BATTLE FOR THE STATE-HOUSE
South Carolina's first Governor under her second reconstruction was
General R. K. Scott, of Ohio, ex-Freedmen's Bureau Chief. His successor
was Franklin J. Moses, Jr., scalawag, licentiate and débauché, four years
Speaker of the House, the "Robber Governor." Moses' successor was D. H.
Chamberlain, a cultivated New Englander, who began his public career as
Governor Scott's Attorney General. A feature of the Scott-Moses
administration was a black army 96,000 strong, enrollment and equipment
alone costing over a half-million dollars, $10,000 of which, on Moses'
admission, went into his own pocket as commission on purchases. The
State's few white companies were ordered to surrender arms and disband.
The State House was refurnished on this scale: $5 clocks were replaced by
$600 ones; $4 looking-glasses by $600 mirrors; $2 window curtains by $600
to $1,500 ones; $4 benches by $200 sofas; $1 chairs by $60 chairs; $4
tables by $80 tables; $10 desks, $175 desks; forty-cent spittoons, $14
cuspidors, etc. Chandeliers cost $1,500 to $2,500 each. Each legislator
was provided with Webster's Unabridged, a $25 calendar ink-stand, $10 gold
pen; railroad passes and free use of the Western Union Telegraph were
perquisites. As "Committee Rooms," forty bed-rooms were furnished each
session; legislators going home, carried the furniture. At restaurant and
bar, open day and night in the State House, legislators refreshed
themselves and friends at State expense with delicacies, wines, liquors,
cigars, stuffing pockets with the last. Orders for outside entertainments,
given through bar and restaurant, were paid by the State. An incident of
Radical rule: "Hell Hole Swamp," purchased by the Benevolent Land
Commission as site for homes for homeless negroes. Another: Moses lost
$1,000 on a horse race; next day the House of Representatives voted him
$1,000 as "gratuity." The order on the Treasurer, signed by Moses as
Speaker, to pay this "gratuity" to Moses is on file in Columbia.
Bills made by officials and legislators and paid by the State, reveal a
queer medley! Costly liquors, wines, cigars, baskets of champagne, hams,
oysters, rice, flour, lard, coffee, tea, sugar, suspenders, linen-bosom
shirts, cravats, collars, gloves (masculine and feminine, by the box),
perfumes, bustles, corsets, palpitators, embroidered flannel, ginghams,
silks, velvets, stockings, chignons, chemises, gowns, garters, fans, gold
watches and chains, diamond finger-rings and ear-rings, Russia-leather
work-boxes, hats, bonnets; in short, every article that can be worn by
man, woman or infant; every article of furniture and house furnishing from
a full parlour-set to a baby's swinging cradle; not omitting a $100
metallic coffin.
Penitentiary bills display in abundant quantities fine liquors, wines,
delicacies and plain provisions; yet convicts nearly starved; bills for
the coloured Orphan Asylum, under coloured General Senator Beverly Nash's
direction, show silks, satins, corsets, kid gloves, all manners of
delicacies and substantials for the table, yet it came out that orphans
got at "breakfast, hominy, mackerel and bean coffee--no milk. At dinner, a
little bacon or beef, cornbread and hominy, sometimes a little baker's
bread; at supper, a slice of baker's bread and black molasses, each
child dipping a slice into a saucer passed around." The State-paid
gardener worked Senator Nash's garden; coal and wood bought "for the
Asylum" was delivered at Senator Nash's; ditto lumber and other supplies.
The matron sold dry goods and groceries. I have mentioned trifles. For big
"steals" and "hauls," Railroads, Bond and Printing Ring swindles, consult
the Fraud Reports.
[Illustration: RADICAL MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
These are the photographs of sixty-three members of the "reconstructed"
Legislature of South Carolina. Fifty of them were Negroes or Mulattos;
thirteen were white men. Of the twenty-two among them who could read and
write only eight used the vernacular grammatically. Forty-one made their
mark with the help of an amanuensis. Nineteen were taxpayers to an
aggregate of $146.10. The other forty-four paid no taxes, and yet this
body was empowered to levy on the white people of the state taxes
amounting to $4,000,000.]
The State University was negroised, adult white and black men
matriculating for the express purpose; its scholastic standard was reduced
below that of an academy. Attempt to negroise the Deaf and Dumb Asylum
closed it. At the Insane Asylum the tact and humanity of Dr. J. F. Ensor,
Superintendent, made the situation possible to whites.[23]
South Carolinians beheld Franklin J. Moses, Jr., owner of the beautiful
and historic Hampton-Preston home; at receptions and fêtes the carriages
of a ring-streaked, striped and speckled host rolled up gaily to ancient
gateways hitherto bars exclusive to all that was not aristocratic and
refined. One-time serving-maids sat around little tables under the
venerable trees and luxuriant vines and sipped wine in state. A Columbian
tells me she used to receive a condescending bow from her whilom maid
driving by in a fine landau. Another maid, driving in state past her
ex-mistress's door, turned her head in shame and confusion. One maid
visited her ex-mistress regularly, leaving her carriage a square or two
off; was her old, respectful, affectionate self, and said these hours were
her happiest. "I'se jes myse'f den." A citizen, wishing to aid his butler,
secured letters of influence for him and sent him among rulers of the
land. George returned: "Marster, I have associated with gentlemen all my
life. I can't keep comp'ny with these folks. I'd rather stay with you, I
don' care how poor we are."
One night when Rev. William Martin's family were asleep, there came a
knocking at the door. Miss Isabella Martin answered. Maum Letty stood
outside weeping: "Miss Isabella, Robert's (her son) been killed. He went
to a party at General Nash's an' dee all got to fightin'. I come to ax you
to let me bring 'im here." Permission was given. A stream of negroes
flowed in and out of the basement rooms where the dead was laid. And it
was, "The General says this," "The General says that." Presently the
General came. "Good morning, Beverly," said Miss Martin. "Good morning,
Miss Isabella;" he had been a butler and had nice manners. "This is a sad
business, Beverly." "Yes, Miss Isabella. It happened at my house, but I am
not responsible. There was a party there; all got to fighting--you know
how coloured people will do--and this happened." It is law for the coroner
to see a corpse, where death has occurred from violence, before any
removal or change is made. The coroner did not see Robert until noon.
General Nash had gotten the body out of his house quickly as possible.
Belles of Columbia were Misses Rollins, mulattoes or quadroons. Their
drawing-room was called "Republican Headquarters." Thick carpets covered
floors; handsome cabinets held costly bric-a-brac; a $1,000 piano stood in
a corner; legislative documents bound in morocco reposed with big albums
on expensive tables. Jewelers' and other shops poured treasures at Misses
Rollins' feet. In their salon, mingling white and dusky statesmen wove the
destinies of the old Commonwealth. Coloured courtezans swept into
furniture emporiums, silk trains rustling in their wake, and gave orders
for "committee rooms"; rode in fine carriages through the streets,
stopped in front of this or that store; bareheaded white salesmen ran out
to show goods or jewels. Judge M. (who went over to the Radicals for the
loaves and fishes and ever afterward despised himself) was in Washington
with a Black and Tan Committee, got drunk, and for a joke took a yellow
demi-mondaine, a State official's wife, on his arm and carried her up to
President and Mrs. Grant and introduced her at a Presidential reception.
Black Speaker Elliott said ("Cincinnati Commercial," Sept. 6, 1876): "If
Chamberlain is nominated, I shall vote for Hampton." A member of the
Chamberlain Legislature tells me this is how the Chamberlain-Elliot split
began. Mrs. Chamberlain was a beautiful woman, a perfect type of
high-born, high-bred, Anglo-Saxon loveliness, noble in bearing, lily-like
in fairness. She brought a Northern Governor, his wife, and other guests
to the State House. They were standing near my informant in the "white
part" of the House, when Elliott, black, thick-lipped, sprang down from
the Speaker's chair, came forward and asked a gentleman in attendance for
introduction. This gentleman spoke to Alice Chamberlain. The lily-white
lady lifted her eyes toward Elliott, shivered slightly, and said: "No!"
Elliott did not forgive that.
If the incident were not on good authority, I should doubt it. At
Chamberlain's receptions, the black and tan tide poured in and out of his
doors; he entertained black legislators, and presumably Elliott, at
dinners and suppers. But all men knew Chamberlain's rôle was repugnant to
him and his exquisite wife. What she suffered during the hours of his
political successes, who can tell? Tradition says she was cut to the quick
when a black minister was called in by her husband to perform the last
rites of the church over her child. Any white clergyman of the city would
have responded on call. There were many to say Chamberlain turned to
political account even so sacred a thing. Others to say that if white
ministers had shown him scant attention he was right not to call upon
them. And yet I cannot blame the white clergy for having stood aloof,
courting no favours, of the foreigner who fraternised with and was one of
the leaders of the State's spoilers, whether he was a spoiler himself or
no.
Governor Chamberlain was fitted for a better part than he had to play; he
won sympathy and admiration of many good citizens. He was a gentleman; he
desired to ally himself with gentlemen; and the connections into which
ambition and the times forced him was one of the social tragedies of the
period. He began his administration denouncing corruption within his own
party and promising reforms. At first, he investigated and quieted race
troubles, disbanding negro militia, and putting a stop to the drilling of
negroes. He bestowed caustic criticisms on "negrophilists," which Elliott
brought against him later. He was at war with his legislature; when that
body elected W. J. Whipper, an ignorant negro gambler, and ex-Governor
Moses to high judicial positions, he refused to commission them.
Of that election he wrote General Grant: "It sends a thrill of horror
through the State. It compels men of all parties who respect decency,
virtue, or civilisation, to utter their loudest protests." He prophesied
immediate "reorganization of the Democratic Party as the only means left,
in the judgment of its members, for opposing solid and reliable front to
this terrible _crevasse_ of misgovernment and public debauchery." There
was then no Democratic party within the State; Democrats had been
combining with better-class Republicans in compromise tickets. To an
invitation from the New England Society of Charleston, to address them on
"Forefathers' Day," he said: "If there was ever an hour when the spirit of
the Puritans, the spirit of undying, unconquerable enmity and defiance to
wrong ought to animate their sons, it is this hour, here, in South
Carolina. The civilisation of the Puritan and the Cavalier, the Roundhead
and the Huguenot, is in peril."
A new campaign was at hand. Chamberlain's name was heard as leader of a
new compromise ticket. He had performed services that seemed inspired by
genuine regard for the old State and pride in her history. He was
instrumental in having the Washington Light Infantry, of Charleston, at
Bunker Hill Centennial, and bringing the Old Guard, of New York, and the
Boston Light Infantry to Fort Moultrie's Centennial, when he presented a
flag to the Washington Light Infantry and made a speech that pleased
Carolinians mightily. He and Hampton spoke from the same platform and sat
at the same banquet. He was alive to South Carolina's interest at the
Centennial in Philadelphia. The State began to honour him in invitations
to make addresses at college commencements and on other public occasions.
A Democratic Convention in May came near nominating him. Another met in
August. Between these he shook confidence in his sincerity. Yet men from
the low country said: "Let's nominate him. He has tried to give honest
government." Men from the up country: "He can not rule his party, his
party may rule him." Men from the low country: "We cannot elect a straight
ticket." Men from the up country: "We have voted compromise tickets the
last time. We are not going to the polls unless we have a straight, clean
white ticket." They sent for Hampton and nominated him. His campaign reads
like a tale of the old Crusades. To his side came his men of war, General
Butler, General Gary and Colonel Haskell. At his name the people lifted up
their hearts in hope.
Governor Chamberlain had denounced the rascalities of Elliott, Whipper's
election in the list. He was nominated by the Blacks and Tans, on a ticket
with R. H. Cleaves, mulatto; F. L. Cardoza, mulatto; Attorney General R.
B. Elliott, black, etc. He walked into the convention arm in arm with
Elliott. Soon he was calling for Federal troops to control elections,
charging all racial disorders to whites; ruling harsh judgments against
Red Shirts and Rifle Clubs; classing the Washington Light Infantry among
disorderly bodies, though he had been worthily proud of this company when
it held the place of honour in the Bunker Hill parade and, cheered to the
echo, marched through Boston, carrying the battle-flag of Colonel William
Washington of the Revolution.
That was a picturesque campaign, when every county had its "Hampton Day,"
and the Red Shirts rode, and ladies and children raised arches of bloom
and scattered flowers in front of the old cavalry captain's curvetting
steed. Barbecues were spread for coloured brethren, and engaging speakers
tried to amuse, instruct and interest them.
The Red Shirts, like the Ku Klux, sprang into existence almost as by
accident. General Hampton was to speak at Anderson. The Saturday before
Colonel R. W. Simpson proposed to the Pendleton Club the adoption of a
badge, suggesting a red shirt as cheap and conspicuous. Pickens men caught
up the idea. Red store supplies ran out and another club donned white
ones. The three clubs numbered a body of three hundred or more stalwart,
fine-looking men of the hill-country, who had nearly all seen service on
battlefields, and who rode like centaurs. Preceded by the Pendleton Brass
Band, they made an imposing procession at the Fair Grounds on the day of
the speaking, and were greeted with ringing cheers. The band-wagon was
red; red flags floated from it and from the heads of four horses in red
trappings; the musicians wore red garments; instruments were wrapped in
red. The effect was electrical. In marching and countermarching military
tactics were employed with the effect of magnifying numbers to the eyes of
the negroes, who had had no idea that so many white men were alive.
The red shirt uniform idea spread; a great red-shirted army sprang into
existence and was on hand at public meetings to see that speakers of the
White Man's Party had equal hearing with the Black Republicans. The Red
Shirts rode openly by day and by night, and where they wound their scarlet
ways women and children felt new sense of security. Many under its
protection were negroes. Hampton strove hard to win the negro vote. He had
been one of the first after the war to urge qualified suffrage for them.
In public speeches he declared that, if elected, he would be "the governor
of all the people of South Carolina, white and black." He got a large
black vote. Years after, when he lay dying, friends bending to catch his
last words, heard him murmur: "God bless my people, white and black!"
Mrs. Henry Martin tells me of some fearful days following the pleasant
ones when her father, Professor Holmes, entertained the Old Guard in his
garden among the roses and oleanders. "One night, my brother, after seeing
a young lady home from a party, was returning along King Street with Mr.
Evaugh, when they encountered a crowd of negro rowdies and ran into a
store and under a counter. The negroes threw cobble-stones--the street was
in process of paving--on them. My brother was brought home in a wagon.
When our mother removed his shirt, the skin came wholly from his back with
it; he lived several years, but never fully recovered from his injuries.
My father cautioned us to stoop and crawl in passing the window on the
stairway to his room. In other houses, people were stooping and crawling
as they passed windows; a shadow on a curtain was a target for a rock or a
bullet. Black women were in arms, carrying axes or hatchets in their hands
hanging down at their sides, their aprons or dresses half-concealing the
weapons." "There are 80,000 black men in the State who can use Winchesters
and 200,000 black women who can light a torch and use a knife," said
"Daddy Cain," ex-Congressman and candidate for reëlection, in his paper,
"The Missionary Record," July, 1876, and in addressing a large negro
gathering, when Rev. Mr. Adams said, "Amen!"
Northern papers were full of the Hamburg and Ellenton riots, some blaming
whites, some blacks, some distributing blame impartially. Facts at Cainhoy
blazed out the truth about that place, at least. The whites, unarmed
except for pistols which everybody carried then, were holding peaceable
meeting when fired into from ambush by negroes with muskets, who chased
them, continuing to fire. A youth of eighteen fell, with thirty-three
buckshot in him; another, dying, wrote his mother that he had been giving
no trouble. A carpenter and a shoemaker from Massachusetts, and an aged
crippled gentleman were victims.
"Kill them! Kill them all! Dis town is ours!" Old Charlestonians recall
hearing a hoarse cry like this from negro throats (Sept. 6, 1876), recall
seeing Mr. Milton Buckner killed while trying to protect negroes from
negroes. They recall another night of unforgettable horror, when stillness
was almost as awful as tumult; frightened blacks were in-doors, but how
long would they remain so? Rifle Clubs were protecting a meeting of black
Democrats. Not a footfall was heard on the streets; not a sound broke the
stillness save the chiming of St. Michael's bells. Women and children and
old men listened for the alarm that might ring out any moment that the
negroes had risen _en masse_ for slaughter. They thanked God when
presently a sound of careless footsteps, of talk and laughter, broke upon
the night; the Rifle Club men were returning in peace to their firesides.
General Hunt, U. S. A., reported on the Charleston riot, November, 1876,
when white men, going quietly to places of business, were molested by
blacks, and young Ellicott Walker was killed. The morning after the
election General Hunt "walked through the city and saw numbers of negroes
assembled at corners of Meeting and Broad Streets," and was convinced
there would be trouble, "though there was nothing in the manner of the
whites gathered about the bulletin board to provoke it." Surgeon De Witt,
U. S. A., told him "things looked bad on King and other streets where
negroes insisted on pushing ladies off the sidewalks."
When Walker was killed, and the real trouble began, General Hunt hurried
to the Station House; the Marshal asked him for assistance; reports came
in that negroes were tearing up trees and fences, assailing whites, and
demanding arms of the police. General Hunt found at the Station House "a
number of gentlemen, young and old," who offered aid. Marshal Wallace
said, "But these are seditious Rifle Clubs." Said General Hunt, "They are
gentlemen whom I can trust and I am glad to have them." Pending arrival of
his troops, he placed them at the Marshal's disposal. The general relates:
"They fell in with his forces; as I was giving instructions, he
interposed, saying the matter was in his hands. He then started off. I
heard that police were firing upon and bayonetting quiet white people. My
troops arrived and additional white armed citizens. One of the civil
authorities said it was essential the latter be sent home. I declined
sending these armed men on the streets, and directed them to take position
behind my troops and remain there, which direction they obeyed
implicitly."
With the Mayor and other Radical leaders General Hunt held conference; the
negro police was aggravating the trouble, he proposed that his troops
patrol streets; the mayor objected. "Why cannot the negroes be prevailed
upon to go quietly home?" the General asked. "A negro has as much right to
be on the streets armed as a white man." "But I am not here to discuss
abstract rights. A bloody encounter is imminent. These negroes can be sent
home without difficulty by you, their leaders." "You should be able to
guarantee whites against the negroes, if you can guarantee negroes against
the whites." "The cases are different. I have no control over the blacks
through their reason or intelligence. They have been taught that a
Democratic victory will remand them to slavery. Their excited fears,
however unfounded, are beyond my control. You, their leaders, can quiet
and send them home. The city's safety is at stake." The Mayor said he must
direct General Hunt's troops; Hunt said he was in command. The Mayor wired
Chamberlain to disband the Rifle Clubs "which were causing all the
mischief." Hunt soon received orders to report at Washington.
"Hampton is elected!" the people rejoiced. "Chamberlain is elected!" the
Radicals cried, and disputed returns. The Radical Returning Board threw
out the Democratic vote in Laurens and Edgefield and made the House
Radical. The State Supreme Court (Republican) ordered the Board to issue
certificates to the Democratic members from these counties. The Board
refused; the Court threw the Board in jail; the United States Court
released the Board. The Supreme Court issued certificates to these
members. November 28, 1876, Democrats organised in Carolina Hall, W. H.
Wallace, Speaker; Radicals in the State House, with E. W. Mackey, Speaker,
and counting in eight Radical members from Laurens and Edgefield. The
Democratic House sent a message to the Radical Senate in the State House
that it was ready for business. Senate took no notice. On Chamberlain's
call upon President Grant, General Ruger was in Columbia with a Federal
regiment.
[Illustration: THE SOUTHERN CROSS
General Hampton, while Governor, built this, his residence, with his own
hands and with the assistance of his faithful negroes. The men in the
picture, from left to right, are: Hon. LeRoy F. Youmans, General Hampton,
Judge McIver, Hon. Joseph D. Pope, General James McGowan.
Photograph by Reckling & Sons, Columbia, S. C.]
November 29, the Wallace House marched to the State House, members from
Edgefield and Laurens in front. A closed door, guarded by United States
troops, confronted them. J. C. Sheppard, Edgefield, began to read from the
State House steps a protest, addressed to the crowd around the building
and to the Nation. The Radicals, fearful of its effect, gave hurried
consent to admission. Each representative was asked for his pistol and
handed it over. At the Hall of Representatives, another closed and guarded
door confronted them. They saw that they had been tricked and quietly
returned to Carolina Hall.
The people were deeply incensed. General Hampton was in town, doing his
mightiest to keep popular indignation in bounds. He held public
correspondence with General Ruger, who did not relish the charge that he
was excluding the State's representatives from the State House and
promised that the Wallace House should not be barred from the outer door,
over which he had control. But its members knew they took their lives in
their hands when they started for the Hall. A committee or advance guard
of seven passed Ruger's guard at the outer door. Col. W. S. Simpson (now
President of the Board of Directors of Clemson College), who was one of
the seven, tells me:
"On the first floor was drawn up a regiment of United States troops with
fixed bayonets; all outside doors were guarded by troops. Upstairs in the
large lobby was a crowd of negro roughs. Committee-rooms were filled with
Chamberlain's State constables. General Dennis, from New Orleans, a
character of unsavoury note, with a small army of assistants, was
Doorkeeper of the Hall. Within the Hall, the Mackey House, with one
hundred or more sergeants-at-arms, was assembled, waiting Mackey's arrival
to go into session." The seven dashed upstairs and for the door of the
Hall. The doorkeepers, lolling in the lobby, rushed between them and the
door and formed in line; committee presented certificates; doorkeepers
refused to open the door.
"Come, men, let's get at it!" cried Col. Alex. Haskell, seizing the
doorkeeper in front of him. Each man followed his example; a struggle
began; the door parted in the middle; Col. Simpson, third to slip through,
describes the Mackey House, "negroes chiefly, every man on his feet,
staring at us with eyes big as saucers, mouths open, and nearly scared to
death." Meanwhile, the door, lifted off its hinges, fell with a crash. The
full Democratic House marched in, headed by Speaker Wallace, who took
possession of the Speaker's chair. Members of his House took seats on the
right of the aisle, negroes giving way and taking seats on the left.
Speaker Wallace raised the gavel and called the House to order. Speaker
Mackey entered, marched up and ordered Speaker Wallace to vacate the
chair. Speaker Wallace directed his sergeant-at-arms to escort Mr. Mackey
to the floor where he belonged. Speaker Mackey directed his
sergeant-at-arms to perform that office for General Wallace. Each
sergeant-at-arms made feints. Speaker Mackey took another chair on the
stand and called the House to order. There was bedlam, with two Speakers,
two clerks, two legislative bodies, trying to conduct business
simultaneously! The "lockout" lasted four days and nights. Democrats were
practically prisoners, daring not go out, lest they might not get in.
Radicals stayed in with them, individual members coming and going as they
listed, a few at a time.
The first day, Democrats had no dinner or supper; no fire on their side of
the House, and the weather bitterly cold. Through nights, negroes sang,
danced and kept up wild junketings. The third night Democrats received
blankets through windows; meals came thus from friends outside; and fruit,
of which they made pyramids on their desks. Two negroes came over from the
Mackey side; converts were welcomed joyously, and apples, oranges and
bananas divided. The opposition was enraged at defection; shouting,
yelling and rowdyism broke out anew. Both sides were armed. The House on
the left and the House on the right were constantly springing to their
feet, glaring at each other, hands on pistols. Wallace sat in his place,
calm and undismayed; Mackey in his, brave enough to compel admiration;
more than once he ran over to the Speaker's stand, next to the Democratic
side, and held down his head to receive bullets he was sure were coming.
Yet between these armed camps, small human kindnesses and courtesies went
on; and they joined in laughter at the comedy of their positions. Between
Speakers, though, there was war to the knife, there was also common bond
of misery.
The third afternoon Democrats learned that their massacre was planned for
that night. Negro roughs were congregating in the building; the Hunkidory
Club, a noted gang of black desperadoes, were coming up from Charleston. A
body of assassins were to be introduced into the gallery overlooking the
floor of the Hall; here, even a small band could make short work its own
way of any differences below. Chamberlain informed Mackey; Mackey informed
Wallace. Hampton learned of the conspiracy through Ruger; he said: "If
such a thing is carried out, I cannot insure the safety of your command,
nor the life of a negro in the State." The city seethed with repressed
anxiety and excitement. Telegrams and runners were sent out; streets
filled with newcomers, some in red shirts, some in old Confederate
uniforms with trousers stuffed in boots, canteens slung over shoulders.
Hampton's soldiers had come.
Twenty young men of Columbia contrived, through General Ruger, it is said,
to get into the gallery, thirty into the Hall, the former armed with
sledge-hammers to break open doors at first intimation of collision. The
Hook and Ladder Company prepared to scale the walls. The train bringing
the Hunkidory Club broke down in a swamp, aided possibly by some
peace-loving agency. The crowding of Red Shirt and Rifle Clubs into the
city took effect. The night passed in intense anxiety, but in safety. Next
day, Speaker Wallace read notification that at noon the Democrats, by
order of President Grant, would be ejected by Federal troops if, before
that time, they had not vacated the State House; in obedience to the
Federal Government, he and the other Democratic members would go,
protesting, however, against this Federal usurpation of authority. He
adjourned the House to meet immediately in Carolina Hall. Blankets on
their shoulders, they marched out. A tremendous crowd was waiting. Far as
the eye could reach, Main Street was a mass of men, quiet and apparently
unarmed.
I have heard one of Hampton's old captains tell how things were outside
the State House. "The young men of Columbia were fully armed. Clerks in
our office had arms stowed away in desks and all around the rooms; we were
ready to grab them and rush on the streets at a moment's notice. It was
worse than war times. We had two cannon, loaded with chips of iron,
concealed in buildings, and trained on the State House windows and to rake
the street. We marched to the State House in a body. General Hampton had
gone inside. He had told us not to follow him. He and General Butler, his
aide, had been doing everything to keep us quiet. He knew we had come to
Columbia to fight if need be. 'I will tell you,' he said, 'when it is time
to fight. You have made me your governor, and, by Heaven, I will be your
governor!' Again and again he promised that. Usually, we obeyed him like
lambs. But we followed him to the State House.
"Federal troops were stationed at the door. What right had they there? It
was our State House! Why could roughs and toughs and the motley crowd of
earth go in, on a pass from Doorkeeper Dennis, a Northern rascal imported
by way of New Orleans, while we, the State's own sons and taxpayers, could
not enter? We pressed forward. We were told not to. We did not heed. We
were ready not to heed even the crossed bayonets of the guard. Things are
very serious when they reach that pass. The guard in blue used the utmost
patience. Federal soldiers were in sympathy with us. Colonel Bomford,[24]
their officer, ran up the State House steps, shouting: 'General Hampton!
General Hampton! For God's sake come down and send your men back!' In an
instant General Hampton was on the steps, calmly waving back the
multitude: 'All of you go back up the street. I told you not to come here.
Do not come into collision with the Federal troops. I advise all, white
and black, who care for the public welfare to go home quietly. You have
elected me your Governor, and by the eternal God, I will be your Governor!
Trust me for that! Now, go back!' We obeyed like children. On the other
side of the State House a man ran frantically waving his hat and shouting:
'Go back! go back! General Hampton says go back!' This man was ex-Governor
Scott, who a few years before had raised a black army for the intimidation
and subjugation of South Carolina!"
The Wallace House sat, until final adjournment, in South Carolina Hall,
the Mackey House in the State House. Governor Chamberlain, with the town
full of Rifle Clubs supposed to be thirsting for his gore, rode back and
forth in his open carriage to the State House and occupied the executive
offices there, refusing to resign them to General Hampton. He was
inaugurated inside the "Bayonet House"; General Hampton in the open
streets. General Hampton conducted the business of the State in two
office-rooms furnished with Spartan simplicity. The Wallace House said to
the people: "Pay to tax collectors appointed by Governor Hampton, ten per
cent of the tax rate you have been paying Governor Chamberlain's tax
collectors, and we will run your Government on it." So the people paid
their tax to Hampton's collectors and to no others. Without money, the
Chamberlain Government fell to pieces.
Northern sentiment had undergone change. Tourists had spread far and wide
the fame of Black and Tan Legislatures. Mr. Pike, of Maine, had written
"The Prostrate State." In tableaux before a great mass-meeting and
torchlight procession in New York, South Carolina had appeared kneeling in
chains before the Goddess of Liberty. The North was protesting against
misuse of Federal power in the South. General Sherman said: "I have always
tried to save our soldiers from the dirty work. I have always thought it
wrong to bolster up weak State Governments by our troops." "Let the South
alone!" was the cry. One of Grant's last messages reflected this temper.
President Hayes was exhibiting a spirit the South had not counted on. He
sent for Hampton and Chamberlain to confer with him in Washington. The old
hero's journey to the National Capital and back was an ovation. Soon after
his return, Chamberlain resigned the keys and offices of the State House.
Chamberlain was bitter and felt that the Federal Government had played him
false.
With Governor Nicholls established in Louisiana and Governor Hampton in
South Carolina, the battle between the carpet-baggers and the native
Southerners for their State Houses was over. The Federal soldiers packed
up joyfully, and the Southerners cheered their departure.
Louisiana had been engaged in a struggle very similar to South Carolina's.
For three months she had two governors, two legislatures, two Supreme
Courts. Again and again was her Capitol in a state of siege. Once two
Republican parties faced each other in battle array for its possession--as
two Republican parties had faced each other in Little Rock contending for
Arkansas's Capitol. One morning, Louisianians woke to find the entrance
commanded by United States Artillery posted on the "Midnight Order" of a
drunken United States District Judge. Once a thousand negroes, impressed
as soldiers, lived within the walls, eating, drinking, sleeping, until the
place became unspeakably filthy and small-pox broke out. More than once
for its possession there was warfare on the levees, bloodshed in
barricaded streets. Once the citizens were marching joyfully to its
occupation past the United States Custom House, and the United States
soldiers crowded the windows, waved their caps and cheered. Once members
were ejected by Federal force; Colonel de Trobriand regretting that he had
the work to do and the Louisianans bearing him no grudge; it was, "Pardon
me, gentlemen, I must put you out." "Pardon us, that we give you the
trouble."
These corrupt governments had glamours. Officials had money to burn. New
Orleans was like another Monte Carlo for one while. Gambling parlours
stood open to women and minors. Then was its twenty-five-year charter
granted the Louisiana State Lottery. At a garden party in Washington not
long ago, a Justice of the Supreme Court said in response to some question
I put: "It would take the pen of a Zola to describe reconstruction in
Louisiana! It is so dark a chapter in our national history, I do not like
to think of it." A Zola might base a great novel on that life and death
struggle between politicians and races in the land of cotton and sugar
plantations, the swamps and bayous and the mighty Mississippi, where the
Carpet-Bag Governments had a standing army, of blacks chiefly, with
cavalry, infantry, artillery, and navy of warships going up and down
waterways; where prominent citizens were arrested on blank warrants,
carried long distances, held for months; where women and children listened
for the tramp, tramp, of black soldiers on piazzas, the crash of a musket
on the door, the demand for the master or son of the house!
Dixie after the war is a mine for the romancer, historian, ethnologist.
Never before in any age or place did such conditions exist. The sudden
investiture of the uncivilised slave with full-fledged citizenship wrought
tragedy and comedy not ready to Homer's, Shakespeare's or Cervantes's pen.
The strange and curious race-madness of the American Republic will be a
study for centuries to come. That madness took a child-race out of a warm
cradle, threw it into the ocean of politics--the stormiest and most
treacherous we have known--and bade it swim for its own life and the life
of the nation!
CRIME AGAINST WOMANHOOD