490 



LOUISIANA. 



a sacred duty to the people of this State to solemnly 

 protest against the decision of the board, as revolu- 

 tionary in effect, if not in its design, of overturning 

 the legally-elected Legislature of the people, by sur- 

 rendering to a partisan minority of persons noted 

 for the power of deciding who shall compose the 

 majority in filling the complement required by law. 

 The responsibility for such a step, striking at the 

 root of our form of government, as it does, is a 

 grave one, and such usurpation has always reacted 

 in a terrible manner wherever it has been adopted in 

 America, and this committee trusts that its gravity 

 has been well weighed by your body, as it alone must 

 bear it, as this committee can share no part of the 

 burden by either continuing its connection with your 

 body or lending a seeming acquiescence by its con- 

 tinued presence. 



Having exhausted by this final protest the last 

 means of resistance to this revolutionary decision, 

 this committee now retires, leaving the responsi- 

 bility where it belongs, to complete its duty by sur- 

 rendering its trust to the constituency whom it rep- 

 resents, and placing before the people of the State 

 and the Union in its proper light the action of the 

 board and this committee, for them to pass on, as 

 a political court of last resort, to judge the cause 

 of Louisiana and decide the question and decree the 

 consequence thereof. F. C. ZAGHAEIE, 



W. E. WHITAKEK, 

 C. CAVANAC. 



On the day before the filing of the above 

 protest, the Committee of Seventy published 

 an address to the people of the United States, 

 in which the Returning Board was charged 

 with having counted out candidates legally 

 elected. " The fact of the Conservatives hav- 

 ing carried the election," says the address, 

 " has been well known ever since the 5th of 

 November, because the ballots were counted at 

 the polls immediately, and returns made out in 

 duplicate. Yet even now, seven weeks after 

 the election, we are imminently threatened 

 with being defrauded of our victory and our 

 franchise by election returns submitted to a 

 board of returning officers, consisting of five 

 members, four of whom are identified with 

 and committed to the usurping government. 

 These men, aside from their party, have not 

 sustained such a character before this commu- 

 nity as to inspire us with confidence in their 

 integrity or impartiality, or to give any hope 

 that they will fairly and honestly compile and 

 promulgate the returns. They have already 

 evinced a determination to d-efraud the peo- 

 ple and to defeat their will as expressed at the 

 ballot-box. In the case of the parish of De 

 Soto, Conservative by over 1,000 majority, 

 the Radical election officer of the State re- 

 turns placed them in the hands of a woman 

 of the town, who offered to give them up for 

 $1,000, and he left the State. The returning 

 officer refused to take any steps to recover 

 these papers. The attorneys representing the 

 Conservatives sent to De Soto and brought 

 down and presented duplicates of the original 

 returnrs, of equal value, which had been filed 

 with the clerk of the District Court for the 

 parish, in pursuance of the law. These they 

 refused to receive and consider, although in 

 Radical parishes they had" acted on secondary 

 evidence. This is but one case of many such. 



Application was made by the candidate for a 

 mandamus to compel them to receive and 

 compile these duplicate original returns from 

 De Soto, to the only court competent under 

 the existing law to grant a writ." In the ad- 

 dress, it was claimed that the Conservatives 

 had carried the State by at least 3,500 majori- 

 ty, and had elected a majority of 28 in the 

 House of Representatives, and a majority on 

 joint ballot in both Houses. After alleging in- 

 stances of illegal action on the part of the Re- 

 turning Board, the address concludes as fol- 

 lows: 



NEW ORLEANS, December 22, 1874. 



During the session of this board, we have seen 

 the clerk accusing a member of frauds on election 

 returns, and the member in return accusing the 

 clerk ; we have seen documents on the Democratic 

 side stealthily abstracted, and the Eepublican cross- 

 marked affidavit stealthily secured and acted on, the 

 election returns themselves altered and forged in 

 the interests of Eadicals weeks after the election. 

 There is no redress, because those to whom alone 

 application can be made are but creatures of usur- 

 pation whose existence depends upon the continua- 

 tion of Kadical rule in defiance of the expressed will 

 of the people. These returning officers have been 

 now for seven weeks dallying with the liberties and 

 rights of the people of an entire State, apparently 

 waiting until an opportunity is offered for them to 

 consummate their villainy by promulgating a Badi- 

 cal majority as elected to the Legislature. They 

 hope to do this with impunity, because the State- 

 House, where they sit, is garrisoned with Kellogg's 

 standing army of Metropolitan Police, with several 

 companies of the army of the United States within 

 fifty yards, the whole force of the army and navy 

 within call of Kellogg's whistle, sleeping on their 

 arms, with cartridges distributed. 



In this manner are we threatened with another 

 mongrel herd of rapacious plunderers, ignorant and 

 debauched, claiming to be Eepublicans, elected by 

 Eadical returning officers, and installed in the Legis- 

 lature by the potential force of the army and navy 

 of the United States, as was done in 1872. To such 

 base uses are your soldiers put. That our people 

 are disposed to violence, and that the rights of the 

 black man would not be safe if the Conservative 

 majority in Louisiana was permitted to rule, as stated 

 by our" enemies and by the President in his mes- 

 sage, we know to be disproved by the fact that 

 during the four days during which the elected gov- 

 ernment was in undisputed power, with a large force 

 at its command, not a negro was hurt, not an act of 

 violence committed, and, notwithstanding great 

 previous provocation, not a right of any citizen vio- 

 lated. 



Having failed in all our appeals to the justice and 

 patriotism of the President and Congress, we now, 

 as a last resort, appeal to the source of all power, the 

 people of the whole country, whose moral influence 

 we invoke, in the hope of awakening that sympathy 

 with our wrongs and sufferings always accorded to a 

 brave and free people struggling for liberty. In the 

 confidence that a virtuous public sentiment may 

 compel unprincipled men who are preying on the 

 vitals of the State to let go their hold, we hope it 

 may react upon the Executive and Congress,_ and 

 compel them to grant us that relief which neither 

 their sense of justice nor regard for the fundamental 

 institutions of the country has been able to effect. 

 We make this appeal in advance of the final con- 

 summation of a great wrong about being perpetrated 

 upon the people, as we are positively assured of 

 the intention of the returning officers to defraud tho 

 people of the fruits of their political victory as if 

 the act had been already consummated. We are not 



