LOUISIANA. 



479 



leir benefit, so that labor and capital might 

 jceive from the law that equal protection to 

 which they are entitled. A Board of Health 

 must be constituted with undoubted authority, 

 under due restraint. It should keep out foreign 

 liseases without destroying intercourse with 

 the outer world. " In behalf of our industrial 

 id commercial interests, we must find some 

 leans of adequate protection that will not 

 ralyze the business and blockade the ports 

 md thoroughfares of the State." They were 

 appoint a time for holding Congressional 

 elections, and to require that, according to time- 

 honored custom. Presidential electors should 

 be chosen directly by the people. The right 

 of suffrage, however obtained, must be con- 

 ceded and carried out in good faith. A Bu- 

 reau of Agriculture must be organized, and one 

 of its duties must be the encouragement of im- 

 migration. The Federal Government should 

 maintain the levees, but, until it does, the State 

 must depend on its own resources so far as they 

 go. After recommending that some method 

 of capital punishment more humane than hang- 

 ing should be substituted in the Code, the Gov- 

 ernor proceeds to discuss the support of public 

 education, and to treat the difficult subject of 

 State finance. 



The first act passed by the General Assem- 

 bly at the regular session of 1880 was a con- 

 current resolution "protesting against the 

 recognition of William Pitt Kellogg as United 

 States Senator from the State of Louisiana, 

 and requesting the admission of Henry M. 

 Spofford, the duly elected Senator from the 

 State of Louisiana." Act No. 13 gives author- 

 ity to railroad companies to borrow money to 

 construct and repair railroads, etc., and to issue 

 bonds or other obligations secured by mortgage 

 upon their franchises, right of way, etc., with 

 power to sell, pledge, or dispose of said bonds. 

 Act No. 22 authorizes the Governor to employ 

 counsel to represent the State in the Supreme 

 Court of the United States in the case of the 

 State of New Hampshire against the State of 

 Louisiana. This suit is of a nature so novel as to 

 ask further notice. It was brought before the 

 Supreme Court of the United States in January, 

 1880, by the State of New Hampshire against 

 the State of Louisiana for the amount of two 

 hundred and ten dollars, being the sum of six 

 coupons of interest, on as many consolidated 

 bonds, which were not paid at maturity in 

 January, 1880. The General Court of New 

 Hampshire in July, 1879, passed an act to au- 

 thorize any citizen of that State to make an 

 assignment of the unpaid obligations of any of 

 the States to that State, and directed the At- 

 torney-General of New Hampshire to institute 

 a suit in the name of the State in the Supreme 

 Court to collect them. The assignor was to 

 provide for all costs, charges, and expenses, and 

 the Attorney-General was to be his " trustee," 

 and to keep the amount of collections for his 

 benefit. The Constitution of the United States 

 confers authority upon the Supreme Court to 



determine controversies between two or more 

 States. This power was conferred in order 

 that the States might settle their respective 

 claims for boundary and jurisdiction which 

 existed when the Declaration of Independence 

 separated the colonies from Great Britain. 

 Every one of the original thirteen States has 

 had disputes on these subjects, and a number 

 have been presented to the Supreme Court; 

 others were settled by compact under the sanc- 

 tion of Congress. None have supposed before 

 now that a State could by her own initiative 

 obtain assignments of claims, and make use of 

 the Supreme Court as an instrument to collect 

 them for her assignors. 



There was an erroneous impression after the 

 adoption of the Federal Constitution in the Con- 

 vention, in 1787, that a citizen of one of the 

 States, or an alien, might sue another of the 

 States for debt or for wrong. Hamilton notices 

 and confutes this error in the eighty-first num- 

 ber of " The Federalist." Madison and Marshall 

 repelled the existence of any such faculty during 

 the debates on the Constitution in Virginia. 

 Four Judges of the Supreme Bench maintained 

 their jurisdiction in the cause of Chisholm, a 

 citizen of South Carolina, against Georgia in 

 the Supreme Court of the United States in 

 1793. 



Immediately after, William Vassal, a British 

 subject, brought a suit to set aside confisca- 

 tions of his property in Massachusetts against 

 that State in the Supreme Court of the United 

 States. The process was served on John Han- 

 cock, then the Governor of that State. He 

 convened the General Court in extra session, 

 and in a speech of great excellence denied the 

 authority of the Court, and affirmed that such 

 a suit was contrary to the principles of a fed- 

 eral government, and urged the removal from 

 the Constitution of any words that might seem 

 to warrant such a jurisdiction. The General 

 Court so determined, and in 1794 a Senator 

 from Massachusetts introduced into the Senate 

 and caused to be adopted what is now the 

 eleventh amendment, prohibiting a construc- 

 tion of the Constitution to allow a citizen or 

 subject of any State to sue a State. The 

 cases of Chisholm and Vassal were never pros- 

 ecuted to judgment. No attempt has since 

 been made to use the powers -of that Court at 

 the suit of individuals. The case of New Hamp- 

 shire against Louisiana is now before the Su- 

 preme Court, and the decision either way will 

 form a tide-mark when the story of this tran- 

 sition period in the history of the United States 

 is recorded. 



Acts Nos. 41 and 56 created and defined the 

 duties of a Bureau of Agriculture and Immi- 

 gration, and provided for the registration there- 

 by of lands, public or private property, offered 

 for sale in Louisiana. No. 43 was a joint res- 

 olution requesting members of Congress to use 

 their influence to obtain the passage of a bill 

 to secure from loss the depositors in the Freed- 

 men's Savings-Bank and Trust Company. Act 



