The people of the State had not recovered from the chaos and confusion
into which they had been thrown by Sherman's march to the sea, when the
news came that Lee had surrendered in Virginia, and General Joseph E.
Johnston (who had been restored to his command) in North Carolina. Thus
a sudden and violent end had been put to all hopes of establishing a
separate government. General Sherman, who was as relentless in war as
he was pacific and gentle when the war was over, had, in coming to terms
with General Johnston, advanced the theory that the South never had
dissolved the Union, and that the States were restored to their old
places the moment they laid down their arms. This theory was not only
consistent with the views of the Union men of the North, but with
the nature and character of the Republic itself. But in the short
and common-sense cut that Sherman had made to a solution, he left the
politicians out in the cold, and they cried out against it as a hideous
and ruthless piece of assumption on the part of a military man to
attempt to have any opinions after the war was over. Any settlement that
left the politicians out in the cold was not to be tolerated. Some of
these gentlemen had a very big and black crow to pick with the South.
Some of them, in the course of the long debate over slavery, had had
their feelings hurt by Southern men; and although these wrangles had
been purely personal and individual, the politicians felt that the whole
South ought to be humiliated still further.
The politicians would have been entirely harmless if the life of
President Lincoln had been spared. During the war, Mr. Lincoln was
greatly misunderstood even at the North; but it is now the general
verdict of history, that, take him for all in all, he was beyond all
comparison the greatest man of his time, the one man who, above all
others, was best fitted to bring the people of the two sections together
again, and to make the Union a more perfect Union than ever before. But
unfortunately Mr. Lincoln fell by the hands of an assassin, and never
had an opportunity to carry out the great policy of pacification which
could only have been sustained at that time by his great influence, by
his patience, that was supreme, and by his wisdom, that has proved to be
almost infallible in working out the salvation of the Union. After Lee's
surrender, the interests of the South could have sustained no severer
blow than the death of Lincoln. His successor, Andrew Johnson, was a
well-meaning man, but a very narrow-minded one in some respects, and a
very weak one in others. It is but justice to him to say that he did his
best to carry out Lincoln's policy of pacification, and his failure was
no greater than that of any other leading politician of his time would
have been.
It would be impossible to describe the condition of the people at this
time. There was no civil law in operation, and the military government
that had been established was not far-reaching enough to restrain
violence of any sort. The negroes had been set free, and were supported
by means of a "freedmen's bureau." They were free, and yet they wanted
some practical evidence of it. To obtain this, they left the plantations
on which they had been born, and went tramping about the country in the
most restless and uneasy manner.
[Illustration: The Negroes Freed 306]
A great many of them believed that freedom meant idleness, such as they
had seen white folks indulge in. The country negroes flocked to the
towns and cities in great numbers, and the freedmen's bureau, active
as its agents were, had a great deal more than it could attend to. Such
peace and order as existed was not maintained by any authority, but grew
naturally out of the awe that had come over both whites and blacks at
finding their condition and their relations so changed. The whites could
hardly believe that slavery no longer existed. The negroes had grave
doubts as to whether they were really free. To make matters worse, a
great many small politicians, under pretense of protecting the negroes,
but really to secure their votes, began a crusade against the South in
Congress, the like of which can hardly be found paralleled outside of
our own history. The people of the South found out long ago that the
politicians of the hour did not represent the intentions and desires of
the people of the North; and there is much comfort and consolation to
be got out of that fact, even at this late day. But at that time the
bitterest dose of reconstruction was the belief that the best opinion of
the North sustained the ruinous policy that had been put in operation.
The leading men of the State were all disfranchised,--deprived of
the privilege of voting, a privilege that was freely conferred on the
negroes. A newspaper editor in Macon was imprisoned, and his paper
suppressed, for declaring, in regard to taking the amnesty oath, that
he had to "fortify himself for the occasion with a good deal of Dutch
courage." The wife of General Toombs was ordered by an assistant
commissioner of the freedmen's bureau to vacate her home with only two
weeks' provisions, the grounds of the order being that the premises were
"abandoned property," and, as such, were to be seized, and applied
to the uses of the freedmen's bureau. The superior officer of this
assistant commissioner, being a humane and kindly man, revoked the
order.
These were the days when the carpet-bagger and the scalawag
flourished,--the camp followers of the Northern army, who wanted money
and office; and the native-born Southerner, who wanted office and money.
There is no doubt that the indignities heaped on the people led to acts
of retaliation that nothing else could excuse; but they were driven
to desperation. It seemed, in that hour, that their liberties had been
entirely withdrawn. Governor Brown, who had formerly been so popular,
was denounced because he advised Georgians to accept the situation. He,
with other wise men, thought it was a waste of time and opportunity to
discuss constitutional questions at a moment when the people were living
under bayonet rule. Joe Brown's plan was to accept the situation, and
then get rid of it as quickly as possible. Ben Hill's plan was to
fight it to the last. There was a fierce controversy between these
two leaders; and such strong expressions were used on both sides, that
General Pope made them the subject of a curious letter to his commander
in chief, General Grant.
General Pope seemed to be afraid that war was about to break out again,
and he assumed charge of everything. He removed and appointed mayors of
cities, solicitors, and sheriffs. He closed the State University because
a student made a speech which was in effect a defense of civil law.
After a while the general said he would reopen the institution if the
press of the State would say nothing about the affair. In 1867, General
Pope ordered an election to be held for delegates to a State convention.
The polls were kept open five days, and voters were allowed to vote
in any precinct in any county upon their making oath that they were
entitled to vote. The convention met, but, in the nature of things,
could not be a representative body. Thousands of the best and most
representative men of the State were not allowed to vote, and thousands
of other good men refused to take part in an election held under the
order of a military commander: consequently, when the convention met,
its membership was made up of the political rag-tag-and-bobtail of
that day. There were a few good men in the body, but they had little
influence over the ignorant negroes and vicious whites who had taken
advantage of their first and last opportunity to hold office.
The authority of this convention was not recognized by the State
government, and this contest gave rise to a fresh conflict between the
State officials and the military dictators who had been placed over
them. The convention needed money to pay its expenses, and passed an
ordinance directing the treasurer of the State to pay forty thousand
dollars for this purpose to the disbursing officer of the convention.
General Pope issued an order to the treasurer to pay this amount. The
treasurer declined to pay out the money, for the simple reason that
he was forbidden by law to pay out money except on an order or warrant
drawn by the governor, and sanctioned by the comptroller general.
About this time General Meade was appointed to rule in Georgia in place
of General Pope, and he found this matter unsettled when he took charge.
So he wrote to Governor Jenkins, and requested him to draw his warrant
on the treasury for forty thousand dollars. The governor could find no
authority in law for paying over this sum, and he therefore refused.
But civil government was not of much importance to the military at that
time; so, when he had received the governor's letter, General Meade drew
a sheet of paper before him, called for pen and ink, and issued
"General Order No. 8," in which the announcement is made that "the
following-named officers are _detailed for duty_ in the district of
Georgia: Brevet Brigadier General Thomas H. Ruger, Colonel 33d Infantry,
_to be Governor of the State of Georgia_; Brevet Captain Charles F.
Rockwell, Ordnance Corps U. S. Army, _to be Treasurer of the State of
Georgia_."
In this way the rag-tag-and-bobtail convention got its money, but it
got also the hatred and contempt of the people; and the Republican
party,--the party that had been molded and made by the wise policy of
Lincoln,--by indorsing these foolish measures of reconstruction, and
putting its influence behind the outrages that were committed in the
name of "loyalty," aroused prejudices in the minds of the Southern
people that have not died away to this day. Some of the more vicious
of the politicians of that epoch organized what was known as "The Union
League." It was a secret political society, and had branches in every
county of the State. Through the medium of this secret organization,
the basest deception was practiced on the ignorant negroes. They
were solemnly told that their old masters were making arrangements to
reënslave them, and all sorts of incendiary suggestions were made to
them. It was by means of this secret society that the negroes were made
to believe that they would be entitled to forty acres and a mule for
voting for the candidates of the carpet-baggers.
The effect of all this was to keep the blacks in a constant state of
turmoil. They were too uneasy to settle down to work, and too suspicious
to enter into contracts with the whites: so they went wandering about
the State from town to town and from county to county, committing all
sorts of crimes. As the civil system had been entirely overthrown by the
military, there was neither law nor order; and this condition was very
seriously aggravated by the incendiary teachings of The Union League.
The people, therefore, in some parts of the South, offset this secret
society with another, which was called the "Ku Klux Klan." This
organization was intended to prevent violence and to restore order
in communities; but the spirit of it was very frequently violated
by lawless persons, who, acting in the name of the "Klan," subjected
defenseless negroes to cruel treatment.
There is no darker period in the history of the State than that of
reconstruction. The tax payers were robbed in the most reckless way,
and the rights of citizens were entirely disregarded. Even when the
Republican Congress, responsive to the voice of conservative Northern
opinion, turned its back on the carpet-bag government of Georgia,
these men made a tremendous effort to extend their rule unlawfully. The
carpet-bag Legislature was in session three hundred and twenty-eight
days, and cost the State nearly one million dollars; whereas the cost of
legislation from 1853 to 1862, nine years, was not nine hundred thousand
dollars. In one year the State Road took in a million dollars and a
half; and of this immense sum, only forty-five thousand dollars was paid
into the treasury. Added to this, the road had been run into debt to the
amount of six hundred thousand dollars, and it had been run down to
such an extent that five hundred thousand was needed to place it in good
condition.
During this trying period, Joseph E. Brown, who had been so popular
with the people, was under a cloud. He had advised accepting the
reconstruction measures in the first instance, so that they might be
carried out by men who had the confidence and the esteem of the State;
but this wise proposition brought upon his head only reproaches and
abuse. The public mind was in such a state of frenzied uneasiness, the
result of carpetbag robbery and recklessness, that the people would
listen to no remedy except passionate defiance and denunciation. When
the name of Brown was mentioned only as a handle of abuse, Benjamin H.
Hill became the leader and the idol of the people. When, in 1870, Hill
issued an address declaring that the reconstruction must be accepted by
the people, he was at once made the object of the most violent attacks.
But Brown was right in 1864, and Hill was right in 1870, and the people
were wrong. They paid dearly for their blindness in the wrongs imposed
on them by men who were neither Republicans nor reconstructionists at
heart, but public plunderers.
In 1871 the carpet-bag government began to totter. The governor left the
State, and staid away so long that the State treasurer, a man of stern
integrity, refused to pay warrants that were not signed by a resident
governor. Finally the governor returned, but almost immediately
resigned. In a short time the real representatives of the people took
charge of affairs, and since that time the State has been in a highly
prosperous condition.
"THE NEW SOUTH"
When the people of Georgia had once more gained control of their State
government, the political tempest that had been raging slowly quieted
down. A pot that has been boiling furiously doesn't grow cool in a
moment, but it ceases almost instantly to boil; and though it may cool
slowly, it cools surely. There was not an end of prejudice and unreason
the moment the people had disposed of those who were plundering them,
but prejudice began to lose its force as soon as men had the opportunity
to engage in calm discussion, and to look forward hopefully to the
future. In the midst of bayonet and carpet-bag rule, the State could
not make any real progress. It is only during a time of peace and
contentment that the industrial forces of a community begin to display
their real energy.
No State in the South had suffered so severely as Georgia during the
war. She placed in the field more than a hundred and twenty thousand
soldiers,--twenty thousand more than her voting population at the
beginning of the war. The taxable wealth of the State in 1867 was more
than four hundred and eighty-one millions less than it was in 1861,--a
loss of more than three fourths. After the reconstruction period,
all the State had to show, in return for the treasure that had been
squandered by the carpet-bag politicians, was a few poorly equipped
railroads that had been built on the State's credit. In some instances
railroad bonds were indorsed when there was no road to show for them;
in others, bonds were issued in behalf of the same road under different
names; so that the people lost by fraud as much or more than the amount
of improvement that had been made. The "developers" who had connected
themselves with the bayonet administration were much more interested in
"developing" their own private interests than they were in developing
the resources of the State.
But when the bayonet administration had been driven out, not less
by Northern opinion, which had become disgusted with the reckless
dishonesty that was practiced under the name of republicanism, than by
the energetic opposition of all good citizens of the State, there came a
welcome end to the bitter controversy that had been going on. The fierce
rancor and prejudice that had been aroused gradually died out; so that
in 1872, shortly after the State had been rescued from misrule, Horace
Greeley, the great abolition editor, received in Georgia a majority of
more than seventy-one thousand votes over the straight-out Democratic
candidate. This, more than any other event, showed the improving temper
of the people, and their willingness to make compromises and concessions
for the purpose of restoring the Union and burying the spirit of
sectionalism.
With this improved temper there came an improvement in the material
conditions of the State. Free negro labor was a problem which the
planters had to meet. For a time it presented many difficulties. It
was hard to make and enforce contracts with the negroes, who had been
demoralized and made suspicious by The Union League and by the harsh and
unjustifiable acts of men who acted under the name, but not under the
authority, of the Ku Klux Klan. But gradually all these difficulties
were overcome. The negroes settled down to work, and with them a good
many white men who had been left adrift by the fortunes of war and the
prostration of industries. This vast change was not brought about in a
day or a month, or even in a year, but was the gradual outgrowth of a
bitter feeling,--the slow awakening to the fact that matters were not as
bad on a better acquaintance as they had seemed. There was, of course,
the negro problem; but the wiser men soon saw that this problem, such
as it was, would settle itself sooner or later. The result was that
everybody began to take a day off from politics occasionally, and devote
themselves to the upbuilding of the resources of the State.
At first, and for several years, the negro problem seemed to be a very
serious matter indeed. All the statesmen, all the politicians, all the
historians, and all the newspaper editors, discussed it morning, noon,
and night for a long time. Some wanted it settled one way, and some
another. At the North the men who had indorsed and approved the bayonet
governments of the South thought that laws ought to be passed giving the
negroes social equality with the whites. Finally a compromise was made
with what is called the "Civil Rights Law," which was intended to give
the negroes the same privileges at the hotels, theaters, and other
public places, that the whites had. The Northern politicians pretended
to believe that the efforts they were making were for the benefit of the
negroes, though no doubt the majority of them knew better. Of course,
the Southern people resisted the pressure thus brought to bear by
the Northern sectionalists, and the result was what might have been
expected. The condition of the negro was made more uncomfortable
than ever, and the color line was more closely drawn. To show how
shortsighted the politicians were and are, it is only necessary to call
attention to one fact, and it is this: that while the Civil Rights Law
has kept negroes out of public places both North and South, they ride
on the street cars side by side with the white people, and it frequently
happens that an old negro woman who comes into a crowded car is given
a seat by some Southerner who has tender recollections of his negro
"mammy."
[Illustration: Streetcar in the South 318]
It is worthy of note, that while the politicians on both sides were
fighting the shadows that the "negro problem" called up, the problem was
solving itself in the only way that such vast problems can be settled
in the order of Providence,--by the irresistible elements of time and
experience. A great deal of misery, suffering, and discontent would have
been spared to both races, if, after the war, the conservative men of
the North had either insisted on the policy that Abraham Lincoln
had mapped out, or had said to the pestiferous politicians who were
responsible for carpet-bag rule, "Hands off!" No doubt some injustice
would have been done to individuals if the North had permitted the
negroes to work out their political salvation alone, but the race itself
would be in a better condition every way than it is today; for outside
interference has worked untold damage and hardship to the negro. It has
given him false ideas of the power and purpose of government, and it
has blinded his eyes to the necessity of individual effort. It is by
individual effort alone that the negro race must work out its destiny.
This is the history of the white race, and it must be the history of all
races that move forward.
When Georgia, with the rest of the Southern States, had passed safely
through the reconstruction period, the people, as has been seen, found
themselves facing new conditions and new possibilities. Slavery had been
abolished utterly and forever; and wise men breathed freer when they
saw that a great obstacle to progress and development had been
abolished with it. Instinctively everybody felt that here was cause for
congratulation. A few public men, bolder than the rest, looking out on
the prospect, thanked God that slavery was no more. They expected to be
attacked for such utterances, but they were applauded; and it was soon
discovered, much to the surprise of everybody, that the best sentiment
of the South was heartily glad that slavery was out of the way. Thus,
with new conditions, new prospects, and new hopes,--with a new fortune,
in fact,--it was natural that some lively prophet should lift up his
voice and cry, "Behold the New South!"
And it was and is the new South,--the old South made new by events;
the old South with new channels, in which its Anglo-Saxon energies may
display themselves; the old South with new possibilities of greatness,
that would never have offered themselves while slavery lasted. After
these hopes, and in pursuit of these prospects, Georgia has led the way.
Hundreds of miles of new railroads have been built in her borders since
the dark days of reconstruction, hundreds of new factories have been
built, immense marble beds and granite quarries have been put in
operation, new towns have sprung into existence, and in thousands of new
directions employment has been given to labor and capital. In short, the
industrial progress the State has made since 1870 is more than double
that of the previous fifty years.
It was natural, that, out of the new conditions, new men should arise;
and, as if in response to the needs of the hour and the demands of the
people, there arose a man who, with no selfish ends to serve and no
selfish ambition to satisfy, was able to touch the hearts of the people
of both sections, and to subdue the spirit of sectionalism that was
still rampant long after the carpetbag governments in the South had been
overthrown by the force of public opinion. That man was Henry Woodfin
Grady. He took up his public work in earnest in 1876, though he had been
preparing for it since the day that he could read a school history. In
that year he became one of the editors of the "Atlanta Constitution,"
and at once turned his attention to the situation in which his State
had been left by the war, and by the rapacity of those who had come into
power by means of the bayonet. Whether he used his tongue or pen, the
public soon found out that he had control of that mysterious power which
moves men. Whether he wrote or whether he spoke, he had the gift and
the inspiration of eloquence; and from first to last he could never be
induced to use this great gift for his personal advancement, nor could
he be induced to accept a political office. With a mind entirely sincere
and unselfish, he addressed himself to the work of restoring unity
between the North and South, and to putting an end to the sectional
strife which the politicians were skillfully using to further their own
schemes. He was asked to be a United States senator, and refused; he was
asked to be a congressman, and refused. For the rest, he could have had
any office within the gift of the people of Georgia; but he felt that
he could serve the State and the South more perfectly in the way that he
had himself mapped out. He felt that the time had come for some one to
say a bold and manly word in behalf of the American Union in the ear of
the South, and to say a bold and manly word in behalf of the South in
the ear of the North. He began this work, and carried it on as a private
citizen; and the result was, that, though he died before he had reached
the prime of his life, he had won a name and a popularity in all parts
of the country, both North and South, that no other private citizen had
ever before succeeded in winning.
It was Henry Grady that gave the apt name of "The New South" to the
spirit that his tireless energy and enthusiasm had called from the dark
depths of reconstruction. Of this spirit, and the movement that sprang
from it, he was the prophet, the pioneer, the promoter. He saw the South
poor in the midst of the most abundant resources that Providence ever
blessed a people with, and he turned aside from politics to point them
out. He saw the people going about in deep despair, and he gave them the
cue of hope, and touched them with his own enthusiasm. He saw the mighty
industrial forces lying dormant, and his touch awoke them to life.
He saw great enterprises languishing, and he called the attention of
capital to them. Looking farther afield, he saw the people of two great
sections forgetting patriotism and duty, and reviving the prejudices and
issues that had led to the war, and that had continued throughout
the war; and he went about among them, speaking words of peace and
union,--appealing to the spirit of patriotism which held the Northern
and Southern people together when they were building the Republic, when
they stood side by side amid the sufferings of Valley Forge, and when
they saw the army of a mighty monarch surrender to the valor of American
soldiers at Yorktown. With the enthusiasm of a missionary and the
impetuous zeal of an evangelist, he went about rebuking the politicians,
and preaching in behalf of peace, union, and genuine patriotism.
Such was the mission of Henry W. Grady, and the work that he did will
live after him. "The New South" will cease to be hew, but the people
will never cease to owe him a debt of gratitude for the work that he did
in urging forward the industrial progress of this region, and in making
peace between the sections. He was the builder, the peacemaker.