Record
Case file
1891-12-09
U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1891
President Harrison's annual message, 9 December 1891 (paragraphs on the March 1891 New Orleans killings)
The President's message to Congress, printed at the head of the 1891 Foreign Relations volume, calls the March lynching at New Orleans of eleven men of Italian nativity 'a most deplorable and discreditable incident' and says the federal government had no power under existing law to intervene.
- Date
- 1891-12-09
- Kind
- case-file
- Source
- U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1891
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-12
- Rights
- A publication of the U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. A United States government work, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105; the document dates from 1890-91.
The message is signed “Benj. Harrison,” Executive Mansion, 9 December 1891, and is printed at pages V-VI of “Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States” for 1891, here in the Office of the Historian’s digital edition. Its paragraphs on New Orleans state: “The lynching at New Orleans in March last of eleven men of Italian nativity by a mob of citizens was a most deplorable and discreditable incident.”
The message says the Italian minister demanded punishment of the participants and an indemnity to the families, and that the federal government had no power under existing law to intervene in such cases. It also says the temporary absence of a Minister Plenipotentiary of Italy at the capital had retarded further correspondence. The page is the President’s account, written nine months after the events; it takes no position on the guilt of the men who had been tried.