CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



235 



cationa of Senators, and tho HOUHO of 

 >!' Representative*. But, further than this 

 .toiulrt, was it ever heard of that an 

 on of a State officer, a Governor, a State 

 ur.-r, a controller, was set aside by a 

 lit intl body ? An election is never set asido 

 en by tbe judiciary. It is submitted to a 

 lispassionate and impartial tribunal of justice, 

 not to set aside an election, but to determine 



her the claimant was ever elected. 

 < rder a new election in Louisiana, and 

 u have established a precedent that must 

 mpair elective government. Excited parties 

 niter upon a strongly-contested election; the 

 one party in harmony with the dominant 

 party in Congress (perhaps a Senator is to be 

 i-k'fti'd by the Legislature); that party seeks 

 by violence and fraud to obtain success, and 

 when it fails comes to Congress and makes 

 that very fraud and violence the pretense for 

 covering their defeat and for having the elec- 

 tion set aside, and for having a second trial 

 with the adverse party who were successful 

 damaged and disgraced by having their vic- 

 tory set aside. No, sir; better far let the 

 States suffer for their own misdeeds, even the 

 innocent with the guilty; their suffering will 

 lead them to cure the evil. Admonished by 

 the evil results of a vicious election, in the 

 calm periods that intervene between elections 

 all parties will unite in devising and adopting 

 safeguards to -secure honest elections. Regis- 

 try laws, poll-lists, proper places for the polls, 

 police regulations, and severely penal statutes, 

 will be adopted as the means of preventing the 

 repetition of the evil. We had better adhere 

 to the Constitution and do what it says, which 

 is that we shall guarantee to the several States 

 government which we did with Louisiana 

 when we sent our troops there preserving or- 

 der and tranquillity and that we shall guar- 

 antee to them a republican form of govern- 

 ment, which we did when we approved the 

 constitution of Louisiana, under which form 

 that government is now carried on. 



"If there are frauds in elections or usurpations 

 in office, let the remedy be found in the courts 

 of the States or by means of impeachment, or 

 by the frequently-recurring popular elections. 

 But let us adopt the theory that we are under 

 the guarantee clause of the Constitution to 

 interfere with States further than to secure to 

 them order and tranquillity and a republican 

 form of government, and that we are to see to 

 it that the proper persons are in power, still I 

 insist that Congress is not to order a new elec- 

 tion in Louisiana. If Congress is to interfere, 

 and there is one who we know has been duly 

 eli-rted and who under the constitution of 

 Louisiana is entitled to the office of Governor, 

 Congress surely is not to interfere by ordering 

 a new election, but by placing the one entitled 

 to the office by election and by the Louisiana 

 constitution in power." 



Mr. West, of Louisiana, said : " The only con- 

 clusion that Congress has come to in regard to 



the vote of Louisiana is the conclusion that I 

 want to hold you to to-day, that you do not 

 know how the election baa gone in Louisiana, 

 and until you do know you have no right to 

 int. Ttrre with it. 



" We are told that the Kellogg government 

 is a groan usurpation, and that dire consequence* 

 are to result to the dominant party in Congress, 

 and in the country, and that we as Senators 

 will be grossly derelict of our duty unless we 

 apply a remedy which it is alleged exists under 

 tin- instruction of the Constitution that the 

 United States shall guarantee to every State in 

 this Union a republican form of government. 



"This proposition has so far mainly been 

 urged upon us by the Senator from Wisconsin. 

 In the bill which he has introduced to restore 

 the rights of the State of Louisiana he has as- 

 sumed an existing state of facts in regard to 

 affairs there from which I totally dissent, and 

 which assumption I contend and shall endeavor 

 to show to the Senate is not at all warranted 

 by the information in its possession. 



" In the first place, let me ask what is our 

 right of interference? That right must be 

 based upon two general grounds : first, whether 

 it is conferred upon us by the Constitution upon 

 any given state of facts; and, second, whether 

 that state of facts exists. 



" I shall leave the argument on the first of 

 these propositions to the more experienced 

 members of this body, whose views will inter- 

 est, instruct, and enlighten the Senate to a de- 

 gree that I should be entirely without, expec- 

 tation of equaling, and I shall confine myself 

 altogether to the proposition that the Senate 

 has not been informed, nor attempted to inform 

 itself, as to whether a state of facts exists grow- 

 ing out of the election of 1872 in Louisiana that 

 either requires or even justifies Congress in in- 

 terfering. I assert and maintain that the Sen- 

 ate does not know that William P. Kellogg was 

 not elected Governor at that time ; that the in- 

 formation laid before the Committee on Privi- 

 leges and Elections of the Forty-second Con- 

 gress related entirely to what was done by cer- 

 tain returning boards, to what occurred through 

 an order issued by a judge of a Federal court, 

 and that the examination held by that commit- 

 tee scarcely touched upon what, if we are to 

 exercise our right of interference, is the true 

 subject of inquiry ; How did the people of 

 Louisiana vote on the 4th of November, 1872? 

 for which person of the two then seeking their 

 suffrages for the office of Governor on that day 

 did they actually vote ? With the exception of 

 myself, and I do not know that I ought even 

 to except myself, nobody has given greater 

 attention to this matter than the Senator from 

 Wisconsin. He, after spending these weeks 

 elaborating his report and studying that testi- 

 mony, admits in the Senate that he does not 

 believe Mr. McEnery was elected. Now, we 

 know perfectly well that there were two men 

 voted for on that day. The Senator from Wis- 

 consin says : 



