CORRUPTION IN THE STATE LEGISLATURE.

553 This was, to say the least, a blending of the suaviter in modo with the fortiter in re. It was, according to this report, only when these coercive and seductive methods failed to win over the colored men that the rioting and murdering began. It is due to Governor Warmoth to say that he attributed his inability to preserve the peace to the act of Congress which prohibited the organization of the militia. But nothing is more probable than that an exercise of the authority which Congress unconstitutionally stripped him of would have only aggravated the evil, for his reliance must have been on the colored men, and to arm that class for the purpose of keeping the whites in order would have provoked sanguinary conflicts in which the governor and his sable troops would have been badly worsted.

The legislature met at the beginning of the year 1869. Governor Warmoth's message to it was very conciliatory, expressing the hope that the storms of the past had died away forever. A social equality bill was passed, requiring all hotels and places of public entertainment and amusement to admit all persons, without regard to race or color. Also a school bill, which required that all schools, of whatever grade, depending on the public for support, should be open to all pupils, of whatever race. The legislature, at the same session, chartered two companies which were denounced as corrupt monopolies — the Ship Canal Company and the Slaughter House Company. At the following session of the legislature so many financial schemes were introduced that a public meeting was held in New Orleans, in January, 1870, to protest against them. It was stated that the measures in question were certain to increase the burdens of the people, and to depreciate the bonds and ruin the credit of the state; that the city debt was $17,000,000, and the state debt $28,000,000, and that the latter would, if the schemes on foot were carried through the legislature, be increased to $54,000,000. The co-operation of Governor Warmoth was solicited, in efforts to arrest these corrupt schemes. His reply was to the effect that a great many members of the legislature were ignorant and easily influenced by lobbyists, and that the men of standing in the community ought to assist him in restraining them from running into the excesses complained of. He also reminded the property-holders and capitalists who took part in the public meeting that many of the bills which the legislature was charged with passing corruptly were for the aggrandizement of individuals and corporations representing their very best people." Their bank presidents and the best people of New Orleans were, he said, "crowding the lobbies of the legislature, continually whispering into these men's ears, bribes." How was the state to be defended, he asked, against the interposition of these people who were potent in their influence in the community. It is apparent that Governor Warmoth understood the term "best people" to be synonymous with the term "richest people." He instanced the case of the five-million, bond bill (to take up the city notes) which he had vetoed, which had been passed in

"

the house over his veto, through the lobbying and bribes of all the prominent brokers of the city, and which had been only defeated in the senate through his exposure of the fact that an order for $50,000 had been laid, as a bribe, on the desk of his own secretary. He also said that another senator of New Orleans had offered him a bribe of $50,000 and a share of profits for his signature to the Nicolson Pavement bill.

Grave charges of corruption were made against Governor Warmoth himself; but in all these transactions he appears on the side of an honest administration of state affairs. A bitter quarrel arose between him and the state auditor, G. M. Wickliffe, whom he accused of extortion and corruption. Fourteen indictments were found against Wickliffe, and the governor suspended him. This proceeding, however, was not sanctioned by the courts, and Wickliffe was temporarily restored to office. The governor then laid the charges against Wickliffe before the house of representatives, by which body he was impeached. He was tried before the senate as a high court of impeachment in 1870, and was convicted.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Democrats gave a cordial invitation to the colored people to co-operate with them on a liberal declaration of principles, the election in November, 1870, resulted in a solid Republican triumph. The candidates for auditor and treasurer had majorities of about twenty-five thousand; and the entire delegation to Congress was Republican. General Grant was President; and none but registered Democratic votes could be polled. Besides, no attempt at intimidation was made. The name of President Grant was sufficient to repress all irregular methods of electioneering on the part of the Democrats. At the same election, the people ratified two important amendments to the state constitution. One was the repeal of the ninety-ninth article, which disfranchised a large class of citizens. The other was a limitation of the state debt to $25,000,000. The repeal of the proscriptive clause gave the right of suffrage to all male citizens twentyone years of age. Governor Warmoth, who had recommended the abrogation of that clause, congratulated the legislature and people upon its being expunged from the constitution.

The Republicans, however, quarreled among themselves; and the factions soon became more embittered against each other than against their common enemy, the Democrats. This quarrel led to a most extraordinary condition of things, in which Governor Warmoth and his friends were arrayed against the leading Federal officials: namely, Packard, the United States marshal, Casey, the collector of the port (a brother-in-law of President Grant), Lowell, the postmaster, and two deputy custom-house officers, named Herwig and Carter. There was a struggle for the control of the Republican state convention; but the Federal office-holders carried the day by having the convention meet in the United States court room, in the custom house, which was guarded by United States troops, and by some hundreds