USA > Louisiana > The province and the states, a history of the province of Louisiana under France and Spain, and of the territories and states of the United States formed therefrom, Vol. III > Part 15
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The Federal legislature which assembled in New Orleans in . October, 1864, being sustained by bayonets and not having any opposition, proceeded to enact many startling pieces of legisla- tion. Desiring to place the state under the appearance of having returned to the Union, yet not having time to call an election of electors for president and vice president, they first repealed all existing laws of Louisiana regarding choosing electors and called the general assembly to meet on November 8 for the pur- pose of selecting by joint ballot seven electors to represent the state in the electoral college. At the same time they enacted that all subsequent electors should be chosen as before. On October to this legislature, by joint ballot, elected Charles Smith and R. King Cutler to the office of senators of the United States from Louisiana. Smith took the place of Benjamin, whose term was to expire March 4, 1865. They passed a long series of reso- lutions, congratulating the country on the restoration to the Union of the "free state of Louisiana," and remodeled many of the laws to meet the changed condition of affairs. They organ- ised a supreme court and fixed its place of meeting in New Orleans. They extended the time for paying taxes; instructed the Louisiana delegation in the Federal congress to vote for the constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery ; amended the civil code to read "free servants" instead of "free servants and slaves;" ratified the proposed Thirteenth amendment of the con- stitution ; thanked Sherman's army for the fall of Charleston, S. C .; elected Michael Hahn to the United States senate, his term
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to begin March 4, 1865; established a bounty fund for Louisiana volunteers for the Federal service; established a provisional Fed- eral court for Louisiana; provided for the organization of a Federal militia ; divided the state into five congressional districts; appropriated ten thousand dollars with which to repair Charity Hospital, and provided for increasing the state revenue.
During the winter of 1864-65 the affairs of the state continued to be administered by Governor Hahn at New Orleans and by Governor Allen at Shreveport, each having his adherents and his field of operations. Assisting cach was a strong military force, without which the pronunciamentos of both were unavailing. The Federal government, in 1864, had considered that portion of the state around New Orleans as a part of the United States, had directed the enrollment of the able bodied loyal men, and had assigned a quota to each parish there. This resulted in the enlistment of several regiments of whites and many of colored. The representatives elected in 1864, owing to some informality, were not seated by congress. On the 4th of March, 1865, Gov- ernor Hahn was succeeded by J. Madison Wells. In May he abrogated the registration of the electors accomplished by Banks in 1864, and ordered a new registration ; this act brought Wells and Banks in conflict. In June, 1865, Governor Allen at Shreve- port, in an address to the people of the state, stated that the war was at an end, that the soldiers had gone to their homes, that there was no opposition to the United States authorities, and that his administration closed that day. He turned over the archives to the Federal authorities, and the Confederate state government forever ceased to exist.
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CHAPTER IX
The Reconstruction Period
T HE legislature which convened at New Orleans in Decem- ber, 1865, resolved that Louisiana, having failed in her object of separation, now accepted the result, including. the abolition of slavery, and wished to be restored to a position of political equality and looked to the Federal constitution and the Union of the states for her future political happiness and prosperity ; authorized the governor to recover the statue of George Washington, which had been taken from Baton Rouge by Federal authorities in 1862; protested against the reception of Michael Halın and R. King Cutler as United States senators from Louisiana, as they had been "chosen in flagrant violation of American principles and precedents by a Legislature repre- senting but a small minority of the people and in which only a fraction of the state of Louisiana had any representation;" rat- ibed the steps already taken to rebuild the levees; declared Randell Hunt and Henry Boyce elected to the United States senate; requested the Louisiana delegation in congress to obtain from the government the restitution of four million and thirty- nine thousand five hundred dollars of state and city bonds, coupons and other securities, which were surrendered to General Herron by B. L. Defreese, treasurer of state, when Shreveport capitulated; ordered the Mechanics' Institute fitted up for the sessions of the general assembly ; made provision for the proper behavior of the many colored people thrown upon the state; appointed a committee to investigate the condition of the rail- roads, in which the state was a stockholder to the amount of several millions of dollars ; authorized the appointment of a board of control for the penitentiary, and authorized the governor to issue not to exceed one million dollars in eight per cent twenty
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ycar bonds, and pledged the public and swamp lands for the redemption of the same.
It was in 1866 that one of the important events occurred which meant that the white citizens of Louisiana would not submit to negro domination. The war was scarcely over before the whites of the state were divided into two factions: The disfranchised majority, the most of whom had rebelled against the government, and the enfranchised minority, consisting largely of the negroes and the white men from the North, who were in power by virtue of Federal bayonets and who wished to retain that power. Soon the question of a state constitution became paramount. Was that of 1864 legal and satisfactory? It was finally decided to recon- voke the convention of 1864, which exsted no longer, for the purpose of amending it. R. K. Howell, the former president of that convention, issued a call to that effect, which was sanctioned by Governor Wells. It assembled in New Orleans July 30, but as it was composed largely of negroes and radicals, it encoun; tered the enmity of the whites of the city at the outset, and finally a bloody riot ensued, during which the convention was broken up and many whites and blacks were killed and wounded. It was the first of many hostile actions by the white people of the state to prevent negro and military supremacy.
In 1866 the legislature passed resolutions and acts deploring the death of ex-Gov. A. B. Roman ; authorizing the Governor to issue state certificates of indebtedness not to exceed two million dollars, with which to meet the necessary current expenses, the certificates to be payable in twelve months without interest and to be exchangeable for Louisiana six per cent, forty year coupon bonds, which, to the amount of one million five hundred thousand dollars, were ordered issued by this legislature; providing for the resumption of parish functions throughout the state; fixing the annual lottery license at ten thousand dollars and regulating the conduct of such institutions ; suspending the collection of back taxes for the years 1861 to 1864, inclusive; permitting banks to discount paper at eight per cent ; correcting mistakes made in the sale of land during the war; authorizing the sale of stamps to vendors of lottery tickets, each stamp to represent five per cent of the face value of the ticket; asking for an extension of time to railroad land grants ; endorsing the course of President Jolin- son in declining to approve the act of congress to establish a bureau for the relief of freedmen, refugees and other purposes ; organizing the supreme court and dividing the state into four judicial districts; establishing a sokliers' home; organizing a
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bureau of immigration; providing for the recovery or procure- ment of last or destroyed parish records; permitting farmers to sell merchandise to their hands without taking out a license as merchants, and urging congress to keep the passes of the Missis- sippi open.
In his message to the legislature, January 28, 1867, Gov. J. Madison Wells deplored the extensive breaking of the levees and the consequent heavy losses, and stated that the heavy rains and the army worm had cut off more than one-third of the cotton crop. The years of 1865 and 1866 had been attended with the same disasters. The result was to render it out of the question for the inhabitants to pay their taxes, and the state gov- ernment was thus forced into the issuance of bonds to carry on the necessary state affairs. The total receipts for 1866 were four million two hundred ninety thousand four hundred and sixty dollars, largely from the sale of bonds, and the total expenditures, two million six hundred fifteen thousand seven hundred and five dollars, the latter being made up of Confederate notes four lin- dred seventy-one thousand two hundred and twelve dollars, state levee bonds seven hundred thousand dollars, state notes redeemed four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, state notes issued but not paid sixty-three thousand two hundred and thirty-five dollars, and United States treasury and city notes fifteen thou- sand three hundred and eight dollars. Thus very little of this balance was available.
The governor emphatically denounced the riots in the city of New Orleans in the spring of 1866 "as an umprovoked massacre of loyal citizens, headed by the police and assisted by a mob, to gratify their hatred of every man who remained true to the Gov- ernment during the rebellion or abandoned its cause." He further said : "On full and deliberate consideration the people have pro- nounced in favor of the power of Congress to reconstruct these States. They have gone further and declared their purpose that these States shall not be restored to their former participation in the Government until suitable constitutional guarantees are pro- vided against present disloyalty and future rebellion."
Ile informed the legislature that he had received one of the proposed constitutional amendments which he now submitted to them for their ratification. He observed, "I desire to say that I consider the amendment as just and proper, adjusting and set- tling, as it does, the rights of citizenship to all persons without reference to race or color, recognizes the validity of the public debt, repudiates the payment or assumption of any debt or obliga- tion incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United
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States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave, and imposes disfranchisement from holding office under the United States Government to a certain class of persons who have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the Government of the United States. These provisions meet my full approval, but I am not willing to accept the amendment as a finality for the admission and restoration of the late rebel States. I consider it to be within the province and to be the duty of Congress to require of these States, as additional guaranties, that they shall by consti- tutional amendments recognize and establish equal political rights in the privilege of the ballot to all men. I believe such to be the fixed will and intention of Congress and I do not consider your ratification of the amendment would exercise any influence in changing or altering that determination. The idea and hope of readmission as a State on any other terms I regard as illusory, and the sooner the honest, well-meaning mass of the people real- ize the fact and make up their minds to submit and act accord- ingly, will they assist in adjusting and settling our political rela- tions with the Federal Government on a peaceful and permanent basis."
The general assembly of 1867 refused to accede to the pro- posed Fourteenth amendment to the Federal constitution ; pro- vided for a constitutional convention to remodel the organic law of Louisiana ; abolished the Board of Currency, the functions of which had disappeared under the currency laws of the govern- ment ; authorized Baton Rouge to establish free public schools for white children, to levy a tax for the support of the same, and to exempt the property from the payment of any other school tax; authorized the governor to issue three million dollars six per cent forty-year bonds, the same to be marketed for not less than two million five hundred thousand dollars and to be exchanged for the latter amount of circulating notes of the city of New Orleans, which were in turn to be used to retire the certificates of indebtedness issued under the act of February 9, 1866; authorized New Orleans to issue its circulating notes to the amount of two million five hundred thousand dollars; legalized previous issues of "city money" to the amount of three million six hundred thousand dollars; made illegal all acts passed by New Orleans previous to the passage at the beginning of each year of an ordinance levying a tax for the redemption of the above-mentioned circulating notes; transferred Mississippi Island No. 92 off East Carroll parish in exchange for Bunch's Bend Island off Issaquena county, both in the Mississippi river ; authorized the issue of four million dollars six per cent forty-
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year bonds for the use of the levee commissioners, the same to be redeemed from subsequent sales of swamp land; repealed the act of 1865 authorizing the issue of one million dollars levee bonds; granted one hundred dollars annually to cach veteran of 1814-15; repealed the act providing for a constitutional conven- tion; made large special appropriations to close many large crevasses ; paid Judge J. B. Robertson one thousand five hundred dollars for making a geological survey of the state; provided for the expenses of an exhibit at the Paris Exposition ; established a board of flour inspectors at New Orleans; appropriated two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to pay the government tax on the two million five hundred thousand dollars circulating notes of New Orleans; granted fifty thousand dollars to the Mechanics' and Agricultural Fair Association, and incorporated several eleemosynary and industrial associations.
Governor Warmoth, in his message of July, 1868, said that they had not met to brood over the past, but to provide a better order of affairs for the future. As all persons were now polit- ically equal before the law, he recommended immediate measures to repress riot, disorder, lawlessness, violence, outrage and mur- der. He said, "We have been cursed for our sins with war, scourged with epidemics, our crops blighted for a number of years, our fair State overflowed by the torrents of the Mississippi, commerce paralyzed, the people impoverished-the event of my inauguration is welcomed by the full restoration of civil govern- ment and readmission into the Union, the fairest prospect for crops, receding floods and improving credit." He added, "I need not recount to you the history of the past seven years, so full of startling and wonderful, as well as painful and terrible events -so pregnant with momentous issues, so productive of great and glorious results." On this occasion, also, Lieutenant-Governor Dunn delivered an address, in which he said, "The fact that the Senate of Louisiana is presided over by a man of my race, one who has ever been kept in obscurity, shows the progress which has taken place in the Southern States, a progress more rapid than that of the Northern States, east or west, and I hope that progress will continue everywhere throughout this land and intelligence will be respected whatever the color of the skin. As to myself and my people we are not seeking social equality; that is a thing no law can govern. We all have our preferences. We all wish to select our associates, and no Legislature can select them for ns. We ask nothing of the kind. We simply ask to he allowed an equal chance in the race of life; an equal opportunity of supporting our families, of educating our children, and of
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becoming worthy citizens of this Government." The civil rights bill, which was designed to prevent railroad and steamship com- panies from discriminating against persons of color, was vetoed by Governor Warmoth in September, 1868. His reasons were that the constitution of the state already provided for the polit- ical equality of the two races, that such a law was unnecessary, that it tended to aggravate the white people-to form a barrier between the two races, and that it made criminal an act which should be remedied by a suit for damages.
At this date the number of miles of railroad in operation in the state was as follows: New Orleans, Milnesburg & Pont- chartrain 6, New Orleans & Carrollton 8, Baton Rouge & Grosse Tete 17, Clinton & Port Hudson 22, West Feliciana 26, Mexican Gulf 27, Vicksburg & Shreveport 54, New Orleans, Opelousas & Great Western 80, and New Orleans, Jackson & Great Northern 206, total 446.
The legislature of 1868 passed an act appointing a committee to investigate the act of the previous assembly authorizing the issnance of four million dollars levee bonds ; ratified the proposed Fourteenth amendment to the constitution ; appointed a joint com- mission to investigate the conduct of the late elections ; requested the president to furnish the civil authorities with sufficient force to protect the levees of the state from lawless mobs; required certain recantations from men who had borne arms against the United States; incorporated the Louisiana State Lottery with the following objects : 1. To save to the state the large sums sent out- side for lottery tickets : 2. To establish a home lottery on terms and at prices to insure perfect fairness; 3. To provide a fund for eleemosynary and charitable purposes; fixed the capital of the lottery at one million dollars, and required from the institution the annual payment to the state of forty thousand dollars; pro- vided for the revision of the statutes of a general character ; re-divided the state into five congressional districts; authorized New Orleans to borrow not to exceed one million dollars ; regulated the holding of office ; instituted a uniformed militia ; created a state board of registration ; established a board of public works and divided the state into five improvement districts; ceded to the United States in perpetuity several cemeteries; incorporated the North Louisiana & Texas and the Mandeville & Sulphur Springs Railroads; asked congress to repeal the law prohibiting the organization of a state militia, and made additional provisions for the payment of the public debt.
The constitution of March 11, 1868, opened with the announce-
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ment that : "All men are created free and equal and had certain inalienable rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." It further declared that "all persons without regard to race, color or previous condition, residents of the State one year, were citizens of Louisiana, and that they owed allegiance to the United States, and that this allegiance was paramount to that which they owe to the State." It prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude, and declared that no law should be passed fixing the price of manual labor. It likewise provided that all persons, regardless of color, should have equal privileges in public conveyances and in public resorts ; that the house of representa- tives should consist of 101 members and the senate of 36 members ; that every male person over twenty-one years, etc., should be qual- ified to vote; that all persons should be restored to the right of suffrage, except the following: "Those who held office, civil or military, for one year or more, under the organization styled, 'The Confederate States of America,' those who registered thein- selves as enemies of the United States, those who acted as leaders of guerrilla bands during the late rebellion, those who in the advocacy of treason wrote or published newspaper articles or preached sermons during the late rebellion, and those who voted for and signed an ordinance of secession in any State." It also required that such person should neither vote nor hold office until he should have "relieved himself by voluntarily writing and sign- ing a certificate setting forth that he acknowledged the late rebell- ion to have been morally and politically wrong and that he regretted any aid and comfort he may have given it." But it was further provided that no person who, prior to the first of January, 1868, favored the execution of the laws of the United States known as the Reconstruction Acts of congress and openly and actively assisted the loyal men of the state in their efforts to restore Louisiana to her position in the Union, should be held to be included among those above excepted. The privilege of free suf- frage was required to be supported by adequate laws. It was stipulated that the legislature might levy an income tax and might exempt from taxation property actually used for school, church and charitable purposes and should levy a poll tax for school and charitable purposes ; that debts contracted in aid of the rebellion should be void; that no law requiring a property qualification for office should be passed; that provision for the rights of married women should be made; that pensions should be granted to veter- ans of 1814-15 residing in the state; that the military should be subordinate to the civil power; that all agreements the considera-
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tion of which was Confederate money, notes or bonds should be mull and void; that Louisiana should never assume any debt in aid of the rebellion nor assume to pay for slaves emancipated ; that the seat of government should be at New Orleans; that the militia of the state should be organized, and that the ordinance of secession adopted on January 26, 1861, should be null and void.
In 1868, the state passed from Federal control to that of all the citizens, a change that was fair to all alike. The whites by their superior intelligence, began to dominate public affairs, often resorting to violence to accomplish their rightful ends. They warned and threatened and intimidated, in order to avert the danger, degradation and social humiliation of negro supremacy. The negroes began to be incited by Republican leaders sent among them to assert themselves and join the radicals to control the state government, as it was seen that it could be done, owing to their combined numerical preponderance. The intervention of these outsiders thus to ronse the negroes to dominate the whites was opposed, and in the end, after many years of suffering, the white canse was carried to success. The Democratic conven- tion in the spring of 1868, deplored the policy of the government toward the state, and declared that it would finally lead to the "lapse of Caucassian civilization into African barbarism," yet they hoped to see some light through the darkness. At the election of H. C. Warmoth as governor in April, the vote stood, for War- moth 64,941 and for Taliferro, his opponent, also a Repub- lican, 38,046; the Democrats generally not voting. In June the state by act of congress was restored to its former standing in the Union. It was in this year also that the test oath was boldly abrogated by the "disfranchised majority," only the usual consti- tutional oath being required of members of the legislature. The great mass of the people protested against the government of Warmoth and especially his legislature, composed two-thirds of ignorant negroes and "Carpet-bag Adventurers."
In his annual message to the legislature in January, 1869, Gov. H. C. Warmoth said: "Under the peculiar institutions of our State prior to emancipation, questions of personal liberty affecting large classes of our population were wholly interdicted by our combined and obstinate public sentiment, which had not, up to the late election, fully disappeared. The system of invol- untary servitude built up in this State a sort of aristocracy, exclui- sive in its characteristics, and assumed by legislative restrictions and social distinctions to exact tests of citizenship incompatibile with the theory of our Government and destructive of the liberties
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not only of the then slave, but of all classes that did not reach its standard of nativity or possession. With the downfall of slavery, a revolution in society was accomplished and a different system obtained, but which required the late election to give it the endorsement of the national will and insure its full establishment. It was this system which was so bitterly contested. In our State the class fighting for exclusive power did not hesitate to use all of the machinery hitherto invoked by it to perpetuate its dominion. By violence and intimidation it terrified its opponents ; by threats of social and business proscription classes conscientiously opposed to it were forced to join it; while the prejudices of race and the most selfish passions were addressed to secure the cooperation of the lower classes of white men in its efforts to repudiate the Gov- ernment that made no test of color in civil or political rights. 'The events of the late contest were not unlike those of a few years ago, when a like effort was made by the same class and . conducted principally by the same leaders to overawe and disfran- chise our fellow-citizens of foreign birth. Then, as in the near past, secret pohtical societies were organized, the members of which were bound together by strange oaths and recognized each other by particular signs and signals, pledging themselves to dis- franchise all and support none for office and give none employ- ment who were so unfortunate as to have first seen the light of . the sun on some other land than ours, and resorted to the same practice of murder, assassination, intimidation and violence that prevailed throughout large portions of this State during the last campaign and election.
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