Yesterday was a lively day in the Convention. Mr. Bienvenu threw a hot shot into the Secession camp, in the shape of an ordinance demanding a report of the official vote in each parish (county) by which the delegates were elected. This would prove that the popular vote of the State was against immediate Secession by a majority of several hundred. The Convention would not permit such exposure of its defiance of the popular will; and, by seventy-three to twenty-two, refused to consider the question.
A warm discussion ensued, on the ordinance for submitting the "Constitution of the Confederate States of America" to the popular vote, for ratification or rejection. The ablest argument against it was by Thomas J. Semmes, of New Orleans, formerly attorney-general of Louisiana. He is a keen, wiry-looking, spectacled gentleman, who, in a terse, incisive speech, made the best of a bad cause. The pith of his argument was, that Republican Governments are not based upon pure Democracy, but upon what Mr. Calhoun termed "concurring majorities." The voters had delegated full powers to the Convention, which was the "sublimated, concentrated quintessence of the sovereignty of the people."
Boldness of Union Members.
The speaker's lip curled with ineffable scorn as he rang the changes upon the words "mere numerical majorities." Just now, this is a favorite phrase with the Rebels throughout the South. Yet they all admit that a majority, even of one vote, in Mississippi or Virginia, justly controls the action of the State, and binds the minority. I wish they would explain why a "mere numerical majority" is more oppressive in a collection of States than in a single commonwealth.
Mr. Add Rozier, of New Orleans, in a bold speech, advocated submitting the constitution to the people. On being asked by a member—"Did you vote for the Secession ordinance several weeks ago?" he replied, emphatically:—
"No; and, so help me God, I never will!"
A spontaneous outburst of applause from the lobby gave an index of the stifled public sentiment. Mr. Rozier charged that the Secessionists knew they were acting against the popular will, and dared not appeal to the people. Until the Montgomery constitution should become the law of the land, he utterly spurned it, spat upon it, trampled it under his feet.
Mr. Christian Roselius, also of this city, advocated the ordinance with equal boldness and fervor. He insisted that it was based on the fundamental principle of Republicanism—that this Convention was no Long Parliament to rule Louisiana without check or limit; and he ridiculed with merciless sarcasm Mr. Semmes's theory of the "sublimated, concentrated quintessence of the sovereignty of the people."
The inexorable majority here cut off debate, calling the previous question, and defeated the ordinance by a vote of seventy-three to twenty-six.
This body is a good specimen of the Secession Oligarchy. It appointed, from its own members, the Louisiana delegates to the Convention of all the seceded States which framed the Montgomery Constitution, and now it proposes to pass finally upon their action, leaving the people quite out of sight.