The Beginning of Warmoth’s Downfall
The first hints of dissension within what may be accurately called Warmoth’s party came as early as January, 1870. The element which was to become so notorious as the “Custom-House” faction had already made its appearance in Louisiana politics. A resolution introduced into the House in the early days of the session recognized the existence of separate organizations contending for recognition as the Central Republican Club, and designated the men of the New Orleans custom-house as “erring” members.[282] A certain tension seems to have been present in the attitude of the House toward all questions respecting the custom-house. When the House sought information concerning its own members who were in the employ of the custom-house, Collector Casey refused it, as he was not a State officer.[283]
The cause of the personal opposition to Warmoth is to be traced, no doubt, to the movement for the removal of his ineligibility for a second term, which caused alarm to the other Republican aspirants for that honor.[284] Organizations were soon covertly started to defeat the amendment at the polls, according to Warmoth’s statement.[285] Opposition, however, first became open at the Republican State Convention which assembled at New Orleans, August 9, 1870, for the nomination of a ticket and the appointment of a State Central Committee. It was felt that the governor was taking extraordinary pains to control that convention, especially as he had been elected a delegate by a club which the committee did not recognize.[286] Both he and the lieutenant-governor, who was also present as a delegate, were nominated to preside, but here the former met his first check: he was defeated by his negro subordinate. As the civil rights bill of the preceding session still lay unsigned in the hands of the governor, a resolution of censure was urged by the custom-house officials on the score that he had sold out his radical principles to the Democrats; but after a heated discussion, in which Warmoth defended his action, the matter was dropped and his conduct virtually indorsed.[287] The convention denounced special legislation and pledged its best endeavors to check it.
The State Central Committee consisted regularly of fifteen members, ten appointed by the convention, five by the chair. As organized, the five appointees of the chair were opposed to the re-eligibility amendment and won over a majority of the whole committee. Hence, the governor refused to contribute to the regular campaign funds or to encourage his friends to do so, but levied forced contributions upon all his appointees on pain of dismissal,[288] organized an auxiliary committee, and began a canvass of his own, in many instances in favor of candidates not regularly nominated by the party.[289] He had tickets printed in favor of the amendment,[290] and, as we have seen, scored a victory at the polls. To Dunn’s complaint that the Warmoth faction had violated custom in organizing an auxiliary committee, he retorted that the regular committee was trying to prevent a fair expression of opinion on the amendment.
Before the legislature met on January 2, 1871, the friends of the governor entered, with his knowledge, into a coalition[291] with the Democrats of the Senate, whereby they robbed the lieutenant-governor of his patronage by taking the appointment of committees into their own hands,[292] and made Democrats chairmen and majority members of several of the committees,[293] thus insuring their seats[294] to certain members who had been fraudulently elected.
By the same coalition Carr was re-elected speaker on the first day, receiving every Democratic vote.[295] The committees of both houses were thus so constituted that anti-Warmoth men were powerless to rid the legislature of ineligible members. Dissatisfaction with Carr’s rulings, however, was so loudly expressed that about the middle of the session he was compelled by a union of Democrats with the custom-house faction to resign, and Colonel Carter of Cameron, old and rather deaf,[296] was elected in his place.[297] Opportunity was now afforded for a reconstruction of the Committee on Elections, which, although unable to complete its investigation before the recess, by an adverse report on four members at the next session, ultimately helped to complicate an already intricate situation.
The choice of a United States Senator on January 10 to succeed J. S. Harris served still further to antagonize the custom-house faction against Warmoth. James F. Casey, collector of the port, who had, up to this time, acted in harmony with the administration party, desired this honor for himself,[298] but the governor threw his influence in favor of General J. R. West, who, supported by the Democrats under fear of the election of the negro Pinchback,[299] was elected on the first ballot in both houses.[300] Casey was soon found among the governor’s most violent enemies.
In view of the peaceful election of the preceding autumn and the general quiet of the State, the hopeful words of the governor’s message do not sound as absurd as events destined to occur within little more than a year were to prove them:
I cannot pass from this subject to other details, in justice, without calling your attention to the general and peaceable acquiescence of our people in the results of the reconstruction policy of the general government. Their acceptance of it as a finality has been much more satisfactory in Louisiana than in any other state in the South.[301]
While urging the encouragement of public improvements, he warned the Assembly against certain schemes of plunder “which are already organizing and will continue to be organized and presented to you for votes,” and insisted that the commonwealth’s state of bonded indebtedness must preclude any further appropriations as subsidy. Adequate penalty for bribery,[302] which had, he acknowledged, become a “crying evil,” amendments to the public land laws, the police jury system, the restoration of the old capitol at Baton Rouge, and a larger measure of home rule for New Orleans are subjects which appear in his message for the first time.[303] Although defending the legislation of the previous session, he recommended with studied vagueness of expression the modification of the election and registration laws: