coln at once invested Governor Hahn with the powers of a military governor. To the European courts was to be presented the unexpected spectacle of a civil government being established by the sanction of Federal authority in a State that had seceded from the Union and of which Mr. Hahn was the chief executive. But this diplomatic effort to inaugurate a system of reconstruction, intended for the patriotic purpose of influencing foreign governments, was never sanctioned by Congress, and this anomalous and undefined civil authority of a military governor, so far as domestic government was concerned, had to yield to the undiminished supremacy of military rule. From different motives and for different reasons President Lincoln and Mr. Hahn equally rejoiced in this triumph of civil government.
The one because he successfully arrested the predetermined purpose of Louis Napoleon to recognize the Southern Confederacy, which it was feared would form an alliance with the Latin Empire which Napoleon was establishing in Mexico, to be protected by France; and the other because by the aid and assistance of the President of the United States he was to wear civic honors of a high grade, representing, as he believed, the majesty of a seceded State restored to the Union.
Mr. Hahn treasured as a valued legacy the following letter written to him by Mr. Lincoln in connection with the events I have mentioned:
Executive Mansion, Washington, D.C., March 13, 1864
My Dear Sir: I congratulate you on having fixed your name in history as the first free-State governor of Louisiana. Now that you are about to have a convention which, among other things, will probably define the elective franchise, I barely suggest for your private consideration whether some of the colored people may not be let in, as, for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help in some trying time to come to keep the jewel of liberty in the family of freedom. But this is only a suggestion, not to the public but to you alone.
A. LINCOLN.
When the Federal troops occupied New Orleans Mr. Hahn, by reason of his having been a Union man, was in a position to give good
