«Реконструкция и конституция, 1866–1876»

From the point of view of a sound political science the imposition of universal negro suffrage upon the Southern communities, in some of which the negroes were in large majority, was one of the

Negro rule in the

South from the point

of view of political

science and

ethnical principle.

"blunder-crimes" of the century. There is something natural in the subordination of an inferior race to a superior race, even to the point of the enslavement of the inferior race, but there is nothing natural in the opposite. It is entirely unnatural, ruinous, and utterly demoralizing and barbarizing to both races. It is difficult to believe that the creation of such a relation between the blacks and whites of the South was at all within the intentions of the framers of the Reconstruction Acts. They were irritated because these communities would not accord civil equality to the freedmen, would not accept the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, and had passed acts which created a new species of slavery or quasi-slavery of the blacks. They thought they were placed between the alternative of continuing military government in the South indefinitely, or giving the negro the political power with which to maintain his civil rights.

Opposition to military government in time of peace was an ingrained principle of the American people, and there was a large part of people of the North, nearly all adhering to the Republican party, who believed that manhood suffrage was the true principle of a sound political science. And it was thought that the only way of creating "States" in the South which would sustain the Republican party was by giving the negro the suffrage. It is not surprising, then, that they adopted the course which they did. There was a third alternative, as has already been pointed out, viz., the placing of these communities under Territorial civil government and keeping them there until the spirit of loyalty to the Nation was established and the principle and practice of civil equality among all citizens was made thoroughly secure.

But, as has been said, the idea that these communities were "States" of the Union, notwithstanding their rebellion against the United States and their attempted secession from the Union, seemed to prohibit the following of this course, the only true and sound course. And so these unhappy communities were given over, as sham "States" of the Union, to the rule of the ignorant and vicious part of their population, to be sustained therein by the military power of the Nation, under the excuse that that part alone was loyal.

A period of darkness now settled down upon these unhappy communities blacker and more hopeless than the worst experiences of the war. The conduct of the men who now appeared upon the scene as the creators of the new South was so tyrannic, corrupt, mean and vulgar as to repel the historian from attempting any detailed account of their doings, and incline him to the vaguest outline. Moreover it is most difficult to fix upon reliable facts in this period of confusion and political night, illuminated only by the lurid gleams of passion and hatred. It is best for the North, best for the South, best for the whole country, and best for the world that this terrible mistake of the North and this terrible degradation of the South should be dealt with briefly and impersonally, and that lessons of warning should be drawn from these experiences, instead of multiplying criminations and recriminations in regard to them.

ГЛАВА XII

"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.

Virginia, Texas and Georgia had been in no great hurry, as we have seen, to exchange military government exercised by the white officers

Escape of Virginia,

Georgia and Texas

from negro rule.

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

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 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.

Of all the "States" included in the Congressional Act of June 25th, 1868, only North Carolina had been fortunate enough to rid herself,

North Carolina's

rapid recovery

from negro rule.

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.

Already before the Reconstruction Acts were passed, the political adventurers in the South had begun organizing the negroes into secret

The Loyal League.

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.

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,

Origin of the

K. K. K.'s.

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.

After the Reconstruction Acts were passed and put into operation, and especially after the Southern communities were reorganized as "States"

Methods of

the Ku-Klux.

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 newly-granted privileges of suffrage and office-holding, and keep him in his place as a menial.

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,

The naturalness of

these organizations.

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.

But to return to the order of the narrative. The formation of the Union Leagues in 1867 and 1868 enabled the negroes to vote in these

The opportunity for

political adventurers.

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.

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

Periods in

the history of

negro rule.

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.

Before all of the Southern communities had been admitted to representation in Congress, and before any of them except Tennessee had

The Act for the

enforcement of the

new Amendments.

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 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

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.

There is not the slightest doubt in the mind of any good constitutional lawyer, at the present time, that Congress overstepped its

Criticism

of the Act.

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.

Meanwhile the new "State" governments had well begun their career of corruption, shame and vulgarity. They were plundering the treasury,

The corruption in the

new "State" governments.

increasing the taxes, selling franchises, issuing bonds, and celebrating 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.

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

The supplemental

enforcement Act.

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 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.

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

The President's Message

of March 23d, 1871.

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.

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

The Ku-Klux Act of

April 20th, 1871.

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 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.

The first part of this Act was, unquestionably, an unconstitutional encroachment upon the powers of the "States," in so far as it is

The unconstitutionality

of the Act.

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.

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

Interference of the

United States military

power in the affairs

of South Carolina.

"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 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.

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

The President's

proclamation of

May 3d, 1871.

law applied to the whole country, but particularly exhorting the people

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."

On the 12th of the following October, the President directed his proclamation to the people of South Carolina alone, declaring that

The President's

proclamation to

the people of

South Carolina.

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.

At the end of the five days of grace, the President issued a third

Suspension of the

privileges of the writ

of Habeas Corpus

by the President in

certain counties of

South Carolina.

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 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.

In execution of the Act of April 20th, and in pursuance of these proclamations, the President now sent a strong force of United States

The Ku-Klux trials.

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.

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

Corruption in the

"State" governments

of the South.

In South Carolina.

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.

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 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.

In Louisiana, under the leadership of the brilliant young adventurer, Henry C. Warmoth of Illinois, the financial history of the "State" was

In Louisiana.

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

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.

It is no subject of surprise or wonder that, confronted with these frightful results of radical Republican policy and administration in

The revolt in the

Republican party.

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.

The Liberal Republicans were bolters, of course, from the regular organization, and there was no sufficient opportunity for them to

The Liberal Republican

convention of 1872.

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 Republicans in Missouri, and the meeting took place at Cincinnati on the 1st day of May, 1872.

The platform which it presented to the people demanded the removal, at once, of all political disabilities from the white men of the South,

Their platform.

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.

It was at first supposed that the choice of the convention for the Presidency would lay between Judge David Davis of Illinois, Charles

Their nominees.

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 foreseen that it would not be willing to make a newspaper man President at such a juncture.

But stranger than the fact that the prince of protectionists was now running for the presidency on a platform which ignored protection, was

Acceptance of the

Liberal Republican

candidates by the

Democrats.

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.

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

Mr. Greeley and

the Democrats.

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.

As the last move, the "straight-out" Democrats bolted the ticket in September, and at a convention held in Louisville, Kentucky, nominated

Division in the

Democratic Party.

Charles O'Conor of New York for President, and John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts for Vice-President.

The September and October elections in Vermont, Maine, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana demonstrated the hopelessness of the opposition to

The Republican

platform and

nominees.

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.

In the election, they swept all of the Northern "States" by heavy popular majorities, and with their election machinery in the Southern

The Republican

triumph.

"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.

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

The effect of the

triumph of the

Republicans.

of the North, there is also no doubt that they caused great

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.

In Alabama, the Democratic members-elect of the legislature convened in the capitol, and the Republican members-elect in the court-house. The

Events in

Alabama.

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

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.

In Louisiana the events were far more extraordinary and violent. Warmoth's rule was approaching its end, and his Republican enemies,

Events in

Louisiana.

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

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.

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

Warmoth

and Durell.

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

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

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.

For two years more now the government of the adventurers, based on negro support, continued in the "States" south of the Tennessee line,

The downward

course between

1872 and 1874.

The elections

of 1874.

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 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.

Moreover, three more of the Southern "States" freed themselves, at this time, from "Black Republican" rule. In Alabama, the respectable whites

The change in Alabama,

Arkansas and Texas.

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.

Even South Carolina very nearly escaped her thraldom, and came near to electing a white Democrat Governor. As it was, she got a moderate

The status in South

Carolina in 1874.

Governor

Chamberlain.

Republican for 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.