Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1875-01-15
The Presidenf'h MeSAaxc,


Yesterdays city papers, received here
last night, contain the Presidents Message
on Louisiana affairs, which, with the &C
companying documents. makes quite
voluminous State paper. Not having time
to give to the message that attention it
should receive at our hands, we avail our
selves OF the summary of its contents and
the comments made by that very conserva-
tive and independent journal, the Balti
more San. In yesterdays issue it says:
The Special Message of the President
communicated to Congress yesterday pur
ports to be in answer to the Senate reso-
luton, of the 9th instant, asking for infor
nation as 20 any interference by military
officers or any part of the army of the u
nited States with the organization or pro-
ceedings of the General Assembly of the
State of Louisiana, or either branch there
of, and also inquiring in regard to the
existence OF armed organizations in that
State hostile to the government thereof,
and intent on overturning such govern
ment by force Upon the first point the
message will be found to add nothing to
the stock of information already possessed
by the public in regard to occurrences in
New Orleans on January 4, the day APP
pointed for the assembling of the State
Legislature, while as to the second. altho
the President accumulates a mass of state
ments in regard to the operations of the
White League in Louisiana, he furnish
es no proof of any intent on the part of
that organization or any other to overturn
the State government BY force. In both
respects, therefore, the message signally
fails to offer any apology, much less iusti-
hCation, for interference of the military
forces Of the United States with the or
ganization of the State Legislature.
The President begins with reference TO
what he calls 1.-The bloody riots Of 1866 and
1868 To show that the disorders there are
not due to any recent canvass, or to any
late action OF the Federal authorities. =
OF the disorders themselves, it is needless
to say, he repeats as true the version Of
the Republican State campaign committee
with which the public at large have been
made sufficiently familiar through the
bloody shirt" and outrage" speeches Of
Messrs Morton. Logan and others through
several successive political campaigns and
the answer to all of which is that, whether
true or false, it is wholly beside the pres
ent question. That question, as the Presi
dent himself states it, and as embodied in
the Senate resolution to which the message
purports to be response, is as TO the in
reference of the military forces Of the L.
nited States with the organization Of the
Legislature of Louisiana. BY the Consti
tuition Of the United States and of every
| individual State in the Union, Louisiana
among the number. legislative bodies.
whether State or National, are made the
exclusive Judges Of the election and quail
ifications of their own members. SO uni
versal is this principle that the very en-
forcement acts shemselyes exempt from
their operation and from judicial cogni-
zsnco the case of members Of Congress or
Of the State Legislatures
No amount of lawlessness or bloodshed
in the State Of Louisiana, even il the
President had been able TO accumulate
tenfold the amount of evidence that his
message contains, and il all were true,
wonld t:,s,e lie case o: Louisiana OF. IT
this principle, or make the soldiers Of the
United States judges Of the election or
qualifications Of members of that body
The simple fact is, and the President does
not attempt TO disprove il, that the organ
ization Of the lower House of the Louis
lana Legislature under Speaker Wilt was
broken up, certain number of members
who had been admitted by the House To
their seats unseated, and another House
constituted under the speakership of ex-
Governor Hahn by the direct interference
of file of soldiers acting under the orders
of Gen. De Trobriand, upon the iniorma-
ton of certain General Hugh J. Camp
bell, of the State militia, and at the re
quest of Governor Kellogg and the petit
ton of a portion of the Legislature elect
That is the whole case, and it comes Meth
er within the letter or spirit Of the only
clause of the Constitution of the United
States which permits the interference of
the military forces Of the United States in
the internal affairs of a State, viz for the
purpose of suppressing domestic insurrsc-
ton or violence upon the requisition of the
State Legislature, or OF the Governor when
| the Legislature cannot be convened
| Neither of these contingencies presented
itself. There was no Instruction, no vio-
lence except that of which the military
forces of the United States were guilty
no requisition from the State Legislature,
none from the Governor in the only con-
tingency in which he is authorized to
| make q req uSltlOn, VIZ. "neu the LeSlSia
ture cannot be convened.
The only defense that the President offers
for this daring and high invasion
of the privileges of the Legislature of Lou
isiana, which are in turn the rights of the
people of that State and of the whole Uni
ted States, is that 1.-The army is not COM
posed of lawyers capable of Judging at
moments notice Just how far they could
90 in the maintenance of law and order"
We suppose not; but we suppose the army
to be commanded by men sufficiently in
structed in their own duty, their country's
laws and the rudiments of civil liberty, to
know that If they were ordered to morrow
to disperse at the point of the bayonet
either House of Congress, obedience to
their military superior would be treason
to their country. If every fact relied up
on by the President were true, it would
constitute no justification of the part play
ed by the soldiers of the United States in
the organization of the Louisiana Legisla-
ture.
The tale of "outrages" recited in the
message proves nothing beyond the utter
failure of Radical administration in that
State, and the impotency of the govern
ment which Judge Durell set up and the
prooiHont hoo Lonf in nlapo