The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1870-02-02
Minority Report on the Senate Elec-
ton Bill.
70 the Hon. the Senate ofLouisiana:

y
Committee on Judiciary, ask leave t
submit the following minority repol
on Senate bill No. Z. entitled "An az
to regulate the conduct and to main
tain the freedom and purity of cleo
tions," etc.
From the beginning of the title t
the end of it's eighty ninth section Their
are but few nnopjectionable paragraph
in this voluminous and cumbersom
bill. To state my objections to all q
it's obnoxious features in detail, woul
employ the time of the Senate. and I'll
the pages of it's records to an nndu
extent. The. Statement of objection
will, therefore, be limited to it's NOR
prominent and reprehensible features
l. Auctocratic po,cer is gtuen to tn
Governor. He appoints the Supervi
sors of Registration, and, through then
the Commissioners of Election TO
every precinct, ward and poll in tn,
State. He has absolute and imperia
authority over every officer, civil Of
military, throughout the State, on tho
day of election. The authority OF
mayors, sheriffs, constables. magis.
trates, militi,, officers and policemen is
transferred to the Governor, and the
power is given, IN express terms, tt
declare martial law at his discretion
By implication, he is authorized t.
prepare in advance for the exercise OF
this absolute power, and he may spend
weeks and months preceding each
general election, in arming and drilling
men for executing his orders upon
election day. In furtlerance of this
manifest purpose, citizens at large are
expressly forbidden to carry arms, ex-
cept under his orders or those of his
appointees. The bill thus makes the
Governor dictator, the State camp,
the election military muster. After
the elections, returns are made to a
Board, over which the Governor pre-
sides, and whose members he can east
ly control. He is here, by means of
his Board, endowed with the discretion
to receive or reject returns, according
to the favorable or adverse report
which his own officers, creatures of his
own appointment, may have made.
From the beginning of the registration
to the installation Of officers after cleo
ton and commission, the whole ma
chinery of suffrage is in the hands of
the Governor. The hundred armed
hands OF the executive Briarens reach
every poll, hold every ballot box,
handle every vote from Arkansas to
the Gulf. While in the mockery of
exercising the fundamental right of
freemen, the citizens of this State will,
upon election day, be in reality wholly
under the rule and subject to the
orders of IN imperial master.
3. The bill utilities parOchial and mum
icipal authority. The SD section for
bids the Mayor of New Orleans or his
commissioners or officers, from holding
any election, "and from doing any act
toward the holding or conducting of
amy election" under the penalty of
fine and imprisonment. By the opera
ton of this bill the Governor is made
absolute in his control over municipal
elections. In all free countries the
supreme legislative authority infer
feres with the functions of municipal
government as seldom as the welfare
of the State will permit, and never,
except by solcmn and deliberate enact
ment of IA general character. The
charter of incorporation and subse-
quent laws charging its scope and ex-
tending its immnnities have vested in
New Orleans certain privileges, which
the lapse OF time, the sanction of law
and the force of historical presidents
render MS inviolable as any right of
personal security of liberty. No one
i .lns, - 81,
Legislature ,todivest this city of it's
character, to take away its
charter, and to reduce it again to a
mere parish, with a parochical govern
nent dictated in all it's details by eX-
,ernal authority. Yet this bill seeks
70 take away from the hands of the
,tficers Of the city all fuctious relative
to elections, and from the city all au-
thority to call or conduct an election
FOR it's own local officers. Whatever
pretext may he imagined for the State
control of general elections within city
limits, there is no shadow or semblance
Of Il reason for taking purely munich
pal election from the hands of city Off
GERS and putting it into those of the
Governor. Long tenure of an undis-
puted right constitutes an indefeasible
title Municipal franchises, conferred by
Legislature upon cities in their infancy
cannot be taken away by any .Legisla-
ture or convention, after the lapse of
many years funquestioned enjoy ment
and after they have become inter-
and Incorporated with the in
lividual interests of vast popula-
lion.
The rights of cities are zealously
guarded by all wise legislators, and
cherished by the citizens
themselves. Among these rights, that
If choosing their own local officers and
fuDctionaries, and the ne
.essarily concomitant right of conduct
ng the elections Of such officers, is
lmong the most usual and most import
mt. The friends of this bill will
earch in vain for a city in any free
country where the right of electing
heir own local officers in their own
ray has been denied to its citizens.
Titles have been the pioneers of eman-
ipation from tyrannical government
IS we'll in the dark ages as in all sub
equent epochs. This last half of the
century is not the time, and.
this metropolis of the South
8 not the place to begin the retrogres-
ion of freedom, and to inaugurate the
eturn to barbarism and governmental
Governments and kings
ave sometimes been taught how
ighly ancient cities cherish old rights,
ustoms and privileges; but history
yarns us that the lessons, though |
clolesnme were neither chem NOR