New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-03-01
Tur PATH OF CoUsHATTA.

! having voted the Republican ticket is very
we'll known. The parties charged con-
sented to quit the State upon the promise
by their captors Of safe conduct beyond
the lines. This compromise was kept very
faithfully for several miles, when the party
in charge was set upon by superior
force, and the paroled prisoners were
seized and shot. It is true these butchers
Of uuarmed men belonged to the same po-
litical party with those who had guaran-
teed the safe conduct.
At a subsequent period citizen OF
Feliciana had charged negro woman
with having administered to him deadly
poison. The woman was said to have
accused John Gair Of having employed
her to do so. A process issued for the
arrest Of John Gair as an accomplice in
this imputed crime. He was taken at
Baton Rouge, under this process, and
conveyed on the road to the prison Of the
parish in which the alleged crime was
said to have been committed. The ar
resting party was met at a few miles from
Baton Rouge; it was oyerpowered, and
the prisoner shot. The woman upon
whose alleged confession the guilt of her
alleged accomplice rested, was taken from
the jail and hanged the same night.
Here were two cases in which, under
the rules Of lawful war, and of respect for
lawful process, prisoners were assured OF
safe convoy, and in each case the pledge
of safety was violated.
The same principle Of false faith has
pervaded the adjustment and its execu-
ton. The Republican party held both
the executive and representative depart
ments Of the government. They had
held the position under every species
of violence and obloquy. The White
Leaguers had openly and with arms at
tackled and overthrown the organization
of the government and dispersed its
members.
Why, then, should they have trusted
the assurances made them by the oppo-
sition? Why should they have consented
to invoke the adjudication of congress
sional committee for decision upon
rights which they had the assistance of
the federal government to maintain? 1t
was for the sake of peace. 1t was, if the
reader chooses, for the sake of personal
safety. Can any one say the Republican
party has not kept faith in this compro-
mise? They have done SO notwithstand-
ing its first fruit was to seat Dem
ocratic majority.
Here, however, the faith of Coushatta
demonstrates itself. There was COM
promise. The Democracy came under
color of law and with assurances of amity.
No sooner had the Democracy secured a
working power in the Legislature than
there came in those who had been no
parties to the compromise; who had, in
fact, pledged themselves always to oppose
the compromise. They overcame the par
ties to the compromise and proceeded to
take the Governor, who had been guar
anteed the possession of his Office, and to
remove him from Office on the simple &C.
cusation of an ofense. With these con-
sistent instances Of bad faith, in vain may
Mr.. Kidd declare:
We tell the colored people that we strike |
hands with them. There shall be no shot
guns, no force; we will reason and argue to |
prevent our country from ruin. We ask |
them to come with US and redeem the State. |
There lie not in the mind of q true Southern !!
man single thought to the prejudice of |
the colored mans rights. We are his own !
people, from whom he has been led away. |
Ii he will come with US and stand by ua, we
and stay with him forever, and We say that /
in this, our centennial year.
Mr.. Demas states the convictions of the !;
colored people, and Mr.. Kidd may as we'll |
believe that these are indelible impress
sions:
He continued by showing tho rersecu-
tons Of cOlOred voters, pursued into
swamps. shot and hunted, and cited the
case OF John Gair. All the Democrats had
voted for him once, but he was charged
With being accessory to poisoning man
who wss never sick, and who was well |
enough last night to send dispatch to the
city urging impeachment; taken from the |
officers who arrested him by band Of sew
enty-fye men, who were concealed in the
wood for that purpose, shot to death. and
his sister hanged in the courtyard. With
that and other instances ne could not BE-
eve the Democrats respected the rights Of
The colOred people.
Mr.. BOoth-In what instance have We
1ot!
Mr.. Demas-In Grant, Coushatta and
others.
Mr.. Booth Grant parish has gone out of
ny memory.
Mr.. Demas-It never will 90 out Of mine,
lor will the bloody marks made there by
,thei deeds. They are indelible. All you
want 10 power. You put your own con-
tructicn on the constitution, the laws and
,ur rights.
Those who know the nature of these
people have tested their fidelity. They
we're attached to the better classes Of the
southern people, but these classes would
lever protect them from lawless men be-
ore the war or since. Giving their labor
md their care, toiling to support the
whites even when their own freedom was
It stake, they might naturally have ex-
'ected that amnesty from which they
lave been excluded. They are kepub-
leans, and can never be anything else.
The imprisoned declarations forced
rom one Of their representatives shows
he position of the colored- people to
AVE been irretrieyably fixed by the perse-
buttons they have received.