The following summary of the record shows the result, and that Belknap escaped punishment by a refusal of two-thirds to vote “guilty:”
The examination of witnesses was begun, and continued on various days, till July 26, when the case was closed.
August 1.—The Senate voted. On the first article, thirty-five voted guilty, and twenty-five not guilty. On the second, third and fourth, Mr. Maxey made the thirty-sixth who voted guilty. On the fifth, Mr. Morton made the thirty-seventh who voted guilty. The vote on first was:
Voting Guilty—Messrs. Bayard, Booth, Cameron of Pennsylvania, Cockrell, Cooper, Davis, Dawes, Dennis, Edmunds, Gordon, Hamilton, Harvey, Hitchcock, Kelly, Kernan, Key, McCreery, McDonald, Merrimon, Mitchell, Morrill of Vermont, Norwood, Oglesby, Randolph, Ransom, Robertson, Sargent, Saulsbury, Sherman, Stevenson, Thurman, Wadleigh, Wallace, Whyte, Withers—35.
Voting Not Guilty—Messrs. Allison, Anthony, Boutwell, Bruce, Cameron of Wisconsin, Christiancy, Conkling, Conover, Cragin, Dorsey, Eaton, Ferry of Michigan, Frelinghuysen, Hamlin, Howe, Ingalls, Jones of Nevada, Logan, McMillan, Paddock, Patterson, Spencer, West, Windom, Wright—25.
Mr. Jones of Florida declined to vote. Those “voting not guilty” generally denied jurisdiction, and so voted accordingly. Belknap had resigned and the claim was set up that he was a private citizen.
The White League.
By 1874 the Democrats of the South, who then generally classed themselves as Conservatives, had gained control of all the State governments except those of Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina. In nearly all, the Republican governments had called upon President Grant for military aid in maintaining their positions, but this was declined except in the presence of such outbreak as the proper State authorities could not suppress. In Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas, Grant declined to interfere save to cause the Attorney-General to give legal advice. The condition of all these governments demanded constant attention from the Executive, and his task was most difficult and dangerous. The cry came from the Democratic partisans in the South for home-rule; another came from the negroes that they were constantly disfranchised, intimidated and assaulted by the White League, a body of men organized in the Gulf States for the purpose of breaking up the “carpet-bag governments.” So conflicting were the stories, and so great the fear of a final and destructive war of races, that the Congressional elections in the North were for the first time since the war greatly influenced. The Forty-fourth Congress, which met in December, 1875, had been changed by what was called “the tidal wave,” from Republican to Democratic, and M. C. Kerr, of Indiana, was elected Speaker. The Senate remained Republican with a reduced margin.
The troubles in the South, and especially in Louisiana, had been in the year previous and were still of the gravest character. Gen’l Sheridan had been sent to New Orleans and on the 10th of January, 1875, made a report which startled the country as to the doings of the White League. As it still remains a subject for frequent quotation we give its text: