484: 



LOUISIANA. 



to registry were refused arbitrarily, while the colored 

 people were furnished registration papers on which, 

 in many instances, they could vote in different wards, 

 and colored crews of steamboats transiently visiting 

 this port were permitted to swell the number of 

 voters. To test the power of supervisors to refuse 

 registration arbitrarily, a citizen clearly entitled, who 

 had been refused, applied to Judge Hawkins, of the 

 Superior District Court, the only court having juris- 

 diction to grant such writs, for a mandamus to en- 

 force his right. The writ was refused upon the 

 ground that the courts are specially prohibited by 

 the registration act from interfering. Thus, the peo- 



Ele of Louisiana are left without the hope or possi- 

 ility of a fair registration or a fair election. 



The origin and object of the White League 

 were thus given by the committee : 



And here it is important to say a word about a 

 body known as the "White League," and which has 

 been misrepresented abroad. It will be remembered 

 that the white militia of .New Orleans had been dis- 

 banded, their arms taken from them, and an exclu- 

 sive negro militia organized in their stead. By an 

 infamous by-law, the Metropolitan Police, for whose 

 support an enormous tax is levied upon the city ex- 

 clusively, had been taken from under the control of 

 the mayor and made subject to the orders of .the 

 Governor alone. This body was used to intimidate 

 and overawe the citizens, to guard the residences and 

 persons of timorous officials, and to dragoon the 

 parishes whenever any political scheme required it. 

 The white people of the State that is stripped of 

 every means ot defense, were threatened moreover 

 by a formidable oath-bound league of the blacks, 

 which, under the command of cunning and unscru- 

 pulous negroes, might at any moment plunge them 

 into what they were most anxious to avoid, " a war 

 of races." The incessant demand for offices from 

 the city, State, and General Governments, for which 

 they proffered no other title than that of color ; the 

 development in their conventions of a spirit of pro- 

 scription against white radicals, and even against 

 honorable Republicans who had fought for their 

 liberation ; their increasing arrogance, which knew 

 no bounds ; their increasing dishonesty, which they 

 regarded as a statesman-like virtue ; that contemptu- 

 ous scorn of all the rights of the white man, which 

 they dared trespass upon all these signs, as set 

 forth in the platform of the Crescent City "White 

 League, warned us that the calamity we had long 

 apprehended was imminent, and that we must 

 either prepare for or perish under it. With the 

 hope, then, as distinctly and openly declared, that a 

 timely and proclaimed union of the whites as a 

 race and their preparation for any emergency might 

 arrest the threatened horrors of a social war, the 

 White 'League was formedj its object being, as 

 publicly set forth, to assist in restoring an honest 

 and intelligent government to the State of Louis- 

 iana, and by a union with all other good citizens to 

 maintain and defend the condition of the United 

 States and the State, and to maintain and protect 

 our rights and the rights of all citizens. 



The immediate causes that promoted the 

 revolution of the 14th were stated in the fol- 

 lowing terms : 



Satisfied of the impossibility of securing a fair 

 registration and election, and that it was the settled 

 purpose of the 'usurper to deprive the white people 

 of the State of Louisiana of the right to carry arms, 

 a right secured to them by the Constitution of the 

 Uni.ted States, arid in the existing state of affairs in- 

 dispensable to their personal protection, a mass- 

 meeting of the citizens of New Orleans was called 

 to assmble on the morning of September 14th. At 

 that meeting the largest in numbers and most re- 

 spectable in character ever collected in the streets 



of New Orleans resolutions setting forth the re- 

 mediless wrongs under which we suffered were adopt- 

 ed, and a committee of citizens was appointed to 

 wait on William Pitt Kellogg and demand his abdi- 

 cation. At twelve and a half p. M., the committee 

 waited upon Mr. Kellogg at the State-House, which 

 had already been converted by him into an armed 

 camp. Kellogg, however, had fled to the Custom- 

 House, which he did not again leave until reinstated 

 in the State-House by the Federal bayonets, and 

 from the Custom-House returned answer, through a 

 member of his staff, refusing to receive or treat 

 with the committee. The committee so reported. 

 Instantly as one man the citizens rose. In the 

 streets and in private stores arms had been seized in 

 open day by the police, and forcibly taken posses- 

 sion of and retained. The owner of a portion of the 

 arms so seized had applied to a competent j udicial 

 tribunal, and obtained an order for their release. 

 This order was disobeyed by the police authorities, 

 and when the court attempted to vindicate its own 

 dignity and the majesty ot law by fine and impris- 

 onment for contempt, W. P. Kellogg interfered and 

 pardoned the offenders, who were immediately re- 

 leased. At the moment of the popular uprising a 

 steamship lay opposite the Third Precinct Police 

 Station, having on board arms and ammunition con- 

 signed to private individuals. A large squad of 

 Metropolitan Police, with loaded guns and cannon 

 pointed, prevented all access to the steamer, and the 

 removal of the arms by those to whom they law- 

 fully belonged ; and the citizens rallying on the 

 League, the only organized body, moved down to 

 the levee to take possession of the property which 

 was theirs by right of purchase. At the head of 

 Canal Street, the Metropolitan Brigade, commanded 

 by General Longstreet in person, intercepted and 

 attacked. The battle thus forced upon the citizens 

 was joined, and in a brief half-hour this praetorian 

 band, so long a menace and a terror, was swept 

 away, and the defeated remnants of the Kellogg 

 usurpations, cowering fugitives from the government 

 they had abandoned, were refugees in the Custom- 

 House. Sheltered beneath the folds of the Ameri- 

 con flag, there they were suffered to remain unmo- 

 lested. What followed has passed into history, and 

 is matter of familiar knowledge. The lawful gov- 

 ernment of the people's choice, amid universal re- 

 joicings, entered without opposition upon the dis- 

 charge of its legitimate functions. Joy sat in every 

 heart and illumined every countenance. A new era 

 of confidence, peace, and prosperity, seemed to have 

 dawned upon us. The wretchedness of the past 

 was forgotten in the bright and cheering anticipa- 

 tions of the future. But this short-lived triumph 

 was abruptly closed before the proclamation of the 

 President. It bowed its head, and at the mandate 

 of his general we laid down our arms, retired from 

 the offices we had taken possession of and to which 

 we were lawfully entitled, gave up the captured ar- 

 senals and stores, and so proved, as we had ever 

 asserted, our unquestioning obedience to the Gen- 

 eral Government, 



This appeal by the Conservatives was fol- 

 lowed on the 30th of September by Governor 

 Kellogg's address to the people of the United 

 States, in which he aims to refute the charges 

 made by his opponents to the effect that his 

 administration had been corrupt and oppres- 

 sive and that a majority of the legal votes in 

 1872 were cast in favor of McEnery. Kefer- 

 ring to the character of the opposition to his 

 administration, the Governor says : 



Close observers of Southern politics have long 

 been aware of a determination to overthrow Eepub- 

 lican rule in Louisiana, strongly Eepublican as this 

 State is known to be, and from the vantage-point 



