The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1874-07-02
SIP Il ECH
Of
II O N. L. @. c. | A M A r,
OF MISSISSIPPI.
IN THE [. {. House OF REPRESENTATIVES.
june y, IS74.

IN support OF the right OF U. A. Sheridan,
to the seat in contest.
The opening argument involving mat
tiers of detail purely local is omitted.
After showing that Mr. Sheridan was
fairly and legally elected by majority of
| 1854 votes, Mr.. Lamar said:
Mr.. SPEAKER; [ realize fully that the
arguments | have been advancing and
the arguments which | have been replying
to are not the considerations which will
control the action OF this House. The
remarks Of my friend from New York,
| Mr.. Smith, and the argument which
/ folio owed in the same course after him
about the . wicked shareholders rebel
/ lion and " the conspiracy in Louisiana
to Irample down the colored people Of that
/ State" show that connected with this
simple contested election case there is
another question Of higher importance
upon which the members of this House are
/ fixing thoughts and with reference to
which their votes will be. cast 1t
| is a well-known fact, that at the time
when these gentlemen claim each to have
been chosen as member of Congress,
| there was a general election in Louisiana ;
that at this election John McEnery, and
/ his associates were, by an actual count of
/ the official returns of a legal returning
| board, and as proclaimed by the legal
| governor according TO law, declared to be
actually and legally elected; that these
persons so elected were invested with
their respective Offices aud would be to-
day III the peaceful exercise of the SOW
ereign power Of the State but for their
election by the military power of the
United States Government.
| 1t is also notorious fact that a body
of FIVE men, claiming to be a board of
returning officers, declared w. p kel-
/ logg and certain other men associated
with him to be elected to the offices Of
| the State government for which they
were the respective candidates; that this
declaration was based upon no actual
count of Official returns that they had
not a single official return before them );
| that the result at which they arrived was
manufactured upon er paTte atidaVlts,
most Of them forged, oral statements, one
sided reports made contrary to law, and
/ cOnIectural @ estimate of what the vote
ought to have been" by comparison with
the votes of a preceding election, which
election was admitted by them to be car
ried by frauds of the grossest character.
1t is also ii well-known fact that to fix
them in power, which they could not
otherwise have held for moment
| among that people, a Federal judge,
| upon bill to perpetuate testimony, is
sued an order epjoining the legal govern
ment of the people from exercising its
legal functions, and decreeing the de-
| feated candidates into the armed posses
OF ba e II,
in pursuance of which order Federal sol
diers seized the capitol of the State, and
inanonrated Kalleee- n,,d his lepislatnra
by force of arms and in defiance of law.
Indignant as the members of this House
must unque>tionably feel at the wrongs
perpetrated upon the citizens of Louisiana;
aghast as they must be at the general
overturn of all the safeguards of govern
ment, social stability and security, which
the present condition of that State re-
veals, for some reason they recoil from
casting vote which may indirectly in
volve the repudiation of Kellogg's govern
ment or the recognition of McEnery's
claim. There seems to be an apprehen-
| sion that in the success of the latter there
will be the re- ascendency of a system hostile
to the interests of the Republican party !;
that the McEnery government represents
that class in the South which was engag ed
| in the attempt to overturn the Govern
ment, and among which yet fingers the
| spirit Of disunion and slavery; that its
accession to power means the supremacy
of the white race and the oppression, or
at least the subordination and subsection,
in some form, OF the black race.
| desire to remove these impediments to
decision Of this case upon its merits.
do not believe that the interests Of the
| Republican party are identified with the
maintenance of that so-called government
now fixed upon the people of Louisiana,
or of the governments of kindred nature
in the Southern States No party sup
ported by the moral sentiment of the
American people can long bear the re-
sponsibility of the infamy and disgrace
which these grotesque caricatures of
government have brought upon the very
name of republicanism.
Nor, on the other hand, is there any
thing in the character of the people of that
State who elected McEnery, nor of the
people of the Southern States, or any
tn 1g in their history before the war, or
since, which can justify on the part of
Congress any suspicion of their designs in
once more getting accession to power in
their own States-nothing, sir, which
should cause Congress to regard their
restoration to the management of their
own affairs as menace against any Of the
results established by the war, against
the safety of the black people or the
South, or against the security of the so
called loyal men of that section. As this
subject has been introduced into the dis
cussion by the gentleman from New Y ork.
permit me, in order to disclose the real
position and purpose of the original citi-
zens of the South in lheir true light, to
review the events of the last few years
am aware, sir, of the fact that the bare
mention of these events is Calculated to
excite apprehension; that something may
be said to revive resentment and to
not assure this House that such is not my
purpose. | fear that the two sections
can never obtain a genuine and perma-
nently good understanding unless we
speak to each other upon these subjects in
spirit of open-hearted frankness. Reti-
cence and reserve persisted in will, it is to
be feared, be productive of additional
misunderstanding.
Mr.. Speaker, in 1860 the Presidential
election, for the first time in the history
of this country, placed the Federal Gov
eminent in the control of party whose
organization, candidates and voters were
all confined to one section of the Union,
and animated BY a common sentiment of
hostility to the slavery institutions of the
other section, whose leading policy was
not only to exclude those institutions
from the Territories. but also to use the