Is it possible that men in broad daylight will say that we should not call on the Republican party to give security to the people? That we receive this amendment that men should be organized into a militia, that will call every disturbance of the peace a “nigger insurrection”? Men should prove that they are loyal before they can be trusted to go into the militia. This amendment ought to be dammed by this House. What, this democracy to be organized into a militia to execute Andrew Johnson’s policy! This amendment is full of deviltry.[61]
On another occasion even the speaker stated as a good reason why a certain bill should pass that the board to be affected by it were all good Republicans. The bill promptly passed.[62] January 19 a cool resolution was offered that the persons voted for in the parishes where a fair election had been held, the twenty-six parishes where the Democrats had had a majority being calmly ignored, should meet to vote for President and Vice-President.[63] It is significant, however, that sharply drawn as was the party line, the sectional feeling manifested was distinctly pro-Southern. When a measure was offered for a contribution to a Lincoln Monument, few spoke for it, while most felt it frankly impossible that the South could be expected to contribute.[64] On the other hand, when the appeal to help bury the Confederate dead at Fredericksburg came up the following session, even such a hot-headed Unionist as Mr. McMillan spoke reverently in advocacy of the appropriation.[65]
But worse than partisanship was the lack of dignity, even frivolity, which characterized the proceedings. So serious did this become that the speaker was frequently forced to call the members to order for their senseless motions and tone of levity.[66] Amendments were repeatedly refused by the chair as absurd[67] and even improper. It was proposed to add to the oath required by the school bill, “shall take whiskey straight without regard to race, color, or previous condition.”[68] Some, when ordered read to satisfy the curiosity of the House, proved even indecent.[69] The greatest discourtesy on the part of one member to another prevailed, while even the president of the Senate was guilty of recognizing a Senator in the following undignified way: “Well, just pitch in.” One member cried: “I don’t know what he is going to talk about. I don’t wish to hear him talk at all, and I therefore call for the previous question.”[70] Because one member read his speech, another called out rudely, “There’s that document again.” Or again, “I move the gentleman be allowed to speak all night. He occupies the floor more than any other member of this House.”[71] Freedom of speech both as to time and language and wordy altercations made confusion and tumult almost the rule in both houses until such a remark as the following was possible: “I hope the Sergeant-at-arms will call to his assistance a sufficient number of the Metropolitan Police to keep order and to see whether we cannot have silence, and quiet, and stillness to hear what is going on,” while the president weakly added, “It is really a shame that we cannot have better order.”[72] It frequently became necessary for the chair to order the sergeant to seat obstreperous members and to threaten public censure.[73] In at least one instance the threat was executed.[74] Carter even boldly said of the speaker, “I must say that the man who knows the facts of this case, as he said he did, and is acquainted with the law, and then says that I am a defaulter, is either a fool or unadulterated liar.” Then less vehemently, “I will be square and honest and polite to you all, but I will be hanged if I am to be bullyragged, and I’ll be switched if I am to be ridden over by the Speaker or anybody else.”[75]
Reprobate and scoundrel that he proved to be, Speaker Carr[76] had a certain power of command, which made it possible for him to control the House. Whenever he called anyone else to the chair, the House broke into disorder like a set of unruly schoolboys, leaving him problems to disentangle on his return. Legislators indulged in pranks such as withdrawing a member’s chair while he was speaking in order that his fall should convulse the House.[77] So notorious was the disorder that one member acknowledged as a well-known fact that gentlemen came from the North to see what kind of a House they had. The speaker found it difficult to hear the motions, while over and over again the reporter inserted in the debates “confusion” and a statement to the effect that, owing to the disorder, he had lost part of the speech. The pages, who made as much noise “as a lot of young colts, dodging about the floor, standing up, talking and laughing all the time,” according to the speaker, added to the disturbance.[78] It would be difficult to read the pages that record the proceedings on the 30th of January, 1869, without feeling convinced that the open bar, which it was charged was to be found at the capitol, had had its due effect.[79] The last evening closed fittingly with a mock session, when, as the debates assure us, “the members had a good time, and the reign of fun prevailed for a few minutes.”[80]
Low as was the tone during the second session of the Assembly, it degenerated even lower by the time the Assembly gathered for the third time. Debate descended more often to vulgarity[81] and bad grammar and rhetoric came to the surface more often.[82]
Mr. President, I have not expressed on none of these bills termed political bills, but, as the gentleman who preceded me from Orleans has not entirely represented me, I claim on this floor the privilege. In the first place, he says we have elected a demagogue,—or some such word.... I say on the other hand, if the way that he holds to that he has done what he proposes that he should have done, it is because the Democratic members on this floor, when some bills were introduced in this House, opposed them bills, and they did not become laws.... I do not know what done it, except it was their own classes—except it was someone that stood in the ranks in the days of old.[83]
It was of a legislature which assembled only a year later that Eustis told his famous story: “There was a member of Parliament brought me a letter of introduction, and he asked me if I had any great curiosity to show him. I told him I had—such a curiosity as he would never see in any other civilized country, and I took him to the legislature.”[84]
In methods of procedure gross irregularities occurred as a result of carelessness or deliberate manipulation until the procedure occasionally became a mere travesty of the forms of government. Wiltz in the House charged that he was never notified to attend a single meeting of the Committee on the City Charter of which he was a member.[85] A bill was declared on third reading when the House had refused to engross it and had ordered it placed on the calendar. An interested member detected the irregularity.[86] A member of the Ways and Means Committee charged that the revenue bill had been returned when only two members had been present to act on it.[87] One striking offense was the extraordinary omnibus motion put and carried amid boisterous laughter late on the evening of February 23: “I move that the reading of the bill be dispensed with, the bill be put upon its first reading, the constitutional rule be suspended, the bill be put upon its second and third readings and final passage, the title adopted, and that the bill be sent to the Senate for concurrence.”[88] One member remonstrated at what he properly termed an “extraordinary proceeding.” “The Governor has sent in a veto of some bills, and in his message has given very grave reasons for so doing. Now, sir, I want to see the bills. I don’t know them at all. They were ordered to be printed this morning, and now the House desires to take up those bills, involving millions of dollars, without ever giving the members an opportunity to make themselves acquainted with their provisions.”[89] Another member was excused from voting on a bill, which he insisted on hearing read, only after the following declaration of independence: “I will throw myself back upon my reserved rights, and I will not vote, and the House may take, with all respect, the course they may think proper.”[90]
Even the speaker acted on one occasion without knowing what the forms were carrying through, for, on the query of a member as to the nature of the bill under debate, he replied: “Something about taxes. The gentleman from Orleans moves it be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.” It was so referred.[91]
The powerful majority did not even manifest the ordinary courtesies of debate to the minority, but replied coldly to the very reasonable plea of the opposition for more time on an important bill: “It seems to be the disposition of the committee to work further.”[92] By dispensing with the reading of the bill and various other devices to gain time, bills were often crowded through to adoption at a single sitting.[93] Under the operation of the previous question, debate was peremptorily cut off until one member indignantly cried out: “It is impossible to sit here and see the funds of the State voted away without an opportunity to remonstrate against it.”[94]