464 



LOUISIANA. 



The qualifications of a juror, under the law, is a 

 proper subject for the decision of the courts. The 

 Commanding General, in the discharge of the trust 

 reposed in him, will maintain the just power of the 

 judiciary, and is unwilling to permit the civil authori- 

 ties and laws to be embarrassed by military interfer- 

 ence ; arid as it is an established fact that the admin- 

 istration of justice in the ordinary tribunals is greatly 

 embarrassed by the operations of paragraph No. 2, 

 Special Order^ No. 125, current series, from these 

 headquarters, it is ordered that said paragraph, which 

 relates to the qualifications of persons to be placed 

 on the jury lists of the State of Louisiana be, and 

 the earne is hereby, revoked ; and that the trial by 

 jury be henceforth regulated and controlled by the con- 

 stitution and civil laws, without regard to any military 

 order heretofore issued, from these headquarters. 



By command of Major-General HANCOCK. 

 W. G. MITCHELL, Brevet Lieut.-Col., and Act. Assist. 

 Adj. -Gen. 



General Orders, No. 1. 

 HEADQUARTERS FIFTH MILITARY DISTRICT, I 

 NEW ORLEANS, January 1, 1SGS. f 



Applications have been made at these headquarters 

 implying the existence of an arbitrary authority in 

 the Commanding General^touching purely civil con- 

 troversies. One petitioner solicits this action, another 

 that, and each refers to some special consideration of 

 grace or favor which he supposes to exist, and which 

 should influence this department. The number of 

 such applications and the waste of time they involve, 

 make it necessary to declare that the administration 

 of civil justice appertains to the regular courts. 



The rights of litigants do not depend on the views 

 of the general they are to be adjudged and settled 

 according to the laws. Arbitrary power such as ho 

 has been urged to assume has no existence here. It 

 is not found in the laws of Louisiana or Texas it 

 cannot he derived from any act or acts of Congress 

 it is restrained by a constitution and prohibited from 

 action in many particulars. The Major-General com- 

 manding takes occasion to repeat that while dis- 

 claiming judicial functions in civil cases, he can suf- 

 fer no forcible resistance to the execution of processes 

 of the courts. 



By command of Major-General HANCOCK. 

 GEO. L. HAKTSUFF, A. A. G. 



lie also reinstated several of the civil offi- 

 cers removed by order of General Mower. 

 General Mower himself was relieved from the 

 command of the District of Louisiana, and or- 

 dered to join his regiment at Greenville. 



The Constitutional Convention, which was 

 composed largely of colored delegates, assem- 

 bled at New Orleans on the 23d of November, 

 and chose J. G. Taliaferro to preside over its 

 deliberations. The usual plan was adopted, of 

 appointing various committees to prepare re- 

 ports on different portions of the constitution. 

 For nearly a month the delegates were engaged 

 in receiving resolutions and discussing prin- 

 ciples, and on the 20th of December a draft of a 

 constitution was submitted. The first two arti- 

 cles of the Bill of Rights are in these words : 



AKT. 1. All persons, without regard to racej color, 

 or previous condition, born or naturalized in the 

 United States, and inhabitants of this State' for one 

 year, are citizens of this State. They shall enjoy the 

 same civil and political rights and privileges, and be 

 subject to the same pains and penalties. 



AKT. 2. There shall be neither slavery nor invol- 

 untary servitude in this State, otherwise than for the 

 punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have 

 been duly convicted. 



The franchise article provides that every male 



person, of the age of twenty-one years and up 

 ward, who is a citizen of the United States, 

 and has been an inhabitant of the State one year, 

 and of his parish three months, shall be deemed 

 an elector, " except those disfranchised by this 

 constitution. 1 ' The disfranchising article then 

 follows, in these words : 



The following persons shall be prohibited from vot 

 ing or from holding any office of honor, trust, or 

 profit in this State, to wit : All persons who shall 

 nave been convicted of treason, perjury, forgory, 

 bribery, or other crime punishable by imprisonment 

 at hard labor ; all paupers and persons under inter- 

 diction ; and all leaders or officers of guerilla bands 

 during the late war or rebellion. The following per- 

 sons are prohibited from voting or holding any office 

 of honor, trust, or profit in this State until after the 

 first of January, one thousand eight hundred and sev- 

 entv-eight, to wit : All persons who, before the first 

 of June, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, 

 held the office of Vice-President, Secretary of State, 

 Secretary of War, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary 

 of the Treasury, Postmaster-General, or Attorney- 

 General of the United States, diplomatic agents of 

 the United States, members of Congress, Judges of 

 the Supreme, Circuit, and District Courts of the 

 United States, Governors and Lieutenant-Governors 

 of this State or of other States, Judges of the Supreme 

 and District Courts of this State, Judges of the courts 

 of last resort of other States, members of the Legisla- 

 ture of this State since the adoption of the constitu- 

 tion of 1852, who approved or encouraged the seces- 

 sion of this State or any other State, members of 

 secession conventions who voted for or signed the 

 ordinance of secession, and commissioned officers of 

 the Army or Navy of the United States, who at any 

 time engaged in the late rebellion : Provided. The 

 Legislature may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, 

 remoYe such 'disability. 



This article was adopted by the convention, 

 20 colored delegates voting for it and the same 

 number voting against it. The work of the con- 

 vention is not completed at this present writing, 

 and forms part of the history of 1868. 



Mention has already been made, incidentally, of 

 destructive inundations resulting from extensive 

 crevasses in the levees of the Mississippi River. 

 In former times, when the planters could com- 

 mand a large force of laborers, in time of dan- 

 ger to these embankments, it was customary to 

 set a watch upon them, and the slightest breach 

 was promptly remedied. But owing to the dis- 

 organized condition of labor in the State, an ex- 

 tensive breaking away of the levees was not pre- 

 vented on occasion of an unusual rise of the 

 river last spring, and great distress was caused 

 by the submersion of large tracts of land, at- 

 tended with destruction of property and in 

 many cases with loss of life. The provision 

 made by the Legislature for the repairing of 

 the levees was rendered, in a great measure, 

 ineffectual by the political difficulties which fol- 

 lowed. With the aid, however, of a special or- 

 der from General Sheridan in August, a thorough 

 examination of the state of the levees was in- 

 stituted, and the question of an appropriation 

 for their benefit from the Federal Government 

 is before Congress at the present time. 



A general failure of crops, owing in part to 

 the neglect and apathy of those upon whose 

 labor the agricultural interests of the State have 



