"CARPET-BAG" AND NEGRO DOMINATION IN THE SOUTHERN STATES BETWEEN 1868
AND 1876
Escape of Virginia, Georgia and Texas from Negro Rule--North Carolina's
Rapid Recovery from Negro Rule--The Loyal League--Origin of the K. K.
K.'s--Methods of the Ku-Klux--Periods in the History of Negro Rule--The
Act for the Enforcement of the New Amendments--The Corruption in the
New "State" Governments--The Supplemental Enforcement Act--The
President's Proclamation of March 23d, 1871--The Ku-Klux Act of April
20th, 1871--Interference of the United States Military Power in the
Affairs of South Carolina--The President's Proclamation of May 3d,
1871--The President's Proclamation to the People of South Carolina--The
Ku-Klux Trials--Corruption in the "State" Governments of the South--The
Revolt in the Republican Party--The Liberal Republican Convention of
1872--Acceptance of the Liberal Republican Candidates by the
Democrats--Division in the Democratic Party--The Republican Platform
and Nominees--The Republican Triumph--Events in Alabama--Events in
Louisiana--The Downward Course between 1872 and 1874--The Elections of
1874--The Change in Alabama, Arkansas and Texas--The Status in South
Carolina in 1874--The Day of Complete Deliverance--The Status in
Mississippi in 1875--Fiat Money and the Resumption of Specie
Payments--The Inflation Bill of 1874 and the Veto of it by the
President.
[Sidenote: Escape of Virginia, Georgia and Texas from negro rule.]
Virginia, Texas and Georgia had been in no great hurry, as we have
seen, to exchange military government exercised by the white officers
of the United States army for "State" government under the electorate
proposed in the Reconstruction Acts. In this they were wise. The army
officers did not, as a rule, sympathize with the radical {248}
movements of the Republicans in Congress, and they so executed the
duties imposed upon them as to cause the least suffering and
inconvenience. Their rule, though exercised under a repellent title,
was in fact far milder than, and far preferable to, the civil
government of the adventurer and the negro. They mingled socially with
the old families, and, in many cases, married their fair daughters. The
common soldiers from the Northern "States" also fraternized with their
race relatives in the South. They did not fancy the black soldiers
either of the regular army or the "State" militia, and many were the
cases in which they intervened between the defenceless ex-Confederates
and the brutal blacks in blue. It is even said by men who have every
opportunity to know that many of them doffed their uniforms on election
day, went to the polls, and voted the Democratic ticket.
In spite of the threats of Congress, and the ever-increasing conditions
imposed by that body upon the permission to resume the "State" status,
these three communities held out under military rule until so many of
their leading citizens had been amnestied by Congress and made again
eligible to office and mandate, and until so much better provisions
concerning the enfranchisement of the ex-Confederates had been secured,
as to put them in a far better position to resume "State" government
than was the case two years before. Moreover, these communities had
larger white than black populations. After their full restoration,
consequently, Virginia and Georgia escaped largely the suffering
experienced by most of the others, and Texas also managed to pull
through the years from 1870 to 1874 with only about a four-fold
increase of taxation, and the creation of a debt of only about
5,000,000 of dollars, when she reached the period of union of almost
all her best citizens in the {249} Democratic party, which, in the
election of Richard Coke as Governor in 1874, and of a majority of the
legislative members, permanently triumphed in Texas. Mississippi also
had held back in 1868 and 1869, as we have seen, in order to secure
better terms for the ex-Confederates in the enfranchising and
disfranchising provisions of the "State" constitution, and by doing so
had accomplished this result. But Mississippi was one of the three
Southern communities in which the negro population far outnumbered the
white. Mississippi was not, for this reason chiefly, so fortunate as
Virginia, Texas and Georgia. She was obliged, with South Carolina and
Louisiana, to pass through the fiery furnace in order to fuse the
respectable white elements in her population into a single political
party with a well-understood and a well-determined purpose.
[Sidenote: North Carolina's rapid recovery from negro rule.]
Of all the "States" included in the Congressional Act of June 25th,
1868, only North Carolina had been fortunate enough to rid herself,
before 1872, of the rule of the adventurers and their ignorant negro
support. This happened because matters were driven to a crisis sooner
here than elsewhere. The legislature of 1868 had proceeded promptly to
authorize the issue of $25,000,000 of bonds, when the whole taxable
property of the "State" was not over $125,000,000. From the first
moment the people were threatened with confiscation, and when to this
was added the legislative act, known as the Schaffner law, authorizing
the Governor to suspend civil government, and institute martial law in
any part of the "State," and when he actually undertook to do so in
three counties of the "State," the whites came together in the election
of 1870, captured the legislature and redeemed the "State" from the
hideous tyranny with which it was threatened.
{250} [Sidenote: The Loyal League.]
Already before the Reconstruction Acts were passed, the political
adventurers in the South had begun organizing the negroes into secret
bodies, known later as the Union or Loyal League. The members of these
bodies were sworn to obey the decisions of the organization and to
execute them. The original idea seems to have been a combination for
protection against bands of lawless white people, and for mutual aid
and assistance in the hard struggle for existence to which the freedmen
were now exposed. The League soon took on, however, a political
character, and became a sort of Republican party organization in the
South.
[Sidenote: Origin of the K. K. K.'s.]
It is difficult to determine whether the Ku-Klux organization preceded
that of the Loyal League and provoked it or not. So far as we know,
both of them were first heard of in the year 1866. It is probable that
the Ku-Klux had its origin a little farther north than the Loyal
League. It is said by those who profess to know most about it, that the
first appearance of this body was in one of the southern counties of
Tennessee, Giles County; that it was first organized by a lot of young
loafers, probably ex-Confederate soldiers, who lived in the town of
Pulaski, the county town of that county; and that their first purpose
was the playing of practical jokes upon the ignorant and superstitious
negroes of the neighborhood. They operated in the night-time, went
disguised, travelled on horseback, their horses being also disguised,
and were oath-bound to execute the decisions of the organization, and
to protect each other. Whatever may have been its origin, this body
also soon found its political usefulness. It soon proved to be a
powerful means for intimidating and terrorizing the negroes, and also
white men acting with the negroes.
{251} [Sidenote: Methods of the Ku-Klux.]
After the Reconstruction Acts were passed and put into operation, and
especially after the Southern communities were reorganized as "States"
under them, and the military governments gave way to the "State"
governments, this organization spread all over the South, and
contributed much by its violent and unlawful methods toward wringing
finally the new "State" governments of the South from the hands of the
negroes and the "carpet-baggers." As it extended, its methods became
more lawless and violent. Its members whipped, plundered, burned,
abducted, imprisoned, tortured and murdered, for the prime purpose of
keeping the negroes from exercising suffrage and holding office. They
were protected by many respectable people who would not have
participated personally in their nefarious work. And they had
confederates everywhere, who, upon the witness stand and in the jury
box, would perjure themselves to prevent their conviction and
punishment. It was even said that there were many cases where members
of these Klans were able to have themselves subpoenaed as witnesses, or
summoned as jurors, in the trials of their comrades, and that they were
sworn to perjure themselves, if necessary, to clear each other. The
respectable people of the South tried to make it appear that these
lawless bands were simply freebooters, such as generally infest a
country for a time after a period of war, and had no political meaning
or purpose whatsoever; and it is probably true that the Klans never
went beyond county organization, any wider bond than the county
organization, or Klan, being rather the moral bond of a common purpose;
but it cannot be well questioned now that they had one purpose at least
in common, and that that was a chief purpose with them all, viz., to
terrorize the negro out of the exercise of his {252} newly-granted
privileges of suffrage and office-holding, and keep him in his place as
a menial.
[Sidenote: The naturalness of these organizations.]
The appearance of both the Loyal Leagues and the Ku-Klux Klans in the
manner in which they appeared, and at the time when they appeared,
ought not to cause any surprise to the student of history. Under the
reconstruction of the Southern communities as pursued before March of
1867 it seemed as if the freedmen were to be left to the tender mercies
of their former masters, irritated against them by the act of the North
in emancipating them, and by failure in war to prevent it. It was
entirely natural, not to say praiseworthy, for them to combine for the
defence of their newly found rights, and for mutual assistance in the
hard battle against want which they were now obliged to wage. And it
was no less natural that they should look for the intellectual power
necessary for forming such combinations to the white men from the North
who had helped them out of their bondage, and had given them food and
clothes in their hunger and nakedness.
And, again, when by the Reconstruction Acts and the restoration of
martial law in the South under them, Congress turned the tables upon
the Southern white people, and placed the ignorant barbarians in
political control of them, and made every open attempt to resist this
control a penal offence, it was also rather natural, though not
praiseworthy, that men should have bound themselves together by secret
oaths to do anything and everything in their power to defeat this
blunder-crime against civilization. Whether natural or not, it always
happens when such attempts are made, and it is always to be expected.
[Sidenote: The opportunity for political adventurers.]
But to return to the order of the narrative. The formation of the Union
Leagues in 1867 and 1868 enabled {253} the negroes to vote in these
years for delegates to the constitutional conventions required under
the Reconstruction Acts, and to vote upon the ratification of the
constitutions framed by them, and to participate in the election for
the "State" officers and legislative members under those constitutions,
with the help and under the direction of these organizations, and to
operate the newly established "State" governments under the same
direction. This opened the way for the "carpet-bag" governments in the
Southern "States," whose deeds may be now briefly narrated.
[Sidenote: Periods in the history of negro rule.]
The landing places in this story may be placed at the years 1872, 1874,
and 1876. The year 1872 is the date of the national revolt against the
policy of the Washington government in the affairs of the reconstructed
"States." The year 1874 is the date when some of the reconstructed
"States" succeeded in overthrowing carpet-bag and negro rule, and the
Democrats succeeded in electing a majority of members in the lower
House of Congress. And the year 1876 is the date of the complete
overthrow of that rule and the complete establishment of the "solid
South" under white Democratic government.
[Sidenote: The Act for the enforcement of the new Amendments.]
Before all of the Southern communities had been admitted to
representation in Congress, and before any of them except Tennessee had
gotten fairly under way with their new "State" governments, a bill was
presented in Congress to provide for the enforcement of the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. It
will be remembered that these Amendments authorized the exercise of
power by the United States Government against "State" action only. They
read: "No _State_ shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of a citizen of {254} the United States; nor
shall any _State_ deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"; and "the right of
citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged
by the United States or by any _State_ on account of race, color or
previous condition of servitude."
It is entirely clear from this language that, in the enforcement of
these new provisions of the Constitution, the United States Government
must direct its powers against the action of the "States,"
respectively, through their legislators and officials, and against that
only. But in this bill which became law on the 31st of May, 1870,
Congress enacted penalties not only against "State" officers and agents
for the violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, but
severe penalties against any _person_ within the "States," as well as
the Territories, who should undertake to deprive by unlawful means any
other person of his right to qualify and vote at any election, and
against any _person_ who under color of any law, statute or ordinance,
regulation or custom, should undertake to deprive any other person of
his civil rights and civil equality. Congress also, in this Act, vested
the jurisdiction over such cases in the United States courts and
authorized the President of the United States to enforce their
decisions by the aid of the United States army and navy if necessary.
Now, while it may probably be rightly claimed that the _Thirteenth_
Amendment to the Constitution, which reads: "Neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States,
or in any place subject to their jurisdiction," empowers Congress to
make laws protecting the civil rights and civil equality of persons
{255} within the "States" against infringement by other _persons_, and
to invest the officers of the United States, both judicial and
executive, with the power to enforce these laws, since in this
Amendment the prohibition of slavery or involuntary servitude is not
directed against "State" action solely, but against any attempt made by
anybody to create an involuntary servitude, it cannot on the other hand
be claimed, with any show of correct interpretation, that the
_Fourteenth_ Amendment warrants the exercise of any such power by the
United States Government, and it is entirely out of the question to
claim that the Fifteenth Amendment protects the right of a person,
within a State, to vote against the attempt of another person or of
other persons to infringe the same, or even against the "State" itself
to do so, except it be on account of race, color or previous condition
of servitude.
[Sidenote: Criticism of the Act.]
There is not the slightest doubt in the mind of any good constitutional
lawyer, at the present time, that Congress overstepped its
constitutional powers in that part of the Enforcement Act of May 31st,
1870, which related to the exercise of the suffrage, and trenched upon
the reserved powers of the "States." The excuse for it was that lawless
bands of white men, the Ku-Klux Klans and the like, were intimidating
the blacks, and in the approaching elections of the autumn of 1870
would prevent them from voting. But that was a matter for the "State"
governments to look out for, and the "State" governments in the South
were, at the time of the passage of this Act, with the exception of
Tennessee, in the hands of the Republicans.
[Sidenote: The corruption in the new "State" governments.]
Meanwhile the new "State" governments had well begun their career of
corruption, shame and vulgarity. They were plundering the treasury,
increasing the taxes, selling franchises, issuing bonds, and
celebrating {256} high carnival everywhere and all the time. The
gentlemen and political leaders of the old school, and the old
political class, of the South looked on aghast, with mingled feelings
of bitter degradation and anger, and the hotspurs and desperadoes were
stirred to deeds of intimidation and violence. There is little doubt
that some negroes were terrified out of exercising the suffrage in the
election of 1870. Not yet, however, had enough of the disqualified
whites been amnestied, or enough intimidation been exercised, or
sufficient unity among the whites been attained, to work the overthrow
of "carpet-bag," negro rule. Enough, however, was threatened to
influence the Republican Congress to proceed to more complete, if not
more extreme, measures for the protection of the negro in his civil and
political rights, and to move the President to garrison the principal
points in the Southern "States" with United States soldiers.
[Sidenote: The supplemental enforcement Act.]
The Congress passed the Act of the 28th of February, 1871, which so
supplemented the Act of May 31st, 1870, as to place the whole control
of the registrations and elections when and where Representatives to
Congress should be chosen, in the hands of United States officers, the
supervisors, and the deputy marshals, commissioners and judges of the
United States courts. It may be claimed that Congress, under the power
to regulate the manner of holding Congressional elections vested in it
by Article I., section 4, of the Constitution, was authorized to pass
this law, provided it confined the action of it to the Congressional
registration and election. But since the "State" elections were held at
the same time and place, and under the same control and direction as
the Congressional, it was inevitable that the control of the United
States officers would be exercised, either directly {257} or
indirectly, over those also. And this was unquestionably the chief
purpose of the Act, so far as its execution in the Southern "States"
was concerned.
[Sidenote: The President's Message of March 23d, 1871.]
But this was not yet enough in the views of the Administration. In the
two years of his incumbency of the Presidential office, General Grant
had fallen into the arms of the radical Republicans, who appeared to be
in large majority, and the usual manoeuvering had begun for the second
term. Upon the basis of information, which turned out to be very
insufficient and unreliable, the President, on the 23d of March, 1871,
addressed a message to Congress, in which he affirmed that life and
property were insecure in some of the "States," and the carrying of the
mails and the collection of the revenue dangerous; that the power to
correct these evils was not possessed by the "State" governments; and
that it was doubtful if the Executive of the United States, under
existing laws, had the power to meet these exigencies; and asked
Congress to pass such laws as would enable him to cope with the
situation.
[Sidenote: The Ku-Klux Act of April 20th, 1871.]
Congress answered this appeal with the noted, not to say notorious,
Ku-Klux Act of April 20th, 1871, in which Congress simply threw to the
winds the constitutional distribution of powers between the "States"
and the United States Government in respect to civil liberty, crime and
punishment, and assumed to legislate freely and without limitation for
the preservation of civil and political rights within the "States," and
for the punishment of the infraction of the same by individual persons
conspiring together for that end, and for the punishment of the
conspiracy alone, whether the infraction or the conspiracy was executed
upon, or directed against, officers of the Government or merely private
persons; and {258} in which the act of a combination of private
individuals defying successfully the constituted authorities of the
United States in a given "State," or those of the "State" concerned,
was declared to be rebellion against the United States, upon the
happening, and during the continuance, of which the President might
suspend the privileges of the writ of Habeas Corpus within such
districts as he, by proclamation, might designate.
[Sidenote: The unconstitutionality of the Act.]
The first part of this Act was, unquestionably, an unconstitutional
encroachment upon the powers of the "States," in so far as it is
related to the protection of political rights against infraction, or
against conspiracy for the purpose of infraction, by private persons.
The second part was probably within the powers of Congress, but it was
a most extreme use of its powers. The "State" governments in the South
were in the hands of the Republican "carpet-baggers" and Republican
negroes, and there is no question that the governors and legislatures
of these "States" were quick enough to call in the aid of United States
troops long before it was necessary to do so. Moreover, the militia of
these "States" was composed almost entirely of negroes, and the whites
were forbidden to keep arms. Under such circumstances this Act of
Congress empowering the President to establish martial law upon his own
motion in time of peace within a "State" when combinations of private
persons had successfully defied, in any instance, the laws of the
"State" was a very stiff measure, and unwarranted by the facts of the
situation.
[Sidenote: Interference of the United States military power in the
affairs of South Carolina.]
As a matter of fact, the Governor of South Carolina had asked the
President to give him United States soldiers for the protection of the
"State" and its citizens against domestic violence, and the President
had, on the 24th of March just preceding the passage of this act,
issued his proclamation commanding the persons {259} composing the
unlawful combinations to disperse and retire to their abodes within
twenty days. This was the method prescribed by the Constitution for
bringing the military power of the United States to the assistance of a
"State" government whenever the "State" government might not be able to
maintain itself against domestic violence. There is no doubt that
General Scott of Ohio, whilom officer in the Union army and in the
Freedmen's Bureau, the "carpet-bag," radical Republican Governor of
South Carolina, attributed the most traitorous character possible to
these combinations, exaggerated the strength and extent of them to the
highest possible degree, and called for United States troops to
suppress them at the earliest possible moment. The most trustworthy men
in South Carolina affirmed then, and have continued to affirm to this
day, that those combinations had no traitorous intent whatsoever, but
were simply defensive in their nature; that the wholesale pardoning of
criminals by the Governor and the vagrancy of the negroes had filled
the country with desperadoes who made life, property, and female honor
insecure; and that, as the militia was composed of the friends of these
fiends, and the "State" government itself would not protect the white
citizens, it was absolutely necessary for the white people to create
some means of united action in self-defence and take the law into their
own hands. Statements to this effect were made by one Judge Carpenter,
a Republican "State" official of South Carolina, before the
investigating committee of Congress in 1871.
[Sidenote: The President's proclamation of May 3d, 1871.]
On the 3d day of May following the passage of the Ku-Klux Act, the
President issued his general proclamation warning the people that the
law applied to the whole country, but particularly exhorting the people
{260} in the newly reconstructed "States" to suppress all unlawful
combinations by their own voluntary efforts, and declaring, that while
he was reluctant to make use of the extraordinary powers conferred on
him by the Act, he would nevertheless do so if it should be found
necessary for securing all the citizens of the United States in "the
peaceful enjoyment of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution
and the laws."
[Sidenote: The President's proclamation to the people of South
Carolina.]
On the 12th of the following October, the President directed his
proclamation to the people of South Carolina alone, declaring that
hostile combinations of persons making armed resistance to the civil
authorities of the "State" and the United States, in their attempt to
secure the people in their rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the
United States and the Congressional Act of April 20th, 1871, too strong
to be overcome by these authorities, existed in the counties of York,
Marion, Chester, Laurens, Newberry, Fairfield, Lancaster and
Chesterfield, and commanding the members of these combinations to
deliver their arms and accoutrements into the hands of the United
States officers in those districts, and disperse to their abodes within
five days.
[Sidenote: Suspension of the privileges of the writ of Habeas Corpus by
the President in certain counties of South Carolina.]
At the end of the five days of grace, the President issued a third
proclamation, declaring that the members of these unlawful combinations
in the places mentioned in his former proclamation had not dispersed
and had not delivered up their arms and accoutrements as ordered, and
suspending the privileges of the writ of Habeas Corpus in the counties
of South Carolina above designated.
On the 3d day of the following November a fourth proclamation was
published, in which the President {261} acknowledged his error in
including the county of Marion in the list of counties in which the
privileges of the writ were suspended, but declared that the situation
in Union county was such as to warrant the suspension of those
privileges in that county also, and warned the insurgents in that
county to deliver up their arms and accoutrements and disperse to their
abodes within five days. This warning not having been obeyed, according
to the views of the President, a final proclamation was issued by him
on the 10th day of November suspending the privileges of the writ of
Habeas Corpus in Union county.
[Sidenote: The Ku-Klux trials.]
In execution of the Act of April 20th, and in pursuance of these
proclamations, the President now sent a strong force of United States
troops into the district composed of the nine counties mentioned, the
commanders of which arrested some five or six hundred persons, kept
them in confinement so long as they pleased, and procured the
arraignment of some of them before the United States courts, where a
number of them were convicted and sentenced to fine or imprisonment or
to both. Whether there was any necessity for the exercise of such
harshness as this is a grave question. It was felt at the South to be
an abominable outrage, and the Democrats of the North held the same
opinion. More ominous than all this, however, was the fact that many
leading Republicans raised their voices in disapproval of it, and of
the law which authorized it.
[Sidenote: Corruption in the "State" governments of the South.]
[Sidenote: In South Carolina.]
During the year 1872, in addition to all this, there came to the
knowledge of Congress and of the people of the North the frightful and
scandalous corruption of the "State" governments in the South. It is
very difficult to get at distinct and reliable facts upon a subject
which officials undertake to cover up and keep shrouded in darkness.
{262} But the record of these doings in South Carolina was something as
follows. The House of Representatives, the majority of the members of
which were negroes, and the presiding officer of which was the
notorious F. J. Moses, spent ninety-five thousand dollars to refurnish
its assembly hall, where the aristocrats of South Carolina had never
spent over five thousand. Clocks costing six hundred dollars each,
sofas two hundred dollars each, chairs at sixty dollars each, desks at
a hundred and twenty-five dollars each, mirrors at six hundred dollars
each, cuspidors at eight dollars each--such were the items of the bill.
In the four years from 1868 to 1872, two hundred thousand dollars were
expended for furniture for the legislative chambers alone. Then came
the bills of supplies, sundries and incidentals, amounting in one
session to three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, one hundred and
twenty-five thousand of it for a free restaurant, lunch counter and
bar, at which the members and their friends fared most royally, eating,
drinking and smoking, and paying not a penny therefor directly, nor
indirectly, since many, if not most, of the members of that legislature
paid no stiver of the taxes. Then came the printing bills, averaging
more than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year where ten
thousand dollars would have been more than enough to pay every
legitimate expense of that kind.
Then came the sale of franchises of all kinds, and the pledging of the
credit of the "State" in the form of bonds to aid all sorts of
enterprises pretended to be set on foot, or promoted as is now said, by
combinations of legislators or officials or their friends. In 1868 the
"State" debt was about five millions of dollars, with almost enough
assets to pay it. In 1872 the assets had disappeared and the debt was
more than eighteen {263} millions, and nothing worth mentioning to show
for it. And all this when the "State" taxes had been raised from less
than a half million of dollars a year on a valuation of over four
hundred millions to two millions of dollars a year on a valuation of
less than two hundred millions of property.
[Sidenote: In Louisiana.]
In Louisiana, under the leadership of the brilliant young adventurer,
Henry C. Warmoth of Illinois, the financial history of the "State" was
even more scandalous. During the four years of Warmoth's governorship,
from 1868 to 1872, the average annual expenditure of the "State"
government was about six millions of dollars, when, measured by the
previous experiences of the "State," six hundred thousand dollars would
have been ample to defray all legitimate expenses. At the beginning of
Warmoth's administration the debt of the "State" was between six and
seven millions of dollars, with more than enough assets to extinguish
it. At the end of the four years of his power, in 1872, the debt was
nearly fifty millions of dollars, the assets had all disappeared, and
there was nothing worth mentioning to show for the one or the other.
In the counties and municipalities of both "States" the corruption was
equally rampant, shameless, and vulgar. It is impossible to obtain
exact figures in regard to it, or to estimate with any degree of
exactness, or even probability, the amounts stolen and made away with.
In the other reconstructed "States" where the adventurers and the
negroes held sway, the "State" governments worked along the same lines,
though not to the same appalling extent.
It was the most soul-sickening spectacle that Americans had ever been
called upon to behold. Every principle of the old American polity was
here reversed. In place of government by the most intelligent and {264}
virtuous part of the people for the benefit of the governed, here was
government by the most ignorant and vicious part of the population for
the benefit, the vulgar, materialistic, brutal benefit of the governing
set.
[Sidenote: The revolt in the Republican party.]
It is no subject of surprise or wonder that, confronted with these
frightful results of radical Republican policy and administration in
the South, such Republicans as Horace Greeley, Charles Francis Adams,
Lyman Trumbull, David Davis, Carl Schurz, Gratz Brown, Stanley
Matthews, George Hoadly, J. R. Spaulding, George W. Julian, Horace
White, David A. Wells, and the like, turned with disgust from the
nauseating transactions and resolved to do what was in their power to
put an end to it all. Even the radical, but honest, Sumner gave his
adherence to the movement for a change of the Administration, as the
only way to check the terrible corruption which was creeping over the
land. Sumner, it is true, had been made to feel personally the heavy
hand of the Administration. He had been dropped, the preceding year,
from the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations at the
requirement of the Administration, because he had so strongly and
successfully opposed the Santo Domingo policy of the President and his
"aide-de-camp." But he had opposed that because he saw in it
corruption, robbery and bloodshed.
[Sidenote: The Liberal Republican convention of 1872.]
The Liberal Republicans were bolters, of course, from the regular
organization, and there was no sufficient opportunity for them to
construct a party organization for themselves in time for the
Presidential election of 1872. A general call for the leaders among
them to meet in mass convention was issued from a "State" convention of
Liberal {265} Republicans in Missouri, and the meeting took place at
Cincinnati on the 1st day of May, 1872.
[Sidenote: Their platform.]
The platform which it presented to the people demanded the removal, at
once, of all political disabilities from the white men of the South,
the maintenance of impartial suffrage and of equal civil rights, the
cessation of military rule in the South and the supremacy of civil over
military power, the reform of the civil service, and a speedy return to
specie payments. Many of the Liberal Republicans were inclined toward a
much more moderate tariff policy, but out of respect for the opinions
of those among them who were strong protectionists, they abandoned
their attempt to insert any doctrine on this subject in the platform.
The protectionists were equally considerate, and so the new party went
to the country uncommitted upon this very important question.
[Sidenote: Their nominees.]
It was at first supposed that the choice of the convention for the
Presidency would lay between Judge David Davis of Illinois, Charles
Francis Adams of Massachusetts and Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois.
But an unexpected hostility of a very bitter nature soon developed
between the supporters of Davis and Adams, and rendered the nomination
of either of them impossible. This was evident on the first ballot, on
which Mr. Greeley, Senator Trumbull and Gratz Brown each received more
votes than Judge Davis, and together more votes than Mr. Adams. It was
thus manifest that the Western men would not take Mr. Adams and the
Eastern men would not take Judge Davis. The compromise was quickly made
upon Greeley, and Gratz Brown was put with him upon the ticket. It was
an unfortunate selection. The country did not want any brilliant
experiments at the moment. It wanted to settle down to business. And it
was to be {266} foreseen that it would not be willing to make a
newspaper man President at such a juncture.
[Sidenote: Acceptance of the Liberal Republican candidates by the
Democrats.]
But stranger than the fact that the prince of protectionists was now
running for the presidency on a platform which ignored protection, was
the fact that the Democratic party, strengthened again by its Southern
wing, now accepted the platform of the Liberal Republicans, and in
convention at Baltimore, in July following the Cincinnati meeting,
nominated the Liberal Republican candidates for the presidency and the
vice-presidency as its own candidates. The action of the Democrats,
both as to the platform and the candidates, was almost unanimous, and
it would be ungracious to express any suspicion of its sincerity. The
change of profession on the part of the Southern Democrats was very
great indeed, so great as to be surprising, but they had evidently come
to the conclusion that it was useless to contend with the North any
longer against the civil and political rights of the freedmen, and that
it was best for all concerned to accept the inevitable, and try to put
themselves in the most advantageous position possible for adjusting the
relations of their section to it.
[Sidenote: Mr. Greeley and the Democrats.]
Mr. Greeley was, indeed, in strange company, but the company had come
to him. He had not gone to them. He welcomed their support, and became
contaminated by it in the eyes of a vast majority of the people of the
North. His own great ambition to be President also caused him to say
and to do some imprudent and undignified things. More than all, the
time had not yet come for the great change. The country was fast
approaching a financial crisis, and any shock would bring it on with
such sudden violence as to make it widespread and disastrous.
{267} [Sidenote: Division in the Democratic Party.]
As the last move, the "straight-out" Democrats bolted the ticket in
September, and at a convention held in Louisville, Kentucky, nominated
Charles O'Conor of New York for President, and John Quincy Adams of
Massachusetts for Vice-President.
[Sidenote: The Republican platform and nominees.]
The September and October elections in Vermont, Maine, Pennsylvania,
Ohio, and Indiana demonstrated the hopelessness of the opposition to
the radical Republicans. They had held their convention in Philadelphia
in the early part of June, had issued a platform which simply asserted
the righteousness of what they had done and the determination to
persist in the course heretofore followed, and had nominated General
Grant for re-election to the presidency with Senator Henry Wilson, of
Massachusetts, for his running mate.
[Sidenote: The Republican triumph.]
In the election, they swept all of the Northern "States" by heavy
popular majorities, and with their election machinery in the Southern
"States" they captured a majority of these also. In those Southern
"States" which were free from carpet-bag negro rule the Greeley
electors were chosen, that is in Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri,
Tennessee, Georgia and Texas. In the North, a very large number of
Democrats had failed to go to the polls. They could hardly have elected
Greeley, however, had they all voted for him. They were pretty sure of
this, and they took the opportunity of administering a rebuke to their
chiefs for not nominating candidates who were members of their own
party.
[Sidenote: The effect of the triumph of the Republicans.]
While there is no doubt that the re-election of General Grant, and the
election of a strong Republican majority in Congress, quieted the mind
of the North, there is also no doubt that they caused great {268}
discouragement among the white people of the South, since they operated
as an encouragement to the adventurers and the negroes to persevere in
their corrupt and conscienceless management of the "State" governments.
In several of the reconstructed "States" the Democrats had made strong
efforts to secure control of the "State" governments. The Amnesty Act
of May 22d, 1872, had removed the disqualifications of the Fourteenth
Amendment from all the Southern leaders, except such as had been
members of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses, or had held
judicial, military, naval, or diplomatic office under the United
States, or had been heads of departments in ministerial office. A large
number of these leaders had thus been placed in a position to
participate as candidates for office and legislative position in the
election, and to aid greatly in the work of rescuing their "States"
from negro Republican rule. In Alabama and Louisiana they had very
nearly succeeded. In Alabama they had elected the Governor and a
majority of the members to the lower house of the legislature in the
autumn of 1870, and in 1872 they claimed to have elected a majority of
the members to both houses.
[Sidenote: Events in Alabama.]
In Alabama, the Democratic members-elect of the legislature convened in
the capitol, and the Republican members-elect in the court-house. The
Democratic Governor, Lindsay, recognized the Democratic legislature,
and the Democratic legislature then canvassed the votes for Governor
and declared the Republican candidate, D. P. Lewis, elected. Lewis then
recognized the Republican legislature, and telegraphed to Opelika for
United States soldiers to come to Montgomery. They arrived by the next
train, and, backed by these, the Governor and his friends, in and {269}
out of the legislature, succeeded in constituting a legislature with a
small Republican majority in both houses; and the whites fell back
again under black rule, discouraged and exhausted by the exertions and
the failure to escape from it.
[Sidenote: Events in Louisiana.]
In Louisiana the events were far more extraordinary and violent.
Warmoth's rule was approaching its end, and his Republican enemies,
what was known as the Custom House faction, the United States
officials, were fairly panting to get at him. To foil them, he went
over to the Democrats and promised to give them a fair chance to elect
their candidate for Governor and their candidates for the legislature.
For this he expected protection from them against the Custom House
gang, to whom he had denied what they had conceived to be their proper
share of the public plunder, and who, if in possession of the "State"
government, would make him answer for it. Warmoth supposed he was able
with his election machinery to give the "State" to the Democrats
whether the voters should do so or not. The election took place at the
same time as the presidential election, November 4th, 1872. The returns
were sent by the supervisors and commissioners of elections to Warmoth,
and he delivered them to his Returning Board, consisting of himself,
the Secretary of State, F. J. Herron, and one John Lynch; the other two
members of the Board as constituted by the legislature, by the act of
1870, viz., Lieutenant-Governor Pinchback and one Anderson, being
disqualified from serving, since both of them were candidates for
office at this election. The Governor had his suspicions aroused about
the loyalty of both Herron and Lynch to him before the count took
place, and having the legal power to remove Herron, he did so at once
and appointed one John Wharton, a friend upon whom he could rely, in
{270} Herron's place. Lynch now refused to act with them, and Herron
denied the power of the Governor to dismiss him from the Secretaryship
of State, and from his _ex officio_ membership in the Returning Board.
Warmoth and Wharton proceeded, however, to supply the place of Lynch,
as they might do under the law, and Herron and Lynch proceeded to
supply the place of Warmoth.
The Warmoth Board had the returns, and it was also generally felt that
the Democratic candidate for Governor, John McEnery, had been chosen by
the voters. Moreover, the right of Herron to retain the office of
Secretary of State was immediately brought before the supreme court of
the "State," and the court gave its decision against Herron's
contention. It seemed now certain that the Warmoth Returning Board
would declare McEnery to have been elected Governor. But the Republican
candidate, W. P. Kellogg, then a Senator from Louisiana in Congress,
was watchful and resourceful. He secured from United States District
Judge Durell an injunction which forbade the Warmoth Board to do
anything except in the presence of the Lynch Board, and forbade McEnery
from claiming his election under the returns which might be given out
by the Warmoth Board.
[Sidenote: Warmoth and Durell.]
Warmoth met this by a move which was equally a _coup de surprise_. The
legislature had at its last session passed a law vesting the power to
select the members of the Returning Board in the senate. The Governor
had not signed this bill, and probably never intended to sign it, since
it proposed to take the control of the Board out of his hands, but it
now seemed to furnish him a way of escape from Durell's order. He
hastily signed the bill and promulgated it as law, and as the senate
was not in session, proceeded to appoint the members of the new Board
himself, under the power of the Governor to make temporary appointments
{271} to office when the senate was not in session. He appointed one
Dr. Feriet chairman of the Board, and put the election returns in his
hands. This Board declared that McEnery had been elected Governor and
that the Greeley electors had been chosen. The Governor published these
decisions officially on the 5th day of December, and the affair seemed
to have been closed. But to the surprise of everyone concerned, and of
the whole country, in the middle of the night following, Judge Durell
issued an order to the United States Marshal, S. B. Packard, to take
possession of the capitol and hold it at the pleasure of the Judge
against all unlawful bodies attempting to convene therein. The Judge
claimed that Warmoth had committed a contempt against his court in the
Returning Board proceeding, and he declared that the Lynch Board was
the legal body. His order furthermore required the commander of the
United States troops to furnish a detachment of soldiers to sustain the
United States marshal in taking possession of the capitol, and in
enforcing the Lynch Board's canvass and decision.
A more palpable outrage upon the lawful powers of a "State" could
hardly have been conceived. The Judge had not a scintilla of authority
upon which to rest his proceeding. It is claimed that he was drunk when
he made the order. But this can hardly have been true, that is he could
not have been any more than ordinarily drunk, since the order was not
withdrawn when he became ostensibly sober again, but was made the basis
of a proceeding which lasted through many days, and the results of
which were the counting in of Kellogg and of a Republican legislature
by the Lynch Board, the immediate instalment of the Lynch Board
legislature, the almost immediate impeachment of Warmoth by it and his
removal from the governorship, the installation of the {272}
Lieutenant-Governor, the negro Pinchback, in his seat, the recognition
of the Lynch Board legislature and of Pinchback by the President of the
United States as the lawful legislature and executive of Louisiana, and
the inauguration of Kellogg as Governor at the end of the
Warmoth-Pinchback term. If this was all the work of a drunken spree, it
must have been a very long one, and there must have been many
participants in it besides the Judge.
The Warmoth Board Governor and legislature undertook to set up
government also, sustained as they undoubtedly were both by the law,
and by public opinion in Louisiana and probably throughout the country,
and partially organized a militia force. It was the fighting between
this militia and the metropolitan police in the streets of New Orleans
which occasioned the suppression of the McEnery government at last by
United States soldiers.
[Sidenote: The downward course between 1872 and 1874.]
[Sidenote: The elections of 1874.]
For two years more now the government of the adventurers, based on
negro support, continued in the "States" south of the Tennessee line,
except Georgia. Property was decreasing in amount and value; taxes were
being doubled; and new bond issues were being made, and the bonds sold
at a great reduction upon their face value, or stolen outright. But the
day of deliverance was coming. The conscience of the Nation had been
aroused, and in the elections of 1874 the voters throughout the country
delivered a stunning rebuke to the party responsible for the hideous
situation in the South. It is true that other issues were influential
in producing the _bouleversement_ of 1874, especially the financial
panic of 1873 and the corruption in the circles of the Federal
Administration itself, the Whiskey ring frauds, and the Indian agent
peculations. We must also {273} remember that at this very election
several of the Southern "States" relieved themselves of Republican rule
and sent solid, or almost solid, Democratic delegations to Congress.
But with all proper allowance for the effect of these things, there
still remained, as the chief cause of the change of view in the North,
the revolt of the popular conscience against being any longer dragooned
into the support of the policy of the Republican party in the Southern
"States," and the popular disgust at the everlasting "waving of the
bloody shirt" whenever the dominance of that party seemed anywhere
threatened. At any rate, it was a clean sweep, and from a majority of
two-thirds in the Forty-third Congress, the Republicans found
themselves in possession of only about one-third of the seats in the
Lower House of the Forty-fourth Congress.
[Sidenote: The change in Alabama, Arkansas and Texas.]
Moreover, three more of the Southern "States" freed themselves, at this
time, from "Black Republican" rule. In Alabama, the respectable whites
had now about all gone into the Democratic ranks, and with the election
of George S. Houston as Governor, and a legislature in large majority
Democratic, the "State" won at last its self-government. Likewise by a
similar fusion of all the respectable whites into the Democratic party,
A. H. Garland was elected Governor of Arkansas and a legislature with a
large Democratic majority was chosen, and from that time forward the
"State" government has been in the hands of its own citizens. The same
result was reached in Texas, where the union of the respectables of all
parties upon the Democratic candidates elected Richard Coke Governor
and a legislature of reputable white men.
[Sidenote: The status in South Carolina in 1874.]
[Sidenote: Governor Chamberlain.]
Even South Carolina very nearly escaped her thraldom, and came near to
electing a white Democrat Governor. As it was, she got a moderate
Republican for {274} Governor, Mr. D. H. Chamberlain, a Northerner
indeed, but a man of great ability and undoubted honesty, who did
everything in his power to redeem the "State" from the miserable
condition into which the errors and crimes of his predecessors had
brought it. He naturally soon found himself in conflict with some of
the leaders of his own party in the "State" and at Washington, and was
greatly impeded by them in carrying out his own purposes. At last, in
1875, the break between him and the members of his party in the
legislature was completed by the act of the legislature in electing the
notorious F. J. Moses, Jr., and the negro, W. J. Whipper, "State"
judges. The Governor was so incensed at this act of downright depravity
that he refused to commission the two judges-elect to the judicial
offices to which they had been chosen. Whipper threatened to use force
to gain possession of the office, and the Governor issued his
proclamation threatening to arrest every person who should give Whipper
any aid or support in this attempt as disturbers of the public peace.
The Governor triumphed and protected the "State" against the terrible
degradation which impended over it, but his brave attitude ruined him
with the radical and base elements of his party.
[Sidenote: The day of complete deliverance.]
[Sidenote: The status in Mississippi in 1875.]
The day of complete deliverance was now, however, rapidly approaching.
The election of 1875 in Mississippi showed that the domination of the
"Black Republicans" in the Southern "State" governments could last no
longer. Here was a "State" in which the negro population exceeded the
white very largely, but in the election of 1875 the whites finally got
together and what they could not accomplish in one way they did in
another. The whites organized themselves into rifle clubs, attended the
Republican {275} meetings and insisted upon a division of the time
between their own speakers and the Republican speakers at these
meetings. A great deal of fraud and intimidation was practised, and
some violence was exercised, but always in such a manner as not to
provoke the calling of United States troops to the scene. The immediate
occasion of these desperate movements on the part of the whites was the
treatment accorded the petition made by the taxpayers' convention of
the "State" to the legislature for relief from the intolerable burdens
under which the taxpayers were suffering. This petition of the 4th of
January, 1875, recited that between the years 1869 and 1874 the rate of
"State" taxation had been raised from ten cents on the hundred dollars
of assessed value of lands to one dollar and forty cents, and that in
many cases the increase in the rate of the county levies had been even
greater, so that the whole product of the soil was hardly sufficient to
pay the taxes. The negro legislature laughed at these representations,
and did not deign to consider them, much less to do anything to satisfy
the frightful grievances complained of. It was now a choice between
complete destruction and the employment of any means necessary to
escape from it. There was no use in talking about observing the letter
of the law at such a moment. The law was iniquitous and it was rapidly
destroying all that was left of prosperity, civilization, morality and
decency. If it would not yield, it had to be broken. The movement was
successful. It was really a revolution. It resulted in the election of
a Democratic legislature in November of 1875, the disruption of the
Republican party in the "State," the framing of an impeachment against
the Republican Governor, Ames, his resignation and departure from the
"State," and the accession of the {276} Democrat, John M. Stone, to the
gubernatorial office.
It was thus that the eventful year 1876 was introduced, and it was an
earnest of the relief which was now to come to the remaining "States"
of the South suffering under the rule of the adventurers and their
negro allies.
[Sidenote: Fiat money and the resumption of specie payments.]
While the Republican party had step by step, and almost unconsciously,
involved itself in the support of dishonest and oppressive government
at the South, it was, on the other hand, fighting the battle for
financial honesty in the Nation at large against the fiat money heresy
and the schemes of repudiation invented and supported by the national
Democracy. Its Congressional majority had passed the Refunding Acts of
July 14th, 1870, and January 20th, 1871, for refunding the debt of the
United States in coin bonds bearing five, four and one-half and four
per centum interest. These acts authorized the issue of eighteen
hundred millions of dollars in these new bonds, five hundred millions
payable after ten years, and bearing five per centum interest, three
hundred millions payable after fifteen years and bearing four and
one-half per centum interest, and one thousand millions payable after
thirty years and bearing four per centum interest. By the Act of March
18th, 1869, the Republican Congress had declared that all of the
obligations of the United States should be paid in coin or its
equivalent, unless otherwise specifically stipulated in the law
authorizing the obligation. This Act was made applicable to past, as
well as future, obligations. It rested on the principle that debts must
be paid in the best money of the country unless otherwise agreed to in
the contract. This is, of course, the sound principle both of morals
and finance, and no act of Congress pronouncing {277} it would have
been considered necessary, except for the great fact that the
Democratic party, in its campaign of 1868, had espoused the opposite
doctrine and had fought the campaign largely under that issue. The Act,
however, might of course be repealed, and in that case the question as
to whether the principal sum of the greater part of the national
indebtedness should be paid in coin would be again opened, since the
laws authorizing the incurring of these obligations provided only for
the payment of the interest upon them in coin. It was in order to
forestall the possibility of a repeal of the Act of March 18th, 1869,
as well as in order to make a large saving in the interest charge, that
these Refunding Acts were passed.
After the panic of 1873 had resulted in such a depression of business
and depreciation of values throughout the country as to create greater
discontent with the existing political management, and this discontent
had manifested itself so distinctly in the elections of 1874,
announcing to the Republican party that after March 5th, 1875, a
Democratic majority would prevail in the House of Representatives, it
was manifest to the Republican leaders, in Congress and out of
Congress, that if anything was to be done in regard to the resumption
of specie payment, anything for bringing the paper currency of the
United States up to a coin value, it must be done speedily, and on the
21st of December, 1874, Mr. Sherman reported a bill from the Finance
Committee to the Senate for this purpose, which became a law on the
14th day of January following, and which provided for the redemption of
the fractional currency with silver coins of the value of ten,
twenty-five and fifty cents, so rapidly as these coins could be minted;
abolished the charge of one-fifth of one per centum on the coinage of
gold, making the coinage of gold at the mints of the {278} United
States free; repealed the law limiting the aggregate amount of the
circulating notes of the national banking associations, and the law for
the withdrawal of national-bank currency from, and its redistribution
among, the several "States" and Territories; ordered the Secretary of
the Treasury in issuing new circulating notes to the national banking
associations to retire United States legal tender notes to the amount
of eighty per centum of such issues, until the United States legal
tender notes should be reduced to three hundred millions of dollars,
and after January 1st, 1879, to redeem these legal tender notes in coin
on their presentation at the office of the Assistant Treasurer of the
United States in the city of New York, in sums of not less than fifty
dollars; and, to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to do this,
authorized him to use any unappropriated surplus revenue which might
be, from time to time, in the Treasury, and to sell bonds of the
description mentioned in the Act of July 14th, 1870, in such amounts as
he should find necessary to accomplish the purpose.
[Sidenote: The inflation bill of 1874 and the veto of it by the
President.]
It is true that the Republican majority in Congress had not taken this
high ground concerning the public credit and sound money without some
wavering. The President himself had become frightened by the panic of
the autumn of 1873, and in his annual message of December 1st following
had made recommendations that might be regarded as favorable to an
inflation of the existing body of paper money. His party friends in
Congress very soon produced a bill which, among other things, provided
for the increase of the United States notes and the national bank notes
to the extent of about one hundred millions of dollars, and passed it.
But the President had either thought the question out more fully, or
had been in receipt of some very sound {279} advice, after he wrote the
message of December 1st, 1873. On the 22d of April, 1874, he sent a
special message to Congress vetoing the bill. This stand of the
President recalled the Republicans in Congress from their economic
aberrations, and set them again upon the course which led to the Act of
the 14th of January, 1875.
While at the moment this law for the resumption of specie payments in
the short period of four years, or rather less, from the time of its
enactment seemed a rather hazardous, not to say desperate, move on the
part of the Republicans, it soon became manifest that they could have
done nothing so calculated to strengthen the hold of the party upon the
solid and conservative men of the country as just this very thing. Many
of these men who had usually voted with the Republicans disapproved of
the Southern policy of the party, and were on the point of turning
against it. With the Resumption Act the financial policy of the
Republican party, and of the country, was dragged to the front, and the
Southern policy was forced backward, and made to constitute a less
prominent issue in the campaign of 1876. This was not only wise party
management, but it was also a fortunate thing for the entire country.
The country was not yet in a position to endure a Democratic
administration, and, on the other hand, it was surfeited with
reconstruction Republican administrations. It wanted a sound money
Republican administration, which would devote itself to the development
of the economic interests of the whole people, and would let the
"State" governments in the South have a chance to work out their own
salvation. And this was just what it got in the election of 1876, and
in the administration of President Rutherford B. Hayes.
{280}