4
Hon. R. C. Richardson, of New Orleans, writing to Ex-Governor George S. Boutwell, says:
“A prominent member of the Legislature, and an old secession leader, stated to me in conversation, a short time before the election, that he was a stronger secessionist than he ever was, and that he hated the United States Government from the bottom of his heart, and if he ever got a chance he would strike a death-blow at it. I state from memory nearly his own language.
“Now, sir, I am prepared to assert that at least nine-tenths of his colleagues entertain the same sentiments, leaving out one solitary Union man elected from one of the country parishes.
“All their proceedings, so far, sustain this conclusion.”
Hon. H. C. Warmoth, of New Orleans, in his argument addressed to Senator George H. Williams, of the Reconstruction Committee, after speaking of other rebel influences in Louisiana, adds:
“And finally the Legislature comes with new enactments, in order to more effectually, if possible, destroy the friends of equal suffrage and equal rights. And thus without opposition or question re-enslave the colored people.”
Captain D. E. Haynes, who served in the Union Army and commanded a company of Louisiana scouts, in a letter on “Reconstruction,” addressed to the President, speaks thus:
“According to the constitution of Louisiana, no man is entitled to vote who has not been a resident of the State twelve months previous to the day of election, and three months in the parish. Yet in the city of New Orleans upwards of three thousand votes were polled for the rebel candidates by the returned rebel soldiers and registered enemies who were absent from the State three years previous to the election. Thousands voted in the country parishes who never took the oath of allegiance, and many, very many, voted who were worth upwards of $20,000, unpardoned by the President.
“The result of this election proved conclusively ‘their laudable desire to renew their allegiance’ by electing to both branches of the Legislature none but avowed rebels, with but one single exception.”
Mr. W. J. Blackburn, editor of the Iliad, published at Homer, (Clairborne Parish,) Louisiana, successfully demolishes the “Loyalty” resolutions of the Legislature, in an article over his individual signature. He says:
“The secession, or war ticket, triumphed by an unprecedented majority—triumphed because the individuals thereof had in the main been blatant secessionists, and still held to and openly avowed the heretical notion of the right of secession, and claimed moreover the right and propriety of asking the General Government to pay for their former slaves, liberated by the rebellion, etc. I repeat, the entire ticket in the parish of Clairborne, a parish of large white population, and deemed the most conservative portion of Louisiana, was elected upon the secession or war influence and prestige; while every Union candidate was voted down on the opposite ground. And this is the recent indication from the people, upon which the Legislature of Louisiana would fain fabricate, and sent forth protestations of genuine loyalty to the national authority.”
He closes an account of a meeting he addressed, thus:
“And when I got on the stump to speak, and declared in the menacing face of treason, that I gloried in the Star Spangled Banner, and loved the Government of my Fathers, and held that the National Government was entitled to my first and stongest allegiance, men who had taken the Amnesty Oath would get up in disgust and leave, and threaten me with violence, saying, ‘He says he loves the Government of the United States—I hate it!’ And these things I can also prove by tangible testimony, giving names, time, and place; and they form a part of the recent indications of that peculiar loyalty, by virtue of which the so-called Legislature of Louisiana would seem to fain hope to crush out the true men of the country. And verily, it is the very kind of loyalty to do this thing—it is all it is fit for, and such is all it aims to accomplish. He who abets the one, aids to accomplish the other.”
