Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1874-07-17
THE WHITE LEAGUE.
The Crescent City White Lea.ue-The
Platform.
New Orleans Bulletin, July IL


year took place last night at Eagle Hall, in re-
Spouse to the call Of the Crescent City White
League.
The meeting was not only large but dignitied
at the same time enthusiastic. Each one pre-
sent seemed to recognize the necessities of the
hour, and there was one resolve to meet them
Colonel F. n. Ogden brought the League tC
order and presided.
The Crescent City Democratic Club, by re-
solution, was invited to attend the meeting OF
the League and participate in its proceedings,
and committee of three was appointed tc
make known the action of the meeting.
The Committee retired, and in short time
returned with the Crescent City Club. Their
entrance was greeted with cheers.
Captain Hodgson then read a resolution, a.
dopted by the Crescent City Club before its ad,
journment sine die, rendering to the White
League their paraphernala, &C., used in the
campaign of 1872. The following platform
was submitted by President Ogden for the ap-
prevail of the Club:
PLATFORM OF THE C. C. W. LEAGUE.
The Crescent City Democratic Club of 1868,
having changed its name to that Of ''Crescent
City White League has thought that an ex-
PLANTATION was due alike to its retired members
and to the people of New Orleans of the motives
of change so seriously and so sadly sugges-
tive. 1t may be stated that the elements OF
personal character and of general purpose in
the Club have undergone no change since It's
origin. Our members with but few losses or
accessions are the same as for many years past,
and we feel ourselves animated as ever by the
sYr,y tloa fasl-
of practical politics to establish and maintain
such government in the State and city as shall
guard the liberties of the citizen. his business.
and the Accommodations of his industry. Our
fellow-citizens will permit Us to recall with a
just pride our strenuous and persistent efforts
in this behalf though they have again and gain
been FRUSTRATED by the fatal intrusion of high
hand whose violence was stronger than our
rights. All our struggles had been hitherto
conducted under the ancient banner of Demo
cracy, to which we shall ever look for guidance
IN all national contests. But we are now fast
drifting to conflict, bounded by the limits OF
the State. and which the men of Louisiana alone
must settle, if justice and fair play shall rule
and not Federal violence. 1t is conflict not
involving single issue upon which an honest
Republican can possibly differ as such from an
honest Democrat; conflict the decision OF
which we would confidently and gladly remit
to the votes of the very Radicals of New Eng
land, nay, to any body of civilized men in the
world, for it is conflict between virtue and
depravity, between enlightenment and thick
ignorance, between civilization and barbarisul
"a barbarsm artifcially stimulated aud held
up by the perverted authority of the most civil
lied nation in the world. A civilization whose
cry, not for help against threatened destruction,
but for mere fair play in maintaining itself is
answered from Washington by insults and q
blow. In this dire emergency the national
Democracy is powerless to afford relief. The
national Republican party, absorbed in It's
dream of future domination, and quarrelling
over present schemes of finance, has forgotten
that there is such outlying province as
Louisiana, which it mi ght rescue from perdition
and disgrace, for the sake of the good name OF
the national commonwealth. Need we draw a
picture of our utter deSolation? Need we point
on the one hand to our devastated fields, our
waning commerce, our idle workshops, our de-
crossing population our increasing taxes, our
pauper multltudes, pensioners on alien charity,
and, on the other hand, to the orgies of the
miserable Wretches forced upon Us as rulers by
the horrible alliance between negro ignorance
and the cunning of Washington bureaucracy,
rulers grown rich amidst general distress, and
revelling in the proceeds of taxes wrung from
a gasping people, rulers painfully maintained
by national bayonets in positions reeking with
dishonor and felony, and from which there
HOulu uctu De Out one VIII lOuT Oh uDTtSlTdlll-
ed anger to hurl them forever? Need we repeat
the old story of brutal violence stalking at mid
night in the draggled shroud of judicial authori-
ty and under the shadow of the Federal power.
enthroning an execrable oligarchy of the most
ignorant and prof1igate negroes, leagued with
the most dangerous class Of rapacious whites,
the very scum of society? America has rung
with the echo of these wrongs, and we have
heard even those who have made it a system to
10
wrong-doers, and yet not hand has been lift
ed to deliver us from their expressions. With
our hands on our hearts and appealing to God,
we and the whole white people OF Louisiana can
declare that we are in no way responsible for
the intoerable evils of misgovernment under
which the State is perishing.
From the time that the right of suffrage was,
as we believed, and as we still believe, accord
ed too hastily to race in the infancy of free
dom, we firmly resolved that it was our duty,
and wise expediency to accept the policy OF
the reconstruction laws in their full scope. We
endeavored at once to address ourselves to the
intelligence of the negro, to explain to him thai
slavery having been forever abolished he, as a
citizen possessing all the ri ghts of white citi-
Zens, had the same interests and the same du-
ties as white men. Our orators and our press
piled him with the obvious reasoning on these
subjects. We invited him to our meetings, We
called him to our platforms, we placed some o.
them upon our tickets. Election after election
they turned deaf ear to us treated all our adj
vances with distrust and suspicion unhesitat
ingly followed the leadership of men whom they
knew to be unworthy and dishonest, and witt
scarcely an exception invariably voted like
body of trained soldiers obeying a word Of
command. We still hoped that time and expe
rience would give them discretion in the eXer
else of precious right, which they never exer
clsed here or elswhere except as a gift from oul
race. We thought that right which they
owed to the white race would not be presist
emily used by them to accomplish the ruin o
white men. In this hope we have been mos
grievousy disappointed. The negro has prov
ed himself as destitute of common gratitude al
of common sense. Instead of improving in hi
capacity to make an intelligent and patriotic
use of the ballot, we do not hesitate to affirm
that he is to-day less qualified for the duties o
self-government than he was seven years ago
In the beginning we are willing to believe tba
he was guided by childish faith in the baC
men who arrogated to themselves the contro
of his vote. But though he has long since los
that faith; though the barefaced rascalities 0
those men are now known to him; though h
denounces them as liars and thieves he still re
tains them in positions of power and trust TO
the ayoWed purpose of breaking down the in
dustry of the State, wasting it by eXOrbitan
taxation, and finally driving its white inhabi
tants to other States Amy one who has bee
to their meetings or overheard their privat
conversations knows that they dream of tn
gradual exodus of the whites, which will leav
Louisiana to their exclusive control like anoth
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