The Nation 1875-01-21: Vol 20 Iss 499

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NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 1875. The Week. HE President’s Message in response to the resolution calling on him for information about the Louisiana matter, maintains that the United States Circuit Court had jurisdiction in the case of Kellogg v. Warmoth in 1872, and also in the case of Antoine, but admits that some of the orders made in both cases were illegal; that nevertheless the process of the Courts having been resisted (there is no proof of this) he felt it to be his duty to employ the troops to enforce it; that whether Kellogg was or was not fairly elected subsequently is doubtful, but that it seems clear that McEnery was not lawfully elected either; that during the troubles arising out of these disputes there was a fight at Colfax, at which there was a barbarous butchery of over thirty-seven negroes; that there were six young men, some of them Republicans and of- fice-holders under Kellogg, also murdered at Coushatta; that ‘“‘many murders of a like character” were committed in other parts of the State; that the White Leaguers, in answer to a procla- mation from Penn, the soi-disant Lieutenant-Governor, rose and overpowered the Kellogg government in September, 1874; that troops were sent down in consequence to put down this insurrec- tion; that there was “intimidation” of Republican voters at the ensuing election—in proof of which he cites a paper signed by cer- tain merchants of Shreveport agreeing to employ nobody who voted the Radical ticket, a piece of “intimidation” which Senators Mor- ton and Conkling must laugh over heartily, in their sleeves; that he does not know whether the Returning Board acted honestly or hot—he suggests that the long delay in canvassing the votes was due to the arguments of lawyers; but that he knows that it had the legal power to do what it pleased; that he had no knowledge and no idea that the troops were going to interfere with the organization of the legislature, and does not think such interference justifiable, but holds that there were circumstances connected ‘ with the legislative imbroglio in Louisiana which seem to exempt the military from any intentional wrong in the matter”; that if a mob or body of unauthorized persons seize and hold the legis- lative hall in a tumultuous and riotous manner, so as to prevent any organization by those legally returned as elected, it may become the -luty of the State executive to interpose, if requested by a ma- jority of the members-elect ; that if the Governor in Louisiana had attempted to use the police for this purpose there would have been a bloody conflict with the ‘“‘ White League,” so he had to use the troops. He then gives an account of what occurred in the hall— substantially the same as General Sheridan’s; says that whether the Governor had the right to interfere under the circumstances is “perhaps a debatable question”; eulogizes General Sheridan ; dis- claims all desire to have troops interfere in the domestic concerns of any State; and maintains that troops sent down to preserve order in a disturbed district must act in emergencies on the judg- ment of the commanding officer, who, as soldiers are not lawyers, are lial le to make mistakes. He concludes by calling on Congress once more to settle what his duty is in the Louisiana matter, and promises to carry out their enactment in spirit and letter. He appends to the message various justificatory documents (mainly loud “calls” for troops from Kellogg and Packard and others, on the ground that there was going to be “intimidation » during the registration), and the confidential instructions of the War Department to General Sheridan, the gist of which is that he is to make a trip in the States of Mississippi and Louisiana, see what the true condition of affairs is there, and send such suggestions to the President as may seem ‘reasonable and judicious.” There The Nation. is also a report from General Sheridan-on * murders” and * out- rages,” declaring that 3,500 persons—the majority colored—have been killed and wounded on account of their political opiniens within the State since 1866. He acknowledges, however, that he has no proof of this, as since 1868 no official or judicial investigation has been made. He has, nevertheless, he says, * ample evidence ” that there have been 1,200 murders on account of politics since Te6e, but does not sav what it is he considers “ample evidence”; nor does he say what is “the mass of evidence” which “lies before him” of 183 “isolated murders” in various parishes which he names. He must pardon us for saying that what passes as evidence with angry cavalry officers does not always pass with either lawyers or logi- cians, and that since Mr. Hayes’s Alabama murders, we are somewhat incredulous about these appalling murders of negroes just before election. It is not fair for the President to say that soldiers are not law- yers. General Sheridan, as we pointed out last week, is, on his own showing, one of the greatest lawyers in the country. He is not only, too, a great master of pariiamentary and constitutional law, as appears from his reports, but he feels equal to the peculiarly delicate task of legislating for a region in which * the air is impreg nated with assassination ” and one-half the population ready to cut the throats of the other half. He is, however, by no means the only person whose legal attainments have been first revealed by this Louisiana affair. At the meeting in Boston recently held to protest against the military interference with the organization of the legis- lature in Louisiana, Mr. Wendell Phillips made a speech, in which he hurled defiance at all lawyers present and to come, and staked his great legal reputation on the soundness of the proposition, that if there be any unfairness in the election of the speaker of a legisla- tive body, or if any persons, even five per cent. of those present and participating, have not been returned as elected by the canvassers, the assemblage becomes ipso facto illegal, or liable to uispersal as a mob by the executive. It does not seem to have oceurred to this great thinker that if this were good law it would have become a settled usage of parliamentary bedies to assemble and organize either in secret recesses of the woods and mountains or in fortified buildings and behind locked doors, because in the warfare which lasted for so many years between parliament and the executive the latter would be sure to have found cause between the calling of the roll and the election of the speaker for the dispersal of the mem- bers. Either he: would have put his creatures up to making a dis- turbance, or he would have got outsiders to smuggle themselves into the hall to take part in the proceedings, and so furnish him with a good reason for coming down with the troops. The fact is, however, that the doctrine is only about a month old. Parliaments had been in existence a thousand years before it was heard of. It has owed its origin to the effect of the Louisiana imbroglio on the senso- rium of Mr. Phillips and some other wiser people who think that a government of men is better than a government of laws. The Sub-Committee, composed of Messrs. Clarkson Potter of New York, Phelps of New Jersey, Foster of Ohio (one Democrat and two Republicans), which went down to New Orleans to investigate the state of things in Louisiana, and was luckily present when the late military interference oecurred, have returned, and made a report, which has probably attracted more attention than any document of a similar character which has been laid before the country for a long time, first because it is unanimous, instead of, as is usual, giving a Republican and a Democratic ver- sion; and, secondly, because the story it tells is totally opposed to. the one which the Administration and its friends have been for some time telling the public-—opposed, let us add, to the version which is necessary to keep the Republican party on its legs. The