you will there find that speeches were made, incendiary in their character, exciting that portion of the population—­the black population—­to arm themselves and prepare for the shedding of blood.  You will also find that that convention did assemble, in violation of law, and the intention of that convention was to supersede the reorganized authorities in the State government of Louisiana, which had been recognized by the Government of the United States; and every man engaged in that rebellion in that convention, with the intention of superseding and upturning the civil government which had been recognized by the Government of the United States, I say that he was a traitor to the Constitution of the United States; and hence you find that another rebellion was commenced, having its origin in the Radical Congress.

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So much for the New Orleans riot.  And there was the cause and the origin of the blood that was shed; and every drop of blood that was shed is upon their skirts, and they are responsible for it.  I could test this thing a little closer, but will not do it here to-night.  But when you talk about the causes and consequences that resulted from proceedings of that kind, perhaps, as I have been introduced here, and you have provoked questions of this kind—­though it does not provoke me—­I will tell you a few wholesome things that have been done by this Radical Congress in connection with New Orleans and the extension of the elective franchise.

I know that I have been traduced and abused.  I know it has come in advance of me, here as elsewhere, that I have attempted to exercise an arbitrary power in resisting laws that were intended to be forced upon the Government; that I had exercised that power; that I had abandoned the party that elected me, and that I was a traitor, because I exercised the veto power in attempting and did arrest for a time a bill that was called a “Freedmen’s Bureau” bill; yes, that I was a traitor.  And I have been traduced, I have been slandered, I have been maligned, I have been called Judas Iscariot and all that.  Now, my countrymen, here to-night, it is very easy to indulge in epithets; it is easy to call a man a Judas and cry out “traitor;” but when he is called upon to give arguments and facts he is very often found wanting.  Judas Iscariot—­Judas.  There was a Judas, and he was one of the twelve apostles.  Oh, yes; the twelve apostles had a Christ.  The twelve apostles had a Christ, and he never could have had a Judas unless he had had twelve apostles.  If I have played the Judas, who has been my Christ that I have played the Judas with?  Was it Thad.  Stevens?  Was it Wendell Phillips?  Was it Charles Sumner?  These are the men that stop and compare themselves with the Savior, and everybody that differs with them in opinion, and to try to stay and arrest their diabolical and nefarious policy, is to be denounced as a Judas.

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