Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1868-01-14
RIOT AT MARSHALL, TEXAS.

RIOT AT MARSHALL, TEXAS.
Radical PIOfs-Incendiary Teachings
Violent Harnngues of a Supreme
Court Judge = Riot Provoked No
body Hurt.
A correspondent of the New Orleans
Pieayune, writing from Marshall, Texas,
on the 1st inst, makes the following state.
ment in regard to the late riot at that
place
1t is known that Gen. Hancock, the able
and accomplished commander of the fifth
military district, has ordered an election
for convention in Texas to be held on
the 10th and l4th of February, including
five days, and that while all the negroes
have been allowed to register as voters,
large proportion of the whites have been
illegally and arbitrarily refused the privi-
lege. But still the whites have 5000 ma
jority in the State There may be that
number of white Radicals in the State
and some of the negroes have spoken in ia
vor of the Conservative ticket. To pre-.
vent this, conspiracy has been formed in
the State by the white Radicals, who have
determined to send men over the State to
harangue the negroes TO incite them to acts
of violence, so as to secure a majority of
the votes for the Radicals. Their plan
had its first development in Jefferson,
Texas, on the 2Sth of December, when
Judge Caldwell, of the Redical Supreme
Court of Texas, appointed against the will
and wishes of the people of Texas, and
one A. b. Norton, of whom / will speak
hereafter, secretly got up meeting of
negroes, and addressed them in the most
violent and incendiary language, tell
ing them that the hellNhounds who
had formerly held them in slavery, and
driven them from morning till night with
bell Whips, were NOW advising them sos 20
vote. But advise you, said one of these
speakers 10 60 to the polls and vote, if you
have TO wade up to your necks in blood. A
similar secret meeting of the negroes was
appointed by these worthless, at Marshall,
on Monday, the 30th ult., and Judge CaId-
well reached Marshall on the evening of
the 29th, and stopped at one of our hotels.
On the same evening" citizens of Jefferson
reached Marshall, and informed some of
the people that a negro meeting was to be
held next day, and to be addressed by Judge
Caldwell, of the Supreme Court of Texas,
aud what language had been held at the
Jefferson meeting. This information went
over town like lightning and there was
necessarily some excitement. The citizens
generally kept away from the meeting, not
being willing to witness the prostitution of
his high office by Judge of our Supreme
Court, in haranguing a crowd of ignorant
Africans, at a meeting of which no public
notice was given, and to which the whites
were not invited. A crowd of negroes we're
in attendance at the courthouse, and this
Judge, who has never attained the position
of thirdrate lawyer in the State, and
who could not be elected by the peo-
pie a County Court Judge, began his
address to the negroes. AS might have
been expected, the indecent and incendi,
airy language used by this Supreme Judge
excited indignation among the few white
people present, and some indiscreet person
in the crowd fired off pistol into the
ceiling of the house-of course a general
stampede ensued, and the meeting dispersed
A Deputy Sheriff rushed into the crowd
with a drawn pistol and commanded all
persons TO keep the peace. This cauged the
Judge to git, and it is said he never stopped
till he reached the headquarters of the
military commander at this post, where he
made an affidavit that this little Deputy
Sheriff tried to assassinate him. and he
insisted on the arrest by the military, of
the Sheriff, the Deputy, and the citizen
who accidentally fired the pistol. These
men are now in military custody. and I |
suppose Gen. Hancock will be asked to re-
move the Sheriff from Office 4 Truly, we
have fallen upon evil times. II any one
had said ten years ago that the Supreme
bench Of Texas, adorned By such men as
Lipscomb, Hemphill and Wheeler, would !
ever be degraded by such men as now sit |
upon it, Caldwell, Morrell, Latimer, ETC.,
no one could have believed it--that the |
former, among the brightest stars that ever |
adorned the galaxy of American jurispru- |
dence, should be succeeded by the phospho-
resent exaltations of ordinary pettifoggeFs. |
But such is the condition of Texas at this |
time. To such straits are the Radicals |
driven that they send out their Supreme
Judges TO harangue negroes about voting;
to excite them against the white people, |
and to inaugurate war of races. If Judge |
Caldwell should make his appearance in
New Orleans and harangue the negroes
and poorer white people, and tell them /
that their labor had built all those fine |
houses, and put all the money in those
banks, and that il properly belonged to
them, and that they ought to take il if |
they have to wade in blood up to their
neclss, you would call him an incendiary
and a disturber of the public peace, and !
you wOuld arrest him and punish him.
But here he escapes unscathed. He |
knew before he came here what would re- |
suit from his speech, and he has accom-. |
plished all he desired. He wanted to be |
made martyr and he has succeeded so far, |
at least, as his running right cleverly for a |
few hundred yards, constitutes martyrdom. |
He has made now all the capital he wants. !
He will, no doubt, howl through the |
Radical newspapers OF the North, as loudly |
and lnstily as the poltroon Sumner howled |
through the back door of the courts Of |
Europe when Brooks eaned him. |
Sumner was martyr-he got scared. !