Year: 1877




dress was unanimo ously adopted:


RooNs STATE CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE. !


Republican Party of Louisiana ,


New Orleans, March 49, 1877.
To the People of the United States


There has been SO much said and written
about the Republican party in Louisiana
so much that is partly and so much that is
entirely false, inspired in many cases by
ignorance, but in the majority of cases by
mslice-that the State Campaign Commit
tee, as the authorized representative of the
party, has thought proper to lay a state
ment before the Republicans of the country,
setting forth some of the difficulties with
which the party here has had to contend
since it's establishment and exposing some
of the false charges which have been made
against it.


The passage of the reconstruction meas
ures by Congress found very few white
Republicans in the South, and that
few comprised of old Union men and
such exsoldiers of the Union army as
had at the close of the war chosen
the South as their future home. The
native white people of the South, who at
that time could have easily directed the
vote of the newly enfranchised citizens, in
spired by that bitterness which is always SO
much longer lived with defeated than
with successful party to conflict, sui
lenly stood alOOt from snything like gen
eral participation in political affairs. They
believed that the gift of suffrage to the col
ored race was not intended as an act of
justice to the colored people themselves,
but rather as an insult to the whites, and
they would not cOuntenance this conceived
insult, nor confirm the title of the eolored
men to their newly acquired rights, by even
voting at an election in which colored men
participated.


With this state of public feeling there
haf nk 81,
extend the membership of the Republican
party beyond the old Union men, the ex-
Union soldiers and the colored people, who
naturally attached themselves to it as the
parGy which had emancipated them from
bondage, and conferred upon them the
rights of citizenship. While there are in
Louisiana, as in all other communities, two
naturally antagonistic elements among the
Wholesome class which looks to the future,
and another which looks to the past-the
first progressive, and the latter q retro
gressive element-still, owing to the causes
stated, and to the further fact that all
Southern white men who cOuntenanced in
any way the new dogma were at once ban
ished from ali Southern society, and forever
after treated as social pariahs, it was inn
possible to make any very great advances
in that direction.


This remarkable domination of the Bour.
bon over the conservative element through
out the South has continued from the close
of the war until the present time. 1t was
inspired by an implacable and popular de-
termination to resist and nullity the results
of the war, and it has been secured in a
variety of ways. There is no instance of q
Southern man of prominence identifying
hi nsef with the Republican party, no
matter what his standing before, but has
done so at the expense of his social position,
and who has not been generally and con.
stantly denounced as traitor to his sec
tiOn. The most prominent examples are
General Lungstreet in Louisiana, General
McLaws in Georgia, and Colonel MOsby in
Virginia. This influence alone has deferred
thousands of the best men in the South
from Signalling their acquiescence in the
results of the war by joining the Repub-
lican party.


In the spring election of 1868 the Bour-
bon element sullenly stood aloOf, and de-
termined that no white men should partici-
pate. In the fall election of the same year.
when General Grant was the Republican
candidate for President, they pursued the
reverse of this policy, and determined that
no blacks should vote; and in carrying out
that determination they first put into prac-
tice that terrible system of violence and
murder which has since been introduced
into other Southern States, and into other
campaigns in this State.


General P. H. Sheridan, in an official re-
port, has stated that 72i cases of political
murder occurred in this State that year. The
result was that Seymour received 86,974
votes, against 4l,5I3 for General Grant.
The fraud was 30 palpable that Congress re-
| fused to count the vote.


1t was this terrible campaign which led
to the enactment by Republican Legisla-
| ture of law to discourage murder as q
means of political success, by depriving it
OF its effect. And as desperate diseases
| require heroic remedies, the Returning
Board law was the result. This law would
not, perhaps, be defensible in healthy and
we'll regulated society, as liable to abuse;
but the best argument in its favor in Lou
isiana is the fact that but for it's existence,
end the uDtiinching courage aud integrity
| of the members OF the Returning Board in
executing its provisions, Samuel j. Tilden
would to day be the President of the United
| States as a direct result of the hundred or
| so political murders in this State during the
| past year, and not of fair and free ex-
preston of public opinion.


We do not propose to enter into any ar
| gument at this time to prove that Louisiana
| is a Republican State, because we believe
that fact is generally conceded. We affirm
that in a fair election the Republicans would
carry the State by 10000 majority, and it
was Justly returned for President Hayes by
maiorities ranging from 4499 for the highest
| electOr, to 1877 for the lowest elector, and
for Governor Packard by 6O9 more votes
than for the lowest Hayes elector. The
electoral vote of Louisiana for President
Hayes was counted by Congress in con-
formity with national law, and the vote for
Governor Packard was counted by the
State Legislature in joint convention, with
a quorum in each house, in conformity with
the constitutional requirements of the
State, and he was duly declared Governor.
His legal title to the office is absolutely
without flaw, and General Nichols claim
would be entitled to as much respect
if he had never been a gubernatorial can
didate at all. Still General Nichols, backed
by the dominant Bourbon element in the
mob-ridden city of New Orleans, is enabled
to make more of a military showing than
can the newly-installed Governor. In view
of this fact it has been suggested by pOr
tiOn of the Republican press OF the country
that it might save considerable trouble if
General Nichols and his Bourbon friends
were allowed to seize possession OF the State
government rather than that the strong
arm of the national government should be
Outstretched to uphold lawful authority.


To this suggestion we desire TO enter our
most solemn and earnest protest, as in
volving principles alike inconsistent with
and subversive of good government, and
fatal TO the perPetuity OF the Republican
party. If the defeated candidate tor Gov
ernOr Of State may raise an army and
force out the legal Incumbent without the
interference of the national government,
there certainly could be no objection to the
legal Governor in turn raising an army and
forcing ont the usurper. A third party,
even, who had not been a candidate at all,
might raise force sufficient to expel both
the rival claimants This principle estab-
lished would inevitably lead to anarchy, and
would probably be resOrted to by ambitious
men in other States, and even in the ma