be repeated; and
this of necessity gave room for misconstruction, as will appear. At
length, on the day before the Congress was by law to adjourn, the
President sent a message to the Senate, informing that body that, in the
event the Congress failed to take action on the Louisiana matter, he
should esteem it his duty to uphold the Government created by the
Federal Judge. I left Washington at once, and did not revisit it for
nearly four years.

I believe that President Grant was sincere with me, and went as far as
he felt it safe. No doubt the Senatorial hyenas brought him to
understand these unspoken words: "We have supported your acts, confirmed
your appointments, protected and whitewashed your friends; but there are
bones which we can not give up without showing our teeth, and Louisiana
is one of them."

The failure to obtain relief for the State of my birth, and whose soil
covered the remains of all most dear, was sad enough, and the attempt
had involved much unpleasant work; but I had my reward. Downfall of
hope, long sustained, was bitter to the people, especially to the
leaders expectant of office; and I became an object of distrust.
"Nothing succeeds like success," and nothing fails like failure, and the
world is quite right to denounce it. The British Ministry shot an
admiral for failing to relieve Minorca--to encourage others, as Voltaire
remarked. Byng died silent, without plaint, which was best. The drunken
Federal Judge, author of the outrages, was universally condemned, with
one exception, of which more anon. Both branches of the Congress,
controlled by Radicals, pronounced his conduct to have been illegal and
unjust, and he was driven from the bench with articles of impeachment
hanging over him. Nevertheless, the Government evolved from his
unjudicial consciousness was upheld by President Grant with Federal
bayonets.

Two years later the people of Louisiana elected an Assembly, a majority
of whose members were opposed to the fraudulent Governor, Kellogg. The
President sent United States soldiers into the halls of the Assembly to
expel members at the point of the bayonet. Lieutenant-General Sheridan,
the military maid of all (such) work, came especially to superintend
this business, and it was now that he expressed the desire to
exterminate "banditti." The destruction of buildings and food in the
Valley of Virginia, to the confusion of the crows, was his Salamanca;
but this was his Waterloo, and great w