CHAPTER II

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 shouldbe 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 senselessmotions 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 housesuntil 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 onemember 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 haveelected 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 thereading 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 dispensingwith 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 resolutionoffered 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 beingtold 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 thegreatest 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 generousperiod 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 extentof 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 ChattanoogaRoad. 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 theCommercial 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 theCrescentconcerning 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 thePicayune, 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 practicabilityand 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 theCommercial Bulletinsourly 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 thevolunteer 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 dissatisfactionwith 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 iswholesale 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 theCommercial 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]TheBeedeclared 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]Anothereffort 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 dueto 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 theBee: “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 thePicayune: “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]

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