nizance, was composed of their best men, and was the legitimate offspring of Louisiana's will.

Hence, it was under the express command and sanction of the United States, that they went back to heir business of self-government, the machinery of which they had themselves made and worked, and which was still in existence and operation, though perhaps not in full repair and efficiency. But they owned it; and their state organic law, their statutes and municipal institutions, all under the federal compact, were the actual laws in force where they resided." They, therefore, could but rely with full faith on the "assurance" of the government, so solemnly given as heretofore cited.

While in this condition, a gang of political gypsies, disreputable native whites, and negro leaders, were secretly making a new Constitution for the state, pretending to act as the adjourned convention of 1864—a war convention, which had been held on Mr. Lincoln's ten per cent. plan, heretofore stated-had finished its work and submitted its plan of a Constitution, which the people had adopted: and it had adjourned sine die.

The people became anxious and unhappy; their anxiety was intensified by the fear that Congress favored the scheme of radical reconstruction, i. e., revolution, instead of Lincoln's benign restoration. About that time, it leaked out that some unlawful or revolutionary scheme, like the forming of a new Constitution, was on foot. When it transpired, the great Louisiana jurist, Christian Roselius, who had stood for the Union and against seceding, in the Convention of 1861, and through the war, said, that "every participant in the treasonable scheme should be arrested and sent to jail." The authorities then attempted to suppress the assembly as illegal. The collision of July 30th, 1866, was the result. So secret was the conspiracy, that it had actually matured a Constitution, which was signed by the members, printed and promulgated, and copies were offered for sale by Bloomfield, Steel & Co., before the public or authorities knew of it as a thing in esse so far as the writer can learn.

Was not that riot, with the bloodshed of that sad affair, the direct result of the bad faith of the Government, or, to be

more specific-of the Congress? As to whether the whites or the blacks were responsible for the opening attacks, the Republican private secretary of the Republican Governor testified that, "at the outset, the negroes were, in every instance, the instigators of the riot ;" and that he " was an eyewitness of the whole affair." Be that as it may, the flagrant perfidy and tyranny that were then threatened, of remitting the people to their homes, home-law and home-rule, i. e., selfgovernment, and then, despite the "parole" and "assurance" stated, subjecting them, while in profound peace and perfect obedience, to military domination, martial law, and trials at the drum-head-for such was the menace-must have stirred society in all its depths, set in motion the impulsive, reckless and desperate elements, while relegating the conservative and proprietary forces, which, in quiet times, always rule, to timid inaction, and even hiding away. Congress, in its tyranny and extravagance, should heed the lesson. All history shows that when society is thus agitated and oppressed, the wealthy and well-to-do classes-if not beneficiaries-are most impatient and least forbearing. It is they who are most prone to send up, as of old, the earnest cry: "Give us a king!" and it is they who can best aid him in getting and keeping his

crown!

The reconstruction laws ended, for many millions of Americans, their two years of profound peace, wonderful recuperation, high hopes and cheering prospects. The Government had fully punished them by war, had received their surrender, and given them paroles and solemn assurances of peace and freedom from Federal disturbance; but it proceeded, notwithstanding, to pour out a second "vial of wrath!" "Hell followed" for ten years!

IV. MILITARY GOVERNMENT IN PEACE.

By the Act of Congress passed March 2nd, 1867, and supplemented March 23rd, the Southern States were placed under military government, Louisiana and Texas constituting the Fifth Military District. Military interference henceforth was frequent and aggravating. The laws passed by

the City Council of New Orleans, requiring the police to be residents of the city for five years, were vetoed and wiped out by the military commander, because they prevented, he said, the appointment of ex-Union soldiers on the force. An election for city officers having been fixed for March 11th, 1867, it was postponed by General Sheridan, who assumed command of the district, without warrant of law, because, as he stated, no officer had been appointed under the law, and he thought it necessary for him to act as to the holding of this election, until "special instructions covering the case are received,"

The writer deems it proper here to say, that the violations of the principles of institutional liberty shown in these pages, are attributed to Congress, and not to General Sheridan, whose merits as a soldier are known and confessed by all men, and who could but obey orders and do the duties assigned.

On March 27th, 1867, he began removing the state and other officials previously elected, and appointing their successors, whom he judged more fit for the places. The first was Andrew S. Herron, Attorney-General of the State, and afterwards a member of Congress. John T. Monroe, Mayor of New Orleans, Edmund Abell, Judge of the Criminal Court, and others, were similarly ousted.

In April, General Sheridan appointed the Board of Registration, to whom was given full and complete control of all the registration and election machinery of the state.

It will be seen that he was complete dictator of the Fifth District in a sense never known before in America. He had absolute control of all the offices, with power of removal and appointment; he could annul or change any laws which did not meet his favor; and with his control of the election and registration machinery, he could elect any persons he chose.

The power of removal and appointment was fully exercised by him, even in cases in which politics played little part, his obvious and avowed intention being to remove obstacles to reconstruction, and to place Louisiana wholly under the control of men who agreed with him as to the manner in which the state should be ruled. The new Mayor of New

Orleans-Heath, his appointee-was ordered to re-organize the police force, so that at least half of its members should be ex-Federal soldiers; and the Levee Commissioners-a body wholly non-political, and representing the planters and owners of property fronting on the Mississippi, protected by levees from overflow-were removed, and men more in sympathy and accord with his views were appointed in their stead. In this matter alone, did the general finally recede. He had dismissed from these important offices men fully acquainted with the levee system of the state,-men who repsented the planters and farmers paying the levee taxes, and who were skilled and efficient in their duties. After trying his new board three months, finding the state threatened by overflow from the June rise, he receded from his position, dismissed his own appointees, and reinstated the old board.

He, before he had been in command very long, removed the Governor of the state, the Street Commissioner of the city, and numerous others. At the same time, he interfered with the District Courts in the matter of issuing naturalization papers, expressing the opinion that too many were being issued. A final order, just previous to the election of members of the Constitutional Convention, prohibited the assembling of men, in certain parishes of Louisiana, for political purposes.

Such were the conditions under which, on September 27th and 28th, 1867, an election was held in Louisiana for delegates to a convention that was to frame a new Constitution for the state. With nearly all the state and city officials removed, and men appointed in their places by the Military Commander; with the laws suspended, and public meetings prohibited; with jurisdiction over the naturalization, registration and election laws in his hands, the election was placed wholly under his control. Not even after the result was known, did the removals cease; for the sheriff of Orleans Parish was ousted November 16th, and the LieutenantGovernor a few days afterwards.

The appointment of General Winfield S. Hancock to the command of the Fifth Military District, November 29, 1867, stopped all these military interferences in purely civil mat

ters. In an order issued December 5th, General Hancock gave the true and proper scope and use of military power. He declared that justice in the criminal courts had been clogged and frustrated by former military orders in regard to jurors, and he announced that, in future, trial by jury, habeas corpus, liberty of the press and freedom of speech would be preserved, and not interfered with by the military authorities.

In another order, touching on the frequent differences between the civil and military authorities, he laid down this doctrine: "The administration of civil justice appertains to the civil courts. The rights of litigants do not depend on the views of the general commanding this district; they are to be adjudged and settled according to the laws. Arbitrary power, such as the General has been urged to assume, has no existence in this country.

It is difficult to understand how so self-evident a proposition as this could be denied, or a contrary doctrine be insisted on and carried out, by General Hancock's predecessor.

S. B. Packard, afterwards United States Marshal, and claimant to the office of Governor of Louisiana in 1876, was president of the Board of Registration at the time of the vote on the convention, and became engaged in a controversy with General Hancock, which resulted in his arrest. The military power, as represented by General Hancock, was not progressive, arbitrary and tyrannical enough to suit the views of those who understood the reconstruction acts and military rule to be simply for the purpose of placing the Republican party, backed by the negro vote, in control of the state.

The registration which had been carried on under the board appointed by Sheridan, and over which Packard presided, was wholly in the interest of the Republicans, and was so intended to be. All those citizens who, during the war, had held any civil offices under the Confederate States, were disfranchised; naturalization papers were disputed and refused, and white voters denied registration. The result was to reduce the white registration of the state to 45,218, or barely two-thirds of what it ought to have been; while the negro registration, by false personation and repeated enrol