Worcester Daily Spy

WORCESTER:
TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 1864.

The Louisiana Inauguration.

The inauguration of the new state government of Louisiana took place on the 4th of March. There was immense rejoicing on the part of the friends of the successful candidates, and they made the occasion a holiday, such as New Orleans has rarely seen. All the bells in the city were rung at daybreak, with all the artillery for an accompaniment. The streets were decorated with extravagant ingenuity, and innumerable people assembled to witness the display. The music was furnished by six thousand human voices, and three hundred instruments, combined with the blows of hammers upon forty anvils, and the roar of fifty pieces of artillery!

Gov. Hahn, after taking the prescribed oath, delivered a brief but appropriate inaugural address. Without alluding to the distrust which a considerable body of the free state men of Louisiana have of him, he spoke in a manner to conciliate them. "The institution of slavery," he said, "is opposed to the rights of one race and the interests of the other. It is the cause of the unholy attempt to destroy the government; and I regard its universal and immediate extinction as a public and private blessing."

He promised to devote himself to the speedy and radical reorganization of the labor system of the state, to aid all classes to profit by the new social system, to extend the blessing of free education to all classes and races, and especially to recruit the national army with brave and faithful volunteers. If the new governor is true to his promises, and is sustained by the united free state sentiment of Louisiana, great benefits cannot fail to result from his accession. The closing ceremonies of the day are reported with minuteness and enthusiasm. When the benediction had been pronounced, the full orchestra struck up "America," and thirty thousand voices united in singing:

"Our father's God, to thee,
Author of liberty,
To thee I sing:
Long may our land be bright
With freedom's holy light;
Protect it by thy might,
Great God, our King."

The free state party is now preparing for the constitutional convention which is soon to be held. There was a considerable minority who thought the state election should have been deferred till this convention had accomplished its work, and the state had some settled organic law. But they were over-ruled. The same minority voted for Mr. Flanders in preference to Mr. Hahn for governor. The result is two free state organizations—the minority representing the more advanced sentiment of the party, and less affected by prejudices of caste, and deference to plantation interests; the majority representing those who hold that immediate "success is a duty," and supported by both the civil and military power. There were efforts on foot to unite these two organizations into one, and meetings were appointed for the 7th inst., in New Orleans to take the preliminary steps. We shall know by the next arrival whether this most desirable result was accomplished.