OONGRES8, UNITED STATES. 



225 



tended canvass by that board as absolutely 

 void, in consequence of the Irregularity of thfr 



i, iiiul tin- tact that the rciunn never 

 re them; which objections exist in 

 full force, ami must be equally fatal, in regard 

 to the election of the Kellogg government. 



" I.i-t mo say that, although this report was 

 mail.- as a preliminary report by the committee, 

 yet all tho testimony subsequently taken by the 

 committee tends to increase rather than lessen 

 jection to tlie validity of that election. 

 I.J.M-OS \\ ill stand in an unenviable atti- 

 tude before the country if in regard to an elec- 

 tion tor several officers, held at the same time 

 aiul conducted in the same manner as to all, it 

 shall decide that as to one it is void and as to 

 the other valid ; if it shall hold that as to presi- 

 dential electors it was void, and yet as to State 

 government it was valid. 



" Assuming the case as I claim it to be, two 

 questions arise in regard to the bill now under 

 consideration for holding a new election in 

 that State under Federal authority : first, has 

 Congress the power to pass such a bill ? and, 

 second, if it has the power, is it expedient to 

 exercise it ? 



" I shall first consider the question whether 

 Congress possesses such power. Many of our 

 friends, for whose judgment I have great re- 

 spect, doubt its existence ; and we all agree 

 that, if the power does exist, it is one of the 

 most delicate attributes of this Government, 

 and ought not to be exercised except in case 

 of necessity. But I maintain that, if the neces- 

 sity exists, it is our imperative duty to exercise 

 this power discreetly, prudently, but so as fully 

 to meet the existing case and remedy the exist- 

 ing evil. 



"The Constitution makes it our duty to 

 guarantee to the State of Louisiana a republican 

 form of government. What does the phrase, 

 'republican form of government,' mean? I 

 answer, it means a republican kind of govern- 

 ment, or a republican government; and that 

 the essential element of a republican govern- 

 ment is that its offices shall be held by persons 

 chosen for that purpose by the people ; that no 

 government is republican, within the meaning 

 of the guarantee clause, the powers of which 

 are administered by persons not chosen by the 

 people. To construe the Constitution so as to 

 hold that as long as a State government ob- 

 serves the form it may depart from the reality 

 of republican government, is to render the 

 guarantee clause utterly worthless. The Su- 

 preme Court has often declared that the Con- 

 stitution must be so construed as to secure the 

 substantial results contemplated by its framers ; 

 that forms and fictions are not enough. 



" All history demonstrates that the greatest 

 danger to free government is from the usurpa- 

 tion of rulers and the perversion of forms. The 

 cunning hypocrisy of Augustus established a 

 despotism in Rome after the sword of Julius 

 Csesnr had failed. Augustus established tho 

 empire in the name of the republic ; and long 

 VOL. xiv. 15 A 



after his power was complete, and the imperial 



nmcnt in lull operation, maintained n-- 

 \i\\\i\\cnnformt; that i, it was ' republican in 

 form,' hut. imperial in fact. Napoleon, the 

 tir-t consul, gradually ripened into the emperor, 

 Wo have recently seen the Republic of Hpain, 

 without any change of form, assuming and 

 exercising imperial power. Tho pretended 

 election of Napoleon III. was, in form, repub- 

 lican ; in fact, a fraud. And illustrations 

 might be multiplied indefinitely. If republican 

 governments on this continent are ever over- 

 thrown, it will be accomplished by employing 

 the forms of a republic to mask departure from 

 its substance. The literature of 1789 shows 

 that our fathers were keenly alive to this fact; 

 and it would be strange, indeed, if in framing 

 a constitution designed, as its preamble de- 

 clares, to insure domestic tranquillity and secure 

 the blessings of liberty to themselves and their 

 posterity, and in establishing a government to 

 preside over and protect the States, no pro- 

 vision was made to guard them against the 

 greatest and the most common danger that be- 

 sets free institutions ; and yet it will be con- 

 ceded that no such provision was made unless 

 it is contained in the clause under considera- 

 tion. 



" If I am right in saying that it is the vital 

 element of republican government that its 

 rulers are chosen by the people, it follows that 

 the present government of Louisiana, lacking 

 this, is not a republican government. And in 

 regard to the power of Congress to interfere 

 at this time, it is evident that, if such power 

 does not exist, it would not if in 1876 Kellogg 

 and his associates should run again and be de- 

 feated by 20,000 majority, and Durrell should 

 set them up ; and in 1880 the same thing should 

 take place, and be repeated in 1884, and so on 

 during Kellogg' s natural life. These repeti- 

 tions would make the outrage more manifest, 

 but would not increase the power of Congress. 

 If Congress cannot interfere in the first year 

 of such a usurpation, it cannot in the fiftieth ; 

 because our power is derived from the Consti- 

 tution, which is the same at all times; and 

 what we cannot do at once, we cannot do ulti- 

 mately. If Kellogg and his associates should 

 be thus continued in power for twenty years, 

 and avow the purpose of remaining during 

 their lives by the use of the same means, would 

 it be contended that the State had a republican 

 government? It might, indeed, be said that 

 the State had a government republican in form, 

 but it would be true that the form was used to 

 continue a despotism. There is nothing in the 

 Constitution, taken as a whole, nor in the liter- 

 ature of that day, which will justify us in say- 

 ing that the frrmers of the Constitution were 

 sticklers for form, and intended to provide that 

 in usurping the functions of free government, 

 and transforming the States into despotisms, 

 in fact the usurpers should be confined to a 

 particular method of accomplishing that result, 

 namely, an observance of the forms of a repub- 



