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LOUISIANA
Harper's Weekly, August 22, 1868, page 531 (Editorial)
What the rebel element of the population in Louisiana is capable of doing the New Orleans massacre proved. That it would gladly secure its supremacy by the most ruthless and bloody means is beyond doubt; nor can there be any question that the situation of the State is very critical. The only comment which the Democratic newspapers think fit to make upon the anarchy produced by men of whom the late Mayor Monroe is a representative, is a sneering ejaculation of "carpet-baggers;" that is to say, there would be no trouble if Monroe & Co. could have their way. What their way is was displayed in the massacre.

Governor Warmouth, of Louisiana, has made an official requisition upon the President for a military force with which to preserve order in the State. He forwards letters from various officers and citizens describing the disorder that prevails. Men are shot down in the streets and at their homes, and no efforts are made to bring the criminals to justice. One of the Judges refuses to go into a certain parish without soldiers to protect him, and the Sheriff of the same parish has resigned, owning his inability to arrest offenders. In another parish men, women, and children are murdered by bands of assassins who remain unmolested. In another, the peace is preserved only by armed bodies of volunteer citizens. The Governor estimates that a hundred and fifty persons have been murdered in the State during the last month and a half; that a secret organization, hostile to the colored population, has been formed with the intention of coercing the colored vote; that it was its known intention to assassinate, under certain circumstances, the Lieutenant-Governor and the Speaker of the House; and that it unquestionably meditates a bloody revolution.

The facts of the recent history of the State, and the probabilities of the case, all confirm the Governor’s representations, and the duty of the President is plain. He must take every means to preserve order in Louisiana. Nor can he plead, as at the time of the New Orleans massacre, that he does not understand the facts, and has not been warned in time. He has heard Wade Hampton, at a public meeting, recommending the coercion of the colored vote in South Carolina, and he know, as every body else know, what that means. Louisiana will gladly follow Wade Hampton’s counsel.

Meanwhile it is useful to remember that it is to the class against whose crimes upon loyal citizens Governor Warmouth invokes aid of the President that the Democratic party proposes to give exclusive political power in the State, and intrust the rights and the welfare of the orderly and patriotic population.

Harper's Weekly, August 22, 1868, page 531 (Editorial)
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