Omaha daily bee., 1902-05-19
CHAPTER I.

The history Of the first American revclu-
tion against European royal authority has
yet to be written. It's objects have been
overlooked or obscured; the names OF its
martyrs almost forgotten and its import
ance so little appreciated that where It is
mentioned at all in histories Of the United
States 1t is dismissed with a sentence. Yet
eight years before the Declaration Of indie
pendence was adopted at Philadelphia the
men who planned the first North American
republic had been fusilladed at New Orleans
and their protest against sbsolutism had
been burned in the public square to make
an end forever Of sedition and republican
ism. The words Of Lafreniere's "declara-
ton" which the Spanish authorities thought
thus to consum were not less bold than
those Of Jefferson. THE solidity Of
thrones" he wrote, lis in proportion to the
extent Of and population. Both
are fed by liberty and competition which
are the nursing mothers OF the state, Of
which the spirit OF monopoly is the tyrant
and ~step-mother. without liberty there are
few virtues. Despotism breeds pusillanimity
and deepens the abyss of vice"
II was In the support Of this principle
on which the constitution Of the United
States was afterward based that on October
20, 1859, Nicholas Chsuvin de Lafreniere,
with his associates in the attempt to estab-
llsh the first American republic, Joseph
Milhet. Pierre Marquis, Jean Baptiste
Noyan and Pierre C~aresse, we're executed
as rebels and traitors against France and
Spain.
Lafreniere. their leader. was a man Of
great ability and of such holiness that had
he been supported as James Otis was when
his protest against "writs Of assistance"
made even John Adams 'shudder at the
consequence Of such premises" the Re
public Of Louisiana" might have been the
first state of the American union. But II
Otis In Massachusetts, was so much in ad-
vance of the public sentiments Of the New
England colonists in declaring the opinions
held also by Lafreniere, that even Adams
was alarmed for the consequences, It is not
to be wondered that after having expelled
the Spanish governor, Lafreniere was left
almost alone against the overwhelming
forces of the Spanish armament, at a time
when the entire province Of Louisiana could
not have mustered 1900 fighting men.
AS the American rev olution against Eng
land began with declarations Of steadfast
loyalty to the king Of England and pro-
crossed slowly toward republicanism under
the plOLIlnk OF q rev EXTREMISTS WHO
were at FIRST resisted, so also the move
ment which undertook to establish the Re-
public of Louisiana began as a demonstra-
tion Of loyalty to Louis, the Well Beloved,
and progressed through its FIRST success to
its final collapse and the martyrdom of its
leaders through the workings Of an inner
circle OF republicans whose plans were so
we'll guarded that even historians Of Louisi-
ana almost lose sight Of the design of estab-
fishing a republic as the object Of the revo-
luton. 1t is remarkable that full justice
is lone to the revolutionists only by their
enemies. The scope Of their craftsmanship
was more fully appreciated in the cabinet
of the king Of Spain than It has been In
America, either In their own generation or
In this. When after the expulsion Of the
Spanish governor, Don Antonio de Ulloa.
and the establishment of the superior
council as the power in the civil govern
ment of Louisiana. the king of Spain called
for the advice of his ministers, asking them
to give their arguments for and against the
abandonment of Spanish claims to the con-
troll Of the colony, the Count Amanda. then
the ablest statesman Of Spain,
directed his argument almost wholly, not
against the possibilities Of French reoccupa-
tion of the colony, but against the