Year: 1876

hOOMS STAIE I IN NIhAb NbHNli FL J
DEMOCRATIC CONSERVATIVE PARTY +


New Orleans, Aug. 80, 1876. J
Hon. c. G. Antoine, Liruieuan, Governor and
Acting Governor oi louisiana


Sir-I have the honor to .acknowl'
edge the receipt Of your communica'
ton of the 26th inst, in reply to mine
of the 23rd In my communication
| made to you, as Acting Governor,
simple proposition, looking to fair,
free and peaceable election, that repre-
sentalion should be given to Us in the
registration Offices throughout the
State 1t was a request which you
were empowered by the laws to grant,
and to which simple assent or refusal
was sufficient.


You have made your reply an occa-
sion to issue Il campaign document,
in which you attack the Democratic
party in q manner as unjust as the
allegations contained therein arc un-
true. This is not tie first time by
many that such attacks have been met
and such allegations disprovcd. For
eleven years there has flowed from
this center constant stream OF
maliciously false accusations against
the character of the Democratic Con
scrvative citizens of this State. These
accusations, disprovcd from time TO
time and shown TO be fabricated
simply for tie purpose of firing the
Nor,hcrh heart for partisan purposes,
have been again reiterated with the
SAME wicked purpose, and again dis
proved, until neither in the North nor
South can there be found any intelli-
gent person credulous enough to
regard them otherwise than as cicc-
tioneering tricks, with which 10 secure
Federal Intervention in order that the
Republican party might again ride
into power over the PROSTATE !!5er-
ties of the people.


You will rccollcct that when |
handed you my letter YOU stated to
me after reading it, 81 see the justice
of your demand, but | must submit
it to the Republican Committee "
The first part Of your reply indicates
that. for the moment, you appreciated
the fact that you owed allegiance to
the whole people of the State, but the
last part of the sentence unfortunately
evidences that YOU could not emanci-
pate your self as a candidate for re-
election, from the control of political
committee. l am therefore constrained
to believe that your answer to my
communication enamnatcs, moi from
the Acting Governor of the State, but
from the campaign committee OF the
Republican party, whicl, apparently
controls the matter of registration,
and from which l fear we can hope
for but scant measure of justice.


The proposition was sincerely made,
as you say you presume it was,
in the interest of free and fair elcc-
tion, and in the hope that its justice
would strike you, and lead YOU TO a
practical as well 2s 10 theoretical
conclusion. ! am not aware that the
Republican party has ever put itself
on record rs desiring fair and free
election. That some of its members
have occasionally used empty phrases
expressive of such desire there can
be no doubt; but its every action
contradicts such declarations. So
long as fraudulent registration is noto-
riously permitted and encouraged, as
is now being done in this city; so
long as the registration books are
corrupily manipulated by the parties
having them in charge, as has been
the case at every election since the
passage of the registration law; so
long as there exists a Returning
Board, whose mission and object it is
to nullify the result Of every election,
and over whose acts your courts have
decided there can be no control; F.; SO
long as counterfeit registration papers
are ISSUED, and forged aflidavits are
used as votes, as was the case in 1872,
professions of desire on your part
for q fair and free election are q
mockery and a sham. and such an
election is an impossibility.


You continue: Il frankly say to
you, as the representative of the Dem
ocratic party of this State, that, in my
opinion, the principle obstacle now
existing to fair expression of the
will of the people at the next election
consists in the system of terrorism
which members of your party, not
forming, l admit, the most numerous
or the most respectable class, have
established, unrebuked by you, in
some of the parishes Of the State
where black men are nightly whipped
and shot AZ, or even killed !; where
they are prevented from holding polit
ical meetings, and are deprived of all
freedom of political action"


With the same frankness displayed
by you, l say that no such condition
Of things exists in any portion of this
State as portrayed in the above quoted
paragraph of your letter.


These are grave charges to bring
against o civilized people, If they
are true, as believe in my soul they
IRE not, it is incumbent upon you te
produce such evidence as will.satisfy
the mind of reasonable and impartia
jury, in order that the majesty of the
law NAV be vindicated aud the guilty
parties brought to swift and merited
Justice. If they are not true, you
have grossly slandered an innOcen
people. II they are true. it shows