238 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



We have not asked them to execute any vengeance 

 upon any person or party in. our behalf. We have 

 submitted to them whether it is not proper for 

 them to uphold their own Constitution, to require 

 fidelity and honor from their own officers in perform- 

 ance of duties they have imposed upon them, and 

 whether it does not behoove them to maintain the 

 covenants of union among the States, and to main- 

 tain the stability of State governments and the privi- 

 legss of local self-government, so that tranquillity, 

 justice, and liberty, be maintained. 



" These, Mr. President, are the demands of 

 our fellow-citizens of Louisiana, not a low 

 squabble for official emolument or power, but 

 a demand for the exercise of those principles 

 upon which our Government was founded, and 

 upon the existence and perpetuation of which 

 we alone can expect its honest and happy con- 

 tinuance. 



" I do not propose that, so far as I can pre- 

 vent it, either the people of the United States 

 or the Senate should be misled by the specioua 

 statements of the Senator from Indiana, who 

 has inveighed against the measure proposed by 

 the Senator from Wisconsin, on the ground 

 that it would invade the rights of a State. 

 Sir, the Senator from Wisconsin well said that 

 when we heard the Senator from Indiana plead- 

 ing for the rights of the State of Louisiana it 

 was difficult to listen to him with a grave 

 countenance. What, sir, after this State has 

 been trodden to the earth by the foot of Fed- 

 eral power ; after the Senator is willing, nay, 

 anxious, that foot should be kept there ; after 

 this State has been throttled on the highway 

 by Federal power aiding and backing up the 

 footpads who are called the present govern- 

 ment of Louisiana, and it is proposed that re- 

 lief should be given, the Senator from Indiana 

 assures us that it would be invasion of the rights 

 of a State ! Sir, he is no fit guardian of the 

 rights of a State. I lately saw a picture of a 

 wolf who had killed the shepherd, had pos- 

 sessed himself of his garments, his hat, cloak, 

 and crook, and was employed in watching the 

 unwary lambs who soon were to become his 

 prey ; and when I have heard the Senator from 

 Indiana, turning to those of us in this Chamber 

 who do profess to regard the rights of the States 

 and who follow our profession by practice, 

 warn us against interference in this case lest 

 the rights of a State might be endangered, then, 

 sir, again does that picture rise before my 

 mind's eye, and I recognize what manner of 

 shepherd the Senator from Indiana is where 

 State rights are concerned. 



" Mr. President, the issue for the people of 

 the United States to consider is, shall this con- 

 spiracy, as the people of Louisiana have justly 

 termed it, this conspiracy to overthrow a State, 

 be successfully accomplished? Can an At- 

 torney-General of the United States concoct 

 and carry into effect a scheme with his party 

 confederates to invade a State, ride rough-shod 

 over her constitution and laws, prearrange 

 with a corrupt and reckless .judge of a district 

 court of the United States for a violation of 



law, an unwarranted usurpation, an assump- 

 tion of jurisdiction which was known to the 

 Attorney-General and known to the judge and 

 known to all men to be unwarranted in law 

 and to be a usurpation, and to use this dis- 

 honestly-assumed power as a pretext for the 

 use of the armed forces of the United States 

 Government to thrust down and keep down 

 the lawful government of a State ? 



" Sir, this is a case beyond mere technical 

 pleadings and mere forms. Law is silent be- 

 fore arms. Law disappears and the constitu- 

 tion of the State and of the United States dis- 

 appears before the breath of the Attorney- 

 General and his associates in this business. 

 The pretense of law by Kellogg is a mockery ; 

 it is a bold, shameless, unmitigated fraud from 

 beginning to end. The whole history of the 

 means whereby even the forms of government 

 were followed in Louisiana the installation of 

 Pinchback, the instant abolition of the courts 

 of the State, the supply of the bench with new 

 men and interested candidates to whose sole 

 jurisdiction of these very questions was by 

 special statutes given all these things are such 

 a tangled web of fraud that pretense of law or 

 fair dealing nowhere can be found among 

 them." 



Mr. Merrimon, of North Carolina, said : " Mr. 

 President, the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. 

 Carpenter), who introduced the pending bill, 

 has labored earnestly in its support, and hia 

 ability and zeal command my cordial respect 

 and admiration. But, with all due respect for 

 him, I cannot support his bill because, in the 

 ^first place, as I have shown, McEnery is Gov- 

 ernor ; because, in the second place, if, as he 

 says and insists, there was no election in 1872, 

 then Warmoth, by the express words of the 

 Constitution, is Governor ; and because, in the 

 third place, even if there were no State au- 

 thorities there, the bill goes a bow-shot, in 

 providing for an election, beyond what I think 

 Congress has power to do under the Constitu- 

 tion and our system of government. There is, 

 in my judgment, no power in Congress arising 

 by express provisions of the Constitution, by 

 reasonable construction or by necessity, under 

 our system of government, State and Federal, 

 which authorizes it to pass the pending bill. 



" And I wish I had time to enlarge somewhat 

 on this point. I am willing to concede that in 

 one contingency Congress may pass a law au- 

 thorizing the people to reorganize a State. If 

 by possibility (and there is such a possibility) a 

 State government in the Union should be abso- 

 lutely deprived of State officers, so that the 

 government of the State shall be left without 

 officers to operate its government, in that case 

 I contend that Congress could grant the people 

 relief. But how? Simply by passing a law 

 authorizing the people of the State to hold an 

 election according to their own constitution and 

 laws. That is all that Congress can do ; it is 

 all that Congress is bound to do ; and it has 

 that power by the tenor and spirit of the Con- 



