, 1875-02-17

members WIOuI Jll6 h6IuLuILg OOuIu "du
unseated, but who were voting. The
House demonstrated, but the General
stood firm, and declared his intention
to obey General Emory's order the five
were elected, and the Conservatives, thus
reduced to powerlessness, retired to a
private building, and there, being Joined
apparently by one or two Of the unseated
five, declared themselves the true House
of Representatives of Louisiana. The
Republicans, returning to their hall made
the same declaration, adding, what the
correspondent alleges to have been untrue,
that they now formed a &" quorum, " !. c.,
had ffty-fve Members, when they had
only ftty-three.
The President sustained General de
Thobriand's action, and for this he has
been strongly censured in this coun-
try, where opinion is unconsciously a
good deal affected by Charles is seizure
of the Five Members, but we suspect
he will have a great deal to say for him
self. His agent, General Emory, under
whom General de Thobriand acted, was
maintaining, with great violence no doubt,
and it may be unconstitutional vlO-
lence, but still maintaining the Consti-
tuition Of Louisiana. The Republicans,
bad or good, were acting within their le-
gal right; while the Conservatives, bad or
good, were Selling power by seating per-
sons who, whatever their other quailtica-
tions, had no more right to vote as Repre-
sentatives than any five gentlemen picked
at random out of the nearest street. 1t IS
quite possible, we should think it most like
Iy, that the Returning Board is an unjust
Board, nearly as unjust as a House OF
Commons Election Committee before 1882;
that the evidence against the Five was
imperfect, and that the verdict was a party
verde but still it was the verdict of the
legal tribunal, and such q verdict is in or
binary cases supported by force. We may
suspect the Judge Of corruption, or Of fear,
or even, as has happened twice in England
within our recollection, ofinsanity but
still, till he is removed by competent Au-
thority, his decision must be supported by
the Executive. Iffve Members took their
seats in the House of Commons after being
elected by Mr.. Justice Grove, and were
not admitted by vote Of the House, which
in theory has power to overrl le an Election
decision, the Speaker would evict them, and
if necessary carry out his orders by an ap-
peal to physical force, whether Of police
men or of soldiers does not matter much.
General Grant is clearly on the side Of the
law 10 Louisiana, and not against it, and the
only true dispute is as to the constitution
atty of his method of enforcing it. In
that We suspect General Emory, and after
him, General Grant, to have been in the
wrong. If the Conservative Rump were
an illegal assembly, performing acts dan
gerous to public order, Governor Kellogg
might have a right to disperse it, and &c
cording to the modern but most irregular
practice in the States, a right to call upon
the Federal Army for aid in dispensing it,
taking, of course, the responsibility but
that was, we imagine, the extreme outside
limit of his authority. The true. course
would have been to let the House alone,
and neglect its votes till they became con-
stitutional, and the object of deviating
from that course was clearly to allow a
House to exist in which the Republicans
would have a majority. In any case, the
seizure of five men out of the illegal as
semblage, while leaving the assemblage
intact, and ready, if more members came
in, to constitute a House, was, if not ut
terly illegal, q erost suspicious breach OF
those presidents without which no Con-
stitution can be worked, and might, un-