A Carpet-bag Legislature in Session
The general character of the work done in the Louisiana Assembly
during the sessions of 1869 and 1870 was distinctly inferior; the
tone of the debate low; and the conduct paralleled only in the worst
of the reconstruction legislatures. The ignorance of the members does
not appear glaringly in the records of 1869, for the more illiterate
did not engage in the debate, certainly did not venture upon lengthy
addresses. It is only occasionally that we are appalled by the dense
ignorance revealed, as when the colored legislator Burrel broke out
into a mass of incoherent repetitions in defense of the St. Charles
pavement bill.[60]
The debate was distinctly partisan. The following outburst, provoked by
the debate on the militia bill, is sufficiently suggestive:
Is it possible that men in broad daylight will say that we should
not call on the Republican party to give security to the people?
That we receive this amendment that men should be organized into
a militia, that will call every disturbance of the peace a “nigger
insurrection”? Men should prove that they are loyal before they
can be trusted to go into the militia. This amendment ought to be
dammed by this House. What, this democracy to be organized into a
militia to execute Andrew Johnson’s policy! This amendment is full of
deviltry.[61]
On another occasion even the speaker stated as a good reason why a
certain bill should pass that the board to be affected by it were all
good Republicans. The bill promptly passed.[62] January 19 a cool
resolution was offered that the persons voted for in the parishes
where a fair election had been held, the twenty-six parishes where
the Democrats had had a majority being calmly ignored, should meet to
vote for President and Vice-President.[63] It is significant, however,
that sharply drawn as was the party line, the sectional feeling
manifested was distinctly pro-Southern. When a measure was offered
for a contribution to a Lincoln Monument, few spoke for it, while
most felt it frankly impossible that the South could be expected to
contribute.[64] On the other hand, when the appeal to help bury the
Confederate dead at Fredericksburg came up the following session, even
such a hot-headed Unionist as Mr. McMillan spoke reverently in advocacy
of the appropriation.[65]
But worse than partisanship was the lack of dignity, even frivolity,
which characterized the proceedings. So serious did this become that
the speaker was frequently forced to call the members to order for
their senseless motions and tone of levity.[66] Amendments were
repeatedly refused by the chair as absurd[67] and even improper. It
was proposed to add to the oath required by the school bill, “shall
take whiskey straight without regard to race, color, or previous
condition.”[68] Some, when ordered read to satisfy the curiosity of the
House, proved even indecent.[69] The greatest discourtesy on the part
of one member to another prevailed, while even the president of the
Senate was guilty of recognizing a Senator in the following undignified
way: “Well, just pitch in.” One member cried: “I don’t know what he
is going to talk about. I don’t wish to hear him talk at all, and I
therefore call for the previous question.”[70] Because one member
read his speech, another called out rudely, “There’s that document
again.” Or again, “I move the gentleman be allowed to speak all night.
He occupies the floor more than any other member of this House.”[71]
Freedom of speech both as to time and language and wordy altercations
made confusion and tumult almost the rule in both houses until such a
remark as the following was possible: “I hope the Sergeant-at-arms will
call to his assistance a sufficient number of the Metropolitan Police
to keep order and to see whether we cannot have silence, and quiet,
and stillness to hear what is going on,” while the president weakly
added, “It is really a shame that we cannot have better order.”[72] It
frequently became necessary for the chair to order the sergeant to seat
obstreperous members and to threaten public censure.[73] In at least
one instance the threat was executed.[74] Carter even boldly said of
the speaker, “I must say that the man who knows the facts of this case,
as he said he did, and is acquainted with the law, and then says that
I am a defaulter, is either a fool or unadulterated liar.” Then less
vehemently, “I will be square and honest and polite to you all, but I
will be hanged if I am to be bullyragged, and I’ll be switched if I am
to be ridden over by the Speaker or anybody else.”[75]
Reprobate and scoundrel that he proved to be, Speaker Carr[76] had a
certain power of command, which made it possible for him to control the
House. Whenever he called anyone else to the chair, the House broke
into disorder like a set of unruly schoolboys, leaving him problems
to disentangle on his return. Legislators indulged in pranks such as
withdrawing a member’s chair while he was speaking in order that his
fall should convulse the House.[77] So notorious was the disorder that
one member acknowledged as a well-known fact that gentlemen came from
the North to see what kind of a House they had. The speaker found it
difficult to hear the motions, while over and over again the reporter
inserted in the debates “confusion” and a statement to the effect that,
owing to the disorder, he had lost part of the speech. The pages, who
made as much noise “as a lot of young colts, dodging about the floor,
standing up, talking and laughing all the time,” according to the
speaker, added to the disturbance.[78] It would be difficult to read
the pages that record the proceedings on the 30th of January, 1869,
without feeling convinced that the open bar, which it was charged
was to be found at the capitol, had had its due effect.[79] The last
evening closed fittingly with a mock session, when, as the debates
assure us, “the members had a good time, and the reign of fun prevailed
for a few minutes.”[80]
Low as was the tone during the second session of the Assembly, it
degenerated even lower by the time the Assembly gathered for the third
time. Debate descended more often to vulgarity[81] and bad grammar and
rhetoric came to the surface more often.[82]
Mr. President, I have not expressed on none of these bills termed
political bills, but, as the gentleman who preceded me from Orleans
has not entirely represented me, I claim on this floor the privilege.
In the first place, he says we have elected a demagogue,--or some
such word.... I say on the other hand, if the way that he holds
to that he has done what he proposes that he should have done, it
is because the Democratic members on this floor, when some bills
were introduced in this House, opposed them bills, and they did not
become laws.... I do not know what done it, except it was their own
classes--except it was someone that stood in the ranks in the days of
old.[83]
It was of a legislature which assembled only a year later that Eustis
told his famous story: “There was a member of Parliament brought me a
letter of introduction, and he asked me if I had any great curiosity to
show him. I told him I had--such a curiosity as he would never see in
any other civilized country, and I took him to the legislature.”[84]
In methods of procedure gross irregularities occurred as a result
of carelessness or deliberate manipulation until the procedure
occasionally became a mere travesty of the forms of government.
Wiltz in the House charged that he was never notified to attend a
single meeting of the Committee on the City Charter of which he was a
member.[85] A bill was declared on third reading when the House had
refused to engross it and had ordered it placed on the calendar. An
interested member detected the irregularity.[86] A member of the Ways
and Means Committee charged that the revenue bill had been returned
when only two members had been present to act on it.[87] One striking
offense was the extraordinary omnibus motion put and carried amid
boisterous laughter late on the evening of February 23: “I move that
the reading of the bill be dispensed with, the bill be put upon its
first reading, the constitutional rule be suspended, the bill be
put upon its second and third readings and final passage, the title
adopted, and that the bill be sent to the Senate for concurrence.”[88]
One member remonstrated at what he properly termed an “extraordinary
proceeding.” “The Governor has sent in a veto of some bills, and in his
message has given very grave reasons for so doing. Now, sir, I want
to see the bills. I don’t know them at all. They were ordered to be
printed this morning, and now the House desires to take up those bills,
involving millions of dollars, without ever giving the members an
opportunity to make themselves acquainted with their provisions.”[89]
Another member was excused from voting on a bill, which he insisted on
hearing read, only after the following declaration of independence: “I
will throw myself back upon my reserved rights, and I will not vote,
and the House may take, with all respect, the course they may think
proper.”[90]
Even the speaker acted on one occasion without knowing what the forms
were carrying through, for, on the query of a member as to the nature
of the bill under debate, he replied: “Something about taxes. The
gentleman from Orleans moves it be referred to the Committee on Ways
and Means.” It was so referred.[91]
The powerful majority did not even manifest the ordinary courtesies of
debate to the minority, but replied coldly to the very reasonable plea
of the opposition for more time on an important bill: “It seems to be
the disposition of the committee to work further.”[92] By dispensing
with the reading of the bill and various other devices to gain time,
bills were often crowded through to adoption at a single sitting.[93]
Under the operation of the previous question, debate was peremptorily
cut off until one member indignantly cried out: “It is impossible
to sit here and see the funds of the State voted away without an
opportunity to remonstrate against it.”[94]
Charges of corruption were brought against members of the Assembly not
only by the press[95] and by the leading citizens of the State, but
charges were openly brought on the floor of the House. In the debate
on the Ship Island Canal bill the remark was dropped that some people
thought there were millions of dollars in that bill, and similar
charges were made in regard to many other bills.[96] One member even
boldly challenged another: “I want to know how much the gentleman gets
to support this bill.”[97] That unnecessary clerks were employed seems
incontrovertible when the House decided that the auditor might employ
six clerks to do the work which had always been performed by two or
three. So notorious became the corruption in many directions that the
House felt it obligatory to appoint committees of investigation, even
though one member contemned the charges as beneath their dignity. The
wording of one resolution offered in the House early in January of
1869 reveals a whole tale: “Resolved, that the President of the Board
of Metropolitan Police be directed to furnish this House with the names
of any members who have been employed as special officers, and under
what assumed names they drew their salaries for such services.”[98] The
debates bring out the fact that two or, possibly, four members were
laboring under such charge.[99] Likewise, the House became exercised
over a complaint that members serving on different House committees
were also employed in the custom-house and drawing a salary from each
source.[100] The Assembly was not slow to put on foot investigations
of other bodies, for corruption seems already to have vitiated most
departments of the government and the institutions connected with
it.[101]
Although the finances of the State were calling for the most skillful
handling, the legislative body acted without even the most ordinary
business prudence. While the time limit for the payment of the city
taxes and for the collection of the special one per cent tax levied
in September, 1868, had to be extended[102]; while the credit was
so weak that it was found necessary to enforce under penalties the
acceptance of the State warrants for licenses and taxes by the parishes
of Orleans, Jefferson, and Bernard; while the State was in such straits
that an annual tax became necessary to pay the interest on bonds[103];
and legislators were being put to the embarrassment of being told
that the Waterworks Company had suspended the water until they should
pay their bill,[104] they were voting themselves their pay with a
generous hand and squandering State funds in sheer extravagance. They
early[105] manifested anxiety for their pay, appropriating $250,000 in
1869, $500,000 in 1870, for the mileage and per diem of members and
clerks.[106] Their selfishness took the form in 1869 of instructing
the warrant clerks to sell the warrants at their market value in order
to pay the members in currency,[107] and in 1870, of giving their
warrants the preference. Their attitude toward themselves is perhaps
illuminating in explaining their actions. One member had insisted
that they ought to accept their money in warrants, “in which form the
government pays the community,” when another angrily retorted, “I
desire to assure him of the very important fact that what we, as the
Legislature, give to the community ... is without money and without
price. They are so valuable that the price cannot be fixed--there is
no standard.”[108] And another member naïvely wants to know if he does
not consider the General Assembly the State. Even more telling is the
following exhortation of a member to the House: “I would like to know
if there is a great thing and a good thing, in the name of God, why
not let the Representatives of the State of Louisiana have a hand in
it.”[109]
Small extravagances helped to swell the total cost of this Assembly to
$264,278.06.[110] There were certain items in the general appropriation
bill which looked unnecessarily large. When a mere clerk of a district
court received a salary of $6,000, and the rental of a building for
a state house cost $13,000 for nine months; when the always elastic
clause for contingent expenses was stretched to $16,000; when printing
and advertising mounted up to $183,000, the people might well begin to
question and murmur. A bit of sarcasm was unconsciously incorporated in
the printing appropriation of 1870 when a motion to substitute $200,000
for the original $140,000, asking some of these liberal-hearted
gentlemen to open their hearts a little wider and take in every
official journal of the State, was adopted.[111] The interest alone on
bonds issued to railroads is probably accurate enough, but had reached
the terrifying sum of $461,014.14. The only spasm of economy which the
House suffered during the entire session of 1869 was really a pick at
the police, when a few minor officials were struck off or reduced in
salary.[112]
The law which was to provide the income seemed to bear no relation to
the expenditures. Unwisely wasting their time on a bill to enforce
collection of taxes already paid to the Confederacy,[113] they rushed
the revenue bill through with a haste which explains its inadequacy.
Urged by the Committee on Ways and Means to accept its work as
complete, even the reading was dispensed with, and the act, which was
referred to in a later session as a disgrace,[114] adopted by the House
without discussion on the evening of March 3.[115] A clause which
provoked the greatest criticism was one licensing gambling-houses,
which appeared in the published bill and came up for a perfect storm
of debate in the session of 1870. The chairman of the committee stated
that it had not been in the original law, and that he believed it had
been surreptitiously introduced after it had been acted upon by the
House.[116] Moreover, a bill which made no provision for the interest
on the debt, which made an appropriation for an institution which did
not exist,[117] and which failed to meet the liabilities of the State
by $500,000,[118] indicated business financiering which sooner or later
must bring the State to bankruptcy.
And just when the finances called for a policy of retrenchment
was the time when the legislature saw fit to embark on a system
of extensive internal improvements. As has been remarked by many
reconstruction writers, there was a conscious purpose to introduce in
the South the energy and methods of the North and West in the hope
of similar economic results. It was recognized by the conservatives
that introduction of new railroads was necessary for economic
rehabilitation. But it must not be forgotten that the sable statesmen
who were called upon to ponder problems of high finance were ex-slaves
who had had the experience of a porter’s tips or the extra half-dollars
of a plantation hand. Of the numerous bills of that nature introduced,
a considerable number passed, lending State aid with a liberal hand.
The enterprises were chiefly of three kinds: canals, railroads, and
the ever-pressing levees. The Mississippi and Mexican Gulf Ship Canal
Company profited by this spirit to the extent of $600,000, issued in
the form of State bonds under a first mortgage, running the generous
period of thirty years[119]; the New Orleans and Ship Island Canal
Company to the extent of $2,000,000 and a large bonus in lands.[120]
The House did not find it necessary to debate at any great length the
measure which legislated away the former sum,[121] but far otherwise
was the history of the latter act. Introduced into the session of
1868, it had been thoroughly discussed in the Senate and passed by
that body and came up in the House in 1869 as unfinished business.
Its objectionable features had not been so clear while passing the
Senate, but by the next session it had been thoroughly aired by the
press.[122] It declared the system of the Drainage Commissioners of the
Metropolitan District “erroneous in principle and unsuccessful from
experience,” and so gave over into the possession of the new Canal
Company all the funds and assets of the commissioners to the amount
of nearly $2,000,000 and public lands in installments to the extent
of 400,000 acres, on the ground that this canal would accomplish
the drainage of the entire district. As this fund had been raised by
assessment for the special purpose of drainage, the opposition held
that it could not thus be diverted. But, nevertheless, this bill was
pressed through the House January 29,[123] under heated personal
debate, extending through several days, and after having suffered much
amendment. Although vetoed by the governor, it passed both houses with
the requisite majority March 2.[124] Smaller sums were donated to minor
enterprises, as $50,000 for the improvement of Loggy Bayou; $20,000 for
improving Bayou Vermilion[125]; and $80,000 worth of credit loaned to
the Bœuf and Crocodile Navigation Company.[126]
Aid to railroads was equally liberal. In its zeal the House on February
23, without the reading of the bill, pushed through all its stages the
incorporation of the Louisiana and Arkansas Railroad Company, granted
it exemption from taxation for ten years, a right of way three hundred
feet in width, and the privilege of all the timber for one mile on
each side of the road through the public lands.[127] But of all the
railroad bills, by far the most conspicuous was that which extended
a helping hand to the New Orleans, Mobile, and Chattanooga Road. It
came up in the House February 4 and was pressed to a final vote that
very afternoon and its amendments concurred in by the Senate February
14.[128] The bill provided for the guarantee of the company’s bonds
by the State under the security of a second mortgage to the amount
of $12,500 for each mile within the State west of New Orleans.[129]
Parishes along the route of the Vicksburg Railroad were encouraged
to aid that road by the purchase of stock or the issue of bonds, in
addition to the State guarantee of its second mortgage bonds to the
usual amount of $12,500 per mile.[130] Still other roads had found it
worth while to besiege the legislature.
The great problem of improvement most urgently pressing was not
adequately met--the construction of a satisfactory series of levees
for the Mississippi River. A State loan of $4,000,000 had been
provided for in 1867 for that purpose but the bonds had not been
readily disposed of.[131] The Board of Levee Commissioners had made
contracts for a large amount of work but the legislature of 1869
found no work accomplished--only the bonds of the State pledged for
work authorized to be done--and so was placed under the necessity
of authorizing the sale of the bonds.[132] The House made a valiant
effort to meet the problem in the passage of a bill to issue bonds to
the sum of $5,000,000 to provide means for the construction, repairs,
and maintenance of the levees and other works of improvement, but the
effort died there.[133]
A lack of discrimination characterized the action of the Assembly
on this subject. To aid all projects just because they savored of
prosperity would seem to express the attitude of some thoughtless
legislators. “I am glad that I have one more chance for internal
improvement,” generously declared one member.[134] Again, a project
for the northern part of the State was advocated that no charge of
partiality to the Southern part should be brought.[135] Nor is it
fair to lay all the burden of debt arising from these grants of aid
at the door of the radicals. It was rather a response to a universal
desire for an extension of railroads and improvement of the waterways
of the State, voiced by the moderate conservative press as well as
the radical. “It is noteworthy as a sign fraught with good promise,”
says the _Commercial Bulletin_, “that the railroad spirit is alive
in the Northern parishes of this State, and that those whom it
inspires are evidently bent on the early accomplishment of substantial
results.”[136] In like strain the _Crescent_ concerning the work of the
Chattanooga Railroad: “It is certainly to be hoped that we shall soon
have direct railroad communications with Mobile, and that all efforts
to prevent the consummation of so desirable an object will fail.”[137]
But the _Picayune_, while on the whole encouraging the measures, was
more conservative and urged that promises of aid be few, “unless they
are of certain and undoubted practicability and profitableness, and
are secure beyond all peril of loss.”[138] Such measures were supported
by members of both parties, often introduced by Democrats, in every
case supported by a large majority of Democrats in both houses.[139]
The leading movers, outside of the legislature, of these bills were men
of both parties; and the lobbyists who advanced the corrupt measures
were of both faiths.[140] This fact was admitted by the Democratic
press.[141]
The legislature of 1869, with which the _Commercial Bulletin_ sourly
assured its readers the people wanted as little as possible to do,
convened January 4 and sat until March 4. The governor’s annual message
to it, a plea for freedom from prejudice, struck a tone of optimism
which subsequent events did not justify: “The issues of the past eight
years have been settled, we hope, forever. Slavery has been swept away,
and along with it all the train of evils growing out of its wickedness,
and has left us--master and slave, white and black--with the same
rights under the law, the same chance to succeed in life, and with
equally unrestricted aspirations and hopes.” He professed faith in a
“wise, economical, moderate, and firm administration of the nation and
the State as curing animosities and bringing prosperity to the people.”
That portion of his message which alluded to the violence of 1868 and
to his measures to allay the excitement was severely challenged by the
Democratic press.[142]
The Assembly during the two months of its existence passed 152 laws,
many of which were local, many personal relief bills.[143] There was
beginning to be apparent that tendency to vest autocratic power in
the hands of the governor, which reached, as we shall see, such a
culmination in the next session. In some instances, it is true, the
propositions could not muster sufficient strength to pass the Assembly,
but it is significant that such propositions could be offered as Ray’s
amendment to the charter bill for New Orleans, which suggested vesting
in the Governor power to appoint the first mayor and council until
the election in 1872, and the amendment to the volunteer militia
bill, which left to him large discretionary powers.[144] The act which
prohibited the mayor of New Orleans from exercising any police duty or
authority is equivalent to an enlargement of the governor’s powers,
for the body with such control, the metropolitan police, was virtually
his servant through his appointive power.[145] Quite as important was
the negative action of the Assembly in refusing to force the governor
to order elections in certain cases where for political reasons he was
leaving vacancies.[146]
One group of laws attempted to deal with the race and labor questions.
A vagrancy law, which finally overcame the hostile majority in
the Senate, while not so severe as those of the “Black Code,” did
still define rather narrowly and imposed heavy penalties.[147] This
stringency arose, at least largely, from the need of labor and devotion
to the crops to which economic conditions forced the planters.[148] A
measure to organize a Bureau of Immigration was passed, appropriating
$20,000 to secure a share in the foreign labor which they saw flooding
the North. Unfortunately, this did not solve the labor problem,
and dissatisfaction with the Bureau,[149] and especially with its
carpet-bagger chief, J. O. Noyes, was loudly voiced in the session of
1870. Efforts to secure new workers by legislation continued throughout
the next session. A bill to accord negroes equal civil rights had been
up in the session of 1868 but had not been signed by the governor,
who was forced to explain to a body of their race assembled en masse,
February 4, 1869, his reasons for not doing so.[150] And Pinchback’s
civil rights bill, which forbade common carriers and places of public
resort to discriminate on account of race, color, or previous condition
of servitude,[151] came up as unfinished business from the preceding
session. As was to be expected, feeling ran high and lengthy discussion
resulted, usually of a serious character. Twenty-six Senators were
reported as desirous of speaking on the bill. Pinchback in debate
made use of the expression “refused a drink of common whiskey in a
common grog-shop,” which was seized on by the conservative press as
a convenient whip. The cry of the Conservatives was that the colored
people had too much sense to force themselves where they were not
wanted, and this view was borne out by the negroes themselves. “I
consider myself just as far above coming into company that does not
want me, as they are above my coming into an elevation with them.... I
do not believe that any sensible colored man upon this floor would wish
to be in a private part of a public place without the consent of the
owners of it. It is false; it is wholesale falsehood to say that we
wish to force ourselves upon white people.” But he did insist that they
receive equal accommodation.[152] The former set down the agitation to
a political move to renew the strife.[153]
When the bill had passed both houses, the press took a more aggressive
attitude in an effort to frighten the negroes from any attempt to
claim their rights. “Will any negro, or gang of negroes, attempt to
exercise the privilege it confers?” belligerently asked the _Commercial
Bulletin_. “If they do, it will be at their peril.... He may be able
to obtain a ticket of admission, but no New Orleans audience will ever
permit him to take his seat except in the places allotted for colored
persons.”[154] The _Bee_ declared that if the governor dared to sign
that bill after vetoing the former, “legal means would not be lacking
to set aside this arbitrary law, this outrage to the law of propriety,
and to individual liberty.”[155]
The civil rights bill was backed up by a measure intended to prevent
the intimidation of negroes by punishing the bribery of witnesses or
preventing a witness by force, threat, or intimidation from testifying
in a criminal proceeding.[156] It is striking that a Ku-Klux bill--a
bill “to prevent people from agoing abroad disguised”--was quickly
referred and evidently died in committee.[157] Another effort in the
next session to prevent the carrying of concealed weapons met no better
fate.[158]
A measure allied to the above legislation, but of vastly greater
importance because of its National character, was the ratification of
the Fifteenth Amendment, which was accepted perfunctorily by a vote
of 18 to 3 in the Senate; 59[159] to 9 in the House, 36 Republicans
refusing to vote.
Particularly confusing were the various measures which finally evolved
into the slaughter house bill. Vigorous opposition and much ridicule
manifested themselves at its first appearance in the House, but all
amendments against the monopolistic features were voted down, debate
choked off abruptly, all attempts at filibustering defeated, and the
bill adopted by a large majority under the operation of the previous
question.[160] Scanty indeed is the record of its history in the
Senate. “After a short fight the bill was concurred in as a whole and
the motion to reconsider tabled by a vote of 23 to 9.”[161] By it the
slaughter of animals, except by the Crescent City Live Stock Landing
and Slaughter House Company was prohibited within the city of New
Orleans or the parishes of Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Bernard after
June 1, 1869. All animals destined for sale or slaughter must be landed
at the live stock landings and yards of the company, occupying the
levee from Common to Poydras streets, which naturally exacted a fee for
each steamship and craft landing at its wharves.[162] The excessive
haste with which the bill was rushed through was pretty generally
believed to be due to the fact that legislators had bought stock
with the privilege of paying at convenience.[163] A perfect hue and
cry against monopoly and violation of private rights went up at the
passage of this bill. Hear the _Bee_: “So the bill has passed, just
as it came from the House, and with provisions so monstrously unjust
that if it be not arrested by veto, and be subjected to an ordeal by
the two Houses, in review, which it is believed it cannot survive, it
will at least become a byword of reproach to all concerned in it.”[164]
Or the _Picayune_: “Nay, monopolies have themselves such elements of
corruption and are so odious in the land that they can and will be set
aside. It may take time and a reformation of the polluted courts of
justice to bring this about, but it will be done when the people awake
to the necessity of driving the money-changers and the false Scribes
and Pharisees from the temple.”[165]
As there were about one thousand persons employed in the business in
the parishes concerned, the effect was broad-spread. The butchers
held a meeting immediately to consult on the best plan to defeat the
bill[166] and organized an association on July 21. Some hundreds of
suits were brought in the various district courts on the one side or
the other, sometimes in combinations, sometimes by individuals. The
ground of this opposition was that the act created a monopoly and
was a violation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments and of
the Louisiana Bill of Rights. The Sixth District Court held the law
unconstitutional, while in the Fifth, in which the new company had
instituted suit against the association, the verdict was in favor of
the company. Appeals from these several decisions came before the State
Supreme Court by what is there known as “suspensive appeals,” but the
decision was not rendered until April 11, 1870, when the rights of
the new company were upheld. In course of time,[167] the cases came
before the Supreme Court of the United States when the decision of the
State court was sustained on the ground of police regulation, “a power
incapable of any very exact definition or limitation.”[168]
FOOTNOTES:
[60] “The city of New Orleans will be what we intend to make
it, and we intend to make this city bloom as the rose, and we intend to
enhance and increase this city of New Orleans, and we intend to open
every by-road, and this very bill is going to make the city bigger,
and we are going to pass this act. We intend not only to legislate for
the city of New Orleans, but to stamp our record upon the door of this
House of Representatives, so it will remain a century of years,” etc.
House Debates, 1869, 359-60; also, 415.
[61] House Debates, 1869, 110.
[62] _Ibid._, 354.
[63] New Orleans _Commercial Bulletin_, Jan. 22, 1869.
[64] House Debates, 1869, 389.
[65] _Ibid._, 1870, 287. See also Campbell’s speech, Sen.
Deb., 679.
[66] “The gentleman from Lafourche has spoken of bribery.
Now, there is another absurdity, for a member gave him a cigar for a
bribe, but he did not offer me one.” House Debates, 1869, 126. And “I
rise to a point of order--this bill is a swindle,” 264. Again, a member
proposed in all seriousness that the House adjourn in respect to the
recent marriage of one of its members. When the speaker objected to
such levity, he retorted: “It is a very serious event for the gentleman
from St. Charles.” _Ibid._, 135. Another member rose to make the point
of order that “the committee had no dignity,” 264.
[67] On the immigration bill the following irrelevant
amendments were offered:
That 2000 shall be Chinese and 1000 Arabs.
That a thousand thugs of India be included.
“I move to include 500 monkeys.”
That the company bring over half the population of Europe.
_Ibid._, 1870, 281.
[68] _Ibid._, 1869, 242.
[69] _Ibid._, 1869, 112; Sen. Deb., 1870, 771, 749.
[70] _Ibid._, 1870, 178.
[71] _Ibid._, 149.
[72] House Deb., 1869, 139; 1870, 191, 231. Sen. Deb., 1870,
705.
[73] Sen. Deb., 1870, 639-40. House Deb., 1871, 87, where the
gentleman from Orleans declared that he would not come to order, and
did not heed the sergeant.
[74] House Deb., 1869, 294.
[75] _Ibid._, 1871, 90.
[76] Carr had come from Maryland in 1865, was now twenty-six
or twenty-seven years old, shrewd and wily in the extreme. House Misc.
Docs., 42 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 211, 217.
[77] _Crescent_, Jan. 26, 1869.
[78] House Deb., 1871, 135-6.
[79] _Ibid._, 1869, 111-12. The following statement of the
speaker establishes the fact for 1871 clearly: “I will not allow while
I am speaker of the House, to have spirituous liquors brought into the
House. I must maintain the dignity of this House, if the House will not
maintain its own dignity. I do not desire such a thing shall be done
again.” _Ibid._, 1871, 114.
[80] _Ibid._, 1869, 524.
[81] Senate Deb., 1870, 222-3.
[82] See speech on the constabulary bill, _Ibid._, 223-4.
[83] Sen. Deb., 1870, 222-3.
[84] House Misc. Doc., 42 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 211, 534. Note
also the opinion of Nordhoff, prejudiced for negro rights. He was
“unpleasantly startled,” not because they were black, but because they
were so transparently ignorant and unfit, 49.
[85] House Deb., 1870, 236.
[86] _Ibid._, 1870, 345.
[87] _Ibid._, 326.
[88] House Deb., 1869, 331.
[89] _Ibid._, 1871, 7-8.
[90] _Ibid._, 200.
[91] _Ibid._, 1869, 204.
[92] _Ibid._, 1870, 78. Mr. McMillan characterized this spirit
as follows: “That the House will pass it, I am convinced, for there is
always something peculiar in the air which tells me when a bill of this
character is sure of being put through, and I feel the breath of that
air distinctly at this moment,” 268.
[93] House Deb., 1869, 330.
[94] _Ibid._, 264.
[95] “Such influence we all know has been exerted for personal
aggrandizement and to such an extent that in point of fact the General
Assembly was actually turned into a machine for the advancement of the
individual interests of its leaders.” _Bee_, Jan. 24, 1869. See also
_Commercial Bulletin_, Feb. 6, 22.
[96] Charges of bribery were brought in connection with the
penitentiary bill, the slaughter house bill, and Chattanooga Railroad
bill. The boldest charge came out on the paving bill: “I know who are
lobbying this bill, and know the men they are using, and state upon the
floor of this committee that this is simply for the benefit of that
very man, and for the benefit of the lobbyists.” _Ibid._, 357-8.
[97] House Deb., 1869, 72.
[98] House Jour., 1870, 21.
[99] House Deb., 1870, 10.
[100] House Jour., 1870, 46.
[101] Committees were appointed to investigate if bribery had
been used in the appointment of officers of the Insane Asylum, the
sale of levee bonds, the school-money, the defalcation of the Land
Registrar, the councilmen of Jefferson City, the Metropolitan Police
Commissioners, and Board of Public Works.
[102] Session Laws of Louisiana, 1869, Nos. 10, 88.
[103] _Ibid._, 1869, No. 66.
[104] Sen. Deb., 1870, 771.
[105] In 1869, the appropriation bill passed the House Jan. 7,
the Senate Jan. 12; in 1870, it passed the House Jan. 10, the Senate
Jan. 12.
[106] Session Laws, 1869, No. 15; 1870, Nos. 2, 49.
[107] _Ibid._, No. 52. The governor, unwilling to veto this
bill, allowed it to become law by expiration of the time limit. Herbert
says the overissue of vouchers forced these warrants down to two and
one-half cents in 1871, 403.
[108] House Deb., 1870, 22.
[109] _Ibid._, 1869, 122. The speaker of 1871 considered that
he had used his patronage very sparingly when he gave “three or four
indigent friends places as messengers and clerks.” _Ibid._, 1871, 136.
[110] House Jour., 1870, 62; Sen. Jour., 19-20. It was
proposed to allow the chairman of each standing committee in the House
$5 extra per day.
[111] Sen. Deb., 1870, 845.
[112] House Deb., 1869, 225.
[113] _Ibid._, 17.
[114] _Ibid._, 1870, 83.
[115] _Ibid._, 484.
[116] Session Laws, 1869, No. 114, Sec. 3,* 30; House Deb.,
1870, 9.
[117] Sen. Deb., 1870, 848.
[118] House Deb., 1870, 313.
[119] Session Laws, 1869, No. 116. The company drew $36,000 in
bonds and was then merged with another company for a different purpose;
and fell into the hands of a man who in 1875 was doing drainage at a
cost 100% higher than responsible citizens were ready to accept.
[120] _Ibid._, No. 51.
[121] House Deb., 1869, 266.
[122] “But why dwell further on a scheme the whole aim and
purpose of which is to speculate, for individual or associate profit,
at the expense of the people? What more need be said to demonstrate its
impracticability--its utter disregard of the interests, the welfare,
the health, and happiness of this community, and the unscrupulous
motives and purpose of its designers and advocates.” _Picayune_,
Jan. 7, 1869. Jan. 22, it advocated government aid to railroads and
denounced the ship canal as an iniquitous project--wild and visionary.
“It is susceptible of proof that certificates of stock in this
wildcat speculation have been freely distributed among members of the
legislature and others, for the purpose of influencing their votes in
favor of this impudent proposition. Not only this but the principal
individual whose name heads the list of corporators has boasted of
the cheap rate at which our new legislature hold themselves.” _Bee_,
Jan. 27, 1869. See also the _Picayune_ of Jan. 7 and Feb. 10, the
_Commercial Bulletin_ of Jan. 11, 25, Feb. 12, New Orleans _Times_,
Jan. 23.
[123] House Deb., 1869, 106.
[124] The Assembly of 1870 granted further aid against great
opposition in the form of drainage taxes, amounting to about $2,000,000
per year. Session Laws, 1870, No. 4. Extra Session. This law was
passed despite the complaint that in two years not a spadeful of earth
had been dug, nothing done but the purchase for cash or credit of a
dredge-boat. Sen. Deb., 1870, 751.
[125] Session Laws, 1869, No. 147. It is interesting that even
this early the wiser of the legislators were turning to the Federal
government for help on their problem of bayous and levees.
[126] _Ibid._, No. 146.
[127] _Ibid._, No. 140. Its achievement was the removal of
twenty stumps, people complained.
[128] It must have been this date because it vanishes from
the record after the 12th and the record of this one day is missing in
the files of the paper. For the record of the Senate for 1869 we are
dependent on the report in the _Commercial Bulletin_, no journal nor
Senate debates being extant.
[129] Laws of Louisiana, 1869, No. 26.
[130] Session Laws, 1869, Nos. 143, 145.
[131] _Ibid._, 1867, No. 115.
[132] _Ibid._, No. 123.
[133] House Deb., 1869, 446. It was eloquently and lengthily
debated on March 1. _Ibid._, 399-429.
[134] House Deb., 380.
[135] “We have passed a bill to-day for Claiborne Parish, and
where is the consistency of refusing to aid improvements in the parish
of Lafourche?” House Deb., 1869, 381. Senator Ray declared it one of
the “fundamental principles of my political theory that the State of
Louisiana ought to aid all the works of internal improvement that
appear to be beneficial.” Sen. Deb., 1870, 627.
[136] _Commercial Bulletin_, Sept. 21, 1869. See also the same
paper, same date, for agitation of opening of the southwest pass.
[137] Jan. 3. See also issues of Jan. 26, 29, 30. This paper
failed in September of that year.
[138] Jan. 23.
[139] Warmoth adduces proof of these statements. House Misc.
Doc., 42 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 211, 285.
[140] In the State bond bill were implicated some of the most
respectable distinguished Democratic leaders of the State. House Misc.
Doc., 42 Cong., 2 Sess., 333. See Scott’s testimony which shows a
written contract between the bankers of New Orleans and certain lobby
brokers, by which several millions of dollars were to be paid for
getting a measure through which failed. _Ibid._
[141] “That there were ‘rings’ formed in both houses of the
legislature for the sole and express purpose of blackmailing the people
and plundering the treasury of the State, is perhaps a lamentable and
humiliating fact. That there are men of both parties engaged in this
disgraceful proceeding--men who would sell out their birthright for a
mess of pottage, may also be true.” Quoted from the _Crescent_ in a
Congressional document.
The _Bee_ says, Feb. 17, 1869, being reproached with accusing Democrats
of joining in the corruption: “It was only yesterday that one of their
own number, in our hearing, confessed the truth of the charge.”
[142] _Annual Cyclopedia_, 1869, 394. The _Bee_ dismissed it
with the following terse comment: “Nous n’assomerons pas nos lecteurs
de cette prose peu intéressante. Une analyse succincte suffira pour
leur faire connaître ce que dit M. Warmoth.... Après avoir distillé
son venin, le gouverneur aborde les affaires sérieuses.” Jan. 5.
The _Abeille_ or _Bee_ had English pages at this time, a fact which
accounts for both English and French excerpts.
The _Crescent_ was no more kindly: “This portion of the message
is strictly and narrowly partisan, a tissue of bold, unqualified
assertions and of self-evident exaggerations which would be indecent
even in a campaign document; a weak but spiteful jumble of accusatory
phrases in which there is but a single pretense to an argument, and
that so puerile and idiotic in its fallacy as to be simply ridiculous.”
Jan. 5.
“The Governor applies harsh terms to our people. He attributes to them
all the violence which may have existed in the State. Does he really
think that he himself and his associates have had nothing to do with
this excitement? Have the publications made by Republican papers,
speakers, and writers contributed nothing to these troubles?” New
Orleans _Commercial Bulletin_, Jan. 7, 1869.
[143] Session Laws, 1869, Nos. 23, 27, 31, 33, 34, 41, 64,
etc.
[144] House Deb., 1869, 196.
[145] Session Laws, 1869, No. 60.
[146] Case of Minden, House Deb., 29.
[147] Session Laws, 1868, No. 87.
[148] An excerpt from _St. Mary’s Banner_ of Sept. 15
corroborates the statement which is often made of the planter’s
indifference to politics. “Never did planters of this country show such
devotion to business, such singleness of purpose to make money, and
such utter want of interest in all things save crops, as at the present
time.”
It is to be regretted that none of the regular parish papers were
available, but we are fortunate enough to catch many reflections
through the editorial bickering in the columns of the city papers,
which give us fairly accurately the position and spirit and consequent
influence in molding public thought of each. Members of Congress
accommodatingly brought in many excerpts in the course of debate.
We scarcely need the files of the Shreveport _Times_, thanks to the
assiduity of Morton and the Radicals in quoting it.
[149] “Every Southern State, save only Louisiana, is receiving
accessions to her population from the tide of European immigration
that daily strikes our shores.... The Bureau gives no sign. Then
let it be abolished or let us have a change of personnel ... that
which individual enterprise has accomplished for other States, this
State-maintained institution has lamentably failed to do for us.”
_Pic._, Dec. 19, 1870.
[150] _Commercial Bulletin_, Feb. 8.
[151] Session Laws, 1869, No. 38.
[152] House Deb., 1869, 258-9.
[153] “Apparently this state of calm does not suit the Radical
leaders. Their continual control over the State must depend on the
jealousy of the black towards the white people. They feel that the
colored race have more confidence in the old citizens of Louisiana
than in any newcomers. Hence the effort to revive a strife which would
readily quiet itself without such stimulus.” _Comm. Bulletin_, Feb. 19,
1869.
[154] _Ibid._, Feb. 22. As a form of revenge, it published the
vote with the names.
[155] Feb. 23. See also issue of Feb. 25.
[156] Another social equality bill, passed by both houses in
the extra session of 1870, was returned by the governor on the first
day of the next session. Sen. Jour., 1870, 290; House Jour., 327; and
Sen. Jour., 4.
[157] House Deb., 1869, 195.
[158] Sen. Deb., 1870, 29.
[159] _Ann. Cyclop._, 1869, 396, gives 55 but I think it in
error as the Debates give 59.
[160] House Deb., 1869, 191.
[161] In the absence of the Senate journal or debates for
1869, I have had to rely upon the brief legislative report of the
_Commercial Bulletin_, Feb. 17.
[162] Session Laws, 1869, No. 118. See the act in full.
[163] New Orleans _Commercial Bulletin_, Mar. 17, 1869.
[164] February 23, 1869.
[165] Mar. 14.
[166] _Comm. Bull._, Mar. 17.
[167] April 14, 1873.
[168] 10 Wallace, 36, 298.