THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER TAKES CHARGE
As the year 1877 was beginning, the carpetbag governments in nine of the
Southern States had been already overthrown. In two other States were
two sets of officers, one of which represented the great mass of the
whites while the other was based upon negro suffrage and was supported
by Federal bayonets. Both sides seemed determined, and trouble was
expected. The Republican contestants in Florida had already yielded to a
decision of the Supreme Court of the State, but in South Carolina and
Louisiana the Republican claimants held on until the orders to withdraw
the troops were given in April, 1877. The withdrawal of the troops
marked the definite end of Reconstruction. The Democratic claimants then
took undisputed possession of the executive and legislative departments
of these States. The native whites were again in entire charge of all
the States which had seceded. They now had the task of rebuilding the
commonwealths shattered by war and by the aftermath of war. A new era
for the South had dawned, and here properly begins the history of the
New South.
The first and most important problem, as the white South saw it, was the
maintenance of white supremacy which had been gained with so much
difficulty. In only three States--South Carolina, Mississippi, and
Louisiana--were there negro majorities. Obviously, if the whites could
be induced or coerced to stand together, they could continue to control
the governments in eight of the seceding States. The negro population,
however, was not distributed uniformly over any of these States, so
that, no matter how great the white preponderance in the State as a
whole, there were counties or other civil divisions where negroes were
in the majority. This meant that the issue of white supremacy was
present in every State, for the negro majorities in such counties could
elect the local officers and control the local governments.
To attain a political consolidation of the white population all other
issues must be subordinated. Differences of opinion and judgment must be
held in abeyance. No question upon which white men might seriously
disagree must be placed in the party platform, if any way to avoid such
insertion could be found. If by any chance the majority adopted a course
obnoxious to the minority, the decision must be accepted loyally if not
cheerfully, and the full white vote must be cast. Objection to a
candidate or measure must not be expressed at the ballot box. Personal
ambition must be restrained, and weakness and even unfitness in a
candidate must be overlooked for the sake of white solidarity.
The task of creating a permanently solid South was not easy. The
Southerner had always been an individualist, freely exercising his right
to vote independently, engaging in sharp political contests before 1861,
and even during the War. The Confederate Congress wrangled impotently
while Grant was thundering at the gates of Richmond. So strong was the
memory of past differences, that old party designations were avoided.
The political organization to which allegiance was demanded was
generally called the Conservative party, and the Republican party was
universally called the Radical party. The term Conservative was adopted
partly as a contrast, partly because the peace party had been so called
during the War, and especially because the name Democrat was obnoxious
to so many old Whigs. It was not until 1906 that the term Conservative
was officially dropped from the title of the dominant party in Alabama.
It is not surprising that men continued to turn for leadership to those
who had led in battle and, to a less extent, to those who had taken part
in the civil government of the Confederacy. But for the humiliations of
Reconstruction, some of these men might have been discredited, but the
bitter experiences of those years had restored them to popular favor. As
the Federal soldier marched out of the public buildings everywhere, the
Confederate soldier marched in. These men had led in the contest against
the scalawags and the carpetbaggers and many had suffered thereby. Now
they came into their own. In some States the organization of voters was
almost military.
During the first years after the downfall of the Reconstruction
governments the task of consolidating the white South was measurably
achieved. As some one flippantly put the case, there came to be in many
sections "two kinds of people--Democrats and negroes." It was the
general feeling on the part of the whites that to fail to vote was
shameful, to scratch a ticket was a crime, and to attempt to organize
the negroes was treason to one's race. The "Confederate brigadier"
sounded the rallying cry at every election, and a military record came
to be almost a requisite for political preferment. Men's eyes were
turned to the past, and on every stump were recounted again and again
the horrors of Reconstruction and the valiant deeds of the Confederate
soldiers. What a candidate had done in the past in another field seemed
more important even than his actual qualifications for the office to
which he aspired. A study of the _Congressional Record_ or of lists of
state officers proves the truth of this statement. In 1882, fourteen of
the twenty-two United States Senators from the seceding States had
military records and three had been civil officers of the Confederacy.
Several States had solid delegations of ex-Confederate soldiers in both
houses. When one reads the proceedings of Congress, he finds the names
of Vance and Ransom, Hampton and Butler, Gordon and Wheeler, Harris and
Bate, Cockrell and Vest, Walthall and Colquitt, Morgan and Gibson, and
dozens of other Confederate officers.
The process of unifying the white South was not universally successful,
however. Here and there were Republican islands in a Democratic or
Conservative sea. The largest and most important exception was the
Appalachian South, divided among eight different States. It is a large
region, to this day thinly populated and lacking in means of
communication with the outside world. Though it has some bustling
cities, thriving towns, and prosperous communities, the Appalachian
South today is predominantly rural. In the 216 counties in this region
or its foothills, there were in 1910 only 43 towns with more than 2500
inhabitants.
This Appalachian region had been settled by emigrants from the lowlands.
Some of them were of the thriftless sort who were forced from the better
lands in the East by the inexorable working of economic law. By far the
greater part, however, were of the same stock as the restless pioneers
who poured over the mountains to flood the Mississippi Valley. Students
of the mountain people maintain that so small an accident as the
breaking of a linchpin fixed one family forever in a mountain cove,
while relatives went on to become the builders of new States in the
interior. Cut off from the world in these mountains, there have been
preserved to this day many of the idioms, folksongs, superstitions,
manners, customs, and habits of mind of Stuart England, as they were
brought over by the early colonists. The steep farms afforded a scanty
living, and though the cattle found luscious pasturage during the
summer, they were half starved during the winter. If by chance the
mountaineers had a surplus of any product, there was no one to whom they
might sell it. They lived almost without the convenience of coinage as a
means of exchange. Naturally in such a society there was no place for
slaves, and to this day negroes are not welcome in many mountain
counties. But though these mountain people have missed contact with the
outside world and have been deprived of the stimulus of new ideas, they
seldom give evidence of anything that can fairly be classed as
degeneracy. Ignorance, illiteracy, and suspended or arrested development
the traveler of today will find among them, and actions which will shock
his present-day standards; but these same actions would hardly have
shocked his own father's great-grandfather. These isolated mountaineers
have been aptly called "our contemporary ancestors."
The same people, it is true, had poured out of their cabins to meet
Ferguson at King's Mountain; they had followed Jackson to New Orleans
and to Florida and they had felt the influence of the wave of
nationalism which swept the country after the War of 1812. But back to
their mountains they had gone, and the great current of national
progress swept by them. The movement toward sectionalism, which
developed after the Missouri Compromise, had left them cold. So the
mountaineers held to the Union. They did not volunteer freely for the
Confederacy, and they resisted conscription. How many were enlisted in
the Union armies it is difficult to discover, certainly over 100,000. It
is not surprising, therefore, that these people became Republicans and
have so continued in their allegiance.
Another element in the population having great influence in the
South--in North Carolina, at least--was the Society of Friends. It was
strong in both the central and the eastern sections. Many, but by no
means all, of the Quakers opposed the Civil War and, after peace came,
opposed the men who had been prominent in the War, that is, the dominant
party. In spite of the social stigma attaching to Republicanism, many of
the Quakers have persisted in their membership in that party to the
present day. In all the seceding States there was a Union element in
1861, and, while most of the men composing it finally went into the War
with zeal, there were individuals who resisted stoutly During the War
they were abused without stint, but this criticism had only the effect
of making them more stubborn. They naturally became Republicans after
the War and furnished some of the votes which made Reconstruction
possible. With these may be classed the few Northern men who remained in
the South after the downfall of the Reconstruction governments.
There was another class of people in the South, some of whom had been
rabid secessionists and whose Republicanism had no other foundation than
a desire for the loaves and fishes. The salaries attached to some of the
Federal offices seemed enormous at that time and, before the prohibition
wave swept the South, there were in the revenue service thousands of
minor appointments for the faithful. These deputy marshals,
"storekeepers and gaugers," and petty postmasters attempted to keep up a
local organization. The collectors of internal revenue, United States
marshals, other officers of the Federal courts, and the postmasters in
the larger towns controlled these men and therefore the state
organizations. These Federal officials broke the unanimity of the white
South, and they were supported by thousands of negroes. Some individuals
among them were shrewd politicians, but the contest was unequal from
the beginning. On one side was intelligence, backed by loyal followers
fiercely determined to rule. On the other was a leadership on the whole
less intelligent, certainly more selfish, with followers who were
ignorant and susceptible to cajolery or intimidation.
Before the downfall of the Reconstruction governments, and in the first
few years afterward, there was much intimidation of negroes who wished
to vote. Threats of loss of employment, eviction from house or
plantation, or refusal of credit were frequent. In many sections such
measures were enough, and Democrats were ordinarily chosen at the polls.
Where the negroes were in a larger majority, stronger measures were
adopted. Around election time armed bands of whites would sometimes
patrol the roads wearing some special badge or garment. Men would gallop
past the houses of negroes at night, firing guns or pistols into the air
and occasionally into the roofs of the houses. Negroes talking politics
were occasionally visited and warned--sometimes with physical
violence--to keep silent. On election day determined men with rifles or
shotguns, ostensibly intending to go hunting after they had voted,
gathered around the polls. An occasional random shot might kick up the
dust near an approaching negro. Men actually or apparently the worse for
liquor might stagger around, seeking an excuse for a fight. It is not
surprising that among the negroes the impression that it was unwise to
attempt to vote gained ground.
Less crude but no less effective methods were employed later. As
candidates or party organizations furnished the ballots, the "tissue
ballot" came into use. Half a dozen of these might easily be dropped
into the box at one time. If the surplus ballots were withdrawn by a
blindfolded official, the difference in length or in the texture or
quality of the ballot made possible the withdrawal of an undue
proportion of Republican votes. Usually separate boxes were supplied for
different sets of officers, and it was often provided that a ballot in
the wrong box was void. An occasional intentional shifting of boxes thus
caused many illiterate negroes to throw away their votes. This scheme
reached its climax in the "eight box law" of South Carolina which made
illiterate voting ineffective without aid. Immediately after any
literate Republican, white or black, left the polling place the boxes
were shifted, and the illiterates whose tickets he had carefully
arranged deposited their ballots in the wrong boxes. White boys of
eighteen, if well grown, sometimes voted, while a young negro unable to
produce any evidence of his age had difficulty in proving the attainment
of his majority. In some precincts illiterate Republicans were appointed
officers of elections, and then the vote was juggled shamelessly. A
study of election returns of some counties of the black belt shows
occasional Democratic majorities greater than the total white
population. The same tricks which were so long practiced in New York and
Philadelphia were successful in the South.
Conditions such as these were not prevalent over the entire South. In a
large proportion of the voting precincts elections were as fair as
anywhere in the United States; but it may be safely said that in few
counties where the negroes approached or exceeded fifty per cent of the
total population were elections conducted with anything more than a
semblance of fairness. Yet in some sections the odds were too great, or
else the whites lacked the resolution to carry out such extensive
informal disfranchisement. For years North and South Carolina each sent
at least one negro member to the House of Representatives and, but for
flagrant gerrymandering, might have sent more. Indeed negro prosecuting
attorneys were not unknown, and many of the black counties had negro
officers. Some States, such as North Carolina, gave up local
self-government almost entirely. The Legislature appointed the justices
of the peace in every county, and these elected both the commissioners
who controlled the finances of the county and also the board of
education which appointed the school committeemen. Judges were elected
by the State as a whole and held courts in all the counties in turn. To
this day, a Superior Court judge sits only six months in one district
and then moves on to another. Other States gave up local government to a
greater or less extent, while still others sought to lessen the negro
vote by strict registration laws and by the imposition of poll taxes.
In many sections the negro ceased to make any attempt to vote, and the
Republican organization became a skeleton, if indeed it continued at
all. There was always the possibility of a revival, however, and after
1876 the North often threatened Federal control of elections. The
possibility of negro rule was therefore only suspended and not
destroyed; it might at any time be restored by force. The possibility of
the negro's holding the balance of power seemed dangerous and ultimately
led to attempts to disfranchise him by law, which will be considered in
another chapter.
The relation of the races was not the only question which confronted the
whites when they regained control of the state governments. The problem
of finance was equally fundamental. The increase in the total debt of
the seceding States had been enormous. The difference between the debts
of these States (excluding Texas) in 1860 and in the year in which they
became most involved was nearly $135,000,000.[1] In proportion to the
total wealth of these States, this debt was extremely high.
[Footnote 1: See W.A. Scott, _The Repudiation of State Debts_, p. 276.
Texas had practically no debt when it passed under Reconstruction
government, but added $4,500,000 in the period. The total increase in
the debt of all these Southern States was then nearly $140,000,000.]
Not all of this increase was due to carpetbag government. While, of
course, the debts incurred for military purposes had been repudiated in
accordance with the Fourteenth Amendment, several of the States had
issued bonds for other purposes during the War or immediately afterwards
before the advent of the Reconstruction governments. There were other
millions of unpaid interest on all varieties of debts incurred before or
after 1860. The Reconstruction debts had been incurred for various
purposes, but bonds issued ostensibly to aid in building railroads,
canals, or levees made up the greater part of the total. These bonds,
however, had been sold at a large discount, and only a small part of the
money realized was applied to actual construction.
Some of the States had escaped almost entirely any considerable increase
of debt; others were burdened far beyond their ability to pay,
especially as property valuations had declined nearly one-half.
The wholesale repudiation of their debts injured the credit of all the
Southern States, and they have been loudly denounced for their action.
Their spokesmen have justified their procedure in regard to the bonds
issued by the carpetbag legislatures on the ground that they were voted
by venal governments imposed by military force; that many of the bonds
were fraudulent on their face; and that those who purchased them at a
great discount were simply gambling upon the chance that the governments
issuing them would endure; that the greater part of these bonds were
stolen by the officers; and that little or no benefit came to the State.
Not all of the bonds which were repudiated or scaled down, however,
belonged to this class. Many were undoubtedly valid obligations on the
part of the States. The repudiation of these bonds was excused on the
ground that they were generally issued to aid railroads which had been
practically seized by the Confederate or the United States governments
and had been worn out for their benefit; that interest could not be paid
during the war; and that war and the Reconstruction Acts had so reduced
property values that payment of the full amount was impossible. The last
reason is true of some States, though not of all. The prompt payment of
interest on the reduced indebtedness has done much to restore the credit
of the South, and the bonds of some States now sell above par.
Extravagance had helped to overthrow the carpetbag régime. The new
governments were necessarily forced to be economical. Expenditures of
all kinds were lessened. Government was reduced to its lowest terms, and
the salaries of state officers were fixed at ridiculously small figures.
Inadequate school taxes were levied; the asylums for the insane, though
kept alive, could not take care of all who should have been admitted;
appropriations for higher education, if made at all, were small; there
was little or no social legislation. The politicians taught the people
that low taxes were the greatest possible good and, when prosperity
began to return and a heavier burden of taxation might easily have been
borne, the belief that the efficiency of a government was measured by
its parsimony had become a fixed idea. There was little scandal
anywhere. No governments in American history have been conducted with
more economy and more fidelity than the governments of the Southern
States during the first years after the Reconstruction period. A few
treasurers defaulted, but in most cases their difficulties rose from
financial incompetence rather than from dishonesty, for a good soldier
did not necessarily make a good treasurer. Few fortunes were founded on
state contracts. The public buildings erected were honestly built and
were often completed within the limits of the original appropriations.
So small an amount was allowed that there would have been little to
steal, even had the inclination been present.
The decline in the prices of agricultural products after 1875 made
living harder. The Greenback agitation[1] found some followers, and in a
few scattered rural districts Greenbackers or Greenback Democrats were
nominated. In a few districts the white men ventured to run two tickets,
and in a few cases the Greenback candidate won. This activity was a
precursor of the agrarian revolt which later divided the South. There were
also some Republican tickets with qualifying words intended to catch votes,
but they had little success. Some strong men were sent to Congress, a very
large proportion of whom had seen service in the Confederate army. Their
presence aroused many sneers at "rebel brigadiers" and an immense amount
of "bloody shirt" oratory. They accomplished little for their section or
for the nation, as they were always on the defensive and could hardly
have been expected to have any consuming love for the Union, in which
they had been kept by force. They were frequently taunted in debate in
the hope that indiscreet answers would furnish campaign material for use
in the North. Sometimes they failed to control their tempers and their
tongues and played into the hands of their opponents. They advocated no
great reforms and showed little political vision. They clung to the
time-honored doctrines of the Democratic party--tariff for revenue only,
opposition to sumptuary laws, economy in expenditures, and abolition of
the internal revenue taxes--and they made ponderous speeches upon the
Constitution, "viewing with alarm" the encroachments of the Federal
Government upon the sphere of action marked out for the States.
[Footnote 1: See _The Agrarian Crusade_, by Solon J. Buck (in _The
Chronicles of America_).]
Partly because of constitutional objections, partly because of fear of
Federal supervision of the administration of the measure, a majority of
the Southern representatives opposed the Blair Bill, which might have
hastened the progress of their section. This measure, now almost
forgotten, was much discussed between 1882 and 1890 when it was finally
shelved. It provided for national aid to education out of the surplus
revenues of the Federal Government, the distribution to be made in
proportion to illiteracy. Though the South would have received a large
share of this money, which it sorely needed for education, the
experience of the South with Federal supervision had not been pleasant,
and many feared that the measure might result in another Freedmen's
Bureau.[1] Not all Southerners, however, were opposed to the project.
Dr. J.L.M. Curry, agent of the Peabody Fund, did valiant service for the
bill, and some members of Congress were strong advocates of the measure.
Today we see a measure for national aid to education fathered by
Southerners and almost unanimously supported by their colleagues.
[Footnote 1: See _The Sequel of Appomattox_, by Walter Lynwood Fleming
(in _The Chronicles of America_).]
Though rotation in office was the rule in the representation in the
House, the policy of reelecting Senators was generally followed, and
some of them served long periods. Looking upon themselves as ambassadors
of their States to an unfriendly court, they were always dignified and
often austere. As time went on, their honesty, old-fashioned courtesy,
and amiable social qualities gained for many the respect and
affectionate esteem of their Northern colleagues. Many strong
friendships sprang up, and through these personal relationships
occasional bits of patronage and items of legislation were granted.
Often, it is said, politicians who were accustomed to assail one another
in public sought each other's society and were the best of friends in
private. These Southern men were almost invariably a frugal lot who
lived from necessity within their salaries and used no questionable
means of increasing their incomes.
The election of Cleveland in 1884 gave to the South its first real
participation in national affairs for a quarter of a century. Thomas F.
Bayard of Delaware, L.Q.C. Lamar of Mississippi, and A.H. Garland of
Arkansas were chosen for the Cabinet, from which the scholarly Lamar was
transferred to the Supreme Court. John G. Carlisle of Kentucky was Speaker,
and Roger Q. Mills of Texas became Chairman of the Ways and Means
Committee of the House to succeed William R. Morrison. A fair share, if not
more, of the more important diplomatic, consular, and administrative
appointments went to Southerners. The South began to feel that it was again
a part of the Union. However, though Cleveland had shown his friendliness
to their section, the Southern politicians, usually intensely partisan,
could not appreciate the President's attitude toward the civil service and
other questions, and his bluntness offended many of them. They followed him
on the tariff but opposed him on most other questions, for his theory of
Democracy and theirs diverged, and his kindly attitude was later repaid
with ingratitude.
During the period in which the "rebel brigadiers" had controlled their
States a new generation had arisen which began to make itself felt
between 1885 and 1890. The Grange had tried to teach the farmers to
think of themselves as a class, and the skilled workmen in a few
occupations, in the border States particularly, had been organized. The
Greenback craze had created a distrust of the capitalists of the East.
The fear of negro domination was no longer so overmastering, and the
natural ambition of the younger men began to show itself in factional
contests. Younger men were coveting the places held by the old
war-horses and were beginning to talk of cliques and rings. The Farmers'
Alliance was spreading like wildfire, and its members were expounding
doctrines which seemed rank treason to the elderly gentlemen whose
influence had once been so potent. It is now clear that their fall from
power was inevitable, though they refused to believe it possible.