The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-05-23
THE FIRST LOUISIANA CARPET.
BAGGER-l832.

Il is near half q century since Lou
isiana exulted in Aid. Joel G. Sever
now, alas unknown to fame IL was
never her fortune to see that patriot strip
in a contest for Governor; it would have been
appalling. In those days this early patriot
was illustrious in the North. He was the
initial priest of Old st. Tammany in the days
Of its Sachem-befcre the era of Swartwout
and Price; before circumlocution became the
order of stealing; long before the Tweed had
conjured from chaos and restitution, in Old
Tammany, order, af1uence and empire.
To the great, central Democratic national
wigwam of that era, Sever was orator and
priest He divided few devout years Of q
valuable life between his professional prac-
tice in the ward courts and his devotions at
the shrine of the Old Temple; and it only be-
came known that the time was up when. one
morning, Joel struck the Father of Waters
with his carpet-sack on stick-when an
epoch dawned in the Innings of that satchel
A sub-treasury incident had happened within
the walls of Tam many, and carpet-bagger
incontinently came to light in the far South.
II is true that the prevailing carpet-bag was
born Of intention-not of incident; but the
great Alderman's purpose of appropriating
Louisiana to his own immediate use was legit-
innate and profound.
And truly, in little time, New Orleans
would have been nothing without its prophet.
Under devotional auspices he entered into
possession. With actual war instincts, he
organized and established the First Colored
Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Then
he preached its occasional sermon, having
FIRST assigned colored preacher to its pulpit
with salary which that eloquent divine was
never to see. The church became o moneyed
institution it held its property, its fran
chisee, and the right of perpetual succession !;
and within its precincts was trained the slave
in the way he was to go when freedman.
They csjoled, robbed, ruined him gave him
rights only to deceive him, and power only
to deny him its use.
In those days Alderman Sever trod the
floors of the Commonwealth like Big Injin
searching wigwam for whisky. But it was
not red-eye. He wanted power, spoil, spoons;
he went for q treasury, and the open sesame
that echoed through its vaults. At all ward
political meetings Sever became prevalence
and permanence. He squeaked orations in
the style of French Jacobin and spirit of Q
Cephalonian serf, and would have conquered
and driven triumphantly into power, as modern
ho< hou ofx hnk hat
there were men in his way.
81 move" rang the Roman voice of E. A.
Canon, in the Council chamber of the old
Second Municipality " the instant expulsion
OF this man from this hall. l charge him with
the habitual practice of common infamies;
with lying, stealing and profaning religion;
with criminal treachery and the vilest polit-
ical subserviency; with swindlipg honest men
and using rogues; Stimulating religion that he
may mix with ignorant and unsuspecting
slaves to despoil them.
81 ask the Secretary to read the bill Of spe-
cihc charges l hold in my hand, together
with the statements under oath which anthem
ticate them, and on such testimony move
his instant expulsion then, within thirty
minutes, the great alderman, orator, physi-
elan, lawyer. statesman, divine-politically
an impecunious VIM. M. Tweed, was con-
Quoted out Of the old hall by the sergeant at
arms-the first genuine earpet-bagger ex-
PEELED from public Office in the South; the
one man who came before the deluge.
But he was contemporary at the bar with
Boule, Mazereau Grymes, Canon and host
of great men, and was master of the trade Of
law. He made the dome of the Court House
echo, in old State-House Square, with queer
notes of ife-ike denunciation against his
prosecutors; and if one encountered the ges-
ture of that fearful forefnger-no less his
torical than the great Virginian' Sit became
memory, laid away for after times.
It was the vfper's story over but it per-
vaded all places, sensationally. Not cause,
after, in which he was counsel, came up for
trial, but was travestied into his cause.
Speeches were his personal eulogies He may
have been incontinently seated, or commit
ted for contempt; but he belongs to that
class of men of whom the South knows to-day
that it is numerous and shameless, subtle IS
foxes, rapacious as the corinorant perfdious
beyond the modern Greek, exacting as q
master, and servile as q Deepen dent. So he
cared not for commitment, nor for censure,
and continued to be offensive and insolent,
converting the professional forum Into an am
phitheater-a musical Pan and political Their
sites.
Joel G. Sever has passed long since from
the stage of life and seems indeed to have
lived before his time. But men repeat them
selves in individuals and in societies. His
type to-day pervades the South; it is not car
pet-baggery now; those satchels are worn
out; but class of men remains, whose an
mails were never excelled in obliquy, nor sur
passed in crime; thick as "leaves in Vallam-
brosa" they cover Southern soil. They have
clouded, like Egyptian locusts, our beautiful