article.

So rapid was the transition from the war period to that of political
anarchy, which followed in obedience to these conditions, that as early as
the year 1867 the State was hopelessly committed to an ignorant and
unprincipled minority, and in every portion thereof the white masses
refrained from even attending the polls, so well assured were they that
the fair majorities which they could score would be displaced by the most
barefaced fictions. The opposition or conservative press, on the other
hand, never ceased to perform its whole duty, representing to the people
the true condition of affairs at the capital, the constant abuses of the
legislative functions, the enormous treasury shortages, judicial
tyrannies, etc., etc.; though, as was indicated by their course
subsequently, to the more intelligent of those whom were addressed, this
seemed but a citation of evils that were remediless; and where plans of
relief were suggested, of remedies that were placed hopelessly beyond
their reach. Even in the city of New Orleans, where these exhortations
were most frequently heard, the municipal elections not unoften went by
default to the minority representatives; and multitudes (who have since
testified their devotion to the cause of right), attracted by the
patronage of the winning power, while refusing to give them aid, tendered
them congratulations.

Others to whom these philippics came, and who in their country homes had
been subjected to the intolerable rigors of League politics, took the
appeals even more seriously than they were intended, and began that secret
warfare on the agents of oppression in their midst, which, however
effectual it may have proven in the end, must always be deprecated on the
ground of those inequalities of principle which it represented, and of
means it employed.

The first secret political organization enterprised against the Radical
power in Louisiana was unquestionably that edition of the K. K. K. which
we have been treating, and which proved so effective in disestablishing
the various isms of the party in other sections; but it is no less certain
that, at no advanced stage of its existence on Louisiana soil, it
underwent a very positive metempsychosis, and became, thereafter, the
White League, or White Camelias as sometimes addressed representatively.
But no matter by what appellative known, nor under what constitutional
emendations proceeding, the idea was nowhere more aggressively