By the impeachment of Governor Warmoth in December, 1872, he became Acting Governor of the State until Jan., 1873, when the term expired and the Kellogg government was inaugurated, with C. C. Antoine, Lieutenant-Governor. That period when Pinchback was Governor of Louisiana was the stormiest ever witnessed in any state in the Union; but he was equal to the emergency. Then followed his long three years' fight for the seat in the United States Senate, with the defeat after the hard struggle.
The campaign of 1874 was inaugurated. The White Camelias, a league formed of Southern white men, determined to end the existing government, stood armed and ready. The Governor was garrisoned at the Custom-house, a huge citadel, and the fight was on between the White League and the Metropolitan Police. It was characteristic of this community that the fight should take place on Sunday. The struggle lasted all day, September 14, 1874, and by evening the citizens were in command of the situation. President Grant ordered troops to the place; the insurgents were ordered to disperse in five days, and the Governor resumed his office. But it was the end of the government by the men of color and their allies in the State. President Hayes, in order to conciliate his constituents in the South, withdrew federal support, and the downfall was complete.[117]
The history of the Reconstruction and the merits and demerits of the men who figured in that awful drama belong to the present generation. The unstable Reconstruction regime was overthrown in 1874 and the whites, eliminating the freedmen and free people of color from the government, established what they are pleased to call "home rule." The Negroes, who had served the State, however, deserved well of their constituents. It should be said to the credit of these black men that upon an investigation of the Treasurer's office which had for years been held by Antoine Dubuclet, a man of color, the committee of which Chief Justice Edward D. White of the United States Supreme Court was then chairman, made a report practically exonerating him. Although making some criticisms as to irregularities and minor illegalities, the committee had to report that "the Treasurer certainly by a comparison deserves commendation for having accounted for all moneys coming into his hands, being in this particular a remarkable exception." A minority report signed by C. W. Keeting and T. T. Allain[118] thoroughly exonerated him. The expected impeachment proceedings which were to follow this investigation did not materialize.[119]
More about the people of color in Louisiana might be written. It is a theme too large to be treated save by a master hand. It is interwoven with the poetry, the romance, the glamour, the commercial prosperity, the financial ruin, the rise and fall of the State. It is hung about with garlands, like the garlands of the cemeteries on All Saints Day; it may be celebrated in song, or jeered at in charivaris. Some day, the proper historian will tell the story. There is no State in the Union, hardly any spot of like size on the globe, where the man of color has lived so intensely, made so much progress, been of such historical importance and yet about whom so comparatively little is known. His history is like the Mardi Gras of the city of New Orleans, beautiful and mysterious and wonderful, but with a serious thought underlying it all. May it be better known to the world some day.
Alice Dunbar-Nelson.
Footnotes:
[50] Rose, "Life of Napoleon I," 333-336.
[51] As to the ability of a man of color to rise in this territory, the life of one man, recorded by the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, will furnish a good example. James Derham was originally a slave in Philadelphia, sold by his master to a physician, who employed him in the shop as an assistant in the preparation of drugs. During the war between England and America, he was sold by this physician to a surgeon, and by that surgeon to Dr. Robert Dove of New Orleans. Here he learned French and Spanish so as to speak both with ease. In 1788, he was received into the English church, when he was twenty-one and became, says the report, "one of the most distinguished physicians in New Orleans." "I conversed with him on medicine," says Dr. Rush, "and found him very learned. I thought I could give him information on the treatment of diseases, but I learned more from him that he could expect from me." The Columbian Gazette, II, 742-743.
[52] Gayarré, III, p. 595.
[53] Ibid., IV, p. 218.