This was done by city officials and New-Orleans citizens, but not one of those men has been punished, arrested or even complained of.

These officers of the law, living in the 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 encourage 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.