city and known to that community,
acting under the eye of superiors, clothed with the uniform of office,
and some of them known, as the proof shows, to the chief officer of
police, have not only escaped punishment but have been continued in
their places."

Not only were the men who instigated and committed the terrible murders
left unpunished, but, as the committee said, "the gentlemen who
composed the convention have not, however, been permitted to escape.
Prosecutions in the criminal court, under an old law passed in 1805,
were at once commenced and are now pending against them for breach of
the peace." Another authority declares that "the judge of the criminal
court in New Orleans instructed the grand jury to find bills of
indictment against the members of the convention and the spectators,
charging them with murder; giving the principle of law and applying it
in this case, that whoever is engaged in an unlawful proceeding from
which death ensues to a human being, is guilty of murder, and alleging
that as the convention had no right to meet and the police had killed
many men on the day of its meeting, the survivors were, therefore,
guilty of murder." The Congressional Committee did not hesitate to
declare that "the facts tend strongly to prove that the criminal actors
in the tragedy were the agents of more criminal employes, and
demonstrate the general sympathy of the people in behalf of the men who
did the wrong against those who suffered the wrong."

The President came in for a full share of censure in connection with
this unhappy event. The committee reported that "The President knew
that riot and bloodshed were apprehended. He knew what military orders
were in force, and yet, without the confirmation of the Secretary of
War or the General of the Army, upon whose responsibility these
military order had been issued, he gave orders by telegraph, which if
enforced, as they would be, would have compelled our soldiers to aid
the rebels against the men in New Orleans who had remained loyal during
the war, and sought to aid and support, by official sanction, the
persons who designed to suppress, by arrest and criminal process under
color of law, the meeting of the convention; and all this, although the
convention was called with the sanction of the governor, and by one of
the judges of the Supreme Court of Louisiana claiming to act as
President of the convention. The effect of the action of the President
was to en