Dixie Plantation House, Franklin Louisiana

Date added: September 10, 2023 Categories: Louisiana House Plantations & Farms

Dixie has a long and close association with Murphy J. Foster, a major figure in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Louisiana political history. Foster was a State Senator from 1880-1892, the political head of the 1890-92 anti-lottery movement, Governor from 1892 to 1990, and a United States Senator from 1901-1913. In 1913 he was appointed Collector of Customs for New Orleans by Woodrow Wilson and remained in that position until his death. Foster purchased Dixie in 1883, and it remained his principal residence throughout his political career. He died there on June 12, 1921. Of course, given the very nature of his career, Foster's time was divided between his home in Franklin and his political duties in Baton Rouge and Washington and later his New Orleans position. During his two gubernatorial terms a caretaker was left at Dixie, and he left his family there when Congress was in session. During the Collector of Customs period he divided his time between his hometown and New Orleans. Dixie is clearly the Foster property in Louisiana. Any others have remote associations (homes of relatives, places he visited, the Old State Capitol, etc.).

The guiding force behind Murphy J. Foster's political career was devotion to the Democratic party. He "cut his teeth" on Reconstruction politics and fought tenaciously then and thereafter to assure the party's supremacy. Although by all accounts personally honest (a rarity for the period), Foster used whatever means at his disposal, including vote fraud and disfranchisement, to assure the success of the "Democracy."

Foster's twelve years in the State Senate were fairly typical and uneventful. In hindsight, his introduction of an anti-lottery bill in 1884 marks the beginning of probably the greatest fight of his political career, that waged against the infamous Louisiana Lottery Company. The company had been incorporated by act of the 1868 legislature and given a twenty-five-year monopoly on the sale of tickets in Louisiana in return for a $40,000 per year fee to the state. A phenomenal financial success, the lottery and its "boodle" almost controlled Louisiana during its existence. The company's corrupt influence permeated state politics. In addition to having Louisiana in its grip, the lottery exerted a nationwide influence. Tickets were sold by mail throughout the United States, and more than ninety percent of the proceeds came from outside Louisiana. Because the lottery company was incorporated into the state constitution of 1879, it would have to be rechartered by constitutional amendment. Although the company's charter would not expire until 1894, the lottery's head, John A. Morris, decided to submit his recharter proposal in 1890. This time round the yearly fee to the state was a staggering $1,250,000. The scene of the bitterly waged "recharter fight" was the 1890 legislative session, with State Senator Murphy J. Foster as leader of the "antis." Despite determined opposition, the recharter bill passed, and was to be voted upon by the electorate in the general election of 1892.

The lottery recharter was clearly the only issue in the 1892 gubernatorial race, one of the most divisive and hotly contested elections in Louisiana political history. The campaign actually began in earnest right after the 1890 legislative session with the formation of the Anti-Lottery League and the opposing Progressive League. The anti-lottery Democratic candidate was Foster, the champion par excellence of the cause. The "antis" pictured the fight to end the lottery as a moral crusade--a battle between the forces of good (themselves) and the forces of evil (lotteryites). Foster, or as he was frequently called, the "Saint from St. Mary," was given an almost Christ-like image as he did battle against the forces of Satan.

There is no question that the anti-lottery crusade was a major reform movement in Louisiana history; however, it was an 1890 act of Congress denying lotteries the use of the United States mail that killed the Louisiana Lottery Company. This act was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in February 1892 and the lottery immediately withdrew its recharter bid. The Foster ticket was declared victorious at the polls in April in an election that was clearly fraudulent.

Easily the most important concern of the two-term Foster administration was permanently squelching any opposition to the Democratic party through disfranchisement. The targets were the constituencies of the Republican and Populist parties (blacks and poor whites). Foster began pushing for disfranchisement early in his first term, and it is clearly something he was personally behind, rather than something that happened to occur during his administration. Instead of "counting out" the opposition, as had been done in the "stolen" elections of 1888, 1892, and 1896, Louisiana Democrats decided to simply rid themselves of the problem. Foster urged the convening of a constitutional convention to adopt suffrage restrictions. It was imperative, he explained, that "the mass of ignorance, vice and venality without any proprietary interest in the state" be totally disfranchised. On another occasion, Foster defended his position by emotionally pleading for the erection of "a more lasting and enduring monument to their (the Confederate veterans) memory than marble, granite and bronze by engrafting on the organic law of the State the great and imperishable principle for which they fought and struggled, that the intelligence, the virtue and the manhood of the Caucasian shall preside over and rule the destinies of the state for generations to come, and thus attest that those who have suffered for the cause and gone before have not fought and died in vain."

The constitutional convention that convened in 1898 was aptly described by its president as "little more than a family gathering of the Democratic party of the State of Louisiana." The convention's work consisted of tacking property and literacy requirements for voting onto the 1879 constitution. No longer would the so-called "Bourbons" have to steal elections, for virtually no one could vote but themselves. As historian William Ivy Hair concluded: "Bourbonism once again ruled serenely. The Negro had been removed as a direct political factor. White agrarianism had seemingly been crushed." Although disfranchisement was a decidedly negative "accomplishment" and is something to be condemned today, it was certainly of immense consequence. Its long-range results, namely the end of two-party politics in Louisiana, is a legacy still with the state, In spite of a much stronger Republican party in recent years, Foster would be heartened to know that his party is still basically in control.

Upon retiring from the governorship, Foster's political influence was so great that he could pretty much choose his successor. As his biographer writes, all it took was "a mere indication of his preference." The Foster influence was such at the Democratic convention that it gave rise to the standing joke: "When the next convention comes around, they (the delegates) will ask the master from St. Mary (Foster) what his wishes are, and then forward their proxies, and thereby avoid a disagreeable journey to Baton Rouge." The principal issue in the campaign was "Fosterism," or the Foster "dictatorship" as it was often called. The Democratic candidate was accused of being "a shadow of Foster," and it was claimed that his election would mean a continuation of "Fosterism." Needless to say, the Foster candidate won, and Foster relinquished the governor's chair on May 20, 1900. The following day the legislature unanimously elected him to succeed Donelson Caffery to the United States Senate at the expiration of his term on March 3, 1901.

As a United States Senator for twelve years, Foster centered his activities upon three major objectives: protecting the Louisiana sugar industry, railroad regulation, and floor control in the Mississippi Valley. He did not attain great notoriety, nor did he even deliver many prepared speeches to the Senate. His most effective work was done in the various committees of which he was a member and in personal contacts. He was a member of the committees of Claims, Commerce, Coast Defense, Enrolled Bills, Military Affairs, Patents, Interstate Commerce, and Appropriations.

Foster was defeated for re-election to the Senate in 1912, and was then appointed Collector of Customs at New Orleans, a position he held from 1913 until his death. For the remainder of his life, he divided his time between his native town and his duties in New Orleans. After seventy-two certainly eventful years, Foster died at Dixie on June 12, 1921.

Building Description

Dixie (c.1845) is a two-story frame Greek Revival plantation house located on Bayou Teche in a rural setting near the town of Franklin.

According to family history, the house existed in 1844 when the Wilkins family bought it from the Carline family. However, some of the moldings indicate a date closer to 1850.

The house has a central hall plan, two rooms deep, with a hip roof and a colossal pedimented portico. The portico features four slender Doric posts and a lancet arch vent in the tympanum, Other noteworthy architectural features include the six aedicule-style mantels, the main staircase which is located in a closet-like space off the central hall, and shoulder molded door and window surrounds on the interior.

Evidently, the original rear elevation had a single-story gallery surmounted by a promenade deck with a balustrade. Because of subsequent alterations, it is very difficult to tell exactly what the rear originally looked like, but this seems the most likely scenario. Evidently, the present second-story rear colonnade was added in the late nineteenth century, Around 1900 Dixie stood as a single block without wings. But there was a galleried cottage dependency located a few feet from the north corner of the house. Shortly after 1900, this dependency was incorporated into a side wing, and the gallery was enclosed to form a passageway to the main house. Also about that time, a single-story wing was added to the other (southeast) side of the house. In addition, a narrow two-story "L" wing was added in the rear. Subsequently, the north corner wing was extended, Sometime during this spate of renovations, much of the rear gallery of the house was enclosed, the rear gallery staircase and the staircase to the attic were widened, and two of the eight aedicule style mantels were replaced. In 1931 a two-story glazed sleeping porch was added on the side of the house. Since that time the house has been little altered.