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of the Louisiana claimant, but was without influence upon the action of the House.1

The General Assembly of Louisiana, as previously related, had chosen Charles Smith and R. King Cutler as United States Senators. With the Representatives-elect these gentlemen also appeared in Washington as claimants for seats. On December 7, two days after Congress assembled, the president pro tempore presented certain proceedings of the Louisiana Legislature declaratory of the election of Smith and Cutler. The papers, it was announced, would lie on the table unless otherwise ordered. Just as Henry Winter Davis had done in the House, Senator Wade offered a memorial from Louisiana citizens remonstrating against their admission, and also against the reception of any electoral vote from that State. On his motion it was agreed that all documents pertaining to the subject be printed. On the following day, December 8, the credentials as well as the remonstrance were referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

Senator Trumbull on February 17 succeeding made a report from his committee, and offered a joint resolution relative to the credentials of Smith and Cutler. At the request of Charles Sumner the resolution was read at length and was as follows:

That the United States do hereby recognize the government of the State of Louisiana, inaugurated under and by the convention which assembled on the 6th day of April, A. D., 1864, at the city of New Orleans, as the legitimate government of the said State, and entitled to the guarantees and all other rights of a State government under the Constitution of the United States.*

This resolution was limited to Louisiana because the facts, while in many respects similar, were not identical with those in the case of Arkansas. Besides, when the subject first came

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up in committee the Arkansas case had not been presented, though it arose before Louisiana had been disposed of. Trumbull believed it the intention of the committee to act immediately upon Arkansas when the case of Louisiana had been considered.1

Sumner moved, February 23, to strike out all of the joint resolution except the enacting clause, and to substitute the following:

That neither the people nor the Legislature of any State, the people of which were declared to be in insurrection against the United States by the proclamation of the President, dated August 16, 1861, shall hereafter elect Representatives or Senators to the Congress of the United States until the President, by proclamation, shall have declared that armed hostility to the Government of the United States within such State has ceased; nor until the people of such State shall have adopted a constitution of government not repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United States; nor until, by a law of Congress, such State shall have been declared to be entitled to representation in the Congress of the United States of America.❜

To this amendment Senator Trumbull objected that it would put it in the power of the President, by refusing to issue his proclamation, to keep a State out forever. Sumner's substitute was promptly defeated by a vote of 29 to 8.3

Of the members of the committee Powell alone opposed the resolution offered by Mr. Trumbull. The chief object in recognizing the government of Louisiana at that time, said the Kentucky Senator, was to allow that State to vote for the proposed amendment of the Constitution; to do that effectually those favorable to the resolution desired first to admit. her Senators and Representatives; their admission would be the immediate effect of its passage.

A just conclusion on that subject could be reached only by information concerning the action of the President, of the Globe, Part II., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 10II.

1

'Ibid.

military, and of the people of Louisiana in connection with the election. He opposed the loyal government because it was not formed by the people of that State; however, he did not want to be classed with those who thought Louisiana out of the Union. He believed that something approximating a majority of her people should indicate a willingness to return to the Union, and should participate in the movement for reorganization. The formation of the existing government, he asserted, was controlled and influenced by persons who were not citizens of Louisiana, and, he added, "It is a government formed really and virtually by the military power of the United States, using as instruments delegates who were elected under and by force of the bayonet."

Before Senators could vote for the resolution, he continued, they must maintain the doctrine announced in the President's proclamation of December 8, 1863, when he proposed that one tenth of the loyal voters in a State who would comply with the conditions therein prescribed, could form a State government; they must further maintain that the President, of his own volition, had power by decretal order to alter the constitution of a State; that the President had power to prescribe the qualifications both of voters and candidates for office in the States; finally they must believe that not only did the President possess these powers, but that Major-General Banks, in virtue of his office, possessed them in Louisiana.

Mr. Powell proposed to show that not only did Louisiana people not act of their own volition, but that "they were coerced to do what they did." The constitution of that State, he asserted, was not made by the free suffrage of the people.

The creation of a State government is a purely civil act; the people must act without restraint. He had never heard any Senator say that the President could legitimately exercise the power assumed in his proclamation of December 8, 1863. Mr. Powell objected to the oath which was to be taken as

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a condition precedent to becoming a qualified elector in one of the revolted States, especially to that portion which promised support of all future proclamations of the President on the question of slavery. Why, sir," he exclaimed, "the President may proclaim that the negro shall be the master and the white man the slave; that the negro shall be the voter and the white man deprived of the right of suffrage; and yet this oath requires the man taking it to swear in advance that he would support even such a measure as that.

"At the very threshold, then," he continued," you repudiate the great principle of republican government that majorities shall rule. Here you propose to say not that majorities, but that less than one tenth shall rule." It was intimated by the President that when they made a constitution it must not recognize African slavery. General Banks, carrying out the suggestion of the President, as well as what had been distinctly stated to General Steele in relation to Arkansas, took it upon himself to alter the constitution of Louisiana in that respect.

Whence does the President, it was asked, derive the power to prescribe qualifications for either electors or candidates? The proclamation, the Kentucky Senator asserted, was the basis of the whole proceeding, and those who voted for the resolution endorsed the proclamation.

Mr. Powell then reviewed the acts and read the proclamation of General Banks, whose conduct he denounced for presuming to declare certain parts of the Louisiana constitution no longer applicable to any class of persons in that State, and, therefore, inoperative and void.

He further objected that Banks had no authority to call the convention, for the constitution of Louisiana could be lawfully amended in only the mode pointed out by itself. The President's proclamation, he added, would allow only those to vote who were qualified electors under the funda

mental law of the State; those in the army and navy were not, but General Banks in his ukase of February 13, 1864, allowed them to participate in the election.

He also invited attention to the action of the Department Commander in designating provost marshals to take care that the polls were properly opened, in the absence of the sheriffs, and that suitable persons were appointed judges of election and so forth. Of the 11,414 votes he asserted that 808 were cast by soldiers who under the President's proclamation were not legal voters. The fact, added Mr. Powell, that General Banks after the inauguration of Hahn as governor continued to issue proclamations shows that the civil was controlled by the military authority.

Passing on to a discussion of the statement of Banks before the Committee on the Judiciary that the military did not interfere in the election of February 22, Senator Powell quoted the following passages from a proclamation of the Department Commander:

Those who have exercised or are entitled to the rights of citizens of the United States will be required to participate in the measures necessary for the reestablishment of civil government. . . . It is therefore a solemn duty resting upon all persons to assist in the earliest possible restoration of civil government. Let them participate in the measures suggested for this purpose. Opinion is free and candidates are numerous. Open hostility cannot be permitted. Indifference will be treated as a crime, and faction as treason.

"Talk to me," exclaimed Mr. Powell, "of freedom of election under such military orders! Why, sir, there was but one free man, in my opinion, in all Louisiana at that time, and that was Major-General Banks; and I do not know that he was free, for he was serving his master at the White House." The fundamental law there was martial law, which is but the will of the commander-in-chief, and under that law he could have beheaded them if they did not vote.

From beginning to end, he continued, the coercive finger

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