courage the heart, to strengthen the hand, and to hold up the
arms of those who intended to prevent the convention from assembling."
Mr. Boyer, the minority member of the committee, submitted a report
dissenting from the conclusions of the majority, and making, as nearly
as could be done, a defense of the men who had really been the guilty
aiders and abettors of the crime; but he did not deny the fact of the
riot nor of the great number of its victims.

The substantial correctness of the report made by the majority of the
Congressional Committee was never shaken, though it was angrily
attacked by the supporters of the Administration. Aside from the
credit imparted to it by the conscientious character of both Mr. Eliot
and Mr. Shellabarger, the corroboration of all its material statements
by the Commission of Army officers was invaluable. The military men
were not suspected of partisan motives. They had no political theories
to maintain, no animosities to indulge, no personal revenges to
cherish. They proceeded as coolly as though they were investigating
alleged frauds by army contractors or were hearing evidence touching
the damage to frontier settlers by an Indian raid. The intelligence
and impartiality of investigations entrusted to army officers have
become proverbial, and their report of the facts in the New Orleans
riot arrested the attention of the North in an unprecedented degree.
Every thing possible was done by the opponents of the Republican party
to break the force of the damaging facts, but apparently without
success. Indeed the people of the United States have rarely been
stirred to greater excitement than that aroused by the full details of
this nefarious transaction as it came to them through the public press
and through official reports. The effect was disastrous to the
President, and was hurtful, in the extreme, to the cause of prompt
reconstruction. The Northern people shrank from the responsibility of
transferring the government of States to the control of men who had
already shown themselves capable of desperate deeds. In their wrathful
zeal for justice they would hear no apology and no defense of the
President. They held him as an accomplice in the crime,--as one having
in advance a guilty knowledge of the pre-arranged assassination. In
every way in which public indignation can be expressed, in every form
in which public anger can vent itself, the loyal people of the Northern
states manif