[369] House Misc. Doc., 42 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 211, 395-6.
[370] Ibid., 396. Carter was an apostatizing preacher and ex-Confederate colonel, who had turned loyal patriot and anti-Warmoth leader.—Cox, Three Decades, p. 561. With this statement might be compared Carter’s opinion of Warmoth as voiced in a speech in February, 1872: “Louisiana is afflicted with worse laws and worse administrators thereof than can be found in ten states of the Union. Henry Clay Warmoth is the Boss Tweed in Louisiana, except that that amiable villain, with all his infamies, is a gentlemen and a saint compared with the unscrupulous despot who fills the executive chair of this state.”—Cox, Three Decades of Federal Legislation, 560.
[371] House Rpts., 42 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 92, 23. Of course the men attacked made counter charges against the governor.
[372] Ibid.
[373] House Misc. Doc., 42 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 211, 475; and House Repts., 42 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 92, 26.
[374] E. W. Dewees, another leader of the House, contended with Carr and Carter for eminence. The investigating committee of Congress reported that he had been under arrest with seven sworn charges of burglary against him, and had then obtained of the chief of police a certificate that his picture was not in the rogues’ gallery.—Ibid., 27.
The conclusion to which the Congressional committee came is worth noting when we recall that they were Republicans: “The world has rarely known a legislative body so rank with ignorance and corruption.”—Ibid., 24. In May, 1875, five members of this legislature were indicted for bribery.—Times.
In this revolting catalog it is refreshing to find one person free from the taint of dishonesty. The lieutenant-governor was regarded by the Democrats as incorruptible. “In the view of the Caucasian chiefs, the taint of honesty and of a scrupulous regard for the official proprieties, is a serious drawback and enervating reproach upon the Lieutenant Governor.”—Times, August 4, 1871.
[375] House Misc. Doc., 42 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 211, 396. The fraud took the form of substituting one bill for a similar one which had been tabled but purported in the journal to have been taken up that night. It was supposed that the delay was due to the loss of the original bill alleged to have been passed.
[376] It is only fair to add, as Carr pointed out, that the testimony of the commission did not bear out these charges.—Ibid., 230.