Editing P. G. T. Beauregard (section)

===Louisiana Unification Movement===
Beauregard approached Lieutenant Governor [[Caesar Antoine]], who was a [[Louisiana Creole people|Creole]] Republican, and invited fifty leading white and fifty black New Orleanian families to join for a meeting on June 16, 1873. The fifty white sponsors were leaders of the community in business, legal and journalistic affairs, and the presidents of almost every corporation and bank in the city attended. The black sponsors were the wealthy, cultured [[Creoles of color]], who were well-off and had been free before the war. Beauregard was the chairman of the resolutions committee. He spoke at the meeting:

{{blockquote|I am persuaded that the natural relation between the white and colored people is that of friendship, I am persuaded that their interests are identical; that their destinies in this state, where the two races are equally divided are linked together, and that there is no prosperity in Louisiana that must not be the result of their cooperation. I am equally convinced that the evils anticipated by some men from the practical enforcement of equal rights are mostly imaginary, and that the relation of the races in the exercise of these rights will speedily adjust themselves to the satisfaction of all.}}

The result of the meeting was a report that "advocated complete political equality for blacks, an equal division of state offices between the races, and a plan where blacks would become land owners. It denounced discrimination because of color in hiring laborers or in selecting directors of corporations, and called for the abandonment of segregation in public conveyances, public places, railroads, steams, and public schools." Beauregard argued that blacks "already had equality and the whites had to accept that hard fact".<ref name="Williams, pp. 282–284"/><ref name="ReferenceA"/>