there had been a revolution of public
opinion in the State to justify these returns. It was not indeed
denied that General Grant was personally far stronger before the people
of Louisiana than any Republican candidate at previous State or Parish
elections. The change was simply the result of fraud, and the fraud
was based on violence. Various investigations ordered by Congress
establish this view. "From these investigations," as was stated in a
subsequent report, "it appears that over two thousand persons were
killed, wounded, and otherwise injured in that State within a few weeks
of the Presidential election of 1868; that half the State was overrun
by violence, midnight raids, secret murders, and open riots, which kept
the people in constant terror, until the Republicans surrendered all
claims, and then the election was carried by the Democracy."

The same report states that in the parish of Orleans "riots prevailed
for weeks, filling New Orleans with scenes of blood, and Ku-Klux
notices were scattered throughout the city warning the colored men not
to vote." In the parish of Caddo, where as already stated only one
vote was counted for General Grant, "there occurred one of the
bloodiest riots on record, in which the Ku-Klux killed and wounded over
two hundred Republicans, hunting and chasing them for two days and
nights through fields and swamps. Thirteen captives were taken from
the jail and shot, and a pile of twenty-five dead bodies were found
buried in the woods." These atrocious crimes immediately preceded
the election, and "having thus conquered the Republicans and killed
and driven off their white leaders, the masses of the negroes were
captured by the Ku-Klux, marked with badges of red flannel, enrolled
in clubs, led to the polls and compelled to vote the Democratic ticket,
after which they were given certificates of that fact."

One of the most alarming features connected with this series of
outrages was the promptness with which Louisiana resorted to violence
after her re-admission to the right of representation in Congress. Her
senators and representatives had taken their seats in their respective
Houses only the preceding summer, and her right to participate in the
Presidential election was established at the same time. Within less
than five months after her formal reconstruction, outrages which would
be exceptional in the governments of Algiers or Egypt were committed
in utter defiance of law, an