excess must be charged to over-registration of white 
 votes. A witness testified that as many as one hundred and twenty-one 
 were registered froin a single residence in the city. 
 
 Mr. President, in the light of such facts it is quite safe to conclude 
 that if Mr. Bhinehard ever consulted truth in any of his utterances, 
 it was not when he swore he would discharge his official duties ac 
 cording to law, but rather when he swore he had discharged them iu 
 violation of all law. Such was the character of the State registrar 
 and such the character of his work. The next step was to gather the 
 votes. The polling-places in the several parishes were selected by 
 Blanchard's parish supervisors according to their uncontrolled dis- 
 cretion. It need only be olisevved that tlie diseretion some of those 
 supervisors displayed in the discliai'ge of that duty i)roved that they 
 were well titted for the scandalous trust reposed in them. Each poll 
 was presided over by three commissioners of election selected by Mr. 
 Blanchard's parish supervisors. 
 
 The law charged the commissioners with very simple duties. They 
 were to maintain order at the several voting precincts, receive the bal- 
 lot offered by each c^ualified voter, deposit it in the box, aud make 
 three different records of that vote. 
 
 Of course the commissioners conld not be cheated by republicans. 
 They could cheat republicans in three ways : First, by receiving demo- 
 cratic votes from illegal voters ; second, "by refusing republican votes 
 from legal voters ; third, by allowing turl>nlence and tunnilt to deter 
 reimblicaus from offering their votes. That they did cheat by each 
 of those methods has been testilied not merely by scoi-es but by 
 thousands of witnesses. As an example of the first method of cheat- 
 ing I will cite Madison Parish. There the white vote registered was 
 360. The whole white population was but 936, and yet the democratic 
 vote was returned at 828, almost three times the" number of regis- 
 tered white voters, and almost equal to the wliole white population. 
 
 As an example of the second method of clieating Caddo Parish is 
 cited. There, while a white population of 5,913 was made to register 
 1,549 white voters and return 1,817 democratic votes, a colored popu- 
 lation of 15,799 yielded but 3,339 colored voters and but 1,.576 republican 
 votes. C. W. Keating swore that he saw 363 turned away from one 
 box in Caddo Parish who liad tried all day to vote. In Bossier Parish 
 alone over 1.300 republican voters swore tlieir votes were rejected. 
 In the case of Kelhigg vs. Warmoth et als., in the United States dis- 
 trict court, the judge states as a fact, found that over 4,000 colored 
 
6 
 
 repnl)licans from different parishes SAvore to their offer to vote and 
 the denial of it. 
 
 Of intimidation examples were proved in a great many parishes in 
 Jackson, in Saint Lanilry, in Livingston, in East Baton Ronge, in 
 Bossier and others. 
 
 At six (/clock p. m. the polls closed, and the next step was to secnre 
 a conut of the ballots. For that imrpose the law reqnired that " im- 
 mediately upon the closing of the polls" the commissioners should 
 seal the boxes and proceed with them to the parish supervisor. One 
 would suppose that democratic officers, hungering for honesty as 
 democrats claim to be, might carry sealed ballot-boxes from one town 
 to another in the same parish without letting any ballots spill out or 
 any leak in. But Mr. Blanchard's commissioners could not do even 
 that. How many boxes were stuffed is not known; for no investiga- 
 tion has yet been made. ili\ Forman, of the Warmoth board of re- 
 turns, testitied that the boxes from one precinct in New Orleans and 
 one in Jefferson Parish were stuffed ; and other witnesses swore to 
 the same treatment in East Baton Rouge, in Point Coupee, in Madi- 
 son, in Grant, Webster, Saint Helena, and other parishes. 
 
 The next act upon the programme was to count the ballots, ascer- 
 tain the number for each candidate, make triplicate statements of the 
 result in tabular form, forward two statements to the governor by 
 different conveyances, and file one with the archives of the parish. 
 Even that duty was only partially performed. Six whole parishes 
 were cither not returned at all or returned in such a manner as to be 
 excluded from count by the democratic board. One of those parishes 
 was Iberville, which had a registered vote of 743 white, and 3,30:i 
 colored. Thirty-tive printed pages of the report of the Committee 
 on Privileges and Elections are occupied with affidavits and other 
 papers to justify the exclusion of that parish fiom count. 
 
 One Thorp was the suporNisor for that parish. He had been sent 
 up fn»m New Orleans. The republicans seem to have assumed he 
 was sent, not for honest but for fiaudulent purposes. They sus- 
 spected that he meant to cheat in the count. They therefore tried 
 to witness the count. They were kept outside of the coui't-house. 
 They molested no one ; they made but one demand, to wit, that the 
 votes should be counted. Thor]» and the commissioners of election 
 kept them there until the night of the 5th, long enough to have 
 counted the vote ten times. And then the connnissioners from each 
 precinct drew up a formal certificate that they were afraid to count — 
 not afraid to refuse, but afraid to grant the only thing demanded of 
 them— and so left. Madison Parish was registered at 360 white and 
 2,365 colored. It was counted by the democratic board at 828 demo- 
 cratic, and 1,*227 repuljlican votes. That return was made, not in Madi- 
 son Parish, but, according to the testimoT)y, in the city of New Or- 
 leans, and was a manifest forgery. Mr. John Ray stated before the 
 Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections thiit the returns from 
 other parishes were evident forgeries, and instanced Grant, Point 
 Coujjee, and East Baton Ronge as examples. He said the committee 
 could be satisfied of the fact l»y an inspection of the papers. Whether 
 they were so satisfied or not does not appear. 
 
 And here the fourth act in the farce of the election of 1872 ended. 
 The performance of registering, balloting, counting, and returning 
 was concliuied. All these acts had been played under democratic 
 management. It isnot only manifest the republicans had not cheated, 
 but it is evident they had no jiossihle chance to cheat. The demo- 
 cratic party had on the contrary the fulh-st opportunity to cheat in 
 
every stage of the performance, and they availed themselves of it. 
 The republicans had been denied registration and registered republi- 
 cans had been excluded from voting. Republican votes cast had 
 been abstracted from the boxes ; democratic votes not cast had been 
 thrust into the boxes. The count had been falsified and returns had 
 been forged. All these villainies had been performed V>y Warmoth's 
 subordinates. One thing remained to be done. To garner the fruits of 
 all these frauds, it was necessary to read and add up the votes returned 
 from the several parishes and proclaim the persons elected to the 
 several offices. One would suppose it could matter but little who did 
 that work. Republicans read like democrats — everything except the 
 constitution. Both parties usethesame system of arithmetic. Given 
 the same returns to read and add up, it is hardly supposable that a 
 republican and democrat would ditter much in the result. But 
 Warmoth well knew that nothing short of an unscrupulous canvass 
 of the returns could utilize the mammoth fi-auds which had preceded 
 the returns. To secure such a canvass he himself came to the front. 
 
 Then was seen in Louisiana such an exhibition of legerdeniain as 
 never had a parallel elsewhere. The limitations of the constitution 
 were ignored ; the commands of the statutes were defied ; the sanctity 
 of the courts outraged, the authority of commissions contemned. 
 
 The law of Louisiana confided the canvass of returns from the 
 several parishes to a tribunal called the board of returns. That board 
 in November, 1872, consisted of the governor, lieutenant-governor, 
 the secretary of state ex officio, and of one John Lynch and one T. C. 
 Anderson, by name. Of that number, the governor was tlie only one 
 who had contracted to sell tlie State to the democratic party. In or- 
 der to deliver the State according to contract he knew he must create 
 a new board, and before he could create a new board it was necessary 
 to get rid of the existing board. To that work he addressed himself. 
 The law required the canvass to commence ten days after tiie elec- 
 tion. Accordingly, on the 13th of November the board assembled. 
 The governor, the lieutenant-governor, the secretary of state, and 
 John Lynch only were present. Anderson and the lieutenant-gov- 
 ernor had been candidates before the people at the preceding election. 
 Warmoth had no difficulty in persuading his colleagues that those 
 two members were disqualified for acting as returning officers. The 
 law of the State so declared. Lynch ami Henon, who was secretary 
 of state, readily acquiesced in the proposition to drop Mr. Anderson 
 and the lieutenant-governor from the board. But no magistrate was 
 present, so the members were not sworn in, and witlumt a<loiiting 
 any resolution the board adjourned to the next day. Thus in this new 
 Genesis, "the evening and the morning were the first day." 
 
 On the 14th the board reassembled. The same persons were pres- 
 ent, and a magistrate was alsi) in attendance, who proceeded to ad- 
 minister the oath of office to Warmoth, to Herron, the secretary of 
 state, and to Lynch. The lieutenant-goverucu- declined to be sworn 
 until the question of his disability was resolved. When a quorum 
 had been sworn they resolved unanimously that Pinchback and An- 
 derson were disqualified. Thus two vacancies were made. But the 
 law required those vacancies to be filled by tbe remaining members 
 of the board. Of those members Warmoth felt the majority to 
 be unreliable for his purpose. Immediately after Herron had voted 
 with Lynch and Warmoth to create two vacancies one Mr. Jack 
 Wharton appeared upon the stage, who pulled out a commission from 
 Warmoth appointing him to be secretary of state in the place of Herron, 
 removed. The blow was sudden ; it staggered the rei)ubli('an mem- 
 
8 
 
 bers, but it was not admitted to be a kuock-dowu. Herroa and 
 Lyncli denied the governor's power to remove the secretary of state; 
 Warmoth and Wharton asserted that power. Herrou and Lynch 
 chose Long-street and Hawkins to fill the two vacancies. Warmoth 
 and Wharton chose F. H. Hatch and Durant Da Ponte to fill the 
 same vacancies. Thns two sets of men appeared, each claiming to 
 be the board of returns. Which was the legal board depended, of 
 course, npou the question wlietlier the governor could rightfully 
 remove the secretary of state. If he could, then Wharton was secre- 
 tary of state and Warmoth and Wharton had legally chosen Hatch 
 and Da Ponte to fill the vacancies. If the governor could not make 
 such a removal, then of course Herron was still secretary of state 
 and Herron and Lynch had legally chosen Longstreet and Hawkins 
 to fill these vacancies. 
 
 Kight here it may as well be said as anywhere that the supreme court 
 of Louisiana has since determined that the governor could not make 
 any such removal. Believing such removal to be illegal, the Herron 
 party commenced legal proceedings in the proper court of the State, 
 designated as the eiglith district court, to restrain the Wharton party 
 from assuming to act as the returning board. That suit was commenced 
 on the 14th day of November, and on tlie 10th the court pronounced 
 judgment against the defendants, thus affirming the authority of the 
 Herron board. But Warmoth was not the sort of governor to sur- 
 render to the judgment of a court. The court having adjudged the 
 Herron board to be legal upon the 19th, on the next day Warmoth pro- 
 ceeded to change the law. To effect that, he drew from a pigeon-hole 
 an old bill which had passed both houses of tlie Legislature during 
 the previous winter; and then, after the Legislature which passed it 
 had ceased to exist, he approved the bill and proclaimed it a law. By 
 that maneuver he claimed to liave repealed the previous act of 1870 
 under which the Herron board was created. But the constitution of 
 Louisiana provides that — 
 
 All officers shall continue to discharge the duty of their offices until their succes- 
 sors are inducted into office. 
 
 The bill which the governor approved on the 20th provides that 
 the board of returns should lie elected by the Senate ; and the senate 
 was not in session and could not be convened until the returns were 
 canvassed. The way before the governor seemed rugged. Grave dif- 
 ficulties still confrimted him. \\'liat he must have was a new board 
 to canvass the returns. The constitution of liis State said to him the 
 existing board of returns shall continue to discharge their duties un- 
 til their successors are iiulucted into office. The new statute which 
 he had just proclaimed said tliat the successors of the existing board 
 could not be inducted into office until they had been elected by the 
 senate. The genius of tlie governor was e((ual to the occasion. He 
 straightway appointed himself to be a sort of deputy senate, and 
 then proceeded to eli-ct a board of returns. So appeared a new pre- 
 teixler to the functions of the hoard of returns for Louisiana. 
 
 In order th:it this new board might not be bothered by the dis- 
 trict court in which .Judge Dihhh' ])reside(l, the governcu- next ]>ro- 
 ceeded to coniniission one W. A. Klniore to be judge (if that court. 
 He liad precisely as much authority to issue such commission as he 
 had to conuulssion a chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States. But he issued the coiumission. He sent Judge Elmore to the 
 conit-nKini "early,"' according to his own testimony. Accordingly 
 when .ludgt^ Dilihle ariived t(i open his court at the lisual hour in the 
 moruiiig he found .Judge Klniore already ujion the bench. That there 
 
might be no more mistakes in serving process he also connnissioued 
 a sheriff. As suits to try tlie title to offices are ])rosecuted in the 
 name of the attorney-general of the State, and as he did not want 
 the title of any of his own friends questioned, he commissioned a new 
 attorney-general. He commissioned many other otlicers. All this 
 was done without any canvass of the vote by any board whatever, 
 and was done in dehance of all the law there was in Louisiana. But 
 in spite of all these acrobatic feats, the Herron board obstinately per- 
 sisted in their right to count the votes. 
 
 Such, then, was the situation on the 21st of November. On that 
 day Governor Waruioth issued his proclamation convening the 
 General Assembly. The constitution of that State gives to the gov- 
 ernor authority to convene the Legislature on "extraordinary occa- 
 sions." Governor Warmoth seemed to think that was an extraor- 
 dinary occasion. It is doubtful if so manifest a truth as that was 
 ever shaken out from between his teeth befoi'e. Indeed, that was an 
 extraordinary occasion. Nothing like it ever before occurred in the 
 history of our States. It is to be hoped that nothing like it will ever 
 occur again. 
 
 The occasion was this : An election had been held, every step in 
 which had been imbedded in fraud. Of that election the governor 
 held partial returns ; of those returns he wanted enough counted to 
 return a Legislature which would declare McEiiery governor and send 
 himself to the Senate of the United States. For that purpose he had 
 improvised a board of returns. But the laws of Louisiana said 
 his board should not canvass those returns. Those laws designated 
 another board for that purpose. But Warmoth said the latter board 
 should not have the returns to canvass. He had gone on commission- 
 ing officers as long as he dared ^^ it hnut count of the returns. But 
 there are limits hcyoud which the boldest criminals dare not go. 
 Even Warmoth hesitated to apiinint members to the Legislature of 
 the St.ate, although he claimed the right to apj)oint the men who 
 should select the Legislature. 
 
 The occasion uhis an extraordinary one, but hardly so extraordi- 
 nary as the way chosen by the governor to meet that occasion. The 
 sole difficulty of the occasion was to get a Legislature counted in 
 suited to his purposes. The way he took to meet the occasi(Ui was 
 to summon a Legislature to convene wiihont aiii/ coiuithuj. He might 
 with the same propriety have called the assembly together without 
 any election. Manifestly it was a call for volunteers. Defying the 
 tribunal designated by law to ascertain and publish the results of the 
 election, he summoned his retainers from the parishes to muster with 
 his police of the metropolis ami inst.all the Legislature of his choice, 
 regardless of the popular choice. The Legislature was summoned to 
 meet on the 9th of December. 
 
 The interval was spent by the rival parties in various litigation, 
 either to prevent things from being done or to test the validity of 
 things done. After forcing Dibble from the bench no further change 
 was made by Warmoth in the constitution of the courts, except that 
 one of the judges of the supreme court was induced to resign his seat 
 to become Warnmth's attorney and allow Warmoth to till the va- 
 cancy. What the inducement was for that resignation does not ap- 
 pear. The suit between the so-called Herron board and the Wharton 
 board was removed to the supreme court of the State. By that court 
 it was held that the former and not the latter was the legal board of 
 returns. Thus it was settled, if the courts of Louisiana can be al- 
 lowed to interpret her own laws, that in spite of Wharton's appoint- 
 
w 
 
 ment Herron continued to be secretary of state. That, in spite of 
 Warnioth's conspiracy with Wharton, Herron and his associates were 
 alone authorized to canvass the retnrus, and in spite of Warmoth's 
 tampering with statutes, they ah)ne continued to have that author- 
 ity. That decision was not pronounced, however, until January. 
 Wherefore between the "20th of November, when Warmoth attempted 
 to abrogate the Herron board by repealing the statute which created 
 it, until the 9th of December, when the Legislature assembled, two 
 boards continued to make believe canvass the returns. One had par- 
 tial returns before them but no authority to consider them. One had 
 full authority to consider them but no returns to consider. 
 
 Notwithstanding these embarrassments both boards published be- 
 fore the yth of December full lists of members elected to the senate 
 and to the house. It is evident that in a contest very little weight 
 could be given to either of those lists. To the list made by the 
 Herron board it is well objected that the board had not adequate 
 evidence before it on which to make a determination. It was denied 
 the official returns. The same objection is urged against the deter- 
 mination of the other board. It had only partial returns. From 
 some of the parishes it had received no returns, from some it had 
 forged returns, from others it had returns notoriously and infamously 
 false. Besides it had no authority to determine anything as to the 
 result of the election upon any evidence whatever. One tribunal 
 abused a jurisdiction it had, the other usurped a jurisdiction which 
 it had not and abused it also. No law-abiding citizen can pay the 
 slightest respect to the finding of the Warmoth board. But one per- 
 son, at least, was bound to respect the findings of the other. That 
 one person was the secretary of state. 
 
 The law of Louisiana is explicit. Prescribing the duties of the 
 board in canvassing and compiling returns, it says: 
 
 One copy of such returns tln-v sliall fiU- in the (ift5ri> of the secretary of state, and 
 of one co])y they sliall make puhlii pidcUunatiou l)y printiuL; in the otticial journal 
 and such other newspapers as it may deem pro])ei-, ileclariuj; the names of all per- 
 sons and oUieeis voted for, the iiumher of votes for each person, and the name of 
 the persons wlio have heeii duly and lawfully elected. 
 
 The returns tlni.-< inailn and promiilLiated shall he prima facie evidence in all courts 
 of justice and l)cfore all civil olticers iialil set aside after a contest according to law, 
 of tlie right of any person name<l t herein to hold and exercise the otlice to which he 
 shall by such returns be declared to he elected. 
 
 Nothing can be more explicit. Accordingly the Herron board filed 
 its list of persons elected with George E. Bovee, who had in the mean 
 time assumed the office of secretary of state under a jiulgment of 
 the supreme court. The other board tiled its list also with Mr. Jack 
 Wharton, who still pretended to be secretary of state. The statute 
 further declares — 
 
 That it shall bo the duty of the secretary of state to transmit to the clerk of 
 the house of representatives and to the secretary of the senati' of the last (Jeneral 
 Assembly a list of the names i>f such persons as aecordiiKj to the returns have been 
 elected to ea(;h brandi of the Geneial Assembly. And it shall be the duty of the 
 said clerk and secrctarj- to plac<' the names of the iipreseiitalives and senators so 
 /i/rni'A/icd upon the roll of the house and senate respectively. Andtlio.se repre- 
 sentatives and senatois whose names are so placed i)y tlie clerk and secretary in 
 accordance with the forgoing iirovisions, and none other, shall be competent to 
 organize the hou.se of rejiresentativcs and the senate. 
 
 Both Bovee and Wharton transmitted their several lists to the clerk 
 of the house of representatives and to the secretary of the senate. 
 
 Which one of tliose rival secretaries the clerk of the house and 
 the secretary of the senate would have recogniz(id is not perhaps 
 certainly known. It is known wliich ought to have been recognized. 
 
11 
 
 Louisiana said, speakiiii^ thi'ougli her highest court, tliat Bovee was 
 secretary. Nobody said Wharton was but Governor Warmotli. 
 
 But just here a new actor appeared npon the scene. Just at this 
 point Judge Diu-ell, of the United States district court, came to the 
 front. Up to this point Warmoth had seemed omnipotent. In- 
 sensible to law, to right, to decency, he had trampled on the com- 
 mands of the constitution, he had swapped judges, and dispensed 
 commissions at will. Throughout the whole scene of anarchy and 
 wild turmoil the democratic party had stood placid and serene. 
 According to its mythology despotism all that time had slumbered, 
 while the genius of liberty had laughed and clapped her hands. But 
 suddenly the genius of liberty was seen to shudder and take her 
 flight from Louisiana. Despotism in the form of Durell awoke and 
 stalked into the arena. From that moment the memory of all pre- 
 vious crimes was obliterated; the stifled voters, the rifled ballot- 
 boxes, the suppressed returns, the false and forged returns, were all 
 forgotten ; and the country from the Aroostook to the Belize, and 
 from Key West to Sitka, has resounded with anathemas upon Judge 
 Durell. Let it still so resound. It is not my i>urpose to defend 
 Judge Durell. But it is my purpose to show that he did not " oi'gan- 
 ize" the government of Louisiana; that he did not trench upon the 
 authority of the State ; that he did not divert by a hair's breadth 
 the current of her laws. How came Durell on that scene, and what 
 did he there ? Let it be remembered that more than half the voters 
 of Louisiana hold their right to vote not by the assent of the bal- 
 ance of her people, but under the sanction of the Constitution of the 
 United States. Congress stands specially instructed to legislate for 
 the enforcement of that right. Congress has legislated for its en- 
 forcement. 
 
 By the act of May, 1870, two great commanding guarantees are de- 
 clared to that right of suffrage. The third section provides substan- 
 tially that when by the laws of a State an act- is required to be done 
 as a condition for voting, an ofter to do the act, if wrongfully denied, 
 is equivalent to doing it. In other words, that an otter to register, 
 by one qualified to register, shall, if wrongfully refused, be deemed 
 equivalent to registry. The twenty-third section provides that if one 
 1)0 deprived of his election to any otitice, except that of elector for 
 President, Vice-President, member of Congress, or of the State Legis- 
 latiu-e, by reason of the denial of suttYage to any citizen on account 
 of race or color, his right to such office shall not be impaired thereby. 
 And such person may bring an appropriate suit in the circuit or dis- 
 tinct court of the United States "to determine the rights of the par- 
 ties to such oiiice." No lawyer, who concedes the validity of that 
 act, will deny that under its sanction the courts of the United 
 States had full jurisdiction to hear and determine the result of the 
 election of 1872 for every officer voted for, with the exceptions named, 
 if it was alleged that the result was controlled by the rejection of 
 votes on account of color. And no lawyer will deny that on such 
 hearing it was the duty of the court, to count in addition to all 
 the votes actually cast for parties at that election, every vote actu- 
 ally otfered and wrongfully rejected thereat. 
 
 Under the sanction of that act William P. Kellogg and C. C. Antoine 
 severally commenced suits in the circuit court of the United States, 
 District Judge Durell presiding. Kellogg's bill was filed on the IGth 
 of November ; Antoine's on the 7th of December. To one not famil- 
 iar with Louisiana practice both bills seem crudely drawn. Very likely 
 both would have been amended upon demurrer ; very likely some of the 
 
12 
 
 averments would have been struck out upon motion. But no sncTi 
 motion was submitted, no demurrer was interposed. Tlie court liad 
 jurisdiction of tlie subject-matter. Both bills contained the juris- 
 dictional averments, that, among other frauds perpetrated or con- 
 templated, was this : That ten thousand lawful votei"s had been de- 
 nied registration and suffrage on account of color. 
 
 I was told that the honorable Senator from Connecticut, whom I 
 do not see in his seat this evening, [Mr. Ferry,] said this afternoon 
 that the only averment which gave the district court jurisdiction 
 was an admitted perjury; that there was no pretense that any such 
 voters were rejected. Why, Mr. President, the Senator fi'orn Connect- 
 icut has been as much misled on this i^oint as I myself was several 
 years ago. The testimony is past all denial that there were thousands 
 of such votes rejected. But I did not expect to hear in the Senate 
 that the jurisdiction of a court depended upon the truth of the aver- 
 ments made in the bill. I supposed, so far as the question of jurisdic- 
 tion was concerned, if the bill contained the proper averments the 
 court would assume them to l)e true rather than disclaim jurisdiction 
 upon the assumption they were false. 
 
 Sir, the court had jnii.sdiction. 
 
 Whatever the court did in such a suit might be avoided for error,, 
 but it was not void. At least that is true so long as the court con- 
 fined its action to the relief prayed in the bill. In one particular the 
 court went beyond the prayer of the bill. To the Kellogg bill, Mc- 
 Enery, the democratic canflidate for gftvernbr, was made defendant, 
 with Warmoth and the Warmoth board of returns. A long catalogue 
 of frauds was recited as having been perpetrated pending and subse- 
 quent to the election. And the bill averred that all th )se frauds 
 were to be consunuuated by the canvass to be made by Warmoth's 
 pretended board of returns. The court was asked to restrain that 
 board from making a canvass and to restrain McEnery from entering 
 upon the office under color of their canvass. 
 
 Antoine's bill was more sweeping in its averments and more abun- 
 dant in supplication. In each case the restraining order was granted 
 in the very terms asked for. Of this no complaint seems to have been 
 made;. The tiiders were not even ajijiealcd from; they were simply 
 disregarded. But on the night of the (>tli of DecemlK'r the judge issued 
 an order in the Kellogg case not asked for by the bill. The material 
 part of this order was as follows: 
 
 It is liercby onlcred tli;it tlie marslial of the United States for the district of 
 Louisiana shall foithwith take jiossission of the huihlinj: knovvu as Mechanics' 
 Institute and (iccn|)ic(l as tlic- Slate liimse for the assembling of the Lciiishiture 
 therein, in the city i)f Xew Oilcans, and h(dd the same subject to the fnrtiier order 
 of tliis conrt, and in tlie mean while to prevent all unlawful asseiiiblaiic therein 
 under the iruise oi' jirctext of autlmrily claimed liy virtue of ])reteiided canvass and 
 returns made by said ]netendeil retiirnin;; olhcc^rs in contemjitand violation of said 
 restrainiufi order; but the marslial is directed to allow the inj^ress and egress to 
 and from the public offices iu .said hnilding of persons entitled to the same. 
 
 That order has been widely and fiercely denounced. I join in de- 
 nouncing it. It was a political and not a judicial order. By it the 
 judicial ermine was draggh'd in the mire of jjolitics, and of Louisiana 
 ixiliticsat tiiat; iiut liieorder harmed no num ; it deprived no single 
 biMug (if a single liglit. 
 
 It is said that order was void. I concede it for two rea.sons: First, 
 because I think it was void; and, second, becau.se, so far as its eft'eet 
 upon the character of the Legislature is concerned, it is wholly im- 
 mati'riiil whetlu^r it was void or voidable. If voidable merely, it was 
 a jiistilication for those who enforced it; if void, it was nojustilica- 
 
13 
 
 tioii for any one. In neither case did it or could it extinguish any 
 legal right. The wiiole scope of the order was to direct the marshal 
 to take possession of the State-house and prevent «w/rt«j/'«i assembling 
 therein. The marshal was expressly directed to allow ingress to and 
 egress from the otJii-es to all persons entitled to the same. All it said 
 or was intended to say is, allow all men to enter who have a right to 
 do so ; but let no man enter upon the authority of the Warmoth board. 
 All the law in Louisiana proclaimed i>recisely the same thing ; all the 
 law in Louisiana declarecl that the Wai-moth board had no authority 
 to license any one to enter the capitol of the State. That has been 
 declared by the suprone court of Louisiana^ in numerous cases. I 
 speak in the language of law and of common sense when I say a void 
 order of the court can foreclose no riglit. If that (U'der was void, and 
 in pursuance of it Marshal Packard kej^t any lawful member out of 
 the State-house, he and all who abetted him, including the judge, are 
 liable to the pai'ties aggrieved in damages to be recovered in any 
 court having jurisdiction. Yet I have not heard that any such suit 
 has been commenced. Sir, none will be commenced l)y any one 
 who is responsible for costs. Those limd lamenting innocents dare 
 not sue the judge or the marshal for keeping them out of the State- 
 house, because tliose men simply prevented their doing what the law 
 of the State forbid them to do. They know if they had entered that 
 building and attempted to control the organi/ation of either house, 
 every connnitliug magistrate in the city "was bound on complaint to 
 issue warrants for their arrest. 
 
 On such arrest they could ]dejid but one defense ; and that was the 
 canvass and return of the Warmoth board. Smdi defense was impo- 
 tent ; they knew it. The supreme court of the State has so especially 
 instructed them and us. 
 
 But it is said Durell's oi'di^r was actually enforced, and enforced by 
 Federal bayonets. All that is true. Two soldiers cr()ss(Hl bayonets 
 over the door of the capitol, and Warmoth's volunteers did not enter. 
 But the nuin who does a thing is no worse than he who orders it done. 
 If Dui'cll's order impaired no riglit, executing it impaired no right. 
 If under that order men were kei>t out of the State-house who had a 
 right to enter, the right survived the order of the judge and the duress 
 of the soldiers. If those restrained, on the contrary, had no right to 
 cTiter, then wrong only was baffled at the door of the capitol, and 
 right triumphed there. 
 
 The Court of Claims in this District has no equity jurisdiction 
 whatever. It cannot rightfully issue an injunction in any case. 
 But if it should issue an order, u])on the assembling of the next 
 House of Kei)resentatives, directing the marshal to permit every man 
 to enter who had a certilicate of elCction and to keep out all claim- 
 ants who had no cei'tilicates, it is difficult to see who would be ag- 
 grieved by that order. The General of the Army might set a brigade 
 of artillery to enforce it. Still the House would be organized by 
 the very men to whom the law assigns that duty ; and the lawyer 
 who should declare such House to be organized by the Court of 
 Claims wouhl be hooted out of professional circles. And even if the 
 Court of Claims should do what Durell did not do ; if it should order 
 that all who held certificates of election should be kept out and only 
 defeated candidates be admitted to the House, does any lawyer sup- 
 pose the Army could vitalize such an order as that ; that a House 
 of Representatives could be organized in pursuance of it ? The first 
 -attempt to enforce it would be the signal for the arrest of every 
 
14 
 
 judge who issued the order and every man who attempted to execute 
 it, whether in the uniform or out of it. 
 
 This is a Government of laws, not of force. The laws are admin- 
 istered by a variety of agents. Each one of these agents is protected 
 60 long as he keeps within his prescribed sphere and does only what 
 the law permits him to do. Not one of them has the slightest pro- 
 tection outside of that sphere. And of all those agents not one is so 
 jealously watched or more rigorously restrained within its prescribed 
 orbit than the military power. Everybody else may trespass and be 
 regarded with some indulgence, but the soldier who steps an inch 
 beyond the line prescribed to him has no forgiveness in this world and 
 is begrudged forgiveness in the next. This truth has been strikingly 
 illustrated during the past few weeks. 
 
 P^or years mobs, organized by a political interest and for a political 
 purpose, have ravaged large districts of the country, have shed blood 
 by the barrel and butchered men by the thousand. Except a little 
 intermittent whining on the part of some petulant republican in Con- 
 gress or an occasional lament from some republican newspaper, such 
 crimes have created no concern anywhere. Patriot statemen seemed 
 to think the tree of liberty grew all the more luxuriantly for being 
 watered by the blood of the helpless. The few who complained have 
 been jeered by the taunt that they were trying to make political 
 capital. A great soldier who called professional murderers " bandits" 
 has been denounced in this Chamber as untit to live. But, when 
 the other day, live rioters had forced themselves in defiance of law 
 into seats belonging to members of the Legislature of Louisiana 
 and two soldiei-s at the request of the governor escorted them out 
 without shedding a drop of blood, without making or even smooth- 
 ing a wrinkle in iheir garments in doing so. a part of this Senate 
 sprang to their feet as if they felt the Capitol begin to rock on its 
 foundation. The Senator from Missouri thought he heard freedom 
 shriek : the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Bayard] imagined he 
 heard the last groan of the expiring Constitution ; the disturbed 
 and overwrought fancy of the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Thlrmax] 
 caught the despairing wail of Louisiana herself, dyingbecause her laws 
 were enforced. The city of Boston a few years since saw her most 
 renowned citizen brutally beaten in the Senate Chamber and her 
 leading journal was moved to say only that the event was " unfor- 
 tunate."' But when Boston saw De Trobriand, at the request of the 
 governor unloose the clutch of five malefactors who held Louisiana 
 by the throat, she fainted from excess of sensibility and was only 
 restored to consciousness when Wendell Pliillijis threw cold water in 
 her face. Later still, the city of New York looked on unrutHed while 
 a political procession filed through her streets Haunting in God's sun- 
 light a banner inscribed witli "Kansas and Sumner — let them bleed." 
 Yet when New York saw a few soldiers restore peace and laic to the 
 capital of Louisiana she made a rt'Si>octable attempt at hysterics. 
 Her great jurist, who has learnedly discussed the history of the 
 Constitution, was scared into utter forgetfulness of its text. Her 
 great attorney, who keeps on hand the largest and most varied as- 
 sortment of legal opinions to be found anywhere, seized the occasion 
 to put on the market some of his goods more faded and shop- worn 
 thaneventhe retail ilealersin ( alicoever caretooffer; and he whom, but 
 a few days since, tlie Legislature of New York introdined to the coun- 
 try a.s her "most eminent jioet,"' lie who sang so sweetly of " Thana- 
 topsis" ami "A Forest Hymn,'' gave alarming symptoms that it was 
 
15 
 
 time for liim once more to retire to the '' Solitudes" and " reassure his 
 feeble virtue." 
 
 Soldiers who were denounced as " Lincoln's hirelings," even when 
 bleeding in the toils of civil war, must expect very bitter rebuke if 
 they presume to disperse a mob. 
 
 Mr. President, imder Durell's order no violence was done to any 
 one. It surely sacrificed no life. It practically saved many lives. 
 There is too much reason to believe that but for the presence of 
 these soldiers Warmoth's volunteers, backed by his police, would 
 have flooded the State-house. Then a collision between those having 
 right to seats under the certificates of the legal board, and those 
 claiming right under the certificates of the condemned board, is too 
 probable. In that event the sacrifice of human life was sure to be 
 the result. 
 
 Still Durell left the domain of the judge and entered that of the 
 politician. For that act he has been driven from the bench, and his 
 name is made a theme of reproach throughout two hemispheres. 
 History will some time take note of the difference between the treat- 
 ment accorded to Judge Durell and that accorded to the late Chief 
 Justice Taney. In Kellogg against Warmoth and others a district 
 judge, having jurisdiction of the case, issued an order said to be void. 
 He did it for i>olitical and party reasons. All that may be admitted. 
 But it impaired no individual right. It tended to preserve right. 
 It did not insult Louisiana ; it saved Louisiana from insult. It did 
 not defy her authority ; it preserved her authority. 
 
 But the case of Dred Scott against Sandford was not heard by a 
 district court. It was tried in the court of last resort. That court 
 avowed its utter want of jurisdiction. The issue was entirely feigned 
 and purely political. The question decided was much disputed be- 
 tween political ])arties, but not at all disputed Ijy the parties to the 
 record. Dred Scott was made to claim his freedom. But he did not 
 waut his freedom. His former owner had tried in vain to drive him 
 into freedom and into Illinois. Sandford was made to resist that 
 claim. But he did uot own Dred Scott. He, if a slave at all, belonged 
 to the wife of a Massachusetts member of Congress. She for a long 
 time was ignorant of the litigation ; and when by accident she 
 learned of it, she at ouce took steps to manumit the man. The facts 
 in the case were agreed to by counsel and not proved by witnesses, and 
 could not be proved by witnesses. Sitting upon the trial of that 
 mock cause, the Chief Justice dared to say that no State could make of 
 a man a citizen, privileged to sue in the courts of the United States, 
 though the man was born upon her soil and born free, if iie had any 
 African blood in his veins; and he said all that in the teeth of many 
 earlier decisions holding that a soulless corporation, a mere artificial 
 person, created by the laws of the same Slate to make shoes or mop- 
 handles, was such a citizen and privileged to sue in the Federal courts. 
 And then, having declared that neither Dred Scott nor any of his race 
 had any right to come into the Federal courts for judgment of any 
 kind, the Chief Justice kei)t him there, made him the representative 
 of his race, while he went on to pronounce a judgment as much more 
 perverse and atnjcious than DurcU's order, as that order was more 
 atrocious than Popham's judgment in the case of Monopolies. With 
 nobody to speak for the great interests he undertook to doom, but 
 such counsel as chose to appear for poor Dred Scott, he not only 
 pronounced a judgment wliich consigned him to bondage, but one 
 which annulled all the laws which Congress had enacted in the course 
 of sixty years iinjhibiting slavery in the dirtcr<'nt Territories of the 
 
16 
 
 Union, and -which refasteneil the cliains upon all who by migration 
 to such Territories had been emancipated. 
 
 it is doubtful if a judgment so sweeping or so malignant hi its 
 effects was ever before given, not excepting the judgment which 
 Charles I extorted in favor of ship-money, or that challenged by 
 James II in favor of the dispensing power. Taney survived that 
 terrible decree. One great ](o]iticMl party applauded it ; another 
 party regarded it only as a foul blot upon the escutcheon of a great 
 jurist. In spite of it the Chief Justice went down to his grave 
 still honored ; and his country, while it reversed his sliameful de- 
 cree, has but lately ordered his statue to be placed with that of other 
 chiefs in the hall of that court wherein he consigned a man, and 
 thought he consigned an empire, to slavery. 
 
 Mr. Warmoth was defeated but not coiuiuered. He rallied for one 
 more effort. Louisiana, re-eiiforced by two soldiers, hail maintained 
 the supremacy of her laws. Louisiana law declared that those sena- 
 tors and representatives whose names are placed on the rolls by the 
 clerk and secretary, respectively, in accordance with the ceititicate of 
 the board of returns, "and none other," shall be competent to organize 
 the house of representatives aikl senate. Precisely those senators and 
 members, " and none others," had been permitted to organize the sen- 
 ate and house of re})resentatives. But having failed to force his 
 volunteers into the capitol, Warmoth made one last effort to jerk the 
 capitol from under the Legislature. The Mechanics' Institute, so 
 called, in the city of New Orleans, had been occupied as the capitol 
 of the State. There her Legislature has assembled year after year. 
 There the governor and other executive and administrative officers 
 of the State had their offices. There the new Legislature convened 
 pursuant to Governor Warmoth's proclamation on the 9th of Decem- 
 ber, 1872. But on the lltli of the same December the ii'repressible 
 governor issued liis proclamation, naming the city hall as the capitol. 
 There he betook himself, and there he assenibled all his volunteers 
 who had been excluded from the Legislature by the board of returns, 
 and some who had not been so excluded. And as he had before in 
 defiance of law attem]ited to make a board of returns and secretary 
 of state, judges, sheriffs, and attorney-general, he now attempted to 
 make a Legislature. On the 10th of January, nearly a month after 
 the governor opened his sidi; legislature, six senators deliberately 
 withdrew from tlie senate sitting in Mechanics' Institute and re- 
 ]taired to the city liall. Nothing could nu)re forcil>ly demonstrate 
 the utter and wanton disregard of law which characterized the whole 
 Warmotli party than that act of the seceding senators. 
 
 Louisiana has been paraded before the country and exhibited at 
 every democratic fair as the nnudi-suffering, long-forbearing victim 
 of oi)j)reKsion because certain men were kept out of her Legislature, 
 every (me of Avhom her laws ])roliibited from entering the door. Yet 
 when six senators, whoso rights to seats were untiuestioned, volun- 
 tarily withdrew therefrom, according to democratic diagnosis Lou- 
 isiana was nut hurt but healed thereby. Mere common sense would 
 be ajtt to conclnde that a State would snlb^r as much, when one she 
 ]iad commissiom'd as senator, withdrew from her service, as when one 
 she had refusiul to commission, was excluded from that service. Ac- 
 cording t(» dcimocratic dialectic's Louisiana rejoices when her laws 
 are detied and agonizes only when they are obeyed. 
 
 Yet those senators not only left th«^ senate after they liad acted 
 ■with it for a month, lint they assembled with a body which for a 
 month I hey had dtMiied to be a senate. A senator, even a Louisiana 
 
17 
 
 senator, though a democrat, should be able to discover the senate- 
 house in less than a month. But vSenator Todd and his seceding col- 
 leagues seem to have believed the senate of Louisiana was an 
 itinerant body and traveled with them ; that where they went the 
 senate went, and where they rest^ed the senate rested. Those gentle- 
 men left the senate and published to the world, their reasons for 
 going. Only one of those reasons demands my notice, and that only 
 because it suggests the real difficulty iu tlie Louisiana case. They 
 make no question as to who composed the board of returns, but they 
 pithily say "the question who constitutes the legal returning board 
 is subordinate to the question what are the returns. The returning 
 officers may count in or count out members, but the returns will 
 show for themselves." 
 
 The very gist of the Louisiana case could not be more succinctly 
 stated. A board of returns may count in men who are not elected 
 and may count out men who are elected. Nowhere is that great fact 
 better understof)d than in Louisiana. What they refuse to under- 
 stand there is that the law of Loiiisiana declares the count of the 
 board of returns to be prima fade correct, and that those, and only 
 those " counted in" are allowed to take part in the organization of 
 the Legislature. That ahouseand senate organized by those "counted 
 in," to the exclusion of those " counted out," is the only authority to 
 correct the count of the board of retiirns. Tlie board of returns may 
 certify that one is elected to the house when the returns in their pos- 
 session show another to have been elected. But tlie law of Louisiana 
 is explicit, and says even in that case the certiiicate is prima facie evi- 
 dence of riglit to a seat, and the remedy for that foul wrong is for 
 the house, when organized, to lay before the world the true returns, 
 seat the true member, and consign the faithless board to infamy. If, 
 as is possible, at least in Louisiana, the board returns a majority as 
 infamous as themselves, that majority may coniirm and not correct 
 the outrage. The only redress for such a villainy is to appeal to the 
 people at the next election. But if, as is possible, the people are as 
 corrupt as the members of the board and the members of the house, 
 then the State is hopelessly imbedded in corruption, and her people 
 at least are iiutitted for self-government. 
 
 "The I'eturns will show for themselves," it is said. Only upon one 
 condition will they show for themselves. They must be seen before 
 they will show for themselves. The returns of the Louisiana election 
 have not been seen, only in part; and no one yet surely knows how 
 large or how small a portion of the returns have been seen. But even 
 when seen the returns will only speak for themselves. They are not 
 sure to speak for the parislies. Unhappily a parish supervisor can lie 
 as well as a board of returns. Very strong proof is required to rebut 
 the evidence that some of those supervisors did lie in 1872. And the 
 returns when truthful are not conclusive of tlie vote of the precincts. 
 The returns when true only show the state of the boxes when opened 
 by the supervisor. The boxes may have been falsified by the com- 
 missioners before the supervisor saw them. Many of the boxes in 
 1872 were so falsified. Nor is the box when not stuffed conclusive of 
 the election ; ballots from illegal voters may be, and iu Louisiana 
 were, received into the boxes ; ballots from legal voters may be, and 
 in Louisiana were, excluded from the boxes. 
 
 Undoubtedly it is the duty of the hotise wlien a seat is contested 
 
 to disregard the certificate of the board if it be contradicted by the 
 
 returns. 8o it is the duty of the house also to disregard the returns, 
 
 if it be shown bv comjietent proof that they do not present the true 
 
 2 H 
 
18 
 
 state of the boxes when the voting closed. Even the boxes may be 
 impeached by proof that illegal votes were deposited in them or le- 
 gal votes exchided from them. The houBe of representatives, when 
 organized and called npon to adjudicate between rival claimants to 
 seats, has but one question to solve — what was the actual wish of the 
 constituency? In the solution of that question the certificate of the 
 returning ofricer, the return of the supervisor, ballots received by 
 the connnissioners of election, are only so many difterent witnesses, 
 and all those witnesses may be contradicted by the testimony of the 
 electors, showing that some who voted were disqualified to vote, and 
 others who were qualified were denied the right to do so. Whoever 
 would impeach the judgment of the House must show not merely 
 that it is not supported by one or the other of those witnesses, but 
 that it does not conform to the will of the constituent body. 
 
 No man legally accredited was excluded from the capitol by the 
 military guard employed by Marshal Packard in 1872. Every man so 
 excluded on the 9th of December, 1872, and every man removed from 
 the house on the 4th of January, 1874, was attempting a criminal 
 usurpation. He was in open and flagrant revolt against the supreme 
 authority of tlie State. He would liave been no guiltier if he had 
 attempted to force himself into a judicial office as Elmore did, or into 
 an executive or municipal ofhce as others did. It will not do to say 
 they were in fact elected, for two reasons : First, because no one 
 knows the fact to be so ; and, second, because if the fact were known 
 to be so, yet lacking the certificate of the ret urning ofificers, they could 
 not be permitted to seats but by the vote of the house or senate after 
 its organization. 
 
 In 1855 the vote for governor in Wisconsin was very close. The 
 State canvassers were democrats. They gave their certificate to the 
 democratic candidate. That certificate was prima facie evidence of 
 his right to the ofnce. But it was well known that in order to arrive 
 at that result the State canvassers had added to the returns made by 
 the different counties a few hundred votes said to have been given 
 at isolated and unauthorized precincts not known to the county 
 ofificers. They pur})orted to come from localities where no poll could 
 be legally held, where no vote was given, where no voter lived. 
 They were certified by persons who could not be found. It was a 
 patent, audacimis fraud. But no man in Wisconsin thought of resist- 
 ing by force tlie candidate who received tlie ccrtilicato. Ho was 
 inaugurafcid witli imposing ceremonies, both civil and military. But 
 juntas soon as the ceremony was concluded the true claimant filed 
 an information in the supreme court. That information averred the 
 true result and tlie unlawful intrusion. In about sixty days the 
 court, after a full disclosure of the frauds, gave judgment for the 
 relator. The intruder ^\ alked out and the lawful governor walked 
 into the executive cliambcr. 
 
 But in Louisiana, upon the mere naked, unsupported assumption 
 that men ought to liave had certificates who did not have them, it 
 is clnmorously insisted they ought to have acted precisely as if they 
 had them, 
 
 'I'lio.se men attempted to seize by violence npon the liigh preroga- 
 tives of a Legislature. They were defeated. 
 
 And light liere in the Senate CI amber, as if we were as deaf to the 
 voice of law as Louisiana seems to be, while not one word of criti- 
 cism lias been bestowed upon tliose who attempted that daring crime, 
 the utmost cai)al)ilities of our larguage have been exhausted to sup- 
 ply ciiithets sufliciently opprobrous to hurl at tiiose who prevented 
 
19 
 
 it. It really seems as if iu Louisiana, crime brought glory to a demo- 
 crat, while to prevent crime makes a republican infamous. 
 
 Durell, wearing the mantle of a Federal judge, stepped in between 
 the contending factious of Louisiana. He said, " Thus far, and no 
 farther."' He did not once put aside his mask to assure the crowd it 
 was only Durell that roared and not the nation. The mob, conscious of 
 guilt, mistook him for the nation, and straightway threats were 
 changed to laments, bluster to entreaty, the hovering satellites of 
 murder skulked to their holes, anarchy smoothed its wrinkled front, 
 law and order reigned in New Orleans, peace staid her flight from 
 the doomed city, and democracy, clothed in sackcloth, abandoned 
 itself to despair. 
 
 Judge Dui'cll has been crucified. That ought to be accepted as a 
 sufficient atonement for his offense. 
 
 The board of returns has been loudly condemned for issuing certifi- 
 cates of election to parties without having the official returns. But 
 they demanded those returns and were denied them. Why stone the 
 board for discharging their duty upon the best evidence they had, 
 and yet applaud the governor who refused them better evidence? 
 
 The board has been loudly condemned for counting votes which 
 were never jiolled. They dicl that in two instances. Eleven hun- 
 dred and fifty-nine votes were so counted from the parish of Bossier, 
 and twelve hundred and six from Natchitoches. They were counted 
 upon the affidavits of so many colored citizens, wdio swore they were 
 qualified to vote and oftered to vote, but were denied the right. It is 
 not certain the boaixl was authorized to count such votes. It is cer- 
 tain the Legislature would have been bound to count them if true. 
 
 There is every prol)ability the affidavits were true. In the parish 
 of Bossier 1,795 colored voters were registered, and the commission- 
 ers of elections admit that only 555 republicans of both colors were 
 allowed to vote. So in Natchitoches, 1,875 colored voters registered 
 and the conunissioners admit the polling of only 555 republican votes 
 of both colors. Why stone the board for counting votes which ought 
 to have been received and yet applaud the comiuissioners of elec- 
 tions for refusing to receive them? 
 
 From the parish of Plaquemines similar affidavits were obtained 
 which were not true. 
 
 One Theodore Jacfues testified that he forged 1,313 such affidavits, 
 and that he never saw the inen whose names he signed to them. It 
 is a monstrous story. Like Blanchard's story of his registry, its mon- 
 strosity alone gives It credibility. The man is evidently capable of 
 just such conduct. Whether he did what he swore he did, or swore 
 he did what he did not do, there would seem to be no limit to his 
 capability for villainy. His avowed theory is "that all tricks are fair 
 in politics." It is difficult to conceive what use they make of peni- 
 tentiaries in Louisiana if such men keep outside of them. He told 
 the Committee on Privileges and Elections he had concluded to quit 
 politics and go to farming. Let us hope it is so. It is possible the 
 generous soil of Louisiana will not shrink from such contact. That 
 is probably the only form of matter that could endure it. 
 
 How many of those affidavits were counted does not appear. It is 
 not certain any were counted. It is evident all were not. The super- 
 visor of elections returned 1,034 re])ublican votes from that parish. 
 The board of returns returned only 2,ltJ3. If that board counted any 
 of those affidavits, it is difficult to understand why they did not count 
 the whole. If they counted none, it is not apparent how the return 
 of the board was made to vary so much from the return of the super- 
 
20 
 
 the republican candidate for member of Congress. The republican 
 candidate was returned elected by a majority of less than 100 votes. 
 The jurisdiction of the House of Eepresentatives over that single 
 piece of rascality is complete. The House can adequately expose and 
 if not adequately, can partially punish it. 
 
 A very few words will suffice to show how far the President is 
 committed to the Government organized in pursuance of the finding 
 of the board of returns. It will be remembered the President was 
 not a member of that board. He had no communication with it. He 
 exerted no control over it. He supplied none of the evidence upon 
 which it acted. He withheld none of the evidence which it ought to 
 have had. The board was purely a State tribunal. It spoke in the 
 name of Louisiana, not in the name of the United States. Its decrees 
 were Louisiana decrees, not United States decrees. Prior to the publi- 
 cation of their fiiuling William P. Kellogg had commenced suit in the 
 United States court to vindicate his title to the office of governor. The 
 suit was expressly authorized by act of Congress. Process in the name 
 of the United States, tested by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 
 issued in that suit on the 16th of November. The Attorney-General 
 had been informed that Warmoth had disregarded the orders of the 
 court. " Tliat the enforcement laws had been defied by over one-half 
 of Warmoth's election olhcers." That the United States circuit court 
 had "restrained Warmoth and his canvassing board from canvassing 
 votes pending a trial of rule for injunction." All this was known ta 
 the President. It was also known that Warmoth was running a pri- 
 vate board of returns in defiance of Louisiana. That by the usurjjcd 
 authority of that board he had resolved to set up a government in 
 accordance with the prophecies of the previous summer, and organ- 
 ize a Legislature which would elect McEnery for governor and him- 
 self for United States Senator. 
 
 Such was the situation when on the 3d of December the Attorney- 
 General telegraphed to the marshal — 
 
 Yon are to enforce the decrees and mandates of tlie TTnited States courts, no 
 matter by whom resisted, and General Emory will fiuiiish you with all the neces- 
 sary troops for the purpose. 
 
 That was all — that was the sole utterance prior to the organization 
 of the so-called Kellogg government. That was all the President had 
 to do with the organization of that government. That telegram was 
 sent before Duridl had issued his order to Marshal Packard, du-ecting 
 him to take i)ossession of the capitol. The Senator from Kentucky 
 [Mr. Stkvkxso.n] tliis afternoon very candidly acknowledged that 
 the President was bound to assume that the orders and decrees of the 
 Federal courts would be correct and not incorrect. When he issued 
 that ord(u- he had no intimation tliat any decree that was not valid 
 had issued from tlie court or would issue from the court. 
 
 "You will enforc'c the decrees aiid mandates of the United States 
 courts, no matter by whom resisted," said the Attorney-General. 
 
 That brief dlspatcli was eminently republican. I liave no disposi- 
 tion to deny tliat. The republican party has for a long time rather 
 made a point ui)on enforcing tlie decrees and mandates of the United 
 States courts. It liasexiicuded a great deal of treasure, of blood, and 
 of life to i)reserve in this great country that stat« of obedience to 
 law which would enable the process of "the United States courts to 
 run evi-ry where througluuit its limits. 
 
 Another Cabinet minister sent a similar dispatch into that very 
 neighborhood a few years before. That minister did not content 
 
21 
 
 visor. It is said those affidavits were obtained to aid the election of 
 himself with directing his sultordinates to enforce the decrees of 
 the conrt. Sncli decrees are express commands of the nation, attested 
 by the highest judicial magistrate in the nation. Whoever resists 
 such decrees is in open revolt against the authority of the nf^tion. 
 The Attorney-General merely told his subordinates not to surrender 
 to such a revolt, but to enforce the national command in spite of the 
 revolt. Secretary Dix was a little more explicit and more startling 
 in his directions. Ho poiitted his subordinates not to an express 
 command of the nation, not to a sealed writ from a court, but he 
 pointed them to a more insensible emblem of the national authority, 
 a mere silken fabric, suspended from a wooden shaft, inscribed with 
 only the simjdest devices and with no commands, entitled to no sort 
 of respect only from the fact that the nation had adopted it for its 
 ensign and had ordered it to float from that shaft ; and yet Dix told 
 his subordinate if any man" attempted to haul down that tlag to "shoot 
 him on the spot." 
 
 If Secretary Dix can be forgiven for ordering the man to be shot 
 who insults the flag, surely tlie President ought to be forgiven for 
 directing tlie decrees of the United States courts to be enforced. 
 
 The precise purpose of republican Presidents is to enforce the de- 
 crees of the courts. They are sworn to take care that the laws are 
 faithfully executed. The'laws cannot be execute<l nnless the decrees 
 of the courts are enforced. For that very purpose he has command of 
 an Army and Navy. While President Grant continues to command 
 the Army the decrees of the United States courts will be very apt to 
 be enforced. 
 
 Democrats may reason diflerently of the duties of a President ; 
 they may snppose it to be the duty of a President to enforce the de- 
 crees of a caucus instead of the courts. The last democratic Presi- 
 dent v/e had, obedient to caucus, but regardless of law, kept the 
 Armv very still while a terrible rebellion organized for its bloody en- 
 counter. 'What countless millions a single regiment would have been 
 worth in December, 181)0, if thrown into Fort Sumter in connuand of 
 General Sheridan, and under a President who had '-confldence" in 
 in him! • 
 
 Sir, what nse the next democratic President will make of the Army 
 cannot perhaps be foretold with certainty. But it is already painfully 
 evident that unless the democratic party shall be born again before such 
 a President assumes command of the Army, the Ku-Klux of the Caro- 
 linas and the White Leagues of Louisiana will have nothing to fear 
 from it, nor will the hunted peasantry of the Sonth have anything 
 to hope from it. 
 
 I repeat, sir, the only part the President enacted in the organiza- 
 tion of the government of Louisiona in 1872 was to say that the de- 
 crees of the United States courts must be enforced. Before he was 
 called upon to say or do anything further the Legislature of the State 
 had assembled in pursuance of the proclamation of Governor War- 
 moth. In the senate appeared twenty-nine members; thirteen of 
 them were senators Iwlding over; eight were new senators whose 
 elections were certified by both boards of returns ; two were senators 
 whose elections were certified by the legal board from districts in 
 which the pretended board returned no election ; the remaining six 
 were returned by the legal board from districts from which the other 
 board returned other members. 
 
 In the house appeared and were sworn in sixty-nine members; 
 
thii'ty-tliree of them were returned by both boards ; the rest were 
 returned bj' the legal board only. The names of every one of those 
 members in either house had been inscribed on the roll by the clerk 
 or the secretary, the only ofticers who could rightfully put any 
 name on the roll. Every name had been transmitted to the clerk or 
 secretary of the senate by the secretary of state, and had been certi- 
 fied to liim by the board of returns. Every one of them was there- 
 fore authorized by the very letter of the law to take part in the or- 
 ganization of their respective houses. Others having the same right 
 to participate did not do so ; not however because they could not, 
 but because they would not. No representative ever appeared in 
 any legislative body with more formal or legal credentials. There 
 was but one power in Louisiana which could impeach the right of 
 one of those membei's, and that was the house in which he took his 
 seat. Whoever else denies to one of those members the character 
 of representative, puts the law of Louisiana under his feet. 
 
 Against the authority of that Legislature so organized, in strict 
 conformity to the laws of the State, Warraoth openly revolted. 
 
 On the very day it assembled, the house of representatives im- 
 peached him, and on tlie same day the two hoiises by joint resolution 
 requested the President to furnish that protection guaranteed to every 
 State when threatened by domestic violence. The President hesi- 
 tated. On the 11th of December the Attorney-General rex)lied to the 
 request of the Legislature as follows : 
 
 "Whenever it becomes necessary in the jiidgraeut of the President the State will 
 be protected against domestic violence. 
 
 The President was plied with entreaties from various parties to in- 
 dicate which organization he would recognize. He was assured his 
 decision would restore quiet. 
 
 On tlie 12th the Attorney-General telegraphed to the acting gov- 
 ernor in these words : 
 
 Let it be understood tliat you are recognized by the President as the lawful 
 executive of I^oni.siana, and that the body assembled at Meclianics' Institute is 
 the lawful L('t;i,slatur(i of tbc State, and it is suggested that you make proclama- 
 tion to (hat. cticct, and also lliat all lU'ccssaiv assistaiicr will be i;ivt-n to you and 
 the JiCgislature lieiein rifogni/.cd to prottct the State from disorder and violence. 
 
 A simple declaration of the Attorney-General in advance of the 
 actual necessity for the emjtloyment of force, a sim])le proclamation 
 making known what was the o})inion already arrived at. 
 
 Still Warmotli refused to submit, and on the 13th General Emory, 
 commanding tlie United States forces at New Orleans, telegraphed to 
 the Adjutant-tJeneral of tlie Army as follows : 
 
 There is imminent danger of immediate conflict between two armed bodies of 
 men of some considerable numbers — one body of Stair militia rcincscjitiiig (iover- 
 nor Warmoth, holding an aiseual; the other an armed body of jiolici', ropn-.seiitinjT 
 Governor I'inchback. I have been apiicaled to to int(^rlVru. Shall I do so; and if 
 I interfere, to which party shall the ar.scniil lii' delivered ? The parties are face to 
 face with arms in their haiids. I began immediate answer. Iscntan otHcer to try 
 what can be done by persnasion t« siisiiend the coiitlict until an answer can be re- 
 ceived. There will be no resist«ince to the Federal forc(is. 
 
 That Avas from General Emory, and in reply to that dispatch, and 
 on that very day, the Adjutant-General replied to General Emory : 
 
 You may use all necessary force to preserve the peace, and will recognize the 
 authority of Governor Pinch'ba<;k. 
 
 There was the final dicision. The President might have decided 
 dilferentl.v; but he Avas compelled to decide. A])pealed to for ])rotec- 
 tion by tliose who claimed to represent a State, he could not escape the 
 resjxmsibility of giving judgment upon the validity of that claim. 
 
23 
 
 AVhctlior lie was active or passive, whether lie spoke or kept silent, 
 he concluded the right of the parties to the conflict. If he granted 
 the protection asked for, he recognized the authority of the jiarties 
 asking for it. If he denied that protection, he denied the right to ask 
 for it. If he denied the right of one party, he of necessity aflirmed 
 the rightof the other. To ignore the character of the hody in Mechan- 
 ics' Institute was to assert the renresentative character of that in city 
 hall. 
 
 Such was the necessity which hedged the President in. The light 
 in which he acted was very murky. Clouds and thick darkness denser 
 than the fog which covers Newfoundland rested upon the case before 
 him. Ingenious, unscrupulous men, hating light and courting dark- 
 ness, had done their utmost to obscure the trutli. Great pivotal 
 questions arising upon the laws of the State which have since been 
 decided by the supreme court were then in litigation. If under such 
 circumstances he had erred, charity would have f(nind some milder 
 epithet than that of despot, knave, or blockhead by which to char- 
 acterize him. Bat he did not err. He struck the truth of the case 
 in the very white. He had no means of investigating the actual re- 
 sult of the voting at thedifterent election precincts. He could right- 
 fully inquire and determine only what the constituted tribunals of 
 Louisiana said of that result. 
 
 The law was very plain that the Legislature of the State should 
 determine the result of the election for governor and lieutenant-gov- 
 ernor. But he found two diftereut assemblies claiming to be the 
 Legislature. The law was very plain that the secretary of state 
 must furnish the list of senators and members elected. But he found 
 two men claiming to be secretary of state. The law was very plain 
 that only the board of returns could canvass the vote and inform the 
 secretary of the result. But he found two tribunals claiming to be 
 a board of returns. He decided that Lynch and his associates were 
 the true board of returns ; that Bovee was the true secretary of state ; 
 and he obediently followed their determinations. In both those con- 
 elusions he is supported by the highest judicial authority of the State.. 
 
 All the authority thei'e was in Louisiana declared the Legislature 
 which made Kellogg governor and sent Pinchback to the Senate to 
 be her Legislature. That declaration concludes this Senate or it does 
 not. The determinations of State tribunals as to the result of a local 
 election are or are not final. It has been ably maintained in this 
 Chamber that under the power to guarantee republican forms of gov- 
 ernment to the several States Congress is charged with the duty of 
 supervising all their elections, and to see that all the results attained 
 are in accord with the will of their people. Others have urged that 
 the power confided to this Senate to judge of the electitni of its mem- 
 bers of necessity clothes it with the authority to inquire and deter- 
 mine the election of every member in that Legislature which sends a 
 Senator here. 
 
 Mr. President, I do not now deny either of these propositions, nor 
 do I aflirra either of them; but upon this proposition I take my stand. 
 If there be in the Senate or in Congi'css the ])ower to review and 
 reverse the determinations of a State as to the election of her ofticers, 
 there is but one legitimate way in which to prosecute that review. 
 We cannot correct the decision of a superior tribunal by the judg- 
 ment of an inferior one. Still less can we correct the decision of a 
 real tribunal by the declarations of a mock tribunal. We cannot 
 impeach the canvass of a board of returns by the canvass of those 
 who merely pretend to be a board of returns. Xor can we impeach 
 
21 
 
 the fiijding: of the board of returns by the returns themselves unless 
 we have true and full returns. Such returns the supervisors never 
 made of the Louisiana election for 1872. The certificates of return- 
 ing officers, of supervisors, and of comnjissioners may lie contradicted 
 by the testimony of the electors themselves. If the Senate has any 
 duty in the premises it is not to inquire ■\v)iat this agent or tbat agent 
 said about the election, but what the people themselves said at the 
 election. If McEnery was elected governor in 1872 it is easy to show 
 it, unless democrats have destroyed the records it was their duty to 
 preserve. 
 
 The books of registration will sshow the name of every elector who 
 was registered in 1872 ; the poll-lists will show the names of those 
 who voted ; they themselves can tell in case of dispute how they 
 voted. Comparing the poll-lists with the registry you will have the 
 names of those who did not vote. If any of those Avho did not vote 
 tried to do so and were wrongfully denied the right, their votes must 
 be counted as if they were cast. The act of May, 1870, expressly com- 
 mands that. If Congress is the tribunal of last resort up^u the elec- 
 tion of a governor, or a sheriff, or a parish jndge, Congress will un- 
 doubtedly see that the requirements of its own statutes are observed. 
 No pnulent democrat who is fanuliar with the circumstances sur- 
 rounding the election of 1872 will court such an inquiry. 
 
 No such inquiry has yet been made. The Committee on Privileges 
 and Elections were charged to inquire whether Eay or McMillen 
 were elected to the Senate by the Louisiana Legislature of 1873. 
 They appeared in January of that year; the term for which they 
 claimed expired on the 4th of March following. Both of those claim- 
 ants required a speedy determination, not a thorough investigation. 
 Both protested against going Ijack of the prima facie title. They 
 managed the contest ; they marshaled the testimony, and when 
 neither of them had moi'e evidence to offer the inquiry closed. 
 
 It has been repeatedly asserted that the investigation of that com- 
 mittee proved Mclhiery's election. I undertake to say, sir, it stops 
 very far short of showing any siu-h thing. To my understanding it 
 shows too clearly for doubt that Kellogg was elected. I do not for- 
 get the various and contradictory conclusions to which different mem- 
 bers of that committee arrived. One member thought Kellogg was 
 elected and the Itody sitting in Mechanics' Institute was the true" Leg- 
 islature. One thought McEnery was elected and the assembly at city 
 hall was the Legislature. One thought the result of the election was 
 so mixed that a s])ccial Legislature should be convened by act of Con- 
 gress, co)>si8iiiiri of pirmns to he vamcd hi the act, and that Legislature 
 should determine who was elected. The rest of the committee con- 
 cluded that the r(!sult was so mixed it never could be ascertained, and 
 so advised that Congress sliould order a new election. 
 
 If I am ev(U' found hcrealYer intolerant of any, even the wildest 
 vagaries in human oitiniou, it will be a sufficient reproof to remind 
 me that I voted in 1873 to order a new election in Louisiana. The 
 report of the couunittcio was made on the 20th of February. The 
 session ended on tlu'. 4th of March. 
 
 The testimony occupied nearly a thousand pages. It was impossi- 
 ble to examine it. The committee was divided'into four parties. I 
 shut my eyes and went with the strongest party; porliai)S not so 
 much because it was the strongest party as because it was led by my 
 colleague, [Mr. Caiii'kntick,] in whose fidelity as a republican aiid ii\ 
 whose accunicy as a lawyer I had then as I have still very great 
 confidence. Besides, the eccentricities of Judge Durell and the vil- 
 
25 
 
 lainies of Theodore Jaques had been brandished before niyeycs nuiil 
 I had come to believe, the more my track diverged from theirs, the 
 more likely I was to be right. Even in following the majority my 
 greatest fear was that we might be unjust to McEnery. 
 
 The majority of the committee urged that democrats perpe- 
 trated fraud enough to vitiate their title under that election. But 
 they did not point out the frauds. The chairman of the committee 
 pronounced the election an " organized fraud," but he did not explain 
 what that meant. Senator Hill thought the election in some parishes 
 unfair and in oWiexs fraudulent , but ux)ou the whole as fair as Louisi- 
 ana is accustomed to see. 
 
 Senator Trumbull admitted that "fraud was practiced in some of 
 the parishes and that irregularities existed in others," yet he coti- 
 cluded the election was not unfair in " more than two-thirds of the 
 State," and he thought it ought to satisfy a reasonable Senate if it 
 was fair in a third of the State. 
 
 All was vague, shadowy, and uncertain touching the wrongs com- 
 mitted at and prior to the election. But after the election the narra- 
 tive assumed the utmost amplitude of detail. The mistakes of the 
 board of returns, the antics of Durell, the forgeries of Jaques, the 
 action of the President, were served up to us hot and smoking, were 
 hashed and rehashed, and the whole castor of rhetoric was emptied 
 into the mess for seasoning. So I lost my way ; and I soon came to 
 fear the majority of the committee had lost their way. My colleague 
 knows that more than once I told him he had failed to convince me 
 that McEnery was not elected, and he knows that when a year 
 ago I commenced the examination of the testimony for myself, I ex- 
 pected to find the evidence of that election and was resolved in such 
 case to declare it. But two candidates ran for governor. No one 
 pretends there was a tie vote. It is morally certain one or tlie other 
 bad a majority of the votes cast on the 4th of November. Whoever 
 had that majority was elected, unless colored votes were offered for 
 the other candidate and illegally rejected, enough to overcome that 
 majority. If such was the case, then the other candidate was elected. 
 
 If McEnery had 5,000 majority of the ballots cast for governor, but 
 5,001 votes were offered for Kellogg but rejected on account of color, 
 then it is evident if the 5,001 votes had been received Kellogg would 
 have been elected. It is also just as evident that in such case he was 
 elected notwithstanding the rejection of those votes. The statute is 
 peremptory. Kellogg's title to the office cannot be impaired by such 
 rejection. And that is the language of your own law. If you want 
 to go behind the decision of the Legislature of Louisiana, behind the 
 certificate of the secretary of state, behind the certificate of the 
 board of returns, behind the judgment of the supreme court of that 
 State; if you want to go to the election precincts, go there and 
 ascertain not only how many votes were given, but in obedience 
 to your own statutes inquire also how many of those votes were 
 legal and how many legal votes were rejected from those boxes. 
 Until you have done that you must not undertake to control the de- 
 cisions of Louisiana. If all voted who tried and were entitled to 
 vote, you have only to count the actual votes to determine who was 
 elected. If some were excluded from voting who were entitled to 
 vote, you have only to add theirnumbcr to the number of votes given 
 to determine the result. In either case you have a result. 
 
 Either Kellogg or McEnery must have been elected in 1372. And 
 it was not McEnery. I infer that from circumstances. First, I do not 
 
26 
 
 believe the real democracy of Louisiana wanted to triumph at that 
 election. Victory could yield them no fruits. Victory meant only to 
 make Greeley President, Warmoth Senator, and McEuery governor. 
 The democracy of Louisiana had no use for either. Greeley they 
 had hated from their earliest knowledge of him. Warmoth they had 
 hated not so long, but with more singleness of heart. McEnery they 
 had no use for. He is not of their kind. He talks well enough for 
 their purposes, but when they wanted a governor for use last Sep- 
 tember they put McEnery to bed and brought Penn to the front. 
 Penn they cherish. He is a young man of spirit and of mark. T.ike 
 him out of Louisiana politics and he would be an ornament to his 
 kind. Penn was all that victory could bestow upon the democratic 
 party in 1872. But they could ill alltbrd to swallow Greeley, War- 
 moth, and McEnery for the little flavor there was in Penn. It was 
 taking altogether too heavy a dose of aloes for the small measure of 
 rum. 
 
 I infer ilcEnery was not elected, because if he had been the fact 
 would have been made certain. As I have shown, the whole ma- 
 chinery of the election was numaged by democrats. If they had the 
 votes to elect their candidate, they Avoiild have taken good care to 
 preserve the evidence of them. Instead of manufacturing a board of 
 returns with no will but his to count the votes, Warmoth would have 
 submitted them to the count of the legal board and would have in- 
 vited all New Orleans to see them counted. 
 
 Mr. President, I infer McEnery did not receive a majority of the 
 votes cast; because if he had his friends would hardly have ventured 
 upon all the villainy they practiced; they would have cherislied and 
 not debauclied the boxes and returns which showed that election. 
 
 But, sir, even if he did receive a majority of the votes actually put 
 into tho.se boxes, I still insist he was not elected. The will of the 
 people of Louisiana was not expressed through the ballot-boxes in 
 1872. It was excluded from them. I submit one single feature of 
 that election to the Senate, and I challenge any candid Senator to 
 deny that if Warmoth's supervisors truly reported the state of the 
 ballot-boxes, it was only because the people were excluded from them. 
 
 In 1872 Louisiana was divided into lifty-six parishes. In twenty- 
 seven of these parishes there is practically no dispute about the 
 result. Those parishes are Ascension, Bienville, Caldwell, Cameron, 
 Carroll, Claiborne, Calcasieu, Concordia, Feliciana East, Feliciana 
 West, Franklin, Jefferson, La Fayette, Livingston, Ouachita, Placiue- 
 mines, K('(l Kiver, Richland, Sabine, Saint Charles, Saint .lohn Ba])tist, 
 Saint Landry, Tensas, A^ermilUon, Vernon, Washington, and Winn. 
 
 There is evidence of bad conduct at some of the i)olls, eveuiii these 
 parishes; and the vote from one large republican precinct in Jeffer- 
 son was rejected by Warmoth's returning officers because his conmiis- 
 sioners had stuffed the box. But upon the whole the two parties 
 differ but litth; in their count of the voi,es for governor in those twenty- 
 seven parislies, and in every instance they returned the same mem- 
 bers to the house of ropi'esentatives. 
 
 Accepting, then, the work of the Warmoth party in those parishes 
 as correct, we have this result. 
 
 The Warmoth board state the vote for governor as f(jllows : 
 
 For K.'lloKp; 2-3,nfiO 
 
 Tor McEuery 1H,078 
 
 Majority 4,882 
 
''7 
 
 Of tlie registered vote in the same parishes there were — 
 
 Kack 34,391 
 
 White 22,816 
 
 So a bLack majority of 11,575 is admitted to have giveu a republi- 
 can ma.iority of 4,b>5'2, exclusive of that majority thrown away in 
 Jefferson. 
 
 This is not the result of a fair election, but the result of an election 
 which bore some resemblance to a fair one. 
 
 No candid man will deny that if suffrage had been as free to black 
 as to white in those parishes, as large a percentage of blacks as of 
 whites would have voted. Still it is conceded that where there was 
 a colored majority of 11,.575 registered votes, there was a republican 
 majority of 4,882 votes cast besides the Jefferson precinct. 
 
 Now, sir, look at the report from twenty-eight other parishes, the 
 balance of the State except New Orleans.' 
 
 In those parishes the white voters registered numbered 31,762 ; the 
 colored 42,432. 
 
 The colored majority on the registry -books was 10,670. A cloud 
 of witnesses have tostilied that every si»ecies of fraud and every kind 
 of force were employed in these parishes to stifle the voice of the 
 republican party. The board of returns deny the election of one 
 single member from all the representative districts in those parishes 
 whose election is asserted liy Warnioth supervisors. Every mem- 
 ber is disputed from twenty-eight parishes. Not one is disputed from 
 twenty-seven parishes. 
 
 Now, I wish the country would heed what I am about to say : 
 
 Ont of those 31,762 wliite voters registered, the Warmoth party 
 claimed to have polled 25,391 democratic votes. Ont of those 42,432 
 colored voters they concede a republican vote of but 19,272! In a dis- 
 trict which registered a colored majority of more than 10,000 voters, 
 there is claimed a democratic majority of more than 6,000 votes! 
 Democrats controlled tlie registration. The whites were largely over- 
 registered. The blacks were largely underregistered. Democrats 
 controlled the election, and with a thrift unprecedented in politics 
 they gathered live-sixths as many democratic votes as they had 
 white voters upon their swollen poll-lists, at the same time they 
 made that pinched and parsimonious registration of colored voters 
 seem like a profligate waste of space on the registry-books by return- 
 ing less than half as many rej)ublican votes as they had colored 
 voters. 
 
 In these fifty-five parishes the colored voters registered were 3.5,000 
 more than the republican votes therein. Can that be explained upon 
 the hypothesis of an overregistry of colored votes? When legal 
 voters of the unfashionable color followed the supervisor by the day 
 to secure registration, did 35,000 such men get on to the books who 
 did not belong there ? Can it be explained upon the hy])othesis that 
 men who registered did not care to vote 1 But did men who were not 
 anxious to vote travel miles and search for days to get their names 
 on the x>oll-books ? Does any man doubt, dare any man say he doubts, 
 that twenty or even thirty thousand of those new-born and perhaps 
 over-ardent citizens wished to vote, tried to vote, and did vote, unless 
 they were denied the right? Were they denied tlie right f These 
 democrats denied them, and no man's right to office can be impaired 
 by such denial. Such is the law. Did they vote ? These democrats stole 
 their ballots from the boxes, and no man's right to oilice can be im- 
 paired by such a larceny. Such is the law. 
 
28 
 
 Tb;tl is the style of electiou championed hy the democratic party 
 in Louisiana and by their allies in this Chamber. Warmoth presided 
 over that election. The voice of thirty-five thousand colored citizens 
 "was stifled in fifty-five parishes. Seven thousand more were hushed 
 in New Orleans. Warmoth was the great magician whose pliant 
 fingers manipulated the machine. The democratic party supplied 
 the r.apt and admiring auditory which filled every circle in the thea- 
 ter from the pit to the upper gallery. Such was the election by 
 whose atrocious results Warmoth attempted to chain Louisiana. To 
 force such infamous conclusions upon the people of the State War- 
 moth |)layed the double role of anarch and monarch from November 
 13 to December 9 ; to consummate tluit smoking villainy he attempted, 
 partly by force and partly by fraud, to supplaut a legal board of 
 returns by a sham one ; to tamper with written laws, and, in the 
 absence of a Legislature, to change them ; to drag a judge from the 
 bench ; to eject a secretary of state from his office ; to commission a 
 crowd of his henchmen to fill the puljlic offices ; to jiack the supreme 
 coui't of liis state ; to defy its authority ; to divide and destroy the 
 Legislature ; and even to disregard the mandates of the Federal 
 courts. For enterprises infinitely less criminal Cataline was sent 
 howling out of Rome. lu these enterprises Warmoth was foiled. A 
 blundering judge, more solicitous for the peace of the State than 
 for the dignity of his office, the first magistrate of the kind probably 
 which Louisiana ever saw, caused two soldiers to be stationed at the 
 door of the capitol, and the conspiracy was dissolved into vapor. 
 The cackling of geese at an unseemly hour, it is said, once saved Rome 
 from her conspiring enemies. The terrified but not ungrateful city 
 slew the conspirators and deified the geese. When a similar cack- 
 ling saved New Orleans, the liberty- loving but ungrateful city wrung 
 the neck of the goose and is doing her best to deify the disappointed 
 conspirators. 
 
 Mr. President, I do not forget hoAv largely my conclusions as 
 to the result of the Louisiana election in 1872 are based upon the 
 assumption that white citizens were generally democrats and col- 
 ored ones were republicans. And this brings me to the pithy and 
 altogether i^ertinent question asked by the Senator from Missouri the 
 other day. 
 
 In tones which were restrained from derision only by that courtesy 
 which never forsakes him, he said : 
 
 Bnt I aak you, sir, what kind of logic, vrliat statosmanship is it w(^ witness ao 
 frequently on tliis floor, which takes the .statisti<'.s of ]).ipuIiitiou of a State in liaiid 
 and then proceeds t« reason thns: So many <:>lini d j)ei>iile, so many wliitc ; tlifirfoie 
 80 m.any colored votes, so many white "votes, an<l tlierefore sii many rcp\il)lir;iii 
 votes and so many democratic votes ; and if an electiou does not sliow tliis exact 
 proportion, it must be necessarily the result of fraud and intimidation. 
 
 I will tell the Senator what I think of that logic and of that states- 
 manshi]). The logic is uiii(jue. I admit it seems iiiconseqiumtia!, 
 almost grotesque. IJut it is irrefragable. It cannot be confuted. 
 
 And that statesmanship ! At the first glance it seems extremely 
 whimsical, not to say absurd ; but when we come to consider, it is 
 frightftdly practical. A man who goes about swathed in disinfect- 
 ants when no contagion is near we cannot help but regard as a 
 hypochondriac. But he who goes along the thronged thoroughfares 
 without disinfectants when the atmosphere is surcharged wit h plagues 
 is regarded as little less than a lunatic The statesman who argues 
 that the republican vote should be nearly proportioned to the colored 
 voters in Louisiana is simply one who does not close his eyes upon 
 
29 
 
 the most obvious, tLe pivotal fact in the politics of that State. The 
 colored people of that State are republicans. The white people are 
 as a rule democrats. If there were no reasons "why it should be so, 
 the evidence is conclusive that it is so. 
 
 A large majority of the voters are colored. And yet of the whole 
 number, Mr. McMillen, the witness who claimed to be Senator under 
 the election of the Warmoth legislature, testified he did not know 
 one who voted the democratic ticket. Mr. Packard, the chairman of 
 the republican State committee, testified he knew of but one, and he 
 was one who tried to vote the republican ticket and could not do so 
 for want of registration. 
 
 Democrats helped him to registration, and before the ink got dry 
 on his certificate he voted the <lemocratic ticket. 
 
 When two witnesses so well informed cannot recall in the aggre- 
 gate but one colored man who voted the democratic ticket out of 
 more than half the voting iiopulation, it is idle toi)retend that many 
 did vote it. 
 
 But there are obvious reasons why no colored man can vote the 
 democratic ticket. The whole effort of the democratic party has 
 been, and still is, to organize parties ui^on the "color line." It boasts 
 itself the "white man's party." It champions a "white man's govern- 
 ment." The domination of white over black is the very essence of 
 the democratic pai"ty. Upon any x>olicy but that no democratic party 
 can be mustered. Do you think it can ? If it can be, try it. Demo- 
 cratic supremacy means the subjection of the colored race and it 
 means nothing else. 
 
 Upon every conceivable theory of political economy; upon every 
 possible scheme of finance, whether affecting currency, taxation, or 
 expenditures; upon every individual proposition for internal im- 
 provement or commercial progress ; iipon every plan suggested for 
 the amelioration of all citizens of both races ; democrats are divided, 
 and hopelessly divided. On tbe contrary, so often as a policy is pro- 
 posed or an idea suggested, which promises advantage to the white 
 race from which the blacks are excluded, the democratic party with 
 one mind embrace and with one voice applaud it. 
 
 Sir, it is not strange tlie colored citizen will not vote the demo- 
 cratic ticket. To do so, is to vote for his own exclusion from the 
 civil state. The special wonder of after times will be that any 
 white man could be found at this time to vote that ticket either. 
 
 History still points with loathing to those savage epochs when the 
 Greek swelled with hatred of the helot ; the Jew with hatred of the 
 Gentile ; the Roman with hatred of the barbarian ; the Saxon with 
 hatred of the Celt. But the instinct of self-preservation lay at the 
 base of all those hatreds and partly excused them. The helot was a 
 living menace to the Greek ; so was the Jew to the Gentile, and the 
 barbarian to the Roman, and the Celt to the Saxon ; returned the hate 
 they experienced, and to the extent of their opportunities repaid all 
 the remorseless oppression they sufiered. 
 
 But with what unutterable loathing will the future historian look 
 back to these degenerate days, eighteen hundred years after Christ 
 died, as much for the black man as for the white ; look back to see four 
 millions standing in the midst of forty millions, all alike citizens, 
 distinguished from each other only in the accident of complexion; 
 the few jnst snatched from the realm of chattels, very poor, very ig- 
 norant, very helpless, but with capabilities equal to the best. That 
 is exemplified in a few individuals who, here and there, despite the 
 
30 
 
 most malignant fortune, have contrived to acquii-e tlie learning 
 •which enables them even in the parliament of the nation to maintain 
 their cause successfully against the most practiced debaters there. 
 The multitude very rich, very powerful ; arrogant from cer-taries of 
 culture and control. The few, threatening nobody, asking no special 
 privileges, no nursiug.no extraordinary aids; supplicating only to 
 be let alone, to have all disabilities removed, to be allowed to stand 
 up if they can get up. to go forward if they can get onward, to be 
 allowed the free use of such fa-culties as generations of serfdom have 
 left to them ; to be admitted to the pale of an equal citizenship. And 
 out of that multitude, so rich in capabilities, so abundant in resources, 
 a great party organization having but one common boast, that they are 
 themselves white ; having but one common tie, that they hate the 
 black : cherishing but one common aspiration, that they can still 
 dominate him — that they can stand on his skirts now. andean get on 
 his neck again presently — and animated with this single groveling 
 hope they swagger of their Caucasian lineage: they preach the gos- 
 pel of hate through Caucasian organs ; they form, they arm Cau- 
 casian leagues, and throughout large districts have domesticated, not 
 savage beasts, but the most savage crimes to drive the weakest and 
 most helpless of our kind from all assertion of their citizenship. 
 
 There is no doubt colored citizens would vote with democrats only 
 that democrats will not let them vote at all. And democrats cannot 
 let them A'ote because they would then cease to be democrats. To be 
 a democrat no longer means to be in favor of the people's supremacy. 
 We have now a new dictionary given to us ; to be a democrat now is 
 simply to deny that colored citizens are people and to affirm that call- 
 ing a professional murderer a bandit is a capital offense. It seems to 
 me the Senator from Missouri will be wise to concede on the whole 
 that the colored people of Louisiana are republicans. If they are not, 
 why not let them vote? If they will vote the democratic ticket 
 they will vote just as sensibly as that Senator does. If they will 
 vote the republican ticket, they will in my judgment vote much more 
 sensibly than he does. 
 
 Mr. President, the practical question born tons out of this election 
 is, shall Mr. Piuchback be admitted ti)tlie Senate 1 
 
 Now we know that Louisiana has but one Senator here. We know 
 she is entitled to two. We know her Legislature must choose her 
 Senators. We know her Legislature is the body which makes her 
 laws, and we know the body which sent Piuchback here is the body 
 which for two years made laws for Louisiana. How, then, shall 
 we avoid seating Mr. Pinchback ? Why, we can say. if we are aa 
 reckless alxnit what we say as a Louisiana board of election commis- 
 sioners, that we do not know whether the men who composed that 
 Legishiture really belonged there. 
 
 hut if we say that we shall not tell the truth. We do know those 
 men were enrolled as members by the clerk of the house, and the secre- 
 tary, who were the only men in Louisiana authorized to make up such 
 roll; that the namesofthftse members were trausmitted to those otHcers 
 by George E. Hovee,the secretary of state, and certified to hiui by John 
 Lj-nch and his associates, acting as a board of returns. Still, if we 
 choose, we can say tliat Hovee was not secretary of state and that 
 Lynch and liis associates were not the board of returns. In saying 
 that we shall simj)ly traiiiph; upon tlie authority of repeated decisions 
 of the, supreuK^ court of that State. But we can say that the Legis- 
 lature, the secretary of state, and the board of returns are contia- 
 dicted by the certificates of tlie parish supervisors. There are three 
 /lifHculties w the wav of saving tha*. 
 
31 
 
 First. We have not seeu all those certificates, nor has any one else. 
 
 Secoud. They are already impeached. 
 
 Third. They are incompetent to contradict the board of returns. 
 If we wish to contradict the board of returns, it can only be done by 
 showing what the electors say and not what the parish supervisors 
 say. 
 
 Well, sir, we can say, if we dare, that the electors of Louisiana 
 did not choose the members of that Legislature. But we have two 
 reports from the electors. That which comes to us through the Lynch 
 board says these members were elected. It will embarras*^ us to rely 
 upon that report. It will embarrass us still more to rely upon the re- 
 port of the Warmoth board. That report does indeed declare that 
 some of those members were not elected, but it declares that out of 
 99,000 colored voters registered, to say nothing of white republicans, 
 only 59,000 republican votes are accounted for by that board. 
 
 More than 40,000 republican votes are not returned. A cloud of 
 witnesses we know have testified that many of these votes were ex- 
 cluded from the boxes ; many were abstracted from the boxes. We 
 have made no attempt to ascertain how many were excluded, how 
 many were stolen. Other witnesses we know have testified that many 
 republican votes received and not stolen have been practically an- 
 nulled by democratic ballots, not put into the boxes by democratic 
 voters but stuffed into them by democratic commissioners. We have 
 made no attemyjt to ascertain how many. Our way is full of difli- 
 culties. But let us not despair. When a thing must be done, there 
 must be a way for doing it. 
 
 Driven to extremities, we can at last say: "True, a few thousand 
 democratic voters were manufactured in Louisiana in lfC2, but they 
 were manufactured by Warmoth and his subordinates ; that is no con- 
 cern of ours. True, some thirty or forty thousand republicans were 
 strangled at the same time, but they were strangled by Warmoth 
 and his subordinates; that is no concern of ours. True, every tribu- 
 nal in Louisiana has denounced the outrage ; but we cannot listen to 
 Louisiana. We cannot redress the wrong, and we will not let Louisi- 
 ana redress it." Yes, Ml". President, we can say all that if we try very 
 hard ; and saying that we can send Pinchback home to Louisiana, 
 limit the representation of the State in this Chamber to one Senator, 
 and then we can hold up our heads with Warmoth and Blanchard 
 and Thorp, the supervisor of Iberville, and their allies here and every- 
 where. Then we will be complimented by the reform press as friends 
 of freedom and purity in elections ; and then if we caunot get mus- 
 tered into the ranks of the southern white-leaguers it will not be be- 
 cause our consciences are feared, but because our courage is distrusted. 
 
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