Address of Mr. St. Martin, of Louisiana.
Mr. Speaker, in offering these resolutions I feel it incumbent upon me to give a brief sketch of the life and public services of my late friend and colleague.
Michael Hahn was horn in Bavaria on the 24th day of November, 1830. When an infant, his widowed mother emigrated to the United States, landing at New York and subsequently moving to New Orleans, La. He attended the public schools, and, after graduating from the high school of the city, entered the law office of that most eminent jurist, the late Christian Roselius. After graduating in the law department of the University of Louisiana he entered upon the practice of his profession, conjoining with it the duties of a notary public.
At an early age he was elected a school director and served for several years. During the late war between the States, in 1862, he was elected to Congress, but was not admitted to his seat until the 7th of February, 1863. After the expiration of his Congressional term he was appointed prize commissioner at New Orleans, during which period he purchased the New Orleans True Delta, which he conducted editorially for some time as a Republican journal. He was inaugurated March 4, 1864, as the first Republican governor of Louisiana as a free State—receiving from President Lincoln on the 15th of the same month the additional powers of military governor. This mark of esteem and confidence on the part of President Lincoln Governor Hahn cherished as a marked distinction and held it as the highest of his honors.
I well remember that the day before his untimely death—when he seemed to have fully recovered his health, and not supposing then that we were to part that day to meet no more, I told him in a playful manner that I was glad to be spared the trouble of preparing his eulogy.
