gation to
continue the military, declaring that it fostered hate, drew the
colour line more deeply, promoted monstrous local misgovernment, and
protected venal adventurers whose system practically amounted to
highway robbery. Furthermore, it did not keep the States under
Republican control, while it identified the Republican name with
vindictive as well as venal power, as illustrated by the Louisiana
Durrell affair in 1872,[1559] in the elections of 1874, and at the
organisation of the Louisiana Legislature early in 1875.[1560]
Notwithstanding these potent reasons for the President's action the
judgment of a majority of his party deemed it an unwise and
unwarranted act, although Grant spoke approvingly of it.[1561]

[Footnote 1558: The commission reported the Packard government's
insistence that the Legislature of 1870 had the power to create a
Returning Board with all the authority with which the Act clothed it,
and that the Supreme Court of the State had affirmed its
constitutionality. On the other hand, the Nichols government admitted
the Legislature's right to confide to a Returning Board the
appointment of electors for President and Vice-President, but denied
its power to modify the constitutional provision for counting the vote
for governor without first amending the State Constitution,
declaring the Supreme Court's decision to the contrary not to be
authoritative.--Appleton's _Cyclopaedia_, 1877, pp. 403-404.]

[Footnote 1559: Durrell, a United States Circuit judge, sustained
Kellogg in his contest with McEnery.]

[Footnote 1560: "The President directs me to say that he does not
believe public opinion will longer support the maintenance of the
State government in Louisiana by the use of the military, and he must
concur in this manifest feeling." Grant's telegram to Packard, dated
Mar. 1, 1877.]

[Footnote 1561: New York _Tribune_, July 10, 1877.]

Similar judgment was pronounced upon the President's attempt to
reform the civil service by directing competitive examinations for
certain positions and by forbidding office-holders actively to
participate in political campaigns.[1562] "No officer should be
required or permitted to take part in the management of political
organisations, caucuses, conventions, or election campaigns," he wrote
to the Secretary of the Treasury. "Their right to vote and to express
their views on public questions, either orally or through the press,
is not denied, provided it does not