CHAPTER I

A Brief Resumé of Reconstruction in Louisiana before 1869

By January 1, 1869, Louisiana had suffered the throes of reconstruction for seven weary years, but the hostile fates had decreed for her more than another seven before she should be able to wrench herself free from the grasp of her colored and carpet-bag despots. The first uncertain attempts at reconstruction were made at the close of 1862 by Governor Shepley with the consent of Lincoln. The President’s policy was based upon the belief that there existed in every Southern State a loyal element which might be made to prove the germ of a civil government owning allegiance to Washington. In the course of that year, as the North gained a foothold, he had appointed General Shepley military governor, whose duty it was to resurrect the loyal element among the people. Thanks to the vigorous grip over New Orleans of Generals Butler and Banks, a considerable body, stronger in numbers than social prestige, became firmly wedded to the Union cause. The old Douglas men sprang into evidence at Butler’s arrival on the scene; members of the Irish Unionists came out strongly; while still others were won by the favors distributed with an eye to politicalgain. General Shepley ordered an election on December 3 for two Congressmen. The successful candidates proved to be B. F. Flanders and Michael Hahn, both of whom were allowed to take their seats in the National legislature.

There appeared a certain group of men eager to push on the work of reorganization, either for the plums of office, or, on the part of the old slave-holders, for the sake of saving a portion of their slaves, or for the sake of casting off martial law. This group, the Free State Party, working through the Union Clubs, urged on in 1863 a registration and convention to frame a new constitution. But it made such slow progress that Lincoln developed his famous “Ten Per Cent” plan by his proclamation of December 8, 1863, which offered pardon and the restoration of property to all who would take a prescribed oath; and declared that the President would recognize as the true government of any of the seceded States, except Virginia, the organizations set up by loyal citizens, provided that they constituted one-tenth of the voting population of 1860.[1]

General Banks, in accordance with this plan, ordered an election of State officers for February 22, 1864. Hahn, the successful administration candidate, was inaugurated on March 4. About ten days later he was invested with the “powers exercised before by the military governor.” It is of importance to note that as early as this campaign the issue in the radical party was the treatment of the negroes after emancipation. Delegates to a constitutional convention were subsequently chosen and April 6, ninety-four[2]of the men elected met in New Orleans, a fair set of men, but already showing a tendencytoward that extravagance which was later to be such a blot upon reconstruction. The convention abolished slavery,[3]but restricted suffrage to white males, although it empowered the legislature to confer it on “such persons, citizens of the United States, as by military service, by taxation to support the government, or by intellectual fitness may be deemed entitled thereto.”[4]A constitution was adopted and submitted to the people, but only 8402 votes were cast in ratification as compared with 11,411[5]in the election of Hahn. The new legislature provided for met October 3, elected two Senators, and adopted the Thirteenth Amendment unanimously. Although this government was duly recognized by the President and its ratification of the Amendment gladly counted to help embody it in the organic law, its authority was restricted to a very narrow limit—that actually within the Union military lines[6]—and neither branch of Congress admitted the members chosen by the new government, while the Presidential vote of 1865 was rejected.

The legislature of 1865, fully representative of the State, and just as fully Democratic, met in extra session to elect two new Senators in case the two elected previously be rejected as not truly representative. With these two Senators, Henry Clay Warmoth presented himself at Washington as territorial delegate of the radical Republicans of the State,[7]his expenses defrayed by his negroconstituents, who joyfully deposited their half-dollars with their first ballots to pay the expenses of their impecunious delegate.[8]

Some thirty or more of the members of the convention of 1864 were so angered at seeing the offices of the State passing to the ex-rebels that, with the consent of the governor and a judge of the Supreme Court, they began to meet and plan how they could evict them. Before adjourning, the convention of 1864 had decreed that it might be reconvoked at the call of the President “for any cause, or in case the constitution should not be ratified, for the purpose of taking such measures as may be necessary for the formation of a civil government for the State of Louisiana.” This resolution, however, had not been incorporated in the constitution and had never been passed upon by the people.[9]

The opponents of negro suffrage denied the right of the convention to resume its functions and the controversy over the matter became very fierce. July 30, 1866, the delegates who favored reassembling proceeded to do so, according to call in New Orleans. A street procession of negroes, on their way to the hall, became involved in a serious fight with the police and crowds of white spectators. The number killed and injured amounted to about two hundred and the fact stood out conspicuously that of this number only about a dozen were policemen or their white allies. The North and, more especially, Congress was forced by this episode, togetherwith the rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment[10]and the passage throughout the South of the “Black Codes,” to the conclusion that the colored people were not safe in the hands of their former masters.

Hence, the Congressional plan of reconstruction, long brewing,[11]was forced on the South in the Acts of March 2, 1867, which reëstablished military rule and provided an entire new organization of government through a convention, elected by negro as well as white vote, and a new constitution, which should be acceptable to Congress[12]; in the Supplementary Act of March 23 which placed the initiative in the hands of the military instead of the State[13]; and the additional Act of July 19 which substituted for the liberal interpretation of the earlier acts by civil officials the most rigorous possible and stripped the Executive of the power of determining removals by explicitly conferring certain powers of appointment and removal on the general of the army.[14]Louisiana and Texas constituted one military department, placed first under the direction of General Sheridan, and in August under General Hancock. Under these two commanders registration was pushed on so as to record as many blacks and as few whites as possible. In September a convention of ninety-eight members was elected, consisting by previous agreement of blacks and whites inequal numbers, all but two, Republicans. The body sat in daily session from November 23 to March 9, ostensibly to frame the new constitution, but, because of the lack of a revenue, constituting itself also a legislative body. The constitution framed by it was the most severe in its disfranchising clauses of any in the South.

It was quietly ratified April 16 and 17, 1868, and State officers chosen. H. C. Warmoth was elected governor and the mulatto, O. J. Dunn, lieutenant-governor. The military governor was removed and the governor-elect placed in power at once although his formal inauguration did not occur until July 13, 1868. The first legislature of the new régime, in which a sweeping radical victory against the unorganized, disheartened conservatives had seated a strong Republican majority, was in session from June 29 to October 20. The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment by this body opened the door of re-admission to the Union so that by the act of June 25, 1868, Louisiana was once more empowered to send W. P. Kellogg and J. B. Harris to occupy the seats in the Senate vacated defiantly seven years before by John Slidell and J. P. Benjamin. By July 18, five Representatives had been seated in the House, including the first colored person to present himself for admission to Congress; and reconstruction would seem to be a matter of history.[15]

But the military was not withdrawn, for Louisiana and Arkansas were created into the Department of Louisiana under General Rousseau. Troops were so stationed at different points throughout these States that they could be called upon to coöperate with the State authorities to preserve the peace and to sustain the new governments.

The Presidential election of the fall of that year once more centered attention on the State by an undesired and wholly unexpected victory for Seymour and Blair, and still more by the disorders and outrages on the negroes.[16]Congress was not allowed to forget that it had a right to a directing influence in the matter through committees of investigation and decisions on disputed elections to its own body.[17]

At the beginning of the year 1869 carpet-bag government was in full swing and the picture of the situation in the State is not a bright one.

The political condition might well have caused an aristocratic Louisianian to withdraw himself from the contamination of politics with a shudder of despair: a carpet-bagger the recipient of the first honor in the gift of the State, and a negro house-painter of the second. Warmoth, young, handsome, and magnetic,[18]was a native of Illinois, who had entered the army from Missouri. He had had trouble with General Grant after the battleof Vicksburg; was charged with circulating exaggerated reports of the Union losses while on parole North, was dismissed from the service by Grant, but restored to his command by Lincoln, evidence having shown his dismissal to be unjust. He retired from the army in 1865, went to Texas, where he was indicted for embezzlement and for appropriating government cotton. But when the case was called, no prosecutor appeared and the prosecution was abandoned. He returned to Louisiana and before reconstruction was sent as a delegate to Congress as narrated above. He was at this time only twenty-six years old, apparently at the height of his powers, social and political, for even his foes admitted the dignity of his appearance and the charm of his manners and conversation.

The balance of parties in 1868 stood twenty Republicans to sixteen Democrats in the Senate, fifty-six to forty-five in the House.[19]White members had been almost entirely supervisors of registration. Warmoth had selected for this office in the parishes a large number of men left in New Orleans as flotsam after the war. They had so impressed the negroes that they were returned to the legislature or were mysteriously counted in by the returning-board.[20]Almost one-half of the House were negroes, while there were at least seven sable-hued Senators.[21]The lower State and parish offices were given over largelyto negroes and scalawags, not always chosen by the governor with wisdom.[22]

The comment of one of the New Orleans papers is suggestive of the sentiment of the people toward their legislature. Speaking of the revenue bill of 1869 it said:

It was the work of the lowest and most corrupt body of men ever assembled in the South. It was the work of ignorant negroes[23]coöperating with a gang of white adventurers, strangers to our interests and our sentiments. It was originated by carpet-baggers and was carried through by such arguments as are printed on green-backed paper. It was one of the long catalogs of schemes of corruption which makes up the whole history of that iniquitous Radical Conclave.[24]

Or note theCrescent: “The troupe which is now playing a sixty-day engagement at the corner of Royal and Conti streets,[25]which appears daily in the farce of ‘How to be a Legislature,’ a day or two since introduced among themselves a bill...”[26]And that paper printed later daily the following unique “ad,” “Go at once to the St. Louis Rotunda to see the astounding curiosity &.”

No less important to the State than its own political condition was the attitude of the National government. The defeat of the Republican party in the South in the fall election was like a dash of cold water. To an indifferenceor even a desire to be rid of the whole subject of reconstruction, which had characterized Congress in the fall of 1868, succeeded a resolute purpose to take advantage of every opportunity to gain an effective and permanent control for the Republican party. Even the law passed during the session of 1868-9, which provided that equal eligibility to office should inhere in those who had had their disabilities removed by Congress and had taken the oath to support the constitution in the act of July 11, 1868, was only a party measure to win more firmly the scalawags,[27]as the list of pardons reveals the fact that most had become Republicans.[28]Grant’s attitude was of importance to a degree that Johnson’s was not, for he came into office early in 1869, a popular and trusted executive, who would be free, to a large extent, to direct the policy of the government in the South. But, unfortunately for Louisiana, a brother-in-law, J. F. Casey, was soon put in charge of the port there and so completely won Grant’s ear that the latter approached Louisiana problems with a bias. Friction between the State and National authorities was bound to come, for already at the opening of 1869 the radicals had lost the respect of the army, and recrimination was passing back and forth between the military commander and the executive of the State.[29]

Socially, the problem was largely a race question, though the bitterness of feeling toward her conquerors and contempt of carpet-bagger and scalawag enter to complicate the matter. The intensity of her bitterness toward the North found expression in such paragraphs as the following:

The black and bloody chapter of American subjugation reads so much like the scenes of the Netherlands and the Palatinate that it cannot claim even the vile merit of distinguished infamy. Let it be blotted out and closed. Let the American government publish and execute this amnesty in good faith. Let them seek new fields of glory and cease to promote men merely because they have distinguished themselves by the slaughter of Americans or by laying waste the regions that Americans have planted.[30]

In moments of calmness appeals to the better sentiment of the North are heard, coupled with promises that a spirit of conciliation would be seconded by the masses of the South, which were prepared to accept all necessary and reasonable conditions imposed by the result of the war.[31]

Their particular spleen was vented now vindictively, now humorously, on the carpet-baggers: “Only call off the carpet-baggers and you are welcome to substitute an army of hand-organists in their stead. No sounds can punish our nerves, our patience, and our tympanums so much as the ‘base bawl’ of carpet-baggers.”[32]The hostof traders, capitalists, and adventurers, who had come down during and just after the war to seek a new field for investment in the conquered country, were, naturally, regarded more or less as harpies. The number was formidable, for already by the fall of 1866, between five and ten thousand Union soldiers had settled in the State.[33]The exasperating feature was that they immediately undertook to run the government for the natives, securing office through negro votes.[34]Capital, energy, and talents were desired, but not men to tend to their politics.[35]

Two great facts are to be remembered in the negro question in Louisiana. In the first place the negroes were in a slight majority. After the war the Southerner saw his former slaves avoiding him, careless, insolent, acquiring habits of vagrancy, manifesting little fear in indulging their propensity for theft, believing that under the guidance of disinterested councillors, they would soon become landed proprietors without labor, scholars without study, and the social equals of their former masters. For so many years the fear of a servile insurrection had hung over him that he instinctively tried to erect a defense against it. The officials of the Freedmen’s Bureau had also helped to complicate the situation. For the most part, indiscreet army officers, often bent on theirown fortunes, the directors managed the work in such an inefficient manner that the planters found it an intolerable nuisance. In the general demoralization of labor, the Southerner turned in despair to the legislature for relief and its impolitic response was the so-called “Black Codes,” which subjected the negro to oppressive restrictions not imposed upon the whites and smacked strongly of the slave codes. But it is to be remembered that the extremely rigorous code of this State was passed before the dreaded holidays of 1865-6 when the negroes were confidently expecting Uncle Sam’s gift of “forty acres and a mule.”[36]In the second place, the Gulf States had an element of especially vicious negroes, due to the fact that before the war criminals for offenses less than murder were traditionally sold “South.” There were also more free colored persons in Louisiana than in all the other Southern States, negroes who were likely to have developed some leadership and initiative,[37]but were on the average less intelligent than in most of the former slave States.[38]

Every effort was made by the radicals to encourage the negro to claim full equality with the whites, political and social, until by 1868 they were demanding not only the franchise, but mixed schools, a share in public affairs and even social rights. The Southerner, as has been said so many times, did not hate the negro, but he did not believe that he could rise in the scale of civilization. Hefelt that most of the negroes had not sufficient intelligence to desire the franchise, and hence that it was superimposed upon him. Nordhoff declares that “without whites to organize the colored vote—which means to mass it, to excite it, to gather the voters at barbacues, to carry them up with a hurra to the polls, to make ‘bolting’ terrible, to appeal to the fears of the ignorant and the cupidity of the shrewd; without all this the negro will not vote.” And it was a well-known fact that the “organizers”[39]were Federal officers with little else to do. And, in addition, the campaigns did interfere with the work rendered. The following passage from Nordhoff, the words of the bitterest Democrat he met in the State, shows how direct this was: “And they work just about as well (as in slavery), except when some accursed politician comes up from New Orleans with a brass band, and sends word, as was done last fall, that General Butler had ordered them all to turn out to a political meeting.”[40]

Nowhere, perhaps, is this sentiment more accurately reflected than in a speech of Senator Ogden’s in the State Assembly: “Do you not know as well as I that all the disgust, all the anger and bitterness that arose between these different political factions was engendered by the ill voices of certain politicians, who haranguing the ignorant and superstitious, in private and in public, poured into their ears voices as poisonous as nightshade.”[41]

Negro suffrage was the burning question, and they were not reconciled, even after it had become a fact, evenwhen they consented, as they did in the fall of 1868, to use the negro vote. But valiantly did the Democratic party in that election turn to win them; helped them to form clubs, promised protection, and offered to give Democratic negroes the preference in employment, enlisted negro orators; and often had them speak from the same platform as white Democrats. Yet all this was but for the purpose of securing white ascendency, for it was in this very year that the Knights of the White Camelia became perfected into a Federal organization, pledged to secure white supremacy, and to prevent political power from passing to the negro. The negro franchise might be a fact, but, if organized effort could prevent it, negro office-holding should not.[42]The Southerner felt that the last scourge of defeat, Congressional reconstruction, was founded on falsehood and malice. He declared that the reports concerning outrages on negroes had been distorted and exaggerated. The only purpose he could see in the zeal to put the ballot in the hands of men too ignorant to use it without direction was to prolong party power.

This hostility to the negro vote led to ingenious modes of reasoning to evade the results of the polls. On the eve of the assembling of the legislature of 1869 one of the city papers suggested that a certain negro Senator had been rendered ineligible by the adoption of a new registry law. As his ballot had been the casting vote whichseated another negro, the latter held his seat illegally, and the article closes with the pertinent query whether laws made by such legislators would have any validity.[43]

Another factor in the social problem, unique to the South, was not absent from Louisiana—the numerous “poor whites” in the northern part of the State. Living close to the subsistence line on the thin soil of the pine hills back of the bottom lands, without schools, with but few churches, given to rude sports and crude methods of farming, their ignorance and prejudice bred in them after the emancipation of the negro a dread of sinking to the social level of the blacks. The dread, in turn, bred hatred, and it was from this class, instigated very probably by the class above them, that the Colfax and Coushatta murders[44]took their unfortunate rise.

And still one other element, mischievous in the extreme, must be added to the social complex—men who pursued no occupation, but preyed on black and white alike, as gamblers and tenth-rate politicians, drinking and swaggering at the bar, always armed with knife and revolver, shooting negroes now and then for excitement. This class was recruited, largely, from the descendants of the old overseer and negro-trader of ante-bellum days. With just enough education to enable them to dazzle the negro by a political harangue, they were both disliked and feared by the decent white people. According to the testimony of a Northern observer,[45]the first duty of the Republican leaders in Louisiana was “to hang them by the dozen.” And it was just because they were not crushed out, except so far as the respectable conservative could combat them, that Louisiana had to endure such a drawn-out purgatory before she was reconstructed.

Economically the State presented no better view. Louisiana had suffered particularly from the war, as a part of her soil had been held by Federal troops through a great part of the conflict, and the plantations had been drained, in consequence, of a large part of their labor. Taxable property had been reduced almost two-thirds. The returning rebel found his plantation in the worst possible state of repair, or his title subject to dispute under the confiscation laws, while much had been seized by treasury agents or dishonest speculators. He turned, in the absence of capital, labor, currency, to the one thing he knew—the raising of cotton. Even here he had to adjust himself to a complete change of system from fixed, forced labor to payments at set times or planting on shares where he was at the mercy of his planter. It cannot be charged, on the whole, that the planter drove unjust bargains.[46]If the negro suffered, it was at the hands of the poor, small farmers, as ignorant as the negro himself. But a blighted crop in 1866 was followed the next year by an almost complete failure, while the Mississippi exacted the penalty of neglected, broken levees by a devastating flood. Only in 1868 did the planters obtain an average crop in the great staples. Grinding necessity, as well as the remorseless political ostracism, drove the better class into indifference to public concerns and engrossment in their private affairs. Moreover, ignorant, unprincipled legislation bred a certain temporary apathy even to their own interests.

Already the finances of the State were in a sad condition.Back taxes were in arrears, possibly, as was charged, because the property owners were organized in opposition to the existing government,[47]but more probably because they were unable to pay. It did not help the situation that few filling State positions were tax-payers.[48]By January 19, 1869, only about one-tenth of the amount of the city taxes for the preceding year had been collected.[49]

Inability to get in the taxes, resulted, naturally, in inability on the part of the State to meet its obligations. It had been found necessary in September, 1868, to levy a special one per cent tax to provide for the payment of the past due coupons on the bonds of the State, outstanding warrants, certificates of indebtedness, and convention warrants.[50]It was not even able to pay the interest on current debts and so it was necessary for the legislature early in 1869 to empower the governor and treasurer to negotiate a loan to meet such approaching obligations.[51]Of course, credit had suffered in consequence until by October, 1868, bonds were selling in the market at forty-seven cents on the dollar. Certain levee bonds had sunk so low at one time as to be sold for thirty and even twenty-five cents.[52]A motion offered in the House in the session of 1869 that not less than fifty cents be accepted is sufficiently illuminating.[53]Many State officials were paid by warrants and suffered, except where the Assembly favored the recipient, as in the case of the executive and its own members, the loss of the difference between their face value and the market value.

Loans were negotiated only with the greatest difficulty and on exceedingly hard terms. On November 1, 1868,the interest on $2,000,000 of levee bonds was to fall due without means to meet it. Hence, a new loan of $100,000 was necessary, but it was secured only for the short period of ninety days at seven per cent with the privilege of the purchase of one hundred of these bonds at sixty cents by the loaner. At about the same time a commission was sent to New York to sell 1300 State bonds. They found a general distrust of all Southern securities, but especially of those of Louisiana. Its bonds were not quoted on the stock exchange, and the only offer on the street was of a lot at fifty-two cents which found no buyers. The commission at last had to accept fifty-one and one quarter cents and, as a preliminary condition, had to agree that provision should be made for the payment of interest on all bonds due in January and February of 1869.[54]Naturally, such loans were secured only at great additional expense. The ninety-day loan cost over $3700, while the sale of the 3100 bonds mounted up to $2213, $1000 of which went to pay the cost of the trip of the three commissioners.[55]The necessity of paying by warrant involved a loss to the State not only directly,[56]but in the depression of State credit.

An attitude of extravagance and corruption was already becoming apparent in the State administration. The Senate at the close of its session in 1868 authorized twelve committees to sit between sessions. Practically every Senator sat on some committee and each member drew pay for twenty-six days, amounting to $34,620.40besides $15,000 for clerks.[57]One committee alone drew between $16,000 and $17,000. Money was doubly squandered by one committee, which drew pay for its time and pay for witnesses who were never examined.[58]And one clerk is quoted as having had time to serve on three committees and drawing warrants for four.[59]But this corruption did not come to light until the Assembly had entered upon its labors of 1869.

FOOTNOTES:[1]Richardson,Messages and Papers of the Presidents, VI., 214.[2]Ficklen’sHistory of Reconstruction in Louisiana, states that the highest number on the roll at any time was ninety-eight, 68.[3]By a vote of 72:13. Ficklen, 70.[4]Lincoln’s plan. See letter of March 13, 1864, to Hahn, Nicolay-Hay, VIII., 434.[5]Rhodes and Ficklen differ slightly in their numbers. Rhodes depends upon Sen. Exe. Doc., 38 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 91, 4.[6]Within the Union lines was about one-third the area of the State, according to the census of 1860, and two-thirds of the population.[7]Already Thaddeus Stevens had devised and won followers for his territorial scheme of reconstruction. For a full statement see Rhodes, United States, V., 551.[8]Ficklen regards this story as well-substantiated (113), though Warmoth himself stated that he received the money to defray his expenses from the Executive Committee. House Misc. Doc., 42 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 211, 350. The writer has not regarded this as within her investigation.[9]Debates of the Convention, 1864, 623. Illegal also was the effort of the mayor to suppress the convention. See Cox,Three Decades, 430-2.[10]Blaine regarded this as the “original mistake” of the South. Suffrage would have then followed as a necessity and boon to the South. Blaine,Twenty Years, II., 474-5.[11]The Congressional Committee reported the plan as early as April 30, 1866.Globe, 39 Cong., 1 Sess., 2286.[12]Statutes at Large, XIV., 428. The essential sections, 3 and 4, were later held unconstitutional. Cases of U. S.vs.Reese, 92 U. S., 214, and U. S.vs.Cruikshank, 92 U. S., 554.[13]United States Statutes at Large, XV., 2.[14]Ibid., 14. This act was drafted by Stanton. Gorham,Stanton, II., 373.[15]Globe, 40 Cong., 2 Sess., 4216.[16]For a full account of the early period of reconstruction in this State see Ficklen,History of Reconstruction in Louisiana. As evidence that election disorders were not wholly a result of reconstruction, it might not be amiss to call attention to the governor’s valedictory message of 1856. Society in Louisiana before the war, while polite and even more—brilliant, had been far from law-abiding with its frequent encounters under the duelling oaks, the Plaquemines frauds of 1844, and the riot of 1855. See Gayarré, IV., 679.[17]For an account of the conflicting testimony on these outrages see House Misc., Doc., 41 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 13.[18]Based on House Repts., 42 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 92, 24-5. See alsoNational Cyclopedia of American Biography. Carpenter’s sketch of him to the Senate may be quoted: “There is in Louisiana a very remarkable young man, dignified in mien, of elegant presence, and agreeable conversation; a man full of resources, political and social,—gallant, daring, and with a genius for politics; such a man as would rise to power in any great civil disturbance, embodying in himself the elements of revolution, and delighting in the exercise of his natural gifts in the midst of political excitement.”Globe, 42 Cong., 3 Sess., Appendix, 200.[19]Annual Cyclopedia, 1868, 434.[20]Nordhoff tells of the rise of a young New Yorker who returned from acting as supervisor in an up-country parish to present returns which proved him the unanimous choice of that parish. Though not the nominee, two years later, his name appeared, strangely enough, on the tickets and, although not elected, the returning-board seated him. Nordhoff,The Cotton States, 48.[21]The writer has been unable to get exact figures. TheCommercial Bulletinof Feb. 22, 1869, enumerates seven Senators; while a negro in debate stated that there were forty-two of his brethren in the House. House Deb., 1870, 281.[22]A negro Justice of the Peace issued a warrant which is a rare curiosity for bad spelling and grammar: “This is to cite, fy that i. the underseind, Justis. of. the. Peace O Pint. and in Pour. John. A. Stars. to. A-rest the Body. of Henre Evens and Bring. Hit, be four, me John Fields.” Copied fromSt. Mary’s Banner, a parish paper.[23]It was not uncommon for a legislator to sign his name with a mark.—Crescent, Jan. 13, 1869.[24]New Orleans,Commercial Bulletin, Nov. 17, 1869.[25]At this time the legislature was convening in the Banque de la Louisiane.[26]Jan. 13, 1869.[27]The scalawag was the war-time Unionist or reconstructed rebel who had ceased opposing Congress. A negro preacher defines the difference between a carpet-bagger and scalawag as follows: “A carpet-bagger came down here from some place and stole enough to fill his carpet-bag, but the scalawag was a man who knew the woods and swamps better than the carpet-bagger did, and he stole the carpet-bagger’s carpet-bag and ran off with it.” House Misc. Doc., 42 Congress, 2 Sess., No. 211, 478.[28]The writer did not find this especially true of Louisiana, but of the South generally.[29]“Apparently the Radical authorities have lost the confidence and respect of the army. We do not think that writing to Washington letters of complaint is exactly the way to regain it.”—New Orleans,Commercial Bulletin, Jan. 21, 1869.[30]New OrleansCommercial Bulletin, Jan. 6, 1869. For a similar expression of feeling,Times, May 9, 1875.[31]New OrleansCommercial Bulletin, Jan. 14, 1869. “Wise liberality on the part of the northern people and of the government that ought to represent them would certainly be followed by strict and willing acquiescence.... We ought to prove by our demeanor toward those who come among us to buy our vacant lands ... that they are welcome and that liberal legislation will not be wasted upon us.”[32]Ibid., Sept. 25, 1869.[33]Ficklen gives this number,History of Reconstruction in Louisiana, 176.[34]It might be noted that the following officers who figure conspicuously in the pages of this account were carpet-baggers: Warmoth, Kellogg, ‘, McMillan, Dewees, Jacques, who will figure in the frauds of ’72, Speaker Carr, Campbell, Packard, Dibble; 3-5000 settled in New Orleans, proportionally less in the parishes.[35]SeeTimes, May 9, 1875. From the evidence I have met, I do not believe the feeling against them was so hostile as it became a little later when the South was determined to drive them out. Blaine makes a real point when he says, “Northern men recalled in an offensive manner the power that had overcome and, as they thought, humiliated them,—recalled it before time had made them familiar with the new order of things.” Blaine, II., 472.[36]Nordhoff tells of a negro in St. Mary’s parish who still in 1875 was retaining a mule halter he had purchased in anticipation of Uncle Sam’s gift, 49.[37]It does not seem to me that Vice-President Wilson’s argument that the experiment of negro self-government would therefore have the greatest chance of success (Times, Aug. 21, 1876) here is necessarily true. It would rather turn upon whether the leadership they would assert were vicious or not.[38]Due partly to the fact that they came from the large plantations where the civilizing contact with the white race was reduced to a minimum.[39]A person sent into country parishes some months before election to gather up the colored vote; to hold meetings, to instruct the local leaders, mostly preachers and teachers, and to organize the party. Nordhoff, 67. As late as Dec., 1874, a leading negro replied to the query concerning his vote, that “they had not got the word yet.” House Rpts., 43 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 101, 89. Pinchback understood such organization and that gave him his strength.Ibid., 67.[40]Nordhoff, 56.[41]Sen. Deb., 1870, 218.[42]Note the frank reply of a lawyer to a negro politician: “I stand ready, as far as in me lies, to protect them in their rights as citizens. Here my friendship stops; I am not their friend when it comes to official life. The colored man has just been redeemed from slavery, and in his new character he is unfit for office. It is an insult and outrage to place him over the white people as an office-holder.” Granting that slavery was wrong, that did not prove “that you should be put into office to run the government before your people have learned anything about the laws.” Sen. Rpts., 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 701, xxxv.[43]Commercial Bulletin, Jan. 4, 1869.[44]See, this volume, Chapters XI. and XII.[45]Nordhoff, 18.[46]It was Nordhoff’s opinion in 1875 that few laborers as ignorant as the average plantation hand could do as well anywhere else in the world, 21. Nordhoff was a young German immigrant who visited Louisiana as reporter for the New YorkHerald, and published his impressions after an investigation which bears every mark of care and fairness. One can scarcely accuse him of Southern bias when one reads: “I have been opposed to slavery ever since I sat on my father’s knee and was taught by him that slavery was the greatest possible wrong,” 49.[47]Such a charge was made by a member in the House.[48]Herbert says that ten paid taxes,Why the Solid South, 401.[49]Commercial Bulletin, Jan. 19, 1869.[50]Laws of Louisiana, 1868, No. 114.[51]Ibid., 1869, No. 48.[52]House Deb., 1869, 393.[53]Ibid., 287.[54]House Deb., 1869, 43-4. The lack of faith in Southern bonds was partly due to the unsettled condition, but also to the fact that just before the war many Southern States had repudiated their debts—an action later to be repeated.[55]Ibid.[56]One member asserted that $75,000 was thrown away in 1869 by the sale of the warrants on the streets to pay members.Ibid., 1870, 15.[57]Sen. Journal, 1870, 12.[58]Lowell testifies: “I can show that the greatest fraud ever perpetrated was the action of the Senate Committee on Election, whose clerk went out on the streets and coaxed men to come into the committee-room to act as witnesses in order that he might get half the fees. I state further that witness after witness has been paid by the Senate Election Committee who never gave one hour’s testimony.” House Deb., 1869, 12-13.[59]Ibid., 50.

[1]Richardson,Messages and Papers of the Presidents, VI., 214.

[2]Ficklen’sHistory of Reconstruction in Louisiana, states that the highest number on the roll at any time was ninety-eight, 68.

[3]By a vote of 72:13. Ficklen, 70.

[4]Lincoln’s plan. See letter of March 13, 1864, to Hahn, Nicolay-Hay, VIII., 434.

[5]Rhodes and Ficklen differ slightly in their numbers. Rhodes depends upon Sen. Exe. Doc., 38 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 91, 4.

[6]Within the Union lines was about one-third the area of the State, according to the census of 1860, and two-thirds of the population.

[7]Already Thaddeus Stevens had devised and won followers for his territorial scheme of reconstruction. For a full statement see Rhodes, United States, V., 551.

[8]Ficklen regards this story as well-substantiated (113), though Warmoth himself stated that he received the money to defray his expenses from the Executive Committee. House Misc. Doc., 42 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 211, 350. The writer has not regarded this as within her investigation.

[9]Debates of the Convention, 1864, 623. Illegal also was the effort of the mayor to suppress the convention. See Cox,Three Decades, 430-2.

[10]Blaine regarded this as the “original mistake” of the South. Suffrage would have then followed as a necessity and boon to the South. Blaine,Twenty Years, II., 474-5.

[11]The Congressional Committee reported the plan as early as April 30, 1866.Globe, 39 Cong., 1 Sess., 2286.

[12]Statutes at Large, XIV., 428. The essential sections, 3 and 4, were later held unconstitutional. Cases of U. S.vs.Reese, 92 U. S., 214, and U. S.vs.Cruikshank, 92 U. S., 554.

[13]United States Statutes at Large, XV., 2.

[14]Ibid., 14. This act was drafted by Stanton. Gorham,Stanton, II., 373.

[15]Globe, 40 Cong., 2 Sess., 4216.

[16]For a full account of the early period of reconstruction in this State see Ficklen,History of Reconstruction in Louisiana. As evidence that election disorders were not wholly a result of reconstruction, it might not be amiss to call attention to the governor’s valedictory message of 1856. Society in Louisiana before the war, while polite and even more—brilliant, had been far from law-abiding with its frequent encounters under the duelling oaks, the Plaquemines frauds of 1844, and the riot of 1855. See Gayarré, IV., 679.

[17]For an account of the conflicting testimony on these outrages see House Misc., Doc., 41 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 13.

[18]Based on House Repts., 42 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 92, 24-5. See alsoNational Cyclopedia of American Biography. Carpenter’s sketch of him to the Senate may be quoted: “There is in Louisiana a very remarkable young man, dignified in mien, of elegant presence, and agreeable conversation; a man full of resources, political and social,—gallant, daring, and with a genius for politics; such a man as would rise to power in any great civil disturbance, embodying in himself the elements of revolution, and delighting in the exercise of his natural gifts in the midst of political excitement.”Globe, 42 Cong., 3 Sess., Appendix, 200.

[19]Annual Cyclopedia, 1868, 434.

[20]Nordhoff tells of the rise of a young New Yorker who returned from acting as supervisor in an up-country parish to present returns which proved him the unanimous choice of that parish. Though not the nominee, two years later, his name appeared, strangely enough, on the tickets and, although not elected, the returning-board seated him. Nordhoff,The Cotton States, 48.

[21]The writer has been unable to get exact figures. TheCommercial Bulletinof Feb. 22, 1869, enumerates seven Senators; while a negro in debate stated that there were forty-two of his brethren in the House. House Deb., 1870, 281.

[22]A negro Justice of the Peace issued a warrant which is a rare curiosity for bad spelling and grammar: “This is to cite, fy that i. the underseind, Justis. of. the. Peace O Pint. and in Pour. John. A. Stars. to. A-rest the Body. of Henre Evens and Bring. Hit, be four, me John Fields.” Copied fromSt. Mary’s Banner, a parish paper.

[23]It was not uncommon for a legislator to sign his name with a mark.—Crescent, Jan. 13, 1869.

[24]New Orleans,Commercial Bulletin, Nov. 17, 1869.

[25]At this time the legislature was convening in the Banque de la Louisiane.

[26]Jan. 13, 1869.

[27]The scalawag was the war-time Unionist or reconstructed rebel who had ceased opposing Congress. A negro preacher defines the difference between a carpet-bagger and scalawag as follows: “A carpet-bagger came down here from some place and stole enough to fill his carpet-bag, but the scalawag was a man who knew the woods and swamps better than the carpet-bagger did, and he stole the carpet-bagger’s carpet-bag and ran off with it.” House Misc. Doc., 42 Congress, 2 Sess., No. 211, 478.

[28]The writer did not find this especially true of Louisiana, but of the South generally.

[29]“Apparently the Radical authorities have lost the confidence and respect of the army. We do not think that writing to Washington letters of complaint is exactly the way to regain it.”—New Orleans,Commercial Bulletin, Jan. 21, 1869.

[30]New OrleansCommercial Bulletin, Jan. 6, 1869. For a similar expression of feeling,Times, May 9, 1875.

[31]New OrleansCommercial Bulletin, Jan. 14, 1869. “Wise liberality on the part of the northern people and of the government that ought to represent them would certainly be followed by strict and willing acquiescence.... We ought to prove by our demeanor toward those who come among us to buy our vacant lands ... that they are welcome and that liberal legislation will not be wasted upon us.”

[32]Ibid., Sept. 25, 1869.

[33]Ficklen gives this number,History of Reconstruction in Louisiana, 176.

[34]It might be noted that the following officers who figure conspicuously in the pages of this account were carpet-baggers: Warmoth, Kellogg, ‘, McMillan, Dewees, Jacques, who will figure in the frauds of ’72, Speaker Carr, Campbell, Packard, Dibble; 3-5000 settled in New Orleans, proportionally less in the parishes.

[35]SeeTimes, May 9, 1875. From the evidence I have met, I do not believe the feeling against them was so hostile as it became a little later when the South was determined to drive them out. Blaine makes a real point when he says, “Northern men recalled in an offensive manner the power that had overcome and, as they thought, humiliated them,—recalled it before time had made them familiar with the new order of things.” Blaine, II., 472.

[36]Nordhoff tells of a negro in St. Mary’s parish who still in 1875 was retaining a mule halter he had purchased in anticipation of Uncle Sam’s gift, 49.

[37]It does not seem to me that Vice-President Wilson’s argument that the experiment of negro self-government would therefore have the greatest chance of success (Times, Aug. 21, 1876) here is necessarily true. It would rather turn upon whether the leadership they would assert were vicious or not.

[38]Due partly to the fact that they came from the large plantations where the civilizing contact with the white race was reduced to a minimum.

[39]A person sent into country parishes some months before election to gather up the colored vote; to hold meetings, to instruct the local leaders, mostly preachers and teachers, and to organize the party. Nordhoff, 67. As late as Dec., 1874, a leading negro replied to the query concerning his vote, that “they had not got the word yet.” House Rpts., 43 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 101, 89. Pinchback understood such organization and that gave him his strength.Ibid., 67.

[40]Nordhoff, 56.

[41]Sen. Deb., 1870, 218.

[42]Note the frank reply of a lawyer to a negro politician: “I stand ready, as far as in me lies, to protect them in their rights as citizens. Here my friendship stops; I am not their friend when it comes to official life. The colored man has just been redeemed from slavery, and in his new character he is unfit for office. It is an insult and outrage to place him over the white people as an office-holder.” Granting that slavery was wrong, that did not prove “that you should be put into office to run the government before your people have learned anything about the laws.” Sen. Rpts., 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 701, xxxv.

[43]Commercial Bulletin, Jan. 4, 1869.

[44]See, this volume, Chapters XI. and XII.

[45]Nordhoff, 18.

[46]It was Nordhoff’s opinion in 1875 that few laborers as ignorant as the average plantation hand could do as well anywhere else in the world, 21. Nordhoff was a young German immigrant who visited Louisiana as reporter for the New YorkHerald, and published his impressions after an investigation which bears every mark of care and fairness. One can scarcely accuse him of Southern bias when one reads: “I have been opposed to slavery ever since I sat on my father’s knee and was taught by him that slavery was the greatest possible wrong,” 49.

[47]Such a charge was made by a member in the House.

[48]Herbert says that ten paid taxes,Why the Solid South, 401.

[49]Commercial Bulletin, Jan. 19, 1869.

[50]Laws of Louisiana, 1868, No. 114.

[51]Ibid., 1869, No. 48.

[52]House Deb., 1869, 393.

[53]Ibid., 287.

[54]House Deb., 1869, 43-4. The lack of faith in Southern bonds was partly due to the unsettled condition, but also to the fact that just before the war many Southern States had repudiated their debts—an action later to be repeated.

[55]Ibid.

[56]One member asserted that $75,000 was thrown away in 1869 by the sale of the warrants on the streets to pay members.Ibid., 1870, 15.

[57]Sen. Journal, 1870, 12.

[58]Lowell testifies: “I can show that the greatest fraud ever perpetrated was the action of the Senate Committee on Election, whose clerk went out on the streets and coaxed men to come into the committee-room to act as witnesses in order that he might get half the fees. I state further that witness after witness has been paid by the Senate Election Committee who never gave one hour’s testimony.” House Deb., 1869, 12-13.

[59]Ibid., 50.

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