The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1878-02-06
SENATOR SPOFfORD.

| S9A'S ~ aHA' Vs.
Preface" to the "Argnmeuts Of II
NJ. Spofford before The Senate Com
mittee on Privileges and Elections
as delivered at Washington in Octo
Der and November 1877" and ash
our readers of Rapides to read fo
themselves, and see how our noble
though defrauded, U. S. Seaato r
puts il:
My apollo y for this publication i.
that its contents are nowhere else
accessible TO persons who are mos
likely to take az interest in them
With the exception of a few frag
ments, they are not to be found in
the Congressional Record. Only
one hundred copies of the proceed.
ings and speeches in the Senate Com
mittee on Privileges and Elections
in this case were printed, and of these
l have succeeded in obtaining but
two. The following pages are chiefly
a reprint of them.
My four arguments (which, with a
few connecting links extracted from
the proceedings of the Committee,
make up this pamphlet, were solici
ted in every instance, and listened to
with apparent attention. The show
Of judicial deliberation was main
tanned until a motion to take up the
case of Mr.. Butler threatened TO pre-.
vail in the Senate, when the Republi-
can members Of the committee alb
rubtly made a majority report (of
six printed pages) recommending
the seating Of Mr.. Kellogg "on the
merits" without even an allusion to
the constitutional questions which
lie at the foundation Of all these ar
guments, and upon which the Sena
torial controversy necessarily hinges.
As the constitutional argument
has never been answered and is un-
answerable, the inference from this
silence of the majority is,
that they regard the returning
board law" as paramount to the Con
stitution.
But, confronted BY positive proof
that the returning officers overrode
even this law and exceeded the au-
thority it sought to confer, the re
port evaded tie difficulty by assert
ing that those officers "were sustain
ed in their construction of the law
by presidents and able legal opin-
IONS"
Those precedents and able legal
opinions were never cited during the
long discussion, and it will remain a
mystery where they are to be found
until the injunction Of secresy is re.
moved. The only ''precedents"
known to me are similar outrageous
acts of the Louisiana returning board
n regard to former elections. Every
legal opinion" that has come under
ny reading comedies the patent lille
yality of those acts, including the
opinions Of Carpenter, Anthony, To-
gan, Alcorn, Wheeler, Phelps, Hoar
md other republican luminaries too
numerous to mention. 1t is safe to
'ay that there is no lawyer of decent
equation in the United States, not
in, or interested to sus.
ain these returning board enormi
les, WHO would put that reputation
It hazard by giving a written legal
opinion that they were conformable
o Act No. SO, or justifiable under it's
provisions.
In spite Of difficulties that would
AVE paralyzed a people who did not
owe liberty better than life, the Lou
sianians of to day have re-establish-
ID their government upon the endu-
ing basis of American constitutional
aw, and rescued the State from con-
inued revolutionary misrule by al
,and of four men, who claimed, for
themselves and their appointees for
'ver, the right to make Governors
md Legislatures in defiance of both
constitution and law. Louisianians
Vt the next generation will read with
the following statements
rom the majority report: "Your
committee find, that, at and after the
organization of the legislature which
elected Mr.. Kellogg, an overwhelm-
ng array Of armed and organized
military force was used to destroy
md crush out the lawful State poy.
eminent of Louisiana. Il Nv
such, and perhaps other equal illegal
means, the SO. called Nichols lsgis-
AZURE at length cama IN conto;,