The Louisiana Democrat., 1867-04-24
Judge CooleY's Testimony.

-
+ We have obtained copy of the tes
d timony of Judge Cooley, of the 9TH Ju
$ dicial District, before the late N. {
S riot Committee of the U. S. House G
0 Representatives. We publish the por
4 tion Of it which relates to Rapides
: though we presume the remainder of j
e (of the facts of which we are not so wei
: informed) is a tissue of as glaring false
q hoods as that which we have given t,
our readers. Judge Cooley held Cour
: in Rapides last Fall. He admitted
l that he came up with exaggerated no
$ tions of the disloyalty of the Parish
but before he left he professed to hav,
had his opinions completely changed
In one Of those social parties to which
f he was invited land by. the way he il
| not often invited into the houses O
gentlemen where he is best known) ht
stated publicly that the people Of Ra
l. pides were as loyal as those of any
other part of the country. AS regards
: the number of murder cases On the
docket he was informed in open Court
} that six of the indictments were for the
murder of one man, and eleven for that
of another; that both murders were
, committed during the war; and that
one was the murder Of a jayhawker by
iayhawkers, who had been mustered
| into the service of the United States
4 Colonel Frisbee's case is Of itself a re-
futation of all his charges, and no mat
ter how much credit Judge Cooley may
take to himself for his acquittal, Colo
mel Frisbee in public letter put it on
the ground of the disposition Of the
people to do justice to men Of all shades
of political opinion.
But the most fagrant departure from
the truth is the statement in reference
to the Hays case. Judge Cooley first
confounds the murderer with the mur-
dered man, but this may be mistake
easily accounted for. From one end of
the statement to the other there is not
one word of truth, or anything that
bears resemblance towards the truth,
and this Judge Cooley knows as well
as any one of the large crowd who was
present at the time of the trial. Hays
shot Small at the Ice House and killed
him instantly, not because the latter
was Union man, nor for any other
political reason, but in the midst Of a
private quarrel. Small had scarcely
ceased to breathe before the Sheriff had
Hays in Jail, and there he remained in
close confinement for nearly three
months, and until Judge Cooley turned
him out Every man who saw the oc-
curence was summoned by the Sheriff
as witness, both for the prosecution
and the defense, and the case was pro-
ceeding to trial when, by the advice Of
Judge Cooley, the District Attorney
entered a nolle prosequi and set the
prisoner at liberty. These facts are
known to every lawyer at the bar, and
to every bystander present, and it is
difficult to conceive an amount of de- |
pravity which would lead a Judge to
make such a statement as that which !
Judge Cooley made before the inYesti-
CATION committee. 1t was of course to
Judge Cooley's interest to recommend
himself to the good graces of the Radi-
cal party and natural that, like the
thief on the cross, he should beg to be
remembered by them in the distribu-
ton of the benefits of the Radical
Kingdom. But he might have stopped
a long time before he did, and have
fully accomplished all the objects that
his interest and his selfshness could
hope to attain. Nothing, therefore,
but desire to outstrip Ovid Bolus in,
his own peculiar domain of romancing
could have led him to put together
such a chain of ,falseho0ds as that
which has been published as his "testi-
mony.p
On reading the testimony of this in
divldual one would suppose that he had
always been an unfiinching Union man, +
and that he had been more than once
IN the point of suffering martyrdom
'or his Union sentiments. Such, how
sver, is not the fact. Early in the war
le was as rampant q secessienist as any
me, and was for some time an officer
n the Confederate army. His Union
SIN did not begin to crop out until the
ortunes of the Confederacy began to /,
vane, when he left the Confederate t
ines and went to New Orleans. Since |
hen he has been burning and shi- t
lirg light il the party Of the Hahns, e
he Cutters, the Dosties and other pen
tentiary convicts who make up the
Radical rabble around the public crib
n New Orleans.
And yet it is the testimony Of such i
nen as these that is believed by the f
committee, while that of respectable G
Union men is utterly ignored. It is on I
uch testimony that the Military bill '
ras framed, with It's consequent sub
ersion of the State governments, and !,
he disturbance of the peace and har-
lony Of the country which has SO in :
erfered with the prosperity of the t
outhern States. d
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