Ex-Governor Hahn on Louisiana Legislation Relating to Freedmen

by Michael Hahn

Layout 2

EX-GOVERNOR HAHN

on

LOUISIANA LEGISLATION RELATING

to

FREEDMEN.

Washington, April 12, 1866

Hon. T. O. HOWE,

United States Senator from Wisconsin:

Dear Sir:—In compliance with your request, I send you herewith a pamphlet containing all the laws passed by the present Legislature of Louisiana bearing on the freedmen. You will see that the Legislature was proud of its achievements on this subject, as it ordered the separate promulgation and circulation of these laws. A careful perusal of the pamphlet will convince you that however much credit may be due for the skill with which the animus of these laws was sought to be disguised, there is nevertheless really very little desire to do justice to one-half of the population of Louisiana evinced in this legislation.

The first law—“An act to provide for and regulate labor contracts for Agricultural pursuits”—requires the freedmen “within the first ten days of the month of January of each year” to make contracts for labor for a whole year. The contract must be made in writing before a Justice of the Peace—elected by the influence of rebel employers—and two “disinterested” witnesses. Would neighboring planters and relatives of the employer be “disinterested” witnesses? The written contract is “conclusive evidence of the intent of the parties thereto.” All disputes arising between the parties shall be decided, and the decisions enforced, by the Justice of the Peace of the ward in which the parties reside—this means the ward in which the employer votes. The “heads of families” are to make the contracts, hiring out all the members of the family able to work, “ which shall be binding on all minors of said families.” As the negroes have not been allowed to keep family Bibles, and have been denied the rights of baptism, &c., it will be an easy matter for the “oligarchy” to keep such as they choose below the age of majority, until they become quite gray. This would only be carrying out the old system of misrepresenting the ages of slaves when they were to be sold. Any violation of the contract, or inhumanity or cruelty on the part of the employer, must be redressed of course through the means of a lawyer before a “Court of competent jurisdiction;” but any remissness on the part of the freedman is to be attended to by the Justice of the Peace, and the fear of being “forced to labor on roads, levees, and other public works, without pay,” is constantly brought to his mind. But the gist of this law is really in the ninth section—all the other sections were framed merely for the appearance of things, and to pave the way for this well-considered and important section, which is six times longer than any other section in the act. All the advantages of the employer are here ingeniously concentrated and crowded into one paragraph—pretty long, to be sure, but in a very elegant and moral tone nevertheless. Its author has evidently read the Ten Commandments, however much he may pervert their spirit. It commences with an onslaught on the “eight-hour” men who are now with a manly dignity demanding their rights in Louisiana, and after covering a great deal of ground, winds up with a wicked provision about a pretended “common fund” into which all funds are to be placed, to be divided among the laborers. Considerable advancement in morals is shown in the refreshing provision that “swearing” in the presence of the employer shall be deemed “disobedience.” Judgments under this section are to be entered by the employer, but if not satisfactory to the freedman “an appeal may be had to the nearest Justice of the Peace and two freeholders, citizens, one of said citizens to be selected by the employer and the other by the laborer.” How grateful the freedman must be for this right of appeal from the decisions of his adversary? The Justice of the Peace, elected by the votes and influence of the employer, together with a freeholder selected by the same party, are to meet another freeholder named by the colored man, and exercise appellate jurisdiction over the decisions of the planter. This is called “fair play!” The homely story of the Indian, who said “You don’t say turkey once to me,” will serve as an illustration in this case.

The second act—“To prohibit the carrying of fire-arms on premises or plantations of any citizen, without the consent of the owner”—is intended to disarm the negroes, even those who have fought in our country’s cause, and is clearly contrary to that constitutional provision which declares that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

The third act—“To prevent trespassing”—is intended to prevent freedmen from leaving the plantations on which they are employed, and from visiting each other; and to prevent white Union men, even ministers, from seeing or conversing with them.

The fourth act makes an important change in the vagrant law of Louisiana. It allows a Justice of the Peace, by demanding any sort of a bond for good behavior, in such an amount and with such sureties as he may choose, which it would be impossible for the freedman to procure, to “ hire out” the latter for one year to a planter, or “cause him to labor on the public works, roads, and levees.” You will see that under what the pro-slavery oligarchy would call a “judicious administration” of this law, slavery is practically enforced.

The fifth act—“To provide for the punishment of persons for tampering with, persuading, or enticing away, harboring, feeding, or secreting laborers, servants, or apprentices”—is a new dress to an old law for the punishment of Abolitionists. The words “slaves” and “owners” are done away with, and other words, less harsh to the humane ear, are substituted.

The sixth act—“relative to apprentices and indentured servants”—makes it the duty of public officers to report “all persons under the age of eighteen years if females, and twenty-one if males,” of certain conditions, “coming within the purview and meaning of this act,” so that some petty officer of the parish can “apprentice” them. In all cases when the age of the minor cannot be ascertained by “record testimony,” the petty officer “shall fix the age, according to the best evidence before him.” If a good lawyer like yourself had drawn up this act, the words “testimony” and “evidence” would probably have exchanged places. But it is evidently the work of an employer. I hope the second section—which pronounces “valid and binding” contracts made in the United States or “in a foreign country” for the term of “five years”—is not intended as a Coollie enterprise.

The seventh and last act—“to punish in certain cases the employees of laborers or apprentices”—is intended to revive the old slavery regulation that colored persons shall carry “written certificates” or “passes,” and to punish such “Yankees” as may dare to employ any negro who has not obtained a written discharge from his rebel employer.

I have thus hastily called your attention to only such leading points in these laws as have struck my eye in a cursory glance over them. A careful analysis of these acts would convince any man of their true intent, which is to keep up a sort of slavery in spite of the new constitutional amendment. To a man who has lived in the South, and seen the workings of the “institution,” the connection of one sentence or word with another, and the practical operation of the various provisions of these laws, when administered by pro-slavery officials, are seen at a glance. I assure you, they are precisely what Mr. T. W. Conway, lately assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, &c., in Louisiana, called the ordinance relative to the police for colored persons within the corporate limits of the town of Franklin, La., “slavery in substance.” The more you examine them, the more you become convinced of their enormity. But you will not be surprised at their unjust and wicked provisions when you are informed of their authorship.

Ducan F. Kenner, of Ascension Parish, La., is their worthy parent. No liberal action from him towards the poor colored persons he had so long held in bondage was to be expected. He knows no merit about a negro, except as a beast of burden that may serve the heavy planting interests. For many years before the war he was a “big” planter, and on one occasion, while a member of the Legislature, he modestly and repeatedly voted for himself for United States Senator against that other Confederate worthy, John Slidell. He was elected a delegate to the Montgomery Convention by the Louisiana Convention which adopted the infamous ordinance of secession. He helped to frame the Confederate Constitution, and was then elected to the Confederate Congress. He remained a member of that rebel body until General Grant extinguished the Confederacy, when he availed himself of an early opportunity to visit Washington and seek, not a “last ditch,” but a pardon. Armed with his pardon he hurried to Louisiana, dismissed the officers of the Freedman’s Bureau from a further preservation of his property, and now instead of going to work like a good farmer (in imitation of Reagan) and repenting, he immediately procures an election to the State Senate, and there becomes the author and advocate of the new slave laws.

With such material in the Southern Legislatures, what good can be expected? If “reconstruction” is to be entrusted to such “intelligent and influential rebels,” what can we hope to achieve for the good of the country? It is under the lead of such men that all the vicious, disloyal, and disgraceful legislation for which the present Legislature of Louisiana is so notorious, has been effected.

As to the disloyal character of the Legislature, I will let the published declarations of others speak.

Colonel A. P. Field, of New Orleans, writing to Senator James W. Grimes, says that at the election of November last, the “rebels” succeeded in electing “the entire Legislature—but one single Union man elected to the lower house, and none to the Senate.”

Hon. R. C. Richardson, of New Orleans, writing to Ex-Governor George S. Boutwell, says:

“A prominent member of the Legislature, and an old secession leader, stated to me in conversation, a short time before the election, that he was a stronger secessionist than he ever was, and that he hated the United States Government from the bottom of his heart, and if he ever got a chance he would strike a death-blow at it. I state from memory nearly his own language.

“Now, sir, I am prepared to assert that at least nine-tenths of his colleagues entertain the same sentiments, leaving out one solitary Union man elected from one of the country parishes.

“All their proceedings, so far, sustain this conclusion.”

Hon. H. C. Warmoth, of New Orleans, in his argument addressed to Senator George H. Williams, of the Reconstruction Committee, after speaking of other rebel influences in Louisiana, adds:

“And finally the Legislature comes with new enactments, in order to more effectually, if possible, destroy the friends of equal suffrage and equal rights. And thus without opposition or question re-enslave the colored people.”

Captain D. E. Haynes, who served in the Union Army and commanded a company of Louisiana scouts, in a letter on “Reconstruction,” addressed to the President, speaks thus:

“According to the constitution of Louisiana, no man is entitled to vote who has not been a resident of the State twelve months previous to the day of election, and three months in the parish. Yet in the city of New Orleans upwards of three thousand votes were polled for the rebel candidates by the returned rebel soldiers and registered enemies who were absent from the State three years previous to the election. Thousands voted in the country parishes who never took the oath of allegiance, and many, very many, voted who were worth upwards of $20,000, unpardoned by the President.

“The result of this election proved conclusively ‘their laudable desire to renew their allegiance’ by electing to both branches of the Legislature none but avowed rebels, with but one single exception.”

Mr. W. J. Blackburn, editor of the Iliad, published at Homer, (Clairborne Parish,) Louisiana, successfully demolishes the “Loyalty” resolutions of the Legislature, in an article over his individual signature. He says:

“The secession, or war ticket, triumphed by an unprecedented majority—triumphed because the individuals thereof had in the main been blatant secessionists, and still held to and openly avowed the heretical notion of the right of secession, and claimed moreover the right and propriety of asking the General Government to pay for their former slaves, liberated by the rebellion, etc. I repeat, the entire ticket in the parish of Clairborne, a parish of large white population, and deemed the most conservative portion of Louisiana, was elected upon the secession or war influence and prestige; while every Union candidate was voted down on the opposite ground. And this is the recent indication from the people, upon which the Legislature of Louisiana would fain fabricate, and sent forth protestations of genuine loyalty to the national authority.”

He closes an account of a meeting he addressed, thus:

“And when I got on the stump to speak, and declared in the menacing face of treason, that I gloried in the Star Spangled Banner, and loved the Government of my Fathers, and held that the National Government was entitled to my first and stongest allegiance, men who had taken the Amnesty Oath would get up in disgust and leave, and threaten me with violence, saying, ‘He says he loves the Government of the United States—I hate it!’ And these things I can also prove by tangible testimony, giving names, time, and place; and they form a part of the recent indications of that peculiar loyalty, by virtue of which the so-called Legislature of Louisiana would seem to fain hope to crush out the true men of the country. And verily, it is the very kind of loyalty to do this thing—it is all it is fit for, and such is all it aims to accomplish. He who abets the one, aids to accomplish the other.”

But why should I accumulate the opinions of citizens, however trustworthy and honorable, when a simple statement of facts cannot but bring you to a similar opinion?

The Legislature elected its officers on account of distinguished services to the Confederacy, and the criterion of success was persistent devotion and bitterness in the rebel cause.

It refused to have the American flag about its halls until some colored ladies formally tendered it one as a present, which offer, however, was indignantly ignored.

It refused action on a resolution offered by Mr. William Brown, of Iberville, as follows:

“Whereas, In the opinion of this body, the Government of the United States is the best Government on the face of the earth, and whereas the flag of the said Government is worthy of all respect; therefore be it

Resolved, That the Sargeant-at-arms of the Senate be directed to procure a large United States flag, and to have the same properly and tastefully arranged over the President of the Senate’s chair.

Shortly after its assembling the Senate expelled Mr. Wm. Brown, the author of the foregoing resolution, and some other Union Senators, who held over in their term from the previous Legislature, on the pretext that they were elected by a small vote of Union men before the rebels had given up the Confederacy, and returned home.

The Legislature has invited Gen. Hood, (who was badly whipped by Gens. Sherman and Thomas,) and other rebel Generals to seats within the bar, &c. Gen. Sheridan, whose head-quarters are in the same city, and but a short distance from the Legislative Halls, was never invited;—neither was Gen. Scott, nor any other Union General then in New Orleans.

The Legislature attempted to do away with the ratification of the anti-slavery constitutional amendment by the previous (loyal) Legislature, by annexing conditions and giving a peculiar interpretation to the second section. But Secretary Seward was too quick. He declared the Amendment ratified and counted the vote of Louisiana before the vote could be annulled.

The Legislature has assumed the extraordinary work of repairing and making new Levees for the benefit of the wealthy planters, instead of charging it to them and their localities, as always hitherto required by custom and law, and thus compelled those who have repaired and kept in order their own levees, as required by law, or who need none, to pay for the neglect of rebel planters who refused to perform their duties and went into the war against their country. They have even obtained aid in this matter from the National Treasury through the War Department, and it has been publicly stated that negro soldiers have been compelled to work at this business.

The Senate rejected the nomination of a worthy officer as Adjutant General of the State, because he had been identified with the Union army. About forty Notaries were nominated and all were confirmed except one who in the opinion of this patriotic Senate had disgraced himself by having accepted an honorable office from Mr. Lincoln and by having been Secretary of a Freedman’s Aid Society. Only one Senator, Hon. John Purcell, of New Orleans, voted for his confirmation. If this should be suggestive to the Senate of the United States, and induce a like careful scrutiny into all Federal nominations for Louisiana, it would inaugurate a terrible clamor and complaint.

Even the ministers selected to pray for the Legislature were taken from among the most loud-mouthed and unrepentant rebel parsons. Not a loyal minister of New Orleans was ever invited to call down God’s blessings on these unforgiven rebels. That worthy graduate of South Carolina politics, Rev. B. M. Palmer, was the chief minister at the Legislative Altar. This man on the 20th November, 1860, before the mass of the people of Louisiana had seriously thought of secession, desecrated the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans, by a well-prepared sermon arguing for the “divinity” of slavery, and urging the people to secede at once. His Sermon was published in the secession newspapers and in pamphlet form, and extensively circulated as an excellent campaign document in the interests of the rebellion. He prostituted his high calling as a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus, to publicly incite and endeavor to deceive and madden the hitherto reluctant people of the Union City of New Orleans into electing the Secession Ticket—a result deemed impossible without his efforts. With how much success, let the result in New Orleans, the consequent secession of the State, which could not have taken place without that result; let these and the dire consequences to Louisiana of that sad and fatal step tell the tale. He took good care to be absent from the city on the arrival of Farragut and Butler; but he was not generous and decent enough towards his benefactors to refrain from publishing a letter while safely within the lines of Dixie, censuring such members of his New Orleans congregation as had renewed their allegiance to the United States. He has been permitted, by a kind and beneficent Government which he tried hard to destroy, to return and again preach in his former church. But I regret to say, I have seen no Sermon of repentance from his glib pen or lips, published in any paper, to atone for his past treason. Even Judas, after he had betrayed Christ, repented and hanged himself. But traitor-parsons like this Palmer neither repent nor hang themselves.

The Legislature, on the very last day of its session, about three weeks ago, to the neglect of a great deal of other important business, hurried through both Houses the following resolution:

“Whereas, We are informed that the Superintendent of the Freedman’s Bureau for the State of Louisiana is proceeding to enforce the collection of a tax levied by military order in the State of Louisiana, to refund money expended, or to provide funds to be expended by the Federal authorities in the education of freedmen in this State; and, whereas, sufficient provision is made by the Constitution and laws of the State, without any resort to this extraordinary and oppressive mode of taxation, in the present and exhausted and impoverished condition of the country; and, whereas, we are informed that the collection of this tax on a former occasion was suspended by Gen. Fullerton, when superintendent of freedmen for Louisiana, under instructions from President Johnson: therefore—

“Sec. 1. Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Louisiana in general assembly convened, That General Howard, general superintendent of the Freedman’s Bureau for the United States, or in his default, the President of the United States be respectfully requested to suspend the further collection of said taxes, and to procure or make a revocation of the orders upon which they rest, and that the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives be requested immediately to communicate this resolution by telegraph to Washington, and to draw upon their own warrants the actual expenses incidental out of the contingent funds of the two Houses.”

This is on a par with everything emanating from this Legislature on the subject of the freedmen.

The action of the Legislature is not the first attempt made by the “oligarchy” to avoid the payment of this eminently just and proper tax for the support of freedmen’s schools. General Banks levied this tax (March 22, 1864) for the purpose of placing within the reach of the freedmen “the elements of knowledge which give intelligence and greater value to labor, &c.” President Lincoln was clearly in favor of colored education, as is shown by a letter which he addressed to General Banks in August, 1863, (a copy of which at the same time he sent me.) In this letter he expressed his views with regard to what he thought should be done in Louisiana towards what is now called “reconstruction.” He wrote: “Education for young blacks should be included in the plan.” Yet this moderate tax, levied for the most commendable object, constantly haunts the wealthy secessionists and destroys their sleep.

Last summer, Mr. Jacob Barker, a member of Congress elect from New Orleans, (who has been here to take his seat, but finding he was not welcome, has returned home,) carried about a petition to General Canby, and procured many signatures, praying that the order for this tax might be annulled. The petition contained this cool argument: “If the freedmen are to be educated at public expense, let it be done from, the Treasury of the United States.”

Your distinguished fellow-citizen of Wisconsin, General Carl Schurz, happened to be in New Orleans at that time, and in his report to the President he very justly observes:

“Many of the signers of this petition, who wanted to be relieved of the school tax on the ground of poverty, were counted among the wealthy men of New Orleans, and they forgot to state that the free colored element of Louisiana, which represents a capital of at least thirteen millions, and pays a not inconsiderable proportion of the taxes, contributes at the same time for the support of schools for whites, from which their children are excluded.”

The present Constitution of Louisiana, framed while most of the members of this Legislature were in the rebellion, contains this provision:

“The Legislature shall provide for the education of all children of the State, between the ages of six and eighteen years, by maintenance of free public schools, by taxation or otherwise.”

The former Constitution, made in the interests of slavery, used the word “ white” before the word “children.” The members of the Legislature have sworn to carry out the constitutional mandate as it now stands. They assert in their preamble that “sufficient provision is made by the Constitution and laws of the State, &c.” They have made no provision for or sign of willingness to open colored schools, and no existing colored school is recognized, fostered, or encouraged by their action.

The expense of keeping up the colored schools has already been incurred by the United States. A large majority of the people, in fact all the Union people, have paid the tax. A compliance with the strange demand of the Legislature would be injurious and unjust, not only to the freedmen and the cause of public education, but would be a reflection and wrong on the Union men who have obeyed the order and paid the tax. Their promptness and fidelity in respecting the orders of their Government would thus tend to make them appear ridiculous in the eyes of their rebel neighbors. The tax is very light, and the request to have its collection suspended, coming as it does from rich men, old slaveholders, originates in a decided opposition to the education of the colored people, rather than in any reasonable complaint of hardship of the requirement itself.

The author of this request, Mr. Tobias Gibson, I have every reason to believe has little or no sympathy with colored men, except like Mr. Kenner, so far as they may serve to raise him good crops. He is a planter in the parish of Terrebonne, and, on account of his great wealth and more than ordinary intelligence, is recognized as the “Head Centre” of the “oligarchy” in that section of the State. A letter written by him to Hon. B. F. Flanders, a treasury officer of the United States Government, (see document 31, accompanying General Schurz’s report,) in December, 1864, long after Louisiana had been made a free State, gives a pretty good idea of his views concerning emancipation and “educational arrangements.” A perusal of his letter will be quite entertaining in a literary point of view, as showing the aptness and facility with which one in his position can use such expressions as “babblers,” “professional philanthropists,” “quacks and demagogues,” “our Solons,” “the received dogmas from the inspired sources of knowledge at the North,” &c. The parish which he represents in the Legislature was among the first to organize a white militia against Union men, in defiance of the Constitution and laws which require the enrollment of all able bodied men in the militia. It was in his parish that Bennie and Rongelot were indicted and imprisoned by returned Confederates as guilty of treason to the State because in the exercise of the American right of free speech, and in obedience to the dictates of humanity, they buried a vulgar prejudice and advocated the claims of their colored neighbors to protection.

Yet this Legislature, after all these and many other exhibitions of its ruling spirit, has had the effrontery to pass resolutions alleging itself to be “loyal,” and denouncing the “Radical” and “fanatical" elements which it sees are ruling Congress. It went further. It selected commissioners from its own members to visit Washington, and present its pledges of “loyalty” to the President. All the commissioners had been prominent in the rebellion, and had supported the obnoxious measures to which I have alluded. I suppose that this settles the question of loyalty.

Let me say, in conclusion, that all persons lately in rebellion are not as perverse and unrepentant as you might be led to infer from this array of facts. Many, very many young men of the South were carried into the rebellion by an irresistible current. Their hearts were with the Union in the great political contest which resulted in war. Many, very many of them have seen the error of their ways, have gone home disgusted with treason and traitors, and are ready to stand by the Union and do justice to the loyal people, white and black. Many of these have seen the war in all its phases. It is well to understand the position in which men found themselves during the whole time; and for the humble masses who were dragged into the rebellion, by moral or physical influences, and who now repent, I bespeak a generous and Christian policy of forgiveness. But for the “intelligent and influential traitor,” like some that have been named, who instigated and started the rebellion to maintain and perpetuate the institution of Slavery,—the traitor who dragged, bullied and frightened others into treason,—the rebel who, although forgiven and pardoned for his great crime, refuses to forgive and pardon, but seeks by means of the powers of Government to make treason fashionable and loyalty odious—for such a traitor I have little charity.

But, you may ask how can these evils be remedied? How can justice be secured the Union men without dealing harshly with the rebels? My answer is ready. Give every colored citizen the right of suffrage. This will settle all difficulties connected with reconstruction. It is not only just and proper to extend this inestimable right to our colored citizens, but it is a debt we owe them. Let the nation be as scrupulous in discharging its moral obligations growing out of the war, as it is to pay its financial obligations. Let us be true to those who have been true to us. In granting this right we obtain security for the future. By doing this act of justice, by paying this debt, we close the rebellion. There is no other question seriously dividing the people which is not settled, with the discharge of this duty.

Respectfully yours,

MICHAEL HAHN.