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Significance of the Year
1876.
The year 1876 in the annals
of Louisiana is one fraught with unusual significance. It is the year that
marks the end of alien control of the state's political destinies. It is
the year that marks the beginning of the period in which the state's best
citizens reassumed their political heritage. To understand its importance
one has but to review the events of the ten years preceding this date.
The armies of the North had
come and gone but the followers and hangers-on that flock like wolves and
vultures in the rear of advancing hosts remained behind to inflict the
curse of the carpet-bagger upon the land. The disfranchisement of the
native whites under the reconstruction constitution of 1868 and the
elevation of the ignorant, easily manipulated, freedom-mad blacks to
sudden citizenship gave political control to imported plunderers whose
creed was greed, whose highest gratification was extortion and whose
exultation was that of the thug and blackmailer, their hands being at the
throat of a sovereign state and their victim being a time-honored
commonwealth.
The Curse of Carpet-Baggery.
What Louisiana suffered at
the hands of these corruptionists may be in part indicated by the
following figures: In one year (1871) the legislative expenses for a short
session were $626,000 or $6,150 for each member of the legislature. In
four and a half years (1868-1872) the expenditures of the government
amounted to $26,394,578 and in two years (1868-1870) the bonded debt of
the state was increased from six to twenty-five million dollars. The total
cost of carpet-bag misrule has been estimated at more than $106,000,000.
The provisions of the
constitution of 1868 reeked with insult and injury to a people unusually
high-tensioned with the pride of race. All who participated in the civil
and military service of the late Confederate States of America were
peremptorily disfranchised or forced to make most humiliating pledges and
admissions. To accept office one had to swear specifically and formally to
accept the civil and political equality of all men. All schools
established exclusively for any one race were expressly prohibited.
Crushed by their late
defeat, the best people of Louisiana could interpose little organized
opposition even after the removal in part of their political disabilities.
Appeals to the ballot box counted as naught. For them the right to vote
was hedged about by discouraging and arbitrary conditions. Ballots cast
were nullified by Returning Boards made up of partisan and unprincipled
characters. For the natural guardians of the state's welfare there were
few of the fruits of political victory, for when they endeavored to
install their legally and duly elected state officers, usurpers backed by
Federal bayonets barred the way.
The Wresting of the State
from Alien Control. How then did the state come into its own and its
citizens reestablish self-government? The answer to this question calls
for the examination of three salient factors. The first of these was
military and included the clash of battle; the second was political and it
touches to this day the conscience of the nation at large at a most
sensitive spot; the third was personal and before the personality of the
leaders brought to the front during a time that applied supreme tests to
courageous manhood, we stand, uncovered, in reverence and admiration.
Let us consider the first
factor. When under the so-called Kellogg régime taxation became
confiscation; when the New Orleans police force became a state military
constabulary, responsible only to the governor himself; when rights and
liberties guaranteed by the Federal constitution were outraged by
unspeakable insolence entrenched in office, there came a time when men
with red blood could no longer submit.
One fair day the people of
New Orleans were called upon to assemble in mass meeting at the foot of
the historic Henry Clay monument in Canal street. What was done on that
occasion is known to all. Earnest and eloquent speakers addressed the
assembly: grim determination steeled the hearts of the listeners.
Immediately there was an arming of the citizens, a forming of companies,
an uprising, not of an uncontrollable mob, but of free men whose part in
the re-establishment of free government in Louisiana was as heroically
played as was that of any Revolutionary patriot when this right to free
government was first won. A battle took place at the head of Canal street
between citizen commands and the "Metropolitan Police," the latter
equipped with Gatling guns. Gen. Fred Ogden led the citizens. Gen. James
Longstreet, who had become a Republican, commanded the Metropolitans. For
the first time in his life, the Confederate general once so honored by his
countrymen heard the old rebel yell given forth by forces opposed to him.
The result of the battle was that the hirelings were scattered in every
direction, fleeing to every conceivable place of concealment. Eleven of
the citizens were slain, many wounded. No more sacred a spot in New
Orleans, a city famous for its historic memories can be pointed out than
Liberty Place where these martyrs fell and no more memorable a day can be
found in the calendar of Louisiana's history than Sept. 14, 1874.
In twenty-four hours the
usurping, self-elected government was swept away soon to be reinstated by
Federal military authority. But the cause for which blood was shed was not
lost. Great indeed must be the provocation to cause such uprising and such
risk of life. The attention of other states was thus attracted to their
suffering sister. Public sentiment all over the country expressed itself
against arbitrarily directed Federal military interference in local
governmental affairs. When the next contest of ballots two years
thereafter took place, Federal bayonets were withheld and with the
withholding there was sounded the death of carpet-baggery and alien
misgovernment was at an end.
The Election of 1876.
It is doubtful, however,
that the election of 1876 would have resulted in the restoration of
democratic rule had not the outcome of the presidential campaign of that
year depended so largely upon the result in Louisiana as one of the three
states whose vote in the Electoral College became a subject of partisan
excitement and heated dispute.
It is not intended to
reflect upon honest and earnest men who to-day intelligently and
conscientiously embrace the principles of the Republican party. But the
Republican party of that day as organized in Louisiana was about as
unsavory and condemnable a conglomeration as it is possible to conceive.
This party nominated in a perfunctory manner for governor to succeed
Kellogg, Stephen B. Packard, a Federal appointee and officeholder. It
depended for success mainly upon a notoriously constituted Returning Board
to counteract any possible defeat at the polls. The Democratic party
nominated Francis T. Nicholls, ex-Confederate brigadier-general of
Stonewall Jackson's legions. One-armed and one-legged he stumped the state
inspiring courage and awakening enthusiasm. Both contestants claimed the
election; both were inaugurated. And here the personality of General
Nicholls figures. The grim warrior declared with iron-jawed firmness that
he had been elected governor and by the eternal he would be seated as
governor of Louisiana.
The legislature formed
itself into two bodies one of which recognized Nicholls and the other
Packard as having been duly elected. Neither body could boast of a quorum
with which to do business. Finally three state senators and three members
of the lower legislative house were won over from the Republican to the
Democratic body thus completing a quorum. The Republicans made frantic
appeals to the Federal government for the aid so readily bestowed in
former years. But just then the threat of national conflict hung heavy
over the National capital and the politicians had their attention focused
upon the Tilden-Hayes political imbroglio. Peace was demanded at any
price. The Electoral Commission was instituted and what followed is a
matter of history. The electoral vote of Louisiana was accredited to the
Republican candidate for President, but by tacit agreement and in order
that a decision favorable to Hayes might not be jeopardized by any further
investigation and stirring up of Louisiana's local political muddle, it
was decided to let well enough alone and permit the people of Louisiana to
determine for themselves as to which of the two governments should stand.
The state officers elected upon the same ticket as the Tilden electors
rejected by the Federal Commission, were quieted in the possession of
their offices. Packard was mollified by the lucrative post of United
States consul-general to Liverpool.
The Constitution of 1879.
With the installation of a
Democratic state administration came the thought of a new state
constitution. When a sovereign state changes its organic law the student
of political science may read between the lines a record of conditions
which have made the change necessary. Comparing successive constitutions
when change has been comparatively frequent, as is the case with
Louisiana, one may almost construct the political history of the state
itself.
Thus in the constitution of
1879 which displaced that of 1868 it is stipulated emphatically that the
military shall be subordinate to the civil power: that the executive,
legislative, and judiciary powers of government shall be kept separated:
that each law enacted must have but one object clearly stated in the
title: and that to be eligible as members of the legislature one must have
resided in the state at least five years.
These provisions were
evidently intended as corrective. Military power had repeatedly usurped
the civil; functions of government that according to the American idea
should be differentiated in their control and exercise had been so blended
and concentrated in the hands of individuals that Louisiana had become a
veritable paradise for Poo Bah's; laws had been passed apparently meaning
one thing only to be interpreted as covering something entirely different;
the limit of residential eligibility had been fixed at one year simply to
defer to the needs and desires of the carpet-bagger.
One may also see in the
constitution of 1879 that an intense and deep-seated distrust of
legislative action had arisen in the popular mind as a result of the
people's experience with the nondescript and irresponsible legislative
bodies under the preceding constitution. Its drastic provisions
prohibiting the passing of any local or special law covering twenty-one
carefully enumerated subjects; its cut of salaries of state officers, in
some cases to less than one-half; and its fixing the maximum limit of
taxation at six mills for the state and ten mills for the parish or county
were reminders of the past.
To conserve the rights of
property and the liberty of individuals and to serve more effectively
check to improper legislative action, an elaborate judiciary system was
provided consisting of a Supreme Court of five justices; five Circuit
Courts of Appeal each presided over by two judges; District Courts at
least twenty in number and thirty when deemed necessary; and local
justices of the peace.
The Problem of White
Supremacy.
The coming into power of a
Democratic state administration did not of itself assure a continuance of
white supremacy. The cloud of black domination was to hang threateningly
over the heads of the people for a number of years yet to come. The negro
vote in many parishes (counties) outnumbered the white, the proportion
being in some cases approximately ten to one. If, therefore, local
self-government in accord with genuine Democratic principles was permitted
to prevail, communities would suffer and be misgoverned no matter how
excellent was the state administration.
Two forces were brought
into play to meet this contingency. The first of these was to lodge in the
hands of the state's Chief Executive an inordinate appointive power. The
governor named all local and state officials whose election by political
suffrage was not specifically enjoined by the constitution. He appointed
the members of the police jury of every parish, a body of select men upon
whom devolved the levying of local taxes and the enacting of laws and
ordinances affecting parish affairs and interests. The governor also
appointed all school boards in the rural portions of the state, many of
the judiciary, all executive boards, all boards of trustees of the many
state institutions, and all registrars whose function was to pass upon and
record the eligibility of voters. In time the wisdom of continuing this
appointive system was to occasion much bitter political controversy, when
as was charged, the application of the system was directed not so much to
the state's welfare as to factional and partisan advantage.
The second of these
counteracting forces was the persistent and effective discouragement of
the black voter from taking any part in elections. The South had not yet
solved the problem of disfranchising the illiterate ignorant negro by
organic law non-violative of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to
the Federal constitution. Until such solution was presented, other means
were resorted to, — intimidation, subtle suggestion, persuasion, call it
what one will. With the saturnalia of reconstruction days then fresh in
mind, the end was held to justify the means. The negro either kept away
from the polls on election day or complacently voted the Democratic ticket
under the eyes of those whose good opinion at that particular time was of
prime importance to him.
An Era of Factionalism.
In one sense, however, the
result did not make for civic virtue or the public good. Louisiana became
a one-party state, and factional issue took the place of partisanship.
When the dominant party split, the negro vote of the state would be used
as a club by one faction to beat the other into subjection or as threat of
dire and possible consequences if the people did not rally to the support
of those who arrogated to themselves the right and ability to save the
state from a return to negro domination. Nominations to state offices was
made by caucus and conventions. Representation in the councils and
nominating conventions of the one political party in control were based
upon population so that a handful of white voters in one of the black-belt
parishes called for more as a determinating factor in the political
affairs of the state than ten times their number in the so-called "White
Parishes." Friction and discord were the results, and in the face of
growing apathy of the people at large and of factional differences that
repeatedly spelt possible disaster, a new Republican party arose composed
of sugar planters and other men of substance commanding a certain meed of
respect for their character and personality.
Despite the incubus of
odium that must ever be associated with the name Republican in Louisiana,
this newly constructed Republican party came so near to success in the
election of 1896 that alarm was sounded. The demand went up for a return
to true democratic principle. The governor must be shorn of much of his
appointive power; the people must be given more voice in local and
political affairs. Ballot reform must obtain. Elections must henceforth be
fair.
The Constitution of 1898.
To achieve all this the
negro as a voter must be eliminated. Mississippi had by this time pointed
the way to successful elimination and one by one the other Southern states
were patterning after her example. A constitutional convention was called
for Louisiana and a new constitution — that of 1898 under which the state
is now governed — was the result. While not all that Louisiana's most
enlightened citizens might desire, as is evident by the number of
amendments that have been voted on since its adoption, yet it marks a
decided advance towards democracy, embodies many reforms and has removed
the negro from the field of politics, giving the white people freer reign
to grapple with newer and more vital problems.
The Louisiana Lottery.
Turn we now from the
political to the moral progress of Louisiana and here we encounter a
record in which any state may well take pride. The Latin races from which
so large a proportion of the population of the state was originally drawn
are preeminently prone to games of chance. Lotteries, raffles, wheels of
fortune and other gambling devices appeal more strongly to them than to
the more Northern and phlegmatic races and they have been the last to
arrive — if arrive they have — at an understanding of the demoralization
and immorality of risking and venturing upon the hazard of some throw and
of idly hoping to win as gift from Fortune the bounty that should come of
steady and sustained effort.
In 1868 a coterie of
citizens with a farsightedness that might well have been enlisted in a
better cause saw an opportunity for great profit in catering
systematically to this frailty and weakness in human nature by organizing
gambling on a large scale. They devised the so-called Louisiana State
Lottery which was for twenty-five years to be a blot upon the fair
escutcheon of the commonwealth and a curse upon thousands of humble homes.
A charter was obtained from
the legislature granting the company the monopoly of conducting lotteries
in consideration that it pay $40,000 annually to the support of public
education in the state. Masking themselves behind the philanthropic
motives of keeping the money at home that was then being sent to Havana,
Madrid, and other places where other gigantic gambling institutions of the
kind had long been entrenched, and of contributing to so sacred a cause as
that of education, the owners basked in the smiles of high society while
their employees in den-like policy shops to be found in every neighborhood
filched from passing servant girls petty sums embezzled from market and
grocery money and drew with the lure of a held-out hope the humble daily
savings of the neighborhood's poor.
Soon the concern grew to
gigantic octopus-like proportions fastening itself upon the body-politic
of the state and reaching its tentacles to every part of the Union. Its
monthly and semi-annual drawings independent of its daily policy-shop
drawings, with capital prizes of thirty and one-hundred thousand dollars,
drew millions to its coffers every month. It debauched legislators,
muzzled the press, made and unmade government officials, poisoned every
channel of civic righteousness, waxed fat and became almost greater in its
subtle exercise of power than the state government itself.
In 1879 the legislature
repealed the charter. The constitutional convention of the same year
revived it, however, by adopting a clause authorizing the General Assembly
to grant lottery licenses provided each lottery company licensed paid not
less than $40,000 per annum, but all lottery licenses should expire Jan.
1, 1895. The Louisiana State Lottery Company was permitted to continue in
business until that date provided it renounced the monopolistic feature of
the original charter granted it in 1868, which it did.
To hold its own and to prevent rival concerns poaching upon its rich
preserves it became a very active factor in politics. In 1892 when its
charter had three years yet to run, strenuous preparation was made to
secure a renewal. Politicians, public speakers, and editorial writers in
formidable numbers were retained by the company to influence public
opinion.
A Great Moral Victory.
But public sentiment had
made wonderful advance along moral lines. Lotteries mean gambling;
gambling is a vice; a vice should be suppressed, and not countenanced and
authorized by a sovereign state. Thus reasoned the anti-lottery crusaders,
a gallant' band of Louisiana's best citizens whom no promise of preferment
or threat of business disaster could deter. Seeing defeat staring it in
the face the Lottery Company offered to the people of Louisiana the
magnificent bribe of $1,200,000 per annum for a twenty-five years'
extension of the charter, a sum sufficient to sustain the state government
in all its functions without having to call upon the citizens for one cent
of taxation.
The state was in an
impoverished condition. It needed money for its levees, for its schools,
for its yet unpensioned Confederate veterans, for its every activity
conservative of the public good. The temptation to accept the tender of
this tremendous bounty was a terrible one. Material self-interest dictated
acceptance, ethics and the voice of conscience pronounced against it. The
state was wrought up to a pitch of intense excitement over the great moral
question of lottery charter renewal. The dominant party split into pro and
anti lotterites. The Farmers' Alliance of the state — a powerful
organization — threw its weight into the balance and decided the result.
The Lottery cause went down to defeat and Louisiana's heroic renunciation
received the applause of every on-looking state of the Union. Then the
United States withdrew the privileges of the mail from the concern which
proved a body blow. After vain attempts to conduct its business through
express companies, it retreated to Central America where it dragged out a
perfunctory existence until recently.
Nor has the state halted in
its progress towards public morality. The movements for temperance and
prohibition, for Sabbath observance and for the discouragement of vice and
crime have made marked advance within recent years. The saloon and liquor
interests have been on the defensive for some time promising and acceding
to all kinds of reform. New Orleans, once the paradise of race track
gamblers with three race courses and numbers of pool rooms giving racing
and betting opportunities every day of the year, has only recently been
purged of the evil to the satisfaction of those whose chief desire is in
the well being of their community.
The Public School System.
In the development of its
school systems and in the growth of its educational institutions the state
has made wonderful progress. Time was when public schools in Louisiana
were regarded as one remove from charitable institutions not to be
patronized except by those too poor to pay for private instruction. This
idea has been eradicated and all classes now send their children to the
public schools, because these schools on the whole offer the best
instruction.
Perhaps no single factor
has contributed more largely to the advancement of education in Louisiana
than a body of choice spirits who organized themselves into the Louisiana
State Educational Association and began a propaganda in 1883. This body
comprised eminent representatives of the bench, bar, pulpit, rostrum and
school-room, the bond of fellowship being patriotic desire to advance the
educational good of the state.
The Association met
successively in annual session at various points in the state. Its
meetings commanded attention and its proceedings were listened to with
profound respect. It stirred up interest in public education, awakened
desire for better school facilities and inspired a general determination
to place Louisiana on a par with other states in such matters.
Either as a collective body
as expressed through its deliberative proceedings or as individuals taking
the initiative, the Association and its members are to be credited with
the origination and carrying out of some of the most determinant ideas in
the educational uplift of the state. Among these were the establishment of
the Louisiana State Normal School for the training of teachers, one of the
best of its kind in the whole country; the holding of teachers' institutes
and summer schools of instruction for teachers; the organization of a
State Association of Parish Superintendents of Education, convening
annually for the purpose of unifying and improving methods and matters of
school administration; the requiring of professional qualifications of any
one entrusted with the directing of school affairs from the state
superintendent down; the change from a school system supported wholly by
apportionment from the state treasury, affording on an average barely
three month's schooling per annum to the children of the state, to one
supported partly by state appropriation and mainly by local taxation
affording full school terms of eight and nine months; the establishment of
the Louisiana State Chautauqua which for fifteen years has contributed
most significantly to the culture and intellectual activity of the state.
To-day Louisiana has a
perfected school system, thoroughly organized and unusually vital in all
its parts. At the head of its administration stand the governor and state
superintendent, counselled and advised by a State Board of Education. On
the staff of the state superintendent are a state institute conductor, a
state inspector of high schools, and a state organizer of public school
improvement leagues. These are in the field constantly visiting every part
of the state. In each parish (county) is a professionally trained
superintendent of schools and a parish school board. Many rural schools
are graded. High schools under state inspection and supervision are
multiplying. Two State Industrial Institutes and a State Normal school
largely attended give practical and technical training. At the head of
Louisiana's magnificent school system stand Louisiana's two great
universities — The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and
Mechanical College at Baton Rouge, and the Tulane University of Louisiana
at New Orleans.
Industrial Development.
A soil of unparalled
richness, nature's alluvial bounty drawn for ages from the broad extent of
the Mississippi valley and deposited along its lower margin very largely
determines the chief occupation of Louisiana's inhabitants. The state is
preeminently an agricultural one. It leads the Union in the production of
two great staples, sugar and rice. It is among the leaders in the
production of cotton. The development of its sugar and rice industries has
advanced most remarkably within recent years. First the Federal sugar
bounty, then the tariff, stimulated and encouraged the Louisiana sugar
planters. Then the perfection of the methods of developing by scientific
cultivation and of extracting by improved milling and diffusion processes
the saccharine substance of the cane has made Louisiana acres devoted to
sugar cultivation veritable gold mines.
The story of the rice
industry in Louisiana reads like a romance. For many years rice
cultivation was confined to narrow strips along the Mississippi and the
various bayous. Gated sluice-ways cut through levees afforded irrigation
but invited calamity as points of weakness in the protective levee's
structure. Soon these sluice-ways were prohibited by law and gave way to
the more expensive method of pumping water over the levees by machinery.
The industry, in consequence, languished for a period.
In the southwestern section
of the state extended vast level and sparsely settled prairies cut and
intersected by sluggish flowing streams and bayous and merging gradually
into the sea-marsh that skirts the southern shore of the state. Exiled
Acadians from Nova Scotia a hundred and fifty years ago had come to this
region and taken up their abode, and the few "Cajun" settlements and
hamlets of their descendants marked the extent of human habitation up to
the period of which we write. The land was given up to grazing and few
recognized its agricultural possibilities until it came to the knowledge
of some enterprising Iowans. Here was a rich soil in a genial climate and
land in abundance to be had at one or two dollars per acre. This was in
the early eighties. An influx of immigrants from the states of the
Northwest set in, infusing new blood, vim and energy. Railroad stations
sprouted into populous towns with mushroom-like rapidity; schools,
churches, public buildings and all concrete evidences of prosperity sprang
up where once were silent stretches and wilderness.
The new comers were from a
land that knew nothing of sugar and cotton cultivation. With them farming
meant grain raising. In such an area and with such natural conditions rice
was the one grain to be thought of. Rice in its growing requires not only
an adequate water supply to cover the fields of growing grain but the
water must be applied and withheld at exactly the right time to produce
the best results. The new comers saw their opportunity. The level prairie
with little elevation above the surface of intersecting streams suggested
one of the most economical irrigation plans yet devised. Instead of having
to excavate, by slow and laborious process, ditches from which to lift the
water up to the level of the fields when needed, all that was required was
to run two parallel lines of embankment extending across a given stretch
of country and starting at some convenient stream. The material for these
embankments was plowed and scraped from the land surface nearby, mule
power doing most of the work. When water was turned in between the
parallel ridges thus constructed a canal would be the result, but a
superimposed canal whose surface level was several feet above the level of
the land. To feed a vast network of smaller irrigating ditches was simply
a matter of letting the force of gravity do its work, the water flowing
from the higher level of the canal to the lower level of the fields. The
rapid construction of these canals might have presented at the time a
Marsian-like landscape to the hypothetical observer located some distance
from the earth.
No more profitable an
agricultural industry, taking cost of investment into consideration, has
ever been devised than rice farming as practiced in southwest Louisiana.
And with the growing of vast crops came the development of a gigantic
rice-milling industry to hull, clean, polish and put the grain upon the
market.
Louisiana's Two
Literatures.
Northern writers and
critics who see only the surface of things have at various times decried
the South for its comparative backwardness in literary productiveness,
ignoring the fact that its culture and intellectual activities found ample
and more satisfactory vehicles of expression in oratory, in statesmanship
and in epistolary correspondence unintended for public perusal. Such
criticisms, however, lose their sting as far as Louisiana is concerned.
Having two distinct
elements of population — the Latin and the Anglo-Saxon — two literatures
have developed within her confines in either of which the state may well
take pride. In the ante-bellum period, at the time when New England
authorship was just beginning to arrogate to itself supremacy in American
Letters, the French writers of Louisiana in the domains of history,
poetry, fiction and the drama had developed a literature of marked
richness of expression and of many volumes. The briefest account of this
literature which included the works of Villeneuve, De Bouchel, Remy,
Dufour, Lusson, the Roquette brothers, Canonge, Mercier, Roman, Delery,
Desommes, Martin, Delpit, Gayarré, Fortier and a host of others would of
itself fill a good-sized volume.
The fact that the English
phase of Louisiana's literary development is of such recent growth makes
the further fact remarkable that the state has already furnished so many
stars to the literary firmament. Lafcadio Hearn, George W. Cable, Ruth Mc-Enery
Stuart, Mrs. M. E. M. Davis, Grace King, Mrs. 0. V. Jamison, Mrs. Kate
Chopin, Mrs. Marie Bushnell Williams, Alcée Fortier and Charles E. A.
Gayaré, the inspirer and guide of George Bancroft, the American historian,
are only a few of the many names which might be mentioned whose works have
commanded the attention and admiration of the country at large.
Louisiana's Contribution
to the American Progress.
A state that has given to
the world Audubon, the greatest American-born naturalist; Richardson, the
most distinctive architect native to American soil; Gottschalk, the first
of America's few musical virtuosi who have attained world-wide fame; Paul
Morphy, the master for all time in the domain of chess; Judah P. Benjamin,
the brightest legal light of his century, who, at an age when the life
work of most men is rounding to a close, entered single-handed the forum
of the English bar to become at once its highest authority; Beauregard,
the military engineer of superb achievement, who in defensive operations
has never been surpassed; Zachary Taylor, President of the United States,
without whose rough and ready courage, victory would have been only half
written across the page of the War with Mexico; above all, when degrees of
civilization are marked by man's varying attitude towards woman, a state
that has given to the American continent its first statue commemorative of
noble though humble womanhood, that of Margaret Haughery, such a state may
smile at cavilers, may proudly wear her heritage of honorable achievement,
may face her sisters without blush or apology for the gifts she brings as
offerings upon the altar of American progress.
Bibliography.— Andrews, E.
Benjamin: History of the Last Quarter Century in the United States;
Chambers, Henry E.: Introduction to the Study of Louisiana History
(Lectures delivered before the Louisiana State Chautauqua) and The
Louisiana State Educational Association and Its Relation to the
Educational History of the State (Annual address of the President);
Ficklin and King: History of Louisiana; Fortier, Alcée: History of
Louisiana (Vol. IV.) and Louisiana Studies; Hinsdale and Ficklin: Civil
Government of Louisiana; Morris, Agnes: Lessons on the Civil Government of
Louisiana; Phelps, Albert: Louisiana (American Commonwealths Series);
Poore, Ben Perley: Federal and State Constitutions (Vol. I., pp. 755-772,
Louisiana Constitution of 1868); Wilson, Woodrow: Division and Reunion
(Epochs of American History Series); Biographical and Historical Memoirs
of Louisiana.
For a detailed history of
this period ample material may be found in the department of archives, New
Orleans, where complete files of daily newspapers are preserved in bound
form subject to public inspection.
Henry Edward Chambers,
Professor of English, New Orleans Boys' High School; author of An
Introduction to Louisiana History, A School History of the United States,
A Higher History of the United States, etc. |
