476 



LOUISIANA. 



sion of the Legislature), and which we feel confident 

 he will repeat in favor of any party with which he 

 may act and we believe it will oe the sole object of 

 any party combining with him to obtain this service 

 from him will be the extension of the act of Con- 

 gress of the 28th of February, 1871, so as to em- 

 brace all the parishes in this State ; and we earnestly 

 recommend Congress to so amend this act as to ena- 

 ble the people ot this State, as citizens of the United 

 States, fully and freely, and without restraint, to ex- 

 press their sentiments at the ballot-box^ 



On the evening of the second day Lieuten- 

 ant-Governor Pinchback visited the conven- 

 tion by invitation and made a speech, in which 

 he urged a reconciliation of the hostile sec- 

 tions of the party. He intimated that there 

 was already an estrangement between his own 

 adherents and those of Governor Warmoth, 

 and said that there were now "three elements 

 of the Republican party the custom-house 

 element, the Pinchback element, and Governor 

 Warmoth." Two months ago, he had assured 

 them that if they did not keep Warmoth, the 

 Democrats would take him ; but his custom- 

 house friends had ridiculed the idea. It was 

 now apparent to all. His opinion of the 

 Democrats was then, and is now, that they 

 will " support the devil to get possession of 

 the State." 



A meeting of citizens had been held in New 

 Orleans in the early part of April, at which 

 an association was formed for the resistance 

 of excessive taxation. A second meeting was 

 held on the 6th of May, at which resolutions 

 were adopted, condemning the recklessness and 

 extravagannce of the State government, and 

 declaring the purpose of the association to be 

 " to resist by legal means the present exorbi- 

 tant, illegal, and unconstitutional taxes now 

 attempted to be extorted from us as citizens 

 of the State and city." The preamble to the 

 resolutions contained the following declara- 

 tions : 



The taxes paid are not disbursed in the general 

 interests with economy, or a view to their diminu- 

 tion, but seem to be considered as a species of plun- 

 der, to be managed in the interests of the distribu- 

 tors as against the contributors. This being espe- 

 cially the case in the instance of the large sum an- 

 nually wasted upon the military body known as the 

 metropolitan police, as well as the immense amounts 

 thrown away upon persons pretending to hold office 

 as park, police, levee, and drainage commissioners, 

 assessors, tax-collectors, inspectors, registrars or 

 permanent committee-men, with numerous sinecur- 

 ists, pluralists, and handy men generally, expensive, 

 useless, and dangerous vampires, corrupted and cor- 

 rupting. * * * Not only a pretended Legisla- 

 ture, very many of whose members were the creat- 

 ures of the most corrupt practices of ballot-box 

 stuffing, quadrupled registration, and voting by re- 

 peaters, and false counting of votes, have imposed 

 upon us their conception of taxes, but they have 



their body by notorious bribery, thus vitiating, <* 

 we believe, all powers they might have ever had to 

 pass tax-bills, or make money requisitions upon or 

 bargains binding the people, and earning for them- 

 selves the infamous notoriety of being, according to 

 the language of the Governor, who ought to know 

 them, the most disgraceful Legislature ever assem- 

 bled in Louisiana. And further, seeing that such a 

 pretended Legislature, on its own motion, and affect- 



ing to empower and appoint a "non-representative 

 body calling itself the city administration, has there- 

 by, through assessors who have an unlawful private 

 interest in exaggerating, put an additional percent- 

 age on a pretended assessment, which it is endeav- 

 ored to raise to $300,000,000, that will make next year 

 confiscations on State account alone to over $7,000,- 

 000, and by multiplying assessments, as has been 

 done beyond all reasonable and former bounds, it 

 sought to extort from an impoverished people an an- 

 nual taxation, upon these simulated assessments, of 

 nearly 5 per cent. The exact figures being 2? per 

 cent, for the city and 2i per cent, for the State, and 

 further existing impositions, large as they are, do not 

 form our only anxiety. They have for the past few 

 years increased with such unexampled rapidity as to 

 startle the most stolid and apathetic man, and arouse 

 to positive resistance the most worthy and law-abid- 

 ing citizens, for it is well known that still greater 

 burdens are being prepared for us. 



Bad goes before, but worse remains behind. We 

 are informed by James Graham, Auditor, that the 

 legislative appropriations for 1872 will demand an 

 increase of eight mills on the dollar, in addition to 

 the enormous amount now wrung from the tax-pay- 

 ers of the State, being 2 and 5 per cent, on an assess- 

 ment of $250,000,000, reaching the incredible sum 

 of nearly $6,000,000, gone for nothing. 



Among the resolutions adopted were the 

 following : 



Resolved, That in the mean time we will pay no 

 more taxes to State or city, being supported in this 

 view by the opinion of able counsel, learned in law ; 

 but will, through our association, invoke the protec- 

 tion of the courts of the State and of the United 

 States, to test our right of resistance to exorbitant 

 and confiscating taxation imposed by a pretended 

 Legislature, self-nominated, corruptly bought and 

 Bold by written contract, and sitting in defiance and 

 contravention of the constitution of 1868, which de- 

 clares that a representative basis shall be established 

 and the representation distributed in accordance 

 therewith, as well as our right to resist exorbitant 

 taxation imposed by an appointed non-representative 

 body of persons styling themselves the Mayor and 

 administrators of the city of New Orleans. 



The wing of the Republican party headed 

 by Pinchback held a convention in the Me- 

 chanics' Institute, in New Orleans, on the 28th 

 of May, for the nominal purpose of appointing 

 delegates to the National Convention, and 

 nominating candidates for State offices. After 

 two days spent in discussion, the convention 

 adjourned to irieet at Baton Rouge on the 19th 

 of June, but not until the following resolutions 

 had been adopted : 



Resolved, That we declare the Kepublican party of 

 Louisiana in full sympathy with the National Ke- 

 publican party ; that we indorse^ the platform of 

 principles as laid down by the Chicago Convention. 



Resolved, That we pledge ourselves and our party 

 to the faithful execution of the constitutional and 

 statutory provisions for the public education of all 

 the children without distinction. 



Resolved, That we insist upon the enforcement of 

 the constitutional and legal guarantees of the civil 

 and political rights of all men, without distinction 

 of race, color, or previous condition. 



Resolved, That a long train of evils must necessa- 

 rily result from the effort being made by the Demo- 

 cratic party to obtain control of our State govern- 

 ment, through dissensions in the Eepublican party. 

 Among them we may mention the repeal of the civil 

 rights law, the establishment of qualified suffrage, 

 the destruction of our common-school system, re- 

 pudiation of the State debt, and subjection of the 



