The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-09-19
ADDRESS
Re the White League of New Orleans, Sep
tember IA, 1875, by j. Dickson Bruins,
M. ID.

Fellow Comrades Of the White League Of Ne
Orleans
Not in martial guise, not with drape
ensigns, nor arms reversed, nor sobbin
drums, nor long-drawn wall of mournfu
bugles, nor volleyed thunders of farewell
but with hearts full of tender and prou
regret, you have assembled tonight to d
reverence to the memory of those martyre'
patriots who fell in our streets, one year ago
fighting for freedom.
If from the height where their valor planted
our standard on that memorable day we hav'
given ground by so much as one foot; II time
has dulled the edge of our high purpose, o.
worn into slovenry our set resolve; II thu
principles which they illustrated by thei
courage and sealed with their blood have beer
shaken from their steadfast roots by any vino
of popular caprice or storm Of hostile menace
If the guile of traitors promises or the feal
of tyrants' threats have turned US from the
straight and narrow way by which they
moved-over yawning graves-to one fixed
end, then, burying in the tomb which
holds their ashes our memories and our hopes,
nothing rem aims, henceforward, but for them
tears and for US silence and eternal shame.
Not 80 do l interpret the meaning OF this
vast concourse. In the solemn purpose for
which it has spontaneously gathered; in the
influence which rains from the trimming eyes
of matron and virgin; in the calm, grave faces
of the sons and husbands and lovers whom
they sent to battle without tear; in the I'M
bending mein OF the citizen-soldier who led
your arms then, as he holds your affections
now, and who crowned his consummate vic
tory with q prudence and moderation unex-
ampled in the history of civil war; in the
presence of your chief magistrate elect, that
loyal and unselfsh patriot who has laid every.
thing he had or was or hoped, fortune, home,
the best and brightest years of his chivalrous
manhood upon the altar of Louisiana, and in
Wonder hatchment blazoned with the names
of our dead heroes for whom tonight we
Lift up our hearts, and whose dauntless spirits
still rule us from their urns, / read the same
unaltered and unalterable determination that
Louisiana lis of right, ought to be, and
means to be FREE.
II you have bowed, perforce, to the usurpa-
ton which still broods over US like some
hideous nightmare, you at least have not con-
scented to it. If you have been dumb under
tho mockery of q so-called adjustment" it
has been the silence of indignation, and not
of acquiescence. If you have submitted to
the odious sway of alien adventures, set up
and sustained by Federal power, as task
masters over people whom they insult and
plumber, it has been solely in the in
terests of civil peace and domestic order.
Never to such o government will you give
your confidence or support; never to such q
pact, am sure, will you set your hands; and
to-day, as through all your past, you will con-
tinue to resist, by every rightful means, the
intolerable despotism under which we groan.
You, surely. will take no step backward. To
the maintenance of this resolve you are
pledged, not less by the memory of the dead
than by the hopes of the living. Unseduced
where others waver, unterrifed where others
quail, you will still oppose to the threatening
front of the tyrant, free hearts and free fore
heads; still will you stand, the bulwark Of
your people; still give to the State the cheap
defense of your unbought service.
Sand il some dreadful need should rise,
Would strike, and firmly, and one stroke"
What were the conditions under which the
White League-so misrepresented and
maligned-had its origin In what baleful
mp its torch How was that little fire kindled,
whose sudden blaze lit up q continent Is
there any here so dull of memory that he does
not recall the deep drawn breath Of gratula-
tion with which Louisiana staggered to her
feet when she felt in the fall of n, that at
last che had shaken off the grasp OF her foe ?
We had met the enemy at the ballot box, and
they were ours Against all the odds which
even the General Government could array
against us, we had been completely and over |
whelmingly victorious Who is there SO
calm of pulse that even now his heart does
not leap when he remembers the outburst of
surprise and indignation with which we
learned on the Sd OF December that Attorney |
General Williams had telegraphed the Unite |
States Marshal, Packard, to enforce |
the DEGREES and mandates of the |
United States courts, no matter by whom |
resisted, and that Gen. Emory would |
furnish the troops? What decree2 it was |
asked, what mandate? Where was any record |
of any attempt OF resistance directed against |
the authority of Federal court? But the |
solution of the fell enigma was not far to seek |
when, two days after, at midnight, in the Sc
crecy of his own room, Durell, judge of
district court, closeted with two attorneys
his CO. conspirators- the Marshal, without
any petition or motion having been made, |
with no affidavit of facts to warrant it, di-
xected the attorneys to draw up an order to
the Marshal to take possession of the State
House, to hold it until further orders from the
court, to prevent the assemblage therein of
the lawful members of the Legislature and |
to apply to Gen. Emory for the necessary
force. And on the morning of the 9Th, 10
wall of bay onets girdled the Capitol, and the
sovereignty OF Louisiana was stricken down.
shall not sicken you with q detail of the
outrages which followed swift on the heels of
this monstrous crime. They are as familiar
to you as q thrice-told tale: how Antoine
fled his marvellous bill in chancery, to which
the whole administrative elect, legislative and
executive alike, Governor, Secretary of State,
and Representatives were made defendants,
and restrained from exercising the least pre-
negative of their official stations until two
days after the date on which the Legislature
was to be convened; how Marshal Packard,
with an army at his back, and
one hundred and thirty-fve writs in his
pocket, to be served on claimants to seats in
the Legislature, stood at the doors of the
State Capitol, Of which he was the sole
and undisputed master, and in the
language of great jurist, impanneled
\ Legislature which was for two years
s. the gazing stock of all visitors at New
Orleans as the embodiment of all corruption,
bribery and folly ever known to {
The people, how, in order to hold the ground I
until January, when Kellogg could be skew {
cred into the Gubernatorial chair, Pinchback. | {
whose term as Senator had expired seized on {
tha Presidency of the Sonata and in a fau