Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana. Volume XIII for the Year 1858

New Orleans: Office of the Price Current. Very Good. 1859. First Edition. Hardcover. xiv, (2), 700 pages; Contents clean and secure in original tan buckram with red and black leather spine labels with gilt lettering. Judges: Hon. E.T. Merrick; Hon. A. Buchanan; Hon. C. Voorhies; Hon. J.L. Cole; Hon. H.M. Spofford; Hon. T.T. Land; Attorney General E. Warren Moise. Includes several cases touching on slavery, especially the eddects of the 1857 law prohibitting emancipation of slaves in Louisiana. Former owner's stamp on titlepage "Simeon Belden / Attorney at Law / No. 26 St. Charles St. / New Orleans" Simeon Belden (1831-1906) was born in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana in 1831 and married Anna Maria Stone in 1858. A successful attorney and Republican politician, Belton served as Speaker of the House of Representatives of Louisiana and then as Attorney General of Louisiana from 1868 to 1871. Belden was part of "the landslide Republican victory in the 1866 national elections, and the calling of a new constitutional convention in Louisiana, with the delegates to be elected by black as well as white voters, gaving blacks a chance to reverse the Democrats' blatantly unconstitutional policies. Presciently fearing that once established, a segregated system would be impossible to change, a group of black activists grouped around the radical New Orleans Tribune pushed simultaneously for an end to exclusion and for completely non-segregated institutions.35 In the 1868 constitutional convention, half of the delegates to which were considered black, the integrationists attained their goal. Among the whites voting in favor of integrated schools and public accomodations was Louisiana-born Simeon Belden." "The first of the post-Reconstruction Louisiana cases was filed by Paul Trevigne, teacher, editor and bi-lingual poet, who served on the Orleans Parish school Board from 1876 until the Redeemers replaced almost all the Republicans with White Leaguers in 1877. In September of that year, Trevigne through his lawyers Simeon Belden and Duplantier, sought in the state district court to enjoin the parish school board from putting its July segregation resolution and the accompanying enabling regulations into effect when the schools opened, thereby baring Trevigne's son, also called Paul, from the common school that he had previously attended. Belden and Duplantier claimed that segregation doubly violated Trevigne's privileges or immunities under the 14th Amendment-- as a citizen of the United States and of the state. As a national citizen, Trevigne had a fundamental right to be free of discrimination in public services on account of race. As a citizen of Louisiana, he was guaranteed by Article 2 of the 1868 state constitution enjoyment of "the same civil, political, and public rights" as any other Louisianan, and, by Article 135, access to public schools without racial distinction." Sadly, the segregationist-leaning courts rejected the well-founded legal arguments presented by Belden and Duplantier. .