ngs, and other acts of political persecution of
Colored citizens, which had occurred in 1868, was again repeated in
1876, and with like results.

In fifteen parishes where 17,726 Republicans were registered in 1876
only 5,758 votes were cast for Hayes and Wheeler, and in one of them
(East Feliciana) where there were 2,127 Republicans registered, but
_one_ Republican vote was cast. By some methods the Republican
majority of the State was supposed to have been effectually suppressed
and a Democratic victory assured. And because the legally constituted
authorities of Louisiana, acting in conformity with law and justice,
declined to count some of the parishes thus carried by violence and
blood, the Democratic party, both North and South, has ever since
complained that it was fraudulently deprived of the fruits of the
victory thus achieved, and it now proposes to make this grievance the
principal plank in the party platform[134] for the future.

The worm trampled upon so persistently at length turned over. There
was nothing left to the Negro but to go out from the land of his
oppression and task-masters.

The Exodus was not a political movement. It was not inspired from
without. It was but the natural operation of a divine law that moved
whole communities of Negroes to turn their faces toward the setting
sun. When the Israelites went out of Egypt God commanded their women
to borrow the finger-rings and ear-rings of the Egyptians. All had
sandals on their feet, staves in their hand, and headed by a matchless
leader. God went before them as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar
of fire by night. But when the Negroes began their exodus from the
Egypt of their bondage they went out empty; without clothing, money,
or leaders. They were willing to endure any hardships short of death
to reach a land where, under their own vine and fig-tree, they could
enjoy free speech, free schools, the privilege of an honest vote, and
receive honest pay for honest work. And how forcibly they told why
they left the South.

"Now, old Uncle Joe, what did you come for?"

"Oh, law! Missus, I follers my two boys an' the ole woman an'
then 'pears like I wants a taste of votin' afore I dies, an' the
ole man done wants no swamps to wade in afore he votes, 'kase he
must be Republican, ye see."

"Well, old Aunty, give us the sympathetic side of the story; or,
tell us what you think of leaving your old home."