Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 January 1879 — A Warning to the Sonth. [ARTICLE]

A Warning to the Sonth.

The documents relating to the outrages in Louisiana during the recent campaign, which will be submitted to Congress by the President, tell a story of cruelty, torture and death inflicted upon Republican negroes which for fiendish partisan malice rival the worst scenes of cruelty that characterized the days when the negroes were chattels, subject to the horrors of the lash, the branding-iron and the bloodhound. These documents will show .that, because the Republicans in Tensas Parish insisted upon holding a Congressional Convention, armed gangs of ruffians rode through the parish, and, under pretense of fearing a negro insurrection, shot down defenseless men right and left, drove away many others, and produced such a state of terrorism and demoralization that the few negroes who did vote voted the Democratic ticket. They will show that in West Feliciana Parish prominent negro politicians were tied to trees and whipped to make them drop politics; and that gangs of armed men appeared at thg jmjlls and compelled the negroes to* vote the Democratic ticket; and that near Shreveport and in Borsier Parish hundreds of negroes were killed or run off; and that when fiegro voters appeared at the polls they were driven on with clubs and guns. It will be shown upon the affidavit of Deputy-Marshal Shearman that Judge Ludeling, candidate, would have losthis life but for the vigilant protection of his friends ;th at numerous murders were commit ted in Monroe, and that his own life was repeatedly threatened while he was making the vain attempt to secure fitnesses, so that the guilty -parties might be prosecuted. It will be shown upon the affidavit of U. S. Dist.-Atty. Leonard that in Caddo Parish the Democrats took forcible possession of the polls, drove away Republicans, killed seventy-five negroes, and drove great numbers from their homes; that in Natchitoches Parish all the leading Republicans were driven off; that in numerous other parishes a Democratic majority was secured by the same means; and that in New Orleans fraud was substituted for violence. The aggregate of testimony will show that such a condition of terrorism existed all over the State, brought about by whippings, hangings, threats and murders, that neither whites nor negroes dared to vote the Republican "iwSSf.’ These horrible outrages were perpetrated by the White League of bulldozers, reinforced, where it was necessary, by ruffians from Arkansas and Mississippi, during the campaign and on election day, and since that time this same League has been engaged in thwarting the efforts of the United States authorities to institute an investigation. The officers who were hunting the witnesses have been driven off, several of the witnesses have been hurried off out of sight, and two of them, White and Clark, on their way to New Orleans to testify, under subpoena of the United States Court, were murdered in the most brutal and cowardly manner.

It is a cheering indication of a growIng unfinaffilty in Northern' stmtftnent that some of the Democratic papers are no longer disposed to gloss over and palliate these outrages for the sake of partisan advantages. Among these papers, the Peoria Democrat, which cannot be convicted of ever having had any sympathy for Republicanism, indignantly denounces these outrages, especially the murder of witnesses, and says: The sooner Blaine and his whole committee, and the Federal Army, too, get after the perpetrators, the better for the peace of the country. If these Southern devils think that the Northern Democracy are going to back them up in all and any sort of diabolism they may perpetrate, they are very mnch mistaken. They have cursed the Northern Democracy long enough and often enough by their inhumsu barbarism; and, if they want any further support from Northern Democrats, they must act like civilized white men, and not like demoniac' savages. The country has bad exactly enough of that sort of conduct, and no more will be tolerated. Let us hear no more about the bloody shirt or Southern outrages in a single Northern Democratic paper. These Southern devils have made their bed; let ■ them 1 lie ia fbswjww— ■ Many more Democrats are feeling and expressing their indignation in a strain similar to the above. However much the arraying of one section against the other is to be deprecated, it is°as inevitable as fate that if the parties guilty of these inhuman, outrages and wanton violations of law are «ot promptly punished, and that if the South does not furnish satisfactory assurances that they shall not occur again, a Solid North will be

arrayed against the Solid South as compactly as it was in the War of the Rebellion, and that it will continue solid until these savages are stamped out and the rights of every man in the South are secured. The North will demand something more than the mere promises of men like GoV. Nicholls that the people of hie State shall have protection in all their rights. Having broken his pledges, they will not again trust him. He was cognizant of the infamous work of the White League, but paid no attention to the report* that were continually brought to him. So far from investigating or punishing the authors of these outrages, he has shown no disposition to aid the officers of the United States Courts in their efforts to bring them to justice. If he had kept his promises, if he had performed his duty promptly and fearlessly, these horrible events would never hafe occurred. *lt waswithihhis knowledge that these White League bands were organized, and be knew full well from past experiences what their purposes were. Instead of speaking the word that might have dispersed them,-he was silent. No remonstrance came from him when day after day the tidings came of intimidation, violence and murder. And now, when the election is over and these outrages haye ceased because there is no further occasion for them, the State having been made solidly Democratic, this violator of his pledges to the President, made upon condition of the withdrawal of the troops, lifts not a finger to aid in the prosecution of the wretches, but sits calmly by while witnesses summoned under the subpoenas of the Courts are kidnaped and murdered, and not a word of remonstrance comes from him. If this horrible state of things is to continue, if there is to be no enforcement of the law in Louisiana, if the Governor of that- State, either from partisan malignity or from cowardice, refuses to protect the Republicans in their rights, then the troops might as well be placed back there again and assert the Government’s authority. We can assure the South that the North is rapidly coming to that conviction, and that it need not be surprised to see Democrats as well as Republicans arrayed against it, and demanding in a manner it will not fail to understand that these savages be restrained and punished.— Chicago Tribune.