The political condition might well have caused an aristocratic Louisianian to withdraw himself from the contamination of politics with a shudder of despair: a carpet-bagger the recipient of the first honor in the gift of the State, and a negro house-painter of the second. Warmoth, young, handsome, and magnetic,[18] was a native of Illinois, who had entered the army from Missouri. He had had trouble with General Grant after the battle of Vicksburg; was charged with circulating exaggerated reports of the Union losses while on parole North, was dismissed from the service by Grant, but restored to his command by Lincoln, evidence having shown his dismissal to be unjust. He retired from the army in 1865, went to Texas, where he was indicted for embezzlement and for appropriating government cotton. But when the case was called, no prosecutor appeared and the prosecution was abandoned. He returned to Louisiana and before reconstruction was sent as a delegate to Congress as narrated above. He was at this time only twenty-six years old, apparently at the height of his powers, social and political, for even his foes admitted the dignity of his appearance and the charm of his manners and conversation. The balance of parties in 1868 stood twenty Republicans to sixteen Democrats in the Senate, fifty-six to forty-five in the House.[19] White members had been almost entirely supervisors of registration. Warmoth had selected for this office in the parishes a large number of men left in New Orleans as flotsam after the war. They had so impressed the negroes that they were returned to the legislature or were mysteriously counted in by the returning-board.[20] Almost one-half of the House were negroes, while there were at least seven sable-hued Senators.[21] The lower State and parish offices were given over largely to negroes and scalawags, not always chosen by the governor with wisdom.[22] The comment of one of the New Orleans papers is suggestive of the sentiment of the people toward their legislature. Speaking of the revenue bill of 1869 it said: It was the work of the lowest and most corrupt body of men ever assembled in the South. It was the work of ignorant negroes[23] coöperating with a gang of white adventurers, strangers to our interests and our sentiments. It was originated by carpet-baggers and was carried through by such arguments as are printed on green-backed paper. It was one of the long catalogs of schemes of corruption which makes up the whole history of that iniquitous Radical Conclave.[24] Or note the _Crescent_: “The troupe which is now playing a sixty-day engagement at the corner of Royal and Conti streets,[25] which appears daily in the farce of ‘How to be a Legislature,’ a day or two since introduced among themselves a bill...”[26] And that paper printed later daily the following unique “ad,” “Go at once to the St. Louis Rotunda to see the astounding curiosity &.”