The Emancipation Proclamation of January, 1863, was a most complicated matter in Louisiana, for the reason that out of the forty-eight parishes in the State, thirteen were under federal control, and consequently the slaves there were left in their original state. Many of the masters even in those parishes where the slaves were declared emancipated sent their most valuable slaves to Alabama and Texas, some of them themselves fleeing with them. In parishes far removed from Union headquarters, news of the Emancipation Proclamation did not reach the slaves until long after it had been issued. Even then, in many cases, the proclamation had to be read at the point of the sword, federal soldiers compelling the slave owners to tell their chattels the news.[99] From the time of the accession of General Banks to 1876, the history of Louisiana becomes a turmoil of struggle, centering around the brother in black.[100] It is no longer romance; it is grim war, and the colored man is the struggle, not the cause of it. Political parties in 1862 were many and various. The Free State party was in favor of abolishing slavery, but wanted representation based altogether on the white population. This was opposed by the Union Democrat party, which repudiated secession, but wished slavery continued or rather revived, believing that emancipation was only a war measure, and that after cessation of hostilities, slavery could be reestablished. But the plans of both parties fell to the ground.[101] The colored man became more and more of a political factor from day to day. Cognomens here too proved to be another difficulty. Louisiana had two classes of colored men, freedmen and free men, a delicate, but carefully guarded distinction, the latter distinctly aristocratic. In 1863, the free men of color held a meeting and appealed to Governor Shepley for permission to register and vote. In the address to him, they reviewed their services to the United States from the time of General Jackson through the Civil War, and stated that they were then paying taxes on over $9,000,000. Several petitions of this sort failed to move General Banks,[102] for he thought it unfeasible to draw the line between free men of color and the recently emancipated Negroes.