LOUISIANA. 



515 



Resolved, therefore, by tJie Senate and House of 

 Representatives of the State of Louisiana in General 

 Assembly convened, That the aforesaid proposed 

 amendment of the Constitution of the United States 

 be, and the same is hereby ratified and adopted, with 

 the express understanding that in the sense of the 

 General Assembly, the power granted to Congress by 

 the second section of the foregoing amendment, is 

 strictly limited to legislation appropriate and neces- 

 sary for the prevention and prohibition of slavery or 

 involuntary servitude within the United States, or 

 any place subject to their jurisdiction, and that any 

 attempt on the part of Congress to legislate otherwise 

 upon the political status or civil relations of former 

 slaves within any State, would be a violation of the 

 Constitution of the United States as it now is, or as 

 it will be, altered by the proposed amendment. 



The extra session closed on December 22d, by 

 adjournment to the first day of the regular 

 session. 



A Bureau of Free Labor, the predecessor of 

 the Freedmen's Bureau, was in operation at 

 New Orleans at the commencement of the year. 

 It had exercised supervision over the freedmen 

 in the military lines during the previous year. 

 The labor year terminated on February 1st, 

 when laborers were allowed to select their 

 places of employment for the ensuing year 

 one-half the wages earned was also payable at 

 that time. The lessee system of Government 

 plantations, owing to a want of military pro- 

 tection, had generally been a failure. A system 

 of military occupation for the protection of 

 planters was introduced by Gen. Canby with 

 more success, and a system of regulations of 

 free labor adopted by the Federal Treasury 

 Agent under whose general charge the freedmen 

 were placed. It was a kind of Freedmen's 

 Code, since set aside by the instructions of the 

 National Bureau. During the year 1864, fifteen 

 hundred plantations were worked by fifty thou- 

 sand freedmen under the supervision of a Fed- 

 eral agent, who reported that on not more than 

 one per cent, of the plantations would the labor- 

 ers fail to receive their full wages. At the close 

 of hostilities, stringent orders were issued by 

 Gen. Herron in northern Louisiana, requiring 

 the freedmen to remain on the plantations until 

 the crops were secured, otherwise they would 

 be arrested as vagrants. The freedmen, gen- 

 erally, believed that at the close of the year 

 . there would be a division of property, and 

 they would be able to live in comfort and idle- 

 ness. In vain the Federal officers endeavored 

 to convince them of the falsity of this opinion. 

 6r to induce them to renew their contracts. In 

 their view, the master had been stripped of 

 every thing except his lauds for their benefit, 

 and there was no reason why these should not 

 be taken also. A degree of demoralization en- 

 sued which presented an unfavorable aspect for 

 crops in the ensuing year. In the State, there 

 were one hundred and forty-one schools for 

 freedmen, attended by nineteen thousand schol- 

 ars. The amount of school tax paid by the 

 blacks of New Orleans was reported at $40,000. 



The results of confiscation in New Orleans 

 were thus reported : 



Government has in fact mad( very little by its con- 

 fiscations of 18G3-'64. The defaulting quartermaster 

 here turned over $75 as the total net proceeds of the 

 sales of all the splendid Paris-made furniture, gold 

 and silver plate, and an infinitude of valuable things 

 which were taken from the houses of rich absentees 

 and registered enemies of New Orleans ; and Judge 

 DurreHof the United States District Court says that 

 the net proceeds of the confiscation sales of the prop- 

 erty adjudged to the United States in his court will 

 not exceed $100,000. This includes such properties 

 as the eight hundred valuable city lots of John Slidell, 

 with many a splendid store and family residence up- 

 on them. Harpies, who have done nothing but make 

 money out of both parties during the war, profit by 

 confiscation, the Government does not. 



About eighty plantations, comprising some 

 of the finest sugar estates in the country, were 

 held by the Freedmen's Bureau as liable to con- 

 fiscation. 



In June, the Chief Justice of the United States 

 being in New Orleans, was invited to address 

 an assembly of blacks, to whom he made the 

 following reply : 



NEW ORLEANS, Jane 6, 1865. 



GENTLEMEN: I should hardly feel at liberty to 

 decline the invitation you have tendered me, in be- 

 half of the loyal colored Americans of New Orleans, 

 to speak to them on the subject of their rights and 

 duties as citizens, if I had not quite recently ex- 

 pressed rnv views at Charleston in an address, re- 

 ported with substantial accuracy, and already pub- 

 lished in one of the most widely circulated journals 

 of this city. But it seems superfluous to repeat them 

 before another audience. 



It is proper to say, however, that these views, 

 having been formed years since, on much reflection, 

 and confirmed in new and broader application by the 

 events of the civil war now happily ended, are not 

 likely to undergo, hereafter, any material change. 



That native freemen, of whatever complexion, are 

 citizens of the United States; that all men held as 

 slaves in the States which joined in rebellion against 

 the United States, have become freemen through 

 executive and legislative acts during the war; and 

 that these freemen are now citizens and consequently 

 entitled to the rights of citizens, are propositions 

 which, in my judgment, cannot be successfully con- 

 troverted. 



And it is both natural and right that colored Amer- 

 icans, entitled to the rights of citizens, should claim 

 their exercise. They should persist in this claim 

 respectfully but firmly, taking care to bring no dis- 

 credit upon it by their own action. Its justice is 

 already acknowledged by great numbers of their 

 fellow-citizens, and these numbers constantly in- 

 crease. 



The peculiar conditions, however, under which 

 these rights arise, seem to impose on those who 

 assert them peculiar duties, or rather special obliga- 

 tions to the discharge of common duties. They 

 should strive for distinction by economy, by industry, 

 by sobriety, by patient perseverance in well-doing, 

 by constant improvement of religious instruction, 

 and by the constant practice of Christian virtue.*. 

 In this way they will surely overcome unjust hostility, 

 and convince even the most prejudiced that the denial 

 to them ot any right, which citizens may properly 

 exercise, is equally unwise and wrong. 



Our national experience has demonstrated that 

 public order reposes most securely on the broad baso 

 of universal suffrage. It has pro'ved also that uni- 

 versal suffrage is the sure guaranty and most pow- 

 erful stimulus of individual, social, and political pro- 

 gress. May it not prove, moreover, in that work of 

 reorganization which now engages the thoughts of 

 all patriotic men, the best reconciler of the most 





