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country, habituated as it was to violent methods, was startled by the
succeeding occurrences.

The night before the Assembly was to meet, the Federal Judge in the city
of New Orleans, a drunken reprobate, obtained from the commander of the
United States troops a portion of his force, and stationed it in the
State House. In the morning the members elect were refused admittance,
and others not elected, many not even candidates during the election,
were allowed to enter. One Packard, Marshal of the Federal Court, a
bitter partisan and worthy adjunct of such a judge, had provided for an
Assembly to suit himself by giving tickets to his friends, whom the
soldiers passed in, excluding the elected members. The ring-streaked,
spotted, and speckled among the cattle and goats, and the brown among
the sheep, were turned into the supplanters' folds, which were filled
with lowing herds and bleating flocks, while Laban had neither horn nor
hoof. There was not a solitary return produced in favor of this Packard
body, nor of the Governor subsequently installed; but the Radicals
asserted that their friends would have been elected had the people voted
as they wished, for every negro and some whites in the State upheld
their party. By this time the charming credulity of the negroes had
abated, and they answered the statement that slave-drivers were
murdering their race in adjacent regions by saying that slave-drivers,
at least, did not tell them lies nor steal their money.

All the whites and many of the blacks in Louisiana felt themselves
cruelly wronged by the action of the Federal authorities. Two Assemblies
were in session and two Governors claiming power in New Orleans.
Excitement was intense, business arrested, and collision between the
parties imminent. As the Packard faction was supported by Federal
troops, the situation looked grave, and a number of worthy people urged
me to go to Washington, where my personal relations with the President
might secure me access to him. It was by no means a desirable mission,
but duty seemed to require me to undertake it.

Accompanied by Thomas F. Bayard, Senator from Delaware, my first step in
Washington was to call on the leader of the Radicals in the Senate,
Morton of Indiana, when a long conversation ensued, from which I derived
no encouragement. Senator Morton was the Couthon of his party, and this
single interview prepared me for one of his dying utterances to warn the
country against t