"General De Trobriand—I have not, but I presume that duplicate copies have been sent to him.

"Speaker Wiltz-I wish to say to you that since our organization we have admitted, sworn in, and seated five members from the referred parishes. Are these members to be ejected?

"General De Trobriand—I am but a soldier. There are my orders. I cannot enter into a consideration of that question. The General further stated that he was under instructions to obey the orders of Governor Kellogg.

"Speaker Wiltz-I respect you, General, as a gentleman and a soldier, and dislike to give you trouble; but I, like you, have a duty to perform, which I owe to my state-to maintain the dignity and authority of my position as speaker of the house of representatives. Force will have to be used before I can permit you to execute your orders.

"Upon the refusal of Speaker Wiltz and Mr. Trezevant, clerk, to point out the persons, and the refusal of Speaker Wiltz to allow Wm. Vigers to call the roll for the purpose of identifying the members, Hugh J. Campbell and T. D. Anderson assisted General De Trobriand in identifying the members to be ejected.

"General De Trobriand then ordered his soldiers, fully armed with fixed bayonets, into the hall from the lobby, and approached the members successively, while in their seats -namely, Oquinn, Vaughan, Stafford, Jeffrys, Luckett, Dunn, Kelly, Horan and Land-and, one by one, he caused them to be taken from the hall by his soldiers, each gentleman first rising in his place and uttering his solemn protest, in the name of his constituents, against the unlawful expulsion. Thus were gentlemen ignominiously arrested, and, despite their public protestations and their appeals to the speaker and the house for protection, which neither could afford, were taken from their seats and forcibly ejected from the hall of the house of representatives of the state of Louisiana, at the point of the bayonet, by officers and soldiers of the United States

army.

"General De Trobriand then proceeded to eject the clerk and arrest the proceedings of the assembly, and for that purpose brought a file of soldiers to the speaker's stand, when the speaker arose and addressed the house as follows:

"As the legal speaker of the house of representatives of the state of Louisiana, I protest against this invasion of our hall by the soldiers of the United States, with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets. We have seen our brother members violently seized by force of arms, and torn from us in spite of their solemn protests. We have seen a file of soldiers marched up the aisle of the hall of the house of representatives of Louisiana, and have protested against this in the name of a once free people. In the name of the down-trodden state of Louisiana, I again enter my solemn protest. The chair of the speaker of the house of representatives of the state of Louisiana is surrounded by United States troops. The hall of the house of representatives is in the possession of armed forces, and I call upon the representatives of the state of Louisiana to retire with me from their presence.

"Speaker Wiltz then left the hall, followed by all the conservative members, the hall being left in possession of the military."

These proceedings left the hall in the possession of Gov. Kellogg's friends, and it is needless to say that the judicialmilitary government was restored to unquestioned power.

What is the justification for these proceedings? We ask the question in the name of republican institutions which we have been taught to revere, and which have been transmitted to us as a precious legacy, acquired by great and almost continuous expenditure of blood and treasure through several centuries. The justification has been attempted on the ground that the Wiltz house was unlawful and disorderly. But this justification wholly fails. The assemblage was entirely lawful, because it was composed of men whose duty it was under the law to appear on that day in that place and proceed to business. Unlawfulness could not, therefore, be predicated of their presence, for even the military guard had admitted the legality of that by allowing their entrance. Once in, the facts clearly show that the house became organized. If there was error or illegality in admitting the five members, it was one which could not be corrected either by executive action or by force of arms. It was an error which the house alone could correct, by virtue of its plenary and exclusive power. But there was no error. The five members were as plainly entitled to their seats as any of the rest, and it would have

been an act of manifest injustice for the house to deny them the privilege of taking such seats. No person or committee that has ever examined the subject has ventured to deny their right. The whole congressional committee sent there to enquire into the facts, has affirmed it in the most emphatic terms, and condemned the returning board as arbitrary, unfair and unjust in raising any question concerning it. When, therefore, Gen. De Trobriand's soldiers, with muskets and bayonets, forced those members from the house, they were guilty of as high-handed an outrage upon free institutions, and as glaring an invasion of representative privileges, as was Charles I., when with like force he attempted the arrest of the five members of Parliament whose course displeased him. Those who commend the one act should be prepared to join in reversing the condemnation which long since the public opinion of Great Britain and America passed upon the other.

If the house was not legally organized, the case is no better. There is no requirement that a legislative body shall organize the first hour, day or week, or without disorder. Some of us have vivid recollections of cases when Congress has failed for a considerable period to perfect an organization, and when the disorder was quite as great as has ever been charged against the body which chose Mr. Wiltz speaker. The case of the Twenty-sixth Congress, when the contested election in New Jersey left the house in a condition corresponding to that in which the action of the returning board left the house in Louisiana, is in several particulars most nearly analogous to this. In that case also, a member of the house assumed to put a motion in disregard of the clerk, and thereby initiated the proceedings which brought order out of chaos. But this was not until four days of disorder. "What a spectacle," he exclaimed, "do we here present! We degrade and disgrace our constituents and the country. We do not and can not organize; and why? and why? Because the clerk of this house-the mere clerk, whom we create, whom we employ, and whose existence depends upon our will-usurps the throne, and sets us, the representatives, the vicegerents of the American people, at defiance, and holds us in contempt." And this mem

ber was John Quincy Adams, who may safely be assumed to have understood the principles of representative government quite as thoroughly as any one of the file of soldiers who, at the request of Gov. Kellogg, unseated the five members.

It is clear that disorder among the members could furnish. no ground for the interference of the governor, unless he was acting under some other rules than are to be found in the constitution or statutes of Louisiana, or in the common law. The three departments of the government are separate, distinct and independent, and they are purposely made so from a conviction based upon long experience, that this is necessary if we would prevent such a concentration of power as would constitute tyranny. As well might the legislature send a sergeantat-arms to remove the governor from his room when he is regardless of the proprieties of life, or the judges from the bench when they are guilty of indecorum. The proceedings in the one case or the other would be palpable usurpation which might lawfully be resisted even unto death.

But justifying the governor does not necessarily justify the military force. This is conceded by those who attempt to reason on the subject, and they fall back upon the provision in the constitution of the United States which requires the United States "on application of the legislature, or of the executive when the legislature can not be convened," to protect each state against domestic violence."* This provision seems in the opinion of some persons, to constitute the ever ready instrument by means of which the federal government may overturn the administration of a state when it proves out of harmony with the prevailing federal policy. Even while we are writing, an attempt to revolutionize the state of Arkansas under pretence of this authority has barely failed. But the utmost violence to the language can not make it cover this case. In the first place, there was no domestic violence. This term evidently implies a degree of force which can not be suppressed by state power, and the remedy is regarded an ex

* Art. 4, 4. The meaning of this clause is elaborately considered in an article in the International Review, for January, 1875, prepared with special reference to the case of Arkansas.

treme one. But the "violence" had not gone beyond a threatening exhibition of pistols by a few persons; and with the building itself in the hands of a friendly military force, Gov. Kellogg's police must have been greatly wanting in courage if they could not have preserved order among the few persons who, by grace of the military, had been admitted to the hall. In the next place, the legislature could be convened, and actually had been. Therefore, there was no authority in the governor to make application for help, and the legislature made none. Indeed the application for force was with a view to employ it against the only authority that, by the constitution, under the circumstances, could lawfully have called for it. The case was consequently the exact opposite of that in which the constitution contemplated federal action. But, in the third place, even the governor did not make application to "the United States." He applied to Gen. De Trobriand. That gentleman may be every way honorable and respectable; he may be thoroughly competent to deal with all those questions of law and constitutional right which sometimes perplex the minds of lawyers and statesmen in contested elections of representatives, but he is not the representative of the sovereignty of the Union, and empowered as such to decide upon applications for aid in suppressing violence. Neither, if he falls back upon the orders of Gen. Emory, his immediate superior, can that officer be regarded as such representative. It is plain, therefore, that the constitution of the United States furnishes no justification whatever to the proceedings of the military force, which broke up a legislature and led five of its members from the hall, as a king of England, two centuries and a half ago, hazarded his his head in doing; hazarded and justly lost. And let it not be said any more that these five persons were not members. They were elected by the people; the election was certified by a board composed of their adversaries; the congressional committee of seven members unanimously reported that there was no ground for contesting their right. They thus have both state and federal testimony to their election. But, perhaps, most conclusive testimony of all is the fact that the chairman