The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-30

chapter in the series of unsuccessful ef- forts to exploit Louisiana as an indepen- dent empire. The great Napoleon, whose European empire erumbled into dust, proved to be the only successful impe- rialist in Louisiana, for he said when he turned the territory over to the United States that he had given England rival for the mastery among nations.
 William c. c. Claiborne, a young Vir- ginian, was sent by President Jefferson to be the first governor of Louisiana ter ritory. New Orleans then had about 5000 people, and the whole vast territory had about 50,0O0. not counting the Indians Next year the great territory was divided and the southern portion became the ter ritory of Orleans. Claiborne was also first governor of Orleans. Eight years thereafter the people adopted a constitu- tion, and were admitted to the union. They elected Claiborne the first governor of the state of Louisiana. Claiborne was only twenty-eight years old when he first assumed the territorial government in 1893, and on account of his youth he may be pardoned for having attempted to Amerlcanize the French all at once. He established a court of pleas such as he had known in Virginia. The lawyers were greatly dissatisfied with the strange forms of law, and especially opposed to the introduction of the English language A compromise was effected and James Brown and Moreau Lislet were appointed to draw up a civil code. This, as revised in 1925, under the title of the Civil Code of Louisiana" is that adpixture of the Roman civil law and the English com mon law ofswhich Louisiana lawyers are so proud today. The French language is still the speech in parts of New Orleans and some hural parishes, French cus- toms are still followed and always will obtain, but Louisiana is as thoroughly American as Massachusetts or Virginia.
 Within three years after it became a state the battle of New Orleans was fought, in which Andrew Jackson gave the English veterans of the Napoleonic wars the most complete drubbing an American army has ever given foreign foe When Lafitte and his Baratarians who had been called pirates, but who re- fused to aid the English against Ameri- cans fought bravely in that battle and put an end to charges against Louisiana s patriotism.
 New Orleans advanced rapidly after the invention of the steamboat, and at one time before railroads made the rivers a secondary importance, was the rival or New York as the business metropolis or the union. When the civil war came, Louisiana, with the other southern states, seeded and joined the Confederacy. To the lost cause she gave Judah P, Benja- min, the bright particular star of Jeffer- ' son Davis cabinet, and to the Confeder- ate army she gave P. G. T. Beauregard, Braxton Bragg, Leonidas Polk and Rich ard Taylor.
 Louisiana suffered more, perhaps than any other southern state during the pe- riod of reconstruction, and 1t was not until 1877 that home government was again established. Since that time Louis- lana has devoted herself to commerce and the acts of peace. Her days ofNpo- litical adventure are over, and she Is enjoying the prosperity which of right be- longs to an American state.
 (Tomorrow Lights That Failed)