Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007 - (Page 65)

radicals would hold a solid 40-seat majority in the convention, assuring secession. The convention met at the capitol on January 23, and Pliny D. Hardy, the Secretary of State, transferred the official returns, the list of all successfully elected members of the convention, and the original copies of returns from each parish. These returns were the certified copies from the sheriffs. The returns were then held by Thomas Wheat, secretary of the convention, in his office. Three days after it convened, the convention voted for secession, and Governor Moore accepted the results. Moore was then officially proclaimed the chief executive of the Independent State of Louisiana. That might have been the end of it. The history books would lead readers to believe it was. There was, however, a problem that the radicals wanted to hide. The rural returns for the January 7 election had not been published and rumors, beginning in New Orleans, said that the popular vote had actually gone against secession by several hundred votes. The Picayune sought to print the final vote totals but was not allowed to access them. The losing factions clamored for a legal tally to be re- leased by the governor through February and mid-March. The Secessionists block voted to withhold any publication. The Secessionists knew that something must be done and quickly. The Daily Delta published the tallies on March 27, 1861. The paper claimed that the figures were complete and were provided by the secretary of the convention. In a 19th century cover-up the list was flawed because it did not provide the list of candidates or the vote totals. On March 29, the Picayune charged the convention with coercion by radicals from the northern parishes and called for the official returns to be given up for publication. The Picayune was forceful in the language of its request, but the timbre of the editorial was lessened by events in the East. South Carolina’s demand that the United States evacuate Fort Sumter and turn it over to that state steadily garnered the headlines. One of Louisiana’s favorite sons, P.G.T. Beauregard, commanded the South Carolina forces demanding the fort’s surrender. During the next two weeks the crisis deepened, and the bombardment of the fort on April 12 wiped all other news from the headlines across the South. The need for an accounting from the convention in Louisiana was at an end. If nothing more than a historical curiosity, the question remains: “What really happened?” The specter of the flawed election was raised again Governor Thomas Overton Moore A panoramic view of Baton Rouge, circa 1860, printed in Harper’s Weekly. Fall 2007/LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES 65 HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007

Contents Friends & Letters Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Big Charity: A History of New Orleans’ Public Hospital Historic New Orleans Collection Making Groceries: A History of New Orleans Markets New Orleans’ Faubourg Tremé: Rooted in Tradition Jazz Notes Louisiana Association of Museums Chinatown New Orleans Louisiana Foodways A Question of Secession Louisiana Architecture Louisiana State Museum The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish Terra Incognita Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007

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