Mr. BOYER addressed the House. [His remarks will be published in the Appendix] Civil Government in Louisiana. SPEECH OF HON. B. M. BOYER, OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN, February 12, 1867. The House having under consideration the bill reported from the select Committee on NewOrleans Riots (H.R.No. 1162)for the reestablishment of civil government in the State of Louisiana. Mr. BOYER said: Mr. SpeakER: I am not as well prepared to enter upon the discussion of this bill now as I would have been if I had supposed that a measureof this kind was to be introduced and put upon its passage at this time. I am not as well prepared as I should have been if it had been ".when the House adjourned yesterday that debate would be allowed upon this bill today at all. But unprepared as I am, and without notes or previous arrangement, I shall endeavor to present my objections to this measure in such form, however desultory, as that they will be at least understood for whatever they may be worth in substance. This is another example of that impetuous legislation to which this House has been too much accustomed. There are excellent reasons, which unfortunately do not seem to have found a lodgment in the minds of the gentlemen who represent the Republican party here, why a measure so important as this should be properly debated and considered. There certainly can be no good reason why a bill so important and involving in its consequences the interests of so many 1000s of people should be hurried with hot haste to its passage under the operation of the previous question after but 2 hours' debate. It seems to be much easier for the dominant majority in this House to unite in a measure which aims at the destruction of States than in a measure in tended to restore them. They have as yet agreed upon no plan for the restoration of the Union; but to keep the States apart there have been many devices which commanded the united radical vote of this body. No plan for the restoration of the Union has succeeded, because no plan of reunion will suit this Congress but one which will perpetuate the dominion of the Republican party. It is not because the Constitution will not be obeyed, nor because the laws cannot be enforced that the ten excluded States are deprived of representation upon this floor. It is not, therefore, because this Union cannot be restored that we are still a divided nation. The difficulty is not because you are not able to bring back the citizens of the southern States to their allegiance to the Government, but because you cannot at the same time convert them into radical Republicans. Mr. Speaker, what does this measure propose? It proposes, sir, to abolish a State government. It proposes to wipe out a State constitution. And what sort of a government and what sort of a constitution is it here proposed to subvert? The constitution under which the government of Louisiana is at this time in peaceful and successful operation is the constitution adopted more than 2 years ago, and ever since that time recognized and obeyed as the constitution of that State. Every civil office in the State of Louisiana has been filled under its authority. 2 successive State legislatures have been elected, have met, and have adjourned under its provisions. Everywhere throughout the State of Louisiana the courts are open and speech is free. I admit that the constitution which it is proposed by an act of Congress thus to abolish was not originally a constitution regularly made with the active cooperation of the whole people of the State. The authority to assemble the convention which originally framed that constitution was an authority emanating from a major general commanding the Dept of the Gulf. But a majority of the parishes in the State sent delegates to the convention, a constitution was framed and submitted to the people of the State, and ratified by them; and the Governor of the State issued his proclamation that it had been regularly adopted. The whole people of the State of Louisiana have since then acquiesced in it and obeyed it as such for more than 2 years past, during all of which time Congress has not interfered. If there were anything in the existing government of Louisiana which was subversive of the principles of the Federal Constitution, or if there were anything in the constitution of Louisiana so unjust in its provisions as to call for the speedy application of a remedy for the sake of humanity, there might indeed be some pretext for such a measure as this. But it is a constitution framed by the very men who now ask this Congress to destroy it. It abolishes slavery and prohibits the legislature from recognizing the right of property in man. It prohibits the payment of the rebel debt; it authorizes the Legislature to extend suffrage to such of the colored population as by military service or by taxation to support the 6 government or by intellectual fitness may be deemed entitled thereto. It disqualifies from holding office, either of profit or trust, and from exercising the elective franchise. every person convicted of treason. such is the constitution which this bill proposes to nullify; and the State government established under this constitution is the government which this bill proposes to overthrow. I well know that Congress is besieged by individuals claiming to be loyal citizens of the State of Louisiana, who say they have been driven from their homes by political persecution. I know that there are such in this city at this time; probably there are some of them at this time in the galleries or in the lobby of this Hall and within the hearing of my voice. Some of them may be patriots, but all of them are office seekers and political agitators, and most of them intemperate in speech and action. It can easily be shown, also, that those most prominent among these gentlemen are not men whose antecedents justify them in setting themselves up as the accepted standards of loyalty and Unionism in Louisiana. Solne of them were confederate office holders, and took the oath of allegiance to the confederate government. Some of them were members of secession societies in the early part of the war, organized to exercise espionage over the move ments of Union men. I could name some among them who voted in favor of hanging Union men for their Union sentiments, an who assisted in driving them beyond the lines of the State for no other reason than that they stood by the flag of the nation. I will not name them here; I have named some of the most prominent among them in the minority report, which, as a member of the Committee to investigate the NewOrleans Riots, I had the honor yesterday to present to this House. I have named them in that report, and I have accom panied the mention of their names with the roof. I maintain that even these men can ive safely in Louisiana; but they are here to traffic with their bogus loyalty and to manufacture political capital out of their voluntary martyrdom. These men tell us that they cannot live in peace in the State of Louisiana, and they ask us for their sakes to establish another government there. Look to their antecedents, and it will be seen that it is office they want rather than peace. They were the advocates of the rebellion when it was strong; they deserted it when it became weak. They were only political adventurers then; they are but political adventurers now; and what they want is not a better government in the State of Louisiana; but they want a government, so constructed that under it they can obtain the monopoly of the offices. That is all they want. At the foundation of this proposed change of government in Louisiana are 2 motives. One is to get hold of the offices of the State; the other is to bring Louisiana ultimately into this Union with a Radical Republican representation in Congress. Why is she and why are the other 9 States that have no representation upon this floor excluded, while Tennessee has been admitted: Tennessee was a part of the confederacy; Tennessee seceded; Tennessee fought gallantly in opposition to the Union cause side by side with Louisiana and SCarolina. Why is it that Tennessee, is not proscribed? Why is it that we see her Representatives upon the floor of this House? There are 2 reasons. One is that Tennessee bent her knee in subserviency to radical rule.. She elected a radical Legislature and a radical, Governor, by the help of certain restrictions imposed by the Federal Government upon her voting population. The other reason is that the POTUS is himself a citizen of Tennessee, and it was too striking and prae. tical a refutation of the radical theory of exclusion that an “alien enemy” should sit in the presidential chair. But gentlemen on the other side of this Cham ber seem to think that they cannot afford to admit any more of the “wayward sisters” into the national family; not that Unionism would thus be put down, because the representatives of all the southern States, if adnmoitrtietdy;here would constitute a powerless mi but the fat offices would slip away from the Republican grasp, and the tyranny of he 2/3rd majority would come to an end. In order to bring in the now excluded States of the South at some future day as States in subservient accord with the dogmas of the Republican party, it is necessary to resort to certain measures of coercion subversive of their rights as States in the Union. Louisiana is today to be selected as the victim. If the experiment succeeds, it will be tried on all the others. It is unblushingly proposed by this bill to effect that oby establishing a negro government in the State of Louisiana. The 5th section of the bill extends the right of suffrage to the colored population without restriction. There are in the State of Louisi ana about 28 or 30,000 white voters. If suffrage is extended to the colored population, as it will be if this bill passes, there will be from 30 to 35,000 negro voters. Therefore, the State of Louisi ana will pass out of the hands of white men into the hands of the negroes as soon as the government organized under this bill shall go into operation. But this does not seem to be sufficient in the eyes of its authors to insure the accomplishment of the design; and therefore it is that this bill provides in addition for the disfranchisement of a majority of the white voters of the State. Rufus King Cutler, one of the most influential leaders among those who set themselves up to be the peculiarly “loyal” men in the State of Louisiana, in his testimony before the investigating committee, after mentioning the statistics of population to which I have just referred said, oafter the extension of suffrage to the negroes and the disfranchisement of white men (just as is provided in this bill) he believed that with the help of the military power of the U.S. the local government thus established might be maintained. One might suppose that gentleman had drafted this bill; it accords so well with his notions of what the government of Louisiana should be. And who is he who sets himself up as the indicator to this Congress of the kind of government which ought to be established in that State? There was during the war a rebel company known in the confederate army by the name of the “King Cutler Guards” a company equipped at the expense of the individual have named. I shall not consume time by going over in detail the loyal antecedents of the other gentlemen to whom I have alluded. I refer those who have any curiosity upon the subject to the report of the minority of the in vestigating Committee on the NewOrleans Riots. I have not heard urged upon this floor by the honorable gentleman who reported this bill, and whose 1st intention it was to pass it with9ut any debate, any reasons assigned why the existing government of Louisiana should be abolished; and therefore it is impossible for me to take up his argument as I should like to do, step by step, and show upon what sort of a foundation this proposition rests. I cannot analyze his argument, because he has presented none; and it is therefore left for me to anticipate what possibly might be the excuse which would be offered if he had condescended to offer one at all. It was said some time ago, when the committee was appointed to investigate the NewOrleans riots, that there had been registered in this Congress—in some secret Republican caucus, I presume—a decree that the government of Louisiana was to be subverted, and the State reduced to the condition of a Territory and that a committee of 3 had been appointed to go down to NewOrleans for the purpose of hunting up an excuse for such legisation. If we look to the report of the majority of the committee, and to this bill submitted by the chairman, it appears that the committee has come fully up to the demands of its misSlon. It will be a surprising thing doubtless to the people of Louisiana when they learn a committee, sent to NewOrleans for the purpose of investigating a local riot, put upon trial in secret session the State of Louisiana itself, and now hold accountable before this Congress and the nation the entire people of the State for a local disturbance in which a few 100 were engaged, and which was confined to a few squares within the city of NewOrleans. It might have surprised even me, as a member of that committee, if I had not had some previous experience in this body, when I found the range which the inquiry was taking, and the determination to hold accountable for its consequences so many 1000s of those who never had any knowledge or warning of the disturbance. The riot of the 30th of July does, indeed, embrace some circumstances much to be deplored; but I maintain that it did not arise in any degree whatever out of any hostile feeling which the people of the city of NewOrleans or the people of the State of Louisiana entertained toward the Government of the U.S. It was a riot which under similar circumstances could have been provoked in any other quarter of the Union. But while the committee was investigating the origin and progress of the riot, there was “lugged” into the examination a great deal of testimony bearing on the general sentiments and feelings of the people of the State of Louisi ana, not by the introduction of facts, but of opinions. The facts themselves were meager enough, but the opinions were as strong as the majority of the committee could desire; for they called to the stand as witnesses upon this point the very individuals who by incendiary speeches and revolutionary acts and threats of violence had themselves produced the riot, and they came before the committee and swore through their own case as a matter of course. It would have been much more conducive to the ends of impartial justice if there had been some consultation between all the members of the committee as to some impartial system to be pursued in the examination of witnesses in the case; and that would have been done if it had been intended to make this investigation profitable for any other than a party purpose. If the public sentiment of the State was to be inferred from the testimony of witnesses called by the committee, it would have been more in accordance, in my judgment, with the ends of a fair investigation, and more productive of light upon this important question if it had been so arranged that from l parts of the State men not involved in the movement of the conventionists of the 30th of July had been summoned to testify in regard to the state of affairs in their respective localities. When the committee did allow, upon the suggestion of citizens of NewOrleans, witnesses to be called whose opinions on public questions might be regarded as reliable from the character of the witnesses themselves and from the position they occupied in society and in the State, it will be found upon reference to their testimony that the government of the State of Louisiana as it now exists is a government in which justice is for the most part fairly iod in the courts and elsewhere, without distinction of race, color, or political opinion. Most of the witnesses here alluded to had been Union men, not such Union men as the “latter day saints, ” to whom I have before referred, but men who were loyal in the beginning, when the rebellion seemed to be strong and when public sentiment was overwhelming in its favor, men who stemmed the secession tide, who resisted the influences which were employed to carry the State of Louisiana out of the Union, as long as resistance could be of any avail, and therefore men to whose judgment and state ments of fact we ought to pay a decent regard. The individual instances in which facts were testified to showing injustice in the courts were very few. There was but a single district in the whole State of Louisiana in reference to which. therewas any proof whatever that the course of justice had been obstructed or that jurors were influenced by their political feelings. I do not propose to take up the testimon and show in detail what appears in the evidence. I leave that to the members of the House who desire to enlighten themselves by the perusal of the testimony hereafter to be printed and laid before them. I see, at this moment, in the hand of one of my colleagues, the chairman of the committee, an advance copy of the printed testimony; and if he or any other gentleman on the other side desires to make a speech on this subject I have no doubt he can select from different parts of it much which, standing by itself, would seem to favor the views of those who are pressing the passage of this bill, for the testimony is volumi nous and varied. Time does not permit me to enter upon that sort of analysis of the testimony, and all I propose to do this day is simply to refer gentlemen to the testimony itself, and to ask that before they vote upon this bill they shall take time to look it over and to investigate the subject in a manner befitting the magnitude of the occasion. It is no light thing to take away the government of a people and blot out the existence of a free State. There are those in this Hall who profess to regard with veneration the precepts and example of the late President. I have always myself regarded the memory of President Lincoln with respect, because whether he was right or wrong I always thought he loved his country and was actuated by patriotic motives. In reference to this very government of Louisiana, one of the very last councils he gave near the close of his Administration was that the government of the people there, inaugurated under the constitution of 1864, should be encouraged. Youpremember well the homely but apt illustration by which he enforced his counsel. You could sooner get a fowl by hatching the egg, said he, than by smashing it; and that although this government of Louisiana might then not be precisely all that might be desired, it was a move in the right direction and ought to be fostered and sustained by the Federal Government. But no chickens are allowed to be hatched by this Congress unless the eggs have upon them the label of the Reconstruction Committee, and warranted to produce radical Republican fowls.