CONGRESS. UNITED STATES. 



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motion made for the order, and the order itself 

 not verified as every order must be to have 

 effect; that under that order troops of the 

 United States, at two o'clock in the morning, 

 seized that State-house, or what was used as 

 a State-house, and that under that order and 

 under a subsequent order made in the case of 

 Antoine, which our committee also reported, 

 and as every lawyer knows who has looked at 

 it was wholly without jurisdiction and utterly 

 void, not a man was permitted to go into that 

 State-house but such men as a returning board, 

 declared by our same committee to have had 

 no authority whatsoever in the premises, should 

 say were entitled to take seats in that body ; 

 and that that returning board counted in Kel- 

 logg for Governor, Antoine for Lieutenant-Gov- 

 ern or, and a majority of the Legislature, with- 

 out ever having a single return before them, 

 upon newspaper reports and other rumors, as 

 they swore themselves before our committee, 

 and in some cases without any reports at all, 

 but according to their own estimate of what 

 ought to have been the Republican majority in 

 those parishes. And, sir, was it to be expected 

 that you would have peace after such a usur- 

 pation as that ? When that man Kellogg was 

 put into that chair, when that Legislature was 

 inaugurated, when those illegal proceedings 

 took place, then were the seeds of the troubles 

 of Louisiana laid. Had the choice of the peo- 

 ple, the men who were elected State officers 

 by more than ten thousand majority, been 

 allowed to take their places in the executive 

 offices, had the Legislature elected by the peo- 

 ple been allowed to assemble, Louisiana would 

 be as peaceable a State to-day as is the State 

 of Vermont. That is the truth about it. But 

 in violation of the rights of that people, in ut- 

 ter disregard of free institutions, trampling 

 under foot the elective franchise, and by the ex- 

 ercise of power which your own committee have 

 unanimously reported was unconstitutional, a 

 usurpation was set up there, and that was the 

 first fatal step, that fatal step of the President 

 that fatal step taken without waiting for the re- 

 monstrances of the people of Louisiana to be 

 heard, without waiting for their committee on 

 its way here to appear and represent the true 

 state of the facts that usurpation and that rec- 

 ognition of the usurpation are the source from 

 which these terrible evils have flown ; and 

 therefore we need not be surprised that now, 

 two years afterward, when another election 

 comes, another returning board is found to 

 count out the Democratic or Conservative ma- 

 jority of twenty-four members and count the 

 minority into a majority in the House of Rep- 

 resentatives of the General Assembly of that 

 State." 



Mr. Edmunds : " What authority has the 

 Senator for saying that that is the fact? " 



Mr. Thurman : " I have this authority for 

 saying it, the authority of just as good men and 

 a great deal better men than that returning 

 board. I will show the Senator at the proper 



time the authority I have. After we get this 

 information the Senator shall see something 

 that has the odor of authority." 



Mr. Edmunds : " You seemed to have the 

 authority now." 



Mr. Thurman: "Yes, sir; I will show by 

 the apologetic defense of this returning board 

 itself that it has counted out a majority of 

 twenty- odd against the Republican party, and 

 counted in a Republican majority, and counted 

 out the State officers who were elected and 

 counted the Republican candidates in. Now, 

 when such things as that take place and such 

 conduct is sustained by the Army of the United 

 States, Senators instead of being shocked at 

 seeing it, Senators instead of feeling that their 

 country and her institutions are aggrieved and 

 wronged by such conduct, are here palliating 

 it if not defending it, diverting attention from it 

 by talking about Ku-klux, and White Leagues, 

 and homicides. Sir, it will not do. The ques- 

 tion before us is a question of constitutional 

 law and of statute law, and it cannot be blinked, 

 and it cannot be overshadowed, and it cannot 

 be pushed aside by appeals to the passions of 

 men or by a threat of a still greater degree of 

 despotism upon the prostrate necks of the peo- 

 ple of Louisiana." 



Mr. Edmunds : " Mr. President, I wish not 

 to occupy time in reply to the very eloquent 

 effort of my friend from Ohio, and which, I am 

 sure, I never heard before, because I have got 

 so familiar with it that I generally go out when 

 it has been pronounced latterly, but to call the 

 attention of the Senate and of the Presiding 

 Officer to one fact that the honorable Senator 

 has stated, which has a great deal to do with 

 this question. 



" The honorable Senator says that this re- 

 turning board, to whom by law the returns 

 were sent, has counted out a Democratic ma- 

 jority in the House of Assembly of Louisiana 

 and counted in a Republican majority, which 

 he says is a very bad thing. If they have done 

 it contrary to law, it is a very bad thing ; but 

 I believe we both agree that by the laws of 

 Louisiana it was the business of that board to 

 count one way or the other, and determine for 

 the time being. Then we have, on the Sena- 

 tor's own statement, the fact that a Republican 

 majority of that House of Assembly had their 

 certificates and attended at the State-house to 

 organize their Legislature; and yet we find 

 him complaining of a violation of law because 

 a mob, headed by his friends, were not allowed 

 to organize themselves in spite of that majority 

 who had certificates." 



Mr. Bayard, of Delaware, said: "Mr. Presi- 

 dent, in my judgment the amendment pro- 

 posed by the honorable Senator from New 

 York to this resolution is quite out of place 

 and unnecessary. The resolution itself, we all 

 know as a public fact, was a mere formal pre- 

 liminary to congressional action. It was an 

 orderly and respectful call upon a coordinate 

 branch of the Government to account for his 



