The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1879-01-02
THE LOUISIANA OUTRAGES.
IRON the Chicago Trihnne.l

]
the Republicans in Louisiana drrino
the recent Congressional campaign
discloses condition of things
IN that State more horrible, if
possible, than anything that has vet been
recorded in the long, black chapter of
Confederate injustice, persecution. and
brutality practiced upon Republican
negroes who attempted to vote in ac-
cordance with their convictions. The
story is told by an intelligent colored
woman who has found refuge from
these outrages among her friends in
Cincinnati, and is so completely con-
firmed by letters and newspaper reports
from Louisiana as to leave no doubt of
its truth. ao
The substance of her narrative is to
the effect that these outrages COM
menced as soon as the campaign opened.
Alfred Fairfax, the Republican candi-
date for Congress in the Fifth District,
being the first conspicuous victim. I'm
mediately after he had delivered his first
speech, gang of bulldozing ruffians,
headed by one Capt. Peck, made a
night attack upon his house with the
intention either of killing him or driv-
ing him out of the parish Fairfax and
his friends made temporary defense,
and then succeeded in escaping into the
woods. Peck's gang sent for reinforce
ments, and a second one appeared,
headed by Judge Cordell, of st Joseph,
whose ruffians amused themselves by
shooting down thirty-fve colored per-
sons-men, women, and children-while
at work in the fields Alarmed for their
safety, the negroes of the parish began
to arm themselves, but, as Corden sent
for still stronger reinforcements, they
were compelled to lay down their arms.
These reinforcements were made up of
rutaians from Arkansas and Mississippi,
who in pure wantonness, drove women
and children off into the woods and
killed the men who made any shadow
of opposition. Large numbers fed
from the parish in the night, crossing
over to Vicksburg and making their
way northward. Those who remained
were required to take an oath to vote
only the Democratic ticket, and those
who refused were shot or hanged. The
result was a partial depopulation of the
parish, crops ungathered, property de-
stroyed, over 100 innocent men slaugh
tered in a single week for presuming to
exercise the rights of citizens guaranteed
to them by constitutional amendment
which seems to be binding in the North
and barren in the South, and the tri-
umphant success of the Democratic
ticket. By the horrible agency of muir
der, by the massacre of unofending
men, women and children, those who
were spared were so intimidated that
they feared to exercise their privileges,
and the Democratic candidate in the
Fifth district made a good run and was
elected, because the Republicans could
not even attempt to vote without paying
the penalty of their lives for it.
The parish (Tensas) in which this
horrible massacre was perpetrated has q
population of over 10000 persons, of
whom 10000 are eolored. The lands
are devoted to cotton raising, and most
of the colored people are engaged as
farm hands, though many cultivate on
shares with the whites and some own
their farms. They are all Republicans,
and thus this parish, which went almost
unanimously Democratic, is in reality
Republican by a vote of about to l..
This vote was wiped out IN blood. A
dispatch to the Chicago Tribune on the
morning after election says: In the
Fifth district, some of the strongest Re
publican parishes, particularly TenSGS,
the vote for the Democratic candidate,
includes nearly the solid vote of the
parish" The story is again told in a
dispatch to the TTjbat11e of Nov. 8:
"Tensas-whieh is the parish adjoining
to Concordia, and which gave Kellogg,
in 1872, 2,400 majority in 1874, Repub~
lican, $500; and in 1876, Hayes, 1890,
gave very few Republican votes. The
large number of murders judicious-
ly committed a short time before
election day accomplished the purpose
of the Confederate leaders, and gave
them another member of Congress
This, too, is the history of East and
West Feliciana." En- other parishes the
same agencies were brought to bear to
wipe out the Republican majority, and
succeeded; so that these parishes, which
Ill lCFC gave 14O4A 43COO w C,OOO AOOEtNO
ican majority, appeared almost sohdly
Democratic. Coneordia, adjoining Fen
sas, which has 300registered Democratic
votes and 1000 Republican, scarcely re-
turned Republican vote. The Con-
gresham from the Fifth district will
take with him to Washington a record
stained with blood, and occupy seat to
which he was never elected. Infamous
as the South Carolina frauds are shown
to be, they are not as bad as those in
Louisiana, as the stuffng of ballot-boxes
with tissue-paper votes did not in
volve murder. These damning and
heartless outrages, it must be remem~
bered, occurred in State from which
the President withdrew the troops
and ousted the oarpet-baggers upon
the solemn promise of its Governor that
the rights of the entire people of the
State should be protected. In past
years the Confederate bulldozers had