CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



203 



question upon which I have had any doubt. 

 The machinery of reorganization is amply pro- 

 vided and very carefully provided in this bill 

 in a manner that is fair and jnst to all parties. 

 A judge of unquestioned character is to pre- 

 side over it and manage it. One of each 

 party, having equal powers and functions, is 

 to organize and prepare for an election, con- 

 duct it, control it, examine it, and return its 

 result. That is the best agency and means 

 that we can provide. But, in the mean time, 

 who should perform the ordinary executive 

 functions of the State government of Louisi- 

 ana while this machinery is going on ? There 

 is the question, and the only question I have 

 had any trouble abont. Shall we restore the 

 powers of a Governor to Warmoth, who, ac- 

 cording to the statements that have been made 

 here, has been the source and origin of the 

 confusion and trouble in Louisiana ? I felt the 

 force of the objection made by the Senator 

 from Indiana when he said that the very first 

 result of this bill was to restore to power, to 

 the collection of taxes, the discharge of ex- 

 ecutive functions, of pardoning convicts, and 

 all the other powers and influence of the Gov- 

 ernor of the State of Louisiana, a gentleman 

 who, according to the testimony of the author 

 of this bill, ha been the source and origin of 

 this trouble." 



Mr. Stewart, of Nevada, said: "It seems 

 to me that we are placed in this predicament : 

 that by our action we must do one of three 

 things. Non-action keeps a government in 

 place that did not have a majority of the 

 votes ; was not elected by the people. Non- 

 notion does that because the President tells us 

 that in that event lie will continue to recog- 

 nize the Kellogg government. Action to 

 recognize the McEnery government recog- 

 nizes and indorses a conspiracy that has 

 been repudiated by the action of the Admin- 

 istration, by various judicial decisions, and by 

 the action of both Houses of Congress in connt- 

 inz the votes for President of the United 

 States. 



" Then, what is the other alternative? The 

 other alternative is to order a new election, 

 and the committee have very sensibly proposed 

 to allow the people of Louisiana to have the 

 right that other citizens of the United States 

 have, to elect their own officers. I think that 

 is less arbitrary, a less violation of the Consti- 

 tution, than either of the other proceedings 

 would be." 



Mr. Trumbnll said: "The statement that 

 the election in Louisiana was an organized 

 fraud is without a basis to rest upon. There 

 was a board of canvassers appointed under 

 a law approved the 20th of November, 1872. 

 That law required the canvassers to be of 

 different political parties. It was made up 

 of Mr. Archibald Mitchell and F. R. Sonth- 

 mayd, Democrats ; B. R. Fornian, a Re- 

 former ; and 8. M. Todd and O. F. Hun- 

 flacker, Republicans. Mr. Thoinas was origi- 



nally a member of the board, ' and he with 

 the rest of us canvassed the vote for the State 

 officers and Legislature, when he went homo 

 and resigned his place, and Mr. Southniayd was 

 chosen and qualified to fill it.' Mr. Formnn, as 

 candid and fair a man as you will find any- 

 where, was before the committee and testified 

 in regard to the canvass. The Senator from 

 Indiana has said, and I have no doubt it has 

 been taken as if it were true, that there had 

 been no canvass of the votes, that it was only 

 a couple of clerks without any authority who 

 counted them. That is not so. The majority 

 of the committee say they were canvassed 

 nnder color of law. In my judgment they 

 were legally canvassed. Four parishes were 

 left out of the canvass, and the number of 

 votes in those parishes, Kepublican and Dem- 

 ocratic, taking the election of 1870, is only 

 about eight thousand, and the Republican 

 majority in those parishes was less than half 

 that. 



" Mr. Packard is the United States Marshal 

 in the State of Louisiana; he is the chairman 

 of the Republican State Executive Committee ; 

 a very active politician, as he admitted. He 

 was before the committee, and testified that in 

 the larger portion of the State the election 

 was as fair as elections held in any of the 

 States usually are. Then he was asked as to 

 how mnny parishes there were* where he be- 

 lieved there were gross frauds. He stated 

 seven, and that there had been reports, of un- 

 fairness in ten or fifteen more. Now let me 

 say to my friend from Ohio, who starts out 

 with the assumption that this election was all 

 a fraud, that this Mr. Packard (and this is 

 shown by his testimony) had more than six 

 hundred special deputies in the city of New 

 Orleans supervising the election on the day it 

 occurred. He had from two to four in every 

 parish in the State. Some of his deputies 

 served for seventy days, supervising the regis- 

 tration and the election. 



"Let me state another fact. The official 

 returns show that the vote at the last election 

 was twenty thousand larger than ever before 

 polled in the State. This is official. And yet 

 the declaration is constantly made here that 

 the whole thing was (in organized fraud. Such 

 declarations may be made, but the testimony 

 does not warrant them. The Senator from 

 Ohio said it was agreed by all the committee 

 except myself that the election was an organ- 

 ized fraud. It is not so. The Senator from 

 Georgia has never agreed to that statement." 



Mr. Carpenter, of Wisconsin, said : " I be- 

 lieve that Mr. Kellogg's government is not 

 entitled to remain as the government of the 

 State of Louisiana, and I want to remit the 

 question to an election by the people. I should 

 prefer to have the bill passed as it came from 

 the committee ; I think it is more rigidly logi- 

 cal than the bill as amended ; but here I find 

 halt' a dozen Senators who are willing to sup- 

 port the bill amended in its recital, and in 



