LOUISIANA. 



495 



wait upon General do Trobriand and soon returned 

 with that officer, who waa accompanied l>y two of 

 hlfl staff-officers. At General de Trobriuiul walked 



to the Speaki-r'sdesk loud applause burst from 



; '.-mocratic tide of the House. General de 



u, .1 uisked the acting Speaker if it was not 



lo for him to preserve order without appealing 



t.. ].r.>,rve order aa a United States Army 

 officer. Mr. \Viltz said it waa not, whereupon the 

 general proceeded to the lobby, and, addressing a few 

 words to the excited crowd, peace was at once re- 



. On motion of Mr. Ihipre, Mr. \Viltz then, 

 in tlio name of the General Assembly of tho State 

 of Louisiana, thanked General de Trobriand for his 

 intiTtVrrm'u in behalf of law and order, and the gen- 

 eral withdrew. 



The Republicans had now generally withdrawn 

 from the hall, and united in signing a petition to the 

 Governor, stating their grievances and asking his 

 ui<l, which petition, signed by fifty-two legally-re- 

 turned members of the House, is in my possession. 



Immediately subsequent to the action of Mr. Wiltz 

 in t jilting the Clerk of the old House, Mr. Billieu 

 moved that two gentlemen from the parish of De 

 Soto, one from Winn, one from Bienville, and one 

 fmm' Iberia, who had not been returned by the Re- 

 turning Board, be sworn in as members, and they 

 were accordingly sworn in by Mr. Wilts, and tcok 

 their seats on the floor as members of the House. A 

 motion was now made that the House proceed with 

 its permanent organization, and accordingly the roll 

 was called by Mr. Trezevant, the acting Clerk, and 

 W iltz was declared Speaker, and Trezevant Clerk of 

 the House. 



Acting on the protests made by the majority of the 

 House, the Governor now requested the command- 

 ing general of the department to aid him in restor- 

 ing order, and enable the legally-returned members 

 <>f the House to proceed with, its organization accord- 

 ing to law. This request was reasonable, and in ac- 

 cordance with law. Remembering vividly the terri- 

 ble massacres that took place in this city on the as- 

 sembling of the- Constitutional Convention in 1866, 

 at the Mechanics' Institute, and believing that the 

 lives of the members of the Legislature were, or 

 would be, endangered in case an organization under 

 the law was attempted, the posse was furnished, with 

 the request that care shoula bo taken that no mem- 

 ber of the Legislature returned by the Returning 

 Board should be ejected from the floor. This mili- 

 tary posse performed its duty under directions from 

 the Governor of the State, ana removed from the floor 

 of the House those persons who had been illegally 

 seated, and who had no legal right to be there ; where- 

 upon the Democrats rose and left the House, and the 

 remaining members proceeded to effect nn organiza- 

 tion under the State laws. 



In all this turmoil, in which bloodshed was immi- 

 nent, the mUiary posse behaved with great discre- 

 tion. When Mr. Wiltz, the usurping Speaker of 

 the House, called for troops to prevent bloodshed, 

 they were given him ; when the Governor of the 

 State called for a posse for the same purpose and to 

 enforce the law, it was furnished also. Had this not 

 been done, it is my firm belief that scenes of blood- 

 shed would have ensued. 



P. H. SHERIDAN, Lieutenant-General. 



The following report was submitted to the 

 Louisiana Legislature, on the llth of January, 

 by a Republican committee of that body, with 

 the recommendation that it be forwarded to 

 Congress : 



To the Honorable Speaker and Members of the House 

 of Representatives of the State of Louisiana : 



GENTLEMEN : Your committee, selected to prepare 

 n statement of revolutionary proceedings that trans- 



S'red in the hall of the House of Representatives on 

 ondny, January 4, 1875, beg leave to submit the 



following statement, and recommend that it be im- 

 .uly forwarded to the CongruM of the United 

 HIM, Respectfully, 



JAMES 8. MATHEWS, 



CHABLES W. LOWELL, 



W. 1'. SOUTHARD. 

 R. K. BAY. 



Returns of the election held November 2, 1874, as 

 promulgated by the proper returning ollioers thereof 

 according to law, show that there were elected to 

 the House fifty-three Republicans and fifty-three 

 Democrats, ana there were five seatn lor which the 

 returning officers had made no returns, which were 

 referred Tor decision of the right to hold them to the 

 General Assembly. 



The whole number of the House of Representatives 

 is 111; a quorum is a majority of ine members 

 elected, ana was, at that time, 54. A quorum, when 

 the whole number is seated, is 56. 



A few days prior to the day fixed for the meeting 

 of the General Assembly a posse of unauthorized 

 persons secretly kidnapped A. G. Cousin, a Repub- 

 lican member, and by force and violence conveyed 

 him out of the city, under color of a pretended charge 

 of embezzlement of $50, across Lake Pontchartram 

 to a distant parish, where they held him in confine- 

 ment until alter the day for the meeting of the Gen- 

 eral Assembly. They afterward released him, the 

 very men who made the charge going on his bond, 

 and acknowledging that their object in arresting and 

 detaining him was to break a Republican majority. 



Certain parties in the mean while sought, by the 

 payment of several thousand dollars to certain Re- 

 publican members, to bribe three of them to vote for 

 the Democratic nominee for Speaker. Attempts 

 were made .to kidnap other Republican members. 

 Public and repeated threats were made, for weeks 

 previous to the 4th of January, of violence and as- 

 sassination toward certain Republican members of 

 the General Assembly. These threats and menaces 

 were repeated, confirmed and indorsed by the press 

 of the opposition throughout the State. 



In consequence of information in bis possession 

 that organized violence was intended to be used 

 to influence the organization of the House, the Gov- 

 ernor placed the State-House under the military 

 command of General H. J. Campbell, of the State 

 militia, who was ordered to assist and sustain the 

 police. Under this order, General Campbell ex- 

 cluded from the building, on Monday, all but offi- 

 cials of the State government, members of the Gen- 

 eral Assembly, and persons claiming to be members, 

 judges, memoers of Congress, and members of the 

 United States civil, military, and naval forces. 



The constitutional provisions to govern the or- 

 ganization of the House are as follows : 



ARTICLE 28. The House of Representatives shall 

 choose its Speaker and other officers. 



ART. 84. Each House of the General Assembly 

 shall judge of the qualifications, elections, and re- 

 turns of its members, but a contested election shall 

 be determined in such a manner as may be pre- 

 scribed by law. 



ART. 86. Each House of the General Assembly 

 shall keep and publish weekly a journal of its pro- 

 ceedings, and the yeas and nays of members on any 

 question, and, at the desire of two of them, they 

 shall be entered on the journal. 



The law governing the organization of the House 

 is as follows : 



Section 44. Article XXVIII., approved November 

 80, 1872. That it shall be the duty of the Secretary 

 of State to transmit to the Clerk of the House of Rep- 

 resentatives and Secretary of the Senate of the last 

 General Assembly a list of the names of such per- 

 sons as, according to the returns, shall have been 

 elected to either branch of the General Assembly, 

 and it shall be the duty of said Clerk and Secretary 

 to place the names of the Representatives and Sen- 



