CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN AMERICA.

Evening Star, Issue 3199, 22 May 1873, Page 3

CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN AMERICA.

The latest novelty in constitutional government, says a contemporary, is that which is reported to us from two of the Southern States of America —Alabama and Louisiana. In each of these thfre are two Legislatures in session. And there is none of the amity of sentiment exhibited by the two Kings of Brentford, both of whom smilingly smelt at the same rose. On the contrary, the rival I egislalurcs hate each other like poison. In Alabama, a controversy arose with respect to the seats of eight numbers, and, as it promised to result in the acqu’sition of a majority by the Democrats, who would be thus enabled to elect a senator for Congress, the Republicans seceded in a body, and organised two Chambers of tbeir own, admitting to one of them the eight unsuccessful candidates. The Gemr.tl Government baa been .appealed to, and the United States troops will be called upon, it is expected, to eject the L'em< crats, and support the Be puMicans. In Louisiana there is what is called the Kellogg Legislature, which meets at the t( mporary state house; and th>. WarmothLegislature, which holds its sittiugs at the Lyceum Hall, in Baton Rouge. The latter body was called into existence by Governor Warmoth, one of those carpet baggers who has been in the habit of sending out his own creatures as registrars of election, in order that, as the New York Trihunt says, “ they might return themselves to the State Legislature without a single vote.” As things stand in Louisiana, they are in a delightful tangle, and everybody must be asking his neighbor, as Pistol did Justice ;■ hallow, “Under which king, Bt-zonian ? apeak or die.” Governor Warmoth has been impeached by the Kellogg Legislature, and the clerk of the Warmoth Assembly has been put in prison to prevent him from calling the roll of the Warmoth Lower House. Judge Elmore and his clerk have been fined and incarcerated for usurpations by the Kel loggg, and both have been pardoned by Governor Warmoth, whose Legislature, however, has been served with an injunction from the Uuited States Circuit Court. But, on the other hand, Warmoth’s AttorneyGeneral has applied to the Supreme Court at Washington, asking for a writ of prohibition agaii.st Judge Durell on account of bis having Lsued the injunction just referred to. Altogether, it is a pretty “kettle of fish,” and the people of both the States, while undecided as to which of the rival Legislatures is the legitimate one, make the painful discovery th.it they are expected to defray the prodigal appropriations made by each.