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GREGORY'S UNIVERSITY; THANKS TO ALEV AKMAN. + + + + + +THE SEQUEL OF APPOMATTOX +A CHRONICLE OF THE REUNION OF THE STATES + +BY WALTER LYNWOOD FLEMING + + + + +CHAPTER I. THE AFTERMATH OF WAR + +When the armies of the Union and of the Confederacy were disbanded in 1865, +two matters had been settled beyond further dispute: the Negro was to be free, +and the Union was to be perpetuated. But, though slavery and state sovereignty +were no longer at issue, there were still many problems which pressed for +solution. The huge task of reconstruction must be faced. The nature of the +situation required that the measures of reconstruction be first formulated in +Washington by the victors and then worked out in the conquered South. Since +the success of these policies would depend in a large measure upon their +acceptability to both sections of the country, it was expected that the North +would be influenced to some extent by the attitude of the Southern people, +which in turn would be determined largely by local conditions in the South. +The situation in the South at the close of the Civil War is, therefore, the +point at which this narrative of the reconstruction naturally takes its +beginning. + +The surviving Confederate soldiers came straggling back to communities, which +were now far from being satisfactory dwelling places for civilized people. +Everywhere they found missing many of the best of their former neighbors. They +found property destroyed, the labor system disorganized, and the inhabitants +in many places suffering from want. They found the white people demoralized +and sometimes divided among themselves and the Negroes free, bewildered, and +disorderly, for organized government had lapsed with the surrender of the +Confederate armies. + +Beneath a disorganized society lay a devastated land. The destruction of +property affected all classes of the population. The accumulated capital of +the South had disappeared in worthless Confederate stocks, bonds, and +currency. The banks had failed early in the war. Two billion dollars invested +in slaves had been wiped out. Factories, which had been running before the war +or were developed after 1861 in order to supply the blockaded country, had +been destroyed by Federal raiders or seized and sold or dismantled because +they had furnished supplies to the Confederacy. Mining industries were +paralyzed. Public buildings which had been used for war purposes were +destroyed or confiscated for the uses of the army or for the new freedmen's +schools. It was months before courthouses, state capitols, school and college +buildings were again made available for normal uses. The military school +buildings had been destroyed by the Federal forces. Among the schools which +suffered were the Virginia Military Institute, the University of Alabama, the +Louisiana State Seminary, and many smaller institutions. Nearly all these had +been used in some way for war purposes and were therefore subject to +destruction or confiscation. + +The farmers and planters found themselves "land poor." The soil remained, but +there was a prevalent lack of labor, of agricultural equipment, of farm stock, +of seeds, and of money with which to make good the deficiency. As a result, a +man with hundreds of acres might be as poor as a Negro refugee. The desolation +is thus described by a Virginia farmer: + +"From Harper's Ferry to New Market, which is about eighty miles . . . the +country was almost a desert . . . . We had no cattle, hogs, sheep, or horse or +anything else. The fences were all gone. Some of the orchards were very much +injured, but the fruit trees had not been destroyed. The barns were all +burned; chimneys standing without houses, and houses standing without roof, or +door, or window." + +Much land was thrown on the market at low prices--three to five dollars an +acre for land worth fifty dollars. The poorer lands could not be sold at all, +and thousands of farms were deserted by their owners. Everywhere recovery from +this agricultural depression was slow. Five years after the war Robert Somers, +an English traveler, said of the Tennessee Valley: + +"It consists for the most part of plantations in a state of semi- ruin and +plantations of which the ruin is for the present total and complete . . . . +The trail of war is visible throughout the valley in burnt-up gin-houses, +ruined bridges, mills, and factories . . . and in large tracts of once +cultivated land stripped of every vestige of fencing. The roads, long +neglected, are in disorder, and having in many places become impassable, new +tracks have been made through the woods and fields without much respect to +boundaries." + +Similar conditions existed wherever the armies had passed, and not in the +country districts alone. Many of the cities, such as Richmond, Charleston, +Columbia, Jackson, Atlanta, and Mobile had suffered from fire or bombardment. + +There were few stocks of merchandise in the South when the war ended, and +Northern creditors had lost so heavily through the failure of Southern +merchants that they were cautious about extending credit again. Long before +1865 all coin had been sent out in contraband trade through the blockade. That +there was a great need of supplies from the outside world is shown by the +following statement of General Boynton: + +"Window-glass has given way to thin boards, in railway coaches and in the +cities. Furniture is marred and broken, and none has been replaced for four +years. Dishes are cemented in various styles, and half the pitchers have tin +handles. A complete set of crockery is never seen, and in very few families is +there enough to set a table .... A set of forks with whole tines is a +curiosity. Clocks and watches have nearly all stopped . . . . Hairbrushes and +toothbrushes have all worn out; combs are broken . . . . Pins, needles, and +thread, and a thousand such articles, which seem indispensable to +housekeeping, are very scarce. Even in weaving on the looms, corncobs have +been substituted for spindles. Few have pocketknives. In fact, everything that +has heretofore been an article of sale in the South is wanting now. At the +tables of those who were once esteemed luxurious providers you will find +neither tea, coffee, sugar, nor spices of any kind. Even candles, in some +cases, have been replaced by a cup of grease in which a piece of cloth is +plunged for a wick." + +This poverty was prolonged and rendered more acute by the lack of +transportation. Horses, mules, wagons, and carriages were scarce, the country +roads were nearly impassable, and bridges were in bad repair or had been +burned or washed away. Steamboats had almost disappeared from the rivers. +Those which had escaped capture as blockade runners had been subsequently +destroyed or were worn out.. Postal facilities, which had been poor enough +during the last year of the Confederacy, were entirely lacking for several +months after the surrender. + +The railways were in a state of physical dilapidation little removed from +destruction, save for those that had been captured and kept in partial repair +by the Federal troops. The rolling stock had been lost by capture, by +destruction to prevent capture, in wrecks, which were frequent, or had been +worn out. The railroad companies possessed large sums in Confederate currency +and in securities which were now valueless. About two-thirds of all the lines +were hopelessly bankrupt. Fortunately, the United States War Department took +over the control of the railway lines and in some cases effected a temporary +reorganization which could not have been accomplished by the bankrupt +companies. During the summer and fall of 1865, "loyal" boards of directors +were appointed for most of the railroads, and the army withdrew its control. +But repairs and reconstruction were accomplished with difficulty because of +the demoralization of labor and the lack of funds or credit. Freight was +scarce and, had it not been for government shipments, some of the railroads +would have been abandoned. Not many people were able to travel. It is recorded +that on one trip from Montgomery to Mobile and return, a distance of 360 +miles, the railroad which is now the Louisville and Nashville collected only +thirteen dollars in fares. + +Had there been unrestricted commercial freedom in the South in 1865-66, the +distress of the people would have been somewhat lessened, for here and there +were to be found public and private stores of cotton, tobacco, rice, and other +farm products, all of which were bringing high prices in the market. But for +several months the operation of wartime laws and regulations hindered the +distribution of even these scanty stores. Property upon which the Confederate +Government had a claim was, of course, subject to Confiscation, and private +property offered for sale, even that of Unionists, was subject to a 25 percent +tax on sales, a shipping tax, and a revenue tax. The revenue tax on cotton, +ranging from two to three cents a pound during the three years after the war, +brought in over $68,000,000. This tax, with other Federal revenues, yielded +much more than the entire expenses of reconstruction from 1865 to 1868 and of +all relief measures for the South, both public and private. After May 1865, +the 25 percent tax was imposed only upon the produce of slave labor. None of +the war taxes, except that on cotton, was levied upon the crops of 1866, but +while these taxes lasted, they seriously impeded the resumption of trade. + +Even these restrictions, however, might have been borne if only they had been +honestly applied. Unfortunately, some of the most spectacular frauds ever +perpetrated were carried through in connection with the attempt of the United +States Treasury Department to collect and sell the confiscable property in the +South. The property to be sold consisted of what had been captured and seized +by the army and the navy, of "abandoned" property, as such was called whose +owner was absent in the Confederate service, and of property subject to +seizure under the confiscation acts of Congress. No captures were made after +the general surrender, and no further seizures of "abandoned" property were +made after Johnson's amnesty proclamation of May 29, 1865. This left only the +"confiscable" property to be collected and sold. + +For collection purposes the states of the South were divided into districts, +each under the supervision of an agent of the Treasury Department, who +received a commission of about 25 percent. Cotton, regarded as the root of the +slavery evil, was singled out as the principal object of confiscation. It was +known that the Confederate Government had owned in 1865 about 150,000 bales, +but the records were defective and much of it, with no clear indication of +ownership, still remained with the producers. Secretary Chase, foreseeing the +difficulty of effecting a just settlement, counseled against seizure, but his +judgment was overruled. Secretary McCulloch said of his agents: "I am sure I +sent some honest cotton agents South; but it sometimes seems doubtful whether +any of them remained honest very long." Some of the natives, even, became +cotton thieves. In a report made in 1866, McCulloch describes their methods: +"Contractors, anxious for gain, were sometimes guilty of bad faith and +peculation, and frequently took possession of cotton and delivered it under +contracts as captured or abandoned, when in fact it was not such, and they had +no right to touch it . . . . Residents and others in the districts where these +peculations were going on took advantage of the unsettled condition of the +country, and representing themselves as agents of this department, went about +robbing under such pretended authority, and thus added to the difficulties of +the situation by causing unjust opprobrium and suspicion to rest upon officers +engaged in the faithful discharge of their duties. Agents, . . . frequently +received or collected property, and sent it forward which the law did not +authorize them to take . . . . Lawless men, singly and in organized bands, +engaged in general plunder; every species of intrigue and peculation and theft +were resorted to." + +These agents turned over to the United States about $34,000,000. About 40,000 +claimants were subsequently indemnified on the ground that the property taken +from them did not belong to the Confederate Government, but many thousands of +other claimants have been unable to prove that their property was seized by +government agents and hence have received nothing. It is probable that the +actual Confederate property was nearly all stolen by the agents. One agent in +Alabama sold an appointment as assistant for $25,000, and a few months later +both the assistant and the agent were tried by a military court for stealing +and were fined $90,000 and $250,000 respectively in addition to being +imprisoned. + +Other property, including horses, mules, wagons, tobacco, rice, and sugar +which the natives claimed as their own, was seized. In some places the agents +even collected delinquent Confederate taxes. Much of the confiscable property +was not sold but was turned over to the Freedmen's Bureau* for its support. +The total amount seized cannot be satisfactorily ascertained. The Ku Klux +minority report asserted that 3,000,000 bales of cotton were taken, of which +the United States received only 114,000. It is certain that, owing to the +deliberate destruction of cotton by fire in 1864-65, this estimate was too +high, but all the testimony points to the fact that the frauds were +stupendous. As a result the United States Government did not succeed in +obtaining the Confederate property to which it had a claim, and the country +itself was stripped of necessities to a degree that left it not only destitute +but outraged and embittered. "Such practices," said Trowbridge, "had a +pernicious effect, engendering a contempt for the Government and a murderous +ill will which too commonly vented itself upon soldiers and Negroes." * See +pp. 89 et seq. + +The South faced the work of reconstruction not only with a shortage of +material and greatly hampered in the employment even of that but still more +with a shortage of men. The losses among the whites are usually estimated at +about half the military population, but since accurate records are lacking, +the exact numbers cannot be ascertained. The best of the civil leaders, as +well as the prominent military leaders, had so committed themselves to the +support of the Confederacy as to be excluded from participation in any +reconstruction that might be attempted. The business of reconstruction, +therefore, fell of necessity to the Confederate private soldiers, the lower +officers, nonparticipants, and lukewarm individuals who had not greatly +compromised themselves. These politically and physically uninjured survivors +included also all the "slackers" of the Confederacy. But though there were +such physical and moral losses on the part of those to whom fell the direction +of affairs, there was also a moral strengthening in the sound element of the +people who had been tried by the discipline of war. + +The greatest weakness of both races was their extreme poverty. The crops of +1865 turned out badly, for most of the soldiers reached home too late for +successful planting, and the Negro labor was not dependable. The sale of such +cotton and farm products as had escaped the treasury agents was of some help, +but curiously enough much of the good money thus obtained was spent +extravagantly by a people used to Confederate rag money and for four years +deprived of the luxuries of life. The poorer whites who had lost all were +close to starvation. In the white counties which had sent so large a +proportion of men to the army, the destitution was most acute. In many +families the breadwinner had been killed in war. After 1862, relief systems +had been organized in nearly all the Confederate States for the purpose of +aiding the poor whites, but these organizations were disbanded in 1865. A +Freedmen's Bureau official traveling through the desolate back country +furnishes a description which might have applied to two hundred counties, a +third of the South: "It is a common, an every-day sight in Randolph County, +that of women and children, most of whom were formerly in good circumstances, +begging for bread from door to door. Meat of any kind has been a stranger to +many of their mouths for months. The drought cut off what little crops they +hoped to save, and they must have immediate help or perish. By far the greater +suffering exists among the whites. Their scanty supplies have been exhausted, +and now they look to the Government alone for support. Some are without homes +of any description." + +Where the armies had passed, few of the people, white or black, remained; most +of them had been forced as "refugees" within the Union lines or into the +interior of the Confederacy. Now, along with the disbanded Confederate +soldiers, they came straggling back to their war-swept homes. It was +estimated, in December 1865, that in the states of Alabama, Mississippi, and +Georgia, there were five hundred thousand white people who were without the +necessaries of life; numbers died from lack of food. Within a few months, +relief agencies were at work. In the North, especially in the border states +and in New York, charitable organizations collected and forwarded great +quantities of supplies to the Negroes and to the whites in the hill and +mountain counties. The reorganized state and local governments sent food from +the unravaged portions of the Black Belt to the nearest white counties, and +the army commanders gave some aid. As soon as the Freedmen's Bureau was +organized, it fed to the limit of its supplies the needy whites as well as the +blacks. + +The extent of the relief afforded by the charity of the North and by the +agencies of the United States Government is not now generally remembered, +probably on account of the later objectionable activities of the Freedmen's +Bureau, but it was at the time properly appreciated. A Southern journalist, +writing of what he saw in Georgia, remarked that "it must be a matter of +gratitude as well as surprise for our people to see a Government which was +lately fighting us with fire and sword and shell, now generously feeding our +poor and distressed. In the immense crowds which throng the distributing +house, I notice the mothers and fathers, widows and orphans of our soldiers . +. . . Again, the Confederate soldier, with one leg or one arm, the crippled, +maimed, and broken, and the worn and destitute men, who fought bravely their +enemies then, their benefactors now, have their sacks filled and are fed." + +Acute distress continued until 1867; after that year there was no further +danger of starvation. Some of the poor whites, especially in the remote +districts, never again reached a comfortable standard of living; some were +demoralized by too much assistance; others were discouraged and left the South +for the West or the North. But the mass of the people accepted the discipline +of poverty and made the best of their situation. + +The difficulties, however, that beset even the courageous and the competent +were enormous. The general paralysis of industry, the breaking up of society, +and poverty on all sides bore especially hard on those who had not previously +been manual laborers. Physicians could get practice enough but no fees; +lawyers who had supported the Confederacy found it difficult to get back into +the reorganized courts because of the test oaths and the competition of +"loyal" attorneys; and for the teachers there were few schools. We read of +officers high in the Confederate service selling to Federal soldiers the pies +and cakes cooked by their wives, of others selling fish and oysters which they +themselves had caught, and of men and women hitching themselves to plows when +they had no horse or mule. + +Such incidents must, from their nature, have been infrequent, but they show to +what straits some at least were reduced. Six years after the war, James S. +Pike, then in South Carolina, mentions cases which might be duplicated in +nearly every old Southern community: "In the vicinity," he says, "lived a +gentleman whose income when the war broke out was rated at $150,000 a year. +Not a vestige of his whole vast estate remains today. Not far distant were the +estates of a large proprietor and a well-known family, rich and distinguished +for generations. The slaves were gone. The family is gone. A single scion of +the house remains, and he peddles tea by the pound and molasses by the quart, +on a corner of the old homestead, to the former slaves of the family and +thereby earns his livelihood." + +General Lee's good example influenced many. Commercial enterprises were +willing to pay for the use of his name and reputation, but he wished to farm +and could get no opportunity. "They are offering my father everything," his +daughter said, "except the only thing he will accept, a place to earn honest +bread while engaged in some useful work." This remark led to an offer of the +presidency of Washington College, now Washington and Lee University, which he +accepted. "I have a self-imposed task which I must accomplish," he said, "I +have led the young men of the South in battle; I have seen many of them fall +under my standard. I shall devote my life now to training young men to do +their duty in life." + +The condition of honest folk was still further troubled by a general spirit of +lawlessness in many regions. Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana +recognized the "Union" state government, but the coming of peace brought legal +anarchy to the other states of the Confederacy. The Confederate state and +local governments were abolished as the armies of occupation spread over the +South, and for a period of four or six months there was no government except +that exercised by the commanders of the military garrisons left behind when +the armies marched away. Even before the surrender, the local governments were +unable to make their authority respected, and soon after the war ended, parts +of the country became infested with outlaws, pretend treasury agents, horse +thieves, cattle thieves, and deserters. Away from the military posts only +lynch law could cope with these elements of disorder. + +With the aid of the army in the more settled regions, and by extra-legal means +elsewhere, the outlaws, thieves, cotton burners, and house burners were +brought somewhat under control even before the state governments were +reorganized, though the embers of lawlessness continued to smolder. + +The relations between the Federal soldiers stationed in the principal towns +and the native white population were not, on the whole, so bad as might have +been expected. If the commanding officer were well disposed, there was little +danger of friction, though sometimes his troops got out of hand. The regulars +had a better reputation than the volunteers. The Confederate soldiers were +surfeited with fighting, but the "stay-at-home" element was often a cause of +trouble. The problem of social relations between the conquerors and the +conquered was troublesome. The men might get along well together, but the +women would have nothing do with the "Yankees," and ill feeling arose because +of their antipathy. Carl Schurz reported that "the soldier of the Union is +looked upon as a stranger, an intruder, as the 'Yankee,' the 'enemy.' . . . +The existence and intensity of this aversion is too well known to those who +have served or are serving in the South to require proof." + +In retaliation the soldiers developed ingenious ways of annoying the whites. +Women, forced for any reason to go to headquarters, were made to take the oath +of allegiance or the "ironclad" oath before their requests were granted; flags +were fastened over doors, gates, or sidewalks in order to irritate the +recalcitrant dames and their daughters. Confederate songs and color +combinations were forbidden. In Richmond, General Halleck ordered that no +marriages be performed unless the bride, the groom, and the officiating +clergyman took the oath of allegiance. He explained this as a measure taken to +prevent "the propagation of legitimate rebels." + +The wearing of Confederate uniforms was forbidden by military order, but by +May 1865, few soldiers possessed regulation uniforms. In Tennessee the State +also imposed fines upon *wear wearers of the uniform. In the vicinity of +military posts, buttons and marks of rank were usually ordered removed and the +gray clothes dyed with some other color. General Lee, for example, had the +buttons on his coat covered with cloth. But frequently the Federal commander, +after issuing the orders, paid no more attention to the matter and such +conflicts as arose on account of the uniform were usually caused by officious +enlisted men and the Negro troops. Whitelaw Reid relates the following +incident: + +"Nothing was more touching, in all that I saw in Savannah, than the almost +painful effort of the rebels, from generals down to privates, to conduct +themselves so as to evince respect for our soldiers, and to bring no severer +punishment upon the city than it had already received. There was a brutal +scene at the hotel, where a drunken sergeant, with a pair of tailor's shears, +insisted on cutting the buttons from the uniform of an elegant gray-headed old +brigadier, who had just come in from Johnston's army; but he bore himself +modestly and very handsomely through it. His staff was composed of +fine-looking, stalwart fellows, evidently gentlemen, who appeared intensely +mortified at such treatment. They had no clothes except their rebel uniforms, +and had, as yet, had no time to procure others, but they avoided disturbances +and submitted to what they might, with some propriety, and with the general +approval of our officers, *have resented." + +The Negro troops, even at their best, were everywhere considered offensive by +the native whites. General Grant, indeed, urged that only white troops be used +to garrison the interior. But the Negro soldier, impudent by reason of his new +freedom, his new uniform, and his new gun, was more than Southern temper could +tranquilly bear, and race conflicts were frequent. A New Orleans newspaper +thus states the Southern point of view: "Our citizens who had been accustomed +to meet and treat the Negroes only as respectful servants, were mortified, +pained, and shocked to encounter them . . . wearing Federal uniforms and +bearing bright muskets and gleaming bayonets . . . . They are jostled from the +sidewalks by dusky guards, marching four abreast. They were halted, in rude +and sullen tones, by Negro sentinels." + +The task of the Federal forces was not easy. The garrisons were not large +enough nor numerous enough to keep order in the absence of civil government. +The commanders in the South asked in vain for cavalry to police the rural +districts. Much of the disorder, violence, and incendiarism attributed at the +time to lawless soldiers appeared later to be due to discharged soldiers and +others pretending to be soldiers in order to carry out schemes of robbery. The +whites complained vigorously of the garrisons, and petitions were sent to +Washington from mass meetings and from state legislatures asking for their +removal. The higher commanders, however, bore themselves well, and in a few +fortunate cases Southern whites were on most amicable terms with the garrison +commanders. The correspondence of responsible military officers in the South +shows how earnestly and considerately each, as a rule, tried to work out his +task. The good sense of most of the Federal officers appeared when, after the +murder of Lincoln, even General Grant for a brief space lost his head and +ordered the arrest of paroled Confederates. + + +The church organizations were as much involved in the war and in the +reconstruction as were secular institutions. Before the war every religious +organization having members North and South, except the Catholic Church and +the Jews, had separated into independent Northern and Southern bodies. In each +section church feeling ran high, and when the war came, the churches supported +the armies. As the Federal armies occupied Southern territory, the church +buildings of each denomination were turned over to the corresponding Northern +body, and Southern ministers were permitted to remain only upon agreeing to +conduct "loyal services, pray for the President of the United States and for +Federal victories" and to foster "loyal sentiment." The Protestant Episcopal +churches in Alabama were closed from September to December 1865, and some +congregations were dispersed by the soldiers because Bishop Wilmer had +directed his clergy to omit the prayer for President Davis but had substituted +no other. The ministers of non-liturgical churches were not so easily +controlled. A Georgia Methodist preacher directed by a Federal officer to pray +for the President said afterwards: "I prayed for the President that the Lord +would take out of him and his allies the hearts of beasts and put into them +the hearts of men or remove the cusses from office." Sometimes members of a +congregation showed their resentment at the "loyal" prayers by leaving the +church. But in spite of many irritations, both sides frequently managed to get +some amusement out of the "loyal" services. The church situation was, however, +a serious matter during and after the reconstruction, and some of its later +phases will have to be discussed elsewhere. + +The Unionist, or "Tory," of the lower and eastern South found himself, in +1865, a man without a country. Few in number in any community, they found +themselves, upon their return from a harsh exile, the victims of ostracism or +open hostility. One of them, William H. Smith, later Governor of Alabama, +testified that the Southern people "manifest the most perfect contempt for a +man who is known to be an unequivocal Union man; they call him a 'galvanized +Yankee' and apply other terms and epithets to him." General George H. Thomas, +speaking of a region more divided in sentiment than Alabama, remarked that +"Middle Tennessee is disturbed by animosities and hatreds, much more than it +is by the disloyalty of persons towards the Government of the United States. + +Those personal animosities would break out and overawe the civil authorities, +but for the presence there of the troops of the United States . . . . They are +more unfriendly to Union men, natives of the State of Tennessee, or of the +South, who have been in the Union army, than they are to men of Northern +birth." + +In the border states, society was sharply divided, and feeling was bitter. In +eastern Tennessee, eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, and parts of Arkansas and +Missouri, returning Confederates met harsher treatment than did the Unionists +in the lower South. Trowbridge says of east Tennessee: "Returning rebels were +robbed; and if one had stolen unawares to his home, it was not safe for him to +remain there. I saw in Virginia one of these exiles, who told me how +homesickly he pined for the hills and meadows of east Tennessee, which he +thought the most delightful region in the world. But, there was a rope hanging +from a tree for him there, and he dared not go back. 'The bottom rails are on +top,' said he, 'that is the trouble.' The Union element, and the worst part of +the Union element, was uppermost." Confederates and Confederate sympathizers +in Maryland, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, were disfranchised. In +West Virginia, Tennessee, and Missouri, "war trespass" suits were brought +against returning Confederates for military acts done in war time. In Missouri +and West Virginia, strict test oaths excluded Confederates from office, from +the polls, and from the professions of teaching, preaching, and law. On the +other hand in central and western Kentucky, the predominant Unionist +population, themselves suffering through the abolition of slavery, and by the +objectionable operations of the Freedmen's Bureau and the unwise military +administration, showed more sympathy for the Confederates, welcomed them home, +and soon relieved them of all restrictions. + +Still another element of discord was added by the Northerners who came to +exploit the South. Many mustered-out soldiers proposed to stay. Speculators of +all kinds followed the withdrawing Confederate lines and with the conclusion +of peace spread through the country, but they were not cordially received. +With the better class, the Southerners, especially the soldiers, associated +freely if seldom intimately. But the conduct of a few of their number who +considered that the war had opened all doors to them, who very freely +expressed their views, gave advice, condemned old customs, and were generally +offensive, did much to bring all Northerners into disrepute. Tactlessly +critical letters published in Northern papers did not add to their popularity. +The few Northern women felt the ostracism more keenly than did the men. +Benjamin C. Truman, an agent of President Johnson, thus summed up the +situation: "There is a prevalent disposition not to associate too freely with +Northern men or to receive them into the circles of society; but it is far +from unsurmountable. Over Southern society, as over every other, woman reigns +supreme, and they are more embittered against those whom they deem the authors +of all their calamities than are their brothers, sons, and husbands." But, of +the thousands of Northern men who overcame the reluctance of the Southerners +to social intercourse, little was heard. Many a Southern planter secured a +Northern partner or sold him half his plantation to get money to run the other +half. For the irritations of 1865, each party must take its share of +responsibility. + +Had the South assisted in a skillful and adequate publicity, much disastrous +misunderstanding might have been avoided. The North knew as little of the +South as the South did of the North, but the North was eager for news. Able +newspaper correspondents like Sidney Andrews of the Boston Advertiser and the +Chicago Tribune, who opposed President Johnson's policies, Thomas W. Knox of +the New York Herald, who had given General Sherman so much trouble in +Tennessee, Whitelaw Reid, who wrote for several papers and tried cotton +planting in Louisiana, and John T. Trowbridge, New England author and +journalist, were dispatched southwards. Chief of the President's investigators +was General Carl Schurz, German revolutionist, Federal soldier, and soon to be +radical Republican, who held harsh views of the Southern people; and there +were besides Harvey M. Watterson, Kentucky Democrat and Unionist, the father +of "Marse" Henry; Benjamin C. Truman, New England journalist and soldier, +whose long report was perhaps the best of all; Chief Justice Chase, who was +thinking mainly of "How soon can the Negro vote?"; and General Grant, who made +a report so brief that, notwithstanding its value, it attracted little +attention. In addition a constant stream of information and misinformation was +going northward from treasury agents, officers of the army, the Freedmen's +Bureau, teachers, and missionaries. Among foreigners who described the +conquered land were Robert Somers, Henry Latham, and William Hepworth Dixon. +But few in the South realized the importance of supplying the North with +correct information about actual conditions. The letters and reports, they +thought, humiliated them; inquiry was felt to be prying and gloating. +"Correspondents have added a new pang to surrender," it was said. The South +was proud and refused to be catechized. From the Northern point of view, the +South, a new and strange region with strange customs and principles, was of +course, not to be considered as quite normal and American, but there was on +the part of many correspondents a determined attempt to describe things as +they were. And yet the North persisted in its unsympathetic queries when it +seemed to have a sufficient answer in the reports of Grant, Schurz, and +Truman. + +Grant's opinion was short and direct: "I am satisfied that the mass of +thinking men of the South accept the present situation of affairs in good +faith . . . . The citizens of the Southern States are anxious to return to +self-government within the Union as soon as possible." Truman came to the +conclusion that "the rank and file of the disbanded Southern army . . . are +the backbone and sinew of the South . . . . To the disbanded regiments of the +rebel army, both officers and men, I look with great confidence as the best +and altogether the most hopeful element of the South, the real basis of +reconstruction and the material of worthy citizenship." General John Tarbell, +before the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, testified that "there are, no +doubt, disloyal and disorderly persons in the South, but it is an entire +mistake to apply these terms to a whole people. I would as soon travel alone, +unarmed, through the South as through the North. The South I left is not at +all the South I hear and read about in the North. From the sentiment I hear in +the North, I would scarcely recognize the people I saw, and, except their +politics, I liked so well. I have entire faith that the better classes are +friendly to the Negroes." + +Carl Schurz on the other hand was not so favorably impressed. "The loyalty of +the masses and most of the leaders of the southern people," he said, "consists +in submission to necessity. There is, except in individual instances, an +entire absence of that national spirit which forms the basis of true loyalty +and patriotism." Another government official in Florida was quite doubtful of +the Southern whites. "I would pin them down at the point of the bayonet," he +declared, "so close that they would not have room to wiggle, and allow +intelligent colored people to go up and vote in preference to them. The only +Union element in the South proper . . . is among the colored people. The +whites will treat you very kindly to your face, but they are deceitful. I have +often thought, and so expressed myself, that there is so much deception among +the people of the South since the rebellion, that if an earthquake should open +and swallow them up, I was fearful that the devil would be dethroned and some +of them take his place." + +The point of view of the Confederate military leaders was exhibited by General +Wade Hampton in a letter to President Johnson and by General Lee in his advice +to Governor Letcher of Virginia. General Hampton wrote: "The South +unequivocally 'accepts the situation' in which she is placed. Everything that +she has done has been done in perfect faith, and in the true and highest sense +of the word, she is loyal. By this I mean that she intends to abide by the +laws of the land honestly, to fulfill all her obligations faithfully and to +keep her word sacredly, and I assert that the North has no right to demand +more of her. You have no right to ask, or expect that she will at once profess +unbounded love to that Union from which for four years she tried to escape at +the cost of her best blood and all her treasures." General Lee in order to set +an example applied through General Grant for a pardon under the amnesty +proclamation and soon afterwards he wrote to Governor Letcher: "All should +unite in honest efforts to obliterate the effects of war, and to restore the +blessings of peace. They should remain, if possible, in the country; promote +harmony and good-feeling; qualify themselves to vote; and elect to the State +and general legislatures wise and patriotic men, who will devote their +abilities to the interests of the country and the healing of all dissensions; +I have invariably recommended this course since the cessation of hostilities, +and have endeavored to practice it myself." + +Southerners of the Confederacy everywhere, then, accepted the destruction of +slavery and the renunciation of state sovereignty; they welcomed an early +restoration of the Union, without any punishment of leaders of the defeated +cause. But they were proud of their Confederate records though now legally +"loyal" to the United States; they considered the Negro as free but inferior, +and expected to be permitted to fix his status in the social organization and +to solve the problem of free labor in their own way. To *embarrass the easy +and permanent realization of these views there was a society disrupted, +economically prostrate, deprived of its natural leaders, subjected to a +control not always wisely conceived nor effectively exercised, and, finally, +containing within its own population unassimilated elements which presented +problems fraught with difficulty and danger. + + + +CHAPTER II. WHEN FREEDOM CRIED OUT + +The Negro is the central figure in the reconstruction of the South. Without +the Negro there would have been no Civil War. Granting a war fought for any +other cause, the task of reconstruction would, without him, have been +comparatively simple. With him, however, reconstruction meant more than the +restoring of shattered resources; it meant the more or less successful attempt +to obtain and secure for the freedman civil and political rights, and to +improve his economic and social status. In 1861, the American Negro was +everywhere an inferior, and most of his race were slaves; in 1865, he was no +longer a slave, but whether he was to be serf, ward, or citizen was an +unsettled problem; in 1868, he was in the South the legal and political equal, +frequently the superior, of the white; and before the end of the +reconstruction period he was made by the legislation of some states and by +Congress the legal equal of the white even in certain social matters. + +The race problem which confronted the American people had no parallel in the +past. British and Spanish-American emancipation of slaves had affected only +small numbers or small regions, in which one race greatly outnumbered the +other. The results of these earlier emancipations of the Negroes and the +difficulties of European states in dealing with subject white populations were +not such as to afford helpful example to American statesmen. But since it was +the actual situation in the Southern States rather than the experience of +other countries which shaped the policies adopted during reconstruction, it is +important to examine with some care the conditions in which the Negroes in the +South found themselves at the close of the war. + +The Negroes were not all helpless and without experience "when freedom cried +out."* In the Border States and in the North there were, in 1861, half a +million free Negroes accustomed to looking out for themselves. Nearly 200,000 +Negro men were enlisted in the United States army between 1862 and 1865, and +many thousands of slaves had followed raiding Federal forces to freedom or had +escaped through the Confederate lines. State emancipation in Missouri, +Maryland, West Virginia, and Tennessee, and the practical application of the +Emancipation Proclamation where the Union armies were in control ended slavery +for many thousands more. Wherever the armies marched, slavery ended. This was +true even in Kentucky, where the institution was not legally abolished until +the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment. Altogether more than a million +Negroes were free and to some extent habituated to freedom before May 1865. + +*A Negro phrase much used in referring to emancipation. + + +Most of these war-emancipated Negroes were scattered along the borders of the +Confederacy, in camps, in colonies, in the towns, on refugee farms, at work +with the armies, or serving as soldiers in the ranks. There were large working +colonies along the Atlantic coast from Maryland to Florida. The chief centers +were near Norfolk, where General Butler was the first to establish a +"contraband" camp, in North Carolina, and on the Sea Islands of South +Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, which had been seized by the Federal fleet +early in the war. To the Sea Islands also were sent, in 1865, the hordes of +Negroes who had followed General Sherman out of Georgia and South Carolina. +Through the border states from the Atlantic to the Mississippi and along both +sides of the Mississippi from Cairo, Illinois, to New Orleans, there were +other refugee camps, farms, and colonies. For periods varying from one to four +years these free Negroes had been at work, often amid conditions highly +unfavorable to health, under the supervision of officers of the Treasury +Department or of the army. + +Emancipation was therefore a gradual process, and most of the Negroes, through +their widening experience on the plantations, with the armies, and in the +colonies, were better fitted for freedom in 1865 than they had been in 1861. +Even their years of bondage had done something for them, for they knew how to +work and they had adopted in part the language, habits, religion, and morals +of the whites. But slavery had not made them thrifty, self-reliant, or +educated. Frederick Douglass said of the Negro at the end of his servitude: +"He had none of the conditions of self-preservation or self-protection. He was +free from the individual master, but he had nothing but the dusty road under +his feet. He was free from the old quarter that once gave him shelter, but a +slave to the rains of summer and to the frosts of winter. He was turned loose, +naked, hungry, and destitute to the open sky." To prove that he was free the +Negro thought he must leave his old master, change his name, quit work for a +time, perhaps get a new wife, and hang around the Federal soldiers in camp or +garrison, or go to the towns where the Freedmen's Bureau was in process of +organization. To the Negroes who remained at home--and, curiously enough, for +a time at least many did so--the news of freedom was made known somewhat +ceremonially by the master or his representative. The Negroes were summoned to +the "big house," told that they were free, and advised to stay on for a share +of the crop. The description by Mrs. Clayton, the wife of a Southern general, +will serve for many: "My husband said, 'I think it best for me to inform our +Negroes of their freedom.' So he ordered all the grown slaves to come to him, +and told them they no longer belonged to him as property, but were all free. +'You are not bound to remain with me any longer, and I have a proposition to +make to you. If any of you desire to leave, I propose to furnish you with a +conveyance to move you, and with provisions for the balance of the year.' The +universal answer was, 'Master, we want to stay right here with you.' In many +instances the slaves were so infatuated with the idea of being, as they said, +'free as birds' that they left their homes and consequently suffered; but our +slaves were not so foolish."* + +* "Black and White under the Old Regime", p. 158, + + +The Negroes, however, had learned of their freedom before their old masters +returned from the war; they were aware that the issues of the war involved in +some way the question of their freedom or servitude, and through the +"grapevine telegraph," the news brought by the invading soldiers, and the talk +among the whites, they had long been kept fairly well informed. What the idea +of freedom meant to the Negroes it is difficult to say. Some thought that +there would be no more work and that all would be cared for by the Government; +others believed that education and opportunity were about to make them the +equal of their masters. The majority of them were too bewildered to appreciate +anything except the fact that they were free from enforced labor. + +Conditions were most disturbed in the so-called "Black Belt," consisting of +about two hundred counties in the most fertile parts of the South, where the +plantation system was best developed and where by far the majority of the +Negroes were segregated. The Negroes in the four hundred more remote and less +fertile "white" counties, which had been less disturbed by armies, were not so +upset by freedom as those of the Black Belt, for the garrisons and the larger +towns, both centers of demoralization, were in or near the Black Belt. But +there was a moving to and fro on the part of those who had escaped from the +South or had been captured during the war or carried into the interior of the +South to prevent capture. To those who left slavery and home to find freedom +were added those who had found freedom and were now trying to get back home or +to get away from the Negro camps and colonies which were breaking up. A stream +of immigration which began to flow to the southwest affected Negroes as far as +the Atlantic coast. In the confusion of moving, families were broken up, and +children, wife, or husband were often lost to one another. The very old people +and the young children were often left behind for the former master to care +for. Regiments of Negro soldiers were mustered out in every large town and +their numbers were added to the disorderly mass. Some of the Federal garrisons +and Bureau stations were almost overwhelmed by the numbers of blacks who +settled down upon them waiting for freedom to bestow its full measure of +blessing, and many of the Negroes continued to remain in a demoralized +condition until the new year. + +The first year of freedom was indeed a year of disease, suffering, and death. +Several partial censuses indicate that in 1865-66 the Negro population lost as +many by disease as the whites had lost in war. Ill-fed, crowded in cabins near +the garrisons or entirely without shelter, and unaccustomed to caring for +their own health, the blacks who were searching for freedom fell an easy prey +to ordinary diseases and to epidemics. Poor health conditions prevailed for +several years longer. In 1870, Robert Somers remarked that "the health of the +whites has greatly improved since the war, while the health of the Negroes has +declined till the mortality of the colored population, greater than the +mortality of the whites was before the war, has now become so markedly +greater, that nearly two colored die for every white person out of equal +numbers of each." + +Morals and manners also suffered under the new dispensation. In the crowded +and disease-stricken towns and camps, the conditions under which the roving +Negroes lived were no better for morals than for health, for here there were +none of the restraints to which the blacks had been accustomed and which they +now despised as being a part of their servitude. But in spite of all the +relief that could be given there was much want. In fact, to restore former +conditions the relief agencies frequently cut off supplies in order to force +the Negroes back to work and to prevent others from leaving the country for +the towns. But the hungry freedmen turned to the nearest food supply, and +"spilin de gypshuns" (despoiling the Egyptians, as the Negroes called stealing +from the whites) became an approved means of support. Thefts of hogs, cattle, +poultry, field crops, and vegetables drove almost to desperation those whites +who lived in the vicinity of the Negro camps. When the ex-slave felt obliged +to go to town, he was likely to take with him a team and wagon and his +master's clothes if he could get them. + +The former good manners of the Negro were now replaced by impudence and +distrust. There were advisers among the Negro troops and other agitators who +assured them that politeness to whites was a mark of servitude. Pushing and +crowding in public places, on street cars and on the sidewalks, and impudent +speeches everywhere marked generally the limit of rudeness. And the Negroes +were, in this respect, perhaps no worse than those European immigrants who act +upon the principle that bad manners are a proof of independence. + +The year following emancipation was one of religious excitement for large +numbers of the blacks. Before 1865, the Negro church members were attached to +white congregations or were organized into missions, with nearly always a +white minister in charge and a black assistant. With the coming of freedom the +races very soon separated in religious matters. For this there were two +principal reasons: the Negro preachers could exercise more influence in +independent churches; and new church organizations from the North were seeking +Negro membership. Sometimes Negro members were urged to insist on the right +"to sit together" with the whites. In a Richmond church a Negro from the +street pushed his way to the communion altar and knelt. There was a noticeable +pause; then General Robert E. Lee went forward and knelt beside the Negro; and +the congregation followed his example. But this was a solitary instance. When +the race issue was raised by either color, the church membership usually +divided. There was much churchgoing by the Negroes, day and night, and church +festivities and baptisms were common. The blacks preferred immersion and, +wanted a new baptism each time they changed to a new church. Baptizings in +ponds, creeks, or rivers were great occasions and were largely attended. +"Shouting" the candidates went into the water and "shouting" they came out. +One old woman came up screaming, "Freed from slavery! freed from sin! Bless +God and General Grant!" + +In the effort to realize their new-found freedom, the Negroes were heavily +handicapped by their extreme poverty and their ignorance. The total value of +free Negro property ran up into the millions in 1860, but the majority of the +Negroes had nothing. There were a few educated Negroes in the South, and more +in the North and in Canada, but the mass of the race was too densely ignorant +to furnish its own leadership. The case, however, was not hopeless; the Negro +was able to work and in large territories had little competition; wages were +high, even though paid in shares of the crop; the cost of living was low; and +land was cheap. Thousands seemed thirsty for an education and crowded the +schools which were available. It was too much, however, to expect the Negro to +take immediate advantage of his opportunities. What he wanted was a long +holiday, a gun and a dog, and plenty of hunting and fishing. He must have +Saturday at least for a trip to town or to a picnic or a circus; he did not +wish to be a servant. When he had any money, swindlers reaped a harvest. They +sold him worthless finery, cheap guns, preparations to bleach the skin or +straighten the hair, and striped pegs which, when set up on the master's +plantation, would entitle the purchaser to "40 acres and a mule." + +The attitude of the Negroes' employers not infrequently complicated the +situation which they sought to better. The old masters were, as a rule, +skeptical of the value of free Negro labor. Carl Schurz thought this attitude +boded ill for the future: "A belief, conviction, or prejudice, or whatever you +may call it," he said, "so widely spread and apparently deeply rooted as this, +that the Negro will not work without physical compulsion, is certainly +calculated to have a very serious influence upon the conduct of the people +entertaining it. It naturally produced a desire to preserve slavery in its +original form as much and as long as possible . . . or to introduce into the +new system that element of physical compulsion which would make the Negro +work." The Negro wished to be free to leave his job when he pleased, but, as +Benjamin C. Truman stated in his report to President Johnson, a "result of the +settled belief in the Negro's inferiority, and in the necessity that he should +not be left to himself without a guardian, is that in some sections he is +discouraged from leaving his old master. I have known of planters who +considered it an offence against neighborhood courtesy for another to hire +their old hands, and in two instances that were reported the disputants came +to blows over the breach of etiquette." The new Freedmen's Bureau insisted +upon written contracts, except for day laborers, and this undoubtedly kept +many Negroes from working regularly, for they were suspicious of contracts. +Besides, the agitators and the Negro troops led them to hope for an eventual +distribution of property. An Alabama planter thus described the situation in +December 1865: + +"They will not work for anything but wages, and few are able to pay wages. +They are penniless but resolute in their demands. They expect to see all the +land divided out equally between them and their old masters in time to make +the next crop. One of the most intelligent black men I know told me that in a +neighboring village, where several hundred blacks were congregated, he does +not think that as many as three made contracts, although planters are urgent +in their solicitations and offering highest prices for labor they can possibly +afford to pay. The same man informed me that the impression widely prevails +that Congress is about to divide out the lands, and that this impression is +given out by Federal soldiers at the nearest military station. It cannot be +disguised that in spite of the most earnest efforts of their old master to +conciliate and satisfy them, the estrangement between races increases in its +extent and bitterness. Nearly all the Negro men are armed with repeaters, and +many of them carry them openly, day and night." + +The relations between the races were better, however, than conditions seemed +to indicate. The whites of the Black Belt were better disposed toward the +Negroes than were those of the white districts. It was in the towns and +villages that most of the race conflicts occurred. All whites agreed that the +Negro was inferior, but there were many who were grateful for his conduct +during the war and who wished him well. But others, the policemen of the +towns, the "loyalists," those who had little but pride of race and the vote to +distinguish them from the blacks, felt no good will toward the ex-slaves. It +was Truman's opinion "not only that the planters are far better friends to the +Negroes than the poor whites, but also better than a majority of the Northern +men who go South to rent plantations." John T. Trowbridge, the novelist, who +recorded his impressions of the South after a visit in 1865, was of the +opinion that the Unionists "do not like niggers." "For there is," he said, +"more prejudice against color among the middle and poorer classes--the Union +men of the South who owned few or no slaves--than among the planters who owned +them by scores and hundreds." The reports of the Freedmen's Bureau are to the +same effect. A Bureau agent in Tennessee testified: "An old citizen, a Union +man, said to me, said he, 'I tell you what, if you take away the military from +Tennessee, the buzzards can't eat up the niggers as fast as we'll kill them.'" + +The lawlessness of the Negroes in parts of the Black Belt and the disturbing +influences of the black troops, of some officials of the Bureau, and of some +of the missionary teachers and preachers, caused the whites to fear +insurrections and to take measures for protection. Secret semi-military +organizations were formed which later developed into the Ku Klux orders. When, +however, New Year's Day 1866 passed without the hoped-for distribution of +Property, the Negroes began to settle down. + +At the beginning of the period of reconstruction, it seemed possible that the +Negro race might speedily fall into distinct economic groups, for there were +some who had property and many others who had the ability and the opportunity +to acquire it; but the later drawing of race lines and the political +disturbances of reconstruction checked this tendency. It was expected also +that the Northern planters who came South in large numbers in 1865-66 might, +by controlling the Negro labor and by the use of more efficient methods, aid +in the economic upbuilding of the country. But they were ignorant of +agricultural matters and incapable of wisely controlling the blacks; and they +failed because at one time they placed too much trust in the Negroes and at +another treated them too harshly and expected too much of them. + +The question of Negro suffrage was not a live issue in the South until the +middle of 1866. There was almost no talk about it among the Negroes; they did +not know what it was. President Lincoln in 1864 and President Johnson in 1865 +had merely mentioned the subject, though Chief Justice Chase and prominent +radical members of Congress, as well as numerous abolitionists, had framed a +Negro suffrage platform. But the Southern whites, considering the matter an +impossibility, gave it little consideration. There was, however, both North +and South, a tendency to see a connection between the freedom of the Negroes +and their political rights and thus to confuse civil equality with political +and social privileges. But the great masses of the whites were solidly opposed +to the recognition of Negro equality in any form. The poorer whites, +especially the "Unionists" who hoped to develop an opposition party, were +angered by any discussion of the subject. An Alabama "Unionist," M. J. +Saffold, later prominent as a radical politician, declared to the Joint +Committee on Reconstruction: "If you compel us to carry through universal +suffrage of colored, men . . . it will prove quite an *incubus upon us in the +organization of a national union party of white men; it will furnish our +opponents with a very effective weapon of offense against us." + +There were, however, some Southern leaders of ability and standing who, by +1866, were willing to consider Negro suffrage. These men, among them General +Wade Hampton of South Carolina and Governor Robert Patton of Alabama, were of +the slaveholding class, and they fully counted on being able to control the +Negro's vote by methods similar to those actually put in force a quarter of a +century later. The Negroes were not as yet politically organized were not even +interested in politics, and the master class might reasonably hope to regain +control of them. Whitelaw Reid published an interview with one of the Hamptons +which describes the situation exactly: + +"A brother of General Wade Hampton, the South Carolina Hotspur, was on board. +He saw no great objection to Negro suffrage, so far as the whites were +concerned; and for himself, South Carolinian and secessionist though he was, +he was quite willing to accept it. He only dreaded its effect on the blacks +themselves. Hitherto they had in the main, been modest and respectful, and +mere freedom was not likely to spoil them. But the deference to them likely to +be shown by partisans eager for their votes would have a tendency to uplift +them and unbalance them. Beyond this, no harm would be done the South by Negro +suffrage. The old owners would cast the votes of their people almost as +absolutely and securely as they cast their own. If Northern men expected in +this way to build up a northern party in the South, they were gravely +mistaken. They would only be multiplying the power of the old and natural +leaders of Southern politics by giving every vote to a former slave. +Heretofore such men had served their masters only in the fields; now they +would do no less faithful service at the polls. If the North could stand it, +the South could. For himself, he should make no special objection to Negro +suffrage as one of the terms of reorganization, and if it came, he did not +think the South would have much cause to regret it." + +To sum up the situation at this time: the Negro population at the close of the +war constituted a tremendous problem for those in authority. The race was +free, but without status, without leaders, without property, and without +education. Probably a fourth of them had some experience in freedom before the +Confederate armies surrendered, and the servitude of the other three millions +ended very quickly and without violence. But in the Black Belt, where the bulk +of the black population was to be found, the labor system was broken up, and +for several months the bewildered freedmen wandered about or remained at home +under conditions which were bad for health, morals, and thrift. The Northern +Negroes did not furnish the expected leadership for the race, and the more +capable men in the South showed a tendency to go North. The unsettled state of +the Negroes and their expectation of receiving a part of the property of the +whites kept the latter uneasy and furnished the occasion of frequent +conflicts. Not the least of the unsettling influences at work upon the Negro +population were the colored troops and the agitators furnished by the +Freedmen's Bureau, the missions, and the Bureau schools. But at the beginning +of the year 1866, the situation appeared to be clearing, and the social and +economic revolution seemed on the way to a quieter ending than might have been +expected. + + + +CHAPTER III. THE WORK OF THE PRESIDENTS + +The war ended slavery, but it left the problem of the freed slave; it +preserved the Union in theory, but it left unsolved many delicate problems of +readjustment. Were the seceded States in or out of the Union? If in the Union, +what rights had they? If they were not in the Union, what was their status? +What was the status of the Southern Unionist, of the ex-Confederate? What +punishments should be inflicted upon the Southern people? What authority, +executive or legislative, should carry out the work of reconstruction? The end +of the war brought with it, in spite of much discussion, no clear answer to +these perplexing questions. + +Unfortunately, American political life, with its controversies over colonial +government, its conflicting interpretations of written constitutions, and its +legally trained statesmen, had by the middle of the nineteenth century +produced a habit of political thought which demanded the settlement of most +governmental matters upon a theoretical basis. And now in 1865, each prominent +leader had his own plan of reconstruction fundamentally irreconcilable with +all the others, because rigidly theoretical. During the war the powers of the +executive had been greatly expanded and a legislative reaction was to be +expected. The Constitution called for fresh interpretation in the light of the +Civil War and its results. + +The first theory of reconstruction may be found in the Crittenden-Johnson +resolutions of July 1861, which declared that the war was being waged to +maintain the Union under the Constitution and that it should cease when these +objects were obtained. This would have been subscribed to in 1861 by the Union +Democrats and by most of the Republicans, and in 1865 the conquered +Southerners would have been glad to reenter the Union upon this basis; but +though in 1865 the resolution still expressed the views of many Democrats, the +majority of Northern people had moved away from this position. + +The attitude of Lincoln, which in 1865 met the views of a majority of the +Northern people though not of the political leaders, was that "no State can +upon its mere motion get out of the Union," that the States survived though +there might be some doubt about state governments, and that "loyal" state +organizations might be established by a population consisting largely of +ex-Confederates who had been pardoned by the President and made "loyal" for +the future by an oath of allegiance. Reconstruction was, Lincoln thought, a +matter for the executive to handle. But that he was not inflexibly committed +to any one plan is indicated by his proclamation after the pocket veto of the +Wade-Davis Bill and by his last speech, in which he declared that the question +of whether the seceded States were in the Union or out of it was "merely a +pernicious abstraction." In addition, Lincoln said: + +"We are all agreed that the seceded States, so called, are out of their proper +practical relation with the Union, and that the sole object of the government, +civil and military, in regard to those States is to again get them into that +proper practical relation. I believe that it is not only possible, but in fact +easier, to do this without deciding or even considering whether these States +have ever been out of the Union, than with it. Finding themselves safely at +home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been abroad. Let us +all join in doing the acts necessary to restore the proper practical relations +between these States and the Union, and each forever after innocently indulge +his own opinion whether in doing the acts he brought the States from without +into the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they never having been +out of it." + +President Johnson's position was essentially that of Lincoln, but his attitude +toward the working out of the several problems was different. He maintained +that the states survived and that it was the duty of the executive to restore +them to their proper relations. "The true theory," said he, "is that all +pretended acts of secession were from the beginning null and void. The States +cannot commit treason nor screen individual citizens who may have committed +treason any more than they can make valid treaties or engage in lawful +commerce with any foreign power. The states attempting to secede placed +themselves in a condition where their vitality was impaired, but not +extinguished; their functions suspended, but not destroyed." Lincoln would +have had no severe punishments inflicted even on leaders, but Johnson wanted +to destroy the "slavocracy," root and branch. Confiscation of estates would, +he thought, be a proper measure. He said on one occasion: "Traitors should +take a back seat in the work of restoration .. . . My judgment is that he [a +rebel] should be subjected to a severe ordeal before he is restored to +citizenship. Treason should be made odious, and traitors must be punished and +impoverished. Their great plantations must be seized, and divided into small +farms and sold to honest, industrious men." The violence of Johnson's views +subsequently underwent considerable modification but to the last he held to +the plan of executive restoration based upon state perdurance. Neither Lincoln +nor Johnson favored a change of Southern institutions other than the abolition +of slavery, though each recommended a qualified Negro suffrage. + +There were, however, other theories in the field, notably those of the radical +Republican leaders. According to the state-suicide theory of Charles Sumner, +"any vote of secession or other act by which any State may undertake to put an +end to the supremacy of the Constitution within its territory is inoperative +and void against the Constitution, and when sustained by force it becomes a +practical ABDICATION by the State of all rights under the Constitution, while +the treason it involves still further works an instant FORFEITURE of all those +functions and powers essential to the continued existence of the State as a +body politic, so that from that time forward the territory falls under the +exclusive jurisdiction of Congress as other territory, and the State, being +according to the language of the law felo de se, ceases to exist." Congress +should punish the "rebels" by abolishing slavery, by giving civil and +political rights to Negroes, and by educating them with the whites. + +Not essentially different, but harsher, was Thaddeus Stevens's plans for +treating the South as a conquered foreign province. Let the victors treat the +seceded States "as conquered provinces and settle them with new men and +exterminate or drive out the present rebels as exiles." Congress in dealing +with these provinces was not bound even by the Constitution, "a bit of +worthless parchment," but might legislate as it pleased in regard to slavery, +the ballot, and confiscation. With regard to the white population, he said: "I +have never desired bloody punishments to any great extent. But there are +punishments quite as appalling, and longer remembered, than death. They are +more advisable, because they would reach a greater number. Strip a proud +nobility of their bloated estates; reduce them to a level with plain +republicans; send them forth to labor, and teach their children to enter the +workshops or handle a plow, and you will thus humble the proud traitors." +Stevens and Sumner agreed in reducing the Southern States to a territorial +status. Sumner would then take the principles of the Declaration of +Independence as a guide for Congress, while Stevens would leave Congress +absolute. Neither considered the Constitution as of any validity in this +crisis. + +As a rule the former abolitionists were in 1865 advocates of votes and lands +for the Negro, in whose capacity for self-rule they had complete confidence. +The view of Gerrit Smith may be regarded as typical of the abolitionist +position: + +"Let the first condition of peace with them be that no people in the rebel +States shall ever lose or gain civil or political rights by reason of their +race or origin. The next condition of peace be that our black allies in the +South--those saviours of our nation--shall share with their poor white +neighbors in the subdivisions of the large landed estates of the South. Let +the only other condition be that the rebel masses shall not, for say, a dozen +years, be allowed access to the ballot-box, or be eligible to office; and that +the like restrictions be for life on their political and military leaders . . +. . The mass of the Southern blacks fall, in point of intelligence, but +little, if any, behind the mass of the Southern whites . . . . In reference to +the qualifications of the voter, men make too much account of the head and too +little of the heart. The ballot-box, like God, says: "Give me your heart." The +best-hearted men are the best qualified to vote; and, in this light, the +blacks, with their characteristic gentleness, patience, and affectionateness, +are peculiarly entitled to vote. We cannot wonder at Swedenborg's belief that +the celestial people will be found in the interior of Africa; nor hardly can +we wonder at the legend that the gods came down every year to sup with their +favorite Africans." + +One of the most statesmanlike proposals was made by Governor John A. Andrew of +Massachusetts. If, forgetting their theories, the conservatives could have +united in support of a restoration conceived in his spirit, the goal might +have been speedily achieved. Andrew demanded a reorganization, based upon +acceptance of the results of the war, but carried through with the aid of +"those who are by their intelligence and character the natural leaders of +their people and who surely will lead them by and by. "These men cannot be +kept out forever, said he, for the capacity of leadership is a gift, not a +device. They whose courage, talents, and will entitle them to lead, will lead +. . . . If we cannot gain their support of the just measures needful for the +work of safe reorganization, reorganization will be delusive and full of +danger. They are the most hopeful subjects to deal with. They have the brain +and the experience and the education to enable them to understand . . . the +present situation. They have the courage as well as the skill to lead the +people in the direction their judgments point . . . . Is it consistent with +reason and our knowledge of human nature, to believe the masses of Southern +men able to face about, to turn their backs on those they have trusted and +followed, and to adopt the lead of those who have no magnetic hold on their +hearts or minds? It would be idle to reorganize by the colored vote. If the +popular vote of the white race is not to be had in favor of the guarantees +justly required, then I am in favor of holding on--just where we are now. I am +not in favor of a surrender of the present rights of the Union to a struggle +between a white minority aided by the freedmen on one hand, against the +majority of the white race on the other. I would not consent, having rescued +those states by arms from Secession and rebellion, to turn them over to +anarchy and chaos." + +The Southerners, Unionists as well as Confederates, had their views as well, +but at Washington these carried little influence. The former Confederates +would naturally favor the plan which promised best for the white South, and +their views were most nearly met by those of President Lincoln. Although he +held that in principle a new Union had arisen out of the war, as a matter of +immediate political expediency he was prepared to build on the assumption that +the old Union still existed. The Southern Unionists cared little for theories; +they wanted the Confederates punished, themselves promoted to high offices, +and the Negro kept from the ballot box. + +Even at the beginning of 1866, it was not too much to hope that the majority +of former Republicans would accept conservative methods, provided the +so-called "fruits of the war" were assured--that is, equality of civil rights, +the guarantee of the United States war debt, the repudiation of the +Confederate debt, the temporary disfranchisement of the leading Confederates, +and some arrangement which would keep the South from profiting by +representation based on the non-voting Negro population. But amid many +conflicting policies, none attained to continuous and compelling authority. + +The plan first put to trial was that of President Lincoln. It was a definite +plan designed to meet actual conditions and, had he lived, he might have been +able to carry it through successfully. Not a theorist, but an opportunist of +the highest type, sobered by years of responsibility in war time, and fully +understanding the precarious situation in 1865, Lincoln was most anxious to +secure an early restoration of solidarity with as little friction as possible. +Better than most Union leaders he appreciated conditions in the South, the +problem of the races, the weakness of the Southern Unionists, and the +advantage of calling in the old Southern leaders. He was generous and +considerate; he wanted no executions or imprisonments; he wished the leaders +to escape; and he was anxious that the mass of Southerners be welcomed back +without loss of rights. "There is," he declared, "too little respect for their +rights," an unwillingness, in short, to treat them as fellow citizens. + +This executive policy had been applied from the beginning of the war as +opportunity offered. The President used the army to hold the Border States in +the Union, to aid in "reorganizing" Unionist Virginia and in establishing West +Virginia. The army, used to preserve the Union might be used also to restore +disturbed parts of it to normal condition. Assuming that the "States" still +existed, "loyal" state governments were the first necessity. By his +proclamation of December 8, 1863, Lincoln suggested a method of beginning the +reconstruction: he would pardon any Confederate, except specified classes of +leaders, who took an oath of loyalty for the future; if as many as ten percent +of the voting population of 1860, thus made loyal, should establish a state +government the executive would recognize it. The matter of slavery must, +indeed, be left to the laws and proclamations as interpreted by the courts, +but other institutions should continue as in 1861. + +This plan was inaugurated in four States which had been in part controlled by +the Federal army from nearly the beginning of the war: Tennessee (1862), +Louisiana (1862), Arkansas (1862), and Virginia after the formation of West +Virginia (1863). For each state Lincoln appointed a military governor: for +Tennessee, Andrew Johnson; for Arkansas, John S. Phelps; for Louisiana, +General Shepley. In Virginia he recognized the "reorganized" government, which +had been transferred to Alexandria when the new State of West Virginia was +formed. The military governors undertook the slow and difficult work of +reorganization, however, with but slight success owing to the small numbers of +Unionists and of Confederates who would take the oath. But by 1864, "ten +percent" state governments were established in Arkansas and Louisiana, and +progress was being made in Tennessee. + +Congress was impatient of Lincoln's claim to executive precedence in the +matter of reconstruction, and in 1864, both Houses passed the Wade-Davis Bill, +a plan which asserted the right of Congress to control reconstruction and +foreshadowed a radical settlement of the question. Lincoln disposed of the +bill by a pocket veto and, in a proclamation dated July 8, 1864, stated that +he was unprepared "to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of +restoration," or to discourage loyal citizens by setting aside the governments +already established in Louisiana and Arkansas, or to recognize the authority +of Congress to abolish slavery. He was ready, however, to cooperate with the +people of any State who wished to accept the plan prepared by Congress and he +hoped that a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery would be adopted. + +Lincoln early came to the conclusion that slavery must be destroyed, and he +had urgently advocated deportation of the freedmen, for he believed that the +two races could not live in harmony after emancipation. The nearest he came to +recommending the vote for the Negro was in a communication to Governor Hahn of +Louisiana in March 1864: "I barely suggest, for your private consideration, +whether some of the colored people may not be let in, as for instance, the +very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. +They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of +liberty within the family of freedom. But this is only a suggestion, not to +the public, but to you alone." + +Throughout the war President Lincoln assumed that the state organizations in +the South were illegal because disloyal and that new governments must be +established. But just at the close of the war, probably carried away by +feeling, he all but recognized the Virginia Confederate Government as +competent to bring the state back into the Union. While in Richmond on April +5, 1865, he gave to Judge Campbell a statement of terms: the national +authority to be restored; no recession on slavery by the executive; hostile +forces to disband. The next day he notified General Weitzel, in command at +Richmond, that he might permit the Virginia Legislature to meet and withdraw +military and other support from the Confederacy. But these measures met strong +opposition in Washington, especially from Secretary Stanton and Senator Wade +and other congressional leaders, and on the 11th of April, Lincoln withdrew +his permission for the legislature to meet. "I cannot go forward," he said, +"with everybody opposed to me." It was on the same day that he made his last +public speech, and Sumner, who was strongly opposed to his policy, remarked +that "the President's speech and other things augur confusion and uncertainty +in the future, with hot contumacy." At a cabinet meeting on the 14th of April, +Lincoln made his last statement on the subject. It was fortunate, he said, +that Congress had adjourned, for "we shall reanimate the States" before +Congress meets; there should be no killing, no persecutions; there was too +much disposition to treat the Southern people "not as fellow citizens." + +The possibility of a conciliatory restoration ended when Lincoln was +assassinated. Moderate, firm, tactful, of great personal influence, not a +doctrinaire, and not a Southerner like Johnson, Lincoln might have "prosecuted +peace" successfully. His policy was very unlike that proposed by the radical +leaders. They would base the new governments upon the loyalty of the past plus +the aid of enfranchised slaves; he would establish the new regime upon the +loyalty of the future. Like Governor Andrew he thought that restoration must +be effected by the willing efforts of the South. He would aid and guide but +not force the people. If the latter did not wish restoration, they might +remain under military rule. There should be no forced Negro suffrage, no +sweeping disfranchisement of whites, no "carpetbaggism." + +The work of President Johnson demands for its proper understanding some +consideration of the condition of the political parties at the close of the +war, for politics had much to do with reconstruction. The Democratic party, +divided and defeated in the election of 1860, lost its Southern members in +1861 by the secession and remained a minority party during the remainder of +the war. It retained its organization, however, and in 1864 polled a large +vote. Discredited by its policy of opposition to Lincoln's administration, its +ablest leaders joined the Republicans in support of the war. Until 1869, the +party was poorly represented in Congress although, as soon as hostilities +ended, the War Democrats showed a tendency to return to the old party. As to +reconstruction, the party stood on the Crittenden-Johnson resolutions of 1861, +though most Democrats were now willing to have slavery abolished. + +The Republican party--frankly sectional and going into power on the single +issue of opposition to the extension of slavery--was forced by the secession +movement to take up the task of preserving the Union by war. Consequently, the +party developed new principles, welcomed the aid of the War Democrats, and +found it advisable to drop its name and with its allies to form the Union or +National Union party. It was this National Union party which in 1864 nominated +Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, and Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, on the same +ticket. Lincoln's second Cabinet was composed of both Republicans and War +Democrats. When the war ended, the conservative leaders were anxious to hold +the Union party together in order to be in a better position to settle the +problems of reconstruction, but the movement of the War Democrats back to +their old party tended to leave in the Union party only its Republican +members, with the radical leaders dominating. + +In the South the pressure of war so united the people that party divisions +disappeared for a time, but the causes of division continued to exist, and two +parties, at least, would have developed had the pressure been removed. Though +all factions supported the war after it began, the former Whigs and Douglas +Democrats, when it was over, liked to remember that they had been "Union" men +in 1860 and expected to organize in opposition to the extreme Democrats, who +were now charged with being responsible for the misfortunes of the South. They +were in a position to affiliate with the National Union party of the North if +proper inducements were offered, while the regular Democrats were ready to +rejoin their old party. But the embittered feelings resulting from the murder +of Lincoln and the rapid development of the struggle between President Johnson +and Congress caused the radicals "to lump the old Union Democrats and Whigs +together with the secessionists--and many were driven where they did not want +to go, into temporary affiliation with the Democratic party." Thousands went +very reluctantly; the old Whigs, indeed, were not firmly committed to the +Democrats until radical reconstruction had actually begun. Still other +"loyalists" in the South were prepared to join the Northern radicals in +advocating the disfranchisement of Confederates and in opposing the granting +of suffrage to the Negroes. + +The man upon whom fell the task of leading these opposing factions, radical +and conservative, along a definite line of action looking to reunion had few +qualifications for the task. Johnson was ill-educated, narrow, and vindictive +and was positive that those who did not agree with him were dishonest. Himself +a Southerner, picked up by the National Union Convention of 1864, as Thaddeus +Stevens said, from "one of those damned rebel provinces," he loved the Union, +worshiped the Constitution, and held to the strict construction views of the +State Rights Democrats. Rising from humble beginnings, he was animated by the +most intense dislike of the "slavocracy," as he called the political +aristocracy of the South. Like many other American leaders he was proud of his +humble origin, but unlike many others he never sloughed off his backwoods +crudeness. He continually boasted of himself and vilified the aristocrats, who +in return treated him badly. His dislike of them was so marked that Isham G. +Harris, a rival politician, remarked that "if Johnson were a snake, he would +lie in the grass to bite the heels of rich men's children." His primitive +notions of punishment were evident in 1865 when he advocated imprisonment, +execution, and confiscation; but like other reckless talkers he often said +more than he meant. + +When Johnson succeeded to the presidency, the feeling was nearly universal +among the radicals, according to Julian, that he would prove a godsend to the +country, for "aside from Mr. Lincoln's known policy of tenderness to the +rebels, which now so jarred upon the feelings of the hour, his well known +views on the subject of reconstruction were as distasteful as possible to +radical Republicans." Senator Wade declared to the President: "Johnson, we +have faith in you. By the gods, there will be no trouble now in running the +Government!" To which Johnson replied: "Treason is a crime and crime must be +punished. Treason must be made infamous and traitors must be impoverished." +These words are an index to the speeches of Johnson during 1863-65. Even his +radical friends feared that he would be too vindictive. For a few weeks he was +much inclined to the radical plans, and some of the leaders certainly +understood that he was in favor of Negro suffrage, the supreme test of +radicalism. But when the excitement caused by the assassination of Lincoln and +the break-up of the Confederacy had moderated somewhat, Johnson saw before him +a task so great that his desire for violent measures was chilled. He must +disband the great armies and bring all war work to an end; he must restore +intercourse with the South, which had been blockaded for years; he must for a +time police the country, look after the Negroes, and set up a temporary civil +government; and finally he must work out a restoration of the Union. Sobered +by responsibility and by the influence of moderate advisers, he rather quickly +adopted Lincoln's policy. Johnson at first set his face against the movements +toward reconstruction by the state governments already organized and by those +people who wished to organize new governments on Lincoln's ten percent plan. +As soon as possible the War Department notified the Union commanders to stop +all attempts at reconstruction and to pursue and arrest all Confederate +governors and other prominent civil leaders. The President was even anxious to +arrest the military leaders who had been paroled but was checked in this +desire by General Grant's firm protest. His cabinet advisers supported Johnson +in refusing to recognize the Southern state governments; but three of +them--Seward, Welles, and McCulloch--were influential in moderating his zeal +for inflicting punishments. Nevertheless,he soon had in prison the most +prominent of the Confederate civilians and several general officers. The +soldiers, however, were sent home, trade with the South was permitted, and the +Freedmen's Bureau was rapidly extended. + +Previous to this Johnson had brought himself to recognize, early in May, the +Lincoln "ten percent" governments of Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas, and +the reconstructed Alexandria government of Virginia. Thus only seven states +were left without legal governments, and to bring those states back into the +Union, Johnson inaugurated on May 29, 1865, a plan which was like that of +Lincoln but not quite so liberal. In his Amnesty Proclamation, Johnson made a +longer list of exceptions aimed especially at the once wealthy slave owners. +On the same day he proclaimed the restoration of North Carolina. A provisional +governor, W. W. Holden, was appointed and directed to reorganize the civil +government and to call a constitutional convention elected by those who had +taken the amnesty oath. This convention was to make necessary amendments to +the constitution and to "restore said State to its constitutional relations to +the Federal Government." It is to be noted that Johnson fixed the +qualifications of delegates and of those who elected them, but, this stage +once passed, the convention or the legislature would "prescribe the +qualifications of electors . . . a power the people of the several States +composing the Federal Union have rightfully exercised from the origin of the +government to the present time." The President also directed the various +cabinet officers to extend the work of their departments over the Confederate +States and ordered the army officers to assist the civil authorities. During +the next six weeks, similar measures were undertaken for the remaining six +states of the Confederacy. + +To set up the new order, army officers were first sent into every county to +administer the amnesty oath and thus to secure a "loyal" electorate. In each +state the provisional governor organized out of the remains of the Confederate +local regime a new civil government. Confederate local officials who could and +would take the amnesty oath were directed to resume office until relieved; the +laws of 1861, except those relating to slavery, were declared to be in force; +the courts were directed to use special efforts to crush lawlessness; and the +old jury lists were destroyed and new ones were drawn up containing only the +names of those who had taken the amnesty oath. Since there was no money in any +state treasury, small sums were now raised by license taxes. A full staff of +department heads was appointed, and by July 1865, the provisional governments +were in fair working order. + +To the constitutional conventions, which met in the fall, it was made clear, +through the governors, that the President would insist upon three conditions: +the formal abolition of slavery, the repudiation of the ordinance of +secession, and the repudiation of the Confederate war debt. To Governor Holden +he telegraphed: "Every dollar of the debt created to aid the rebellion against +the United States should be repudiated finally and forever. The great mass of +the people should not be taxed to pay a debt to aid in carrying on a rebellion +which they in fact, if left to themselves, were opposed to. Let those who had +given their means for the obligations of the state look to that power they +tried to establish in violation of law, constitution, and will of the people. +They must meet their fate." With little opposition these conditions were +fulfilled, though there was a strong feeling against the repudiation of the +debt, much discussion as to whether the ordinance of secession should be +"repealed" or declared "now and always null and void," and some quibbling as +to whether slavery was being destroyed by state action or had already been +destroyed by war. + +In the old state constitutions, very slight changes were made. Of these the +chief were concerned with the abolition of slavery and the arrangement of +representation and direct taxation on the basis of white population. Little +effort was made to settle any of the Negro problems, and in all states the +conventions left it to the legislatures to make laws for the freedmen. There +was no discussion of Negro, suffrage in the conventions, but President Johnson +sent what was for him a remarkable communication to Governor Sharkey of +Mississippi: + +"If you could extend the elective franchise to all persons of color who can +read the Constitution of the United States in English and write their names, +and to all persons of color who own real estate valued at not less than two +hundred and fifty dollars and pay taxes thereon, you would completely disarm +the adversary and set an example the other states will follow. This you can do +with perfect safety, and you would thus place Southern States in reference to +free persons of color upon the same basis with the free states . . . . And as +a consequence the radicals, who are wild upon Negro franchise, will be +completely foiled in their attempts to keep the Southern states from renewing +their relations to the Union by not accepting their senators and +representatives." + +In deciding upon a basis of representation, it was clear that the majority of +delegates desired to lessen the influence of the Black Belt and place the +control of the government with the "up country." In the Alabama convention +Robert M. Patton, then a delegate and later governor, frankly avowed this +object, and in South Carolina, Governor Perry urged the convention to give no +consideration to Negro suffrage, "because this is a white man's government," +and if the Negroes should vote they would be controlled by a few whites. A +kindly disposition toward the Negroes was general except on the part of +extreme Unionists, who opposed any favors to the race. "This is a white man's +country" was a doctrine to which all the conventions subscribed. + +The conventions held brief sessions, completed their work, and adjourned, +after directing that elections be held for state and local officers and for +members of Congress. Before December the appointed local officials had been +succeeded by elected officers; members of Congress were on their way to +Washington; the state legislatures were assembling or already in session; and +the elected governors were ready to take office. It was understood that as +soon as enough state legislatures ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to make it +a part of the Constitution, the President would permit the transfer of +authority to the new governors. The legislature of Mississippi alone was +recalcitrant about the amendment, and before January 1866, the elected +officials were everywhere installed except in Texas, where the work was not +completed until March. When Congress met in December 1865, the President +reported that all former Confederate States except Texas were ready to be +readmitted. Congress, however, refused to admit their senators and +representatives, and thus began the struggle which ended over a year later +with the victory of the radicals and the undoing of the work of the two +Presidents. + +The plan of the Presidents was at best only imperfectly realized. It was found +impossible to reorganize the Federal Administration in the South with men who +could subscribe to the "ironclad oath," for nearly all who were competent to +hold office had favored or aided the Confederacy. It was two years before more +than a third of the post offices could be opened. The other Federal +departments were in similar difficulties, and at last women and +"carpetbaggers" were appointed. The Freedmen's Bureau, which had been +established coincidently with the provisional governments, assumed +jurisdiction over the Negroes, while the army authorities very early took the +position that any man who claimed to be a Unionist should not be tried in the +local courts but must be given a better chance in a provost court. Thus a +third or more of the population was withdrawn from the control of the state +government. In several states the head of the Bureau made arrangements for +local magistrates and officials to act as Bureau officials, and in such cases +the two authorities acted in cooperation. The army of occupation, too, exerted +an authority which not infrequently interfered with the workings of the new +state government. Nearly everywhere there was a lack of certainty and +efficiency due to the concurrent and sometimes conflicting jurisdictions of +state government, army commanders, Bureau authorities, and even the President +acting upon or through any of the others. + +The standing of the Southern state organizations was in doubt after the +refusal of Congress to recognize them. Nevertheless, in spite of this +uncertainty they continued to function as states during the year of +controversy which followed; the courts were opened and steadily grew in +influence; here and there militia and patrols were reorganized; officials who +refused to "accept the situation" were dismissed; elections were held; the +legislatures revised the laws to fit new conditions and enacted new laws for +the emancipated blacks. To all this progress in reorganization, the action of +Congress was a severe blow, since it gave notice that none of the problems of +reconstruction were yet solved. An increasing spirit of irritation and +independence was observed throughout the states in question, and at the +elections the former Confederates gained more and more offices. The year was +marked in the South by the tendency toward the formation of parties, by the +development of the "Southern outrages" issue, by an attempt to frustrate +radical action, and finally by a lineup of the great mass of the whites in +opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment and other radical plans of Congress. + +The Joint Committee on Reconstruction, appointed when Congress refused to +accept the work of President Johnson, proceeded during several months to take +testimony and to consider measures. The testimony, which was taken chiefly to +support opinions already formed, appeared to prove that the Negroes and the +Unionists were so badly treated that the Freedmen's Bureau and the army must +be kept in the South to protect them; that free Negro labor was a success but +that the whites were hostile to it; that the whites were disloyal and would, +if given control of the Southern governments and admitted to Congress, +constitute a danger to the nation and especially to the party in power. + +To convince the voters of the North of the necessity of dealing drastically +with the South a campaign of misrepresentation was begun in the summer of +1865, which became more and more systematic and unscrupulous as the political +struggle at Washington grew fiercer. Newspapers regularly ran columns headed +"Southern Outrages," and every conceivable mistreatment of blacks by whites +was represented as taking place on a large scale. As General Richard Taylor +said, it would seem that about 1866 every white man, woman, and child in the +South began killing and maltreating Negroes. In truth, there was less and less +ground for objection to the treatment of the blacks as time went on and as the +several agencies of government secured firmer control over the lawless +elements. But fortunately for the radicals their contention seemed to be +established by riots on a large scale in Memphis and New Orleans where Negroes +were killed and injured in much greater number than whites. + +The rapid development of the radical plans of Congress checked the tendency +toward political division in the South. Only a small party of rabid Unionists +would now affiliate with the radicals, while all the others reluctantly held +together, endorsed Johnson's policy, and attempted to affiliate with the +disintegrating National Union party. But the defeat of the President's +policies in the elections of 1866, the increasing radicalism of Congress as +shown by the Civil Rights Act, the expansion of the Freedmen's Bureau, the +report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, and the proposal of the +Fourteenth Amendment led farsighted Southerners to see that the President was +likely to lose in his fight with Congress. + +Now began, in the latter half of 1866, with some cooperation in the North and +probably with the approval of the President, a movement in the South to +forestall the radicals by means of a settlement which, although less severe +than the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, might yet be acceptable to Congress. +One feature of the settlement was to be some form of Negro suffrage, either by +local action or by constitutional amendment. Those behind this scheme were +mainly of the former governing class. Negro suffrage, they thought, would take +the wind out of the radical sails, the Southern whites would soon be able to +control the blacks, representation in Congress would be increased, and the +Black Belt would perhaps regain its former political hegemony. It is hardly +necessary to say that the majority of the whites were solidly opposed to such +a measure. But it was hoped to carry it under pressure through the legislature +or to bring it about indirectly through rulings of the Freedmen's Bureau. + +Coincident with this scheme of partial Negro suffrage an attempt was made by +the conservative leaders in Washington, working with the Southerners, to +propose a revised Fourteenth Amendment which would give the vote to competent +Negroes and not disfranchise the whites. A conference of Southern governors +met in Washington early in 1867 and drafted such an amendment. But, it was too +late. + +Meanwhile the Fourteenth Amendment submitted by Congress had been brought +before the Southern legislatures, and during the winter of 1866-67 it was +rejected by all of them. There was strong opposition to it because it +disfranchised the leading whites, but perhaps the principal reason for its +rejection was that the Southern people were not sure that still more severe +conditions might not be imposed later. + +While the President was "restoring" the states which had seceded and +struggling with Congress, the Border States of the South, including Tennessee +(which was admitted in 1866 by reason of its radical state government), were +also in the throes of reconstruction. Though there was less military +interference in these than in the other states, many of the problems were +similar. All had the Freedmen's Bureau, the Negro race, the Unionists, and the +Confederates; in every state, except Kentucky, Confederates were persecuted, +the minority was in control, and "ring" rule was the order of the day; but in +each state there were signs of the political revolution which a few years +later was to put the radicals out of power. + +The executive plan for the restoration of the Union, begun by Lincoln and +adopted by Johnson, was, as we have seen, at first applied in all the states +which had seceded. A military governor was appointed in each state by the +President by virtue of his authority as commander in chief. This official, +aided by a civilian staff of his own choice and supported by the United States +army and other Federal agencies, reorganized the state administration and +after a few months turned the state and local governments over to regularly +elected officials. Restoration should now have been completed, but Congress +refused to admit the senators and representatives of these states, and entered +upon a fifteen months' struggle with the President over details of the methods +of the reconstruction. Meanwhile the Southern States, though unrepresented in +Congress, continued their activities, with some interference from Federal +authorities, until Congress in 1867 declared their governments nonexistent. + +The work begun by Lincoln and Johnson deserved better success. The original +plan restored to political rights only a small number of Unionists, the +lukewarm Confederates, and the unimportant. But in spite of the threatening +speeches of Johnson, he used his power of pardon until none except the most +prominent leaders were excluded. The personnel of the Johnson governments was +fair. The officials were, in the main, former Douglas Democrats and Whigs, +respectable and conservative, but not admired or loved by the people. The +conventions and the legislatures were orderly and dignified and manifested a +desire to accept the situation. + +There were no political parties at first, but material for several existed. If +things had been allowed to take their course, there would have arisen a normal +cleavage between former Whigs and Democrats, between the upcountry and the low +country, between the slaveholders and the nonslaveholders. The average white +man in these governments was willing to be fair to the Negro but was not +greatly concerned about his future. In the view of most white people, it was +the white man who was emancipated. The white districts had no desire to let +the power return to the Black Belt by giving the Negro the ballot, for the +vote of the Negroes, they believed, would be controlled by their former +masters. + +Johnson's adoption of Lincoln's plan gave notice to all that the radicals had +failed to control him. He and they had little in common; they wished to uproot +a civilization, while he wished to punish individuals; they were not troubled +by constitutional scruples, while he was the strictest of State Rights +Democrats; they thought principally of the Negro and his potentialities, while +Johnson was thinking of the emancipated white man. It is possible that Lincoln +might have succeeded, but for Johnson the task proved too great. + + + +CHAPTER IV. THE WARDS OF THE NATION + +The Negroes at the close of the war were not slaves or serfs, nor were they +citizens. What was to be done with them and for them? The Southern answer to +this question may be found in the so- called "Black Laws," which were enacted +by the state governments set up by President Johnson. The views of the +dominant North may be discerned in part in the organization and administration +of the Freedmen's Bureau. The two sections saw the same problem from different +angles, and their proposed solutions were of necessity opposed in principle +and in practice. + +The South desired to fit the emancipated Negro race into the new social order +by frankly recognizing his inferiority to the whites. In some things racial +separation was unavoidable. New legislation consequently must be enacted, +because the slave codes were obsolete; because the old laws made for the small +free Negro class did not meet present conditions; and because the emancipated +blacks could not be brought conveniently and at once under laws originally +devised for a white population. The new laws must meet many needs; family +life, morals, and conduct must be regulated; the former slave must be given a +status in court in order that he might be protected in person and property; +the old, the infirm, and the orphans must be cared for; the white race must be +protected from lawless blacks and the blacks from unscrupulous and violent +whites; the Negro must have an opportunity for education; and the roving +blacks must be forced to get homes, settle down, and go to work. + +Pending such legislation the affairs of the Negro remained in control of the +unpopular Freedmen's Bureau--a "system of espionage," as Judge Clayton of +Alabama called it, and, according to Governor Humphreys of Mississippi, "a +hideous curse" under which white men were persecuted and pillaged. Judge +Memminger of South Carolina, in a letter to President Johnson, emphasized the +fact that the whites of England and the United States gained civil and +political rights through centuries of slow advancement and that they were far +ahead of the people of European states. Consequently, it would be a mistake to +give the freedmen a status equal to that of the most advanced whites. Rather, +let the United States profit by the experience of the British in their +emancipation policies and arrange a system of apprenticeship for a period of +transition. When the Negro should be fit, let him be advanced to citizenship. + +Most Southern leaders agreed that the removal of the master's protection was a +real loss to the Negro which must be made good to some extent by giving the +Negro a status in court and by accepting Negro testimony in all cases in which +blacks were concerned. The North Carolina committee on laws for freedmen +agreed with objectors that "there are comparatively few of the slaves lately +freed who are honest" and truthful, but maintained that the Negroes were +capable of improvement. The chief executives of Mississippi and Florida +declared that there was no danger to the whites in admitting the more or less +unreliable Negro testimony, for the courts and juries would in every case +arrive at a proper valuation of it. Governors Marvin of Florida and Humphreys +of Mississippi advocated practical civil equality, while in North Carolina and +several other States there was a disposition to admit Negro testimony only in +cases in which Negroes were concerned. The North Carolina committee +recommended the abolition of whipping as a punishment unfit for free people, +and most States accepted this principle. Even in 1865, the general disposition +was to make uniform laws for both races, except in regard to violation of +contracts, immoral conduct, vagrancy, marriage, schools, and forms of +punishment. In some of these matters the whites were to be more strictly +regulated; in others, the Negroes. + +There was further general agreement that in economic relations both races must +be protected, each from the other; but it is plain that the leaders believed +that the Negro had less at stake than the white. The Negro was disposed to be +indolent; he knew little of the obligations of contracts; he was not honest; +and he would leave his job at will. Consequently Memminger recommended +apprenticeship for all Negroes; Governor Marvin suggested it for children +alone; and others wished it provided for orphans only. Further, the laws +enacted must force the Negroes to settle down, to work, and to hold to +contracts. Memminger showed that, without legislation to enforce contracts and +to secure eviction of those who refused to work, the white planter in the +South was wholly at the mercy of the Negro. The plantations were scattered, +the laborers' houses were already occupied, and there was no labor market to +which a planter could go if the laborers deserted his fields. + +What would the Negro become if these leaders of reconstruction were to have +their way? Something better than a serf, something less than a citizen--a +second degree citizen, perhaps, with legal rights about equal to those of +white women and children. Governor Marvin hoped to make of the race a good +agricultural peasantry; his successor was anxious that the blacks should be +preferred to European immigrants; others agreed with Memminger that after +training and education he might be advanced to full citizenship. + +These opinions are representative of those held by the men who, Memminger +excepted, were placed in charge of affairs by President Johnson and who were +not especially in sympathy with the Negroes or with the planters but rather +with the average white. All believed that emancipation was a mistake, but all +agreed that "it is not the Negro's fault" and gave no evidence of a +disposition to perpetuate slavery under another name. + +The legislation finally framed showed in its discriminatory features the +combined influence of the old laws for free Negroes, the vagrancy laws of +North and South for whites, the customs of slavery times, the British West +Indies legislation for ex-slaves, and the regulations of the United States War +and Treasury Departments and of the Freedmen's Bureau--all modified and +elaborated by the Southern whites. In only two states, Mississippi and South +Carolina, did the legislation bulk large in quantity; in other states +discriminating laws were few; in still other states none were passed except +those defining race and prohibiting intermarriage. + +In all of the state laws there were certain common characteristics, among +which were the following: the descendant of a Negro was to be classed as a +Negro through the third generation,* even though one parent in each generation +was white; intermarriage of the races was prohibited; existing slave marriages +were declared valid and for the future marriage was generally made easier for +the blacks than for the whites. In all states the Negro was given his day in +court, and in cases relating to Negroes his testimony was accepted; in six +states he might testify in any case. When provision was made for schooling, +the rule of race separation was enforced. In Mississippi the "Jim Crow car," +or separate car for Negroes, was invented. In several states the Negro had to +have a license to carry weapons, to preach, or to engage in trade. In +Mississippi, a Negro could own land only in town; in other states he could +purchase land only in the country. Why the difference? No one knows and +probably few knew at the time. Some of the legislation was undoubtedly hasty +and ill-considered. + +* Fourth in Tennessee. + + +But the laws relating to apprenticeship, vagrancy, and enforced punitive +employment turned out to be of greater practical importance. On these subjects +the legislation of Mississippi and South Carolina was the most extreme. In +Mississippi orphans- orphans were to be bound out, preferably to a former +master, if "he or she shall be a suitable person." The master was given the +usual control over apprentices and was bound by the usual duties, including +that of teaching the apprentice. But the penalties for "enticing away" +apprentices were severe. The South Carolina statute was not essentially +different. The vagrancy laws of these two states were in the main the same for +both races, but in Mississippi the definition of vagrancy was enlarged to +include Negroes not at work, those "found unlawfully assembling themselves +together," and "all white persons assembling themselves with freedmen." It is +to be noted that nearly all punishment for petty offenses took the form of +hiring out, preferably to the former master or employer. The principal petty +offenses were, it would seem, vagrancy and "enticing away" laborers or +apprentices. The South Carolina statute contains some other interesting +provisions. A Negro, man or woman, who had enjoyed the companionship of two or +more spouses, must by April 1, 1866, select one of them as a permanent +partner; a farm laborer must "rise at dawn," feed the animals, care for the +property, be quiet and orderly, and "retire at reasonable hours;" on Sunday +the servants must take turns in doing the necessary work, and they must be +respectful and civil to the "master and his family, guests, and agents;" to +engage in skilled labor the Negro must obtain a license. Whipping and the +pillory were permitted in Florida for certain offenses, and in South Carolina +the master might "moderately correct" servants under eighteen years of age. +Other punishments were generally the same for both races, except the hiring +out for petty offenses. + +From the Southern point of view none of this legislation was regarded as a +restriction of Negro rights but as a wide extension to the Negro of rights +never before possessed, an adaptation of the white man's laws to his peculiar +case. It is doubtful whether in some of the states the authorities believed +that there were any discriminatory laws; they probably overlooked some of the +free Negro legislation already on the statute books. In Alabama, for example, +General Wager Swayne, the head of the Freedmen's Bureau, reported that all +such laws had either been dropped by the legislature or had been vetoed by the +governor. Yet the statute books do show some discriminations. There is a +marked difference between earlier and later legislation. The more stringent +laws were enacted before the end of 1865. After New Year's Day had passed and +the Negroes had begun to settle down, the legislatures either passed mild laws +or abandoned all special legislation for the Negroes. Later in 1866, several +states repealed the legislation of 1865. + +In so far as the "Black Laws" discriminated against the Negro they were never +enforced but were suspended from the beginning by the army and the Freedmen's +Bureau. They had, however, a very important effect upon that section of +Northern opinion which was already suspicious of the good faith of the +Southerners. They were part of a plan, some believed, to reenslave the Negro +or at least to create by law a class of serfs. This belief did much to bring +about later radical legislation. + +If the "Black Laws" represented the reaction of the Southern legislatures to +racial conditions, the Freedmen's Bureau was the corresponding result of the +interest taken by the North in the welfare of the Negro. It was established +just as the war was closing and arose out of the various attempts to meet the +Negro problems that arose during the war. The Bureau had always a dual nature, +due in part to its inheritance of regulations, precedents, and traditions from +the various attempts made during war time to handle the many thousands of +Negroes who came under Federal control, and in part to the humanitarian +impulses of 1865, born of a belief in the capacity of the Negro for freedom +and a suspicion that the Southern whites intended to keep as much of slavery +as they could. The officials of the Bureau likewise were of two classes: those +in control were for the most part army officers, standing as arbiters between +white and black, usually just and seldom the victims of their sympathies but +the mass of less responsible officials were men of inferior ability and +character, either blind partisans of the Negro or corrupt and subject to +purchase by the whites. + +In view of the fact that the Freedmen's Bureau was considered a new +institution in 1865, it is rather remarkable how closely it followed in +organization, purpose, and methods the precedents set during the war by the +officers of the army and the Treasury. In Virginia, General Butler, in 1861, +declared escaped slaves to be "contraband" and proceeded to organize them into +communities for discipline, work, food, and care. His successors in Virginia +and North Carolina, and others in the Sea Islands of Georgia and South +Carolina, extended his plan and arranged a labor system with fixed wages, +hours, and methods of work, and everywhere made use of the captured or +abandoned property of the Confederates. In Tennessee and Arkansas, Chaplain +John Eaton of Grant's army employed thousands in a modified free labor system; +and further down in Mississippi and Louisiana Generals Grant, Butler, and +Banks also put large numbers of captured slaves to work for themselves and for +the Government. Everywhere, as the numbers of Negroes increased, the army +commanders divided the occupied Negro regions into districts under +superintendents and other officials, framed labor laws, cooperated with +benevolent societies which gave schooling and medical care to the blacks, and +developed systems of government for them. + +The United States Treasury Department, attempting to execute the confiscation +laws for the benefit of the Treasury, appears now and then as an employer of +Negro labor on abandoned plantations. Either alone or in cooperation with the +army and charitable associations, it even supervised Negro colonies, and +sometimes it assumed practically complete control of the economic welfare of +the Negro. This Department introduced in 1864 an elaborate lessee and trade +system. The Negro was regarded as "the ward of the nation," but he was told +impressively that "labor is a public duty and idleness and vagrancy a crime." +All wanted him to work: the Treasury wanted cotton and other crops to sell; +the lessees and speculators wanted to make fortunes by his labor; and the army +wanted to be free from the burden of the idle blacks. In spite of all these +ministrations, the Negroes suffered much from harsh treatment, neglect, and +unsanitary conditions. + +During 1863 and 1864, several influences were urging the establishment of a +national bureau or department to take charge of matters relating to the +African race. Some wished to establish on the borders of the South a paid +labor system, which might later be extended over the entire region, to get +more slaves out of the Confederacy into this free labor territory, and to +prevent immigration of Negroes into the North, which, after the Emancipation +Proclamation, was apprehensive of this danger. Others wished to relieve the +army and the treasury officials of the burden of caring for the blacks and to +protect the latter from the "northern harpies and bloodhounds" who had +fastened upon them the lessee system. + +The discussion lasted for two years. The Freedmen's Inquiry Commission, after +a survey of the field in 1863, recommended a consolidation of all efforts +under an organization which should perpetuate the best features of the old +system. But there was much opposition to this plan in Congress. The Negroes +would be exploited, objected some; the scheme gave too much power to the +proposed organization, said others; another objection was urged against the +employment of a horde of incompetent and unscrupulous officeholders, for "the +men who go down there and become your overseers and Negro drivers will be your +broken-down politicians and your dilapidated preachers, that description of +men who are too lazy to work and just a little too honest to steal." + +As the war drew to a close, the advocates of a policy of consolidation in +Negro affairs prevailed, and on March 3, 1865, an act was approved creating in +the War Department a Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. This +Bureau was to continue for one year after the close of the war, and it was to +control all matters relating to freedmen and refugees, that is, Unionists who +had been driven out of the South. Food, shelter, and clothing were to be given +to the needy, and abandoned or confiscated property was to be used for or +leased to freedmen. At the head of the Bureau was to be a commissioner with an +assistant commissioner for each of the Southern States. These officials and +other employees must take the "ironclad" oath. + +It was planned that the Bureau should have a brief existence, but the +institution and its wards became such important factors in politics that on +July 16, 1866, after a struggle with the President, Congress passed an act +over his veto amplifying the powers of the Bureau and extending it for two +years longer. This continuation of the Bureau was due to many things: to a +belief that former slaveholders were not to be trusted in dealing with the +Negroes; to the baneful effect of the "Black Laws" upon Northern public +opinion; to the struggle between the President and Congress over +reconstruction; and to the foresight of radical politicians who saw in the +institution an instrument for the political instruction of the blacks in the +proper doctrines. + +The new law was supplementary to the Act of 1865, but its additional +provisions merely endorsed what the Bureau was already doing. It authorized +the issue of medical supplies, confirmed certain sales of land to Negroes, and +provided that the promises which Sherman made in 1865 to the Sea Island +Negroes should be carried out as far as possible and that no lands occupied by +blacks should be restored to the owners until the crops of 1866 were gathered; +it directed the Bureau to cooperate with private charitable and benevolent +associations, and it authorized the use or sale for school purposes of all +confiscated property; and finally it ordered that the civil equality of the +Negro be upheld by the Bureau and its courts when state courts refused to +accept the principle. By later laws the existence of the Bureau was extended +to January 1, 1869, in the unreconstructed States, but its educational and +financial activities were continued until June 20, 1872. + +The chief objections to the Bureau from the conservative Northern point of +view were summed up in the President's veto messages. The laws creating it +were based, he asserted, on the theory that a state of war still existed; +there was too great a concentration of power in the hands of a few individuals +who could not be held responsible; with such a large number of agents ignorant +of the country and often working for their own advantage injustice would +inevitably result; in spite of the fact that the Negro everywhere had a status +in court, arbitrary tribunals were established, without jury, without regular +procedure or rules of evidence, and without appeal; the provisions in regard +to abandoned lands amounted to confiscation without a hearing; the Negro, who +must in the end work out his own salvation, and who was protected by the +demand for his labor, would be deluded into thinking his future secure without +further effort on his part; although nominally under the War Department, the +Bureau was not subject to military control; it was practically a great +political machine; and, finally, the states most concerned were not +represented in Congress. + +The Bureau was soon organized in all the former slaveholding States except +Delaware, with general headquarters in Washington and state headquarters at +the various capitals. General O. O. Howard, who was appointed commissioner, +was a good officer, softhearted, honest, pious, and frequently referred to as +"the Christian soldier." He was fair-minded and not disposed to irritate the +Southern whites unnecessarily, but he was rather suspicious of their +intentions toward the Negroes, and he was a believer in the righteousness of +the Freedmen's Bureau. He was not a good business man; and he was not beyond +the reach of politicians. At one time he was seriously disturbed in his duties +by the buzzing of the presidential bee in his bonnet. The members of his staff +were not of his moral stature, and several of them were connected with +commercial and political enterprises which left their motives open to +criticism. + +The assistant commissioners were, as a rule, general officers of the army, +though a few were colonels and chaplains.* Nearly half of them had during the +war been associated with the various attempts to handle the Negro problem, and +it was these men who shaped the organization of the Bureau. While few of them +were immediately acceptable to the Southern whites, only ten of them proved +seriously objectionable on account of personality, character, or politics. +Among the most able should be mentioned Generals Schofield, Swayne, Fullerton, +Steedman, and Fessenden, and Colonel John Eaton. The President had little or +no control over the appointment or discipline of the officials and agents of +the Bureau, except possibly by calling some of the higher army officers back +to military service. + +* They numbered eleven at first and fourteen after July 1866, and were changed +so often that fifty, in all, served in this rank before January 1, 1869, when +the Bureau was practically discontinued. + + +As a result of General Grant's severe criticism of the arrangement which +removed the Bureau from control by the military establishment, the military +commander was in a few instances also appointed assistant commissioner. Each +assistant commissioner was aided by a headquarters staff and had under his +jurisdiction in each state various district, county, and local agents, with a +special corps of school officials, who were usually teachers and missionaries +belonging to religious and charitable societies. The local agents were +recruited from the members of the Veteran Reserve Corps, the subordinate +officers and non-commissioned officers of the army, mustered-out soldiers, +officers of Negro troops, preachers, teachers, and Northern civilians who had +come South. As a class these agents were not competent persons to guide the +blacks in the ways of liberty or to arbitrate differences between the races. +There were many exceptions, but the Southern view as expressed by General Wade +Hampton had only too much foundation: "There MAY be," he said, "an honest man +connected with the Bureau." John Minor Botts, a Virginian who had remained +loyal to the Union, asserted that many of the agents were good men who did +good work but that trouble resulted from the ignorance and fanaticism of +others. The minority members of the Ku Klux Committee condemned the agents as +being "generally of a class of fanatics without character or responsibility." + +The chief activities of the Bureau included the following five branches: +relief work for both races; the regulation of Negro labor; the administration +of justice in cases concerning Negroes; the management of abandoned and +confiscated property; and the support of schools for the Negroes. + +The relief work which was carried on for more than four years consisted of +caring for sick Negroes who were within reach of the hospitals, furnishing +food and sometimes clothing and shelter to destitute blacks and whites, and +transporting refugees of both races back to their homes. Nearly a hundred +hospitals and clinics were established, and half a million patients were +treated. This work was greatly needed, especially for the old and the infirm, +and it was well done. The transportation of refugees did not reach large +proportions, and after 1866 it was entangled in politics. But the issue of +supplies in huge quantities brought much needed relief though at the same time +a certain amount of demoralization. The Bureau claimed little credit, and is +usually given none, for keeping alive during the fall and winter of 1865-1866 +thousands of destitute whites. Yet more than a third of the food issued was to +whites, and without it many would have starved. Numerous Confederate soldiers +on the way home after the surrender were fed by the Bureau, and in the +destitute white districts a great deal of suffering was relieved and prevented +by its operations. The Negroes, dwelling for the most part in regions where +labor was in demand, needed relief for a shorter time, but they were attracted +in numbers to the towns by free food, and it was difficult to get them back to +work. The political value of the free food issues was not generally recognized +until later in 1866 and in 1867. + +During the first year of the Bureau an important duty of the agents was the +supervision of Negro labor and the fixing of wages. Both officials and +planters generally demanded that contracts be written, approved, and filed in +the office of the Bureau. They thought that the Negroes would work better if +they were thus bound by contracts. The agents usually required that the +agreements between employer and laborer cover such points as the nature of the +work, the hours, food and clothes, medical attendance, shelter, and wages. To +make wages secure, the laborer was given a lien on the crop; to secure the +planter from loss, unpaid wages might be forfeited if the laborer failed to +keep his part of the contract. When it dawned upon the Bureau authorities that +other systems of labor had been or might be developed in the South, they +permitted arrangements for the various forms of cash and share renting. But it +was everywhere forbidden to place the Negroes under "overseers" or to subject +them to "unwilling apprenticeship" and "compulsory working out of debts." The +written contract system for laborers did not work out successfully. The +Negroes at first were expecting quite other fruits of freedom. One Mississippi +Negro voiced what was doubtless the opinion of many when he declared that he +"considered no man free who had to work for a living." Few Negroes would +contract for more than three months and none for a period beyond January 1, +1866, when they expected a division of lands among the ex-slaves. In spite of +the regulations, most worked on oral agreements. In 1866 nearly all employers +threw overboard the written contract system for labor and permitted oral +agreements. Some states had passed stringent laws for the enforcing of +contracts, but in Alabama, Governor Patton vetoed such legislation on the +ground that it was not needed. General Swayne, the Bureau chief for the state, +endorsed the Governor's action and stated that the Negro was protected by his +freedom to leave when mistreated, and the planter, by the need on the part of +the Negro for food and shelter. Negroes, he said, were afraid of contracts +and, besides, contracts led to litigation. + +In order to safeguard the civil rights of the Negroes, the Bureau was given +authority to establish courts of its own and to supervise the action of state +courts in cases to which freedmen were parties. The majority of the assistant +commissioners made no attempt to let the state courts handle Negro cases but +were accustomed to bring all such cases before the Bureau or the provost +courts of the army. In Alabama, quite early, and later in North Carolina, +Mississippi, and Georgia, the wiser assistant commissioners arranged for the +state courts to handle freedmen's cases with the understanding that +discriminating laws were to be suspended. General Swayne in so doing declared +that he was "unwilling to establish throughout Alabama courts conducted by +persons foreign to her citizenship and strangers to her laws." The Bureau +courts were informal affairs, consisting usually of one or two administrative +officers. There were no jury, no appeal beyond the assistant commissioner, no +rules of procedure, and no accepted body of law. In state courts accepted by +the Bureau, the proceedings in Negro cases were conducted in the same manner +as for the whites. + +The educational work of the Bureau was at first confined to cooperation with +such Northern religious and benevolent societies as were organizing schools +and churches for the Negroes. After the first year, the Bureau extended +financial aid and undertook a system of supervision over Negro schools. The +teachers employed were Northern whites and Negroes in about equal numbers. +Confiscated Confederate property was devoted to Negro education, and in +several states the assistant commissioners collected fees and percentages of +the Negroes' wages for the benefit of the schools. In addition the Bureau +expended about six million dollars. + +The intense dislike which the Southern whites manifested for the Freedmen's +Bureau was due in general to their resentment of outside control of domestic +affairs and in particular to unavoidable difficulties inherent in the +situation. Among the concrete causes of Southern hostility was the attitude of +some of the higher officials and many of the lower ones toward the white +people. They assumed that the whites were unwilling to accord fair treatment +to the blacks in the matter of wages, schools, and justice. An official in +Louisiana declared that the whites would exterminate the Negroes if the Bureau +were removed. A few months later General Fullerton in the same State reported +that trouble was caused by those agents who noisily demanded special +privileges for the Negro but who objected to any penalties for his lawlessness +and made of the Negroes a pampered class. General Tillson in Georgia predicted +the extinction of the "old time Southerner with his hate, cruelty, and +malice." General Fisk declared that "there are some of the meanest, +unsubjugated and unreconstructed rascally revolutionists in Kentucky that +curse the soil of the country . . . a more select number of vindictive, +pro-slavery, rebellious legislators cannot be found than a majority of the +Kentucky legislature." There was a disposition to lecture the whites about +their sins in regard to slavery and to point out to them how far in their +general ignorance and backwardness they fell short of enlightened people. + +The Bureau courts were frequently conducted in an "illegal and oppressive +manner," with "decided partiality for the colored people, without regard to +justice." For this reason they were suspended for a time in Louisiana and +Georgia by General Steedman and General Fullerton, and cases were then sent +before military courts. Men of the highest character were dragged before the +Bureau tribunals upon frivolous complaints, were lectured, abused, ridiculed, +and arbitrarily fined or otherwise punished. The jurisdiction of the Bureau +courts weakened the civil courts and their frequent interference in trivial +matters was not conducive to a return to normal conditions. + +The inferior agents, not sufficiently under the control of their superiors, +were responsible for a great deal of this bad feeling. Many of them held +radical opinions as to the relations of the races, and inculcated these views +in their courts, in the schools, and in the new Negro churches. Some were +charged with even causing strikes and other difficulties in order to be bought +off by the whites. The tendency of their work was to create in the Negroes a +pervasive distrust of the whites. + +The prevalent delusion in regard to an impending division of the lands among +the blacks had its origin in the operation of the war-time confiscation laws, +in some of the Bureau legislation, and in General Sherman's Sea Island order, +but it was further fostered by the agents until most blacks firmly believed +that each head of a family was to get "40 acres and a mule." This belief +seriously interfered with industry and resulted also in widespread swindling +by rascals who for years made a practice of selling fraudulent deeds to land +with red, white, and blue sticks to mark off the bounds of a chosen spot on +the former master's plantation. The assistant commissioners labored hard to +disabuse the minds of the Negroes, but their efforts were often neutralized by +the unscrupulous attitude of the agents. + +As the contest over reconstruction developed in Washington, the officials of +the Bureau soon recognized the political possibilities of their institution. +After midyear of 1866, the Bureau became a political machine for the purpose +of organizing the blacks into the Union League, where the rank and file were +taught that reenslavement would follow Democratic victories. Nearly all of the +Bureau agents aided in the administration of the reconstruction acts in 1867 +and in the organization of the new state and local governments and became +officials under the new regime. They were the chief agents in capturing the +solid Negro vote for the Republican party. + +Neither of the two plans for guiding the freedmen into a place in the social +order--the "Black Laws" and the Freedmen's Bureau--was successful. The former +contained a program which was better suited to actual conditions and which +might have succeeded if it had been given a fair trial. These laws were a +measure of the extent to which the average white would then go in "accepting +the situation" so far as the blacks were concerned. And on the whole the +recognition of Negro rights made in these laws, and made at a time when the +whites believed that they were free to handle the situation, was remarkably +fair. The Negroes lately released from slavery were admitted to the enjoyment +of the same rights as the whites as to legal protection of life, liberty, and +property, as to education and as to the family relation, limited only by the +clear recognition of the principles of political inferiority and social +separation. Unhappily this legislation was not put to the test of practical +experience because of the Freedmen's Bureau; it was nevertheless skillfully +used to arouse the dominant Northern party to a course of action which made +impossible any further effort to treat the race problem with due consideration +to actual local conditions. + +Much of the work of the Freedmen's Bureau was of only temporary benefit to +both races. The results of its more permanent work were not generally good. +The institution was based upon the assumption that the Negro race must be +protected from the white race. In its organization and administration it was +an impossible combination of the practical and the theoretical, of opportunism +and humanitarianism, of common sense and idealism. It failed to exert a +permanently wholesome influence because its lesser agents were not held to +strict accountability by their superiors. Under these agents the alienation of +the two races began, and the ill feelings then aroused were destined to +persist into a long and troubled future. + + + +CHAPTER V. THE VICTORY OF THE RADICALS + +The soldiers who fought through the war to victory or to defeat had been at +home nearly two years before the radicals developed sufficient strength to +carry through their plans for a revolutionary reconstruction of the Southern +states. At the end of the war, a majority of the Northern people would have +supported a settlement in accordance with Lincoln's policy. Eight months later +a majority, but a smaller one, would have supported Johnson's work had it been +possible to secure a popular decision on it. How then did the radicals gain +the victory over the conservatives? The answer to this question is given by +James Ford Rhodes in terms of personalities: "Three men are responsible for +the Congressional policy of Reconstruction: Andrew Johnson, by his obstinacy +and bad behavior; Thaddeus Stevens, by his vindictiveness and parliamentary +tyranny; Charles Sumner, by his pertinacity in a misguided humanitarianism." +The President stood alone in his responsibility, but his chief opponents were +the ablest leaders of a resolute band of radicals. + +Radicalism did not begin in the Administration of Andrew Johnson. Lincoln had +felt its covert opposition throughout the war, but he possessed the faculty of +weakening his opponents, while Johnson's conduct usually multiplied the number +and the strength of his enemies. At first the radicals criticized Lincoln's +policy in regard to slavery, and after the Emancipation Proclamation they +shifted their attack to his "ten percent" plan for organizing the state +governments as outlined in the Proclamation of December 1863. Lincoln's course +was distasteful to them because he did not admit the right of Congress to +dictate terms, because of his liberal attitude towards former Confederates, +and because he was conservative on the Negro question. A schism among the +Republican supporters of the war was with difficulty averted in 1864, when +Fremont threatened to lead the radicals in opposition to the "Union" party of +the President and his conservative policy. + +The breach was widened by the refusal of Congress to admit representatives +from Arkansas and Louisiana in 1864 and to count the electoral vote of +Louisiana and Tennessee in 1865. The passage of the Wade-Davis reconstruction +bill in July 1864, and the protests of its authors after Lincoln's pocket veto +called attention to the growing opposition. Severe criticism caused Lincoln to +withdraw the propositions which he had made in April 1865, with regard to the +restoration of Virginia. In his last public speech, he referred with regret to +the growing spirit of vindictiveness toward the South. Much of the opposition +to Lincoln's Southern policy was based not on radicalism, that is, not on any +desire for a revolutionary change in the South, but upon a belief that +Congress and not the executive should be entrusted with the work of +reorganizing the Union. Many congressional leaders were willing to have +Congress itself carry through the very policies which Lincoln had advocated, +and a majority of the Northern people would have endorsed them without much +caring who was to execute them. + +The murder of Lincoln, the failure of the radicals to shape Johnson's policy +as they had hoped, and the continuing reaction against the excessive expansion +of the executive power added strength to the opposition. But it was a long +fight before the radical leaders won. Their victory was due to adroit tactics +on their own part and to mistakes, bad judgment, and bad manners on the part +of the President. When all hope of controlling Johnson had been given up, +Thaddeus Stevens and other leaders of similar views began to contrive means to +circumvent him. On December 1, 1865, before Congress met, a caucus of radicals +held in Washington agreed that a joint committee of the two Houses should be +selected to which should be referred matters relating to reconstruction. This +plan would thwart the more conservative Senate and gain a desirable delay in +which the radicals might develop their campaign. The next day at a caucus of +the Union party the plan went through without arousing the suspicion of the +supporters of the Administration. Next, through the influence of Stevens, +Edward McPherson, the clerk of the House, omitted from the roll call of the +House the names of the members from the South. The radical program was then +adopted and a week later the Senate concurred in the action of the House as to +the appointment of a Joint Committee on Reconstruction. + +On the issues before Congress both Houses were split into rather clearly +defined factions: the extreme radicals with such leaders as Stevens, Sumner, +Wade, and Boutwell; the moderate Republicans, chief among whom were Fessenden +and Trumbull; the administration Republicans led by Raymond, Doolittle, Cowan, +and Dixon; and the Democrats, of whom the ablest were Reverdy Johnson, +Guthrie, and Hendricks. All except the extreme radicals were willing to +support the President or to come to some fairly reasonable compromise. But at +no time were they given an opportunity to get together. Johnson and the +administration leaders did little in this direction and the radicals made the +most skillful use of the divisions among the conservatives. + +Whatever final judgment may be passed upon the radical reconstruction policy +and its results, there can be no doubt of the political dexterity of those who +carried it through. Chief among them was Thaddeus Stevens, vindictive and +unscrupulous, filled with hatred of the Southern leaders, bitter in speech and +possessing to an extreme degree the faculty of making ridiculous those who +opposed him. He advocated confiscation, the proscription or exile of leading +whites, the granting of the franchise and of lands to the Negroes, and in +Southern states the establishment of territorial governments under the control +of Congress. These states should, he said, "never be recognized as capable of +acting in the Union . . . until the Constitution shall have been so amended as +to make it what the makers intended, and so as to secure perpetual ascendancy +to the party of the Union." + +Charles Sumner, the leader of the radicals in the Senate, was moved less than +Stevens by personal hostility toward the whites of the South, but his sympathy +was reserved entirely for the blacks. He was unpractical, theoretical, and not +troubled by constitutional scruples. To him the Declaration of Independence +was the supreme law, and it was the duty of Congress to express its principles +in appropriate legislation. Unlike Stevens, who had a genuine liking for the +Negro, Sumner's sympathy for the race was purely intellectual; for the +individual Negro he felt repulsion. His views were in effect not different +from those of Stevens. And he was practical enough not to overlook the value +of the Negro vote. "To my mind," he said, "nothing is clearer than the +absolute necessity of suffrage for all colored persons in the disorganized +states. It will not be enough if you give it to those who read and write; you +will not, in this way, acquire the voting force which you need there for the +protection of unionists, whether white or black. You will not secure the new +allies who are essential to the national cause." A leader of the second rank +was his colleague Henry Wilson, who was also actuated by a desire for the +Negro's welfare and for the perpetuation of the Republican party, which he +said contained in its ranks "more of moral and intellectual worth than was +ever embodied in any political organization in any land . . . created by no +man or set of men but brought into being by Almighty God himself . . . and +endowed by the Creator with all political power and every office under +Heaven." Shellabarger of Ohio was another important figure among the radicals. +The following extract from one of his speeches gives an indication of his +character and temperament: "They [the Confederates] framed iniquity and +universal murder into law . . . . Their pirates burned your unarmed commerce +upon every sea. They carved the bones of the dead heroes into ornaments, and +drank from goblets made out of their skulls. They poisoned your fountains, put +mines under your soldiers' prisons; organized bands whose leaders were +concealed in your homes; and commissions ordered the torch and yellow fever to +be carried to your cities and to your women and children. They planned one +universal bonfire of the North from Lake Ontario to the Missouri." + +Among the lesser lights may be mentioned Morton and Wade, both bluff, coarse, +and ungenerous, and thoroughly convinced that the Republican party had a +monopoly of loyalty, wisdom, and virtues, and that by any means it must gain +and keep control; Boutwell, fanatical and mediocre; and Benjamin Butler, a +charlatan and demagogue. As a class the Western radicals were less troubled by +humanitarian ideals than were those of the East and sought more practical +political results. + +The Joint Committee on Reconstruction which finally decided the fate of the +Southern states was composed of eight radicals, four moderate Republicans, and +three Democrats. As James Gillespie Blaine wrote later, "it was foreseen that +in an especial degree the fortunes of the Republican party would be in the +keeping of the fifteen men who might be chosen." This committee was divided +into four subcommittees to take testimony. The witnesses, all of whom were +examined at Washington, included army officers and Bureau agents who had +served in the South, Southern Unionists, a few politicians, and several former +Confederates, among them General Robert E. Lee and Alexander H. Stephens. Most +of the testimony was of the kind needed to support the contentions of the +radicals that Negroes were badly treated in the South; that the whites were +disloyal; that, should they be left in control, the Negro, free labor, the +nation, and the Republican party would be in danger; that the army and the +Freedmen's Bureau must be kept in the South; and that a radical reconstruction +was necessary. No serious effort, however, was made to ascertain the actual +conditions in the South. Slow to formulate a definite plan, the Joint +Committee guided public sentiment toward radicalism, converted gradually the +Republican Congressmen, and little by little undermined the power and +influence of the President. + +Not until after the new year was it plain that there was to be a fight to the +finish between Congress and the President. Congress had refused in December +1865, to accept the President's program, but there was still hope for a +compromise. Many conservatives had voted for the delay merely to assert the +rights of Congress; but the radicals wanted time to frame a program. The +Northern Democrats were embarrassingly cordial in their support of Johnson and +so also were most Southerners. The moderates were not far away from the +position of the President and the administration Republicans. But the radicals +skillfully postponed a test of strength until Stevens and Sumner were ready. +The latter declared that a generation must elapse "before the rebel +communities have so far been changed as to become safe associates in a common +government. Time, therefore, we must have. Through time all other guarantees +may be obtained; but time itself is a guarantee." + +To the Joint Committee were referred without debate all measures relating to +reconstruction, but the Committee was purposely making little +progress--contented merely to take testimony and to act as a clearing house +for the radical "facts" about "Southern outrages" while waiting for the tide +to turn. The "Black Laws" and the election of popular Confederate leaders to +office in the South were effectively used to alarm the friends of the Negroes, +and the reports from the Bureau agents gave support to those who condemned the +Southern state governments as totally inadequate and disloyal. + +So apparent was the growth of radicalism that the President, alarmed by the +attitude of Sumner and Stevens and their followers, began to fear for the +Constitution and forced the fight. The passage of a bill on February 6, 1866, +extending the life of the Freedmen's Bureau furnished the occasion for the +beginning of the open struggle. On the 19th of February, Johnson vetoed the +bill, and the next day an effort was made to pass it over the veto. Not +succeeding in this attempt, the House of Representatives adopted a concurrent +resolution that Senators and Representatives from the Southern states should +be excluded until Congress declared them entitled to representation. Ten days +later the Senate also adopted the resolution. + +Though it was not yet too late for Johnson to meet the conservatives of +Congress on middle ground, he threw away his opportunity by an intemperate and +undignified speech on the 22d of February to a crowd at the White House. As +usual when excited, he forgot the proprieties and denounced the radicals as +enemies of the Union and even went so far as to charge Stevens, Sumner, and +Wendell Phillips with endeavoring to destroy the fundamental principles of the +government. Such conduct weakened his supporters and rejoiced his enemies. It +was expected that Johnson would approve the bill to confer civil rights upon +the Negroes, but, goaded perhaps by the speeches of Stevens, he vetoed it on +the 27th of March. Its patience now exhausted, Congress passed the bill over +the President's veto. To secure the requisite majority in the Senate, +Stockton, Democratic Senator from New Jersey, was unseated on technical +grounds, and Senator Morgan, who was "paired" with a sick colleague, broke his +word to vote aye--for which Wade offensively thanked God. The moderates had +now fallen away from the President, and at least for this session of Congress, +his policies were wrecked. On the 16th of July, the supplementary Freedmen's +Bureau Act was passed over the veto, and on the 24th of July Tennessee was +readmitted to representation by a law the preamble of which asserted +unmistakably that Congress had assumed control of reconstruction. + +Meanwhile the Joint Committee on Reconstruction had made a report asserting +that the Southerners had forfeited all constitutional rights, that their state +governments were not in constitutional form, and that restoration could be +accomplished only when Congress and the President acted together in fixing the +terms of readmission. The uncompromising hostility of the South, the Committee +asserted, made necessary adequate safeguards which should include the +disfranchisement of the white leaders, either Negro suffrage or a reduction of +white representation, and repudiation of the Confederate war debt with +recognition of the validity of the United States debt. These terms were +embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment, which was adopted by Congress and sent +to the States on June 13, 1866. + +In the congressional campaign of 1866, reconstruction was almost the sole +issue. For success the Administration must gain at least one-third of one +house, while the radicals were fighting for two-thirds of each House. If the +Administration should fail to make the necessary gain, the work accomplished +by the Presidents would be destroyed. The campaign was bitter and extended +through the summer and fall. Four national conventions were held: the National +Union party at Philadelphia made a respectable showing in support of the +President; the Southern Unionists, guided by the Northern radicals met at the +same place; a soldiers' and sailors' convention at Cleveland supported the +Administration; and another convention of soldiers and sailors at Pittsburgh +endorsed the radical policies. A convention of Confederate soldiers and +sailors at Memphis endorsed the President, but the Southern support and that +of the Northern Democrats did not encourage moderate Republicans to vote for +the Administration. Three members of Johnson's Cabinet--Harlan, Speed, and +Dennison--resigned because they were unwilling to follow their chief further +in opposing Congress. + +The radicals had plenty of campaign material in the testimony collected by the +Joint Committee, in the reports of the Freedmen's Bureau, and in the bloody +race riots which had occurred in Memphis and New Orleans. The greatest blunder +of the Administration was Johnson's speechmaking tour to the West which he +called "Swinging Around the Circle." Every time he made a speech he was +heckled by persons in the crowd, lost his temper, denounced Congress and the +radical leaders, and conducted himself in an undignified manner. The election +returns showed more than a two-thirds majority in each House against the +President. The Fortieth Congress would therefore be safely radical, and in +consequence the Thirty-ninth was encouraged to be more radical during its last +session. + +Public interest now for a time turned to the South, where the Fourteenth +Amendment was before the state legislatures. The radicals, taunted with having +no plan of reconstruction beyond a desire to keep the Southern States out of +the Union, professed to see in the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment a +good opportunity to readmit the States on a safe basis. The elections of 1866 +had pointed to the ratification of the proposed amendment as an essential +preliminary to readmission. But would additional demands be made upon the +South? Sumner, Stevens, and Fessenden were sure that Negro suffrage also must +come, but Wade, Chase, Garfield, and others believed that nothing beyond the +terms of the Fourteenth Amendment would be asked. + +In the Southern legislatures there was little disposition to ratify the +amendment. The rapid development of the radical policies during 1866 had +convinced most Southerners that nothing short of a general humiliation and +complete revolution in the South would satisfy the dominant party, and there +were few who wished to be "parties to our own dishonor." The President advised +the States not to accept the amendment, but several Southern leaders favored +it, fearing that worse would come if they should reject it. Only in the +legislatures of Alabama and Florida was there any serious disposition to +accept the amendment; and in the end all the unreconstructed States voted +adversely during the fall and winter of 1866-67. This unanimity of action was +due in part to the belief that, even if the amendment were ratified, the +Southern states would still be excluded, and in part to the general dislike of +the proscriptive section which would disfranchise all Confederates of +prominence and result in the breaking up of the state governments. The example +of unhappy Tennessee, which had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment and had been +readmitted, was not one to encourage conservative people in the other Southern +states. + +The rejection of the amendment put the question of reconstruction squarely +before Congress. There was no longer a possibility of accomplishing the +reconstruction of the Southern states by means of constitutional amendments. +Some of the Border and Northern states were already showing signs of +uneasiness at the continued exclusion of the South. But if the Constitutional +Amendment had failed, other means of reconstruction were at hand, for the +radicals now controlled the Thirty-ninth Congress, from which the Southern +representatives were excluded, and would also control the Fortieth Congress. + +Under the lead of Stevens and Sumner, the radicals now perfected their plans. +On January 8,1867, their first measure, conferring the franchise upon Negroes +in the District of Columbia, was passed over the presidential veto, though the +proposal had been voted down a few weeks earlier by a vote of 6525 to 35 in +Washington and 812 to 1 in Georgetown. In the next place, by an act of January +31, 1867, the franchise was extended to Negroes in the territories, and on +March 2, 1867, three important measures were enacted: the Tenure of Office Act +and a rider to the Army Appropriation Act--both designed to limit the power of +the President--and the first Reconstruction Act. By the Tenure of Office Act, +the President was prohibited from removing officeholders except with the +consent of the Senate; and by the Army Act he was forbidden to issue orders +except through General Grant or to relieve him of command or to assign him to +command away from Washington unless at the General's own request or with the +previous approval of the Senate. The first measure was meant to check the +removal of radical officeholders by Johnson, and the other, which was secretly +drawn up for Boutwell by Stanton, was designed to prevent the President from +exercising his constitutional command of the army. + +The first Reconstruction Act declared that no legal state government existed +in the ten unreconstructed states and that there was no adequate protection +for life and property. The Johnson and Lincoln governments in those States +were declared to have no legal status and to be subject wholly to the +authority of the United States to modify or abolish. The ten states were +divided into five military districts, over each of which a general officer was +to be placed in command. Military tribunals were to supersede the civil courts +where necessary. Stevens was willing to rest here, though some of his less +radical followers, disliking military rule but desiring to force Negro +suffrage, inserted a provision in the law that a State might be readmitted to +representation upon the following conditions: a constitutional convention must +be held, the members of which were elected by males of voting age without +regard to color, excluding whites who would be disfranchised by the proposed +Fourteenth Amendment; a constitution including the same rule of suffrage must +be framed, ratified by the same electorate, and approved by Congress; and +lastly, the legislatures elected under this constitution must ratify the +proposed Fourteenth Amendment, after which, if the Fourteenth Amendment should +have become a part of the Federal Constitution, the State should be readmitted +to representation. + +In order that the administration of this radical legislation might be +supervised by its friends, the Thirty-ninth Congress had passed a law +requiring the Fortieth Congress to meet on the 4th of March instead of in +December as was customary. According to the Reconstruction Act of the 2nd of +March, it was left to the state government or to the people of a state to make +the first move towards reconstruction. If they preferred, they might remain +under military rule. Either by design or by carelessness no machinery of +administration was provided for the execution of the act. When it became +evident that the Southerners preferred military rule, the new Congress passed +a Supplementary Reconstruction Act on the 23d of March designed to force the +earlier act into operation. The five commanding generals were directed to +register the blacks of voting age and the whites who were not disfranchised, +to hold elections for conventions, to call the conventions, to hold elections +to ratify or reject the constitutions, and to forward the constitutions, if +ratified, to the President for transmission to Congress. + +In these reconstruction acts the whole doctrine of radicalism was put on the +way to accomplishment. Its spread had been rapid. In December 1865, the +majority of Congress would have accepted with little modification the work of +Lincoln and Johnson. Three months later the Civil Rights Act measured the +advance. Very soon the new Freedmen's Bureau Act and the Fourteenth Amendment +indicated the rising tide of radicalism. The campaign of 1866 and the attitude +of the Southern states swept all radicals and most moderate Republicans +swiftly into a merciless course of reconstruction. Moderate reconstruction had +nowhere strong support. Congress, touched in its amour propre by presidential +disregard, was eager for extremes. Johnson, who regarded himself as defending +the Constitution against radical assaults, was stubborn, irascible, and +undignified, and with his associates was no match in political strategy for +his radical opponents. + +The average Republican or Unionist in the North, if he had not been brought by +skillful misrepresentation to believe a new rebellion impending in the South, +was at any rate painfully alive to the fear that the Democratic party might +regain power. With the freeing of the slaves, the representation of the South +in Congress would be increased. At first it seemed that the South might divide +in politics as before the war, but the longer the delay the more the Southern +whites tended to unite into one party acting with the Democrats. With their +eighty-five representatives and a slight reaction in the North, they might +gain control of the lower House of Congress. The Union-Republican party had a +majority of less than one hundred in 1866, and this was lessened slightly in +the Fortieth Congress. The President was for all practical purposes a Democrat +again. The prospect was too much for the very human politicians to view +without distress. Stevens, speaking in support of the Military Reconstruction +Bill, said: + +"There are several good reasons for the passage of this bill. In the first +place, it is just. I am now confining my argument to Negro suffrage in the +rebel states. Have not loyal blacks quite as good a right to choose rulers and +make laws as rebel whites? In the second place, it is necessary in order to +protect the loyal white men in the seceded states. With them the blacks would +act in a body, and it is believed that in each of these states, except one, +the two united would form a majority, control the states, and protect +themselves. Now they are the victims of daily murder. They must suffer +constant persecution or be exiled. Another good reason is that it would insure +the ascendancy of the union party .... I believe . . . that on the continued +ascendancy of that party depends the safety of this great nation. If impartial +suffrage is excluded in the rebel states, then every one of them is sure to +send a solid rebel electoral vote. They, with their kindred Copperheads of the +North, would always elect the President and control Congress." + +The laws passed on the 2d and the 23d of March were war measures and +presupposed a continuance of war conditions. The Lincoln-Johnson state +governments were overturned; Congress fixed the qualifications of voters for +that time and for the future; and the President, shorn of much of his +constitutional power, could exercise but little control over the military +government. Nothing that a state might do would secure restoration until it +should ratify the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. The war +had been fought upon the theory that the old Union must be preserved; but the +basic theory of the reconstruction was that a new Union was to be created. + + + +CHAPTER VI. THE RULE OF THE MAJOR GENERALS + +From the passage of the reconstruction acts to the close of Johnson's +Administration, Congress, working the will of the radical majority, was in +supreme control. The army carried out the will of Congress and to that body, +not to the President, the commanding general and his subordinates looked for +direction. + +The official opposition of the President to the policy of Congress ceased when +that policy was enacted into law. He believed this legislation to be +unconstitutional, but he considered it his duty to execute the laws. He at +once set about the appointment of generals to command the military districts +created in the South,* a task calling for no little discretion, since much +depended upon the character of these military governors, or "satraps," as they +were frequently called by the opposition. The commanding general in a district +was charged with many duties, military, political, and administrative. It was +his duty to carry on a government satisfactory to the radicals and not too +irritating to the Southern whites; at the same time he must execute the +reconstruction acts by putting old leaders out of power and Negroes in. +Violent opposition to this policy on the part of the South was not looked for. +Notwithstanding the "Southern outrage" campaign, it was generally recognized +in government circles that conditions in the seceded states had gradually been +growing better since the close of the war. There was in many regions, to be +sure, a general laxity in enforcing laws, but that had always been +characteristic of the newer parts of the South. The Civil Rights Act was +generally in force, the "Black Laws" had been suspended, and the Freedmen's +Bureau was everywhere caring for the Negroes. What disorder existed was of +recent origin and in the main was due to the unsettling effects of the debates +in Congress and to the organization of the Negroes for political purposes. + +* The first five generals appointed were Schofield, Sickles. Pope, Ord, and +Sheridan. None of these remained in his district until reconstruction was +completed. To Schofield's command in the first district succeeded in turn +Stoneman, Webb, and Canby; Sickles gave way to Canby, and Pope to Meade; Ord +in the fourth district was followed by Gillem, McDowell, and Ames; Sheridan, +in the fifth, was succeeded by Griffen, Mower, Hancock, Buchanan, Reynolds, +and Canby. Some of the generals were radical; others, moderate and tactful. +The most extreme were Sheridan, Pope, and Sickles. Those most acceptable to +the whites were Hancock, Schofield, and Meade. General Grant himself became +more radical in his actions as he became involved in the fight between +Congress and the President. + + +Military rule was established in the South with slight friction, but it was +soon found that the reconstruction laws were not sufficiently clear on two +points: first, whether there was any limit to the authority of the five +generals over the local and state governments and, if so, whether the limiting +authority was in the President; and second, whether the disfranchising +provisions in the laws were punitive and hence to be construed strictly. +Attorney-General Stanbery, in May and June 1867, drew up opinions in which he +maintained that the laws were to be considered punitive and therefore to be +construed strictly. After discussions in cabinet meetings, these opinions +received the approval of all except Stanton, Secretary of War, who had already +joined the radical camp. The Attorney-General's opinion was sent out to the +district commanders for their information and guidance. But Congress did not +intend to permit the President or his Cabinet to direct the process of +reconstruction, and in the Act of July 19, 1867, it gave a radical +interpretation to the reconstruction legislation, declared itself in control, +gave full power to General Grant and to the district commanders subject only +to Grant, directed the removal of all local officials who opposed the +reconstruction policies, and warned the civil and military officers of the +United States that none of them should "be bound in his action by any opinion +of any civil officer of the United States." This interpretive legislation gave +a broad basis for the military government and resulted in a severe application +of the disfranchising provisions of the laws. + +The rule of the five generals lasted in all the States until June 1868, and +continued in Mississippi, Texas, Virginia, and Georgia until 1870. There had +been, to be sure, some military government in 1865, subject, however, to the +President, and from 1865 to 1867 the army, along with the Freedmen's Bureau, +had exerted a strong influence in the government of the South, but in the +regime now inaugurated the military was supreme. The generals had a superior +at Washington, but whether it was the President, General Grant, or Congress +was not clear until the Act of July 19, 1867 made Congress the source of +authority. + +The power of the generals most strikingly appeared in their control of the +state governments which were continued as provisional organizations. Since no +elections were permitted, all appointments and removals were made from +military headquarters, which soon became political beehives, centers of +wirepulling and agencies for the distribution of spoils. At the outset civil +officers were ordered to retain their offices during good behavior, subject to +military control. But no local official was permitted to use his influence +ever so slightly against reconstruction. Since most of them did not favor the +policy of Congress, thousands were removed as "obstacles to reconstruction." +The Governors of Georgia, Louisiana, Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas were +displaced and others appointed in their stead. All kinds of subordinate +offices rapidly became vacant. New appointments were nearly always +carpetbaggers and native radicals who could take the "ironclad" oath. The +generals complained that there were not enough competent native "loyalists" to +fill the offices, and frequently an army officer was installed as governor, +treasurer, secretary of state, auditor, or mayor. In nearly all towns, the +police force was reorganized, and former Federal soldiers were added to the +force, while the regular troops were used for general police purposes and for +rural constabulary. + +Over the administration of justice the military authorities exercised a close +supervision. Instructions were sent out to court officers covering the +selection of juries, the suspension of certain laws, and the rules of evidence +and procedure. Courts were often closed, court decrees set aside or modified, +prisoners released, and many cases reserved for trial by military commission. +Some commanders required juries to admit Negro members and insisted that all +jurors take the "ironclad" test oath. There was some attempt at regulating the +Federal courts but without much success. + +Since the state legislatures were forbidden to meet, much legislation was +enacted through military orders. Stay laws were enacted, the color line was +abolished, new criminal regulations were promulgated, and the police power was +invoked in some instances to justify sweeping measures, such as the +prohibition of whisky manufacture in North Carolina and South Carolina. The +military governors levied, increased, or decreased taxes and made +appropriations which the state treasurers were forced to pay, but they +restrained the radical conventions, all of which wished to spend much money. +According to the Act of March 23, 1867, the generals and their appointees were +to be paid by the United States, but in practice the running expenses of +reconstruction were paid by the state treasurers. + +Any attempt to favor the Confederate soldiers was frowned upon. Laws providing +wooden legs and free education for crippled Confederates were suspended. +Militia organizations and military schools were forbidden. No uniform might be +worn, no parades were permitted, no memorial and historical societies were to +be organized, and no meeting of any kind could be held without a permit. The +attempt to control the press resulted in what one general called "a horrible +uproar." Editors were forbidden to express themselves too strongly against +reconstruction; public advertising and printing were awarded only to those +papers actively supporting reconstruction. Several newspapers were suppressed, +a notable example being the "Tuscaloosa Independent Monitor", whose editor, +Ryland Randolph, was a picturesque figure in Alabama journalism and a leader +in the Ku Klux Klan. + +The military administration was thorough and, as a whole, honest and +efficient. With fewer than ten thousand soldiers, the generals maintained +order and carried on the reconstruction of the South. The whites made no +attempt at resistance, though they were irritated by military rule and +resented the loss of self-government. But most Southerners preferred the rule +of the army to the alternative reign of the carpetbagger, scalawag, and Negro. +The extreme radicals at the North, on the other hand, were disgusted at the +conservative policy of the generals. The apathy of the whites at the beginning +of the military reconstruction excited surprise on all sides. Not only was +there no violent opposition, but for a few weeks there was no opposition at +all. The civil officials were openly unsympathetic, and the newspapers voiced +dissent not untouched with disgust; others simply could not take the situation +seriously because it seemed so absurd; many leaders were indifferent, while +others among them, Generals Lee, Beauregard, and Longstreet, and Governor +Patton--without approving the policy, advised the whites to cooperate with the +military authorities and save all they could out of the situation. General +Beauregard, for instance, wrote in 1867: "If the suffrage of the Negro is +properly handled and directed, we shall defeat our adversaries with their own +weapons. The Negro is Southern born. With education and property +qualifications he can be made to take an interest in the affairs of the South +and in its prosperity. He will side with the whites." + +Northern observers who were friendly to the South or who disapproved of this +radical reconstruction saw the danger more clearly than the Southerners +themselves, who seemed not to appreciate the full implication of the +situation. In this connection the New York "Herald" remarked: + +"We may regard the entire ten unreconstructed Southern States, with possibly +one or two exceptions, as forced by a secret and overwhelming revolutionary +influence to a common and inevitable fate. They are all bound to be governed +by blacks spurred on by worse than blacks - white wretches who dare not show +their faces in respectable society anywhere. This is the most abominable phase +barbarism has assumed since the dawn of civilization. It was all right and +proper to put down the rebellion. It was all right perhaps to emancipate the +slaves . . . . But it is not right to make slaves of white men even though +they may have been former masters of blacks. This is but a change in a system +of bondage that is rendered the more odious and intolerable because it has +been inaugurated in an enlightened instead of a dark and uncivilized age." + +The political parties rapidly grouped themselves for the coming struggle. The +radical Republican party indeed was in process of organization in the South +even before the passage of the reconstruction acts. Its membership was made up +of Negroes, carpetbaggers, or Northern men who had come in as speculators, +officers of the Freedmen's Bureau and of the army, scalawags or Confederate +renegades, "Peace Society" men,* and Unionists of Civil War times, with a few +old Whigs who could not yet bring themselves to affiliate with the Democrats. +At first it seemed that a respectable number of whites might be secured for +the radical party, but the rapid organization of the Negroes checked the +accession of whites. In the winter and spring of 1866-67, the Negroes near the +towns were well organized by the Union League and the Freedmen's Bureau and +then, after the passage of the reconstruction acts, the organizing activities +of the radical chieftains shifted to the rural districts. The Union League was +greatly extended; Union League conventions were held to which local whites +were not admitted; and the formation of a black man's party was well on the +way before the registration of the voters was completed. Visiting statesmen +from the North, among them Henry Wilson of Massachusetts and "Pig Iron" Kelley +of Pennsylvania, toured the South in support of the radical program, and the +registrars and all Federal officials aided in the work. + +* See "The Day of the Confederacy", by Nathaniel W. Stephenson (in "The +Chronicles of America"), p. 121, footnote. + + +The whites, slow to comprehend the real extent of radicalism, were finally +aroused to the necessity of organizing, if they were to influence the Negro +and have a voice in the conventions. The old party divisions were still +evident. With difficulty a portion of the Whigs was brought with the Democrats +into one conservative party during the summer and fall of 1867, though many +still held aloof. The lack of the old skilled leadership was severely felt. In +places where the white man's party was given a name, it was called "Democratic +and Conservative," to spare the feelings of former Whigs who were loath to +bear the party name of their quondam opponents. + +The first step in the military reconstruction was the registration of voters. +In each State a central board of registrars was appointed by the district +commander and a local board for every county and large town. Each board +consisted of three members--all radicals--who were required to subscribe to +the "ironclad" oath. In several states one Negro was appointed to each local +board. The registrars listed Negro voters during the day, and at night worked +at the organization of a radical Republican party. The prospective voters were +required to take the oath prescribed in the Reconstruction Act, but the +registrars were empowered to go behind the oath and investigate the +Confederate record of each applicant. This authority was invoked to carry the +disfranchisement of the whites far beyond the intention of the law in an +attempt to destroy the leadership of the whites and to register enough Negroes +to outvote them at the polls. For this purpose the registration was continued +until October 1, 1867, and an active campaign of education and organization +carried on. + +At the close of the registration, 703,000 black voters were on the rolls and +627,000 whites. In Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, and +Mississippi there were black majorities, and in the other States the blacks +and the radical whites together formed majorities. The white minorities +included several thousand who had been rejected by the registrars but restored +by the military commanders. Though large numbers of blacks were dropped from +the revised rolls as fraudulently registered, the registration statistics, +nevertheless, bore clear witness to the political purpose of those who +compiled them. + +Next followed a vote on the question of holding a state convention and the +election of delegates to such a convention if held--a double election. The +whites, who had been harassed in the registration and who feared race +conflicts at the elections, considered whether they ought not to abstain from +voting. By staying away from the polls, they might bring the vote cast in each +State below a majority and thus defeat the proposed conventions for, unless a +majority of the registered voters actually cast ballots either for or against +a convention, no convention could be held. Nowhere, however, was this plan of +not voting fully carried out, for, though most whites abstained, enough of +them voted (against the conventions, of course) to make the necessary majority +in each State. The effect of the abstention policy upon the personnel of the +conventions was unfortunate. In every convention there was a radical majority +with a conservative and all but negligible minority. In South Carolina and +Louisiana, there were Negro majorities. In every State except North Carolina, +Texas, and Virginia, the Negroes and the carpetbaggers together were in the +majority over native whites. + +The conservative whites were of fair ability; the carpetbaggers and scalawags +produced in each convention a few able leaders, but most of them were +conscienceless political soldiers of fortune; the Negro members were +inexperienced, and most of them were quite ignorant, though a few leaders of +ability did appear among them. In Alabama, for example, only two Negro members +could write, though half had been taught to sign their names. They were +barbers, field hands, hack drivers, and servants. A Negro chaplain was elected +who invoked divine blessings on "unioners and cusses on rebels." It was a sign +of the new era when the convention specially invited the "ladies of colored +members" to seats in the gallery. + +The work of the conventions was for the most part cut and dried, the abler +members having reached a general agreement before they met. The constitutions, +mosaics of those of other states, were noteworthy only for the provisions made +to keep the whites out of power and to regulate the relations of the races in +social matters. The Texas constitution alone contained no proscriptive clauses +beyond those required by the Fourteenth Amendment. The most thoroughgoing +proscription of Confederates was found in the constitutions of Mississippi, +Alabama, and Virginia; and in these states the voter must also purge himself +of guilt by agreeing to accept the "civil and political equality of all men" +or by supporting reconstruction. Only in South Carolina and Louisiana were +race lines abolished by law. + +The legislative work of the conventions was more interesting than the +constitution making. By ordinance the legality of Negro marriages was dated +from November 1867, or some date later than had been fixed by the white +conventions of 1865. Mixed schools were provided in some States; militia for +the black districts but not for the white was to be raised; while in South +Carolina it was made a penal offense to call a person a "Yankee" or a +"nigger." Few of the Negro delegates demanded proscription of whites or social +equality; they wanted schools and the vote. The white radicals were more +anxious to keep the former Confederates from holding office than from voting. +The generals in command everywhere used their influence to secure moderate +action by the conventions, and for this they were showered with abuse. + +As provided by the reconstruction acts, the new constitutions were submitted +to the electorate created by those instruments. Unless a majority of the +registered voters in a State should take part in the election, the +reconstruction would fail and the State would remain under military rule. The +whites now inaugurated a more systematic policy of abstention and in Alabama, +on February 4, 1868, succeeded in holding the total vote below a majority. +Congress then rushed to the rescue of radicalism with the act of the 11th of +March, which provided that a mere majority of those voting in the State was +sufficient to inaugurate reconstruction. Arkansas had followed the lead of +Alabama, but too late; in Mississippi the constitution was defeated by a +majority vote; in Texas the convention had made no provision for a vote; and +in Virginia the commanding general, disapproving of the work of the +convention, refused to pay the expenses of an election. In the other six +States the constitutions were adopted.* + +* Except in Texas, the work of constitution making was completed between +November 5, 1867, and May 18, 1868. + +These elections gave rise to more violent contests than before. They also were +double elections, as the voters cast ballots for state and local officials and +at the same time for or against the constitution. The radical nominations were +made by the Union League and the Freedmen's Bureau, and nearly all radicals +who had been members of conventions were nominated and elected to office. The +Negroes, expecting now to reap some benefits of reconstruction, frequently +brought sacks to the polls to "put the franchise in." The elections were all +over by June 1868, and the newly elected legislatures promptly ratified the +Fourteenth Amendment. + +It now remained for Congress to approve the work done in the South and to +readmit the reorganized states. The case of Alabama gave some trouble. Even +Stevens, for a time, thought that this state should stay out; but there was +danger in delay. The success of the abstention policy in Alabama and Arkansas +and the reviving interest of the whites foreshadowed white majorities in some +places; the scalawags began to forsake the radical party for the +conservatives; and there were Democratic gains in the North in 1867. Only six +states, New York and five New England States, allowed the Negro to vote, while +four states, Minnesota, Michigan, Kansas, and Ohio, voted down Negro suffrage +after the passage of the reconstruction acts. The ascendancy of the radicals +in Congress was menaced. The radicals needed the support of their radical +brethren in Southern States and they could not afford to wait for the +Fourteenth Amendment to become a part of the Constitution or to tolerate other +delay. On the 22d and the 25th of June, acts were therefore passed admitting +seven states, Alabama included, to representation in Congress upon the +"fundamental condition" that "the constitutions of neither of said States +shall ever be so amended or changed as to deprive any citizens or class of +citizens of the United States of the right to vote in said State, who are +entitled to vote by the constitution thereof herein recognized." + +The generals now turned over the government to the recently elected radical +officials and retired into the background. Military reconstruction was thus +accomplished in all the States except Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas. + + + +CHAPTER VII. THE TRIAL OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON + +While the radical program was being executed in the South, Congress was +engaged not only in supervising reconstruction but in subduing the Supreme +Court and in "conquering" President Johnson. One must admire the efficiency of +the radical machine. When the Southerners showed that they preferred military +rule as permitted by the Act of the 2nd of March, Congress passed the Act of +the 23d of March which forced the reconstruction. When the President ventured +to assert his power in behalf of a considerate administration of the +reconstruction acts, Congress took the power out of his hands by the law of +the 19th of July. The Southern plan to defeat the new state constitutions by +abstention was no sooner made clear in the case of Alabama than Congress came +to the rescue with the Act of March 11, 1868. + +Had it seemed necessary, Congress would have handled the Supreme Court as it +did the Southerners. The opponents of radical reconstruction were anxious to +get the reconstruction laws of March 1867, before the Court. Chief Justice +Chase was known to be opposed to military reconstruction, and four other +justices were, it was believed, doubtful of the constitutionality of the laws. +A series of conservative decisions gave hope to those who looked to the Court +for relief. The first decision, in the case of ex parte Milligan, declared +unconstitutional the trials of civilians by military commissions when civil +courts were open. A few months later, in the cases of Cummings vs. Missouri +and ex parte Garland, the Court declared invalid, because ex post facto, the +state laws designed to punish former Confederates. + +But the first attempts to get the reconstruction acts before the Supreme Court +failed. The State of Mississippi, in April 1867, brought suit to restrain the +President from executing the reconstruction acts. The Court refused to +interfere with the executive. A similar suit was then brought against +Secretary Stanton by Georgia with a like result. But in 1868, in the case of +ex parte McCardle, it appeared that the question of the constitutionality of +the reconstruction acts would be passed upon. McCardle, a Mississippi editor +arrested for opposition to reconstruction and convicted by military +commission, appealed to the Supreme Court, which asserted its jurisdiction. +But the radicals in alarm rushed through Congress an act (March 27, 1868) +which took away from the Court its jurisdiction in cases arising under the +reconstruction acts. The highest court was thus silenced. + +The attempt to remove the President from office was the only part of the +radical program that failed, and this by the narrowest of margins. During the +spring and summer of 1866, there was some talk among politicians of impeaching +President Johnson, and in December a resolution was introduced by +Representative Ashley of Ohio looking toward impeachment. Though the committee +charged with the investigation of "the official conduct of Andrew Johnson" +reported that enough testimony had been taken to justify further inquiry, the +House took no action. There were no less than five attempts at impeachment +during the next year. Stevens, Butler, and others were anxious to get the +President out of the way, but the majority were as yet unwilling to impeach +for merely political reasons. There were some who thought that the radicals +had sufficient majorities to ensure all needed legislation and did not relish +the thought of Ben Wade in the presidency.* Others considered that no just +grounds for action had been found in the several investigations of Johnson's +record. Besides, the President's authority and influence had been much +curtailed by the legislation relating to the Freedmen's Bureau, tenure of +office, reconstruction, and command of the army, and Congress had also refused +to recognize his amnesty and pardoning powers. + +* Senator Wade of Ohio was President pro tempore of the Senate and by the act +of 1791 would succeed President Johnson if he were removed from office. + +But the desire to impeach the President was increasing in power, and very +little was needed to provoke a trial of strength between the radicals and the +President. The drift toward impeachment was due in part to the legislative +reaction against the executive, and in part to Johnson's own opposition to +reconstruction and to his use of the patronage against the radicals. Specific +grievances were found in his vetoes of the various reconstruction bills, in +his criticisms of Congress and the radical leaders, and in the fact, as +Stevens asserted, that he was a "radical renegade." Johnson was a Southern +man, an old-line State Rights Democrat, somewhat anti-Negro in feeling. He +knew no book except the Constitution, and that he loved with all his soul. +Sure of the correctness of his position, he was too stubborn to change or to +compromise. He was no more to be moved than Stevens or Sumner. To overcome +Johnson's vetoes required two-thirds of each House of Congress; to impeach and +remove him would require only a majority of the House and two-thirds of the +Senate. + +The desired occasion for impeachment was furnished by Johnson's attempt to get +Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War, out of the Cabinet. Stanton held +radical views and was at no time sympathetic with or loyal to Johnson, but he +loved office too well to resign along with those cabinet members who could not +follow the President in his struggle with Congress. He was seldom frank and +sincere in his dealings with the President, and kept up an underhand +correspondence with the radical leaders, even assisting in framing some of the +reconstruction legislation which was designed to render Johnson powerless. In +him the radicals had a representative within the President's Cabinet. + + +Wearied of Stanton's disloyalty, Johnson asked him to resign and, upon a +refusal, suspended him in August 1867, and placed General Grant in temporary +charge of the War Department. General Grant, Chief Justice Chase, and +Secretary McCulloch, though they all disliked Stanton, advised the President +against suspending him. But Johnson was determined. About the same time he +exercised his power in removing Sheridan and Sickles from their commands in +the South and replaced them with Hancock and Canby. The radicals were furious, +but Johnson had secured at least the support of a loyal Cabinet. + +The suspension of Stanton was reported to the Senate in December 1867, and on +January 13, 1868, the Senate voted not to concur in the President's action. +Upon receiving notice of the vote in the Senate, Grant at once left the War +Department and Stanton again took possession. Johnson now charged Grant with +failing to keep a promise either to hold on himself or to make it possible to +appoint some one else who would hold on until the matter might be brought into +the courts. The President by this accusation angered Grant and threw him with +his great influence into the arms of the radicals. Against the advice of his +leading counselors, Johnson persisted in his intention to keep Stanton out of +the Cabinet. Accordingly on the 21st of February he dismissed Stanton from +office and appointed Lorenzo Thomas, the Adjutant General, as acting Secretary +of War. Stanton, advised by the radicals in Congress to "stick," refused to +yield possession to Thomas and had him arrested for violation of the Tenure of +Office Act. The matter now was in the courts where Johnson wanted it, but the +radical leaders, fearing that the courts would decide against Stanton and the +reconstruction acts, had the charges against Thomas withdrawn. Thus failed the +last attempt to get the reconstruction laws before the courts. On the 22nd of +February, the President sent to the Senate the name of Thomas Ewing, General +Sherman's father-in-law, as Secretary of War, but no attention was paid to the +nomination. + +On February 24, 1868, the House voted, 128 to 47, to impeach the President "of +high crimes and misdemeanors in office." The Senate was formally notified the +next day, and on the 4th of March the seven managers selected by the House +appeared before the Senate with the eleven articles of impeachment. At first +it seemed to the public that the impeachment proceedings were merely the +culmination of a struggle for the control of the army. There were rumors that +Johnson had plans to use the army against Congress and against reconstruction. +General Grant, directed by Johnson to accept orders from Stanton only if he +were satisfied that they came from the President, refused to follow these +instructions. Stanton, professing to fear violence, barricaded himself in the +War Department and was furnished with a guard of soldiers by General Grant, +who from this time used his influence in favor of impeachment. Excited by the +most sensational rumors, some people even believed a new rebellion to be +imminent. + +The impeachment was rushed to trial by the House managers and was not ended +until the decision was taken by the votes of the 16th and 26th of May. The +eleven articles of impeachment consisted of summaries of all that had been +charged against Johnson, except the charge that he had been an accomplice in +the murder of Lincoln. The only one which had any real basis was the first, +which asserted that he had violated the Tenure of Office Act in trying to +remove Stanton. The other articles were merely expansions of the first or were +based upon Johnson's opposition to reconstruction or upon his speeches in +criticism of Congress. Nothing could be said about his control of the +patronage, though this was one of the unwritten charges. J. W. Schuckers, in +his life of Chase, says that the radical leaders "felt the vast importance of +the presidential patronage; many of them felt, too, that, according to the +maxim that to the victors belong the spoils, the Republican party was +rightfully entitled to the Federal patronage, and they determined to get +possession of it. There was but one method and that was by impeachment and +removal of the President." + +The leading House managers were Stevens, Butler, Bingham, and Boutwell, all +better known as politicians than as lawyers. The President was represented by +an abler legal array: Curtis, Evarts, Stanbery, Nelson, and Groesbeck. +Jeremiah Black was at first one of the counsel for the President but withdrew +under conditions not entirely creditable to himself. + +The trial was a one-sided affair. The President's counsel were refused more +than six days for the preparation of the case. Chief Justice Chase, who +presided over the trial, insisted upon regarding the Senate as a judicial and +not a political body, and he accordingly ruled that only legal evidence should +be admitted; but the Senate majority preferred to assume that they were +settling a political question. Much evidence favorable to the President was +excluded, but everything else was admitted. As the trial went on, the country +began to understand that the impeachment was a mistake. Few people wanted to +see Senator Wade made President. The partisan attitude of the Senate majority +and the weakness of the case against Johnson had much to do in moderating +public opinion, and the timely nomination of General Schofield as Secretary of +War after Stanton's resignation reassured those who feared that the army might +be placed under some extreme Democrat. + +As the time drew near for the decision, every possible pressure was brought by +the radicals to induce senators to vote for conviction. To convict the +President, thirty-six votes were necessary. There were only twelve Democrats +in the Senate, but all were known to be in favor of acquittal. When the test +came on the 16th of May, seven Republicans voted with the Democrats for +acquittal on the eleventh article. Another vote on the 26th of May, on the +first and second articles, showed that conviction was not possible. The +radical legislative reaction was thus checked at its highest point and the +presidency as a part of the American governmental system was no longer in +danger. The seven Republicans had, however, signed their own political death +warrants; they were never forgiven by the party leaders. + +The presidential campaign was beginning to take shape even before the +impeachment trial began. Both the Democrats and the reorganized Republicans +were turning with longing toward General Grant as a candidate. Though he had +always been a Democrat, Nevertheless, when Johnson actually called him a liar +and a promise breaker, Grant went over to the radicals and was nominated for +President on May 20, 1868, by the National Union Republican party. Schuyler +Colfax was the candidate for Vice President. The Democrats, who could have won +with Grant and who under good leadership still had a bare chance to win, +nominated Horatio Seymour of New York and Francis P. Blair of Missouri. The +former had served as war governor of New York, while the latter was considered +an extreme Democrat who believed that the radical reconstruction of the South +should be stopped, the troops withdrawn, and the people left to form their own +governments. The Democratic platform pronounced itself opposed to the +reconstruction policy, but Blair's opposition was too extreme for the North. +Seymour, more moderate and a skillful campaigner, made headway in the +rehabilitation of the Democratic party. The Republican party declared for +radical reconstruction and Negro suffrage in the South but held that each +Northern State should be allowed to settle the suffrage for itself. It was not +a courageous platform, but Grant was popular and carried his party through to +success. + +The returns showed that in the election Grant had carried twenty-six States +with 214 electoral votes, while Seymour had carried only eight States with 80 +votes. But an examination of the popular vote, which was 3,000,000 for Grant +and 2,700,000 for Seymour, gave the radicals cause for alarm, for it showed +that the Democrats had more white votes than the Republicans, whose total +included nearly 700,000 blacks. To insure the continuance of the radicals in +power, the Fifteenth Amendment was framed and sent out to the States on +February 26, 1869. This amendment appeared not only to make safe the Negro +majorities in the South but also gave the ballot to the Negroes in a score of +Northern States and thus assured, for a time at least, 900,000 Negro voters +for the Republican party. + +When Johnson's term ended and he gave place to President Grant, four states +were still unreconstructed--Virginia, Texas, and Mississippi, in which the +reconstruction had failed, and Georgia, which, after accomplishing +reconstruction, had again been placed under military rule by Congress. In +Virginia, which was too near the capital for such rough work as readmitted +Arkansas and Alabama into the Union, the new constitution was so severe in its +provisions for disfranchisement that the disgusted district commander would +not authorize the expenditure necessary to have it voted on. In Mississippi a +similar constitution had failed of adoption, and in Texas the strife of party +factions, radical and moderate Republican, had so delayed the framing of the +constitution that it had not come to a vote. + +The Republican politicians, however, wanted the offices in these States, and +Congress by its resolution of February 18, 1869, directed the district +commanders to remove all civil officers who could not take the "ironclad" oath +and to appoint those who could subscribe to it. An exception, however, was +made in favor of the scalawags who had supported reconstruction and whose +disabilities had been removed by Congress. + +President Grant was anxious to complete the reconstruction and recommended to +Congress that the constitutions of Virginia and Mississippi be re-submitted to +the people with a separate vote on the disfranchising sections. Congress, now +in harmony with the executive, responded by placing the reconstruction of the +three states in the hands of the President, but with the proviso that each +state must ratify the Fifteenth Amendment. Grant thereupon fixed a time for +voting in each state and directed that in Virginia and Mississippi the +disfranchising clauses be submitted separately. As a result, the constitutions +were ratified but proscription was voted down. The radicals secured control of +Mississippi and Texas, but a conservative combination carried Virginia and +thus came near keeping the state out of the Union. Finally, during the early +months of 1870 the three states were readmitted. + +With respect to Georgia a peculiar condition of affairs existed. In June 1868, +Georgia had been readmitted with the first of the reconstructed States. The +state legislature at once expelled the twenty-seven Negro members, on the +ground that the recent legislation and the state constitution gave the Negroes +the right to vote but not to hold office. Congress, which had already admitted +the Georgia representatives, refused to receive the senators and turned the +state back to military control. In 1869-70, Georgia was again reconstructed +after a drastic purging of the legislature by the military commander, the +reseating of the Negro members, and the ratification of both the Fourteenth +and Fifteenth Amendments. The state was readmitted to representation in July +1870, after the failure of a strong effort to extend for two years the +carpetbag government of the state. + +Upon the last states to pass under the radical yoke, heavier conditions were +imposed than upon the earlier ones. Not only were they required to ratify the +Fifteenth Amendment, but the "fundamental conditions" embraced, in addition to +the prohibition against future change of the suffrage, a requirement that the +Negroes should never be deprived of school and office-holding rights. + +The congressional plan of reconstruction had thus been carried through by able +leaders in the face of the opposition of a united white South, nearly half the +North, the President, the Supreme Court, and in the beginning a majority of +Congress. This success was due to the poor leadership of the conservatives and +to the ability and solidarity of the radicals led by Stevens and Sumner. The +radicals had a definite program; the moderates had not. The object of the +radicals was to secure the supremacy in the South by the aid of the Negroes +and exclusion of whites. Was this policy politically wise? It was at least +temporarily successful. The choice offered by the radicals seemed to lie +between military rule for an indefinite period and Negro suffrage; and since +most Americans found military rule distasteful, they preferred to try Negro +suffrage. But, after all, Negro suffrage had to be supported by military rule, +and in the end both failed completely. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. THE UNION LEAGUE OF AMERICA + +The elections of 1867-68 showed that the Negroes were well organized under the +control of the radical Republican leaders and that their former masters had +none of the influence over the blacks in political matters which had been +feared by some Northern friends of the Negro and had been hoped for by such +Southern leaders as Governor Patton and General Hampton. Before 1865 the +discipline of slavery, the influence of the master's family, and of the +Southern church had sufficed to control the blacks. But after emancipation +they looked to the Federal soldiers and Union officials as the givers of +freedom and the guardians of the future. + +From the Union soldiers, especially the Negro troops, from the Northern +teachers, the missionaries and the organizers of Negro churches, from the +Northern officials and traveling politicians, the Negroes learned that their +interests were not those of the whites. The attitude of the average white in +the South often confirmed this growing estrangement. It was difficult even for +the white leaders to explain the riots at Memphis and New Orleans. And those +who sincerely wished well for the Negro and who desired to control him for the +good of both races could not possibly assure him that he was fit for the +suffrage. For even Patton and Hampton must tell him that they knew better than +he and that he should follow their advice. + +The appeal made to freedmen by the Northern leaders was in every way more +forceful, because it bad behind it the prestige of victory in war and for the +future it could promise anything. Until 1867, the principal agency in bringing +about the separation of the races had been the Freedmen's Bureau which, with +its authority, its courts, its rations, clothes, and its "forty acres and a +mule," did effective work in breaking down the influence of the master. But to +understand fully the almost absolute control exercised over the blacks in +1867-68 by alien adventurers, one must examine the workings of an oath-bound +society known as the Union or Loyal League. It was this order, dominated by a +few radical whites, which organized, disciplined, and controlled the ignorant +Negro masses and paralyzed the influence of the conservative whites. + +The Union League of America had its origin in Ohio in the fall of 1862, when +the outlook for the Union cause was gloomy. The moderate policies of the +Lincoln Administration had alienated those in favor of extreme measures; the +Confederates had won military successes in the field; the Democrats had made +some gains in the elections; the Copperheads* were actively opposed to the +Washington Government; the Knights of the Golden Circle were organizing to +resist the continuance of the war; and the Emancipation Proclamation had +chilled the loyalty of many Union men, which was everywhere at a low ebb, +especially in the Northern cities. It was to counteract these depressing +influences that the Union League movement was begun among those who were +associated in the work of the United States Sanitary Commission. Observing the +threatening state of public opinion, members of this organization proposed +that "loyalty be organized, consolidated and made effective." + +* See "Abraham Lincoln and the Union", by Nathaniel W. Stephenson (in "The +Chronicles of America"), pp. 156-7, 234-5. + + +The first organization was made by eleven men in Cleveland, Ohio, in November +1862. The Philadelphia Union League was organized a month later, and in +January 1863, the New York Union League followed. The members were pledged to +uncompromising and unconditional loyalty to the Union, to complete +subordination of political views to this loyalty, and to the repudiation of +any belief in state rights. The other large cities followed the example of +Philadelphia and New York, and soon Leagues, connected in a loose federation, +were formed all through the North. They were social as well as political in +their character and assumed as their task the stimulation and direction of +loyal Union opinion. + +As the Union armies proceeded to occupy the South, the Union League sent its +agents among the disaffected Southern people. Its agents cared for Negro +refugees in the contraband camps and in the North. In such work the League +cooperated with the various Freedmen's Aid Societies, the Department of Negro +Affairs, and later with the Freedmen's Bureau. Part of the work of the League +was to distribute campaign literature, and many of the radical pamphlets on +reconstruction and the Negro problem bore the Union League imprint. The New +York League sent out about seventy thousand copies of various publications, +while the Philadelphia League far surpassed this record, circulating within +eight years four million five hundred thousand copies of 144 different +pamphlets. The literature consisted largely of accounts of "Southern outrages" +taken from the reports of Bureau agents and similar sources. + +With the close of the Civil War the League did not cease its active interest +in things political. It was one of the first organizations to declare for +Negro suffrage and the disfranchisement of Confederates; it held steadily to +this declaration during the four years following the war; and it continued as +a sort of bureau in the radical Republican party for the purpose of +controlling the Negro vote in the South. Its representatives were found in the +lobbies of Congress demanding extreme measures, endorsing the reconstruction +policies of Congress, and condemning the course of the President. After the +first year or two of reconstruction, the Leagues in the larger Northern cities +began to grow away from the strictly political Union League of America and +tended to become mere social clubs for members of the same political belief. +The eminently respectable Philadelphia and New York clubs had little in common +with the leagues of the Southern and Border States except a general adherence +to the radical program. + +Even before the end of the war the League was extending its organization into +the parts of the Confederacy held by the Federal forces, admitting to +membership the army officers and the leading Unionists, though maintaining for +the sake of the latter "a discreet secrecy." With the close of the war and the +establishment of army posts over the South, the League grew rapidly. The +civilians who followed the army, the Bureau agents, the missionaries, and the +Northern teachers formed one class of membership; and the loyalists of the +hill and mountain country, who had become disaffected toward the Confederate +administration and had formed such orders as the Heroes of America, the Red +String Band, and the Peace Society, formed another class. Soon there were +added to these the deserters, a few old line Whigs who intensely disliked the +Democrats, and others who decided to cast their lot with the victors. The +disaffected politicians of the up-country, who wanted to be cared for in the +reconstruction, saw in the organization a means of dislodging from power the +political leaders of the low country. It has been estimated that thirty +percent of the white men of the hill and mountain counties of the South joined +the Union League in 1865-66. They cared little about the original objects of +the order but hoped to make it the nucleus of an anti-Democratic political +organization. + +But on the admission of Negroes into the lodges or councils controlled by +Northern men the native white members began to withdraw. From the beginning +the Bureau agents, the teachers, and the preachers had been holding meetings +of Negroes, to whom they gave advice about the problems of freedom. Very early +these advisers of the blacks grasped the possibilities inherent in their +control of the schools, the rationing system, and the churches. By the spring +of 1866, the Negroes were widely organized under this leadership, and it +needed but slight change to convert the Negro meetings into local councils of +the Union League.* As soon as it seemed likely that Congress would win in its +struggle with the President the guardians of the Negro planned their campaign +for the control of the race. Negro leaders were organized into councils of the +League or into Union Republican Clubs. Over the South went the organizers, +until by 1868 the last Negroes were gathered into the fold. + +* Of these teachers of the local blacks, E. L. Godkin, editor of the New York +Nation, who had supported the reconstruction acts, said: "Worse instructors +for men emerging from slavery and coming for the first time face to face with +the problems of free life than the radical agitators who have undertaken the +political guidance of the blacks it would be hard to meet with." + + +The native whites did not all desert the Union League when the Negroes were +brought in. Where the blacks were most numerous the desertion of whites was +general, but in the regions where they were few some of the whites remained +for several years. The elections of 1868 showed a falling off of the white +radical vote from that of 1867, one measure of the extent of loss of whites. +From this time forward the order consisted mainly of blacks with enough whites +for leaders. In the Black Belt the membership of native whites was discouraged +by requiring an oath to the effect that secession was treason. The +carpetbagger had found that he could control the Negro without the help of the +scalawag. The League organization was soon extended and centralized; in every +black district there was a Council; for the state there was a Grand Council; +and for the United States there was a National Grand Council with headquarters +in New York City. + +The influence of the League over the Negro was due in large degree to the +mysterious secrecy of the meetings, the weird initiation ceremony that made +him feel fearfully good from his head to his heels, the imposing ritual, and +the songs. The ritual, it is said, was not used in the North; it was probably +adopted for the particular benefit of the African. The would-be Leaguer was +informed that the emblems of the order were the altar, the Bible, the +Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the flag +of the Union, censer, sword, gavel, ballot box, sickle, shuttle, anvil, and +other emblems of industry. He was told to the accompaniment of clanking chains +and groans that the objects of the order were to preserve liberty, to +perpetuate the Union, to maintain the laws and the Constitution, to secure the +ascendancy of American institutions, to protect, defend, and strengthen all +loyal men and members of the Union League in all rights of person and +property, to demand the elevation of labor, to aid in the education of +laboring men, and to teach the duties of American citizenship. This +enumeration of the objects of the League sounded well and was impressive. At +this point the Negro was always willing to take an oath of secrecy, after +which he was asked to swear with a solemn oath to support the principles of +the Declaration of Independence, to pledge himself to resist all attempts to +overthrow the United States, to strive for the maintenance of liberty, the +elevation of labor, the education of all people in the duties of citizenship, +to practice friendship and charity to all of the order, and to support for +election or appointment to office only such men as were supporters of these +principles and measures. + +The council then sang "Hail, Columbia!" and "The Star Spangled Banner," after +which an official lectured the candidates, saying that though the designs of +traitors had been thwarted, there were yet to be secured legislative triumphs +and the complete ascendancy of the true principles of popular government, +equal liberty, education and elevation of the workmen, and the overthrow at +the ballot box of the old oligarchy of political leaders. After prayer by the +chaplain, the room was darkened, alcohol on salt flared up with a ghastly +light as the "fire of liberty," and the members joined hands in a circle +around the candidate, who was made to place one hand on the flag and, with the +other raised, swear again to support the government and to elect true Union +men to office. Then placing his hand on a Bible, for the third time he swore +to keep his oath, and repeated after the president "the Freedmen's Pledge": +"To defend and perpetuate freedom and the Union, I pledge my life, my fortune, +and my sacred honor. So help me God!" "John Brown's Body" was then sung, the +president charged the members in a long speech concerning the principles of +the order, and the marshal instructed the neophyte in the signs. To pass one's +self as a Leaguer, the "Four L's" had to be given: (1) with right hand raised +to heaven, thumb and third finger touching ends over palm, pronounce +"Liberty"; (2) bring the hand down over the shoulder and say "Lincoln"; (3) +drop the hand open at the side and say "Loyal"; (4) catch the thumb in the +vest or in the waistband and pronounce "League." This ceremony of initiation +proved a most effective means of impressing and controlling the Negro through +his love and fear of secret, mysterious, and midnight mummery. An oath taken +in daylight might be forgotten before the next day; not so an oath taken in +the dead of night under such impressive circumstances. After passing through +the ordeal, the Negro usually remained faithful. + +In each populous precinct there was at least one council of the League, and +always one for blacks. In each town or city there were two councils, one for +the whites, and another, with white officers, for the blacks. The council met +once a week, sometimes oftener, nearly always at night, and in a Negro church +or schoolhouse. Guards, armed with rifles and shotguns, were stationed about +the place of meeting in order to keep away intruders. Members of some councils +made it a practice to attend the meetings armed as if for battle. In these +meetings the Negroes listened to inflammatory speeches by the would-be +statesmen of the new regime; here they were drilled in a passionate conviction +that their interests and those of the Southern whites were eternally at war. + +White men who joined the order before the Negroes were admitted and who left +when the latter became members asserted that the Negroes were taught in these +meetings that the only way to have peace and plenty, to get "the forty acres +and a mule," was to kill some of the leading whites in each community as a +warning to others. In North Carolina twenty-eight barns were burned in one +county by Negroes who believed that Governor Holden, the head of the State +League, had ordered it. The council in Tuscumbia, Alabama, received advice +from Memphis to use the torch because the blacks were at war with the white +race. The advice was taken. Three men went in front of the council as an +advance guard, three followed with coal oil and fire, and others guarded the +rear. The plan was to burn the whole town, but first one Negro and then +another insisted on having some white man's house spared because "he is a good +man." In the end no residences were burned, and a happy compromise was +effected by burning the Female Academy. Three of the leaders were afterwards +lynched. + +The general belief of the whites was that the ultimate object of the order was +to secure political power and thus bring about on a large scale the +confiscation of the property of Confederates, and meanwhile to appropriate and +destroy the property of their political opponents wherever possible. Chicken +houses, pigpens, vegetable gardens, and orchards were visited by members +returning from the midnight conclaves. During the presidential campaign of +1868, the North Carolina League sent out circular instructions to the blacks +advising them to drill regularly and to join the militia, for if Grant were +not elected the Negroes would go back to slavery; if he were elected, the +Negroes were to have farms, mules, and offices. + +As soon as possible after the war the Negroes had supplied themselves with +guns and dogs as badges of freedom. They carried their guns to the League +meetings, often marching in military formation, went through the drill there, +marched home again along the roads, shouting, firing, and indulging in boasts +and threats against persons whom they disliked. Later, military parades in the +daytime were much favored. Several hundred Negroes would march up and down the +streets, abusing whites, and shoving them off the sidewalk or out of the road. +But on the whole, there was very little actual violence, though the whites +were much alarmed at times. That outrages were comparatively few was due, not +to any sensible teachings of the leaders, but to the fundamental good nature +of the blacks, who were generally content with mere impudence. + +The relations between the races, indeed, continued on the whole to be friendly +until 1867-68. For a while, in some localities before the advent of the +League, and in others where the Bureau was conducted by native magistrates, +the Negroes looked to their old masters for guidance and advice; and the +latter, for the good of both races, were most eager to retain a moral control +over the blacks. They arranged barbecues and picnics for the Negroes, made +speeches, gave good advice, and believed that everything promised well. +Sometimes the Negroes themselves arranged the festival and invited prominent +whites, for whom a separate table attended by Negro waiters was reserved; and +after dinner there followed speeches by both whites and blacks. + +With the organization of the League, the Negroes grew more reserved, and +finally became openly unfriendly to the whites. The League alone, however, was +not responsible for this change. The League and the Bureau had to some extent +the same personnel, and it is frequently impossible to distinguish clearly +between the influence of the two. In many ways the League was simply the +political side of the Bureau. The preaching and teaching missionaries were +also at work. And apart from the organized influences at work, the poor whites +never laid aside their hostility towards the blacks, bond or free. + +When the campaigns grew exciting, the discipline of the order was used to +prevent the Negroes from attending Democratic meetings and hearing Democratic +speakers. The leaders even went farther and forbade the attendance of the +blacks at political meetings where the speakers were not endorsed by the +League. Almost invariably the scalawag disliked the Leaguer, black or white, +and as a political teacher often found himself proscribed by the League. At a +Republican mass meeting in Alabama, a white Republican who wanted to make a +speech was shouted down by the Negroes because he was "opposed to the Loyal +League." He then went to another place to speak but was followed by the crowd, +which refused to allow him to say anything. All Republicans in good standing +had to join the League and swear that secession was treason--a rather stiff +dose for the scalawag. Judge (later Governor) David P. Lewis, of Alabama, was +a member for a short while but he soon became disgusted and published a +denunciation of the order. Albion W. Tourgee, the author, a radical judge, was +the first chief of the League in North Carolina and was succeeded by Governor +Holden. In Alabama, Generals Swayne, Spencer, and Warner, all candidates for +the United States Senate, hastened to join the order. + +As soon as a candidate was nominated by the League, it was the duty of every +member to support him actively. Failure to do so resulted in a fine or other +more severe punishment, and members who had been expelled were still +considered under the control of the officials. The League was, in fact, the +machine of the radical party, and all candidates had to be governed by its +edicts. As the Montgomery Council declared, the Union League was "the right +arm of the Union-Republican party in the United States." + +Every Negro was ex colore a member or under the control of the League. In the +opinion of the League, white Democrats were bad enough, but black Democrats +were not to be tolerated. It was almost necessary, as a measure of personal +safety, for each black to support the radical program. It was possible in some +cases for a Negro to refrain from taking an active part in political affairs. +He might even fail to vote. But it was actually dangerous for a black to be a +Democrat; that is, to try to follow his old master in politics. The whites in +many cases were forced to advise their few faithful black friends to vote the +radical ticket in order to escape mistreatment. Those who showed Democratic +leanings were proscribed in Negro society and expelled from Negro churches; +the Negro women would not "proshay" (appreciate) a black Democrat. Such a one +was sure to find that influence was being brought to bear upon his dusky +sweetheart or his wife to cause him to see the error of his ways, and +persistent adherence to the white party would result in his losing her. The +women were converted to radicalism before the men, and they almost invariably +used their influence strongly in behalf of the League. If moral suasion failed +to cause the delinquent to see the light, other methods were used. Threats +were common and usually sufficed. Fines were levied by the League on +recalcitrant members. In case of the more stubborn, a sound beating was +effective to bring about a change of heart. The offending party was "bucked +and gagged," or he was tied by the thumbs and thrashed. Usually the sufferer +was too afraid to complain of the way he was treated. + +Some of the methods of the Loyal League were similar to those of the later Ku +Klux Klan. Anonymous warnings were sent to obnoxious individuals, houses were +burned, notices were posted at night in public places and on the houses of +persons who had incurred the hostility of the order. In order to destroy the +influence of the whites where kindly relations still existed, an "exodus +order" issued through the League directed all members to leave their old homes +and obtain work elsewhere. Some of the blacks were loath to comply with this +order, but to remonstrances from the whites the usual reply was: "De word done +sent to de League. We got to go." For special meetings the Negroes were in +some regions called together by signal guns. In this way the call for a +gathering went out over a county in a few minutes and a few hours later nearly +all the members in the county assembled at the appointed place. + +Negroes as organizing agents were inclined to go to extremes and for that +reason were not so much used. In Bullock County, Alabama, a council of the +League was organized under the direction of a Negro emissary, who proceeded to +assume the government of the community. A list of crimes and punishments was +adopted, a court with various officials was established, and during the night +the Negroes who opposed the new regime were arrested. But the black sheriff +and his deputy were in turn arrested by the civil authorities. The Negroes +then organized for resistance, flocked into the county seat, and threatened to +exterminate the whites and take possession of the county. Their agents visited +the plantations and forced the laborers to join them by showing orders +purporting to be from General Swayne, the commander in the state, giving them +the authority to kill all who resisted them. Swayne, however, sent out +detachments of troops and arrested fifteen of the ringleaders, and the League +government collapsed. + +After it was seen that existing political institutions were to be overturned +in the process of reconstruction, the white councils of the League and, to a +certain extent, the Negro councils were converted into training schools for +the leaders of the new party soon to be formed in the state by act of +Congress. The few whites who were in control were unwilling to admit more +white members to share in the division of the spoils; terms of admission +became more stringent, and, especially after the passage of the reconstruction +acts in March 1867, many white applicants were rejected. The alien element +from the North was in control and as a result, where the blacks were numerous, +the largest plums fell to the carpetbaggers. The Negro leaders--the +politicians, preachers, and teachers--trained in the League acted as +subordinates to the whites and were sent out to drum up the country Negroes +when elections drew near. The Negroes were given minor positions when offices +were more plentiful than carpetbaggers. Later, after some complaint, a larger +share of the offices fell to them. The League counted its largest white +membership in 1865-66, and after that date it steadily decreased. The largest +Negro membership was recorded in 1867 and 1868. The total membership was never +made known. In North Carolina the order claimed from seventy-five thousand to +one hundred and twenty-five thousand members; in states with larger Negro +populations the membership was probably quite as large. After the election of +1868, only the councils in the towns remained active, many of them transformed +into political clubs, loosely organized under local political leaders. The +plantation Negro needed less looking after, and except in the largest towns he +became a kind of visiting member of the council in the town. The League as a +political organization gradually died out by 1870.* + +* The Ku Klux Klan had much to do with the decline of the organization. The +League as the ally and successor of the Freedmen's Bureau was one of the +causes of the Ku Klux movement, because it helped to create the conditions +which made such a movement inevitable. As early as 1870 the radical leaders +missed the support formerly given by the League, and an urgent appeal was sent +out all over the South from headquarters in New York advocating its +reestablishment to assist in carrying the elections of 1870. + + +The League had served its purpose. It had enabled a few outsiders to control +the Negro by separating the races politically and it had compelled the Negroes +to vote as radicals for several years, when without its influence they would +either not have voted at all or would have voted as Democrats along with their +former masters. The order was necessary to the existence of the radical party +in the Black Belt. No ordinary political organization could have welded the +blacks into a solid party. The Freedmen's Bureau, which had much influence +over the Negroes, was too weak in numbers to control the Negroes in politics. +The League finally absorbed the personnel of the Bureau and turned its +prestige and its organization to political advantage. + + + +CHAPTER IX. CHURCH AND SCHOOL + +Reconstruction in the state was closely related to reconstruction in the +churches and the schools. Here also were to be found the same hostile +elements: Negro and white, Unionist and Confederate, victor and vanquished. +The church was at that time an important institution in the South, more so +than in the North, and in both sections more important than it is today. It +was inevitable, therefore, that ecclesiastical reconstruction should give rise +to bitter feelings. + +Something should be said of conditions in the churches when the Federal armies +occupied the land. The Southern organizations had lost many ministers and many +of their members, and frequently their buildings were used as hospitals or had +been destroyed. Their administration was disorganized and their treasuries +were empty. The Unionists, scattered here and there but numerous in the +mountain districts, no longer wished to attend the Southern churches. + +The military censorship in church matters, which continued for a year in some +districts, was irritating, especially in the Border States and in the Union +districts where Northern preachers installed by the army were endeavoring to +remain against the will of the people. Mobs sometimes drove them out; others +were left to preach to empty houses or to a few Unionists and officers, while +the congregation withdrew to build a new church. The problems of Negro +membership in the white churches and of the future relations of the Northern +and Southern denominations were pressing for settlement. + +All Northern organizations acted in 1865 upon the assumption that a reunion of +the churches must take place and that the divisions existing before the war +should not be continued, since slavery, the cause of the division, had been +destroyed. But they insisted that the reunion must take place upon terms named +by the "loyal" churches, that the Negroes must also come under "loyal" +religious direction, and that tests must be applied to the Confederate sinners +asking for admission, in order that the enormity of their crimes should be +made plain to them. But this policy did not succeed. The Confederates objected +to being treated as "rebels and traitors" and to "sitting upon stools of +repentance" before they should be received again into the fold. + +Only two denominations were reunited--the Methodist Protestant, the northern +section of which came over to the southern, and the Protestant Episcopal, in +which moderate counsels prevailed and into which Southerners were welcomed +back. The Southern Baptists maintained their separate existence and +reorganized the Southern Baptist Convention, to which came many of the Baptist +associations in the Border States; the Catholics did not divide before 1861 +and therefore had no reconstruction problems to solve; and the smaller +denominations maintained the organizations which they had before 1861. A +Unionist preacher testified before the Joint Committee on Reconstruction that +even the Southern Quakers "are about as decided in regard to the +respectability of secession as any other class of people." + +Two other great Southern churches, the Presbyterian and the Methodist +Episcopal, grew stronger after the Civil War. The tendency toward reunion of +the Presbyterians was checked when one Northern branch declared as "a +condition precedent to the admission of southern applicants that these confess +as sinful all opinions before held in regard to slavery, nullification, +rebellion and slavery, and stigmatize secession as a crime and the withdrawal +of the southern churches as a schism." Another Northern group declared that +southern ministers must be placed on probation and must either prove their +loyalty or profess repentance for disloyalty and repudiate their former +opinions. As a result several Presbyterian bodies in the South joined in a +strong union, to which also adhered the synods of several Border States. + +The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was confronted with conditions similar +to those which prevented the reunion of the Presbyterians. The Northern +church, according to the declaration of its authorities, also came down to +divide the spoils and to "disintegrate and absorb" the "schismatic" Southern +churches. Already many Southern pulpits were filled with Northern Methodist +ministers placed there under military protection; and when they finally +realized that reunion was not possible, these Methodist worthies resolved to +occupy the late Confederacy as a mission field and to organize congregations +of blacks and whites who were "not tainted with treason." Bishops and +clergymen charged with this work carried it on vigorously for a few years in +close connection with political reconstruction. + +The activities of the Northern Methodists stimulated the Southern Methodists +to a quick reorganization. The surviving bishops met in August 1865, and bound +together their shaken church. In reply to suggestions of reunion they asserted +that the Northern Methodists had become "incurably radical," were too much +involved in politics, and, further, that they had, without right, seized and +were still holding Southern church buildings. They objected also to the way +the Northern church referred to the Southerners as "schismatics" and to the +Southern church as one built on slavery and therefore, now that slavery was +gone, to be reconstructed. The bishops warned their people against the +missionary efforts of the Northern brethren and against the attempts to +"disintegrate and absorb" Methodism in the South. Within five years after the +war, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was greatly increased in numbers +by the accession of conferences in Maryland, Kentucky, Virginia, Missouri, and +even from above the Ohio, while the Northern Methodist Church was able to +organize only a few white congregations outside of the stronger Unionist +districts, but continued to labor in the South as a missionary field.* + +*The church situation after the war was well described in 1866 by an editorial +writer in the "Nation" who pointed out that the Northern churches thought the +South determined to make the religious division permanent, though "slavery no +longer furnishes a pretext for separation." "Too much pains were taken to +bring about an ecclesiastical reunion, and irritating offers of reconciliation +are made by the Northern churches, all based on the assumption that the South +has not only sinned, but sinned knowingly, in slavery and in war. We expect +them to be penitent and to gladly accept our offers of forgiveness. But the +Southern people look upon a 'loyal' missionary as a political emissary, and +'loyal' men do not at present possess the necessary qualifications for +evangelizing the Southerners or softening their hearts, and are sure not to +succeed in doing so. We look upon their defeat as retribution and expect them +to do the same. It will do no good if we tell the Southerner that 'we will +forgive them if they will confess that they are criminals, offer to pray with +them, preach with them, and labor with them over their hideous sins.'" + + +But if the large Southern churches held their white membership and even gained +in numbers and territory, they fought a losing fight to retain their black +members. It was assumed by Northern ecclesiastics that whether a reunion of +whites took place or not, the Negroes would receive spiritual guidance from +the North. This was necessary, they said, because the Southern whites were +ignorant and impoverished and because "the state of mind among even the best +classes of Southern whites rendered them incapable . . . of doing justice to +the people whom they had so long persistently wronged." Further, it was also +necessary for political reasons to remove the Negroes from Southern religious +control. + +For obvious reasons, however, the Southern churches wanted to hold their Negro +members. They declared themselves in favor of Negro education and of better +organized religious work among the blacks, and made every sort of +accommodation to hold them. The Baptists organized separate congregations, +with white or black pastors as desired, and associations of black churches. In +1866 the Methodist General Conference authorized separate congregations, +quarterly conferences, annual conferences, even a separate jurisdiction, with +Negro preachers, presiding elders, and bishops--but all to no avail. Every, +Northern political, religious, or military agency in the South worked for +separation, and Negro preachers were not long in seeing the greater advantages +which they would have in independent churches. + +Much of the separate organization was accomplished in mutual good will, +particularly in the Baptist ranks. The Reverend I. T. Tichenor, a prominent +Baptist minister, has described the process as it took place in the First +Baptist Church in Montgomery. The church had nine hundred members, of whom six +hundred were black. The Negroes received a regular organization of their own +under the supervision of the white pastors. When a separation of the two +bodies was later deemed desirable, it was inaugurated by a conference of the +Negroes which passed a resolution couched in the kindliest terms, suggesting +the wisdom of the division, and asking the concurrence of the white church in +such action. The white church cordially approved the movement, and the two +bodies united in erecting a suitable house of worship for the Negroes. Until +the new church was completed, both congregations continued to occupy jointly +the old house of worship. The new house was paid for in large measure by the +white members of the church and by individuals in the community. As soon as it +was completed, the colored church moved into it with its pastor, board of +deacons, committees of all sorts, and the whole machinery of church life went +into action without a jar. Similar accommodations occurred in all the states +of the South. + +The Methodists lost the greater part of their Negro membership to two +organizations which came down from the North in 1865--the African Methodist +Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Zion. Large +numbers also went over to the Northern Methodist Church. After losing nearly +three hundred thousand members, the Southern Methodists came to the conclusion +that the remaining seventy-eight thousand Negroes would be more comfortable in +a separate organization and therefore began in 1866 the Colored Methodist +Episcopal Church, with bishops, conferences, and all the accompaniments of the +parent Methodist Church, which continued to give friendly aid but exercised no +control. For many years the Colored Methodist Church was under fire from the +other Negro denominations, who called it the "rebel," the "Democratic," the +"old slavery" church. + +The Negro members of the Cumberland Presbyterians were similarly set off into +a small African organization. The Southern Presbyterians and the Episcopalians +established separate congregations and missions under white supervision but +sanctioned no independent Negro organization. Consequently the Negroes soon +deserted these churches and went with their own kind. + +Resentment at the methods employed by the Northern religious carpetbaggers was +strong among the Southern whites. "Emissaries of Christ and the radical party" +they were called by one Alabama leader. Governor Lindsay of the same state +asserted that the Northern missionaries caused race hatred by teaching the +Negroes to regard the whites as their natural enemies, who, if possible, would +put them back in slavery. Others were charged with teaching that to be on the +safe side, the blacks should get into a Northern church, and that "Christ died +for Negroes and Yankees, not for rebels." + +The scalawags, also, developed a dislike of the Northern church work among the +Negroes, and it was impossible to organize mixed congregations. Of the +Reverend A. S. Lakin, a well-known agent of the Northern Methodist Church in +Alabama, Nicholas Davis, a North Alabama Unionist and scalawag, said to the Ku +Klux Committee: "The character of his [Lakin's] speech was this: to teach the +Negroes that every man that was born and raised in the Southern country was +their enemy, that there was no use trusting them, no matter what they said--if +they said they were for the Union or anything else. 'No use talking, they are +your enemies.' And he made a pretty good speech, too; awful; a hell of a one; +. . . inflammatory and game, too . . . . It was enough to provoke the devil. +Did all the mischief he could . . . I tell you, that old fellow is a hell of +an old rascal." + +For a time the white churches were annoyed by intrusions of strange blacks set +on by those who were bent on separating the races. Frequently there were feuds +in white or black congregations over the question of joining some Northern +body. Disputes over church property also arose and continued for years. Lakin, +referred to above, was charged with "stealing" Negro congregations and uniting +them with the Cincinnati Conference without their knowledge. The Negroes were +urged to demand title to all buildings formerly used for Negro worship, and +the Constitutional Convention of Alabama in 1867 directed that such property +must be turned over to them when claimed. + +The agents of the Northern churches were not greatly different from other +carpetbaggers and adventurers taking advantage of the general confusion to +seize a little power. Many were unscrupulous; others, sincere and honest but +narrow, bigoted, and intolerant, filled with distrust of the Southern whites +and with corresponding confidence in the blacks and in themselves. The +missionary and church publications were quite as severe on the Southern people +as any radical Congressman. The publications of the Freedmen's Aid Society +furnish illustrations of the feelings and views of those engaged in the +Southern work. They in turn were made to feel the effects of a merciless +social proscription. For this some of them cared not at all, while others or +their families felt it keenly. One woman missionary wrote that she was +delighted when a Southern white would speak to her. A preacher in Virginia +declared that "the females, those especially whose pride has been humbled, are +more intense in their bitterness and endeavor to keep up a social ostracism +against Union and Northern people." The Ku Klux raids were directed against +preachers and congregations whose conduct was disagreeable to the whites. +Lakin asserted that while he was conducting a great revival meeting among the +hills of northern Alabama, Governor Smith and other prominent and sinful +scalawag politicians were there "under conviction" and about to become +converted. But in came the Klan and the congregation scattered. + +Smith and the others were so angry and frightened that their good feelings +were dissipated, and the devil reentered them, so that Lakin said he was never +able to "get a hold on them" again. For the souls lost that night he held the +Klan responsible. Lakin told several marvelous stories of his hairbreadth +escapes from death by assassination which, if true, would be enough to ruin +the reputation of northern Alabama men for marksmanship. + +The reconstruction ended with conditions in the churches similar to those in +politics: the races were separated and unfriendly; Northern and Southern +church organizations were divided; and between them, especially in the border +and mountain districts, there existed factional quarrels of a political +origin, for every Northern Methodist was a Republican and every Southern +Methodist was a Democrat. + +The schools of the South, like the churches and political institutions, were +thrown into the melting pot of reconstruction. The spirit in which the work +was begun may be judged from the tone of the addresses made at a meeting of +the National Teachers Association in 1865. The president, S. S. Greene, +declared that "the old slave States are to be the new missionary ground for +the national school teacher." Francis Wayland, the former president of Brown +University, remarked that "it has been a war of education and patriotism +against ignorance and barbarism." President Hill of Harvard spoke of the "new +work of spreading knowledge and intellectual culture over the regions that sat +in darkness." Other speakers asserted that the leading Southern whites were as +much opposed to free schools as to free governments and "we must treat them as +western farmers do the stumps in their clearings, work around them and let +them rot out"; that the majority of the whites were more ignorant than the +slaves; and that the Negro must be educated and strengthened against "the +wiles, the guile, and hate of his baffled masters and their minions." The New +England Freedmen's Aid Society considered it necessary to educate the Negro +"as a counteracting influence against the evil councils and designs of the +white freemen." + +The tasks that confronted the Southern States in 1865-67 were two: first, to +restore the shattered school systems of the whites; and second, to arrange for +the education of the Negroes. Education of the Negro slave had been looked +upon as dangerous and had been generally forbidden. A small number of Negroes +could read and write, but there were at the close of the war no schools for +the children. Before 1861, each state had developed at least the outlines of a +school system. Though hindered in development by the sparseness of the +population and by the prevalence in some districts of the Virginia doctrine +that free schools were only for the poor, public schools were nevertheless in +existence in 1861. Academies and colleges, however, were thronged with +students. When the war ended, the public schools were disorganized, and the +private academies and the colleges were closed. Teachers and students had been +dispersed; buildings had been burned or used for hospitals and laboratories; +and public libraries had virtually disappeared. + +The colleges made efforts to open in the fall of 1865. Only one student +presented himself at the University of Alabama for matriculation; but before +June 1866, the stronger colleges were again in operation. The public or +semi-public schools for the whites also opened in the fall. In the cities +where Federal military authorities had brought about the employment of +Northern teachers, there was some friction. In New Orleans, for example, the +teachers required the children to sing Northern songs and patriotic airs. When +the Confederates were restored to power, these teachers were dismissed. + +The movement toward Negro education was general throughout the South. Among +the blacks themselves there was an intense desire to learn. They wished to +read the Bible, to be preachers, to be as the old master and not have to work. +Day and night and Sunday they crowded the schools. According to an observer,* +"not only are individuals seen at study, and under the most untoward +circumstances, but in very many places I have found what I will call 'native +schools,' often rude and very imperfect, but there they are, a group, perhaps, +of all ages, trying to learn. Some young man, some woman, or old preacher, in +cellar, or shed, or corner of a Negro meeting-house, with the alphabet in +hand, or a town spelling-book, is their teacher. All are full of enthusiasm +with the new knowledge the book is imparting to them." + +* J. W. Alvord, Superintendent of Schools for the Freedmen's Bureau, 1866. + + +Not only did the Negroes want schooling, but both the North and the South +proposed to give it to them. Neither side was actuated entirely by altruistic +motives. A Hampton Institute teacher in later days remarked: "When the combat +was over and the Yankee school-ma'am followed in the train of the northern +armies, the business of educating the Negroes was a continuation of +hostilities against the vanquished and was so regarded to a considerable +extent on both sides." + +The Southern churches, through their bishops and clergy, the newspapers, and +prominent individuals such as J. L. M. Curry, John B. Gordon, J. L. Orr, +Governors Brown, Moore, and Patton, came out in favor of Negro education. Of +this movement General Swayne said: "Quite early . . . . the several religious +denominations took strong ground in favor of the education of the freedmen. +The principal argument was an appeal to sectional and sectarian prejudice, +lest, the work being inevitable, the influence which must come from it be +realized by others; but it is believed that this was but the shield and weapon +which men of unselfish principle found necessary at first." The newspapers +took the attitude that the Southern whites should teach the Negroes because it +was their duty, because it was good policy, and because if they did not do so +some one else would. The "Advertiser" of Montgomery stated that education was +a danger in slavery times but that under freedom ignorance became a danger. +For a time there were numerous schools taught by crippled Confederates and by +Southern women. + +But the education of the Negro, like his religious training, was taken from +the control of the Southern white and was placed under the direction of the +Northern teachers and missionaries who swarmed into the country under the +fostering care of the Freedmen's Bureau, the Northern churches, and the +various Freedmen's Aid Societies. In three years the Bureau spent six million +dollars on Negro schools and everywhere it exercised supervision over them. +The teachers pursued a policy akin to that of the religious leaders. One +Southerner likened them to the "plagues of Egypt," another described them as +"saints, fools, incendiaries, fakirs, and plain business men and women." A +Southern woman remarked that "their spirit was often high and noble so far as +the black man's elevation was concerned, but toward the white it was bitter, +judicial, and unrelenting." The Northern teachers were charged with ignorance +of social conditions, with fraternizing with the blacks, and with teaching +them that the Southerners were traitors, "murderers of Lincoln," who had been +cruel taskmasters and who now wanted to restore servitude. + +The reaction against Negro education, which began to show itself before +reconstruction was inaugurated, found expression in the view of most whites +that "schooling ruins a Negro." A more intelligent opinion was that of J. L. +M. Curry, a lifelong advocate of Negro education: + +"It is not just to condemn the Negro for the education which he received in +the early years after the war. That was the period of reconstruction, the +saturnalia of misgovernment, the greatest possible hindrance to the progress +of the freedmen . . . . The education was unsettling, demoralizing, [and it] +pandered to a wild frenzy for schooling as a quick method of reversing social +and political conditions. Nothing could have been better devised for deluding +the poor Negro and making him the tool, the slave of corrupt taskmasters. +Education is a natural consequence of citizenship and enfranchisement . . . of +freedom and humanity. But with deliberate purpose to subject the Southern +States to Negro domination, and secure the States permanently for partisan +ends, the education adopted was contrary to commonsense, to human experience, +to all noble purposes. The curriculum was for a people in the highest degree +of civilization; the aptitude and capabilities and needs of the Negro were +wholly disregarded. Especial stress was laid on classics and liberal culture +to bring the race per saltum to the same plane with their former masters, and +realize the theory of social and political equality. A race more highly +civilized, with best heredities and environments, could not have been coddled +with more disregard of all the teachings of human history and the necessities +of the race. Colleges and universities, established and conducted by the +Freedmen's Bureau and Northern churches and societies, sprang up like +mushrooms, and the teachers, ignorant, fanatical, without self-poise, +proceeded to make all possible mischief. It is irrational, cruel, to hold the +Negro, under such strange conditions, responsible for all the ill consequences +of bad education, unwise teachers, reconstruction villainies, and partisan +schemes." + +* Quoted in "Proceedings of the Montgomery Conference on Race Problems" +(1900), p. 128. + + +Education was to be looked upon as a handmaid to a thorough reconstruction, +and its general character and aim were determined by the Northern teachers. +Each convention framed a more or less complicated school system and undertook +to provide for its support. The Negroes in the conventions were anxious for +free schools; the conservatives were willing; but the carpetbaggers and a few +mulatto leaders insisted in several States upon mixed schools. Only in +Louisiana and South Carolina did the constitutions actually forbid separate +schools; in Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and Arkansas the question was left +open, to the embarrassment of the whites. Generally the blacks showed no +desire for mixed schools unless urged to it by the carpetbaggers. In the South +Carolina convention, a mulatto thus argued in favor of mixed schools: "The +gentleman from Newberry said he was afraid we were taking a wrong course to +remove these prejudices. The most natural method to effect this object would +be to allow children when five or six years of age to mingle in schools +together and associate generally. Under such training, prejudice must +eventually die out; but if we postpone it until they become men and women, +prejudice will be so established that no mortal can obliterate it. This, I +think, is a sufficient reply to the argument of the gentleman." + +The state systems were top-heavy with administrative machinery and were +officered by incompetent and corrupt officials. Such men as Cloud in Alabama, +Cardozo in Mississippi, Conway in Louisiana, and Jillson in South Carolina are +fair samples of them. Much of the personnel was taken over from the Bureau +teaching force. The school officials were no better than the other +officeholders. + +The first result of the attempt to use the schools as an instrument of +reconstruction ended in the ruin of several state universities. The faculties +of the Universities of North Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama were made +radical and the institutions thereupon declined to nothing. The Negroes, +unable to control the faculty of the University of South Carolina, forced +Negro students in and thus got possession. In Louisiana the radical +legislature cut off all funds because the university would not admit Negroes. +The establishment of the land grant colleges was an occasion for corruption +and embezzlement. + +The common schools were used for radical ends. The funds set aside for them by +the state constitutions or appropriated by the legislatures for these schools +seldom reached their destination without being lessened by embezzlement or by +plain stealing. Frequently the auditor, or the treasurer, or even the +legislature diverted the school funds to other purposes. Suffice it to say +that all of the reconstruction systems broke down financially after a brief +existence. + +The mixed school provisions in Louisiana and South Carolina and the +uncertainty of the educational situation in other States caused white children +to stay away from the public schools. For several years the Negroes were +better provided than the whites, having for themselves both all the public +schools and also those supported by private benevolence. In Mississippi, +Louisiana, and South Carolina the whites could get no money for schoolhouses, +while large sums were spent on Negro schools. The Peabody Board, then recently +inaugurated,* refused to cooperate with school officials in the mixed school +states and, when criticized, replied: "It is well known that we are helping +the white children of Louisiana as being the more destitute from the fact of +their unwillingness to attend mixed schools." + +* To administer the fund bequeathed by George Peabody of Massachusetts to +promote education in the Southern States. See "The New South", by Holland +Thompson (in "The Chronicles of America"). + + +As was to be expected, the whites criticized the attitude of the school +officials, disapproved of the attempts made in the schools to teach the +children radical ideas, and objected to the contents of the history texts and +the "Freedmen's Readers." A white school board in Mississippi, by advertising +for a Democratic teacher for a Negro school, drew the fire of a radical editor +who inquired: "What is the motive by which this call for a 'competent +Democratic teacher' is prompted? The most damning that has ever moved the +heart of man. It is to use the vote and action of a human being as a means by +which to enslave him. The treachery and villainy of these rebels stands +without parallel in the history of men." + +A Negro politician has left this account of a radical recitation in a Florida +Negro school: + +After finishing the arithmetic lesson they must next go through the catechism: + +"Who is the 'Publican Government of the State of Florida?" Answer: "Governor +Starns." + +"Who made him Governor?" Answer: "The colored people." + +"Who is trying to get him out of his seat?" Answer: "The Democrats, Conover, +and some white and black Liberal Republicans." + +"What should the colored people do with the men who is trying to get Governor +Starns out of his seat?" Answer: "They should kill them." . . . . + +This was done that the patrons, some of whom could not read, would be +impressed by the expressions of their children, and would be ready to put any +one to death who would come out into the country and say anything against +Governor Starns. + +The native white teachers soon dropped out of Negro schools, and those from +the North met with the same social persecution as the white church workers. +The White League and Ku Klux Klan drove off obnoxious teachers, whipped some, +burned Negro schoolhouses, and in various other ways manifested the reaction +which was rousing the whites against Negro schools. + +The several agencies working for Negro education gave some training to +hundreds of thousands of blacks, but the whites asserted that, like the church +work, it was based on a wrong spirit and resulted in evil as well as in good. +Free schools failed in reconstruction because of the dishonesty or +incompetence of the authorities and because of the unsettled race question. It +was not until the turn of the century that the white schools were again as +good as they had been before 1861. After the reconstruction native whites as +teachers of Negro schools were impossible in most places. The hostile feelings +of the whites resulted and still result in a limitation of Negro schools. The +best thing for Negro schools that came out of reconstruction was Armstrong's +Hampton Institute program, which, however, was quite opposed to the spirit of +reconstruction education. + + + +CHAPTER X. CARPETBAG AND NEGRO RULE + +The Southern States reconstructed by Congress were subject for periods of +varying length to governments designed by radical Northerners and imposed by +elements thrown to the surface in the upheaval of Southern society. Georgia, +Virginia, and North Carolina each had a brief experience with these +governments; other States escaped after four or five years, while Louisiana, +South Carolina, and Florida were not delivered from this domination until +1876. The states which contained large numbers of Negroes had, on the whole, +the worst experience. Here the officials were ignorant or corrupt, frauds upon +the public were the rule, not the exception, and all of the reconstruction +governments were so conducted that they could secure no support from the +respectable elements of the electorate. + +The fundamental cause of the failure of these governments was the character of +the new ruling class. Every state, except perhaps Virginia, was under the +control of a few able leaders from the North generally called carpetbaggers +and of a few native white radicals contemptuously designated scalawags. These +were kept in power by Negro voters, to some seven hundred thousand of whom the +ballot had been given by the reconstruction acts. The adoption of the +Fifteenth Amendment in March 1870, brought the total in the former slave +states to 931,000, with about seventy-five thousand more Negroes in the North. +The Negro voters were most numerous, comparatively, in Louisiana, Mississippi, +South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia. There were a few thousand carpetbaggers +in each State, with, at first, a much larger number of scalawags. The latter, +who were former Unionists, former Whigs, Confederate deserters, and a few +unscrupulous politicians, were most numerous in Virginia, North Carolina, +Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee. The better class, however, rapidly left the +radical party as the character of the new regime became evident, taking with +them whatever claims the party had to respectability, education, political +experience, and property. + +The conservatives, hopelessly reduced by the operation of disfranchising laws, +were at first not well organized, nor were they at any time as well led as in +antebellum days. In 1868, about one hundred thousand of them were forbidden to +vote and about two hundred thousand were disqualified from holding office. The +abstention policy of 1867-68 resulted in an almost complete withdrawal of the +influence of the conservatives for the two years, 1868-70. As a class they +were regarded by the dominant party in state and nation as dangerous and +untrustworthy and were persecuted in such irritating ways that many became +indifferent to the appeals of civil duty. They formed a solid but almost +despairing opposition in the black districts of Mississippi, Louisiana, +Alabama, and South Carolina. For the leaders the price of amnesty was +conversion to radicalism, but this price few would pay. + +The new state governments possessed certain characteristics in common. Since +only a small number of able men were available for office, full powers of +administration, including appointment and removal, were concentrated in the +hands of the governor. He exercised a wide control over public funds and had +authority to organize and command militia and constabulary and to call for +Federal troops. The numerous administrative boards worked with the sole object +of keeping their party in power. Officers were several times as numerous as +under the old regime, and all of them received higher salaries and larger +contingent fees. The moral support behind the government was that of President +Grant and the United States army, not that of a free and devoted people. + +Of the twenty men who served as governors, eight were scalawags and twelve +were carpetbaggers, men who were abler than the scalawags and who had much +more than an equal share of the spoils. The scalawags, such as Brownlow of +Tennessee, Smith of Alabama, and Holden of North Carolina, were usually honest +but narrow, vindictive men, filled with fear and hate of the conservative +whites. + +Of the carpetbaggers half were personally honest, but all were unscrupulous in +politics.' Some were flagrantly dishonest.* Governor Moses of South Carolina +was several times bribed and at one time, according to his own statement, +received $15,000 for his vote as speaker of the House of Representatives. +Governor Stearns of Florida was charged with stealing government supplies from +the Negroes; and it was notorious that Warmoth and Kellogg of Louisiana, each +of whom served only one term, retired with large fortunes. Warmoth, indeed, +went so far as to declare: "Corruption is the fashion. I do not pretend to be +honest, but only as honest as anybody in politics." + +The judiciary was no better than the executive. The chief justice of Louisiana +was convicted of fraud. A supreme court judge of South Carolina offered his +decisions for sale, and Whipper and Moses, both notorious thieves, were +elected judges by the South Carolina Legislature. In Alabama there were many +illiterate magistrates, among them the city judge of Selma, who in April 1865, +was still living as a slave. Governor Chamberlain, a radical, asserted that +there were two hundred trial judges in South Carolina who could not read. + +Other officers were of the same stripe. Leslie, a South Carolina carpetbagger, +declared that "South Carolina has no right to be a state unless she can +support her statesmen," and he proceeded to live up to this principle. The +manager of the state railroad of Georgia, when asked how he had been able to +accumulate twenty or thirty thousand dollars on a two or three thousand dollar +salary, replied, "By the exercise of the most rigid economy." A North Carolina +Negro legislator was found on one occasion chuckling as he counted some money. +"What are you laughing at, Uncle?" he was asked. "Well, boss, I'se been sold +'leben times in my life and dis is de fust time I eber got de money." Godkin, +in the "Nation", said that the Georgia officials were "probably as bad a lot +of political tricksters and adventurers as ever got together in one place." +This description will fit equally well the white officials of all the +reconstructed states. Many of the Negroes who attained public office showed +themselves apt pupils of their carpetbag masters but were seldom permitted to +appropriate a large share of the plunder. In Florida the Negro members of the +legislature, thinking that they should have a part of the bribe and loot money +which their carpetbag masters were said to be receiving, went so far as to +appoint what was known as a "smelling committee" to locate the good things and +secure a share. + +From 1868 to 1870, the legislatures of seven states were overwhelmingly +radical and in several the radical majority held control for four, six, or +eight years. Negroes were most numerous in the legislatures of Louisiana, +South Carolina, and Mississippi, and everywhere the votes of these men were +for sale. In Alabama and Louisiana, Negro legislators had a fixed price for +their votes: for example, six hundred dollars would buy a senator in +Louisiana. In South Carolina, Negro government appeared at its worst. A vivid +description of the Legislature of this State in which the Negroes largely +outnumbered the whites is given by James S. Pike, a Republican journalist*: + +*Pike, "The Prostrate State", pp. 12 ff. + + +"In the place of this old aristocratic society stands the rude form of the +most ignorant democracy that mankind ever saw, invested with the functions of +government. It is the dregs of the population habilitated in the robes of +their intelligent predecessors, and asserting over them the rule of ignorance +and corruption . . . . It is barbarism overwhelming civilization by physical +force. It is the slave rioting in the halls of his master, and putting that +master under his feet. And, though it is done without malice and without +vengeance, it is nevertheless none the less completely and absolutely done. . +. . We will enter the House of Representatives. Here sit one hundred and +twenty-four members. Of these, twenty-three are white men, representing the +remains of the old civilization. These are good-looking, substantial citizens. +They are men of weight and standing in the communities they represent. They +are all from the hill country. The frosts of sixty and seventy winters whiten +the heads of some among them. There they sit, grim and silent. They feel +themselves to be but loose stones, thrown in to partially obstruct a current +they are powerless to resist . . . . + +"This dense Negro crowd . . . do the debating, the squabbling, the lawmaking, +and create all the clamor and disorder of the body. These twenty-three white +men are but the observers, the enforced auditors of the dull and clumsy +imitation of a deliberative body, whose appearance in their present capacity +is at once a wonder and a shame to modern civilization .... The Speaker is +black, the Clerk is black, the doorkeepers are black, the little pages are +black, the chairman of the Ways and Means is black, and the chaplain is coal +black. At some of the desks sit colored men whose types it would be hard to +find outside of Congo; whose costumes, visages, attitudes, and expression, +only befit the forecastle of a buccaneer. It must be remembered, also, that +these men, with not more than a half dozen exceptions, have been themselves +slaves, and that their ancestors were slaves for generations. . . + +"But the old stagers admit that the colored brethren have a wonderful aptness +at legislative proceedings. They are "quick as lightning" at detecting points +of order, and they certainly make incessant and extraordinary use of their +knowledge. No one is allowed to talk five minutes without interruption, and +one interruption is a signal for another and another, until the original +speaker is smothered under an avalanche of them. Forty questions of privilege +will be raised in a day. At times, nothing goes on but alternating questions +of order and of privilege. The inefficient colored friend who sits in the +Speaker's chair cannot suppress this extraordinary element of the debate. Some +of the blackest members exhibit a pertinacity of intrusion in raising these +points of order and questions of privilege that few white men can equal. Their +struggles to get the floor, their bellowings and physical contortions, baffle +description. + +"The Speaker's hammer plays a perpetual tattoo to no purpose. The talking and +the interruptions from all quarters go on with the utmost license. Everyone +esteems himself as good as his neighbor, and puts in his oar, apparently as +often for love of riot and confusion as for anything else . . . . The Speaker +orders a member whom he has discovered to be particularly unruly to take his +seat. The member obeys, and with the same motion that he sits down, throws his +feet on to his desk, hiding himself from the Speaker by the soles of his boots +. . . . After a few experiences of this sort, the Speaker threatens, in a +laugh, to call the "gemman" to order. This is considered a capital joke, and a +guffaw follows. The laugh goes round and then the peanuts are cracked and +munched faster than ever; one hand being employed in fortifying the inner man +with this nutriment of universal use, while the other enforces the views of +the orator. This laughing propensity of the sable crowd is a great cause of +disorder. They laugh as hens cackle--one begins and all follow. + +"But underneath all this shocking burlesque upon legislative proceedings, we +must not forget that there is something very real to this uncouth and +untutored multitude. It is not all sham, nor all burlesque. They have a +genuine interest and a genuine earnestness in the business of the assembly +which we are bound to recognize and respect . . . . They have an earnest +purpose, born of conviction that their position and condition are not fully +assured, which lends a sort of dignity to their proceedings. The barbarous, +animated jargon in which they so often indulge is on occasion seen to be so +transparently sincere and weighty in their own minds that sympathy supplants +disgust. The whole thing is a wonderful novelty to them as well as to +observers. Seven years ago these men were raising corn and cotton under the +whip of the overseer. Today they are raising points of order and questions of +privilege. They find they can raise one as well as the other. They prefer the +latter. It is easier and better paid. Then, it is the evidence of an +accomplished result. It means escape and defense from old oppressors. It means +liberty. It means the destruction of prison-walls only too real to them. It is +the sunshine of their lives. It is their day of jubilee. It is their +long-promised vision of the Lord God Almighty." + +The congressional delegations were as radical as the state governments. During +the first two years, there were no Democratic senators from the reconstructed +states and only two Democratic representatives, as against sixty-four radical +senators and representatives. At the end of four years, the Democrats numbered +fifteen against seventy radicals. A Negro succeeded Jefferson Davis in the +Senate, and in all the race sent two senators and thirteen representatives to +Congress; but though several were of high character and fair ability, they +exercised practically no influence. The Southern delegations had no part in +shaping policies but merely voted as they were told by the radical leaders. + +The effect of dishonest government was soon seen in extravagant expenditures, +heavier taxes, increase of the bonded debt, and depression of property values. +It was to be expected that after the ruin wrought by war and the admission of +the Negro to civil rights, the expenses of government would be greater. But +only lack of honesty will account for the extraordinary expenses of the +reconstruction governments. In Alabama and Florida, the running expenses of +the state government increased two hundred percent, in Louisiana five hundred +percent, and in Arkansas fifteen hundred percent--all this in addition to bond +issues. In South Carolina the one item of public printing, which from 1790 to +1868 cost $609,000, amounted in the years 1868-1876 to $1,326,589. + +Corrupt state officials had two ways of getting money--by taxation and by the +sale of bonds. Taxes were everywhere multiplied. The state tax rate in Alabama +was increased four hundred percent, in Louisiana eight hundred percent, and in +Mississippi, which could issue no bonds, fourteen hundred percent. City and +county taxes, where carpetbaggers were in control, increased in the same way. +Thousands of small proprietors could not meet their taxes, and in Mississippi +alone the land sold for unpaid taxes amounted to six million acres, an area as +large as Massachusetts and Rhode Island together. Nordhoff* speaks of seeing +Louisiana newspapers of which three-fourths were taken up by notices of tax +sales. In protest against extravagant and corrupt expenditures, taxpayers' +conventions were held in every state, but without effect. + +*Charles Nordhoff, "The Cotton States in the Spring and Summer of 1875". + + +Even the increased taxation, however, did not produce enough to support the +new governments, which now had recourse to the sale of state and local bonds. +In this way Governor Holden's Administration managed in two years to increase +the public debt of North Carolina from $16,000,000 to $32,000,000. The state +debt of South Carolina rose from $7,000,000 to $29,000,000 in 1873. In +Alabama, by 1874, the debt had mounted from $7,000,000 to $32,000,000. The +public debt of Louisiana rose from $14,000,000 in 1868 to $48,000,000 in 1871, +with a local debt of $31,000,000. Cities, towns, and counties sold bonds by +the bale. The debt of New Orleans increased twenty-five fold and that of +Vicksburg a thousandfold. A great deal of the debt was the result of +fraudulent issues of bonds or over-issue. For this form of fraud, the state +financial agents in New York were usually responsible. Southern bonds sold far +below par, and the time came when they were peddled about at ten to +twenty-five cents on the dollar. + +Still another disastrous result followed this corrupt financiering. In Alabama +there was a sixty-five percent decrease in property values, in Florida +forty-five percent, and in Louisiana fifty to seventy-five percent. A large +part of the best property was mortgaged, and foreclosure sales were frequent. +Poorer property could be neither mortgaged nor sold. There was an exodus of +whites from the worst governed districts in the West and the North. Many +towns, among them Mobile and Memphis, surrendered their charters and were +ruled directly by the governor; and there were numerous "strangulated" +counties which on account of debt had lost self-government and were ruled by +appointees of the governor. + +A part of the money raised by taxes and by bond sales was used for legitimate +expenses and the rest went to pay forged warrants, excess warrants, and +swollen mileage accounts, and to fill the pockets of embezzlers and thieves +from one end of the South to the other. In Arkansas, for example, the +auditor's clerk hire, which was $4000 in 1866, cost twenty-three times as much +in 1873. In Louisiana and South Carolina, stealing was elevated into an art +and was practiced without concealment. In the latter state, the worthless Hell +Hole Swamp was bought for $26,000 to be farmed by the Negroes but was charged +to the state at $120,000. A free restaurant maintained at the Capitol for the +legislators cost $125,000 for one session. The porter who conducted it said +that he kept it open sixteen to twenty hours a day and that someone was always +in the room eating and drinking or smoking. When a member left, he would fill +his pockets with cigars or with bottles of drink. Forty different brands of +beverages were paid for by the state for the private use of members, and all +sorts of food, furniture, and clothing were sent to the houses of members and +were paid for by the state as "legislative supplies." On the bills appeared +such items as imported mushrooms, one side of bacon, one feather bed, bustles, +two pairs of extra long stockings, one pair of garters, one bottle perfume, +twelve monogram cut glasses, one horse, one comb and brush, three gallons of +whisky, one pair of corsets. During the recess, supplies were sent out to the +rural homes of the members. + +The endorsement of railroad securities by the state also furnished a source of +easy money to the dishonest official and the crooked speculator. After the +Civil War, in response to the general desire in the South for better railroad +facilities, the "Johnson" governments began to underwrite railroad bonds. When +the carpetbag and Negro governments came in, the policy was continued but +without proper safeguards. Bonds were sometimes endorsed before the roads were +constructed, and even excess issues were authorized. Bonds were endorsed for +some roads of which not a mile was ever built. The White River Valley and +Texas Railroad never came into existence, but it obtained a grant of $175,000 +from the State of Arkansas. Speaker Carter of the Louisiana Legislature +received a financial interest in all railroad endorsement bills which he +steered through the House. Negro members were regularly bribed to vote for the +bond steals. A witness swore that in Louisiana it cost him $80,000 to get a +railroad charter passed, but that the Governor's signature cost more than the +consent of the legislature. + +When the roads defaulted on the payment of interest, as most of them did, the +burden fell upon the state. Not all of the blame for this perverted +legislation should be placed upon the corrupt legislators, however, for the +lawyers who saw the bills through were frequently Southern Democrats +representing supposedly respectable Northern capitalists. The railroads as +well as the taxpayers suffered from this pernicious lobbying, for the +companies were loaded with debts and rarely profited by the loans. Valuation +of railroad property rapidly decreased. The roads of Alabama which were valued +in 1871 at $26,000,000 had decreased in 1875 to $9,500,000. + +The foundation of radical power in the South lay in the alienation of the +races which had been accomplished between 1865 and 1868. To maintain this +unhappy distrust, the radical leaders found an effective means in the Negro +militia. Under the constitution of every reconstructed state, a Negro +constabulary was possible, but only in South Carolina, North Carolina, +Louisiana, and Mississippi were the authorities willing to risk the dangers of +arming the blacks. No governor dared permit the Southern whites to organize as +militia. In South Carolina the carpetbag governor, Robert K. Scott, enrolled +ninety-six thousand Negroes as members of the militia and organized and armed +twenty thousand of them. The few white companies were ordered to disband. In +Louisiana the governor had a standing army of blacks called the Metropolitan +Guard. In several states the Negro militia was used as a constabulary and was +sent to any part of the state to make arrests. + +In spite of this provocation there were, after the riots of 1866-67, +comparatively few race conflicts until reconstruction was drawing to a close. +The intervening period was filled with the more peaceful activities of the Ku +Klux Klan and the White Camellia. But as the whites made up their minds to get +rid of Negro rule, the clashes came frequently and always ended in the death +of more Negroes than whites.* They would probably have continued with serious +consequences if the whites had not eventually secured control of the +government. + +* Among the bloodiest conflicts were those in Louisiana at Colfax, Coushatta, +and New Orleans in 1873-74, and at Vicksburg and Clinton, Mississippi, in +1874-75. + + +The lax election laws, framed indeed for the benefit of the party in power, +gave the radicals ample opportunity to control the Negro vote. The elections +were frequently corrupt, though not a great deal of money was spent in +bribery. It was found less expensive to use other methods of getting out the +vote. The Negroes were generally made to understand that the Democrats wanted +to put them back into slavery, but sometimes the leaders deemed it wiser to +state more concretely that "Jeff Davis had come to Montgomery and is ready to +organize the Confederacy again" if the Democrats should win; or to say that +"if Carter is elected, he will not allow your wives and daughters to wear +hoopskirts." In Alabama many thousand pounds of bacon and hams were sent in to +be distributed among "flood sufferers" in a region which had not been flooded +since the days of Noah. The Negroes were told that they must vote right and +receive enough bacon for a year, or "lose their rights" if they voted wrongly. +Ballot-box stuffing developed into an art, and each Negro was carefully +inspected to see that he had the right kind of ticket before he was marched to +the polls. + +The inspection and counting of election returns were in the hands of the +county and state boards, which were controlled by the governor, and which had +authority to throw out or count in any number of votes. On the assumption that +the radicals were entitled to all Negro votes, the returning boards followed +the census figures for the black population in order to arrive at the minimum +radical vote. The action of the returning boards was specially flagrant in +Louisiana and Florida and in the black counties of South Carolina. + +Notwithstanding the fact that the very best arrangements had been made at +Washington and in the states for the running of the radical machine, +everywhere there were factional fights from the beginning. Usually the +scalawags declared hostilities after they found that the carpetbaggers had +control of the Negroes and the inside track on the way to the best state and +federal offices. Later, after the scalawags had for the most part left the +radicals, there were contests among the carpetbaggers themselves for the +control of the Negro vote and the distribution of spoils. The defeated faction +usually joined the Democrats. In Arkansas a split started in 1869 which by +1872 resulted in two state governments. Alabama in 1872 and Louisiana in +1874-75 each had two rival governments. This factionalism contributed largely +to the overthrow of the radicals. + +The radical structure, however, was still powerfully supported from without. +Relations between the Federal Government and the state governments in the +South were close, and the policy at Washington was frequently determined by +conditions in the South. President Grant, though at first considerate, was +usually consistently radical in his Southern policy. This attitude is +difficult to explain except by saying that Grant fell under the control of +radical advisers after his break with Johnson, that his military instincts +were offended by opposition in the South which his advisers told him was +rebellious, and that he was impressed by the need of holding the Southern +radical vote against the inroads of the Democrats. After about 1869, Grant +never really understood the conditions in the South. He was content to control +by means of Federal troops and thousands of deputy marshals. For this policy +the Ku Klux activities gave sufficient excuse for a time, and the continued +story of "rebel outrages" was always available to justify a call for soldiers +or deputies. The enforcement legislation gave the color of law to any +interference which was deemed necessary. + +Federal troops served other ends than the mere preservation of order and the +support of the radical state governments. They were used on occasion to decide +between opposing factions and to oust conservatives who had forced their way +into office. The army officers purged the Legislature of Georgia in 1870, that +of Alabama in 1872, and that of Louisiana in 1875. In 1875 the city government +of Vicksburg and the state government of Louisiana were overturned by the +whites, but General Sheridan at once intervened to put back the Negroes and +carpetbaggers. He suggested to President Grant that the conservatives be +declared "banditti" and he would make himself responsible for the rest. As +soon as a State showed signs of going over to the Democrats or an important +election was lost by the radicals, one House or the other of Congress in many +instances sent an investigation committee to ascertain the reasons. The +Committees on the Condition of the South or on the Late Insurrectionary States +were nearly always ready with reports to establish the necessity of +intervention. + +Besides the army there was in every state a powerful group of Federal +officials who formed a "ring" for the direction of all good radicals. These +marshals, deputies, postmasters, district attorneys, and customhouse officials +were in close touch with Washington and frequently dictated nominations and +platforms. At New Orleans the officials acted as a committee on credentials +and held all the state conventions under their control in the customhouse. + +Such was the machinery used to sustain a party which, with the gradual +defection of the whites, became throughout the South almost uniformly black. +At first few Negroes asked for offices, but soon the carpetbaggers found it +necessary to divide with the rapidly growing number of Negro politicians. No +Negro was elected governor, though several reached the office of lieutenant +governor, secretary of state, auditor, superintendent of education, justice of +the state supreme court, and fifteen were elected to Congress.* It would not +be correct to say that the Negro race was malicious or on evil bent. Unless +deliberately stirred up by white leaders, few Negroes showed signs of mean +spirit. Few even made exorbitant demands. They wanted "something"--schools and +freedom and "something else," they knew not what. Deprived of the leadership +of the best whites, they could not possibly act with the scalawags--their +traditional enemies. Nothing was left for them but to follow the carpetbagger. + +* Revels, Lynch, and Bruce represent the better Negro officeholders; +Pinchback, Rainey, and Nash, the less respectable ones; and below these were +the rascals whose ambition was to equal their white preceptors in corruption. + + + +CHAPTER XI. THE KU KLUX MOVEMENT + +The Ku Klux movement, which took the form of secret revolutionary societies, +grew out of a general conviction among the whites that the reconstruction +policies were impossible and not to be endured. Somers, an English traveler, +says that at this time "nearly every respectable white man in the Southern +States was not only disfranchised but under fear of arrest or confiscation; +the old foundations of authority were utterly razed before any new ones had +yet been laid, and in the dark and benighted interval the remains of the +Confederate armies--swept after a long and heroic day of fair fight from the +field--flitted before the eyes of the people in this weird and midnight shape +of a Ku Klux Klan." Ryland Randolph, an Alabama editor who was also an +official of the Klan, stated in his paper that "the origin of Ku Klux Klan is +in the galling despotism that broods like a nightmare over these Southern +States--a fungus growth of military tyranny superinduced by the fostering of +Loyal Leagues, the abrogation of our civil laws, the habitual violation of our +national Constitution, and a persistent prostitution of all government, all +resources and all powers, to degrade the white man by the establishment of +Negro supremacy." + +The secret orders, regardless of their original purposes, were all finally to +be found opposing radical reconstruction. Everywhere their objects were the +same: to recover for the white race their former control of society and +government, and to destroy the baneful influence of the alien among the +blacks. The people of the South were by law helpless to take steps towards +setting up any kind of government in a land infested by a vicious +element--Federal and Confederate deserters, bushwhackers, outlaws of every +description, and Negroes, some of whom proved insolent and violent in their +newly found freedom. Nowhere was property or person safe, and for a time many +feared a Negro insurrection. General Hardee said to his neighbors, "I advise +you to get ready for what may come. We are standing over a sleeping volcano." + +To cope with this situation ante-bellum patrols--the "patter-rollers" as the +Negroes called them--were often secretly reorganized. In each community for +several months after the Civil War, and in many of them for months before the +end of the war, there were informal vigilance committees. Some of these had +such names as the Black Cavalry and Men of Justice in Alabama, the Home Guards +in many other places, while the anti Confederate societies of the war, the +Heroes of America, the Red Strings, and the Peace Societies, transformed +themselves in certain localities into regulatory bodies. Later these secret +societies numbered scores, perhaps hundreds, varying from small bodies of +local police to great federated bodies which covered almost the entire South +and even had membership in the North and West. Other important organizations +were the Constitutional Union Guards, the Pale Faces, the White Brotherhood, +the Council of Safety, the '76 Association, the Sons of '76, the Order of the +White Rose, and the White Boys. As the fight against reconstruction became +bolder, the orders threw off their disguises and appeared openly as armed +whites fighting for the control of society. The White League of Louisiana, the +White Line of Mississippi, the White Man's party of Alabama, and the Rifle +Clubs of South Carolina, were later manifestations of the general Ku Klux +movement. + +The two largest secret orders, however, were the Ku Klux Klan, from which the +movement took its name, and the Knights of the White Camelia. The Ku Klux Klan +originated at Pulaski, Tennessee, in the autumn of 1865, as a local +organization for social purposes. The founders were young Confederates, united +for fun and mischief. The name was an accidental corruption of the Greek word +Kuklos, a circle. The officers adopted queer sounding titles and strange +disguises. Weird nightriders in ghostly attire thoroughly frightened the +superstitious Negroes, who were told that the spirits of dead Confederates +were abroad. This terrorizing of the blacks successfully provided the +amusement which the founders desired, and there were many applications for +admission to the society. The Pulaski Club, or Den, was in the habit of +parading in full uniform at social gatherings of the whites at night, much to +the delight of the small boys and girls. Pulaski was near the Alabama line, +and many of the young men of Alabama who saw these parades or heard of them +organized similar Dens in the towns of Northern Alabama. Nothing but +horseplay, however, took place at the meetings. In 1867 and 1868, the order +appeared in parade in the towns of the adjoining states and, as we are told, +"cut up curious gyrations" on the public squares. + +There was a general belief outside the order that there was a purpose behind +all the ceremonial and frolic of the Dens; many joined the order convinced +that its object was serious; others saw the possibilities of using it as a +means of terrorizing the Negroes. After men discovered the power of the Klan +over the Negroes, indeed, they were generally inclined, owing to the +disordered conditions of the time, to act as a sort of police patrol and to +hold in check the thieving Negroes, the Union League, and the "loyalists." In +this way, from being merely a number of social clubs the Dens swiftly became +bands of regulators, taking on many new fantastic qualities along with their +new seriousness of purpose. Some of the more ardent spirits led the Dens far +in the direction of violence and outrage. Attempts were made by the parent Den +at Pulaski to regulate the conduct of the others, but, owing to the loose +organization, the effort met with little success. Some of the Dens, indeed, +lost all connection with the original order. + +A general organization of these societies was perfected at a convention held +in Nashville in May 1867, just as the Reconstruction Acts were being put into +operation. A constitution called the Prescript was adopted which provided for +a national organization. The former slave states, except Delaware, constituted +the Empire, which was ruled by the Grand Wizard (then General Forrest) with a +staff of ten Genii; each State was a realm under a Grand Dragon and eight +Hydras; the next subdivision was a Dominion, consisting of several counties, +ruled by a Grand Titan and six Furies; the county or Province was governed by +a Grand Giant and four Goblins; the unit was the Den or community +organization, of which there might be several in each county, each under a +Grand Cyclops and two Nighthawks. The Genii, Hydras, Furies, Goblins, and +Nighthawks were staff officers. The private members were called Ghouls. The +order had no name, and at first was designated by two stars (**), later by +three (***). Sometimes it was called the Invisible Empire of Ku Klux Klan. + +Any white man over eighteen might be admitted to the Den after nomination by a +member and strict investigation by a committee. The oath demanded obedience +and secrecy. The Dens governed themselves by the ordinary rules of +deliberative bodies. The punishment for betrayal of secrecy was "the extreme +penalty of the Law." None of the secrets was to be written, and there was a +"Register" of alarming adjectives, such as terrible, horrible, furious, +doleful, bloody, appalling, frightful, gloomy, which was used as a cipher code +in dating the odd Ku Klux orders. + +The general objects of the order were thus set forth in the revised Prescript: +first, to protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless from the +indignities, wrongs, and outrages of the lawless, the violent, and the brutal; +to relieve the injured and oppressed; to succor the suffering and unfortunate, +and especially the widows and orphans of Confederate soldiers; second, to +protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and all laws passed +in conformity thereto, and to protect the States and people thereof from all +invasion from any source whatever; third, to aid and assist in the execution +of all "constitutional" laws, and to protect the people from unlawful arrest, +and from trial except by their peers according to the laws of the land. But +the tests for admission gave further indication of the objects of the order. +No Republican, no Union Leaguer, and no member of the G. A. R. might become a +member. The members were pledged to oppose Negro equality of any kind, to +favor emancipation of the Southern whites and the restoration of their rights, +and to maintain constitutional government and equitable laws. + +Prominent men testified that the order became popular because the whites felt +that they were persecuted and that there was no legal protection, no +respectable government. General (later Senator) Pettus said that through all +the workings of the Federal Government ran the principle that "we are an +inferior, degraded people and not fit to be trusted." General Clanton of +Alabama further explained that "there is not a respectable white woman in the +Negro Belt of Alabama who will trust herself outside of her house without some +protector . . . . So far as our State Government is concerned, we are in the +hands of camp-followers, horse-holders, cooks, bottle-washers, and thieves . . +. . We have passed out from the hands of the brave soldiers who overcame us, +and are turned over to the tender mercies of squaws for torture. . . . I see +Negro police--great black fellows--leading white girls around the streets of +Montgomery, and locking them up in jails." + +The Klan first came into general prominence in 1868 with the report of the +Federal commanders in the South concerning its activities. Soon after that +date the order spread through the white counties of the South, in many places +absorbing the White Brotherhood, the Pale Faces, and some other local +organizations which had been formed in the upper part of the Black Belt. But +it was not alone in the field. The order known as the Knights of the White +Camelia, founded in Louisiana in 1867 and formally organized in 1868, spread +rapidly over the lower South until it reached the territory occupied by the Ku +Klux Klan. It was mainly a Black Belt order, and on the whole had a more +substantial and more conservative membership than the other large secret +bodies. Like the Ku Klux Klan, it also absorbed several minor local societies. + +The White Camelia had a national organization with headquarters in New +Orleans. Its business was conducted by a Supreme Council of the United States, +with Grand, Central, and Subordinate Councils for each state, county, and +community. All communication within the order took place by passwords and +cipher; the organization and the officers were similar to those of the Ku Klux +Klan; and all officers were designated by initials. An ex-member states that +"during the three years of its existence here [Perry County, Alabama] I +believe its organization and discipline were as perfect as human ingenuity +could have made it." The fundamental object of the White Camelia was the +"maintenance of the supremacy of the white race," and to this end the members +were constrained "to observe a marked distinction between the races" and to +restrain the "African race to that condition of social and political +inferiority for which God has destined it." The members were pledged to vote +only for whites, to oppose Negro equality in all things, but to respect the +legitimate rights of Negroes. + +The smaller orders were similar in purpose and organization to the Ku Klux +Klan and the White Camelia. Most of them joined or were affiliated with the +large societies. Probably a majority of the men of the South were associated +at some time during this period with these revolutionary bodies. As a rule the +politicians, though approving, held aloof. Public opinion generally supported +the movement so long as the radicals made serious attempts to carry out the +reconstruction policies. + +The task before the secret orders was to regulate the conduct of the blacks +and their leaders in order that honor, life, and property might be secure. +They planned to accomplish this aim by playing upon the fears, superstitions, +and cowardice of the black race--in a word, by creating a white terror to +counteract the black one. To this end they made use of strange disguises, +mysterious and fearful conversation, midnight rides and drills, and silent +parades. As long as secrecy and mystery were to be effective in dealing with +the Negroes, costume was an important matter. These disguises varied with the +locality and often with the individual. High cardboard hats, covered with +white cloth often decorated with stars or pictures of animals, white masks +with holes cut for eyes, nose and mouth bound with red braid to give a +horrible appearance, and frequently a long tongue of red flannel so fixed that +it could be moved with the wearer's tongue, and a long white robe--these made +up a costume which served at the same time as a disguise and as a means of +impressing the impressionable Negro. Horses were covered with sheets or white +cloth held on by the saddle and by belts, and sometimes the animals were even +painted. Skulls of sheep and cattle, and even of human beings were often +carried on the saddlebows to add another element of terror. A framework was +sometimes made to fit the shoulders of a Ghoul which caused him to appear +twelve feet high. A skeleton wooden hand at the end of a stick served to greet +terrified Negroes at midnight. For safety every man carried a small whistle +and a brace of pistols. + +The trembling Negro who ran into a gathering of the Ku Klux on his return from +a Loyal League meeting was informed that the white-robed figures he saw were +the spirits of the Confederate dead killed at Chickamauga or Shiloh, now +unable to rest in their graves because of the conduct of the Negroes. He was +told in a sepulchral voice of the necessity for his remaining more at home and +taking a less active part in predatory excursions abroad. In the middle of the +night, a sleeping Negro might wake to find his house surrounded by a ghostly +company, or to see several terrifying figures standing by his bedside. They +were, they said, the ghosts of men whom he had formerly known. They had +scratched through from Hell to warn the Negroes of the consequences of their +misconduct. Hell was a dry and thirsty land; and they asked him for water. +Bucket after bucket of water disappeared into a sack of leather, rawhide, or +rubber, concealed within the flowing robe. The story is told of one of these +night travelers who called at the cabin of a radical Negro in Attakapas +County, Louisiana. After drinking three buckets of water to the great +astonishment of the darky, the traveler thanked him and told him that he had +traveled nearly a thousand miles within twenty-four hours, and that that was +the best water he had tasted since he was killed at the battle of Shiloh. The +Negro dropped the bucket, overturned chairs and table in making his escape +through the window, and was never again seen or heard of by residents of that +community. Another incident is told of a parade in Pulaski, Tennessee: "While +the procession was passing a corner on which a Negro man was standing, a tall +horseman in hideous garb turned aside from the line, dismounted and stretched +out his bridle rein toward the Negro, as if he desired him to hold his horse. +Not daring to refuse, the frightened African extended his hand to grasp the +rein. As he did so, the Ku Klux took his own head from his shoulders and +offered to place that also in the outstretched hand. The Negro stood not upon +the order of his going, but departed with a yell of terror. To this day he +will tell you: 'He done it, suah, boss. I seed him do it.'" + +It was seldom necessary at this early stage to use violence, for the black +population was in an ecstasy of fear. A silent host of white-sheeted horsemen +parading the country roads at night was sufficient to reduce the blacks to +good behavior for weeks or months. One silent Ghoul posted near a meeting +place of the League would be the cause of the immediate dissolution of that +club. Cow bones in a sack were rattled within earshot of the terrified +Negroes. A horrible being, fifteen feet tall, walking through the night toward +a place of congregation, was very likely to find that every one had vacated +the place before he arrived. A few figures wrapped in sheets and sitting on +tombstones in a graveyard near which Negroes were accustomed to pass would +serve to keep the immediate community quiet for weeks and give the locality a +reputation for "hants" which lasted long. + +To prevent detection on parade, members of the Klan often stayed out of the +parade in their own town and were to be seen freely and conspicuously mingling +with the spectators. A man who believed that he knew every horse in the +vicinity and was sure that he would be able to identify the riders by their +horses was greatly surprised upon lifting the disguise of the horse nearest +him to find the animal upon which he himself had ridden into town a short +while before. The parades were always silent and so arranged as to give the +impression of very large numbers. In the regular drills which were held in +town and country, the men showed that they had not forgotten their training in +the Confederate army. There were no commands save in a very low tone or in a +mysterious language, and usually only signs or whistle signals were used. + +Such pacific methods were successful to a considerable degree until the +carpetbaggers and scalawags were placed in office under the Reconstruction +Acts. Then more violent methods were necessary. The Mans patrolled disturbed +communities, visited, warned, and frightened obnoxious individuals, whipped +some, and even hanged others. Until forbidden by law or military order, the +newspapers were accustomed to print the mysterious proclamations of the Ku +Klux. The following, which was circulated in Montgomery, Alabama, in April +1868, is a typical specimen: + +K. K. K. Clan of Vega. HDQRS K.K.K. HOSPITALLERS. + +Vega Clan, New Moon, 3rd Month, Anno K. K. K. 1. + +ORDER No. K. K. + +Clansmen--Meet at the Trysting Spot when Orion Kisses the Zenith. The doom of +treason is Death. Dies Irae. The wolf is on his walk--the serpent coils to +strike. Action! Action!! Action!!! By midnight and the Tomb; by Sword and +Torch and the Sacred Oath at Forrester's Altar, I bid you come! The clansmen +of Glen Iran and Alpine will greet you at the new-made grave. + +Remember the Ides of April. + +By command of the Grand D. I. H. + +Cheg. V. + +The work of the secret orders was successful. As bodies of vigilantes, the +Mans and the Councils regulated the conduct of bad Negroes, punished criminals +who were not punished by the state, looked after the activities and teachings +of Northern preachers and teachers, dispersed hostile gatherings of Negroes, +and ran out of the community the worst of the reconstructionist officials. +They kept the Negroes quiet and freed them to some extent from the influence +of evil leaders. The burning of houses, gins, mills, and stores ceased; +property became more secure; people slept safely at night; women and children +walked abroad in security; the incendiary agents who had worked among the +Negroes left the country; agitators, political, educational, and religious, +became more moderate; "bad niggers" ceased to be bad; labor became less +disorganized; the carpetbaggers and scalawags ceased to batten on the Southern +communities. It was not so much a revolution as the defeat of a revolution. +Society was replaced in the old historic grooves from which war and +reconstruction had jarred it. + +Successful as was the Ku Klux movement in these respects, it had at the same +time many harmful results. Too often local orders fell under the control of +reckless or lawless men and the Klan was then used as a cloak to cover +violence and thievery; family and personal feuds were carried into the orders +and fought out; and anti-Negro feeling in many places found expression in +activities designed to drive the blacks from the country. It was easy for any +outlaw to hide himself behind the protection of a secret order. So numerous +did these men become that after 1868 there was a general exodus of the leading +reputable members, and in 1869 the formal disbanding of the Klan was +proclaimed by General Forrest, the Grand Wizard. The White Camelia and other +orders also gradually went out of existence. Numerous attempts were made to +suppress the secret movement by the military commanders, the state +governments, and finally by Congress, but none of these was entirely +successful, for in each community the secret opposition lasted as long as it +was needed. The political effects of the orders, however, survived their +organized existence. Some of the Southern States began to go Democratic in +spite of the Reconstruction Acts and the Amendments, and there was little +doubt that the Ku Klux movement had aided in this change. In order to preserve +the achievements of radical reconstruction Congress passed, in 1870 and 1871, +the enforcement acts which had been under debate for nearly two years. The +first act (May 31, 1870) was designed to protect the Negro's right to vote and +was directed at individuals as well as against states. Section six, indeed, +was aimed specifically at the Ku Klux Klan. This act was a long step in the +direction of giving the Federal Government control over state elections. But +as North Carolina went wholly and Alabama partially Democratic in 1870, a +Supplementary Act (February 28, 1871) went further and placed the elections +for members of Congress completely under Federal control, and also authorized +the use of thousands of deputy marshals at elections. As the campaign of 1872 +drew near, Grant and his advisers became solicitous to hold all the Southern +States which had not been regained by the Democrats. Accordingly, on March 23, +1871, the President sent a message to Congress declaring that in some of the +states the laws could not be enforced and asked for remedial legislation. +Congress responded with an act (April 20, 1871), commonly called the "Ku Klux +Act," which gave the President despotic military power to uphold the remaining +Negro governments and authorized him to declare a state of war when he +considered it necessary. Of this power Grant made use in only one instance. In +October 1871, he declared nine counties of South Carolina in rebellion and put +them under martial law. + +During the ten years following 1870, several thousand arrests were made under +the enforcement acts and about 1,250 convictions were secured, principally in +Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Most of these +violations of election laws, however, had nothing to do with the Ku Klux +movement, for by 1870 the better class of members had withdrawn from the +secret orders. But though the enforcement acts checked these irregularities to +a considerable extent, they nevertheless failed to hold the South for the +radicals and essential parts of them were declared unconstitutional a few +years later. + +In order to justify the passage of the enforcement acts and to obtain campaign +material for use in 1872, Congress appointed a committee, organized on the +very day when the Ku Klux Act was approved, to investigate conditions in the +Southern States. From June to August 1871, the committee took testimony in +Washington, and in the fall subcommittees visited several Southern States. +Tennessee, Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas were, however, omitted +from the investigation. Notwithstanding the partisan purpose and methods of +the investigation, the report of the committee and the accompanying testimony +constituted a Democratic rather than a Republican document. It is a veritable +mine of information about the South between 1865 and 1871. The Democratic +minority members made skillful use of their opportunity to expose conditions +in the South. They were less concerned to meet the charges made against the Ku +Klux Klan than to show why such movements came about. The Republicans, +concerned mainly about material for the presidential campaign, neglected the +broader phases of the situation. + +Opposition to the effects of reconstruction did not come to an end with the +dissolution of the more famous orders. On the contrary, it now became public +and open and resulted in the organization, after 1872, of the White League, +the Mississippi Shot Gun Plan, the White Man's Party in Alabama, and the Rifle +Clubs in South Carolina. The later movements were distinctly but cautiously +anti-Negro. There was most irritation in the white counties where there were +large numbers of Negroes. Negro schools and churches were burned because they +served as meeting places for Negro political organizations. The color line +began to be more and more sharply drawn. Social and business ostracism +continued to be employed against white radicals, while the Negroes were +discharged from employment or were driven from their rented farms. + +The Ku Klux movement, it is to be noted in retrospect, originated as an effort +to restore order in the war-stricken Southern States. The secrecy of its +methods appealed to the imagination and caused its rapid expansion, and this +secrecy was inevitable because opposition to reconstruction was not lawful. As +the reconstruction policies were put into operation, the movement became +political and used violence when appeals to superstitious fears ceased to be +effective. The Ku Klux Klan centered, directed, and crystallized public +opinion, and united the whites upon a platform of white supremacy. The +Southern politicians stood aloof from the movement but accepted the results of +its work. It frightened the Negroes and bad whites into better conduct, and it +encouraged the conservatives and aided them to regain control of society, for +without the operations of the Klan the black districts would never have come +again under white control. Towards the end, however, its methods frequently +became unnecessarily violent and did great harm to Southern society. The Ku +Klux system of regulating society is as old as history; it had often been used +before; it may even be used again. When a people find themselves persecuted by +aliens under legal forms, they will invent some means outside the law for +protecting themselves; and such experiences will inevitably result in a +weakening of respect for law and in a return to more primitive methods of +justice. + + + +CHAPTER XII. THE CHANGING SOUTH + +"The bottom rail is on top" was a phrase which had flashed throughout the late +Confederate States. It had been coined by the Negroes in 1867 to express their +view of the situation, but its aptness had been recognized by all. After ten +years of social and economic revolution, however, it was not so clear that the +phrase of 1867 correctly described the new situation. "The white man made +free" would have been a more accurate epitome, for the white man had been +able, in spite of his temporary disabilities, to compete with the Negro in all +industries. + +It will be remembered that the Negro districts were least exposed to the +destruction of war. The well-managed plantation, lying near the highways of +commerce, with its division of labor, nearly or quite self-sufficing, was the +bulwark of the Confederacy. When the fighting ended, an industrial revolution +began in these untouched parts of the Black Belt. The problem of free Negro +labor now appeared. During the year 1865, no general plan for a labor system +was formulated except by the Freedmen's Bureau. That, however, was not a +success. There were all sorts of makeshifts, such as cash wages, deferred +wages, cooperation, even sharing of expense and product, and contracts, either +oral or written. + +The employers showed a disposition to treat the Negro family as a unit in +making contracts for labor, wages, food, clothes, and care.* In general these +early arrangements were made to transform slavery with its mutual duties and +obligations into a free labor system with wages and "privileges." The +"privileges" of slavery could not be destroyed; in fact, they have never yet +been destroyed in numerous places. Curious demands were made by the Negroes: +here, farm bells must not ring; there, overseers or managers must be done away +with; in some places plantation courts were to settle matters of work, rent, +and conduct; elsewhere, agreements were made that on Saturday the laborer +should be permitted to go to town and, perhaps, ride a mule or horse. In South +Carolina the Sea Island Negroes demanded that in laying out work the old +"tasks" or "stints" of slavery days be retained as the standard. The farming +districts at the edge of the Black Belt, where the races were about equal in +numbers, already had a kind of "share system," and in these sections the +economic chaos after the war was not so complete. The former owners worked in +the field with their ex-slaves and thus provided steady employment for many. +Farms were rented for a fixed sum of money, or for a part of the crop, or on +"shares." + +* J. D. B. De Bow, the economist, testified before the Joint Committee on +Reconstruction that, if the Negro would work, free labor would be better for +the planters than slave labor. He called attention to the fact, however, that +Negro women showed a desire to avoid field labor, and there is also evidence +to show that they objected to domestic service and other menial work. + + +The white districts, which had previously fought a losing competition with the +efficiently managed and inexpensive slave labor of the Black Belt, were +affected most disastrously by war and its aftermath. They were distant from +transportation lines and markets; they employed poor farming methods; they had +no fertilizers; they raised no staple crops on their infertile land; and in +addition they now had to face the destitution that follows fighting. Yet these +regions had formerly been almost self-supporting, although the farms were +small and no elaborate labor system had been developed. In the planting +districts where the owner was land-poor, he made an attempt to bring in +Northern capital and Northern or foreign labor. In the belief that the Negroes +would work better for a Northern man, every planter who could do so secured a +Northern partner or manager, frequently a soldier. Nevertheless these imported +managers nearly always failed because they did not understand cotton, rice, or +sugar planting, and because they were either too severe or too easy upon the +blacks. + +No Northern labor was to be had, and the South could not retain even all its +own native whites. Union soldiers and others seeking to better their prospects +moved west and northwest to fill the newly opened lands, while the +Confederates, kept out of the homestead region by the test oath, swarmed into +Texas, which owned its own public lands, or went North to other occupations. +Nor could the desperate planters hire foreign immigrants. Several states, +among them South Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana, advertised for laborers and +established labor bureaus, but without avail. The Negro politicians in 1867 +declared themselves opposed to all movements to foster immigration. So in the +Black Belt the Negro had, for forty years, a monopoly of farm labor. + +The share system of tenantry, with its attendant evils of credit and crop +lien, was soon established in the Southern States, mainly in the Black Belt, +but to some extent also in the white districts. The landlord furnished land, +house, fuel, water, and all or a part of the seed, fertilizer, farm +implements, and farm animals. In return he received a "half," or a "third and +fourth," his share depending upon how much he had furnished. The best class of +tenants would rent for cash or a fixed rental, the poorest laborers would work +for wages only. + +The "privileges" brought over from slavery, which were included in the share +renting, astonished outside observers. To the laborer was usually given a +house, a water supply, wood for fuel, pasture for pigs or cows, a "patch" for +vegetables and fruit, and the right to hunt and fish. These were all that some +needed in order to live. Somers, the English traveler already quoted, +pronounced this generous custom "outrageously absurd," for the Negroes had so +many privileges that they refused to make use of their opportunities. "The +soul is often crushed out of labor by penury and oppression," he said, "but +here a soul cannot begin to be infused into it through the sheer excess of +privilege and license with which it is surrounded." The credit system which +was developed beside the share system made a bad condition worse. On the 1st +of January, a planter could mortgage his future crop to a merchant or landlord +in exchange for subsistence until the harvest. Since, as a rule, neither +tenant nor landlord had any surplus funds, the latter would be supplied by the +banker or banker merchant, who would then dictate the crops to be planted and +the time of sale. As a result of these conditions, the planter or farmer was +held to staple crops, high prices for necessities, high interest rate, and +frequently unfair bookkeeping. The system was excellent for a thrifty, +industrious, and intelligent man, for it enabled him to get a start. It worked +to the advantage of a bankrupt landlord, who could in this way get banking +facilities. But it had a mischievous effect upon the average tenant, who had +too small a share of the crop to feel a strong sense of responsibility as well +as too many "privileges" and too little supervision to make him anxious to +produce the best results. + +The Negroes entered into their freedom with several advantages: they were +trained to labor; they were occupying the most fertile soil and could purchase +land at low prices; the tenant system was most liberal; cotton, sugar, and +rice were bringing high prices; and access to markets was easy. In the white +districts, land was cheap and prices of commodities were high, but otherwise +the Negroes seemed to have the better position. Yet as early as 1870, keen +observers called attention to the fact that the hill and mountain whites were +thriving as compared with their former condition, and that the Negroes were no +longer their serious competitors. In the white districts, better methods were +coming into use, labor was steady, fertilizers were used, and conditions of +transportation were improving. The whites were also encroaching on the Black +Belt; they were opening new lands in the Southwest; and within the border of +the Black Belt they were bringing Negro labor under some control. In the South +Carolina rice lands, crowds of Irish were imported to do the ditching which +the Negroes refused to do and were carried back North when the job was +finished.* President Thach of the Alabama Agricultural College has thus +described the situation: + + * The Census of 1880 gave proof of the superiority of the whites in cotton +production. For purposes of comparison the cotton area may be divided into +three regions: first, the Black Belt, in which the farmers were black, the +soil fertile, the plantations large, the credit evil at its worst, and the +yield of cotton per acre the least; second, the white districts, where the +soil was the poorest, the farms small, the workers nearly all white, and the +yield per acre better than on the fertile Black Belt lands; third, the regions +in which the races were nearly equal in numbers or where the whites were in a +slight majority, with soil of medium fertility, good methods of agriculture, +and, owing to better controlled labor, the best yield. In ether words, +Negroes, fertile soil, and poor crops went together; and on the other hand the +whites got better crops on less fertile soil. The Black Belt has never again +reached the level of production it had in 1880. But the white district kept +improving slowly. + +"By the use of commercial fertilizers, vast regions once considered barren +have been brought into profitable cultivation, and really afford a more +reliable and constant crop than the rich alluvial lands of the old slave +plantations. In nearly every agricultural county in the South there is to be +observed, on the one hand, this section of fertile soils, once the heart, of +the old civilization, now abandoned by the whites, held in tenantry by a dense +Negro population, full of dilapidation and ruin; while on the other hand, +there is the region of light, thin soils, occupied by the small white +freeholder, filled with schools, churches, and good roads, and all the +elements of a happy, enlightened country life." + +All the systems devised for handling Negro labor proved to be only partially +successful. The laborer was migratory, wanted easy work, with one or two +holidays a week, and the privilege of attending political meetings, camp +meetings, and circuses. A thrifty Negro could not make headway because his +fellows stole from him or his less energetic relations and friends visited him +and ate up his substance. One Alabama planter declared that he could not raise +a turkey, a chicken, a hog, or a cow; and another asserted that "a hog has no +more chance to live among these thieving Negro farmers than a June bug in a +gang of puddle ducks." Lands were mortgaged to the supply houses in the towns, +the whites gradually deserted the country, and many rice and cotton fields +grew up in weeds. Crop stealing at night became a business which no +legislation could ever completely stop. A traveler has left the following +description of "a model Negro farm" in 1874. The farmer purchased an old mule +on credit and rented land on shares or for so many bales of cotton; any old +tools were used; corn, bacon, and other supplies were bought on credit, and a +crop lien was given; a month later, corn and cotton were planted on soil that +was not well broken up; the Negro "would not pay for no guano" to put on other +people's land; by turns the farmer planted and fished, plowed and hunted, hoed +and frolicked, or went to "meeting." At the end of the year he sold his +cotton, paid part of his rent and some of his debt, returned the mule to its +owner, and sang: + +Nigger work hard all de year, White man tote de money. + +The great landholdings did not break up into small farms as was predicted, +though sales were frequent and in 1865 enormous amounts of land were put on +the market. After 1867, additional millions of acres were offered at small +prices, and tax and mortgage sales were numerous. The result of these +operations, however, was a change of landlords rather than a breaking up of +large plantations. New men, Negroes, merchants, and Jews became landowners. +The number of small farms naturally increased but so in some instances did the +land concentrated into large holdings. + +It was inevitable that conditions of Negro life should undergo a revolutionary +change during the reconstruction. The serious matter of looking out for +himself and his family and of making a living dampened the Negro's cheerful +spirits. Released from the discipline of slavery and often misdirected by the +worst of teachers, the Negro race naturally ran into excesses of petty +criminality. Even under the reconstruction governments the proportion of Negro +to white criminals was about ten to one. Theft was frequent; arson was the +accepted means of revenge on white people; and murder became common in the +brawls of the city Negro quarters. The laxness of the marriage relation worked +special hardship on the women and children in so many cases deserted by the +head of the family. + +Out of the social anarchy of reconstruction the Negroes emerged with numerous +organizations of their own which may have been imitations of the Union League, +the Lincoln Brotherhood, and the various church organizations. These societies +were composed entirely of blacks and have continued with prolific reproduction +to the present day. They were characterized by high names, gorgeous regalia, +and frequent parades. "The Brothers and Sisters of Pleasure and Prosperity" +and the "United Order of African Ladies and Gentlemen" played a large, and on +the whole useful, part in Negro social life, teaching lessons of thrift, +insurance, cooperation, and mutual aid. + +The reconstructionists were not able in 1867-68 to carry through Congress any +provision for the social equality of the races, but in the reconstructed +states, the equal rights issue was alive throughout the period. Legislation +giving to the Negro equal rights in hotels, places of amusements, and common +carriers, was first enacted in Louisiana and South Carolina. Frequently the +carpetbaggers brought up the issue in order to rid the radical ranks of the +scalawags who were opposed to equal rights. In Florida, for example, the +carpetbaggers framed a comprehensive Equal Rights Law, passed it, and +presented it to Governor Reed, who was known to be opposed to such +legislation. He vetoed the measure and thus lost the Negro support. +Intermarriage with whites was made legal in Louisiana and South Carolina and +by court decision was permitted in Alabama and Mississippi, but the Georgia +Supreme Court held it to be illegal. Mixed marriages were few, but these were +made occasions of exultation over the whites and of consequent ill feeling. + +Charles Sumner was a persistent agitator for equal rights. In 1871 he declared +in a letter to a South Carolina Negro convention that the race must insist not +only upon equality in hotels and on public carriers but also in the schools. +"It is not enough, " he said, "to provide separate accommodations for colored +citizens even if in all respects as good as those of other persons . . . . The +discrimination is an insult and a hindrance, and a bar, which not only +destroys comfort and prevents equality, but weakens all other rights. The +right to vote will have new security when your equal right in public +conveyances, hotels, and common schools, is at last established; but here you +must insist for yourselves by speech, petition, and by vote." The Southern +whites began to develop the "Jim Crow" theory of "separate but equal" +accommodations. Senator Hill of Georgia, for example, thought that hotels +might have separate divisions for the two races, and he cited the division in +the churches as proof that the Negro wanted separation. + +About 1874, it was plain that the last radical Congress was nearly ready to +enact social equality legislation. This fact turned many of the Southern +Unionist class back to the Democratic party, there to remain for a long time. +In 1875, as a sort of memorial to Sumner, Congress passed the Civil Rights +Act, which gave to Negroes equal rights in hotels, places of amusement, on +public carriers, and on juries. Some Democratic leaders were willing to see +such legislation enacted, because in the first place, it would have little +effect except in the Border and Northern States, where it would turn thousands +into the Democratic fold, and in the second place, because they were sure that +in time the Supreme Court would declare the law unconstitutional. And so it +happened. + +In regions where the more unprincipled radical leaders were in control, the +whites lived at times in fear of Negro uprisings. The Negroes were armed and +insolent, and the whites were few and widely scattered. Here and there +outbreaks occurred and individual whites and isolated families suffered, but +as a rule all such movements were crushed with much heavier loss to the +Negroes than to the better organized whites. Nevertheless everlasting +apprehension for the safety of women and children kept the white men nervous. +General Garnett Andrews remarked about the situation in Mississippi: + +"I have never suffered such an amount of anguish and alarm in all my life. I +have served through the whole war as a soldier in the army of Northern +Virginia, and saw all of it; but I never did experience . . . the fear and +alarm and sense of danger which I felt that time. And this was the universal +feeling among the population, among the white people. I think that both sides +were alarmed and felt uneasy. It showed itself upon the countenance of the +people; it made many of them sick. Men looked haggard and pale, after +undergoing this sort of thing for six weeks or a month, and I have felt when I +laid [sic] down that neither myself, nor my wife and children were in safety. +I expected, and honestly anticipated, and thought it highly probable, that I +might be assassinated and my house set on fire at any time." + +By the fires of reconstruction the whites were fused into a more homogeneous +society, social as well as political. The former slaveholding class continued +to be more considerate of the Negro than were the poor whites; but, as misrule +went on, all classes tended to unite against the Negro in politics. They were +tired of reconstruction, new amendments, force bills, Federal troops-- tired +of being ruled as conquered provinces by the incompetent and the dishonest. +Every measure aimed at the South seemed to them to mean that they were +considered incorrigible and unworthy of trust, and that they were being made +to suffer for the deeds of irresponsible whites. And, to make matters worse, +strong opposition to proscriptive measures was called fresh rebellion. "When +the Jacobins say and do low and bitter things, their charge of want of loyalty +in the South because our people grumble back a little seems to me as +unreasonable as the complaint of the little boy: 'Mamma, make Bob 'have +hisself. He makes mouths at me every time I hit him with my stick.'"* + +* Usually ascribed to General D. H. Hill of North Carolina, and quoted in "The +Land We Love", vol. 1, p. 146. + + +Probably this burden fell heavier on the young men, who had life before them +and who were growing up with diminished opportunities. Sidney Lanier, then an +Alabama school teacher, wrote to Bayard Taylor: "Perhaps you know that with us +of the young generation in the South, since the war, pretty much the whole of +life has been merely not dying." Negro and alien rule was a constant insult to +the intelligence of the country. The taxpayers were nonparticipants in the +affairs of government. Some people withdrew entirely from public life, went to +their farms or plantations, kept away from towns and from speechmaking, +waiting for the end to come. There were some who refused for several years to +read the newspapers, so unpleasant was the news. The good feeling produced by +the magnanimity of Grant at Appomattox was destroyed by the severity of his +Southern policy when he became President. There was no gratitude for any +so-called leniency of the North, no repentance for the war, no desire for +humiliation, for sackcloth and ashes, and no confession of wrong. The +insistence of the radicals upon obtaining a confession of depravity only made +things much worse. Scarcely a measure of Congress during reconstruction was +designed or received in a conciliatory spirit. + +The new generation of whites was poor, bitter because of persecution, +ill-educated, overworked, without a bright future, and shadowed by the race +problem. Though their new political leaders were shrewd, narrow, conservative, +honest, and parsimonious, the constant fighting of fire with fire scorched +all. In the bitter discipline of reconstruction, the pleasantest side of +Southern life came to an end. During the war and the consequent reconstruction +there was a marked change in Southern temperament toward the severe. +Hospitality declined; the old Southern life had never been on a business +basis, but the new Southern life now adjusted itself to a stricter economy; +the old individuality was partially lost; but class distinctions were less +obvious in a more homogeneous society. The material evils of reconstruction +may be only temporary; state debts may be paid and wasted resources renewed; +but the moral and intellectual results of the revolution will be the more +permanent. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. RESTORATION OF HOME RULE + +The radical program of reconstruction ended after ten years in failure rather +because of a change in public opinion in the North than because of the +resistance of the Southern whites. The North of 1877, indeed, was not the +North of 1867. A more tolerant attitude toward the South developed as the +North passed through its own period of misgovernment when all the large cities +were subject to "ring rule" and corruption, as in New York under "Boss" Tweed +and in the District of Columbia under "Boss" Shepherd. The Federal civil +service was discredited by the scandals connected with the Sanborn contracts, +the Whisky Ring, and the Star Routes, while some leaders in Congress were +under a cloud from the "Salary Grab" and Credit Mobilier disclosures.* + +* See "The Boss and the Machine", by Samuel P. Orth in "The Chronicles of +America"). + + +The marvelous material development of the North and West also drew attention +away from sectional controversies. Settlers poured into the plains beyond the +Mississippi and the valleys of the Far West; new industries sprang up; +unsuspected mineral wealth was discovered; railroads were built. Not only +bankers but taxpaying voters took an interest in the financial readjustments +of the time. Many thousand people followed the discussions over the funding +and refunding of the national debt, the retirement of the greenbacks, and the +proposed lowering of tariff duties. Yet the Black Friday episode of 1869, when +Jay Gould and James Fisk cornered the visible supply of gold, and the panic of +1873 were indications of unsound financial conditions. + +These new developments and the new domestic problems which they involved all +tended to divert public thought from the old political issues arising out of +the war. Foreign relations, too, began to take on a new interest. The Alabama +claims controversy with England continued to hold the public attention until +finally settled by the Geneva Arbitration in 1872. President Grant, as much of +an expansionist as Seward, for two years (1869-71) tried to secure Santo +Domingo or a part of it for an American naval base in the West Indies. But the +United States had race problems enough already and the Senate, led by Sumner, +refused to sanction the acquisition. Relations with Spain were frequently +strained on account of American filibustering expeditions to aid Cuban +insurgents. Spain repeatedly charged the United States with laxness toward +such violations of international law; and President Grant, seeing no other way +out, recommended in 1869 and again in 1870 that the Cuban insurgents be +recognized as belligerents, but still the Senate held back. The climax came in +1873, when the Spanish authorities in Cuba captured on the high seas the +Virginius* with a filibustering expedition on board and executed fifty-three +of the crew and passengers, among them eight Americans. For a time war seemed +imminent, but Spain acted quickly and effected a peaceable settlement. + +* See "The Path of Empire", by Carl Russell Fish (in "The Chronicles of +America"), p. 119. + + +It became evident soon after 1867 that the issues involved in reconstruction +were not in themselves sufficient to hold the North solidly Republican. Toward +Negro suffrage, for example, Northern public opinion was on the whole +unfriendly. In 1867, the Negro was permitted to vote only in New York and in +New England, except in Connecticut. Before 1869, Negro suffrage was rejected +in Connecticut, Wisconsin, Kansas, Ohio, Maryland, Missouri, Michigan, and +Minnesota. The Republicans in their national platform of 1868 went only so far +as to say that, while Negro suffrage was to be forced upon the South, it must +remain a local question in the North. The Border States rapidly lined up with +the white South on matters of race, church, and politics. + +It was not until 1874, however, that the changing opinion was made generally +effective in the elections. The skillfully managed radical organization held +large majorities in every Congress from the Thirty-ninth to the Forty-third, +and the electoral votes in 1868 and 1879 seemed to show that the conservative +opposition was insignificant. But these figures do not tell the whole story. +Even in 1864, when Lincoln won by nearly half a million, the popular vote was +as eighteen to twenty-two, and four years later Grant, the most popular man in +the United States, had a majority of only three hundred thousand over Seymour, +and this majority and more came from the new Negro voters. Four years later +with about a million Negro voters available and an opposition not pleased with +its own candidate, Grant's majority reached only seven hundred thousand. At no +one time in elections did the North pronounce itself in favor of all the +reconstruction policies. The break, signs of which were visible as early as +1869, came in 1874 when the Republicans lost control of the House of +Representatives. + +Strength was given to the opposition because of the dissatisfaction with +President Grant, who knew little about politics and politicians. He felt that +his Cabinet should be made up of personal friends, not of strong advisers, and +that the military ideal of administration was the proper one. He was faithful +but undiscriminating in his friendships and frequently chose as his associates +men of vulgar tastes and low motives; and he showed a naive love of money and +an undisguised admiration for rich men such as Gould and Fisk. His appointees +were often incompetent friends or relatives, and his cynical attitude toward +civil service reform lost him the support of influential men. When forced by +party exigencies to select first-class men for his Cabinet, he still preferred +to go for advice to practical politicians. On the Southern question he easily +fell under control of the radicals, who in order to retain their influence had +only to convince his military mind that the South was again in rebellion, and +who found it easy to distract public opinion from political corruption by +"waving the bloody shirt." Dissatisfaction with his Administration, it is +true, was confined to the intellectuals, the reformers, and the Democrats, but +they were strong enough to defeat him for a second term if they could only be +organized. + +The Liberal Republican movement began in the West about 1869 with demands for +amnesty and for reform, particularly in the civil service, and it soon spread +rapidly over the North. When it became certain that the "machine" would +renominate Grant, the liberal movement became an anti-Grant party. The "New +Departure" Democrats gave comfort and prospect of aid to the Liberal +Republicans by declaring for a constructive, forward-looking policy in place +of reactionary opposition. The Liberal chiefs were led to believe that the new +Democratic leaders would accept their platform and candidates in order to +defeat Grant. The principal candidates for the Liberal Republican nomination +were Charles Francis Adams, Lyman Trumbull, Gratz Brown, David Davis, and +Horace Greeley. Adams was the strongest candidate but was jockeyed out of +place and the nomination was given to Horace Greeley, able enough as editor of +the "New York Tribune" but impossible as a candidate for the presidency. The +Democratic party accepted him as their candidate also, although he had been a +lifelong opponent of Democratic principles and policies. But disgusted +Liberals either returned to the Republican ranks or stayed away from the +polls, and many Democrats did likewise. Under these circumstances the +reelection of Grant was a foregone conclusion. There was certainly a potential +majority against Grant, but the opposition had failed to organize, while the +Republican machine was in good working order, the Negroes were voting, and the +Enforcement Acts proved a great aid to the Republicans in the Southern States. + +One good result of the growing liberal sentiment was the passage of an Amnesty +Act by Congress on May 22, 1872. By statute and by the Fourteenth Amendment, +Congress had refused to recognize the complete validity of President Johnson's +pardons and amnesty proclamations, and all Confederate leaders who wished to +regain political rights had therefore to appeal to Congress. During the +Forty-first Congress (1869-71) more than three thousand Southerners were +amnestied in order that they might hold office. These, however, were for the +most part scalawags; the most respectable whites would not seek an amnesty +which they could secure only by self-stultification.* It was the pressure of +public opinion against white disfranchisement and the necessity for meeting +the Liberal Republican arguments which caused the passage of the Act of 1872. +By this act about 150,000 whites were reenfranchised, leaving out only about +five hundred of the most prominent of the old regime, most of whom were never +restored to citizenship. Both Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis died +disfranchised. + +* The machinery of government and politics was all in radical hands--the +carpetbaggers and scalawags, who were numerous enough to fill practically all +the offices. These men were often able leaders and skillful managers, and they +did not intend to surrender control; and the black race was obedient and +furnished the votes. In 1868, with Virginia, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas +unrepresented, the first radical contingent in Congress from the South +numbered 41, of whom 10 out of 12 senators and 26 out of 32 representatives +were carpetbaggers. There were two lone conservative Congressmen. A few months +later, in 1869, there were 64 radical representatives from the South, 20 +senators and 44 members of the House of Representatives. In 1877 this number +had dwindled to two senators and four representatives. The difference between +these figures measures in some degree the extent of the undoing of +reconstruction within the period of Grant's Administration. + +How the Southern whites escaped from Negro domination has often been told and +may here be sketched only in outline. The first States regained from +radicalism were those in which the Negro population was small and the black +vote large enough to irritate but not to dominate. Although Northern +sentiment, excited by the stories of "Southern outrage," was then unfavorable, +the conservatives of the South, by organizing a "white man's party" and by the +use of Ku Klux methods, made a fight for social safety which they won nearly +everywhere, and, in addition, they gained political control of several +States--Tennessee in 1869, Virginia in 1869-1870, and North Carolina and +Georgia in 1870. They almost won Louisiana in 1868 and Alabama in 1870, but +the alarmed radicals came to the rescue of the situation with the Fifteenth +Amendment and the Enforcement Laws of 1870-1871. With more troops and a larger +number of deputy marshals, it seemed that the radicals might securely hold the +remaining states. Arrests of conservatives were numerous, plundering was at +its height, the Federal Government was interested and was friendly to the new +Southern rulers, and the carpetbaggers and scalawags feasted, troubled only by +the disposition of their Negro supporters to demand a share of the spoils. +Although the whites made little gain from 1870 to 1874, the states already +rescued became more firmly conservative; white counties here and there in the +black states voted out the radicals; a few more representatives of the whites +got into Congress; and the Border States ranged themselves more solidly with +the conservatives. + +But while the Southern whites were becoming desperate under oppression, public +opinion in the North was at last beginning to affect politics. The elections +of 1874 resulted in a Democratic landslide of which the Administration was +obliged to take notice. Grant now grew more responsive to criticism. In 1875 +he replied to a request for troops to hold down Mississippi: "The whole public +are tired out with these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South and the great +majority are ready now to condemn any interference on the part of the +Government." As soon as conditions in the South were better understood in the +North, ready sympathy and political aid were offered by many who had hitherto +acted with the radicals. The Ku Klux report as well as the newspaper writings +and the books of J. S. Pike and Charles Nordhoff, both former opponents of +slavery, opened the eyes of many to the evil results of Negro suffrage. Some +who had been considered friends of the Negro, now believing that he had proven +to be a political failure, coldly abandoned him and turned their altruistic +interests to other objects more likely to succeed. Many real friends of the +Negro were alarmed at the evils of the reconstruction and were anxious to see +the corrupt political leaders deprived of further influence over the race. To +others the constantly recurring Southern problem was growing stale, and they +desired to hear less of it. Within the Republican party in each Southern +State, there were serious divisions over the spoils. First it was carpetbagger +and Negro against the scalawag; later, when the black leaders insisted that +those who furnished the votes must have the larger share of the rewards, the +fight became triangular. As a result, by 1874 the Republican party in the +South was split into factions and was deserted by a large proportion of its +white membership. + +The conservative whites, fiercely resentful after their experiences under the +enforcement laws and hopeful of Northern sympathy, now planned a supreme +effort to regain their former power. Race lines were more strictly drawn; +ostracism of all that was radical became the rule; the Republican party in the +South, it was apparent, was doomed to be only a Negro party weighed down by +the scandal of bad government; the state treasuries were bankrupt, and there +was little further opportunity for plunder. These considerations had much to +do with the return of scalawags to the "white man's party" and the retirement +of carpetbaggers from Southern politics. There was no longer anything in it, +they said; let the Negro have it! + +It was under these conditions that the "white man's party" carried the +elections in Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas in 1874, and Mississippi in 1875. +Asserting that it was a contest between civilization and barbarism, and that +the whites under the radical regime had no opportunity to carry an election +legally, the conservatives openly made use of every method of influencing the +result that could possibly come within the radical law and they even employed +many effective methods that lay outside the law. Negroes were threatened with +discharge from employment and whites with tar and feathers if they voted the +radical ticket; there were nightriding parties, armed and drilled "white +leagues," and mysterious firing of guns and cannon at night; much plain talk +assailed the ears of the radical leaders; and several bloody outbreaks +occurred, principally in Louisiana and Mississippi. Louisiana had been carried +by the Democrats in the fall of 1872, but the radical returning board had +reversed the election. In 1874 the whites rose in rebellion and turned out +Kellogg, the usurping Governor, but President Grant intervened to restore him +to office. The "Mississippi" or "shot-gun plan"* was very generally employed, +except where the contest was likely to go in favor of the whites without the +use of undue pressure. The white leaders exercised a moderating influence, but +the average white man had determined to do away with Negro government even +though the alternative might be a return of military rule. Congress +investigated the elections in each State which overthrew the +reconstructionists, but nothing came of the inquiry and the population rapidly +settled down into good order. After 1875 only three States were left under +radical government--Louisiana and Florida, where the returning boards could +throw out any Democratic majority, and South Carolina, where the Negroes +greatly outnumbered the whites. + +* See "The New South", by Holland Thompson (in "The Chronicles of America"). + + +Reconstruction could hardly be a genuine issue in the presidential campaign of +1876, because all except these three reconstructed States had escaped from +radical control, and there was no hope and little real desire of regaining +them. It was even expected that in this year the radicals would lose Louisiana +and Florida to the "white man's party." The leaders of the best element of the +Republicans, both North and South, looked upon the reconstruction as one of +the prime causes of the moral breakdown of their party; they wanted no more of +the Southern issue but planned a forward-looking, constructive reform. + +To some of the Republican leaders, however, among whom was James G. Blame, it +was clear that the Republican party, with its unsavory record under Grant's +Administration, could hardly go before the people with a reform program. The +only possible thing to do was to revive some Civil War issue--"wave the bloody +shirt" and fan the smoldering embers of sectional feeling. Blame met with +complete success in raising the desired issue. In January 1876, when an +amnesty measure was brought before the House, he moved that Jefferson Davis be +excepted on the ground that he was responsible for the mistreatment of Union +prisoners during the war. Southern hot-bloods replied, and Blaine skillfully +led them on until they had foolishly furnished him with ample material for +campaign purposes. The feeling thus aroused was so strong that it even +galvanized into seeming life the dying interest in the wrongs of the Negro. +The rallying cry "Vote as you shot!" gave the Republicans something to fight +for; the party referred to its war record, claimed credit for preserving the +Union, emancipating the Negro, and reconstructing the South, and demanded that +the country be not "surrendered to rebel rule." + +Hayes and Tilden, the rival candidates for the presidency, were both men of +high character and of moderate views. Their nominations had been forced by the +better element of each party. Hayes, the Republican candidate, had been a good +soldier, was moderate in his views on Southern questions, and had a clean +political reputation. Tilden, his opponent, had a good record as a party man +and as a reformer, and his party needed only to attack the past record of the +Republicans. The principal Democratic weakness lay in the fact that the party +drew so much of its strength from the white South and was therefore subjected +to criticism on Civil War issues. + +The campaign was hotly contested and was conducted on a low plane. Even Hayes +soon saw that the "bloody shirt" issue was the main vote winner. The whites of +the three "unredeemed" Southern States nerved themselves for the final +struggle. In South Carolina and in some parishes of Louisiana, there was a +considerable amount of violence, in which the whites had the advantage, and +much fraud, which the Republicans, who controlled the election machinery, +turned to best account. It has been said that out of the confusion which the +Republicans created they won the presidency. + +The first election returns seemed to give Tilden the victory with 184 +undisputed electoral votes and popular majorities of ninety and over six +thousand respectively in Florida and Louisiana; only 185 votes were needed for +a choice. Hayes had 166 votes, not counting Oregon, in which one vote was in +dispute, and South Carolina, which for a time was claimed by both parties. Had +Louisiana and Florida been Northern States, there would have been no +controversy, but the Republican general headquarters knew that the Democratic +majorities in these States had to go through Republican returning boards, +which had never yet failed to throw them out. + +The interest of the nation now centered around the action of the two returning +boards. At the suggestion of President Grant, prominent Republicans went South +to witness the count. Later prominent Democrats went also. These "visiting +statesmen" were to support the frail returning boards in their duty. It was +generally understood that these boards, certainly the one in Louisiana, were +for sale, and there is little doubt that the Democrats inquired the price. But +they were afraid to bid on such uncertain quantities as Governor Wells and T. +C. Anderson of Louisiana, both notorious spoilsmen. The members of the boards +in both States soon showed the stiffening effect of the moral support of the +Federal Administration and of the "visiting statesmen." Reassured as to their +political future, they proceeded to do their duty: in Florida they threw out +votes until the ninety majority for Tilden was changed to 925 for Hayes, and +in Louisiana, by throwing out about fifteen thousand carefully selected +ballots, they changed Tilden's lowest majority of six thousand to a Hayes +majority of nearly four thousand. Naturally the Democrats sent in contesting +returns, but the presidency was really won when the Republicans secured in +Louisiana and Florida returns which were regular in form. But hoping to force +Congress to go behind the returns, the Democrats carried up contests also from +Oregon and South Carolina, whose votes properly belonged to Hayes. + +The final contest came in Congress over the counting of the electoral votes. +The Constitution provides that "the President of the Senate shall, in the +presence of the Senate and the House of Representatives, open all the +Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted." But there was no agreement +as to where authority lay for deciding disputed votes. Never before had the +presidency turned on a disputed count. From 1864 to 1874 the "twenty-second +joint rule" had been in force under which either House might reject a +certificate. The votes of Georgia in 1868 and of Louisiana in 1879 had thus +been thrown out. But the rule had not been readopted by the present Congress, +and the Republicans very naturally would not listen to a proposal to readopt +it now. + +With the country apparently on the verge of civil war, Congress finally +created by law an Electoral Commission to which were to be referred all +disputes about the counting of votes and the decision of which was to be final +unless both Houses concurred in rejecting it. The act provided that the +commission should consist of five senators, five representatives, four +designated associate justices of the Supreme Court, and a fifth associate +justice to be chosen by these four. While nothing was said in the act about +the political affiliations of the members of the commission, every one +understood that the House would select three Democrats and two Republicans, +and that the Senate would name two Democrats and three Republicans. It was +also well known that of the four justices designated two were Republicans and +two Democrats, and it was tacitly agreed that the fifth would be Justice David +Davis, an "independent." But at the last moment Davis was elected Senator by +the Illinois Legislature and declined to serve on the Commission. Justice +Bradley, a Republican, was then named as the fifth justice, and in this way +the Republicans obtained a majority on the Commission. + +The Democrats deserve the credit for the Electoral Commission. The Republicans +did not favor it, even after they were sure of a party majority on it. They +were conscious that they had a weak case, and they were afraid to trust it to +judges of the Supreme Court. Their fears were groundless, however, since all +important questions were decided by an 8 to 7 vote, Bradley voting with his +fellow Republicans. Every contested vote was given to Hayes, and with 185 +electoral votes he was declared elected on March 2, 1877. + +Ten years before, Senator Morton of Indiana had said: "I would have been in +favor of having the colored people of the South wait a few years until they +were prepared for the suffrage, until they were to some extent educated, but +the necessities of the times forbade that; the conditions of things required +that they should be brought to the polls at once." Now the condition of things +required that some arrangement be made with the Southern whites which would +involve a complete reversal of the situation of 1867. In order to secure the +unopposed succession of Hayes, to defeat filibustering which might endanger +the decision of the Electoral Commission, politicians who could speak with +authority for Hayes assured influential Southern politicians, who wanted no +more civil war but who did want home rule, that an arrangement might be made +which would be satisfactory to both sides. + +So the contest was ended. Hayes was to be President; the South, with the +Negro, was to be left to the whites; there would be no further military aid to +carpetbag governments. In so far as the South was concerned, it was a +fortunate settlement better, indeed, than if Tilden had been inducted into +office. The remnants of the reconstruction policy were surrendered by a +Republican President, the troops were soon withdrawn, and the three radical +states fell at once under the control of the whites. Hayes could not see in +his election any encouragement to adopt a vigorous radical position, and +Congress was deadlocked on party issues for fifteen years. As a result the +radical Republicans had to develop other interests, and the North gradually +accepted the Southern situation. + +Although the radical policy of reconstruction came to an end in 1877, some of +its results were more lasting. The Southern States were burdened heavily with +debt, much of which had been fraudulently incurred. There now followed a +period of adjustment, of refunding, scaling, and repudiation, which not only +injured the credit of the states but left them with enormous debts. The +Democratic party under the leadership of former Confederates began its regime +of strict economy, race fairness, and inelastic Jeffersonianism. There was a +political rest which almost amounted to stagnation and which the leaders were +unwilling to disturb by progressive measures lest a developing democracy make +trouble with the settlement of 1877. + +The undoing of reconstruction was not entirely completed with the +understanding of 1877. There remained a large but somewhat shattered +Republican party in the South, with control over county and local government +in many Negro districts. Little by little the Democrats rooted out these last +vestiges of Negro control, using all the old radical methods and some +improvements,* such as tissue ballots, the shuffling of ballot boxes, bribery, +force, and redistricting, while some regions were placed entirely under +executive control and were ruled by appointed commissions. With the good +government which followed these changes a deadlocked Congress showed no great +desire to interfere. The Supreme Court came to the aid of the Democrats with +decisions in 1875, 1882, and 1883 which drew the teeth from the Enforcement +Laws, and Congress in 1894 repealed what was left of these regulations. + +*See "The New South", by Holland Thompson (in "The Chronicles of America"). + +Under such discouraging conditions the voting strength of the Republicans +rapidly melted away. The party organization existed for the Federal offices +only and was interested in keeping down the number of those who desired to be +rewarded. As a consequence, the leaders could work in harmony with those +Democratic chiefs who were content with a "solid South" and local home rule. +The Negroes of the Black Belt, with less enthusiasm and hope, but with quite +the same docility as in 1868, began to vote as the Democratic leaders +directed. This practice brought up in another form the question of "Negro +government" and resulted in a demand from the people of the white counties +that the Negro be put entirely out of politics. The answer came between 1890 +and 1902 in the form of new and complicated election laws or new constitutions +which in various ways shut out the Negro from the polls and left the +government to the whites. Three times have the Black Belt regions dominated +the Southern States: under slavery, when the master class controlled; under +reconstruction, when the leaders of the Negroes had their own way; and after +reconstruction until Negro disfranchisement, when the Democratic dictators of +the Negro vote ruled fairly but not always acceptably to the white counties +which are now the source of their political power. + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + +The best general accounts of the reconstruction period are found in James Ford +Rhodes's "History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the +Restoration of Home Rule at the South in 1877", volumes V, VI, VII (1906); in +William A. Dunning's "Reconstruction, Political and Economic", 1865-1877, in +the "American Nation" Series, volume XXII (1907); and in Peter Joseph +Hamilton's "The Reconstruction Period" (1905), which is volume XVI of "The +History of North America", edited by F. N. Thorpe. The work of Rhodes is +spacious and fair-minded but there are serious gaps in his narrative; +Dunning's briefer account covers the entire field with masterly handling; +Hamilton's history throws new light on all subjects and is particularly useful +for an understanding of the Southern point of view. A valuable discussion of +constitutional problems is contained in William A. Dunning's "Essay on the +Civil War and Reconstruction and Related Topics" (1904); and a criticism of +the reconstruction policies from the point of view of political science and +constitutional law is to be found in J. W. Burgess's "Reconstruction and the +Constitution, 1866-1876" (1902). E. B. Andrews's "The United States in our own +Time" (1903) gives a popular treatment of the later period. A collection of +brief monographs entitled "Why the Solid South?" by Hilary A. Herbert and +others (1890) was written as a campaign document to offset the drive made by +the Republicans in 1889 for new enforcement laws. + +There are many scholarly monographs on reconstruction in the several states. +The best of these are: J. W. Garner's "Reconstruction in Mississippi" (1901), +W. L. Fleming's "Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama" (1905), J. G. deR. +Hamilton's "Reconstruction in North Carolina" (1914), W. W. Davis's "The Civil +War and Reconstruction in Florida" (1913), J. S. Reynolds's "Reconstruction in +South Carolina", 1865-1877 (1905); C. W. Ramsdell's "Reconstruction in Texas" +(1910), and C. M. Thompson's "Reconstruction in Georgia" (1915). + +Books of interest on special phases of reconstruction are not numerous, but +among those deserving mention are Paul S. Pierce's "The Freedmen's Bureau" +(1904), D. M. DeWitt's "The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson" (1903), +and Paul L. Haworth's "The Hayes-Tilden Disputed Presidential Election of +1876" (1906), each of which is a thorough study of its field. J. C. Lester and +D. L. Wilson's "Ku Klux Klan" (1905) and M. L. Avary's "Dixie After the War" +(1906) contribute much to a fair understanding of the feeling of the whites +after the Civil War; and Gideon Welles, "Diary", 3 vols. (1911), is a mine of +information from a conservative cabinet officer's point of view. + +For the politician's point of view one may go to James G. Blaine's "Twenty +Years of Congress", 2 vols. (1884, 1886) and Samuel S. Cox's "Three Decades of +Federal Legislation" (1885). Good biographies are James A. Woodburn's "The +Life of Thaddeus Stevens" (1913), Moorfield Storey's "Charles Sumner" (1900), +C. F. Adams's "Charles Francis Adams" (1900). Less satisfactory because more +partisan is Edward Stanwood's "James Gillespie Blaine" (1906). There are no +adequate biographies of the Democratic and Southern leaders. + +The official documents are found conveniently arranged in William McDonald's +"Select Statutes", 1861-1898 (1903), and also with other material in Walter L. +Fleming's "Documentary History of Reconstruction", 2 vols. (1906, 1907). The +general reader is usually repelled by the collections known as "Public +Documents". The valuable "Ku Klux Trials" (1872) is, however, separately +printed and to be found in most good libraries. By a judicious use of the +indispensable "Tables and Index to Public Documents," one can find much +vividly interesting material in connection with contested election cases and +reports of congressional investigations into conditions in the South. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Sequel of Appomattox by Walter Lynwood Fleming + diff --git a/old/sqpmx10.zip b/old/sqpmx10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b6210b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/sqpmx10.zip |