Previous to my resolve to settle in the South I had read and learned
much of politics and politicians; the first as being environed by
abnormal conditions unstable and disquieting--the class that had
established and controlled the economy of the Southern States; had been
deposed in the wage of sanguinary battle on many well contested
fields--deposed by an opponent equally brave, and of unlimited
resources; defeated, but unsubdued in the strength of conviction in the
rightfulness of their cause. A submission of the hand but not of the
heart. New constitutions granting all born beneath the flag equality of
citizenship and laws in unison adopted, and new officers alien to local
feeling were the executors.
It is unnecessary here to remark that if a succession of love feasts had
been anticipated, they had been indefinitely postponed.
For the officers of the new system were by their whilom predecessors
ordered to go "nor stand upon the order of their going," the bullet at
times conveying the order. Assassinations, lynchings, and reprisals by
both parties to the feud were of daily occurrence. The future for life,
liberty, and pursuit of happiness in busy city or sylvan grove, was not
alluring. My subsequent career makes it necessary for me to arise to
explain. Taking at the time a calm survey of the situation, an addition
to the column of martyrs seemed to me unnecessary. I believed in the
principles of the Republican party and as a private I was willing to
vote, work, and be slightly crippled; but had not reached the bleeding
and dying point. With such conclusions I resolved to come, and confine
myself to the pursuit of my profession and give politics a "terrible
letting alone." Oh, if abandoned resolutions were a marketable
commodity, what emporium sufficiently capacious and who competent to
classify!
The organization of the Republican party of Arkansas was on the eve of
disruption. Its headquarters were in the building and over the law
office of Benjamin & Barnes, with whom I was reading. Violent disputes
as to party policy, leadership, and the distribution of the plums of
office were of frequent occurrence. I very distinctly remember the day
when the climax was reached and "the parting of the ways" determined.
The adherents of Senator Clayton and the State administration on the one
part, and Joseph Brooks and his followers on the other, coming down the
stairs--some with compressed lip and flashing eye, others as petulant as
the children who say: "I don't want to play in your yard; I don't like
you any more." It was the beginning of the overt act that extinguished
Republican rule in Arkansas. The factions led by Powell Clayton and
Joseph Brooks, respectively, were known as the "Minstrels" and "Brindle
Tails."
Incongruity, being the prevailing force, possibly accounted for the
contrary character of the names, for there was little euphony in the
minstrelsy of the one or a monopoly of brindle appearance in the other,
for each faction's contingent, were about equally spotted with the sons
of Ham. My friends, Benjamin & Barnes, were prominent as Brindles, and
I, being to an extent a novice in the politics of the State, in a
position to hear much of the wickedness of the Minstrels and but little
of the "piper's lay" in his own behalf, fidelity to my friends, appalled
at the alleged infamy of the other fellows, susceptible to encomiums
which flattered ambition, I became a Brindle, and an active politician
minus a lawyer.
In 1873 I was appointed County Attorney for Pulaski, and after a few
months' service resigned to assume the office of Municipal Judge of the
City of Little Rock, to which I had been elected. I highly appreciated
this, as exceedingly complimentary from a population of 16,000, a large
majority of which were not of my race. I entered upon and performed the
duties of the office until some time after the culmination of the
Brooks and Baxter war in the State. It having been announced that I was
the first of my race elected to such an office in the United States, it
was not without trepidation that I assumed the duties that the
confidence of my fellow citizens had imposed upon me for the novelty of
such an administration attracted attention.
A judge who has to deal with and inflict penalties for violation of law
consequent upon the frailties and vices of mankind encounters much to
soften or harden his humanity, which may have remained normal but for
such contact. His sworn duty to administer the law as he finds it often
conflicts with a sense of justice implanted in the human soul, of which
the law, imperfect man has devised is often the imperfect vehicle for
his guidance; but nevertheless to which his allegiance must be
paramount, even when attempting to temper justice with mercy.
Nowhere is so plainly presented as many of the various lights and
shadows of human character. Love and faithlessness, sincerity and
deceit, nobility and dishonor, kindness and ingratitude, morality and
vice--all the virtues and their antitheses take their place at the bar
of the court of justice and await the verdict, while truth and deception
strive for conquest; an honest son of toil arrested in a den of infamy
whither he has been decoyed and his week's earnings filched; his wife
in tears before you; the clash of prejudice when the parties litigant
were of opposite races; the favorable expectation of the rich,
prominent, and influential when confronted by the poor and lowly; humble
and conscientious innocence appalled when rigid law would mulct them in
fine and imprisonment; the high and the haughty incensed at discharge of
the obscure and indigent. In cases slight, where the justice of leniency
was apparent and yet the mandates of the law had to be enforced, I would
pronounce the penalty and suspend the fine during good behavior. But if
the culprit returned, mercy was absent.
An incident in relation to the suspension of the fine will show that I
did to others as I would have others do to me: A member of the court was
at times irritable and vexatious. During a session there was a
misunderstanding, which, upon adjournment, growing in intensity,
resulted in my committing an assault. The chasm, however, was soon
bridged with mutual pledges. Nevertheless I requested the chief of
police to have charge entered upon docket, to come up at next session of
court, whereupon the judge, after expressing regret that the law had
been violated, fined Citizen Gibbs and suspended the fine during good
behavior, and, as the citizen was not again arraigned, it may be
presumed that his conduct was reasonably good, however doubtful may be
the presumption.
I was fortunate in having the confidence of the community, always an
important adjunct to the bench, for it is not always that the executor
of the law has to deal with the humble of no repute. An old resident,
wealthy and prominent, was arrested and was to appear before me for
trial. During the interim it was several times suggested to me in a
friendly way that I had better give the case a letting alone by
dismissal, as it would probably be personally dangerous to enforce the
law, as he was known to be impulsive and at times violent. I heard the
case, which had aggravated features, together with resisting and
assaulting an officer, and imposed the highest penalty provided by law.
Those who had thought that such action would give offence little knew
the man. It being the last case on the docket for the day, descending
from the bench and passing, I saluted him, which he pleasantly returned,
without a murmur as to the justice of the fine. Subsequently, on several
occasions, he placed me under obligations to him for favors. Personally,
insignificant as I may have been to him, he recognized in me for the
time being a custodian of the majesty of the law, which he knew he had
violated. When it shall happen as a rule and not as the exception that
men will esteem, applaud and sustain the honest administration of the
law, irrespective of the administrator, a great step will have been
taken toward a better conservation of constitutional liberty. In
Arkansas the political cauldron continued to boil. In Powell Clayton
were strongly marked the elements of leadership, fidelity to friends,
oratorical power, honesty of purpose, courage of conviction, with
unflinching determination to enforce them. The late Joseph Brooks, an
ex-minister of the Methodist Church, and who secularized as a
politician, was an orator to be reckoned with. Sincere, scathing, and
impressive, his following was large and devoted. Senator Clayton, the
present Ambassador to Mexico, has outlived the political bitterness that
so long assailed him, and was lately guest of reception and banquet
given him and largely attended by Democrats, chiefly his political
opponents.
The divided Republicans held their State convention in 1872. The Clayton
faction (the Minstrels) had for their nominee Elisha Baxter, a North
Carolinian by birth, and hence to the Southern manor born. This, is was
premised, would bring strength to the ticket. Joseph Brooks was the
nominee of the Brindle wing of the party, and a battle royal was on.
Although a minority of Democrats respectable in number joined the Brooks
faction, the majority stood off with wish for "plague on both your
houses," and awaited the issue. It was in my first of twenty-eight years
of recurrent canvassing. Many districts of the State at that time being
destitute of contact by railroads, made wagon and buggy travel a
necessity.
[Illustration: HON. POWELL CLAYTON.
Embassador to Mexico.
Governor of Arkansas--United States Senator--Honest and Fearless, with a
Public and Private Life Beyond Reproach.]
After nominations were made for the various State officers in
convention, appointments were made and printed notices posted and read
at church and schoolhouse neighborhoods, that there would be "speaking"
at stated points.
The speakers, with teams and literature and other ammunition of
political warfare known and "spiritually" relished by the faithful,
would start at early morn from their respective headquarters on a tour
of one or two hundred miles, filling ten or twenty appointments. Good
judgment was necessary in the personal and peculiar fitness of the
advocate. For he that could by historic illustration and gems of logic
carry conviction in a cultured city would be "wasting his sweetness on
the desert air" in the rural surroundings of the cabins of the lowly. I
have heard a point most crudely stated, followed by an apposite
illustrative anecdote, by a plantation orator silence the more profuse
cultured and eloquent opponent.
As he was still at his lesson on the duties and responsibilities of
citizenship, it was a study worthy the pencil of a Hogarth to watch the
play of lineament of feature, while gleaning high ideals of citizenship
and civil liberty amid the clash of debate of political opponents;
cheerful acquiescence, cloudy doubt, hilarious belief, intricate
perplexity, and want of comprehension by turns impressed the
countenance. But trustful in the sheet anchor of liberty, they were
worthy students, who strove to merit the great benignity. Canvassing was
not without its humorous phases during the perilous times of
reconstruction. The meetings, often in the woods adjoining church or
schoolhouse, were generally at a late hour, the men having to care for
their stock, get supper, and come often several miles; hence it was not
unusual for proceedings to be at their height at midnight. I was at such
a gathering in the lower part of the State, where Jack Agery, a noted
plantation orator, was holding forth, denouncing the Democracy and
rallying the faithful. He was a man of great natural ability and
bristling with pithy anecdote. From a rude platform half a dozen candles
flickered a weird and unsteady glare. Agery as a spellbinder was at his
best, when a hushed whisper, growing into a general alarm, announced
that members of the Ku Klux, an organization noted for the assassination
of Republicans, were coming. Agery, a born leader, in commanding tones,
told the meeting to be seated and do as he bid them. The Ku Klux,
disguised and pistol belted, very soon appeared, but not before Agery
had given out, and they were singing with fervor that good old hymn
"Amazing Grace, How Sweet It Sounds to Save a Wretch Like Me." The
visitors stood till the verse was ended, when Agery, self-controlled,
called on Brother Primus to next lead in prayer.
Brother P. was soon hammering the bench and calling on the Lord to come
on His "white horse, and to come this very minute." "Oh," said the chief
of the night riders, "this is only a nigger prayer meeting. Come, let us
go." Scouts were sent out and kept out to see that "distance lent
enchantment to the view," and the political feature of the meeting was
resumed.
The Negro is not without many of the prominent characteristics of the
successful politician. He is aggressive, conservative, and astute, as
occasion demands. Of the latter trait Hon. John Allen, ex-member of
Congress from Mississippi, and said to have been the prince of story
tellers, at his own expense gives this amusing incident. It was on the
occasion of the Carmack-Patterson contested election case. In beginning
his speech he called attention to Mr. Patterson's remarks. "Did any of
you," he said, "ever hear anyone pronounce a more beautiful eulogy on
himself than that just pronounced by Josiah Patterson? In listening to
it I was reminded of what my friend Jake Cummings once said about me. It
was in the great campaign of 1884. The Cleveland-Hendricks-Allen Club at
Tupelo had a meeting, and Mr. Taylor and Mr. Anderson spoke to the club
that night. As I chanced to be at home from my campaigning, I attended
the club meeting. After the regular speakers I was called for and
submitted some remarks about myself and my campaign. After I had spoken
the crowd called for Jake Cummings, a long, black, slick old Negro
carpenter, who lives in Tupelo. Jake's speech ran about this way: "Well,
gentlemen, it's gettin' kinder late now. I don't know as it's necessary
for me to say anything. You's heerd Mister Taylor and Mister Allen on
the general politics of the day. They's dun told you what sort of man
Blaine is, and what sort of a man Cleveland is. It don't look to me like
no honest man ought to have trouble in picking out the fittinest man of
them two. And then you's heerd Mister Allen on hisself, and he has
ricommended hisself so much higher than any the rest of us kin ricommend
him it ain't worth while for me to say nuthin' about him.""