Exclude all others; and trust that your government, so organized,
will be recognized here as being the one of republican form to be
guaranteed to the State."[57]
At the same time these expressions by no means indicated that the
President intended to have, or would connive at, any sham or colorable
process. Accordingly, when some one suggested a plan for setting up as
candidates in Louisiana certain Federal officers, who were not citizens
of that State, he decisively forbade it, sarcastically remarking to
Governor Shepley: "We do not particularly want members of Congress from
there to enable us to get along with legislation here. What we do want
is the conclusive evidence that respectable citizens of Louisiana are
willing to be members of Congress, and to swear support to the
Constitution, and that other respectable citizens there are willing to
vote for them and send them. To send a parcel of Northern men here as
representatives, elected, as would be understood (and perhaps really
so), at the point of the bayonet, would be disgraceful and outrageous."
Again he said that he wished the movement for the election of members of
Congress "to be a movement of the people of the district, and not a
movement of our military and quasi-military authorities there. I merely
wish our authorities to give the people a chance,--to protect them
against secession interference.
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