TURNING BACK THE HANDS!
And now, the War having ended in the defeat, conquest, and capture, of
those who, inspired by the false teachings of Southern leaders, had
arrayed themselves in arms beneath the standard of Rebellion, and fought
for Sectional Independence against National Union, for Slavery against
Freedom, and for Free Trade against a benignant Tariff protective alike
to manufacturer, mechanic, and laborer, it might naturally be supposed
that, with the collapse of this Rebellion, all the issues which made up
"the Cause"--the "Lost Cause," as those leaders well termed it--would be
lost with it, and disappear from political sight; that we would never
again hear of a Section of the Nation, and last of all the Southern
Section, organized, banded together, solidified in the line of its own
Sectional ideas as against the National ideas prevailing elsewhere
through the Union; that Free Trade, conscious of the ruin and desolation
which it had often wrought, and of the awful sacrifices, in blood and
treasure, that had been made in its behalf by the conquered South, would
slink from sight and hide its famine-breeding front forever; and that
Slavery, in all its various disguises, was banished, never more to
obtrude its hateful form upon our Liberty-loving Land. That was indeed
the supposition and belief which everywhere pervaded the Nation, when
Rebellion was conquered by the legions of the Union--and which
especially pervaded the South. Never were Rebels more thoroughly
exhausted and sick of Rebellion and of everything that led to it, than
these. As Badeau said, they made haste "to yield everything they had
fought for," and "dreamed not of political power." They had been
brought to their knees, suing for forgiveness, and thankful that their
forfeit lives were spared.
For awhile, with chastened spirit, the reconstructed South seemed to
reconcile itself in good faith to the legitimate results of the War, and
all went well. But Time and Peace soon obliterate the lessons and the
memories of War. And it was not very long after the Rebellion had
ceased, and the old issues upon which it was fought had disappeared from
the arena of National politics, when its old leaders and their
successors began slowly, carefully, and systematically, to relay the
tumbled-down, ruined foundations and walls of the Lost Cause--a work in
which, unfortunately, they were too well aided by the mistaken clemency
and magnanimity of the Republican Party, in hastily removing the
political disabilities of those leaders.
Before proceeding farther, it is necessary to remark here, that, after
the suppression of the Rebellion and adoption of the Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which prohibits
Slavery and Involuntary Servitude within the United States, it soon
became apparent that it was necessary to the protection of the Freedmen,
in the civil and political rights and privileges which it was considered
desirable to secure to them, as well as to the creation and fostering of
a wholesome loyal sentiment in, and real reconstruction of, the States
then lately insurgent, and for certain other reasons, that other
safeguards, in the shape of further Amendments to the Constitution,
should be adopted.
Accordingly the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were, on the 16th of
June, 1866, and 27th of February, 1869, respectively, proposed by
Congress to the Legislatures of the several States, and were declared
duly ratified, and a part of the Constitution, respectively on the 28th
of July, 1868, and March 30, 1870. Those Amendments were in these
words:
"ARTICLE XIV.
"SECTION 1.--All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States
and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce
any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of
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.
"SECTION 2.--Representatives shall be apportioned among the several
States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number
of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the
right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President
and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress,
the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the
Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such
State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States,
or in any way abridged, except for participation in Rebellion, or other
crime, the basis of Representation therein shall be reduced in the
proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the
whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
"SECTION 3.--No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress,
or Elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or
military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having
previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of
the United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an
executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution
of the United States, shall have engaged in Insurrection or Rebellion
against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But
Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such
disability.
"SECTION 4.--The validity of the public debt of the United States,
authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and
bounties for services in suppressing Insurrection or Rebellion, shall
not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall
assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of Insurrection or
Rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or
Emancipation of any Slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims
shall be held illegal and void.
"SECTION 5.--The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article."
"ARTICLE XV.
"SECTION 1.--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.
"SECTION 2.--The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation."
It would seem, then, from the provisions of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth,
and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, and the Congressional
legislation subsequently enacted for the purpose of enforcing them, that
not only the absolute personal Freedom of every man, woman, and child in
the United States was thus irrevocably decreed; that United States
citizenship was clearly defined; that the life, liberty, property,
privileges and immunities of all were secured by throwing around them
the "equal protection of the laws;" that the right of the United States
citizen to vote, was placed beyond denial or abridgment, on "account of
race, color, or previous condition of servitude;" but, to make this more
certain, the basis of Congressional Representative-apportionment was
changed from its former mixed relation, comprehending both persons and
"property," so-called, to one of personal numbers--the Black man now
counting quite as much as the White man, instead of only three-fifths as
much; and it was decreed, that, except for crime, any denial to United
States citizens, whether Black or White, of the right to vote at any
election of Presidential electors, Congressional Representatives, State
Governors, Judges, or Legislative members, "shall" work a reduction,
proportioned to the extent of such denial, in the Congressional
Representation of the State, or States, guilty of it. As a further
safeguard, in the process of reconstruction, none of the insurgent
States were rehabilitated in the Union except upon acceptance of those
three Amendments as an integral part of the United States Constitution,
to be binding upon it; and it was this Constitution as it is, and not
the Constitution as it was, that all the Representatives, in both Houses
of Congress, from those insurgent States--as well as all their State
officers--swore to obey as the supreme law of the Land, when taking
their respective oaths of office.
Biding their time, and pretending to act in good faith, as the
years rolled by, the distrust and suspicion with which the old
Rebel-conspirators had naturally been regarded, gradually lessened in
the public mind. With a glad heart, the Congress, year after year,
removed the political disabilities from class after class of those who
had incurred them, until at last all, so desiring, had been reinstated
in the full privileges of citizenship, save the very few unrepentant
instigators and leaders of the Rebellion, who, in the depths of that
oblivion to which they seemingly had been consigned, continued to nurse
the bitterness of their downfall into an implacable hatred of that
Republic which had paralyzed the bloody hands of Rebellion, and
shattered all their ambitious dreams of Oligarchic rule, if not of
Empire.
But, while the chieftains of the great Conspiracy--and of the armed
Rebellion itself--remained at their homes unpunished, through the
clemency of the American People; the active and malignant minds of some
of them were plotting a future triumph for the "Lost Cause," in the
overthrow, in consecutive detail, of the Loyal governments of the
Southern States, by any and all means which might be by them considered
most desirable, judicious, expedient, and effectual; the solidifying of
these Southern States into a new Confederation, or league, in fact--with
an unwritten but well understood Constitution of its own--to be known
under the apparently harmless title of the "Solid South," whose mission
it would be to build up, and strengthen, and populate, and enrich itself
within the Union, for a time, greater or less, according to
circumstances, and in the meanwhile to work up, with untiring devotion
and energy, not only to this practical autonomy and Sectional
Independence within the Union, but also to a practical re-enslavement of
the Blacks, and to the vigorous reassertion and triumph, by the aid of
British gold, of those pernicious doctrines of Free-Trade which, while
beneficial to the Cotton-lords of the South, would again check and drag
down the robust expansion of manufactures and commerce in all other
parts of the Land, and destroy the glorious prosperity of farmers,
mechanics, and laborers, while at the same time crippling Capital, in
the North and West.
In order to accomplish these results--after whatever of suspicion and
distrust that might have still remained in Northern minds had been
removed by the public declaration in 1874, by one of the ablest and most
persuasively eloquent of Southern statesmen, that "The South--prostrate,
exhausted, drained of her life-blood as well as of her material
resources, yet still honorable and true--accepts the bitter award of the
bloody arbitrament without reservation, resolutely determined to abide
the result with chivalrous fidelity"--these old Rebel leaders commenced
in good earnest to carry out their well organized programme, which they
had already experimentally tested, to their own satisfaction, in certain
localities.
The plan was this: By the use of shot-guns and rifles, and cavalcades of
armed white Democrats, in red shirts, riding around the country at dead
of night, whipping prominent Republican Whites and Negroes to death, or
shooting or hanging them if thought advisable, such terror would fall
upon the colored Republican voters that they would keep away from the
polls, and consequently the white Democrats, undeterred by such
influences, and on the contrary, eager to take advantage of them, would
poll not only a full vote, but a majority vote, on all questions,
whether involving the mere election of Democratic officials, or
otherwise; and where intimidation of this, or any other kind, should
fail, then a resort to be had to whatever devices might be found
necessary to make a fraudulent count and return, and thus secure
Democratic triumph; and furthermore, when evidences of these
intimidations and frauds should be presented to those people of the
Union who believe in every citizen of this free Republic having one free
vote, and that vote fairly counted, then to laugh the complainants out
of Court with the cry that such stories are not true; are "campaign
lies" devised solely for political effect; and are merely the product of
Republican "outrage mills," ground out, to order.
This plan was first thoroughly tried in Mississippi, and has hence been
called the "Mississippi plan." So magically effectual was it, that,
with variations adapted to locality and circumstances, this "Mississippi
plan" soon enveloped the entire South in its mesh-work of fraud,
barbarity, and blood. The massacres, and other outrages, while
methodical, were remittent, wave-like, sometimes in one Southern State,
sometimes another, and occurring only in years of hot political
conflict, until one after another of those States had, by these crimes,
been again brought under the absolute control of the old Rebel leaders.
By 1876, they had almost succeeded in their entire programme. They had
captured all, save three, of the Southern States, and strained every
nerve and every resource of unprincipled ingenuity, of bribery and
perjury, after the Presidential election of that year had taken place,
in the effort to defeat the will of the People and "count in," the
Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party.
[The shameful history of the "Tilden barrel" and the "Cipher
Dispatches" is too fresh in the public mind to be entirely
forgotten,]
Failing in this effort, the very failure became a grievance. On the
principle of a fleeing thief diverting pursuit by shouting "Stop thief,"
the cry of "fraud" was raised by the Democratic leaders, North and
South, against the Republican Party, and was iterated and reiterated so
long and loudly, that soon they actually began, themselves, to believe,
that President Hayes had been "counted in," by improper methods! At all
events, under cover of the hue and cry thus raised, the Southern leaders
hurried up their work of Southern solidification, by multiplied outrages
on the "Mississippi plan," so that, by 1880, they were ready to dictate,
and did dictate, the Democratic Presidential nominations.
[Senator Wallace, of Pennsylvania, telegraphed from Cincinnati his
congratulations to General Hancock, and added: "General Buell tells
me that Murat Halsted says Hancock's nomination by the Confederate
Brigadiers sets the old Rebel yell to the music of the Union." In
the Convention which nominated Hancock, Wade Hampton made a speech,
saying; "On behalf of the 'Solid South,' that South which once was
arrayed against the great soldier of Pennsylvania, I stand here to
pledge you its solid vote. [cheers] * * * There is no name which
is held in higher respect among the people of the South, than that
of the man you have given to us as our standard-bearer." And
afterward, in a speech at Staunton, Virginia, the same Southern
leader, in referring to the action of the Democratic Convention at
Cincinnati, said: "There was but one feeling among the Southern
delegates. That feeling was expressed when we said to our Northern
Democratic brethren 'Give us an available man.' They gave us that
man."]
While these old Rebel leaders of the South had insisted upon, and had
succeeded in, nominating a man whose record as a Union soldier would
make him popular in the North and West, and while their knowledge of his
availability for Southern purposes would help them in their work of
absolutely solidifying the South, they took very good care also to press
forward their pet Free-Trade issue--that principle so dear to the hearts
of the Rebel Cotton-lords that, as has already been hinted, they
incorporated it into their Constitution of Confederation in these words:
"SEC. 8.--Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties,
imposts and excises for revenue necessary to pay the debts, provide for
the common defense, and carry on the Government of the Confederate
States; but no bounty shall be granted from the Treasury, nor shall any
duty or tax on importation from Foreign Nations be laid to promote or
foster any branch of industry."
It may also be remarked that, under the inspiration of those Southern
leaders who afterward rebelled, it had been laid down as Democratic
doctrine, in the National Democratic platform of 1856--and "reaffirmed"
as such, in 1860--that "The time has come for the People of the United
States to declare themselves in favor of * * * progressive Free-Trade.
* * * That justice and sound policy forbid the Federal Government to
foster one branch of industry to the detriment of another." But, by
1864, the Republican Protective-Tariff of 1860, had so abundantly
demonstrated, to all our people engaged in industrial occupations, the
beneficence of the great principle of home industrial Protection, that
Tariff-agitation actually ceased, and the National Democratic platform
of that year had nothing to say in behalf of Free-Trade!
After the close of the War, however, at the very first National
Democratic Convention, in 1868, at which there were delegations from the
lately rebellious States, the question was at once brought to the front,
and, under the inspiration of the old Rebel leaders aforesaid, the
Democratic platform again raised the banner of Free-Trade by declaring
for a Tariff for revenue. But the mass of the People, at that time
still freshly remembered the terrible commercial disasters and
industrial depressions which had befallen the Land, through the
practical operation of that baleful Democratic Free-Trade doctrine,
before the Rebellion broke out, and sharply contrasted the misery and
poverty and despair of those dark days of ruin and desolation, with the
comfort and prosperity and hopefulness which had since come to them
through the Republican Protective-Tariff Accordingly, the Republican
Presidential candidate, representing the great principle of Protection
to American Industries, was elected over the Democratic Free-Trade
candidate, by 214 to 71 electoral votes-or nearly three to one!
Taught, by this lesson, that the People were not yet sufficiently
prepared for a successful appeal in behalf of anything like Free-Trade,
the next National Democratic Convention, (that of 1872), under the same
Southern inspiration, more cautiously declared, in its platform, that
"Recognizing that there are in our midst, honest but irreconcilable
differences of opinion, with regard to the respective systems of
Protection and Free-Trade, we remit the discussion of the subject to the
People in their Congressional districts, and to the decision of the
Congress thereon, wholly free from Executive interference or dictation."
The People, however, rebuked the moral cowardice thus exhibited by the
Democracy--in avoiding a direct issue on the doctrine which Democracy
itself had galvanized at least into simulated life,--by giving 286
electoral votes to the Republican candidate, to 63 for the Democratic,
--or in the proportion of nearly five to one.
Warned, by this overwhelming defeat, not to flinch from, or avoid, or
try to convert the great National question of Tariff, into a merely
local one, the National Democratic platform of 1876, at the instigation
of the old Rebel leaders of the now fast solidifying South, came out
flat-footedly again with the "demand that all Custom-house taxation
shall be only for revenue." This time, the electoral vote stood almost
evenly divided, viz.: for the Republican candidate, 185; for the
Democratic candidate, 184;--a result so extremely close, as to lead to
the attempted perpetration of great frauds against the successful
candidate; the necessary settlement of the questions growing out of
them, by an Electoral commission--created by Congress at the instance of
the Democratic Party; great irritation, among the defeated Democracy,
over the just findings of that august Tribunal; and to the birth of the
alleged Democratic "grievance," aforesaid.
The closeness of this vote--their almost triumph, in 1876,--encouraged
the Solid South to press upon the National Democratic Convention of
1880, the expediency of adopting a Free-Trade "plank" similar to that
with which, in 1876, they had so nearly succeeded. Hence the Democratic
platform of 1880, also declared decidedly for "A Tariff for revenue
only."
The old Rebel leaders, at last in full control of the entire Democratic
Party, had now got things pretty much as they wanted them. They had
created that close corporation within the Union--that /imperium in
imperio/ that oligarchically--governed league of States (within the
Republic of the United States) which they termed the "Solid South," and
which would vote as a unit, on all questions, as they directed; they had
dictated the nomination, by the Democratic Party, of a Presidential
candidate who would not dare to act counter to their wishes; and their
pet doctrine of Free-Trade was held up, to the whole Democratic front,
under the attractive disguise of a Tariff for revenue only.
[As Ex-Senator Toombs, of Georgia, wrote: "The old boys of the
South will see that 'Hancock' does the fair thing by them. In
other words, he will run the machine to suit them, or they will run
the thing themselves. They are not going to be played with any
longer."]
In other words, they had already secured a "Solid South," an "available"
candidate, and an "expedient" Free-Trade platform. All that remained
for them, at this stage, to do, was to elect the candidate, and enact
their Free-Trade doctrine into legislation. This was their current
work, so to speak--to be first attended to--but not all their work; for
one of the most brilliant and candid of their coadjutors had said, only
a few months before: "We do not intend to stop until we have stricken
the last vestige of your War measures from the Statute-book."
Unfortunately, however, for their plans, an attempt made by them, under
the lead of Mr. Morrison of Illinois, in 1876, to meddle with the
Republican Protective-Tariff, had caused considerable public alarm, and
had been credited with having much to do with a succeeding monetary
panic, and industrial depression. Another and more determined effort,
made by them in 1878, under the lead of their old Copperhead ally,
Fernando Wood, to cut down the wise Protective duties imposed by the
Tariff Act, about 15 per cent.,--together with the cold-blooded
Free-Trade declaration of Mr. Wood, touching his ruinous Bill, that "Its
reductions are trifling as compared with what they should be. * * * If
I had the power to commence de novo, I should reduce the duties 50 per
cent., instead of less than 15 per cent., upon an average
as now proposed,"--an effort which was narrowly, and with great
difficulty, defeated by the Republicans, aided by a mere handful of
others,--had also occasioned great excitement throughout the Country,
the suspension and failure of thousands of business firms, the
destruction of confidence in the stability and profitableness of
American industries, and great consequent suffering, and enforced
idleness, to the working men and working women of the Land.
The sad recollection of these facts--made more poignant by the airy
declaration of the Democratic Presidential candidate, that the great
National question of the Tariff is a mere "local issue,"--was largely
instrumental, in connection with the insolent aggressiveness of the
Southern leaders, in Congress, in occasioning their defeat in the
Presidential contest of 1880, the Republican candidate receiving 214
electoral votes, while the Democratic candidate received but 155
electoral votes.
In 1882, the House of Representatives was under Republican control, and,
despite determined Democratic resistance, created a Tariff-commission,
whose duty it was "to take into consideration, and to thoroughly
investigate, all the various questions relating to the agricultural,
commercial, mercantile, manufacturing, mining, and (other) industrial
interests of the United States, so far as the same may be necessary to
the establishment of a judicious Tariff, or a revision of the existing
Tariff, upon a scale of justice to all interests."
That same year, in the face of most protracted and persistent opposition
by the great bulk of Democratic members, both of the Senate and House of
Representatives, and an effort to substitute for it the utterly ruinous
Democratic Free-Trade Tariff of 1846, the Bill recommended by this
Republican Tariff-commission, was enacted; and, in 1883, a modified
Tariff-measure, comprehending a large annual reduction of import duties,
while also carefully preserving the great Republican American principle
of Protection, was placed by the Republicans on the Statute-book,
despite the renewed and bitter opposition of the Democrats, who, as
usual, fought it desperately in both branches of Congress. But
Republican efforts failed in 1884, in the interest of the wool-growers
of the country, to restore the Protective-duties on wool, which had been
sacrificed, in 1883, to an exigency created by Democratic opposition to
them.
Another Democratic effort, in the direction of Free-Trade, known as "the
Morrison Tariff-Bill of 1884," was made in the latter year, which,
besides increasing the free-list, by adding to it salt, coal, timber,
and wood unmanufactured, as well as many manufactures thereof, decreased
the import duties "horizontally" on everything else to the extent of
twenty per cent. The Republicans, aided by a few Democrats, killed this
undigested and indigestible Democratic Bill, by striking out its
enacting clause.
By this time, however, by dint of the incessant special-pleading in
behalf of the obnoxious and un-American doctrine of Free-Trade,--or the
nearest possible approach to it, consistent with the absolutely
essential collection of revenues for the mere support of the Government
--indulged in (by some of the professors) in our colleges of learning;
through a portion of the press; upon the stump; and in Congress;
together with the liberal use of British gold in the wide distribution
of printed British arguments in its favor,--this pernicious but favorite
idea of the Solid South had taken such firm root in the minds of the
greater part of the Democratic Party in the North and West, as well as
the South, that a declaration in the National Democratic platform in its
favor was now looked for, as a matter of course. The "little leaven" of
this monstrous un-American heresy seemed likely to leaven "the whole
mass" of the Democracy.
But, as in spite of the tremendous advantage given to that Party by the
united vote of the Solid South, the Presidential contest of 1884 was
likely to be so close that, to give Democracy any chance to win, the few
Democrats opposed to Free-Trade must be quieted, the utterances of the
Democratic National Platform of that year, on the subject, were so
wonderfully pieced, and ludicrously intermixed, that they could be
construed to mean "all things to all men."
At last, after an exciting campaign, the Presidential election of 1884
was held, and for the first time since 1856, the old Free-Trade
Democracy of the South could rejoice over the triumph of their
Presidential candidate.
Great was the joy of the Solid South! At last, its numberless crimes
against personal Freedom, and political Liberty, would reap a generous
harvest. At last, participation in Rebellion would no more be regarded
as a blot upon the political escutcheon. At last, commensurate rewards
for all the long years of disconsolate waiting, and of hard work in
night ridings, and house-burnings, and "nigger"-whippings, and
"nigger"-shootings, and "nigger"-hangings, and ballot-box stuffings, and
all the other dreadful doings to which these old leaders were impelled
by a sense of Solid-Southern patriotism, and pride of race, and lust for
power, would come, and come in profusion.
Grand places in the Cabinet, and foreign Missions, for the old Rebels of
distinction, now Chiefs of the "Solid-Southern" Conspiracy, and for
those other able Northern Democrats who had helped them, during or since
the Rebellion; fat consulates abroad, for others of less degree;
post-offices, without stint, for the lesser lights; all this, and more,
must now come. The long-hidden light of a glorious day was about to
break. The "restoration of the Government to the principles and
practices of the earlier period," predicted by the unreconstructed
"Rebel chieftains" those "same principles for which they fought for four
years" the principles of Southern Independence, Slavery, Free Trade and
Oligarchic rule--were now plainly in sight, and within reach!
The triumph of the Free-Trade Democracy, if continued to another
Presidential election, would make Free-Trade a certainty. The old forms
of Slavery, to be sure, were dead beyond reanimation--perhaps; but, in
their place, were other forms of Slavery, which attracted less attention
and reprobation from the World at large, and yet were quite as effectual
for all Southern purposes. The system of Peonage and contracted
convict-labor, growing out of the codes of Black laws, were
all-sufficient to keep the bulk of the Negro race in practical subjection
and bondage. The solidifying of the South had already made the South
not only practically independent within the Union, but the overshadowing
power, potential enough to make, and unmake, the rulers and policies of
the Democratic Party, and of that Union.
This, indeed, was a grand outcome for the tireless efforts of the once
defeated Conspirators! And as to Oligarchal rule--the rule of the few
(and those the Southern chiefs) over the many,--was not that already
accomplished? For these old Rebel leaders and oligarchs who had secured
the supreme rule over the Solid South, had also, through their ability
to wield the power of that Solid South within the Union, actually
secured the power of practically governing the entire Union!
That Union, then, which we have been wont to look upon as the grandest,
noblest, freest, greatest Republic upon Earth,--is it really such, in
all respects, at the present? Does the Free Republic of the United
States exist, in fact, to-day?