The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1879-02-07
LET IL BE STOPPED.

party OF the country to the d1Sgraceful pro-
ceedings now going on In the United States
Circuit Court In this city. More than $50 citi-
zens OF this State, all Democrats, have been
indicted by packed grand jury on the testi-
mony OF as graeeless gang of periurers as
were ever raked together out Of the lower
class of humanity. Notorious murderers;
negro ruf1ians and thieves; ignorant
wretches utterly devoid OF the moral
SENSE have been chosen from the diff
ferent parishes with rare tact and sagacity
by the Federal officials, brought to this city at
the public charge, provided for out of the
public funds, and trained in the recital Of their
parts in this great scheme of perjury and
persecution. The citizens who have been in
dicted are all men Of repute In their parishes;
most of them farmers and planters; some
of them merchants, mechanics and profess
sional men. Nearly all of them are men Of
moderate means; all Of them have business
| interests to manage. Yet on the testimony
OF such witnesses as we have described, this
| large number of citizens have been arrested by
United States deputy marshals, forced away
| from their homes, their families and their
business and brought to this distant city to
| be prosecuted by partisan court and, IL pos
sible convicted and sentenced to the peniten-
tiary. Very few Of these men are well of.
| Nevertheless, they are forced to live here at
heavy expense or go to jail and remain there
for days or weeks, or perhaps for months.
And when they have exhausted their ready
money In paying their expenses here, and
when the most important months In the year
to the farmer are passed, and their years
~ ,b<,I1x
and they are acquitted OF the baseless charges
against them, what remedy, what compensa-
ton are they to obtain for these cruel perse-
eutions and these ruinous losses2 VIII the
government, which has arrested them on per-
jured evidence and ruthlessly despoiled them.
allow them any compensation? We think
not
II the object of these prosecutions was the
execution Of justice or the protection OF the
rights OF the negro voters, the proceedings
would lose their most hideous feature. But
there is no such object. The real purpose Is
to overawe and intimidate the white voters
of the parishes In which these arrests were
made, and thus destroy the organization, dis
cipline and spirit of the Democratic party
there. We are on the very eve Of an election
u
to be succeeded, probably, by an election in
the fall for Legislature, and that by the
general election of 1880 In 1876 the State
passed into the hands Of the Democratic
party; In 1878 the Democrats swept 1t by an
overwhelming majority. Louisiana Is hope
lessly lost to the Radical party unless the
Democratic organization can be demoralized,
and the white people impressed with the
knowledge that, If they venture to take an
active part In politics, they will be sub
| jected to criminal prosecution, forced from
their homes and their interests de-
stroyed. The real object of these
prosecutions is to make this impression; it
| Is to carry such CONSERVATION into the par
shes that their white citizens will give up
the contest and surrender the control of
affairs back into the hands of the negroes,
and their white leaders. This is the latest
organized plan of the Republican leaders for
holding Louisiana in subjugation. They
| tried in vain the efficacy of merciless
scheme of reconstruction; then the power of
| the executive was resorted to with no better
success; they turned the State over to a
horde of robbers; they overrun it with troops;
| they reversed the results of elections; they
| instigated the negroes to riot and blood
shed they rewarded those of our peo-
pie who turned traitors; they ex-
eluded us, as far as practicable, from all bene-
| fit of the general government; year in and
| year out they kept the State In turmoil and
excitement by their revolutionary proceedings
and their investigating committees. But, in
| spite Of all this, the Democrats maintained
their organization, and they finally obtained
control of the State. And now the Republi-
can leaders are converting the courts into the
machinery Of persecution and intimidation.
We do not believe that any such infamous
and extensive scheme of intimidation has ever
before been devised; we do not believe that the
courts of any enlightened country have ever
been so prostituted. Designed to protect the
rights and liberties of the people, they have
been transformed into an instrument to strike
down the citizen, to violate his liberty and
ruin his name and fortune.
These prosecutions will deprive the white
people of The parishes of Tensas, Concordia,
| Red River, Caddo and Natcbtoches, In the
midst of an election involving the highest in
terests of the State of hundreds Of their best
| men and most active workers; and unless the
people there rise up in their might and strain
every nerve to protect themselves those rich
parishes will be represented in the consttu-
tional convention by ignorant negroes or ras-
| cally white men whose votes will be for sale
and whose object will be to perpetuate In the
new the worst features of the old constitution
| Dismayed at the prospect of defeat In these,
| other parishes may be lost, and the State car
ried against those who have everything at
| stake. Should this calamity befall us, it re-
aures no seer to predict the issue In the fall
| and In 1880.
| This Is precisely the object the Federal
authorities are seeking to accomplish
| through Federal courts in these shameful
prosecutions.
Is it singular that, prosecuted year after
year. first by one means and then by another,
that the people of this State are growing rest