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every civil and political right guaranteed by the Constitution and the laws. Wherever the enjoyment of these rights is not assured, discontent will prevail, immigration will cease, and the social and industrial forces will continue to be disturbed by the migration of laborers and the consequent diminution of prosperity.. The National Government should exercise all its constitutional authority to put an end to these evils; for all the people and all the States are members of one body, and no member can suffer without injury to all. The most serious evils which now afflict the South arise from the fact that there is not such freedom and toleration of political opinion and action that the minority party can exercise an effective and wholesome restraint upon the party in power. Without such restraint party rule becomes tyrannical and corrupt. The prosperity which is made possible in the South by its great advantages of soil and climate will never be realized until every voter can freely and safely support any party he pleases.

Popular education.

"Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained. Its interests are intrusted to the States and to the voluntary action of the people. Whatever help the Nation can justly afford should be generously given to aid the States in supporting common schools: but it would be unjust to our people and dangerous to our institutions to apply any portion of the revenues of the Nation, or of the States, to the support of sectarian schools. The separation of the Church and the State in everything relating to tax

ation should be absolute.

The National finances.

"On the subject of National finances my views have been so frequently and fully expressed that little is needed in the way of additional statement. The public debt is now so well secured, and the rate of annual interest has been so reduced by refunding, that rigid economy in expenditures and the faithful application of our surplus revenues to the payment of the principal of the debt will gradually but certainly free the people from its burdens, and close with honor the financial chapter of the war. At the same time, the Government can provide for all its ordinary expenditures, and discharge its sacred obligations to the soldiers of the Union, and to the widows and orphans of those who fell in its defense. The resumption of specie payments, which the Republican party so courageously and successfully accomplished, has removed from the field of controversy many questions that long and seriously disturbed the credit of the Government and the business of the country. Our paper currency is now as national as the flag, and resumption has not only made it everywhere equal to coin, but has brought into use our store of gold and silver. The circulating medium is more abundant than ever before; and we need only to maintain the equality of all our dollars to insure to labor and capital a measure of value from the use of which no one can suffer loss. The great prosperity which the country is now enjoying, should not be endangered by any violent changes or doubtful financial experiments.

The tariff.

"In reference to our custom laws, apolicy should be pursued which will bring revenues to the treasury, and will enable the labor and capital employed in our great industries to compete fairly in our own markets with the labor and capital of foreign producers. We legislate for the people of the United States, and not for the whole world; and it is our glory that the American laborer is more intelligent and better paid than his foreign competitor. Our country cannot be independent unless its people with their abundant natural resources possess the requisite skill at any time to clothe, arm and equip themselves for war, and in time of peace to produce all the necessary implements of labor. It was the manifest intention of the founders of the Government to provide for the common defense, not by standing armies alone, but by raising among the people a greater army of artisans, whose intelligence and skill should powerfully contribute to the safety and glory of the nation.

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for the improvement of our harbors and great navigable rivers, provided that the expenditures for that purpose are strictly limited to works of National importance. The Mississippi River, with its great tributaries, is of such vital importance to so many millions of people, that the safety of its navigation requires exceptional consideration. In order to secure to the nation the control of all its waters, President Jefferson negotiated the purchase of a vast territory, extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. The wisdom of Congress should be invoked to devise some plan by which that great river shall cease to be a terror to those who dwell upon its banks, and by which its shipping may safely carry the industrial products of 25,000,000 of people. The interests of agriculture, which is the basis of all our material prosperity, and in which seven-twelfths of our population are engaged as well as the interests of manufacturers and commerce, demand that the facilities for cheap transportation shall be increased by the use of all our great water-courses.

Chinese immigration.

"The materialinter ests of this country, the traditions of its settlement, and the sentiment of our people, have led the Government to offer the widest hospitality to emigrants who seek our shores for new and happier benefits of our society, and intending that their poshomes, willing to share the burdens as well as the terity shall become an undistinguishable part of our population. The recent movement of the Chinese to our Pacific Coast partakes but little of the qualities of such an immigration, either in its purposes or its result. It is too much like an importation to be welcomed without restriction; too much like an invasion to be looked upon without solicitude. We cannot consent to allow any form of servile labor to be introduced among us under the guise of immigration. Recognizing the gravity of this subject, the present administration, supported by Congress, has sent to China a commission of distinguished citizens for the purpose of securing such a modification of the existing treaty as will prevent the evils likely to arise from the present situation. It is confidently believed that these diplomatic negotiations will be successful withtwo powers, which promises a great increase of reciprocal trade and the enlargement of our markets. Should these efforts fail, it will be the duty of Congress to mitigate the evils already felt, and prevent their increase, by such restrictions as, without violence or injustice, will place upon a sure foundation the peace of our communities and the freedom and dignity of labor.

out the loss of commercial intercourse between the

The civil service.

"The appointment of citizens to the various executhe most difficult of all duties which the Constitution tive and judicial offices of the Government is, perhaps, has imposed on the Executive. The convention wisely demands that Congress shall co-operate with the Executive department in placing the Civil Service on a better basis. Experience has proved that with our frequent changes of administration, no system of reform can be made effective and permanent without the aid of legislation. Appointments to the military and naval service are so regulated by law and custom as to leave but little ground for complaint. It may not be wise to make similiar regulations by law for the Civil Service. But, without invading the authority or necessary discretion of the Executive, Congress should devise a method that will determine the tenure of office, and greatly reduce the uncertainty which makes that service so unsatisfactory. Without depriving an officer of his rights as a citizen, the Government should require him to discharge all his official duties with intelligence, efficiency, and faithfulness. To select wisely, from our vast population, those who are best fitted for the many offices to be filled, requires an acquaintance far beyond the range of any one man. The Executive should, therefore, seek and receive the information and assistance of those whose knowledge of the communities in which the duties are to be performed best qualifies them to aid in making the wisest choice.

"The doctrines announced by the Chicago convention are not the temporary devices of a party to attract votes and carry an election; they are deliberate convictions resulting from a careful study of the spirit of our institutions, the events of our history and

the best impulses of our people. In my judgment, these principles should control the legislation and administration of the Government. In any event, they will guide my conduct until experience points out a better way.

"If elected it will be my purpose to enforce strict obedience to the Constitution and the laws, and to promote, as best I may, the interest and honor of the whole country, relying for support upon the wisdom of Congress, the intelligence and patriotism of the people, and the favor of God. With great respect, I am truly yours. JAMES A. GARFIELD.'

PART II.

sole reliance to defeat the party which represented the sovereignty and nationality of the American people in the greatest crisis in our history. Republicans cherish none of the resentments which may have animated them during the actual conflict of arms. "They long for a full and real reconciliation between the sections which were needlessly and lamentably at strife; they sincerely offer the hand of good will, but they ask in return a pledge of good faith. They deeply feel that the party whose career is so illustrious in great and patriotic achievement, will not fulfill its destiny until peace and prosperity are established in all the land, nor until liberty of thought, conscience, and action, and equality of opportunity shall be not merely cold formalities of statute, but living birthrights, which the humble may confidently claim and the powerful dare not deny.

"The resolution referring to the public service seems

Hon. Chester A. Arthur's Letter to me deserving of approval. Surely no man should

of Acceptance.

To the Hon. GEO. F. HOAR, Chairman, etc. "DEAR SIR: I accept the position assigned me by the great party whose action you announce. This acceptance implies approval of the principles declared by the convention, but recent usage permits me to add some expression of my own views. The right and duty to secure honesty and order to popular elections is a matter so vital that it must stand in front. The authority of the National Government to preserve from fraud and force elections at which its own officers are chosen is a chief point on which the two parties are plainly and intensely opposed. Acts of Congress for ten years have, in New York and elsewhere, done much to curb the violence and wrong to which the ballot and the count have been again and again subjected-sometimes despoiling great cities, sometimes stifling the voice of a whole State, often seating, not only in Congress, but on the bench, and in legislatures, numbers of men never chosen by the people. The Democratic party, since gaining possession of the two Houses of Congress, has made these just laws the object of bitter, ceaseless assault, and, despite all resistance, has hedged them with restrictions cunningly contrived to baffle and paralyze them. This aggressive majority boldly attempted to extort from the Executive his approval of various enactments destructive of these election laws by revolutionary threats that a constitutional exercise of the veto power would be punished by withholding the appropriations necessary to carry on the Government. And these threats were actually carried out by refusing the needed appropriations, and by forcing an extra session of Congress, lasting for months, and resulting in concessions to this usurping demand, which are likely, in many States, to subject the majority to the lawless will of a minority. Ominous signs of public disapproval alone subdued this arrogant power into a sullen surrender for the time being of a part of its demands. The Republican party has strongly approved the stern refusal of its representatives to suffer the overthrow of statutes believed to be salutary and just. It has always insisted, and now insists, that the Government of the United States of America is empowered and in duty bound to effectually protect the elections denoted by the Constitution as national. More than this, the Republican party holds, as a cardinal point in its creed, that the Government should, by every means known to the Constitution, protect all American citizens everywhere in the full enjoyment of their civil and political rights. As a great part of its work of reconstruction, the Republican party gave the ballot to the emancipated slave as his right and defense. A large increase in the number of members of Congress, and of the Electoral College, from the former slaveholding States, was the immediate result. The history of recent years abounds in evidence that in many ways and in many places-especially where their numbers have been great enough to endanger Democratic control-the very men by whose elevation to citizenship this increase of representation was effected have been debarred and robbed of their voice and their vote. It is true that no State statute or constitution in so many words denies or abridges the exercise of their political rights; but the modes employed to bar their way are no less effectual. It is a suggestive and startling thought that the increased power derived from the enfranchisement of a race now denied its share in governing the country-wielded by those who lately sought the overthrow of the Government-is now the

be the incumbent of an office the duties of which he is for any cause unfit to perform, who is lacking in the ability, fidelity, or integrity which a proper administration of such office demands. This sentiment would doubtless meet with general acquiescence, but opinion has been widely divided upon the wisdom and practicability of the various reformatory schemes which have been suggested, and of certain proposed regulations governing appointments to public office. The efficiency of such regulations has been distrusted mainly because they have seemed to exalt mere educational and abstract tests above general business capacity, and even special fitness for the particular work in hand. It seems to me that the rules which should be applied to the management of the public service may properly conform, in the main, to such as regulate the conduct of successful private business. Original appointments should be based upon ascertained fitness. The tenure of office should be stable. Positions of responsibility should, so far as practicable, be filled by the promotion of worthy and efficient officers. The investigation of all complaints and the punishment of all official misconduct should be prompt and thorough. These views, which I have long held, repeatedly declared, and uniformly applied when called upon to act, I find embodied in the resolution, which, of course, I approve. I will add that by the acceptance of public office, whether high or low, one does not, in my judgment, escape any of his responsibilities as a citizen or lose or impair any of his rights as a citizen, and that he should enjoy absolute liberty to think and speak and act in political matters according to his own will and conscience, provided only that he honorably, faithfully and fully discharges all his official duties. "The resumption of specie payments,one of the fruits of Republican policy, has brought the return of abundant prosperity and the settlement of many distracting questions. The restoration of sound money, the large reduction of our public debt and of the burden of interest, the high advancement of the public credit, all attest the ability and courage of the Republican party to deal with such financial problems as may hereafter demand solution. Our paper currency is now as good as gold, and silver is performing its legitimate function for the purpose of change. The principles which should govern the relations of these elements, of the currency, are simple and clear. There must be no deteriorated coin, no depreciated paper. And every dollar, whether of metal or paper, should stand the test of the world's fixed standard.

"The value of popular education can hardly be overstated. Although its interests must of necessity be chiefly confided to voluntary effort and the individual action of the several States, they should be encouraged, so far as the Constitution permits, by the generous co-operation of the National Government. The interests of the whole country demand that the advantages of our common school system should be brought within the reach of every citizen, and that no revenues of the nation or of the States should be devoted to the support of sectarian schools.

"Such changes should be made in the present tariff and system of taxation as will relieve any overburdened industry or class, and enable our manufac turers and artisans to compete successfully with those of other lands.

"The Government should aid works of internal im provement national in their character, and should promote the development of our water-courses and harbors wherever the general interests of commerce require.

Democratic party should succeed in supplementing its present control of the national legislature by electing the Executive also.

"Four years ago, as now, the nation stood at the covered by bills introduced in Congress within the threshold of a Presidential election, and the Repub-past four years, would be successfully urged if the lican party, in soliciting a continuance of its ascendency, founded its hope of success, not upon its promises, but upon its history. Its subsequent course has been such as to strengthen the claims which it "There is danger in intrusting the control of the then made to the confidence and support of the whole law-making power of the Government to a party country. On the other hand, considerations more which has in almost every Southern State repudiated urgent than have ever before existed forbid the acces-obligations quite as sacred as those to which the faith sion of its opponents to power. Their success, if suc- of the nation now stands pledged. cess attends them, must chiefly come from the united support of that section which sought the forcible disruption of the Union, and which, according to all the teachings of our past history, will demand ascendency in the councils of the party to whose triumph it will have made by far the largest contribution."

"There is the gravest reason for apprehension that exorbitant claims upon the public Treasury, by no means limited to the hundreds of millions already

"I do not doubt that success awaits the Republican party, and that its triumph will assure a just, economical, and patriotic administration,

"I am respectfully,your obedient servant,
"C. A. ARTHUR.

"To the Hon. GEORGE F. HOAR,
"President of the Republican National Convention.
"NEW YORK, July 15, 1880."

CHAPTER XXIII.

General W. S. Hancock.

PART I.

tion of voters, and prescribed the "iron-clad oath" to be taken by all applicants for regis

tration.

Under these laws General Sheridan, in March, 1867, was assigned to the command of the Fifth Military District, comprehending the States of Louisiana and Texas. But Sheridan called "the Department of the Gulf," embracfor a year previous had commanded what was ing the States of Louisiana, Florida and Texas, and had, amid a terrible experience, studied and ascertained the true character of their nathat the massacre at New Orleans of July 30, tive populations. It was during this command

Brief review of events, etc., in the
Department of the Gulf prior
to Hancock's assignment to it
-The Reconstruction Acts
New Orleans Mechanics' Insti-
tute Massacre of July 30, 1866
—Its atrocious character-Sher-
idan assumes command, March
19, 1867-General Order No. 1
-Disloyal Officials - President | 1866, occurred.
Johnson's sympathy Sheri-
dan's Loyal Code - Attorney-
General Stanbery's opinion that
the Reconstruction Laws are
unconstitutional-Bad goes to

worse.

The Mechanics' Institute massacre Its atrocities – Sheridan's denunciation – Fort Pillow over again!-Report of the military commission.

The Louisiana Unionist Convention of 1864, which had adjourned subject to the order of its president, R. K. Howell, attempted, under his call, to reassemble at Mechanics' Institute, in New Orleans. It met July 30, 1866. It was promptly suppressed by Mayor Monroe and his police, aided by the rebel State authorities. General Sheridan, in a dispatch to General Grant, says:

"The mayor suppressed the convention by the use of the police force, and in doing so attacked the members of the convention and a party of two hundred negroes with fire-arms, clubs, and knives, in a manner so unnecessary and atrocious as to compel me to say that it was murder.

The act of March 2, 1867, and the supplemental act of March 23, 1867, "to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States," passed over the vetoes of President Andrew Johnson, declare the civil governments of those States to be "provisional only,' and "in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States at any time to abolish, modify, control, or supersede." They divide those States into five military districts, and make it the duty of their several commanders, who shall not be below the rank of brigadier-generals, "to protect all persons in their rights of person and property, to suppress insurrections, disorders, and violence, and punish, or cause to be punished, all disturbers of the public peace and criminals.' These laws also provide for the reconstruction of the rebel States through conventions elected by its loyal masses, and for their admission into the Union when thus rehabilitated. They placed the registration of voters in the hands of boards to be appointed by the military commanders, defined the qualifica-report:

In a subsequent dispatch, the General says:

"The more information I obtain of the affair of the

30th in this city [New Orleans], the more revolting it becomes. It was no riot; it was an absolute massacre by the police, which was not excelled in murderous cruelty by and police of this city perpetrated, without the shadow that of Fort Pillow. It was murder which the mayor of a necessity. Furthermore, I believe it was premeditated, and every indication points to this."

The military commission, composed of four brevet major-generals-Mower, Quincy, Gregg, and Baldy-which investigated the massacre,

"The work of massacre was pursued with a cowardly ferocity unsurpassed in the annals of crime. The escap ing negroes were mercilessly pursued, shot, beaten, and stabbed to death by mob and police-wour.ded men on the ground begging for mercy were savagely dispatched by mob, police, firemen, and, incredible as it may appear, in two instances by women!"

Even "ladies" advocated "the immediate killing of the leaders, Dostie and Henderson, in their houses." The report continues:

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Finally, the assailants obtain full possession of the building; the negroes in hiding are brought out and dispatched; others perched for safety on cross-beams and rafters are picked off like game by well-aimed shots, the whites taken to the station houses with blows and abuse, and at last, just as the advancing bayonets are seen to glisten on the levee, the riot' is over for the lack of victims!" * Three-fourths of them [the police] were ex-confederate soldiers, and at least one of their officers a notorious thug, assassin, and former leader of the very men of blood who might be expected to be foremost in the attack."

*

The commission add:

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*

They would also call attention to the evidence on the subject of the renewal of the attack on negroes and the shooting of them in their dwellings, by both citizens and police, late on the same night in Victory street. The board will state it as their firm conviction that but for the d claration of martial law and the presence of the troops, fire and blood-hed would have raged throu,hout the night in all negro quarters of the city, and that the lives and property of Unionists and Northern men would have lain at the mercy of the mob. The conservators of the peace being, for the time, the ins igators of violence, nothing would have remained but an arming for self defence, nd a scene might have ensued nparalleled in the history of the a e! The board would respectfully cul attention to the small proportion of negro testimony taken, and to the fact that all inportant points regarded as established rest upon white testimony alone.'

*

*

**

The absolute impunity with which this causeless massacre was perpetrated, a fact as revolting as the massacre itself, and the shameless character of the judiciary, and other authorities of New Orleans and Louisiana, are shown in a subsequent dispatch of General Sheridan, dated March 27, 1867, to General Grant. Sheridan says:

"Mayor Monroe controlled the element engaged in this riot, and when backed by an attorney-general [A. J. Herron] who would not prosecute the guilty, and a judge [E. Abell] who advised the grand jury to find the innocent guilty and let the murderers go free, felt secure in engaging his police force in this riot and

massacre.

"

Sheridan assumes command-His general

order No. 1-General Griffin's declaration as to Texas-Sympathy with the "Lost Cause."

In general order No. 1, dated March 19, 1867, in assuming command, General Sheridan describes the provisions and purposes of the laws under which he is appointed, and

declares:

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No general removal from office will be made unless the present incumbents fail to carry out the provisions of the law or impede the reorganization, or unless a delay in reorganizing should necessitate a change. Pending the reorganization, it is desirable and intended to create as little disturbance in the machinery of the various branches of the provisional governments as possible, consistent with the law of Congress and its successful execution; but this condition is dependent upon the disposition shown by the people, and upon the length of time required for reorganization.'

In his official report, dated November 21, 1867, Sheridan declares:

"I found, upon a close examination of the existing civil governments of those two States (Louisiana and Texas), that nearly every civil functionary, from the Governor down, had been soldiers or aiders and abettors in the rebellion; and that in nearly all cases they had been elected on Confederate grounds, and solely for services rendered in their attempt to destroy the General Government. In fact many, if not all, had advertised, when they were candidates, their services in this respect as a meritorious appeal for votes. I found also, that they were nearly all disfranchised by the law, and were substantially aliens. It is scarcely necessary to state that from this condition of affairs nearly every civil officer within my command was either openly or secretly opposed to the law, and to myself as the authority held responsible by the order of the Executive of the nation for its faithful execution. It was a difficult situation in which to be placed, rendered still more so by the apparently open sympathy of the President with the functionaries above alluded to."

Major-General Charles Griffin, commanding the Department of Texas under Sheridan, in a dispatch to the latter, dated March 28, 1867, urges:

"I cannot find an officer holding position under the State laws whose antecedents will justify me in reposing trust in him in assisting in the registration." Again, June 10, 1867, General Griffin declares:

"Many of the officers [of the State government] were nominated on their record of disloyalty to the General Government, and elected upon the merits of Numbers their services in the attempt to destroy it. are disfranchised, while the sympathies of others are with the 'lost cause."

Up-hill work-Sheridan's loyal code. In the Administration of the Fifth Military District, General Sheridan acted with characteristic decision and vigor. With the approval of General Grant and Secretary Stanton, he digested or formulated the provisions of the laws and oath into a brief code, defining the classes disfranchised, and prepared a series of questions to be answered by all applying for registration as a means of determining whether they were disfranchised or not. These, with specific instructions as to their duties, Sheridan furnished to the Boards of Registration, which he constituted, as far as practicable, of loyal and intelligent men, to whom he could trust for a faithful execution of the work, promptly removing all who failed, or who placed or connived at impediments to a proper or lawful registration.

Andrew Johnson and cabinet to the rescue-Attorney-General Stanbery's opin ion that the Reconstruction Laws were unconstitutional-Chaos anticipated. Attorney-General Stanbery's opinions, in which he denounces the reconstruction laws as unconstitutional, were digested into a new code of registration, by which a multitude of confederates, a "host of officers" under the Confederate State and municipal governments, were declared qualified voters. It was approved in cabinet by all except Secretary Stanton, and on the 20th of June, 1867, was dispatched to the several military commanders for their government.

General Sheridan, in a dispatch to Grant, dated June 27, 1867, urges :

less the civil officers acting under his appointment.

*

*

*

*

*

"The result of Stanbery's opinion is now beginning | ernors of Louisiana and Texas; and other to show itself by a defiant opposition to all acts of the officers of the State governments; to remove military commander by impeding and rendering help- municipal officers like Mayor Monroe of New Orleans; to expel disloyal judges, clerks of courts, magistrates, sheriffs, and policemen ; to supply their places with Unionists, and to force the local courts to open the jury box to loyal men. Thus peace, law, and order were restored.

"I fear the chaos which the opinion will make, if carried out, is but little understood. Every civil officer in the State will administer justice according to his own views; many of them, denouncing the military bill as unconstitutional, will throw every impediment in the way of its execution, and bad will go to worse, unless this embarrassing condition of affairs is settled by permitting me to go on in my just course, which was endorsed by all people except those disfran chised, many of whom are office-holders, or hope to be so.' The anticipation verified-Denunciation of Sheridan the Government and of the law-Disloyal disorder running riot-Chaos indeed-Military compelled to interfereRestoration of law and order.

66

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PART II.

to be Removed and Hancock to Replace him—The Command Baited with a Presidential Nomination-The Hancock Jerry Black walker Campbell - Conspiracy against Reconstruction.

The President and Cabinet at Washington, seeing that loyal reconstruction was now a success, hastened to remove Sheridan from his command, and to assign General W. S. Hancock to it-the command being baited with the Democratic Presidential nomination. Hancock's assignment is dated August 27, 1867. He did not reach his command until November 29, 1867. In the interim at Washington, Hancock was closeted with Jeremiah S. Black, Robert J. Walker, and ex-Judge Campbell, of Louisiana, notoriously the ablest and bitterest enemies of reconstruction, and in conjunction with them concocted the plot against reconstruction, which he afterward attempted to carry out as commander of the Fifth Military District.

At a serenade in Washington, given to him by this disloyal Democracy elated over his appointment, Hancock, in a speech in response, declared: "As a soldier I am to administer the laws rather than to discuss them."

As Sheridan anticipated, bad went to worse, Sheriffs and their deputies refused to serve writs for the arrest of Confederate assassins, judges and grand juries to indict them, and petit juries to convict them. Confederate murderers, arrested by the military and turned over to the civil authorities, were released by habeas corpus, enlarged upon trifling or bogus bail, or otherwise allowed to escape. Sheriffs and jurors, indeed, were often the assailants-the disturbers of the public peace. But the innocent loyal victims of the rebel shot-gun, pistol, or knife, if so unfortunate as to survive, were indicted and convicted, mulcted in heavy fines, or imprisoned and fined. The State courts attempted to enforce or maintain the confederate act confiscating the property of Unionists; to annul the laws of Congress authorizing the United States Government to release or dispose of abandoned rebel property; to perpetrate, under colorable judicial proceedings," the most 'flagrant wrongs upon the rights of persons and property" of loyal men and women; to enforce the Johnsonian acts "regulating contracts of labor," by which the laborer was maltreated and swindled, and to indict and Walker argued: "His [Hancock's] duty is convict loyal men as a means of robbery. purely a ministerial duty. Not even Magistrates defiantly declared that they the President, much less any subordinate offiwould enforce the diabolical Louisiana and cer, possesses any judicial power whatever. Black Codes until the supreme The judicial power, according to the Consticourts of their States declared it unlawful; tution, is vested exclusively in the courts of and judges, like Dougherty, of the twelfth the country" that is, primarily, in the local judicial district of Texas, even "in the office State courts. But the President had exercised and presence of the military commander," de- judicial powers had, through the opinions nounced the Government of the United of his Attorney-General, approved by his CabStates, denounced the laws of Congress, denied inet and by Robert J. Walker et al., judicially their supremacy, and declared that they declared the reconstruction laws unconstituwould not obey or enforce them where they tional; had placed upon them an interpretaconflicted with those of their States. Union tion hostile to their meaning and the purmen were expelled from the jury box. Loyal poses of Congress, and had instructed the voters were disfranchised, and loyal judges-commanders of the several military districts native Unionists-elected, as in the fourth to enforce them in accordance with that interand eleventh judicial districts of Texas, by large majorities, were legislated out of office under a pretended reorganization or consolidation of the districts.

Texas "6

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The Unionists were absolutely outlawed, and their lives and property were wholly at the mercy of their confederate rulers. The military were compelled to interfere for their protection; to displace the confederate gov

pretation.

At the same serenade Robert J.

In newspapers of the day the whole hostile programme was boldly announced and applauded. Hancock was to explode all Sheridan's loyal work-to practically annul Sheridan's registration upon a loyal basis in conformity with the laws of Congress; to reinstate the Confederate enemies of the nation removed by Sheridan, and to reassemble the

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