The chief interest in the events of General Grant's first term was
divided between questions of a diplomatic character and those arising
from the condition of the South after Reconstruction had been
completed. The first issue that enlisted popular attention was in
regard to the annexation of the Dominican Republic. It was the
earliest decisive step of General Grant's policy that attracted the
observation of the people. The negotiation was opened on the request
of the authorities of San Domingo, and it began about three months
after the President's inauguration. In July General O. E. Babcock, one
of the President's private secretaries, was dispatched to San Domingo
upon an errand of which the public knew nothing. He bore a letter of
introduction from Secretary Fish, apparently limiting the mission to an
inquiry into the conditions, prospects, and resources of the Island.
From its tenor the negotiation of a treaty was not at that time
anticipated by the State Department. General Babcock's mission finally
resulted however in a treaty for the annexation of the Republic of
Dominica, and a convention for the lease of the bay and peninsula of
Samana,--separately negotiated and both concluded on the 29th of
November, 1869. The territory included in the Dominican Republic is
the eastern portion of the Island of San Domingo, originally known as
Hispaniola. It embraces perhaps two-thirds of the whole. The western
part forms the Republic of Haiti. With the exception of Cuba, the
island is the largest of the West India group. The total area is about
28,000 square miles,--equivalent to Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
Vermont and Rhode Island combined.
President Grant placed extravagant estimates upon the value of the
Territory which he supposed was now acquired under the Babcock
treaties. In his message to Congress he expressed the belief that the
island would yield to the United States all the sugar, coffee, tobacco,
and other tropical products which the country would consume. "The
production of our supply of these articles," said the President, "will
cut off more than $100,000,000 of our annual imports, besides largely
increasing our exports." "With such a picture," he added, "it is easy
to see how our large debt abroad is ultimately to be extinguished.
With a balance of trade against us (including interest on bonds held
by foreigners and money spent by our citizen traveling in foreign
lands) equal to the entire yield of precious metals in this country,
it is not easy to see how this result is to be otherwise accomplished."
He maintained that "the acquisition of San Domingo will furnish our
citizens with the necessities of every-day life at cheaper rates than
ever before; and it is in fine a rapid stride towards that greatness
which the intelligence, industry, and enterprise of our citizens
entitle this country to assume among nations."
Earnest as General Grant was in his argument, deeply as his personal
feelings were enlisted in the issue, thoroughly as his Administration
was committed to the treaty, the Senate on the 30th of June (1870), to
his utter surprise, rejected it. The vote was a tie, 28 to 28, as was
afterwards disclosed in debate in open Senate. Though the votes of
two-thirds of the senators were required to confirm the treaty
President Grant was not discouraged. He returned to the subject six
months later, in his annual message of December, and discussed the
question afresh with apparently renewed confidence in the expediency
of the acquisition. "I now firmly believe," he said, "that the moment
it is known that the United States have entirely abandoned the project
of accepting as part of its own territory the Island of San Domingo,
a free port will be negotiated for by European nations in the Bay of
Samana, and a large commercial city will spring up, to which we will
be tributary without receiving responding benefits. Then will be seen
the folly of our rejecting so great a prize. . . . So convinced am I
of the advantages to flow from the acquisition of San Domingo, and of
the great disadvantages, I might also say calamities, to flow from its
non-acquisition, that I believe the subject has only to be investigated
to be approved." He recommended that "by joint resolution of the two
Houses of Congress, the Executive be authorized to appoint a commission
to negotiate a treaty with the authorities of San Domingo for the
acquisition of that island, and that an appropriation be made to defray
the expenses of such commission."
The subject at once led to discussion in both branches of Congress, in
which the hostility to the scheme on the part of some leading men
assumed the tone of personal exasperation towards General Grant. So
intense was the opposition that the President's friends in the Senate
did not deem it prudent even to discuss the measure which he
recommended. As the best that could be done, Mr. Morton of Indiana
introduced a resolution empowering the President to appoint three
Commissioners to proceed to San Domingo and make certain inquiries into
the political condition of the island, and also into its agricultural
and commercial value. The Commissioners were to have no compensation.
Their expenses were to be paid, and a secretary was to be provided.
Even in this mild shape the resolution was hotly opposed. It was
finally adopted by the Senate, but when it reached the House that body
refused to concur except with a proviso that "nothing in this
resolution shall be held, understood, or construed as committing
Congress to the policy of annexing San Domingo." The Senate concurred
in the condition thus attached and the President approved it. It was
plain that the President could not carry the annexation scheme; but he
courted a searching investigation in order that the course he had
pursued might be vindicated by the well-considered judgment of
impartial men.
The President's selections for the Commission were wisely made.
Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, Andrew D. White of New York, and Samuel G.
Howe of Massachusetts, were men entitled to the highest respect, and
their conclusions, based upon intelligent investigation, would exert
large influence upon public opinion. The Commission at once visited
the island (carried thither on a United-States vessel of war), made
a thorough examination of all its resources, held conferences with its
leading citizens, and concluded that the policy recommended by General
Grant should be sustained. The Commissioners corroborated General
Grant's assertion that the island could supply the United States with
the sugar, coffee, and other tropical products needed for our
consumption; and they upheld the President in his belief that the
possession of the island by the United States would by the laws of
trade make slave labor in the neighboring islands unprofitable, and
render the whole slave and caste systems odious.
In communicating the report, the President made some remarks which had
a personal bearing. "The mere rejection by the Senate of a treaty
negotiated by the President," said he, "only indicates a difference of
opinion among different departments of the Government, without touching
the character or wounding the pride of either. But when such rejection
takes place simultaneously with charges, openly made, of corruption on
the part of the President, or of those employed by him, the case is
different. Indeed, in such case the honor of the nation demands
investigation. This has been accomplished by the report of the
Commissioners, herewith transmitted, and which fully vindicates the
purity of motive and action of those who represented the United States
in the negotiation. And now my task is finished, and with it ends all
personal solicitude upon the subject. My duty being done, yours
begins, and I gladly hand over the whole matter to the judgment of the
American people and of their representatives in Congress assembled."
The pointed remarks of the President were understood as referring to
the speech made by Mr. Sumner when the resolution for the appointment
of the Commission was pending before the Senate. Mr. Sumner had
previously conceived a strong dislike to General Grant on account of
some personal grievance, either fancied or real; and he debated the
resolution in a spirit not at all justified by the subject itself. He
spoke of it as "a measure of violence" and a "dance of blood." "In
other days," said he, "to carry a project, a President has tried to
change a committee: it was James Buchanan. Now we have been called
this session to witness a similar endeavor by our President. He was
not satisfied with the Committee on Foreign Relations, and wished it
changed. He asked first for the removal of the chairman [Mr. Sumner
himself]. Somebody told him that this would not be convenient. He
then asked for the removal of the senator from Missouri [Mr. Schurz],
and he was told that this could not be done without affecting the
German vote."
Mr. Sumner continued: "The negotiation for annexation began with a
political jockey named Buenaventura Baez; and he had about his two
other political jockeys, Casneau and Fabens. These three together, a
precious copartnership, seduced into their firm a young officer of
ours, who entitles himself _aide-de-camp to the President of the United
States_. Together they got up what was entitled a protocol, in which
the young officer, entitling himself _aide-de-camp_ to the President,
proceeded to make certain promises for the President. I desire to say
that there is not one word showing that at the time this _aide-de-camp_,
as he called himself, had any title of instructions to take this
step. If he had, that title and that instruction have been withheld.
No inquiry has been able to penetrate it. . . . I ask you," said he,
addressing the Vice-President, "do you know any such officer in our
government as '_aide-de-camp_ to his Excellency the President of the
United States'? Does his name appear in the Constitution, in any
statute, in the history of this country anywhere? If it does, then
your information is much beyond mine. . . . However, he assumed a
title; and it doubtless produced a great effect with Baez, Casneau,
and Fabens, the three confederates. They were doubtless pleased with
the distinction. It helped on the plan they were engineering. The
young _aide-de-camp_ pledged the President as follows: 'His
Excellency, General Grant, President of the United States, promises
_privately_ to use all his influence, in order that the idea of
annexing the Dominican Republic to the United States may acquire such
a degree of popularity among members of Congress as will be necessary
for its accomplishment.' Shall I read the rest of the document? It
is somewhat of the same tenor. There are questions of money in it,
cash down, all of which must have been particularly agreeable to the
three confederates." At one stage of his bitter arraignment of the
Administration Mr. Sumner besought the Vice-President (Mr. Colfax) "as
a friend of General Grant to counsel him not to follow the examples
of Franklin Pierce, of James Buchanan, and of Andrew Johnson."
After the delivery of this speech General Grant and Senator Sumner
held no personal intercourse. Public opinion did not justify the
course of Mr. Sumner. It was regarded as an exhibition of temper
unworthy of his high position, and his speech was distinguished by
a tone not proper to be employed towards the President of the United
States. But he had not imputed, as General Grant assumed, any personal
corruption to him. On the contrary he considered the questionable
course of General Babcock to be without instruction. General Grant's
reference in his message to Mr. Sumner's angry arraignment, a part of
which is already quoted, closed with a mention of "acrimonious debates
in Congress" and "unjust aspersions elsewhere." "No man," said he,
"can hope to perform duties so delicate and responsible as appertain
to the Presidential office without sometimes incurring the hostility
of those who deem their opinions and wishes treated with insufficient
consideration." This was a direct personal reference to Mr. Sumner,
perfectly understood at that time. General Grant continued: "He who
undertakes to conduct the affairs of a great government as a faithful
public servant, if sustained by the approval of his own conscience,
may rely with confidence upon the candor and intelligence of a free
people, whose best interests he has striven to subserve, and can hear
with patience the censure of disappointed men."
No further attempt was made by the President to urge the acquisition
of San Domingo upon Congress. It was evident that neither the Senate
nor House could be induced to approve the scheme, and the
Administration was necessarily compelled to abandon it. But defeat
did not change General Grant's view of the question. He held to his
belief in its expediency and value with characteristic tenacity. In
his last annual message to Congress (December, 1876), nearly six
years after the controversy had closed, he recurred to the subject,
to record once more his approval of it. "If my views," said he, "had
been concurred in, the country would be in a more prosperous condition
to-day, both politically and financially." He then proceeded to
re-state the question, and to sustain it with the argument which he had
presented to Congress in 1870 and 1871. His last words were: "I do
not present these views now as a recommendation for a renewal of the
subject of annexation, but I do refer to it to vindicate my previous
action in regard to it."
Though the Reconstruction measures were all perfected before General
Grant's election to the Presidency, the necessary Acts prescribed by
them had not been completed by all the States. The three which had
not been admitted to representation, and had not taken part in the
National election,--Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas,--had by the
spring of 1870 fully complied with all the requirements, and were
therefore admitted to all the privileges which had been accorded to the
other States of the South. Virginia was admitted to representation
in Congress by the Act of Jan. 26, Mississippi by the Act of Feb. 26,
and Texas by the Act of March 30 (1870). It was their own fault, and
not the design of the Government, that prevented these States from
being included in the same bill with their associates in rebellion.
The reconstruction of Georgia, supposed to have been completed the
preceding year by the admission of her representatives to the House,
was taken up for review at the opening of the Forty-first Congress.
Neither her senators nor representatives were permitted to be sworn,
but their credentials were referred in each House to the Committee on
Elections. In the judgment of the majority the conduct of Georgia
justified this severe course. Her Legislature, after complying with
every condition of reconstruction, took an extraordinary and
unaccountable step. That body decided that colored men were not
entitled to serve as legislators or to hold any office in Georgia.
They were therefore expelled from their seats, while white men, not
eligible to hold office under the Fourteenth Amendment, were retained.
The Fifteenth Amendment was then rejected by the Legislature, composed
exclusively of white men. These facts were ascertained before the
senators from Georgia were admitted to their seats, and before the
Fifteenth Amendment had yet been ratified by the requisite number of
States.
Congress took prompt cognizance of this condition of affairs, and
passed another bill on the 16th of December (1869), declaring "that
the exclusion of persons from the Legislature upon the ground of race,
color, or previous condition of servitude, would be illegal and
revolutionary, and is hereby prohibited." In order to make the
prohibition effective, Georgia was required, before her senators and
representatives could be seated, to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment to
the Constitution. The Legislature of Georgia was accordingly
re-assembled, the colored members resumed their seats, and the
Fifteenth Amendment was duly ratified on the 2d of February (1870).
The conditions were considered by some prominent Republicans to be an
assumption of power on the part of Congress, and were therefore
opposed actively by Mr. Carpenter in the Senate and Mr. Bingham in the
House; but the great body of the party insisted upon them, and the
movement had the full sympathy of the President. The course pursued
by Georgia made her the last State to be reconstructed. The final Act
for her re-admission to the right of representation in Congress was
passed on the 15th of July, 1870.
The adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment had become in the minds of
thinking men an essential link in the chain of reconstruction. The
action of Georgia in expelling colored men from the Legislature after
her reconstruction was supposed to be complete, roused the country to
the knowledge of what was intended by the leading men of the South; and
the positive action of Congress roused the leading men of the South to
a knowledge of what was intended by Congress. On the 30th of March
Secretary Fish issued a proclamation making known to the people of the
United States that the Fifteenth Amendment had been ratified by the
Legislatures of thirty States and was therefore a part of the
Constitution of the United States. New York, which had given her
ratification when the Legislature was Republican, attempted at the
succeeding session, with the Democratic party in power, to withdraw its
recorded assent; but as in the case of the Fourteenth Amendment, action
on the subject was held to be completed when the State officially
announced it, and New York was numbered among the States which had
ratified the Amendment. The only States opposing it were New Jersey,
Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, California, and Oregon. At
the time the Amendment was submitted, the Legislatures of these States
were under the absolute control of the Democratic party. The hostility
of that party to the Fifteenth Amendment was as rancorous as it had
been to the Fourteenth. Not a single Democrat voted to ratify it in
either branch of Congress, and the Democratic opposition in the State
Legislatures throughout the Union was almost equally pronounced.(1)
This radical change in the Organic Law of the Republic was regarded
by President Grant as so important, that he notified Congress of its
official promulgation, by special message. He dwelt upon the character
of the Amendment, and addressed words of counsel to both races. "I
call the attention of the newly enfranchised race," said he, "to the
importance of striving in every honorable manner to make themselves
worthy of their new privilege. To the race more favored heretofore by
our laws, I would say, Withhold no legal privilege of advancement to
the new citizens." He called upon Congress to promote popular
education throughout the country by all the means within their
Constitutional power, in order that universal suffrage might be
based on universal intelligence.
In the same spirit that led to the message of the President, Congress
proceeded to enact laws protecting the rights that were guaranteed
under the new Constitutional Amendment. On the 31st of May (1870), two
months after the Amendment was promulgated, an Act was passed "to
enforce the right of citizens of the United States to vote in the
several States in this Union." Eight months later, on the 28th of
February, 1871, an additional Act on the same subject was passed.
These statutes were designed to protect, as far as human law can
protect, the right of every man in the United States to vote, and they
were enacted with special care to arrest the dangers already developing
in the South against free suffrage, and to prevent the dangers more
ominously though more remotely menacing it. The Republican party was
unanimous in support of these measures, while the Democratic party had
nearly consolidated their votes against them. It was not often that
the line of party was so strictly drawn as at this period and on issues
of this character.
As the Reconstruction of each State was completed, the Military
Government that was instituted in 1867 was withdrawn. The Southern
people--at first proclaiming a sense of outrage at the presence of
soldiers in time of peace--soon became content with the orderly, just,
and fair administration which the commanding generals enforced. Many
of the wisest men of the South would have been glad to continue the
same form of government, until the passions engendered by the war had
somewhat cooled and the new relations of the two races had become so
amicably adjusted as to remove all danger of conflict between them.
But the course of events did not suggest, and perhaps would not have
permitted, an arrangement of this character; and hence the States were
left, under the Constitution and laws of the Union, to shape their own
destiny.
The presumption was that these States would be obedient to the
Constitution and laws. But for this presumption, legislation would be
but idle play, and a government of laws would degenerate at once into
a government of force. In enacting the Reconstruction Laws Congress
proceeded upon the basis of faith in Republican government, as defined
so tersely by Mr. Lincoln--_of the people, by the people, for the
people_. It had the additional assurance of the acceptance of the
terms of Reconstruction by the lawful organizations of the Southern
States. And if the presumption of obedience with respect to statute
law be general, much stronger should it be with respect to organic law,
upon which the entire structure of free government is founded. It was
therefore logical for the National administration to assume, as
Reconstruction was completed, that the harmonious working of the
Federal government through all its members was formally re-established.
It was a cause of great rejoicing that, after four years of bloody war
and four years of laborious and careful Reconstruction, every State in
the Union had regained its autonomy in the first year of General
Grant's Presidency; and that the Government and the people of the Union
were entitled to look forward to peaceful administration, to friendly
intercourse, to the cultivation of kindly feeling, to the promotion of
agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. The lenity with which the
triumphant Union had treated the crime of rebellion--sacrificing no
man's life, stripping no man of his property, depriving no man of his
personal liberty--gave the Government the right to expect order and the
reign of law in the South.
But it was soon disclosed that on the part of the large mass of those
who had participated in the rebellion, properly speaking, indeed, on
the part of the vast majority of the white men of the South, there was
really no intention to acquiesce in the legislation of Congress, no
purpose to abide by the Constitutional Amendment in good faith. A
majority of the white people of the South adopted rather the creed of
General Blair, whom they had supported for Vice-President, and regarded
themselves justified in opposing, repudiating, and if possible
destroying, the governments that had grown up under the protection of
the Reconstruction Laws. The re-admission of their States to
representation was taken by them only as the beginning of the war in
which they would more freely wage conflict against that which was
distasteful and, as they claimed, oppressive. It is not to be denied
that they had the inherent right, inside of Constitutional limitations,
to repeal the laws of their States, and even to change the Constitution
itself, if they should do it by prescribed methods and by honest
majorities, and should not, in the process, disturb the fundamental
conditions upon which the General Government had assented to their
re-admission to the right of representation in Congress. It was not,
however, the purpose of the Southern Democrats to be fettered and
embarrassed by any such exemplary restraints. By means lawful or
unlawful they determined to uproot and overthrow the State governments
that had been established in a spirit of loyalty to the Union. They
were resolved that the negro should not be a political power in their
local governments; that he should not, so far as their interposition
could prevent it, exert any influence over elections, either State or
national; and that his suffrage, if permitted to exist at all, should
be only in the innocent form of a minority.
Seeing this determination, the National Government interposed its
strong arm, and a detail of soldiers at the principal points throughout
the South gave a certain protection to those whose rights were
otherwise in danger of being utterly trodden down. It certainly has
never been proved in a single instance that a legal voter in any
Southern State was deprived of his right of suffrage by the presence
of United-States troops in those states; but the issue was at once made
by the Democratic party against the administration of President Grant,
that free elections were impossible in the Southern states unless
soldiers of the Regular Army were excluded; that their simple presence
was a form of coercion absolutely inconsistent with Republican
government. Many of them, as they now declared, had been willing to
accept a Military government--as it had existed under Reconstruction;
but they objected to the presence of troops in States where
self-government had been conceded by Congress.
There was undoubtedly an instinctive reluctance among the people of
all sections to permit the location of troops in the neighborhood of
polling-places. It had happened that in the long-continued strife in
Kansas, Republicans complained that the anti-slavery voters felt
intimidated by the presence of troops of the Regular Army. The
application was, therefore, readily made to the existing case; and it
was not unnaturally or inaptly asked whether the presence of the
military at the elections of a State of the Union was not even more
offensive than their presence at the elections in a Territory of the
Union, which was directly under the control of the National Government.
On the abstract issue thus presented the Republicans were placed
somewhat at a disadvantage; and yet every white man making the
complaint knew that the influence of the troops was not to deprive him
of a single right, but was to prevent him from depriving the colored
man of all his rights.
Between the effort, therefore, of President Grant's administration to
protect free suffrage in the South, and the protest of the Democratic
party against protecting it by the military arm of the Government, a
physical contest ensued in the Southern States and a political contest
throughout the Union. It was perfectly understood, and openly
proclaimed, in the South, that the withdrawal of the protection of the
National Government from the States lately in rebellion meant the end
of suffrage to the colored man, or at least such impairment of its
force and influence as practically implied its total destruction. So
bitter was the hostility to impartial suffrage, so determined were the
men who had lately been in rebellion to concentrate all the political
power of the Southern States in their own hands, that vicious
organizations, of which the most notable were the Ku-Klux-Klans, were
formed throughout the South for the express purpose of depriving the
negro of the political rights conferred upon him by law. To effect
this purpose they resorted to a series of outrages calculated to
inspire the negroes with terror if they attempted to resist the will of
white men.
In prosecuting their purposes these clans and organizations hesitated
at no cruelty, were deterred by no considerations of law or of
humanity. They rode by night, were disguised with masks, were armed
as freebooters. They whipped, maimed, or murdered the victims of their
wrath. White men who were co-operating with the colored population
politically were visited with punishments of excessive cruelty. It was
difficult to arrest the authors of these flagrant wrongs. Aside from
their disguises, they were protected against inculpating testimony by
the fear inspired in the minds of those who might be witnesses; and
they were protected even by that portion of the white race who were
not willing to join in their excesses. It was well said of the leading
members of the clans, that "murder with them was an occupation, and
perjury was a pastime." The white man who should give testimony
against them did so at the risk of seeing his house burned, of being
himself beaten with many stripes; and if the offender had been at all
efficient in his hostility, he was, after torture, in many instances,
doomed to death.
Congress did its utmost to strengthen the hands of the President in a
contest with these desperate elements. By the Act of April 20, 1871,
"to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States" (commonly known as the Ku-Klux Act,
or the Enforcement Act), the President was empowered to go to the
extreme of suspending the writ of _habeas corpus_ where peace and order
could not otherwise be restored. Before acting under the provisions
of that vigorous statute, General Grant gave warning to the Southern
people by proclamation of May 3, 1871, that they might themselves, by
good behavior, prevent the necessity of its enforcement. "Sensible,"
said the President, "of the responsibility imposed upon the Executive
by the Act of Congress to which public attention is now called, and
reluctant to call into exercise any of the extraordinary powers
thereby conferred upon me, except in case of imperative necessity, I
do, nevertheless, deem it my duty to make known that I will not
hesitate to exhaust the powers thus vested in the Executive, whenever
and wherever it shall become necessary to do so, for the purpose of
securing to all citizens of the United States the peaceful enjoyment
of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution and laws." The
extreme power of suspending the writ of _habeas corpus_ now placed in
the President's hands was limited in time, and would necessarily end,
if not renewed, at the close of the next regular session of Congress.
But the task of enforcing obedience to laws, when obedience is not in
the hearts of the people, is the most difficult undertaking ever
imposed upon the governing power. If the South had been standing
alone, if it had not been receiving daily words of encouragement, of
aid, and of comfort, from the North, if it had not seen that the
Democratic party in Congress was fighting its battle, it might have
yielded to the prestige and power of the National Government. But the
situation invited, urged, induced men, to persist. They clearly saw,
as their co-operating friends in the North had seen long before, that
a compact vote of all the Southern States could be used as the sure
foundation of a formidable, and, as they hoped, irresistible political
power. It was this hope which nerved their arms for every encounter:
it was this prospect of domination that steadily encouraged them to
continue a battle which must at times have seemed desperate indeed. As
the Southern leaders of an earlier day had strenuously endeavored to
maintain equality of membership in the Senate, so now their successors
promised to themselves such solidification of their electoral vote, as
would by its very force attract sufficient strength in the North to
restore the South to a position of command in the National Government.
The instinctive hostility of the American people against the use of
troops at elections was not the only weapon of offense which the
Democratic party was able to use in this prolonged contest. As soon as
the war had closed there was a considerable influx of Northern men in
the States of the late Confederacy. The original motive which induced
the migration was financial and speculative. A belief was prevalent
in the North that great profit might be derived from the cotton-culture,
and that with the assured sympathy of the colored men they would
be able to command the requisite labor more readily than the
old slave masters. As a mere business enterprise cotton-growing at
that period, except in a very few instances, proved to be unprofitable.
The complete disorganization of labor throughout the South, consequent
upon emancipation, had embarrassed production and added largely to its
cost. It would inevitably require time to build up a labor-system
based on the new relation of the negro to the white race, and it was
the misfortune of the Northern men to embark on their venture at the
time of all others when it was least likely to prove remunerative. But
these men, though pecuniarily unsuccessful, quickly formed relations of
kindness and friendship with the negro race. They addressed them in
different tone, treated them in a different manner, from that which
they had been accustomed in the past to receive from the white race,
and it was natural that a feeling of friendship should grow up
between the liberated and those whom they regarded as liberators.
It was soon apparent that, under the protection of the National power
and with the numerical superiority of the negroes in several States
(certain Southern leaders being under political disabilities), it would
be easy for the loyal white men to obtain control of the local
governments. Out of these circumstances there came into political
power the class of men known as "Carpet-baggers"--so described from
the insulting presumption that the entire worldly estate of each one
of the class was carried in a carpet-bag, enabling him to fly at any
moment of danger from the State whose domestic policy he sought to
control. The prospect of the success of the new movement induced a
number of former rebels to join in it, and to them the epithet of
"Scalawag" was applied. This combination was not without disadvantages
to the negro. By as much as it gave strength to his political
organization, it increased the hatred and desperation of the ruling
element among the whites, and demonstrated that the negro could
secure the rights conferred upon him by the Constitution and laws,
only through violence and bloodshed.
Many of those denounced under the epithet of Carpet-bagger and Scalawag
were honorable and true men; but a majority of these were unobtrusive
and not brought strongly into popular view, while many of those who
became entrusted with the power of State governments and found
themselves unexpectedly in possession of great authority were not
morally equal to its responsibility. The consequence was that some of
the States had wretched governments, officered by bad men, who misled
the negro and engaged in riotous corruption. Their transgressions were
made so conspicuous that the Republican leaders of other Southern
States, who were really trying to act their part worthily and
honorably, were obscured from view, and did not obtain a fair hearing
at the bar of public opinion. The government of South Carolina, under
its series of Republican administrations, was of such character as
brought shame upon the Republican party, exposed the negro voters to
unmerited obloquy, and thus wrought for the cause of free government
and equal suffrage in the South incalculable harm. These Southern
State governments proved a source of angry contention inside the
Republican party in the North, and thus brought one more calamity to
the negro, and gave one more advantage to the rebel element of the
South that so persistently sought for his disfranchisement.
The hostility of Southern men to Carpet-bag rule was instinctive and
irrepressible. The failure of the rebellion left its participants
stripped of property, depressed in spirit, angry and unreconciled.
Northern men appearing among them recalled in an offensive manner the
power that had overcome and as they thought humiliated them,--recalled
it before time had made them familiar with the new order of things,
before they could subject themselves to the discipline of adversity,
and gracefully accept the inevitable. Even the most decorous and
considerate behavior on the part of these men would perhaps have failed
to conciliate the Southern population. But while unable to do this,
they could no doubt in due season have secured public confidence if
they had administered the trusts confided to them with an eye single to
the prosperity and happiness of the people over whom by a strange
concurrence of circumstances they were empowered to rule. If these men
had in all cases established as good and trustworthy governments in the
South as they had been reared under in the North, they would have
conferred upon all the reconstructed States a blessing which as
prejudice wore away would have caused their names to be respected and
honored. Their governments were however demoralized by the violent
and murderous course of the clans organized to resist them. In the
play between the two forces,--a government too weak to command respect;
a native population too resentful to yield obedience,--a state of
social disorder and political chaos resulted, which would in advance
have seemed impossible among any people clothed with the right of
self-government, and living under a Republic of vast power and
prestige.
The Republicans lost in many of the Southern States a valuable support
upon which they had counted with confidence. Union men whom no
persecution could break and no blandishments could seduce, were to be
found in the South at the outbreak of the rebellion. They were men
who in a less conspicuous way held the same faith that inspired Andrew
Johnson and William G. Brownlow during the war. It was the influence
and example of this class of men which had contributed to the Union
Army so large a number of white soldiers from the rebellious
States,--numbering in the aggregate more than one hundred thousand men.
Tennessee alone furnished at least thirty-five thousand white troops
as brave as ever followed the flag. The Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia,
Alabama, all furnished loyal men from their mountain districts; and
beyond the Mississippi a valuable contingent came from Arkansas and
Texas.
The men who had the courage to stand for the Union in time of war
should not have separated from its friends in time of peace. If
Reconstruction had been completed according to the first design, on
the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment, these men would have remained
solidly hostile to the Southern Democracy. But as the contest waxed
warm, as negro suffrage became a prominent issue, many of them broke
away from their associations and became the bitterest foes of the
Republican party. They followed Andrew Johnson and partook of his
spirit. But against all adverse influences, some of the truest and
best of this class of Union men remained with the Republican party.
If the whole number had proved steadfast, they would have formed the
centre of a strong and growing influence in the South which in many
localities would have been able--as in East Tennessee--to resist the
combined rebel power of their respective communities. Under such
protection the colored vote, intelligently directed and defended,
could have resisted the violence which has practically deprived it of
all influence. Every day affords fresh proof of the disasters which
have resulted to the Republican party of the South from the loss of
so large a proportion of the original Union men.
Perhaps the most serious charge brought against the Republican policy
by Southern men, was that the negro was advanced to the right of
suffrage, while a portion of the white population were placed under
such political disabilities as prevented their voting. This allegation
is often made, however, in a way that leads to erroneous impressions,
because as matter of fact it was not the policy of Congress to deprive
any man of the right of suffrage. Congress even left the voting
franchise in full force with those who were under such political
disabilities as forbade their holding office. It is true that in a
certain election under the Reconstruction laws the voter was subjected
to a test-oath, but this condition was imposed under what seemed to be
a fair plea of necessity; for it was applied in the South only after
the entire white population had refused to reconstruct their States on
the basis first freely offered them, with no restriction on white
suffrage, and even before the negro was empowered to vote. Fearing
from this experience that any organization of a State under the
auspices of Republican power might be voted down, Congress resorted to
the expedient of confining the suffrage in the preliminary stage to
shoe who had not rebelled, and who could therefore be firmly trusted
to establish a loyal government.
While the National Government refrained from withholding the elective
franchise from men who had fought to destroy the Union, there is no
doubt that disabilities and exclusions were imposed upon large classes
in certain States of the South. But perhaps even here there have been
exaggeration and misunderstanding, for in some of the reconstructed
States,--notably Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas,--there were no
test-oaths and no exclusion from the right of suffrage by reason of
participation in the rebellion; and yet hostility to the Reconstruction
Acts, and personal wrongs and injuries to the colored men, were quite
as marked in those States as in those where certain classes of citizens
labored under the stigma of exclusion from the ballot. Possibly it
might be said that exclusion, even in one State, was an odious
discrimination which all who had taken part in the rebellion would,
from a feeling of fellowship, resent and resist. But the truth
remains, nevertheless, that in the Southern States in which no
test-oaths were applied disturbance, disorder, and resistance to law
were as frequent and flagrant as in those where suffrage had in some
degree been qualified and restricted.
The original difficulty was the rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment
by the South--a difficulty that recurred not only at every subsequent
step of reconstruction, but was even more plainly demonstrated after
reconstruction was nominally complete. If that Amendment had been
accepted by the Southern States as the basis of reconstruction, the
suffrage of the colored man would have followed as a necessity and a
boon to the South. It would have originated in popular demand, and the
State authorities, instead of expending their power in resisting the
decree of the Nation, would have upheld the same franchise with all
the earnestness which the combined power of necessity and self-interest
could inspire. It is difficult to compute the loss and the suffering
endured by the South from the folly of rejecting a Constitutional
Amendment, which they could have had with all its benefits, and which
they were compelled afterwards to accept with all its burdens. This
unhappy result to the South was the fruit of their unwise adherence
to Andrew Johnson in a political battle which he was predestined to lose.
It was not unnatural that the unwise action on the part of the South
should lead to unwise action of the part of the North; but it must
be remembered that if mistakes were made in the system of
reconstruction they were for a day only, while the objects sought
were for all time. The misfortune was, that the mistakes blinded
the eyes of many candid and patriotic men to the real merit of the
struggle. It is not the first time in history where a great and noble
purpose has been weakened and thwarted by prejudices aroused against
the means used to effect it. The design was broad, patriotic,
generous, and statesmanlike: the means to attain it aroused prejudices
which created obstacles at every step and led to almost fatal
embarrassment. The elevation of a race, the stamping out of the last
vestige of caste, the obliteration of cruel wrongs, were the objects
aimed at by the Republicans. If they remain unaccomplished, or only
partially accomplished, no discredit can attach to the great political
organization which entertained lofty conceptions of human rights, and
projected complete measures for their realization. That prejudice
should stand in the way of principle, that subsidiary issues should
embarrass the attainment of great ends, that personal and partisan
interests should for a time override the nobler instincts of
philanthropy, must be regarded with regret, but not with discouragement.
[(1) The New Jersey Legislature of 1871 reversed the action of the
previous year, and ratified the Amendment after it had been proclaimed
by the Secretary of State as adopted. Ohio at first rejected the
Amendment, but reversed her action in time to have her vote recorded
among the States ratifying the Amendment. New York ratified the
Amendment in 1869; the next year, under a Democratic majority, the
Legislature attempted to withdraw the ratification; and in the year
succeeding the Republicans re-affirmed it.]