The State Central Committee consisted regularly of fifteen members, ten appointed by the convention, five by the chair. As organized, the five appointees of the chair were opposed to the re-eligibility amendment and won over a majority of the whole committee. Hence, the governor refused to contribute to the regular campaign funds or to encourage his friends to do so, but levied forced contributions upon all his appointees on pain of dismissal,[288] organized an auxiliary committee, and began a canvass of his own, in many instances in favor of candidates not regularly nominated by the party.[289] He had tickets printed in favor of the amendment,[290] and, as we have seen, scored a victory at the polls. To Dunn’s complaint that the Warmoth faction had violated custom in organizing an auxiliary committee, he retorted that the regular committee was trying to prevent a fair expression of opinion on the amendment. Before the legislature met on January 2, 1871, the friends of the governor entered, with his knowledge, into a coalition[291] with the Democrats of the Senate, whereby they robbed the lieutenant-governor of his patronage by taking the appointment of committees into their own hands,[292] and made Democrats chairmen and majority members of several of the committees,[293] thus insuring their seats[294] to certain members who had been fraudulently elected. By the same coalition Carr was re-elected speaker on the first day, receiving every Democratic vote.[295] The committees of both houses were thus so constituted that anti-Warmoth men were powerless to rid the legislature of ineligible members. Dissatisfaction with Carr’s rulings, however, was so loudly expressed that about the middle of the session he was compelled by a union of Democrats with the custom-house faction to resign, and Colonel Carter of Cameron, old and rather deaf,[296] was elected in his place.[297] Opportunity was now afforded for a reconstruction of the Committee on Elections, which, although unable to complete its investigation before the recess, by an adverse report on four members at the next session, ultimately helped to complicate an already intricate situation. The choice of a United States Senator on January 10 to succeed J. S. Harris served still further to antagonize the custom-house faction against Warmoth. James F. Casey, collector of the port, who had, up to this time, acted in harmony with the administration party, desired this honor for himself,[298] but the governor threw his influence in favor of General J. R. West, who, supported by the Democrats under fear of the election of the negro Pinchback,[299] was elected on the first ballot in both houses.[300] Casey was soon found among the governor’s most violent enemies. In view of the peaceful election of the preceding autumn and the general quiet of the State, the hopeful words of the governor’s message do not sound as absurd as events destined to occur within little more than a year were to prove them: