USA > Louisiana > Louisiana; comprising sketches of counties, towns, events, institutions, and persons, Volume II > Part 42
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southeast, has the greatest cotton and cane producing soil in the world. Cotton and cane are the great staple products. but diversi- fied farming is practiced on the uplands, and corn, oats, potatoes and rice are raised in paying quantities. Tobacco has been one of the well known products since the first settlement of the parish. The fruits native to this latitude and climate bear well, and peaches, pears, plums, pecans. figs, pomegranates, grapes, apples and all the smaller varieties are grown with profit. The wild May-haw grows abundantly throughout the parish, and there is no superior fruit for jellying purposes. Market gardening, small stock, poultry and dairying are all conducted on an extensive scale, to satisfy the demands of the northern, eastern and southern markets. On the flats and hills stretching in every direction from the river. are some of the most extensive long leaf pine forests in the United States, hence lumbering has been, and will be for years to come, one of the great industries of the parish. The prairies are well adapted to the live stock industry and great numbers of cattle and hogs are raised for export. Cheap transportation is furnished by steamboats on the Red river ; the St. Louis, Watkins & Gulf R. R. runs southwest from Alexandria to Lake Charles; the Texas & Pacific R. R. runs along the eastern bank of the Red river from Boyce to the southeast corner of the parish ; the Louisiana Railway & Navigation company's line follows the general course of the Red river from Meade on the northern boundary to Egg Bend on the eastern boundary ; the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern R. R. runs northeast from Alexandria ; the Woodworth & Louisiana runs west from Lamourie ; and the Zimmerman, Leesville & South- western is in the northwestern part. By these lines outlets are provided in every direction to the great markets of the country. The following statistics concerning the parish are taken from the U. S. census for 1900: number of farms, 4,249; acreage, 285,369; acres improved, 117.568; value of land and improvements exclusive of buildings, $3,610,360; value of farm buildings, $862,050: value of live stock, $1.017,197; total value of products not fed to live stock, $2,340.416: number of manufacturing establishments. 114; capital invested $2,300,817 ; wages paid, $225,693; cost of materials used, $1,104,023: total value of products. $1,901.528. The popula- tion of the parish in 1900 was 18,320 whites, 21,210 colored. a total of 39,530, an increase of 11,936 during the preceding decade. The estimated population for 1908 was over 48,000.
Ratcliff (R. R. name Plettenburg), a post-town and station of West Feliciana parish, is situated on the Mississippi river and the line of the Louisiana Railway & Navigation company, about 10 miles northwest of St. Francisville, the parish seat.
Rattan, a post-hamlet in the southwestern part of Sabine parish. is about 4 miles southwest of Christie, the nearest railroad station, and 15 miles south of Many, the parish seat.
Ravenswood, a post-hamlet and station in the western part of Pointe Coupée parish. is situated on Bayou Fordoche and the Texas & Pacific R. R., 3 miles east of Melville.
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Rayne, an incorporated town of Acadia parish. is one of the largest and most flourishing business towns in southwestern Louisi- ana. It is situated at the junction of the Southern Pacific and the Opelousas, Gulf & Northeastern railroads, about 7 miles east of Crowley, the parish seat, in the heart of a rich rice district. It has rice mills, cotton-gins and other industries, a money order postoffice, two banks, telegraph and express offices, telephone facili- ties, schools, churches, good mercantile establishments, and is the shipping and supply depot for the southeastern part of the parish. The population was 1,007 in 1900.
Rayville, the capital of Richland parish, is situated in the central part at the crossing of the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific and the New Orleans & Northwestern railways. The site was selected as the parish seat when Richland was created by act of the legis- lature in 1868, though at that time it was "in the woods." A frame courthouse was erected and about 1869 T. J. Mangham began the publication of the "Richland Beacon." Rayville soon became a flourishing little town, and in 1882 it was incorporated. The town suffered greatly from fires in 1890 and 1891, but it recovered and in 1900 reported a population of 475. The esti- mated population in 1908 was 800. Being located in the timber belt, lumbering is an important industry, and a fine quality of brick is made here. Rayville has a bank, a money order postoffice, express and telegraph offices, and the general stores of the town all enjoy a large patronage.
Recknor, a post-hamlet in the western part of Sabine parish, is situated on Bayou Lenann, about 7 miles southwest of Many, the parish seat and nearest railroad town.
Reconstruction .- With his message to Congress on Dec. 8, 1863, President Lincoln submitted a proclamation, granting amnesty to those who had participated in the Confederate movement upon condition of their taking an oath of allegiance, etc. In that procla- mation he said: "Whenever, in any of the States of Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Fflor- ida, South Carolina and North Carolina, a number of persons, not less than one-tenth in number of the votes cast in such state at the presidential election of the year of our Lord 1860, each having taken the oath aforesaid, and not having since violated it, and being a qualified voter by the election laws of the state existing immediately before the so-called act of secession, and excluding all others, shall reestablish a state government which shall be republican, and in nowisc contravening said oath, such shall be recognized as the true government of the state, and the state shall receive thereunder the benefits of the constitutional provision which declares that the United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion ; and, on application of the , legislature, or the executive (when the legislature cannot be con- vened), against domestic violence.'
"And it is suggested as not improper that, in constructing a
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loyal state government in any state, the name of the state, the boundary, the subdivisions, the constitution, and the general code of laws, as before the rebellion, be maintained, subject only to the modifications made necessary by the conditions hereinbefore stated, and such others, if any, not contravening said conditions, and which may be deemed expedient by those framing the new state government."
As a beginning toward the work of reconstruction, with the war still in progress, Mr. Lincoln was willing to readmit Louisiana to representation in Congress, "some 12,000 voters in that state having sworn allegiance to the United States, held elections, organized a state government, adopted a free state constitution, giving the benefit of public schools equally to black and white, and em- powering the legislature to confer the elective franchise upon the colored man." The legislature had ratified the 13th amendment, and Lincoln was in favor of reorganizing the state government though it had not yet extended the elective franchise to the freedmen. But many of his party insisted upon more stringent guarantees. Lincoln's inaugural address on March 4, 1865, breathed the same spirit of leniency, and after the surrender of Gen. Lee his utterances showed clearly the trend of his thoughts and feelings-his sincere desire for peace and the restoration of the Union without the un- necessary humiliation of a vanquished foe. But he was not per- mitted to live to carry out his plan. By his assassination on April 14, 1865, Adrew Johnson was called to the presidency and after that several policies of reconstruction agitated the country.
In the articles of capitulation agreed upon by Gens. Sherman and Johnston at Durham, N. C., April 13, 1865, was what might be called the Davis plan of reconstruction, as the president of the Confederacy suggested the stipulations made by Johnston. This plan contemplated "the recognition by the executive of the United States of the several state governments on their officers and legis- lators taking the oath prescribed by the constitution of the United States; the reestablishment of all Federal courts in the several states; the people and inhabitants of all states to be guaranteed, so far as the executive can, their political rights and franchise, as well as their rights of person and property ; the executive authority of the government of the United States not to disturb any of the people by reason of the late war so long as they live in peace and quiet, abstain from acts of armed hostility, and obey laws in existence at any place of their residence; in general terms, the war to cease, a general amnesty, so far as the executive power of the United States can command, or on condition of disbandment of the Confederate armies, etc." The terms offered by Gen. Sherman were promptly rejected by the secretary of war, Edwin M. Stan- ton, and various methods for the reconstruction of the Southern states were then proposed.
Charles Sumner's theory was that the seceding states had de- stroved themselves as states, and that Congress had power to govern them indefinitely by the military, subject to the bill of
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rights of the constitution and the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and to form new states if deemed advisable. Thad- deus Stevens took the position that the states, by passing ordi- nances of secession, had broken the constitutional bonds, thus ab- solving Congress from dealing with them as states, and that it was the province and duty of Congress to treat the people of the Southern states as people of conquered provinces, the same as might have been done in a war with a foreign power. Concerning President Johnson's plan Larned says: "He wished to proceed in the reconstruction of the Union on Mr. Lincoln's lines, though inclined, it appeared, to more severity of dealing with the chiefs of the fallen Confederacy; but he had none of Lincoln's political wisdom and wonderful tact. Hence he could not win the confi- dence of the nation, and could not keep the mastery of the situ- ation which Lincoln had. He could not, or did not, check pro- ceedings in the process of his reconstruction measures which alarmned northern sentiment; which involved him in open quarrels with the radicals of the Republican party, and which enabled the latter to win most of the party to their support. * * His reconstructive work, and that of President Lincoln, were all undone by acts of Congress, passed over the executive veto, which provided for a fresh reorganization of the lately rebellious states under military supervision : which gave the suffrage to the freed negroes, affirmed their citizenship, and placed their civil and political rights and privileges under the protection of the courts and the military and naval forces of the United States."
The 38th Congress came to an end on March 4, 1865. Declining o call the 39th Congress in special session to agree upon some plan for the reestablishment of the state governments, President Johnson proceeded alone, upon the policy of William H. Seward. which was that "the wisest plan of reconstruction was the one which would be the speediest ; that for the sake of impressing the world with its strength and the marvelous power of self-govern- ment, with its laws, its order, its peace, we should at the earliest moment have every state restored to its normal relations with the Union." On May 9 he issued a proclamation for the restoration of Virginia to her place in the Union : twenty days later he issued is proclamation setting forth the method by which the people of he seceded states could be restored to their civil rights, and granting amnesty to those who would take an oath to support the constitution of the United States and abide by the laws made by Congress during the war, with the exception of certain classes of persons ; on June 30 he appointed a provisional governor for South Carolina ; and on Sept. 7 he issued a second amnesty proclamation, whereby all who had upheld the Confederacy, except a few eaders, were unconditionally pardoned.
So far the president's plan had worked smoothly, and for a time t looked as though Louisiana was to escape the evils of recon- truction that some of her sister states had been made to suffer. But all this time Congress had been growing more and more hostile
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to Jolinson's policy and when the 39th Congress met on Dec. +, 1865, it was not slow to place itself in opposition to the president. In response to an inquiry of the senate Mr. Johnson stated that "the people in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee, have reorganized their state governments, and are 'yielding obedience to the laws and government of the United States,' with more willingness and greater promptitude than, under the circumstances, could reason- ably have been anticipated." The inquiry eliciting this informa- tion was made on Dec. 11, and the president's reply on the 18th. Without waiting for the reply Congress went ahead, and on the 14th both houses adopted a concurrent resolution providing for the appointment of a committee of 15 members, 9 from the house and 6 from the senate, "who shall inquire into the condition of the states which formed the so-called Confederate States of America, and report whether they, or any of them, are entitled to be repre- sented in either house of Congress, with leave to report at any time, by bill or otherwise."
At the head of this committee was Thaddeus Stevens of Penn- sylvania, a pronounced antagonist of the president's policy of re- construction, a man whose every action marked him as implacable in his determination to abase and mortify the people of the South, and who finally introduced in the house the bill for the solemn impeachment of the nation's chief executive. A bill for the recon- struction of the Southern states was reported by the committee and passed after a stormy debate. It was vetoed by President Johnson on March 2, 1867, and on the same day was passed by both houses over the veto, the vote in the senate being 38 to 10 and in the house 135 to 48. The bill divided the seceded states into five military districts, each to be under the command of some officer of rank not below that of brigadier-general. While the measure was pending in Congress the Louisiana legislature adopted a resolution instructing the judiciary committee to investigate and report on "the best and most expeditious method of testing, before the supreme court of the United States, the constitutionality of the law," and after its passage joint resolutions were adopted by both branches of the general assembly instructing the attorney- general of the state to take immediate steps to test the validity of the law in the Federal courts, declaring that "the people of the aforesaid ten states owe it to themselves and to their posterity to interpose all legal obstacles to the enforcement of a law which, in its consummation, must inevitably subvert their liberties, and ultimately the liberties of the other states of this Union." Gov. Wells, who had proclaimed the law in force on the very day of its passage, vetoed the resolutions (Sce Wells' Administration), but Lieut .- Gov. Voorhies addressed a letter to each of the governors of the states mentioned in the bill, suggesting the advisability of fighting the act in the courts. Govs. Throckmorton, of Texas, and Walker, of Florida, approved such a course, but Patton, of Ala- bama, Orr, of South Carolina, Worth, of North Carolina, and Jen-
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kins, of Georgia, doubted the wisdom of it, so nothing was done in this direction.
Louisiana and Texas were constituted the 5th military district under the reconstruction act. but as no commander had been appointed by March 9. Gen. P. H. Sheridan on that date assumed command so far as to declare that no city election should take place in New Orleans on the 11th. A few days later he was appointed to the command of the district and on the 19th issued an order announcing that no general removals from office would be made, "unless the present incumbents fail to carry out the provi- sions of the law, or impede the reorganization, or unless a delay in reorganizing should necessitate a change." Eight days later he removed Atty .- Gen. Herron, Mayor Monroe of New Orleans, and Judge Abell, of whom he spoke harshly in his report, and on June 3 removed Gov. Wells. ( For most of the events that occurred during the reconstruction era, see the articles on Wells', Flanders', Baker's, Warmoth's, McEnery's and Kellogg's administrations.)
In a lengthy opinion of the reconstruction act, submitted on June 12, 1867, Henry Stanbery, the U. S. attorney-general, said: "I find no authority anywhere in this act for the removal by the military commander of the proper officers of a state, either execu- tive or judicial, or the appointment of persons to their places. Nothing short of an express grant of power would justify the removal or the appointment of such an officer. There is no such grant expressed or even implied. On the contrary, the act clearly enough forbids it. Their regular state officials, duly elected and qualified, are entitled to hold their offices. They, too, have rights which the military commander is bound to protect, not authorized to destroy.
"I find it impossible under the provisions of this act to compre- hend such an official as a governor of one of these states appointed to office by one of these military commanders. Certainly he is not the governor recognized by the laws of the state, elected by the people of the state, and clothed as such with the chief execu- tive power. * * * What is true as to the governor is equally true as to all the other legislative, executive and judicial officers of the state. If the military commander can oust one from office, he can oust them all. If he can fill one vacancy he can fill all vacancies, and thus usurp all civil jurisdiction into his own hands, or the hands of those who hold their appointments from him and subject to his power of removal. and thus frustrate the very right secured to the people by this act. Certainly this act is rigorous enough in the power which it gives. With all its severity. the right of electing their own officers is still left with the people, and it must be preserved."
Notwithstanding this opinion from high authority, the farce of reconstruction went on. Mr. Stanbery's views were ignored, the · president's orders disregarded. On June 27 Gen. Sheridan wrote to Gen. Grant as follows: "The result of Mr. Stanbery's opinion is beginning to show itself by defiant opposition to all acts of the
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military commanders, and by impeding and rendering helpless the civil officers acting under his appointment. * *
* Every civil officer in this state will administer justice according to his own views. Many of them, denouncing the military bill as unconstitu- tional, will throw every impediment in the way of its execution, and bad will go to worse unless this embarrassing condition of affairs is settled by permitting me to go on in my first course, which was indorsed by all the people. except those disfranchised, most of whom are office-holders, or desire to be such."
The next day he wrote again to Grant, announcing that he had received a copy of the attorney-general's opinion in the form of a circular, and asking for instructions. To this letter Grant replied : "Enforce your own construction of the military bill until ordered to do otherwise. The opinion of the attorney-general has not been distributed to the district commanders in language or manner en- titling it to the force of an order, nor can I suppose that the presi- dent intended it to have such force." In carrying out the instruc- tions given in this letter and "enforcing his own construction of the military bill," Sheridan's methods became so high-handed that on Ang. 17, 1867, he was removed from the command of the district. Nominally, the state government of Louisiana was "reconstructed" in 1868, when the state was readmitted into the Union and partici- pated in the presidential election of that year. But the Federal troops were kept in the state until they were removed by order of President Hayes on April 24, 1877, which marked the end of the reconstruction period. For ten years the administration of state affairs had been in the hands of ignorant negroes and corrupt adventurers. Riots and outrages had occurred during that period, it is true, but the wonder is that they were not more frequent and disastrous. Larned says: "A state of things most scandalous and deplorable was produced by the Congressional methods of reconstruction in most of the Southern states. By the enfranchise- ment of colored citizens. and disfranchisement of large leading classes of white men, the former were endowed suddenly with supreme political power. Their votes, which men bred as slaves could not possibly cast with intelligence or independence, became controlling for several years. almost everywhere, in public affairs .. Political adventurers were never given a more unlimited oppor- tunity for organizing rascality and recklessness in government, and they made the most of it without delay. * * For nearly a decade the nation was disgraced by the anarchy and corruption that prevailed in the South."
Concerning the after effects of reconstruction, Hon. Albert Voorhies, who was elected lieutenant-governor in Nov., 1865, in an address before the Louisiana Historical society on June 17, 1908, said: "There was a Machiavelian purpose to lay the foundation to insure to the party that then governed a permanent hold on these afflicted states by absolute control of the electoral college and of national representation. As a result these reinstated states came to Washington with an increase of some 50 members of the elec-
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toral college, and also of the house of representatives. That seemed to the greedy politicians an infallible result. But human calcula- tions often turn in opposition to the views of Providence. Now this very increase of representation, fondly expected by the party in power as a sure political asset, brought the contrary result under providential operation. This increase of political representa- tion was instrumental in securing twice the election of Hon. Grover Cleveland as president of the United States. Under the previous ratio of representation he would both times have been in the minority of the electoral college. What the authors of reconstruc- tion did not foresee at the time was the rearing of the solid South providentially as the result of their very policy. This has intro- duced nearly an equilibrium in the electoral college and Congres- sional representation for the benefit of the whole country, north, south, east and west. And with time obliterating gradually but surely and permanently the prejudices and antipathies of Civil war origin, we have in sight the full restoration of the Union of the Fathers."
Redemption is a postoffice of Grant parish.
Redemptioners .- About the time that Louisiana was admitted into the Union as a state, and for several years afterward, there were many poor people who came from Europe under contract to work a certain time in payment for their passage. As they were unacquainted with the customs and laws of the United States, without friends or relatives to aid or advise them, they were fre- quently imposed upon by unscrupulous persons, in the matter of fulfilling their contracts. For their protection the legislature on March 20, 1818, passed an act providing for the appointment of two or more persons acquainted with the language of the redemp- tioners to act as guardians for them. These guardians, appointed by the governor, were to visit ships bringing in redemptioners and make inquiries as to the nature of their contracts and the manner in which they had conducted themselves during the passage. If they found the passengers had been mistreated in any way while on board the vessel they were to give notice to the U. S. district attorney, whose duty it was to obtain redress. No redemptioner was required to carry out a contract previously made that did not conform to the laws of Louisiana. but those who had no friends to pay or secure the payment of their passage could be hired out, with the consent and under the inspection of the guardians, to such free white persons as were willing to pay their passage in consider- ation of their services for a certain specified time ; provided that no redemptioner 18 years of age could be bound for a longer period than 3 years, and none under the age of 18 could be required to serve beyond the time he was 21 years of age. In case the redemp- tioners refused to bind themselves for the payment of their passage, the guardians might do so, making the contract in the name of the . redemptioner, and when so bound they were entitled to all the rights and required to perform the duties of apprentices of inden- tured servants. Under the operation of this law a large number of
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