278 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Feb. 23,

Mr. Steiner presented the following report of the minority
of the Committee on Federal Relations on said resolutions.

REPORT.

The undersigned, the minority of the Committee on Fed-
eral Relations, to which was referred sundry resolutions,
passed by the Legislatures of Missouri, Virginia and Dela-
ware in reference to alleged outrages committed by Federal
soldiers at the organization of the Legislative Assembly of
the State of Louisiana, January 4th, 1875, begs leave most
respectfully to dissent from the report of said Committee,
made to the Senate, Friday, February 4th, for the following
reasons:

1. The statements, in the preamble to the resolutions re-
ported by the majority of said Committee, in reference to the
alleged outrages are not sustained by the report of the Con-
gressional Committee which was present on the occasion of
the organization of the said Legislative Assembly, and are
really based upon highly-colored statements made by inter-
ested parties.

2. The resolutions themselves emphasize statements in re-
gard to the origin and nature of the Federal Government.its
powers and prerogatives, which are not sustained by the
history of the formation of the Constitution of the United
States or by the ipissima verba of that venerable docu-
ment, and which the minority of the Committee considers
political heresies.

3. It is unwise, in view of the time that has elapsed since
the occurrence and of the quiet that has followed the storm
of angry passions that then prevailed to provoke a discussion
of the occurrence itself, which will be fraught with anything
but a pacific effect upon the popular mind.

4. It is unnecessary to submit abstract questions in regard
to the origin and nature of the Federal Constitution to the
decision of the General Assembly, and to consume valuable
time in their discussion, when no urgent necessity may exist
for such an extraordinary departure from the ordinary busi-
ness of legislation.

For the above reasons the undersigned desires to declare
his emphatic dissent to the report, and respectfully asks that
the same may be spread upon the Journal of the Senate.

LEWIS H. STEINER.

Which was read and ordered to be entered on the Journal.

Said resolutions were then read the second time and ordered
to be engrossed for a third reading by yeas and nays as fol-
lows: