THE LAW OF THE LAND
One morning in the early fall, the little town of Clarksville,
county-seat of Tullahoma County, was thronged with people from all
the country round about. There was in progress the trial of certain
white citizens under indictment for murder, among these some of the
most respected men of that region. The case of Colonel Calvin Blount
had been chosen as the first of many.
The court-room in the square brick court house was packed with masses
of silent men. The halls were crowded. The yard of the court house
was full, and the streets were alive with grim-faced men. The
hitching racks were lined with saddle horses, and other horses and
countless mules were hitched to fences and trees even beyond the
outskirts of the town. The hotels had long since abandoned system,
and every dwelling house was open and full to overflowing.
Outside of the town, or mingling in the fringes of the crowd at its
edges, there huddled even greater numbers of those of the colored
race. Some of these were armed. The white men in the streets were
armed. None showed hurry or agitation; none shouted or gesticulated;
yet the clerk of the court had a pistol in his pocket; each juryman
was likewise equipped; the judge on the bench knew there was a pistol
in the drawer of the desk before him. This gathering of the people
was thoughtfully prepared. It was a crisis, and was so recognized.
The silent audience was packed close up to the rail back of which was
stationed the judge's stand and jury-box. Within the railing there
was scanty room; every member of the local bar was there, and many
lawyers from counties round about.
Erect in the grave-faced assemblage, there stood one man, pale of
face but with burning eyes. It was John Eddring, attorney for the
defense in the case of the state against Calvin Blount, charged with
murder. His voice, clean-cut, eager, incisive, reached every corner
of the room. His gestures were few and downright. He was swept
forward by his own convictions of the truth.
Eddring was approaching the conclusion of the argument which he had
begun the previous day. The testimony in these cases, known generally
as the "lynching cases," had long been in and had passed through
examination, cross-examination, rebuttal and surrebuttal.
Eddring knew that he would be followed by an able man, a district
attorney conscientious in the discharge of his duty, however
unpleasant it might be. He had therefore with the greatest care
analyzed the evidence of the state as offered, and had demonstrated
the technical impossibility of a conviction. Yet this, he knew, would
not upon this occasion suffice. He went on toward the heart of the
real case which he felt was then on trial before this jury of the
people.
"Your Honor and gentlemen of the jury," he continued, "we all know
that we are, in effect, trying today not one man, not one district,
not one state, but an entire system. We are trying the South. The
life and the liberty of the South are at stake. To prove this, these
men have come in and given themselves up as an atonement, as a blood
offering like to that of old; seeking to prove that what they
continually have coveted is not lawlessness, but the law.
"Now I say this, and I say, also, let each of us have a care lest he
lose touch with the eternal pillar of the truth. There it is. It
rises before you, gentlemen, that silent, somber shaft. It finds its
summit in the sky. I pray God to keep my own hand in touch thereto,
and my eyes turned not aside. And my life, with that of these others,
is offered freely in proof that we covet not lawlessness, but the
law! We are white men, and where the white man has gone, there has he
builded ever, first of all, his temple of the law. Upon whatever land
the Anglo-Saxon sets his foot, of that land he is the master, or
there he finds his grave. First he lays his hearthstone, and upon
that foundation he builds his temple of the law. A race which has no
hearthstone knows no law.
"Inasmuch as God has made all manner of things diverse, setting no
fence even between species and species, creating all blades of grass
alike, yet not one the duplicate of another; then neither should we,
being human, essay a wisdom greater than that of the eternal
compromise of life. No human document, no sum of human wisdom, not
even the Deity of all life can or does guarantee a success which
means individual equality in the result of effort. The chance, the
opportunity--that is the law, and that is all the law. Beyond that
did not go the intent of that Divinity which decreed the scheme under
which this earth must endure. To war and conflict each creature is
foreordained, for so runs the decree of life. But never, in the
divine wisdom, was it established that the mouth of the stream should
be its source; that inequality should be equality; that failure
should be success; that unfitness should mean survival.
"In reading the pages of the great and beloved Constitution of
America there have been those who have juggled the import of the word
'success' with the meaning of the _chance to succeed_.
"There was such juggling in those war amendments to that
Constitution, which to-day represent the folly of a part of America--
not of all of America. Those amendments, if they be not of themselves
war measures, were at least consequences of war measures. This
Constitution which we call supreme can, of itself, be amended--can,
indeed, itself be set aside by its own servants, as was proved in
that very war whose memory is still in our minds. The Supreme Court,
in the Legal Tender case, admittedly set aside the Constitution. It
did so of necessity, and as a measure demanded by the times of war.
The supreme letter of the law has not always been respected by this
people, nor by its wisest men, by its most august servants.
"It is not the law, gentlemen, vainly to call two blades of grass
identical, vainly to call the hare and tiger alike and equal; vainly
to call, if you like, black the same as white. The law is that if it
be possible for the hare to approach its neighbor in ways desirable,
it be given its _chance_ to do so. If the black man can grow like to
the white in all human attainments, if he can grow and succeed, then
let him have the _chance_ to do so.
"But that same chance of betterment and advancement, that same
selfish chance to prevail and to survive, that chance to succeed
given under the divine intent, must be accorded also to that creature
known as the white man. If he, the white man, can prevail, can
survive, can succeed, he, too, must have his chance. That is the law!
But the chance of either white or black man is his own and is not
negotiable. That is the law! Not without fitness can there be
ultimate success. Not until the fullness of the years can there be
attainment for any creature of this earth. That is the law! There is
no tree growing in the center of this ordained universe wherefrom the
full fruit of survival and of success may be plucked and eaten
without effort and without earning. No individual has done it. No one
can do it. Bounty and gift do not make success. It must be _won!_
"Is this doctrine difficult? If so, we can not change it. It is the
great law, irrevocable and unamendable, and it is no more kind and no
more cruel than life itself is kind or cruel. It is the law. That is
the law!
"The makers of the Constitution, the amenders of the Constitution--
that document subject to change, subject to being ignored, as has
been the case--could never, under the enduring law, guarantee success
plucked as an apple for each and every man who had not earned it.
Gentlemen, talk not to me of the broad charity of this nation, or of
its general justice to humanity. Call not this piece-work
Constitution of ours, amended and subject to amendment, an approach
to divine charity or wisdom. No; for in some of its effects it has
proved to be the most cruel and unjust measure ever known in all
human laws.
"It was cruel and unjust to whom? To us? To the white man? No, no. It
was cruel in that it presented a title to success, to fitness and to
survival unto eager, ignorant hands, and then by its own limitations
snatched that title away from them again. It sought to do that which
can not be done--to establish growth instead of the chance to grow.
It was cruel. It was unjust. In the wisdom of a later day its
patchwork form must once more be changed. It must be changed as a
protection, no more against the former slaves of the South than
against the future slaves of the North.
"Gentlemen, if that change could be effected to-morrow by the
offering up of this life--of these lives now in your hands--I say
these lives would be laid down gladly. Take them if you will. They
are our pledge that we covet not lawlessness, but the law; our pledge
that, having no law, we have been eager to act lawfully as we might.
The reign of lawlessness and terror must end in this country. We must
contrive some machinery of the law which shall command respect. We
must not continually drag the name of the South--the name of America--
in the mire of lawlessness. To do that is to smirch the flag--the
one flag of America. But we denounce and will always denounce that
false decree which says that black is white; that inequality is
equality; that lack of manhood is manhood itself; that the absence of
a hearthstone can mean a home; that the absence of the home can mean
a permanent society.
"In the future the North, packed and crowded beyond endurance, with
imported and herded white slaves who in time will demand the position
of masters--as the blacks may legally demand that position here to-
day--will pay her price for the right to make this plea. The South
has already paid a thousand times for her right to make it to-day.
With treasure she has paid for it; with roof-tree and hearth-tree she
has paid it dear, and with the sacred tears of women. With the
sacrifice of her own future she has paid for that right. But the
South and the North belong together, not held apart by politics, but
held together in brotherhood. In the name of all justice, let us hope
that the South shall not be asked to pay the bitterest of all prices,
the misunderstanding and the alienation of those whom she loves and
would embrace as her brothers. Let us hope, in the name of mercy, if
not of justice, that the South shall be understood as a region having
a problem, a problem which is national, and not sectional, and _not
political_. Let us in all fairness hope that our northern brothers
will understand that the South is honest in her attempt to deal with
that problem in her time, which is the time of to-day.
"Your Honor, I do not depart from my argument. I am not here for wild
talk regarding the relations of the two races. It is the ages alone
which will decide that problem. But I am here to stand for the law
and not for lawlessness. I am here to say that our flag, the American
flag, is for all men, and for America; not for Africa alone, or for
Europe alone, but for America. It is the flag of progress, not the
flag of anarchy. It is the banner of civilization and not of
savagery. That, and not the banner of Africa or of Europe, must be
our ensign to-day.
"Your Honor, and gentlemen, we are not here today to conclude that
God set the white man over the black. We are to conclude simply that
He set him _apart_ from the black man. The divine right of slavery was
an impiety, and, worst of all, an absurdity. The South made that
mistake, and bitter has been the price of her folly. Yet the South,
having sinned, paid the price of her sinning in all ways exacted of
her. She accepted the ruling of the North, and, as a distinguished
orator once said, surrendered 'bravely and frankly.' But she did not
admit, and please God, never will admit, that those fresh from
savagery should govern the white men, that they should institute the
machinery of the law whereunder the white man must live.
"Gentlemen, you see before you, sardonically done, the fruits of the
Black Justice. Is that the Law? If it be, then send us to our graves;
for as that Black Justice formally exists to-day, Calvin Blount, and
I, and these others, must go back to our fields or to our graves. Do
you wish to send us to the latter? If you do, you send these other
white men just as lawfully back to take up the hoe of labor, to bend
their necks under the black yoke of African ignorance and savagery.
Is that the Law? In my heart, gentlemen, I believe that those who say
this is the law have not read the history of this country, do not
understand the theory of this country, and can not speak for it
unselfishly or honestly.
"Yet, gentlemen, that is the dilemma into which our brothers of the
North would continually thrust us. Suppose that, casting about for
some possible measure to free us from one point or the other of that
dilemma, we should seek some legal compromise which would free us
from the letter of this oppressive law of our national Constitution.
Suppose there should be proposed some general and stern limitation of
the franchise? Such an onerous qualification must needs apply to
black and white alike. Who would be first to object to it? It would
be the politicians of the North, who could not afford to exact even a
prepaid poll-tax as a test for a vote. In time the North will need to
free her white slaves, already turbulent and rebellious. In time she
will have to pay for them, as we of the South have paid. After that
great civil war which is yet to come, the men of the North may
perhaps understand more fully the meaning of that phrase 'the manhood
suffrage' and know that manhood means survival, that good manhood
means the product of a good environment, a survival slowly and fitly
won. By that time, North and South, perhaps, will know that the
franchise should be as the bulwark of the law, not the destroyer of
the law. Until that time, we of the South must continue to pay our
part of the price of the national lawlessness; and we must continue,
each commonwealth for itself as best it may, to enact laws which
shall in part lessen the intolerable weight of that which we have set
up as the idol of our national laws--that Constitution, which is
impossible and not practicable, which is merciless instead of just,
which is cruel instead of being kind, and most cruel to those whom it
is thought to shelter. Meantime the South feels still the intolerable
weight of that Constitution, the intolerable sting of the demand of
her northern brothers, that she shall be asked to endure, in the name
of this incubus, this body of the law, the continuous burglarizing of
her honor and her prosperity--the burglarizing of the house of her
society.
"We know that it is the chiefest of cruelty and unkindness, the
chiefest of madness, to incite these poor and ignorant people--ever
ready to follow the voice of sophistry or selfishness--to believe
that their burglary of the house of success is right and reasonable;
because it is certain that such burglary will be met in the South by
the law, by the White Justice, and that, if need be, until either
white or black man shall exist no more in this portion of America.
Gentlemen, North and South owe it to America, America owes it to the
world, that there be held aloft for our worship an image of the Law
more honorable than this. Until that time of a more honorable image
for our worship, there must perhaps go on the enormous folly of one
portion of this nation asking another portion to destroy itself for
the sake of an unworthy race. This demand, gentlemen, I take to be an
actual treason to the law and to this country.
"The white man has won his rights--why? Because he was able to do so.
He accords to any other race the same privilege. That is the law of
survival; it is greater than any law of politics, greater than any
statute law.
"But, your Honor, these men can not be acquitted under any plea
dealing with generalizations alone. The law of the land must be
observed in so far as that law exists.
"Now I ask whether at the time of the acts charged against Calvin
Blount there existed any adequate machinery of the law. I have
pointed out to you the precedent of the great case handled by Mr.
Webster in the city of New York, in which case the statutes were set
aside by the greater law of an immediate and overpowering necessity.
I submit to you that necessity, the greatest of all laws, and in
precedent respected by our courts as such, would have overridden even
the regular machinery of our laws had it been in operation. I submit
further to you that no law existed in this country at that time; that
the service of the law to its citizens had ceased. If the greatest
court of the country still tolerates the burglary of the house of
society by this so-called manhood suffrage, which should rather be
called the per capita suffrage, then at least the lesser courts,
wiser than the greater, recognize the fact that some crimes require
no warrant for arrest; that sometimes the citizen is court and
executive in one and at once.
"As the greatest authorities of the law have written, in the
organization of society the individual never surrenders all of his
rights. He retains for ever and inalienably, after all his
delegations to society and the law, a residuum of power for his own.
He retains under the great and supreme law of all life, that sweet,
that divine privilege, his _chance_ to succeed, his _chance_ to
survive! No tyranny, no oppression, can overcome that sweetest and
strongest of all the Anglo-Saxon's coveted rights. Instead, he has
ever risen against the law, when that law has demanded of him this
last, this ultimate and inalienable right, this principle under which
he has builded the civilization of the world.
"In defiance of statute laws grown weak and impotent, the barons at
Runnymede wrested Magna Charta from King John; in defiance of statute
laws grown weak and impotent, the free men of England wrested their
Habeas Corpus Act from King Charles; in defiance of statute laws
grown weak and impotent, the colonists of America wrested a virgin
empire from King George.
"And, please God, in defiance of statute laws grown weak and
impotent, the white man will wrest from whatsoever hand may hold it,
the right to protect the integrity of his race, the safety of his
women, the sanctity of his two-fold temple of the law!
"I therefore submit to you that a sacred exigency demanded the action
of this prisoner, of these prisoners; and I submit that this prisoner
at the bar is innocent before the law. But beyond that I add my plea,
with that of this honorable court, and of these gentlemen, that one
day we may have given to us an image of the Law which we may venerate
in letter and in spirit, and a law capable of its own enforcement.
"As I stand before you, gentlemen, this prisoner, this cause, its
feeble advocate, seem small and inconsiderable. But at my side I see
arising the eternal pillars of the temple of the White Justice. Do
you not see them, rising solemn and stately before you, those
pillars, their heads taking hold upon the heavens? If that temple has
been defiled, if it has been cast down, then let us hope that South
and North will restore it again in its full majesty. And when,
finally, aided, as we hope, by our brothers of the North, we, as
citizens of an ofttimes mistaken, yet eventually to be united
America, shall have builded this renewed temple of the law, then the
lives of the white men of this state will be--like ours joined in
this trial before you--free pledge that the men of this country, so
long charged with lawlessness, shall come and bow in that temple in
reverence of that law which they have always coveted and which they
covet here to-day. Your Honor, and gentlemen of the jury, in the face
of that statement, I say that not Calvin Blount--nor any one of these
prisoners--has violated the law. And so I close with the words of the
ancient form of pleading: Of this we do indeed put ourselves upon the
country."
In the silence which fell upon the room as Eddring closed, the
district attorney arose to present the case of the state. He began
slowly, gravely, logically. He presented the printed page of the
statutes, called attention to the formal accuracy of the proceedings,
the overwhelming nature of the evidence; he explained that without
law, nothing remained but anarchy. He pointed out to the jury that
here was the law, plain and unmistakable; here were the facts,
obvious and uncontroverted, the convicting facts. He spoke of the
infamy which had been cast upon the name of the South by reason of
just such deeds as these. He urged the necessity for an absolute and
unyielding observance of the letter of the law, those statutes from
which they dared not depart. They were statutes which could not be
overswept by any glittering speciousness, or set aside by fine spun
theories as to what might or might not be a more desirable order of
affairs. He reminded them of their oath, their sworn promise to
enforce the law--_this_ law, the law of the printed page.
[Illustration: "OF THIS WE DO INDEED PUT OURSELVES UPON THE COUNTRY."
p. 358]
He spoke for two hours, and he did his duty; but he addressed himself
to men of stone, and he knew it even as he spoke. Not to be moved by
his words were these set and solemn faces. Concluding with a
passionate appeal that they should protect the fair name of their
country from the stigma of lawlessness, he resumed his seat, knowing
then the verdict which would follow.
The judge, an old man with silvery hair, turned to the jury.
"Retire, gentlemen, to consider of your verdict."
The door to the jury-room closed behind them, and left a thousand
eyes fixed anxiously upon it.
They had scarcely disappeared when the knock of the foreman was heard
at the door.
"Bring in the jury, Mr. Sheriff," the judge ordered.
The foreman of the jury, an unknown man, tall and stooped, with
scraggly hair and beard, handed a folded paper to the clerk.
"Mr. Clerk, read the verdict," the judge ordered; and the clerk read:
"We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty."
The words were received in utter silence.
Presently all, jury and bar and spectators, filed from the court-
room, quietly, not with oaths or threats of violence for those others
who at the outskirts of the town were waiting for their answer. And
they, the waiting ones, found their answer in this silence, and so
now slipped out into the forest. The crowds of white men in the town
also quietly melted away.
That night at the hotel the judge and certain citizens were engaged
in quiet conversation.
"I think," said the judge, "that this young gentleman, Mr. Eddring,
belongs somewhere in a position of trust. I believe that he can be
depended upon to think, and not merely to play politics for the sake
of office holding. We have had too much politics in the South, and
too much in America. It's time now we did a little thinking."
"You're right about that, Judge," broke in the voice of Calvin
Blount. "But it's just as he says, we've got to begin. We've got to
have some kind of law to begin under."
The judge sighed. "It is humiliating to have to resort to any sort of
subterfuge," said he. "Of course, in law, the rule must apply to
black and white alike. I see that one of our sister states has passed
a law allowing no one to vote who can not read, or who can not write
on dictation any section of the Constitution; or who has not paid
state and county taxes for two preceding years. This test is not
applied to any one who was entitled to vote in any one of the states
of the Union on January first, 1867, or at some time prior thereto.
It does not apply to any legitimate lineal descendant of persons
entitled to vote prior to that time. That is an evasion. Yet, as this
young gentleman said, we can not submit to the burglarizing of the
house of our society. Until we may legally repel, we must legally
evade."
"Why, see here, men," broke in Blount, again, "if you'll let me say
so, Judge, there ain't no law higher than the law of poker. Now we've
let Mr. Nigger into the game with us; or, anyhow, he's here, and
somebody gives him a few chips. He don't buy 'em for himself, and he
don't know the value of 'em. His chips ought to be good as far as
they last. The trouble with Mr. Nigger is, he's wanting to get into
every jack-pot with less'n a pair of deuces, and wanting to play on
the ground that his white chips are as good as the other fellow's
blue ones. Now, that ain't _poker!_"
"It Shirley ain't," said the tall foreman, wagging a scraggly beard.
The judge smiled softly and gravely. "No," said he. "There should be
justice to the white man as well as the black. You will notice the
order in which I place those terms."
Calvin Blount hitched his chair closer up to the table. "But now you
were saying, Judge, that we ought to do something for this young
fellow, Eddring. I have known him a long time, from the time he was
claim agent on the railroad. I want to say he's a man and a
gentleman, not afraid of anything, and he wants to do what's right. I
don't think he puts money ahead of everything else in the world. For
my part, if he was my representative in the Legislature, or in
Congress either, I'd feel right sure he'd represent me strictly
according to the legitimate rules of _poker;_ and that's a blamed
sight more than a whole lot of politicians are doing to-day, _North_
or South."
"It Shirley is!" again said the foreman, wagging his scraggly beard.