After extended controversy over election results, the Republican candidate William Pitt Kellogg was certified.

McEnery had encouraged armed action in a speech in June: There is not a decent thinking man in Louisiana who will deny that race lines of distinction are already sharply drawn, and that as each day passes the breach gapes wider, that separates the white from the colored race in this State of ours.

The only means of averting this calamity lies in the union of the white people of the State, representing as they do, its virtue, courage and wealth, into one compact and imposing phalanx.

Similarly, in Coushatta, the seat of the new Red River Parish, Republican Marshall H. Twitchell was the influential state senator.

In 1874, Edward T. Lewis (politician) of St. Landry Parish led the formation of paramilitary organization the White League.

[4] They served as an arm of the Democratic Party in driving out Republicans and suppressing black voting at elections.