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Title: Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama
Author: Fleming, Walter L.
Language: English
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CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION IN ALABAMA
CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION IN ALABAMA
BY WALTER L. FLEMING, PH.D.
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY
[Illustration]
New York
THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, AGENTS
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1905
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1905,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1905.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
TO MY WIFE MARY BOYD FLEMING
PREFACE
This work was begun some five years ago as a study of Reconstruction in
Alabama. As the field opened it seemed to me that an account of
ante-bellum conditions, social, economic, and political, and of the effect
of the Civil War upon ante-bellum institutions would be indispensable to
any just and comprehensive treatment of the later period. Consequently I
have endeavored to describe briefly the society and the institutions that
went down during Civil War and Reconstruction. Internal conditions in
Alabama during the war period are discussed at length; they are important,
because they influenced seriously the course of Reconstruction. Throughout
the work I have sought to emphasize the social and economic problems in
the general situation, and accordingly in addition to a sketch of the
politics I have dwelt at some length upon the educational, religious, and
industrial aspects of the period. One point in particular has been
stressed throughout the whole work, viz. the fact of the segregation of
the races within the state--the blacks mainly in the central counties, and
the whites in the northern and the southern counties. This division of the
state into "white" counties and "black" counties has almost from the
beginning exercised the strongest influence upon the history of its
people. The problems of white and black in the Black Belt are not always
the problems of the whites and blacks of the white counties. It is hoped
that the maps inserted in the text will assist in making clear this point.
Perhaps it may be thought that undue space is devoted to the history of
the negro during War and Reconstruction, but after all the negro, whether
passive or active, was the central figure of the period.
Believing that the political problems of War and Reconstruction are of
less permanent importance than the forces which have shaped and are
shaping the social and industrial life of the people, I have confined the
discussion of politics to certain chapters chronologically arranged, while
for the remainder of the book the topical method of presentation has been
adopted. In describing the political events of Reconstruction I have in
most cases endeavored to show the relation between national affairs and
local conditions within the state. To such an extent has this been done
that in some parts it may perhaps be called a general history with
especial reference to local conditions in Alabama. Never before and never
since Reconstruction have there been closer practical relations between
the United States and the state, between Washington and Montgomery.
As to the authorities examined in the preparation of the work it may be
stated that practically all material now available--whether in print or in
manuscript--has been used. In working with newspapers an effort was made
to check up in two or more newspapers each fact used. Most of the
references to newspapers--practically all of those to the less reputable
papers--are to signed articles. I have had to reject much material as
unreliable, and it is not possible that I have been able to sift out all
the errors. Whatever remain will prove to be, as I hope and believe, of
only minor consequence.
Thanks for assistance given are due to friends too numerous to mention all
of them by name. For special favors I am indebted to Professor L. D.
Miller, Jacksonville, Alabama; Mr. W. O. Scroggs of Harvard University;
Professor G. W. Duncan, Auburn, Alabama; Major W. W. Screws of the
_Montgomery Advertiser_; Colonel John W. DuBose, Montgomery, Alabama; Mrs.
J. L. Dean, Opelika, Alabama; Major S. A. Cunningham of the _Confederate
Veteran_, Nashville, Tennessee; and Major James R. Crowe, of Sheffield,
Alabama. I am indebted to Mr. L. S. Boyd, Washington, D.C., for numerous
favors, among them, for calling my attention to the scrap-book collection
of Edward McPherson, then shelved in the Library of Congress along with
Fiction. On many points where documents were lacking, I was materially
assisted by the written reminiscences of people familiar with conditions
of the time, among them my mother and father, the late Professor O. D.
Smith of Auburn, Alabama, and the late Ryland Randolph, Esq., of
Birmingham. Many old negroes have related their experiences to me. Hon.
Junius M. Riggs of the Alabama Supreme Court Library, by the loan of
documents, assisted me materially in working up the financial history of
the Reconstruction; Dr. David Y. Thomas of the University of Florida read
and criticised the entire manuscript; Dr. Thomas M. Owen, Director of the
Alabama Department of Archives and History, has given me valuable
assistance from the beginning to the close of the work by reading the
manuscript, by making available to me not only the public archives, but
also his large private collection, and by securing illustrations. But
above all I have been aided by Professor William A. Dunning of Columbia
University, at whose instance the work was begun, who gave me many helpful
suggestions, read the manuscript, and saved me from numerous pitfalls, and
by my wife, who read and criticised both manuscript and proof, and made
the maps and the index and prepared some of the illustrations.
WALTER L. FLEMING.
NEW YORK CITY,
August, 1905.
CONTENTS
PART I
_INTRODUCTION_
CHAPTER I
PERIOD OF SECTIONAL CONTROVERSY
PAGE
Composition of the Population of Alabama 3
The Indians and Nullification 8
Slavery Controversy and Political Divisions 10
Emancipation Sentiment in North Alabama 10
Early Party Divisions 11
William Lowndes Yancey 13
Growth of Secession Sentiment 14
"Unionists" Successful in 1851-1852 16
Yancey-Pryor Debate, 1858 17
The Charleston Convention of 1860 18
The Election of 1860 19
Separation of the Churches, 1821-1861 21
Senator Clay's Farewell Speech in the Senate 25
CHAPTER II
SECESSION FROM THE UNION
Secession Convention Called 27
Parties in the Convention 28
Reports on Secession 31
Debate on Secession 31
Political Theories of Members 34
Ordinance of Secession Passed 36
Confederate States Formed 39
Self-denying Ordinance 41
African Slave Trade 42
Commissioners to Other States 46
Legislation by the Convention 49
North Alabama in the Convention 53
Incidents of the Session 56
PART II
_WAR TIMES IN ALABAMA_
CHAPTER III
MILITARY AND POLITICAL EVENTS
Military Operations 61
The War in North Alabama 62
The Streight Raid 67
Rousseau's Raid 68
The War in South Alabama 69
Wilson's Raid and the End of the War 71
Destruction by the Armies 74
Military Organization 78
Alabama Soldiers: Number and Character 78
Negro Troops 86
Union Troops from Alabama 87
Militia System 88
Conscription and Exemption 92
Confederate Enrolment Laws 92
Policy of the State in Regard to Conscription 95
Effect of the Enrolment Laws 98
Exemption from Service 100
Tories and Deserters 108
Conditions in North Alabama 109
Unionists, Tories, and Mossbacks 112
Growth of Disaffection 114
Outrages by Tories and Deserters 119
Disaffection in South Alabama 122
Prominent Tories and Deserters 124
Numbers of the Disaffected 127
Party Politics and the Peace Movement 131
Political Conditions, 1861-1865 131
The Peace Society 137
Reconstruction Sentiment 143
CHAPTER IV
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS
Industrial Development during the War 149
Military Industries 149
Manufacture of Arms 150
Nitre Making 153
Private Manufacturing Enterprises 156
Salt Making 157
Confederate Finance in Alabama 162
Banks and Banking 162
Issues of Bonds and Notes by the State 164
Special Appropriations and Salaries 168
Taxation 169
Impressment 174
Debts, Stay Laws, Sequestration 176
Trade, Barter, Prices 178
Blockade-running and Trade through the Lines 183
Scarcity and Destitution, 1861-1865 196
The Negro during the War 205
Military Uses of Negroes 205
Negroes on the Farms 209
Fidelity to Masters 210
Schools and Colleges 212
Confederate Text-books 217
Newspapers 218
Publishing Houses 221
The Churches during the War 223
Attitude on Public Questions 223
The Churches and the Negroes 225
Federal Army and the Southern Churches 227
Domestic Life 230
Society in 1861 230
Life on the Farm 232
Home Industries; Makeshifts and Substitutes 234
Clothes and Fashions 236
Drugs and Medicines 239
Social Life during the War 241
Negro Life 243
Woman's Work for the Soldiers 244
PART III
_THE AFTERMATH OF WAR_
CHAPTER V
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DISORDER
Loss of Life in War 251
Destruction of Property 253
The Wreck of the Railways 259
The Interregnum: Lawlessness and Disorder 262
The Negro testing his Freedom 269
How to prove Freedom 270
Suffering among the Negroes 273
Relations between Whites and Blacks 275
Destitution and Want, 1865-1866 277
CHAPTER VI
CONFISCATION AND THE COTTON TAX
Confiscation Frauds 284
Restrictions on Trade in 1865 284
Federal Claims to Confederate Property 285
Cotton Frauds and Stealing 290
Cotton Agents Prosecuted 297
Statistics of the Frauds 299
The Cotton Tax 303
CHAPTER VII
THE TEMPER OF THE PEOPLE
After the Surrender 308
"Condition of Affairs in the South" 311
General Grant's Report 311
Carl Schurz's Report 312
Truman's Report 312
Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction 313
The "Loyalists" 316
Treatment of Northern Men 318
Immigration to Alabama 321
Troubles of the Episcopal Church 324
PART IV
_PRESIDENTIAL RESTORATION_
CHAPTER VIII
FIRST PROVISIONAL ADMINISTRATION
Theories of Reconstruction 333
Presidential Plan in Operation 341
Early Attempts at "Restoration" 341
Amnesty Proclamation 349
"Proscribing Proscription" 356
The "Restoration" Convention 358
Personnel and Parties 358
Debates on Secession and Slavery 360
"A White Man's Government" 364
Legislation by the Convention 366
"Restoration" Completed 367
CHAPTER IX
SECOND PROVISIONAL ADMINISTRATION
Status of the Provisional Government 376
Legislation about Freedmen 378
The Negro under the Provisional Government 383
Movement toward Negro Suffrage 386
New Conditions of Congress and Increasing Irritation 391
Fourteenth Amendment Rejected 394
Political Conditions, 1866-1867; Formation of Parties 398
CHAPTER X
MILITARY GOVERNMENT, 1865-1866
The Military Occupation 408
The Army and the Colored Population 410
Administration of Justice by the Army 413
The Army and the White People 417
CHAPTER XI
THE WARDS OF THE NATION
The Freedmen's Bureau 421
Department of Negro Affairs 421
Organization of the Bureau 423
The Bureau and the Civil Authorities 427
The Bureau supported by Confiscations 431
The Labor Problem 433
Freedmen's Bureau Courts 437
Care of the Sick 441
Issue of Rations 442
Demoralization caused by Bureau 444
The Freedmen's Savings-bank 451
The Freedmen's Bureau and Negro Education 456
The Failure of the Bureau System 469
PART V
_CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION_
CHAPTER XII
MILITARY GOVERNMENT UNDER THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS
Administration of General John Pope 473
Military Reconstruction Acts 473
Pope's Control of the Civil Government 477
Pope and the Newspapers 485
Trials by Military Commissions 487
Registration and Disfranchisement 488
Elections and the Convention 491
Removal of Pope and Swayne 492
Administration of General George G. Meade 493
Registration and Elections 493
Administration of Civil Affairs 495
Trials by Military Commissions 498
The Soldiers and the Citizens 500
From Martial Law to Carpet-bag Rule 501
CHAPTER XIII
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1867
Attitude of the Whites 503
Organization of the Radical Party in Alabama 505
Conservative Opposition Aroused 512
The Negro's First Vote 514
CHAPTER XIV
THE "RECONSTRUCTION" CONVENTION
Character of the Convention 517
The Race Question 521
Debates on Disfranchisement of Whites 524
Legislation by the Convention 528
CHAPTER XV
THE "RECONSTRUCTION" COMPLETED
"Convention" Candidates 531
Campaign on the Constitution 534
Vote on the Constitution 538
The Constitution fails of Adoption 541
The Alabama Question in Congress 547
Alabama readmitted to the Union 550
CHAPTER XVI
THE UNION LEAGUE OF AMERICA
Origin of the Union League 553
Its Extension to the South 556
Ceremonies of the League 559
Organization and Methods 561
PART VI
_CARPET-BAG AND NEGRO RULE_
CHAPTER XVII
TAXATION AND THE PUBLIC DEBT
Taxation during Reconstruction 571
Administrative Expenses 574
Effect on Property Values 578
The Public Bonded Debt 580
The Financial Settlement 583
CHAPTER XVIII
RAILROAD LEGISLATION AND FRAUDS
Federal and State Aid to Railroads before the War 587
General Legislation in Aid of Railroads 589
The Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad 591
Other Indorsed Railroads 600
County and Town Aid to Railroads 604
CHAPTER XIX
RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SCHOOLS
School System before Reconstruction 607
School System of Reconstruction 609
Reconstruction of the State University 612
Trouble in the Mobile Schools 618
Irregularities in School Administration 621
Objections to the Reconstruction Education 624
Negro Education 625
Failure of the Educational System 632
CHAPTER XX
RECONSTRUCTION IN THE CHURCHES
"Disintegration and Absorption" Policy 637
The Methodists 637
The Baptists 640
The Presbyterians 641
The Churches and the Negro during Reconstruction 642
The Baptists and the Negroes 643
The Presbyterians and the Negroes 646
The Roman Catholics 647
The Episcopalians 647
The Methodists and the Negroes 648
CHAPTER XXI
THE KU KLUX REVOLUTION
Causes of the Ku Klux Movement 654
Secret Societies of Regulators before Ku Klux Klan 659
Origin and Growth of Ku Klux Klan 661
The Knights of the White Camelia 671
The Work of the Secret Orders 675
Ku Klux Orders and Warnings 680
Ku Klux "Outrages" 686
Success of the Ku Klux Movement 690
Spurious Ku Klux Organizations 691
Attempts to suppress the Ku Klux Movement 694
State Legislation 695
Enforcement Acts 697
Ku Klux Investigation 703
Later Ku Klux Organizations 709
CHAPTER XXII
REORGANIZATION OF THE INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM
Break-up of the Ante-bellum System 710
The Freedmen's Bureau System 717
Northern and Foreign Immigration 718
Attempts to organize a New System 721
Development of the Share and Credit Systems 723
Superiority of White Farmers 727
Decadence of the Black Belt 731
CHAPTER XXIII
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS DURING RECONSTRUCTION
Politics and Political Methods 733
The First Reconstruction Administration 733
Reconstruction Judiciary 744
Campaign of 1868 747
The Administration of Governor Lindsay 750
The Administration of Governor Lewis 754
Election of Spencer to the United States Senate 755
Social Conditions during Reconstruction 761
Statistics of Crime 762
Social Relations of Negroes 763
Carpet-baggers and Scalawags 765
Social Effects of Reconstruction on the Whites 766
Economic Conditions 769
CHAPTER XXIV
THE OVERTHROW OF RECONSTRUCTION
The Republican Party in 1874 771
Whites desert the Party 771
The Demand of the Negro for Social Rights 772
Disputes among Radical Editors 773
Demand of Negroes for Office 773
Factions within the Party 774
Negroes in 1874 775
Promises made to them 775
Negro Social and Political Clubs 776
Negro Democrats 777
The Democratic and Conservative Party in 1874 778
Attitude of the Whites toward the Blacks 779
The Color Line Drawn 780
"Independent" Candidates 781
The Campaign of 1874 782
Platforms and Candidates 782
"Political Bacon" 783
"Hays-Hawley Letter" 786
Intimidation by Federal Authorities 789
Intimidation by Democrats 791
The Election of 1874 793
The Eufaula Riot 794
Results of the Election 795
Later Phases of State Politics 798
Whites make Secure their Control 798
The "Lily Whites" and the "Black and Tans" 799
The Failure of the Populist Movement 799
The Primary Election System 800
The Negroes Disfranchised 800
SUCCESSES AND FAILURES OF RECONSTRUCTION 801
APPENDICES:
Cotton Production in Alabama, 1860-1900 804
Registration of Voters under the New Constitution 806
INDEX 809
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Alabama Money _Facing_ 178
Buckley, Rev. C. W. " 552
"Bully for Alabama" " 738
Callis, John B. " 552
Clanton, General James H. " 760
Clemens, Jere " 36
Confederate Capitol, Montgomery " 96
Confederate Monument, Montgomery " 96
Confederate Postage Stamps " 178
Crowe, Major James R. " 760
Curry, Dr. J. L. M. " 626
Davis, Jefferson " 54
Davis, Inauguration of " 96
Davis, Residence of, Montgomery " 96
Gaineswood, a Plantation Home " 8
Hays, Charles " 552
"Hon. Mr. Carraway" " 738
Houston, Governor George S. " 760
John Brown Extra " 18
Johnson, President Andrew " 336
Ku Klux Costumes 675
Ku Klux Hanging Pictures 612
Ku Klux Warning 678
Lewis, Governor D. P. _Facing_ 600
Lindsay, Governor R. B. " 760
Meade, General George G. " 476
Moore, Governor Andrew B. " 130
Negro Members of the Convention of 1875 " 600
"Nigger, Scalawag, Carpetbagger" " 738
Parsons, Governor L. E. " 600
Patton, Governor R. M. " 760
Pope, General John " 476
Prescript (Original) of Ku Klux Klan, Facsimile
of Page of " 670
Prescript (revised and amended) of Ku Klux Klan,
Facsimile of Page of 665
Private Money _Facing_ 178
Rapier, J. T. " 552
Ritual of the Knights of the White Camelia,
Facsimile of Page of " 670
Shorter, Governor John Gill " 130
Smith, Governor William H. " 600
Smith, William R. " 36
Spencer, Senator George E. " 552
Stephens, Alexander H. " 36
Stevens, Thaddeus " 336
Sumner, Charles " 336
Swayne, General Wager " 476
"The Speaker cried out, 'Order!'" " 738
Thomas, General George H. " 476
Union League Constitution, Facsimile of Page of " 566
Walker, General L. P. " 36
Warner, Senator Willard " 552
Watts, Governor Thomas H. " 130
Wilmer, Bishop R. H. " 130
Yancey, William Lowndes " 36
LIST OF MAPS
PAGE
1. Population in 1860 4
2. Nativity and Distribution of Public Men 6
3. Election for President, 1860 20
4. Parties in the Secession Convention 29
5. Disaffection toward the Confederacy, 1861-1865 110
6. Industrial Development, 1861-1865 150
7. Devastation by Invading Armies 256
8. Parties in the Convention of 1865 359
9. Registration of Voters under the Reconstruction Acts 494
10. Election for President, 1868 747
11. Election of 1870 750
12. Election of 1872 755
13. Election of 1874 795
14. Election of 1876 796
15. Election of 1880 798
16. Election of 1890 799
17. Election of 1902 under New Constitution 800
PART I
INTRODUCTION
CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION IN ALABAMA
CHAPTER I
THE PERIOD OF SECTIONAL CONTROVERSY
When Alabama seceded in 1861, it had been in existence as a political
organization less than half a century, but in many respects its
institutions and customs were as old as European America. The white
population was almost purely Anglo-American. The early settlements had
been made on the coast near Mobile, and from thence had extended up the
Alabama, Tombigbee, and Warrior rivers. In the northern part the Tennessee
valley was early settled, and later, in the eastern part, the Coosa
valley. After the river valleys, the prairie lands in central Alabama were
peopled, and finally the poorer lands of the southeast and the hills south
of the Tennessee valley. The bulk of the population before 1861 was of
Georgian birth or descent, the settlers having come from middle Georgia,
which had been peopled from the hills of Virginia. Georgians came into the
Tennessee valley early in the nineteenth century. The Creek reservation
prevented immigration into eastern Alabama before the thirties, but the
Georgians went around and settled southeast Alabama along the line of the
old "Federal road." When the Creek Indians consented to migrate, it was
found that the Georgians were already in possession of the country,--more
than 20,000 strong, and a government was at once erected over the Indian
counties. People from Georgia also came down the Coosa valley to central
Alabama. The Virginians went to the western Black Belt, to the Tennessee
valley, and to central Alabama. North Carolina sent thousands of her
citizens down through the Tennessee valley and thence across country to
the Tombigbee valley and western Alabama; others came through Georgia and
followed the routes of Georgia migration. South Carolinians swarmed into
the southern, central, and western counties, and a goodly number settled
in the Tennessee valley. Tennessee furnished a large proportion of the
settlers to the Tennessee valley, to the hill counties south of the
Tennessee, and to the valleys in central and western Alabama. Among the
immigrants from Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee was a
large Scotch-Irish element, and with the Tennesseeans came a sprinkling of
Kentuckians. In western Alabama were a few thousand Mississippians, and
into southeast Alabama a few hundred settlers came from Florida. From the
northern states came several thousand, principally New England business
men. The foreign element was insignificant--the Irish being most numerous,
with a few hundred each of Germans, English, French, and Scotch. In Mobile
and Marengo counties there was a slight admixture of French blood in the
population.[1]
[Illustration: POPULATION IN 1860.]
In regard to the character of the settlers it has been said that the
Virginians were the least practical and the Georgians the most so, while
the North Carolinians were a happy medium. The Georgians were noted for
their stubborn persistence, and they usually succeeded in whatever they
undertook. The Virginians liked a leisurely planter's life with abundant
social pleasures. The Tennesseeans and Kentuckians were hardly
distinguishable from the Virginians and Carolinians, to whom they were
closely related. The northern professional and business men exercised an
influence more than commensurate with their numbers, being, in a way,
picked men. Neither the Georgians nor the Virginians were assertive
office-seekers, but the Carolinians liked to hold office, and the politics
of the state were moulded by the South Carolinians and Georgians. All were
naturally inclined to favor a weak federal administration and a strong
state government with much liberty of the individual. The theories of
Patrick Henry, Jefferson, and Calhoun, not those of Washington and John
Marshall, formed the political creed of the Alabamians.
[Illustration: NATIVITY OF PUBLIC MEN
Each figure represents some person who became prominent before 1865, and
indicates his native state. The location of the figure on the map
indicates his place of residence. Note the segregation along the rivers
and the Black Belt.]
The wealthy people were found in the Tennessee valley, in the Black Belt
extending across the centre of the state, and in Mobile, the one large
town. They were (except a few of the Mobilians) all slaveholders. The
poorer white people went to the less fertile districts of north and
southeast Alabama, where land was cheap, preferring to work their own poor
farms rather than to work for some one else on better land. But nearly
every slave county had its colony of poorer whites, who were invariably
settled on the least fertile soils. Among these settlers there was a
certain dislike of slavery, because they believed that, were it not for
the negro, the whites might themselves live on the fertile lands. Yet they
were not in favor of emancipation in any form, unless the negro could be
gotten entirely out of the way--a free negro being to them an abomination.
If the negro must stay, then they preferred slavery to continue.
Over the greater part of Alabama there were no class distinctions before
1860; the state was too young. In the wilderness classes had fused and the
successful men were often those never heard of in the older states. A
candidate of "the plain people" was always elected, because all were
frontier people. This does not mean that in Huntsville, Montgomery,
Greensboro, and Mobile there were not the beginnings of an aristocracy
based on education, wealth, and family descent. But these were very small
spots on the map of Alabama, and there were no heartburnings over social
inequalities.[2]
Such was the composition of the white population of Alabama before 1860.
No matter what might be their political affiliations, in practice nearly
all were Democrats of the Jeffersonian school, believing in the largest
possible liberty for the individual and in local management of all local
affairs, and to the frontier Democrat nearly all questions that concerned
him were local. The political leaders excepted, the majority of the
population knew little and cared less about the Federal government except
when it endeavored to restrain or check them in their course of conquest
and expansion in the wilderness. The relations of the people of Alabama
with the Federal government were such as to confirm and strengthen them in
their local attachments and sectional politics. The controversies that
arose in regard to the removal of the Indians, and over the public lands,
nullification, slavery, and western expansion, prevented the growth of
attachment to the Federal government, and tended to develop a southern
rather than a "continental" nationality. The state came into the Union
when the sections were engaged in angry debate over the Missouri
Compromise measures, and its attitude in Federal politics was determined
from the beginning. The next most serious controversy with the Federal
government and with the North was in regard to the removal of the Indians
from the southern states. The southwestern frontiersmen, like all other
Anglo-Americans, had no place in their economy for the Indian, and they
were determined that he should not stand in their way.
Indians and Nullification
For half a century, throughout the Gulf states, the struggle with the
Indian tribes for the possession of the fertile lands continued, and in
this struggle the Federal government was always against the settlers.
Before the removal of the Indians, in 1836, the settlers of Alabama were
in almost continual dispute with the Washington administration on this
subject.[3] The trouble began in Georgia, and thousands of Georgians
brought to Alabama a spirit of jealousy and hostility to the United States
government, and a growing dislike of New England and the North on account
of their stand in regard to the Indians. For when troubles, legal and
otherwise, arose with the Indians, their advisers were found to be
missionaries and land agents from New England. The United States wanted
the Indians to remain as states within states; the Georgia and Alabama
settlers felt that the Indians must go. The attitude of the Federal
government drove the settlers into extreme assertions of state rights. In
Georgia it came almost to war between the state and United States troops
during the administration of John Quincy Adams, a New Englander, who was
disliked by the settlers for his support of the Indian cause; and the
whole South was made jealous by the decisions of the Supreme Court in the
Indian cases. Had Adams been elected to a second term, there would
probably have been armed resistance to the policy of the United States.
Jackson, a southern and western man, had the feeling of a frontiersman
toward the Indians; and his attitude gained him the support of the
frontier southern states in the trouble with South Carolina over
nullification.
[Illustration: GAINESWOOD. A Marengo County Plantation Home. Abandoned
since the War.]
Immediately after the nullification troubles, the general government
attempted to remove the white settlers from the Indian lands in east
Alabama. The lands had been ceded by the Indians in 1832, and the
legislature of Alabama at once extended the state administration over the
territory. Settlers rushed in; some were already there. But by the treaty
the Indians were entitled to remain on their land until they chose to
move; and now the United States marshals, supported by the army, were
ordered to remove the 30,000 whites who had settled in the nine Indian
counties. Governor Gayle, who had been elected as an opponent of
nullification, informed the Secretary of War that the proposed action of
the central government meant nothing less than the destruction of the
state administration, and declared that he would, at all costs, sustain
the jurisdiction of the state government. The troops killed a citizen who
resisted removal, and the Federal authorities refused to allow the slayers
to be tried by state courts. There was great excitement in the state, and
public meetings were everywhere held to organize resistance. The
legislature authorized the governor to persist in maintaining the state
administration in the nine Indian counties. A collision with the United
States troops was expected, and offers of volunteers were made to the
governor,--even from New York. Finally the United States government
yielded, the whites remained on the Indian lands, the state authority was
upheld in the Indian counties, the soldiers were tried before state
courts, and the Indians were removed to the West. The governor proclaimed
a victory for the state, and the 30,000 angry Alabamians rejoiced over
what they considered the defeat of the unjust Federal government.[4]
Thus in Alabama nullification of Federal law was successfully carried out.
And it was done by a state administration and a people that a year before
had refused to approve the course of South Carolina. But South Carolina
was regarded in Alabama, as in the rest of the South, somewhat as an
erratic member that ought to be disciplined once in a while. A strong and
able minority in Alabama accepted the basis of the nullification doctrine,
_i.e._ the sovereignty of the states, and after this time this political
element was usually known as the State Rights party. They had no separate
organization, but voted with Whigs or Democrats, as best served their
purpose. Secession was little talked of, for affairs might yet go well,
they thought, within the Union. A majority of the Democrats, for several
years after 1832, were probably opposed in theory to nullification and
secession when South Carolina was an actor, but in practice they acted as
they had done in the Indian disputes which concerned them more closely.
The Slavery Controversy and Political Divisions
It was at the height of the irritation of the Indian controversy that the
agitation by the abolitionists of the North began. The question which more
than any other alienated the southern people from the Union was that
concerning negro slavery. From 1819 to 1860 the majority of the white
people of Alabama were not friendly to slavery as an institution. This was
not from any special liking for the negro or belief that slavery was bad
for him, but because it was believed that the presence of the negro, slave
or free, was not good for the white race. To most of the people slavery
was merely a device for making the best of a bad state of affairs. The
constitution of 1819 was liberal in its slavery provisions, and the
legislature soon enacted (1827) a law prohibiting the importation, for
sale, hire, or barter, of slaves from other states. For a decade there was
strong influence at each session of the state legislature in favor of
gradual emancipation; agents of the Quakers worked in the state, buying
and paying a higher price for cotton that was not produced by slave labor;
and in north Alabama, during the twenties and early thirties, there was a
number of emancipation societies.[5] An emancipation newspaper, _The
Huntsville Democrat_, was published in Huntsville, and edited by James G.
Birney, afterwards a noted abolitionist. The northern section of the
state, embracing the strong Democratic white counties, was distinctly
unfriendly to slavery, or rather to the negro, and controlled the politics
of the state.[6] The effect of the abolition movement in the North was the
destruction of the emancipation organizations in the South, and both
friends and foes of the institution united on the defensive. The
non-slaveholders were not deluded followers of the slave owners. After the
slavery question became an issue in politics, the non-slaveholders in
Alabama were rather more aggressive, and were even more firmly determined
to maintain negro slavery than were the slaveholders. To the rich
hereditary slaveholders, who were relatively few in number, it was more or
less a question of property, and that was enough to fight about at any
time. But to the average white man who owned no negroes and who worked for
his living at manual labor, the question was a vital social one. The negro
slave was bad enough; but he thought that the negro freed by outside
interference and turned loose on society was much more to be feared.[7]
The large majorities for extreme measures came from the white counties;
the secession vote in 1860 was largely a white county vote. But when
secession came, the Whiggish Black Belt which had been opposed to
secession was astonished not to receive, in the war that followed, the
hearty support of the Democratic white counties.
Before the nullification troubles in 1832 there was no distinct political
division among the people of Alabama; all were Democrats. Those of the
white counties were of the Jacksonian type, those of the black counties
were rather of the Jeffersonian faith; but all were strict
constructionists, especially on questions concerning the tariff, the
Indians, the central government, and slavery. The question of
nullification caused a division in the ranks of the Democratic party--one
wing supporting Jackson, the other accepting Calhoun as leader. For
several years later, however, the Democratic candidates had no opposition
in the elections, though within the party there were contests between the
Jacksonians and the growing State Rights (Calhoun) wing. But with the
settling of the country, the growth of the power of the Black Belt, and
the differentiation of interests within the state, there appeared a second
party, the Whigs. Its strength lay among the large planters and
slaveholders of the central Black Belt, though it often took its leaders
from the black counties of the Tennessee valley. This party was able to
elect a governor but once, and then only because of a division in the
Democratic ranks. After 1835 it secured one-third of the representation in
Congress and the same proportion in the legislature. It was the
"broadcloth" party, of the wealthier and more cultivated people. It did
not appeal to the "plain people" with much success; but it was always a
respectable party, and there was no jealousy of it then, and now "there
are no bitter memories against it."[8]
Numerically, the Whigs were about as strong as the anti-nullification wing
of the Democratic party, so that the balance of power was held by the
constantly increasing State Rights (Calhoun) element. When Van Buren
became leader of the national Democracy, the State Rights people in
Alabama united with the regular Democrats and voted with them for about
ten years. The State Rights men were devoted followers of Calhoun, but in
political theories they soon went beyond him. For a while they were
believers in nullification as a constitutional right, but soon began to
talk of secession as a sovereign right. They were in favor of no
compromise where the rights of the South were concerned. They were
logical, extreme, doctrinaire; they demanded absolute right, and viewed
every action of the central government with suspicion. A single idea
firmly held through many years gave to them a power not justified by their
numerical strength.
The Whigs did not stand still on political questions; as the Democrats and
the State Rights men abandoned one position for another more advanced, the
Whigs moved up to the one abandoned. Thus they were always only about one
election behind. It was the constant agitation of the slavery question
that drove the Whigs along in the wake of the more advanced party. Both
parties were in favor of expansion in the Southwest. They were indignant
at the New England position on the Texas question, and talked much of
disunion if such a policy of obstruction was persisted in. Again, after
the Mexican War all parties were furious at the opposition shown to the
annexation of the territory from Mexico. It was now the spirit of
expansion, the lust for territory, that rose in opposition to the
obstructive policy of northern leaders; and a new element was added when
an attempt was made to shut out southerners from the territory won mainly
by the South by forbidding the entrance of slavery.
The number of those in favor of resisting at every point the growing
desire of the North to restrict slavery was increasing steadily. The
leader of the State Rights men was William L. Yancey. He opposed all
compromises, for, as he said, compromise meant that the system was evil
and was an acknowledgment of wrong, and no right, however abstract, must
be denied to the South. He was a firm believer in slavery as the only
method of solving the race question, and saw clearly the dangers that
would result from the abolition programme if the North and South remained
united. So to prevent worse calamities he was in favor of disunion. He was
the greatest orator ever heard in the South. He was in no sense a
demagogue; he had none of the arts of the popular politician. Sent to
Congress in the heat of the fight between the sections, he resigned
because he thought the battle was to be fought elsewhere. For twenty years
he stood before the people of Alabama, telling them that slavery could not
be preserved within the Union; that before any effective settlement of
controversies could be made, Alabama and the other southern states must
withdraw and make terms from the outside, or stay out of the Union and
have done with agitation and interference. Secession was
self-preservation, he told a people who believed that the destruction of
slavery meant the destruction of society. For twenty years he and his
followers, heralds of the storm, were ostracized by all political parties,
which accepted his theories, but denied the necessity for putting them
into practice. When at last the people came to follow him, he told them
that they had probably waited too late, and that they were seceding on a
weaker cause than any of those he had presented for twenty years.
Yancey was a leader of State Rights men but never a leader in the
Democratic party. Once, in 1848, when all were angry on account of the
opposition on the Mexican question, Yancey was called to the front in the
Democratic state convention. He offered resolutions, which were
adopted,[9] to the effect (1) that the people of a territory could not
prevent the holding of slaves before the formation of a state
constitution, and that Congress had no power whatever to restrict slavery
in the territories; (2) that those who held the opposite opinion were not
Democrats, and that the Democratic party of Alabama would not support for
President any candidate who held such views. The delegates to the National
Democratic Convention at Baltimore were instructed to withdraw if the
Alabama resolutions were rejected. By a vote of two hundred and sixteen to
thirty-six they were rejected; yet none of the delegates except Yancey
withdrew. Refusing to support Cass for the presidency because he believed
in "squatter sovereignty," Yancey was again ostracized by the Democratic
leaders.[10] Now the State Rights men became more aggressive, for they
said this was the time to settle the slavery question, before it was too
late. The North, it was thought, would not be averse to separation from
the South. The Whigs began to advance non-intervention theories, and but
for the death of President Taylor, who adhered to the free-soil Whigs,
political parties in Alabama would probably have broken up in 1850 and
fused into one on the slavery question.
Growth of Secession Sentiment
The compromise measures of 1850 pleased few people in Alabama, and there
was talk of resistance and of assisting Texas by force, if necessary,
against the appropriation of her territory by the central government. The
moderates condemned the Compromise and said they would not yield again.
The more advanced demanded a repeal of the Compromise or immediate
secession. Yancey said there was no hope of a settlement and that it was
time to set the house in order. In 1850-1851 there was a widespread
movement toward a rejection of the Compromise and a secession of the lower
South, but the political leaders were disposed to give the Compromise a
trial. To the Nashville convention, held in June, 1850, to discuss
measures to secure redress of grievances, the Alabama legislature at an
unofficial meeting chose the following delegates: Benjamin Fitzpatrick,
William Cooper, John A. Campbell, Thomas J. Judge, John A. Winston, Leroy
P. Walker, William M. Murphy, Nicholas Davis, R. C. Shorter, Thomas A.
Walker, Reuben Chapman, James Abercrombie, and William M. Byrd--all Whigs
or Conservative Democrats. The resolutions passed by the convention were
cautious and prudent, and were generally supported by the Whigs and
opposed by the Democrats. In Montgomery, upon the return of the Alabama
delegation, a public meeting, held to ratify the action of the Nashville
convention, condemned it instead, and approved the programme of Yancey who
again declared that it was "time to set the house in order." The contest
in Alabama was simply between the Compromise, with maintenance of the
Union, and rejection of the Compromise to be followed by secession. It
was not a campaign between Whig and Democrat, but between Union and
Secession. The old party lines were not drawn. Associations were formed
all over the state to oppose the Compromise and to advocate secession. The
Unionists drew together, but less heartily. The compact State Rights
element lost influence on account of a division that now showed in its
ranks. One section, led by William L. Yancey, was for separate and
unconditional secession; another, led by J. J. Seibels, favored
coöperation of the southern states within the Union and united
deliberation before secession.[11] The State Rights Convention met in
Montgomery, February 10, 1851, and recommended a southern congress to
decide the questions at issue and declared that if any other state would
secede, Alabama should go also.[12] The action of the convention pleased
few and was repudiated by the "separate secessionist" element. The
candidates of the State Rights--now called the "Southern Rights"--party
were supported by a majority of the Democrats. They demanded the repeal of
the Compromise, and resistance to future encroachments; they demanded
southern ministers and southern churches, southern books and papers, and
southern pleasure resorts.
The "Union" leaders were Judge Benajah S. Bibb, James Abercrombie, Thomas
J. Judge, Henry W. Hilliard, Thomas H. Watts, Senator William R.
King,--nearly all Virginians or North Carolinians by birth or descent. At
the State "Union" Convention held in Montgomery, January 19, 1851, among
the more prominent delegates were: Thomas B. Cooper, R. M. Patton, W. M.
Byrd, B. S. Bibb, J. M. Tarleton, W. B. Moss, James H. Clanton, L. E.
Parsons, Robert J. Jamison, Henry W. Hilliard, R. W. Walker, Thomas H.
Watts, Nicholas Davis, Jr., and C. M. Wilcox,--all were Whigs, and were
Virginians, North Carolinians, and men of northern birth. This meeting
denied the "constitutional" right of secession. The Union candidates for
Congress were C. C. Langdon, James Abercrombie, Judge Mudd, William R.
Smith, W. R. W. Cobb, George S. Houston, and Alexander White,--each of
whom denied the "constitutional" right of secession, but said nothing
about it as a "sovereign" right.
The "Unionists"--the old Whigs and the Jacksonian Democrats--were
successful in the elections, but by accepting, though disapproving, the
Compromise measures, and by repudiating the doctrine of secession as a
"constitutional" right,[13] they had advanced beyond the position held by
Yancey in 1848.
After the success of the "Union" party in 1851-1852, the Southern Rights
Associations resolved to suspend for a time the debate on secession.
Thereupon the "Union" Democrats resumed their old party allegiance and the
"Union" party was left to consist of old Whigs alone. The Whigs wished to
continue the "Union" organization, for they no longer found it possible to
act with the northern Whigs, and in 1852 several of their prominent
leaders in Alabama refused to support the Whig presidential ticket. On the
other hand, the extreme "Southern Rights" men broke away from the
Democrats in 1852 and declared for immediate secession. They supported
Troup and Quitman, who polled, however, only 2174 votes in the state; but
the Whigs and the Democrats each lost about 15,000, who refused to vote.
And now came the break-up of old parties. The slavery question was always
before the people and was becoming more and more irritating. Compromises
had failed to quiet the controversy. The position of the "Union" Whigs in
the black counties became intolerable. They had to combat secession at
home, and they had to guard against trouble among their slaves caused by
the abolitionist propaganda. By 1855 almost all the Alabama Whigs had
become "Americans," at the same time searching for a new issue and
repudiating the principles upon which the "American" party was founded.
Again they were left alone by the antislavery stand taken by the northern
wing of this party. Yet in spite of every possible discouragement they
held together and controlled the black counties. When the Kansas question
arose all the parties in Alabama were united in reference to it. The
doctrine of squatter sovereignty was not accepted, but there was an
opportunity, both parties thought, to win Kansas peaceably and stay the
threatened separation, but the northern methods of settling Kansas by
organized antislavery emigration from New England paralyzed the efforts of
the moderate "Union" southerners. Similar methods were attempted by the
South, and several colonies of emigrants were sent from Alabama;[14] but
by 1857 it was known that Kansas was lost.
The great debate between William L. Yancey and Roger A. Pryor in the
Southern Commercial Convention held in Montgomery in May, 1858, showed
that the people of Alabama were then in advance of their political leaders
and were coming to the position long held by Yancey and the secessionists.
Pryor's position in favor of compromise and delay had the support of
nearly all the party leaders of Alabama; Yancey, always in disfavor with
party leaders, captured the convention with his policy of secession in
case of failure of redress of grievances. Secession was no longer a
doctrine to be condemned unless on the ground of expediency. Whig leaders
were now becoming Southern Rights Democrats. Many Democrats thought it was
time to force an issue and come to a settlement; this Yancey proposed to
do by demanding a repeal of all the laws against the slave trade because
they expressed a disapproval of slavery. If slavery were not wrong, then
the slave trade should not be denounced as piracy. Yancey had not the
slightest desire to reopen the slave trade, and knew that the North would
not consent to a repeal of the laws against it, yet he said the demand
should be made. He believed the demand to be legitimate, though sure to be
rejected. The national Democratic party would thus be divided and the
issue forced.[15]
For any purpose of opposing the Yancey programme the Alabama "Union" men
were rendered helpless by the turn politics were taking in the North. The
formation out of the wreck of the old Whig party of the distinctly
sectional and radical Republican party, the attitude of the leaders of
that party, the talk about the "irrepressible conflict" and the "Union
cannot endure half slave and half free," the indorsement of the "Impending
Crisis" with its incendiary teachings, the effect of "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
on thousands who before had cared nothing about slavery, and finally the
raid of John Brown into Virginia,[16]--these were influences more powerful
toward uniting the people to resistance than all the speeches of State
Rights leaders on abstract constitutional questions. After 1856 the people
were in advance of their leaders.
On January 11, 1860, the Democratic state convention unanimously adopted
resolutions favoring the Dred Scott decision as a settlement of the
slavery question. The delegation to the national nominating convention at
Charleston was instructed to withdraw in case these resolutions were not
accepted in substance as a part of the platform. At Charleston the
majority report of the committee on the platform sustained the Alabama
position. When the report was laid before the convention, a proposition
was made to set it aside for the minority report, which vaguely said
nothing. Yancey in a great speech delivered the ultimatum of the South,
the adoption of the majority report. The vote was taken and the South
defeated. L. Pope Walker[17] announced the withdrawal of the Alabama
delegation and the delegations from the other southern states
followed.[18] Both sections of the convention then adjourned to meet in
Baltimore. Influences for and against compromise were working, and it is
probable that a majority of the seceders would have harmonized had not the
Douglas organization declared the seats of the seceders vacant and
admitted delegates irregularly elected by Douglas conventions in the
South. After the damage was done, Yancey was pressed to take the
vice-presidency on the Douglas ticket.[19] Douglas was known to be in bad
health and Yancey was told that he might expect to be President within a
few months, if he accepted. But it was too late for further compromise,
and Yancey toured the North, speaking for Breckenridge. A State Rights
convention in Alabama indorsed the candidates of the seceded convention; a
convention of Douglas Democrats in Montgomery declared for Douglas; the
"Constitutional Union" party (the old Whigs and "Americans" or
"Know-nothings"), for Bell and Everett and old-fashioned conservative
respectability. During the campaign Douglas visited the state and was well
received, but aroused no enthusiasm, while Yancey was tumultuously
welcomed.
[Illustration: A JOHN BROWN EXTRA.]
As far back as February 24, 1860, the legislature had passed almost
unanimously a resolution concurring with South Carolina in regard to the
right and necessity of secession, and declaring that Alabama would not
submit to the domination of a "foul sectional party." In case of the
election of a "Black" Republican President a convention was to be called,
and $200,000 was appropriated for its use.[20] A committee was appointed
to reorganize the militia system of the state, and so important was the
work deemed that the committee was excused from all other duties. The
Senate declared that it was expedient to establish an arsenal, a firearms
factory, and a powder mill. A bill was passed to encourage the manufacture
of firearms in Alabama.[21] At this session seventy-four military
companies were incorporated and provision made for military schools.[22]
[Illustration: ELECTION FOR PRESIDENT, 1860.]
Elections returns were anxiously awaited.[23] It was certain that the
election of Lincoln and Hamlin would result in secession.[24] When the
news came the old "Union" leaders declared for secession and by noon of
the next day the "Union" party had gone to pieces. The leaders who had
opposed secession to the last--Watts, Clanton, Goldthwaite, Judge, and
Hilliard--now took their stand by the side of Yancey and declared that
Alabama must withdraw from the Union. Governor Moore, a very moderate man,
in a public speech said that no course was left but for the state to
secede, and with the other southern states form a confederacy. Public
meetings were held in every town and village to declare that Alabama would
not submit to the rule of the "Black Republican." A typical meeting held
in Mobile, November 15, 1860, arraigned the Republican party because: (1)
it had declared for the abolition of slavery in all territories and
Federal districts and for the abolition of the interstate slave trade; (2)
it had denied the extradition of murderers, marauders, and other felons;
(3) it had concealed and shielded the murderers of masters who had sought
to recover fugitive slaves; (4) it advocated negro equality and made it
the basis of legislation hostile to the South; (5) it opposed protection
of slave property on the high seas and had justified piracy in the case of
the _Creole_; (6) it had invaded Virginia and shed the blood of her
citizens on her own soil; and (7) had announced a policy of total
abolition.[25] In December, 1860, the Federal grand jury at Montgomery
declared the Federal government "worthless, impotent, and a nuisance," as
it had failed to protect the interests of the people of Alabama. The
presentment was signed by C. C. Gunter, foreman, and nineteen others.[26]
Had the governor been willing to call a convention at once, secession
would have been almost unanimous; but delay caused the more cautious and
timid to reflect and gave the so-called "coöperationists" time to put
forth a platform. The leaders of the party of delay representing north
Alabama, the stronghold of radical democracy, were William R. Smith, M. J.
Bulger, Nicholas Davis, Jere Clemens, and Robert J. Jemison, all strong
men, but none of them possessing the ability of the secessionist leaders
or of the former "Union" leaders who had joined the secession party. But
secession was certain,--it was only a question as to how and when. By law
the governor was to call a convention in case the "Black Republican"
candidates were elected, and December 24, 1860, was fixed as the time for
election of delegates, and January 4, 1861, the time for assembly.
Separation of the Churches
Before the political division in 1861 the religious division had already
occurred in the larger and in several of the smaller denominations. At the
close of 1861 every religious body represented in the South, except the
Roman Catholic church,[27] had been divided into northern and southern
branches. The political rather than the moral aspects of slavery had
finally led to strife in the churches. The southern churches protested
against the action of the northern religious bodies in going into
politics on the slavery question and thus causing endless strife between
the sections as represented in the churches. The response of the northern
societies to such protests resulted in the gradual alienation of the
southern members and finally in separation. The first division in Alabama
came in 1821, when the Associate Reformed Presbyterian church excluded
slaveholders from communion and thereby lost its southern members.[28]
Next came the separation of the two strongest Protestant denominations,
the Baptists and the Methodists. The southern Baptists were, as
slaveholders, excluded from appointment as missionaries, agents, or
officers of the Board of Foreign Missions, although they contributed their
full share to missions. The Alabama Baptist Convention in 1844 led the way
to separation with a protest against this discrimination. The Board stated
in reply that under no circumstances would a slaveholder be appointed by
them to any position. The Board of the Home Mission Society made a similar
declaration. The formal withdrawal of the southern state conventions
followed in 1844, and in 1845 the Southern Baptist Convention was
formed.[29]
In the Methodist Episcopal church the conflict over slavery had long been
smouldering, and in 1844 it broke out in regard to the ownership of slaves
by the wife of Bishop Andrew of Alabama. The hostile sections agreed to
separate into a northern and a southern church, and a Plan of Separation
was adopted. This was disregarded by the northern body and the question of
the division of property went to the courts. The United States Supreme
Court finally decided in favor of the southern church. From these troubles
angry feelings on both sides resulted. The southern church took the name
of the Methodist Episcopal Church South; the northern church retained the
old name.[30]
In 1858, the northern conferences of the Methodist Protestant Church,
having failed to change the constitution of the church in regard to
slavery, withdrew, and uniting with a number of Wesleyan Methodists,
formed the Methodist Church.[31]
The Southern Aid Society was formed in New York in 1854 for mission work
in the South because it was generally believed that the American Home
Mission Society was allied with the abolitionists, and because the latter
society refused to aid any minister or missionary who was a slaveholder.
In Alabama the Southern Aid Society worked principally among the
Presbyterians of north Alabama.[32]
The Presbyterians (N.S.) separated in 1858 "on account of politics," and
the southern branch formed the United Synod South.[33] The East Alabama
Presbytery (O.S.) in 1861 supported the Presbytery of Memphis in a protest
against the action of the General Assembly of the church in entering
politics. The Presbytery of South Alabama (O.S.) met at Selma in July,
1861, severed its connection with the General Assembly, and recommended a
meeting of a Confederate States Assembly. This Assembly was held at
Augusta and formed the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of
America. A long address was published, setting forth the causes of the
separation, the future policy of the church, and its attitude towards
slavery. It declared that the northern section of the church with its
radical policy was playing into the hands of both slaveholders and
abolitionists and thus weakening its influence with both. "We," the
address stated, "in our ecclesiastical capacity are neither the friends
nor foes of slavery." As long as they were connected with the radical
northern church the southern Presbyterians felt that they would be
excluded from useful work among the slaves by the suspicions of the
southern people concerning their real intentions.[34]
The Christian church was divided in 1854. During the war the southern
synods of the Evangelical Lutherans withdrew and formed the General Synod
South. There were few members of these churches in Alabama.[35]
The Cumberland Presbyterians, though separated by the war, seem not to
have formally established an independent organization in the Confederate
States. A convention was called to meet at Selma in 1864, but nothing
resulted.[36]
In May, 1861, the Protestant Episcopal Convention of Alabama declared null
and void that part of the constitution of the diocese relating to its
connection with the church in the United States. Instead of the President
of the United States, the Governor of Alabama, and later, the President of
the Confederate States, was prayed for in the formal prayer. Bishop Cobbs,
a strong opponent of secession, died one hour before the secession of the
state was announced. Rev. R. H. Wilmer, a Confederate sympathizer, was
elected to succeed him.[37] In July the bishops of the southern states met
in Montgomery to draft a new constitution and canons. A resolution was
passed stating that the secession of the southern states from the Union
and the formation of a new government rendered it expedient that the
dioceses within those states should form an independent organization. The
new constitution was adopted in November, 1861, by a general convention,
and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States was
formed.[38] And thus the religious ties were broken.
* * * * *
Business had also become sectionalized by 1861. The southern states felt
keenly their dependence upon the states of the North for manufactures,
water transportation, etc. For two decades before the war the southern
newspapers agitated the question and advocated measures that would tend to
secure economic independence of the North. As an instance of the feeling,
many of the educators of the state were in favor of using only those
text-books written by southern men and printed in the South. Professor A.
P. Barnard[39] of the University of Alabama was strenuously in favor of
such action. He declared that nothing ought to be bought from the North.
From 1845 to 1861, fifteen "Commercial Conventions" were held in the
South, largely attended by the most prominent business men and
politicians. The object of these conventions was to discuss means of
attaining economic independence.
When Alabama withdrew from the Union in 1861, no bonds were broken.
Practically the only bond of Union for most of the people had been in the
churches; to the Washington government and to the North they had never
become attached. The feelings of the great majority of the people of the
state are expressed in the last speech of Senator C. C. Clay of north
Alabama in the United States Senate. It had been forty-two years, he said,
since Alabama had entered the Union amidst scenes of excitement and
violence caused by the hostility of the North against the institution of
slavery in the South (referring to the conflict over Missouri). In the
churches, southern Christians were denied communion because of what the
North styled the "leprosy of slavery." In violation of Constitution and
laws southern people were refused permission to pass through the North
with their property. The South was refused a share in the lands acquired
mainly by her diplomacy, blood, and treasure. The South was robbed of her
property and restoration was refused. Criminals who fled North were
protected, and southern men who sought to recover their slaves were
murdered. Southern homes were burned and southern families murdered. This
had been endured for years, and there was no hope of better. The
Republican platform was a declaration of war against the South. It was
hostile to domestic peace, reproached the South as unchristian and
heathenish, and imputed sin and crime to that section. It was a strong
incitement to insurrection, arson, and murder among the negroes. The
southern whites were denied equality with northern whites or even with
free negroes, and were branded as an inferior race. The man nominated for
President disregarded the judgment of courts, the obligations of the
Constitution, and of his oath by declaring his approval of any measure to
prohibit slavery in the territories of the United States. The people of
the North branded the people of the South as outlaws, insulted them,
consigned them to the execration of posterity and to ultimate destruction.
"Is it to be expected that we will or can exercise that Godlike virtue
that beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things; which tells us to love our enemies, and bless them
that curse us? Are we expected to be denied the sensibilities, the
sentiments, the passions, the reason, the instincts of men?" Have we no
pride, no honor, no sense of shame, no reverence for ancestors and care
for posterity, no love of home, of family, of friends? Are we to confess
baseness, discredit the fame of our sires, dishonor ourselves and degrade
posterity, abandon our homes and flee the country--all--all--for the sake
of the Union? Shall we live under a government administered by those who
deny us justice and brand us as inferiors? whose avowed principles and
policy must destroy domestic tranquillity, imperil the lives of our wives
and children, and ultimately destroy the state? The freemen of Alabama
have proclaimed to the world that they will not.[40]
CHAPTER II
SECESSION FROM THE UNION
On November 12, 1860, a committee of prominent citizens, appointed by a
convention of the people of several counties, asked the governor whether
he intended to call the state convention immediately after the choice of
presidential electors or to wait until the electors should have chosen the
President. They also asked to be informed of the time he intended to order
an election of delegates to the convention.[41] Governor Moore replied
that a candidate for the presidency was not elected until the electors
cast their votes, and until that time he would not call a convention. The
electors would vote on December 5, and as he had no doubt that Lincoln
would be elected, he would then order an election for December 24, and the
convention would assemble in Montgomery on January 7, 1861. The date, he
said, was placed far ahead in order that the people might have time to
consider the subject. He summed up the situation as follows: Lincoln was
the head of a sectional party pledged to the destruction of slavery; the
non-slaveholding states had repeatedly resisted the execution of the
Fugitive Slave Law, even nullifying the statutes of the United States by
their laws intended to prevent the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law;
Virginia had been invaded by abolitionists and her citizens murdered;
emissaries had burned towns in Texas; and in some instances poison had
been given to slaves with which to destroy the whites. With Lincoln as
President the abolitionists would soon control the Supreme Court and then
slavery would be abolished in the Federal district and in the territories.
There would soon be a majority of free states large enough to alter the
Constitution and to destroy slavery in the states. The state of society,
with four million negroes turned loose, would be too horrible to
contemplate, and the only safety for Alabama lay in secession, which was
within her right as a sovereign state. The Federal government was
established for the protection and not the destruction of rights; it had
only the powers delegated by the states and hence had not the power of
coercion. Alabama was devoted to the Union, but could not consent to
become a degraded member of it. The state in seceding ought to consult the
other southern states; but first she must decide for herself, and
coöperate afterwards. The convention, the governor said, would not be a
place for the timid or the rash. Men of wisdom and experience were needed,
men who could determine what the honor of the state and the security of
the people demanded, and who had the moral courage to carry out the
dictates of their honest judgment.
The proclamation, ordering an election on Christmas Eve and the assembly
of the convention at Montgomery, on January 7, 1861, was issued on
December 6, the day after the choice of Lincoln by the electors. On
January 7, every one of the one hundred delegates was present. It was a
splendid body of men, the best the people could send.
There were the "secessionists," who wanted immediate and separate
secession of the state without regard to the action of the other southern
states; the "coöperationists," who were divided among themselves, some
wanting the coöperation of the southern states within the Union in order
to force their rights from the central government, and others wanting the
southern states to come to an agreement within the Union and then secede
and form a confederacy, while a third class wanted a clear understanding
among the cotton states before secession. It was said that there were a
few "submissionists," but the votes and speeches fail to show any.
At first both parties claimed a majority, but before the convention opened
it was known that the larger number were secessionists. A test vote on the
election of a presiding officer showed the relative strength of the
parties. William M. Brooks of Perry was elected over Robert Jemison of
Tuscaloosa by a vote of 54 to 46, north Alabama voting for Jemison,
central and south Alabama for Brooks. And thus the parties voted
throughout the convention.
It is probable that the majority of the delegates were formerly Whigs, and
a majority of them was still hostile to Yancey, who was the only prominent
agitator elected. His colleague, from Montgomery County, was Thomas H.
Watts, formerly a Whig. Other prominent secessionists were J. T. Dowdell,
John T. Morgan, Thomas H. Herndon, E. S. Dargan, William M. Brooks, and
Franklin K. Beck. The opposition leaders were William R. Smith, Robert
Jemison, M. J. Bulger, Nicholas Davis, Jeremiah Clemens, Thomas J.
McClellan, and David P. Lewis. Yancey, Morgan, and Watts excepted, the
opposition had the more able speakers and debaters and the more political
experience. The advantage of representation was with the white counties,
which sent 70 of the 100 delegates.
[Illustration: PARTIES IN SECESSION CONVENTION]
When the convention settled down to work, the grievances of the South had
no important place in the discussions. The little that was said on the
subject came from the coöperationists and that only incidentally. There
was a genuine fear of social revolution brought about by the Republican
programme, but the secessionists had been stating their grievances for
twenty years and were now silent.[42] All seemed to agree that the present
state of affairs was unbearable, and that secession was the only remedy.
The only question was, How to secede? To decide that question the leaders
of each party were placed on the Committee on Secession. A majority of the
convention was in favor of immediate, separate secession. They held the
logical state sovereignty view that the state, while a member of the
Union, should not combine with another against the government or the party
controlling it. Such a course would be contrary to the Constitution and
would be equivalent to breaking up the Union while planning to save it. As
a sovereign state, Alabama could withdraw from the Union, and hence
immediate, separate secession was the proper method. Then would follow
consultation and coöperation with the other seceded southern states in
forming a southern confederacy. From the first it was known that the
secessionists were strong enough to pass at once a simple ordinance of
withdrawal. They said but little because their position was already well
understood. The people were now more united than they would be after long
debates and outside influence. Yet, for policy's sake, and in deference to
the feelings of the minority, the latter were allowed to debate for four
days before the question at issue was brought to a vote. In that time they
had about argued themselves over to the other side. With the exception of
Yancey, the secessionists were silent until the ordinance was passed. The
first resolution declared that the people of Alabama would not submit to
the administration of Lincoln and Hamlin. Both parties voted unanimously
for this resolution.[43]
The coöperationists were determined to resist Republican rule, but did not
consider delay dangerous. Some doubtless thought that in some way Lincoln
could be held in check and the Union still be preserved, and a number of
them were doubtless willing to wait and make another trial. It was known
that an ordinance of secession would be passed as soon as the
secessionists cared to bring the question to a vote, but for four days the
Committee on Secession considered the matter while the coöperationists
made speeches.[44] On January 10 the committees made two reports. The
majority report, presented by Yancey, simply provided for the immediate
withdrawal of the state from the Union. The minority report, presented by
Clemens, was in substance as follows: We are unable to see in separate
state secession the most effectual mode of guarding our honor and securing
our rights. This great object can best be attained by concurrent and
concentrated action of all the states interested, and such an effort
should be made before deciding finally upon our own policy. All the
southern states should be requested to meet in convention at Nashville,
February 22, 1861, to consider wrongs and appropriate remedies. As a basis
of settlement such a convention should consider: (1) the faithful
execution of the Fugitive Slave Law and the repeal of all state laws
nullifying it; (2) more stringent and explicit provisions for the
surrender of criminals escaping into another state; (3) guarantees that
slavery should not be abolished in the Federal district or in any other
place under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress; (4) non-interference
with the interstate slave trade; (5) protection of slavery in the
territories which, when admitted as states, should decide for themselves
the question of slavery; (6) right of transit through free states with
slave property; (7) the foregoing to be irrepealable amendments to the
Constitution. This basis of settlement was not to be regarded as absolute,
but simply as the opinion of the Alabama convention, to which its
delegates to the proposed convention were expected to conform as nearly as
possible. Secession should not be attempted except after the most thorough
investigation and discussion.[45]
The secessionists were of one mind in regard to secession and did not
debate the subject; the coöperationists--all from north Alabama--were
careful to explain their views at length in their speeches of opposition.
Bulger (c.)[46] of Tallapoosa thought that separate secession was unwise
and impolitic, but that an effort should be made to secure the
coöperation of the other southern states before seceding. To this end he
proposed a convention of the southern states to consider the grievances of
the South and to determine the mode of relief for the present and security
for the future, and, should its demands not be complied with, to determine
upon a remedy.
Clark (c.) of Lawrence denied the right of separate secession, which would
not be a remedy for existing evils. The slavery question would not be
settled but would still be a vital and ever present issue. Separate
secession would revolutionize the government but not the northern feeling,
would not hush the pulpits, nor calm the northern mind, nor purify Black
Republicanism. The states would be in a worse condition politically than
the colonies were before the Constitution was adopted. The border states
would sell their slaves south and become free states; separate secession
would be the decree of universal emancipation. A large majority of the
people were opposed to separate secession, and besides, the state alone
would be weak and at the mercy of foreign powers. The proper policy for
Alabama was to remain in a southern union, at least, with the border
states for allies. Would secession repeal "personal liberty" laws, return
a single fugitive slave, prevent abolition in the Federal district and
territories, or the suppression of interstate slave trade? By secession
Alabama would relinquish her interest in the Union and leave it in the
control of Black Republicans. It would be almost impossible to unite the
southern states after separate secession--as difficult as it was to form
the original Union. The only hope for peaceable secession was in a united
South, and now was the time for it, for southern sentiment, though opposed
to separate secession, was ripe for southern union. The "United South"
would possess all the requirements of a great nation--territory,
resources, wealth, population, and community of interests. Separate
secession would result in the deplorable disasters of civil war. He hoped
that even yet some policy of reconciliation might succeed, but if the
contrary happened, there should be no scruples about state sovereignty;
the United South would assert the God-given right of every community to
freedom and happiness. Jones (c.) of Lauderdale declared that it was a
great mistake to call his constituents submissionists, since time after
time they had declared that they would not submit to Black Republican
rule. They differed as to the time and manner of secession, believing
that hasty secession was not a proper remedy, that it was unwise,
impolitic, and discourteous to the border states.
Smith of Tuscaloosa, the leader of the coöperationists,[47] read the
platform upon which he was elected to the convention; which, in substance,
was to use all honorable exertions to secure rights in the Union, and
failing, to maintain them out of the Union. Allegiance, he went on to say,
was due first to the state, and support was due her in any course she
might adopt. If an ordinance of secession should be passed, it would be
the supreme law of the land. Kimball (c.) of Tallapoosa said that his
constituents were opposed to secession, but were more opposed to Black
Republicanism. Before taking action he desired a solid or united South. He
agreed with General Scott that with a certain unanimity of the southern
states it would be impolitic and improper to attempt coercion. To secure
the coöperation of the southern states and to justify themselves to the
world a southern convention should be called. However, rights should be
maintained even if Alabama had to withdraw from the Union.
Watkins (c.) of Franklin stated that he would vote against the ordinance
of secession in obedience to the will of the people he represented. He
believed that separate secession was wrong. Edwards (c.) of Blount said
that secession was unwise on the part of Alabama, while Beard (c.) of
Marshall thought the best, safest, and wisest course would be to consult
and coöperate with the other slave states. He favored resistance to Black
Republican rule, and his constituents, though desiring coöperation, would
abide by the action of the state.
Bulger (c.) of Tallapoosa stated that he had voted against every
proposition leading to immediate and separate secession. Yet he would give
to the state, when the ordinance was passed, his whole allegiance; and, if
any attempt were made to coerce the state, would join the army.[48]
Winston (c.) of De Kalb stated that his constituents were opposed to
immediate secession, yet they would, no doubt, acquiesce. He had written
to his son, a cadet at West Point, to resign and come home. A convention
of the slave states should be called to make an attempt to settle
difficulties. Davis (c.) of Madison, who had stoutly opposed separate
secession, now declared that since the meeting of the convention serious
changes had occurred. Several states had already seceded and others would
follow. Consequently Alabama would not be alone. Clemens (cs.) of Madison
said he would vote for secession, but would not do so if the result
depended upon his vote. He strongly preferred the plan proposed by the
minority of the committee on secession.
During the debates there was not a single strong appeal for the Union.
There was simply no Union feeling, but an intense dislike for the North as
represented by the Republican party. The coöperationists contemplated
ultimate secession. They wished to make an attempt at compromise, but they
felt sure that it would fail. Their plan of effecting a united South
within the Union was clearly unconstitutional and could only be regarded
as a proposition to break up the old Union and reconstruct a new one.[49]
Political Theories of the Members
The secessionists held clear, logical views on the question before them.
They clearly distinguished the "state" or "people" from "government." No
secessionist ever claimed that the right of secession was one derived from
or preserved by the Constitution; it was a sovereign right. Granted the
sovereignty of the state, the right to secede in any way at any time was,
of course, not to be questioned. Consequently, they said but little on
that point.
The coöperationists were vague-minded. Most of them were stanch believers
in state sovereignty and opposed secession merely on the ground of
expediency. A few held a confused theory that while the state was
sovereign it had no right to secede unless with the whole South. This view
was most strongly advocated by Clark of Lawrence. Separate secession was
not a right, he said, though he admitted the sovereignty of the state. To
secede alone would be rebellion; not so, if in company with other southern
states. Earnest (c.) of Jefferson said that the state was sovereign, and
that after secession any acts of the state or of its citizens to protect
their rights would not be treason. But unless the state acted in its
sovereign capacity, it could not withdraw from the Union, and her
citizens would be subject to the penalties of treason.[50] Sheffield (c.)
of Marshall believed in the right of "secession or revolution." Clemens of
Madison, elected as a coöperationist, said that in voting for secession he
did it with the full knowledge that in secession they were all about to
commit treason, and, if not successful, would suffer the pains and
penalties pronounced against the highest political crime. Acting "upon the
convictions of a lifetime" he "calmly and deliberately walked into
revolution."[51]
The coöperationists were generally disposed to deny the sovereignty of the
convention. Most of them were former Whigs, who had never worked out a
theory of government. Davis (c.) of Madison repeatedly denied that the
convention had sovereign powers; sovereignty, he said, was held by the
people. Clark (c.) of Lawrence complained that the convention was
encroaching upon the rights of the people whom it should protect, and
asserted it did not possess unlimited power, but that its power was
conferred by act of the legislature, which created only a general agency
for a special purpose; that the convention had no power to do more than
pass the ordinance of secession and acts necessary thereto. Smith (c.)
said that the convention was the creature of the legislature, not of the
people, and that the southern Congress was the creature of the convention.
Buford (s.) of Barbour[52] doubted whether the convention possessed
legislative powers. According to his views, political or sovereign power
was vested in the people; the convention was not above the constitution
which created the legislature. Watts (s.) of Montgomery believed that the
power of the convention to interfere with the constitution was confined to
such changes as were necessary to the perfect accomplishment of secession.
Yelverton (s.) of Coffee summed up the theory of the majority: the
convention had full power and control over the legislative, executive, and
judiciary; the people were present in convention in the persons of their
representatives and in them was the sovereignty, the power, and the will
of the state. This was the theory upon which the convention acted.
Passage of the Ordinance of Secession
On January 11, 1861, Yancey spoke at length, closing the debate on the
question of secession. Referring to the spirit of fraternity that
prevailed, he stated that irritation and suspicion had, in great degree,
subsided. The majority had yielded to the minority all the time wanted for
deliberation, and every one had been given an opportunity to record his
sentiments. The question had not been pressed to a vote before all were
ready. Though preferring a simple ordinance of secession, the majority
had, for the sake of harmony and fraternal feeling, yielded to amendment
by the minority. All, he said, were for resistance to Republican rule, and
differed only as to the manner of resistance. Some believed in secession,
others in revolution. The ordinance might mean disunion, secession, or
revolution, as the members preferred. The mode was organized coöperation,
not of states, but of the people of Alabama, in resistance to wrong. Yet
the ordinance provided for coöperation with other states upon the basis of
the Federal Constitution. Every effort, he said, had been made to find
common ground upon which the advocates of resistance might meet, and all
parties had been satisfied. This was not a movement of the politicians,
but a great popular movement, based upon the widespread, deep-seated
conviction that the government had fallen into the hands of a sectional
majority who were determined to use it for the destruction of the rights
of the South. All were driven by an irresistible tide; the minority had
been unable to repress the movement, the majority had not been able to add
one particle to its momentum; in northern, not in southern, hands was held
the rod that smote the rock from which flowed this flood.
Some, he said, concluded that by dissolving the Union the rich inheritance
bequeathed by the fathers was hazarded. But liberties were one thing, the
power of government delegated to secure them was another. Liberties were
inalienable, and the state governments were formed to secure them; the
Federal government was the common agent, and its powers should be
withdrawn when it abused them to destroy the rights of the people. This
movement was not hostile to liberty nor to the Federal Constitution, but
was merely a dismissal of an unfaithful agent. The state now resumed the
duties formerly delegated to that agent. The ordinance of secession was a
declaration of this fact and also a proposition to form a new
government similar to the old. All were urged to sign the ordinance, not
to express approval, but to give notice to their enemies that the people
were not divided. "I now ask that the vote may be taken," he said.
[Illustration: CIVIL WAR LEADERS.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON STEPHENS.
WILLIAM LOWNDES YANCEY.
GENERAL L. P. WALKER, First Confederate Secretary of War. President of
Convention of 1875.
WILLIAM R. SMITH, Leader of Coöperationists in 1861.
JERE CLEMENS.]
The ordinance was called up. It was styled "An Ordinance to dissolve the
Union between Alabama and other States united under the Compact styled
'The Constitution of the United States of America.'" The preamble stated
that the election of Lincoln and Hamlin by a sectional party avowedly
hostile to the domestic institutions, peace, and security of Alabama,
preceded by many dangerous infractions of the Constitution by the states
and people of the North, was a political wrong of so insulting and
menacing a character as to justify the people of Alabama in the adoption
of prompt and decided measures for their future peace and security. The
ordinance simply stated that Alabama withdrew from the Union and that her
people resumed the powers delegated by the Constitution to the Federal
government. A coöperationist amendment expressed the desire of the people
to form with the other southern states a permanent government, and invited
a convention of the states to meet in Montgomery on February 4, 1861, for
consultation in regard to the common safety. The ordinance was passed by a
vote of 69 to 31, every delegate voting. Fifteen coöperationists voted for
secession and 22 signed the ordinance.
In the convention opinions varied as to whether peace or war would follow
secession. The great majority of the members, and of the people also,
believed that peaceful relations would continue. All truly wished for
peace. A number of the coöperationists expressed themselves as fearing
war, but this was when opposing secession, and they probably said more
than they really believed. Yet in nearly all the speeches made in the
convention there seemed to be distinguishable a feeling of fear and dread
lest war should follow. However, had war been a certainty, secession would
not have been delayed or checked.
There was warm discussion on the question of submitting the ordinance to
the people for ratification or rejection. The coöperationists, both before
and after the passage of the ordinance, favored its reference to the
people in the hope that the measure would be delayed or defeated. No one
expected that it would be referred to the people, but this was a good
question for obstructive purposes. The minority report on secession
declared that, in a matter of such vital importance, involving the lives
and liberties of a whole people, the ordinance should be submitted to them
for their discussion, and that secession should be attempted only after
ratification by a direct vote of the people on that single issue.
Posey (c.) of Lauderdale said that his constituents expected the question
of secession to be referred to the people, and that they would submit more
willingly to a decision made by popular vote; that the ordinance was
objectionable to them unless they were allowed to vote on it. He further
stated that when the convention had refused to submit the ordinance to the
popular vote, the first impulse of some of the coöperationists had been to
"bolt the convention." However, not being responsible, they preferred to
remain and aid in providing for the emergencies of the future. Kimbal (c.)
of Tallapoosa said that the people were the interested parties, that
sovereignty was in the people, and that they ought to decide the question.
Edwards (c.) of Blount said that his constituents expected the ordinance
to be referred to them and had instructed him to use his best exertions to
secure reference to the people. Bulger (c.) of Tallapoosa voted against
all propositions looking toward secession without reference to the people.
Davis (c.) of Madison denied the sovereignty of the convention. He said
that the vote of the people might be one way and that of the convention
another. He believed that the majority in convention represented a
minority of the people.
In closing the debate on this subject, Yancey (s.) of Montgomery said
that, as a measure of policy, to submit the ordinance to a vote of the
people was wrong. The convention was clothed with all the powers of the
people; it was the people acting in their sovereign capacity; the
government was not a pure democracy, but a government of the people,
though not by the people. Historically the convention was the supreme
power in American political theory, and submission to the people was a new
doctrine. If the ordinance should be submitted to the people, the friends
of secession would triumph, but irritation and prejudice would be aroused.
Yancey's views prevailed.
Establishing the Confederacy
A number of the coöperationists professed to believe that secession would
result in disintegration and anarchy in the South. The secessionists were
accused of desiring to tear down, not to build up. These assertions were,
in fact, unfounded, since, during the entire debate, those favoring
immediate secession stated plainly that they expected to reunite with the
other southern states after secession. Williamson (s.) of Lowndes said
that to declare to the world that they were not ready to unite with the
other slave states in a permanent government would be to act in bad faith
and subject themselves to contempt and scorn; united action was necessary;
financial and commercial affairs were in a deplorable condition;
confidence was lost, and in the business world all was gloom and
despair--this could be remedied only by a permanent government. Whatley
(s.) of Calhoun was unwilling for it to be said by posterity that they
tore down the old government and failed to reconstruct a new; the cotton
states should establish a government modelled on the Federal Union.
In accordance with these views the ordinance of secession proposed a
convention of southern states, and a few days later a resolution was
passed approving the suggestion of South Carolina to form a provisional
government upon the plan of the old Union and to prepare for a permanent
government. Each state was to send as many delegates to the convention on
February 4 as it had had senators and representatives in Congress. The
Alabama convention (January 16) elected one deputy from each congressional
district and two from the state at large, most of them being
coöperationists or moderate secessionists.
Yancey, on January 16, read a unanimous report from the Committee on
Secession in favor of forming a provisional confederate government at
once. The report also stated that the people of Alabama had never been
dissatisfied with the Constitution of the United States; that their
dissatisfaction had been with the conduct of the northern people in
violating the Constitution and in dangerous misinterpretation of it,
causing the belief that, while acting through the forms of government,
they intended to destroy the rights of the South. The Federal
Constitution, the report declared, represented a complete scheme of
government, capable of being put into speedy operation, and was so
familiar to the people that when properly interpreted they would feel safe
under it. A speedy confederation of the seceded states was desirable, and
there was no better basis than the United States Constitution. The report
recommended the formation, first, of a provisional, and later, of a
permanent, government. The secessionists warmly advocated the speedy
formation of a new confederacy. The coöperationists renewed their policy
of obstruction. Jemison (c.) of Tuscaloosa proposed to strike out the part
of the resolution relating to the formation of a permanent government.
Another coöperationist wanted delay in order that the border states might
have time to take part in forming the proposed government. Others wanted
the people to elect a new convention to act on the question. Yancey
replied that delay was dangerous, if coercion was intended by the North;
that the issue had been before the people and that they had invested their
delegates with full power; that the convention then in session had ample
authority to settle all questions concerning a provisional or a permanent
government; that another election would only cause irritation; that delay,
waiting for the secession of the border states, would be suicidal. The
proposition for a new convention was lost by a vote of 53 to 36.
The convention decided to continue the work until the end. After choosing
delegates (January 16) to the southern convention, which was to meet in
Montgomery on February 4, the state convention adjourned until the
Confederate provisional government was planned and the permanent
constitution written. Then the state convention met again on March 4 to
ratify them. The coöperationists now proposed that the new plan of
government be submitted to the people. It was right and expedient, they
said, to let the people decide. Morgan[53] (s.) of Dallas said that the
proposition for ratification by direct vote of the people was absurd. The
people would never ratify, for too many unrelated questions would be
brought in. Dargan (s.) of Mobile said that the people had conferred upon
the convention full powers to act, and that a new election would harass
the candidates with new issues such as the slave trade, reconstruction,
etc., introduced by the opponents of secession. Stone (s.) of Pickens
thought that a new election would cause angry and bitter discussions,
wrangling, distrust, and division among the people; that the proposed
constitution was very like the United States Constitution, to which the
people were so devoted that they had given up the Union rather than the
Constitution; that Lincoln's inaugural address was a declaration of war,
and a permanent government was necessary to raise money for armies and
fleets. Still the coöperationists obstructed, saying that not to refer to
the people was unfair and illiberal; that the convention was usurping the
powers of the people, who desired to be heard in the matter; that
government by a few was like a house built on the sand; that there was no
danger in waiting, for the people would be sure to ratify and then would
be better satisfied, etc. Finally most of the coöperationists agreed that
it would be better not to refer the question to the people and the
permanent Confederate constitution was ratified on March 12 by the vote of
87 to 5.[54]
For the first time Yancey stood at the head of the people of the state.
They were ready to give him any office. But the coöperationists and a few
secessionist politicians in the convention were jealous of his rising
strength and desired to stay his progress. So Earnest (c.) of Jefferson
introduced a self-denying resolution making ineligible to election to
Congress the members of the state legislature and of the convention. It
was a direct attack by the dissatisfied politicians upon the prominent men
in the convention, and especially upon Yancey. The measure was supported
by Jemison (c.) who said that it was a practice never to elect a member of
a legislative body to an office created by the legislature. Clemens (cs.)
thought such a measure unnecessary, as the majority necessary to pass it
could defeat any undesirable candidate. Stone (s.) said that such a
resolution would cost the state the services of some of her best men when
most needed; that the best men were in the convention; and that the
southern Confederacy should be intrusted to the friends, not to the
enemies, of secession. Morgan (s.) of Dallas thought that, as a matter of
policy, the congressmen would be chosen from outside of the convention.
Bragg (s.) of Mobile wanted the best men regardless of place; this was no
ordinary work and the best men were needed; the people had already made a
choice of the members once and would approve them again. Yancey said that
in principle he was opposed to such a measure. He declared that he would
not be a candidate. But he believed that the people had a right to a
choice from their entire number, and that the convention had no right to
violate the equality of citizenship by disfranchising the 223 members of
the convention and the legislature. Yelverton (s.) of Coffee at first
favored the resolution, but upon discovering that it was aimed at a few
leaders and especially at Yancey, he opposed it. He did not wish the
leaders of secession to be proscribed.
The resolution was lost by a vote of 46 to 50, but the delegates sent to
the Provisional Congress were, with one exception, taken from outside the
convention. A few politicians among the secessionists united with the
coöperationists and, passing by the most experienced and able leaders,
chose an inexperienced Whiggish delegation.[55]
The African Slave Trade
The Committee on Foreign Relations reported that the power of regulating
the slave trade would properly be conferred upon the Confederate
government, but, meanwhile, believing that the slave trade should be
prohibited until the Confederacy was formed, the committee reported an
ordinance forbidding it. Morgan (s.) of Dallas opposed the ordinance
because it was silent as to the cause of the prohibition. He was opposed
to the slave trade on the ground of public policy. If at liberty to carry
out Christian convictions, he would have Africans brought over to be made
Christian slaves, the highest condition attainable by the negro. In
holding slaves, the South was charged with sin and crime, but the southern
people were unable to perceive the wrong and unwilling to cease to do what
the North considered evil. The present movement rested, in great measure,
upon their assertion of the right to hold the African in slavery. The laws
of Congress denouncing the slave trade as piracy had been a shelter to
those who assailed the South, and had affected the standing of the South
among nations. If the slave trade were wrong, then it was much worse to
bring Christian and enlightened negroes from Virginia to Alabama than a
heathen savage from Africa to Alabama. Slavery was the only force which
had ever been able to elevate the negro. He believed that on grounds of
public policy the traffic should be condemned, but it was a question
better left to the Confederate government, because the various states
would not make uniform laws. There were slaves enough for twenty years
and, when needed, more could be had. Reopening of the African slave trade
should be forbidden by the Confederate government expressly for reasons of
public policy.
Smith (c.) of Tuscaloosa said that the question of morality did not arise;
the slave trade was not wrong. The heathen African was greatly benefited
by the change to Christian Alabama. But no more negroes were needed; they
were already increasing too fast and there was no territory for extension.
Crowded together, the white and black might degenerate like the Spaniards
and natives in Mexico. He supported the ordinance as a measure to disarm
foes who charged that one of the reasons for secession was a desire to
reopen the African slave trade, which should be denied to the world. The
slave trade would lead to war, and "If Cotton is King, his throne is
peace," war would destroy him. Jones (c.) of Lauderdale did not want
another negro on the soil of Alabama. The people of the border states were
afraid that the cotton states would reopen the slave trade, but for the
sake of uniformity the question should be left to the Confederate
government. Posey (c.) of Lauderdale also thought the border states should
be reassured, and said that on the grounds of expediency alone he would
vote against the slave trade. There were already too many negroes; already
more land was needed, and that for whites. The slave trade should be
prohibited as a great evil to the South. Potter (c.) of Cherokee was
astonished that the slave trade and slavery were treated as if identical
in point of morality. It was a duty to support and perpetuate slavery; the
slave trade was immoral in its tendency and effects; the question,
however, should be settled on the grounds of policy alone.
Yelverton (s.) of Coffee[56] said that the slave trade should not now be
reopened nor forever closed, but that the regulation of it should be left
to the legislature. It was said that the world was against the South on
the slavery question; then the South should either own all the slaves, or
set them all free in deference to unholy prejudice. As the southern people
were not ready to surrender the negroes, they should be at liberty to buy
them in any market, subject simply to the laws of trade. Slavery was the
cause of secession and should not be left in doubt. A slave in Alabama
cost eight times as much as one imported from Africa. If the border states
entered the Confederacy, they could furnish slaves; if they remained in
the Union and thus became foreign country, the South should not be forced
to buy from them alone. Slavery was a social, moral, and political
blessing. The Bible sanctioned it, and had nothing to say in favor of it
in one country and against it in another. To restrict the slave market to
the United States would be a blow at states rights and free trade, and
with slavery stricken, King Cotton would become a petty tyrant. Slavery
had built up the Yankees, socially, politically, and commercially. The
English were a calculating people and would not hesitate, on account of
slavery, to recognize southern independence, and other nations would do
likewise. Expansion of territory would come and would cause an increased
demand for slaves. The arguments against the slave trade, he said, were
that fanaticism might be angered, that there were too many negroes
already, and that those who had slaves to sell might suffer from reduced
prices. But the larger part of the people would prefer to purchase in a
cheaper market, and non-slaveholders, as they grew wealthier, could become
slave owners. The argument against the slave trade, he added, was usually
the one of dollars and cents. The great moral effect was lost sight of,
and it seemed from some arguments that Christianity did not require the
Bible to be taught to the poor slave unless profit followed. The time was
not far distant when the reopening of the slave trade would be considered
essential to the industrial prosperity of the cotton states.
Stone (s.) of Pickens said that he would not hesitate, from moral reasons,
to purchase a slave anywhere. Slavery was sanctioned by the divine law; it
was a blessing to the negro. But on grounds of policy he would insist upon
the prohibition of the slave trade. Too many slaves would make too much
cotton; prices would then fall and weaken the institution. Keep the prices
high, and the institution would be strengthened; reduce the value of the
slaves, and the interest of the owners in the institution would be
reduced, and the border states would listen to plans for general
emancipation. There was no territory in which slavery could expand.
Yancey (s.) explained his course in the Southern Commercial Conventions in
preceding years when he had advocated the repeal of the laws against the
slave trade. He thought that the laws of Congress defining the slave
trade as piracy placed a stigma on the institution, condemned it from the
point of view of the government, and thus violated the spirit of the
Constitution by discriminating against the South. He did not then advocate
the reopening of the slave trade, nor would he do so at this time. For two
reasons he insisted that the Confederate Congress should prohibit the
slave trade: (1) already there were as many slaves as were needed; (2) to
induce the border states to enter the Confederacy.
Dowdell (s.) of Chambers proposed an amendment to the ordinance of
prohibition, declaring that slavery was a moral, social, and political
blessing, and that any attempt to hinder its expansion should be opposed.
He opposed reopening the slave trade, though he considered that there was
no moral distinction between slavery and the slave trade. The border
states, he said, need not be encouraged by declarations of policy; they
would join the Confederacy anyway. Slavery might be regulated by Congress,
but should not be prohibited by organic law. He expressed a wish that he
might never see the day when white immigration would drive out slave labor
and take its place, nor did he want social or political inequality among
white people whom he believed should be kept free, independent, and equal,
recognizing no subordinate except those made as such by God. The
legislature, he thought, should be left to deal with the evil of white
immigration from the North, so that the southern people might be kept a
slaveholding people. But, he asked, can that be done with slaves at $1000
a head? And must the hands of the people be tied because a fantastical
outside world says that slavery and the slave trade are morally wrong?
Watts (s.) of Montgomery proposed that the Confederacy be given power to
prohibit the importation of slaves from any place. Smith (c.) of
Tuscaloosa said that the proposal of Watts was a threat against the border
states, which would lose their slave market unless they joined the
Confederacy; that the border states must be kept friendly, a bulwark
against the North.
A resolution was finally passed to the effect that the people of Alabama
were opposed, for reasons of public policy, to reopening the slave trade,
and the state's delegates in Congress were instructed to insist on the
prohibition.
The debates show clearly the feeling of the delegates that, on the
slavery question, the rest of the world was against them, and hence, as a
measure of expediency, they were in favor of prohibiting the trade. Some
wished to have all the whites finally become slaveholders; others believed
that the negroes were the economic and social enemies of the whites, and
they wanted no more of them. But all agreed that slavery was a good thing
for the negro.
* * * * *
Yancey (s.) introduced a resolution favoring the free navigation of the
Mississippi. The North, he said, was uncertain as to the policy of the
South and must be assured that the South wished no restrictions upon
trade. "Free trade" was its motto. Dowdell (s.) proposed that the
navigation should be free only to those states and territories lying on
the river and its tributaries, while Smith (c.) thought that all
navigation should remain as unrestricted and open to all as before
secession. Yancey thought that absolutely unrestricted navigation would
tend to undermine secession, for it would tend to reconstruct the late
political union into a commercial union. Such a policy would discriminate
against European friends in favor of New England enemies. As passed, the
resolution expressed the sense of the convention that the navigation of
the Mississippi should be free to all the people of those states and
territories which were situated on that river or its tributaries.
Commissioners to Other States
As soon as the governor issued writs of election for a convention, fearing
that the legislatures of other states then in session might adjourn before
calling conventions, he sent a commissioner to each southern state to
consult and advise with the governor and legislature in regard to the
question of secession and later confederation. These commissioners made
frequent reports to the governor and convention and did much to secure the
prompt organization of a permanent government.[57]
After the ordinance of secession was passed a resolution was adopted to
the effect that Alabama, being no longer a member of the Union, was not
entitled to representation at Washington and that her representatives
there should be instructed to withdraw. A second resolution, authorizing
the governor to send two commissioners to Washington to treat with that
government, caused some debate.
Clemens (cs.) said that there was no need of sending commissioners to
Washington, because they would not be received. Let Washington send
commissioners to Alabama; South Carolina was differently situated; Alabama
held her own forts, South Carolina did not. Smith (c.) proposed that only
one commissioner be sent. One would do more efficient work and the expense
would be less. Watts (s.) said that Alabama as a former member of the
Union should inform the old government of her withdrawal and of her policy
for the future; that there were many grave and delicate matters to be
settled between the two governments; and that commissioners should be sent
to propose terms of adjustment and to demand a recognition of the new
order.
Webb (s.) of Greene said that Alabama stood in the same attitude toward
the United States as toward France. And the fact that the commissioners of
South Carolina had been treated with contempt should not influence
Alabama. If one was to be in the wrong, let it be the Washington
government. To send commissioners would not detract from the dignity of
the state, but would show a desire for amicable relations. Whatley (s.)
took the same ground, and added that, having seized the forts to prevent
their being used against Alabama, the state, as retiring partner, would
hold them as assets until a final settlement, especially as its share had
not been received. Some members urged that only one commissioner be sent
in order to save expenses. All were getting to be very economical. And
practically all agreed that it was the duty of the state to show her
desire for amicable relations by making advances.
Yancey thought the matter should be left to the Provisional Congress; the
United States had made agreements with South Carolina about the military
status of the forts and had violated the agreement; the other states also
had claims of public property, and negotiations should be carried on by
the common agent. Separate action by the state would only complicate
matters.
Finally, it was decided to send one commissioner, and the governor
appointed Thomas J. Judge, who proceeded to Washington, with authority to
negotiate regarding the forts, arsenals, and custom-houses in the state,
the state's share of the United States debt, and the future relations
between the United States and Alabama, and through C. C. Clay, late United
States senator from Alabama, applied for an interview with the President.
Buchanan refused to receive him in his official capacity, but wrote that
he would be glad to see him as a private gentleman. Judge declined to be
received except in his official capacity, and said that future
negotiations must begin at Washington.
* * * * *
Foreseeing war, Watts (s.) proposed that the general assembly be given
power to confiscate the property of alien enemies, and also to suspend the
collection of debts due to alien enemies. Shortridge (s.) thought that the
measure was not sufficiently emphatic, since war had practically been
declared. He said the courts should be closed against the collection of
debts due persons in the northern states which had passed personal liberty
laws. He stated that Alabama owed New York several million dollars, and
that to pay this debt would drain from the country the currency, which
should be held to relieve the strain.
Jones (c.) was opposed to every description of robbery. The course
proposed, he said, would be a flagrant outrage upon just creditors, as the
greater wrong would be done the friends of the South, for
nineteen-twentieths of the debt was due to political friends--merchants
who had always defended the rights of the South. Those debts should be
paid and honor sustained. The legislature, he added, would pass a
stay-law, which he regretted, and that would suffice. Smith (c.) said that
confiscation was an act of war, and would provoke retaliation. Every
action should look toward the preservation of peace.
Clarke (s.) of Marengo saw nothing wrong in the measure. There was no wish
or intention of evading payment of the debt; payment would only be
suspended or delayed. It was a peace measure. Lewis (cs.) said that only
the war-making power would have authority to pass such a measure, and that
this power would be lodged in the Confederate Congress. Meanwhile, he
proposed to give the power temporarily to the legislature.
Early in the session the secessionists introduced a resolution pledging
the state to resist any attempt by the United States to coerce any of the
seceded states. Alabama could not stand aside, they said, and see the
seceded states coerced by the United States government, which had no
authority to use force. All southern states recognized secession as the
essence and test of state sovereignty, and would support each other.
Earnest (c.) of Jefferson was of the opinion that this resolution was
intended to cover acts of hostility already committed by individuals, such
as Governor Moore and other officials, before the state seceded, and to
vote for the resolution subjected the voter to the penalties of treason.
When a state acted in its sovereign capacity and withdrew from the Union,
then those individuals were relieved. But to vote for such a measure
before secession was treason.
Morgan (s.) of Dallas said that, whether Alabama were in or out of the
Union, she could see no state coerced; the question was not debatable. To
attack South Carolina was to attack Alabama. "We are one united people and
can never be dissevered." The North was pledging men and money to coerce
the southern states, and its action must be answered. Jemison (c.) thought
the war alarms were false and that there was no necessity for immediate
action, while Smith (c.), his colleague, heartily indorsed the measure.
Jones (c.) declared that before the state seceded he would not break the
laws of the United States; that he had sworn to support the Constitution,
and only the state could absolve him from that oath; that such a measure
was not lawful while the state was in the Union.
After secession the resolution was again called up, and all speakers
agreed that aid should be extended to seceded states in case of coercion.
Some wanted to promise aid to any one of the United States which might
take a stand against the other states in behalf of the South. Events moved
so rapidly that the measure did not come to a vote before the organization
of the Provisional Congress.
Legislation by the Convention
Not only was the old political structure to be torn down, but a new one
had to be erected. In organizing the new order the convention performed
many duties pertaining usually to the legislature. This was done in order
to save time and to prevent confusion in the administration.
Citizenship was defined to include free whites only, except such as were
citizens of the United States before January 11, 1861. A person born in a
northern state or in a foreign country before January 11, 1861, must take
the oath of allegiance to the state of Alabama, and the oath of
abjuration, renouncing allegiance to all other sovereignties. The state
constitution was amended by omitting all references to the United States;
the state officers were absolved from their oath to support the United
States Constitution; jurisdiction of the United States over waste and
unappropriated lands and navigable waters was rescinded; and navigation
was opened to all citizens of Alabama and other states that "may unite
with Alabama in a Southern Slaveholding Confederacy." A registration of
lands was ordered to be made; the United States land system was adopted, a
homestead law was provided for, and a new land office was established at
Greenville, in Butler County. The governor was authorized to revoke
contracts made under United States laws with commissioners appointed to
locate swamps and overflowed lands. The general assembly was authorized to
cede to the Confederacy exclusive jurisdiction over a district ten miles
square for a seat of government for the Confederate States of America.
Provision was made for the military defence of Alabama, and the United
States army regulations were adopted almost in their entirety. The militia
was reorganized; all commissions were vacated, and new elections ordered.
The governor was placed in charge of all measures for defence. He was
authorized to purchase supplies for the use of the state army, to borrow
money for the same, and to issue bonds to cover expenses. Later, the
convention decreed that all arms and munitions of war taken from the
United States should be turned over to the Confederacy; only the small
arms belonging to the state were retained. The governor was authorized to
transfer to the Confederate States, upon terms to be agreed upon between
the governor and the president, all troops raised for state defence. Thus
all volunteer companies could be transferred to the Confederate service if
the men were willing, otherwise they were discharged. A number of
ordinances were passed organizing the state military system, and
coöperating with the Confederate government. Jurisdiction over forts,
arsenals, and navy yards was conferred upon the Confederate States. This
ordinance could only be revoked by a convention of the people.
The port of Mobile was resumed by the state. The collector of the port and
his assistants were continued in office as state officials who were to act
in the name of the state of Alabama. With a view to future settlement the
collector was ordered to retain all funds in his hands belonging to the
United States, and the state of Alabama guaranteed his safety, as to oath,
bond, etc. As far as possible, the United States customs and port
regulations were adopted. Vessels built anywhere, provided that one-third
was owned by citizens of the southern states and commanded by southern
captains, were entitled to registry as vessels of Alabama. The collector
was authorized to take possession in the name of the state of all
government custom-houses, lighthouses, etc., and to reappoint the officers
in charge if they would accept office from the state. The weights and
measures of the United States were adopted as the standard; discriminating
duties imposed by the United States, and regulations on foreign vessels
and merchandise were abolished; Selma and Mobile were continued as ports
of entry, and all ordinances relating to Mobile were extended to Selma.
Thaddeus Sanford, the collector of Mobile, reported to the convention that
the United States Treasury Department had drawn on him for $26,000 on
January 7, 1861, and asked for instructions in regard to paying it. The
Committee on Imports reported that the draft was dated before secession
and before the ordinance directing the collector to retain all United
States funds, that it was drawn to pay parties for services rendered while
Alabama was a member of the Union. So it was ordered to be paid.
After the Confederacy was formed, the convention ordered that the
custom-houses, marine hospital, lighthouses, buoys, and the revenue
cutter, _Lewis Cass_, be turned over to the Confederate authorities; and
the collector was directed to transfer all money collected by him to the
Confederate authorities, who were to account for all moneys and settle
with the United States authorities. The collector was then released from
his bond to the state.
Postal contracts and regulations in force prior to January 11, 1861, were
permitted to remain for the present. The general assembly was empowered
to make postal arrangements until the Confederate government should be
established. Meanwhile, the old arrangements with the United States were
unchanged.[58] Other ordinances adopted the laws of the United States
relating to the value of foreign coins, and directed the division of the
state into nine congressional districts.
The judicial powers were resumed by the state and were henceforth to be
exercised by the state courts. The circuit and chancery courts and the
city court of Mobile were given original jurisdiction in cases formerly
arising within the jurisdiction of the Federal courts. Jurisdiction over
admiralty cases was vested in the circuit courts and the city court of
Mobile. The chancery courts had jurisdiction in all cases of equity. The
state supreme court was given original and exclusive jurisdiction over
cases concerning ambassadors and public ministers. All admiralty cases,
except where the United States was plaintiff, pending in the Federal
courts in Alabama were transferred with all records to the state circuit
courts; cases in equity in like manner to the state chancery courts; the
United States laws relating to admiralty and maritime cases, and to the
postal service were adopted temporarily; the forms of proceedings in state
courts were to be the same as in former Federal courts; the clerks of the
circuit courts were given the custody of all records transferred from
Federal courts and were empowered to issue process running into any part
of the state and to be executed by any sheriff; United States marshals in
whose hands processes were running were ordered to execute them and to
make returns to the state courts under penalty of being prosecuted as if
defaulting sheriffs; the right was asserted to prosecute marshals who were
guilty of misconduct before secession. The United States laws of May 26,
1796, and March 27, 1804, prescribing the method of authentication of
public acts, records, or judicial proceedings for use in other courts,
were adopted for Alabama. In cases appealed to the United States Supreme
Court from the Alabama supreme court, the latter was to act as if no
appeal had been taken and execute judgment; cases appealed from inferior
Federal courts to the United States Supreme Court, were to be considered
as appealed to the state supreme court which was to proceed as if the
cases had been appealed to it from its own lower courts. The United States
were not to be allowed to be a party to any suit in the state courts
against a citizen of Alabama unless ordered by the convention or by the
general assembly. Federal jurisdiction in general was to be resumed by
state courts until the Confederate government should act in the matter.
No law of Alabama in force January 11, 1861, consistent with the
Constitution and not inconsistent with the ordinances of the convention,
was to be affected by secession; no official of the state was to be
affected by secession; no offence against the state, and no penalty, no
obligation, and no duty to or of state, no process or proceeding in court,
no right, title, privilege, or obligation under the state or United States
Constitution and laws, was to be affected by the ordinance of secession
unless inconsistent with it. No change made by the convention in the
constitution of Alabama should have the effect to divest of any right,
title, or legal trust existing at the time of making the change. All
changes were to have a prospective, not a retrospective, effect unless
expressly declared in the change itself.
The general assembly was to have no power to repeal, alter, or amend any
ordinance of the convention incorporated in the revised constitution.
Other ordinances were to be considered as ordinary legislation and might
be amended or repealed by the legislature.[59]
North Alabama in the Convention
All the counties of north Alabama sent coöperation delegates to the
convention, and these spoke continually of a peculiar state of feeling on
the part of their constituents which required conciliation by the
convention. The people of that section, in regard to their grievances,
thought as the people of central and south Alabama, but they were not so
ready to act in resistance. Moreover, it would seem that they desired all
the important measures framed by the convention to be referred to them for
approval or disapproval. The coöperationists made much of this state of
feeling for purposes of obstruction. There was, and had always been, a
slight lack of sympathy between the people of the two sections; but on the
present question they were very nearly agreed, though still opposing from
habit. Had the coöperationists been in the majority, secession would have
been hardly delayed. Of course, among the mountains and sand-hills of
north Alabama was a small element of the population not concerned in any
way with the questions before the people, and who would oppose any measure
supported by southern Alabama. Sheets of Winston was probably the only
representative of this class in the convention. The members of the
convention referred to the fact of the local nature of the
dissatisfaction. Yancey, angered at the obstructive tactics of the
coöperationists, who had no definite policy and nothing to gain by
obstruction, made a speech in which he said it was useless to disguise the
fact that in some parts of the state there was dissatisfaction in regard
to the action of the convention, and warned the members from north
Alabama, whom he probably considered responsible for the dissatisfaction,
that as soon as passed the ordinance of secession became the supreme law
of the land, and it was the duty of all citizens to yield obedience. Those
who refused, he said, were traitors and public enemies, and the sovereign
state would deal with them as such. Opposition after secession was
unlawful and to even speak of it was wrong, and he predicted that the name
"tory" would be revived and applied to such people. Jemison of Tuscaloosa,
a leading coöperationist, made an angry reply, and said that Yancey would
inaugurate a second Reign of Terror and hang people by families, by towns,
counties, and districts.
Davis (c.) of Madison declared that the people of north Alabama would
stand by the expressed will of the people of the state, and intimated that
the action of the convention did not represent the will of the people. If,
he added, resistance to revolution gave the name of "tories," it was
possible that the people of north Alabama might yet bear the designation;
that any invasion of their rights or any attempt to force them to
obedience would result in armed resistance; that the invader would be met
at the foot of the mountains, and in armed conflict the question of the
sovereignty of the people would be settled. Clark (c.) of Lawrence said
that north Alabama was more closely connected with Tennessee, and that
many of the citizens were talking of secession from Alabama and annexation
to Tennessee. He begged for some concession to north Alabama, but did not
seem to know exactly what he wanted. He intimated that there would be
civil war in north Alabama. Jones (c.) of Lauderdale said that his
people were not "submissionists" and would share every toil and danger in
support of the state to which was their supreme allegiance. Edwards (c.)
of Blount was not prepared to say whether his people would acquiesce or
not. He promised to do nothing to excite them to rebellion! Davis of
Madison, who a few days before was ready to rebel, now said that he, and
perhaps all north Alabama, would cheerfully stand by the state in the
coming conflict.
[Illustration: JEFFERSON DAVIS.]
A majority of the coöperationists voted against the ordinance of
secession, at the same time stating that they intended to support it when
it became law. The ordinance was lithographed, and the delegates were
given an opportunity to sign their names to the official copy.
Thirty-three of the delegates from north Alabama, two of whom had voted
for the ordinance, refused to sign, because, as they said, it might appear
as if they approved all that had been done by the secessionists. Their
opposition to the policy of the majority was based on the following
principles: (1) the fundamental principle that representative bodies
should submit their acts for approval to the people; (2) the interests of
all demanded that all the southern states be consulted in regard to a plan
for united action. The members who refused to sign repeatedly acknowledged
the binding force of the ordinance and promised a cheerful obedience, but,
at the same time, published far and wide an address to the people,
justifying their opposition and refusal to sign, causing the impression
that they considered the action of the convention illegal. There was no
reason whatever why these men should pursue the policy of obstruction to
the very last, yet it was done. Nine of the thirty-three finally signed
the ordinance, but twenty-four never signed it, though they promised to
support it.
* * * * *
The majority of the members and of the people contemplated secession as a
finality; reconstruction was not to be considered. A few of the
coöperationists, however, were in favor of secession as a means of
bringing the North to terms. Messrs. Pugh and Clay (members of Congress)
in a letter to the convention suggested that the border states considered
the secession of the cotton states as an indispensable basis for a
reconstruction of the Union. Smith of Tuscaloosa, the leading
coöperationist, stated his belief that the revolution would teach the
North her dependence upon the South, how much she owed that section, bring
her to a sense of her duty, and cause her to yield to the sensible demands
of the South. He looked forward with fondest hopes to the near future when
there would be a reconstruction of the Union with redress of grievances,
indemnity for the past, complete and unequivocal guarantees for the
future.
Incidents of the Session
The proceedings were dignified, solemn, and at times even sad. During the
whole session, good feeling prevailed to a remarkable degree among the
individual members, and toward the last the utmost harmony existed between
the parties.[60] For this the credit is due the secessionists. At times
the coöperationists were suspicious, and pursued a policy of obstruction
when nothing was to be gained; but they were given every privilege and
shown every courtesy. During the early part of the session an enthusiastic
crowd filled the halls and galleries and manifested approval of the course
of the secessionist leaders by frequent applause. In order to secure
perfect freedom of debate to the minority, it was ordered that no applause
be permitted; and this order failing to keep the spectators silent, the
galleries were cleared, and thereafter secret sessions were the rule.
Affecting and exciting scenes followed the passage of the ordinance of
secession. One by one the strong members of the minority arose and, for
the sake of unity at home, surrendered the opinions of a lifetime and
forgot the prejudices of years. This was done with no feeling of
humiliation. To the last, they were treated with distinguished
consideration by their opponents. There was really no difference in the
principles of the two parties; the only differences were on local,
personal, sectional, and social questions. On the common ground of
resistance to a common enemy they were united.
On January 11, 1861, after seven days' debate, it became known that the
vote on secession would be taken, and an eager multitude crowded Capitol
Hill to hear the announcement of the result. The senate chamber, opposite
the convention hall, was crowded with the waiting people, who were
addressed by distinguished orators on the topics of the day. As many women
as men were present, and, if possible, were more eager for secession.
Their minds had long ago been made up. "With them," says the grave
historian of the convention, "the love songs of yesterday had swelled into
the political hosannas of to-day."
The momentous vote was taken, the doors were flung open, the result
announced, and in a moment the tumultuous crowd filled the galleries,
lobbies, and aisles of the convention hall. The ladies of Montgomery had
made a large state flag, and when the doors were opened this flag was
unfurled in the hall so that its folds extended almost across the chamber.
Members jumped on desks, chairs, and tables to shake out the floating
folds and display the design. There was a perfect frenzy of enthusiasm.
Yancey, the secessionist leader and splendid orator, in behalf of the
ladies presented the flag to the convention. Smith, the leader of the
coöperationists, replied in a speech of acceptance, paying an affecting
tribute to the flag that they were leaving--"the Star-Spangled Banner,
sacred to memory, baptized in the nation's best blood, consecrated in song
and history, and the herald of liberty's grandest victories on land and on
sea." In memory of the illustrious men who brought fame to the flag, he
said, "Let him who has tears prepare to shed them now as we lower this
glorious ensign of our once vaunted victories." Alpheus Baker of Barbour
in glowing words expressed to the ladies the thanks of the convention.
Amidst wild enthusiasm in hall and street the convention adjourned. One
hundred and one cannon shots announced the result. The flag of the
Republic of Alabama floated from windows, steeples, and towers. Party
lines were forgotten, and until late in the night every man who would
speak was surrounded by eager listeners. The people were united in common
sentiment in the face of common danger.
One hour before the signal cannon shot announced that the fateful step had
been taken and that Alabama was no longer one of the United States, there
died, within sight of the capitol, Bishop Cobb of the Episcopal Church,
the one man of character and influence who in all Alabama had opposed
secession in any way, at any time, or for any reason.[61]
PART II
WAR TIMES IN ALABAMA
CHAPTER III
MILITARY AND POLITICAL EVENTS
SEC. I. MILITARY OPERATIONS
On January 4, 1861, the Alabama troops, ordered by Governor Andrew B.
Moore, seized the forts which commanded the entrance to the harbor at
Mobile, and also the United States arsenal at Mount Vernon, thirty miles
distant. A few days later the governor, in a communication addressed to
President Buchanan, explained the reason for this step. He was convinced,
he said, that the convention would withdraw the state from the Union, and
he deemed it his duty to take every precaution to render the secession
peaceable. Information had been received which led him to believe that the
United States government would attempt to maintain its authority in
Alabama by force, even to bloodshed. The President must surely see, the
governor wrote, that coercion could not be effectual until capacity for
resistance had been exhausted, and it would have been unwise to have
permitted the United States government to make preparations which would be
resisted to the uttermost by the people. The purpose in taking possession
of the forts and arsenal was to avoid, not to provoke, hostilities.
Amicable relations with the United States were ardently desired by
Alabama; and every patriotic man in the state was praying for peaceful
secession. He had ordered an inventory to be taken of public property in
the forts and arsenal, which were held subject to the control of the
convention.[62] A month later, Governor Moore, in a communication
addressed to the Virginia commissioners for mediation, stated that
Alabama, in seceding, had no hostile intentions against the United States;
that the sole object was to protect her rights, interests, and honor,
without disturbing peaceful relations. This would continue to be the
policy of the state unless the Federal government authorized hostile
acts. Yet any attempt at coercion would be resisted. In conclusion, he
stated that he had no power to appoint delegates to the proposed
convention, but promised to refer the matter to the legislature. However,
he did not believe that there was the least hope that concessions would be
made affording such guarantees as the seceding states could accept.[63]
The War in North Alabama
For a year Alabama soil was free from invasion, though the coast was
blockaded in the summer of 1861. In February, 1862, Fort Henry, on the
Tennessee River, fell, and on the same day Commodore Phelps with four
gunboats sailed up the river to Florence. Several steamboats with supplies
for Johnston's army were destroyed to prevent capture by the Federals.
Phelps destroyed a partly finished gunboat, burned the Confederate
supplies in Florence, and then returned to Fort Henry.[64] The fall of
Fort Donelson (February 16) and the retreat of Johnston to Corinth left
the Tennessee valley open to the Federals. A few days after the battle of
Shiloh, General O. M. Mitchell entered Huntsville (April 11, 1862) and
captured nearly all the rolling stock belonging to the railroads running
into Huntsville. Decatur, Athens, Tuscumbia, and the other towns of the
Tennessee valley were occupied within a few days. To oppose this invasion
the Confederates had small bodies of troops widely scattered across north
Alabama. The fighting was almost entirely in the nature of skirmishes and
was continual. Philip D. Roddy, later known as the "Defender of North
Alabama," first appears during this summer as commander of a small body of
irregular troops, which served as the nucleus of a regiment and later a
brigade. Hostilities in north Alabama at an early date assumed the worst
aspects of guerilla warfare. The Federals were never opposed by large
commands of Confederates, and were disposed to regard the detachments who
fought them as guerillas and to treat them accordingly. In spite of the
strenuous efforts of General Buell to have his subordinates wage war in
civilized manner,[65] they were guilty of infamous conduct. General
Mitchell was charged by the people with brutal conduct toward
non-combatants and with being interested in the stealing of cotton and
shipping it North. He was finally removed by Buell.[66]
One of Mitchell's subordinates--John Basil Turchin, the Russian colonel of
the Nineteenth Illinois regiment--was too brutal even for Mitchell, and
the latter tried to keep him within bounds. His worst offence was at
Athens, in Limestone County, in May, 1862. Athens was a wealthy place,
intensely southern in feeling, and on that account was most heartily
disliked by the Federals. Here, for two hours, Turchin retired to his tent
and gave over the town to the soldiers to be sacked after the old European
custom. Revolting outrages were committed. Robberies were common where
Turchin commanded. His Russian ideas of the rules of war were probably
responsible for his conduct. Buell characterized it as "a case of
undisputed atrocity." For this Athens affair Turchin was court-martialled
and sentenced to be dismissed from the service. The facts were notorious
and well known at Washington, but the day before Buell ordered his
discharge, Turchin was made a brigadier-general.[67]
General Mitchell himself reported (May, 1862) that "the most terrible
outrages--robberies, rapes, arson, and plundering--are being committed by
lawless brigands and vagabonds connected with the army." He asked for
authority to hang them and wrote, "I hear the most deplorable accounts of
excesses committed by soldiers."[68] About fifty of the citizens of
Athens, at the suggestion of Mitchell, filed claims for damages. Thereupon
Mitchell informed them that they were laboring under a very serious
misapprehension if they expected pay from the United States government
unless they had proper vouchers.[69] Buell condemned his action in this
matter also. Mitchell asked the War Department for permission to send
prominent Confederate sympathizers at Huntsville to northern prisons. He
said that General Clemens and Judge Lane advised such a measure. He
reported that he held under arrest a few active rebels "who refused to
condemn the guerilla warfare." The War Department seems to have been
annoyed by the request, but after Mitchell had repeated it, permission was
given to send them to the fort in Boston Harbor.[70]
Mitchell was charged at Washington with having failed in his duty of
repressing plundering and pillaging. He replied that he had no great
sympathy with the citizens of Athens who hated the Union soldiers so
intensely.[71]
As the war continued the character of the warfare grew steadily worse.
Ex-Governor Chapman's family were turned out of their home to make room
for a negro regiment. A four-year-old child of the family wandered back to
the house and was cursed and abused by the soldiers. The house was finally
burned and the property laid waste. Governor Chapman was imprisoned and at
last expelled from the country. Mrs. Robert Patton they threatened to
strip in search of money and actually began to do so in the presence of
her husband, but she saved herself by giving up the money.[72] Such
experiences were common.
The provost marshal at Huntsville--Colonel Harmer--selected a number of
men to answer certain political questions, who, if their answers were not
satisfactory, were to be expelled from the country. Among these were,
George W. Hustoun, Luke Pryor, and ---- Malone of Athens, Dr. Fearn of
Huntsville, and two ministers--Ross and Banister. General Stanley
condemned the policy, but General Granger wanted the preachers expelled
anyway, although Stanley said they had never taken part in politics.[73]
The harsh treatment of non-combatants and Confederate soldiers by Federal
soldiers and by the tories resulted in the retaliation of the former when
opportunity occurred. Toward the end of the war prisoners were seldom
taken by either side. When a man was caught, he was often strung up to a
limb of the nearest tree, his captors waiting a few minutes for their
halters, and then passing on. The Confederate irregular cavalry became a
terror even to the loyal southern people. Stealing, robbery, and murder
were common in the debatable land of north Alabama.[74]
Naturally the "tory" element of the population suffered much from the same
class of Confederate troops. The Union element, it was said, suffered more
from the operation of the impressment law. The Confederate and state
governments strictly repressed the tendency of Confederate troops to
pillage the "Union" communities in north Alabama.[75]
General Mitchell and his subordinates were accustomed to hold the people
of a community responsible for damages in their vicinity to bridges,
trestles, and trains caused by the Confederate forces. In August, 1862,
General J. D. Morgan, in command at Tuscumbia, reported that he "sent out
fifty wagons this afternoon to the plantations near where the track was
torn up yesterday, for cotton. I want it to pay damages."[76] When Turchin
had to abandon Athens, on the advance of Bragg into Tennessee, he set fire
to and burned much of the town, but his conduct was denounced by his
fellow-officers.[77] Near Gunterville (1862) a Federal force was fired
upon by scouts, and the Federals, in retaliation, shelled the town. This
was done a second time during the war, and finally the town was burned. In
Jackson County four citizens were arrested (1862) because the pickets at
Woodville, several miles away, had been fired upon.[78]
In a skirmish in north Alabama, General R. L. McCook was shot by Captain
Gurley of Russell's Fourth Alabama Cavalry. The Federals spread the report
among the soldiers that he had been murdered, and as the Federal commander
reported, "Many of the soldiers spread themselves over the country and
burned all the property of the rebels in the vicinity, and shot a rebel
lieutenant who was on furlough." Even the house of the family who had
ministered to General McCook in his last moments was burned to the ground.
The old men and boys for miles around were arrested. The officer who was
shot was at home on furlough and sick. General Dodge's command committed
many depredations in retaliation for the death of McCook. A year later
Captain Gurley was captured and sentenced to be hanged. The Confederate
authorities threatened retaliation, and he was then treated as a prisoner
of war. After the close of the war he was again arrested and kept in jail
and in irons for many months at Nashville and Huntsville. At last he was
liberated.[79]
Later in the war (1864), General M. L. Smith ordered the arrest of "five
of the best rebels" in the vicinity of a Confederate attack on one of his
companies, and again five were arrested near the place where a Union man
had been attacked.[80] These are examples of what often happened. It
became a rule to hold a community responsible for all attacks made by the
Confederate soldiers.
The people suffered fearfully. Many of them had to leave the country in
order to live. John E. Moore wrote to the Confederate Secretary of War
from Florence, in December, 1862, that the people of north Alabama "have
been ground into the dust by the tyrants and thieves."[81] The citizens of
Florence (January, 1863) petitioned the Secretary of War for protection.
They said that they had been greatly oppressed by the Federal army in
1862. Property had been destroyed most wantonly and vindictively, the
privacy of the homes invaded, citizens carried off and ill treated, and
slaves carried off and refused the liberty of returning when they desired
to do so. The harshness of the Federals had made many people submissive
for fear of worse things. No men, except the aged and infirm, were left in
the country; the population was composed chiefly of women and
children.[82] It was in response to this appeal that Roddy's command was
raised to a brigade. But the retreat of Bragg left north Alabama to the
Federals until the close of the war, except for a short period during
Hood's invasion of Tennessee.
The Streight Raid
April 19, 1863, Colonel A. D. Streight of the Federal army, with 2000
picked troops, disembarked at Eastport and started on a daring raid
through the mountain region of north Alabama. The object of the raid was
to cut the railroads from Chattanooga to Atlanta and to Knoxville, which
supplied Bragg and to destroy the Confederate stores at Rome. To cover
Streight's movements General Dodge was making demonstrations in the
Tennessee valley and Forrest was sent to meet him. Hearing by accident of
Streight's movements, Forrest left a small force under Roddy to hold Dodge
in check and set out after the raider. The chase began on April 29.
Streight had sixteen miles the start with a force reduced to 1500 men,
mounted on mules. As his mounts were worn out, he seized fresh horses on
the route. The chase led through the counties of Morgan, Blount, St.
Clair, De Kalb, and Cherokee--counties in which there was a strong tory
element, and the Federals were guided by two companies of Union cavalry
raised in north Alabama. Streight had asked for permission to dress some
of his men "after the promiscuous southern style," but, fortunately for
them, was not allowed to do so.[83]
On May 1 occurred the famous crossing of Black Creek, where Miss Emma
Sansom guided the Confederates across in the face of a heavy fire. Forrest
now had less than 600 men, the others having been left behind exhausted or
with broken-down horses. The best men and horses were kept in front, and
Streight was not allowed a moment's rest. At last, tired out, the Federals
halted on the morning of May 3. Soon the men were asleep on their arms,
and when Forrest appeared, some of them could not be awakened. Men were
asleep in line of battle, under fire. Forrest placed his small force so as
to magnify his numbers, and Streight was persuaded by his officers to
surrender--1466 men to less than 600. The running fight had lasted four
days, over a distance of 150 miles, through rough and broken country
filled with unfriendly natives. Forrest could not get fresh mounts, the
Federals could; the Federals had been preparing for the raid a month;
Forrest had a few hours to prepare for the pursuit, and his whole force
with Roddy's did not equal half of the entire Federal force of 9500.[84]
During the summer and fall there were many small fights between the
cavalry scouts of Roddy and Wheeler and the Federal foraging parties. In
October General S. D. Lee from Mississippi entered the northwestern part
of the state, and for two or three weeks fought the Federals and tore up
the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. The First Alabama Union Cavalry
started on a raid for Selma, but was routed by the Second Alabama Cavalry.
The Tennessee valley was the highway along which passed and repassed the
Federal armies during the remainder of the war.
During the months of January, February, March, and April, 1864, scouting,
skirmishing, and fighting in north Alabama by Forrest, Roddy, Wheeler,
Johnson, Patterson, and Mead were almost continuous; and Federal raids
were frequent. The Federals called all Confederate soldiers in north
Alabama "guerillas," and treated prisoners as such. The Tennessee valley
had been stripped of troops to send to Johnston's army. In May, 1864, the
Federal General Blair marched through northeast Alabama to Rome, Georgia,
with 10,500 men. Federal gunboats patrolled the river, landing companies
for short raids and shelling the towns. In August there were many raids
and skirmishes in the Tennessee valley. On September 23, Forrest with 4000
men, on a raid to Pulaski, persuaded the Federal commander at Athens that
he had 10,000 men, and the latter surrendered, though in a strong fort
with a thousand men.
Rousseau's Raid
July 10, 1864, General Rousseau started from Decatur, Morgan County, with
2300 men on a raid toward southeast Alabama to destroy the Montgomery and
West Point Railway below Opelika, and thus cut off the supplies coming
from the Black Belt for Johnston's army. General Clanton, who opposed him
with a small force, was defeated at the crossing of the Coosa on July 14;
the iron works in Calhoun County were burned, and the Confederate stores
at Talladega were destroyed. The railroad was reached near Loachapoka in
what is now Lee County, and miles of the track there and above Opelika
were destroyed, and the depots at Opelika, Auburn, Loachapoka, and
Notasulga, all with quantities of supplies, were burned. This was the
first time that central Alabama had suffered from invasion.[85]
In October General Hood marched _via_ Cedartown, Georgia, into Alabama to
Gadsden, thence to Somerville and Decatur, crossing the river near
Tuscumbia on his way to the fatal fields of Franklin and Nashville. "Most
of the fields they passed were covered with briers and weeds, the fences
burned or broken down. The chimneys in every direction stood like quiet
sentinels and marked the site of once prosperous and happy homes, long
since reduced to heaps of ashes. No cattle, hogs, horses, mules, or
domestic fowls were in sight. Only the birds seemed unconscious of the
ruin and desolation which reigned supreme. No wonder that Hood pointed to
the devastation wrought by the invader to nerve his heroes for one more
desperate struggle against immense odds for southern independence."[86] A
few weeks later the wreck of Hood's army was straggling back into north
Alabama, which now swarmed with Federals. Bushwhackers, guerillas, tories,
deserters, "mossbacks," harried the defenceless people of north Alabama
until the end of the war and even after. A few scattered bands of
Confederates made a weak resistance.
The War in South Alabama
To return to south Alabama. During the years 1861 and 1862 the defences of
Mobile were made almost impregnable. They were commanded in turn by
Generals Withers, Bragg, Forney, Buckner, and Maury. The port was
blockaded in 1861, but no attacks were made on the defences until August,
1864, when 15,000 men were landed to besiege Fort Gaines. Eighteen war
vessels under Farragut passed the forts into the bay and there fought the
fiercest naval battle of the war. Admiral Buchanan commanded the
Confederate fleet of four vessels--the _Morgan_, the _Selma_, the
_Gaines_, and the _Tennessee_.[87] The _Tecumseh_ was sunk by a torpedo
in the bay, and Farragut had left 17 vessels, 199 guns, and 700 men
against the Confederates' 22 guns and 450 men. The three smaller
Confederate vessels, after desperate fighting, were riddled with shot; one
was captured, one beached, and one withdrew to the shelter of the forts.
The _Tennessee_ was left, 1 against 17, 6 guns against 200. After four
hours' cannonade from nearly 200 guns, her smoke-stack and steering gear
shot away, her commander (Admiral Buchanan) wounded, one hour after her
last gun had been disabled, the _Tennessee_ surrendered. The Federals lost
52 killed, and 17 wounded, besides 120 lost on the _Tecumseh_. The
_Tennessee_ lost only 2 killed and 9 wounded, the _Selma_ 8 killed and 17
wounded, the _Gaines_ about the same.[88] The fleet now turned its
attention to the forts. Fort Gaines surrendered at once; Fort Morgan held
out. A siege train of 41 guns was placed in position and on August 22
these and the 200 guns of the fleet opened fire. The fort was unable to
return the fire of the fleet, and the sharpshooters of the enemy soon
prevented the use of guns against the shore batteries of the Federals. The
firing was furious; every shell seemed to take effect; fire broke out, and
the garrison threw 90,000 pounds of powder into cisterns to prevent
explosion; the defending force was decimated; the interior of the fort was
a mass of smouldering ruins; there was not a place five feet square not
struck by shells; many of the guns were dismounted. For twenty-four hours
the bombardment continued, the garrison not being able to return the fire
of the besiegers, yet the enemy reported that the garrison was not "moved
by any weak fears." On the morning of August 23, 1864, the fort was
surrendered.[89] Though the outer defences had fallen, the city could not
be taken. The inner defences were strengthened, and were manned with
"reserves,"--boys and old men, fourteen to sixteen, and forty-five to
sixty years of age.
In March, 1865, General Steele advanced from Pensacola to Pollard with
15,000 men, while General Canby with 32,000 moved up the east side of
Mobile Bay and invested Spanish Fort. He sent 12,000 men to Steele, who
began the siege of Blakely on April 2. Spanish Fort was defended by 3400
men, later reduced to 2321, against Canby's 20,000. The Confederate lines
were two miles long. After a twelve days' siege a part of the Confederate
works was captured, and during the next night (April 8), the greater part
of the garrison escaped in boats or by wading through the marshes. Blakely
was defended by 3500 men against Steele's 25,000. After a siege of eight
days the Federal works were pushed near the Confederate lines, and a
charge along the whole three miles of line captured the works with the
garrison (April 9). Three days later batteries Huger and Tracy, defending
the river entrance, were evacuated, and on April 12 the city
surrendered.[90] The state was then overrun from all sides.[91]
Wilson's Raid and the End of the War
During the winter of 1864-1865, General J. H. Wilson gathered a picked
force of 13,500 cavalry, at Gravelly Springs in northwestern Alabama, in
preparation for a raid through central Alabama, the purpose of which was
to destroy the Confederate stores, the factories, mines, and iron works in
that section, and also to create a diversion in favor of Canby at
Mobile.[92] On March 22 he left for the South. There was not a Confederate
soldier within 120 miles; the country was stripped of its defenders. The
Federal army under Wilson foraged for provisions in north Alabama when
they themselves reported people to be starving.[93] To confuse the
Confederates, Wilson moved his corps in three divisions along different
routes. On March 29, near Elyton, the divisions united, and General
Croxton was again detached and sent to burn the University and public
buildings at Tuscaloosa. Driving Roddy before him, Wilson, on March 31,
burned five iron works near Elyton. Forrest collected a motley force to
oppose Wilson. The latter sent a brigade which decoyed one of Forrest's
brigades away into the country toward Mississippi,[94] so that this force
was not present to assist in the defence when, on April 2, Wilson arrived
before Selma with 9000 men. This place, with works three miles long, was
defended by Forrest with 3000 men, half of whom were reserves who had
never been under fire. They made a gallant fight, but the Federals rushed
over the thinly defended works. Forrest and two or three hundred men
escaped; the remainder surrendered. When the Federals entered the city,
night had fallen, and the soldiers plundered without restraint until
morning. Forrest had ordered that all the government whiskey in the city
be destroyed, but after the barrels were rolled into the street the
Confederates had no time to knock in the heads before the city was
captured. The Federals were soon drunk. All the houses in the city were
entered and plundered. A newspaper correspondent who was with Wilson's
army said that Selma was the worst-sacked town of the war. One woman saved
her house from the plunderers by pulling out all the drawers, tearing up
the beds, throwing clothes all over the floor along with dishes and
overturned tables, chairs, and other things. When the soldiers came to the
house, they concluded that others had been there before them and departed.
The outrages, robberies, and murders committed by Wilson's men,
notwithstanding his stringent order against plundering,[95] are almost
incredible. The half cannot be told. The destruction was fearful. The city
was wholly given up to the soldiers, the houses sacked, the women robbed
of their watches, earrings, rings, and other jewellery.[96] The negroes
were pressed into the work of destruction, and when they refused to burn
and destroy, they were threatened with death by the soldiers. Every one
was robbed who had anything worth taking about his person. Even negro men
on the streets and negro women in the houses were searched and their
little money and trinkets taken.[97]
The next day the public buildings and storehouses with three-fourths of
the business part of the town and 150 residences were burned. Three
rolling mills, a large naval foundry, and the navy yard,--where the
_Tennessee_ had been built,--the best arsenal in the Confederacy, powder
works, magazines, army stores, 35,000 bales of cotton, a large number of
cars, and the railroad bridges were destroyed. Before leaving, Wilson sent
men about the town to kill all the horses and mules in Selma, and had 800
of his own worn-out horses shot. The carcasses were left lying in the
roads, streets, and dooryards where they were shot. In a few days the
stench was fearful, and the citizens had to send to all the country around
for teams to drag away the dead animals, which were strewn along the roads
for miles.[98]
Nearly every man of Wilson's command had a canteen filled with jewellery
gathered on the long raid through the richest section of the state. The
valuables of the rich Cane Brake and Black Belt country had been deposited
in Selma for safe-keeping, and from Selma the soldiers took everything
valuable and profitable. Pianos were made into feeding troughs for horses.
The officers were supplied with silver plate stolen while on the raid. In
Russell County a general officer stopped at a house for dinner, and had
the table set with a splendid service of silver plate taken from Selma.
His escort broke open the smoke-house and, taking hams, cut a small piece
from each of them and threw the remainder away. Everything that could be
was destroyed. Soft soap and syrup were poured together in the cellars.
They took everything they could carry and destroyed the rest.
On April 10 Wilson's command started for Montgomery. A negro regiment of
800 men[99] was organized at Selma and accompanied the army, subsisting
on the country. Before reaching Georgia there were several such regiments.
On April 12 Montgomery was surrendered by the mayor. The Confederates had
burned 97,000[100] bales of cotton to prevent its falling into the hands
of the enemy. The captors burned five steamboats, two rolling mills, a
small-arms factory, two magazines of stores, all the rolling stock of the
railways, and the nitre works, the fire spreading also to the business
part of the town.[101] Here, as at Selma, horses, mules, and valuables
were taken by the raiders.
The force was then divided into two columns, one destined for West Point
and the other for Columbus. The last fights on Alabama soil occurred near
West Point on April 16, and at Girard, opposite Columbus, on the same day.
At the latter place immense quantities of stores, that had been carried
across the river from Alabama, were destroyed.[102]
Croxton's force reached Tuscaloosa April 3, and burned the University
buildings, the nitre works, a foundry, a shoe factory, and the Sipsey
cotton mills. After burning these he moved eastward across the state,
destroying iron works, nitre factories, depots, and cotton factories.
Before he reached Georgia, Croxton had destroyed nearly all the iron works
and cotton factories that had been missed by Rousseau and Wilson.[103]
Destruction by the Armies
For three years north Alabama was traversed by the contending armies. Each
burned and destroyed from military necessity and from malice. General
Wilson said that after two years of warfare the valley of the Tennessee
was absolutely destitute.[104] From the spring of 1862 to the close of the
war the Federals marched to and fro in the valley. There were few
Confederate troops for its defence, and the Federals held each community
responsible for all attacks made within its vicinity. It became the custom
to destroy property as a punishment of the people. Much of the
destruction was unnecessary from a military point of view.[105] Athens and
smaller towns were sacked and burned, Guntersville was shelled and burned;
but the worst destruction was in the country, by raiding parties of
Federals and "tories," or "bushwhackers" dressed as Union soldiers.
Huntsville, Florence, Decatur, Athens, Guntersville, and Courtland, all
suffered depredation, robbery, murder, arson, and rapine.[106] The tories
destroyed the railways, telegraph lines, and bridges, and as long as the
Confederates were in north Alabama they had to guard all of these.[107]
Along the Tennessee River the gunboats landed parties to ravage the
country in retaliation for Confederate attacks. In the counties of
Lauderdale, Franklin, Morgan, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, and Jackson
nearly all property was destroyed.[108]
In 1863, a member of Congress from north Alabama tried to get arms from
Bragg for the old men to defend the county against Federal raiders, but
failed, and wrote to Davis that all civilized usages were being
disregarded, women and children turned out and the houses burned, grain
and provisions destroyed, women insulted and outraged, their money,
jewellery, and clothing being stolen.
In December, 1863, General Sherman ordered that all the forage and
provisions in the country around Bridgeport and Bellefont "be collected
and stored, and no compensation be allowed rebel owners." In April, 1864,
General Clanton wrote to Governor Watts that the "Yankees spared neither
age, sex, nor condition." Tories and deserters from the hills made
frequent raids on the defenceless population.
General Dodge reported, May, 1863, that his army had destroyed or carried
off in one raid near Town Creek, "fifteen million bushels of corn, five
hundred thousand pounds of bacon, quantities of wheat, rye, oats, and
fodder, one thousand horses and mules, and an equal number of cattle,
sheep, and hogs, besides thousands that the army consumed in three weeks;
we also brought out fifteen hundred negroes, destroyed five tanyards and
six flouring mills, and we left the country in such a devastated condition
that no crop can be raised during the year;" and nothing was left that
would in the least aid the Confederates. On the night of his retreat Dodge
lit up the Tennessee valley from Town Creek to Tuscumbia with the flames
of burning dwellings, granaries, stables, and fences. In June Colonel
Cornyn reports that in a raid from Corinth to Florence he had destroyed
cotton factories, tanyards, all the corn-cribs in sight, searched every
house in Florence, burned several residences, and carried off 200 mules
and horses.[109] A few days later General Stanley raided from Tennessee to
Huntsville and carried off cattle and supplies, but did not lay waste the
country. General Buell did all that he could to restrain his subordinates,
but often to no avail. After Sherman took charge affairs grew steadily
worse. In a remarkable letter giving his views in the matter he says: "The
government of the United States has in north Alabama any and all rights
which they choose to enforce in war, to take their lives, their houses,
their lands, their everything, because they cannot deny that war exists
there, and war is simply power unrestrained by constitution or compact. If
they want eternal warfare, well and good. We will accept the issue and
dispossess them and put our friends in possession. To those who submit to
the rightful law and authority all gentleness and forbearance, but to the
petulant and persistent secessionists, why, death is mercy and the quicker
he or she is disposed of the better. Satan and the rebellious saint of
heaven were allowed a continuance of existence in hell merely to swell
their just punishment." He referred to the fact that in Europe, whence the
principles of war were derived, wars were between the armies, the people
remaining practically neutral, so that their property remained unmolested.
However, this present war was, he said, between peoples, and the invading
army was entitled to all it could get from the people. He cited as a like
instance the dispossessing of the people of north Ireland during the reign
of William and Mary.[110] After this no restraint on the plundering and
persecution of Confederate non-combatants was even attempted, and hundreds
of families from north Alabama "refugeed" to south Alabama.
General Sherman wrote to one of his generals, "You may send notice to
Florence that if Forrest invades Tennessee from that direction, the town
will be burned; and if it occurs, you will remove the inhabitants north of
the Ohio River and burn the town and Tuscumbia also."[111] All through
this section fences were gone, fields grew up in bushes, and weeds,
residences were destroyed, farm stock had disappeared. People who lived in
the Black Belt report that Wilson's raiders ate up all the cooked
provisions wherever they went, taking all the meat, meal, and flour to
their next camping-place, where they would often throw away wagon loads of
provisions. Frequently the meal and flour that could not be taken was
strewn along the road. The mills were burned, and some families for three
months after the close of the war lived on corn cracked in a mortar. All
the horses and mules were taken; and only a few oxen were left to work the
crops.
Governor Parsons said that Wilson's men were a week in destroying the
property around Selma. Three weeks after, as Parsons himself was a
witness, it was with difficulty that one could travel from Planterville to
Selma on account of the dead horses and mules. The night marches of the
enemy in the Black Belt were lighted by the flames of burning houses.
Until this raid only the counties of north Alabama had suffered.[112]
Wilson had destroyed during this raid 2 gunboats; 99,000 small arms and
much artillery; 10 iron works; 7 foundries; 8 machine shops; 5 rolling
mills; the University buildings; many county court-houses and public
buildings; 3 arsenals; a naval foundry and navy yard; 5 steamboats; a
powder magazine and mills; 35 locomotives and 565 cars; 3 large railroad
bridges and many smaller ones; 275,000 bales of cotton; much private
property along the line of march, many magazines of stores; and had
subsisted his army on the country.[113] Trowbridge, who passed through
Alabama in the fall of 1865, said that Wilson's route could be traced by
burnt gin-houses dotting the way.[114] Three other armies marched through
the state in 1865, burning and destroying.
The Federals took horses and mules, cattle and hogs, corn and meat, gold
and silver plate, jewellery, and other valuables. Aged citizens were
tortured by "bummers" to force them to tell of hidden treasure. Some were
swung up by the neck until nearly dead. Straggling bands of Federals
committed depredations over the country. Houses were searched, mattresses
were cut to pieces, trunks, bureaus, wardrobes, and chests were broken
open and their contents turned out. Much furniture was broken and ruined.
Families of women and children were left without a meal, and many homes
were burned. Cattle and stock were wantonly killed. What could not be
carried away was burned and destroyed.[115]
Though two-thirds of the state was untouched by the enemy two months
before the close of hostilities, yet when the surrender came. Alabama was
as thoroughly destroyed as Georgia or South Carolina in Sherman's track.
SEC. 2. MILITARY ORGANIZATION
Alabama Soldiers: Numbers and Character
The exact number of Confederate soldiers enlisted in Alabama cannot be
ascertained. The original records were lost or destroyed, and duplicates
were never completed. There were on the rolls infantry regiments numbered
from 1 to 65, but the 52d and 64th were never organized. Of the 14 cavalry
regiments, numbered from 1 to 12, two organizations were numbered 9. There
was one battalion of artillery, afterwards transferred to the regular
service, and 18 batteries.
In Alabama, as in the other southern states, local pride has placed the
number of troops furnished at a very high figure. Colonel W. H. Fowler,
superintendent of army records, who worked mainly in the Army of Northern
Virginia, estimated the total number of men from Alabama at about 120,000.
Governor Parsons, in his inaugural proclamation, evidently following
Fowler's statistics, placed the number at 122,000,[116] while Colonel M.
V. Moore placed the number at 60,000 to 65,000.[117] General Samuel
Cooper, adjutant and inspector-general of the Confederate States Army,
estimated that not more than 600,000 men in the Confederacy actually bore
arms.[118] This estimate would make the share of Alabama even less than
Colonel Moore estimated. The highest estimates have placed the number at
128,000 and 135,000, but the correct figures are evidently somewhere
between these extremes.[119]
The Superintendent of the Confederate Bureau of Conscription estimated
that according to the census of 1860 there were in Alabama, from 1861 to
1864, 106,000 men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, and of
these, more than 8000 had been regularly exempted during the year 1864,
all former exemptions having been revoked by act of Congress, February 17,
1864.[120] Livermore's estimate,[121] based on the census of 1860, was:
There were in Alabama (1861) between the ages of eighteen and forty-five,
99,967 men, and in the entire Confederacy there were 265,000 between the
ages of thirteen and sixteen. Of the latter, a rough estimate would place
Alabama's proportion about one-tenth of the whole, that is, about 26,500.
Those men over forty-five who later became liable to military duty he
estimates at 20,000, that is, about 2000 in Alabama. Thus there were in
Alabama, in 1861, not allowing for deaths, 127,467 persons who would
become subject to military service unless exempted. Livermore places the
number of boys from ten to twelve years of age and of men from forty-seven
to fifty, in the Confederacy in 1861, at 300,000, or about 30,000 in
Alabama. These would become liable to service in the state militia before
1865.[122] In 1861 the governor stated that by October 7 there had been
27,000 enlistments in the various organizations. Several of these commands
were enrolled for short terms of three months, six months, or one year.
Before November, 1862, there had been 60,000 enlistments. Included in this
number were several thousand reënlistments and transfers. At the end of
1863, when enlistment and reorganization had practically ceased, there
had been 90,857 enlistments of all kinds from Alabama.[123] For two years
troops were organized in Alabama much faster than they could be supplied
with arms. For months some of the new regiments waited for equipment. Four
thousand men at Huntsville were in service several months before arms
could be procured, and several infantry regiments were drilled as
artillery for a year before muskets were to be had.[124]
Before the close of 1863, Alabama had placed in the Confederate service
about all the men that could be sent. The organization of new regiments by
original enlistment practically ceased with the fall of 1862. In 1863,
only three regiments were thus organized, and two of these were composed
of conscripts and men attracted by the special privileges offered.[125]
The other regiments, formed after the summer of 1862, were made by
consolidating smaller commands that were already in service. The few small
regiments of reserves called out in 1864 and 1865 and given regular
designations saw little or no service. Those few who were made liable to
service by the conscript law and who entered the army at all, as a rule
went as volunteers and avoided the conscript camps. The strength of the
Alabama regiments came from central and south Alabama, for the full
military strength of north Alabama could not be utilized on account of
invasion by the enemy. At first there were many small commands--companies
and battalions--which were raised in a short time and sent at once to the
front before a regimental organization could be effected. Later these were
united to form regiments. Nearly all the higher numbered infantry
regiments and more than half of the cavalry regiments were formed in this
way. The first regiments raised and the strongest in numbers were sent to
Virginia. To these went also the largest number of the recruits secured by
the recruiting officers sent out by the regiments. On an average, about
350 recruits or transfers were secured by each Alabama regiment in
Virginia, though some had almost none. There were numbers of persons who
obtained authority to raise new commands for service near their homes, and
in order to fill the ranks of their regiments and companies they would
offer special inducements of furloughs and home stations. The cavalry and
artillery branches of the service were popular and secured many men needed
in the infantry regiments.[126] Each commander of a separate company or
battalion desired to raise his force to a regiment, and it was to the
interest of the state to have as many organizations as possible in the
field as its quota. A better show was thus made on paper. Such conditions
prevented the recruitment of old regiments, especially those in the armies
that surrendered under Johnston and Taylor. Consequently the regiments in
the Western Army were, as a rule, much smaller than the ones in the Army
of Northern Virginia, to which recruits were sent instead of new
regiments.
In each infantry and cavalry regiment there were ten companies.[127] The
original strength of each company was from 64 to 100. Later the number was
fixed at 104 to the company for infantry, 72 for cavalry, and 70 in the
artillery. After the formation of new commands had practically ceased, the
number for each company of infantry was raised to 125 men, 150 in the
artillery, and 80 in the cavalry.[128] The original strength of each
infantry regiment was, therefore, from 640 to 1000, not including
officers; of cavalry, 600 to 720. A battery of artillery seems to have had
any number from 70 to 150, though usually the smaller number. The size of
the regiments varied greatly. Colonel Fowler reported that to February 1,
1865, 27,022 men had joined the 20 Alabama regiments in Virginia, an
average of 1351 men to the regiment. Brewer gives the total enrolment of
15 regiments in the Army of Northern Virginia as 21,694, an average of
1446 to the regiment.[129] Four of these regiments had an enrolment of
less than 1200;[130] so it is evident that the other 5, not given by
Brewer, must have averaged about 1265 to the regiment.[131] These numbers
include transfers, details, and reënlistments, the exact number of which
it is impossible to ascertain. Brewer lists the transfers and discharges
from 15 regiments at 4398, an average of 293 each, of which about
one-third seem to have been transfers.[132] There were also many
reënlistments from disbanded organizations.[133] Both Brewer and Fowler
count each enlistment as a different man and arrive at about the same
results.[134]
The enrolment of 8 Alabama regiments in Johnston's army, as given by
Brewer, amounted to 8300, an average to the regiment of 1037.[135] It was
the practice, in 1864 and 1865, to unite two or more weaker regiments into
one. No Alabama regiments in Virginia were so united, and of the 8 in the
Western Army, whose enrolment is given by Brewer, only 1 was afterward
united with another.[136] It would then seem that the enrolment of the
strongest regiments is known.[137] The total number of enlistments in the
Alabama commands in Virginia was, according to Fowler, about 30,000, and
these were in 20 infantry regiments, and a few smaller commands. In the
armies surrendered by Johnston and Taylor there were 38 Alabama infantry
regiments, and 13 of these had been consolidated on account of their small
numbers. Eight of them which remained separate and which must have been
stronger than the ones united had enrolled an average of 1037 (according
to Brewer). Thirty-eight regiments of this strength (which is probably too
large an estimate) would give a total enrolment of 39,406. This number,
added to Fowler's estimate of 27,022 in the Army of Northern Virginia,
will give 66,428 enlistments of all kinds, for the infantry arm of the
service. Add to this 3000 for the 3 regiments of reserves called out in
1864,[138] and the total is 69,428 enlistments in the infantry.
There were 14 cavalry regiments, 7 of which, and possibly more, were
formed by the consolidation of smaller commands already in service. The
cavalry regiments did not enter the service as early as the infantry, only
1 regiment being organized in 1861. The original strength of each
regiment, as has been said, was from 600 to 720. All these regiments
served in the commands surrendered by Johnston and Taylor, where recruits
were scarce, so 1000 to the regiment is a very large estimate of total
enrolment. However, this would give 14,000 in the cavalry regiments.
Of artillery, there were 19 batteries and 1 battalion of 6 batteries,
making 25 batteries in all, with an enrolment ranging from 70 to 150 in
each. A total enrolment of 3750, or 150 to each battery, would be a large
estimate.
Fowler reported about 3000 enlistments in the various smaller commands
from Alabama in the Army of Northern Virginia.[139] An additional 2000
would more than account for all similar scattering commands in the other
armies.[140]
The total enrolment may then be estimated:--
Army of Northern Virginia (Fowler report) 27,022
Army of Northern Virginia, scattering (Fowler report) 3,000
Armies of the West--infantry (estimate) 39,406
Armies of the West--cavalry 14,000
Scattering 2,500
Artillery 3,750
------
89,678
This total includes many transfers and reënlistments, which can be only
roughly estimated. In the Army of Northern Virginia 464 resigned, 245
were retired, 3639 were discharged, 1815 were transferred to other
commands, and 1666 deserted or were unaccounted for. Those who
resigned--as a rule to accept higher positions--reëntered the service.
Almost all of those who retired or were discharged had to enter the
reserves, and many of them again became liable to service. Numbers of
soldiers were accustomed to leave one command and go to another without
any formality of transfer. Deserters who were driven back to the army
nearly always chose to enter other regiments than their own. There were
numbers of transfers from the cavalry to the infantry, for each cavalryman
had to furnish his own horse, and, should it be killed or die and the
soldier be unable to secure another, he was sent to an infantry regiment.
There were also smaller infantry organizations, which were mounted and
merged into the cavalry regiments. Half of the enlistments in the
artillery came from the infantry. One regiment[141] at one time lost 100
men in this way, and it has been estimated that one-fifth of the Alabama
soldiers served in more than one command.[142] Counting each name on the
rolls as one man, as Brewer and Fowler do,[143] it is difficult to see how
more than 90,000 enlistments can be counted, and from this total must be
deducted several thousand for transfers and reënlistments. Miller's
estimate of a deduction of one-fifth for names counted twice would make
the total number of different men about 75,000, which is probably about
the correct number. Not only were the same names counted twice, and even
oftener in different commands, but sometimes in the same companies and
regiments they were counted more than once. It was to the interest of
local and state authorities to have each enlistment counted as a different
man, and this was invariably done.[144] Five of the early regiments were
reorganized and reënlisted, and thus 5000 at least were added to the total
enrolment without securing a single recruit. The three-year regiments
reënlisted in 1864,[145] and here again were extra thousands of
enlistments to be added to the former total. There were also 19 infantry
regiments[146] which were formed by the reorganization of former commands
that had already been counted, and upon reënlistment for the war they were
again counted. In this same way 7 regiments at least of cavalry were
formed.[147] this way it is possible to count up a total enlistment from
Alabama of about 120,000.[148] There is no method which will even
approximate correctness by which the total number of enlistments may be
reduced to enlistments for a certain term, as three years or four years.
The history of every enlistment must first be known.
There were three lieutenant-generals who entered the service in command of
Alabama troops--John B. Gordon, Joseph Wheeler,[149] James
Longstreet[149]; seven major-generals--H. D. Clayton, Jones M.
Withers,[149] E. M. Law, C. M. Wilcox, John H. Forney,[149] W. W. Allen,
R. E. Rodes[147]; and thirty-six brigadier generals--Tennent Lomax,[150]
P. D. Bowles,[149] S. A. M. Wood, E. A. O'Neal, William H. Forney, J. C.
C. Sanders,[149, 150] I. W. Garrott,[150] Archibald Gracie,[149, 150] B.
D. Fry, James Cantey, J. T. Holtzclaw, E. D. Tracy,[150] E. W. Pettus, Z.
C. Deas, G. D. Johnston, C. M. Shelly, Y. M. Moody, Wm. F. Perry, John T.
Morgan, M. H. Hannon, Alpheus Baker, J. H. Clanton, James Hagan, P. D.
Roddy, John Gregg,[150] L. P. Walker, D. Leadbetter,[149, 150] J. H.
Kelley,[149, 150] J. Gorgas, C. A. Battle, John W. Frazer, Alex. W.
Campbell, Thomas M. Jones, M. J. Bulger, John C. Reid, James Deshler.[150]
Other Alabamians exercised commands in the troops of other states, and
several were staff officers of general rank. The naval commanders were
Semmes, Randolph, and Glassell, and a few subordinate officers.[151]
During the early months of 1865 a movement was started to enroll negroes
as Confederate soldiers, and a number of officers, among whom was John T.
Morgan, received permission to raise negro troops. The conference of
governors at Augusta in 1864 recommended the arming of slaves, but
Governor Watts asked the Alabama legislature to disapprove such a
movement.[152] An enthusiastic meeting of citizens, held in Mobile,
February 19, 1865, declared that the war must be prosecuted "to victory or
death," and that 100,000 negroes should be placed in the field.[153] It
was too late, however, for success. Wilson, on his raid, picked up the
Confederate negro troops at Selma, and took them with him.[154] In 1862,
the "Creoles" of Mobile applied for permission to enlist in a body. They
were mulattoes, but were free by the treaties with France in 1803 and with
Spain in 1819, were property holders, often owning slaves, and were an
orderly, respectable class, true to the South and anxious to fight for the
Confederacy. The Secretary of War was not friendly to the proposal, but in
November, 1862, the legislature of Alabama authorized their enlistment for
the defence of Mobile. A year later, at the urgent request of General
Maury, they were received into the Confederate service as heavy
artillery.[155]
The Alabama troops in the Confederate service made a notably good record.
The flower of the Alabama army served with Lee in Virginia, but nearly as
good were the Alabama troops in the western armies. Brewer says they moved
"high and haughty in the face of death." The regiments of reserves raised
late in the war and stationed within the state were not very good. Yet
there were instances of regiments, with bad reputation when stationed near
home, making splendid records when sent to the front. The spirit of the
troops at the front was high to the last. In 1864 an Alabama regiment
reënlisted for the war, with the oath that they would "live on bread and
go barefoot before they would leave the flag under which they had fought
for three years."[156] On the morning of April 9, 1865, the Sixtieth
Alabama (Hilliard's Legion), then about 165 strong, captured a Federal
battery.[157] Fowler, in his report in 1865, asserts that Alabama sent
more troops into the service than any other state; also that she sent more
troops in proportion to her population than any other state. "I am certain
too," he says, "that when General Lee surrendered his army, the
representation from Alabama on the field that day was inferior to no other
southern state in numbers, and surely not in gallantry."[158]
Union Troops from Alabama
To the Union army Alabama furnished about 3000 regular enlistments. Of
these 2000 were white men. It is not likely that there were many more,
since in 1900 there were in Alabama only 3649 persons, northerners,
negroes, and all, drawing pensions, and some of these on account of the
Indian and Mexican wars.[159] The white Union troops served in the First
Alabama Union Cavalry, in the First Alabama and Tennessee Cavalry (the
First Vedette), Kennamer's Scouts (Cavalry), and in northern
regiments--principally those from Indiana. The report of the Secretary of
War for 1864-1865 says that no white regiments were regularly enlisted in
Alabama for the Union army. But this is evidently not correct, since the
report for 1866 says that there were 2576 enlistments in Alabama for
various periods of service.[160]
Of negro regiments in the Union army, there were the First Alabama
Volunteers, afterward known as the Fifth United States Colored Infantry,
the Second Alabama Volunteers (negroes), and the First Alabama Colored
Artillery, afterward known as the Sixth United States Heavy Artillery,
which served at Fort Pillow. Late in 1864 General Lorenzo Thomas reported
that he had recently organized three regiments of colored infantry in
Alabama, and Wilson organized several other negro regiments in the state
in 1865. Many negroes from north Alabama went into various negro
organizations, and were credited to the northern states, the official
records showing only 4969 negro enlistments credited directly to Alabama.
A conservative estimate would be from 2000 to 2500 whites and 10,000
negroes enlisted in Alabama, not counting those who were enrolled in the
spring of 1865.[161] The white Union soldiers from Alabama were mostly
poor men from the mountain counties of north Alabama. The Union troops
from Alabama received no bounty.[162]
The Militia System
The militia system of Alabama in 1861 existed only in the statute books,
and in the persons of a few brigadiers and a major-general, whose entire
duty had consisted in wearing uniforms at the inauguration of a governor
and ever thereafter bearing military titles. A series of Arabic numbers,
something more than a hundred, was assigned to the militia regiments that
were unorganized, but which, under favorable circumstances, might be
enrolled and called out. The county was the unit. To each county was
assigned one regiment or more according to the white population. Several
counties formed a militia district under a brigadier-general, and over all
was a major-general. Bodies of trained volunteers were not connected with
the militia system at all, but these went at once, on the outbreak of war,
into the state army, which was soon merged into the Confederate army.
In theory the militia consisted of all the male citizens of Alabama of
military age. The enlistments for war service soon reduced the material
from which militia regiments could be formed, and the system broke down
before it was tried. A few regiments may have been enrolled in 1861 and
1862, but if so, they at once entered the Confederate service. The
Forty-eighth Alabama Militia regiment was ordered out to defend Mobile in
1861, and $6000 was appropriated to provide pikes and knives with which to
arm them, as it was impossible to get firearms. On March 1, 1862,
Governor Shorter appealed to the people to give their shotguns, rifles,
bowie-knives, pikes, powder, and lead to state agents, probate judges,
sheriffs, and other state officials for the use of the state militia.[163]
A few days later he ordered out, for the defence of Mobile and the coast,
the militia from the river counties and the southwestern
counties--eighteen counties in all. But the militia failed to appear. It
seems that the governor expected a hearty response from the people. He
asked for too much, and got nothing. On March 12, 1862, he again ordered
out the militia, this time specifying the regiments by number.[164] But
again the militia failed to respond. The fact was, there was no longer any
militia; the officers and men had gone, or were preparing to go, into the
Confederate service. Many of the militia regiments could not have mustered
a dozen men, and it is doubtful if there was a muster-roll of a militia
regiment in all Alabama.[165] In May, 1862, the governor, recognizing that
the militia system was worthless as a means of raising troops for home
defence, issued a proclamation asking the people to form volunteer
organizations. The response, as he said, "was not prompt." The legislature
of that year, not seeing the necessity, refused to reorganize the militia
so as to give the governor any effective control. The people seem not to
have been worried by any fear of invasion, and many thought that
organization into militia companies was merely preliminary to entering the
Confederate service. Some did not wish to go until they had to do so,
others preferred to go at once to the Confederate army. It appears that
all persons, for various reasons, disliked militia service.
December 22, 1862, the governor issued a proclamation, in which, after
mentioning the tardy response to his May proclamation and the failure of
the legislature to reorganize the system, he again asked the people to
volunteer in companies for home defence.[166] He begged the people to
drive those who were shirking service to their duty by the force of public
scorn. He requested that business houses be closed early in order to give
time for drill. The response to this was the same as to his previous
proclamation. There was no longer any material for a militia organization.
Early in 1863, and in some sections even before, the need began to be felt
for a militia force to execute the laws. Under the direction of the
governor, small commands were organized here and there of those who were
not likely to become subject to service in the Confederate army. These
were state and Confederate officials, young boys, and sometimes old men.
These organizations were later a source of constant conflict between the
state authorities and the Confederate enrolling officers, who wanted to
take such commands bodily into the Confederate service, and who usually
did so with the full consent of most of the men and to the great
indignation of the governor.[167] In August, 1863, the legislature finally
passed a law to reorganize the militia system, or rather to establish a
new system. By the law an official in each county, appointed by the
governor, was to enroll as first-class militia all males under seventeen
and over forty-five years of age, including all state and Confederate
civil officials, and those physically disqualified for service in the
Confederate army. The second class was to consist of those not in the
first class, that is, of men between seventeen and forty-five years of
age. But men of the second class were subject to enrolment by Confederate
conscript officers, and consisted of the few thousand who were specially
exempted by the Confederate authorities. Those of the first class who
wished to do so might enroll in the second class. The governor was given
the usual power over the militia, but it was ordered that the first-class
militia was not to go beyond the limits of the county to which it
belonged.[168] Presumably the second class might be ordered beyond the
county limits, but there were so few in their class that they were not
organized. The first-class militia in each county was under a commandant
of reserves, militia now being called reserves. He had the power to call
it out to repel invasion and execute the laws. Jealousy of Confederate
authority had caused the legislature to take legal means of making the
militia worthless to the Confederacy, and useful only for local defence
and for executing the state laws in particular localities.[169] Still,
the system seems to have been practically useless, and the governor
continued to organize small irregular commands to execute the laws and to
furnish military escorts to civil officials. As has been stated, such
commands were highly approved of by the Confederate enrolling officers,
who eagerly persuaded them to join the Confederate army, and thus called
forth strong remonstrances from Governor Watts. The War Department
reasoned that a state could keep troops of war which were not subject to
absorption in the Confederate service, but that the militia were subject
to the superior claims of the Confederacy.[170] February 6, 1864, Governor
Watts, in an address to the people, declared that a raid into the state
was threatened and called upon young and old to volunteer for the defence
of the state.[171] The reserve system was now worthless. Few of the
regiments had more than fifty men, many had none, and the governor was
powerless to use them beyond the limits of their respective counties. The
state was at the mercy of any invading force, and Rousseau's Raid, through
the heart of the state, showed the woful condition of affairs. On October
7, 1864, the legislature passed an act which prohibited Confederate army
officers from commanding the reserves. It was again ordered that the
first-class reserves should not serve beyond the limits of the county to
which they belonged. At the same time, permission was granted to the
harassed citizens of Dale and Henry counties to organize themselves to
protect their homes, provided they did so under the direction of the
commandant of the first-class militia. Perhaps the legislature was afraid
that, if left to themselves, they might cross the county line, or choose a
Confederate officer to lead them. In December, 1864, when north Alabama
was almost entirely overrun by tories, deserters, and Federals, the
citizens of Marion County were authorized to organize into squads and
protect themselves.[172] Still the legislature refused to make an
effective reorganization of the militia. When the spring campaign in 1865
began, Governor Watts appealed to the people to do what the legislature
had failed to do. The first-class militia could not, he said, be ordered
beyond the limits of their counties, and in three congressional districts
in north Alabama it had not been and, by law, could not be, organized. He
estimated that 30,000 men were enrolled in the first-class militia, of
whom 4000 were boys, and to the latter he made the appeal to defend the
state. Evidently the remaining 26,000 men were, in his estimation, not
worth much as soldiers. However, he called upon all first-class militia to
volunteer as second class.[173] A few hundred responded to this appeal,
and all of them who saw active service were with Forrest in front of
Wilson.
The various organizations mentioned in the War Records, the Junior
Reserves, Senior Reserves, Mobile Regiment, Home Guards, Local Defence
Corps,[174] and others, were, except the reserves, volunteer organizations
for local defence, and all that saw active service before 1865, except the
Home Guards, were absorbed into the Confederate organization.[175] The
stupid conduct of the legislature during the last two years of the war in
failing to provide for the defence of the state cannot be too strongly
condemned. The final result would have been the same, but a strong force
of militia would have enabled Governor Watts to execute the laws in all
parts of the state, and to protect the families of loyal citizens from
outrage by tories and deserters.
SEC. 3. CONSCRIPTION AND EXEMPTION
Confederate Enrolment Laws
In the spring of 1862, the Confederate Congress passed the Enrolment Act,
by which all white men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five were
made liable to military service at the call of the President, and those
already in service were retained. The President was authorized to employ
state officials to enroll the men made subject to duty, provided the
governor of the state gave his consent; otherwise he was to employ
Confederate officials. The conscripts thus secured were to be assigned to
the state commands already in the field until these organizations were
recruited to their full strength. Substitutes were allowed under such
regulations as the Secretary of War might prescribe.[176] Five days
later, a law was passed exempting certain classes of persons from the
operations of the Enrolment Act. These were: Confederate and state
officials, mail-carriers, ferrymen on post-office routes, pilots,
telegraph operators, miners, printers, ministers, college professors,
teachers with twenty pupils or more, teachers of the deaf, dumb, and
blind, hospital attendants, one druggist to each drug store, and
superintendents and operatives in cotton and wool factories.[177] In the
fall of 1862, the Enrolment law was extended to include all white men from
thirty-five to forty-five years of age and all who lacked a few months of
being eighteen years of age. They were to be enrolled for three years, the
oldest, if not needed, being left until the last.[178]
At this time was begun the practice, which virtually amounted to
exemption, of making special details from the army to perform certain
kinds of skilled labor. The first details thus made were to manufacture
shoes for the army.[179] The list of those who might claim exemption, in
addition to those named in the act of April 21, 1862, was extended to
include the following: state militia officers, state and Confederate
clerks in the civil service, railway employees who were not common
laborers, steamboat employees, one editor and the necessary printers for
each newspaper, those morally opposed to war, provided they furnished a
substitute or paid $500 into the treasury, physicians, professors, and
teachers who had been engaged in the profession for two years or more,
government artisans, mechanics, and other employees, contractors and their
employees furnishing arms and supplies to the state or to the Confederacy,
factory owners, shoemakers, tanners, blacksmiths, wagon makers, millers,
and engineers. The artisans and manufacturers were granted exemption from
military service provided the products of their labor were sold at not
more than seventy-five per cent profit above the cost of production. On
every plantation where there were twenty or more negroes one white man was
entitled to exemption as overseer.[180]
In the spring of 1863 mail contractors and drivers of post-coaches were
exempted;[181] and it was ordered that those exempted under the so-called
"twenty-negro" law should pay $500 into the Confederate treasury; also,
that such state officials as were exempted by the governor might be also
exempted by the Confederate authorities. The law permitting the hiring of
substitutes by men liable to service was repealed on December 28, 1863,
and a few days later even those who had furnished substitutes were made
subject to military duty.[182]
A law of February 17, 1864,[183] provided that all soldiers between the
ages of eighteen and forty-five should be retained in service during the
war. Those between the ages of seventeen and eighteen, and forty-five and
fifty were called into service as a reserve force for the defence of the
state. All exemptions were repealed except the following: (1) the members
of Congress and of the state legislature, and such Confederate and state
officers as the President or the governors might certify to be necessary
for the proper administration of government; (2) ministers regularly
employed, superintendents, attendants, and physicians of asylums for the
deaf, dumb, and blind, insane, and other public hospitals, one editor for
each newspaper, public printers, one druggist for each drug store which
had been two years in existence, all physicians who had practised seven
years, teachers in colleges of at least two years' standing and in schools
which had twenty pupils to each teacher; (3) one overseer or agriculturist
to each farm upon which were fifteen or more negroes, in case there was no
other exempt on the plantation. The object was to leave one white man, and
no more, on each plantation, and the owner or overseer was preferred. In
return for such exemption, the exempt was bound by bond to deliver to the
Confederate authorities, for each slave on the plantation between the ages
of sixteen and fifty, one hundred pounds of bacon or its equivalent in
produce, which was paid for by the government at prices fixed by the
impressment commissioners. In addition, the exempt was to sell his surplus
produce at prices fixed by the commissioners. The Secretary of War was
authorized to make special details, under the above conditions, of
overseers, farmers, or planters, if the public good demanded it; also (4)
to exempt the higher officials of railroads and not more than one employee
for each mile of road; and (5) mail carriers and drivers. The President
was authorized to make details of old men for special service.[184] By an
act passed the same day free negroes from eighteen to fifty years of age
were made liable to service with the army as teamsters. These acts of
February 17, 1864, were the last Confederate legislation of importance in
regard to conscription and exemption. During the year 1864 the Confederate
authorities devoted their energies to construing away all exemptions
possible, and to absorbing the state reserve forces into the Confederate
army.
Policy of the State in Regard to Conscription
To return to 1861. The state legislature, when providing for the state
army, authorized the governor to exempt from militia duty all railway,
express, steamboat, and telegraph employees, but even the fire companies
had to serve as militia.[185] The operation of the enrolment law stripped
the land of men of militia age, and on November 17, 1862, the legislature
ordered to duty on the public roads men from sixteen to eighteen years of
age, and forty-five to fifty-five, and later all from sixteen to fifty as
well as all male slaves and free negroes from fourteen to sixty years of
age.[186] Militia officers between the ages of eighteen and forty-five
were declared subject to the enrolment acts of Congress,[187] as were also
justices of the peace, notaries public, and constables.[188]
Yet, instead of making an effective organization of the militia, the
legislature in 1863 proceeded to frame a law of exemptions patterned after
that of the Confederacy. It released from militia duty all persons over
forty-five years of age, county treasurers, physicians of seven years'
practice or who were in the public service, ministers, teachers of three
years' standing, one blacksmith in each beat, the city police and fire
companies, penitentiary guards, general administrators who had been in
service five years, Confederate agents, millers, railroad employees,
steamboat officials, overseers, managers of foundries, salt makers who
made as much as ten bushels a day and who sold it for not more than $15
per bushel. Besides, the governor could make special exemptions.[189] In
1864 millers who charged not more than one-eighth for toll were
exempted.[190] It will be seen that in some respects the state laws go
farther in exemption than the Confederate laws, and thus were in conflict
with them. But it must be remembered that the Confederacy had already
stripped the country of nearly all the able-bodied men who did not evade
duty. To this time, however, there was no conflict between the state and
Confederate authorities in regard to conscription. An act was also passed
providing for the reorganization of the penitentiary guards, and only
those not subject to conscription were retained.[191] A joint resolution
of August 29, 1863, called upon Congress to decrease the list of
exemptions, as many clerks and laborers were doing work that could be done
by negroes. At the end of the year 1863 the legislature asked that the
conscript law be strictly enforced by Congress.[192]
On the part of the state rights people, there was much opposition to the
enrolment or conscription laws on the ground that they were
unconstitutional. Several cases were brought before the state supreme
court, and all were decided in favor of the constitutionality of the laws;
furthermore, it was decided that the courts and judicial officers of the
state had no jurisdiction on _habeas corpus_ to discharge from the custody
of a Confederate enrolling officer persons who had been conscripted under
the law of Congress.[193] A test case was carried to the state supreme
court, which decided that a person who had conscientious scruples against
bearing arms might pay for a substitute in the state militia and claim
exemption from state service, but if conscripted he was not exempted
from the Confederate service unless he belonged to the religious
denominations specially exempted by the act of Congress.[194] The court
also declared constitutional the Confederate law which provided that when
a substitute became subject to military duty his principal was thereby
rendered liable to service.[195] In 1864 the supreme court held that the
state had a right to subject to militia service persons exempted by the
Confederate authorities as bonded agriculturists under the acts of
February 17, 1864, and that only those overseers were granted exemption
from militia service under the act of Congress in 1863 who at the time
were not subject to militia duty, and not those exempted from Confederate
service by the later laws,[196] and that the clause in the act of Congress
passed February 17, 1864, repealing and revoking all exemptions, was
constitutional.[197] In other cases the court held that a person regularly
enrolled and sworn into the Confederate service could not raise any
question, on _habeas corpus_, of his assignment to any particular command
or duty,[198] but that the state courts could discharge on _habeas corpus_
from Confederate enrolling officers persons held as conscripts, who were
exempted under Confederate laws;[199] that the Confederacy might reassert
its rights to the military service of a citizen who was enrolled as a
conscript and, after producing a discharge for physical disability, had
enlisted in the state militia service;[200] and finally, that the right of
the Confederacy to the military service of a citizen was paramount to the
right of the state.[201]
[Illustration: THE FIRST CONFEDERATE CAPITOL. The State Capitol,
Montgomery.]
[Illustration: MONTGOMERY RESIDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS.]
[Illustration: CONFEDERATE MONUMENT, MONTGOMERY.]
[Illustration: THE INAUGURATION OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. (From an old
negative.)]
During the year 1864 Governor Watts had much trouble with the Confederate
enrolling officers who insisted upon conscripting his volunteer and
militia organizations, whether they were subject to duty under the laws or
not. The authorities at Richmond held that while a state might keep
"troops of war" over which the Confederacy could have no control, yet the
state militia was subject to all the laws of Congress. "Troops of war," as
the Secretary of War explained, would be troops in active and permanent
service,[202] and hence virtually Confederate troops. A state with troops
of that description would be very willing to give them up to the
Confederacy to save expense. Thus we find the legislature of Alabama
asking the President to receive and pay certain irregular organizations
which had been used to support the Conscript Bureau.[203] The legislature,
now somewhat disaffected, showed its interest in the operations of the
enrolling officers by an act providing that conscript officials who forced
exempts into the Confederate service should be liable to indictment and
punishment by a fine of $1000 to $6000 and imprisonment of from six months
to two years.[204] It went a step further and nullified the laws of
Congress by declaring that state officials, civil and military, were not
subject to conscription by the Confederate authorities.[205]
Effect of the Enrolment Laws
Few good soldiers were obtained by conscription,[206] and the system, as
it was organized in Alabama,[207] did more harm than good to the
Confederacy. The passage of the first law, however, had one good effect.
During the winter of 1861-1862, there had been a reaction from the
enthusiastic war feeling of the previous summer. Those who thought it
would be only a matter of weeks to overrun the North now saw their
mistake.[208] Many of the people still had no doubt that the North would
be glad to make peace and end the war if the government at Richmond were
willing. Numbers, therefore, saw no need of more fighting, and hence did
not volunteer. Thousands left the army and went home. A measure like the
enrolment act was necessary to make the people realize the actual
situation. Upon the passage of the law all the loyal population liable to
service made preparations to go to the front before being conscripted,
which was deemed a disgrace, and the close of the year 1862 saw
practically all of them in the army. Those who entered after 1862 were
boys and old men.[209] Many not subject to service volunteered, so that
when the age limit was extended but few more were secured.
Great dissatisfaction was expressed among the people at the enrolment law.
Some thought that it was an attack upon the rights of the states, and the
irritating manner in which it was enforced aroused, in some localities,
intense popular indignation. Conscription being considered disgraceful,
many who would have been glad for various good reasons to remain at home a
few months longer went at once into service to escape conscription. Yet
some loyal and honest citizens found it disastrous to leave their homes
and business without definite arrangements for the safety and support of
their families. Such men suffered much annoyance from the enrolling
officers, in spite of the fact that the law was intended for their
protection. The conscript officials, often men of bad character,
persecuted those who were easy to find, while neglecting the disloyal and
refractory who might make trouble for them. In some sections such weak
conduct came near resulting in local insurrections; this was especially
the case in Randolph County in 1862.[210] The effect of the law was rather
to stop volunteering in the state organizations and reporting to camps of
instructions, since all who did either were classed as conscripts. Not
wishing to bear the odium of being conscripted, many thousands in 1862 and
1863 went directly into the regular service.[211]
While the conscript law secured few, if any, good soldiers who would not
have joined the army without it, it certainly served as a reminder to the
people that all were needed, and as a stimulus to volunteering. Three
classes of people suffered from its operations: (1) those rightfully
exempted, who were constantly annoyed by the enrolling officers; (2) those
soon to become liable to service, who were not allowed to volunteer in
organizations of their own choice; and (3) "deadheads" and malcontents who
did not intend to fight at all if they could keep from it. It was this
last class that made nearly all the complaints about conscription, and it
was they whom the enrolling officers left alone because they were so
troublesome.
The defects in the working of conscription are well set forth in a letter
from a correspondent of President Davis in December, 1862. In this letter
it was asserted that the conscript law had proven a failure in Mississippi
and Alabama, since it had stopped the volunteering. Governor Shorter was
reported to have said that the enforcement of it had been "a humbug and a
farce." The writer declared that the enrolling officers chosen were
frequently of bad character; that inefficient men were making attempts to
secure "bomb-proof" offices in order to avoid service in the army; and
that the exemption of slave owners by the "twenty-negro law" had a bad
influence upon the poorer classes. He also declared that the system of
substitutes was bad, for many men were on the hunt for substitutes, and
others liable to duty were working to secure exemptions in order to serve
as substitutes, while large numbers of men connected with the army managed
in this way to keep away from the fighting. He was sure, he said, that
there were too many hangers-on about the officers of high rank, and that
it was believed that social position, wealth, and influence served to get
young men good staff positions.[212] Another evil complained of was that
"paroled" men scattered to their homes and never heard of their exchange.
To a conscript officer whose duty it was to look after them they said that
they were "paroled," and he passed them by. The officers were said to be
entirely too lenient with the worthless people and too rigorous with the
better classes.[213]
Exemption from Service
After the passage of the enrolment laws, every man with excessive regard
for the integrity of his person and for his comfort began to secure
exemption from service. In north Alabama men of little courage and
patriotism lost confidence after the invasions of the Federals, and
resorted to every expedient to escape conscription. Strange and terrible
diseases were developed, and in all sections of the state health began to
break down.[214] It was the day of certificates,--for old age, rheumatism,
fits, blindness, and various physical disabilities.[215] Various other
pretexts were given for staying away from the army, while some men hid
out in the woods. The governor asked the people to drive such persons to
their duty.[216] There was never so much skilled labor in the South as
now. Harness making, shoe making, charcoal burning, carpentering--all
these and numerous other occupations supposed to be in support of the
cause secured exemption. Running a tanyard was a favorite way of escaping
service. A pit was dug in the corner of the back yard, a few hides
secured, carefully preserved, and never finished,--for more hides might
not be available; then the tanner would be no longer exempt. There were
purchasing agents, sub-purchasing agents, and sub-sub-agents, cattle
drivers, tithe gatherers, agents of the Nitre Bureau, agents to examine
political prisoners,[217] and many other Confederate and state agents of
various kinds.[218] The class left at home for the enrolling officers to
contend with, especially after 1862, was a source of weakness, not of
strength, to the Confederate cause. The best men had gone to the army, and
these people formed the public. Their opinion was public opinion, and with
few exceptions the home stayers were a sorry lot. From them came the
complaint about the favoritism toward the rich. The talk of a "rich man's
war and a poor man's fight" originated with them, as well as the
criticism of the "twenty-negro law." In the minds of the soldiers at the
front there was no doubt that the slaveholder and the rich man were doing
their full share.[219]
Very few of the slaveholders and wealthy men tried to escape service; but
when one did, he attracted more attention and called forth sterner
denunciation than ten poor men in similar cases would have done. In fact,
few able-bodied men tried to secure exemption under the "twenty-negro
law." It would have been better for the Confederacy if more planters had
stayed at home to direct the production of supplies, and the fact was
recognized in 1864,[220] when a "fifteen-negro law" was passed by the
Congress, and other exemptions of planters and overseers were
encouraged.[221]
There is no doubt that those who desired to remain quietly at home--to be
neutral, so to speak--found it hard to evade the conscript officers. One
of these declared that the enrolling officers "burned the woods and sifted
the ashes for conscripts." Another who had been caught in the sifting
process deserted to the enemy at Huntsville. He was asked, "Do they
conscript close over the river?" "Hell, stranger, I should think they do;
they take every man who has not been dead more than two days."[222] But
the "hill-billy" and "sand-mountain" conscripts were of no service when
captured; there were not enough soldiers in the state to keep them in
their regiments. The Third Alabama Regiment of Reserves ran away almost in
a body. There were fifteen or twenty old men in each county as a
supporting force to the Conscript Bureau, and they had old guns, some of
which would not shoot, and ammunition that did not fit.[223] Thus the best
men went into the army, many of them never to return, and a class of
people the country could well have spared survived to assist a second time
in the ruin of their country in the darker days of Reconstruction. Often
the "fire-eating, die-in-the-last-ditch" radical of 1861 who remained at
home "to take care of the ladies" became an exempt, a "bomb-proof" or a
conscript officer, and later a "scalawag."
Some escaped war service by joining the various small independent and
irregular commands formed for frontier service by those officers who found
field duty too irksome. Though these irregular bodies were, as we have
seen, gradually absorbed by the regular organizations, yet during their
day of strength they were most unpleasant defenders. The men sometimes
joined in order to have more opportunity for license and plunder, and such
were hated alike by friend and foe.
Another kind of irregular organization caused some trouble in another way.
Before the extension of the age limits to seventeen and fifty, the
governor raised small commands of young boys to assist in the execution of
the state laws, no other forces being available. Later, when the
Confederate Congress extended its laws to include these, the conscript
officers tried to enroll them, but the governor objected. The officers
complained that, in order to escape the odium of conscription, the young
boys who were subject by law to duty in the reserves evaded that law by
going at once into the army, or by joining some command for special duty.
They were of the opinion that these boys should be sent to camps of
instruction. The governor had ten companies of young men under eighteen
years of age raised near Talladega, and really mustered into the
Confederate service as irregular troops, before the law of February 17,
1864, was passed. After the passage of the law, the enrolling officers
wished to disband these companies and send the men to the reserves. Watts
was angered and sharply criticised the whole policy of conscription. He
said that much harm was done by the method of the conscript officers; that
it was nonsense to take men from the fields and put them in camps of
instruction when there were no arms for them, and no active service was
intended; they had better stay at home, drill once a week with volunteer
organizations, and work the rest of the time; to assemble the farmers in
camps for useless drill while the crops were being destroyed was "most
egregious folly." The governor also attacked the policy of the Bureau in
refusing to allow the enrolment in the same companies of boys under
eighteen and men over forty-five.[224] In regard to the attempts to
disband his small force of militia in active service, the governor used
strong language. To Seddon, the Secretary of War, he wrote in May, 1864:
"It must not be forgotten that the states have some rights left, and that
the right to troops in the time of war is guaranteed by the Constitution.
These rights, on the part of Alabama, I am determined shall be respected.
Unless you order the Commandant of Conscripts to stop interfering with
[certain volunteer companies] there will be a conflict between the
Confederate general [Withers] and the state authorities."[225] Watts
carried the day and the Confederate authorities yielded.
The enrolment law provided that state officials should be exempt from
enrolment upon presenting a certificate from the governor stating that
they were necessary to the proper administration of the government. In
November, 1864, Governor Watts complained to General Withers, who
commanded the Confederate reserve forces in Alabama, that the conscript
officers had been enrolling by force state officials who held certificates
from the governor and also from the commandant of conscripts, and, he
added: "This state of things cannot long last without a conflict between
the Confederate and state authorities. I shall be compelled to protect my
state officers with all the forces of the state at my command." The
enrolling officers referred him to a decision of the Secretary of War in
the case of a state official in Lowndes County,--that by the act of
February 17, 1864, all men between the ages of seventeen and fifty were
taken at once into the Confederate service, and that state officials
elected later could not claim exemption. Governor Watts then wrote to
Seddon, "Unless you interfere, there will be a conflict between the
Confederate and the state authorities." He denied the right of Confederate
officers to conscript state officials elected after February 17, 1864: "I
deny such right, and will resist it with all the forces of the
state."[226] The Secretary of War replied by commending the Confederate
officers for the way in which they had done their duty, insisting that it
was not a political nor a constitutional question, but one involving
private rights, and that it should be left to the courts. This was
receding from the confident ruling made in the case of the Lowndes County
man. There was no more dispute and it is to be presumed that the governor
retained his officials.[227] No wonder that Colonel Preston, the chief of
the Bureau of Conscription, wrote to the Secretary of War that, "from one
end of the Confederacy to the other every constituted authority, every
officer, every man, and woman was engaged in opposing the enrolling
officer in the execution of his duties."[228]
But these officers had only themselves to blame. They pursued a
short-sighted, nagging policy, worrying those who were exempt--the state
officials and the militia--because they were easy to reach, and neglecting
the real conscript material.[229] The work was known to be useless, and
the whole system was irritating to the last degree to all who came in
contact with it. It was useless because there was little good material for
conscription, except in the frontier country where no authority could be
exerted. During 1862 and 1863 practically nothing was done by the Bureau
in Alabama, and at the end of the latter year, Colonel E. D. Blake, the
Superintendent of Special Registration, reported that there were 13,000
men in the state between the ages of seventeen and forty-five, and of
these he estimated 4000 were under eighteen years of age, and hence, at
that time, beyond the reach of the enrolling officers. More than 8000[230]
were exempt under laws and orders. This left, he said, 1000 subject to
enrolment. Nowhere, in any of the estimates, are found allowances for
those physically and mentally disqualified. The number then exempted in
Alabama by medical boards is unknown. In other states this number was
sometimes more and sometimes less than the number exempted by law and by
order.
A year later, after all exemptions had been revoked, the number
disqualified for physical disability by the examining boards amounted to
3933. Besides these there were the lame, the halt, the blind, and the
insane, who were so clearly unfit for service that no enrolling officer
ever brought them before the medical board. The 4000 between the ages of
seventeen and eighteen, and also the 4600 between sixteen and seventeen,
came under the enrolment law of February 17, 1864, as also several
thousand who were over forty-five. But it is certain that many of these,
especially the younger ones, were already in the general service as
volunteers. It is also certain that many hundreds of all ages who were
liable to service escaped conscription, especially in north Alabama. In a
way, their places in the ranks were filled by those who did not become
liable to enrolment until 1864, or even not at all, but who volunteered
nevertheless.
From April, 1862, to February, 1865, there had been enrolled at the camps
in Alabama 14,875 men who had been classed in the reports as conscripts.
This included all men who volunteered at the camps, all of military age
that the officers could find or catch before they went into the volunteer
service, details made as soon as enrolled, irregular commands formed
before the men were liable to duty, and a few hundred genuine conscripts
who had to be guarded to keep them from running away. It was reported that
for two years not a recruit was sent by the Bureau from Alabama to the
army of Tennessee or to the Army of Northern Virginia, but that the men
were enrolled in the organizations of the state. This means that much of
the enrolment of 14,875 was only nominal, and that this number included
the regiments sent to the front from Alabama in 1862, after the passage of
the Enrolment Act in April. Eighteen regiments were organized in Alabama
after that date, in violation of the Enrolment Act, many of the men
evading conscription, as the Bureau reported, by going at once into the
general service. The number who left in these regiments was estimated at
more than 10,000.[231] There was not a single conscript regiment.
It is possible to ascertain the number exempted by law and by order before
1865. A report by Colonel Preston, dated April, 1864, gives the number of
exempts in Alabama as 8835 to January, 1864.[232] A month later, all
exemptions were revoked.[233] In February, 1865, a complete report places
the total number exempted by law and order in Alabama at 10,218, of whom
3933 were exempted by medical boards. The state officials exempted
numbered 1333,[234] and Confederate officials, 21; ministers, 726;
editors, 33, and their employees, 155; public printers, 3; druggists, 81;
physicians, 796; teachers, 352; overseers and agriculturists, 1447;
railway officials and employees, 1090; mail carriers and contractors, 60;
foreigners, 167; agriculture details, 38; pilots, telegraphers,
shoemakers, tanners, and blacksmiths, 86; government contractors, 44;
details of artisans and mechanics, 570; details for government service
(not specified), 218. There were 1046 men incapable of field service who
were assigned to duty in the above details, chiefly in the Conscript
Bureau, Quartermaster's Department, and Commissariat.[235] It is certain
that many others were exempted by being detailed from service in the army.
The list of those pardoned in 1865 and 1866 by President Johnson shows
many occupations not mentioned above.
It is interesting to notice the fate of the conscript officers when
captured by the Federals. Bradford Hambrick was tried by a military
commission in Nashville, Tennessee, in January, 1864, charged with being a
Confederate conscript officer and with forcing "peaceable citizens of the
United States" in Madison County, Alabama, to enter the Confederate army.
He was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor for one year,
and to pay a fine of $2000 or serve an additional imprisonment of 1000
days.[236]
To sum up: The early enrolment laws served to stimulate enlistment; the
later ones probably had no effect at all except to give the Bureau
something to do, and the law officers something on which to exercise their
wits. The conscript service also served as an exemption board. It secured
few, if any, enlistments that the state could not have secured, and
certainly lost more than it gained by harassing the people. The laws were
constantly violated by the state; this is proved by the enlistment of
eighteen new regiments contrary to the law. It finally drove the state
authorities into an attitude of nullification by its construction of the
enrolment laws.
Neither the state nor the Confederate government had an efficient
machinery for securing enlistments. If there ever were laws regarded only
in the breaking, the Enrolment Acts were such laws. The conscripts and
exempts, like the deserters, tories, and Peace Society men, are important,
not only because they so weakened the Confederacy, but also because they
formed the party that would have carried out, or at least begun,
Reconstruction according to the plans of Lincoln and Johnson as first
proclaimed. Many of these people became "scalawags" later, probably
influenced to some extent by the scorn of their neighbors.
SEC. 4. TORIES AND DESERTERS
In Alabama opposition to the Confederate government took two forms. One
was the rebellious opposition of the so-called "unionists" or "tories,"
who later joined with the deserters from the army; the other was the legal
or constitutional opposition of the old coöperation or anti-secession
party, which maintained an unfriendly attitude toward the Confederate
administration, though the great majority of its members were loyal to the
southern cause. From this second class arose a so-called "Peace Party,"
which desired to end the war on terms favorable to the South; and from
this, in turn, when later it was known that such terms could not be
secured, sprang the semi-treasonable secret order--the "Peace Society." In
1864, the "tories" and the Peace Society began to work together. Peculiar
social and political conditions will in part account for the strength and
growth of the opposition in two sections of the state far removed from
each other--in north Alabama and in southeast Alabama.
Conditions in North Alabama
To the convention of 1861 forty-four members from north Alabama were
elected as coöperationists, that is, in favor of a union of the southern
states, within the old Union, for the purpose of securing their rights
under the Constitution or of securing safe secession. They professed to be
afraid of separate state secession as likely to lead to disintegration and
war. Thirty-one of these coöperationists voted against the ordinance of
secession, and twenty-four of them (mostly members from the northern hill
counties) refused to sign the ordinance, though all expressed the
intention to submit to the will of the majority, and to give the state
their heartiest support. When war came all espoused the Confederate
cause.[237] The coöperationist party as a whole supported the Confederacy
faithfully, though nearly always in a more or less disapproving spirit
toward the administration, both state and Confederate.
North Alabama differed from other portions of the state in many ways.
There was no railroad connecting the country north of the mountains with
the southern part of the state, and from the northern counties it was a
journey of several days to reach the towns in central and south Alabama.
Hence there was little intercourse between the people of the two sections,
though the seat of government was in the central part of the state; even
to-day the intimacy is not close. For years it had been a favorite scheme
of Alabama statesmen to build railroads and highways to connect more
closely the two sections.[238] Geographically, this northern section of
the state belonged to Tennessee. The people were felt to be slightly
different in character and sympathies from those of central and south
Alabama, and whatever one section favored in public matters was usually
opposed by the other. Even in the northern section the population was more
or less divided. The people of the valley more closely resembled the west
Tennesseeans, the great majority of them being planters, having little in
common with the small farmers of the hill and mountain country, who were
like the east Tennesseeans. Of the latter the extreme element was the
class commonly known as "mountain whites" or "sand-mountain" people. These
were the people who gave so much trouble during the war, as "tories," and
from whom the loyal southerners of north Alabama suffered greatly when the
country was stripped of its men for the armies. Yet it can hardly be said
that they exercised much influence on politics before the war. Their only
representative in the convention of 1861 was Charles Christopher Sheets,
who did not speak on the floor of the convention during the entire
session.
[Illustration: DISAFFECTION, 1801-1865]
On the part of all in the northern counties there was a strong desire for
delay in secession, and they were angered at the action of the convention
in not submitting the ordinance to a popular vote for ratification or
rejection. Many thought the course taken indicated a suspicion of them or
fear of their action, and this they resented. Their leaders in the
convention expressed the belief that the ordinance would have easily
obtained a majority if submitted to the popular vote.[239] Much of the
opposition to the ordinance of secession was due to the vague sectional
dislike between the two parts of the state. It was felt that the ordinance
was a south Alabama measure, and this was sufficient reason for opposition
by the northern section. Throughout the entire session a local sectional
spirit dictated their course of obstruction.[240] In January and February
of 1861, there was some talk among the discontented people of seceding
from secession, of withdrawing the northern counties of Alabama and
uniting with the counties of east Tennessee to form a new state, which
should be called Nick-a-Jack, an Indian name common in East
Tennessee.[241] Geographically, this proceeding would have been correct,
since these two parts of the country are closely connected, the people
were alike in character and sentiment, and the means of intercourse were
better. The people of the valley and many others, however, had no sympathy
with this scheme. Lacking the support of the politicians and no leaders
appearing, the plan was abandoned after the proclamation of Lincoln, April
10, 1861. Had the war been deferred a few months, it is almost certain
that the discontented element of the population would have taken positive
steps to embarrass the administration; many believed that reconstruction
would take place. Only after four years of war was there after this any
appreciable number of the people willing to listen again to such a
proposition. In February, 1861, Jeremiah Clemens wrote that Yancey had
been burned in effigy in Limestone County (something that might have
happened at any time between 1845 and 1861); that some discontent still
existed among the people, but that this was daily growing weaker, and
unless something were done to excite it afresh, it would soon die
out.[242] Mr. John W. DuBose, a keen observer from the Cotton Belt,
travelled on horseback through the northern hill counties during the
winter of 1861 and 1862 as a Confederate recruiting officer. Thus he came
into close contact with all classes of people, eating at their tables,
sleeping in their beds, and in conversation learning their opinions and
sentiments on public matters. He saw no man, he says, who was not devoted
to the Confederacy. Several of the first and best volunteer regiments came
from this section of the state, and in these regiments there were whole
companies of men none of whom owned a slave. In order to preserve this
spirit of loyalty in those who had been opposed to the policy of
secession, Yancey and others, after the outbreak of the war, recommended a
prompt invasion of the North.[243]
Unionists, Tories, and Mossbacks
Before secession, the term "unionist" was applied to those who were
opposed to secession and who wished to give the Union a longer trial. They
were mostly the old Whigs, but many Democrats were among them. Then again
the coöperationists, who wanted delay and coöperation among the states
before secession, were called "unionists." In short, the term was applied
to any one opposed to immediate secession. This fact deceived the people
of the North, who believed that the opposition party in the South was
unconditionally for the Union, and that it would remain in allegiance to
the Union if secession were attempted. But after secession this "union"
party disappeared.
The "tories" were those who rebelled against the authority of the
Confederate States. Some of them were true "unionists" or "loyalists," as
they were called at the North. Most of them were not. The "mossback," who
according to popular belief hid himself in the woods until moss grew on
his back, might or might not be a "tory." If he were hostile to the
Confederacy, he was a "tory"; if he was simply keeping out of the way of
the enrolling officers, he was not a "tory," but a plain "mossback" or
"conscript." When too closely pressed he would either become a "tory" or
enter the Confederate army, though he did not usually remain in it. The
"deserter" was such from various reasons, and often became a "tory" as
well; that is, he became hostile to the Confederacy. Often he was not
hostile to the government, but was only hiding from service, and doing no
other harm. The true "unionists" always claimed great numbers, even after
the end of the war. The North listened to them and believed that old
Whigs, Know-nothings, Anti-secessionists, Douglas Democrats, Bell and
Everett men, coöperationists--all were at heart "Union" men. It was also
claimed that the only real disunion element was the Breckenridge
Democracy. Such, however, was not the case. Probably fewer of the old Whig
party than of any other were disloyal to the Confederacy. So far as the
"tory" or "loyalist" had any politics, he was probably a Democrat, and the
more prominent of them had been Douglas Democrats. The others were Douglas
and Breckenridge Democrats from the Democratic stronghold--north
Alabama.[244] Very few, if any, Bell and Everett men were among them. The
small lower class had no party affiliations worth mentioning. During the
war, the terms "unionist" and "tories" were very elastic and covered a
multitude of sins against the Union, against the Confederate States, and
against local communities. With the exception of those who entered the
Federal army the "tories" were, in a way, traitors to both sides. North
Alabama was not so strongly opposed to secession as was east
Tennessee,[245] nor were the Alabama "unionists" or "loyalists," as they
called themselves, "tories" as other people called them, of as good
character as the "loyalists" of Tennessee.
The Alabama tory was, as a rule, of the lowest class of the population,
chiefly the "mountain whites" and the "sand-mountain" people, who were
shut off from the world, a century behind the times, and who knew scarcely
anything of the Union or of the questions at issue. There was a certain
social antipathy felt by them toward the lowland and valley people,
whether in south or in north Alabama, and a blind antagonism to the
"nigger lord," as they called the slaveholder, wherever he was found. In
this feeling the women were more bitter than the men. Secluded and
ignorant, they did not feel it their duty to support a cause in which they
were not directly concerned, and most of them would have preferred to
remain neutral during the entire war, as there was little for them to gain
either way. As long as they did not have to leave their hills, they were
quiet, but when the enrolling officers went after them, they became
dangerous. To-day those people are represented by the makers of
"moonshine" whiskey and those who shoot revenue officers. They were
"moonshiners" then. Colonel S. A. M. Wood, who caught a band of thirty of
these "tories," reported to General Bragg, "They are the most miserable,
ignorant, poor, ragged devils I ever saw."[246] Many of the "tories"
became bushwhackers, preying impartially on friend and foe, and especially
on the people of the rich Tennessee valley.[247]
Growth of Disaffection
The invasion of the Tennessee valley had discouraging effects on the
weaker element of the population, and caused many to take a rather
degrading position in order to secure Federal protection for themselves
and their property. To call the tories and those who submitted and took
the oath "unionists" would be honoring them too highly. Little true
"Union" sentiment or true devotion to the United States existed except on
the part of those who enlisted in the Federal armies. In October, 1862, C.
C. Clay, Jr., wrote to the Secretary of War at Richmond that the Federal
invasion had resulted in open defiance of Confederate authority on the
part of some who believed that the Confederacy was too weak to protect or
punish. Even loyal southerners were afraid to be active for fear of a
return of the Union troops. Some had sold cotton to the Federals during
their occupation, bought it for them, acted as agents, spies, and
informers; and now these men openly declared for the Union and signed
calls for Union meetings. Huntsville, Mr. Clay stated, was the centre of
disaffection.[248] But in April, 1863, a northern cotton speculator
reported that there were but few "true Union men" at Huntsville or in the
vicinity.[249]
Though not fully in sympathy with the secession movement, the majority of
the people in the northern counties acquiesced in the action of the state,
and many volunteers entered the army. Until late in the war this district
sent as many men in proportion to population as any other section, and the
men made good soldiers. But with the opening of the Tennessee and the
passage of the conscription laws the mountaineers and the hill people
became troublesome. To avoid conscription they hid themselves. Their
families, with their slender resources, were soon in want of the
necessaries of life, which they began to obtain by raids on their more
fortunate neighbors in the river valleys. A few entered the Federal army.
In July, 1862, small parties came to Decatur, in Morgan County, from the
mountains and joined the Federal forces under the command of Colonel
Streight. They told him of others who wished to enlist, so Streight made
an expedition to Davis Gap, in the mountains south of Decatur, and secured
150 recruits.
These formed the nucleus of the First Alabama Union Cavalry, of which
George E. Spencer of Ohio, afterward notorious in Alabama politics, was
colonel. At this time C. C. Sheets, who said that he had been in hiding,
appeared and made a speech encouraging all to enlist. Streight said that
the "unionists" were poor people, often destitute. There were, he
reported, about three "unionists" to one "secessionist" in parts of
Morgan, Blount, St. Clair, Winston, Walker, Marion, Taylor, and Jefferson
counties, and he thought two full regiments could be raised near Decatur.
Though so few in numbers, the "secessionists" seem to have made it lively
for the "unionists," for Streight reported that the "unionists" were much
persecuted by them and often had to hide themselves.[250] The Confederate
commander at Newberne, in Greene County, reported (January, 1862) that in
an adjoining county the "Union" men were secretly organizing, that 300 had
met, elected officers, and gone into camp.[251] A month later,
Lieutenant-Commander Phelps of the United States navy, after his river
raid to Florence (1862), reported that along the Tennessee the "Union"
sentiment was strong, and that men, women, and children in crowds welcomed
the boats. However, he adds that they were very guarded in their
conversation. It may be that he mistook curiosity for "Union" sentiment.
Another naval officer reported that the fall of Fort Donelson was
beneficial to the Union cause in north Alabama. Neither of these observers
landed, and their observations were limited to the river banks.[252] In
June, 1862, Governor Shorter said that much dissatisfaction existed in
several of the northern counties,[253] and in December, 1862, that
Randolph County was defying the enforcement of the conscript law, and
armed forces were releasing deserters from jail. Colonel Hannon was at
length sent with a regiment and suppressed for a time the disloyal
element.[254] September 21, 1862, General Pillow reported to Seddon that
there were 8000 to 10,000 deserters and tory conscripts in the mountains
of north Alabama, as "vicious as copperheads."[255] In April, 1863, a
civilian of influence and position wrote to General Beauregard that the
counties of north Alabama were full of tories. During 1862, he stated, a
convention had been held in the corner of Winston, Fayette, and Marion
counties, in which the people had resolved to remain neutral. He believed
that this meant that when the enemy appeared the so-called neutrals would
join them, for they openly carried United States flags.[256] A similar
convention was held in north Alabama (apparently in Winston County) in the
spring of 1863. A staff officer reported to General Beauregard (May, 1864)
that in the counties of Lawrence, Blount, and Winston, Federal recruiting
agents for mounted regiments carried on open correspondence with the
disaffected citizens,[257] apparently with little success, for although
disaffection and hostility to the Confederacy among the people of north
Alabama had continued for three years, and there was every opportunity for
entering the Federal army, yet the official statistics give the total
number of enlistments and reënlistments of whites from Alabama at
2576.[258]
In 1862 deserters from the army began to gather in the more remote
districts of the state. Many of them had been enrolled under the conscript
law, and had become dissatisfied. As the war went on the number of these
deserters increased, until their presence in the state became a menace to
government. After the Confederate reverses in the summer of 1863, great
numbers of deserters and stragglers from all of the Confederate armies
east of the Mississippi River and from the Union armies collected among
the hills, mountains, and ravines of north Alabama. A large portion of
them became outlaws of the worst character. In August, 1863, the general
assembly passed a law directing the state officials and the militia
officers to assist the Confederate enrolling officers in enforcing the
conscript law, and in returning deserters to their commands. The state and
county jails were offered as places to confine the deserters until they
could be sent back to the army. To give food and shelter to deserters was
declared a felony, and civilians were authorized to arrest them.[259]
The deserters and stragglers of north Alabama were well armed and somewhat
organized, and kept the people in terror. General Pillow thought that the
temporary suspension of the conscript law had made them bolder. Eleven
counties were infested with them. No man was safe in travelling along the
roads, for murders, robberies, and burnings were common, and peaceable
citizens were shot while at work in the fields. It was estimated that in
July, 1863, there were 8000 to 10,000 tories and deserters in the
mountains of north Alabama, and these banded themselves together to kill
the officers sent to arrest them. It was impossible to keep a certain
class of men in the army when they were encamped near their homes.[260]
Even good soldiers, when so stationed, sometimes deserted. Had these same
men been in the Army of Northern Virginia, they would have done their duty
well. But here, near their home, many influences led them to desert. There
was little fighting, and they could see no reason why they should be kept
away from their suffering families.
General Pillow, in the fall of 1863, forced several thousand deserters and
stragglers from Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas, who were in hiding in
north Alabama, to return to their commands. The legislature commended his
work and asked that his jurisdiction be extended over a larger area, even
over the whole Confederacy.[261] In April, 1864, the Ninth Texas Cavalry
was sent against the "unionists" in Marion County. The colonel reported
that the number of tories had been greatly exaggerated, though the woods
seemed to be swarming with deserters, and he learned that they had a
secret organization.[262] The deserters always infested the wildest and
most remote parts of the country, and were found wherever disaffection
toward the Confederacy had appeared. The Texans, who had no local
attachments to interfere with their duty, drove back into the army several
thousand "stragglers," as the better class of deserters were called.[263]
General Polk reported (April, 1864) that in north Alabama formidable bands
were being organized for resistance to the government, and that hostility
to the Confederacy was openly proclaimed by them. He sent out detachments
which forced more than a thousand men to leave the woods and hills and
return to the army.[264] When Alabama soldiers were captured or deserted
to the enemy, it was the custom of the Federals to send them north of the
Ohio River, and to offer to enlist as many as possible in regiments to
fight the Indians in the West. Some took advantage of the offer and thus
avoided prison life. Such men were called "galvanized Yankees" and were
hated by the loyal soldiers. Early in 1865, J. J. Giers, a prominent tory,
wrote General Grant that if Alabama deserters were permitted to remain
near home their numbers would increase.[265]
Outrages by Tories and Deserters
The tory and the deserter often led squads of Federal soldiers on
expeditions of destruction and pillage. When possible, they would burn the
county court-houses, jails, and other public buildings, with the books and
records of the counties. Sometimes disguised as Union troops, they
committed the worst outrages. On one occasion four men, dressed as
soldiers, went to the house of an old man named Wilson, three miles from
Florence, and searched it for money supposed to be hidden there. As the
old man would tell them nothing, they stripped him to the waist, tied him
face downward upon a table, tore leaves from a large Bible, and, piling
them on him, burned him to death. His nephew, unable to tell about the
money, was shot and killed. A grandson was shot and wounded, and left for
dead. The overseer, coming up, was shot and killed in spite of the appeals
of his wife. Senator R. M. Patton had the wounded boy taken to Florence,
where the same band came the next night and demanded him. Upon being
refused, they fired repeatedly into the house until they were driven away.
They then went to the house of a druggist, and, failing to find money,
burned him as they had Wilson. Though fearfully burned, he survived. Two
of the band, natives of Florence, were captured, court-martialled by the
Federal authorities, and hanged.[266]
Twenty Federals, or disguised tories, led by a tory from Madison County,
killed an old man, his son, a nephew and his son, and wounded a fifth
person, who was then thrown into the Tennessee River. When he caught the
bush on the bank, he was beaten and shot until he turned loose. An
enrolling officer was made to wade out into the river, and then was shot
from the bank. An overseer who had hidden some stock was hanged. A
Confederate officer was robbed of several thousand dollars and driven from
the country.[267]
The tories, who were often deserters from the armies, gathered in the hill
country and watched for an opportunity to descend into the valley to rob,
burn, and murder. One family had the following experience with Federal
troops or "unionists": On the first raid six mules, five horses, a wagon,
and fifty-two negroes were taken; on the second, the remainder of the
mules, a cart, the milch cows, some meat, and the cooking utensils. On the
third the wagons were loaded with the last of the meat, and all of the
sugar, coffee, molasses, flour, meal, and potatoes. The mother of the
family told the officer in charge that they were taking away their only
means of subsistence, and that the family would starve. "Starve and be
d--d," was the reply. Then the buggy and the carriage harness and cushions
were taken, and the carriage cut to pieces. The house was searched for
money. Closets and trunks were broken open, the offer of keys being
refused. Clothing and bedding, dishes, knives and forks were taken, and
whatever could not be carried was broken. The "Destroying Angels," as they
called themselves, then burned the gin-house and cotton press with one
hundred and twenty-five bales of cotton, seven cribs of corn, stables, and
stacks of fodder, a wagon, four negro cabins, the lumber room, $500 worth
of thread, axes, hoes, scythe-blades, and other plantation implements.
They started to burn the dwelling house, but the woman pleaded that it was
the only shelter for her children and herself. "You may thank your good
fortune, madam, that we have left you and your d--d brats with your heads
to be sheltered," answered one of the "Destroying Angels." Then an officer
galloped up, claimed to be much astonished, and ordered away the men.[268]
The tories or "unionists" of the mountains, instead of joining the Federal
army, formed bands of "Destroying Angels," "Prowling Brigades," etc., to
prey upon their lowland neighbors. All the able-bodied loyal men were in
the army, and there were no defenders. During the Federal occupation these
marauders harassed the country. When the Confederates temporarily
occupied the country, they tried to drive out the brigands, whence arose
the "persecution of unionists" that we read about. Thousands of
Confederate sympathizers were driven from their homes during the Federal
occupation in 1862. When the Union army retreated in 1862, attempts at
retaliation were made by those who had suffered, but this was strictly
suppressed by the state and Confederate authorities. An officer was
dismissed for cruelty to "unionists," and the state troops destroyed a
band of deserters and guerillas who were preying upon the "union" people
in the mountain districts. Marion, Walker, and Winston counties were
especially infested with tories.[269]
In 1864, when there were few Confederate troops in north Alabama, the
tories were very troublesome in De Kalb, Marshall, Marion, Winston,
Walker, Lawrence, and Fayette counties, and the poor people were largely
under their control. Among the hills were deserters from both armies, and
these, banded with the tory element, reduced the helpless poor whites to
submission. These men were few in comparison with the total population,
but most of the able-bodied loyal men were in the army, and the tories and
deserters were almost unchecked.[270] Sometimes the Confederate soldiers
from north Alabama would get furloughs, come home, and clear the country
of tories, who had been terrorizing the people. Short work was made of
them when the soldiers found them. Some were shot, others were hanged, and
the remainder driven out of the country for a time.[271]
After their occupation of north Alabama, the Federal commanders were
embarrassed by the violent clamorings of the "unionists" for revenge, and
for superior privileges over the non-unionist population. Material
advantage and personal dislikes were too often the basic principles of
their unionism. They were extremely vindictive, demanding that all
Confederate sympathizers be driven from the country. Thus they made
themselves a nuisance to the Federal officers, and especially was this
true of the small lowland tory element. Subjugation, banishment, hanging,
confiscation,--was the programme planned by the "loyalists." They wanted
the country "pacified" and then turned over to themselves. Though they
claimed to be numerous, no instance is found where they proposed to do
anything for themselves; they seemed to think that the sole duty of the
United States army in Alabama was to look after their interests. The
northerners who had dealings with the "loyalist" did not like him, as he
was a most unpleasant person, with a grievance which could not be righted
to his satisfaction without giving rise to numerous other grievances.
Some qualifications of loyalty seem to have been: a certain mild
disapproval of secession, a refusal to enlist in the Confederate army or
desertion after enlisting, hiding in the woods to avoid conscript
officers. These qualifications, or any of them, the "loyalist" thought
entitled him to the everlasting gratitude and protection of the United
States. But a newspaper correspondent, who was on a sharp lookout for all
signs of weakness in the Confederacy, said: "You can tell the southern
loyalists as far as you can see them. They all have black or yellow skins
and kinky hair." Sometimes, he added, there was a white "unionist," but
this was rare, and the exceptions in any town in north Alabama could be
counted on the fingers of one hand.[272] As long as the war lasted the
lawless element fared well, and when peace should come they hoped for a
division of the spoils.[273]
Disaffection in South Alabama
So much for toryism in the northern part of the state. There were also
manifestations of a disloyal spirit in the extreme inaccessible corner of
the state next to Florida and Georgia, where the population of the
sparsely settled country was almost entirely non-slave-holding. Though
most of the people were Democrats, they were somewhat opposed to
secession. Delegates were elected, however, to the convention of 1861, who
voted for secession, and after the war began nearly or quite all of those
who had opposed secession heartily supported the Confederacy. If there
were any "union" men, they kept very quiet, and for two years there was
no trouble.[274] But during the winter of 1862-1863, numerous outrages
were committed by outlaws who were called, indiscriminately, tories and
deserters. Much trouble was given by an organization called the First
Florida Union Cavalry, which for two years committed various outrages
while on bushwhacking expeditions under the leadership of one Joseph
Sanders. After being soundly beaten one night by the citizens of Newton,
in Dale County, these marauders were less troublesome.[275] The country
near the Gulf coast was infested with tories, deserters, and runaway
slaves, concealed in caves, "tight-eyes,"[276] canebrakes, swamps, and the
thick woods of the sparsely settled country. In January, 1863, Governor
Shorter wrote to President Davis that nearly all the loyal population of
southeast Alabama was in the army, and that the country was suffering from
the outrages of tories and deserters. About the same time, Colonel Price
"suppressed unionism and treason in Henry County," though only one
prisoner was reported as being taken.[277]
In August of the same year (1863) conditions had grown worse. General
Howell Cobb reported that there was a disloyal feeling in southeast
Alabama, but that there was no way to reach the offenders, as they were
guilty of no overt act, and therefore the military courts could not try
them. To turn them over to the civil authorities in that district would
secure only a farcical trial, and the justices of the peace, though
assuming the highest jurisdiction, were ignorant, and there was little
chance of conviction. At this time, Governor Shorter said that affairs in
lower Henry County were in bad condition; that the deserter element was
strong and threatened the security of loyal people; and that the soldiers
were afraid to leave their families.[278] A judge could not hold court
unless he had a military escort.
During the next year matters grew worse in this section as well as in
north Alabama. Some of the best soldiers felt compelled to go home, even
without permission, to protect or to support their families; and in
October, 1864, the legislature recognized this condition of affairs, and
asked the Alabama soldiers, then absent without leave, to return to their
duty under promise of lenient treatment.[279]
The worst depredations were committed during the winter of 1864-1865, in
the counties of Dale, Henry, and Coffee. The loyal people in the thinly
settled country were terrorized. The legislature, unable to protect them,
authorized them to band themselves together in military form for
protection against the outlaws. These bands of self-constituted "Home
Guards," composed of boys and old men, captured numbers of the outlaws and
straightway hanged them.
Desertions from the regiments raised in the white counties were often
caused by denying to recruits or conscripts the privilege of choosing the
command in which they should serve. Others deserted because their families
were exposed to tory depredations and Federal raids, or were in want of
the necessaries of life. These would have returned to the army after
providing for their families had they been permitted to join other
organizations and not subjected to punishment. Assigned arbitrarily to
commands in need of recruits, some became dissatisfied, and deserted. A
deserter was an outlaw and found it impossible to remain neutral. Hence
many joined the bands of outlaws to pillage, and burn, and steal horses
and cattle. Others of better character joined the Federals or became
tories, that is, allied themselves with the original tories in order to
work against the Confederacy. Numbers of these disaffected people had once
been secessionists.[280]
Prominent Tories and Deserters
In view of the fact that the "unionists" were to play an important part in
Reconstruction, it will be of interest to examine the records of the most
prominent tories and deserters. A few prominent men joined the Federals
during the course of the war, though none did so before the Union army
occupied the Tennessee valley. Only one of these tried to assume any
leadership over the so-called unionists. This was William H. Smith, who
had come within a few votes of being elected to the Confederate Congress,
and was later the first Reconstruction governor. He went over to the enemy
in 1862, and did much toward securing the enlistment of the 2576 Union
soldiers from Alabama.
At the same time, a more important character, General Jeremiah
Clemens,[281] who had been in command of the militia of Alabama with the
rank of major-general, became disgruntled and went over to the enemy. In
the secession convention, Clemens had declared that he "walked
deliberately into rebellion" and was prepared for all its
consequences.[282] He first opposed, then voted for, the ordinance of
secession, and afterwards accepted the office of commander of the militia
under the "Republic of Alabama." For a year Clemens was loyal to the
"rebellion," but in 1862 he had seen the light and wished to go to
Washington as the representative of north Alabama to learn from President
Lincoln in what way the controversy might be ended. The Washington
administration, by that time, had little faith in any following he might
have, and when Clemens with John Bell started to Washington, Stanton
advised them to stay at home and use their influence for the Union.[283]
George W. Lane, also of Madison County, was a prominent man who cast his
lot with the Federals. Lane never recognized secession, and was an
outspoken Unionist from the beginning. He was appointed Federal judge by
Lincoln and died in 1864.[284] In April, 1861, Clemens wrote to the
Confederate Secretary of War that the acceptance of a United States
judgeship by Lane was treason, and that the "north Alabama men would
gladly hang him."[285] General O. M. Mitchell seemed to think that the
negroes were the only "truly loyal," but he recommended in May, 1862,
that, when a military government should be established in Alabama, George
W. Lane, the United States district judge appointed by Lincoln, be
appointed military governor. Lane's faded United States flag still flew
from the staff to which he had nailed it at the beginning of the war, and
his appointment as governor, Mitchell thought, would give the greatest
satisfaction to Huntsville and to all north Alabama.[286]
Two members of the convention of 1861, besides Clemens, deserted to the
Federals. These were C. C. Sheets and D. P. Lewis. Like Clemens, they were
elected as coöperationists and opposed immediate secession, though all
three voted for the resolution declaring that Alabama would not submit to
the rule of Lincoln. Sheets voted against secession and would not sign the
ordinance. For a while he remained quietly at home and refused to enter
the Confederate army. At length he reappeared from his place of hiding and
assisted in recruiting soldiers for the First Alabama Union Cavalry. He
was elected to the state legislature, but in 1862 was expelled for
disloyalty. After some time in hiding, he was arrested, and imprisoned for
treason. General Thomas retaliated by arresting and holding as a hostage
General McDowell. Sheets remained in prison until the end of the war.[287]
David P. Lewis of Madison County voted against secession but signed the
ordinance, and was elected to the Provisional Congress by the convention,
and in 1863 was appointed circuit judge by the governor. This position he
held for a few months, and then deserted to the Federals. During the
remainder of the war he lived quietly at Nashville.[288]
Another prominent citizen of Madison County, Judge D. C. Humphreys, joined
the Federals late in the war. Humphreys had been in the Confederate army
and had resigned. He was arrested by General Roddy on the charge of
disloyalty. It is not known that he was ever tried or put into prison, but
in January, 1865, Hon. C. C. Clay, Sr., and other prominent citizens of
Huntsville, of southern sympathies, all old men, were arrested and carried
to prison in Nashville as hostages for the safety of Humphreys, who had
been released by order of the Confederate War Department as soon as the
rumor of his arrest reached Richmond.[289] In April, 1864, General
Clanton, commanding in north Alabama, sent Governor Watts a Nashville
paper in which Jeremiah Clemens, "the arch traitor," and that "crazy man,"
Humphreys, figured as advisers to their fellow-citizens of Alabama in
recommending submission.[290] There are indications that several such
addresses were issued by Clemens, Humphreys, Lane, and others from the
safety of the Federal lines, but the text of none of them has been found
except those written and published when the war was nearly ended.
Of the men of position and influence who were found in the ranks of
opposition to the Confederate government after 1861, Judge Lane is the
only one whose course can command respect. He was faithful to the Union
from first to last, while the others were erratic persons who changed
sides because of personal spites and disappointments. They had little or
no influence over, and nothing in common with, the dissatisfied mountain
people and the tories and deserters.[291]
Numbers of the Disaffected
At the surrender the deserters came in in large numbers to be paroled. The
reports of the Federal generals who received the surrender of the
Confederate armies in the southwest show a surprisingly large number of
Confederates paroled. A large proportion of them were deserters,
"mossbacks," and tories, who, hated by the Confederate soldiers and
fearing that the latter would seek revenge for their misdeeds during the
war, felt that it would be some protection to take the oath, be paroled,
and secure the certificate. Then, they thought, the United States
government would see to their safety. At the surrender of a Confederate
command in their vicinity, they flocked in from their retreats and were
paroled as Confederate soldiers. To show how large this element in
Mississippi and Alabama was, when General Dick Taylor surrendered, May 4,
1865, at Meridian, Mississippi, he had not more than 8000 real soldiers,
or men under arms. It is possible, though not probable, that many were
absent with leave. Yet of the 42,293 soldiers paroled in the armies of the
Southwest[292] about 30,000 of them were at Meridian. Many of these had
never been in the army; some had served in both armies; none had been in
either for a long time. For weeks they kept coming in at all points where
a United States officer was stationed in order to be paroled. The soldiers
were furious. The statistics show[293] that strong Confederate armies were
surrendered in this section of the country, when, as a matter of fact, the
governor of Alabama had for two years been unable to secure sufficient
military support to enforce the laws over more than half of the
state.[294]
It is difficult to estimate the number of disaffected persons within the
limits of the state. Probably in southeast Alabama there were in all, of
tories and deserters, 1000 who at times were actively hostile to the
Confederate authorities, and who committed depredations on the loyal
people, and 1000 or 1500 more would include the "mossbacks" and
obstructionists, who were without the courage to do more than keep out of
the army and talk sedition. In addition to the 2576 enlistments in the
Federal army credited to Alabama, it is probable that several hundred more
were enlisted in northern regiments. Some of these were the Confederate
prisoners captured late in the war and enlisted as "Galvanized Yankees" in
the United States regiments sent West to fight the Indians.
Of deserters, tories, and "mossbacks" there could not have been less than
8000 or 10,000 in north Alabama. Of these, at least half were in active
depredation all over the section. There were several thousand deserters
from the Alabama troops, most of them from north Alabama and from commands
stationed near their homes. At the beginning of the war there were
probably no more than 2000 men who were wholly disaffected,[295] and
these only to the extent of desiring neutrality for themselves.
On November 30, 1864, the Confederate "Deserter Book" showed that since
April, 1864, 7994 Alabama soldiers had deserted or been absent without
leave from the armies of the West and of Northern Virginia. Of these 4323
were again in the ranks, leaving still to be accounted for 3671 men. There
were many deserters in the hills of Alabama from the commands from other
states. After the fall of Atlanta, the number of stragglers and deserters
greatly increased, and late in 1864 it was estimated that 6000 of them
were in the state, some in every county; there being no longer a force to
drive them back to the army. For a year or more the force for this purpose
had been very weak.[296]
Much of the toryism and of the trouble resulting from it was due to the
weak policy of the Confederate authorities in dealing with discontent and
in protecting the loyal people in exposed districts. Many a man had to
desert in order to protect his family from outlaws, and was then easily
driven into toryism.
There was a mild annoyance of the more peaceable tories by the Confederate
officials in the spasmodic attempts to enforce the conscription laws, but
it amounted to very little. The loyal southern people suffered more from
the depredations of the disaffected "union" people of north and southeast
Alabama than the latter suffered from all causes combined. The state and
Confederate authorities were very lenient--too much so--in their treatment
of these people. There was no great need of a strong Confederate force in
north Alabama, since only raids, not invasions in force, were to be
feared; yet the governments--both state and Confederate--were guilty of
neglect in leaving so many of the people at the mercy of the outlaws when,
as shown in several instances, two or three thousand good soldiers could
march through the country and scatter the bands that infested it. Assuming
that the state had a right to demand obedience and support from its
citizens, it was weak and reprehensible conduct on the part of the
authorities to allow three or four thousand malcontents and outlaws to
demoralize a third of the state. Often the families of tories and
"mossbacks" were supplied from the state and county stores for the
destitute families of soldiers, while the men of such families were in the
Federal service or were hiding in the woods, caves, and ravines, or were
plundering the families of loyal soldiers. Not enough arrests were made,
and too many were released. The majority of the troublesome class was of
the kind who preferred to take no stand that incurred the fulfilment of
obligations. In an emergency they would incline toward the stronger side.
Prompt and rigorous measures, similar to the policy of the United States
in the Middle West, stringently maintained, would have converted this
source of weakness into a source of strength, or at least would have
rendered it harmless. The military resources of that section of the state
could then have been better developed, the helpless people protected,
outlaws crushed, and there would have been peace after the war was
ended.[297] As it was, the animosities then aroused smouldered on until
they flamed again in one phase of the Ku Klux movement.[298]
SEC. 5. PARTY POLITICS AND THE PEACE MOVEMENT
Political Conditions, 1861-1865
When, by the passage of the ordinance of January 11, 1861, the advocates
of immediate secession had gained their end, the strong men of the
victorious party, for the sake of harmony, stood aside, and intrusted much
of the important work of organizing the new government to the defeated
coöperationist party, who, to say the least, disapproved of the whole
policy of the victors. The delegates chosen to the Provisional Congress
were: R. H. Walker of Huntsville, a Union Whig, who had supported Bell and
Everett and opposed secession; Robert H. Smith, a pronounced Whig, who had
supported Bell and Everett and opposed secession; Colin J. McRae of
Mobile, a commission merchant, a Whig; John Gill Shorter of Eufaula, who
had held judicial office for nine years; William P. Chilton of Montgomery,
for several years chief justice and before that an active Whig; Stephen F.
Hale of Eutaw, a Whig who supported Bell and Everett; David P. Lewis of
Lawrence, an "unconditional Unionist" who had opposed secession in the
convention of 1861, and who, in 1862, deserted to the Federals; Dr. Thomas
Fearn of Huntsville, an old man, a Union Whig; and J. L. M. Curry of
Talladega, the only consistent Democrat of the delegation, the only one
who had voted for Breckenridge, and the only one with practical experience
in public affairs. The delegation was strong in character, but weak in
political ability and not energetic.[299] The delegation elected to the
first regular Congress was more representative and more able.
[Illustration: CIVIL WAR LEADERS.
GOVERNOR THOMAS H. WATTS.
GOVERNOR JOHN GILL SHORTER.
GOVERNOR ANDREW B. MOORE.
BISHOP R. H. WILMER.]
In August, 1861, John Gill Shorter, a State Rights Democrat, was elected
governor by a vote of 57,849 to 28,127 over Thomas Hill Watts, also a
State Rights Democrat, who had voted for secession, but who had formerly
been a Whig. Watts was not a regular candidate since he had forbidden the
use of his name in the canvass.[300] For a time the people
enthusiastically supported the administration. Governor Shorter's message
of October 28, 1861, to the legislature closed with the words: "We may
well congratulate ourselves and return thanks that a timely action on our
part has saved our liberties, preserved our independence, and given us, it
is hoped, a perpetual separation from such a government. May we in all
coming time stand separate from it, as if a wall of fire intervened."[301]
The legislature in 1861 declared that it was the imperative duty as well
as the patriotic privilege of every citizen, forgetting past differences,
to support the policy adopted and to maintain the independence assumed. To
this cause the members of the general assembly pledged their lives,
fortunes, and sacred honor.[302] A year later the same body declared that
Mobile, then threatened by the enemy, must never be desecrated by the
polluting tread of the abolitionist foe. It must never be surrendered, but
must be defended from street to street, from house to house, and at last
burned to the ground rather than surrendered.[303] The same legislature,
elected in 1861 when the war feeling was strong, stated in August, 1863,
that the war was unprovoked and unjust on the part of the United States
government, which was conducting it in utter disregard of the principles
which should control and regulate civilized warfare. They renewed the
pledge never to submit to abolitionist rule. The people were urged not to
be discouraged by the late reverses, nor to attribute their defeats to any
want of courage or heroic self-sacrifice on the part of the armies. All
the resources of the state were pledged to the cause of independence and
perpetual separation from the United States. It was the paramount duty,
the assembly declared, of every citizen to sustain and make effective the
armies by encouraging enlistments, by furnishing supplies at low prices to
the families of soldiers, and by upholding the credit of the Confederate
government. To enfeeble the springs of action by disheartening the people
and the soldiers was to strike the most fatal blow at the very life of the
Confederacy.[304]
This resolution was called forth partly by the constant criticism that the
"cross-roads" politicians and a few individuals of more importance were
directing against the civil and military policy of the administration. The
doughty warriors of the office and counter were sure that the "Yankees"
should have been whipped in ninety days. That the war was still going on
was proof to them that those at the head of affairs were incompetent.
These people had never before had so good an opportunity to talk and to be
listened to. Those to whom the people had been accustomed to look for
guidance were no longer present to advise. They had marched away with the
armies, and there were left at home as voters the old men, the exempts,
the lame, the halt, and the blind, teachers, preachers, officials,
"bomb-proofs," "feather beds"[305]--all, in short, who were most unlikely
to favor a vigorous war policy and who, if subject to service, wanted to
keep out of the army. Consequently, among the voting population at home,
the war spirit was not as high in 1863 as it had been before so many of
the best men enlisted in the army.[306] The occupation of north Alabama by
the enemy, short crops in 1862, and reverses in the field such as
Vicksburg and Gettysburg, had a chilling effect on the spirit of those
who had suffered or were likely to suffer. The conscription law was
unpopular among those forced into the service; it was much more disliked
by those who succeeded for a time in escaping conscription. These lived in
constant fear that the time would come when they would be forced to their
duty.[307]
Further, the official class and the lawmakers were not up to the old
standard of force and ability. The men who had the success of the cause
most at heart usually felt it to be their duty to fight for it, if
possible, leaving lawmaking and administration to others of more peaceable
disposition. Some of the latter were able men, but few were filled with
the spirit that animated the soldier class. Many of these unwarlike
statesmen in the legislature and in Congress thought it to be their
especial duty to guard the liberties of the people against the
encroachments of the military power. They would talk by the hour about
state rights, but would allow a few thousand of the sovereign state's
disloyal citizens to demoralize a dozen counties rather than consent to
infringe the liberties of the people by making the militia system more
effective to repress disorder. They succeeded in weakening the efforts of
both state and Confederate governments, and their well-meant arguments
drawn from the works of Jefferson were never remembered to their credit.
One of the best of these men--Judge Dargan, a member of Congress from
Mobile--seems to have had a very unhappy disposition, and he spent much of
his time writing to the governor and to the President in regard to the
critical state of the country and suggesting numberless plans for its
salvation. Among many things that were visionary he advanced some original
schemes. In 1863 he proposed a plan for the gradual emancipation of
slaves, later a plan for arming them, and suggested that blockade running
be prohibited, as it was ruining the country.[308]
Even while the tide of war feeling was at the flood there occurred
instances of friction between the state and the Confederate governments.
In December, 1862, the legislature complained of the continued use of the
railroads by the Confederate government, to the exclusion of private
transportation. The railroads were built, it was stated, for free
intercourse between the states, and, since the blockade had become
effective, were more important than ever in the transportation of the
necessaries of life.[309] The legislature complained about the conduct of
the Confederate officers in the state, about impressment, taxation, and
redemption of state bonds, the state's quota of troops for the Confederate
service, about arms and supplies purchased by the state, and about trade
through the lines. Suits were brought again and again in the state courts
by the strict constructionists to test the constitutionality of the
conscript laws and the law forbidding the hiring of substitutes. But the
courts declared both laws constitutional.[310] The lawmakers of the state
were much more afraid of militarism than of the Federal invasion or
domestic disorder, and refused to organize the militia effectively.[311]
The military reverses in the summer of 1863 darkened the hopes of the
people and chilled their waning enthusiasm, and the effect was shown in
the elections of August. Thomas H. Watts, who had been defeated in 1861,
was elected governor by a vote of 22,223 to 6342 over John G. Shorter, who
had been governor for two years. Watts had a strong personal following,
which partly accounted for the large majority; but several thousand, at
least, were dissatisfied in some way with the state or the Confederate
administration. Jemison, a former coöperationist, took Yancey's place in
the Confederate Senate. J. L. M. Curry was defeated for Congress because
he had strongly supported the administration. The delegation elected to
the second Congress was of a decidedly different temper from the
delegation to the first Congress. A large number of hitherto unknown men
were elected to the legislature.[312]
At the close of the term of Governor Shorter, the new legislature passed
resolutions indorsing his policy in regard to the conduct of the war and
commending his wise and energetic administration.[313] Other resolutions
were passed which would seem to indicate that the war feeling ran as high
and strong as ever. In fact, it was only the voice of the majority, not of
all, as before. There was a strong minority of malcontents who pursued a
policy of obstruction and opposition to the measures of the administration
and thereby weakened the power of the government. It was believed by many
that Watts, who had been a Whig and a Bell and Everett elector, would be
more conservative in regard to the prosecution of the war than was his
predecessor. There were numbers of people in the state who believed or
professed to believe that it was possible to end the war whenever
President Davis might choose to make peace with the enemy. Others, who saw
that peace with independence was impossible, were in favor of
reconstruction, that is, of ending the war at once and returning to the
old Union, with no questions asked. They believed that the North would be
ready to make peace and welcome the southern states back into the Union on
the old terms. These constituted only a small part of the population, but
they had some influence in an obstructive way and were great talkers. Any
one who voted for Watts from the belief that he would try to bring about
peace was much mistaken in the man. It was reported that he was in favor
of reconstruction. This he emphatically denied in a message to the
legislature: "He who is now ... in favor of reconstruction with the states
under Lincoln's dominion, is a traitor in his heart to the state ... and
deserves a traitor's doom.... Rather than unite with such a people I would
see the Confederate states desolated with fire and sword.... Let us prefer
death to a life of cowardly shame."[314] Though Watts was elected somewhat
as a protest against the war party, he was in favor of a vigorous
prosecution of the war. However, at times, he had trouble with the
Confederate government, and we find him writing about "the tyranny of
Confederate officials," that "the state had some rights left," that "there
will be a conflict between the Confederate and state authorities unless
the conscript officials cease to interfere with state volunteers and state
officials."[315]
The governor was in favor of supporting the war, and recommended the
repeal of some of the state laws obstructing Confederate enlistments; he
was willing for any state troops that were available to go to the aid of
another state, and he desired to aid in returning deserters to the army;
but he opposed the manner of execution of laws by the Confederate
government. He demanded for the state the right to engage in the blockade
trade in order to secure necessaries. He also protested against the
proposed policy of arming the slaves.[316]
During the year 1864 the legislature protested against the action of
Confederate conscript officers who insisted on enrolling certain state
officials. It was ordered that the reserves, when called out for service,
should not be put under the command of a Confederate officer. The
first-class reserves were not to leave their own counties. An act was
passed to protect the people from "oppression by the illegal execution of
the Confederate impressment laws."[317] Confederate enrolling officers who
forced exempt men into the army were made liable to punishment by heavy
fine.[318]
An Alabama newspaper, in the fall of 1864, advocated a convention of the
states in order to settle the questions at issue, to bring about peace,
and to restore the Union. Such a proposition found supporters in the
legislature. A resolution was introduced favoring reconstruction on the
basis of the recent platform of the Democratic party and McClellan's
letter of acceptance.[319] The resolution was to this effect: if the
Democratic party is successful in 1864, we are willing to open
negotiations for peace on the basis indicated in the platform adopted by
the convention; provided that our sister states of the Confederacy are
willing. A lengthy and heated discussion followed. The governor sent in a
message asking "who would desire a political union with those who have
murdered our sons, outraged our women, with demoniac malice wantonly
destroyed our property, and now seek to make slaves of us!" It would cause
civil war, he said, if the people at home attempted such a course. After
the reading of the message and some further debate, both houses united in
a declaration that extermination was preferable to reconstruction
according to the _Lincoln_ plan. The proposed resolution, the extended
debate, the governor's message, all clearly indicate a strong desire on
the part of some to end the war and return to the Union.[320]
With the opening of 1865 conditions in Alabama were not favorable to the
war party: the old coöperationists, with other malcontents, were charging
the Davis administration with every political crime; the state
administration was disorganized in half the counties; deserters and
stragglers were scattered throughout the state; and many of the state and
county officials were disaffected. Those who were in favor of war were in
the armies. Had the war continued until the August election, there is no
doubt that an administration would have been elected which would have
refused further support to the Confederacy. Had it not been for fear of
the soldier element, the malcontents at home could have controlled affairs
in the fall of 1864. For a year there had been indications that the
discontented were thinking of a _coup d'état_ and an immediate close of
the war. The formation of secret societies pledged to bring about peace
was a sign of formidable discontent.
The Peace Society
It was after the reverses of 1863 that the enthusiasm of the people for
the war very perceptibly declined. For the first time, many felt that
perhaps after all their cause would not win, and that the horrors of war
might be brought home to them by hostile invasion of their country. Public
opinion was more or less despondent. There was a searching for scapegoats
and a more pronounced hostility to the administration. The "cross-roads"
statesmen were sure that a different policy under another leader would
have been crowned with success, though what this policy should have been,
perhaps no two would have agreed. This feeling was largely confined to the
less well informed, but it was also found in a number of the old-time
conservatives who would never believe that extreme measures were
justifiable in any event, and who could never get over a feeling of
horror at all that the Democrats might do. If left alone, they thought,
time would have brought all things right in the end. It was as painful to
them to think that Lincoln was marching armies over the fragments of the
United States Constitution, as that the Davis administration was
strangling state sovereignty in the Confederate States. Their minds never
rose above the narrow legalism of their books. But they were few in
numbers as compared with the more ignorant people (who were conscious only
of dissatisfaction and suffering) who had willingly plunged into the war
"to whip the Yankees in ninety days," and who now thought that all that
had to be done to bring peace was to signify to the North a willingness to
stop fighting. This course, many thought, need not result in a loss of
their independence. Later they were minded to come back into the Union on
the old terms, and later still they were ready to make peace without
conditions and return to the Union. It seems never to have occurred to
them that northern opinion had changed since 1861, and that severe terms
of readmission would be exacted. The hardest condition likely to be
imposed, they thought, would be the gradual emancipation of the slaves. As
a rule, they owned few slaves, but such a condition would probably have
been considered harder by them than by the larger slaveholders who felt
that slavery had come to an end, no matter how the struggle might result.
This dissatisfaction culminated in the formation of numerous secret or
semi-secret political organizations which sprang up over the state, and
which together became generally known as the "Peace Society," though there
were other designations. Often these organizations were formed for
purposes bordering on treason; often not so, but only for constitutional
opposition to the administration. The extremes grew farther apart as the
war progressed, until the constitutional wing withdrew or ceased to exist,
and the other became, from the point of view of the government, wholly
treasonable in its purposes. These organizations had several thousand
members, at least half the active males left in the state.
The work of the peace party was first felt in the August elections of
1863. The governor, though a true and loyal man, was elected with the help
of a disaffected party, and a disaffected element was elected to the
legislature and to Congress. Six members of Congress from Alabama were
said to be "unionists," that is, in favor of ending the war at once and
returning to the Union.[321] A Confederate official who had wide
opportunities for observation reported that the district (Talladega) in
which he was stationed had been carried by the peace party under
circumstances that indicated treasonable influence. Unknown men were
elected to the legislature and to other offices by a secret order which,
he stated, had for its object the encouragement of desertion, the
protection of deserters, and resistance to the conscription laws. Some men
of influence and position belonged to it, and the leaders were believed to
be in communication with the enemy. The entire organization was not
disloyal, but he feared that the controlling element was faithless. The
election had been determined largely by the votes of stragglers and
deserters and of paroled Vicksburg soldiers who, it was found later, had
been "contaminated" by contact with the western soldiers of Grant's
army.[322] By this he evidently meant that the soldiers had been initiated
into the "Peace Society."
A few months later the "Peace Society" appeared among the soldiers of
General Clanton's brigade stationed at Pollard, in Conecuh County. Some of
the soldiers had served in the army of Tennessee, and had there been
initiated into this secret society. Clanton, who was strongly disliked by
General Bragg and not loved by General Polk, had much trouble with them
because he asserted that the order appeared first in Bragg's army and
spread from thence. Later developments showed that he was correct.[323]
It was in December, 1863, that the operations of the order among the
soldiers were exposed. A number of soldiers at Pollard determined to lay
down their arms on Christmas Day, as the only means of ending the war.
These troops, for the most part, were lately recruited from the poorer
classes of southwest Alabama by a popular leader and had never seen active
service. They were stationed near their homes and were exposed to home
influences. Upon them and their families the pressure of the war had been
heavy.[324] Many of them were exempt from service but had joined because
of Clanton's personal popularity, because they feared that later they
might become liable to service, and because they were promised special
privileges in the way of furloughs and stations near their homes. To this
unpromising material had been added conscripts and substitutes in whom the
fires of patriotism burned low, and who entered the service very
reluctantly. With them were a few veteran soldiers, and in command were
veteran officers. A secret society was formed among the discontented, with
all the usual accompaniment of signs, passwords, grips, oaths, and
obligations. Some bound themselves by solemn oaths never to fight the
enemy, to desert, and to encourage desertion--all this in order to break
down the Confederacy. General Maury, in command at Mobile, concluded after
investigation that the society had originated with the enemy and had
entered the southern army at Cumberland Gap.[325]
In regard to the discontent among the soldiers, Colonel Swanson of the
Fifty-ninth and Sixty-first Alabama[326] regiments (consolidated) stated
that there was a general disposition on the part of the poorer classes,
substitutes, and foreigners to accept terms and stop the war. They had
nothing anyway, so there was nothing to fight for, they said. There was no
general matured plan, and no leader, Colonel Swanson thought.[327] Major
Cunningham of the Fifty-seventh Alabama Regiment[328] reported that there
had been considerable manifestation of revolutionary spirit on account of
the tax-in-kind law and the impressment system, and that there was much
reckless talk, even among good men, of protecting their families from the
injustice of the government, even if they had to lay down their arms and
go home.[329] General Clanton said that the society had existed in
Hilliard's Legion and Gracie's brigade, and that few men, he was sure,
joined it for treasonable purposes.[330] Before the appointed
time--Christmas Day--sixty or seventy members of the order mutinied and
the whole design was exposed. Seventy members were arrested and sent to
Mobile for trial by court-martial.[331] There is no record of the action
of the court. The purged regiments were then ordered to the front and
obeyed without a single desertion. Bolling Hall's battalion, which was
sent to the Western army for having in it such a society, made a splendid
record at Chickamauga and in other battles, and came out of the
Chickamauga fight with eighty-two bullet-holes in its colors.[332]
During the summer and fall of 1863 and in 1864 the Confederate officials
in north Alabama often reported that they had found certain traces of
secret organizations which were hostile to the Confederate government. The
Provost-Marshal's Department in 1863 obtained information of the existence
of a secret society between the lines in Alabama and Tennessee, the object
of which was to encourage desertion.
Confederate soldiers at home on furlough joined the organization and made
known its object to the Confederate authorities. The members were pledged
not to assist the Confederacy in any way, to encourage desertion of the
north Alabama soldiers, and to work for a revolution in the state
government. Stringent oaths were taken by the members, a code of signals,
and passwords was used, and a well-organized society was formed. The bulk
of the membership consisted of tories and deserters, with a few
discontented Confederates. Their society gave information to the Federals
in north Alabama and Tennessee and had agents far within the Confederate
lines, organizing discontent. General Clanton early in 1864 endeavored to
break up the organization in north Alabama and made a number of arrests,
but failed to crush the order.
In middle Alabama, about the same time (the spring of 1864), the workings
of a treasonable secret society were brought to light. Colonel Jefferson
Falkner of the Eighth Confederate Infantry overheard a conversation
between two malcontents and began to investigate. He found that in the
central counties a secret society was working to break down the
Confederate government and bring about peace. The plans were not
perfected, but some were in favor of returning to the Union on the
Arkansas or Sebastian platform,[333] others wanted to send to Washington
and make terms, and still others were in favor of unconditional
submission. As to methods, the malcontents meant to secure control of the
state administration, either by revolution or by elections in the summer
of 1865, then they would negotiate with the United States and end the war.
The society had agents in both the Western army and the Army of Northern
Virginia, tampering with the soldiers and endeavoring to carry the
organization into the Federal army. The leaders in the movement hoped to
organize into one party all who were discontented with the administration.
If successful in this, they would be strong enough either to overthrow the
state government, which was supported only by home guards, or by
obstruction to force the state government to make peace. The oaths,
passwords, and signals of this society were similar to those of the north
Alabama organization, with which it was in communication. Conscript
officers, county officials, medical boards, and members of the legislature
were members of the order. If a deserter were arrested, some member
released him; the members claimed that the society caused the loss of the
battle of Missionary Ridge and the surrender at Vicksburg.
The strength of the so-called Peace Society lay in Alabama, Georgia,
Tennessee, and North Carolina. The organizers were called Eminents. They
gave the "degree" to (that is, initiated) those whom they considered
proper persons. No records were kept; the members did not know one another
except by recognition through signals. They received directions from the
Eminents, who accommodated their instructions to the person initiated. An
ignorant but loyal person was told that the object of the order was to
secure a change of administration; the disloyal were told that the purpose
was to encourage desertion and mutiny in the army, to injure loyal
citizens, and to overthrow the state and Confederate governments. Owing to
the non-intercourse between members there were many in the order who never
knew the real objects of the leaders or Eminents, who intended to use the
organization to further their designs in 1865. The swift collapse of the
Confederacy in the spring of 1865 anticipated the work of the secret
societies. The anti-Confederate element was, however, left somewhat
organized through the work of the order.[334]
Reconstruction Sentiment
Besides the open obstruction of politicians, officials, and legislature,
and the secret opposition of the peace societies, there was a third
movement for reconstruction. This movement took place in that part of
Alabama held by the Federal armies, and the reconstruction meetings were
encouraged by the Union army officers. The leaders were D. C. Humphreys
and Jeremiah Clemens, whose defection has been noted before. A more
substantial element than the tories and deserters supported this
movement--the dissatisfied property holders who were afraid of
confiscation. Several Confederate officers were drawn into the movement
later.[335]
Early in 1864, Humphreys[336] issued an elaborate address renouncing his
errors. There was no hope, he told his fellow-citizens, that foreign
powers would intervene. Slavery as a permanent institution must be given
up. Law and order must be enforced and constitutional authority
reëstablished. Slavery was the cause of revolution, and as an institution
was at an end. With slavery abolished, there was, therefore, no reason why
the war should not end. The right to regulate the labor question would be
secured to the state by the United States government. At present labor was
destroyed, and in order to regulate labor, there must be peace. The
address was printed and distributed throughout the state with the
assistance of the Federal officials. A number of the packages of these
addresses was seized by some women and thrown into the Tennessee
River.[337] Jeremiah Clemens, who had deserted in 1862, issued an address
to the people of the South advocating the election of Lincoln as
President.[338] March 5, 1864, a reconstruction meeting, thinly attended,
was held in Huntsville under the protection of the Union troops. Clemens
presided. Resolutions were passed denying the legality of secession
because the ordinance had not been submitted to the people for their
ratification or rejection. Professions of devotion and loyalty to the
United States were made by Clemens, the late major-general of Alabama
militia and secessionist of 1861.[339] A week later the same party met
again. No young men were present, for they were in the army. All were men
over forty-five, concerned for their property. Clemens spoke, denouncing
the "twenty-negro" law. The Gilchrist story was here originated by Clemens
and told for the first time. The story was that J. G. Gilchrist of
Montgomery County went to the Secretary of War, Mr. Walker, and urged him
to begin hostilities by firing on Fort Sumter, saying, "You must sprinkle
blood in the face of the people of Alabama or the state will be back into
the Union within ten days." In closing, Clemens said, "Thank God, there is
now no prospect of the Confederacy succeeding."
D. C. Humphreys then proposed his plan: slavery was dead, but by
submitting to Federal authority gradual emancipation could be secured, and
also such guarantees as to the future status of the negro as would relieve
the people from social, economic, and political dangers. He expressed
entire confidence in the conservatism of the northern people, and asserted
that if only the ordinance of secession were revoked, the southern people
would have as long a time as they pleased to get rid of the institution of
slavery. In case of return to the Union the people would have political
coöperation to enable them to secure control of negro labor. "There is
really no difference, in my opinion," he said, "whether we hold them as
slaves or obtain their labor by some other method. Of course, we prefer
the old method. But that is not the question." He announced the defection
from the Confederacy of Vice-President Stephens, and bitterly denounced
Ben Butler, Davis, and Slidell, to whose intrigues he attributed the
present troubles. Resolutions were proposed by him and adopted,
acknowledging the hopelessness of secession and advising a return to the
Union. Longer war, it was declared, would be dangerous to the liberties of
the people, and the restoration of civil government was necessary. The
governor was asked to call a convention for the purpose of reuniting
Alabama to the Union. It was not expected, it was stated, that the
governor would do this; but his refusal would be an excuse for the
independent action of north Alabama and a movement toward setting up a new
state government. Busteed could then come down and hold a "bloody assize,
trying traitors and bushwhackers."[340]
In the early winter of 1864-1865, the northern newspaper correspondents in
the South[341] began to write of the organization of a strong peace party
called the "State Rights party," in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. The
leaders were in communication with the Washington authorities. They
claimed that each state had the right to negotiate for itself terms of
reconstruction. The plan was to secure control of the state administration
and then apply for readmission to the Union. The destruction of Hood's
army removed the fear of the soldier element. Several thousand of Hood's
suffering and dispirited soldiers took the oath of allegiance to the
United States, or dispersed to their homes. Early in 1865 peace meetings
were held in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, within the Confederate
lines; commissioners were sent to Washington; and the tories and deserters
organized. A delegation waited on Governor Watts to ask him to negotiate
for the return of the state to the Union, but did not get, nor did they
expect, a favorable answer from him. The peace party expected to gain the
August elections and elect as governor J. C. Bradley of Huntsville, or M.
J. Bulger of Tallapoosa.[342] The plan, then, was not to wait for the
inauguration in November, but to have the newly elected administration
take charge at once. It was continually reported that General P. D. Roddy
was to head the movement.[343]
There is no doubt that during the winter of 1864-1865 some kind of
negotiation was going on with the Federal authorities. J. J. Giers, who
was a brother-in-law of State Senator Patton,[344] was in constant
communication with General Grant. In one of his reports to Grant he stated
that Roddy and another Confederate general had sent Major McGaughey,
Roddy's brother-in-law, to meet Giers near Moulton, in Lawrence County, to
learn what terms could be obtained for the readmission of Alabama. Major
McGaughey said that the people considered that affairs were hopeless and
wanted peace. If the terms were favorable, steps would be taken to induce
Governor Watts to accept them. If Watts should refuse, a civil and
military movement would be begun to organize a state government for
Alabama which would include three-fourths of the state. The plan, it was
stated, was indorsed by the leading public men. The peace leaders wanted
Grant, or the Washington administration, to announce at once a policy of
gradual emancipation in order to reassure those afraid of outright
abolition, and to "disintegrate the rebel soldiery" of north Alabama,
which they said was never strongly devoted to the Confederacy. It was
asserted that all the counties north of the cotton belt and those in the
southeast were ready for a movement toward reconstruction. Giers stated
that approaches were then being made to Governor Watts. Andrew Johnson,
the newly elected Vice-President, vouched for the good character of
Giers.[345] Ten days later Giers wrote Grant that on account of the rumors
of the submission of various Confederate generals he had caused to be
published a contradiction of the report of the agreement with the
Confederate leaders. He further stated that one of Roddy's officers,
Lieutenant W. Alexander, had released a number of Federal prisoners
without parole or exchange, according to agreement.[346] In several
instances, in the spring of 1865, subordinate Confederate commanders
proposed a truce, and after Lee's surrender and Wilson's raid this was a
general practice. During the months of April and May, there was a combined
movement of citizens and soldiers in a number of counties in north Alabama
to reorganize civil government according to a plan furnished by General
Thomas, Giers being the intermediary.[347] On May 1 General Steele of the
second army of invasion was informed at Montgomery by J. J. Seibels, L. E.
Parsons, and J. C. Bradley--all well-known obstructionists--that
two-thirds of the people of Alabama would take up arms to put down the
"rebels."[348] Colonel Seibels alone of that gallant company had ever
taken up arms for any cause. The other two and their kind may have been,
and doubtless often were, warlike in their conversation, but they never
drew steel to support their convictions.
It is quite likely that the strength of the disaffection, especially in
north and east Alabama, was exaggerated by the reports of both Union and
Confederate authorities. There never had been during the war much loyalty,
in the proper sense of the word, to the United States. There was much
pure indifference on the part of some people who desired the strongest
side to win as soon as possible and leave them in safety. There was much
discontent on the part of others who had supported the Confederacy for a
while, but who, for various reasons, had fallen away from the cause and
now wanted peace and reunion. There was a very large element of outright
lawlessness in the opposition to the Confederate government. The lowest
class of men on both sides or of no side united to plunder that
defenceless land between the two armies. This class wanted no peace, for
on disorder they thrived. For years after the war ended they gave trouble
to Federal and state authorities. The discontent was actively manifested
by civilians, deserters, "mossbacks," "bomb-proofs," and "feather beds."
These had never strongly supported the Confederacy. It was largely a
timid, stay-at-home crowd, with a few able but erratic leaders. The
soldiers may have been dissatisfied,--many of them were,--and many of them
left the army in the spring of 1865 to go home and plant crops for the
relief of their suffering families. Many of them in the dark days after
Nashville and Franklin took the oath of allegiance and went home, sure
that the war was ended and the cause was lost. Yet these were not the ones
found in such organizations as the Peace Society. That was largely made up
of people whom the true soldier despised as worthless. There were few
soldiers in the peace movement and these only at the last.
The peace party, however, was strong in one way. All were voters and,
being at home, could vote. The soldiers in the army had no voice in the
elections. The malcontents, had they possessed courage and good leaders,
could have controlled the state after the summer of 1864. The able men in
the movement were not those who inspired confidence in their followers.
There were no troops in the state to keep them down, and the only check
seems to have been their fear of the soldiers, who were fighting at the
front, in the armies of Lee and Johnston, of Wheeler and Hood and Taylor.
They were certainly afraid of the vengeance of these soldiers.[349] It was
much better that the war resulted in the complete destruction of the
southern cause, leaving no questions for future controversy, such as would
have arisen had the peace party succeeded in its plans.
CHAPTER IV
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS
SEC. 1. INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT DURING THE WAR
Early in the war the blockade of the southern ports became so effective
that the southern states were shut off from their usual sources of supply
by sea. Trade through the lines between the United States and the
Confederate States was forbidden, and Alabama, owing to its central
location, suffered more from the blockade than any other state. For three
years the Federal lines touched the northern part of the state only, and,
as no railroads connected north and south Alabama, contraband trade was
difficult in that direction. Mobile, the only port of the state, was
closely blockaded by a strong Federal fleet. The railroad communications
with other states were poor, and the Confederate government usually kept
the railroads busy in the public service. Consequently, the people of
Alabama were forced to develop certain industries in order to secure the
necessaries of life. But outside these the industrial development was
naturally in the direction of the production of materials of war.
Military Industries
During the first two years of the war volunteers were much more plentiful
than equipment. The arms seized at Mount Vernon and other arsenals in
Alabama were old flint-locks altered for the use of percussion caps and
were almost worthless, being valued at $2 apiece. These were afterwards
transferred to the Confederate States, which returned but few of them to
arm the Alabama troops.[350] Late in 1860 a few thousand old muskets were
purchased by the state from the arsenal at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for
$2.50 each. A few Mississippi rifles were also secured, and with these the
Second Alabama Infantry was armed. These rifles, however, required a
special kind of ammunition, and this made them almost worthless. Other
arms were found to be useless for the same reason. Both cavalry and
infantry regiments went to the front armed with single and double
barrelled shot-guns, squirrel rifles, muskets, flint-locks, and old
pistols. No ammunition could be supplied for such a miscellaneous
collection. Many regiments had to wait for months before arms could be
obtained. Before October, 1861, several thousand men had left Alabama
unarmed, and several thousand more, also unarmed, were left waiting in the
state camps.[351] In 1861 the state legislature bought a thousand pikes
and a hundred bowie-knives to arm the Forty-eighth Militia Regiment, which
was defending Mobile. The sum of $250,000 was appropriated to lend to
those who would manufacture firearms for the government.[352] In 1863 the
Confederate Congress authorized the enlistment of companies armed with
pikes who should take the places of men armed with firearms when the
latter were dead or absent.[353] Private arms--muskets, rifles, pistols,
shot-guns, carbines--were called for and purchased from the owners when
not donated.[354] An offer was made to advance fifty per cent of the
amount necessary to set up machinery for the manufacture of small
arms.[355] Old Spanish flint-lock muskets were brought in from Cuba
through the blockade, altered, and placed in the hands of the troops.[356]
[Illustration: INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 1861-1865]
In 1862 a small-arms factory was established at Tallassee which employed
150 men and turned out about 150 carbines a week. At the end of 1864 it
had produced only 6000.[357] At Montgomery the Alabama Arms Manufacturing
Company had the best machinery in the Confederacy for making Enfield
rifles. At Selma were the state and Confederate arsenals, a navy-yard, and
naval foundry with machinery of English make, of the newest and most
complete pattern. It had been brought through the blockade from Europe and
set up at Selma because that seemed to be a place safe from invasion and
from the raids of the enemy. Here the vessels for the defence of Mobile
were built, heavy ordnance was cast, with shot and shell, and plating for
men-of-war. The armored ram _Tennessee_, famous in the fight in Mobile
Bay, the gunboats _Morgan_, _Selma_, and _Gaines_ were all built at the
Selma navy-yard--guns, armor, and everything being manufactured on the
spot. When the _Tennessee_ surrendered, after a terrible battle, its armor
had not been penetrated by a single shot or shell. The best cannon in
America were cast at the works in Selma. The naval foundry employed 3000
men, the other works as many more. Half the cannon and two-thirds of the
fixed ammunition used during the last two years of the war were made at
these foundries and factories. The foundry destroyed by Wilson was
pronounced by experts to be the best in existence. It could turn out at
short notice a fifteen-inch Brooks or a mountain howitzer. Swords, rifles,
muskets, pistols, caps, were manufactured in great quantities. There were
more than a hundred buildings, which covered fifty acres; and after
Wilson's destructive work, Truman, the war correspondent, said that they
presented the greatest mass of ruins he had ever seen.[358] There was a
navy-yard on the Tombigbee, in Clarke County, near the Sunflower Bend.
Several small vessels had been completed and several war vessels, probably
gunboats, were in process of construction here when the war ended; both
vessels and machinery were destroyed by order of the Confederate
authorities.[359]
Gunpowder was scarce throughout the war, and nitre or saltpetre, its
principal ingredient, was not to be purchased from abroad. A powder mill
was established at Cahaba,[360] but the ingredients were lacking. Charcoal
for gunpowder was made from willow, dogwood, and similar woods. The nitre
on hand was soon exhausted, and it was sought for in the caves of the
limestone region of Alabama and Tennessee. In north Alabama there were
many of these large caves. The earth in them was dug up and put in hoppers
and water poured over it to leach out the nitre. The lye was caught (just
as for making soft soap from lye ashes), boiled down, and then dried in
the sunshine.[361] The earth in cellars and under old houses was scraped
up and leached for the nitre in it. In 1862 a corps of officers under the
title of the Nitre and Mining Bureau[362] was organized by the War
Department to work the nitre caves of north Alabama which lay in the
doubtful region between the Union and the Confederate lines, and which
were often raided by the enemy. The men were subjected to military
discipline and were under the absolute command of the superintendent, who
often called them out to repulse Federal raiders. As much as possible in
this department, as in the others, exempts and negroes were used for
laborers. For clerical work those disabled for active service were
appointed, and instructions were issued that employment should be given
to needy refugee women.[363] These important nitre works were repeatedly
destroyed by the Federals, who killed or captured many of the
employees.[364] In the district of upper Alabama, under the command of
Captain William Gabbitt, whose headquarters were at Blue Mountain (now
Anniston), most of the work was done in the limestone caves of the
mountain region.[365] Several hundred men--whites and negroes--were
employed in extracting the nitre from the cave earth. To the end of
September, 1864, this district had produced 222,665 pounds of nitre at a
cost of $237,977.17, war prices.[366]
The supply from the caves proved insufficient, and artificial nitre beds
or nitraries were prepared in the cities of south and central Alabama. It
was necessary to have them near large towns, in order to obtain a
plentiful supply of animal matter and potash, and the necessary labor.
Efforts were also made to induce planters in marl or limestone counties to
work plantation earth.[367] Under the supervision of Professor W. H. C.
Price, nitraries were established at Selma, Mobile, Talladega, Tuscaloosa,
and Montgomery. Negro labor was used almost entirely, each negro having
charge of one small nitre bed. To October, 1864, the nitraries of south
Alabama produced 34,716 pounds at a cost of $26,171.14, which was somewhat
cheaper than the nitre from the caves. From these nitraries better results
were obtained than from the French, Swedish, and Russian nitraries which
served as models. The Confederate nitre beds were from sixteen to
twenty-seven months old in October, 1864, and hence not at their best
producing stage. Yet, allowing for the difference in age, they gave better
results, as they produced from 2.57 to 3.3 ounces of nitre per cubic foot,
while the average European nitraries at four years of age gave 4 ounces
per cubic foot. Earth from under old houses and from cellars produced from
2 to 4 ounces to the cubic foot. Nitre caves produced from 6 to 12 ounces
per cubic foot. Most of the nitre thus obtained was made into powder at
the mills in Selma. There were some private manufacturers of nitre, and to
encourage these the Confederate Congress authorized the advance to makers
of fifty per cent of the cost of the necessary machinery.[368]
The state legislature appropriated $30,000 to encourage the manufacture
and preparation of powder, saltpetre (nitre), sulphur, and lead. Little of
the last article was found in Alabama.[369] Some of the powder works were
in operation as early as 1861, and in that year the War Department gave
Dr. Ullman of Tallapoosa a contract to supply 1000 to 1500 pounds of
sulphur a day.[370]
The Confederate Nitre and Mining Bureau had charge of the production of
iron in Alabama for the use of the Confederacy. The mines were principally
in the hilly region south of the Tennessee River, where several furnaces
and iron works were already established before the war. Two or three new
companies, with capital of $1,000,000 each, had bought mineral lands and
had commenced operations when the war broke out. The Confederate
government bought the property or gave the companies financial assistance.
The iron district was often raided by the Federals, who blew up the
furnaces and wrecked the iron works.[371] The Irondale works, near Elyton,
were begun in 1862, and made much iron, but they also were destroyed in
1864 by the Federals.[372] Other large iron furnaces, with their forges,
foundries, and rolling-mills, were destroyed by Rousseau's raid in 1864.
The government employed several hundred conscripts and several thousand
negroes in the mines and rolling-mills. It also offered fifty per cent of
the cost of equipment to encourage the opening of new mines by private
owners.[373] There is record of only about 15,000 tons of Alabama iron
being mined by the Confederacy, but probably there was much more.[374] The
iron was sent to Selma, Montgomery, and other places for manufacture. The
ordnance cast in Selma was of Alabama iron; and after the war, when the
United States sold the ruins of the arsenal, the big guns were cut up and
sent to Philadelphia. Here the fine quality of the iron attracted the
attention of experts and led to the development by northern capital of the
iron industry in north Alabama.
The Confederate government encouraged the building and extension of
railroads, and paid large sums to them for the transportation of troops,
munitions of war, and military supplies.[375] Several lines of road within
the state were made military roads, and the government extended their
lines, built bridges and cars, and kept the lines in repair.[376] In 1862
$150,000 was advanced to the Alabama and Mississippi Railway Company, to
complete the line between Selma and Meridian,[377] and the duty on iron
needed for the road was remitted.[378] On June 25 of this year this road
was seized by the military authorities in order to finish it,[379] and
because of the lack of iron D. H. Kenny was directed (July 21, 1863) to
impress the iron and rolling stock belonging to the Alabama and Florida
Railway, the Gainesville Branch of the Mobile and Ohio, the Cahaba,
Marion, and Greensborough Railroad, and the Uniontown and Newberne
Railroad. The Alabama and Mississippi road was a very important line,
since it tapped the supply districts of Mississippi and the Black Belt of
Alabama. There were many difficulties in the way of the builders. In 1862
the locomotives were wearing out and no iron was to be obtained. In the
fall of the same year the planters withdrew their negroes who were working
on the road, and left the bridges half finished. But finally, in December,
1862, the road was completed.[380] In the fall of 1862 a road between Blue
Mountain, Alabama, and Rome, Georgia, was planned, and $1,122,480.92 was
appropriated by the Confederate Congress, a mortgage being taken as
security.[381] This road was graded and some bridges built and iron laid,
but was not in running order before the end of the war.
Telegraph lines, which had been few before the war, were now placed along
each railroad, and several cross-country lines were put up. The first
important new line was along the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, from Mobile to
Meridian.[382]
Private Manufacturing Enterprises
Both the state and the Confederate government encouraged manufactures by
favorable legislation. The Confederate government was always ready to
advance half of the cost of the machinery and to take goods in payment. A
law of Alabama in 1861 secured the rights of inventors and authors. All
patents under the United States laws prior to January 11, 1861, were to
hold good under the state laws, and the United States patent and copyright
laws were adopted for Alabama.[383] Later, jurisdiction over patents,
inventions, and copyrights was transferred to the Confederate government.
A bonus of five and ten cents apiece on all cotton and wool cards made in
Alabama was offered by the legislature in December, 1861.[384] All
employees in iron mills, in foundries, and in factories supplying the
state or Confederate governments with arms, clothing, cloth, and the like
were declared by the state exempt from military duty.
Factories were soon in operation all over the state, especially in central
Alabama. In all places where there were government factories there also
were found factories conducted by private individuals. In 1861 there were
factories at Tallassee, Autaugaville, and Prattville, with 23,000 spindles
and 800 employees, which could make 5000 yards of good tent cloth a
day.[385] And other cotton mills were established in north Alabama as
early as 1861.[386] The Federals burned these buildings and destroyed the
machinery in 1862 and 1863. There was the most "unsparing hostility
displayed by the northern armies to this branch of industry. They
destroyed instantly every cotton factory within their reach."[387]
At Tuscaloosa were cotton and shoe factories, tanneries, and an iron
foundry. A large cotton factory was established in Bibb County, and at
Gainesville there were workshops and machine-shops. In addition to the
government works, Selma had machine-shops, car shops, iron mills, and
foundries, cotton, wool, and harness factories, conducted by private
individuals. There were cotton and woollen factories at Prattville and
Autaugaville, and at Montgomery were car shops, harness shops, iron mills,
foundries, and machine-shops. The best tent cloth and uniform cloth was
made at the factories of Tallassee. The state itself began the manufacture
of shoes, salt, clothing, whiskey, alcohol, army supplies, and supplies
for the destitute.[388] Extensive manufacturing establishments of various
kinds in Madison, Lauderdale, Tuscumbia, Bibb, Autauga, Coosa, and
Tallapoosa counties were destroyed during the war by the Federals. There
were iron works in Bibb, Shelby, Calhoun, and Jefferson counties, and in
1864 there were a dozen large furnaces with rolling-mills and foundries in
the state.[389] However, in that year the governor complained that though
Alabama had immense quantities of iron ore, even the planters in the iron
country were unable to get sufficient iron to make and mend agricultural
implements, since all iron that was mined was used for purposes of the
Confederacy.[390] The best and strongest cast iron used by the Confederacy
was made at Selma and at Briarfield. The cotton factories and tanneries in
the Tennessee valley were destroyed in 1862 by the Federal troops.[391]
Salt Making
Salt was one of the first necessaries of life which became scarce on
account of the blockade. The Adjutant and Inspector-General of Alabama
stated, March 20, 1862, that the Confederacy needed 6,000,000 bushels of
salt, and that only an enormous price would force the people to make it.
In Montgomery salt was then very scarce, bringing $20 per sack, and
speculators were using every trick and fraud in order to control the
supply.[392] The poor people especially soon felt the want of it, and in
November, 1861, the legislature passed an act to encourage the manufacture
of salt at the state reservation in Clarke County.[393] The state
government even began to make salt at these salt springs. At the Upper
Works, near Old St. Stephens, 600 men and 120 teams were employed at 30
furnaces, which were kept going all the time, the production amounting to
600 bushels a day. These works were in operation from 1862 to 1865. The
Lower Works, near Sunflower Bend on the Tombigbee River, for four years
employed 400 men with 80 teams at 20 furnaces. The production here was
about 400 bushels a day. The Central Works, near Salt Mountain, were under
private management, and, it is said, were much more successful than the
works under state management.[394] The price of salt at the works ranged
from $2.50 to $7 a bushel in gold, or from $3 to $40 in currency. From
1861 to 1865, 500,000 bushels of good salt were produced each year.
To obtain the salt water, wells were bored to depths ranging from 60 to
100 feet,--one well, however, was 600 feet deep,--while in the bottom or
swamp lands brine was sometimes found at a depth of 8 feet. The water at
first rose to the surface and overflowed about 30 gallons a minute in some
wells, but as more wells were sunk the brine ceased to flow out and had to
be pumped about 16 feet by steam or horse power. It was boiled in large
iron kettles like those then used in syrup making and which are still seen
in remote districts in the South. Seven or eight kettles of water would
make one kettle of salt. This was about the same percentage that was
obtained at the Onondaga (New York) salt springs. About the same boiling
was required as in making syrup from sugar-cane juice. The wells were
scattered for miles over the country and thousands of men were employed.
For three years more than 6000 men, white and black, were employed at the
salt works of Clarke County, from 2000 to 3000 working at the Upper Works
alone. All were not at work at the furnaces, but hundreds were engaged in
cutting and hauling wood for fuel, and in sacking and barrelling salt. It
is said that in the woods the blows of no single axe nor the sound of any
single falling tree could be distinguished; the sound was simply
continuous. Nine or ten square miles of pine timber were cleared for fuel.
The salt was sent down the Tombigbee to Mobile or conveyed in wagons into
the interior of Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. These wagons were so
numerous that for miles from the various works it was difficult to cross
the road. The whole place had the appearance of a manufacturing city.
These works had been in operation to some extent since 1809. The wells
were exhausted from 1865 to 1870, when they began flowing again.
Besides the smaller works and large private works there were hundreds of
smaller establishments. When salt was needed on a plantation in the Black
Belt, the overseer would take hands, with pots and kettles, and go to the
salt wells, camp out for several weeks, and make enough salt for the
year's supply. All private makers had to give a certain amount to the
state.[395] People from the interior of the state and from southeast
Alabama went to the Florida coast and made salt by boiling the sea water.
The state had salt works at Saltville, Virginia, but found it difficult to
get transportation for the product. Salt was given to the poor people by
the state, or sold to them at a moderate price. The legislature authorized
the governor to take possession of all salt when necessary for public use,
paying the owners a just compensation; $150,000 was appropriated for this
purpose in 1861, and in 1862 it was made a penal offence to send salt out
of the state.[396] A Salt Commission was appointed to look after the salt
works owned by the state in Louisiana. A private salt maker in Clarke
County made a contract to deliver two-fifths of his product to the state
at the cost of manufacture, and the state purchased some salt from the
Louisiana saltbeds.[397] As salt became scarcer the people took the brine
in old pork and beef barrels and boiled it down. The soil under old
smoke-houses was dug up, put in hoppers, and bleached like ashes, and the
brine boiled down and dried in the sunshine.[398]
At Bon Secour Bay, near Mobile, there were salt works consisting of
fifteen houses, capable of making seventy-five bushels per day from the
sea-water. In 1864 these were burned by the Federals, who often destroyed
the salt works along the Florida coast.[399] At Saltmarsh, ten miles west
of Selma, there were works which furnished much of the salt used in
Mississippi, central Alabama, and east Georgia during the years 1862,
1863, and 1864. Wells were dug to the depth of twelve or fifteen feet,
when salt water was struck. The wells were then curbed, furnaces of lime
rock were built, and upon them large kettles were placed. The water was
pumped from the wells and run into the kettles through troughs, then
boiled down, and the moisture evaporated by the sun. The fires were kept
up day and night. A large number of blacks and whites were employed at
these wells, and, as salt makers were exempt from military duty, the work
was quite popular.[400]
Besides the industries above mentioned there were many minor enterprises.
Household manufactures were universal. The more important companies were
chartered by the legislature. The acts of the war period show that in 1861
there were incorporated six insurance companies and the charters of others
were amended to suit the changed conditions; three railroad companies were
incorporated, and aid was granted to others for building purposes. Roads
carrying troops and munitions free were exempted from taxation. Two mining
and manufacturing companies were incorporated, four iron and coal
companies, one ore foundry, an express company,[401] a salt manufacturing
company, a chemical manufacturing company, a coal and leather company, and
a wine and fruit company. In 1862 the legislature incorporated four iron
and foundry companies, a railroad company, the Southern Express Company, a
gas-light company, six coal and iron companies, a rolling-mill, and an oil
company, and amended the charters of four railroad companies and two
insurance companies. In 1864 two railroad companies were given permission
to manufacture alcohol and lubricating oil, and the Citronelle Wine,
Fruit, and Nursery Company was incorporated. Various other manufacturing
companies--of drugs, barrels, and pottery--were established.
Besides salt the state made alcohol and whiskey for the poor. Every man
who had a more than usual regard for his comfort and wanted to keep out of
the army had a tannery in his back yard, and made a few shoes or some
harness for the Confederacy, thus securing exemption.
Governor Moore, in his message to the legislature on October 28, 1861,
said: "Mechanical arts and industrial pursuits, hitherto practically
unknown to our people, are already in operation. The clink of the hammer
and the busy hum of the workshop are beginning to be heard throughout our
land. Our manufactories are rapidly increasing and the inconvenience which
would result from the continuance of the war and the closing of our ports
for years would be more than compensated by forcing us to the development
of our abundant resources, and the tone and the temper it would give to
our national character. Under such circumstances the return of peace would
find us a self-reliant and truly independent people."[402] And had the
war ended early in 1864, the state would have been well provided with
manufactures.
The raids through the state in 1864 and 1865 destroyed most of the
manufacturing establishments. The rest, whether owned by the government or
private persons, were seized by the Federal troops at the surrender and
were dismantled.[403]
SEC. 2. CONFEDERATE FINANCE IN ALABAMA
Banks and Banking
In a circular letter dated December 4, 1860, and addressed to the banks,
Governor Moore announced that should the state secede from the Union, as
seemed probable, $1,000,000 in specie, or its equivalent, would be needed
by the administration. The state bonds could not be sold in the North nor
in Europe, except at a ruinous discount, and a tax on the people at this
time would be inexpedient. Therefore he recommended that the banks hold
their specie. Otherwise there would be a run on the banks, and should an
extra session of the legislature be called to authorize the banks to
suspend specie payments, such action would produce a run and thus defeat
the object. He requested the banks to suspend specie payments, trusting to
the convention to legalize this action.[404] The governor then issued an
address to the people stating his reasons for such a step. It was done, he
said, at the request and by the advice of many citizens whose opinions
were entitled to respect and consideration. Such a course, they thought,
would relieve the banks from a run during the cotton season, would enable
them to aid the state, would do away with the expense of a special session
of the legislature, would prevent the sale of state bonds at a great
sacrifice, and would prevent extra taxation of the people in time of
financial crisis.[405]
Three banks--the Central, Eastern, and Commercial--suspended at the
governor's request and made a loan to the state of $200,000 in coin. Their
suspension was legalized later by an ordinance of the convention. The
Bank of Mobile, the Northern Bank, and the Southern Bank refused to
suspend, though they announced that the state should have their full
support. The legislature passed an act in February, 1861, authorizing the
suspension on condition that the banks subscribe for ten year state bonds
at their par value. The bonds were to stand as capital, and the bills
issued by the banks upon these bonds were to be receivable in payment of
taxes. The amount which each bank was to pay into the treasury for the
bonds was fixed, and no interest was to be paid by the state on these
bonds until specie payments were resumed. All the banks suspended under
these acts, and thus the government secured most of the coin in the
state.[406] In October, 1861, before all the banks had suspended, state
bonds at par to the amount of $975,066.68 had been sold--all but $28,500
to the banks. By early acts specie payments were to be resumed in May,
1862, but in December, 1861, the suspension was continued until one year
after the conclusion of peace with the United States. By this law the
banks were to receive at par the Confederate treasury notes in payment of
debts, their notes being good for public dues. The banks were further
required to make a loan to the state of $200,000 to pay its quota of the
Confederate war tax of August 16, 1861. So the privilege of suspension was
worth paying for.[407]
The banking law was revised by the convention so that a bank might deposit
with the state comptroller stocks of the Confederate States or of Alabama,
receiving in return notes countersigned by the comptroller amounting to
twice the market value of the bonds deposited. If a bank had in deposit
with the comptroller under the old law any stocks of the United States,
they could be withdrawn upon the deposit of an equal amount of Confederate
stocks or bonds of the state. The same ordinance provided that none except
citizens of Alabama and members of state corporations might engage in the
banking business under this law. But no rights under the old law were to
be affected. It was further provided that subsequent legislation might
require any "free" bank to reduce its circulation to an amount not
exceeding the market value of the bonds deposited with the comptroller.
The notes thus retired were to be cancelled by the comptroller.[408] The
suspension of specie payments was followed by an increase of banking
business; note issues were enlarged; eleven new banks were chartered,[409]
and none wound up affairs. They paid dividends regularly of from 6 to 10
per cent in coin, in Confederate notes, or in both. Speculation in
government funds was quite profitable to the banks.
Issues of Bonds and Notes
The convention authorized the general assembly of the state to issue bonds
to such amounts and in such sums as seemed best, thus giving the assembly
practically unlimited discretion. But it was provided that money must not
be borrowed except for purposes of military defence, unless by a
two-thirds vote of the members elected to each house; and the faith and
credit of the state was pledged for the punctual payment of the principal
and interest.[410]
The legislature hastened to avail itself of this permission. In 1861 a
bond issue of $2,000,000 for defence, and not liable to taxation, was
authorized at one time; at another, $385,000 for defence, besides an issue
of $1,000,000 in treasury notes receivable for taxes. Of the first issue
authorized, only $1,759,500 were ever issued. Opposition to taxation
caused the state to take up the war tax of $2,000,000 (August 19, 1861),
and for this purpose $1,700,000 in bonds was issued, the banks supplying
the remainder. There was a relaxation in taxation during the war; paper
money was easily printed, and the people were opposed to heavy taxes.[411]
In 1862 bonds to the amount of $2,000,000 were issued for the benefit of
the indigent. The governor was given unlimited authority to issue bonds
and notes, receivable for taxes, to "repair the treasury," and $2,085,000
in bonds were issued under this permit. These bonds drew interest at 6
per cent, ran for twenty years, and sold at a premium of from 50 per cent
to 100 per cent. Bonds were used both for civil and for military purposes,
but chiefly for the support of the destitute. Treasury notes to the amount
of $3,500,000 were issued, drawing interest at 5 per cent, and receivable
for taxes. The Confederate Congress came to the aid of Alabama with a
grant of $1,200,000 for the defence of Mobile.[412] In 1863 notes and
bonds for $4,000,000 were issued for the benefit of indigent families of
soldiers, and $1,500,000 for defence; $90,000 in bonds was paid for the
steamer _Florida_, which was later turned over to the Confederate
government.[413] In 1864 $7,000,000 was appropriated for the support of
indigent families of soldiers, and an unlimited issue of bonds and notes
was authorized.[414] In 1862 the Alabama legislature proposed that each
state should guarantee the debt of the Confederate States in proportion to
its representation in Congress. This measure was opposed by the other
states and failed.[415] A year later a resolution of the legislature
declared that the people of Alabama would cheerfully submit to any tax,
not too oppressive in amount or unequal in operation, laid by the
Confederate government for the purpose of reducing the volume of currency
and appreciating its value. The assembly also signified its disapproval of
the scheme put forth at the bankers' meeting at Augusta, Georgia--to issue
Confederate bonds with interest payable in coin and to levy a heavy tax of
$60,000,000 to be paid in coin or in coupons of the proposed new
issue.[416]
The Alabama treasury had many Confederate notes received for taxes. Before
April 1, 1864 (when such notes were to be taxed one-third of their face
value), these could be exchanged at par for twenty-year, 6 per cent
Confederate bonds. After that date the Confederate notes were fundable at
33-1/3 per cent of their face value only.[417] After June 14, 1864, the
state treasury could exchange Confederate notes for 4 per cent non-taxable
Confederate bonds, or one-half for 6 per cent bonds and one-half for new
notes. The Alabama legislature of 1864 arranged for funding the notes
according to the latter method.[418] The Alabama legislature of 1861 had
made it lawful for debts contracted after that year to be payable in
Confederate notes.[419] Later a meeting of the citizens of Mobile proposed
to ostracize those who refused to accept Confederate notes. Cheap money
caused a clamor for more, and the heads of the people were filled with
_fiat_ money notions. The rise in prices stimulated more issues of notes.
On February 9, 1861, $1,000,000 in state treasury notes was issued, and in
1862 there was a similar issue of $2,000,000 more. These state notes were
at a premium in Confederate notes, which were discredited by the
Confederate Funding Act of February 17, 1864. Confederate notes were
eagerly offered for state notes, but the state stopped the exchange.[420]
December 13, 1864, a law was passed providing for an unlimited issue of
state notes redeemable in Confederate notes and receivable for taxes.
Private individuals often issued notes on their own account, and an
enormous number was put into circulation. The legislature, by a law of
December 9, 1862, prohibited the issue of "shinplaster" or other private
money under penalty of $20 to $500 fine, and any person circulating such
money was to be deemed the maker. It was not successful, however, in
reducing the flood of private tokens; the credit of individuals was better
than the credit of the government.
Executors, administrators, guardians, and trustees were authorized to make
loans to the Confederacy and to purchase and receive for debts due them
bonds and treasury notes of the Confederacy and of Alabama and the
interest coupons of the same. One-tenth of the Confederate $15,000,000
loan of February 28, 1861, was subscribed in Alabama.[421] In December,
1863, the legislature laid a tax of 37-1/2 per cent on bonds of the state
and of the Confederacy unless the bonds had been bought directly from the
Confederate government or from the state.[422] This was to punish
speculators. After October 7, 1864, the state treasury was directed to
refuse Confederate notes issued before February 17, 1864 (the date of the
Funding Act) in payment of taxes except at a discount of 33-1/3 per cent.
Later, Confederate notes were taken for taxes at their full market
value.[423]
Gold was shipped through the blockade at Mobile to pay the interest on the
state bonded debt held in London. It has been charged that this money was
borrowed from the Central, Commercial, and Eastern banks and was never
repaid, recovery being denied on the ground that the state could not be
sued.[424] But the banks received state and Confederate bonds under the
new banking law in return for their coin. The exchange was willingly made,
for otherwise the banks would have had to continue specie payments or
forfeit their charters. And to continue specie payments meant immediate
bankruptcy.[425] After the war, the state was forbidden to pay any debt
incurred in aid of the war, nor could the bonds issued in aid of the war
be redeemed. The banks suffered just as all others suffered, and it is
difficult to see why the state should make good the losses of the banks in
Confederate bonds and not make good the losses of private individuals. To
do either would be contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment.
The last statement of the condition of the Alabama treasury was as
follows:--
Balance in treasury, September 30, 1864 $3,713,959
Receipts, September 30, 1864, to May 24, 1865 3,776,188
----------
Total $7,490,147
Disbursements, September 30, 1864, to May 24, 1865 6,698,853
----------
Balance in treasury, September 30, 1864, to May 24, 1865 $791,294
The balance was in funds as follows:--
Checks on Bank of Mobile, payable in Confederate notes $11,440
Certificate of deposit, Bank of Mobile, payable in Confederate
notes 1,330
Confederate and state notes in treasury 517,889
State notes, change bills (legal shinplasters) 250,004
Notes of state banks and branches 358
Bank-notes 424
Silver 337
Gold on hand 497
Gold on deposit in northern banks 35
--------
Balance $791,294
To dispose of nearly $7,000,000 in small notes must have kept the treasury
very busy during the last seven months of its existence. It is interesting
to note that the treasury kept at work until May 24, 1865, six weeks after
the surrender of General Lee.
Special Appropriations and Salaries
Besides the regular appropriations for the usual expenses of the
government, there were many extraordinary appropriations. These, of
course, were for the war expenses which were far greater than the ordinary
expenses. The chief item of these extraordinary appropriations was for the
support of the indigent families of soldiers, and for this purpose about
$11,000,000 was provided. For the military defence of the state several
million dollars were appropriated, much of this being spent for arms and
clothing for the Alabama troops, both in the Confederate and the state
service. Money was granted to the University of Alabama and other military
schools on condition that they furnish drill-masters for the state troops
without charge. Hospitals were furnished in Virginia and in Alabama for
the Alabama soldiers. The gunboat _Florida_ was bought for the defence of
Mobile, and $150,000 was appropriated for an iron-clad ram for the same
purpose. Loans were made to commanders of regiments to buy clothing for
their soldiers, and the state began to furnish clothing, $50,000 being
appropriated at one time for clothing for the Alabama soldiers in northern
prisons. By March 12, 1862, Alabama had contributed $317,600 to the
support of the Army of Northern Virginia.[426] Much was expended in the
manufacture of salt in Alabama and in Virginia, which was sold at cost or
given away to the poor; in the purchase of salt from Louisiana to be sold
at a low price, and in bounties paid to salt makers in the state who sold
salt at reasonable prices. The state also paid for medical attendance for
the indigent families of soldiers. When the records and rolls of the
Alabama troops in the Confederate service were lost, money was
appropriated to have new ones made. Frequent grants were made to the
various benevolent societies of the state whose object was to care for the
maimed and sick soldiers, the widows and the orphans. Cotton and wool
cards and agricultural implements were purchased and distributed among
the poor. Slaves and supplies were taken for the public service and the
owners compensated.
The appropriations for the usual expenses of the government were light,
seldom more than twice the appropriations in times of peace,
notwithstanding the depreciated currency. The salaries of public officers
who received stated amounts ranged from $1500 to $4000 a year in state
money. In 1862 the salaries of the professors in the State University were
doubled on account of the depreciated currency, the president receiving
$5000 and each professor $4000.[427] The members of the general assembly
were more fortunate. In 1864 they received $15 a day for the time in
session, and the clerks of the legislature, who were disabled soldiers or
exempt from service, or were women, were paid the same amount. The salt
commissioners drew salaries of $3000 a year in 1864 and 1865, though this
amount was not sufficient to pay their board for more than six months.
Salaries were never increased in proportion to expenses. The compensation,
in December, 1864, for capturing a runaway slave was $25, worth probably
50 cents in coin. For the inaugural expenses of Governor Watts, $500 in
paper was appropriated.[428] Many laws were passed, regulating and
changing the fees and salaries of public officials. In October, 1884, for
example, the salaries of the state officials, tax assessors and
collectors, and judges were increased 50 per cent. Besides the general
depreciation of the currency, the variations of values in the different
sections of the state rendered such changes necessary. In the central
part, which was safe for a long time from Federal raids, the currency was
to the last worth more, and the prices of the necessaries of life were
lower than in the more exposed regions. This fact was taken into
consideration by the legislature when fixing the fees of the state and
county officers in the various sections of the state.
Taxation
As a result of the policy adopted at the outset of meeting the
extraordinary expenses by bond issues,[429] the people continued to pay
the light taxes levied before the war, and paid them in paper money.
Though falling heavily on the salaried and wage-earning classes, it was
never a burden upon the agricultural classes except in the poorest white
counties. The poll tax brought in little revenue. Soldiers were exempt
from its payment and from taxation on property to the amount of $500. The
widows and orphans of soldiers had similar privileges. A special tax of 25
per cent on the former rate was imposed on all taxable property in
November, 1861, and a year later, by acts of December 9, 1862, a
far-reaching scheme of taxation was introduced. Under this poll taxes were
levied as follows:--
White men, 21 to 60 years $0.75
Free negro men, 21 to 50 years 5.00
Free negro women, 21 to 45 years 3.00
Slaves (children to laborers in prime) 0.50 to 2.00
More valuable slaves 2.00 and up
And other taxes as follows:--
Crop liens 33-1/3%
Hoarded money 1%
Jewellery, plate, furniture 1/2%
Goods sold at auction 10%
Imports 2%
Insurance premiums (companies not chartered by state) 2%
Playing cards, per pack $1.00
Gold watches, each 1.00
Gold chains, silver watches, clocks 0.50
Articles raffled off 10%
Legacies, profits and sales, incomes 5%
Profits of Confederate contractors 10%
Wages of Confederate officials 10%
Race tracks 10%
Billiard tables, each $150.00
Bagatelle 20.00
Tenpin alleys, each 40.00
Readings and lectures, each 4.00
Pedler 100.00
Spirit rapper, per day 500.00
Saloon-keeper $40.00 to 150.00
Daguerreotypist 10.00 to 100.00
Slave trader, for each slave offered for sale 20.00
In 1863 a tax of 37-1/2 per cent was laid on Confederate and state bonds
not in the hands of the original purchaser;[430] 7-1/2 per cent was levied
on profits of banking, railroad companies, and on evidence of debt; 5 per
cent on other profits not included in the act of the year before. The tax
on gold and silver was to be paid in gold and silver; on bank-notes, in
notes; on bonds, in coupons.[431] In December, 1864, the taxes levied by
the laws of 1862 and 1863 were increased by 33-1/3 per cent. Taxes on gold
and silver were to be paid in kind or in currency at its market
value.[432] This was the last tax levied by the state under Confederate
rule. From these taxes the state government was largely supplied.
A number of special laws were passed to enable the county authorities to
levy taxes-in-kind or to levy a certain amount in addition to the state
tax, for the use of the county. The taxes levied by the state did not bear
heavily upon the majority of the people, as nearly all, except the
well-to-do and especially the slave owners, were exempt. The constant
depreciation of the currency acted, of course, as a tax on the
wage-earners and salaried classes and on those whose income was derived
from government securities.
While the state taxes were felt chiefly by the wealthier agricultural
classes and the slave owners, this was not the case with the Confederate
taxes. The loans and gifts from the state, the war tax of August 19, 1861,
the $15,000,000 loan, the Produce Loan, and the proceeds of
sequestration--all had not availed to secure sufficient supplies. The
Produce Loan of 1862 was subscribed to largely in Alabama, the Secretary
of the Treasury issuing stocks and bonds in return for supplies,[433] and
$1,500,000 of the $15,000,000 loan was raised in the state. Still the
Confederate government was in desperate need. The farmers would not
willingly sell their produce for currency which was constantly decreasing
in value, and, when selling at all, they were forced to charge exorbitant
prices because of the high prices charged them for everything by the
speculators.[434] The speculator also ran up the prices of supplies beyond
the reach of the government purchasing agents who had to buy according to
the list of prices issued by impressment commissioners. So in the spring
of 1863 all other expedients were cast aside and the Confederate
government levied a genuine "Morton's Fork" tax. No more loans of paper
money from the state, no more assumption of war taxes by the state
governments because the people were opposed to any form of direct
taxation, no more holding back of supplies by producers and speculators
who refused to sell to the Confederate government except for coin; the new
law stopped all that.[435]
First there was a tax of 8 per cent on all agricultural products in hand
on July 1, 1863, on salt, wine, and liquors, and 1 per cent on all moneys
and credits. Second, an occupation tax ranging from $50 to $200 and from
2-1/2 per cent to 20 per cent of their gross sales was levied on bankers,
auctioneers, brokers, druggists, butchers, fakirs, liquor dealers,
merchants, pawnbrokers, lawyers, physicians, photographers, brewers, and
distillers; hotels paid from $30 to $500, and theatres, $500. Third, there
was an income tax of 1 per cent on salaries from $1000 to $1500 and 2 per
cent on all over $1500. Fourth, 10 per cent on all trade in flour, bacon,
corn, oats, and dry goods during 1863. Fifth, a tax-in-kind, by which each
farmer, after reserving 50 bushels of sweet and 50 bushels of Irish
potatoes, 20 bushels of peas or beans, 100 bushels of corn or 50 bushels
of wheat out of his crop of 1863, had to deliver (at a depot within 8
miles) out of the remainder of his produce for that year, 10 per cent of
all wheat, corn, oats, rye, buckwheat, rice, sweet and Irish potatoes,
hay, fodder, sugar, molasses, cotton, wool, tobacco, peas, beans, and
peanuts; 10 per cent of all meat killed between April 24, 1863, and March
1, 1863.[436]
By this act $9,500,000 in currency was raised in Alabama. Alabama, with
Georgia and North Carolina, furnished two-thirds of the tax-in-kind.
Though at first there was some objection to the tax-in-kind because it
bore entirely on the agricultural classes, yet it was a just tax so far as
the large planters were concerned, since the depreciated money had acted
as a tax on the wage-earners and salaried classes, who had also some state
tax to pay. The tax-in-kind fell heavily upon the families of small
farmers in the white counties, who had no negro labor and who produced no
more than the barest necessaries of life. To collect the tax-in-kind
required an army of tithe gatherers and afforded fine opportunities of
escape from military service. The state was divided into districts for the
collection of all Confederate taxes, with a state collector at the head.
The collection districts were usually counties, following the state
division into taxing districts. In 1864 the tobacco tithe was collected by
treasury agents and not by the quartermaster's department, which had
formerly collected it.[437] The tax of April 24, 1863, was renewed on
February 17, 1864, and some additional taxes laid as follows:--
Real estate and personal property 5%
Gold and silver ware, jewellery 10%
Coin 5%
Credits 5%
Profits on liquors, produce, groceries, and dry goods 10%
On June 10, 1864, an additional tax of 20 per cent of the tax for 1864 was
laid, payable only in Confederate treasury notes of the new issue. Four
days later an additional tax[438] was levied as follows:--
Real estate and personal property and coin 5%
Gold and silver ware 10%
Profits on liquors, produce, groceries, and dry goods 30%
Treasury notes of old issue (after January, 1865) 100%
The taxes during the war, state and Confederate, were in all five to ten
times those levied before the war. Never were taxes paid more willingly by
most of the people,[439] though at first there was opposition to them. It
is probable that the authorities did not, in 1861 and 1862, give
sufficient consideration to the fact that conditions were much changed,
and that in view of the war the people would willingly have paid taxes
that they would have rebelled against in times of peace.
Of the tax-in-kind for 1863, $100,000 was collected in Pickens county
alone, one of the poorest counties in the state. The produce was sent in
too freely to be taken care of by the government quartermasters, and, as
there was enough on hand for a year or two, much of it was ruined for lack
of storage room.[440] An English traveller in east Alabama, in 1864,
reported that there was abundance. The tax-in-kind was working well, and
enough provisions had already been collected for the western armies of the
Confederacy to last until the harvest of 1865.[441] There were few
railroads in the state and the rolling stock on these was scarce and soon
worn out. So the supplies gathered by the tax-in-kind law could not be
moved. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of beef and bacon and bushels of
corn were piled up in the government warehouses and at the depots, while
starvation threatened the armies and the people also in districts remote
from the railroads or rivers. At the supply centres of Alabama and along
the railroads in the Black Belt there were immense stores of provisions.
When the war ended, notwithstanding the destruction by raids, great
quantities of corn and bacon were seized or destroyed by the Federal
troops.[442]
Impressment
The state quite early began to secure supplies by impressment. Salt was
probably the first article to which the state laid claim. Later the
officials were authorized to impress and pay for supplies necessary for
the public service. In 1862 the governor was authorized to impress shoes,
leather, and other shoemakers' materials for the use of the army. The
legislature appropriated $250,000 to pay for impressments under this
law.[443] In case of a refusal to comply with an order of impressment the
sheriff was authorized to summon a _posse comitatus_ of not less than 20
men and seize double the quantity first impressed. In such cases no
compensation was given.[444] The people resisted the impressment of their
property. By a law of October 31, 1862, the governor was empowered to
impress slaves, and tools and teams for them to work with, in the public
service against the enemy, and $1,000,000 was appropriated to pay the
owners.[445] Slaves were regularly impressed by the Confederate officials
acting in coöperation with the state authorities, for work on
fortifications and for other public service. Several thousand were at work
at Mobile at various times. They were secured usually by requisition on
the state government, which then impressed them. In December, 1864,
Alabama was asked for 2500 negroes for the Confederate service.[446] The
people were morbidly sensitive about their slave property, and there was
much discontent at the impressment of slaves, even though they were paid
for. As the war drew to a close, the people were less and less willing to
have their servants impressed.
In the spring of 1863, the Confederate Congress authorized the impressment
of private property for public use.[447] The President and the governor
each appointed an agent, and these together fixed the prices to be paid
for the property taken.[448] Every two months they published schedules of
prices, which were always below the market prices.[449] Evidently
impressment had been going on for some time, for, in November, 1862, Judge
Dargan, member of Congress from Alabama, wrote to the President that the
people from the country were afraid to bring produce to Mobile for fear of
seizure by the government. In November, 1863, the Secretary of War issued
an order that no supplies should be impressed when held by a person for
his own consumption or that of his employees or slaves, or while being
carried to market for sale, except in urgent cases and by order of a
commanding general. Consequently the land was filled with agents buying a
year's supply for railroad companies, individuals, manufactories, and
corporations, relief associations, towns, and counties--all these to be
protected from impressment. Most speculators always had their goods on the
way to market for sale. The great demand caused prices to rise suddenly,
and the government, which had to buy by scheduled prices, could not
compete with private purchasers; yet it could not legally impress. There
was much abuse of the impressment law, especially by unauthorized persons.
It was the source of much lawless conduct on the part of many who claimed
to be Confederate officials, with authority to impress.[450] The
legislature frequently protested against the manner of execution of the
law. In 1863 a state law was passed which indicates that the people had
been suffering from the depredations of thieves who pretended to be
Confederate officials in order to get supplies. It was made a penal
offence in 1862 and again in 1863, with from one to five years'
imprisonment and $500 to $5000 fine, to falsely represent one's self as a
Confederate agent, contractor, or official.[451] The merchants of Mobile
protested against the impressment of sugar and molasses, as it would cause
prices to double, they said.[452] There was much complaint from sufferers
who were never paid by the Confederate authorities for the supplies
impressed. Quartermasters of an army would sometimes seize the necessary
supplies and would leave with the army before settling accounts with the
citizens of the community, the latter often being left without any proof
of their claim. In north Alabama, especially, where the armies never
tarried long at a place, the complaint was greatest. To do away with this
abuse resulting from carelessness, the Secretary of War appointed agents
in each congressional district to receive proof of claims for forage and
supplies impressed.[453] The state wanted a Confederate law passed to
authorize receipts for supplies to be given as part of the
tax-in-kind.[454] The unequal operation of the impressment system may be
seen in the case of Clarke and Monroe counties. In the former, from 16
persons, property amounting to $1700 was impressed. In Monroe, from 37
persons $60,000 worth was taken. The delay in payment was so long that the
money was practically worthless when received.[455]
Debts, Stay Laws, Sequestration
In the secession convention the question of indebtedness to northern
creditors came up, and Watts of Montgomery proposed confiscation, in case
of war, of the property of alien enemies and of debts due northern
creditors. The proposal was supported by several members, who declared
that the threat of confiscation would do much to promote peace. But the
majority of the convention were opposed to any measure looking toward
confiscation, and the matter was carried over for the Confederate
government to settle.[456]
Stay laws were enacted in Alabama on February 8, 1861, and on December
10, 1861. The Confederate Provisional Congress enacted a law (May 21,
1861) that debtors to persons in the North (except in Delaware, Maryland,
Missouri, and the District of Columbia) be prohibited from paying their
debts during the war.[457] They should pay the amount of the debt into the
Confederate treasury and receive a certificate relieving them from their
debts, transferring it to the Confederate treasury. A Confederate law of
November 17, 1862, provided that when payment of the interest on a debt
was proffered in Confederate treasury notes and refused, it should be
unlawful for the plaintiff to secure more than 1/4 of 1 per cent interest.
On August 30, 1861, Congress, in retaliation for the confiscation and
destruction of the property of Confederate citizens, passed the
Sequestration Act, which held all property of alien enemies (except
citizens of the border states) as indemnity for such destruction and
devastation.[458] Under the Sequestration Act receivers were appointed in
each county to take possession of all property belonging to alien enemies.
They were empowered to interrogate all lawyers, bank officials, officials
of corporations engaged in foreign trade, and all persons and agents
engaged for persons engaged in foreign trade, for the purpose of
discovering such property. The proceeds were to be held for the indemnity
of loyal citizens suffering under the confiscation laws of the United
States.[459] Later the property thus seized was sold and the money paid
into the Confederate treasury.[460] In the last days of the war (February
15, 1865), the Sequestration Act was extended to include the property of
disloyal citizens who had gone within the Federal lines to escape military
service, or who had entered the Union service to fight against the
Confederacy.[461]
In December, 1861, a law was passed by the legislature which provided
that no suit by or for an alien enemy for debt or money should be
prosecuted in any court in Alabama. No execution was to be issued to an
alien enemy, and suits already brought could be dismissed on the motion of
the defendant.[462] In Alabama much of the time of the Confederate
district courts was taken up by sequestration cases. In fact, they did
little else. However, but little money was ever turned into the
Confederate treasury from this source.[463]
Just as the state sent nearly all its coin through the blockade to pay the
interest of its London debt, so the Mobile, Montgomery, or Selma merchant
cancelled his indebtedness and sent money, as he was able, during the
early years of the war, to his northern and European creditors. Most debts
due to northerners were concealed from the government. The stringent laws
passed against it were of no avail. As a source of revenue the
sequestration of the property of alien enemies hardly paid expenses. After
all, however, the northern creditor probably lost nearly all his accounts
in the South in the general wreck of property in 1865.
Trade, Barter, Prices
After the outbreak of war, business was soon almost at a standstill. The
government monopolized all means of transportation for military purposes.
There were few good railroads in the state and few good wagon roads. In
one section there would be plenty, while seventy-five or a hundred miles
away there would be great suffering from want. Depreciated currency and
the impressment laws made the producer wary of going to market at all. He
preferred to keep what he had and live upon it, effecting changes in the
old way of barter. Cows, hogs, chickens, mules, farm implements, cotton,
corn, peas--all were exchanged and reëxchanged for one another. The farmer
tended more and more to become independent of the merchant and of money.
Consequently the townspeople suffered. Confederate money, at first
received at par, soon began to depreciate, though the most patriotic
people considered it their duty to accept it at its par value.[464]
[Illustration: ALABAMA MONEY.]
[Illustration: CONFEDERATE POSTAGE STAMPS.]
[Illustration: PRIVATE MONEY. Printed in large sheets on one side only and
never used. The other side is a state bill similar to the one above. Paper
was scarce, and the state money was printed so that when cut apart the
private money was destroyed.]
At the end of 1861, Confederate money was worth as much[465] as Federal,
but it had depreciated. Often private credit was better than public, and
individuals in need of a more stable circulating medium issued notes or
promises to pay which in the immediate neighborhood passed current at
their face value. Great quantities of this "card money" or shinplasters
were issued, and in some communities it almost supplanted the legal money
as a more reliable medium of exchange. The Alabama legislature passed
severe laws against the practice of issuing "card money," but with little
effect.
The effect of depreciation of paper money was the same as a tax so far as
the people were concerned. Forced into circulation, it supported the
government, but it gradually depreciated and each holder lost a little.
Finally, when almost worthless, it was practically repudiated by the state
and by the Confederacy, and funding laws were passed, providing for the
redemption of old notes at a low rate in new issues. Depreciation of the
currency caused extravagance and other more evil results. A person who
handled much money felt that he must at once get rid of all that came into
his possession in order to avoid loss by depreciation. Consequently there
was speculation, reckless spending, and extravagance. Money would be spent
for anything offered for sale. If useful things were not to be had, then
luxuries would be bought, such as silks, fancy articles, liquors, etc.,
from blockade-runners. This was especially the case in Selma, Mobile, and
Montgomery, and in northern Alabama. Persons formerly of good character
frequently drifted into extravagant and dissipated habits, because they
tried to spend their money and there were not enough legitimate ways in
which to do so.
Depreciation, speculation, and scarcity caused prices to rise, especially
the prices of the necessaries of life. These varied in the different
sections of the state. In Mobile, in 1862, prices were as follows:--
Shoes, per pair $25.00
Boots, per pair 40.00
Overcoats, each 25.00
Hats, each 15.00
Flour, per barrel $40.00 to 60.00
Corn, per bushel 3.25
Butter, per pound 1.75
Bacon, per pound 10.00
Soap, per pound (cheap) 1.00
Candles, per pound 2.50
Sugar, per pound $0.50 to .75
Coffee, per pound 1.75 to 3.25
Tea, per pound 10.00 to 20.00
Cotton and wool cards, per pair 2.00
Board per week at the Battle House,
in 1862 $3.50; in 1863, 8.00[466]
In May, 1862, at Huntsville, then in the hands of the Federals, some
prices were, in Federal currency:--
Green tea (poor quality), per pound $4.00
Common rough trousers, per pair 13.00
Boots, per pair 25.00
Shoes, per pair $5.00 to 12.00[467]
In 1863, in south Alabama, in Confederate currency:--
Meat, per pound $4.00
Lard, per pound 6.00
Salt, per sack at the works $80.00 to 95.00
Wheat, per bushel 10.00
Corn, per bushel 3.00
A cow (worth $15 in 1860) 127.00[468]
In March, 1864, prices in Selma were as follows:--
Salt, per bushel $30.00
Calico, per yard 10.00
Women's common shoes, per pair 60.00
Men's rough boots, per pair 125.00
Cotton cards (worth $1.75 in Connecticut) 85.00[469]
In August, 1864, the prices in Mobile were:--
Flour, per barrel $250.00 to $300.00
Bacon, per pound 3.00 to 5.00
Cotton thread, per spool 6.00 to 12.00
Calico, per yard 12.50 to 15.00
Common shoes, per pair 150.00 to 175.00
Boots, per pair 250.00 to 300.00
Nails, per pound 4.00
Cotton shirts (each worth 50 to 60 c.
in Massachusetts) 50.00 to 60.00[470]
In November, 1864, Colonel Dabney paid the following prices in
Montgomery:--
Bacon, per pound $3.50
Beef, per pound $2.00 to 2.50
Potatoes, per bushel 6.00
Wood, per cord 50.00
Board, per day 30.00[471]
In Russell County and east Alabama the following prices were paid in
1863-1864:--
A calico dress (9 yards) $108.00
A plain straw hat 100.00
Half a quire of note paper 40.00
Morocco shoes 375.00
Coffee, per pound $30.00 to 70.00
Corn, per bushel 12.00 to 13.00
Wax candles, each .10
Wages, per day 30.00
Soldier's pay, per month (which he
seldom received) 11.00[472]
In southwest Alabama, in December, 1864, prices were:--
A mule (worth before the war $75.00
to $120.00) $800.00 to $1200.00
A horse (worth before the war $120.00
to $250.00) 1200.00 to 2500.00
A wagon and team cost 2940.00
Beef cattle, each 930.00[473]
At the close of 1864, in Mobile, Alabama, $1 in gold was worth $25 in
state currency, and prices were as follows:--
Wheat, per bushel $30.00 to $40.00
Corn, per bushel 10.00
Coffee, per pound 20.00
Fresh beef, per pound 150.00
Bacon, per pound 4.00
Domestics, per yard 5.00
Calico, per yard 15.00
A horse $1500.00 to 2000.00
Salt, per sack 150.00 to 200.00
Quinine, per ounce 150.00[474]
The War Department published, on September 26, 1864, the following
prices[475] as agreed upon by the commissioners of February 17, 1864, for
the states east of the Mississippi:--
Bacon, per pound $2.50
Fresh beef, per pound .70
Flour, per barrel 40.00
Meal, per bushel 4.00
Rice, per pound .30
Peas, per bushel 6.50
Sugar, per pound 3.00
Coffee, per pound 6.00
Candles, per pound 3.75
Soap, per pound 1.00
Vinegar, per gallon 2.50
Molasses, per gallon 10.00
Salt, per pound .30
The commissioners' prices were always lower than the prevailing market
price.
A little property or labor would pay a large debt. Merchants did not want
to be paid in money, and were sorry to see a debtor come in with great
rolls of almost worthless currency. Barter was increasingly resorted to.
There were so many different series and issues of money and so many
regulations concerning it that no one could know them all, and this
operated to discredit the currency. Besides, it was known that much of it
was counterfeited at the North and quantities sent South. Prices advanced
rapidly in 1865; state money was worth more than Confederate money, though
it was much depreciated. Board was worth $600 a month; meals, $10 to $25
each; a boiled egg, $2; a cup of imitation coffee, $5. After the news of
Lee's surrender, few would accept the paper money, though for two or
three months longer, in remote districts, state money remained in
circulation.
When Wilson's army was marching into Montgomery, a young man asked an old
negro woman who stood gazing at the soldiers if she could give him a piece
of paper to light his pipe. She fumbled in her pocket and handed him a
one-dollar state bill. "Why, auntie, that is money!" remarked the young
man. "Haw, haw!" the old crone chuckled, "light it, massa; don't you see
de state done gone up?"[476]
SEC. 3. BLOCKADE-RUNNING AND TRADE THROUGH THE LINES
Blockade-running
For several months after the secession of the state, its one important
seaport--Mobile--was open, and export and import trade went on as usual.
The proclamation of Lincoln, April 19, 1861, practically declared a
blockade of the ports of the southern states. A vessel attempting to enter
or to leave was to be warned, and if a second attempt was made, the vessel
was to be seized as a prize.[477] By proclamations of April 27 and August
16, 1861, the blockade was extended and made more stringent. All vessels
and cargoes belonging to citizens of the southern states found at sea or
in a port of the United States were to be confiscated.[478] As the summer
advanced, the blockade was made more and more effective, until finally, at
the end of 1861, the port of Mobile was closed to all but the professional
blockade-runners.[479] The fact that the legislature in the fall of 1861
was fostering various new industries and purchasing certain articles of
common use shows that the effects of the blockade were beginning to be
felt.[480]
At first the general confidence in the power of King Cotton made most
southern people desire to let the blockade assist the work of war, and, by
creating a scarcity of cotton abroad, cause foreign governments to
recognize the Confederate government and raise the blockade.[481] The
pinch of want soon made many forget their faith in the power of cotton;
there was a general desire to get supplies through the blockade and to
send cotton in exchange. The state administration was distinctly in favor
of blockade-running and foreign trade.[482] In 1861 the legislature
incorporated two "Direct Trading Companies," giving them permission to own
and sail ships between the ports of the state and the ports of foreign
countries for the purpose of carrying on trade.[483] The general
regulation of foreign commerce, however, fell to the Confederate
government, which was distinctly opposed to all blockade-running not under
its immediate control and supervision. The state authorities complained
that the course of the Confederate administration was harsh and
unnecessary. The state was willing to prohibit blockade-running on private
account, but insisted that its public vessels be allowed to import
supplies needed by the state. The complaint about restrictions on trade
was general throughout the southern states and, in October, 1864, the
southern governors, in a meeting in Augusta, Georgia, Governor Watts of
Alabama taking a leading part, declared that each state had the right to
export its productions and import such supplies as might be necessary for
state use or for the use of the state troops in the army, state vessels
being used for this purpose. The governors united in a request to Congress
to remove the restrictions on such trade.[484] But the Confederate
administration to the last retained control of foreign trade. Agents were
sent abroad by the Treasury and War Departments[485] who were instructed
to send on vessels attempting to run the blockade, first, arms and
ammunition; second, clothing, boots, shoes, and hats; third, drugs and
chemicals that were most needed, such as quinine, chloroform, ether,
opium, morphine, and rhubarb. These agents were instructed to see that all
vessels leaving for southern ports were laden with the articles named.
Such part of the cargoes as was not taken by the government was sold at
auction to the highest bidder. These blockade auction sales were attended
by merchants from the inland towns, whose shelves were almost bare of
goods during three years of the war.[486] For two years military and naval
supplies were the most important articles brought into the southern ports.
The Alabama troops were in great need of all kinds of war equipment, and
the state administration made every effort to obtain military supplies
from abroad. Shipments of arms from Europe were made to the West Indies,
generally to Cuba, and thence smuggled into Mobile and other Gulf ports.
The shipments were always long delayed while waiting for a favorable
opportunity to attempt a run. A large proportion of the blockade-runners
making for Mobile were captured by the United States vessels.[487] Dark
nights, and rainy, stormy weather furnished the opportunity to the runners
to slip into or out of a port. Once at sea, nothing could catch them,
since they were built for fast sailing rather than for capacity to carry
freight.[488]
Most of the arms secured by Alabama came by way of Cuba, as did nearly all
the supplies that entered the port of Mobile or were smuggled in on boats
along the coast. Havanna was 590 miles from Mobile, and between these
ports most of the blockade trade of the Gulf Coast was carried on. One
shipment, welcomed by the state authorities, was a lot of condemned
Spanish flint-lock muskets, which were remodelled and repaired and placed
in the hands of the state troops. Machinery for the naval foundry and
arsenal at Selma and for the navy-yard on the Tombigbee was brought
through the blockade from England _via_ the West Indies. The Confederate
government, besides taking its own half of each cargo, had the first
choice of all other goods brought through the blockade and usually chose
shoes, clothing, and medicine. The state could only make contracts for the
importation of supplies; it could not import them on its own vessels. The
Confederate government paid high prices for goods, but, on the whole, paid
much less than did the private individual for the remainder of the cargo
when sold at auction. The merchants made large profits on the few articles
of merchandise secured by them. Speculators bought up lots of merchandise
at Mobile and carried them far inland, to the small towns and villages of
the Black Belt and farther north, and secured fabulous prices in
Confederate money for ordinary calico, shoes, women's apparel, etc. The
central part of the state was more completely shut from the outside world
than any other section of the South. The Federal lines touched the
northern part of the state, but the traffic carried on through the lines
seldom reached the central counties. Consequently, the arrival of a
merchant in the Black Belt village with a small lot of blockade calicoes,
shoes, hats, scented soap, etc., was a great event, and people came from
far and near to gaze upon the fine things exhibited in the usually empty
show windows. Few had sufficient Confederate money to buy the commonest
articles, but some one could always be found to purchase the latest
useless trifle that came from abroad.[489]
In exchange for goods thus imported, the blockade-runners carried out
cargoes of cotton. As has been stated, the Confederate administration was
in charge of cotton exportation. The Confederate Treasury Department
purchased in Alabama 134,252 bales of cotton for $13,633,621.90--that is,
$101.55 a bale. This cotton was to be sold abroad for the benefit of the
Confederate government. Nearly all the cotton purchased by the government
was in the great producing states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
Alabama furnished more than any other state. In 1864 3226 bales of cotton
were shipped from Mobile by the Treasury Department, and the proceeds
applied to the support of the Erlanger Loan. To avoid competition between
the departments of the government, it was agreed, June 1, 1864, that all
stores for shipment should be turned over to the Treasury, transported to
the vessels by the War Department, and consigned to Treasury agents in the
West Indies or in Europe. It was to be sold finally by the Treasury agent
at Liverpool and the proceeds placed to the credit of the Treasury. The
export business was under the direction of the Produce Loan Office, which
had charge of all government cotton and tobacco. Contracts were usually
made with companies, to whom the government turned over the cotton for
shipment. In November, 1864, there were 115,450 bales of government cotton
in Alabama, 18,802 bales having been sold. It is hardly possible that it
was all exported; some of it was sold through the lines.[490] It was found
very difficult to secure bagging and ties sufficient to bale the cotton
for shipping.
The state lost much as well as gained by trade through the blockade. The
risks were great and the exporters had to have a large share of the
profit; but arms, medicine, and blankets were valuable and very necessary.
In spite of regulations, the blockade-runners brought in more luxuries
than necessaries, causing much extravagance, and there were people who
objected to the practice altogether. In March, 1863, the Mobile Committee
of Safety reported that there were several vessels then in the harbor
fitting out to carry cotton to Cuba. They were of the opinion that the
government ought not to allow them to depart, since the country could not
afford to lose the vessels with their machinery, which could not be
replaced. Governor Shorter agreed with them, and a protest was made to the
Richmond authorities; but the vessels went out.[491] Judge Dargan, whom
many things troubled, wrote to the Richmond authorities that the
blockade-runners were ruining the country by supplying the enemy with
cotton and bringing in return useless gewgaws.[492]
From March 1, 1864, to the end of the war, the Confederate government
succeeded better in regulating the imports by blockade-runners. But after
August, when Farragut captured the forts defending the harbor entrance,
the port of Mobile received little from the outside world. Before the
stringent regulations of the Confederacy went into force, blockade-running
was demoralizing. The importers refused to accept paper money for their
goods, and thus discredited currency while draining specie from the
country. High prices and extortion followed. Cotton, instead of being
exchanged for British gold, brought in trinkets, silks, satins, laces,
broadcloths, brandy, rum, whiskey, fancy slippers, and ladies' goods
generally. Curiously enough, there was great demand for these, in spite of
the wants of the necessaries of life, medicine, and munitions of war.
Delicate women, old persons, and children suffered most from the effects
of the blockade. As Spears says, there were many tiny graves made in the
South because the blockade kept out necessary medicines.[493]
The blockade reduced the Confederacy; the Union navy rather than the Union
army was the prime factor in crushing the South; it made possible the
victories of the army. As it was, the blockade-runners probably postponed
the end for a year or more.[494] Though the number of blockade-runners
increased in the latter part of 1864 and in 1865, Alabama profited but
little; her one good seaport was closed in August, 1864, by Farragut's
fleet, and with the fleet came the last regular blockade-runner. As the
warships were moving up to engage the forts, a blockade-runner passed in
with them unnoticed.[495] Small boats still brought in supplies.
Trade through the Lines
The early policy of the Confederate administration was to bring the North
to terms by shutting off the cotton supply and by ceasing to purchase
supplies which had heretofore been a source of great profit to northern
merchants, and was, on the whole, consistently adhered to during the war.
The state administration held the same theory until one-fourth of its
people were destitute; then it was ready to relax restrictions on
trade.[496] Individuals who had plenty of cotton and little to eat and
wear soon came to the conclusion that traffic with the North would do no
harm, but much good. The United States wanted the products of the South,
and made stronger efforts to get them than the blockaded South made to get
supplies by the exchange. Until the very last, the North was more active
in commercial intercourse than the South, notwithstanding the fearful want
all over the southern country. The policy of the North was to have all
trade in southern products pass through the hands of its own Treasury
agents, who were to strip such products of all extraordinary profits for
the benefit of the United States Treasury, and to see that the Confederacy
profited as little as possible.[497] The Confederate States government,
when forced to allow some kind of trade through the lines, sought to sell
only government cotton or to force traders to traffic under its license.
The state administration, at times, worked in its agents under Confederate
license in order to get supplies for the destitute in the counties near
the lines of the enemy. Few regulations of commercial intercourse were
made by the Confederate States, but many were made by the United States.
The Confederate States had the problem almost under control; the United
States did not, and had to try to regulate what it could not prohibit.
Trade along the Tennessee and Mississippi frontier was subject to the
following regulations on the side of the United States: Trade was carried
on under the control of the Treasury Department; all trade had to be
licensed; there were numerous officials to regulate the trade and the army
was directed to assist traders; no coin, no foreign money, and no supplies
were to be allowed to get to the Confederates; the trader must not go
within Confederate territory; until 1864 the southern seller, whither
Confederate or Union, when he went beyond the lines could get only 25 per
cent of the New York value of his produce; from 1864 to 1865 he could get
75 per cent of the value if the cotton were not produced by slave labor;
in all cases the seller had to take the oath of allegiance to the United
States. These regulations were gradually repealed during the latter part
of 1865 and early in 1866.[498]
The legislation of the Confederate States was not so full, but the policy
was about the same and more consistently enforced. In 1862 the Confederate
Congress made it unlawful to sell in any part of the Confederate States in
the possession of the enemy any cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar, molasses, or
naval stores.[499] Licenses, however, for the sale of certain merchandise
could be obtained from the Secretary of War. Trade through the lines was
not under the supervision of Treasury officials but was looked after by
the generals commanding the frontier. In 1864 a law of Congress prohibited
the export of military and naval stores, and agricultural production,
such as cotton and tobacco, except under regulations prescribed by the
President.[500]
But the restrictions were not strictly enforced. It was not possible to do
so; commerce would find a way in spite of the war. The people of Alabama
were, on the whole, disposed to approve the policy of the Confederate
authorities, but, when want and destitution came, the owners of cotton
proceeded to find a way to sell a few bales. Early in 1863 north Alabama
was occupied by the Federals, and trade began along the line of the
Tennessee River. Later, there were trade lines to the northwest through
Mississippi, and to the northeast through Georgia and Tennessee.[501]
After the capture of New Orleans, cotton was sent through Mississippi to
New Orleans, or to the banks of the Mississippi River, and always found
purchasers. There was a thriving trade between Mobile and New Orleans
during the Butler régime in the latter city.
By the trade through the lines, the people of Alabama secured more of the
scarcer commodities than by the blockade-running. Much of the trade was
carried on by firms in Mobile that had agents or branch houses in New
Orleans. Three pounds of cotton were exchanged for one of bacon; army
supplies, clothing, blankets, and medical stores were secured in exchange
for cotton; salt was also a commodity much in demand. For three years,
from 1862 to 1864, trade was quite brisk between the two cities, some of
it under license by the Confederate Secretary of War, and some of it
purely contraband. As long as Butler controlled New Orleans there was no
trouble.[502] When General Canby went to New Orleans, he reported that
English houses in Mobile were making contracts to export 200,000 bales of
cotton _via_ New Orleans, and expected to realize $10,000,000 net profits.
Canby was of the opinion that the cotton trade aided the Confederates. The
character of the Treasury agents in charge of the cotton trade was bad;
they were likely to do anything for gain. He stated on the authority of a
New Orleans banker, who was the agent of a cotton speculator, that
Confederate agents would come to New Orleans with United States legal
tender notes and invest in sterling with him, drawing against cotton which
was ostensibly purchased from "loyal" or foreign citizens.[503] The
speculators would give information to the Confederates with regard to the
movements of the Federals, in order that the Confederates might preserve
cotton that would in an emergency be destroyed. The speculators would buy
the cotton later.
In 1864 a New York manufacturer testified that he had made contracts with
firms in Selma, Montgomery, and Mobile to take pay for debts due him in
cotton delivered through the lines at New Orleans. The price was $1.24 to
$1.30 a pound in New York. Treasury agents made similar contracts for
Alabama cotton to be delivered through New Orleans, Pensacola, or through
the lines in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia. One agent, H. A. Risley,
made contracts with half a dozen persons for more than 350,000 bales of
cotton, the bulk of which was to come from Alabama. Most of this, it is
needless to say, was not delivered.[504]
The Confederate officials tried to manage that only government cotton went
out under the licenses from the War Department and that only necessary
supplies were imported in exchange. But there was much abuse of the
privilege and much private smuggling of cotton in 1864, through the
Mississippi to New Orleans and the river; and on September 22, 1864,
General Dick Taylor (at Selma) annulled all cotton export contracts in the
Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana. However, he said,
the Confederate authorities would purchase necessaries imported and would
pay for them in cotton at 50 cents a pound. This cotton could then be
carried beyond the lines. No luxuries were to be imported, under penalty
of confiscation.[505]
Surgeon Potts, of the Confederate army, stationed at Montgomery, secured
medical supplies from the Federal lines in Louisiana and Mississippi, both
by water and by land, sending cotton in exchange. One of the last reports
made to President Davis was by Lieutenant-Colonel Brand, of Miles's
Louisiana Legion, who stated (April 9, 1865, at Danville, Virginia) that
on March 21, 1865, a Mr. McKnight of the Alabama Reserves had presented a
permit to General Hodges in Louisiana for indorsement and orders for a
grant to escort 1,666,666-2/3 pounds of cotton (about 4000 bales) through
southwestern Mississippi and eastern Louisiana to exchange for medical
supplies for Surgeon Potts. Brand was of the opinion that this was merely
a scheme to sell cotton and not to get medicines, as he had known of only
one wagon-load of medical supplies that had gone through his territory to
Dr. Potts. McKnight had no government cotton to carry, for there was none
in that section of the country, but he expected to buy it as a
speculation. This practice, Brand stated, was common. Even government
cotton would be sold for coffee, soap, flour, etc., under the name of
medical supplies, and these would be sold by the speculators.[506]
In north Alabama a brisk trade was carried on for three years with the
connivance of the Federal officers, many of whom were interested in the
fleecy staple in spite of orders forbidding such conduct.[507] Negroes
were given "free papers" in order that they might go in and out of the
lines of the armies on contraband trade. The Confederate officials on the
border were also often implicated in the traffic or connived at it through
a desire to see poor people get supplies.[508]
One of the mildest charges against the Federal General O. M. Mitchel was
that he had profited by speculation in the contraband trade in cotton
while he was in command in north Alabama. It was alleged that he used
United States transportation to haul cotton when the transportation was
needed for other purposes. Mitchel claimed that personally he had received
no profit from his trade; it appeared, however, that he had used his
official position to advance the interests of his brother-in-law and his
son-in-law. The discussion over his case brought out the fact that the
northern cotton speculator or agent would go into the Confederate lines
and buy cotton at ten and eleven cents a pound, Confederate currency, and
take the cotton North and realize immense profits.[509] Mitchel and other
Federal officers, it was shown, approved and assisted the trade beyond the
lines.[510]
Individual permits were sometimes given by President Lincoln, authorizing
the bearers to go within the Confederacy, without restriction, and get
cotton and other southern produce. Sometimes, after bringing it out, these
people lost their cotton to United States Treasury agents, because the
permission given by the President was not in accordance with the Treasury
regulations. In north Alabama several agents got into trouble in this way.
Lincoln, it seems, understood that the laws gave him authority to issue
permits to trade within the Confederate lines.[511]
In 1864, when cotton was selling at forty to fifty cents a pound in coin,
numbers of Federal officers resigned in order to speculate in cotton. A
former beef contractor who had grown rich in the cotton trade was said to
have controlled almost the whole of Huntsville. Both hotels, the
waterworks, and the gas works belonged to him, and there was complaint of
his extortions.[512]
Small packages, especially of quinine, were sent South through the Adams
Express Company, which would guarantee to deliver them within the
Confederacy.[513] This caused speculation, and it was finally stopped.
Women passed through the lines and brought back quinine and other
medicines concealed in their clothing. A druggist in middle Alabama
determined to carry on a contraband trade in cotton and drugs. The South
had prohibited private trade in cotton; the North forbade the sale of
medical supplies to the Confederates. But following the example of many
others, he went into north Mississippi, loaded a wagon with cotton, and
carried it to Memphis, then held by the Federals, and sold it for a high
price in United States money. He then exchanged his wagon for an ambulance
with a white canvas cover, on which was painted the word "SMALLPOX" in
large letters, and over which fluttered a yellow flag. He loaded the
ambulance with quinine, ether, morphine, and other valuable drugs, and
other articles of merchandise scarce in Alabama. The yellow flag and the
magic word "SMALLPOX" kept people away, and, after many adventures, he
finally reached home.[514] Only by such methods could the beleaguered
people obtain the precious medicines.
One of the last contracts on record in respect to trade through the lines
was a deal made on January 6, 1865, by Samuel Noble and George W.
Quintard, his agent, both of Alabama, to deliver several thousand bales of
cotton to an agent of the United States Treasury.[515] There is evidence
that some of the cotton was delivered.
The illicit trade in cotton by private parties became so flagrant that in
the winter of 1864-1865, a fresh Confederate regiment, which had not yet
been touched by the fever of speculation, was sent from the interior of
Georgia to guard part of the frontier in Alabama and Mississippi. One of
the first persons captured smuggling a cotton train through the lines was
the wife of the Confederate commanding general, who, of course, released
her.[516] Much of the trade was carried on by poor people who had a few
bales of cotton and who were obliged to sell it or suffer from want. This
fact caused the Confederate officers to be lax in the enforcement of the
regulations.[517]
The extraordinary prices of cotton in the outside world brought little
gain to the blockaded Confederacy. Before the cotton could be brought into
the Union lines or beyond the blockade, all the profits had been absorbed
by the Confederate speculator, or, most often, by the Union speculators
and Treasury agents. Theoretically, the regulations of the United States
should have brought much profit to the Federal government. In fact, as
Secretary Chase reported, the United States did not realize a great deal
from Confederate staples brought into the Union lines. These frauds and
the demoralizing effects of the system were evidenced by many reports from
officers from the army and navy.[518]
But in spite of the demoralizing effects of the contraband trade within
the Confederacy and in spite of the extremely low prices obtained for
Confederate staples, much-needed supplies were sent in in such quantities
as to enable the contest to be maintained much longer than otherwise it
would have lasted. Owing to its interior location, it is probable that
Alabama profited less by this trade than the other states.
SEC. 4. SCARCITY AND DESTITUTION
When the men went away to the army, many poor families began to suffer for
the necessaries of life. The suffering was greater in the white counties,
where slaves were relatively few, many families feeling the touch of want
as soon as the breadwinners left. The Black Belt had plenty, such as it
was, until the end of the war.
The first legislature, after the secession of the state, levied a special
tax of 25 per cent of the regular tax for the next year to provide for the
destitute families of absent volunteers.[519] A month later a law was
passed permitting counties to assume the tax and to pay the amount into
the state treasury, and thus secure exemption from the state tax.[520] The
county commissioners were directed to appropriate money from the county
treasury for the support of the indigent families of soldiers.[521] This
was to secure immediate relief, which was imperatively necessary, since
the special tax for their benefit would not be collected until the next
year.
Early in 1862 portions of north Alabama were so devastated by the Federals
that many people, to escape starvation, had to "refugee" to other parts of
the country, usually to middle Alabama, there to be supported by the
state. At this time all crops were short, owing to a drought, and the
poorer people suffered greatly.[522] Speculators had advanced the prices
on food, and wage-earners were unable to buy. Impressment by the
government made farmers afraid to bring produce to town.[523]
The county commissioners were authorized in 1862 to levy for the next year
a tax equal to the regular state tax and to use it for the benefit of the
destitute.[524] The state also made an appropriation of $2,000,000 for the
same purpose. This appropriation was to be distributed by the county
commissioners in the form of supplies or money. The families of
substitutes were not made beneficiaries of this fund.[525] The sum of
$60,000 was appropriated for cotton and wool spinning cards, which were to
be purchased abroad and distributed among the counties in proportion to
the white population. They were sold at cost to those able to buy,[526]
and several distributions were made to the needy families of
soldiers.[527] Salt was the scarcest of all the necessaries of life. The
state took entire charge of the whole supply that was for sale and sold it
at a moderate price, sometimes at cost, and to those in great need it was
furnished free.[528] The county commissioners were authorized to hire and
rehire slaves and take in return provisions, which were distributed among
the poor families of soldiers.[529] The commissioners of Sumter and Walker
counties were permitted to borrow $10,000 in each county for the poor, and
to levy a tax of 50 per cent of the state tax with which to repay the
borrowed money.[530]
Judge Dargan, member of Congress, wrote to President Davis in the winter
of 1862 that many people of Mobile were destitute.[531] Mobile was farther
away from country supplies, and the people suffered greatly. In the spring
of 1863 there was suffering in the southern white counties. A party of
women, the wives and daughters of soldiers, raided a provision shop in
Mobile, when there were instances of dire distress in the families of
soldiers.[532] The richer citizens of the city gave $130,000 to support a
free market, where for a while 4000 needy persons were furnished daily.
Another contribution of $70,000 was raised to clothe a thousand destitute
families.[533]
In 1863 the non-combatants of north Alabama suffered more than in the
previous year. Houses had been burned, grain and provisions destroyed, and
many were homeless and destitute. Numbers were driven from the country by
the persecutions of the Federals and tories. The Confederate war tax and
the state tax were suspended in districts invaded by the enemy,[534] and
in August, 1863, the legislature appropriated $1,000,000 for the support
of the destitute families of soldiers during the next three months.
Twenty-five pounds of salt were also given to each member of a soldier's
family as a year's supply.[535] Probate judges impressed provisions and
paid for them out of this million-dollar fund. In November, 1863, an
appropriation of $3,000,000 was made for the support of soldiers' families
during the coming year. In counties held by the enemy where there were no
commissioners' courts, the probate judges paid to soldiers' families their
share of the appropriation. The county commissioners were authorized to
impress provisions for the poor if they were unable to buy them.[536]
Washington County was permitted to borrow $10,000 for the relief of
soldiers' families.[537] The policy of giving a county permission to raise
money for its own poor was much opposed on the ground that the counties
which had furnished most soldiers and where the destitution was greatest
were the least able to pay. The legislature declared then that the poor
soldiers' families should be the charge of the state.[538] The sum of
$500,000 was appropriated for the destitute of north Alabama, who had lost
everything from the seizure and destruction by the enemy. Disloyal persons
and their families were not entitled to aid.[539] Macon County was
authorized to levy a tax-in-kind for the poor, and Pike County a
tax-in-kind and a property and income tax, practically a duplicate of the
Confederate tax.[540]
The legislature of 1864 appropriated $5,000,000 for soldiers'
families,[541] and made a special appropriation of $180,000 for the poor
in the counties of Cherokee, De Kalb, Morgan, St. Clair, Marshall, and
Blount, which were overrun by the enemy.[542] The probate judge of
Cherokee County was authorized to act for De Kalb because the probate
judge of that county had been carried off by the Federals.[543] In
Lawrence County the Federals raided the probate judge's office, and took
$3000 belonging to the destitute, and the agent was robbed of $3887.50
while trying to carry it to Moulton. Both losses were made good by the
state.[544]
Statutes were repeatedly passed, prohibiting the distilling of grain for
the purpose of making alcoholic liquors. The state placed this industry
under the supervision of the governor, and alcohol and whiskey were
distributed among the counties where most needed, to be sold at a moderate
price for medicinal purposes, and the profit given to the poor, or to be
given away upon physicians' prescriptions. Later the prohibition was
extended to include potatoes, peas, and even molasses and sugar. This
prohibition was not a temperance measure, but was designed to preserve as
foodstuffs the grain, molasses, peas, and potatoes.[545]
The county commissioners usually had charge of the destitute, and looked
after the collection of the special taxes which were levied for the
benefit of the poor. They also distributed the supplies, purchased or
collected by the tax-in-kind, among the needy people after investigating
the merits of each case. In those portions of the state overrun by the
enemy or liable to repeated invasion, the probate judge of the county was
authorized to take charge of all matters relating to the relief of the
destitute. Many thousand dollars' worth of supplies were furnished the
northern counties when they were within the Federal lines or between the
hostile lines. Many of the supplies sent there fell into the hands of
tories or Federals, and many undeserving persons obtained assistance.
Confederate sympathizers within the Federal lines had a struggle to live,
and numbers, completely ruined by the ravages of the Federals and tories,
had to flee to the central and southern counties.
The quartermaster-general of the state had charge of the state
distribution among the counties, and among the Confederate soldiers. There
was an agent of the state whose business it was to look after claims for
pay and bounty due the families of deceased soldiers. It is safe to say
that little was ever collected on this account.[546] The Confederate
soldiers, as plentiful as paper money was, were rarely paid. Much of their
supplies came from home. The Confederate government could not supply them
even with blankets and shoes. This the state undertook to do and with some
degree of success. And at one time, however (1862), after impressing all
the leather and shoes in the state, only one thousand pairs could be
secured.[547] Agents were sent with the armies going north into Kentucky
and Maryland to buy supplies of blankets, shoes, woollen clothing, and
salt, for the state. Blankets could not be obtained except by capture,
running the blockade, or purchase through the lines, as there was not a
blanket factory in the Confederacy in 1862. In the following year the
carpets in the state capitol were torn up and sent to the Alabama soldiers
to be used as blankets.[548] In 1863 the legislature asked Congress to
exempt from payment of the tax-in-kind the people of that part of north
Alabama which was subject to the invasions of the enemy. This was done.
Congress was also asked to exempt from the payment of this tax those
families of soldiers whose support was derived from white labor.[549] As a
result of economic conditions the taxation fell upon the slave owners of
central and south Alabama. But the suffering was much greater among the
people whose supplies came from white labor. These were the people
assisted by the state and county appropriations. Yet when they were able
to pay the tax-in-kind, they, at times, almost rebelled against it.
It has been estimated that from the latter part of 1862 to the close of
the war at least one-fourth of the white population of the state was
supported by the state and counties. This estimate does not include the
soldiers.[550] A letter written in April, 1864, to the governor, from
Talladega County discloses the following facts in regard to that county:
With a white population of 14,634, it had furnished up to April, 1864, 27
companies of volunteers, not counting those who volunteered in other
regiments or who furnished substitutes or were enrolled in the reserves or
militia. The citizens of the county pledged the soldiers that they would
raise $20,000 annually, if necessary, for the support of the soldiers'
families. In May, 1861, 30 persons received aid from the county; in April,
1864, 3799. In 1863, the county received about $80,000 from the state for
the poor, and 25 pounds of salt for each member of needy families of
soldiers. In addition to this the people of the county raised in that
year, for the poor, $7276 in cash, 2570 bushels of corn, 102 bushels of
wheat, and 16 sacks of salt. The county bought 21,755 bushels of corn at
$3 a bushel, and sold it at 50 cents a bushel to the poor; 920 bushels of
wheat at $10 a bushel and sold it at $2 a bushel; 233 sacks of salt at $80
per sack, and sold it at $20 per sack. The destitute families were those
of laborers who had joined the army. They lived mostly in the hill
country, where they suffered much from the tories. Many were refugees from
north Alabama.[551] In May, 1864, 1600 soldiers' families in Randolph
County were supported by the state and county. Many thousand bushels of
corn brought from middle Alabama had to be hauled 40 miles from the
railway. Eight thousand people, or one-third of the population, were
destitute. The same condition existed in other white counties.[552]
Colonel Gibson, probate judge of Lawrence County, relates an experience of
his in caring for the destitute. He went in person to Gadsden for 100
sacks of salt. He found the sacks in a very bad condition, and repaired
the whole lot with his own hands so as to preserve the precious contents.
This judge, with his own money, bought cotton cards for the poor people of
his county as well as salt, which at that time cost $100 a barrel.[553]
The people who had supplies gave to those who had none, and thus
supplemented the work of the state. They felt it a duty to divide to the
last with the deserving families of the poorer soldiers.[554]
Early in the war, in order to provide against famine, the authorities,
state and Confederate, began to urge the people to plant food crops only.
They were asked to plant no cotton, except for home needs. Corn, wheat,
beans, peas, potatoes, and other farm produce and live stock were
essential.[555] During the winter of 1862-1863 there was much distress
among the poor people in the cities and towns, and the next spring the
senators and representatives of Alabama united in an address to the
people, asking them to stop raising cotton and raise more foodstuffs and
live stock. Governor Shorter begged the people to raise food crops to keep
the soldiers from starving. The planters were asked as a patriotic duty to
raise the largest possible quantities of supplies. The Confederate
Congress also urged the people to raise provision crops instead of
cotton.[556] Though hard to convince that cotton was not king, the people
in 1863 and 1864 turned their attention more to food crops, and had
transportation facilities been good in 1864 and 1865, there need not have
been any suffering in the state, and the armies could have been fed
better.[557]
Because of the few railways, and the bad roads, often people in one
section of the state would be starving when there was an abundance a
hundred miles away. In the upper counties, when the soldiers' families
failed to make a crop, and when supplies were hard to get, the probate
judges would give the women certificates, and send them down into the
lower country for corn. Women whose husbands were at home hiding to escape
the conscript officer or the squad searching for deserters, young girls,
and old women came in droves into the central counties both by railway and
by boat, for free passage was given them, getting off at every landing and
station. With large sacks, these "corn women," as they were called,
scoured the country for corn and other provisions. Something was always
given them, and these supplies were sent to the station or landing for
them. Money was sometimes given to them, and a crowd of "corn women" on
their way home would have several hundred dollars and quantities of
provisions. These women were usually opposed to the war, and hated the
army and every one in it; the negro they especially disliked. The "corn
women" became a nuisance to the overseers and planters' wives on the
plantations.[558]
When there was plenty in the country, the towns and the armies were often
in want. Speculators controlled the prices on whatever found its way to
the market. In 1861 Governor Moore issued a proclamation condemning the
extortion of tradesmen, who were buying up the necessaries of life for the
purposes of speculation. Such, he declared, was unpatriotic and
wicked.[559] The legislature made such an action a penal offence, and to
buy up provisions and clothing on the false pretence of being a
Confederate agent was "felony."[560] In 1862 some officers of the
Quartermaster's Department were found guilty of speculation in food
supplies.[561] To prevent extortion the legislature afterwards enacted
that on all goods for sale or speculation, except medicine and drugs, a
profit of 15 per cent only could be made. All over that amount was to be
paid into the state treasury.[562] Millers were not to take more than
one-eighth for toll.[563]
At times it was unlawful to buy corn or other grain for shipment and sale
in another part of the state or in other states. The military authorities
in charge of the railroads sometimes prohibited the shipment of grain or
supplies away from the regions where the armies were likely to camp or to
march. In December, 1862, it was enacted that no one except the producer
or miller should sell corn without a license from the judge of probate,
which license limited the sale to one county for one year at a profit of
not more than 20 per cent.[564] However, in 1863 the legislature
authorized T. B. Bethea of Montgomery to sell corn bought in Marengo
County in any market in the state.[565]
Distress was produced in south Alabama by General Pemberton's order
prohibiting shipment by private individuals from Mississippi to Alabama on
the railways.[566]
In each state and later in each congressional district there were price
commissioners appointed, whose duty it was to fix schedules of prices at
which the articles of common use and necessity were to be sold by the
owners or paid for by the government when impressed. These prices were
fixed for the whole state, were usually for a term of three months, and
were often below the real market value. Consequently this had no effect
except to make the people hide their supplies from the government.[567]
Prices necessarily varied greatly in the different sections of the state,
and what was a reasonable value in central Alabama was unreasonably low in
north Alabama or at Mobile. In 1863 a Confederate quartermaster in north
Alabama insisted that the price commissioners must raise their prices or
he would be unable to buy for the army. He wrote that wool and woollen and
leather goods sold at Mobile in December, 1863, for from three to five
times as much as the scheduled prices of November 1, 1863. Prices in north
Alabama, he added, must be made higher than in south Alabama because there
was barely enough in that section for the people themselves to live
on.[568]
For months after the end of the war the inhabitants of the hill and
mountain districts of north Alabama and of the pine barrens of south
Alabama were on the verge of starvation, and a number of deaths actually
occurred. The Black Belt fared better, and recovered more quickly from the
devastation of the armies.
SEC. 5. THE NEGRO DURING THE WAR
Military Uses of Negroes
The large non-combatant negro population was not wholly a source of
military and economic weakness to the state. In many respects it was a
source of strength to the military authorities, who employed negroes in
various capacities, thus relieving whites for military service. They were
employed as teamsters, cooks, nurses, and attendants in the hospitals,
laborers on the fortifications at Mobile, Montgomery, and Selma, around
the ordnance factories at Selma, in the salt works of Clarke County, and
at the nitre works of central and southern Alabama. Half as many whites
could be released for war as there were negroes employed in military
industries. The negroes employed by the authorities were usually chosen
because trustworthy, and they were as devoted Confederates as the whites,
all in all, perhaps, more so. They were efficient and faithful, and rarely
deserted to the enemy or allowed themselves to be captured, though many
opportunities were offered in north Alabama.[569]
After the secession of the state and before the formation of the
Confederacy numerous offers of the services of negro men were made by
their masters. The legislature passed an act to regulate the use of men so
proffered.[570] Where the negroes were employed in great numbers by the
government they worked under the supervision, not of a government
overseer, but of one appointed by the master who supported the negroes,
and who was paid or promised pay for their work. In the early part of the
war the white soldiers wanted to fight, but not to dig trenches, cook,
drive teams, or play in the band. Congress authorized, in 1862, the
employment of negroes as musicians in the army, and the enlistment of four
cooks, who might be colored, for each company.[571] In the same year the
state legislature authorized the governor to impress negroes to work on
the fortifications.[572] The state government impressed numbers of negroes
as laborers in the various state industries, such as nitre and salt
working, building railroads, and hauling the tax-in-kind. The legislature,
in August, 1863, declared that negroes ought to be placed in all possible
positions in the workshops and as laborers, and the white men thus
released should be sent to the army.[573]
Most of the impressment of blacks was done by the Confederate government.
The Confederate Impressment Act of March 26, 1863, provided that no farm
slave should be impressed before December 1. On February 17, 1864, free
negroes were made liable to service in the army as laborers and teamsters.
Before the passage of this act free negroes had often been hired as
substitutes, and sent to the army as soldiers in place of those who
preferred the comforts of home.[574] Bishop-General Polk made a general
impressment of negroes in north Alabama to work on the defences in his
department, and many protests were made by the owners. A public meeting
was held in April, 1864, in Talladega County to protest against further
impressment of negroes. This county, in December, 1862, sent 90 negroes to
the fortifications; in January, 1863, 120 more were sent; in February,
1863, 160; in March, 1863, 160; and so on. Talladega was one of the
counties that had to furnish supplies to the destitute mountain counties,
and the loss of labor was severely felt. Randolph and other north Alabama
counties made similar protests. From north Alabama 2500 negroes were taken
at one time to work on the fortifications in the Tennessee valley; this
frequently occurred. Central and south Alabama and southeast Mississippi
furnished many negroes to work on the fortifications at Selma, Montgomery,
and Mobile. After Farragut passed the forts at Mobile, 4500 negroes were
at once set to throwing up earthworks and soon had the city in
safety.[575] The lines of earthworks then made by the negroes still
stretch for miles around the city, through the pine woods, almost as well
defined as when thrown up.
When the crack regiments of young men from the black counties went to
Virginia, early in 1861, nearly every soldier had with him a negro servant
who faithfully took care of his "young master" and performed the rough
tasks that fell to the soldier--splitting wood, digging ditches about the
camp, hauling, and building. The Third Alabama regiment of infantry, one
of the best, left Alabama a thousand strong in rank and file and several
hundred strong in negro servants. Two years later there were no negro
servants; they had been sent home when their masters were killed, or
because they were needed at home, or they had been sold and "eaten up" by
the youngsters, who now had to do their own work.[576] Only the officers
kept body-servants after the first year or two. These servants were always
faithful, even unto death. The old Confederate soldiers have pleasant
recollections of the devotion of the faithful black who "fought, bled, and
died" with him for four years in dreary camp and on bloody battle-field.
The old soldier-servants who survive tell with pride of the times when
with "young master" and "Mass Bob Lee" they "fowt the Yankees in Virginny"
or at "Ilun 10." Many a bullet was sent into the northern lines by the
slaves secretly using the white soldiers' guns. When capture was imminent,
the negro servant would take watches, papers, and other valuables of the
master, and, making his way through the enemy's lines, return to the old
home with messages and directions from his master, then in prison. In
battle the slave was close at hand to aid his master when wounded or
exhausted. With a pine torch at night he searched among the wounded and
dead for his master. Finding him wounded, he cared for him faithfully,
bore him to hospital or friendly house, or carried him a long journey
home. Finding him dead, the devoted slave performed the last duties and
alone often buried his master, and then went sadly home to break the news.
Sometimes he managed to carry home his master's body, that it might lie
among kindred in the family burying-ground. If he could not do that, he
carried to his mistress his master's sword, horse, trinkets, and often his
last message.[577]
The negroes were more willing to serve as soldiers than the whites were
for them to serve. The slave owner did not like the idea of having the
negro fight, because it was felt that fundamentally the black was the
cause of strife. Others were sensitive about using slave property to fight
the quarrels of free men. As the years went on opinion was more and more
favorable to negro enlistment, but it was too late before the Confederate
government took up the matter.[578]
The average white person and the private soldiers generally were opposed
to the enlistment of the negroes. The white soldier thought it was a white
man's duty and privilege to serve as a soldier and that the fight was a
white man's fight. To make a negro a soldier was to grant him military
equality at least. To enlist negroes meant to abolish slavery, sooner or
later: negro soldiers would be emancipated at once; the rest would be
freed gradually. The non-slaveholders were more opposed to such a scheme
than the slaveholders. The negro would have made a good soldier under his
master, but he was worth almost as much to the Confederacy to raise
supplies and perform labor.[579]
The free negro population, though less than 3000 in number, were devoted
supporters of the Confederacy, and nearly all free black men were engaged
in some way in the Confederate service. Some entered the service as
substitutes, others as cooks, teamsters, and musicians. In Mobile they
asked to be enlisted as soldiers under white officers. The skilful
artisans usually stayed at home at the urgent request of the whites, who
needed their work, but, nevertheless, they contributed. All accounts agree
that they never avoided payment of the tax-in-kind, and other
contributions. One of the best-known of the free negroes was Horace Godwin
(or King)[580] of Russell County. He was a constant and liberal
contributor to the support of the Confederacy. He also furnished clothes
and money to the sons of his former master who were in the army, and
erected a monument over the grave of their father.
Negroes on the Farms
During the war the greater part of the farm labor in the white counties
was done by old men, women, and children, and in the Black Belt by the
negroes. Usually the owner, who was perhaps entitled to exemption under
the "twenty-negro" law, went to war and left his family and plantation to
the care of the blacks. In no known instance was the trust misplaced.
There was no insubordination among the negroes, no threat of violence. The
negroes worked contentedly, though they were soon aware that if the war
went against their masters their freedom would result.[581] Under the
direction of the mistress, advised once in a while by letter from the
master in the army, the black overseer controlled his fellow-slaves,
planted, gathered, and sold the crops, paid the tax-in-kind (under
protest), and cared for the white family.[582] In a day's ride in the
Black Belt no able-bodied white man was to be found.[583] When raiders
came, the negroes saved the family valuables and concealed the farm cattle
in the swamps, and though often mistreated by the plundering soldiers
because they had hidden the property, they were faithful. Women and
children felt safer then, when nearly all the white men were away, than
they have ever felt since among free negroes.[584] The Black Belt could
never again send out one-half as many whites to war, in proportion, as in
1861-1865.
Fidelity to Masters
The negroes had every opportunity to desert to the Federals, except in the
interior of the state, but desertions were infrequent until near the close
of the war. In the Tennessee valley many were captured and carried off to
work in the Federal camps. Numbers of these captives escaped and gladly
returned home. As the Federal armies invaded the neighboring states,
negroes from Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, and Mississippi were sent into
the state to escape capture. In many instances the refugee slaves were in
charge of one of their own number--the overseer or driver. The invading
armies in 1865 found numbers of negro refugees doing their best to keep
out of the way of the Federals. As a rule only the negroes of bad
character or young boys deserted to the enemy or gave information to their
armies. The young negroes who followed the Federal raiders did not meet
with the treatment expected, and were glad enough to get back home. Most
of the negroes disliked and feared the invaders until they came as
intensely as the whites did.[585]
The devotion and faithfulness of the house-servants and of many of the
field hands where they came in contact with the white people at "the big
house" cannot be questioned.[586] On the part of these there was a desire
to acquit themselves faithfully of the trust imposed in them.[587] It is
one of the beautiful aspects of slavery. Yet this will not account for the
good behavior of the blacks on the large plantations where a white person
was seldom seen. They were as faithful almost as the house-servants. It
was the faithfulness of trained obedience rather than of love or
gratitude, for these were fleeting emotions in the soul of the average
African.[588] On the other hand, the negro did not harbor malice or
hatred. Constitutionally good-natured, the negroes were as faithful to a
harsh and strict master as to one who treated them as men and brothers.
Where one would expect a desire and an effort for revenge, there was
nothing of the sort. Not so much love and fidelity, but training and
discipline, made insurrection impossible among the blacks. Moreover, the
negro lacked the capacity for organization under his own leaders. Had
there been strong leaders and agitators, especially white ones, it is
likely that there would have been insurrection, and a negro rising in
Marengo County would have disbanded the Alabama troops. But the system of
discipline prevented that.
The good church people maintain that one of the strongest influences to
hold the negro to his duty was his religion. He had often been carefully
instructed by preachers, black and white, and by his white master, and his
religion was a real and living thing to him. Invariably the influence of
the sturdy old black plantation preacher was exerted for good. This
influence was strongly felt on the large plantations, where the negroes
seldom held converse with white men.[589]
The negroes were frightened, during the last months of the war, at
possible capture by the Federals and forced enlistment or deportation to
freedom and work in camps. They had somewhat the small white child's idea
of a "Yankee" as some kind of a thing with horns. When the end was at hand
and the bonds of the social order were loosening, the negro heard more of
the freedom beyond the blue armies, and some of them hoped for and
welcomed the invaders. When the armies came at last, most of the negroes
helped, as before, to save all that could be saved from the plunderers. At
the worst, the negro celebrated freedom by quitting work and following the
armies. Much stealing was done by them with the encouragement of their
deliverers, but the behavior of the blacks was always better than that of
the invaders. Many rode off the plantation stock in order to be able to
follow the army to freedom and no work. Some burned buildings, etc.,
because the army did. Most of the former house-servants remained faithful
to the whites until it was no longer safe for a black man to be the friend
of a native white.
On the whole the behavior of the slaves during the war, whatever may be
the causes, was most excellent. To the last day of bondage the great
majority were true against all temptations. With their white people they
wept for the Confederate slain, were sad at defeat, and rejoiced in
victory.[590]
SEC. 6. SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES; NEWSPAPERS AND PUBLISHING HOUSES
Schools and Colleges
During the first year of the war the higher institutions of learning kept
their doors open and the common schools went on as usual. The strongest
educational institution was the University of Alabama, which was supported
by state appropriations. In 1860 a military department was established at
the university under Captain Caleb Huse, U.S.A., who afterwards became a
Confederate purchasing agent in Europe. This step was not taken in
anticipation of future trouble with the United States, but had been
contemplated for years. The student body had been rather turbulent and
hard to control, and for the sake of order they were put under a strict
military discipline similar to the West Point system. Many students
resigned early in 1861 and went into the Confederate service. Others,
proficient in drill, were ordered by the governor to the state camps of
instruction to drill the new regiments. There were no commencement
exercises in 1861; but the trustees met and conferred degrees upon a
graduating class of fifty-two, the most of whom were in the army.
The fall session of 1861 opened with a slight increase of students, but
they were younger than usual,--from fourteen to seventeen years, and not
as well prepared as before the war. Parents sent young boys to school to
keep them out of the army; many went to get the military training in order
that they might become officers later; the state needed officers and
encouraged military education. The university was required to furnish
drill-masters to the instruction camps without expense to the state. As
soon as the boys were well drilled they usually deserted school and
entered the Confederate service. This custom threatened to break up the
school, and in 1862 all students were required to enlist as cadets for
twelve months, and were not permitted to resign. Yet they still deserted
in squads of two, three, and four, and went to the army. Recruiting
officers would offer them positions as officers, and they would accept and
leave the university. The students refused to study seriously anything
except military science and tactics. Numbers refused to take the
examinations in order that they might be suspended or expelled, and thus
be free to enlist.
In 1862-1863, 256 students were enrolled,--more than ever before,--but
mostly boys of fourteen and fifteen. The majority of them were badly
prepared in their studies, and it was necessary to establish a preparatory
department for them. In 1863-1864 there were 341 boys enrolled--younger
than ever. At the end of this session the first commencement since 1860
was held, and degrees were conferred on a few who had enlisted and on one
or two who had not. The enrolment during the session of 1864-1865 was
between 300 and 400--all young boys of twelve to fifteen. The cadets were
called out several times during this session to check Federal raids.
Little studying was done; all were spoiling for a fight. When Croxton
came, one night in 1865, the long roll was beaten, and every cadet
responded. Under the command of the president and the commandant they
marched against Croxton, whose force outnumbered theirs six to one. There
was a sharp fight, in which a number of cadets were wounded, and then the
president withdrew the corps to Marion in Perry County, where it was
disbanded a few days later. It was now the end of the war. Croxton had
imperative orders to burn the university buildings, and they were
destroyed. There was a fine library, and the librarian, a Frenchman,
begged in vain that it might be spared. The officers who fired the
library saved one volume--the Koran--as a souvenir of the occasion.[591]
The Hospital for the Deaf and Dumb at Talladega and the Insane Asylum were
continued throughout the war by means of state aid, and after the collapse
of the Confederacy were not destroyed by the Federals.[592] La Grange
College, a Methodist institution at Florence, in north Alabama, lost its
endowment during the war, and after the occupation of that section by the
Federals was closed. After the war it was given to the state, and is now
one of the State Normal Colleges. In 1861, Howard College, the Baptist
institution at Marion, sent three professors and more than forty students
to the army. Soon there was only one professor left to look after the
buildings; the rest of the faculty and all of the students had joined the
army. The endowments and equipment of the college were totally destroyed.
Nothing was left except the buildings.
The Southern University at Greensboro kept its doors open for three years,
but had to close in 1864 for want of students and faculty. Most of its
endowment was lost in Confederate securities. After two years of war the
East Alabama College at Auburn suspended exercises. The buildings were
then used as a Confederate hospital. The endowment was totally lost in
Confederate bonds, and after the war the property was given to the state
for the Agricultural and Mechanical College, now the Alabama Polytechnic
Institute. The Catholic College at Spring Hill near Mobile, the Judson
Institute at Marion, a well-known Baptist College for women, and the
Methodist Woman's College at Tuskegee managed to keep going during the
war.[593] The student body at both male and female colleges was composed
of younger and younger students each successive year. In 1865 only
children were found in any of them.
In 1860 there were many private schools throughout the state. Every town
and village had its high school or academy. For several years before the
war military schools had been springing up over the state. State aid was
often given these in the form of supplies of arms. Several were
incorporated in 1860 and 1861. Private academies were incorporated in 1861
in Coffee, Randolph, and Russell counties, with the usual provision that
intoxicating liquors should not be sold within a mile of the school.
Charters of several schools were amended to suit the changed conditions.
These schools were all destroyed, with the exception of Professor
Tutwiler's Green Springs School, which survived the war, though all its
property was lost,[594] and two schools in Tuscaloosa. One of these, known
as "The Home School," was conducted by Mrs. Tuomey, wife of the well-known
geologist, and the other by Professor Saunders in the building later known
as the "Athenæum."[595]
The only independent city public school system was that of Mobile,
organized in 1852, after northern models. The Boys' High School in this
city was kept open during the war, though seriously thinned in numbers.
The lower departments and the girls' schools were always full.[596] The
state system of schools was organized in 1855 on the basis of the Mobile
system. It was not in full operation before the war came, though much had
been done.
During the first part of the war public and private schools went on as
usual, though there was a constantly lessening number of boys who
attended. Some went to war, while others, especially in the white
counties, had to stop school to look after farm affairs as soon as the
older men enlisted. Teachers of schools having over twenty pupils were
exempt,[597] but as a matter of fact the teachers who were physically able
enlisted in the army along with their older pupils. The teaching was left
to old men and women, to the preachers and disabled soldiers; most of the
pupils were small girls and smaller boys. The older girls, as the war went
on, remained at home to weave and spin or to work in the fields. In
sparsely settled communities it became dangerous, on account of deserters
and outlaws, for the children to make long journeys through the woods, and
the schools were suspended. The schools in Baldwin County were suspended
as early as 1861.[598]
Legislation for the schools went on much as usual. After the first year
few new schools were established, public or private. Appropriations were
made by the legislature and distributed by the county superintendents.
When the Federals occupied north Alabama, the legislature ordered that
school money should be paid to the county superintendents in that section
on the basis of the estimates for 1861.[599] The sixteenth section lands
were sold when it was possible and the proceeds devoted to school
purposes.[600] A Confederate military academy was established in Mobile
and conducted by army officers. The purpose of this institute was to give
practical training to future officers and to young and inexperienced
officers.
Few, if any, of the schools were entirely supported by public money. The
small state appropriation was eked out by contributions from the patrons
in the form of tuition fees. These fees were paid sometimes in Confederate
money, but oftener in meat, meal, corn, cloth, yarn, salt, and other
necessaries of life. The school terms were shortened to two or three
months in the summer and as many in the winter. The stronger pupils did
not attend school when there was work for them on the farm; consequently
the summer session was the more fully attended. The school system as thus
conducted did not break down, except in north Alabama, until the
surrender, though many schools were discontinued in particular localities
for want of teachers or pupils.
The quality of the instruction given was not of the best; only those
taught who could do little else. The girls are said to have been much
better scholars than the boys, whose minds ran rather upon military
matters. Often their play was military drill, and listening to war stories
their chief intellectual exercise.[601]
Some rare and marvellous text-books again saw the light during the war.
Old books that had been stored away for two generations were brought out
for use. Webster's "blue back" Speller was the chief reliance, and when
the old copies wore out, a revised southern edition of the book was
issued. Smith's Grammar was expurgated of its New Englandism and made a
patriotic impression by its exercises. Davies's old Arithmetics were used,
and several new mathematical works appeared. Very large editions of
Confederate text-books were published in Mobile, and especially in
Richmond; South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia also furnished
Confederate text-books to Alabama. Mobile furnished Mississippi.[602] I
have seen a small geography which had crude maps of all the countries,
including the Confederate States, but omitting the United States. A few
lines of text recognized the existence of the latter country. Another
geography was evidently intended to teach patriotism and pugnacity, to
judge from its contents. Here are some extracts from W. B. Moore's Primary
Geography: "In a few years the northern states, finding their climate too
cold for the negroes to be profitable, sold them to the people living
farther south. Then the northern states passed laws to forbid any person
owning slaves in their borders. Then the northern people began to preach,
to lecture, and to write about the sin of slavery. The money for which
they had sold their slaves was now partly spent in trying to persuade the
southern states to send their slaves back to Africa.... The people [of the
North] are ingenious and enterprising, and are noted for their tact in
'driving a bargain.' They are refined and intelligent on all subjects but
that of negro slavery; on this they are mad.... This [the Confederacy] is
a great country! The Yankees thought to starve us out when they sent their
ships to guard our seaport towns. But we have learned to make many things;
to do without others.
"Q. Has the Confederacy any commerce?
"A. A fine inland commerce, and bids fair, sometime, to have a grand
commerce on the high seas.
"Q. What is the present drawback to our trade?
"A. An unlawful blockade by the miserable and hellish Yankee nation."[603]
In some families the children were taught at home by a governess or by
some member of the family. This was the case especially in the Black Belt,
where there were not enough white children to make up a school. Many
mistresses of plantations were, however, too busy to look after the
education of their children, and the latter, when old enough, would be
sent to a friend or relative who lived in town, in order to attend
school.[604] Sometimes a planter had a school on his plantation for the
benefit of his own children. To this school would be admitted the children
of all the whites on the plantation, and of the neighbors who were near
enough to come.[605]
Newspapers
In 1860 there were ninety-six periodicals of various kinds published in
Alabama. About twenty-five of these suspended publication during the war
and were not revived afterwards. Numbers of others suspended for a short
time when paper could not be secured or when being moved from the enemy.
The monthly publications--usually agricultural--all suspended. The
so-called "unionist" newspapers of 1860 went to the wall early in the war
or were sold to editors of different political principles.[606] In spite
of the existence of war, the circulation decreased. Most of the reading
men were in the army; the people at home became less and less able to pay
for a newspaper as the war progressed, and many persons read a single
copy, which was handed around the community. People who could not read
would subscribe for newspapers and get some one to read for them. An eager
crowd surrounded the reader. Papers left for a short time in the
post-office were read by the post-office loiterers as a right. Few war
papers are now in existence, there were so many uses for them after they
were read.
It is said that the newspaper men did more service in the field in
proportion to numbers than any other class. At the first sound of war many
of them left the office and did not return until the struggle was ended.
Often every man connected with a paper would volunteer, and the paper
would then cease to be issued. There were instances when both father and
son left the newspaper office, and one or both were killed in the war.
Colonel E. C. Bullock of the Alabama troops was a fine type of the Alabama
editor. The law exempted from service one editor and the necessary
printers for each paper. But little advantage was taken of this; few
able-bodied newspaper men failed to do service in the field.[607]
Sometimes in north Alabama publication had to cease because of the
occupation of the country by the Federal forces, which confiscated or
destroyed the printing outfits. It was difficult to get supplies of paper,
ink, and other newspaper necessaries. No new lots of type were to be had
at all during the whole war. Some papers were printed for weeks at a time
on blue, brown, or yellow wrapping-paper. The regular printing-paper was
often of bad quality and the ink was also bad, so that to-day it is almost
impossible to read some of the papers. Others are as white and clean as if
printed a year ago. A bound volume presents a variegated appearance--some
issues clear and white and strong, others stained and greasy from the bad
ink. The type was often so worn as to be almost illegible. In some
instances, when the sense could be made out, letters were omitted from
words, and even words were omitted, in order to save the type for use
elsewhere.
The reading matter in the papers was not as a rule very exciting. Brief
summaries were given of military operations, in which the Confederates
were usually victorious, and of political events, North and South. One of
the latest war papers that I have seen chronicles the defeat of Grant by
Lee about April 10, 1865. Letters were printed from the editor in the
field; former employees also wrote letters for the paper, and items of
interest from the soldiers' letters were published. New legislation, state
and Confederate, was summarized. The governor's proclamations were made
public through the medium of the county newspapers. It was about the only
way in which the governor could reach his people. The orders and
advertisements of the army commissaries and quartermasters and conscript
officers were printed each week; there were advertisements for
substitutes, a few for runaway negroes, and a very few trade
advertisements. If a merchant had a stock of goods, he was sure to be
found without giving notice. Notices of land sales were frequent, but very
few negroes were offered for sale. The price of slaves was high to the
last, a sentimental price. Many papers devoted columns and pages to the
printing of directions for making at home various articles of food and
clothing that formerly had been purchased from the North--how to make
soap, salt, stockings, boxes without nails, coarse and fine cloth,
substitutes for tea, coffee, drugs, etc.
Mobile, Montgomery, Selma, and Tuscaloosa were the headquarters of the
strongest newspapers. The _Mobile Tribune_ and the _Register and
Advertiser_ were suppressed when the city fell; the material of the latter
was confiscated. Both had been strong war papers. In April, 1865, the
_Montgomery Advertiser_ sent its material to Columbus, Georgia, to escape
destruction by the raiders, but Wilson's men burned it there. In
Montgomery the newspaper files were piled in the street by Wilson and
burned; and when Steele came, with the second army of invasion, the
_Advertiser_, which was coming out on a makeshift press, was suppressed,
and not until July was it permitted to appear again. The _Montgomery
Mail_, edited by Colonel J. J. Seibels, who had leanings toward peace,
began early in 1865 to prepare the people for the inevitable. Its attitude
was bitterly condemned by the _Advertiser_ and by many people, but it was
saved from destruction by this course.[608]
Publishing Houses
Most of the people of Alabama had but little time for reading, and those
who had the time and inclination were usually obliged to content
themselves with old books. The family Bible was in a great number of homes
almost the only book read. Most of the new books read were published in
Atlanta, Richmond, or Charleston, though during the last two years of the
war Mobile publishers sent out many thousand volumes. W. G. Clark and Co.,
of Mobile, confined their attention principally to text-books, but S. H.
Goetzel was more ambitious. His list includes text-books, works on
military science and tactics, fiction, translations, music, etc. The
best-selling southern novel published during the war was "Macaria," by
Augusta J. Evans of Mobile. It was printed by Goetzel, who also published
Mrs. Ford's "Exploits of Morgan and his Men," which was pirated or
reprinted by Richardson of New York. Evans and Cogswell of Charleston
published Miss Evans's "Beulah." Both "Macaria" and "Beulah" were
reprinted in the North. Goetzel bound his books in rotten pasteboard and
in wall-paper. Goetzel was also an enterprising publisher of translations.
In 1864 he published (on wrapping-paper) a four-volume translation, by
Adelaide de V. Chaudron, of Muhlbach's "Joseph II and His Court." He
published other translations of Miss Muhlbach's historical novels,--her
first American publisher. Owen Meredith's poem, "Tanhauser," was first
printed in America in Mobile. An opera of the same name was also
published. Hardee's "Rifle and Infantry Tactics," in two volumes, and
Wheeler's "Cavalry Tactics" were printed in large editions by Goetzel for
the use of Alabama troops.
Lieutenant-Colonel Freemantle's book, "Three Months in the Southern
States," was published in Mobile in 1864, and in the same year the works
of Dickens and George Eliot were reprinted by Goetzel. An interesting book
published by Clark of Mobile was entitled "The Confederate States Almanac
and Repository of Useful Knowledge." It appeared annually to 1864 in
Mobile and Augusta, and resembled the annual cyclopædias and year-books of
to-day. Small devotional books and tracts were printed in nearly every
town that had a printing-press. It is said that the church societies
published no doctrinal or controversial tracts. Hundreds of different
tracts, such as Cromwell's "Soldier's Pocket Bible," were printed for
distribution among the soldiers. But not enough Bibles and Testaments
could be made. The northern Bible societies "with one exception" refused
to supply the Confederate sinners. The American Bible Society of New York
gave hundreds of thousands of Bibles, Testaments, etc., principally for
the Confederate troops. At one time 150,000 were given, at another 50,000,
and the work was continued after the war. In 1862 the British and Foreign
Bible Society gave 310,000 Bibles, etc., for the soldiers, and gave
unlimited credit to the Confederate Bible Society.[609]
After the surrender the material of the newspapers and publishing houses
was confiscated or destroyed.
SEC. 7. THE CHURCHES DURING THE WAR
Attitude of the Churches toward Public Questions
The religious organizations represented in the state strongly supported
the Confederacy, and even before the beginning of hostilities several of
them had placed themselves on record in regard to political questions. As
a rule, there was no political preaching, but at conferences and
conventions the sentiment of the clergy would be publicly declared.
The Alabama Baptist Convention, in 1860, declared, in a series of
resolutions on the state of the country, that though standing aloof for
the most part from political parties and contests, yet their retired
position did not exclude the profound conviction, based on unquestioned
facts, that the Union had failed in important particulars to answer the
purpose for which it was created. From the Federal government the southern
people could no longer hope for justice, protection, or safety, especially
with reference to their peculiar property, recognized by the Constitution.
They thought themselves entitled to equality of rights as citizens of the
republic, and they meant to maintain their rights, even at the risk of
life and all things held dear. They felt constrained "to declare to our
brethren and fellow-citizens, before mankind and before our God, that we
hold ourselves subject to the call of proper authority in defence of the
sovereignty and independence of the state of Alabama and of her sacred
right as a sovereignty to withdraw from this Union, and to make any
arrangement which her people in constituent assemblies may deem best for
securing their rights. And in this declaration we are heartily,
deliberately, unanimously, and solemnly united."[610] Bravely did they
stand by this declaration in the stormy years that followed. A year later
(1861) the Southern Baptist Convention adopted resolutions sustaining the
principles for which the South was fighting, condemning the course of the
North, and pledging hearty support to the Confederate government.[611]
Like action was taken by the Southern Methodist Church, but little can now
be found on the subject. One authority states that in 1860 the politicians
were anxious that the Alabama Conference should declare its sentiment in
regard to the state of the country. This was strongly opposed and
frustrated by Bishops Soule and Andrew, who wanted to keep the church out
of politics.[612] From another account we learn that in December, 1860, a
meeting of Methodist ministers in Montgomery declared in favor of
secession from the Union.[613]
In 1862 a committee report to the East Liberty Baptist Association urged
"one consideration upon the minds of our membership: the present civil war
which has been inaugurated by our enemies must be regarded as a
providential visitation upon us on account of our sins." This called forth
warm discussion and was at once modified by the insertion of the words,
"though entirely just on our part."[614]
In 1863 the Alabama ministers--Baptist, Methodist Episcopal South,
Methodist Protestant, United Synod South, Episcopal, and
Presbyterian--united with the clergy of the other southern states in "The
Address of the Confederate Clergy to Christians throughout the World." The
address declared that the war was being waged to achieve that which it was
impossible to accomplish by violence, viz. to restore the Union. It
protested against the action of the North in forcing the war upon the
South and condemned the abolitionist policy of Lincoln as indicated in the
Emancipation Proclamation. It made a lengthy defence of the principles
for which the South was fighting.[615]
By law ministers were exempt from military service.[616] But nearly all of
the able-bodied ministers went to the war as chaplains, or as officers,
leading the men of their congregations. It was considered rather
disgraceful for a man in good physical condition to take up the profession
of preaching or teaching after the war began. Young men "called to preach"
after 1861 received scant respect from their neighbors, and the government
refused to recognize the validity of these "calls to preach." The
preachers at home were nearly all old or physically disabled men.
Gray-haired old men made up the conferences, associations, conventions,
councils, synods, and presbyteries. But to the last their spirit was high,
and all the churches faithfully supported the Confederate cause. They
cheered and kept up the spirits of the people, held society together
against the demoralizing influences of civil strife, and were a strong
support to the state when it had exhausted itself in the struggle. They
gave thanks for victory, consolation for defeat; they cared for the needy
families of the soldiers and the widows and orphans made by war. The
church societies incorporated during the last year of the war show that
the state relief administration had broken down. Some of them were, "The
Methodist Orphans' Home of East Alabama," "The Orphans' Home of the Synod
of Alabama," "The Samaritan Society of the Methodist Protestant Church,"
"The Preachers' Aid Society of the Montgomery Conference of the Methodist
Episcopal Church South." The Episcopal Church was incorporated in order
that it might make provision for the widows and orphans of soldiers.[617]
In 1861 the Presbyterian, Cumberland Presbyterian, Episcopal, and
Methodist churches in Huntsville sent their bells to Holly Springs,
Mississippi, and had them cast into cannon for a battery to be called the
"Bell Battery of Huntsville." Before they were used the cannon were
captured by the Federals when they invaded north Alabama in 1862.[618]
Each command of volunteers attended church in a body before departing for
the front. On such occasions there were special services in which divine
favor was invoked upon the Confederate cause and its defenders. Religion
exercised a strong influence over the southern people. The strongest
denominations were the Methodists and the Baptists. Nearly all the
soldiers belonged to some church, the great majority to the two just
named. The good influence of the chaplains over the undisciplined men of
the southern armies was incalculable. To the religious training of the men
is largely due the fact that the great majority of the soldiers returned
but little demoralized by the four years of war.[619]
Not only was the southern soldier not demoralized by his army life, but
many passed through the baptism of fire and came out better men in all
respects. The "poor whites," so-called, arrived at true manhood, they
fought their way into the front of affairs, and learned their true worth.
The reckless, slashing temper of the young bloods disappeared. All were
steadied and sobered and imbued with greater self-respect and respect for
others. And the work of the church at home and in the army aided this
tendency; its democratic influences were strong.
The white congregations at home were composed of women, old men, cripples,
and children. Among the women the religious spirit was strongest; it
accounts in some degree for their marvellous courage and constancy during
the war. They were often called to church to sanctify a fast. The favorite
readings in the Bible were the first and second chapters of Joel. They
worked and fasted and prayed for protection and for victory.[620] The
Bible was the most commonly read book in the entire land. The people,
naturally religious before the war, became intensely so during the
struggle.[621]
The Churches and the Negroes
After the separation of the southern churches from the northern
organizations the religious instruction of the negroes was conducted
under less difficulties, and greater progress was made. There was no
longer danger of interference by hostile mission boards controlled by
antislavery officials.[622] The mission work among the negroes was
prospering in 1861, and while the white congregations were often without
pastors during the war, the negro missions were always supplied.[623] Many
negro congregations were united to white ones and were thus served by the
same preacher; others were served by regular circuit riders. Some of the
best ministers were preachers to the blacks, and were most devoted
pastors. One winter a preacher in the Tennessee valley, when the Federals
had burned the bridges, swam the river in order to reach his negro charge.
The faithful blacks were waiting for him and built him a fire of pine
knots. He preached and dried his clothes at the same time.[624]
The fidelity of the slave during these trying times called forth
expressions of gratitude from the churches, and all of them did what they
could to better his social and religious condition.[625] Often when there
was no white preacher, the old negro plantation preacher took his place in
the pulpit and preached to the white and black congregation.[626] The good
conduct of the slaves during the war was due in large degree to the
religious training given them by white and black preachers and by the
families of the slaveholders. The old black plantation preacher was a
tower of strength to the whites of the Black Belt.[627] The missions were
destroyed by the victorious Unionists, and the negro members of the
southern churches were encouraged to separate themselves from the "rebel"
churches; and never since have the southern religious organizations been
able to enter successfully upon work among the blacks.
The Federal Armies and the Southern Churches
With the advance of the Federal armies came the northern churches.
Territory gained by northern arms was considered territory gained for the
northern churches. Ministers came, or were sent down, to take the place of
southern ministers, who were prohibited from preaching. The military
authorities were especially hostile to the Methodist Episcopal Church
South,[628] and to the Protestant Episcopal Church, annoying the ministers
and congregations of these bodies in every way. They were told that upon
them lay the blame for the war; they had done so much to bring it on.
There were very few "loyal" ministers and no "loyal" bishops, but the
Secretary of War at Washington, in an order dated November 30, 1863,
placed at the disposal of Bishop Ames of the northern Methodist Church,
all houses of worship belonging to the southern Methodist Church in which
a "loyal" minister, appointed by a "loyal" bishop, was not officiating.
It was a matter of the greatest importance to the government, the order
stated, that Christian ministers should by example and precept support and
foster the "loyal" sentiment of the people. Bishop Ames, the order
recited, enjoyed the entire confidence of the War Department, and no doubt
was entertained by the government but that the ministers appointed by him
would be "loyal." The military authorities were directed to support Bishop
Ames in the execution of his important mission.[629] A second order, dated
January 14, 1864, directed the military authorities to turn over to the
American Baptist Home Mission Society all churches belonging to the
southern Baptists. Confidence was expressed in the "loyalty" of this
society and its ministers.[630] Other orders placed the Board of Home
Missions of the United Presbyterian Church in charge of the churches of
the Associate Reformed Church, and authorized the northern branches of the
(O. S. and N. S.) Presbyterians to appoint "loyal" ministers for the
churches of these denominations in the South.
Lincoln seems to have been displeased with the action taken by the War
Department, but nothing more was done than to modify the orders so as to
concern only the "churches in the rebellious states."[631]
Under these orders churches in north Alabama were seized and turned over
to the northern branches of the same denomination. In some of the mountain
districts this was not opposed by the so-called "union" element of the
population. But in most places bitter feelings were aroused, and
controversies began which lasted for several years after the war ended.
The northern churches in some cases attempted to hold permanently the
property turned over to them during the war. In central and south Alabama,
where the Federal forces did not appear until 1865, these orders were not
enforced.
In the section of the country occupied by the enemy, the military
authorities attempted to regulate the services in the various churches.
Prayer had to be offered for the President of the United States and for
the Federal government. It was a criminal offence to pray for the
Confederate leaders. Preachers who refused to pray "loyal" prayers and
preach "loyal" sermons were forbidden to hold services. In Huntsville, in
1862, the Rev. Frederick A. Ross, a celebrated Presbyterian clergyman, was
arrested by General Rousseau, and sent North for praying a "disloyal"
prayer in which he said, "We pray Thee, O Lord, to bless our enemies and
to remove them from our midst as soon as seemeth good in Thy sight." He
seems to have been released, for in February, 1865, General R. S. Stanley
wrote to General Thomas's adjutant-general protesting against the policy
of the provost-marshal in Huntsville, who had selected a number of
prominent men to answer certain test questions as to "loyalty." If not
answered to his satisfaction, the person catechized was to be sent beyond
the lines. Among other prominent citizens two ministers--Ross and
Bannister--were selected for expulsion. These, General Stanley said, had
never taken part in politics, and he thought it was a bad policy. However,
he stated that General Granger wanted the preachers expelled.[632]
Throughout the war there was a disposition on the part of some army
officers to compel ministers of southern sympathies to conduct "loyal"
services--that is, to preach and pray for the success of the Federal
government. It was especially easy to annoy the Episcopal clergy, on
account of the formal prayer used, but other denominations also suffered.
In one instance, a Methodist minister was told that he must take the oath
(this was soon after the surrender) and pray for the President of the
United States, or he must stop preaching. For a time he refused, but
finally he took the oath, and, as he said, "I prayed for the President;
that the Lord would take out of him and his allies the hearts of beasts
and put into them the hearts of men, or remove the cusses from office. The
little captain never asked me any more to pray for the President and the
United States."[633]
In the churches the situation at the close of the war was not promising
for peace. Some congregations were divided; church property was held by
aliens supported by the army; "loyal" services were still demanded; the
northern churches were sending agents to occupy the southern field; the
negroes were being forcibly separated from southern supervision; the
policy of "disintegration and absorption" was beginning. Consequently the
church question during Reconstruction was one of the most irritating.[634]
SEC. 8. DOMESTIC LIFE
Society in 1861
During the early months of 1861 society was at its brightest and best. For
several years social life had been characterized by a vague feeling of
unrest. Political questions became social questions, society and politics
went hand in hand, and the social leaders were the political leaders. The
women were well informed on all questions of the day and especially on the
burning sectional issues that affected them so closely. After the John
Brown episode at Harper's Ferry, the women felt that for them there could
be no safety until the question was settled. They were strongly in favor
of secession after that event if not before; they were even more unanimous
than the men, feeling that they were more directly concerned in questions
of interference with social institutions in the South. There was to them a
great danger in social changes made, as all expected, by John Brown
methods.[635]
Brilliant social events celebrated the great political actions of the day.
The secession of Alabama, the sessions of the convention, the meeting of
the legislature, the meeting of the Provisional Congress, the inauguration
of President Davis--all were occasions for splendid gatherings of beauty
and talent and strength. There were balls, receptions, and other social
events in country and in town. There was no city life, and country and
town were socially one. Enthusiasm for the new government of the southern
nation was at fever heat for months. At heart many feared and dreaded that
war might follow, but had war been certain, the knowledge would have
turned no one from his course. When war was seen to be imminent,
enthusiasm rose higher. Fear and dread were in the hearts of the women,
but no one hesitated. From social gayety they turned to the task of making
ready for war their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sweethearts. They
hurriedly made the first gray uniforms and prepared supplies for the
campaign. When the companies were fitted out and ready to depart, there
were farewell balls and sermons, and presentations of colors by young
women. These ceremonies took place in the churches, town halls, and
court-houses. Speeches of presentation were made by young women, and of
acceptance by the officers. The men always spoke well. The women showed a
thorough acquaintance with the questions at issue, but most of their
addresses were charges to the soldiers, encouragement to duty. "Go, my
sons, and return victorious or fall in the cause of the South," or a
similar paraphrase, was often heard. One lady said, "We confide [to you]
this emblem of our zeal for liberty, trusting that it will nerve your
hearts and strengthen your hands in the hour of trial, and that its
presence will forbid the thought of seeking any other retreat than in
death." Another maiden told her soldiers that "we who present this banner
expect it to be returned brightened by your chivalry or to become the
shroud of the slain." "The terrors of war are far less to be feared than
the degradation of ignoble submission," the soldiers were assured by
another bright-eyed girl. The legends embroidered or woven into the colors
were such as these: "To the Brave," "Victory or Death," "Never
Surrender."[636]
There were dress parades, exhibition drills, picnics, barbecues; and then
the soldiers marched away. After a short season of feverish social gayety,
the seriousness of war was brought home to the people, and those left
behind settled down to watch and wait and work and pray for the loved ones
and for the cause. It was soon a very quiet life, industrious, strained
with waiting and listening for news. For a long time the interior country
was not disturbed by fear of invasion. Life was monotonous; sorrow came
afresh daily; and it was a blessing to the women that they had to work so
hard during the war, as constant employment was their greatest comfort.
Life on the Farm
The great majority of the people of Alabama lived in the country on farms
and plantations. They had been dependent upon the North for all the finer
and many of the commoner manufactured articles. The staple crop was
cotton, which was sold in exchange for many of the ordinary necessaries of
life. Now all was changed. The blockade shut off supplies from abroad, and
the plantations had to raise all that was needed for feeding and clothing
the people at home and the soldiers in the field. This necessitated a
change in plantation economy. After the first year of war less and less
cotton was planted, and food crops became the staple agricultural
productions. The state and Confederate authorities encouraged this
tendency by advice and by law. The farms produced many things which were
seldom planted before the war, when cotton was the staple crop. Cereals
were cultivated in the northern counties and to some extent in central
Alabama, though wheat was never successful in central and south Alabama.
Rice, oats, corn, peas, pumpkins, ground-peas, and chufas were grown more
and more as the war went on. Ground-peas (called also peanuts, goobers, or
pindars, according to locality) and chufas were raised to feed hogs and
poultry. The common field pea, or "speckled Jack," was one of the
mainstays of the Confederacy. It is said that General Lee called it "the
Confederacy's best friend." At "laying by" the farmers planted peas
between the hills of corn, and the vines grew and the crop matured with
little further trouble. Sweet potatoes were everywhere raised, and became
a staple article of food.
Rice was stripped of its husk by being beaten with a wooden pestle in a
mortar cut out of a section of a tree. The threshing of the wheat was a
cause of much trouble. Rude home-made flails were used, for there were no
regular threshers. No one raised much of it, for it was a great task to
clean it. One poor woman who had a small patch of wheat threshed it by
beating the sheaves over a barrel, while bed quilts and sheets were spread
around to catch the scattering grains. Another placed the sheaves in a
large wooden trough, then she and her small children beat the sheaves with
wooden clubs. After being threshed in some such manner, the chaff was
fanned out by pouring the grain from a measure in a breeze and catching it
on a sheet.
Field labor was performed in the Black Belt by the negroes, but in the
white counties the burden fell heavily upon the women, children, and old
men. In the Black Belt the mistress of the plantation managed affairs with
the assistance of the trusty negroes. She superintended the planting of
the proper crops, the cultivation and gathering of the same, and sent to
the government stores the large share called for by the tax-in-kind. The
old men of the community, if near enough, assisted the women managers by
advice and direction. Often one old gentleman would have half a dozen
feminine planters as his wards. Life was very busy in the Black Belt, but
there was never the suffering in this rich section that prevailed in the
less fertile white counties from which the white laborers had gone to war.
In the latter section the mistress of slaves managed much as did her Black
Belt sister, but there were fewer slaves and life was harder for all, and
hardest of all for the poor white people who owned no slaves. When few
slaves were owned by a family, the young white boys worked in the field
with them, while the girls of the family did the light tasks about the
house, though at times they too went to the field. Where there were no
slaves, the old men, cripples, women, and children worked on the little
farms. All over the country the young boys worked like heroes. All had
been taught that labor was honorable, and all knew how work should be
done. So when war made it necessary, all went to work only the harder;
there was no holding of hands in idleness. The mistress of the plantation
was already accustomed to the management of large affairs, and war brought
additional duties rather than new and strange problems; but the wife of
the poor farmer or renter, left alone with small children, had a hard time
making both ends meet.
Home Industries; Makeshifts and Substitutes
Many articles in common use had now to be made at home, and the plantation
developed many small industries. There was much joy when a substitute was
found, because it made the people independent of the outside world. Farm
implements were made and repaired. Ropes were made at home of various
materials, such as bear-grass, sunflower stalks, and cotton; baskets, of
willow branches and of oak splints; rough earthenware, of clay and then
glazed; cooking soda from seaweed and from corn-cob ashes; ink from
nut-galls or ink balls, from the skin of blue fig, from green persimmons,
pokeberries, rusty nails, pomegranate rind, and indigo. Cement was made
from wild potatoes and flour; starch from nearly ripe corn, sweet
potatoes, and flour. Bottles or gourds, with small rolls of cotton for
wicks, served as lamps, and in place of oil, cotton-seed oil, ground-pea
or peanut oil, and lard were used. Candles made of wax or tallow were
used, while in the "piney woods" pine knots furnished all the necessary
illumination. Mattresses were stuffed with moss, leaves, and "cat-tails."
No paper could be wasted for envelopes. The sheet was written on except
just enough for the address when folded. In other instances wall-paper and
sheets of paper with pictures on one side and the other side blank were
folded and used for envelopes. Mucilage for the envelopes was made from
peach-tree gum. Corn-cob pipes with a joint of reed or fig twig for a stem
were fashionable. The leaves of the China tree kept insects away from
dried fruit; the China berries were made into whiskey and were used as a
basis for "Poor Man's" soap. Wax myrtle and rosin were also used in making
soap. Beer was made from corn, persimmons, potatoes, and sassafras;
"lemonade" from may-pops and pomegranates. Dogwood and willow bark were
mixed with smoking tobacco "to make it go a long way." Shoes had to be
made for white and black, and backyard tanneries were established. The
hides were first soaked in a barrel filled with a solution of lye until
the hair would come off, when they were placed in a pit between alternate
layers of red oak bark and water poured in. In this "ooze" they soaked for
several months and were then ready for use. The hides of horses, dogs,
mules, hogs, cows, and goats were utilized, and shoes, harness, and
saddles were made on the farm.
All the domestic animals were now raised in larger numbers, especially
beef cattle, sheep, goats, and hogs. Sheep were raised principally for
their wool. The work of all was directed toward supplying the army, and
the best of everything was sent to the soldiers.
Home life was very quiet, busy, and monotonous, with its daily routine of
duty in which all had a part. There were few even of the wealthiest who
did not work with their hands if physically able. Life was hard, but
people soon became accustomed to makeshifts and privation, and most of
them had plenty to eat, though the food was usually coarse. Corn bread was
nearly always to be had; in some places often nothing else. After the
first year few people ever had flour to cook; especially was this the case
in the southern counties. When a family was so fortunate as to obtain a
sack or barrel of flour, all the neighbors were invited in to get
biscuits, though sometimes all of it was kept to make starch. Bolted meal
was used as a substitute for flour in cakes and bread. Most of the meat
produced was sent to the army, and the average family could afford it only
once a day, many only once a week. When an epidemic of cholera killed the
hogs, the people became vegetarians and lived on corn bread, milk, and
syrup; many had only the first.[637] Tea and coffee were very scarce in
the interior of Alabama, and small supplies of the genuine were saved for
emergencies. For tea there were various substitutes, among them holly
leaves, rose leaves, blackberry and raspberry leaves; while for coffee,
rye, okra seed, corn, bran, meal, hominy, peanuts, and bits of parched or
roasted sweet potatoes were used. Syrup was made from the juice of the
watermelon, and preserves from its rind. The juice of corn-stalks was also
made into syrup. In south Alabama sugar-cane and in north Alabama sorghum
furnished "long sweetening." The sorghum was boiled in old iron kettles,
and often made the teeth black. In south Alabama syrup was used instead of
sugar in cooking. In grinding sugar-cane and sorghum, wooden rollers often
had to be made, as iron ones were scarce. However, when they could be
obtained, they were passed from family to family around the community.
Clothes and Fashions
Before the war most articles of clothing were purchased in the North or
imported from abroad. Now that the blockade shut Alabama off from all
sources of supply, the people had to make their cloth and clothing at
home. The factories in the South could not even supply the needs of the
army, and there was a universal return to primitive and frontier
conditions. Old wheels and looms were brought out, and others were made
like them. The state government bought large quantities of cotton and wool
cards for the use of poor people. The women worked incessantly. Every
household was a small factory, and in an incredibly short time the women
mastered the intricacies of looms, spinning-wheels, warping frames,
swifts, etc. Negro women sometimes learned to spin and weave. The whites,
however, did most of it; weaving was too difficult for the average negro
to learn. The area devoted to the cultivation of cotton was restricted by
law, but more than enough was raised to supply the few factories then
operating, principally for the government, and to supply the
spinning-wheels and hand looms of the people.
As a rule, each member of the family had a regularly allotted task for
each day in spinning or weaving. The young girls could not weave, but
could spin;[638] while the women became expert at weaving and spinning and
made beautiful cloth. All kinds of cotton goods were woven, coarse
osnaburgs, sheetings, coverlets, counterpanes, a kind of muslin, and
various kinds of light cloth for women's dresses. Wool was grown on a
large scale as the war went on, and the women wove flannels, plaids,
balmorals, blankets, and carpets.[639] Gray jeans was woven to make
clothing for the soldiers, who had almost no clothes except those sent
them by their home people. A soldier's pay would not buy a shirt, even
when he was paid, which was seldom the case. Nearly every one wove
homespun, dyed with home-made dyes, and it was often very pretty. The
women took more pride in their neat homespun dresses than they did before
the war in the possession of silks and satins. And there was friendly
rivalry between them in spinning and weaving the prettiest homespun as
there was in making the whitest sugar, the cleanest rice, and the best
wheat and corn. But they could not make enough cloth to supply both army
and people, and old clothes stored away were brought out and used to the
last scrap. When worn out the rags were unravelled and the short threads
spun together and woven again into coarse goods. Pillow-cases and sheets
were cut up for clothes and were replaced by homespun substitutes, and
window curtains were made into women's clothes. Carpets were made into
blankets. There were no blanket factories, and the legislature
appropriated the carpets in the capitol for blankets for the
soldiers.[640] Some people went to the tanyards and got hair from horse
and cow hides and mixed it with cotton to make heavy cloth for winter use,
which is said to have made a good-looking garment. Once in a long while
the father or brother in the army would send home a bolt of calico, or
even just enough to make one dress. Then there would be a very proud woman
in the land. Scraps of these rare dresses and also of the homespun dresses
are found in the old scrap-books of the time. The homespun is the
better-looking. No one saw a fashion plate, and each one set the style.
Hoop-skirts were made from the remains of old ones found in the garrets
and plunder rooms. It is said that the southern women affected dresses
that were slightly longer in front than behind, and held them aside in
their hands. Sometimes fortunate persons succeeded in buying for a few
hundred dollars some dress material that had been brought through the
blockade. A calico dress cost in central Alabama from $100 to $600, other
material in proportion. Sewing thread was made by the home spinners with
infinite trouble, but it was never satisfactory. Buttons were made of
pasteboard, pine bark, cloth, thread, persimmon seed, gourds, and wood
covered with cloth. Pasteboard, for buttons and other uses, was made by
pasting several layers of old papers together with flour paste.[641]
Sewing societies were formed for pleasure and to aid soldiers and the
poor. At stated intervals great quantities of clothing and supplies were
sent to the soldiers in the field and to the hospitals. All women became
expert in crocheting and knitting--the occupations for leisure moments.
Even when resting, one was expected to be doing something. Many formed the
habit of knitting in those days and keep it up until to-day, as it became
second nature to have something in the hands to work with. Many women who
learned then can now knit a pair of socks from beginning to end without
looking at them. After dark, when one could not see to sew, spin, or
weave, was usually the time devoted to knitting and crocheting, which
sometimes lasted until midnight. Capes, sacks, vandykes, gloves, socks and
stockings, shawls, underclothes, and men's suspenders were knitted. The
makers ornamented them in various ways, and the ornamentation served a
useful purpose, as the thread was usually coarse and uneven, and the
ornamentation concealed the irregularities that would have shown in plain
work. The smoothest thread that could be made was used for knitting. To
make this thread the finest bolls of cotton were picked before rain had
fallen on them and stained the fibre.
The homespun cloth had to be dyed to make it look well, and, as the
ordinary dye materials could not be obtained, substitutes were made at
home from barks, leaves, roots, and berries. Much experimentation proved
the following results: Maple and sweet gum bark with copperas produced
purple; maple and red oak bark with copperas, a dove color; maple and red
walnut bark with copperas, brown; sweet gum with copperas, a nearly black
color; peach leaves with alum, yellow; sassafras root with copperas, drab;
smooth sumac root, bark, and berries, black; black oak bark with alum,
yellow; artichoke and black oak, yellow; black oak bark with oxide of tin,
pale yellow to bright orange; black oak bark with oxide of iron, drab;
black oak balls in a solution of vitriol, purple to black; alder with
alum, yellow; hickory bark with copperas, olive; hickory bark with alum,
green; white oak bark with alum, brown; walnut roots, leaves, and hulls,
black. Copperas was used to "set" the dye, but when copperas was not to be
had blacksmith's dust was used instead. Pine tree roots and tops, and
dogwood, willow bark, and indigo were also used in dyes.[642]
Shoes for women and children were made of cloth or knitted uppers or of
the skins of squirrels or other small animals, fastened to leather or
wooden soles. A girl considered herself very fortunate if she could get a
pair of "Sunday" shoes of calf or goat skin. There were shoemakers in each
community, all old men or cripples, who helped the people with their
makeshifts. Shoes for men were made of horse and cow hides, and often the
soles were of wood. A wooden shoe was one of the first things patented at
Richmond. Carriage curtains, buggy tops, and saddle skirts furnished
leather for uppers, and metal protections were placed on leather soles.
Little children went barefooted and stayed indoors in winter; many grown
people went barefooted except in winter. Shoe blacking was made from soot
mixed with lard or oil of ground-peas or of cotton-seed. This was applied
to the shoe and over it a paste of flour or starch gave a good polish.
Old bonnets and hats were turned, trimmed, and worn again. Pretty hats
were made of cloth or woven from dyed straw, bulrushes, corn-shucks,
palmetto, oat and wheat straw, bean-grass, jeans, and bonnet squash, and
sometimes of feathers. The rushes, shucks, palmetto, and bean-grass were
bleached by boiling and sunning. Bits of old finery served to trim hats as
well as feathers from turkeys, ducks, and peafowls, with occasional wheat
heads for plumes. Fans were made of the palmetto and of the wing feathers
and wing tips of turkeys and geese. Old parasols and umbrellas were
re-covered, but the majority of the people could not afford cloth for such
a purpose. Hair-oil was made from roses and lard. Thin-haired unfortunates
made braids and switches from prepared bark.
The ingenious makeshifts and substitutes of the women were innumerable.
They were more original than the men in making use of what material lay
ready to hand or in discovering new uses for various things. The few men
at home, however, were not always of the class that make discoveries or do
original things. In an account of life on the farms and plantations in the
South during the war, the white men may almost be left out of the story.
Drugs and Medicines
After the blockade became effective, drugs became very scarce and
home-made preparations were substituted. All doctors became botanical
practitioners. The druggist made his preparations from herbs, roots, and
barks gathered in the woods and fields. Manufacturing laboratories were
early established at Mobile and Montgomery to make medical preparations
which were formerly procured abroad. Much attention was given to the
manufacture of native preparations, which were administered by
practitioners in the place of foreign drugs with favorable results.
Surgeon Richard Potts, of Montgomery, Alabama, had exclusive charge of the
exchange of cotton for medical supplies, and when allowed by the
government to make the exchange, it was very easy for him to get drugs
through the lines into Alabama and Mississippi. But this permission was
too seldom given.[643]
Quinine was probably the scarcest drug. Instead of this were used dogwood
berries, cotton-seed tea, chestnut and chinquapin roots and bark, willow
bark, Spanish oak bark, and poplar bark. Red oak bark in cold water was
used as a disinfectant and astringent for wounds. Boneset tea, butterfly
or pleurisy root tea, mandrake tea, white ash or prickly ash root, and
Sampson's snakeroot were used in fever cases. Local applications of
mustard seed or leaves, hickory leaves, and pepper were used in cases of
pneumonia and pleurisy, while sumac, poke root and berry, sassafras,
alder, and prickly ash were remedies for rheumatism, neuralgia, and
scrofula. Black haw root and partridge berry were used for hemorrhage;
peach leaves and Sampson's snakeroot for dyspepsia and sassafras tea in
the spring and fall served as a blood medicine. The balsam cucumber was
used for a tonic, as also was dogwood, poplar, and rolled cherry bark in
whiskey. Turpentine was useful as an adjunct in many cases. Hops were used
for laudanum; may-apple root or peach tree leaf tea for senna; dandelion,
pleurisy root, and butterfly weed for calomel. Corks were made from black
gum roots, corn-cobs, and old life preservers. Barks were gathered when
the sap was running, the roots after the leaves were dead, and medicinal
plants when they were in bloom.[644] Opium was made from the poppy,
cordials from the blackberry, huckleberry, and persimmon, brandy from
watermelons and fruits, and wine from the elderberry.[645] Whiskey made in
the hills of north Alabama, in gum log stills, formed the basis of nearly
all medicinal preparations. The state had agents who looked after the
proper distribution of the whiskey among the counties. The castor beans
raised in the garden were crushed and boiled and the oil skimmed off.[646]
Social Life during the War
Life in the towns was not so monotonous as in the country. In the larger
ones, especially in Mobile, there was a forced gayety throughout the war.
Many marriages took place, and each wedding was usually the occasion of
social festivities. In the country "homespun" weddings were the
fashion--all parties at the wedding being clad in homespun. Colonel Thomas
Dabney dined in Montgomery in November, 1864, with Mr. Woodleaf, a refugee
from New Orleans. "They gave me," he said, "a fine dinner, good for any
time, and some extra fine music afterwards, according to the Italian,
Spanish, and French books, for we had some of each sort done up in true
opera fashion, I suppose. It was a _leetle_ too foreign for my ear, but
that was my fault, and not the fault of the music."[647] The people were
too busy for much amusement, yet on the surface life was not gloomy. Work
was made as pleasant as possible, though it could never be made play. The
women were never idle, and they often met together to work. There were
sewing societies which met once a week for work and exchange of news.
"Quiltings" were held at irregular intervals, to which every woman came
armed with needle and thimble. At other times there would be spinning
"bees," to which the women would come from long distances and stay all
day, bringing with them in wagons their wheels, cards, and cotton. When a
soldier came home on furlough or sick leave, every woman in the community
went to see him, carrying her work with her, and knitted, sewed, or spun
while listening to news from the army. The holiday soldier, the
"bomb-proof," and the "feather bed" received little mercy from the women;
a thorough contempt was the portion of such people. "Furlough" wounds came
to receive slight sympathy.[648] The soldiers always brought messages
from their comrades to their relatives in the community, which was often
the only way of hearing from those in the army. Letters were uncertain,
the postal system never being good in the country districts. Postage was
ten to twenty cents on a letter, and one to five cents on small
newspapers. Letters from the army gave news of the men of the settlement
who were in the writer's company or regiment, and when received were read
to the neighbors or sent around the community. Often when a young man came
home on furlough or passed through the country, there would be many social
gatherings or "parties" in his honor, and here the young people gathered.
There were parties for the older men, too, and dinners and suppers. Here
the soldier met again his neighbors, or rather the feminine half of them,
anxious to hear his experiences and to inquire about friends and relatives
in the army. The young people also met at night at "corn shuckings" and
"candy pullings," from which they managed to extract a good deal of
pleasure. At the social gatherings, especially of the older people, some
kind of work was always going on. Parching pindars to eat and making
peanut candy were amusements for children after supper.
The intense devotion of the women to the Confederate cause was most
irritating to a certain class of Federal officers in the army that invaded
north Alabama. They seemed to think that they had conquered entrance into
society, but the women were determined to show their colors on all
occasions and often had trouble when boorish officers were in command. A
society woman would lose her social position if seen in the company of
Federal officers. When passing them, the women averted their faces and
swept aside their skirts to prevent any contact with the hated Yankee.
They played and sang Confederate airs on all occasions, and when ordered
by the military authorities to discontinue, it usually took a guard of
soldiers to enforce the order. The Federal officers who acted in a
gentlemanly manner toward the non-combatants were accused by their rude
fellows and by ruder newspaper correspondents of being "wound round the
fingers of the rebel women," who had some object to gain. When the people
of a community were especially contemptuous of the Federals, they were
sometimes punished by having a negro regiment stationed as a garrison.
Athens, in Limestone county, one of the most intensely southern towns,
was garrisoned by a regiment of negroes recruited in the immediate
vicinity.[649]
* * * * *
For the negroes in the Black Belt life went on much as before the war.
More responsibility was placed upon the trusty ones, and they proved
themselves worthy of the trust. They were acquainted with the questions at
issue and knew that their freedom would probably follow victory by the
North. Yet the black overseer and the black preacher, with their
fellow-slaves, went on with their work. The master's family lived on the
large plantation with no other whites within miles and never felt fear of
harm from their black guardians. The negroes had their dances and, 'possum
hunts on Saturday nights after the week's work was done. There was
preaching and singing on Sunday, the whites often attending the negro
services and _vice versa_. Negro weddings took place in the "big house."
The young mistresses would adorn the bride, and the ceremony would be
performed by the old white clergyman, after which the wedding supper would
be served in the family dining room or out under the trees. These were
great occasions for the negroes and for the young people of the master's
family. The sound of fiddle and banjo, songs, and laughter were always
heard in the "quarters" after work was done, though Saturday night was the
great time for merrymaking. In July and August, after the crops were "laid
by," the negroes had barbecues and picnics. To these the whites were
invited and they always attended. The materials for these feasts were
furnished by the mistress and by the negroes themselves, who had garden
patches, pigs, and poultry. The slaves were, on the whole, happy and
content.
The clothes for the slaves were made under the superintendence of the
mistress, who, after the war began, often cut out the clothes for every
negro on the place, and sometimes assisted in making them. Some of the
negro women had spinning-wheels and looms, and clothed their own families,
while others spun, wove, and made their clothes under the direction of the
mistress. But most of them could not be trusted with the materials,
because they were so unskilful. It took a month or two twice a year to get
the negroes into their new outfits. The rule was that each negro should
have two suits of heavy material for winter wear and two of light goods
for summer. To clothe the negroes during the war time was a heavy burden
upon the mistress.
To those negroes who did their own cooking rations were issued on Saturday
afternoon. Bacon and corn meal formed the basis of the ration, besides
which there would be some kind of "sweetening" and a substitute for
coffee.[650] Special goodies were issued for Sunday. The negroes in the
Black Belt fared better during the war than either the whites or the
negroes in the white counties. When there were few slaves or in the time
of great scarcity, the cooking for whites and blacks was often done in the
house kitchen by the same cooks. This was done in order to leave more time
for the negroes to work and to prevent waste. Where there were many
slaves, there was often some arrangement made by which cooking was done in
common, though there were numbers of families that did their own cooking
at home all the time. When meat was scarce, it was given to the negro
laborers who needed the strength, while the white family and the negro
women and children denied themselves.
As the Confederate government did not provide well for the soldiers, their
wives and mothers had to supply them. The sewing societies undertook to
clothe the soldiers who went from their respective neighborhoods. Once a
week or once a month, a box was sent from each society. One box sent to
the Grove Hill Guards contained sixty pairs of socks, twenty-five
blankets, thirteen pairs of gloves, fourteen flannel shirts, sixteen
towels, two handkerchiefs, five pairs of trousers, and one bushel of dried
apples. Other boxes contained about the same. Hams and any other edibles
that would keep were frequently sent and also simple medicine chests. When
blankets could not be had, quilts were sent, or heavy curtains and pieces
of carpet. With the progress of the war, there was much suffering among
the soldiers and their destitute families that the state could do but
little to relieve, and the women took up the task. Besides the various
church aid societies, we hear of the "Grove Hill Military Aid Society" and
the "Suggsville Soldiers' Aid Society," both of Clarke County; the "Aid
Society of Mobile"; the "Montgomery Home Society" and the "Soldiers'
Wayside Home," in Montgomery; the "Wayside Hospital" and the "Ladies'
Military Aid Society" of Selma; the "Talladega Hospital"; the "Ladies'
Humane Society" of Huntsville,[651] and many others. The legislature gave
financial aid to some of them. Societies were formed in every town,
village, and country settlement to send clothing, medicines, and
provisions to the soldiers in the army and to the hospitals. The members
went to hospitals and parole camps for sick and wounded soldiers, took
them to their homes, and nursed them back to health. "Wayside Homes" were
established in the towns for the accommodation of soldiers travelling to
and from the army. Soldiers on sick leave and furlough who were cut off
from their homes beyond the Mississippi came to the homes of their
comrades, sure of a warm welcome and kind attentions. Poor soldiers sick
at home were looked after and supplies sent to their needy families.
The last year of the war a bushel of corn cost $13, while a soldier's pay
was $11 a month, paid once in a while. So the poor people became
destitute. But the state furnished meal and salt to all[652] and the more
fortunate people gave liberally of their supplies. Many of the poorer
white women did work for others--weaving, sewing, and spinning--for which
they were well paid, frequently in provisions, which they were in great
need of. Some made hats, bonnets, and baskets for sale. The cotton
counties supported many refugees from the northern counties, and numerous
poor people from that section imposed upon the generosity of the planting
section. The overseers, white or black, had a dislike for those to whom
supplies were given; they also objected to the regular payment of the
tax-in-kind, and to impressment which took their corn, meat, horses, cows,
mules, and negroes, and crippled their operations. The mistresses had to
interfere and see that the poor and the government had their share.
In the cities the women engaged in various patriotic occupations,--sewing
for the soldiers, nursing, raising money for hospitals, etc. The women of
Tuskegee raised money to be spent on a gunboat for the defence of Mobile
Bay. They wanted it called _The Women's Gunboat_.[653] "A niece of James
Madison" wrote to a Mobile paper, proposing that 200,000 women in the
South sell their hair in Europe to raise funds for the Confederacy. The
movement failed because of the blockade.[654] There were other similar
propositions, but they could not be carried out, and year after year the
legislatures of the state thanked the women for their patriotic devotion,
their labors, sacrifices, constancy, and courage.
The music and songs that were popular during the war show the changing
temper of the people. At first were heard joyous airs, later contemptuous
and defiant as war came on; then jolly war songs and strong hymns of
encouragement. But as sorrow followed sorrow until all were stricken; as
wounds, sickness, imprisonment, and death of friends and relatives cast
shadow over the spirits of the people; as hopes were dashed by defeat, and
the consciousness came that perhaps after all the cause was losing,--the
iron entered into the souls of the people. The songs were sadder now. The
church hymns heard were the soul-comforting ones and the militant songs of
the older churchmen. The first year were heard "Farewell to Brother
Jonathan," "We Conquer or We Die;" then "Riding a Raid," "Stonewall
Jackson's Way," "All Quiet Along the Potomac," "Lorena," "Beechen Brook,"
"Somebody's Darling," "When the Cruel War is O'er," "Guide Me, O Thou
Great Jehovah." "Dixie" was sung and played during the entire time, whites
and blacks singing it with equal pleasure. The older hymns were sung and
the doctrines of faith and good works earnestly preached. The promises
were, perhaps, more emphasized. A deeply religious feeling prevailed among
the home workers for the cause.
The women had the harder task. The men were in the field in active
service, their families were safe at home, there was no fear for
themselves. The women lived in constant dread of news from the front; they
had to sit still and wait, and their greatest comfort was the hard work
they had to do. It gave them some relief from the burden of sorrow that
weighed down the souls of all. To the very last the women hoped and prayed
for success, and failure, to many of them, was more bitter than death. The
loss of their cause hurt them more deeply than it did the men who had the
satisfaction of fighting out the quarrel, even though the other side was
victorious.[655]
PART III
THE AFTERMATH OF WAR
CHAPTER V
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DISORDER
SEC. 1. LOSS OF LIFE AND PROPERTY
The Loss of Life
The surviving soldiers came straggling home, worn out, broken in health,
crippled, in rags, half starved, little better off, they thought, than the
comrades they had left under the sod of the battle-fields on the border.
In the election of 1860 about 90,000 votes were cast, nearly the entire
voting population, and about this number of Alabama men enlisted in the
Confederate and Union armies. Various estimates were made of Alabama's
losses during the war, most of which are doubtless too large. Among these
Governor Parsons, in his inaugural address, gives the number as 35,000
killed or died of wounds and disease, and as many more disabled.[656]
Colonel W. H. Fowler, for two years the state agent for settling the
claims of deceased soldiers and also superintendent of army records,
states that he had the names of nearly 20,000 dead on his lists and
believed this to be only about half of the entire number; that the Alabama
troops lost more heavily than any other troops. He asserted that of the
30,000 Alabama troops in the Army of Northern Virginia over 9000 had died
in service, and of those who were retired, discharged, or who resigned,
about one-half were either dead or permanently disabled.[657] These
estimates are evidently too large, and they probably form the basis of the
statements of Governors Parsons and Patton. Governor Patton estimated that
40,000 had died in service, while 20,000 were disabled for life, and that
there were 20,000 widows and 60,000 orphans.[658] A _Times_ correspondent
places the loss in war at 34,000.[659] The strongest regiments were worn
out by 1865. At Appomattox, when three times as many men surrendered as
were in a condition to bear arms, the Alabama commands paroled hardly
enough men in each regiment to form a good company. Though the average
enlistment had been 1350 to the regiment, one of the best regiments--the
Third Alabama Infantry--paroled: from Company B, 8 men; from Company D, 7
men; Company G, 4; Company E, 7; while the Fifth Alabama paroled: from
Company A, 2; B, 7; C, 2; E, 2; F, 1; K, 3. The Twelfth Alabama: Company
A, 4; C, 6; D, 6; E, 4; G, 3; I, 5; M, 4. Sixth Alabama (over 2000
enlistments): D, 2; F, 2; I, 5; M, 4. Sixty-first Alabama: B, 2; C, 4; E,
1; G, 5; I, 4; K, 3. Fifteenth Alabama: C, 8. Forty-eighth Alabama: C, 6;
K, 7. Ninth Alabama: 70 men in all--an average of 7 to a company.
Thirteenth Alabama: 85 men in all. Forty-first Alabama: 74 men in all.
Forty-first, Forty-third, Fifty-ninth, Sixtieth, and Twenty-third: 220 men
in all. Some companies were entirely annihilated, having neither officer
nor private at the surrender. A company from Demopolis is said to have
lost all except 7 men, that is, 125 by death in the service.[660] The
census of 1866 contains the names of 8957 soldiers killed in battle,
13,534 who died of disease or wounds, and 2629 disabled for life.[661]
These are the only facts obtainable on which to base calculations, yet the
census was very imperfect, as hundreds of families were broken up,
thousands of men forgotten, and there was no one to give information
regarding them to the census taker.
The white population decreased 3632 from 1860 to 1866, according to the
census of the latter year. But for the war, according to rate of increase
from 1850 to 1860, there should have been an increase of 50,000. In 1870
the census showed a further decrease of 1415, due, perhaps, to the great
mortality just after the war. In other words, the white population was
about 100,000 less in 1870 than it would have been under normal
conditions, without immigration. Contemporary accounts state that the
negro suffered much more than the whites in the two years immediately
following the war, from starvation, exposure, and pestilence, and the
census of 1866 showed a decrease of 14,325 in the colored population, when
there should have been an increase of nearly 70,000 according to the rate
of 1850 to 1860, besides the 20,000 that it has been estimated were sent
into the interior of the state from other states to escape capture by the
raiding Federals. The census of 1866 was not accurate, for the negroes at
that time were in a very unsettled condition, wandering from place to
place. However, in 1870, the number of negroes had increased 37,740 over
the numbers for 1860, while the number of whites had decreased several
thousand, which would seem to indicate that the census of 1866 was
defective. But there is no doubt that the negroes suffered terribly during
this time.[662]
Destruction of Property
Governor Patton, in a communication to Congress dated May 11, 1866, gives
the property losses in Alabama as $500,000,000,[663] which sum doubtless
includes the value of the slaves, estimated in 1860 at $200,000,000, or
about $500 each.[664] The value of other property in 1860 has been
estimated at $640,000,000, the assessed value, $256,428,893, being 40 per
cent of the real value.[665]
A comparison of the census statistics of 1860 and of 1870 after five years
of Reconstruction will be suggestive:--
1860 1870
Value of farms $175,824,032 $54,191,229
Value of live stock 43,411,711 21,325,076
Value of farm implements 7,433,178 5,946,543
Number of horses 127,000 80,000
Number of mules 111,000 76,000
Number of oxen 88,000 59,000
Number of cows 230,000 170,000
Number of other cattle 454,000 257,000
Number of sheep 370,000 241,000
Number of swine 1,748,000 719,000
Improved land in farms, acres 6,385,724 5,062,204
Corn crop, bushels 33,226,000 16,977,000
(35,053,047 in 1899)
Cotton crop, bales 989,955 429,482
(1,106,840 in 1899)
Not until 1880 was the acreage of improved lands as great as in 1860.[666]
Live stock, valued at $43,000,000 in 1860, is still to-day $7,000,000
behind. Farm implements and machinery in 1900 were worth $1,000,000 more
than in 1860, having doubled in value in the last ten years.[667] Land
improvements and buildings, worth $175,000,000 in 1860, were in 1900 still
more than $30,000,000 below that mark. The total value of farm property in
1860 was $226,669,511; in 1870, $97,716,055;[668] and in 1900,
$179,339,882. Though the population has increased twofold since 1860[669]
and the white counties have developed and the industries have become more
varied, agriculture has not yet reached the standard of 1860, the Black
Belt farmer is much less prosperous, and the agricultural system of the
old cotton belt has never recovered from the effects of the war. From the
theoretical point of view the abolition of slavery should have resulted in
loss only during the readjustment of industrial conditions. Yet
$200,000,000 capital had been lost; and, as a matter of fact, the
statistics of agriculture show that, while in the white counties in 1900
there was a greater yield of the staple crops,--cotton and corn,--in the
black counties the free negroes of double the number do not yet produce as
much as the slaves of 1860.[670]
The manufacturing establishments that had existed before the war or were
developed during that time were destroyed by Federal raids, or were
seized, sold, and dismantled after the surrender because they had
furnished supplies to the Confederacy. The public buildings used by the
Confederate authorities in all the towns and all over the country were
burned or were turned over to the Freedmen's Bureau. The state and county
public buildings in the track of the raiders were destroyed. The stocks of
goods in the stores were exhausted long before the close of the war. All
banking capital, and all securities, railroad bonds and stocks, state and
Confederate bonds, and currency were worth nothing. All the accumulated
capital of the state was swept away; only the soil and some buildings
remained. People owning hundreds of acres of land often were as destitute
as the poorest negro. The majority of people who had money to invest had
bought Confederate securities as a patriotic duty, and all the coin had
been drawn from the country. The most of the bonded debt was held in
Mobile, and that city lost all its capital when the debt was declared null
and void.[671] This city suffered severely, also, from a terrible
explosion soon after the surrender. Twenty squares in the business part
were destroyed.[672]
[Illustration: DEVASTATION BY INVADING ARMIES 1861-1865.]
Thousands of private residences were destroyed, especially in north
Alabama, where the country was even more thoroughly devastated than in the
path of Sherman through Georgia. The third year of the war had seen the
destruction of everything destructible in north Alabama outside of the
large towns, where the devastation was usually not so great. In Decatur,
however, nearly all the buildings were burned; only three of the principal
ones were left standing.[673] Tuscumbia was practically destroyed, and
many houses were condemned for army use.[674] The beautiful buildings of
the Black Belt were out of repair and fast going to ruin. Many of the
fine houses in the cities--especially in Mobile--had fallen into the hands
of the Jews. One place, which was bought for $45,000 before the war, was
sold with difficulty in 1876 for $10,000. Before the war there were
sixteen French business houses in Mobile; none survived the war. The port
of Mobile never again reached its former importance. In 1860, 900,000
bales of cotton had been shipped from the port; in 1865-1866, 400,000
bales; in 1866-1867, 250,000 bales; in 1876, 400,000 bales. There was no
disposition on the part of the Washington administration to remove the
obstructions in Mobile harbor. They were left for years and furnished an
excuse to the reconstructionists for the expenditure of state money.[675]
Nearly all the grist-mills and cotton-gins had been destroyed, mill-dams
cut, and ponds drained. The raiders never spared a cotton-gin. The cotton,
in which the government was interested, was either burned or seized and
sold, and private cotton, when found, fared in the same way. Cotton had
been the cause of much trouble to the commanders on both sides during the
war; it was considered the mainstay of the South before the war and the
root of all evil. So of all property it received the least consideration
from the Federal troops, and was very easily turned into cash. All farm
animals near the track of the armies had been carried away or killed by
the soldiers (as at Selma), or seized after the occupation by the troops.
Horses, mules, cows, and other domestic animals had almost disappeared
except in the secluded districts. Many a farmer had to plough with oxen.
Farm and plantation buildings had been dismantled or burned, houses
ruined, fences destroyed, corn, meat, and syrup taken. The plantations in
the Tennessee valley were in a ruined condition. The gin-houses were
burned, the bridges ruined, mills and factories gone, and the roads
impassable.[676] In the homes that were left, carpets and curtains were
gone, for they had been used as blankets and clothes, window glass was
out, furniture injured or destroyed, and crockery broken. In the larger
towns, where something had been saved from the wreck of war, the looting
by the Federal soldiers was shameful. Pianos, furniture, pictures,
curtains, sofas, and other household goods were shipped North by the
Federal officers during the early days of the occupation. Gold and silver
plate and jewellery were confiscated by the bummers who were with every
command. Abuses of this kind became so flagrant that the northern papers
condemned the conduct of the soldiers, and several ministers, among them
Henry Ward Beecher, rebuked the practice from the pulpit.[677]
Land was almost worthless, because the owners had no capital, no farm
animals, no farm implements, in many cases not even seed. Labor was
disorganized, and the product of labor was most likely to be stolen by
roving negroes and other marauders. Seldom was more than one-third of a
plantation under cultivation, the remainder growing up in broom sedge
because laborers could not be gotten. When the Federal armies passed, many
negroes followed them and never returned. Numbers of them died in the
camps. When the war ended, many others left their old homes, some of whom
several years later came straggling back.[678] Land that would produce a
bale of cotton to the acre, worth $125, and selling in 1860 for $50 per
acre at the lowest, was now selling for from $3 to $5 per acre. Among the
negroes, especially after the occupation, there was a general belief,
which was carefully fostered by a certain class of Federal officials and
by some leaders in Congress, that the lands would be confiscated and
divided among the "unionists" and the negroes. When the state seceded, it
took charge of the public lands within its boundaries and opened them to
settlement. After the fall of the Confederacy those who had purchased
lands were required to rebuy them from the United States or to give up
their claims. Some lands were abandoned, as the owners were able neither
to cultivate nor to sell them, for there was no capital. In Cumberland, a
village, at one time there were ninety advertisements of sales posted in
the hotel. The planters often found themselves amid a wilderness of land,
without laborers, and often rented land free to some white man or to a
negro who would pay the taxes.[679] Many hundreds of the people could see
no hope whatever for the future of the state, and certainly the North was
not acting so as to encourage them. Hence there was heavy emigration to
Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, the northern and western states, and much property
was offered at a tenth of its value and even less.
The heaviest losses fell upon the old wealthy families, who, by the loss
of wealth and by political proscription, were ruined. In middle life and
in old age they were unable to begin again, and for a generation their
names disappear from sight. Losses, debts, taxes, and proscriptions bore
down many, and few rose to take their places.[680] The poorer people,
though they had but little to lose, lost all, and suffered extreme poverty
during the latter years of the war and the early years of Reconstruction.
No wonder they were in despair and seemed for a while a menace to public
order. To the power and influence of the leaders succeeded in part a
second-rate class--the rank and file of 1861--upon whom the losses of the
war fell with less weight, and who were thrown to the front by the war
which ruined those above and those below them. They were the sound,
hard-working men--the lawyers, farmers, merchants, who had formerly been
content to allow brilliant statesmen to direct the public affairs. Now
those leaders were dead or proscribed, for poverty, war, reconstruction,
and political persecution rapidly destroyed the old ruling element, and
deaths among them after the war were very common. The men who rescued the
state in 1874 were the men of lesser ability of 1860, farmer subordinates
in the political ranks.[681]
The Wreck of the Railways
The steamboats on the rivers were destroyed. At that time the steamers
probably carried as much freight and as many passengers as did the
railroads, and served to connect the railway systems. The railroads also
were in a ruined condition; depots had been burned, bridges and trestles
destroyed, tracks torn up, cross-ties burned or were rotten, rails worn
out or ruined by burning, cars and locomotives worn out or destroyed or
captured. The boards of directors and the presidents of the roads, because
of the aid they had given the Confederacy, were not considered safe
persons to trust with the reorganization of the system, and, in August,
1865, Stanton, the Secretary of War, directed that each southern railway
be reorganized with a "loyal" board of directors.
In 1860 there were about 800 miles of railways in Alabama. Nearly all of
the roads were unfinished in 1861, and, except on the most important
military roads, little progress was made in their construction during the
war--only about 20 or 30 miles being completed. During this time all roads
were practically under the control of the Confederate government, which
operated them through their own boards of directors and other officials.
The various roads suffered in different degrees. At the close of the war,
the Tennessee and Alabama Railroad had only two or three cars that could
be used, the rails also were worn out, the locomotives out of order and
useless, nearly all the depots, bridges, and trestles destroyed, as well
as all of its shops, water tanks, machinery, books, and papers. The
Memphis and Charleston, extending across the entire northern part of the
state, fell into the hands of the Federals in 1862, who captured at
Huntsville nearly all of the rolling stock and destroyed the shops and
the papers. The rolling stock had been collected at Huntsville, ready to
be shipped to a place of less danger; but because of the treachery of a
telegraph operator who kept the knowledge of the approaching raid from the
officials, all was lost, for to prevent its falling into the hands of the
enemy much more was destroyed than was captured. When the Federals were
driven from a section of the road, they destroyed it in order to prevent
the Confederates from using it. The length of this road in the state was
155 miles, and 140 miles of the track were torn up, the rails heated in
the middle over fires of burning cross-ties, and the iron then twisted
around trees and stumps so as to make it absolutely useless. In 1865 very
little machinery of any kind was left. Besides this the company lost
heavily in Confederate securities, and the other losses (funds, etc.)
amounted to $1,195,166.79.
The Mobile and Ohio lost in Confederate currency $5,228,562.23.
Thirty-seven miles of rails were worn out, 21 miles were burned and
twisted, 184 miles of road cleared of bridges, trestles, and stations, the
cross-ties burned, and the shops near Mobile destroyed. There were 18 of
59 locomotives in working order, 11 of 26 passenger cars, 3 of 11 baggage
cars, 231 of 721 freight cars. The Selma and Meridian lost its shops and
depots in Selma and Meridian, and its bridges over the Cahaba and Valley
creeks. It sustained a heavy loss in Confederate bonds and currency. The
Alabama and Tennessee Rivers Railroad lost a million dollars in
Confederate funds, its shops, tools, and machinery at Selma, 6 bridges,
its trestles, some track and many depots, its locomotives and cars. The
Wills Valley Road suffered but little from destruction or from loss in
Confederate securities. The Mobile and Great Northern escaped with a loss
of only $401,190.37 in Confederate money, and $164,800 by destruction,
besides the wear and tear on its track and rolling stock in the four years
without repairs. The Alabama and Florida Road lost in Confederate currency
$755,343,21. It had at the end of the war only 4 locomotives and 40 cars
of all descriptions. The people were so poor that in the summer of 1865
this road, on a trip from Mobile to Montgomery and return, a distance of
360 miles, collected in fares only $13. The Montgomery and West Point, 161
miles in length, and one of the best roads in the state, probably suffered
the heaviest loss from raids. It lost in currency $1,618,243, besides all
of its rolling stock that was in running order; much of the track was
torn up and rails twisted, all bridges and tanks and depots were
destroyed. Both Rousseau and Wilson tore up the track and destroyed the
shops and rolling stock at Montgomery and along the road to West Point and
also the rolling stock that had been sent to Columbus, Georgia. After the
surrender an old locomotive that had been thrown aside at Opelika and 14
condemned cars were patched up, and for a while this old engine and a
couple of flat cars were run up and down the road as a passenger train.
The worn strap rails used in repairing gave much trouble. The fare was 10
cents a mile in coin or 20 cents in greenbacks.[682] Every road in the
South lost rolling stock on the border. The few cars and locomotives left
to any road were often scattered over several states, and some of them
were never returned.
As the Federal armies occupied the country, they took charge of the
railways, which were then run either under the direction of the War
Department or the railroad division of the army. After the war they were
returned to the stockholders as soon as "loyal" boards of directors were
appointed or the "disloyal" ones made "loyal" by the pardon of the
President. Contractors who undertook to reopen the roads in the summer of
1865 were unable to do so because the negroes refused to work. The
companies were bankrupt, for all money due them was Confederate currency,
and all they had in their possession was Confederate currency. Many debts
that had been paid by the roads during the war to the states and counties
now had to be paid again. All of the nine roads in the state attempted
reorganization, but only three were able to accomplish it, and these then
absorbed the others. None, it appears, were abandoned.[683]
SEC. 2. THE INTERREGNUM; LAWLESSNESS AND DISORDER
Immediately after the surrender of the armies a general demand arose from
the people throughout the lower South that the governors convene the state
legislatures for the purpose of calling conventions which, by repealing
the ordinance of secession and abolishing slavery, could prepare the way
for reunion. This, it was thought, was all that the North wanted, and it
seemed to be in harmony with Lincoln's plan of restoration. General
Richard Taylor, when he surrendered at Meridian, Mississippi, advised the
governors of Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi to take steps to carry
out such measures; and General Canby, to whom Taylor surrendered the
department, indorsed the plan, as did also the various general officers of
the armies of occupation. But these generals were not in touch with
politics at Washington. The Federal government outlawed the existing
southern state governments, leaving them with no government at all.
Governor Watts and ex-Governors Shorter and Moore were arrested and sent
to northern prisons. A number of prominent leaders, among them John Gayle
of Selma and ex-Senators Clay and Fitzpatrick, were also arrested. The
state government went to pieces. General Canby was instructed by President
Johnson to arrest any member of the Alabama legislature who might attempt
to hold a meeting of the general assembly. Consequently, from the first of
May until the last of the summer the state of Alabama was without any
state government;[684] and it was only after several months of service as
provisional governor that Parsons was able to reorganize the state
administration.
For six months after the surrender there was practically no government of
any kind in Alabama except in the immediate vicinity of the military
posts, where the commander exercised a certain authority over the people
of the community. A good commander could do little more than let affairs
take their course, for the great mass of the people only wanted to be left
alone for a while. They were tired of war and strife and wanted rest and
an opportunity to work their crops and make bread for their suffering
families. The strongest influence of the respectable people was exerted
in favor of peace and order. While much lawlessness appeared in the state,
it was not as much as might have been expected under the existing
circumstances at the close of the great Civil War. Much of the disorder
was caused by the presence of the troops, some of whom were even more
troublesome than the robbers and outlaws from whom they were supposed to
protect the people. The best soldiers of the Federal army had demanded
their discharge as soon as fighting was over, and had gone home. Those who
remained in the service in the state were, with few exceptions, very
disorderly, and kept the people in terror by their robberies and outrages.
Especially troublesome among the negro population, and a constant cause of
irritation to the whites, were the negro troops, who were sent into the
state, the people believed, in order to humiliate the whites. They were
commanded by officers who had been insulted and threatened all during the
war because of their connection with these troops, and this treatment had
embittered them against the southern people. The negro troops were
stationed in towns where Confederate spirit had been very strong, as a
discipline to the people. For months and even years after the surrender
the Federal troops in small detachments were accustomed to march through
the country, searching for cotton and other public property and arresting
citizens on charges preferred by the tories or by the negroes, many of
whom spent their time confessing the sins of their white neighbors. The
garrison towns suffered from the unruly behavior of the soldiers. The
officers, who were only waiting to be mustered out of service, devoted
themselves to drinking, women, and gambling. The men followed their
example. The traffic in whiskey was enormous, and most of the sales were
to the soldiers, to the lowest class of whites, and to the negroes. The
streets of the towns and cities such as Montgomery, Mobile, Selma,
Huntsville, Athens, and Tuscaloosa, were crowded with drunken and violent
soldiers. Lewd women had followed the army and had established
disreputable houses near every military post, which were the centre and
cause of many lawless outbreaks. Quarrels were frequent, and at a
disorderly ball in Montgomery, in the fall of 1865, a Federal officer was
killed. The peaceable citizens were plundered by the camp followers,
discharged soldiers, and the deserters who now crawled out of their
retreats. Sometimes these marauders dressed in the Federal uniforms when
on their expeditions, in order to cast suspicion on the soldiers, who were
often wrongfully charged with these crimes.[685]
As one instance of the many outrages committed at this time the following
may be cited: in the summer of 1865, when all was in disorder and no
government existed in the state, a certain "Major" Perry, as his followers
called him, went on a private raid through the country to get a part of
anything that might be left. He was one of the many who thought that they
deserved some share of the spoils and who were afraid that the time of
their harvest would be short. So it was necessary to make the best of the
disordered condition of affairs. Perry was followed by a few white
soldiers, or men who dressed as soldiers, and by a crowd of negroes. At
his saddle-bow was tied a bag containing his most valuable plunder. From
house to house in Dallas and adjoining counties he and his men went,
demanding valuables, pulling open trunks and bureau and wardrobe drawers,
scattering their contents, and choosing what they wanted, tearing pictures
in pieces, and scattering the contents of boxes of papers and books in a
spirit of pure destructiveness. At one house they found some old shirts
which the mistress had carefully mended for her husband, who had not yet
returned from the army. One of the marauders suggested that they be added
to their collection. "Major" Perry looked at them carefully, but, as he
was rather choice in his tastes, rejected them as "damned patched things,"
spat tobacco on them, and trampled them with his muddy boots. Incidents
similar to this were not infrequent, nor were they calculated to soften
the feelings of the women toward the victorious enemy. Their cordial
hatred of Federal officers was strongly resented by the latter, who were
often able to retaliate in unpleasant ways.[686]
In southeast Alabama deserters from both armies and members of the
so-called First Florida Union Cavalry continued for a year after the close
of the war their practice of plundering all classes of people and
sometimes committing other acts of violence. Some persons were robbed of
nearly all that they possessed.[687] Joseph Saunders, a millwright of Dale
County, served as a Confederate lieutenant in the first part of the war.
Later he resigned, and being worried by the conscript officers, allied
himself with a band of deserters near the Florida line, who drew their
supplies from the Federal troops on the coast. Saunders was made leader of
the band and made frequent forays into Dale County, where on one occasion
a company of militia on parade was captured. The band raided the town of
Newton, but was defeated. After the war, Saunders with his gang returned
and continued horse-stealing. Finally he killed a man and went to Georgia,
where, in 1866, he himself was killed.[688] He was a type of the native
white outlaw.
The burning of cotton was common. Some was probably burned because the
United States cotton agents had seized it, but the heaviest loss fell on
private owners. A large quantity of private cotton worth about $2,000,000,
that had escaped confiscation and had been collected near Montgomery, was
destroyed by the cotton burners.[689] Horse and cattle thieves infested
the whole state, especially the western part. Washington and Choctaw
counties especially suffered from their depredations.[690] The rivers were
infested with cotton thieves, who floated down the streams in flats,
landed near cotton fields, established videttes, went into the fields,
stole the cotton, and carried it down the river to market.[691] A band of
outlaws took passage on a steamboat on the Alabama River, overcame the
crew and the honest passengers, and took possession of the boat.[692]
A secret incendiary organization composed of negroes and some discharged
Federal soldiers plotted to burn Selma. The members of the band wore red
ribbon badges. One of the negroes informed the authorities of the plot and
of the place of meeting, and forty of the band were arrested. The others
were informed and escaped. The military authorities released the
prisoners, who denied the charge, though some of their society testified
against them.[693] There were incendiary fires in every town in the
state, it is said, and several were almost destroyed.
The bitter feeling between the tories and the Confederates of north
Alabama resulted in some places in guerilla warfare. The Confederate
soldiers, whose families had suffered from the depredations of the tories
during the war, wanted to punish the outlaws for their misdeeds, and in
many cases attempted to do so. The tories wanted revenge for having been
driven from the country or into hiding by the Confederate authorities, so
they raided the Confederate soldiers as they had raided their families
during the war. Some of the tories were caught and hanged. In revenge, the
Confederates were shot down in their houses, and in the fields while at
work, or while travelling along the roads. The convention called by
Governor Parsons declared that lawlessness existed in many counties of the
state and authorized Parsons to call out the militia in each county to
repress the disorder. They also asked the President to withdraw the
Federal troops, which were only a source of disorder,[694] and gave to the
mayors of Florence, Athens, and Huntsville special police powers within
their respective counties in order to check the lawless element, which was
especially strong in Lauderdale, Limestone, and Madison counties.[695]
These counties lay north of the Tennessee River, along the Tennessee
border. There was a disposition on the part of the civil and military
authorities in Alabama to attribute the lawlessness in north and northwest
Alabama to bands of desperadoes from Tennessee and Mississippi, but north
Alabama had numbers of marauders of her own, and it is probable that
Tennessee and Mississippi had little to do with it. Half a dozen men,
where there was no authority to check them, could make a whole county
uncomfortable for the peaceable citizens.[696]
The Federal infantry commands scattered throughout the country were of
little service in capturing the marauders. General Swayne repeatedly asked
for cavalry, for, as he said, the infantry was the source of as much
disorder as it suppressed. The worst outrages, he added, were committed by
small bands of lawless men organized under various names, and whose chief
object was robbery and plunder.[697] After the establishment of the
provisional government an attempt was made to bring to trial some of the
outlaws who had infested the country during and after the war, and who
richly deserved hanging. They were of no party, being deserters from both
armies, or tories who had managed to keep out of either army. However,
when arrested they raised a strong cry of being "unionists" and appealed
to the military authorities for protection from "rebel" persecution,
though the officials of the Johnson government in Alabama were never
charged by any one else with an excess of zeal in the Confederate cause.
The Federal officials released all prisoners who claimed to be
"unionists." Sheriff Snodgrass of Jackson County arrested fifteen
bushwhackers charged with murder. They claimed to be "loyalists," and
General Kryzyanowski, commanding the district of north Alabama, ordered
the court to stop proceedings and to discharge the prisoners. This was not
done, and Kryzyanowski sent a body of negro soldiers who closed the court,
released the prisoners, and sent the sheriff to jail at Nashville.[698]
The military authorities allowed no one who asserted that he was a
"unionist" to be tried for offences committed during the war, and any
effort to bring the outlaws to trial resulted in an outcry against the
"persecution of loyalists."
In August, 1865, Sheriff John M. Daniel of Cherokee County arrested and
imprisoned a band of marauders dressed in the Federal uniform, though they
had no connection with the army. A short time afterwards the citizens
asked him to raise a _posse_ and arrest a similar band which was engaged
in robbing the people, plundering houses, assaulting respectable citizens,
and threatening to kill them. And as such occurrences were frequent,
Sheriff Daniel, after consulting with the citizens, summoned a _posse
comitatus_ and went in pursuit of the marauders. One squad was encountered
which surrendered without resistance. A second, belonging to the same
band, approached, and, refusing to surrender, opened fire on the sheriff's
party. In the fight the sheriff killed one man. Upon learning that his
prisoners were soldiers and were on detail duty, he desisted from further
pursuit, released the citizens who were held as prisoners by the soldiers,
and turned his prisoners over to the military authorities. This was on
August 24. Daniel was at once arrested by the military authorities and
confined in prison at Talladega in irons. Six months later he had had no
trial, and the general assembly petitioned the President for his release,
claiming that he had acted in the faithful discharge of his duty.[699] The
memorial asserts that such outrages were of frequent occurrence. Another
petition to the President asked for the withdrawal of the troops, whose
presence caused disorder, and who at various times provoked unpleasant
collisions. Many of the troops, remote from the line of transportation,
subsisted their stock upon the country. This was a hardship to the people,
who had barely enough to support life.[700]
For several years the arbitrary conduct of some of the soldiers was a
cause of bad feeling on the part of the citizens.[701] But the soldiers
were very often blamed for deeds done by outlaws disguised as Federal
troops. In northern Alabama a party of northern men bought property, and
complained to Governor Parsons of the depredations of the Federal troops
stationed near and asked for protection. Parsons could only refer their
request to General Davis at Montgomery, and in the meantime the troops
complained of drove out of the community the signers of the request for
protection. One of them, an ex-captain in the United States army, was
ordered to leave within three hours or he would be shot.[702] The
soldiers, except at the important posts, were under slack discipline, and
their officers had little control over them. At Bladen Springs some negro
troops shot a Mr. Bass while he was in bed and beat his wife and children
with ramrods. They drove the wife and daughters of a Mr. Rhodes from home
and set fire to the house. The citizens fled from their homes, which were
pillaged by the negro soldiers in order to get the clothing, furniture,
books, etc. The trouble originated in the refusal of the white people to
associate with the white officers of the colored troops.[703] These
negroes had little respect for their officers and threatened to shoot
their commanding officers.[704] At Decatur the negro troops plundered and
shot into the houses of the whites. In Greensboro a white youth struck a
negro who had insulted him, and was in turn slapped in the face by a
Federal officer, whom he at once shot and then made his escape. The negro
population, led by negro soldiers, went into every house in the town,
seized all the arms, and secured as a hostage the brother of the man who
had escaped. A gallows was erected and the boy was about to be hanged when
his relatives received an intimation that money would secure his release.
With difficulty about $10,000 was secured from the people of the town and
sent to the officer in command of the district. No one knows what he did
with the money, but the young man was released.[705]
Before the close of 1865, the commanding officers were reducing the troops
to much better discipline and many were withdrawn. The provisional
government also grew stronger, and there was considerably less disorder
among the whites, though the blacks were still demoralized.
SEC. 3. THE NEGRO TESTING HIS FREEDOM
The conduct of the negro during the war and after gaining his freedom
seemed to convince those who had feared that insurrection would follow
emancipation that no danger was to be feared from this source. Most of the
former slaveholders, who were better acquainted with the negro character
and who knew that the old masters could easily control them, at no time
feared a revolt of the blacks unless under exceptional circumstances. It
was only when the wretched characters who followed the northern armies
gained control of the negro by playing upon his fears and exciting his
worst passions that the fear of the negro was felt by many who had never
felt it before, and who have never since been entirely free from this
fear.
When the Federal armies passed through the state, the negroes along the
line of march followed them in numbers, though many returned to the old
home after a day or two. Yet all were restless and expectant, as was
natural. During the war they had understood the questions at issue so far
as they themselves were concerned, and now that the struggle was decided
against their masters they looked for stranger and more wonderful things,
not so much at first, however, as later when the negro soldiers and the
white emissaries had filled their minds with false impressions of the new
and glorious condition that was before them. For several weeks before the
master came home from the army the negroes knew that, as a result of the
war, they were free. They, however, worked on, somewhat restless, of
course, until he arrived and called them up and informed them that they
were free. This was the usual way in which the negro was informed of his
freedom. The great majority of the blacks, except in the track of the
armies, waited to hear from their masters the confirmation of the reports
of freedom. And the first thing the returning slaveholder did was to
assemble his negroes and make known to them their condition with its
privileges and responsibilities. It did not enter the minds of the masters
that any laws or constitutional amendments were necessary to abolish
slavery. They were quite sure that the war had decided the question. Some
of the legal-minded men, those who were not in the army and who read their
law books, were disposed to cling to their claims until the law settled
the question. But they were few in number.[706]
How to prove Freedom
The negro believed, when he became free, that he had entered Paradise,
that he never again would be cold or hungry, that he never would have to
work unless he chose to, and that he never would have to obey a master,
but would live the remainder of his life under the tender care of the
government that had freed him. It was necessary, he thought, to test this
wonderful freedom. As Booker Washington says, there were two things which
all the negroes in the South agreed must be done before they were really
free: they must change their names and leave the old plantation for a few
days or weeks. Many of them returned to the old homes and made contracts
with their masters for work, but at the same time they felt that it was
not proper to retain their old master's name, and accordingly took new
ones.[707]
Upon leaving their homes the blacks collected in gangs at the cross-roads,
in the villages and towns, and especially near the military posts. To the
negro these ordinary men in blue were beings from another sphere who had
brought him freedom, which was something that he did not exactly
understand, but which he was assured was a delightful state. The towns
were filled with crowds of blacks who left their homes with absolutely
nothing, thinking that the government would care for them, or, more
probably, not thinking at all. Later, after some experience, they were
disposed to bring with them their household goods and the teams and wagons
of their former masters. This was the effect that freedom had upon
thousands; yet, after all, most of the negroes either stayed at their old
homes, or, that they might feel really free, moved to some place near by.
But among the quietest of them there was much restlessness and neglect of
work. Hunting and fishing and frolics were the duties of the day. Every
man acquired in some way a dog and a gun as badges of freedom. It was
quite natural that the negroes should want a prolonged holiday to enjoy
their new-found freedom; and it is rather strange that any of them worked,
for there was a universal impression, vague of course in the remote
districts--the result of the teachings of the negro soldiers and of the
Freedmen's Bureau officials--that the government would support them. Still
some communities were almost undisturbed. The advice of the old plantation
preachers held many to their work, and these did not suffer as did their
brothers who flocked to the cities. Many negro men seized the opportunity
to desert their wives and children and get new wives. It was considered a
relic of slavery to remain tied to an ugly old wife, married in slavery.
Much suffering resulted from the desertion, though, as a rule, the negro
mother alone supported the children much better than did the father who
stayed.[708]
In many districts the negro steadily refused to work, but persisted in
supporting himself at the expense of the would-be employer. Thousands of
hogs and cattle that had escaped the raiding armies or the Confederate
tithe gatherer went to feed the hungry African whom the Bureau did not
supply. The Bureau issued rations only three times a week, and as the
homeless negro had nowhere to keep provisions for two or three days, there
would be a season of plenty and then a season of fasting. The Bureau
reached only a small proportion of the negroes; and, of those it could
reach, many, in spite of the regulations, neglected to apply for relief.
By causing the negroes to crowd into the towns and cities the Bureau
brought on much of the want that it did not relieve. The complaint was
made that in the worst period of distress the soldiers in charge of the
issue of supplies made no effort to see that the negroes were cared for.
It was easier also for the average negro to pick up pigs and chickens than
to make trips to the Bureau. During the summer the roving negro lived upon
green corn from the nearest fields and blackberries from the fence corners
and pine orchards. With the approach of winter suffering was sure to come
to those who were now doing well in a vagrant way, but winter was to them
too far in the future to trouble them.
The negroes soon found that freedom was not all they had been led to
expect. A meeting of 900 blacks held near Mobile decided by a vote of 700
to 200 to return to their former masters and go to work to make a living,
since their northern deliverers had failed to provide for them in any
way.[709]
The negro preacher, especially those lately called to preach, and the
northern missionaries had, during the summer and fall, a flourishing time
and a rich harvest. A favorite dissipation among the negroes was going to
church services as often as possible, especially to camp-meetings where he
or she could shout. It was another mark of freedom to change one's church,
or to secede from the white churches. All through the summer of 1865 the
revival meetings went on, conducted by new self-"called" colored preachers
and the missionaries. The old plantation preachers, to their credit be it
remembered, frowned upon this religious frenzy. The people living near the
places of meetings complained of the disappearance of poultry and pigs,
fruit and vegetables after the late sessions of the African congregations.
The various missionaries filled the late slave's head with false notions
of many things besides religion, and gathered thousands into their folds
from the southern religious organizations. Baptizings were as popular as
the opera among the whites to-day. That ceremony took place at the river
or creek side. Thousands were sometimes assembled, and the air was
electric with emotion. The negro was then as near Paradise as he ever came
in his life. The Baptist ceremony of immersion was preferred, because, as
one of them remarked, "It looks more like business." Shouting they went
into the water and shouting they came out. One old negro woman was
immersed in the river and came out screaming: "Freed from slavery! freed
from sin! Bless God and General Grant!"[710]
Suffering among the Negroes
The negroes massed in the towns lived in deserted and ruined houses, in
huts built by themselves of refuse lumber, under sheds and under bridges
over creeks, ravines, and gutters, and in caves in the banks of rivers and
ravines. Many a one had only the sky for a roof and the ground in a fence
corner for a bed. They were very scantily clothed. Food was obtained by
begging, stealing, or from the Bureau. Taking from the whites was not
considered stealing, but was "spilin de Gypshuns." The food supply was
insufficient, and was badly cooked when cooked at all. It was not possible
for the army and the Freedmen's Bureau, which came later, to do half
enough by issuing rations to relieve the suffering they caused by
attracting the negroes to the cities. While in slavery the negro had been
forced to keep regular hours, and to take care of himself; he had plenty
to eat and to wear, and, for reasons of dollars and cents, if for no
other, his health was looked after by his master. Now all was changed. The
negroes were like young children left to care for themselves, and even
those who remained at home suffered from personal neglect, since they no
longer could be governed in such matters by the directions of the whites.
Among the negroes in the cities and in the "contraband" camps the sanitary
conditions were very bad. To make matters infinitely worse disease in its
most loathsome forms broke out in these crowded quarters. Smallpox,
peculiarly fatal to negroes, raged among them for two years and carried
off great numbers. The Freedmen's Bureau had established hospitals for
the negroes, but it could not or would not care for the smallpox patients
as carefully as for other sickness. In Selma, for instance, the city
authorities had been sending the negroes who were ill to one of the city
hospitals. But the military authorities interfered, took the negroes away,
and informed the city authorities that the negroes were the especial wards
of the government, which would care for them at all times. When smallpox
broke out, the military authorities in charge of the Bureau refused to
have anything to do with the sick negroes, and left them to the care of
the town.[711] Consumption and venereal diseases now made their
appearance. The relations of the soldiers of the invading army and the
negro women were the cause of social demoralization and physical
deterioration. An eminent authority states that from various causes the
efficient negro population was reduced by one-fourth.[712] Though this
estimate must be too large, still the negro population decreased between
1860 and 1866, as the census of the latter year shows,[713] in spite of
the fact that thousands of negroes[714] were sent into Alabama during the
war from Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Florida to escape capture by
the Federal armies. The greatest mortality was among the negroes in the
outskirts of the cities and towns. Some of the loss of population must be
ascribed to the enrolment of negroes as soldiers and to the capture of
slaves by the Federal armies.[715] For several years after the war young
negro children were scarce in certain districts. They had died by hundreds
and thousands through neglect.[716]
Relations between Whites and Blacks
For a year or two the relations between the blacks and whites were, on the
whole, friendly, in spite of the constant effort of individual northerners
and negro soldiers to foment trouble between the races. As a result of the
work of outsiders, there was a growing tendency to insolent conduct on the
part of the younger negro men, who were convinced that civil behavior and
freedom were incompatible. On the part of some there was a disposition not
to submit to the direction of the white men in their work, and the negro's
advisers warned him against the efforts of the white man to enslave him.
Consequently he refused to make contracts that called for any
responsibility on his part, and if he made a contract the Bureau must
ratify it, and, as he had no knowledge of the obligation of contracts, he
was likely to break it. In an address of the white ministers of Selma to
the negroes, they said that papers had been circulated among the negroes
telling them that they were hated and detested by the whites, and that
such papers caused bad feeling, which was unfortunate, as the races must
live together, and the better the feeling, the better it would be for
both. At first, the address added, there was some bad feeling when certain
negroes, in order to test their freedom, became impudent and insulting,
but on the part of the white man this feeling was soon changed. Later the
negroes were poisoned against their former masters by listening to lying
whites, and then they refused to work. The ministers warned the negroes
against their continual idleness and their immoral lives, and told them
that those of them who pretended to work were not making one bushel of
corn where they might make ten, and that the whites wanted workers. The
self-respecting negroes were asked to use their influence for the
bettering of the worthless members of their race.[717]
When the negroes became convinced that the government would not support
them entirely, they then took up the notion that the lands of the whites
were to be divided among them. In the fall of 1865 there was a general
belief that at Christmas or New Year's Day a division of property would be
made, and that each negro would get his share--"forty acres of land and an
old gray mule" or the equivalent in other property. The soldiers and the
officials of the Freedmen's Bureau were responsible for putting these
notions into the heads of the negroes, though General Swayne endeavored to
correct such impressions. The effect of the belief in the division of
property was to prevent steady work or the making of contracts. Many
ceased work altogether, waiting for the division. In many cases northern
speculators and sharpers deceived the negroes about the division of land,
and, in this way, secured what little money the latter had.
The trust that the negro placed in every man who came from the North was
absolute. They manifested a great desire to work for those who bought or
leased plantations in the South, and nearly all observers coming from the
North in 1865 spoke of the alacrity with which the blacks entered into
agreements to work for northern men. At the same time there was no ill
feeling toward the southern whites; only, for the moment, they were
eclipsed by these brighter beings who had brought freedom with them. Two
years' experience at the most resulted in a thorough mutual distrust. The
northern man could make no allowances for the difference between white and
negro labor, he expected too much; the negro would not work for so hard a
taskmaster.
The northern newspaper correspondents who travelled through the South in
1865 agreed that the old masters were treating the negroes well, and that
the relations between the races were much more friendly than they had
expected to find. When cotton was worth fifty cents a pound, it was to the
interest of the planter to treat the negro well, especially as the negro
would leave and go to another employer on the slightest provocation or
offer of better wages. The demand for labor was much greater than the
supply. The lower class of whites, the "mean" or "poor whites," as the
northern man called them, were hostile to the negro and disposed to hold
him responsible for the state of affairs, and, in some cases, mistreated
him. The negro, in turn, made many complaints against the vicious whites,
and against the policemen in the towns, who were not of the highest type,
and who made it hard for Sambo when he desired to hang around town and
sleep on the sidewalks. One correspondent said that the Irish were
especially cruel to the negroes.
The negro freedman undoubtedly suffered much more from mistreatment by low
characters than the negro slave had suffered. In slavery times his master
saw that he was protected. Now he had no one to look to for protection.
The strongest influence of the great majority of the whites was used
against any mistreatment of the negro, and the meaner element of the
whites was suppressed as much as it was possible to do when there was no
authority except public opinion. All in all the negro had less ill
treatment than was to be expected, and suffered much more from his own
ignorance and the mistaken kindness of his friends.[718]
SEC. 4. DESTITUTION AND WANT IN 1865 AND 1866
When the war ended, there was little good money in the state, and industry
was paralyzed. The gold and silver that remained was carefully hoarded,
and for months there was none in circulation except in the towns. A
Confederate officer relates that on his way home, in 1865, he gave $500 in
Confederate currency to a Federal soldier for a silver dime, and that this
was the only money he saw for several weeks. The people had no faith in
paper money of any kind, and thought that greenbacks would become
worthless in the same way as Confederate currency. All sense of values had
been lost, which may account for the fabulous and fictitious prices in the
South for several years after the war, and the liberality of
appropriations of the first legislature after the surrender, which in
small matters was severely economical. The legislators had been accustomed
to making appropriations of thousands and even millions of dollars, with
no question as to where the money was to come from, for the state had
three public printers to print money. Now it was hard to realize that
business must be brought to a cash basis.
Here and there could be found a person who had a bale or two of cotton
which he had succeeded in hiding from the raiders and the Treasury agents.
This was sold for a good price and relieved the wants of the owner; but
those who had cotton to sell often spent the money foolishly for gewgaws
and fancy articles to eat and wear, such as they had not seen for several
years. There was an almost maddening desire for the things which they had
once been accustomed to, and which the traders and speculators now placed
in tempting array in the long-empty store windows. But the majority of the
people had no cotton to sell, and in many cases a pig or a cow was driven
ten or fifteen miles to sell for a little money to buy necessaries, or
frequently trinkets.
In certain parts of the state the crops planted by the negroes were in
good condition in April, 1865, but after the invasions they were
neglected, and in thousands of cases the negroes went away and left them.
In the white counties conditions were as bad as it was possible to be.
Half of the people in them had been supported by state and county aid
which now failed. Nearly all the men were injured or killed, and there
were no negroes to work the farms. The women and the children did
everything they could to plant their little crops in the spring of 1865,
but often not even seed corn was to be had. All over the state, where it
was possible, the returning soldiers planted late crops of corn, and in
the Black Belt they were able to save some of the crops planted by the
negroes. But in the white counties, especially in the northern part of the
state, nothing could be done. Often the breadwinner had been killed in the
war, and the widow and orphans were left to provide for themselves. The
late crops were almost total failures because of the drought, not
one-tenth of the crop of 1860 being made. In this section everything that
would support life had been stripped from the country by the contending
armies and the raiding bands of desperadoes. A double warfare had
devastated the country, "tories" raiding their neighbors and _vice versa_;
and the bitter state of feeling prevented neighbor from relieving
neighbor. But the "Unionists," who were sure that their turn had come,
wanted the destitute cared for, even if some were fed "who curse us as
traitors." This part of the country had been supported by the central
Black Belt counties, but in 1865 the supply was exhausted. In the cotton
counties there was enough to support life, and had the negroes remained at
home and worked, they would not have suffered. As it was, those who left
the plantation were decimated by disease and want. Soon after the
occupation, the army officers distributed the supplies captured from the
Confederates among the needy whites and blacks who applied for aid. But
many out of reach of aid starved, and especially did this happen among the
aged and helpless who made no appeal for aid, but who died in silence
from want of shelter and food.
After several months the Freedmen's Bureau, under the charge of General
Swayne, who was a man of discretion and common sense, and who understood
the real state of affairs, extended its assistance to the destitute
whites. Among the negroes the Bureau created much of the misery it
relieved, for in the cotton belt there was enough to support life; and had
the negroes not flocked to the Bureau, they would have lived in plenty.
Besides, the aged and infirm negroes were not assisted by the Bureau, but
remained with their master's people, who took care of them. But the
generous assistance extended by that much-abused institution saved many a
poor white from starvation. In the fall of 1865, 139,000 destitute whites
were reported to the provisional government. They were mostly in the
mountain counties of north and northeast Alabama, though in southeast
Alabama there was also much want. And in Governor Parsons's last message
to the legislature (December, 1865), he stated that those in need of food
numbered 250,000.[719] A state commissioner for the destitute was
appointed to coöperate with General Swayne and the Freedmen's Bureau. The
legislature appropriated $500,000 in bonds to buy supplies for the poor,
but the attitude of Congress toward the Johnson state governments
prevented the sale of state securities. However, the governor went to the
West and succeeded in getting some supplies. In December, 1865, it was
believed that there were 200,000 people who needed assistance in some
degree.
The failure of the crops in 1865 left affairs in even a worse condition
than before. Small farmers could not subsist while making a new crop, and
many widows and children were in great need. Some of the latter walked
thirty or forty miles for food for themselves and for those at home.[720]
In January, 1866, the state commissioner, M. H. Cruikshank, reported to
Governor Patton that 52,921 whites were entirely destitute. These were
mostly in the counties of Bibb, Shelby, Jefferson, Talladega, St. Clair,
Cherokee, Blount, Jackson, Marshall, all white counties; nine other
counties had not been heard from.[721] During the same month, a Freedmen's
Bureau official who travelled through the counties of Talladega, Bibb,
Shelby, Jefferson, and Calhoun reported that the suffering among the
whites was appalling, especially in Talladega County. The Freedmen's
Bureau had neglected the poor whites, though there was little suffering in
the richer sections where the negroes lived. He stated that near Talladega
many white families were living in the woods with no shelter except the
pine boughs, and this in the middle of winter.[722]
In Randolph County, in January, 1866, the probate judge said that 5000
persons were in need of aid. Most of these had been opposed to the
Confederacy. The "unionists" complained that the Confederate foragers had
discriminated against them, which, while very likely true, was more than
offset by the depredations of the tories and Federals on the Confederate
sympathizers. All accounts agree that the Confederate sympathizers were in
the worse condition; many of them had not tasted meat for months. But
charges were brought that the probate judges of the provisional
government, who certainly were not strong Confederates, did not fairly
distribute provisions among the "damned tories," as the latter complained
that they were called.[723] The state commissioner could relieve only
about one-tenth of the destitute whites. In January, 1866, he gave
assistance in the form of meal, corn (and sometimes a little meat) to 5245
whites and 2426 blacks; in February, to 13,083 whites and to 4107 blacks;
and in March, to 17,204 whites and to 5877 blacks, most of whom were women
and children, the men receiving assistance being old, infirm, or crippled.
General Swayne of the Freedmen's Bureau helped Cruikshank in every way he
could, and took charge of some of the negroes. But owing to the failure of
the crops in 1865, the situation was growing worse, and there was no hope
for any relief until the summer of 1866 when vegetables and corn would
ripen.[724]
In May, 1866, Governor Patton said that of 20,000 widows and 60,000
orphans, three-fourths were in need of the necessaries of life, that they
had been able to do very little for themselves, even those who had land
being unable to work it to any advantage, and that their corn crop of the
previous year had failed.[725] There is little doubt that many died from
lack of food and shelter during 1865 and 1866, but in the disordered times
incomplete records were kept. Many cases of starvation were reported,
especially in north Alabama, but few names can now be obtained. Near
Guntersville there were three cases of starvation, while hundreds were in
an almost perishing condition. From Marshall County, where, it was said,
there were 2180 helpless and destitute persons and 2000 who were able to
work, but could get nothing to do, it was reported that not more than
twenty people had more than enough to supply their own needs. The people
of Cherokee County, when on the verge of starvation, appealed to south
Alabama for aid. They asked for corn, and said that if they could not get
it they must leave the country. Hundreds, they said, had not tasted meat
for months, and farm stock was in a wretched condition. Nashville sent
$15,000 and Montgomery $10,000 to buy provisions for them.[726] From Coosa
County much distress was reported among the old people, widows, children,
refugees, and the families whose heads had returned from the army too late
to make a crop. However, the negroes in this section who had remained on
their farms had made good crops and were doing well.[727] In the valley of
the Coosa, in northeast Alabama, several cases of starvation were
reported. One woman went seventeen miles for a peck of meal, but died
before she could reach home with it. Another, after fasting three days,
walked sixteen miles to obtain supplies, and failing, died. One family
lived on boiled greens, with no salt nor pepper, no meat nor bread. An old
woman, living eighteen miles from Guntersville, walked to that village to
get meal for her grandchildren. It has been estimated that there were
20,000 people in the five counties south of the Tennessee
river--Franklin, Lawrence, Morgan, Marshall, De Kalb--in a state of want
bordering on starvation.[728]
The majority of the destitute whites never appealed for aid, but managed,
though half starved, to live until better times. Numbers left the land of
famine and went where there was plenty, and where they could get work.
Others who could not emigrate and those broken in spirit received
assistance. From January to September, 1866, 15,000 to 20,000 whites, and
4000 to 14,000 negroes were aided each month by the Freedmen's Bureau and
by the state. Most of these were women and children, the rule being not to
assist able-bodied whites except in extreme cases.
In 1866 the state succeeded in selling some of its bonds, and raised money
in other ways. Much was spent for supplies for the poor, for in 1866 the
crops almost failed again. From November, 1865, to September, 1866, the
Freedmen's Bureau and the state commissioner issued, to black and white,
3,789,788 rations. There were also large donations from the West and from
Tennessee and Kentucky. After this the Freedmen's Bureau gave less, though
during the year from September, 1866, to September, 1867, it issued
214,305 rations to whites and 274,399 to blacks. To the whites, and partly
to the blacks, the issue of provisions was made under the general
supervision of General Swayne, and through state agents in each county who
were acceptable to Swayne.[729]
In November, 1867, the Freedmen's Bureau reported that there were 10,000
whites and 50,000 blacks without means of support, and 450,000 rations per
month were asked for. It would have been much better to have put an end to
relief work, since by this time the officials of the Freedmen's Bureau
were very active in politics and showed a disposition to report their
political henchmen as destitute and in need of support. And in another way
there was much abuse of the charity of the government, for some
broken-down, spiritless people would never work for themselves as long as
they could draw rations for nothing. The negroes, especially, were
demoralized by the issue of rations. Fear of the contempt of their
neighbors would drive all but the meaner class of whites back to work, but
the negro came to believe that he would be supported the rest of his life
by the government.
As late as October, 1868, it was reported that there was great want in
middle and south Alabama, and soup houses were established by the state
and the Bureau in Mobile, Huntsville, Selma, Montgomery, and other central
Alabama towns.[730] The location of the soup kitchens, and the date, lead
one to suspect that politics, perhaps, had something to do with the
matter. These towns were the very places where there was less want than
anywhere else in the state, but Grant was to be elected, and there were
many negro votes.
For more than two years after the war in all the small towns were seen
emaciated persons who had come long distances to get food. General Swayne
thought the condition of the poor white much worse than that of the negro.
The latter, he said, was hindered by no wounds nor by a helpless family,
for his aged and helpless kin were cared for at the old master's. The
"refugees," as the poor whites were called who had but little and lost all
by the war, lived in a different part of the country,--in the mountains
and in the pine woods,--beyond the reach of work or help, clinging to the
old home places in utter hopeless desolation. For the negro, Swayne
thought, there was hope, but for the "refugee" there was none; he existed
only.[731]
It was years before a large number of the people again attained a
comfortable standard of living. Some gave up altogether. Many died in the
struggle. Numbers left the country; others, in reach of assistance, became
trifling and worthless from too much aid. In later years the opening of
mines and the building of railroads in north Alabama, the lumber industry
and the rapid development of south Alabama, saved the "refugee" from the
fate that General Swayne thought was in store for him.
CHAPTER VI
CONFISCATION AND THE COTTON TAX
SEC. 1. CONFISCATION FRAUDS
Restrictions on Trade in 1865
At the time of the collapse of the Confederacy trade within the state of
Alabama was subject to the following regulations: gold and silver was in
no case to be paid for southern produce; all trade was to be done through
officers appointed by the United States Treasury Department;[732] the
state was divided into districts and sub-districts called agencies, under
the superintendence of these Treasury agents, whose business it was to
regulate trade, and collect captured, abandoned, and confiscable property;
in making purchases of cotton, and other produce the agents were to pay
only three-fourths of the value, or to purchase the produce at
three-fourths its value, and then at once resell it to the former owner at
full value, with permission to export or ship to the North; in order to
get permission to sell, the owner must take the Lincoln amnesty oath of
December 8, 1863; there was, besides, an internal revenue tax of two cents
a pound, and a shipping fee of four cents a pound.[733] So for a month
after the surrender the person who owned cotton near any port or place of
sale had to sell to United States Treasury agents, or pretended agents,
and have twenty-five per cent to fifty per cent of the value of his cotton
deducted before it could be sent North. On May 9, 1865, a regulation
provided that "all cotton not produced by persons _with their own labor_
or with the labor of _freedmen_ or others employed and _paid_ by them,
must, before shipment to any port or place in a loyal state, be sold to
and resold by an officer of the government ... and before allowing any
cotton or other product to be shipped ... the proper officer must require
a certificate from the purchasing agent or the internal revenue officer
that the cotton proposed to be shipped had been resold by him or that 25
per cent of the value thereof has been paid to such purchasing agent in
money."[734]
This was in accord with the general policy of Johnson, at first, viz. to
punish the slaveholding class and to favor the non-slaveholders. Cotton
was then worth $250 or more a bale, and cotton raised by slave labor had
to pay the 25 per cent tax--$60 to $75. However, the regulations ordered
that no other fees were to be exacted after the fourth was taken. Nearly
all the cotton not yet destroyed was in the Black Belt, and was raised by
slave labor. The few people who had cotton raised by their own labor might
sell it after paying the tax of three cents a pound, or $12 to $15 a bale.
May 22, 1865, the proclamation of the President removed restrictions on
commercial intercourse except as to the right of the United States to
property purchased by agents in southern states, and except as to the 25
per cent tax on purchases of cotton. No exceptions were made to the 25 per
cent tax. The ports were to be opened to foreign commerce after July 1,
1865.[735] After June 30, 1865, restrictions as to trade were removed
except as to arms, gray cloth, etc.[736] And after August 29, 1865, even
contraband goods might be admitted on license.[737]
Federal Claims to Confederate Property
The confiscation laws relating to private property under which the army
and Treasury agents were acting in Alabama in 1865 were: (1) the act of
July 17, 1862, which authorized the confiscation and sale of property as a
punishment for "rebels"; (2) the act of March 12, 1863, which authorized
Treasury agents to collect and sell "captured and abandoned"
property,--but a "loyal" owner might within two years after the close of
the war prove his claim, and "that he has never given any aid or comfort"
to the Confederacy, and then receive the proceeds of the sales, less
expenses; (3) the act of July 2, 1864, authorizing Treasury agents to
lease or work abandoned property by employing refugee negroes. "Abandoned"
property was defined by the Treasury Department as property the owner of
which was engaged in war or otherwise against the United States, or was
voluntarily absent. According to this ruling all the property of
Confederate soldiers was "abandoned" and might be seized by Treasury
agents. North Alabama suffered from the operation of these laws from their
passage until late in 1865, the rest of Alabama only in 1865.
The blockade prevented the people from disposing of most of the cotton
raised during the war; there were heavy crops in 1860, 1861, 1862, and
small ones in 1863 and 1864. The number of bales produced in 1859 was
989,955; in 1860, about the same; and less in 1861 and 1862.
Comparatively little cotton was sent out on blockade-runners, and not very
much was sent through the lines from the cotton belt proper, so that at
the close of the war there were many thousands of bales of cotton in the
central counties of the state. Cotton was selling for high prices--30
cents to $1.20 a pound, or $200 to $500 a bale. It was almost the sole
dependence of the people to prevent the severest suffering. The state and
Confederate governments had some kind of a claim on much of the cotton
early in 1865. No one knew how much nor exactly where all of the
Confederate cotton was stored, and it bore no marks that would distinguish
it from private cotton. But the records surrendered by General Taylor and
others showed who had subscribed to the Cotton or Produce Loan. Many
thousand bales had been destroyed by the raiders in 1864 and 1865, and
many thousand more had been burned by Confederate authorities to prevent
its falling into the hands of the Federals.[738]
On October 30, 1864, a report was made to Secretary of the Treasury[739]
Trenholm which showed the amount of Confederate cotton in the southern
states. By far the greater part that was still on hand was in Alabama. In
this state the Confederacy had received as subscriptions to the Produce
Loan, 134,252 bales, at an average cost of $101.55, in all,
$13,633,621.90. Other sales or subscriptions on other products to this
Produce or Cotton Loan raised the amount in Alabama to $16,691,500.
Alabama, as one of the producing states, and the one least affected by the
ravages of war, furnished to all of these loans more produce than any
other state.[740] The people, unable to sell their cotton abroad,
exchanged some of it for Confederate bonds. Several thousand bales (6000
in 1864) were gathered by the cotton tithe. After shipping several
thousand bales through the blockade, and smuggling some through the lines,
and after some destruction by the enemy, or to prevent seizure by the
enemy, there remained in the state, in the fall of 1864, 115,450 bales of
Confederate cotton. Nearly all of this was destroyed in 1865, before the
surrender, by Federals and Confederates, and very little remained which
the Federal government could rightfully claim as Confederate property.
This claim was based on the theory that cotton subscribed to the Produce
Loan was devoted to the aid of the Confederacy, in intention at least, and
therefore was forfeited to the United States, even though the owner had
never delivered the cotton or other produce, and though the United States
held that the Confederacy could not legally acquire property.[741] There
were three classes of property claimed by the United States: (1)
"captured" property or anything seized by the army and navy; (2)
"abandoned" property, the owner being in the Confederate service, no
matter whether his family were present or not; (3) "confiscable" property,
or that liable to seizure and sale under the Confiscation Act of July 17,
1862. Until 1865, all sorts of property were seized and used by the
Federal forces, or, if portable, sent North for sale. Live stock, planting
implements and machinery, wagons, etc., were in some cases sent North and
sold;[742] but most was used on the spot.
After the surrender the Secretary of Treasury ordered household furniture,
family relics, books, etc., to be restored to all "loyal" owners or to
those who had taken the amnesty oath.[743] In no case had a person who
could not prove his or her "loyalty" any remedy against seizure of
property. Until the surrender the people of north Alabama were despoiled
of all property that could be moved, and after the surrender the same
policy was pursued all over the state, especially in regard to cotton. No
right of property in cotton was there recognized, but by a previous law a
"loyal" owner had until two years after the war to prove his claim and his
"loyalty."[744]
The Attorney-General delivered an opinion, July 5, 1865, that cotton and
other property seized by the agents or the army was _de facto_ and _de
jure_, _captured_ property, and that neither the President nor the
Secretary of the Treasury had the power to restore such property to the
former owners. They must go through the courts, and under the laws only
"loyal" claimants had any basis for claims, and "loyalty" must first be
determined by the courts.[745] After the opinion of the Attorney-General,
Secretary McCulloch followed it so far as captures by the army were
concerned, but still continued to "revise the mistakes" of the cotton
agents who "frequently seized the property of private individuals." Proof
of "loyalty" was, however, required in all cases before restoration, and
the fourteen classes excepted by the amnesty proclamation of May 29, 1865,
could get no restoration. In all cases the expenses charged against the
property had to be paid before the owner could get it. After April 4,
1867, by request of the Joint Sub-Committee on Retrenchment, no further
releases of any kind were made.[746] On March 30, 1868, a joint resolution
of Congress covered into the Treasury all money received from sales of
property in the South. After this only an act of Congress could restore
the proceeds to the owner.[747]
The result was in the long run that the "disloyal" owners never received
restoration of their property seized by the army, and by the Treasury
agents during and after the war, but claim agents and perjurers have
pursued a thriving business in proving "loyal" claims against the
Treasury. "Disloyal" persons, whose property was liable to confiscation,
and who could not recover in the Court of Claims, were, as decided by that
body: those who served in the military, naval, or civil service of the
state or the Confederacy; those who voted for secession or for secession
candidates; those who furnished supplies to the Confederacy, engaged in
business that aided the Confederacy, subscribed to its loans, resided or
removed voluntarily within the Confederate lines, or sold produce to the
Confederacy. Women who had sons or husbands in the Confederate army, or
who belonged to "sewing societies," or made flags and clothing for, or
furnished delicacies to, Confederate soldiers were "disloyal" and could
not recover property. "Loyalty" had to be proven, not only for the
original owner, but also for the heirs and claimants. The claims of
deserters were allowed. In order to test the "loyalty" of claimants, they
were asked to answer in writing lists of questions (numbering at various
times 49, 62, 79, and 80 questions) regarding their conduct during the
war. The questions covered several hundred points, and embraced every
possible activity from 1861 to 1865. No man and few women who lived within
the state until 1865 could, without perjury, pass the examination and
prove a claim. Yet numbers have proved claims.[748]
Cotton Frauds and Stealing
The minority report of the Ku Klux Committee in 1872 asserted that, of the
5,000,000 bales of cotton in the South at the close of the war, 3,000,000
had been seized by United States Treasury agents or pretended agents.[749]
The Gulf states, and especially Alabama, were for a year or more filled
with agents and "cotton spies," seeking Confederate cotton and other
property. They were paid a percentage of what they seized--25 to 50 per
cent. Native scoundrels united with these, and all reaped a rich
harvest.[750]
On much of the cotton subscribed to the Confederate Produce Loan the
government had advanced a small amount to the owner and allowed him to
keep it. In many cases no payment had been made. The farmer considered
that the cotton still belonged to him, but that the Confederacy had a
claim on a part of it. The records kept were imperfect, and few persons
knew just what was Confederate cotton and what was not. Much of the cotton
subscribed had been destroyed or sent to government warehouses in Selma,
Mobile, Montgomery, and Columbus, where it was burned in April and May,
1865. Of course each man considered that the cotton destroyed was
Confederate cotton, and that all left was private cotton. In most cases
the claim of the government was very shadowy. Where cotton was still in
the hands of the planter, private and government cotton could not be
distinguished. The records did not show whether a man had kept or
delivered the cotton he had subscribed to the Produce Loan. The agents
proceeded upon the assumption that he had kept it, and that all he had
kept was government cotton.[751] No proof to the contrary would convince
the average agent. Secretary McCulloch said, "I am sure I sent some
honest cotton agents South; but it sometimes seems very doubtful whether
any of them remained honest very long."[752] It was said that Secretary
Chase had foreseen the trouble that would result if the cotton were
confiscated, and had proposed to leave all cotton in the hands of the
former owners who then held it. When the records were certain, the cotton
might be confiscated; but in most cases there were no correct records.
Such a policy would have been generous and magnanimous, and would have had
a good effect.[753] The plan of Chase was not accepted, and a carnival of
corruption followed. In August, 1865, President Johnson wrote to General
Thomas, "I have been advised that innumerable frauds are being practised
by persons assuming to be Treasury agents, in various portions of Alabama,
in the collection of cotton pretended to belong to the Confederate States
government."[754] The thefts of the Treasury agents and the worst
characters of the army did much to arouse bitter feelings among the people
who lost their only possession that could be turned into ready money. It
was assumed, as a general rule, that all cotton belonged to the government
until the real owner could prove his claim and his "loyalty," and of
course he could seldom do this to the satisfaction of the agent or of the
army officer who was bent on supplementing his pay. Cotton had been all
along an object of the special hostility of Federals. The old southern
belief that cotton was king and the hopes that Confederates had founded on
this belief were well known. "Cotton is the root of all evil" was a common
declaration of the invading army and of the cotton agents. When no other
private property was taken or destroyed, cotton was sure to be. Every
cotton-gin and press in reach of the armies was burned from 1863 to 1865.
There seemed to be an intense desire to destroy the royal power of King
Cotton. As opportunity offered, officers in the army, contrary to orders,
began to interest themselves in speculations in cotton--captured,
purchased, or stolen. The small garrisons were not officered by the best
men of the army, and many who would never have touched money from any
other kind of plunder thought it perfectly legitimate to fill their
pockets by the seizure and sale of cotton. They did not consider it
defrauding the government, for the latter, they knew, had no more title to
it than they had.[755]
The disposition of the cotton collectors to regard the people as without
rights resulted in the growth of a feeling on the part of the latter that
it was perfectly legitimate to keep the government and its rascally agents
from profiting by the use of Confederate property. In every way people
began to hinder the agents and the army in its work of collecting cotton.
Colonel Hunter Brooke stated, in 1866, that most of the people who had
subscribed cotton to the Confederate government or on whose cotton the
Confederates had some claim utterly refused to recognize the title of the
United States to that property and refused to give any assistance to the
authorities in tracing the cotton. At times the citizens rose in rebellion
against the invasion of Treasury agents and the military escorts sent with
them. A cotton spy was sent into Choctaw County to collect information
about cotton stealing. He had an escort of twenty soldiers, but the people
drove them out. A battalion of cavalry was then sent. Steamers sent up the
rivers to get the cotton seized by the agents were sometimes fired
upon.[756]
Not only cotton but stores collected on private plantations for the army,
no matter whether private property or not, were seized. Horses and mules
used in the Confederate service were taken, notwithstanding the terms of
surrender and the fact that the Confederate soldiers owned the cavalry
horses.[757] The counties of Cherokee, Franklin, Jackson, Jefferson,
Lauderdale, Limestone, Madison, Morgan, St. Clair, Walker, and
Winston--all white counties--lost principally corn, fodder, provisions,
harness, mules, horses, and wagons.[758]
As to cotton, much pure stealing was done by the followers of the army and
thieving soldiers and some natives, but sooner or later the officials
became implicated in it, since only by their permission could the
commodity be shipped. A thieving southerner would find where a lot of
cotton was stored and inform a soldier, usually an officer, who would make
arrangements to ship the cotton, and the two would divide the profits.
Planters who were afraid that their cotton would be seized by Treasury
agents went into partnership with Federal officers and shipped their
cotton to New Orleans or to New York. No one outside the ring could ship
cotton until five or ten dollars a bale was paid the military officers who
controlled affairs. Along the line of the Mobile and Ohio Railway 10,000
bales of cotton were said to have been stolen from the owners and sold in
Mobile and New Orleans. The thieves often paid $75 a bale to have the
cotton passed through to New Orleans.[759]
But all petty thievery went unnoticed when the Treasury agents began
operations. They harried the land worse than an army of bummers. There was
no protection against one; he claimed all cotton, and, unless bribed,
seized it. Thousands of bales were taken to which the government had not a
shadow of claim. In November, 1865, the _Times_ correspondent (Truman)
stated that nearly all the Treasury agents in Alabama had been filling
their pockets with cotton money, and that $2,000,000 were unaccounted for.
One agent took 2000 bales on a vessel and went to France. Their method of
proceeding was to find a lot of cotton, Confederate or otherwise, and give
some man $50 a bale to swear the cotton belonged to him, and that it had
never been turned over to the Confederate States. Then the agent shipped
the cotton and cleared $100 a bale.[760]
Secretary McCulloch said that the most troublesome and disagreeable duty
that he was called upon to perform was the execution of the law in regard
to Confederate property. The cotton agents, being paid by a commission on
the property collected, were disposed to seize private property also.
There was no authority at hand to check them. And people were disposed, he
thought, to lay claim to Confederate cotton and "spirited away" much of
it, while on the other hand much private property was taken by the
agents.[761]
Five years later the testimony taken in Alabama at the instance of the
minority members of the Ku Klux Committee exposed the methods of the
cotton agents.[762] The country swarmed with agents or pretended agents
and their spies or informers; the commission given was from one-fourth to
one-half of all cotton collected; everybody's cotton was seized, but for
fear of future trouble a proposition from the owner to divide was usually
listened to and a peaceable settlement made; when private or public cotton
was shipped it was consigned by bales and not by pounds; the various
agents through whose hands it passed were in the habit of "tolling" or
"plucking" it, often two or three times, about one-fifth at a time; in
this way a bale weighing 500 pounds would be reduced to 200 or 300 pounds;
even after the private cotton arrived at Mobile or New Orleans, paying
"toll" all the way, it was liable to seizure by order of some Treasury
agent; as a rule, terms could be arranged by which a planter might keep
one-fourth to three-fourths of his cotton, whether Confederate or not; it
was safer for the agent to take a part of the cotton with the consent and
silence of the owner than to steal both from the owner and from the
government for which he pretended to work, and in this way the owners
saved some for themselves; much private cotton was seized on the
plantations near the rivers before the owners came home from the war;
cotton seized in the Black Belt was shipped to Simeon Draper, United
States cotton agent, New York, while that from north Alabama was sent to
William P. Mellen, Cincinnati;[763] complaint was made by those few owners
who succeeded in tracing their cotton that, after being reduced by
"tolling" or "plucking,"[764] it was sold by the agent in the North, by
samples which were much inferior to the cotton in the bales, and in this
way the purchaser, who was in partnership with the agents, would pay ten
or fifteen cents a pound for a lot of cotton certainly not worth more than
that if the samples were honest, but which was really good cotton, worth
35 cents to $1.20 a pound in New York.
So in case the Secretary of the Treasury could be brought to "revise the
mistakes" of his agents, the owner would get only the small sum paid in
for inferior cotton, and even this was reduced by excessive charges and
fees.[765] There was also complaint that when a lot of private cotton was
seized and traced to Draper, the latter would inform the owners that only
a small proportion of what had been seized was received,[766] and that had
been sold at a low price. It was afterwards shown that Draper never gave
receipts for cotton received. There was nothing businesslike about the
cotton administration. Cotton was consigned to Draper or Mellen by the
bale and not by the pound. A bale might weigh 200 or 500 pounds. As soon
as cotton was seized the bagging was stripped off, and it was then
repacked in order to prevent identification.[767] Many persons who knew
nothing of the law and who saw that their property was unsafe were induced
by the Treasury agents to surrender their cotton to the United States
government, even though there might be no claim against it, the agents
promising that the United States would pay to the owners the proceeds upon
application to the Treasury Department. When the Secretary of the Treasury
discovered this, and when the agent would certify that such was the case,
his "mistake was revised" and the money received from the sale of cotton
was refunded.[768] The owner had no remedy if the agent declined to
certify, and he usually declined, since the cotton had probably never
been turned over to the United States by him.
The experience of Hon. F. S. Lyon[769] is typical of many in the Black
Belt. He stated[770] that after the surrender of Taylor, General Canby
issued an order that all who had sold cotton to the Confederate government
must now surrender it to United States authorities under penalty of
confiscation of other property to make good the failure to deliver
Confederate cotton. Under this order some cotton was seized to replace
Confederate cotton that had disappeared. United States army wagons,
guarded by soldiers, went over the country day and night, gathering cotton
for persons who pretended to be Treasury agents. Lyon had 384 bales of
Confederate cotton which were claimed by General Dustin, a cotton agent
(later a carpet-bag politician), and Lyon agreed to haul it to the
railroad, under an "agreement" with Dustin. But one night a train of army
wagons, guarded by soldiers, came and carried off 26 bales, and the next
day, 70 bales. (They had asked the manager "if he would accept $2000 and
sleep soundly all night.") The wagons were traced to Uniontown, and the
commanding officer there was induced to hold the cotton until the question
was settled. General Hubbard, commanding the district, arrested one Ruter,
who, with the soldiers, had taken the cotton. Ruter claimed to be acting
under the authority of a cotton agent in Mississippi, but could show no
evidence of his authority, and his name was not on the list of authorized
agents. However, General Hubbard was ordered by superior authority to
regard Ruter as a cotton agent and to discharge him. The 70 bales were
lost.
The Mobile agent, Dustin,[771] would not make a decision in disputed cases
because he was afraid of appeal to Washington. A proposition to divide the
profits, however, would always secure from him a declaration that the
cotton had no claims against it. Lyon reported that not one-tenth of the
cotton seized was consigned to government agents, but that the agents
usually sold it on the spot to cotton buyers. The planter was held
responsible for cotton sold or subscribed to Confederate government.
Cotton stolen from the agent had to be made good by the person from whom
the agent had seized it. Seed cotton was often hauled away at night by
pretended agents. In every part of the cotton belt the looting of cotton
went on.
There were frequent changes of agents. As soon as a man became rich his
place would be taken by another. The chief cotton agents sold for high
prices appointments as collecting agents. The new agents often seized the
cotton that through bribery had escaped former agents; and in this way the
same lot would be seized two or three times. One cotton agent, a mere
youth, at Demopolis received as his commission for one month 400 bales of
cotton which netted him $80,000. The Treasury Department made a regulation
allowing one-fourth to a person who had kept the Confederate cotton and
delivered it safely to the United States authorities, but the agents did
not make known the regulation, and the one-fourth went to them.[772]
There were complaints of the seizure of cotton grown after the war. The
Planters' Factory of Mobile lost 240 bales of cotton grown in 1865. This
company was made up of "Union" and northern men who were able to obtain an
order for the release of the cotton. There was of course no way to tell
what cotton was seized, and 240 bales of "dog tail," worth six cents a
pound, were turned over to the factory instead of the good cotton, worth
sixty cents, a pound.[773]
Dishonest Agents Prosecuted
The Federal grand jury reported that at the end of the war there were
150,000 bales of cotton in Alabama to which the government had clear
title;[774] the records showed the history and location of each bale, and
these records were placed in the hands of the cotton agents; the papers of
two agents, in south Alabama, Dexter and Tomeny, showed that while a large
part of this cotton had been shipped but little of it had been consigned
to the government, the bulk of it having become a source of private profit
to the agents; the 20,000 bales turned over to the government by these
agents had been much reduced in weight, in some cases as much as
one-third, and exorbitant expenses had been charged against them; large
quantities of cotton had been fraudulently released to parties who
presented fictitious claims; cotton belonging to private individuals had
often been seized, and release refused unless the owner sold at a ruinous
sacrifice to S. E. Ogden and Company, who seemed to be on the inside at
New York; cotton thus seized was not released except through the influence
of Ogden and Company, and it was said that Tomeny openly advised some
parties to make arrangements with Ogden and Company, who paid less than
half-price for cotton under such circumstances.[775] The grand jury
declared that in Alabama 125,000 bales had been stolen by agents. Tomeny,
who seems to have secured a much smaller share of the spoils than Dexter,
stated that when he began business in November, 1865, nearly all cotton
had been collected or stolen, and that not a hundred bales had been
received by himself except from other agents who had collected it. He
consigned all his cotton to Simeon Draper, in New York City. None was
released to Ogden and Company, and they bought only one lot of cotton that
had been seized--505 bales seized from Ellis and Alley, themselves cotton
agents under the First Agency. This lot, Tomeny claimed, was bought by
Ogden and Company without his knowledge or consent.[776]
Two cotton agents, T. C. A. Dexter and T. J. Carver, were finally
arraigned, in the fall and winter of 1865, in the Federal courts, and
Judge Busteed proceeded to try them; but they denied the jurisdiction of
the court, and the army interfered and stopped the proceedings, whereupon
Busteed closed the court. Then a military commission was convened, and
before it the cases were tried. Lieutenant-Colonel Hunter Brooke presided
over the commission. The culprits denied the legality of this trial by a
military commission in time of peace and ultimately were pardoned on this
account. Carver was convicted of fraud in the collection of cotton, and
was fined $90,000 and sentenced to imprisonment for one year and until the
fine should be paid. Carver had paid Dexter $25,000 for his commission as
cotton agent. So it seems the office must have carried with it certain
opportunities. Dexter was convicted of fraud in the cotton business and
for selling the appointment to Carver. Only 3321 bales of government
cotton could be traced directly to his stealing.[777] He was fined
$250,000 and imprisoned for one year and until the fine should be
paid.[778]
Statistics of the Frauds
The minority report of the Ku Klux Committee asserted, as has been said,
that in 1865 there were 5,000,000 bales of cotton in the South, and that
the agents seized 3,000,000 bales for themselves and for the
government;[779] Dr. Curry said that there were about 250,000 bales of
Confederate cotton;[780] another expert estimate placed the total number
of bales of Confederate cotton at 150,000 on April 1, 1865; after April 1,
many thousand bales were destroyed in Alabama, where most of the
Confederate cotton was gathered; the report of A. Roane, in 1864, showed
115,000 bales in Alabama. It is not probable, after all the burnings which
later took place in Alabama, that there was much government cotton left
in Alabama, 20,000 bales at the most.
Secretary McCulloch, on March 2, 1867, reported that the total receipts
from captured and abandoned property amounted to $34,052,809.54, netting
$24,742,322.55.[781] The cotton sold for $29,518,041.17.[782] The records
show that only 115,000 bales were turned over to the United States, and of
these Draper received 95,840-1/2 bales which he sold for about $15,000,000
when cotton was worth 33 cents to $1.22 a pound, and a bale weighed 400 to
450 pounds. This cotton was worth in New York $500,000,000.[783] The
records of the agencies were badly kept or not kept at all, and many
agents made no reports. The government never knew how many bales had been
collected in its name.
The First Special Agency reported that in Alabama it had seized cotton
(after June 1, 1865) in the counties of Greene, Marengo, Perry, Dallas,
Pickens, Montgomery, Sumter, and Tuscaloosa, during October, November, and
December, 1865, and January, 1866. This agency had, before June 1,
1866,[784] shipped 5697 bales to the government agent in New York, who
sold them for $750,702.68, and had made charges of $209,338.58 for
freight, fees, etc., $35 a bale. The Ninth Agency, under the notorious T.
C. A. Dexter and J. M. Tomeny, gathered cotton from the counties of
Dallas, Marengo, Sumter, Montgomery, Wilcox, Lowndes, Barbour, Butler,
Tuscaloosa, Macon, and Mobile. This agency had thirty-six collecting
agents, and turned over to the government only 9,712 bales, which sold for
$1,412,335.68, with fees and charges amounting to $540,962.38.[785]
Most of the government cotton was consigned to New York agents and sold
there.[786]
The army quartermasters at Mobile received 19,396 bales of cotton, of
which 6149 were delivered to Dexter and 9741 were, it was claimed,
destroyed by the great explosion. Dexter turned over to the government
only 7469 bales and Tomeny 7732, other agents accounted for enough to
bring the total up to about 30,000 bales. Dexter sold $823,947 worth of
other property.[787]
The Freedmen's Bureau in Alabama was supported for two years by the sale
of confiscated property, of which no accounts were kept. The army also
sold cotton and other confiscated property and used the proceeds.
"Abandoned" cotton netted to the Treasury $2,682,271.69. After June 30,
according to Treasury records, 33,638 bales (worth $7,650,675.93, but
netting only $4,886,671) were illegally seized. It is this money which is
still held because the former owners once subscribed to the Confederate
Produce Loan. "Loyal" claimants, 22,298 in number in 1871, were asking
damages, to the amount of $60,258,150.44. When Congress, on March 30,
1868, called into the Treasury all proceeds of captured and abandoned
property, it was found that Jay Cooke and Company had $20,000,000, which
they had been using in their business for years. The cotton agents and
others interested lobbied persistently in Washington against legislation
in behalf of claimants, fearing investigation and exposure.
The statistics given in the public documents are often those for the whole
South, but usually only for Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Seldom
can the figures for Alabama be separated from the others. Alabama lost
more from the invasion of Treasury agents than any other state, since in
1865 she had more cotton and other property, and many more agents visited
her soil. The United States Treasury received only a small fraction of the
confiscated property, and most of the proceeds of that have been released
to people who were willing to commit perjury in order to get it.[788]
Under the act of March 12, 1863, "loyal" owners had until two years after
the war to file claims, and by February, 1888, $9,864,300.75 had been paid
out to satisfy these people. Since 1888, $520,700.18 has been paid out.
Under the act of May 18, 1872, providing for return of proceeds of cotton
seized illegally after June 30, 1865, 1337 claims were filed, 339 of which
were from Alabama. These Alabama claims called for 23,529 bales. Only a
very small amount ($195,896.21) was returned to the claimants, because the
records showed that most of them had once sold cotton to the Confederate
government. Therefore, they now say, all cotton seized after June 30,
1865, was Confederate cotton, and the proceeds will be held. Only about
four and a half millions now (1904) remain in the Treasury, as the
proceeds of all the cotton seized. This is the amount for which the cotton
seized after June 30, 1865, was sold. All other proceeds have either been
returned to "loyal" claimants or have been absorbed by expenses. Very few,
if any, claimants not able to prove "loyalty" have been able to secure
restoration, since "loyalty" was in most cases a prerequisite to
consideration.[789]
The confiscation policy, it may be concluded, profited the government
nothing; the Treasury agents and pretended agents were enriched by their
stealings and but few were punished; nearly all private cotton was lost;
the people were reduced to more desperate want and exasperated against the
government which, it seemed, had acted upon the assumption that the
ex-Confederates had no rights whatever.
SEC. 2. THE COTTON TAX
Another heavy burden imposed on the prostrate South was the tax levied by
the United States government on each pound of cotton raised. An act of
July, 1862, imposed a tax of one-half cent a pound on cotton, but this tax
could be collected only on that part of the crop that was brought through
the lines by speculators. January 30, 1864, the tax was increased to two
cents a pound, collectible on all cotton coming from the Confederate
States. This was raised to two and a half cents a pound on March 3, 1865,
and to three cents a pound, or $15 a bale, on July 13, 1866.[790] After
the war the tax bore with crushing weight on the impoverished
farmers.[791] On March 2, 1867, in anticipation of Reconstruction, the tax
was reduced to two and a half cents a pound, or $12.50 a bale, to take
effect after September 1, 1867. A year later, partly because of the
decided objections of those carpet-baggers, scalawags, and negroes who had
small farms and whose remonstrances had more influence than those of the
planters, the tax was discontinued on all cotton raised after the crop of
1867. The tax was a lien on the cotton from the time it was baled until
the tax was paid, and was often collected in the states to which the
cotton was shipped.
The collections in the South amounted to the following sums:--
For the year ending June 30, 1863 $351,311.48
For the year ending June 30, 1864 1,268,412.56
For the year ending June 30, 1865 1,772,983.48
For the year ending June 30, 1866 18,409,654.90
For the year ending June 30, 1867 23,769,078.80
For the year ending June 30, 1868 22,500,947.77
--------------
Total, $68,072,388.99[792]
Of this tax Alabama paid within her borders $10,388,072.10,[793] and since
she was one of the three great cotton states, her share of the tax paid in
northern ports must have been several million dollars more. Of the other
cotton states,--Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Tennessee, and
Arkansas,--all except Georgia, which paid about a million dollars more
than Alabama, suffered in less degree.
From April 1, 1865, to February 1, 1866, Alabama paid in other taxes, into
the United States Treasury, $1,747,563.51, of which $1,655,218.31 was
internal revenue, and from September 1, 1862, to January 30, 1872,
$14,200,982 internal revenue.[794] The former sum was much more than the
Federal government spent in Alabama during that year for the relief of the
destitute, both black and white. The cotton spirited away by thieves and
confiscated by the government would have paid several times over all the
expenses of the army and the Freedmen's Bureau during the entire time of
the occupation. Many times as much money was taken from the negro tenant
in the form of this cotton tax as was spent in aiding him. The most
crushing weight of the tax came in 1866 and 1867, and it was much heavier
than the taxation imposed by the Confederate and state governments even in
the darkest days of the war. Had the price of cotton remained high, the
tax would not have borne so heavily on the people; but with the decline of
the price the tax finally amounted to a third of the net value of the
cotton, while the amount raised in these years was about one-fifth of the
value of the farming lands.[795] The tax absorbed all the profits of
cotton planting and left the farmer nothing.
A letter from the Secretary of the Treasury in reference to the propriety
of refunding the money received from the cotton tax stated some of the
arguments of the opponents of the tax. It was claimed (1) that the tax was
unconstitutional because it was not uniform and because it was virtually a
tax upon exports; (2) that the tax was unequal and oppressive in its
operations because it fell entirely upon cotton producers; (3) that it was
levied without the consent of the people and when they were not
represented in Congress; and (4) that in addition to the cotton tax the
producers of the cotton were subject to all taxes paid by citizens of
other states.[796] These objections were answered by the Secretary, who
said that the tax was added to the price of cotton and was borne by the
consumer, not the producer, and that it was the fault of the cotton states
that they were not represented. He asserted that the tax on cotton was an
excise like that on tobacco and whiskey.[797]
In 1866 an effort was made in Congress to raise the tax to five cents a
pound. Such a tax, they said, would raise $66,000,000, or, at the least,
$50,000,000 a year, of which Alabama's share would be about $12,000,000 to
$15,000,000. The Committee on the Revenue reported that such a tax "will
not prove detrimental to any national interest." The testimony of experts
was quoted to prove that the tax would fall upon the consumer, though most
of the experts, who were manufacturers from New England, said that on
account of the great demand and excessive prices of cotton goods the tax
would fall upon the manufacturer for the present time. Nevertheless, they
were all in favor of the proposed tax, except one manufacturer and one
planter from Georgia, who objected on the ground that the producer would
have the burden to bear.[798]
The business men of New York and other northern cities opposed the tax
and defeated the extra levy. The New York Chamber of Commerce, when the
measure to raise the cotton tax to five cents a pound was proposed,
memorialized Congress against the injustice of the tax. The memorial
stated that the North and the West must not take advantage of the South in
the days of her weakness; that the cultivation of cotton should not be
thus discouraged. It was shown that the manufacturer would be protected by
the drawback of five cents a pound allowed on cotton goods exported, while
the cotton farmer would pay a five-cent tax. By the operation of such a
tax, they stated, the rich would be made richer, and the poor made poorer.
That in the proposed law "there is a want of impartiality which is
calculated to provoke hostility at the South, and to excite in all honest
minds at the North the hope that such a purpose will not prevail."[799]
By the people who had to pay the tax it was considered an unjust and
purely vindictive measure, which was the more exasperating because they
had no voice in the matter and because no attention was paid to their
remonstrances. They complained that it was levied as a penalty, that it
was confiscation under color of law. They felt that it was a blow of
revenge aimed at them when there was no fear of resistance or hope of
protection, as no other part of the country had its exports taxed.[800]
The fact that the tax was removed because of the objections of the
carpet-baggers, scalawags, and negroes, instead of pleasing the whites,
was a source of irritation to them. The respectable people had asked for
justice and it was refused them, but was granted to those who were of
opposing politics. Those who paid the tax never believed that the mass of
the people at the North were in favor of such a measure, and they hoped
that favorable elections would reverse the policy of Congress, which, then
recognizing the unconstitutionality of the tax, would refund it, if not to
individuals, at least to the states in proportion to the amount raised in
each, or, that Congress would give it to the states as a long-time
loan.[801] For years there was a belief among the farmers that the unjust
tax would be refunded, and the cotton tax receipts were carefully
preserved against a day of reimbursement, but, like the negroes' "forty
acres and a mule," the money never came.[802]
CHAPTER VII
THE TEMPER OF THE PEOPLE, 1865-1866
After the Surrender
The paroled Confederate soldier returned to his ruined farm and went to
work to keep his family from extreme want. For him the war had decided two
questions, the abolition of slavery, and the destruction of state
sovereignty. Further than that he did not expect the effects of the war to
extend, while punishment, as such, for the part he had taken in the
war[803] was not thought of. He knew that there would be a temporary delay
in restoring former relations with the central government, but political
proscription and humiliation were not expected. That after a fair fight,
which had resulted in their defeat, they should be struck when down, was
something that did not occur to the soldiers at all. No one thought of
further opposition to the United States; the results of the war were
accepted in good faith, and the people meant to abide by the decision of
arms. Naturally, there were no profuse expressions of love for the United
States,--which was the North,--but there was an earnest desire to leave
the past behind them and to take their place and do their duty as citizens
of the new Union.[804]
The women and the children, who heard with a shock of the surrender, felt
a terrible fear of the incoming armies. The raids of the latter part of
the war had made them fear the northern soldiers, from whom they expected
harsh treatment. The women had been enthusiastic for the Confederate
cause; their sacrifices for it had been incalculable, and to many the
disappointment and sorrow were more bitter than death. The soldier had the
satisfaction of having fought in the field for his opinions, and it was
easier for him to accept the results of war. A certain class of people who
had served during the war at duties which kept them at home professed to
be afraid of hanging, of confiscation, of negro suffrage and negro
equality, and many other horrible things; they were loud in their
denunciation of the surrender; they would have "fought and died in the
last ditch," they declared. It is hard to see how they could so flatter
themselves as to think the conqueror would hold them responsible for
anything, unless for their violent talk on political questions before and
during the war.
Such was the state of feeling in the first stage, before there was any
general understanding of the nature of the questions to be solved or of
the conflicting policies. News from the outside world came in slowly; each
country community was completely cut off from the world; the whole state
lay prostrate, breathless, exhausted, resting. Little interest was shown
in public questions; the long strain had been removed, and the people were
dazed about the future. There was no information from abroad except
through the army officials, who reported the news to suit themselves. The
railroads and steamboats were not running; for months there was no
post-office system, and for years the service was poor. The people settled
down into a lethargy, seemingly indifferent to what was going on, and
exhibiting little interest in the government and in politics. Some persons
dumbly awaited the worst, but the soldiers feared nothing; at present they
took no interest in politics; they were working, when they were able, to
provide for their families.
With many people there was a disposition to see in the defeat the work of
God. There was a belief that fate, destiny, or Providence had been against
the South, and this state of mind made them the more ready to accept as
final the results of war. The fear expressed by northern politicians that
in case of foreign war the South would side with the enemy was without
cause. The South had had enough and too much of war. It disliked England
and France more than it hated the North, because they had withheld their
aid after seeming to promise it.
From the general gloom and seeming despair the young people soon recovered
to some degree, and among them there was much social gayety of a quiet
sort. For four years the young men and young women had seen little of each
other, and there had been comparatively few marriages. Now they were glad
to be together again, and all the surviving young men proceeded to get
married at once. This revival of spirits did not extend to the older
people. Nearly all were grieving over the loss of sons, brothers,
husbands, or relatives. Much that made life worth living was lost to them
forever, and unable to adapt themselves to changed conditions or to
recover from the shock of grief and the strain of war, they died one after
the other, until soon but few were left.[805]
One of the first things to awaken the people of Alabama from the blank
lethargy into which they had fallen was the question of what was to be
done by the United States government with the Confederate leaders who had
been arrested. President Davis and Vice-President Stephens, Senator Clay,
the war governors,--Moore, Shorter, and Watts,--Admiral Semmes, several
judicial officers of the state, and many minor officials were arrested and
imprisoned in the North. Davis, Moore, and Clay were known to be in feeble
health, and from them came accounts of harsh treatment. The arrests of
lesser personages were purely arbitrary, and in most cases were probably
done by the military without any higher authority. It was announced
unofficially that all who had held office before the war and who had
supported the Confederacy, even those who had never taken an oath to
support the Constitution and laws of the United States, would be arrested
and tried for treason.[806] During the spring and summer of 1865 rumor was
busy. Thus, fear of arrest and imprisonment, the sympathy of the people
for their leaders who were being made to suffer as scapegoats, the
irritating methods of the Freedmen's Bureau, the work of various political
and religious emissaries among the negroes, and the confiscation of
property served progressively to awaken the people from the stupor into
which they had fallen, and they began to take an interest in affairs of
such vital importance to them. The newspapers began to discuss the
problems of Reconstruction and to condemn the treatment of the political
prisoners from the South. This renewed interest was characterized by a
section of the northern press and by prominent politicians as
"disloyalty,"--a proof of a "rebellious" spirit which ought to be
chastised.
"The Condition of Affairs in the South"
The President, who began with a vindictive policy, gradually modified it
until it was as fair as the South could expect from him. To support his
policy, he sent agents to the South to ascertain the state of feeling here
and the exact condition of affairs. These agents were General Grant, the
head of the army, Carl Schurz, a sentimental foreign revolutionist and
politician with an implicit belief in the Rights of Man, and Benjamin C.
Truman, a well-known and able journalist.
General Grant reported: "I am satisfied that the thinking men of the South
accept the present condition of affairs in good faith. The questions that
have heretofore divided the sentiment of the people of the two sections,
slavery and state rights, or the right of a state to secede from the
Union, they regard as having been settled by the highest
tribunal--arms--that man can resort to." He believed that acquiescence in
the authority of the general government was universal, but that the
demoralization following four years of civil war made it necessary to post
small garrisons throughout the South until civil authority was fully
established.[807]
The report of Carl Schurz was distinctly unfavorable to the southerners.
He made a classification of the people into four divisions: (1) The
business and professional men and men of wealth who were forced into
secession. These, though prejudiced, were open to conviction, and accepted
the results of the war. However, as a class, they were neither bold nor
energetic. (2) The professional politicians who supported the policy of
the President and wanted the state readmitted at once, as they hoped then
to be able to arrange things to suit themselves. (3) A strong lawless
element, idlers and loiterers, who persecuted negroes and "union" men, and
in politics would support the second class. They appealed to the passions
and prejudices of the masses and commanded the admiration of the women.
(4) The mass of the people, who were of weak intellect, with no definite
ideas about anything; who were ruled by those who appealed to their
impulses and prejudices. He stated, however, that all were agreed that
further resistance to the government was useless and that all submitted to
its authority. The people, he said, were hostile toward the soldiers,
northern men, unionists, and negroes; their loyalty was only submission to
necessity; and they still honored their old political leaders.[808]
B. C. Truman, the journalist, after a long stay in the South, of which
about two months were spent in Alabama, reported to the President that the
southerners were loyal to the government and were cheerfully submissive
and obedient to the law. The fates were against them, the people thought,
and it was the will of God that they should lose; the dream of
independence was over, and secession would never be thought of again; the
war had decided this question, and the decision was accepted. The
Confederate soldier, the backbone and sinew of the South, who must be the
real basis of reconstruction and worthy citizenship, was exerting his
influence for peace and reconciliation; there were few more potent
influences at work in promoting real and lasting reconciliation and
reconstruction than that of the Confederate soldier. The fear that in case
of foreign war the South would fight against the United States he knew to
be unfounded; the soldiers hated England, and would fight for the United
States; this, Hardee, McLaws, and Forrest had told him; but, he added, the
soldiers preferred to have no war at all, they had had all that they
wanted. At the collapse of the Confederacy, there had been a general
feeling of despair. The people at home, especially, had expected the
worst; and the reaction was wrongly called "disloyal." The people were
gradually returning to old attachments, but that they would repudiate
their old leaders was not to be expected; neither would they acknowledge
any wrong in their former belief in slavery and the right of secession,
though ready to grant that those no longer existed. They were better
friends to the negro than the northern men who came South; and the courts,
magistrates, and lawyers would see that justice was done the negro.[809]
In order to produce a report which would justify the action of Congress in
opposing the President's plan,[810] a committee of Congress for several
months held an inquest at Washington and examined selected witnesses who
gave the desired testimony relative to the condition of affairs in the
South. The committee consisted of six senators and nine representatives.
Only three Democrats were on this committee, and not one of them was on
the sub-committee that took testimony relating to affairs in Alabama.[811]
All sessions of the subcommittees were held in Washington, far removed
from the state under inquisition. Care was exercised in calling as
witnesses only Republicans, and these usually were not citizens of the
state. No citizens of Alabama testified except two deserters,[812] one
tory,[813] and one man who, during the war, had been an agent of the
Confederate government "to examine political prisoners,"[814] but who told
the committee that during the war he had been a "union" man. A witness
from Ohio claimed to be a citizen of Alabama.[815] Another witness was a
cotton speculator from Massachusetts, and still another, a land office man
from the North. Three hailed from Illinois, three from Iowa, one each from
California and Minnesota, and the remainder were from the North, with the
exception of General George H. Thomas, who had been a Virginian and who
had not been allowed to remain in ignorance of what the Virginians called
his "treasonable" conduct toward his native state. Three were connected
with the Freedmen's Bureau, already fiercely criticised in all sections of
the country, and twelve were, or had been, connected with the army, and
for short periods had served in some part of Alabama.[816]
Of the five men who resided in the state, each was bitter in denunciation
of existing conditions and tendencies in Alabama. The course they had
taken during the war made it impossible for them to attain to any position
of honor or profit so long as the Confederate sympathizers were not
proscribed. Existing institutions must be overthrown before they could
hope for political preferment.[817]
The conflicting stories of most of the witnesses neutralized one another,
and the remainder corroborated the testimony of General Wager Swayne, the
head in Alabama of that much-hated institution, the Freedmen's Bureau.
General Swayne stated that he had been agreeably disappointed in the
temper of the people. In most of his conclusions he agreed with Truman. He
said that he had observed a gradual cessation of disorder, the opening of
courts to the negro, and favorable legislation for him; but a marked
increase of political animosity. He thought the northerner was well
treated except socially. He thought the people were determined to make it
honorable to have been engaged in "rebellion" and dishonorable to have
been a "unionist" among them during the war.[818] The statements of
General Swayne were probably as near to the truth as the average human
being could attain to.[819] His account was from the northern standpoint,
but was as impartial as any one could make at that time.[820] A few weeks
later he said that the bluster of a few irreconcilables should not be
exaggerated into the threatening voice of a whole people.[821] This he
repeatedly asserted.
Ex-Governor Andrew B. Moore spoke for the people when he said: "Slavery
and the right of secession are settled forever. The people will stand by
it." Rev. Thomas O. Summers, who lived in the heart of the Black Belt,
said, "I have not found a planter who does not think the abolition of
slavery a great misfortune to both races; but all recognize abolition to
be an accomplished fact."[822]
The people had little faith in the free negro as a laborer, but were
disposed to make the best of a bad situation and to give the negro a fair
chance. The old soldiers took a hopeful view, and the great wrong of
Reconstruction was not so much in the enfranchising of the ignorant slave
as in the proscription and humiliation of the better whites with the
alienated negro as an instrument.
There was no indication at this time that the people could ever be united
into one political party. Before the war party lines had sharply divided
the people, and the divisions were deep and political prejudices strong,
though not based to any great extent on differences of principles. The war
had served to unite the people only temporarily, and the last years of the
struggle showed that this temporary union would fall to pieces when the
pressure from without was removed. When normal conditions should be
restored, local political strife was sure to be warm and probably bitter,
and parties would separate along the old Whig and Democratic lines. At
this time there was a disposition on the part of Whig and Democrat,
secessionist and coöperationist, each to charge the responsibility for
present evils upon the other, and by the "bomb-proof" people there was
much talk of the "twenty-nigger law," of "the rich man's war and the poor
man's fight," etc., in order to discredit the former leaders.[823]
The "Loyalists"
An unpleasant and violent part of the population was the Union "loyal" or
tory party, consisting of a few thousand persons who had now returned from
the North or had crept out of their hiding-places and were demanding the
punishment of the "traitors" who had carried the state into war. Hanging,
imprisonment, disfranchisement, confiscation, banishment, was the
programme demanded by them. From the Johnson régime in the state they
could hope only for toleration, never for official preferment, nor even
for respect. They demanded the assistance of the Federal government to
place them in power and maintain them there.[824]
About this time it became difficult to distinguish the various species of
"loyal" men or "loyalists." There were: (1) Those who had taken the side
of the United States in the war. These numbered two or three thousand and
they were "truly loyal," as they were called. (2) Those who had escaped
service in the Confederate army by hiding out or by desertion, or who
engaged in secret movements intended to overthrow the Confederate
government. These claimed and were accorded the title of "loyalists" or
"union" men. (3) All who during the war became in any way disaffected
toward the Confederate or state government and gave but weak support to
the cause asked to be called "loyalists" or "unionists." (4) All negroes
were, in the minds of the northern radical politician, "loyalists" by
virtue of their color, and had all the time been "devoted to the Union";
the fact, of course, was that the negroes had been about as faithful as
their masters to the Confederate cause. (5) All who took the oath in 1865
or were pardoned by the President and who promised to support the
government thereby acquired the designation of "loyal" men. These included
practically all the population except negroes and the first class. (6) A
small number included in the fifth class who were conservative people, and
who now used their influence to bring about peace and reconstruction. This
was the best class of the citizens, and the majority of them were old
soldiers,--men like Clanton, Longstreet, Gordon, and Hardee. (7) Later,
only those who approved the policy of Congress were "loyal," while those
who disapproved were "disloyal." The first and second classes coalesced at
once, and finally they admitted the right of the third class to bear the
designation "loyal." They, for a long time, would not admit the claims of
the negro to "loyalty," but at last political necessity drove them to it;
they denied always that the sixth class had any right to share the rewards
of "loyalty." These various definitions of loyalty were made by the men
themselves, by the various political parties, and by the party newspapers.
Every man in the South was some kind of a "loyalist," and most of them
were also "disloyal," according to the various points of view.
Treatment of Northern Men
There was no question more irritating to both sides than that of social
relations between the southern people and the northerners. After the first
weeks of occupation the relations between the enlisted men of the Union
army and the native whites became somewhat friendly and in most cases
remained so, while, with few exceptions, the regular officers and the
people maintained friendly relations, in public matters, at least. The
volunteers, however, were much more disagreeable, especially the volunteer
officers, who lacked the social training of the regulars. Too often the
northerners seemed to feel that they had conquered in war the right to
enter the most exclusive southern society, and individuals made themselves
disliked more than ever by striving to obtain social recognition where
they were not known and were not desired. They had a newspaper knowledge
of social conditions before the war, and, while professing to scorn the
pretensions of the "southern chivalry and beauty," yet were very desirous
of closer acquaintance with both, and especially the latter. Soon after
the armies of occupation came, matters were pretty bad for the southern
people. The less refined subordinate volunteer officers almost demanded
entrance, and even welcome, into southern social circles. They found that
while the southern men would meet them courteously in business relations
and in public places, they were never invited to the homes. On all
occasions the women avoided meeting the northern men; this was their own
wish, as well as that of their male relatives. They felt the losses of war
more keenly than did the men because they had lost more. All of them had
lost some loved one in the war, and quite naturally had no desire to meet
in social relations the men who had overcome their country and possibly
killed their fathers, brothers, husbands, lovers. They must have time to
bury their dead, and it was long before the sight of a Federal soldier
caused other than bitter feelings of sorrow and loss. Yet most of the
northerners overlooked this fact. The southern women reigned supreme over
society; the death in the war of so large a number of young men had only
strengthened the influence of the women; as a rule, they were better
educated than the men, especially the young men, whose education had been
interrupted by the war.[825]
When the families of the northern people came South, the doors of the
southern homes were not opened to them. The northerners resented this
ostracism by the southerners, and the coldness of society toward them
caused many a sarcastic and sneering letter to be written home or to the
newspapers.[826] There was constant interference in semi-social relations:
the mistress of the house was told how she must treat her colored cook;
the employer was warned that his conduct must be more respectful toward
the negroes in his employ; ex-Confederates were forbidden to wear their
uniforms, or even to use their buttons; nor could southern airs be sung or
played.[827] The soldiers would crowd a woman off the sidewalk in order to
make her look at them. Women would go far out of the way to avoid meeting
a Federal officer, and when forced to pass one, would sweep their skirts
aside as if to avoid contagion. Forthwith the man insulted indited an
epistle in which such incidents were related and the size of the ladies'
feet and ankles and the poverty-stricken appearance of their dress
commented upon. This naturally found its way into the newspapers, as home
letters from soldiers usually do. Soldiers, white and black, would sit on
the back fence and jeer at the former mistress of slaves as she worked at
the family washing. United States flags were hung over the sidewalks to
force the women to walk under them, and in some instances, when they
refused to do so and went out into the street, efforts were made to force
them to pass under the flag. For refusal and for exceedingly "disloyal"
remarks made under the excitement of such treatment, several were arrested
and lectured by coarse officials. Drunken soldiers terrorized women in the
garrison towns. A lot of drunken officers in a launch in Mobile Bay
habitually terrified pleasure parties of women who were on the bay in
small boats. The officers invited the women to balls and entertainments,
but the latter paid no attention to what they considered impertinence.
This angered the officers. The northern newspapers of 1865, 1866, and 1867
have many letters from correspondents in the South complaining of social
neglect or ostracism. Letters were written about the coarseness, unlovely
tempers, and character of the southern men and women who, it was insisted,
were of the best families.[828]
These letters the violent southern press afterward made a practice of
copying for political reasons.[829] The more incorrigible officers were
accustomed to express their most offensive sentiments in regard to negro
inequality, the position of the negro, the slavery question, and the
treatment of the negro by the whites. The Bureau officials were cordially
disliked for their tendency to such conduct. Though only a small portion
of the northerners and Federal officials were guilty of offensive actions,
the relations in many places being kindly and the conduct of most of the
officers considerate and courteous, yet the insolent behavior of some
caused all to be blamed.[830]
The question of the social standing of the tory element may be summed up
in a few words. They were mercilessly ostracized and thoroughly despised
by the Confederate element of the population at that time, and the same
feeling of social contempt had descended to their children's children. It
is rather a feeling of indifference now, but the result is even more
deadly. The true Unionist was disliked but respected.
All the witnesses called before the sub-committee at Washington complained
of the dislike exhibited toward "unionists" and northerners. It was a
burning question and had much influence on the later course of
reconstruction.[831]
Immigration to Alabama
As soon as the war was ended, there was an influx of northern men and
northern capital into Alabama. Cotton was selling at a fabulous
price,--40 to 50 cents a pound, $200 to $250 a bale,--and the newcomers
expected to make fortunes in a few years. They were welcomed by the
planters who wanted to sell or to lease their plantations, which, for want
of funds, they were unable to cultivate. General Swayne said that in 1866
there were 5000 northern men[832] in Alabama engaged in trading and
planting. They were sought for as partners or as overseers by those who
hoped that northern men could control free negro labor. Lands were sold or
leased at low prices, and many soldiers, especially officers, decided to
buy land and raise cotton. Numbers of large plantations in the Black Belt
were bought or leased by officers of the army, all of whom had lofty ideas
as to what they were going to do. The soil was fertile, cotton was selling
for high prices, and the free blacks, they were sure, would work for them
out of gratitude and trust. They wanted to help reconstruct southern
industry, and to show what could be done toward developing the great
natural resources of the state. They embarked in large enterprises, and as
long as their money lasted bought everything that was offered for sale.
Their success or failure was dependent largely upon the negro laborer, who
was to make the cotton, and the new planters made extraordinarily liberal
terms with him. They dealt with the negro as if he were a New Englander
with a black skin, and they purchased expensive machinery for him to use.
They would not listen to southern advice, but went as far as possible to
the opposite extreme from southern methods of farming. All suggestions
were met with the assurance that the southern man was used only to slaves,
and could not know how free men would work.
Reports, generally false and made mainly for political purposes, were
continually published by the northern press in regard to the ill treatment
of northern men who wished to make their homes in the South.[833] But not
a single authenticated case of violence to such persons can be found to
have taken place in Alabama.
In some localities, on account of bands of outlaws, for several months
after the war it was not safe for any stranger to settle. The ignorant
whites had no liking for the northern men (and may not have to this day).
The better class of people was in favor of much immigration from the
North, and Governor Parsons made a tour through the North to induce
northern men and capital to come to Alabama.[834] The people had no
capital, and wanted to induce those who possessed it to come and live in
the state. The testimony of travellers was that the accounts of cruelty
and intolerance toward northerners were almost entirely false; that they
were welcomed if they did not attempt to stir up trouble between the
races.[835] The refusal of Congress to recognize the state government and
the rejection of the members elected to Congress caused a fresh outburst
of bitter feeling against the North; but General Swayne, who had the best
opportunities for observation, said that rudeness and insult and the
occasional attentions of a horse-thief were the worst things that had
happened to the northern settlers.[836]
These northern men meant well but, as a rule, were incompetent as farmers
and business men. Consequently they failed, and most of them never quite
understood the reasons for their failure. They knew next to nothing of
plantation economy, and the negroes were their only teachers. Most of them
were from the West, and had never seen cotton growing before. It was
almost pathetic to see these 5000 northerners risking all they possessed
upon their faith in the negro, and losing. The northern merchant gave the
negro unlimited credit and lost; the planter gave his tenant all he asked
for, whenever it pleased him to ask. The farm stock was driven to
camp-meetings and frolics while the grass was killing the cotton. Mills
and factories were built and negro laborers employed, but the negroes,
because of a lack of quickness and sensitiveness of touch, proved to be
unfit for factory work. Besides, the noise of the machinery made them
sleepy, and it was beyond their power to report for work at a regular hour
each morning. At first, the negroes showed great confidence in the
northern man and were glad to work for him, but too much was required of
them, and after a year or two the disgust was mutual. The revulsion of
feeling following failure and disappointment and ostracism injured the
South by creating hostile opinion in the North. Nearly all the northern
men went home, but the less desirable ones remained to assist in the
political reconstruction of the state, when many of them became state
officials.[837]
Troubles in the Church
At the close of the war, the churches were in a disturbed condition, owing
to the attitude of the Washington government. Most of the southern
churches held by the northern organizations were restored to their former
owners. The northern Methodist Church caused irritation by retaining
southern church property that had been placed under its control by the
military authorities. But the most aggravated ill feeling was aroused in
the Protestant Episcopal Church.
After the collapse of the Confederate government, Bishop Wilmer of Alabama
directed the Episcopal clergy to omit that portion of the prayer
mentioning the President of the Confederate States. Further, he ordered
that when civil authority should be restored, the prayer for the President
of the United States should be used.[838] Bishop Wilmer, consecrated in
1862, had never made a declaration of conformity to the constitution and
canons of the church in the United States, and, consequently, even by the
northern Episcopal Church, was not considered amenable to its
constitution.[839]
For several months his directions were not noticed by the Federal
authorities, and services were held in conformity to the bishop's orders.
In September, "Parson" William G. Brownlow of Tennessee, it is said,
brought the matter of the Wilmer pastoral letters to the attention of
General George H. Thomas, who commanded the Military Division of the
Tennessee, to which belonged the Department of Alabama. Thomas, like
Wilmer, was a Virginian, and was regarded by the latter and other
southerners as a traitor to his native state. Thomas was peculiarly
sensitive to such a charge, and disliked Wilmer, who had expressed his
opinion in regard to the matter. So it was easy to secure his
interference. General Woods, at Mobile, was directed to investigate the
matter. An officer was sent to ask Wilmer when he intended to order the
clergy to pray for the President of the United States. The bishop refused
to direct its use at the dictation of the military authority, or while the
state was under military domination, since no one desired "length of
life," nor the least prosperity to such a government.[840] The result was
the argumentative order which follows:[841]--
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF ALABAMA,
MOBILE, ALA., Sept. 20, 1865.
_General Order No. 38_:
The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States has established a
form of prayer to be used for "the President of the United States and
all in civil authority." During the continuance of the late wicked and
groundless rebellion the prayer was changed to one for the President
of the Confederate States, and so altered, was used in the Protestant
Episcopal churches of the Diocese of Alabama.
Since the "lapse" of the Confederate government, and the restoration
of the authority of the United States over the late rebellious states,
the prayer for the President has been altogether omitted in the
Episcopal churches of Alabama.
This omission was recommended by the Rt. Rev. Richard Wilmer, Bishop
of Alabama, in a letter to the clergy and laity, dated June 20, 1865.
The only reason given by Bishop Wilmer for the omission of a prayer,
which, to use his own language, "was established by the highest
ecclesiastical authorities, and has for many years constituted a part
of the liturgy of the church," is stated by him in the following
words:--
"Now the church in this country has established a form of prayer for
the President and all in civil authority. The language of the prayer
was selected with careful reference to the subject of the prayer--all
in civil authority--and she desires for that authority prosperity and
long continuance. No one can reasonably be expected to desire a long
continuance of military rule. Therefore, the prayer is altogether
inappropriate and inapplicable to the present condition of things,
when no civil authority exists in the exercise of its functions.
Hence, as I remarked in the circular, we may yield a true allegiance
to, and sincerely pray for grace, wisdom, and understanding in behalf
of a government founded on force, while at the same time we could not
in good conscience ask for its continuance, prosperity, etc."
It will be observed from this extract, first, that the bishop, because
he cannot pray for the continuance of "military rule," therefore
declines to pray for those in authority; second, he declares the
prayer inappropriate and inapplicable, because no civil authority
exists in the exercise of its functions. On the 20th of June, the date
of his letter, there was a President of the United States, a Cabinet,
Judges of the Supreme Court, and thousands of other civil officers of
the United States, all in the exercise of their functions. It was for
them specially that this form of prayer was established; yet the
bishop cannot, among all these, find any subject worthy of his
prayers.
Since the publication of this letter a civil governor has been
appointed for the state of Alabama, and in every county judges and
sheriffs have been appointed, and all these are, and for weeks have
been, in the exercise of their functions; yet the prayer has not been
restored.
The prayer which the bishop advised to be omitted is not a prayer for
the continuance of military rule, or the continuance of any particular
form of government or any particular person in power. It is simply a
prayer for the temporal and spiritual weal of the persons in whose
behalf it is offered--it is a prayer to the High and Mighty Ruler of
the Universe that He would with His power behold and bless His
servant, the President of the United States, and all others in
authority; that He would replenish them with grace of His holy spirit
that they might always incline to His will and walk in His ways; that
He would endow them plenteously with heavenly gifts, grant them in
health and prosperity long to live, and finally, after this life, to
attain everlasting joy and felicity. It is a prayer at once applicable
and appropriate, and which any heart not filled with hatred, malice,
and all uncharitableness, could conscientiously offer.
The advice of the bishop to omit this prayer, and its omission by the
clergy, is not only a violation of the canons of the church, but shows
a factious and disloyal spirit, and is a marked insult to every loyal
citizen within the department. Such men are unsafe public teachers,
and not to be trusted in places of power and influence over public
opinion.
It is therefore ordered, pursuant to the directions of Major-General
Thomas, commanding the military division of Tennessee, that said
Richard Wilmer, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the
Diocese of Alabama, and the Protestant Episcopal clergy of said
diocese be, and they are hereby suspended from their functions, and
forbidden to preach, or perform divine service; and that their places
of worship be closed until such time as said bishop and clergy show a
sincere return to their allegiance to the government of the United
States, and give evidence of a loyal and patriotic spirit by offering
to resume the use of the prayer for the President of the United States
and all in civil authority, and by taking the amnesty oath prescribed
by the President.
This prohibition shall continue in each individual case until special
application is made through the military channels to these
headquarters for permission to preach and perform divine service, and
until such application is approved at these or superior headquarters.
District commanders are required to see that this order is carried
into effect.
By order of
Major-General CHARLES R. WOODS,
FREDERICK H. WILSON, A. A.-G.
Wilmer denied the right of civil or military officials to interfere in
such matters. Prayer, he said, was religious, not political, and was not
to be prescribed by secular authority.[842] Woods threatened to use force,
and had the churches closed by soldiers. St. John's Church in Montgomery
having been closed by the military authorities, the congregation attempted
to meet in Hamner Hall, a school building, but was dispersed by soldiers
at the point of the bayonet. Much to the indignation of Generals Woods and
Thomas, services were held in private houses.[843] The House of Bishops of
the northern church protested against this edict to the President. Wilmer
appealed to Governor Parsons and found that the "civil governor" of G. O.
No. 38 was only a subordinate military official with no power. President
Johnson at first refused to interfere, but was finally induced to direct
Thomas to revoke the suspension of the clergy. This was done in the
following remarkable order:[844]--
HEADQUARTERS
MILITARY DIVISION OF THE TENNESSEE,
NASHVILLE, TENN., Dec. 22, 1865.
_General Orders No. 40_:
Armed resistance to the authority of the United States having been put
down, the President, on the 29th of May last, issued his Proclamation
of Amnesty, declaring that armed resistance having ceased in all
quarters, he invited those lately in rebellion to reconstruct and
restore civil authority, thus proclaiming the magnanimity of our
government towards all, no matter how criminal or how deserving of
punishment.
Alarmed at this imminent and impending peril to the cause in which he
had embarked with all his heart and mind, and desiring to check, if
possible, the spread of popular approbation and grateful appreciation
of the magnanimous policy of the President in his efforts to bring the
people of the United States back to their former friendly and national
relations one with another, an individual, styling himself Bishop of
Alabama, forgetting his mission to preach peace on earth and good will
towards man, and being animated with the same spirit which through
temptation beguiled the mother of men to the commission of the first
sin--thereby entailing eternal toil and trouble on earth--issued, from
behind the shield of his office, his manifesto of the 20th of June
last to the clergy of the Episcopal Church of Alabama, directing them
to omit the usual and customary prayer for the President of the United
States and all others in authority, until the troops of the United
States had been removed from the limits of Alabama; cunningly
justifying this treasonable course, by plausibly presenting to the
minds of the people that, civil authority not yet having been restored
in Alabama, there was no occasion for the use of said prayer, as such
prayer was intended for the civil authority alone, and as the military
was the only authority in Alabama it was manifestly improper to pray
for the continuance of military rule.
This man in his position of a teacher of religion, charity, and good
fellowship with his brothers, whose paramount duty as such should have
been characterized by frankness and freedom from all cunning, thus
took advantage of the sanctity of his position to mislead the minds of
those who naturally regarded him as a teacher in whom they could
trust, and attempted to lead them back into the labyrinths of treason.
For this covert and cunning act he was deprived of the privileges of
citizenship, in so far as the right to officiate as a minister of the
Gospel, because it was evident he could not be trusted to officiate
and confine his teachings to matters of religion alone--in fact, that
religious matters were but a secondary consideration in his mind, he
having taken an early opportunity to subvert the church to the
justification and dissemination of his treasonable sentiments.
As it is, however, manifest that so far from entertaining the same
political views as Bishop Wilmer, the people of Alabama are honestly
endeavoring to restore the civil authority in that state in conformity
with the requirements of the Constitution of the United States, and to
repudiate their acts of hostility during the past four years, and have
accepted with a loyal and becoming spirit the magnanimous terms
offered them by the President; therefore, the restrictions heretofore
imposed upon the Episcopal clergy of Alabama are removed, and Bishop
Wilmer is left to that remorse of conscience consequent to the
exposure and failure of the diabolical schemes of designing and
corrupt minds.
By command of
Major-General THOMAS.
WILLIAM D. WHIPPLE,
_Assistant Adjutant-General_.
Wilmer had won, and three days after the order was promulgated in Alabama
he directed the use of the prayer for the President of the United States.
Two months earlier, the General Council of the Confederate States had
provided for such a prayer, but this provision was not to have the force
of law in any diocese until approved by the bishop. This was to enable
Wilmer to win the fight and then to resume the use of the prayer.[845]
The General Council of the Confederate Church, in November, 1865, decided
that each diocese should decide for itself whether to remain in union with
the General Council (of the Confederate States) or to withdraw and unite
with the General Convention (of the United States). A small party in the
northern church wanted "to keep the southern churchman out for a while in
the cold," and "to put the rebels upon stools of repentance," but better
feeling and better policy prevailed. The southern church was met halfway
by the northern church, and the only important reunion of churches
separated by sectional strife was accomplished. The diocese of Alabama was
the last to join, Bishop Wilmer making the declaration of conformity
January 31, 1866.[846]
PART IV
PRESIDENTIAL RESTORATION
CHAPTER VIII
FIRST PROVISIONAL ADMINISTRATION
SEC. 1. THEORIES OF RECONSTRUCTION
Owing to the important bearing upon the problem of Reconstruction of the
disputes between the President and Congress in regard to the status of the
seceded states, it will be of interest to examine the various plans and
theories for restoring the Union. From the beginning of the war the
question of the status of the seceded states was discussed both in
Congress and out, and with the close of the war it became of the gravest
importance. There was nothing in the Constitution to guide the President
or Congress, though each sought to base a policy on that ancient
instrument. Many questions confronted them. Were the states in the Union
or out? If in the Union, what rights had they? If out of the Union, were
they conquered territories subject to no law but the will of the United
States government, or were they United States territory with rights under
the Constitution? Must they be reconstructed or restored, and who was to
begin the movement--the people of the states, Congress, or the President?
Were the states in their corporate capacity, or the people as individuals,
responsible for secession? What punishment was to be inflicted, and on
whom or what must it fall--the people or the states? Who or what decides
who are the political people of the state? Exactly what was a state? Was
the Union the old Union of Washington, or a new one? Congress and the
President could never agree in their answers to these questions.[847]
Conservative Theories
As to the status of the seceded states and the proper method of
Reconstruction, all interested persons had theories, but the only one
which was logical and consistent with regard to the "Constitution as it
was" was the so-called Southern theory. This theory was that secession
having failed, state sovereignty was at an end; the doctrine was
worthless; secession was a nullity, and therefore the states were not out
of the Union; the state was indestructible. The war was prosecuted against
individuals and not against states, and the consequences must fall upon
individuals; the states had all the rights they ever possessed, but, being
out of their proper relation to the Union, its officers must take the oath
of allegiance to the United States government, representatives must be
sent to Congress, and the people must submit to the authority of the
government. Then the Union would be restored as it was.[848] At the fall
of the Confederacy the general belief was that restoration would proceed
along these lines. Many of the higher officials of the United States army
were of the same opinion, and on this theory the celebrated
Johnston-Sherman convention was drawn up by General Sherman, which
promised amnesty to the people and recognition of the state governments as
soon as the officials should have taken the oath of allegiance.[849]
Likewise, in the Southwest, General Dick Taylor, with the approval of
General Canby, advised the governors of the states in his department to
take steps toward restoring their states to their former relations to the
Union. General Thomas, and perhaps General Grant, had likewise advised the
people of north Alabama, and the subordinate Federal commanders in the
Southwest favored such reconstruction and were inclined to help along the
movement. But orders from Washington put an end to any such course by
directing the arrest of all state officials who endeavored to act. Among
those who had taken steps to restore the former relations with the Union
were the governors of Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida.[850]
The Presidential and Democratic theories, like the Southern theory, were
based on the doctrine of the indestructibility of the state. In the
beginning the Democratic theory would have recognized the state
governments of the seceded states and thus practically coincided with the
later Southern theory. The Presidential theory, as formulated later, would
not have recognized the state governments, and to this view the Democrats
came after the war. The Union was indestructible and was composed of
indestructible states. To assert that the states as states were not in the
Union was to admit the success of secession and the dissolution of the
Union. But the people as insurgents were incapable of political
recognition by the United States government. So the state after the war
was in a condition of suspended animation: the so-called state governments
were not governments in a constitutional sense; the President could have
the citizens tried for treason and punished, or he could pardon them and
thus restore to them all their former rights, which, of course, included
the right to reëstablish their governments and to resume their former
relations with the Union. Congress had no power to interfere or to
disfranchise any man, nor to regulate the suffrage in any way. Its only
part in Reconstruction was to admit to Congress the representatives of the
states as soon as constitutional government was restored by the people
with the assistance of the President.[851]
The earliest legislative declaration touching this subject was in the
Crittenden Resolutions passed by the House of Representatives on July 22,
1861.[852] Two days later practically the same resolutions were introduced
in the Senate by Andrew Johnson of Tennessee and passed with only five
dissenting voices.[853] They declared that "war is not waged upon our part
in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or
subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the
rights or established institutions of these states, but to defend and
maintain the supremacy of the Constitution with all the dignity, equality,
and rights of the several states unimpaired; and that as soon as these
objects are accomplished the war ought to cease."[854] To this declaration
of principles the Democratic party adhered throughout the war and after.
The Union as it was must be restored and maintained, one and
indivisible.[855]
President Lincoln had no such regard for the "sacred rights of a state" as
had the Democrats and his successor, Andrew Johnson. In his inaugural
address he asserted that the Union existed before the states and was
perpetual; that no state could withdraw from the Union; that secession was
null and void; and that the Union was unbroken.[856] In the formation of
the provisional governments by the aid of the military authorities in
Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana, Lincoln showed that he expected the
political institutions of 1861 to be restored. In December, 1863, he
brought forth this plan for restoration: When one-tenth of the voting
population of a state in 1861 should take an oath to support the
Constitution and should establish a government on the basis of the state
constitution and laws in 1861, such a government would be recognized as
the government of the state.[857] In July, 1864, he announced by
proclamation that he was unwilling to commit himself formally to any fixed
plan of restoration. This was in answer to the Wade-Davis bill passed by
Congress, which, if approved, would set aside the governments he had
erected in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas, and it showed that he
considered it the prerogative of the executive to bring about and
recognize the restored government.[858] These restored states he expected
to take their places in the Union on the old terms,[859] for as soon as
the people submitted and civil governments were established,
constitutional relations would be resumed, and Congress would be obliged
to admit their representatives.[860] Early in the war, he said nothing
about abolition, but rather to the contrary. Later he advocated gradual
and compensated emancipation by state action. At the close of the war,
after the practical, if not the theoretical, abolition of slavery, he
suggested that the newly established governments might, as a measure of
expediency, confer the privilege of voting upon the best negroes.[861] He
considered the matter of the suffrage beyond the control of the central
government. The enfranchisement of the negro as a measure of revenge, and
as a means of keeping the southern whites down and the Republican party in
power, never entered his thoughts.
President Johnson succeeded to the policy of Lincoln, or, at least, to
Lincoln's belief that restoration was a matter for the executive
attention, not for the legislative. He asserted that secession was null
and void from the beginning; that a state could not commit treason; that
by the attempted revolution the vitality of the state was impaired and its
functions suspended but not destroyed; that it was the duty of the
executive to breathe into the inanimate state the life-giving breath of
the Constitution. He recognized no power in Congress to pass laws
preliminary to or restricting the admission of duly qualified
representatives of the states.[862]
[Illustration: RECONSTRUCTION LEADERS.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
CHARLES SUMNER.
THADDEUS STEVENS.]
The plan of Lincoln was, in theory and at first in practice,
objectionable. It would recognize as the political people of a state the
loyal minority, which would be an oligarchy, and the principle of the rule
of majorities would thus be repudiated. Those who claimed to be loyal were
not promising material for a new political people, and the "10 per cent"
governments were treated with just contempt. But the plan was based, not
on any narrow principle of legality, but on the broader grounds of justice
and expediency, and was capable of expansion into a very different plan
from what it was in the beginning. As applied to Louisiana and Arkansas,
it was severely, and in theory justly, criticised on the ground that the
President was assuming absolute authority in dealing with the seceded
states, and that by this plan the entire political power would be given to
a small class not capable of using it. As later modified, his plan would
have admitted to participation in Reconstruction nearly or quite all the
citizens of the southern states.
President Johnson, a war Democrat, gave promise of being more harsh than
Lincoln in the work of restoration. Lincoln's policy was based on
expediency; Johnson's, on the narrow legal principles of a State Rights
Democrat. He had a strong regard for the "sacred rights of a state." He
proposed to reëstablish the state governments by means of a political
people of the lower classes, and the old political leaders were to be
disfranchised. Lincoln imposed certain conditions on individuals as a
prerequisite to participation in reconstruction. Having created by the
pardoning power a political people, he expected the initiative to come
from them. The executive then retired into the background and waited the
impulse of the people. He shrank from interfering with the states, not
from any great respect for their rights, but from motives of policy. As
Johnson applied his theory, there was little initiative left to the
people. The executive authority as the source of power set the machinery
of restoration in motion, and the people were obliged to do as he ordered,
many of them being at first excluded from participation. The whole
programme was prescribed by him, and he watched every step of the progress
made. For a firm believer in the rights of states he took strange
liberties with them while restoring their suspended animation. Lincoln
advised a limited suffrage for the blacks; but negroes could have no part
in the Johnson scheme. Like Lincoln, however, Johnson so modified his plan
that practically all the white people were to take part in the
reëstablishment of the government. The conservative theories contemplated
restoration, not reconstruction.
Radical Theories
The Republican majority in Congress soon advanced from the position taken
in the Crittenden-Johnson resolutions. Most of the Republican party had no
fixed opinions in regard to Reconstruction, but formed a kind of a centre
or swamp between the Democrats and the President on the one extreme, and
the Radicals on the other. The plan of Lincoln, as first announced and
applied, was offensive to all parties, and some leaders never seem to have
recognized that the President had, to any appreciable degree, modified his
policy. The extreme Radicals were not sorry to have the matter of
reconstruction fall from the hands of the wise and kind Lincoln into those
of the narrow and vindictive Johnson. But the seeming defection of the
latter soon disappointed those who were in favor of harsh measures in
dealing with the defeated southerners. The best-known of the Radical
theories advanced in opposition to the presidential policy were (1) the
State Suicide theory of Charles Sumner, (2) the Conquered Province theory
of Thaddeus Stevens, and (3) the Forfeited Rights theory, practically the
same as the Conquered Province theory, but expressed in less definite
language for the benefit of the more timid members of the Republican
party.
Charles Sumner, the Radical leader of the Senate, set forth the Suicide
theory in a series of resolutions to the effect that the ordinances of
secession were void, and, when sustained by force, amounted to abdication
by the state of all constitutional rights; that the treason involved
worked instant destruction of the body politic, and the state became
territory under the exclusive control of Congress. Consequently, there
were no state governments in the South, and all peculiar institutions had
ceased to exist--among them slavery. Sumner constantly asserted that
Congress now had exclusive jurisdiction over the southern territory.[863]
He made strong objection to the despotic power of the President as applied
in dealing with the seceded states, and declared that the executive was
encroaching upon the sphere of Congress, which was the proper authority to
organize the new governments. The seceded states, he affirmed, by breaking
the constitutional compact had committed suicide, and no longer had
corporate existence, and that the "loyalists," who were few in number,
should not have the power formerly possessed by all. The whole South was a
"tabular rasa," "a clean slate," upon which Congress might write the
laws.[864] The existence of slavery was declared to be incompatible with a
republican form of government, which it was the duty of Congress to
establish. For it is necessary to such a form of government that there be
absolute equality before the law, suffrage for all, education for all, the
choice of "loyal" citizens for office, and the exclusion of "rebels." The
negro must take part in Reconstruction, for his vote would be needed to
support the cause of human rights and "the party of the Union"--meaning,
of course, the Republican party.[865]
Sumner cared little for the Constitution except for the clause about
guaranteeing a republican form of government to the states, and on this he
based the power of Congress to act. The Declaration of Independence was to
him the supreme law and above the Constitution, and to make the government
conform to that document was his aim. He wearied his colleagues with his
continual harping on the Declaration of Independence as the fundamental
law, upon which footing the seceded states must return. That, he declared,
would destroy slavery and all inequality of rights, political and
civil.[866]
The Conquered Province theory was originated by Thaddeus Stevens, the
Radical leader of the House of Representatives, who, however, refused to
call it a theory. He made no attempt to harmonize his plan with the
Constitution, and frankly expressed his opinion that there was nothing in
the Constitution providing for such an emergency; that the laws of war
alone should govern the action of Congress, allowing no constitutions to
interfere.[867] It was impossible to execute the Constitution in the
seceded states, he said, which the victors must treat "as conquered
provinces and settle them with new men and exterminate or drive out the
present rebels as exiles from this country."[868] Every inch of the soil
of the southern states should be held for the costs of the war, to pay
damages to the "loyal" citizens and pensions to soldiers and their
families, and slavery should be abolished.[869] Secession, according to
Stevens, was so far successful that the southern states were out of the
Union and the people had no constitutional rights.[870] All ties were
broken by the war. The states in their corporate capacities made war, and
were out of the Union so far as the conqueror might choose to consider
them, and must come back into the Union as new states or remain as
conquered provinces with no rights except such as the conqueror might
choose to grant. Perpetual ascendency of the North must be secured by
giving the ballot to the negro, by confiscation, and by banishment. The
Constitution, in his opinion, had been torn to atoms; it was now a "bit of
worthless parchment," and there could be no reconstruction on the basis of
that instrument. Congress had absolute jurisdiction over the whole
question.[871] Stripped of its violence, Stevens's theory was probably the
correct one from the point of view of public law. It was more in accord
with historical facts. It recognized the great changes wrought by war in
the structure of the government. It was frank, explicit, and practical.
Unfortunately, the statesmanship necessary to carry to success such a plan
was entirely lacking in its supporters.
Sumner would limit the authority of Congress only by the provisions of the
Declaration of Independence; Stevens would have Congress unchecked by any
law. By martial law and the law of nations, he meant no law at all, as his
utterances show; nothing must stand in the way of the absolute powers of
Congress. Both theories agreed in reducing the states to a territorial
status. Sumner would leave the people of these states the rights of
people in the United States territories. Stevens would deny that they had
any such rights whatever under any law, but that they were to be
considered conquered foes, with their lives, liberty, and property at the
mercy of the conqueror.[872]
The Forfeited Rights theory, patched up to suit the more timid Radicals
who would not concede that the states had succeeded in getting outside of
the Union or that they could be destroyed, was, in effect, the Stevens
theory, though recognizing some kind of a survival of the states. The
names and boundaries of the states alone survived; the political
institutions were entirely destroyed, and must be reconstructed by
Congress.
It is a waste of time to try to find a basis in the old Constitution for
any of the theories advanced. If a legal basis must be had, it will have
to be found in the Constitution as revolutionized by seventy-five years of
development and four years of war. The main purposes of the congressional
plans were to reduce the late dictatorial powers of the President, to
remove forever from political power the political leaders of the South, to
give the ballot to the negro as a measure of revenge and to assure the
continuation in power of the Republican party.[873]
Owing to the fact that Congress was not in session for several months
after the downfall of the Confederacy, the President had a good
opportunity to put into operation the executive plan for restoring the
southern states to their proper standing in the Union.
SEC. 2. PRESIDENTIAL PLAN IN OPERATION
Early Attempts at Restoration
In the early spring of 1865, Governor Watts, in a speech calling upon the
people to make renewed exertions against the invader, said: "We hold more
territory than a year ago, more of Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas, Georgia
is overrun but is ready to rise. Our financial condition is better than
four years ago. Arms, commissary and quartermaster's stores are more
abundant now."[874] But there were no more men. A month later Lee had
started on the march to Appomattox; two months later Dick Taylor was
surrendering the last Confederate armies east of the Mississippi; three
months later the war governors of Alabama were in northern prisons, and
not a vestige of the Confederate or state governments remained. There was
no government.
Even before the collapse of the Confederacy there were indications of an
approaching revolution in the state government, to be carried out by the
union of all discontented factions. The object was to gain control of the
state government or to organize a new one and return to the Union. This
movement was strongest in north Alabama and was supported and encouraged
by the Federal military authorities. One of the disaffected clique
testified before the Subcommittee on Reconstruction that in the last years
of the war a "Reconstruction" or "Union" party was organized in Alabama,
which, at the time of the surrender, had a majority in the lower house of
the legislature.[875] But the Senate, elected in 1861, held over and
prevented any action by the House. During the year 1865 the "Union" party
hoped to secure both the governorship and the Senate in the first
elections which were to occur under the new constitution, and thus secure
control of the state. But the invasion and surrender stopped the
movement.[876]
There were indications during the winter and spring of 1865 that
Reconstruction movements were going on in the northern half of the state.
After the invasion of the state in April many people more influential than
the ordinary peace party men began to think of Reconstruction. General
Thomas authorized the citizens of Morgan, Marshall, Lawrence, and the
neighboring counties to organize a civil government based on the Alabama
laws of 1861. J. J. Giers, a brother-in-law of State Senator Patton (later
governor), was sent by the military leaders to "reorganize civil law."
Thomas invited the people of the other northern counties to do likewise
and thus show that they were "forced into rebellion." Colonel Patterson of
the Fifth Alabama Cavalry accepted the terms for his forces, and Giers
stated that Roddy's men were so pleased with Thomas's letter that they
released their prisoners and stopped fighting. A Reconstruction meeting
was held at Somerville, Morgan County, and was largely attended by
soldiers. This was early in April.[877] In the central and southern
portions of the state the movement did not begin until the Federal forces
traversed the country. General Steele with the second army of invasion
reported from Montgomery, May 1, 1865, that J. J. Seibels, L. E. Parsons,
and J. C. Bradley[878] had approached him and had told him that two-thirds
of the people of the state would take up arms to "put down the
rebels."[879] A meeting was held at Selma, in Dallas County, on May 10,
and called upon the governor to convene the legislature and take the state
back into the Union. Judge Byrd,[880] one of the speakers, said that the
war had decided two things--slavery and the right of secession--and both
against the South. He counselled a spirit of conciliation and moderation,
and in this he expressed the general sentiment of the people.[881]
A more important meeting was held the next day in Montgomery. A number of
the more prominent politicians met to take steps to place the state in the
way of readmission to the Union.[882] George Reese[883] of Chambers County
presided over the meeting and Albert Roberts was secretary. Seibels
introduced resolutions, which were adopted, pledging to the United States
government earnest and zealous coöperation in the work of restoring the
state of Alabama to its proper relation with the Union at the earliest
possible moment. The murder of Lincoln and the attempt on the life of
Seward were condemned as "acts of infamous diabolism revolting to every
upright heart." The bad effect the crime would have on political matters
was deplored. The desire was expressed that all guilty of participation in
the attempt might be brought to speedy and condign punishment, and "we
shall hold as enemies all who sympathize with the perpetrators of the foul
deed." The majority reported a memorial to the President asking him to
permit the governor of Alabama to convene the legislature, which would
call a convention in order to restore the state to her political relations
to the United States. This they believed was the most speedy method. But
if this were not permitted, then the President was requested to appoint a
military governor from among the most prominent and influential "loyal"
men of the state and invest him with the power to call a convention. They
were encouraged to ask this, the memorial stated, by the recent statement
of the President of the principle that the states which attempted to
secede were still states, and not being able to secede would not be lost
in territorial or other division. "To forever put an end to the doctrine
of secession; to restore our state to her former relations to the Union
under the Constitution and the laws thereof; to enable her to resume the
respiration of her life's breath in the Union,--is a work in which we in
good faith pledge you our earnest and zealous coöperation, and we hazard
nothing in the assurance that the people of Alabama will concur with us
with a majority approaching almost unanimity."
Colonel J. C. Bradley presented a memorial from the minority of the
committee. It was the same as the other memorial, except that the part
relating to the appointment of a military governor was omitted. Such an
official was not desired nor needed, he stated. After some discussion both
memorials were adopted and each person present signed the one he
preferred. The chairman appointed a committee to bear the memorials to the
President. The general sentiment of the meeting and of the people seemed
to be that, since they had failed to maintain their independence, there
was nothing left to do but to accept as a working basis the theory that a
state could not secede, and to get straight into the Union by having the
President restore the suspended animation of the Constitution. The best
and shortest way, they thought, was for Governor Watts to convene the
legislature, which should begin the work, and a convention of the people
would complete it. Governor Watts and the Supreme Court (Stone and Phelan)
approved the action of the meeting, though they took no part in it.[884]
Another meeting on the same day (May 11), at Guntersville, in Marshall
County, in the heart of the devastated section of the state, proposed to
submit cheerfully to the decision of war and return to the Union. Two
soldiers, Major A. C. Baird and Colonel J. L. Sheffield,[885] were the
leaders in the meeting.[886] Two mass-meetings were held in Covington
County (one at Andalusia on May 17) and passed resolutions favoring a
restoration of the Union. The Union General Asboth said that these people
had returned to their allegiance early in April and had organized and
armed to resist the "rebels." The resolutions were signed by 280 and 376
persons respectively. Asboth reported great excitement on account of the
action taken by the meeting.[887] On May 23 there was a meeting of
citizens in Franklin County. James W. Ligon was president, H. C. Tompkins,
vice-president, and R. B. Lindsey (governor in 1870-1872) addressed the
meeting. This meeting seems to have been behind the times, for it accepted
the overtures of Thomas made April 13, and promised to assist cheerfully
in restoring law and order. They were anxious to resume former friendly
relations to the United States and wanted a state convention called to
settle matters.[888]
About this time the President, General Grant, and Stanton, by repeated
orders, managed to reach the generals who were encouraging the movement
toward Reconstruction, and put an end to their plans by ordering them not
to recognize the state government in Alabama and to prevent the assembly
of the legislature.[889] Thereupon, on May 23, a memorial was signed by
106 prominent citizens of Mobile, asking the President to take steps to
enable Alabama to be restored to the Union. Robert H. Smith[890] and Percy
Walker[891] were sent as a committee to General Granger, who commanded in
the city, to ask him to transmit the memorial to the President. General
Granger did so with the indorsement that no impediment existed to
immediate restoration, that the signers were influential men and
represented the sentiment of the people of the state.[892] At Athens, in
Limestone County, the citizens met and adopted resolutions declaring that
all must be restored to the Union; that the state officials should be
recognized, but that a new election should be held under the laws of
Alabama as they were before secession; that a convention was not necessary
and in the present unsettled condition of the county it would be dangerous
to hold one; that the constitution of 1819, changed by amendment, should
be used. The murder of Lincoln was deplored.[893] Similar meetings were
held all over the state, especially in north Alabama.[894]
The "loyal" element held a meeting in north Alabama about the first of
June.[895] Resolutions were introduced by K. B. Seawell to the effect that
the government of Alabama had been illegally set aside in 1861 by a
combination of persons regardless of the best interests of the state, that
secession was not the act of the people, and that the Confederacy was a
usurpation. It was decided that Alabama must go back to the Union, and the
authority of the United States was invoked to enable "loyal" citizens to
form a state government.[896] The sentiments of the more violent
"unionists" or tories may be understood from a letter of D. H.
Bingham,[897] then at West Point, New York. He said that reconstruction
must not be committed to the hands of the "rebels"; that Parsons, who was
spoken of for provisional governor, was not one of the "union" men of
Alabama and would use his influence to secure control to the old slave
dynasty; that his appointment would be unfair to the "union" men; that the
masses were coerced and deluded into fighting the battles of slavery; "I,
George W. Lane,[898] and J. H. Larcombe," he said, "never gave way to
secession." The non-slaveholding whites in slaveholding districts were
trained to obey, he wrote, and the official class used its influence to
keep the non-slaveholders in ignorance. Hence the small number of
slaveholders (of whom most were owners of few slaves and hence were union
men) controlled the "union" population of over 5,000,000. He said that the
Alabama delegates, then in Washington,[899] were not inactive in producing
these results, though they claimed to be "unionists." They were once
"union" men, but went over. Now they alleged that they were carried into
rebellion by a great wave of public feeling. Such men should not be
trusted until they had passed through a probationary state.[900]
The southerners who wanted immediate restoration of constitutional rights
and privileges on the basis of the Crittenden Resolution of 1861,[901]
soon found that this plan would not work; so, to make the best of a bad
situation, all accepted the Johnson plan and declared that the state,
since it had not had the right to secede, must still be in the Union. The
press and the prominent men, even those who would be disfranchised by the
President's plan, gave it a hearty support in order to give peace to the
land and restore civil government.[902] At this time the Johnson plan
promised to be one of merciless proscription of the prominent men. As
Johnson himself expressed it: "The American people must be made to
understand the nature of the crime, the length, the breadth, the depth,
and height of treason. For the thousands who were driven into the infernal
rebellion there should be amnesty, conciliation, clemency, and mercy. For
the leaders, justice--the penalty and the forfeit should be paid. The
people must understand that treason is the blackest of crimes and must be
punished."[903] The leaders were not afraid of such threats and meant not
to stand in the way. The people intended to make the best they could out
of a bad state of affairs. They believed then and always that their cause
was right, secession justifiable and necessary; that the provocation was
great, and that they were the aggrieved party; that the abolitionists and
fanatics forced secession and civil war. But since they were beaten in
war, after they had done all that men could do, they meant to accept the
result and abide by the decision of the sword. There was a general purpose
to stand by the government--certainly no dream of opposition to it. The
people meant (which was neither treasonable nor unreasonable) to ally
themselves to the more conservative political party in the North in order
to secure as many advantages as possible to the South. Their aim was to
preserve as much of their old constitution as they could, all the while
recognizing that state sovereignty and slavery ended with the war. Their
course in ceasing at once all useless opposition and proceeding to secure
reinstatement on the old terms was, _The Nation_ declared, "a display of
consummate political ability." Southerners like to think that had Lincoln
lived his plan would have succeeded, and that the most shameful chapter of
American history would not have to be written.[904] Johnson helped to ruin
his own cause and his supporters along with it. The people never seem to
have taken seriously the proposed merciless plans of Johnson, and the
opposition of moderate advisers and the pleasure of pardoning southern
"aristocrats" (and later Radical criticism) caused a distinct modification
of his policy in the direction of mildness until the proscriptive part was
almost lost sight of.[905]
The southern leaders[906] saw clearly that there was no hope for their
party unless the President could win the fight against the Radicals in
Congress, and they attempted to disarm northern hostility outside Congress
until the Radical party, aided by the rash conduct of the President,
educated the people of the North to the proper point for approving drastic
measures.[907]
The President begins Restoration
On May 29 the President began his attempt at restoration by proclaiming
amnesty to all, except certain specified classes of persons. They were
pardoned and therefore restored to all rights of property, except in
slaves, on condition that the following oath be taken:--
"I ________________ do solemnly swear (or affirm) in the presence of
Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and
defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Union of the
states thereunder; and that I will, in like manner, abide by and
faithfully support all laws and proclamations which have been made
during the existing rebellion, with reference to the emancipation of
slaves: So help me God."[908]
Fourteen classes of people were excluded from the benefits of this
proclamation; of these twelve were affected in Alabama:--
(1) The civil or diplomatic officers, or domestic or foreign agents of
the Confederacy; (2) those who left judicial positions under the
United States to aid the Confederacy; (3) all above the rank of
colonel in the army and lieutenant in the navy; (4) those who left
seats in the United States Congress and aided the Confederacy; (5)
those who resigned commissions in the United States army and navy to
escape service against the Confederacy; (6) persons who went abroad to
aid the Confederacy in a private capacity; (7) graduates of the naval
and military academies who were in the Confederate service; (8) the
war governors of Confederate states; (9) those who left the United
States to aid the Confederacy; (10) Confederate sailors (considered as
pirates); (11) all in confinement as prisoners of war or for other
offences; (12) those who supported the Confederacy and whose taxable
property was over $20,000.
The classes excluded embraced practically all Confederate and state
officials, for the latter had acted as Confederate agents, all the old
political leaders of the state, many of the ablest citizens who had not
been in politics but had attained high position under the Confederate
government or in the army, the whole of the navy,--officers and
men,--several thousand prisoners of war, a number of political prisoners,
and every person in the state whose property in 1861 was assessed at
$20,000 or more. According to the proclamation the assessment was to be in
1865, but it was made on the basis of 1861, at which time slaves were
included and a slaveholder of very moderate estate would be assessed at
$20,000. In 1865 there were very few people worth $20,000.
It was provided that persons belonging to these excepted classes might
make special application to the President for pardon, and the proclamation
promised that pardon should be freely granted.[909] The oath could be
taken before any United States officer, civil, military, or naval, or any
state or territorial civil or military officer, qualified to administer
oaths.[910] In Alabama 120 army officers were sent into all the counties
to administer the amnesty oath. These officers were strict in barring out
"all improper persons" and subscription went on slowly until the military
commander issued orders that all who were eligible must take the oath.
Less than 50,000 persons took the oath; 90,000 had voted in 1860.
There was a fight for appointment to the provisional governorship. William
H. Smith of Randolph and D. C. Humphreys of Madison, both of whom had
opposed secession, then entered the Confederate service, and later
deserted; D. H. Bingham of Limestone, who had been a tory during the war;
and L. E. Parsons of Talladega, who had aided the Confederacy materially
and damned it spiritually--all wanted to oversee the restoration of the
state.[911]
June 21, 1865, the President, acting as commander-in-chief of the army and
under the clause in the Constitution requiring the United States to
guarantee to each state a republican form of government and protect each
state against invasion and domestic violence,[912] proceeded to breathe
the breath of life into the prostrate state by appointing Lewis E. Parsons
provisional governor.[913]
It was made the duty of Parsons to call a convention of delegates chosen
by the "loyal"[914] people of the state. This convention was to amend or
alter the state constitution to suit the changed state of affairs, to
exercise all the powers necessary to enable the people to restore the
state to its constitutional relations with the central authority, and to
set up a republican form of government. All voters and delegates must have
taken the oath of amnesty, and must have the qualifications for voters
prescribed by the Alabama constitution and laws prior to the secession of
the state. This excluded the fourteen proscribed classes and said nothing
of the negroes. The convention, when assembled, was to prescribe
qualifications for voters and for office holders. The military and naval
officers of the United States were directed to assist the provisional
officials and to refrain from hindering and discouraging them in any way.
The Secretary of State was directed to put in force in the state of
Alabama all laws of the United States, the administration of which
belonged to the State Department. The Secretary of the Treasury was
directed to nominate assessors, collectors, and other treasury officials,
and to put into execution in Alabama the revenue laws of the United
States. The Postmaster-General was ordered to establish post-offices and
post routes and to enforce the postal laws. The Attorney-General and the
Federal judges were directed to open the United States courts in the
state. The Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of the Interior were
ordered to put in execution the regulations of their respective
departments, so far as related to Alabama.[915]
In making appointments to office in the southern states, the departments
were to give preference to "loyal"[916] persons of the district or state
where they were to serve. If no "loyal" persons could be found in the
state or district, such persons might be imported from other states or
districts.
In this measure the difference appears between the Lincoln and the Johnson
plan of restoration. Lincoln believed that the executive should only make
things easy for the people to erect a government for themselves. He kept
as much as possible in the background and let it appear that the movement
originated with the people. Several times he merely suggested that negroes
with certain qualifications should be granted the suffrage. Johnson, on
the other hand, made it clear that he was the source of all authority in
the movement. He himself made stringent regulations of the suffrage, thus
creating a body of citizens, and set up a government of his own for the
purpose of creating a new state government. The people were to do as he
bade them. He did not suggest negro suffrage in any form and was, like
most southern Unionists, opposed to it. The Johnson provisional government
was a military government with the President as the source of authority.
Parsons was a military governor appointed by the commander-in-chief and
paid by the War Department.[917] Lincoln's provisional government would
have been popular government based on election by the people.
The appointment of Parsons gave general satisfaction to all parties except
the more violent tory element in the northern part of the state, who
wanted men like D. H. Bingham or William H. Smith. A correspondent of _The
Nation_ who travelled among them in August, 1865, when this element of the
people seemed likely to form a strong portion of the new ruling class of
the South, before the President modified his plans, said of them: they are
ignorant and vindictive, live in poor huts, drink much, and all use
tobacco and snuff; they want to organize and receive recognition by the
United States government in order to get revenge--really want to be
bushwhackers supported by the Federal government; they "wish to have the
power to hang, shoot, and destroy in retaliation for the wrongs they have
endured"; they hate the "big nigger holders," whom they accuse of bringing
on the war and who, they are afraid, would get into power again; they are
the "refugee," poor white element of low character, shiftless, with no
ambition.[918] To proscribe the mass of leading citizens, the experienced
men in public affairs, as Johnson's plan at first promised to do, would
have had serious results, but his later, more liberal, policy restored the
rights of all except the more prominent. But the old leaders were never
again leaders, thinking it more politic to put forward less well-known
men. At first Johnson had the mountaineer's dislike of the "slave
aristocracy," as he called it, and his plan was devised to humiliate and
ruin this class.[919]
A month after his appointment Governor Parsons issued (July 20) a
proclamation to the people, drawn largely from the census of 1860, showing
how prosperous the state was at that time and inviting attention to the
present condition of affairs. The question of slavery and secession, he
said, had been decided against the South, but every political and property
right, except slavery, still remained. He thus repudiated any former
belief he may have had in the right of secession. A funny comparison was
made in exuberant language and with many mixed metaphors, likening the
Union to a steamship and the state of Alabama to a man swimming around in
the water, trying to get on board. The following officers of the
Confederate state government who were in office on the 22d of May,[920]
1865, were reappointed to serve during the continuance of the provisional
government: justices of the peace, constables, members of common councils,
judges of courts, except probate, county treasurers, tax collectors and
assessors, coroners, and municipal officers. Judges of probate and
sheriffs who were in office on May 22 were directed to take the amnesty
oath and serve until others were appointed. All officers reappointed were
to take the amnesty oath and give new bond. The right was reserved to
remove any officer for disloyalty or for misconduct in office. Thus there
was a continuity between the Confederate administration and the
"restoration" administration.
The civil and criminal laws of the state as they stood on January 11,
1861, except as to slavery, were declared in full force, and an election
of delegates to a constitutional convention was ordered for August 31, and
the convention was to meet on September 10.[921] No one could vote in the
election or be a candidate for election to the convention who was not a
legal voter according to the law on January 11, 1861, and all voters and
candidates must first take the amnesty oath or must have been pardoned by
the President. Instructions were given as to how a person who was excluded
from the benefits of the amnesty proclamation might proceed in order to
secure a pardon. A list of questions was appended by which "an improper
person" might test his case and see how bad it was. They ran like this:--
(1) Are you under arrest? Why? (2) Did you order, advise, or aid in
the taking of Fort Morgan and Mount Vernon? (3) Have you served on any
"vigilance" committee for the purpose of trying cases of disloyalty to
the Confederate States? (4) Did you order any persons to be shot or
hung for disloyalty to the Confederate States? (5) Did you shoot or
hang such a person? (6) Did you hunt such a person with dogs? (7) Were
you in favor of the so-called ordinance of secession? (8) You are not
bound to answer any except the first of these questions. (9) Will you
be peaceable and loyal in the future? (10) Have proceedings been
instituted against you under the Confiscation Act? (11) Have you in
your possession any property of the United States?[922]
Parsons appointed to assist him a full staff of secretaries as follows:
Wm. Garrett, Secretary of State; M. A. Chisholm, Comptroller of Accounts;
L. P. Saxton, Treasurer; ---- Collins, Adjutant-General; M. H. Cruikshank,
Commissioner for the Destitute; John B. Taylor, Superintendent of
Education.
A report on the condition of the treasury on September 1, 1865, shows that
of $791,294 in the treasury on May 24, 1865, only $337 was in silver and
$532 in gold. The rest was in state and Confederate money, now worthless.
The financial status of the provisional treasury was uncertain. Receipts
from July 20 to September 21, 1865, were $1766 and disbursements had been
$1572. The bonded debt of the state, held in London, was $1,336,000, in
New York, $2,109,000, a total of $3,445,000.[923]
Parsons could hardly do otherwise than reappoint the old state officials
as temporary officers, but it created some dissatisfaction in the state
and much in the North; and in truth the Confederate state officers in 1865
were not, in general, very efficient, being old men, cripples, incapables,
"bomb-proofs," "feather beds," and deadheads. They were not much liked by
any party unless perhaps by the few who put them in office. The
_Huntsville Advocate_ may have been voicing the objections of either
"tory" or "rebel" when it condemned Governor Parsons's reappointment of
the _de facto_ state officers--"they are not the proper persons to
rekindle the fires of patriotism in the hearts of the people."[924]
The provisional governor was obliged to rely upon inferior material in
restoring the state government. Though the President's plan soon was shorn
of its worst proscriptive features, the work of restoration had begun by
excluding the natural leaders from a share in the upbuilding of the state,
and they were thus rendered somewhat indifferent to the process. The class
to whom the task fell was good, but it was not the best. The best men went
into the southern army or otherwise committed themselves strongly to the
cause of the Confederacy. The strong men of the state who sulked in their
tents during the war were few in numbers, and they were usually
disgruntled and cranky, and now, without influence, were much disliked by
the people. The so-called "union" men who stayed at home in "bomb-proof"
offices, or as teachers, overseers, ministers, etc., were not the kind of
men to reconstruct the shattered government. The few who had openly
espoused the Union cause had not the character, experience, and training
necessary to fit them to rule a state. Though the administration began on
a basis of very inferior material, yet the modification of the plan of the
President gradually admitted the second-rate leaders to political
privileges, and, had the experiment continued, they would have gradually
resumed control of the politics of the state. It was in some degree the
hope of this that made them willing to submit to proscription and
exclusion for a while and support the reconstruction measures of the
President. They hoped for better times.[925]
Parsons revised the official lists thoroughly, and many of the old
officers were discharged and new ones appointed. However, they had little
to do; the army and the Freedmen's Bureau usurped their functions. A
proclamation of August 19, 1865, directed the probate judge, sheriff, and
clerk in each county to destroy, after August 31, old jury lists and make
new ones from the list of names of "loyal" citizens who had taken the
amnesty oath and registered. Circuit court judges were directed to hold
special sessions of court for the trial of state cases and to have their
grand juries inquire particularly into the cases of cotton and horse
stealing, now common crimes.[926]
"Proscribing Proscription"
One of the principal occupations of the provisional government was
securing pardons for those who were excluded from the general amnesty of
May 29, 1865. Governor Parsons was for reconciliation, and those who hoped
to profit by the disfranchisement of the leaders complained of the lenient
treatment of the latter. Parsons's policy of "proscribing proscription"
was greatly disliked by those who would profit by disfranchisement. If it
were continued, they saw there would be no spoils for them. One of the
aggrieved parties related a case which might well have been his own: A
prominent "union" man went to the President to get his pardon, stating
that he had been as much a Union man as possible for the last four years.
"I am delighted to hear that," the President said. Directly the "union"
man said that he had been forced to become somewhat implicated in the
rebellion, that he had been obliged to raise money by selling cotton to
the Confederates, and, as he was worth over $20,000, it was necessary to
get a pardon. "Well, sir," the President answered, "it seems that you were
a Union man who was willing to let the Union slide. Now I will let you
slide." On the other hand, Judge Cochran of Alabama told the President
that he had been a rabid, bitter, uncompromising rebel; that he had done
all he could to cause secession, and had fought in the ranks as a private;
that he regretted very much that the war had resulted as it had; that he
was sorry they had not been able to hold out longer. But he now accepted
the results. The President asked: "Upon what ground do you base your
application for pardon? I do not see anything in your statement to justify
you in making such an application." Judge Cochran replied, "Mr. President,
I read that where sin abounds, mercy and grace doth much more abound, and
it is upon that principle that I ask for pardon." The pardon was
granted.[927]
The President in the end granted pardons to nearly all persons who applied
for them, but not a great number applied. The total number pardoned in
Alabama from April 15, 1865, to December 4, 1868, was less than 2000, and
of these most were those who had been worth over $20,000 in 1861 and had
aided the Confederacy with their substance. For this offence (for offence
it was in Johnson's eyes) 1456 people (of whom 72 were women) were
pardoned before the general amnesty in 1868.[928] How many of this class
of excepted persons did not ask for pardon is not known. It is certain
that all who possessed that amount of wealth assisted the Confederacy.
Half at least of the $20,000 must have been slave property.[929]
Few of the state and Confederate officials applied for pardon. Many worth
over $20,000 in 1861 did not apply. Most of those who were wealthy in 1861
lost all they had in the war. To December 31, 1867, the President had
pardoned in Alabama only 12 generals, viz. Battle, Baker, F. M. Cockerill,
Clayton, Deas, Duff C. Green, Holtzclaw, Morgan, Moody, Pettus, Roddy, and
Wood; 11 members of the Confederate Congress had been pardoned, 1 former
United States judge, 1 former member United States Congress, 1 West Point
graduate; 2 naval officers, and 2 governors. These were the only prominent
political leaders who applied for pardon.[930]
SEC. 3. THE "RESTORATION" CONVENTION
Personnel and Parties
The election for delegates was held August 31, and the convention met in
Montgomery September 12 and adjourned on September 30. The total vote cast
for delegates was about 56,000,[931] a very large vote when all things are
considered. This being a representative body of the men who were to carry
out the Johnson plan of restoration, it will be of interest to examine
closely the personnel of the convention. There were 99 delegates, of whom
only 18 were under forty years of age, the majority being over fifty; it
was a body of old rather than middle-aged men; 26 were natives of Alabama;
24 were born in Georgia; Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina
furnished 28; Maryland, Kentucky, and Tennessee, 14; 6 were from northern
states, and 1 from Ireland. There were 23 Methodists; 19 Baptists; 16
Presbyterians (the most able members), and 5 Episcopalians; 34 belonged to
no church (not a mark of respectability at that time). There were 33
lawyers and 42 farmers and planters; 6 physicians, 9 merchants, 2
teachers, and 7 ministers. The proportion of ministers and
non-church-members is remarkable. As to politics, 45 were old Whigs and
had voted for Bell and Everett electors in 1861, 24 voted for
Breckenridge, and 30 for Douglas; 18 had been in favor of immediate
secession and a few of these were now called "precipitators"; 11 had been
in the convention of 1861, and 10 had then voted for secession. Only one
member of the convention of 1861 from the southern and central parts of
the state was returned to the convention of 1865. All the others had by
their course in the war made themselves ineligible. Fifty-two had had no
previous experiences in public life. There were two ex-governors, two
former members of Congress, and one who had been minister to Belgium.[932]
[Illustration: PARTIES IN THE CONVENTION OF 1865.]
There were several extreme "union" men, a few "precipitators," who,
however, made no factious opposition, and a large majority of conservative
men. The votes on test questions showed a wide difference between the
extremists from north Alabama and the other members. The proportion was
about 63 conservatives to 36 north Alabama anti-Confederates. It was the
old sectional division. The minority was made up about equally of rampant
"union" men and old conservative Whigs; the majority, of the more liberal
Whigs and conservative Democrats. Neither party was as united as the
parties had been in 1861. There were almost as many minor divisions as
there were members, but the most of them acted together in order to
transact business, and none were allowed to obstruct. As a body the
convention was much inferior in ability to that of 1861 and lacked
experience. Nearly all were men of ordinary ability, while those of 1861
were the best from both sections of the state. Yet this was quite a
respectable conservative body.[933] The secessionists and former Democrats
were the ablest members, and were more inclined to accept the results of
war in a philosophical spirit, and, making the best of things, to go to
work to bring order out of political chaos. The _Herald_ correspondent
said that John A. Elmore was the strongest man in the convention. He had
been an ardent secessionist of the Yancey school, yet in the convention he
did more than any other man to bring the weaker men around to correct
views and harmony of action.[934]
Ex-Senator and Ex-Governor Fitzpatrick was chosen to preside, and Governor
Parsons administered the amnesty oath. The convention at once notified
President Johnson of the desire and intention of the people to be and to
remain loyal citizens of the United States. It indorsed his administration
and policy and asked him to pardon all who were not included in the
amnesty proclamation of May 9, 1865.[935]
Debates on Secession and Slavery
The debate on the action to be taken as to the ordinance of secession was
warm and extended over the entire session. The dispute was concerning the
form of words to be used in repealing or otherwise getting rid of the
ordinance of secession. One delegate proposed that it be declared
"unconstitutional and therefore illegal and void"; another wanted it
declared "null and void"; another, "the so-called ordinance of secession,
null and void"; others, "unconstitutional, null and void"; "unauthorized,
null and void"; or "unauthorized and void from the beginning." The
minority proposition to declare it "unauthorized, null and void," was laid
on the table by a vote of 69 to 21, the minority being from north Alabama.
A proposition to declare it "unconstitutional, null and void" was lost by
the same vote. And all similar propositions fared about the same.[936]
However, a proposition to say that "it is and was unconstitutional"
secured 34 votes against 59. Clark of Lawrence, who had been in the
convention of 1861, wanted this convention to declare the ordinance of
secession "unauthorized, null and void," because, he said, in 1861, the
majority of the people voted for "union and coöperation," and that, as the
convention refused to submit its work to the people, the people were
misrepresented and the ordinance of secession was unauthorized. Yet he
would not say that it was unconstitutional and void from the beginning.
Other members said that the convention of 1861 had full authority. From
the act of the legislature of 1860 which provided for the calling of the
convention, the people understood that it had full authority and they also
knew that it would use its authority to secede. "Unauthorized" would mean
that there was no cause for calling the convention of 1861, and would even
deny the right to secede as a revolutionary right. It would mean consent
to the doctrine of passive obedience, and also that the convention of 1861
and those who supported it had usurped authority, and "we thereby
impliedly should leave the memory of our dead who died for their country
to be branded as traitors and rebels and turn over the survivors, so far
as we are concerned, to the gibbet."[937] The ordinance favored by the
majority of the convention declared that the ordinance of secession "is
null and void," and was adopted by a unanimous vote.[938] All other
ordinances, resolutions, and proceedings of the convention of 1861, and
such provisions of the constitution of 1861 as were in conflict with the
Constitution of the United States, were declared null and void.[939]
The state bonded debt in aid of the war was $3,844,500, which was held
principally in Mobile. There were other indirect war debts, but no one
knew the amount. On a test vote early in the session the convention was
divided, 58 to 34, against repudiating the war debt.[940] Later, by a vote
of 60 to 19, all debts created by the state of Alabama, directly or
indirectly in aid of the war, were declared void, and the legislature was
forbidden to pay any part of it, or of any debts contracted directly or
indirectly by the Confederacy or its agents or by its authority.[941]
In the debate in regard to the abolition of slavery, Mr. Coleman of
Choctaw[942] desired to know by what authority the people of Alabama had
been deprived of their constitutional right to property in slaves.[943] He
urged the convention not to pass an ordinance to abolish slavery, but to
leave the President's proclamations and the acts of Congress to be tested
by the Supreme Court; that there was no such thing as secession; a state
could not be guilty of treason, and Alabama had committed no crime;
individuals had done so; others were loyal and were entitled to their
rights. Not only those who had always been loyal but also those who had
taken the amnesty oath were entitled to their property;[944] those
pardoned by the President were entitled to the same rights, and Congress
had no authority to seize property except during the lifetime of the
criminal. The Federal government had no right to nullify the Constitution.
The abolition of slavery should be accepted as an act of war, not as the
free and voluntary act of the people of Alabama which latter course would
prevent the "loyalists" of Alabama, from receiving compensation for
slaves. He denied that slavery was non-existent; Lincoln's proclamation
did not destroy slavery; it was a question for the Supreme Court to
decide, and to admit that Lincoln's proclamation destroyed slavery was to
admit the power of the President and Congress to nullify every law of the
state. For all these reasons it was inexpedient for the convention to
declare the abolition of slavery.
Judge Foster of Calhoun answered that the war had settled the question of
slavery and secession; that the question of slavery was beyond the power
of the courts to decide, and, besides, a decision of the Supreme Court
would not be respected. The question had to be decided by war, and having
been so decided, there was no appeal from the decision. The institution of
slavery had been destroyed by secession. The question was not open for
discussion. Slavery, he said, does not exist, is utterly and forever
destroyed,--by whom, when, where, is no matter. The power of arms is
greater than all courts. Citizens should begin to make contracts with
their former slaves. Should the Supreme Court declare the proclamations of
the Presidents and the acts of Congress unconstitutional, slavery would
not be restored. Whether destroyed legally or illegally, it was destroyed,
and the people had better accept the situation and restore Federal
relations.[945]
Mr. White of Talladega[946] proposed to abide by the proclamations of the
President and the acts of Congress until the Supreme Court should decide
the question of slavery. White said that he had opposed secession as long
as he could; that the states were not out of the Union, but had all their
rights as formerly.[947] Mr. Lane of Butler wanted an ordinance to the
effect that since the institution of slavery had been destroyed in the
state of Alabama by act of the Federal government, therefore slavery no
longer exists. This was lost by a vote of 66 to 17.[948] On September 22,
1865, an ordinance was adopted by a vote of 89 to 3 which declared that
the institution of slavery having been destroyed, neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude should thereafter exist in the state, except as a
punishment for crime. All provisions in the constitution regarding slavery
were struck out, and it was made the duty of the next legislature to pass
laws to protect the freedmen in the full employment of all their rights of
person and property and to guard them and the state against any evils that
might arise from their sudden emancipation.[949] Mr. Taliafero Towles of
Chambers, a "loyalist," proposed an ordinance to make all "free
negroes"[950] who were not inhabitants of the state before 1861 leave the
state. Mr. Langdon of Mobile regretted this proposition, and thought it
would do harm. Mr. Towles explained that he lived near the Georgia line
and that he was much annoyed by the negroes who came into Alabama from
Georgia. Mr. Patton[951] of Lauderdale opposed such a policy. It was
unwise, he said; let people go where they pleased; he would invite people
from all parts of the Union to Alabama. Mr. Mudd of Jefferson thought that
such a measure would be extremely unwise. Mr. Hunter of Dallas said that
it was very unwise, that it would do no good, and at such a time would be
harmful. Passions must be allayed. Towles withdrew the resolution.[952]
Mr. Saunders of Macon introduced a memorial to the President to release
President Davis. It was referred to a committee and was not heard
from.[953] General Swayne of the Freedmen's Bureau sent to the convention
a memorial from a negro mass-meeting in Mobile praying for the extension
of suffrage to them. It was unanimously laid on the table.[954]
"A White Man's Government"
General Swayne had made an arrangement with the governor by which the
state officials were required to act as agents of the Freedmen's Bureau.
The convention now passed an ordinance requiring these officers to
continue to discharge the duties of agents of the Bureau "until the
adjournment of the next general assembly." Seventeen north Alabama men
opposed the passage of this ordinance.[955]
Mr. Patton of Lauderdale proposed an ordinance in regard to the basis of
representation in the general assembly. It was not correctly understood in
north Alabama, which section, thinking it called for representation based
on population, rose in wrath. The _Huntsville Advocate_ said: "This is a
white man's government and a white man's state. We are opposed to any
changes in the convention except such as are necessary to get the state
into the Union again."[956] Mr. Patton explained that the purpose of his
measure was to base representation on the white population. He cheerfully
indorsed north Alabama doctrine, "This is a white man's government and we
must keep it a white man's government."[957] The ordinance as passed
provided for a census in 1866, and the apportionment of senators and
representatives according to white population as ascertained by the
census. The delegates from the white counties of north Alabama and
southeast Alabama voted for the ordinance, and thirty delegates from the
Black Belt voted against it.[958]
This measure destroyed at a blow the political power of the Black Belt,
and had the Johnson government survived, the state would have been ruled
by the white counties instead of by the black counties. This was partly
the result of antagonism between the white and black counties.
Early in the session Mr. Sheets of Winston, "loyalist," demanded that all
amendments to the Constitution adopted by the convention should be
referred to the people for ratification or rejection, except such as
related to slavery.[959] Mr. Webb of Greene, chairman of the Committee on
the Constitution, reported that, on account of the state of the times, it
was not expedient to refer the amendments to the people. Mr. Clark of
Lawrence[960] wanted the people to have an opportunity to show whether
they favored the work of the convention. He said that, in 1861, had the
ordinance of secession been referred to the people, it would have been
defeated.
The members who were in favor of not sending the amendments to the people
said that there was not time, and that there were too many other
elections; that the people had confidence in the convention or they would
not have elected the delegates who were there. But the north Alabama
delegates insisted that their constituents not only expected to have the
amendments submitted to them, but that they (the delegates) had pledged
that they would have the amendments sent before the people.[961] The north
Alabama party could not consistently do anything but object to the
adoption of the constitution by proclamation. Some had never recognized
the supreme authority of a constitutional convention; others were opposed
to the expediency of adoption by proclamation. By a vote of 61 to 25 the
constitution was proclaimed in force without reference to the people.[962]
Legislation
The convention did some important legislative work necessary to put the
business of administration in running order again. All the laws enacted
during the war not in conflict with the United States Constitution, and
not relating to the issue of money and bonds nor to appropriations, were
ratified and declared in full force since their dates.[963] All officials
acts of the state and county officials, all judgments, orders, and decrees
of the courts, all acts and sales of trustees, executors, administrators,
and guardians, not in conflict with United States Constitution were
ratified and confirmed. Deeds, bonds, mortgages, and contracts made during
the war were declared valid and binding. But in cases where payments were
to be made in Confederate money the courts were to decide what the true
value of the consideration was at the time.[964] Divorces granted during
the war by the chancery court were declared valid.[965] Marriages between
negroes, whether during slavery or since emancipation, were declared
valid; and in cases where no ceremony had been performed, but the parties
recognized each other as man and wife, such relationship was declared
valid marriage. The children of all such marriages were declared
legitimate. Fathers of bastard negro children were required to provide for
them. The freedmen were placed under the same laws of marriage as the
whites, except that they were not required to give bond.[966] The
legislature was commanded to pass laws prohibiting the intermarriage of
whites with negroes or with persons of mixed blood.[967]
In view of the lawlessness prevailing in some of the counties, the
provisional governor was authorized to call out the militia in each
county, and the mayors of Huntsville, Athens, and Florence were given
police jurisdiction over their respective counties until the legislature
should act. The ante-bellum militia code was declared in force, and all
other laws in regard to the militia were repealed.[968]
The governor was ordered to pay the interest on the bonded debt of the
state that was made before 1861, and the convention pledged the faith of
the people that the old debt should be paid in full with interest.[969]
The state was divided into six congressional districts. The negro was no
longer counted in the "Federal number," and the representation of the
state in Congress was thus reduced. Elections were ordered for various
offices in November and December, 1865, and March and May, 1866. The
provisional governor was authorized to act as governor until another was
elected and inaugurated. It was ordered that in the future no convention
be held unless first the question of convention or no convention be
submitted to the people and approved by a majority of those voting.[970]
Finally, the convention asked that the President withdraw the troops from
the state, the people and the convention having complied with all the
conditions and requirements necessary to restore the state to its
constitutional relations to the Federal government.[971] The convention
adjourned on September 30, having been in session ten days in all. The
constitution went into effect gradually, Parsons enforcing some of it;
Patton and the newly elected legislature organized the government under it
from December, 1865, to May, 1866. But it never became more than a
provisional constitution, which was set aside by the President at
pleasure.
SEC. 4. "RESTORATION" COMPLETED
By convention ordinance and by constitutional amendment the civil rights
of the freedmen were made secure, family relations legalized, property
rights secured; the courts of law were open to them, and in all cases
affecting themselves, their evidence was admissible. The admission of
negro testimony was generally approved by the bar and the magistracy, but
disliked by the ignorant classes of whites. All magistrates and judicial
officers who refused to admit negro testimony or to act as Bureau agents
were removed from office by the governor. One mayor (of Mobile) and one
judge were removed.
Affairs were going on well, though the civil government was weakened and
lost prestige by being subordinated to the military authorities.[972] The
convention having authorized Parsons to organize the militia to aid in
restoring order, several companies were organized and instructed to act
solely in aid of the civil authorities and in subordination to them. They
were to act alone only when there was no civil officer present.[973]
Among the whites there was a vague but widespread fear of negro
insurrections, and toward Christmas this fear increased. The negroes were
disappointed because of the delayed division of lands, and their temper
was not improved by the reports of adventurers, black and white, who came
among them as missionaries and sharpers. There was a general and natural
desire among the freedmen to get possession of firearms, and all through
the summer and fall they were acquiring shotguns, muskets, and pistols in
great quantities. Most of the guns were worthless army muskets, but new
arms of the latest pattern were supplied by their ardent sympathizers in
the belief that the negroes were only seeking means of protection. A
sharper who claimed to be connected with the government travelled through
some of the black counties, telling the negroes that they were mistreated
and must arm themselves for protection. He sold them certificates for
$2.50 each which he said would entitle the bearers to muskets if presented
at the arsenals at Selma, Vicksburg, etc.[974] Hence arose the fears of
the whites who were poorly armed.
In several instances where there was fear of negro insurrection the civil
authorities, backed by the militia, searched negro houses for concealed
weapons, and sometimes found supplies of arms, which were confiscated.
There was a general desire to disarm the freedmen until after Christmas,
when the expected insurrection failed to materialize; but no order for
disarming was issued by the governor, and a bill for that purpose was
defeated in the legislature. Some of the militia companies undertook to
patrol the country to scare the negroes with a show of force,[975] and in
some places disguised patrols rode through the negro settlements to keep
them in order. There were several instances of unauthorized disarming and
lawless plunder under the pretence of disarming the blacks, by marauders
who took advantage of the state of public feeling and followed the example
of the disguised patrol bands. General Swayne himself was afraid of negro
insurrection, and before Christmas did not interfere with the attempts of
the whites to control the blacks. After Christmas the negroes quieted
down, and most of them made some pretence of working. The next case of
disarming that occurred brought the interference of General Swayne, who
ordered that neither the civil nor the military authorities should again
interfere with the negroes under any pretext, unless by permission from
himself. He threatened to send a negro garrison into any community where
the blacks might be interfered with. After that, he says, the people were
"more busy in making a living," and the militia organizations disbanded.
Two classes of the population were now beyond the reach of the civil
government, the "loyalists" and the negroes, and the civil authorities
maintained that these were the source of most disorder.[976]
An act of Congress, July 2, 1862, prescribed that every person elected or
appointed to any office under the United States government should, before
entering upon the duties of the office, subscribe to the "iron-clad" test
oath,[977] which obliged one to swear that he had never aided in any way
the Confederate cause. Outside of the few genuine Union men of North
Alabama, there were not half a dozen respectable white men in the state
who could take such an oath. Those who had been opposed to secession had
nearly all aided in the prosecution of the war or had held office under
the Confederate government. The thousands who had fallen away from the
Confederates in the last year of the war could not take the oath. The
women could not take it, and few even of the negroes could. Those who
could take the oath were detested by all, and the unfitness of such
persons for holding office was clearly recognized by the administration.
By law, certain Federal offices had to be filled by men who lived in the
county or state. The Federal service did not exist in Alabama at the end
of the war, and the President and Cabinet, agreeing that the requirement
of the oath could not be enforced, made temporary appointments in the
Treasury and postal service of men who could not take the oath. In Alabama
the men appointed were the old conservatives, those who had opposed
secession. The officers appointed were marshals and deputy marshals,
collectors and assessors of internal revenue, customs officers, and
postmasters. Objection was made in Congress to the payment of these
officers, and Secretary McCulloch of the Treasury made a report on the
subject. He stated that it was difficult to find competent persons who
could take the oath, and that it was better for the public service and for
the people that their own citizens should perform the unpleasant duty of
collecting taxes from an exhausted people. There was no civil government
whatever, and it was necessary that the Federal service be established. In
regard to future appointments, he said, it would be difficult, if not
impossible, to find competent men in the South who could take the oath,
that very few persons of character and intelligence had failed to connect
themselves in some way with the insurgent cause. The persons who could
present clean records for loyalty would have been able to present equally
fair records to the Confederate government had it succeeded, or else they
lacked the proper qualifications. Northern men of requisite qualifications
would not go South for the compensation offered. For the government to
collect taxes in the southern states by the hands of strangers was not
advisable. Better for the country politically and financially to suspend
the collection of internal revenue taxes in the South for months or years
than to collect them by men not identified with the taxpayers in sympathy
or interest. It would be a calamity to the nation and to the cause of
civil liberty everywhere if, instead of a policy of conciliation, the
action of the government should tend to intensify sectional feeling. To
make tax-gatherers at the South of men who were strangers to the people
would be a most unfortunate course for the government to pursue, and fatal
consequences, he thought, would follow such a policy. He asked that the
oath be modified so that the men in office could take it.[978] The
Postmaster-General made similar recommendations.[979]
For years after the war the test oath obstructed administration and
justice in the South. The Alabama lawyers could not take the oath, and
United States courts could not be held because there were no lawyers to
practise before them. There were many cases of property libelled which
should have come before the United States courts, but it was not
possible.[980] As men of character could not be found to fill the offices,
the Post-office Department tried to get women to take the post-offices,
but they could not take the test oath. Many post-offices remained closed,
and mail matter was sent by express. Letters were thrown out at a station
or given to a negro to carry to the proper person. Juries in the Federal
courts had to take practically the same oath as the "iron-clad," and the
jury oath was in existence long after the others were modified. So for
years a fair jury trial was in many localities impossible.[981]
The effect of the proscription by the test oaths of the only men who were
fit for office was distinctly bad. It drove the old
Whig-coöperationist-Unionist men into affiliation with the secessionists
and Democrats. The division of the whites into different parties was made
less likely. The Senate regularly rejected nominations made by the
President of men who could not take the oath,[982] and the military
authorities were inclined to enforce the taking of the test oath by the
state and local officials of the provisional government.[983]
The convention ordered an election, on November 30, for governor, state
and county officials, and legislature. There were three candidates for
governor, all respectable, conservative men, old-line Whigs, from north
Alabama, the stronghold of those who had opposed secession. They were R.
M. Patton of Lauderdale, M. J. Bulger of Tallapoosa, and W. R. Smith of
Tuscaloosa.[984] The section of Alabama where the spirit of secession had
been strongest refrained from putting forward any candidate. The radical
"loyalists" had no candidate. The few prominent men of that faction saw
that it would be political suicide for them to commit themselves to the
Johnson plan after he had begun the pardoning process, and were now
working to overthrow the present political institutions. Only in case the
plan of the Radicals in Congress should succeed would the "loyalists" get
any share in the spoils. The Conservative candidates were in sympathy with
the north Alabama desire for "a white man's government." Mr. Patton in the
late convention had secured the revision of the constitution so as to base
representation on the white population. During the war General M. J.
Bulger, the second candidate, made a speech at Selma in which he said he
had opposed secession and had refused to sign the ordinance, but had
deemed it his duty to fight when the time came and had served throughout
the war. There could be, he said, no negro suffrage, no negro
equality.[985] W. R. Smith had been the leader of the coöperationists in
the convention of 1861. The election resulted in the choice of R. M.
Patton of Lauderdale over Bulger and Smith by a good majority.[986]
The new legislature met on November 20, but Patton was not inaugurated
until a month later, owing to the refusal of the Washington administration
to allow Parsons to resign the government into the hands of what the
administration intended should be the permanent, "restored" state
government. The object in the delay was the desire of the President to
have the Thirteenth Amendment ratified before he relinquished the state
government. It was a queer mixture of a government--an elected
constitutional legislature and a governor and state administration
appointed by the commander-in-chief of the army.[987] The legislature was
recognized, but the governor elected at the same time was not. Several
acts of legislation were done by this military-constitutional government
during the thirty days of its existence, the most important being the
ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment by the legislature. This was done
with the understanding, the resolution stated, that it did not confer upon
Congress the power to legislate upon the political status of the freedmen
in Alabama.[988] The amendment was ratified December 2, 1865, and on the
10th, Secretary Seward telegraphed to Parsons that the time had arrived
when in the judgment of the President the care and conduct of the proper
affairs of the state of Alabama might be remitted to the constitutional
authorities chosen by the people. Parsons was relieved, the instructions
stated, from the trust imposed in him as provisional governor. When the
governor-elect should be qualified, Parsons was to transfer papers and
property to him and retire.[989] On the strength of these instructions
Governor Patton was inaugurated December 13, 1865. In his inaugural
address the new governor said that the extinction of slavery was one of
the inevitable results of the war. "We shall not only extend to the
freedmen all their legitimate rights," he stated, "but shall throw around
them such effectual safeguards as will secure them in their full and
complete enjoyment. At the same time it must be understood that
politically and socially ours is a white man's government. In the future,
as has been the case in the past, the state affairs of Alabama must be
guided and controlled by the superior intelligence of the white man. The
negro must be made to realize that freedom does not mean idleness and
vagrancy. Emancipation has not left him where he can live without
work."[990]
Though Patton was inaugurated on December 13, the Washington authorities
did not authorize the formal transfer of the government until December 18,
and the charge was made on December 20, 1865.
The legislature at once elected ex-Governor Parsons and George S. Houston
to the United States Senate. The people had already elected six
congressmen of moderate politics.[991] So far as concerned the state of
Alabama, the presidential plan of restoration was complete, if Congress
would recognize the work.
A proclamation of the President on December 1, revoking and annulling the
suspension of the writ of _habeas corpus_, expressly excepted all the
southern states and the southern border states. It was not until April 2,
1866, that the President declared the rebellion at an end.[992] He had
little faith in his restored governments, or else he liked to interfere,
and he still retained the power to do so.
CHAPTER IX
THE SECOND PROVISIONAL ADMINISTRATION
Status of the Provisional Government
It was generally understood in the state that while Congress was opposed
to the presidential plan of restoration and repudiated it as soon as it
convened, yet if the state conventions should abolish slavery, and the
state legislatures should ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, their
representatives would be admitted to Congress. This was the meaning, it
seemed, of a resolution offered in the Senate December 4, 1865, by Charles
Sumner, one of the most radical of the Radical leaders.[993] On the same
day, in the House of Representatives, Thaddeus Stevens, the Radical leader
of the lower house, introduced a resolution, which was adopted, to appoint
a joint committee of the Senate and House to inquire into conditions in
the southern states. Until the committee should make a report, no
representatives from the southern states should be admitted to
Congress.[994] Under this resolution, the Committee of Fifteen on
Reconstruction was appointed. In order to support a report in favor of the
congressional plan of reconstruction and to justify the overturning of the
southern state governments, the committee took testimony at Washington
which was carefully calculated to serve as a campaign document. Such
Radicals as Stevens professed to believe that the arbitrary rule of the
President was hateful to the southern people. Stevens said: "That they
would disregard and scorn their present constitutions forced upon them in
the midst of martial law, would be most natural and just. No one who has
any regard for freedom of elections can look upon these governments,
forced upon them in duress, with any favor."[995] Just exactly how much of
this he meant may be inferred from his later course as leader of the
Radicals of the House, in the movement which forced the negro-carpet-bag
government upon the southern states. Now Stevens proposed to "take no
account of the aggregation of whitewashed rebels who, without any legal
authority, have assembled in the capitals of the late rebel states and
simulated legislative bodies."[996]
The Republican caucus instructed Edward McPherson, clerk of the House, to
omit from the roll the names of the members-elect from the South as
certified by the Secretary of State. This was done, and the southern
congressmen were not even allowed the usual privileges of
contestants.[997]
As soon as the leaders in Congress felt that they were strong enough to
carry through their plan to destroy the governments erected under the
President's plan, they agreed that no senator or representative from any
southern state should be admitted to either branch of Congress until both
houses should have declared such state entitled to representation.[998]
The state governments were recognized as provisional only, and for a year
or more Congress was occupied in the fight with the President over
Reconstruction. The consequence was that Patton became provisional
governor of a territory and not the constitutional governor of a state.
The state suffered from much government at this time. First, came the
military authorities with military commissions; then, the Freedmen's
Bureau with its courts supported by the military; the Bureau also acted
independently of the army and with civilian officers; it was also a part
of the Parsons provisional government, and later of the Patton government,
and so controlled the minor officials of the state administration. To
complicate matters further, the President constantly interfered by order
or direction with all the various administrations, for all were subject to
his supervision. The many governments were bound up with one another, and
by interfering with the action of one another increased the general
confusion. The people lost respect for authority, and only public opinion
served to regulate the conduct of individuals.
Legislation about Freedmen
For several months the industrial system was entirely disorganized,
especially in the neighborhood of the cities, and many people realized the
absolute necessity of laws to regulate negro labor. The negro insisted on
taking a living from the country without working for it. There were also
fears of insurrection by the idle negroes who were waiting for the
division of spoils, and General Swayne of the Bureau felt a touch of the
apprehension.[999]
When the legislature met, a few of the demagogues who had told their
constituents that they would soon regulate all troubles introduced many
bills to regulate labor, and thousands of copies were printed for
distribution. On December 15 it was agreed to print ten thousand copies of
all bills relating to freedmen.[1000] This was done, and though the
governor had not approved them, the country members went home with pockets
full of bills introduced by themselves, to show to their constituents and
to scare the negroes into work. The regulations proposed made special
provision for the freedmen, and under different circumstances it would
have been well for the negro if they had been passed into law and
enforced; but it was not good policy at this time to propose such
regulations, in view of the fact that the Radicals were watching for such
action and hoping for it. However, it is probable that nothing that the
southern whites could have done would have met with the approval of the
Radicals.
Governor Patton asked General Swayne for advice in regard to the pending
bills relating to freedmen, and Swayne informed him of the probable bad
effect on public opinion in the North. After Christmas the Senate passed
some obnoxious bills, and these the governor vetoed. The other bills that
came up from the lower house failed to pass in the Senate. Similar bills,
modified in many details, but which would have been of much use could they
have been enforced as law, were passed by both houses only to be vetoed by
the governor. The negroes were now showing a disposition to work, and the
legislature did not attempt to pass the bills over the governor's veto.
Next, a law relating to contracts between whites and blacks was attempted.
General Swayne was known to favor such a law, but Governor Patton vetoed
it. He declared that such a law would cause much trouble; he had
information that everywhere freedmen were going to work on terms
satisfactory to both parties and that they were disposed to discharge
their obligations, and there should not be, he said, one law for whites
and another for blacks; special laws for regulating contracts between
whites and freedmen would do no good and might cause harm; the common law
gave sufficient remedy for violations of contracts, viz. damages. General
Swayne had been strongly of the opinion that contracts regularly made and
carefully inspected on behalf of the negro were necessary. Later he came
to the conclusion that the negro needed no protection by contract or by
special law; that he had a much better protection in the demand for his
labor, and would only be injured by artificial safeguards; contracts would
cause litigation, and it was best for both parties to be able to break an
engagement at pleasure. He was of the opinion that the whites preferred
contracts, while the negro disliked to bind himself to anything. Hunger
and cold, he declared, were the best incentives to labor. Swayne further
reported that all objectionable bills relating to freedom had been
vetoed.[1001]
A bill passed both houses to extend to freedmen the old criminal laws of
the state formerly applicable to free persons of color. Governor Patton
vetoed the bill on the ground that a system of laws enacted during slavery
was not applicable to present conditions. He showed how the proposed laws
would act, and the legislature not only accepted the veto, but repealed
all such laws then in the code and on the statute books.[1002] At the
close of the session there were two laws on the statute books which made a
distinction before the law between negroes and whites. The first made it a
misdemeanor, with a penalty of $100 fine and ten days' imprisonment, to
purchase or receive from a "free person of color" any stolen goods,
knowing the same to have been stolen.[1003]
The second act gave the freedmen the right to sue and be sued, to plead
and be imprisoned, in the state courts to the same extent as whites. They
were competent to testify only in open court, and in cases in which
freedmen were concerned directly or indirectly. Neither interest in the
suit nor marriage should disqualify any black witness.[1004] This law, if
restrictive at all, was never in force in the lower courts where minor
magistrates and judicial officers presided; for, by the order of the
convention and later of the legislature, the state officials were _ex
officio_ agents of the Freedmen's Bureau, and sworn to make no distinction
between white and black.[1005]
Two laws were passed for the purpose of regulating labor, in theory
applicable equally to white and black. They had the approval of General
Swayne, who was always present when labor legislation was discussed.[1006]
The first law made it a misdemeanor to interfere with, to hire, entice
away, or induce to leave the service of another any laborer or servant who
had made a contract in writing, as long as the contract was in force,
unless by consent of the employer given in writing or verbally "in the
presence of some reputable white person." The penalty for inducing a
laborer to break a contract was a fine of $50 to $500,--in no case less
than double the amount of the injury sustained by the employer; and half
the fine was to go to the injured party.[1007] The compilers of the Penal
Code refused to incorporate this statute into the code on the ground that
it was inconsistent with other provisions of the code as adopted by the
legislature. The Penal Code had an old ante-bellum provision which made it
a penal offence to entice, decoy, or persuade a servant or apprentice to
leave the service of his master. The penalty was a fine of $20 to $100,
and imprisonment for not more than three months might also be
allowed.[1008]
The second labor law defined the relations of master and apprentice. The
war had made orphans of many thousand children, white and black, and there
were few people who could look after them. Under slavery no regulation of
such things had been necessary for negro children. Now the children were
running wild, in want, neglected, becoming criminals and vagabonds. Negro
fathers ran off when freedom came, left their wives and children, and took
unto themselves other and younger wives. The negro mother, left alone,
often incapable and without judgment, could not support her children; and
many negro children were found both of whose parents had died, or who had
deserted them. As a result of the war, there were many white orphan
children and many widowed mothers who were unable to care for their
children. For years (1862-1875) there was much suffering among the
children of the poorer whites and the negroes. The apprentice law was an
extension of an old statute, and was designed to make it possible to care
for these dependent children. It was made the duty of county officials to
report to the probate courts all minors under the age of eighteen who were
destitute orphans, or whose parents refused or were unable to support
them; and the court was to apprentice them to suitable persons. In case
the minor were the child of a freedman, the former owner should have the
preference when he or she should be proven a suitable person. In such
cases the probate judge was to keep a record of all the proceedings. The
master to whom the minor was apprenticed was obliged to give bond that he
would furnish the apprentice sufficient food and clothing, treat him
humanely, furnish medical attention in case of sickness, and teach or have
him taught to read and write, whether white or black, if under the age of
fifteen. Power was given to inflict such punishment as a father or
guardian might inflict on a child or ward, but in no case should the
punishment be cruel. In case the apprentice should leave the employment of
the master without the consent of the latter, he might be arrested by the
master and carried before a justice of the peace, whose duty it was to
remand the apprentice to the service of his master. If the apprentice
refused to return, he was to be committed to jail until the next session
of the probate court, which would investigate the case, and, if convinced
that the apprentice had not good cause for leaving his master, would
punish the apprentice under the vagrancy laws. If the court should decide
that the apprentice had good cause to leave his master, he was to be
released from the indenture and the master fined not more than $100, which
was to be given to the apprentice. Apprenticeship was to end at the age of
twenty-one for men and eighteen for women. Parents could bind out minor
children under the regulations of this act.[1009] It was a penal offence
to sell or give intoxicating liquors to apprentices or to gamble with
them.[1010]
The definition of vagrancy was extended to include stubborn and refractory
servants, laborers, and servants who loitered away their time or refused,
without cause, to comply with a contract for service. A vagrant might be
fined $50 and costs, and hired out until the fine was paid, but could not
be hired for a longer time than six months. The proceeds of fines and
hiring in all cases were to go to the county treasury for the benefit of
the poor.[1011]
These statutes form the so-called "Slave Code" or "Black Code" of the
state which was so harshly criticised by the Radicals as being designed to
reënslave the negroes.[1012] There is no doubt that if enforced they would
have affected the blacks more than the whites, though they were meant to
apply to both.[1013] Something of the kind was felt to be a necessity.
There were hundreds of negroes wandering about the country, living by
petty theft, and some rascally whites made it a business to purchase
stolen property, especially cotton, from them. White vagrants were
numerous. The refuse of both armies and numbers of the most worthless
whites, who had lost all they had in the war, travelled about the country
as tramps, their sole occupation being to victimize the ignorant by some
scheme. Stringent laws, strictly enforced, would have done much to restore
order.[1014]
The Negro under the Provisional Government
The lawlessness prevalent in the state consequent upon civil war and
emancipation had resulted in filling the jails with all sorts and
conditions of criminals--mostly negroes--who were charged with minor
offences, such as stealing, fighting, burning, which were committed during
the jubilee after the coming of the Federal troops. They were clearly
guilty of the crimes alleged, since they were imprisoned by consent of the
Freedmen's Bureau, which allowed no negro to be arrested without its
permission. There were some whites confined for similar small offences,
and there were many "union" men, or "rebels," according to locality, who
were under arrest for crimes committed during the war. Most of the crimes
were not serious or were committed under the abnormal conditions of war.
The governor, after consultation with General Swayne, "with entire
singleness of purpose" (Swayne), issued a proclamation of amnesty and
pardon[1015] for all offences, except murder and rape, committed between
April 13, 1861, and July 20, 1865.[1016] Many hundred prisoners were thus
liberated, among them eight hundred freedmen[1017] confined for
penitentiary offences. No bad results followed.[1018]
By state law and military order the negro was now freed from slavery and
given all the civil rights possessed by the whites, unless in certain
cases of law between whites in the higher courts where the negro was not
permitted to testify. In all cases concerning his own race, directly or
indirectly, his standing before the court was the same as that of a white
or better. The races were forbidden to intermarry. The apprentice and
vagrancy laws, which were meant to regulate the economic relations between
the races, could not be enforced because of technical and practical
difficulties, and because the officials who were to enforce them were _ex
officio_ agents of the Bureau and therefore forbidden to enforce such
laws. The Bureau upheld the negro in all his rights and much beyond. There
was the most urgent demand for his labor, and to secure his wages there
was a lien on the employer's crop. The negro was free to come and go when
he pleased, and his pleasure led him to do this so often that written
contracts fell into immediate disfavor on account of the useless
litigation and disputes that ensued. Many of the more thrifty blacks began
to acquire small bits of property.
The travellers who visited the South in the fall of 1865 and in 1866
agreed (except Schurz) that there was no thought of reënslavement of the
negro by the white; that the white was more afraid of the negro than the
negro of the white; that there was no need of protection, for the demand
for his labor would protect him. There were more colored artisans than
white, and all were sure of employment. At first the strong conviction
that they were not free unless they were careering around the country in
idleness resulted in a general wandering. In the fall and winter a large
majority returned to their old homes. "Once being assured of their liberty
to go and come at will, they generally returned to the service of the
southerner."[1019] The courts gave substantial justice, it was reported;
the judge and jury would prefer the case of a black to that of a mean
white man; negro testimony in lawsuits was more and more favored, and the
standing of the negro in the courts became more and more secure.
Conditions as to the treatment of the negroes were steadily
improving.[1020] An unfriendly critic who travelled through the Gulf
states said that the negro was fairly well paid and fairly well
treated.[1021] A charge to the grand jury of Pike County by Judge Henry D.
Clayton, on September 9, 1866, will serve to show the sentiments of the
judicial officers and members of the bar as well as juries. It was
reprinted at the North as a campaign document. The following is a
summary:--
A certain class of our population is clothed with civil rights and
privileges that it did not possess until recently, and in dealing with
them some embarrassment will be felt. One of the results of the war was
the freedom of the black race. We deplore the result as injurious to the
country and fatal to the negroes, but we are in honor bound to observe the
laws which acknowledge their freedom. "When I took off my sword in
surrender, I determined to observe the terms of that surrender with the
same earnestness and fidelity with which I first shouldered my musket." We
may cherish the glorious memories of that past, in the history of which
there is nothing of which we need be ashamed, but now we have to
reëstablish society and rebuild our ruined homes. Those unwilling to
submit to this condition of things may seek homes abroad.[1022] We are
bound to this soil for better or for worse. What is our duty? Let us deal
with the facts as they are. The negro has been made free, though he did
not seek freedom. Nominally free, he is beyond expression helpless by his
want of self-reliance, of experience, of ability to understand and
appreciate his condition. For promoting his welfare and adapting him to
this new relation to society, all agencies from abroad will prove
inadequate. The task is for us who understand him. To remedy the evil
growing out of abolition two things are necessary: (1) we must recognize
the freedom of the race as a fact, enact just and humane laws, and
willingly enforce them; (2) we must in all our relations with the negro
treat him with perfect fairness. We shall thus convince the world of our
good faith, get rid of the system of espionage [the Freedmen's Bureau] by
removing the pretext for its necessity, and secure the services of the
negroes, teach them their place, and convince them that we are their
friends. We need the labor of the negro and it is worth the effort to
secure it. We owe the negro no grudge; he has done nothing to provoke our
hostility; freedom was forced upon him. "He may have been the companion of
your boyhood; he may be older than you, and perhaps carried you in his
arms when an infant. You may be bound to him by a thousand ties which only
a southern man knows, and which he alone can feel in all their force. It
may be that when, only a few years ago, you girded on your cartridge box
and shouldered your trusty rifle to go to meet the invaders of your
country, you committed to his care your home and your loved ones; and when
you were far away upon the weary march, upon the dreadful battle-field, in
the trenches, and on the picket line, many and many a time you thought of
that faithful old negro, and your heart warmed toward him."[1023]
Movement toward Negro Suffrage
The Freedmen's Bureau and the provisional government had set aside,
repealed, or suspended laws which treated the negro as a separate class.
It was soon seen that the civil government had little real authority,
being frequently overruled by the officials of the army and Bureau and by
the President. The civil officials became accustomed to considering Swayne
or Woods, the commander of the troops in Alabama, rather than the state
government, as the source of authority. It was known that the Radicals
were bent on giving the ballot to the negro and on disfranchising southern
political and military leaders. Some politicians began to consider the
question of giving the ballot to the negro under certain restrictions.
This was not done from any faith in the political intelligence of the
negro, or belief that he was fitted for or needed the exercise of the
franchise; for it was and is an article of the political faith of the
southern people that the exercise of suffrage is a high privilege, an
historical and inherited right, not the natural and absolute right of all
men. The reasons were very different, and were based entirely on
expediency and necessity: (1) Such action would forestall the Radical
programme and disarm, to some extent, the hostile party at the North. (2)
It would enable the native leaders, by conferring the privilege on the
negro, to gain his confidence, control his vote, and thereby make it
harmless. It was certain, it seemed, that two widely separated white
political parties would arise as soon as outside pressure should be
removed, and each hoped to get control of most of the negro vote. (3) Such
a measure would increase the representation of the state in the Congress,
thus giving them needed strength at a critical period. (4) The Black Belt
hoped in this way to regain its former political influence. The new
constitution, by making the white population the basis of representation,
had transferred political supremacy to the white counties.
As early as October, 1865, Truman remarked that some leaders were thinking
of giving the ballot to the negroes. He thought that suffrage for the
negroes would harm them and would inflame the lower classes of whites
against them. But if left to the leaders and politicians, they, for the
sake of increased representation in Congress, would bring the people
around, and by 1870 the negro would be voting.[1024] About the same time a
correspondent of _The Nation_ observed that there was no great objection
to giving the negro the ballot because the white leaders thought that they
could control it. It would not be opposed by the planters of the South,
but by the middle and poorer classes,--the merchants, mechanics, and
laborers.[1025] Early in 1866 Representative Brooks[1026] of Lowndes, a
black county, introduced a bill in the lower house providing for a
qualified negro suffrage based on education and property. It was laid on
the table, but not before a calm and dispassionate discussion. The bill
proposed by Brooks was opposed more because it disfranchised a large
number of whites than because it gave suffrage to the negro. The debates
showed that later the legislature would do something along that line if
assured that such a course would result in readmission into the Union. In
the discussion the idea was urged that something must be done to prevent
the Radicals from taking the question of suffrage to the central
government. This, it was held, would be dangerous to the South, with its
peculiar population, to which general Federal legislation would not well
apply, and hence it would be dangerous for the suffrage question to become
one of national instead of state concern. Then, too, the people were
intensely weary of provisional rule, and wanted to resume their proper
position in the Union.[1027]
The people of the north Alabama white counties, the hilly section of the
state, were opposed to any form of negro suffrage, though some of their
leaders who understood the state of affairs were willing to think of it as
a last resort to defeat the intentions of the Radicals. The Black Belt
people, who had less prejudice against the negro and who were sure that
they could control him and gain in political power, were more favorably
inclined. Left alone, the various interests would have united to carry
through the project in time. Suffrage so conferred upon the blacks would
have been strictly limited,--a premium offered, not a right
acknowledged,--under the control of the native white leaders and
supporting their interests, just exactly the situation of the lower-class
voters everywhere else, and the reverse of the southern situation since
1867.
One of the north Alabama leaders, L. Pope Walker,[1028] after consulting
with other prominent men, went to Montgomery and conferred with General
Swayne in regard to the state of affairs. Swayne gave assurance that a
qualified negro suffrage would be favorably received at the North, would
create a good impression, and assist, perhaps, in an early restoration of
the state to the Union. He knew that suffrage for the negro brought about
in this way would result in gaining the black vote for the southern and
probably for the Democratic party. Though a believer in the rights of all
men to vote and a strong Republican, Swayne was not then committed to the
Radical programme and was ready to encourage the movement. An opportunity
for the entering wedge was now at hand. Many of the minor magistrates and
the sheriffs were also administering the affairs of the Freedmen's Bureau,
and consequently were more or less under the direction of Swayne, who was
the assistant commissioner in Alabama. His instructions to agents, before
the convention, directed that all laws be administered without regard to
color. Governor Parsons approved these directions and required all
provisional officers to take oath accordingly. The convention sanctioned
this arrangement, and ordered it to continue until the close of the next
general assembly. This general assembly had practically continued the
arrangements already made. In consequence, the state officials, whether
willingly or not, were still, at the time when the movement for negro
suffrage began, obliged to obey the directions of Swayne. The bulk of the
people being opposed to the movement, it was proposed to make an
experiment on the responsibility of the Freedmen's Bureau and to use that
much-disliked institution as an instrument, for the people would not be
much surprised at anything it would do. So the sheriff of Madison County,
in the winter of 1866-1867, when some local election was at hand, wrote to
General Swayne, asking if the election laws also were to be carried out
regardless of color. He announced his willingness to carry out
instructions. Here was an opportunity to begin the experiment, but public
feeling became so irritated by the Radical measures in Congress that
nothing was done, the election was not held, and the Reconstruction Acts,
coming soon after, prejudiced the people more strongly than ever against
anything of the kind.[1029]
About December 1, 1866, a bill was introduced into the state legislature
"to amend the constitution of the state according to impartial suffrage,
and then ask representation, leaving the amnesty question in the hand of
Congress." Reporting this action to Chief Justice Chase, Swayne added:
"This I am told is popular, and the member is sustained by his
constituents."[1030] The legislature, at the same time, intended to reject
the Fourteenth Amendment.
It has been stated that in February, 1867, an effort was made, with the
indorsement of the President, to induce the southern legislatures which
had rejected the Fourteenth Amendment to adopt a qualified negro suffrage.
This was tried in Alabama and North Carolina, and probably hastened
congressional Reconstruction.[1031]
With the passage of the Reconstruction Acts and other congressional action
in regard to the negroes, affairs changed complexion rapidly. The
alienation of the races began. It was seen that the negro vote would now
be controlled by worthless outsiders and native whites. The expected
division of the whites into two well-defined parties did not occur; there
was an almost united white party. A few whites, indeed, there were who
were ready to try negro suffrage, not those, however, who had been
thinking of it during the past two years. The result of the war had
intensified party spirit. The old "Union" men were intensely bitter
against the secessionists or "precipitators," and in the present crisis
some otherwise good citizens were so blinded by party passion as to put
revenge above the welfare of their country, and were ready to accept the
aid of their former slaves in their fight against the men whom they
considered responsible for the present condition of affairs. Others who
now took up negro suffrage were mere politicians, content to take office
at any price to the country, and who could never hope for office until
existing institutions were destroyed.[1032]
New Conditions of Congress and Increasing Irritation
The first general assembly under the provisional government ratified the
Thirteenth Amendment, "with the understanding that it does not confer upon
Congress the power to legislate upon the political status of freedmen in
this state."[1033] The same legislature requested the President to order
the withdrawal of the Federal troops on duty in Alabama, for their
presence was a source of much disorder and there was no need of
them.[1034]
The President was asked to release Hon. C. C. Clay, Jr., who was still in
prison.[1035] At the end of the session a resolution was adopted approving
the policy of President Johnson and pledging coöperation with his "wise,
firm, and just" work; asserting that the results of the late contest were
conclusive, and that there was no desire to renew discussion on settled
questions; denouncing the misrepresentations and criminal assaults on the
character and interest of the southern people; declaring that it was a
misfortune of the present political conditions that there were persons
among them whose interests were promoted by false representations;
confidence was expressed in the power of the administration to protect the
state from malign influences; slavery was abolished and should not be
reëstablished; the negro race should be treated with humanity, justice,
and good faith, and every means be used to make them useful and
intelligent members of society; but "Alabama will not voluntarily consent
to change the adjustment of political power as fixed by the Constitution
of the United States, and to constrain her to do so in her present
prostrate and helpless condition, with no voice in the councils of the
nation, would be an unjustifiable breach of faith."[1036]
During the year 1866 there was a growing spirit of independence in the
Alabama politics. At no time had there been a subservient spirit, but for
a time the people, fully accepting the results of the war, were disposed
to do nothing more than conform to any reasonable conditions which might
be imposed, feeling sure that the North would impose none that were
dishonorable. To them at first the President represented the feeling of
the people of the North, perhaps worse. The theory of state sovereignty
having been destroyed by the war, the state rights theories of Lincoln and
Johnson were easily accepted by the southerners, who were content, after
Johnson had modified his policy, to leave affairs in his hands. When the
serious differences between the executive and Congress appeared, and the
latter showed a desire to impose degrading terms on the South, the people
believed that their only hope was in Johnson. They believed the course of
Congress to be inspired by a desire for revenge. Heretofore the people had
taken little interest in public affairs. Enough voters went to the polls
and voted to establish and keep in operation the provisional government.
The general belief was that the political questions would settle
themselves or be settled in a manner fairly satisfactory to the South. Now
a different spirit arose. The southerners thought that they had complied
with all the conditions ever asked that could be complied with without
loss of self-respect. The new conditions of Congress exhausted their
patience and irritated their pride. Self-respecting men could not tamely
submit to such treatment.[1037]
During the latter part of 1865 and in 1866, ex-Governor Parsons travelled
over the North, speaking in the chief cities in support of the policy of
the President. He asked the northern people to rebuke at the polls the
political fanatics who were inflaming the minds of the people North and
South. He demanded the withdrawal of the military. There had been, he
said, no sign of hostility since the surrender; the people were opposed to
any legislation which would give the negro the right to vote; and it was
the duty of the President, not of Congress, to enforce the laws.[1038]
Much angry discussion was caused by the passage of the Freedmen's Bureau
Bill in 1866. The Bureau officials had caused themselves to be hated by
the whites. They were a nuisance, when no worse, and useless,--a plague to
the people. Though there were comparatively few in the state, they were
the cause of disorder and ill-feeling between the races. Though there was
now even less need of the institution than a year before, the new measure
was much more offensive in its provisions.[1039] There was great
rejoicing when the President vetoed the bill, which the _Mobile Times_
called "an infamous disorganization scheme of radicalism." The Bureau had
become a political machine for work among white and black. The passage of
the bill over the veto was felt to be a blow at the prostrate South.[1040]
The Civil Rights Bill of 1866 was also a cause of irritation. There was a
disposition among the officials of the Freedmen's Bureau to enforce all
such measures before they became law. Orders were issued directing the
application of the principles of measures then before Congress. The United
States commissioner in Mobile decided that under the "Civil Rights
Bill"[1041] negroes could ride on the cars set apart for the whites.
Horton, the Radical military mayor of Mobile, banished to New Orleans an
idiotic negro boy who had been hired to follow him and torment him by
offensive questions. Horton was indicted under the "Civil Rights Bill" and
convicted. The people of Mobile were much pleased when a "Yankee official
was the first to be caught in the trap set for southerners."[1042]
Another citizen of Mobile, a magistrate, was haled before a Federal court,
charged with having sentenced a negro to be whipped, contrary to the
provisions of the "Civil Rights Bill." The magistrate explained that there
was nothing at all offensive about the whipping. He had not acted in his
magisterial capacity, but had himself whipped the negro boy for lying,
stealing, and neglect of duty while in his employ.[1043] The agent of the
Bureau at Selma notified the mayor that the "chain gang system of working
convicts on the streets had to be discontinued or he would be prosecuted
for violation of the 'Civil Rights Bill.'"[1044] Judge Hardy of Selma
decided in a case brought before him that the "Civil Rights Bill" was
unconstitutional. He declared it to be an attack on the independence of
the judiciary.[1045]
Rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment
In the fall of 1866 the proposed Fourteenth Amendment was submitted to the
legislature. There was no longer any belief that further yielding would do
any good; the more the people gave the more was asked. State Senator E. A.
Powell wrote to John W. Forney that the people would do nothing about the
Fourteenth Amendment because they were convinced that any action would be
useless. Condition after condition had been imposed and had been absolved;
slavery had been abolished, secession acknowledged a failure, and the war
debt repudiated by the convention; the legislature had ratified the
Thirteenth Amendment, had secured the negro in all the rights of property
and person; and after all the state was no nearer to restoration.[1046]
This was the view of nearly all the newspapers of the state, and in this
they represented popular opinion. They were intensely irritated by the
fact that, although they had made so many concessions, still they were
excluded from representation in Congress, and were heavily and unjustly
taxed.[1047] Moreover, they were opposed to the amendment because it
branded their best men as traitors.[1048] One newspaper, alone, advocated
adoption of the amendment as the least of evils.[1049]
John Forsyth, in the _Mobile Register_, said: "It is one thing to be
oppressed, wronged, and outraged by overwhelming force. It is quite
another to submit to voluntary abasement" by adopting the Fourteenth
Amendment. It should be rejected, he said, because it would disfranchise
the very best of the respectable whites, the beloved leaders of the
people. Judge Busteed, in a charge to the Federal grand jury, delivered a
political harangue advocating the adoption of the Amendment. Many ultra
"union" men in north Alabama opposed the Amendment for three reasons: (1)
though it would disfranchise the leaders, the great mass of the white
people would still be allowed to vote, especially those who had not held
civil office during the war; (2) some of these "union" men had been ardent
secessionists at the beginning and had thus compromised themselves, or
had been elected to the legislature or to some "bomb-proof" office during
the war--as "obstructionists," they claimed--and the proposed amendment
would disfranchise them along with the Confederate leaders; (3) this class
as a rule disliked the negro and never wanted negro suffrage if it were
possible to secure the overthrow of existing institutions without it. Two
planters of the Black Belt were ready for negro suffrage to one
"buckra."[1050] Those men who considered themselves "unionists" wanted no
negro suffrage, nor anything so weak as the Fourteenth Amendment; but
desired some kind of a military régime in which the United States
government should place them in permanent possession of the state
administration and exclude all who were not like themselves. The test
should be a political one, they said. It seems to be a fact that a few
hundred such men with, at the most, five thousand followers expected to
have the whole state administration under their direction for years. Yet
it would have required a special law of exemption for each of them in
order to protect them from the proscription which was to be visited upon
the ex-Confederates. For these "unionists" had often betrayed both sides
during the war. Their most patriotic duty had been "obstruction."
By most persons the question of negro political rights was considered to
belong to the state and was not a matter for the Federal government to
regulate. "Loyalists" as well as "rebels" were afraid to leave negro
affairs to the regulation of Congress. In his annual message to the
legislature, in November, 1866, Governor Patton advised the legislature
not to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, on the ground that it could do no
good and might do harm. It involved a creation of a penalty after the act.
On this point, he said that it was an _ex post facto_ law, and contrary to
the whole spirit of modern civilization; that such a mode of dealing with
citizens charged with offences against government belonged only to
despotic tyrants; that it might accomplish revengeful purposes, but that
was not the proper mode of administering justice; that adoption would
vacate merely all offices in most of the unrepresented states--governors,
judges, legislators, sheriffs, justices of peace, constables--and the
state governments would be completely broken up and reduced to utter and
hopeless anarchy; that the disabilities imposed by the test oath were
seriously detrimental to the interests of the government; that
ratification of the Amendment could not accomplish any good to the country
and might bring upon it irretrievable disaster.[1051]
Under the circumstances, the legislature refused to consider the
Amendment. But the governor during the next few weeks was induced by
various considerations to recommend the ratification, and on December 7,
1866, he sent a special message stating that there was a purpose on the
part of those who controlled the national legislation to enforce their own
terms of restoration at all hazards; and that their measures would
immeasurably augment the distress already existing and inaugurate endless
confusion. The cardinal principle of restoration seemed to be, he said,
favorable action on the Fourteenth Amendment. Upon principle he was
opposed to it. Yet necessity must rule. So now he recommended
reconsideration. If they should ratify and restoration should follow, they
might trust to time and their representatives to mitigate its harshness.
If they should ratify and admission should be delayed, it would serve as a
warning to other states and thus prevent the necessary number for
ratification.[1052]
The message created excitement in the legislature and the chances were
favorable for ratification; but ex-Governor Parsons, who was in the North,
advised against it. He thought the northern people would support the
President in the matter. The legislature refused to ratify by a vote of 27
to 2 in the Senate, and 69 to 8 in the House.[1053] Potter of Cherokee
gave notice that on January 15 he would move to reconsider the vote.
Governor Patton, moreover, was convinced that Congress meant to carry out
its plan of reconstruction, and that opposition might make matters worse.
General Swayne kept a strong pressure upon him, assuring him that Congress
would have its own way. During the Christmas holidays the governor made
speeches in north Alabama in favor of ratifying the Amendment. Congress
would require it, he said. On principle he opposed the measure, but it
must come at last. "Look the situation squarely in the face," he said;
only 2000 or 3000 men (himself included) would be deprived of office, and
to oppose Congress was to ruin the state, to territorialize it. There were
men in Washington, he said, who were already working in order to be made
provisional governor under the new régime.[1054] After the recess Patton
sent a second message recommending that the Amendment be adopted, since it
was the evident purpose of Congress to enforce their own terms.[1055] For
a day or two it was considered, General Swayne and the governor using
their influence with the members, and it seemed almost sure to be
ratified. But Parsons, then in Montgomery, telegraphed (January 17, 1867)
to the President that the legislature was reconsidering the Amendment.
Johnson replied saying that no possible good could come of such action;
that he did not believe the people of the country would sustain "any set
of individuals" in attempts to change the whole character of the
government, but that they would uphold those who stood by the
Constitution; and that there should be no faltering on the part of those
who were determined to sustain the coördinate departments of the
government in accordance with its original design. For the third time the
Amendment failed to pass.[1056] One of the last resolutions passed by the
provisional legislature before it was abolished by the Reconstruction Acts
was on February 1, 1867, in regard to memorializing Congress to establish
a uniform system of bankruptcy. Relief was needed, they stated, "yet the
promptings of self-respect forbid the propriety of further intruding our
appeals upon a Congress which refuses to recognize the state of Alabama
for any purpose other than that of taxation. It is a source of regret that
Congress has assumed an attitude toward the state of Alabama totally
incompatible with the mutual obligations of allegiance and
protection."[1057]
Political Conditions, 1865-1867; Formation of Parties
In the convention of 1865 two well-defined parties had appeared, though
generally, at that time, for the sake of harmony they acted together.
These parties grew farther and farther apart. One of them, consisting of
most of the people, especially of the central and southern section of the
state, supported the policy of the President. The other party was a motley
opposition. In it were the few original "Union" men, the tories, and many
more self-styled "union" men, who saw an opportunity for advancement for
themselves if the present government were overthrown. There were others
who thought that the old ruling class should now retire absolutely from
public life and allow their former followers to take their places. There
was a fair sprinkling of respectable men who were bitterly opposed to any
party or policy that suited the former Democrats, and believing that
Congress would not be too severe, they were willing to see three or four
thousand of the leaders disfranchised in order to get the state back into
the Union. They were willing also to become leaders themselves in the
place of those disfranchised.
During the year 1866 these parties were organized to some degree, held
meetings, and made bids for northern support. The opposition worked into
the hands of the Radical party at the North, though many of them did not
favor the full Radical programme, especially as regarded negro suffrage.
The other party took the name of the "Conservative" or "Democratic and
Conservative." It was composed of former Democrats, Whigs, Know-nothings,
Anti-Know-nothings, Bell and Everett men,--nearly all of the respectable
voting people. These allied with the "Conservative" party in other
southern states and with the Democrats in the North and formed the
"National Union Party." Its platform was essentially the presidential plan
of Reconstruction.[1058] The campaign of 1866 was made on many
issues,--the Civil Rights Bill, Freedmen's Bureau Bill, Fourteenth
Amendment, the plans of Reconstruction. Ex-Governor Parsons and other
prominent Alabamians spoke in the cities of the North in support of the
policy of the President. Ex-Governor Shorter, in a public letter, said
that he had been a "rebel" until the close of the war, and understood the
feeling of the people of Alabama. There had not been since the surrender
and there was not now, he said, any antagonism to the United States
government, and Reconstruction based on the assumption of this would be
harmful and hopeless. The people had given their allegiance to the
government and had remodelled their state organizations in good
faith.[1059]
"Southern outrages" now began afresh. The Radical press and Radical
politicians began to manufacture tales of outrage and cruelty on the part
of the southern whites against negroes. There had been all along a
disposition to look for "outrages" in the South, and the reports of Schurz
and the Joint Committee on Reconstruction seemed to put the seal of truth
on the tissue of falsehoods, and for campaign purposes "outrages" were
increased. For several years, judging from some accounts, the entire white
population--men, women, and children--must have given much of their time
to persecuting, beating, and killing negroes and northern men. The Radical
papers seized upon the silly things said or done by the idlers of
bar-rooms and street corners or printed in the small newspapers and
magnified them into the "threatening voice of a whole people." Against
this mistake General Swayne repeatedly protested. He had no special liking
for the southern people, but he scorned to misrepresent the true state of
affairs for political capital. During his stay in the state (more than two
years) the tenor of his reports was: There was no trouble from the
southern whites; northern men were welcomed in a business way; disorder
and lawlessness existed in sections of the state, but this was a natural
result of long war and civil strife among the people. In his reports,
Swayne repeatedly stated that as time went on the condition of affairs was
gradually improving. Newspaper correspondents sent to write up conditions
in the South went among the most worthless part of the population, in
bar-rooms, hotel lobbies, on street corners, in country groceries, and
wrote up the doings and sayings of these people as representative of all.
Even E. L. Godkin was not above doing such a thing at times.[1060] These
writers carefully recorded the idle talk about the negro and the North and
dressed it up for Radical information. A favorite plan was to find some
woman, coarse and vulgar and cruel-minded, and describe her and her
speeches as representative of southern women. The southern newspapers
republished such correspondence as specimens of Radical methods. The
whites were more and more irritated. This aggravating correspondence and
the more aggravating editorials continued in some papers long after the
Reconstruction period.[1061]
On the other hand, northern men received little or no social welcome in
the South. Most of them would not have been sought after in any section;
few representatives of northern culture came South. The indiscretions of
some caused the ostracism of all. But that was not the sole reason.
General Swayne seemed surprised at "social exclusion" and mentioned it
before the Reconstruction sub-committee. But, said an Alabama
correspondent, what else can he expect? Why is he surprised? Can the
sister, the mother, and the father who have lost their loved ones care to
meet those who did the deeds? They meet with respectful treatment; let
them not ask too much.[1062]
What the people needed and wanted was a settled and certain policy. The
mixed administrations of the provisional authorities and the President, of
the Freedmen's Bureau and the army, did not result in respect for the
laws. The talk of confiscation and disfranchisement kept the people
irritated. They thought that they had already complied with the conditions
imposed precedent to admission to the Union and now believed that Congress
was acting in bad faith. Many were willing to affiliate even with
conservative Republicans in order to overthrow the Radicals. Much was
hoped for in the way of good results from the "National Union" movement.
Few or none of the northern business men in the state thought that the
Radical plan was necessary. They did not expect or desire its
success.[1063]
There was a convention of the Conservative party at Selma in July, 1866.
Delegates were elected to the National Union convention at
Philadelphia.[1064] The Selma convention indorsed the policy of Johnson
and condemned the Radical party as the great obstacle to peace. The most
prominent men of the state were present, representing both of the old
parties--Whigs and Democrats.[1065] The national platform adopted in
Philadelphia stated the principles to which the southerners had now
committed themselves, viz.: the war had decided the national character of
the Constitution; but the restrictions imposed by it upon the general
government were unchanged and the rights and authority of the states were
unimpaired; representation in Congress and in the electoral college was a
right guaranteed by the Constitution to every state, and Congress had no
power to deny such right; Congress had no power to regulate the suffrage;
there is no right of withdrawal from the Union; amendments to the
Constitution must be made as provided for by the Constitution, and all
states had the right to a vote on an amendment; negroes should receive
protection in all rights of person and property; the national debt was
declared inviolable, the Confederate debt utterly invalid; and Andrew
Johnson's administration was indorsed.[1066]
Ex-Governor Parsons and others from Alabama spoke in New York, New Jersey,
Maine, and Pennsylvania, at National Union meetings. Parsons told the
North that the conservative people of Alabama were in charge of the
administration, and would not send extreme men to Congress; the
representatives chosen had opposed secession. The "Union" party,--a large
one in the state,--he said, had hoped that after the war each individual
would have to answer for himself, but instead all were suffering in
common.[1067]
The opposition party was weak in numbers and especially weak in leaders.
The tory and deserter element, with a few from the obstructionists of the
war time and malcontents of the present who wanted office, made up the
native portion of the party. Northern adventurers, principally agents of
the Freedmen's Bureau, teachers and missionaries, and men who had failed
to succeed in some southern speculation, with a number of those who follow
in the path of armies to secure the spoils, composed the alien wing of the
opposition party.[1068] The fundamental principle upon which the existence
of the party was based required the destruction of present institutions
and the creation of a new political people who should be kept in power by
Federal authority. The northern soldiers of fortune saw at once that it
would be necessary to give the ballot to the negro. The native Radicals
disliked the idea of negro suffrage and seemed to think that the central
government should proscribe all others, place them in power and hold them
there by armed force until they could create a party.
Such a party could secure a northern alliance only with the extreme
Radical wing of the Republican party. A convention of "Southern Unionists"
was held in Washington, in July, 1866, which issued an address to the
"loyalists" of the South, declaring that the reconstruction of the
southern state governments must be based on constitutional principles, and
the present despotism under an atrocious leadership must not be permitted
to remain; the rights of the citizens must not be left to the protection
of the states, but Congress must take charge of the matter and make
protection coextensive with citizenship; under the present state
governments, with "rebels" controlling, there would be no safety for
loyalists,--they must rely on Congress for protection. A meeting of
"southern loyalists" was called to be held in September, in Independence
Hall in Philadelphia.[1069] The Alabama delegates to this convention were
George Reese, D. H. Bingham, M. J. Saffold, and J. H. Larcombe. This
Philadelphia convention condemned the "rebellion as unparalleled for its
causelessness, its cruelty, and its criminality." "The unhappy policy" of
the President was "unjust, oppressive, and intolerable." The policy of
Congress was indorsed, but regret was expressed that it did not provide
by law for the greater security of the "loyal" people in the southern
states. Demand was made for "the establishment of influences of patriotism
and justice" in each of the southern states. Washington, Lincoln, the
Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia, and Independence Hall--all were
brought in. The question of negro suffrage was discussed, and most of the
delegates favored it. Of the five delegates from Alabama, two announced
themselves against it.[1070] At a Radical convention in Philadelphia about
the same time the delegates from Alabama were Albert Griffin, an
adventurer from Ohio; D. H. Bingham, a bitter tory, almost demented with
hate; and M. J. Saffold, who had been an obstructionist during the war.
Here was the beginning of the alliance of carpet-bagger and scalawag that
was destined to ruin the state in six years of peace worse than four years
of war had done. The convention indulged in unstinted abuse of Johnson and
demanded "no mercy" for Davis. Bingham was one of the committee that
presented the hysterical report demanding the destruction of the
provisional governments in the South. Saffold opposed the negro suffrage
plank. He had no prejudice himself, he explained, but thought it was not
expedient. He was hissed and evidently brought to the correct
opinion.[1071]
After the report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction in 1866 it was
believed by the Radicals that Congress would be victorious over the
President, and the party in Alabama that expected to control the
government under the new régime began to hold meetings and organize
preparatory to dividing the offices. January 8-9, 1867, a thinly attended
"Unconditional Union Mass-meeting" was held at Moulton, in Lawrence
County. Eleven of the counties of north Alabama were represented, the hill
and mountain people predominating. Nicholas Davis, who presided, said that
none but "loyal" men must control the states, lately in rebellion.[1072]
The action of Congress was commended by the convention; the proposed
Fourteenth Amendment was indorsed; and Congress was asked to distinguish
between the "precipitators" and those "coerced or otherwise led by the
usurpers."[1073] They asked for $100 a year bounty for all Union soldiers
from north Alabama, and for the compensation of Unionists for property
lost during the war. The leaders here present were Freedmen's Bureau
agents, Confederate deserters, and former obstructionists.[1074]
A "Union" convention was held in Huntsville, March 4, 1867. Seventeen
north Alabama counties were represented by much the same crowd that
attended the Moulton convention.[1075] General Swayne was there, carried
along by the current, and, it was said, hoping for high office under the
new régime.[1076] The convention declared that a large portion of the
people of the South had been opposed to secession, but rather than have
civil war at home had acquiesced in the revolution; that the true position
of these "unionists" now was with the party that would protect them
against future rebellion; it was necessary that the Federal government be
strengthened; the "union" men of each county were asked to hold meetings
and send delegates to a state convention to be held during the
summer.[1077]
The spring of 1867 saw the white Radical party stronger than it ever was
again. The few native whites who were to take part in the Reconstruction
had chosen their side. After this time the party gradually lost all its
respectable members. The carpet-baggers and Bureau agents had not yet
shown their strength. The scalawags did not foresee that to the
carpet-baggers would fall the lion's share of the plunder, owing to their
control over the negro vote.
The President's plan failed, not because of any inherent defect in itself,
but because of the bungling manner in which it was administered. If
President Johnson had been content to place confidence in any one of the
agencies to which were intrusted the government of the South, it would
have been better. Had the governments set up by him been endowed with
vigor, it is probable that Congress would not have fallen wholly under the
control of the Radicals. The penalty for the indiscretions of the
President was visited upon the South. To-day the southern people like to
believe that, had Lincoln lived, his policy would have succeeded, and the
horrors of Reconstruction would have been mitigated or prevented.
Johnson's policy was that of Lincoln, except that he reserved to himself a
much larger part in setting up and running the provisional governments. He
established state governments, pronounced them constitutional, completed,
perfected, and asked Congress to recognize them before he had proclaimed
the rebellion at an end or restored the privilege of the writ of _habeas
corpus_.[1078]
He interfered himself, and allowed or ordered the army to interfere, in
the smallest details of local administration. The military rule in Alabama
was on the whole as well administered as it could be, which is seldom
well. There were too few soldiers and the posts were too widely separated
for the exercise of any firm or consistent authority. But the people were
sorry to see even the worst of this give place to the reign of
carpet-bagger, scalawag, and negro. The interference of the army and the
President discredited the civil government in the minds of the people. The
absolute rule of the President over the whole of ten states, though never
used for bad purposes, was, nevertheless, not to be viewed with equanimity
by those who were afraid of the almost absolute power that the executive
had assumed during the war. That the power had not been used for bad
purposes was no guarantee against future misuse. There was some excuse for
the pretended fright of the Radical leaders, like Sumner and Stevens, and
the real anxiety of more moderate men, at the dictatorial course of
Johnson. But it must be said that a desire for a share in political
appointments was a cause of much of this "real anxiety."
From 1865 to 1868, and even later, there was, for all practical purposes,
over the greater part of the people of Alabama, no government at all.
There was little disorder; the people were busy with their own affairs.
Public opinion ruled the respectable people. Until the close of
Reconstruction, the military and civil government touched the people
mainly to annoy. From 1865 to 1874 government and respect for government
were weakened to a degree from which it has not yet recovered. The people
governed themselves extra-legally and have not recovered from the
practice.
By taking cases from the civil authorities for trial before military
commission, by dictating the course of the civil government, by nullifying
the actions of the highest executive officers, the acts of the
legislature, and the decisions of the highest courts, the army was mainly
responsible for the lack of confidence in the civil administration.
CHAPTER X
MILITARY GOVERNMENT, 1865-1866
In the account of the affairs thus far we have seen many evidences of the
active participation of the military power of the United States in the
conduct of government in Alabama. It will be useful at this point to
examine with some care the form and scope of the authority concerned
during the period of the provisional state government's existence.
The Military Division of the Tennessee (1863), under General Grant,
included the Department of the Cumberland, under the command of General
George H. Thomas. Several counties of north Alabama in the possession of
the Federals formed a part of this department and for three years were
governed entirely by the army, except for two short intervals, when the
Federal forces were flanked and forced to retire. Anarchy then reigned,
for the civil government had been almost entirely destroyed in ten of the
northern counties. June 7, 1865, the Military Division of the Tennessee
was reorganized under General Thomas, and included in it was the
Department of Alabama, commanded by General C. R. Woods, with headquarters
at Mobile. In October, 1865, Georgia and Alabama were united into a
military province called the Department of the Gulf, under General Woods.
This department was still in the Military Division of the Tennessee,
commanded by General Thomas. June 1, 1866, Alabama and Georgia were formed
into the Department of the South and were still in Thomas's Military
Division of the Tennessee. General Woods commanded, with headquarters at
Macon, Georgia. Alabama was ruled by General Swayne from Montgomery.
August 6, 1866, the Military Division of the Tennessee was discontinued
and was made a department, General Thomas retaining the command. In this
department Georgia and Alabama formed the District of the Chattahoochee,
with headquarters at Macon, commanded by General Woods. The Sub-district
of Alabama was commanded by General Swayne, who was also in charge of the
Freedmen's Bureau at Montgomery. This organization lasted until the Third
Military District, under the Reconstruction Acts of March 2, 1867, was
formed of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, and General Thomas (immediately
superseded by General Pope) was put in command.[1079]
The Military Occupation
Within a month after the surrender of Lee, Alabama was occupied by Federal
armies, and garrisons were being stationed at one or more points in all
the more populous counties. Everywhere, the state and county government
was broken up by the military authorities, who were forbidden to recognize
any civil authority in the state. Into each of the 52 counties soldiers
were sent to administer the oath of allegiance to the United States to any
one who wished to take it. Most people were indifferent about it.[1080]
For several months there was no civil government at all, and no government
of any kind except in the immediate vicinity of the army posts and the
towns where military officers and Freedmen's Bureau agents regulated the
conduct of the negroes, and incidentally of the whites, well or badly,
according to their abilities and prejudices. Some of the officers,
especially those of higher rank, endeavored to pacify the land, gave good
advice to the negroes, and were considerate in their relations with the
whites; others incited the blacks to all sorts of deviltry and were a
terror to the whites.[1081] Each official in his little district ruled as
supreme as the Czar of all the Russias. He was the first and last
authority on most of the affairs of the community.
Early in the summer each city and its surrounding territory was formed
into a military district under the command of a general officer, who was
subject to the orders of General Woods at Mobile. There were the districts
of Mobile, Montgomery, Talladega, and Huntsville--each with a dozen or
more counties attached. Then there were isolated posts in each. The
district was governed by the rules applying to a "separate brigade" in the
army.[1082] The different posts, districts, and departments were formed,
discontinued, reorganized, with lightning rapidity. Hardly a single day
passed without some change necessitated by the resignation or muster out
of officers or troops. Commanding officers stayed a few days or a few
weeks at a post, and were relieved or discharged. Some of the officers
spent much of their time pulling wires to keep from being mustered out.
Others resigned as soon as their resignations would be accepted. Few or
none had any adequate knowledge of conditions in their own districts, nor
was it possible for them to acquire a knowledge of affairs in the short
time they remained at any one post.
After the establishment of the provisional government, the army was
supposed to retire into the background, leaving ordinary matters of
administration to the civil government. This it did not do, but constantly
interfered in all affairs of government. The army officers cannot be
blamed for their meddling with the civil administration, for the President
did the same and seemed to have little confidence in the governments he
had erected, though he gave good accounts of them to Congress. The
struggle at Washington between the President and Congress over
Reconstruction confused the military authorities as to the proper policy
to pursue. The instructions from the President and from General Grant were
sometimes in conflict.
In August, 1865, the military commander published the President's Amnesty
Proclamation of May 29, 1865, and sent officers to each county to
administer the oath.[1083] Instructions were given that "no improper
persons are to be permitted to take the oath." The oath was to be signed
in triplicate, one copy for the Department of State, one for military
headquarters, and one for the party taking the oath. Regulations were
prescribed for making special applications for pardon by those excepted
under the Amnesty Proclamation. There were 120 stations in the state where
officials administered the oath of amnesty.[1084] The military authorities
gave the term "improper persons" a broad construction and excluded many
who applied to take the oath. The various officers differed greatly in
their enforcement of the regulations. Special applications for pardon had
to go through military channels, and that meant delays of weeks or months;
so, after civil officials were appointed in Alabama, "improper persons"
took the oath before them, and then their papers were sent at once to
Washington for the attention of the President. There was some scandal
about the provisional secretary of state accepting reward for pushing
certain applications for pardon. But there was no need to use influence,
for the President pardoned all who applied.
Soon after Parsons was appointed provisional governor, an order stated
that the United States forces would be used to assist in the restoration
of order and civil law throughout the state and would act in support of
the civil authorities as soon as the latter were appointed and qualified.
The military authorities were instructed to avoid as far as possible any
assumption or exercise of the functions of civil tribunals. No arrest or
imprisonment for debt was to be made or allowed, and depredations by
United States troops upon private property were to be repressed.[1085]
The Army and the Colored Population
As acting agents of the Freedmen's Bureau, the army officers had to do
with all that concerned the negroes; but sometimes, in a different
capacity, they issued regulations concerning the colored race. It is
difficult to distinguish between their actions as Bureau agents and as
army officers. On the whole, it seems that each officer of the army
considered himself _ex officio_ an acting agent of the Bureau.
Soon after the occupation of Montgomery, an order was issued prohibiting
negroes from occupying houses in the city without the consent of the
owner. They had to vacate unless they could get permission. Negroes in
rightful possession had to show certificates to that effect from the
owner. All unemployed negroes were advised to go to work, as the United
States would not support them in idleness.[1086] This order was intended
to discourage the tendency of the negro population to flock to the
garrison towns. The first troops to arrive were almost smothered by the
welcoming blacks, who were disposed to depend upon the army for
maintenance. The officers were at first alarmed at the great crowds of
blacks who swarmed around them, and tried hard for a time to induce them
to go back home to work. Their efforts were successful in some instances.
In view of the fact that the posts and garrisons were the gathering places
of great numbers of unemployed blacks, an order, issued in August, 1865,
instructed the commanders of posts and garrisons to prohibit the loitering
of negroes around the posts and to discourage the indolence of the
blacks.[1087]
In Mobile some kind of civil government must have been set up under the
direction of the military authorities, for we hear of an order issued by
General Andrews that in all courts and judicial proceedings in the
District of Mobile the negro should have the same standing as the
whites.[1088] These may have been Bureau courts.
It was represented to the military commander that the negroes of Alabama
had aided the Federals in April and May, 1865, by bringing into the lines,
or by destroying, stock, provisions, and property that would aid the
Confederacy, and that they were now being arrested by the officers of the
provisional government for larceny and arson. So he ordered that the civil
authorities be prohibited from arresting, trying, or imprisoning any negro
for any offence committed before the surrender of Taylor (on May 4, 1865),
except by permission of military headquarters or of the assistant
commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau.[1089] When the Federal armies
passed through the state in April and May, 1865, thousands of negroes had
seized the farm stock and followed the army, for a few days at least.
There was more of this seizure of property by negroes after garrisons were
stationed in the towns. The order was so construed that practically no
negro could be arrested for stealing when he was setting out for town and
the Bureau. A few weeks before the order was issued, Woods stated, "I do
not interfere with civil affairs at all unless called upon by the governor
of the state to assist the civil authorities."[1090]
Terrible stories of cruel treatment of the negroes were brought to Woods
by the Bureau officials, and he sent detachments of soldiers to
investigate the reports. Nothing was done except to march through the
country and frighten the timid by a display of armed force, which was
evidently all the agents wanted. One detachment scoured the counties of
Clarke, Marengo, Washington, and Choctaw, investigating the reports of the
agents.[1091]
The commanding officers at some posts authorized militia officers of the
provisional government to disarm the freedmen when outbreaks were
threatened. But after Christmas General Swayne ordered that no authority
be delegated by officers to civilians for dealing with freedmen, but that
such cases be referred to himself as the assistant commissioner of the
Freedmen's Bureau.[1092] There had been great fear among some classes of
people that the negroes would engage in plots to massacre the whites and
secure possession of the property, which they were assured by negro
soldiers and Bureau agents the governor meant them to have. About
Christmas, 1865, the fear was greatest. For six months the blacks had been
eagerly striving to get possession of firearms. The soldiers and
speculators made it easy for them to obtain them. In Russell County $3000
worth of new Spencer rifles were found hidden in negro cabins.[1093] There
were few firearms among the whites, for all had been used in war and were
therefore seized by the United States government. Some feared that the
negroes were preparing for an uprising, but it is more probable that they
merely wanted guns as a mark of freedom. The purchase of firearms by
whites was discouraged by the army. The sale of arms and ammunition into
the interior was forbidden, but speculators managed to sell both. General
Smith, at Mobile, had one of them--Dieterich--arrested and confined in the
military prison at Mobile.[1094] The _Mobile Daily Register_ was warned
that it must not print articles about impending negro insurrections,[1095]
a very good regulation; but the violent negro sheet in Mobile was not
noticed, though it was a cause of excitement among the blacks.
In the fall of 1866 it was reported to the Secretary of State, Mr. Seward,
that negroes were being induced to go to Peru on promise of higher wages.
Seward induced Howard, the commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, to have
the Bureau annul or disapprove all contracts of freedmen to go beyond the
limits of the United States. General Swayne, who was now both assistant
commissioner and military commander, was directed to enforce Howard's
order in Alabama.[1096]
Administration of Justice by the Army
From April to December, 1865, all trade and commerce had to go on under
the regulations prescribed by the army. The restrictions placed on trade
caused demoralization both in the army and among the Treasury agents, who
worked under the protection of the military.[1097] It was ordered that
civilians guilty of stealing government cotton should be punished, after
trial and conviction by military commission, according to the statutes of
Alabama in force before the war. Later all cases of theft of government
property were tried by military commission.[1098]
When the cotton agents were tried by military commission[1099] there arose
a conflict of authority between the military authorities and the Federal
Judge. One agent, T. C. A. Dexter, was arrested and sued out a writ of
_habeas corpus_ before Busteed, the Federal judge. The writ was served on
General Woods and Colonel Hunter Brooke, who presided over the military
commission. The officers declined to obey, saying that a military
commission had been convened to try Dexter, and that no interference of
the civil authorities would be permitted. Busteed ordered Dexter to be
discharged, and Woods to appear before him and show why he should not be
prosecuted for contempt of court. Woods paid no attention to this order,
and Busteed sent the United States marshal to arrest him. The marshal
reported that he was unable to get into the presence of Woods, because the
military guard was instructed not to allow him to pass. Woods sent a
message to Busteed that the writ had not been restored in Alabama. Busteed
made a protest to the President and asserted that the trial could not
lawfully proceed except in the civil courts. President Johnson sustained
the course of General Woods, and thereby gave a blow to his provisional
government, for Busteed at once adjourned his court--the only Federal
court in the state. The sentiment of the people was with Busteed in spite
of his own notorious character and that of the defendant. All wanted the
civil government to take charge of affairs.[1100]
Of the cases of civilians tried by summary courts in the summer of 1865,
there is no official record; of the cases tried by military commission
during 1865 and 1866, only incomplete records are to be found. A partial
list of the cases, with charges and sentences, is here given:--
Wilson H. Gordon,[1101] civilian, murder of negro, May 14, 1865.
Convicted.
Samuel Smiley,[1101] civilian, murder of negro, 1865. Acquitted.
T. J. Carver,[1102] cotton agent, stealing cotton. Fined $90,000 and
one year's imprisonment.
T. C. A. Dexter,[1103] cotton agent, stealing cotton (3321 bales) and
selling appointment of cotton agent to Carver for $25,000. Fined
$250,000 and imprisonment for one year.
William Ludlow,[1104] civilian, stealing United States stock. Four
years' imprisonment.
L. J. Britton,[1105] civilian, guerilla warfare and robbery. Fined
$5000 and imprisonment for ten years. (Fine remitted by reviewing
officer.)
George M. Cunningham,[1106] late Second Lieutenant 47th Ill. Vol.
Inf., stealing government stores. Fined $500.
John C. Richardson,[1107] civilian, guerilla warfare and robbery.
Imprisonment for ten years.
Owen McLarney,[1107] civilian, assault on soldier. Acquitted.
William B. Rowls,[1107] civilian, guerilla warfare and robbery.
Imprisonment for ten years.
Samuel Beckham,[1107] civilian, receiving stolen property.
Imprisonment for three years.
John Johnson,[1108] civilian, robbery and pretending to be United
States officer. Fined $100, "to be appropriated to the use of the
Freedmen's Bureau."
Abraham Harper,[1108] civilian, robbery and pretending to be United
States officer. Fined $100 "to be appropriated to the use of the
Freedmen's Bureau."
Most of the civilians tried by the military commissions were camp
followers and discharged soldiers of the United States army. Those charged
with guerilla warfare were regularly enlisted Confederate soldiers and
were accused by the tory element, who were guilty of most of the guerilla
warfare.[1109] It was impossible to punish outlaws for any depredations
committed during the war, and for several months after the surrender, if
they claimed to be "loyalists," which they usually did. The civil
authorities were forbidden to arrest, try, and imprison discharged
soldiers of the United States army for acts committed while in
service.[1110] A similar order withdrew all "loyal" persons from the
jurisdiction of the civil courts so far as concerned actions during or
growing out of the war.[1111] The negroes had already been withdrawn from
the authority of the civil courts so far as similar offences were
concerned.[1112]
Upon the complaint of United States officials collecting taxes and
revenues of the refusal of individuals to pay, the military commanders
over the state were ordered to arrest and try by military commission
persons who refused or neglected "to pay these just dues."[1113]
Numerous complaints of arbitrary arrests and of the unwarranted seizure of
private property called forth an order from General Thomas, directing that
the persons and property of all citizens must be respected. There was to
be no interference with or arrests of citizens unless upon proper
authority from the district commander, and then only after well-supported
complaint.[1114]
The local military authorities were directed to arrest persons who had
been or might be charged with offences against officers, agents, citizens,
and inhabitants of the United States, in cases where the civil authorities
had failed, neglected, or been unable to bring the offending parties to
trial. Persons so arrested were to be confined by the military until a
proper tribunal might be ready and willing to try them.[1115] This was
another one of many blows at the civil government permitted by the
President, who allowed the army to judge for itself as to when it should
interfere.
These are the more important orders issued by the military authority
relating to public affairs in Alabama during the existence of the two
provisional or "Johnson" state governments. It will be seen from the scope
of the orders that the local military officials had the power of constant
interference with the civil government. A large part of the population was
withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the civil administration. The officials
of the latter had no real power, for they were subject to frequent reproof
and their proceedings to frequent revision by the army officers. Both
Governor Parsons and Governor Patton wanted the army removed, confident
that the civil government could do better than both together. Parsons
appealed to Johnson to remove the army or prohibit its interference.[1116]
He complained that the military officials had caused and were still
causing much injustice by deciding grave questions of law and equity upon
_ex parte_ statements. Personal rights were subject to captious and
uncertain regulations. The tenure of property was uncertain, and citizens
felt insecure when the army decided complicated cases of title to land and
questions of public morals. A military commission at Huntsville, acting
under direction of General Thomas, had assumed to decide questions of
title to property, and in one case, a widow was alleged to have been
turned out of her home.[1117] The citizens of Montgomery were indignant
because the military authorities had issued licenses for the sale of
liquor, and had permitted prostitution by licensing houses of ill repute.
Circular No. 1, District of Montgomery, September 9, 1865, required that
all public women must register at the office of the provost marshal; that
each head of a disorderly house must pay a license tax of $25 a week in
addition to $5 a week for each inmate, and that medical inspection should
be provided for by military authority. In case of violation of these
regulations a fine of $100 would be imposed for each offence, and ten to
thirty days' imprisonment. The bishop and all the clergy of the Episcopal
Church were suspended and the churches closed for several months because
the bishop refused to order a prayer for the President.[1118] The
restaurant of Joiner and Company, at Stevenson, was closed by order of the
post commander because two negro soldiers were refused the privilege of
dining at the regular table.[1119] Admiral Semmes, after being pardoned,
was elected mayor of Mobile, but the President interfered and refused to
allow him to serve. Many arrests and many more investigations were made at
the instigation of the tory or "union" element, and on charges made by
negroes.[1120]
Relation between the Army and the People
The unsatisfactory character of the military rule was due in a large
measure to the fact that the white volunteers were early mustered out,
leaving only a few regulars and several regiments of negro troops to
garrison the country.[1121] These negro troops were a source of disorder
among the blacks, and were under slack discipline. Outrages and robberies
by them were of frequent occurrence. There was ill feeling between the
white and the black troops. Even when the freedmen utterly refused to go
to work, they behaved well, as a rule, except where negro troops were
stationed. There is no reason to believe that it was not more the fault of
the white officers than of the black soldiers, for black soldiers were
amenable to discipline when they had respectable officers. Truman reported
to the President that the negro troops should be removed, because "to a
great extent they incite the freedmen to deeds of violence and encourage
them in idleness."[1122] The white troops, most of them regulars, behaved
better, so far as their relations with the white citizens were concerned.
The general officers were as a rule gentlemen, generous and considerate.
So much so, that some rabid newspaper correspondents complained because
the West Pointers treated the southerners with too much
consideration.[1123] In the larger posts discipline was fairly good, but
at small, detached posts in remote districts the soldiers, usually, but
not always, the black ones, were a scourge to the state. They ravaged the
country almost as completely as during the war.[1124] The numerous reports
of General Swayne show that there was no necessity for garrisons in the
state. He wanted, he said, a small body of cavalry to catch fugitives from
justice, not a force to overcome opposition. The presence of the larger
forces of infantry created a great deal of disorder. The soldiers were not
amenable to civil law, the refining restraints of home were lacking, and
discipline was relaxed.[1125]
Of the subordinate officers some were good and some were not, and the
latter, when away from the control of their superior officers and in
command of lawless men, ravaged the back country and acted like brigands.
For ten years after the war the general orders of the various military
districts, departments, and divisions are filled with orders publishing
the results of court-martial proceedings, which show the demoralization of
the class of soldiers who remained in the army after the war. The best men
clamored for their discharge when the war ended and went home. The more
disorderly men, for whom life in garrison in time of peace was too tame,
remained, and all sorts of disorder resulted. Finally "Benzine" boards, as
they were called, had to take hold of the matter, and numbers of men who
had done good service during the war were discharged because they were
unable to submit to discipline in time of peace.
The rule of the army might have been better, especially in 1865, had there
not been so many changes of local and district commanders and
headquarters. Some counties remained in the same military jurisdiction a
month or two, others a week or two, several for two or three days only.
The people did not know how to proceed in order to get military justice.
Orders were issued that business must proceed through military channels.
This cut off the citizen from personal appeal to headquarters, unless he
was a man of much influence. Often it was difficult to ascertain just what
military channels were. Headquarters and commanders often changed before
an application or a petition reached its destination.[1126]
The President merited failure with his plan of restoration because he
showed so little confidence in the governments he had established. He was
constantly interfering on the slightest pretexts. He asked Congress to
admit the states into the Union, and said that order was restored and the
state governments in good running order, while at the same time he had not
restored the writ of _habeas corpus_, had not proclaimed the "rebellion"
at an end, and was in the habit of allowing and directing the interference
of the army in the gravest questions that confronted the civil government.
In this way he discredited his own work, even in the eyes of those who
wished it to succeed. His intentions were good, but his judgment was
certainly at fault.
The army authorities went on in their accustomed way until Swayne was
placed in command, June 1, 1866, when a more sensible policy was
inaugurated, and there was less friction. Swayne aspired to control the
governor and legislature by advice and demands rather than to rule through
the army. There were few soldiers in the state after the summer of 1866.
Order was good, except for the disturbing influence of negro troops and
individual Bureau agents. There were in remote districts outbreaks of
lawlessness which neither the army nor the state government could
suppress. The infantry could not chase outlaws; the state government was
too weak to enforce its orders or to command respect as long as the army
should stay. At their best the army and the civil administration
neutralized the efforts and paralyzed the energies of each other. There
were two governments side by side, the authority of each overlapping that
of the other, while the Freedmen's Bureau, a third government, supported
by the army, was much inclined to use its powers. The result was that most
of the people went without government.
On the 28th of March, 1867, the policy of Johnson came to its logical end
in failure. General Grant then issued the order which overturned the civil
government established by the President. In Alabama, which was to form a
part of the Third Military District, all elections for state and county
officials were disallowed until the arrival of the commander of the
district. All persons elected to office during the month of March (after
the passage of the Reconstruction Acts) were ordered to report to military
headquarters for the action of the new military governor.[1127] Military
government then entered on a new phase.
CHAPTER XI
THE WARDS OF THE NATION
SEC. 1. THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU
Department of Negro Affairs
Any account of the causes of disturbed conditions in the South during the
two years succeeding the war must include an examination of the workings
of the Freedmen's Bureau, the administration of which was uniformly
hostile to the President's policy and in favor of the Radical plans.
As soon as the Federal armies reached the Black Belt, it became a serious
problem to care for the negroes who stopped work and flocked to the camps.
Some of the generals sent them back to their masters, others put them to
work as laborers in the camps and on the fortifications. Officers--usually
chaplains--were temporarily detailed to look after the blacks who swarmed
about the army, and thus the so-called "Department of Negro Affairs" was
established extra-legally, and continued until the passage of the
Freedmen's Bureau Act in 1865. The "Department" was supported by captured
and confiscated property, and was under the direction of the War
Department.[1128]
For a year after north Alabama was overrun by the Federal troops, no
attempt was made to segregate the blacks; but in 1863 a camp for refugees
and captured negroes was established on the estate of ex-Governor Chapman,
near Huntsville in Madison county, and Chaplain Stokes of the Eighteenth
Wisconsin Infantry was placed in charge. It was not intended that the
negroes should remain there permanently, but they were to be sent later to
the larger concentration camps at Nashville. No records were kept, but the
report of the inspector states that several hundred negroes were received
before August, 1864, of whom only a small proportion was sent to
Nashville. Those who remained were employed in cultivating the
land,--planting corn, cotton, sorghum, and vegetables,--and in building
log barracks and other similar houses. Schools were established for the
children. The War Department issued three-fourths rations to the negroes,
and the aid societies also helped them, although this colony was nearer
self-sustaining than any other.[1129]
In 1864 the Treasury Department assumed partial charge of negro refugees
and captive slaves. Regulations provided that captured and abandoned
property should be rented and the proceeds devoted to the purchase of
supplies for the blacks, who, when possible, were to be employed as
laborers. In each special agency there was to be a "Freedmen's Home
Colony" under a "Superintendent of Freedmen," whose duty it was to care
for the blacks in the colony, to obtain agricultural implements and
supplies, and to keep a record of the negroes who passed through the
colony. A classification of laborers was made and a minimum schedule of
wages fixed as follows:--
No. 1 hands, males, 18 to 40 years of age, minimum wage, $25 per month;
No. 2 hands, males, 14 to 18, 40 to 55 years of age, minimum wage, $20 per
month; No. 3 hands, males, 12 to 14 years of age, minimum wage, $15 per
month; corresponding classes of women, $18, $14, $10, respectively.
It was the duty of the superintendent to see that all who were physically
able secured work at the specified rates. He acted as an employment agent,
and the planters had to hire their labor through him. He exercised a
general supervision over the affairs of all freedmen in the district.
Beside paying the high wages fixed by the schedule, the planter was
obliged to take care of the young children of the family hired by him; to
furnish without charge a separate house for each family with an acre of
ground for garden, medical attendance for the family, and schooling for
the children; to sell food and clothing to the negroes at actual cost; and
to pay for full time unless the laborer was sick or refused to work. Half
the wages was paid at the end of the month, and the remainder at the end
of the contract. Wages due constituted a first lien on the crop, which
could not be moved until the superintendent certified that the wages had
been paid or arranged for. Not more than ten hours a day labor was to be
required. Cases of dispute were to be settled by civil courts (Union),
where established,--otherwise the superintendent was vested with the power
to decide such cases. Provision was made for accepting the assistance of
the aid societies, especially in the matter of schools.[1130] Under such
regulations it was hardly possible for the farmer to hire laborers, and we
find that only 205 negroes were disposed of by the colony near Huntsville.
If the wages could have been paid in Confederate currency, they would have
been reasonable; but United States currency was required, and most people
had none of it.
In the fall of 1864 the army again took charge of negro affairs and
administered them along the lines indicated in the Treasury regulations.
Wherever the army went its officers constituted themselves into freedmen's
courts, aid societies, etc., and exercised absolute control over all
relations between the two races and among the blacks.
The Freedmen's Bureau Established
The law of March 3, 1865, created a Bureau in the War Department to which
was given control of all matters relating to freedmen, refugees, and
abandoned lands. All officials were required to take the iron-clad test
oath.[1131] No appropriation was made for the purpose of carrying out this
law, and for the first year the Bureau was maintained by taxes on salaries
and on cotton, by fines, donations, rents of buildings and lands, and by
the sales of crops and confiscated property.[1132] On July 16, 1866, a
second Bureau Bill, amplifying the law of March 3, 1865, and extending it
to July 16, 1868, was passed over the President's veto. In 1868 the Bureau
was continued for one year, and on January 1, 1869, it was discontinued,
except in educational work.[1133] There is no indication that the
provisions of the laws had much effect on the administration of the
Bureau. From the beginning it had entire control of all that concerned
freedmen, who thus formed a special class not subject to the ordinary
laws. In Alabama there were nearly 500,000 negroes thus set apart, of whom
100,000 were children and 40,000 were aged and infirm.[1134]
It was several months before the organization of the Bureau was completed
in Alabama. Meanwhile army officers acted as _ex officio_ agents of the
Bureau, and regulated negro affairs. They were disposed to persuade the
negroes to go home and work, and not congregate around the military posts.
They issued some rations to the negroes in the towns who were most in
want, but discouraged the tendency to look to the United States for
support. Only a small proportion of the race was affected by the
operations of the Bureau during the months of April, May, and June, 1865.
In north and south Alabama, above and below the Black Belt, the negroes
were more under control of the Bureau than in the Black Belt itself. The
assistant commissioner for Tennessee had jurisdiction over the negroes in
north Alabama, who had been under nominal northern control since 1862. The
Bureau was established at Mobile in April and May, under the control of
the army, and was an offshoot of the Louisiana Bureau, T. W. Conway,
assistant commissioner for Louisiana, being for a short while in charge of
negro affairs in Alabama. At the same time there was at Mobile one T. W.
Osborn, who was called the assistant commissioner for Alabama. Later he
was transferred to Florida, and in July, 1865, General Wager Swayne
succeeded Conway in Alabama.[1135]
There were but few regular agents in Alabama before the arrival of General
Swayne. A few stray missionaries and preachers, representing the aid
societies, came in, and were placed in charge of the camps of freedmen
near the towns. Conway appointed agents at Mobile, Demopolis, Selma, and
Montgomery, who were officers in the negro regiments.[1136] For several
months the army officers were almost the only agents, and, as has been
stated, the higher officials, and some of the subordinates pursued a
sensible course, giving the negroes sensible advice, and laboring to
convince them that they could not expect to live without work. Others
encouraged them in idleness and violence and advised them to stop work and
congregate in the towns and around the military posts. The black troops
and their commanders were a source of disorder and cause of irritation
between the races. The officers of these troops, and others also, were
probably often sincere in their convictions that the southern white,
especially the former slave owner, could not be trusted in anything where
negroes were concerned, that he was the natural enemy of the black and
must be guarded against.[1137]
It was on June 20, 1865, that General Swayne was appointed assistant
commissioner for Alabama, and on July 14, T. W. Conway directed all
officials of the Bureau in the state (except those in north Alabama who
were under the control of the assistant commissioner of Tennessee) to
report to Swayne on his arrival.[1138] On July 26 the latter assumed
charge and appointed Charles A. Miller as his assistant adjutant-general,
later another saviour of his country in Reconstruction days. General
Swayne stated that on his arrival he was kindly received by most of the
people, and that he was "agreeably disappointed" in the temper of the
people and their attitude toward him. Howard's instructions made it the
duty of the assistant commissioner or his agents to adjudicate all
differences among negroes and between negroes and whites. Exclusive and
final jurisdiction was vested in him.[1139]
The Bureau in Alabama was organized in five departments: (1) the
Department of Abandoned and Confiscated Lands; (2) the Department of
Records (Labor, Schools, and Supplies); (3) the Department of Finance; (4)
the Medical Department; (5) the Bounty Department. Before the end of
August, 1865, the organization was completed, on paper, and the state had
been divided into five districts, each controlled by a superintendent.
These districts were:
(1) Mobile, with seven counties; (2) Selma, with ten counties; (3)
Montgomery, with nine counties; (4) Troy, with six counties: (5)
Demopolis, with eight counties; later, (6) north Alabama, consisting of
twelve counties, was withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the assistant
commissioner of Tennessee, General Fiske, and became the sixth division in
Alabama.
The officials of the Freedmen's Bureau, except the state officials and
subordinate employees, numbered, in 1865, twenty-seven army officers, and
two civilians.[1140] By November the Bureau was well organized, and as
many offices as possible were established to examine into labor contracts.
Each superintendent had charge of the issue of rations in the county where
he was stationed, and in each of the other counties of his district he had
an assistant superintendent. It was the duty of these seventy-five or more
officers to investigate complaints against county or state officials, who
had been made _ex officio_ Freedmen's Bureau agents; and when a negro made
a complaint, Swayne forced Parsons to appoint a new officer. Later, when
complaint was made, Swayne would replace a civil agent by a regular Bureau
agent. Thus the Bureau gradually passed out of the hands of the state
officials. The superintendents and the assistant superintendents had the
power to arrest outlaws and evil-doers. They could also delegate the
charge of contracts to responsible persons. Depots were established from
which supplies were issued to the counties, each county furnishing
transportation and distributing the supplies under the observation of the
superintendent.[1141]
General Swayne was succeeded, January 14, 1868, by Brevet
Brigadier-General Julius Hayden, who in turn was succeeded, March 31,
1868, by Brevet Brigadier-General O. L. Shepherd, Colonel of the Fifteenth
Infantry, and he was relieved on August 18, 1868, by Brevet
Lieutenant-Colonel Edwin Beecher, who wound up the affairs of the Bureau
in the state, except the educational and bounty divisions.[1142] The
sub-districts were continued during the existence of the Bureau. These
consisted of four to six counties each, and were sometimes under the
charge of regular army officers, sometimes under civilians.[1143] The
_Tribune_ correspondent had doubts of the benefits of the Freedmen's
Bureau where army officers, especially West Pointers, were in charge. The
West Pointers were strict with the negroes, there was no idleness; the
negro had to work; and the officers always took the side of the
white.[1144]
Pressure from the northern Radicals was brought to bear on Swayne, as time
went on, to force him to do away more and more with army officers and
civil officials of the state, and to substitute civilians from the North,
who had a different plan for helping the negro. The alien agents were
opposed to Swayne's plan of appointing native whites as agents, and told
him tales of outrage that had been committed, but he paid no attention to
them. The Bureau officers told much more horrible tales than any of the
army officers.[1145]
_The Nation's_ correspondent seemed disappointed because the Freedmen's
Bureau and the people and the negro were getting along fairly well.[1146]
The Freedmen's Bureau and the Civil Authorities
There was, according to the state laws of 1861, no provision for the negro
in the courts, and Swayne asked Governor Parsons to issue a proclamation
opening the courts to them and giving them full civil rights. He reminded
Parsons that he (Parsons) was merely a military official, and that the law
administered by him was martial law, which had its limits only in the
discretion of the commander. Parsons and his advisers thought that the
people would oppose such action and so refused to issue the
proclamation.[1147]
Thereupon Swayne himself issued a proclamation, stating that exclusive
control of all matters relating to the negroes belonged to him. He was
unwilling, however, he said, to establish tribunals in Alabama conducted
by persons foreign to her citizenship and strangers to her laws.
Consequently, all judicial officers, magistrates, and sheriffs of the
provisional government were made Bureau agents for the administration of
justice to the negroes. The laws of the state were to be applied so far as
no distinction was made on account of color. Processes were to run in the
name of the provisional government and according to the forms provided by
state law. The military authorities were to support the civil officials of
the Bureau in the administration of justice. Each officer was to signify
his acceptance of this appointment, and failure to accept or refusal to
administer the laws without regard to color would result in the
substitution of martial law in that community.[1148]
This order was remarkable for several reasons. In the first place, it was
rather an arrogant seizure of the provisional administration and
subordination of it to the Bureau. All officials were forced to accept by
the threat of martial law in case of refusal to serve. Again, Swayne was
not in command of the military forces of the state, though the army was
directed to support the Bureau. This law gave to Swayne unlimited
discretion, so that by a short order he practically placed himself at the
head of the whole administration,--civil and military,--and throughout his
term of service in Alabama he never allowed anything to stand in his
way.[1149] Again, the act of March 3, 1865, provided that all officials of
the Bureau must take the "iron-clad," and it is doubtful if a single state
official could have taken it. Swayne did not require it.
As soon as Swayne's proclamation was made known, the majority of the
judges and magistrates applied to Governor Parsons for instructions in the
matter. Parsons, who disliked the Bureau, but who was a timid and prudent
man, issued a proclamation requiring compliance, and even enforced
compliance by removing those who refused and appointing in their places
nominees of Swayne. The entire body of state and county officials finally
signified their acceptance, and the negro was then given exactly the same
civil rights as possessed by the whites.[1150] Had all the state officials
refused to serve, there would have ensued an interesting state of affairs;
an official of the Freedmen's Bureau would have overturned the state
government set up by the President. It was, however, done with a good
purpose, and for a while worked well by not working at all. Swayne was a
man of common sense, a soldier, and a gentleman, and honestly desired to
do what was best for all--the negro first. He did not profess much regard
for the native white, and he made it plain that his main purpose was to
secure the rights which he thought the negro ought to have. Incidentally,
he pursued a wise and conciliatory policy, as he understood it, toward the
whites, for he saw that this was the best way to aid the negro. The work
of the Bureau under his charge was probably the least harmful of all in
the South, and for most of the harm done he was not responsible. General
Swayne attributed what he termed his success with the Freedmen's Bureau to
the fact that he used at first the native state and county officials as
his agents, and thus dispensed to some, extent with alien civilians and
army officials, who were obnoxious to the mass of the people. The
requisite number of army officials of proper character could not have been
secured, and they would not have understood the conditions. The same was
true of alien civilians. Even the best ones would have inclined toward the
blacks in all things, and thus would have incensed the whites, or they
would have been "seduced by social amenities" to become the instruments of
the whites, or they would have become merchantable. In any case the negro
would suffer. General Swayne said that he thoroughly understood that he
was expected by the Radicals to pursue no such policy, and that he half
expected to be forced from the service for so doing. Influence was brought
to bear to cause him to change and with some success.
Later some few officials were removed, the most notable case being that
of Major H. H. Slough and the police of Mobile.[1151] It was reported to
Swayne that Slough was not enforcing the laws without regard to color. A
staff officer was sent at once to Mobile to demand instant acceptance or
rejection of Swayne's proclamation. The mayor rejected it, and Swayne then
informed Parsons that Mobile had to have either a new mayor, or martial
law and a garrison of negro troops.[1152] Parsons yielded, and made all
the changes that Swayne demanded. Two commissions were made out,--one
appointed John Forsyth as mayor, and the other, F. C. Bromberg, a "Union"
man. Swayne was to deliver the commission he wished. He went to Mobile and
decided to try Forsyth, who at that time was down the bay at a pleasure
resort. Swayne went after him in a tug, and met a tug with Forsyth on
board coming up the bay. He hailed it and asked it to stop, but the tug
only went the faster. He chased it for several miles,[1153] and at length
the pursued boat was overtaken. Swayne called for Forsyth, and all thought
that he was to be arrested. But to the great relief of the party the
appointment as mayor was offered to him, and Forsyth soon decided to
accept the office. As Swayne said, he was a "hot Confederate," a Democrat,
and would fight, and no one would dare criticise him. He soon had the
confidence of both white and black.[1154]
The order admitting the testimony of and conferring civil rights upon the
negro was favored by most of the lawyers of the state. The "testimony" was
the fulcrum to move other things. The tendency of the law of evidence is
to receive all testimony and let the jury decide. So there was no trouble
from the lawyers, and their opinion greatly influenced the people. None of
the respectable people of Alabama were opposed to allowing the negro to
testify. They were not afraid of such testimony, for no jury would ever
convict a reputable man on negro testimony alone. This was one objection
to it--its unreliability and consequent possible injustice.
Bureau supported by Confiscations
Landlords were prevented from evicting negroes who had taken possession of
houses or lands until complete provision had been made for them elsewhere.
Thus the negroes would do nothing and kept others from coming in their
places.[1155] "Loyal" refugees and freedmen were made secure in the
possession of land which they were cultivating until the crops were
gathered or until they were paid proper compensation.[1156] Little
captured, abandoned, or confiscated private property remained in the hands
of the Bureau officials after the wholesale pardoning by the President. As
soon as pardoned, the former owner regained rights of property except in
slaves, though the personal property had been sold and the proceeds used
for various purposes.[1157] There was, however, a great deal of
Confederate property and state and county property that had been devoted
to the use of the Confederacy. In every small town of the state there was
some such property--barns, storehouses, hospital buildings, foundries,
iron works, cotton, supplies, steamboats, blockade-runners. An order from
the President, dated November 11, 1865, directed the army, navy, and
Treasury officials to turn over to the Freedmen's Bureau all real estate,
buildings, and other property in Alabama that had been used by the
Confederacy. The sale of this property furnished sufficient revenue for
one year, and, until withdrawn several years later, the educational
department was sustained by the proceeds of similar sales.[1158] The
failure of Congress to appropriate funds made it almost necessary to use
state officials as agents, as there was no money to pay other agents. The
Confederate iron works at Briarfield were sold for $45,000, three
blockade-runners in the Tombigbee River for $50,000, and some hospital
buildings for $8000. There was besides a large amount of Confederate
property in Selma, Montgomery, Demopolis, and Mobile. Of private property,
at the close of 1865, the Bureau was still holding 2116 acres of land and
thirteen pieces of town property.[1159] A year later all of this
property, except seven pieces of town property, had been restored to the
owners.[1160]
In 1866 a blockade-runner was sold for $4000 and a war vessel in the
Tombigbee for $27,351.93. The expenses of the Bureau in 1865, so far as
accounts were kept, amounted to $126,865.77.[1161] This sum was obtained
from sales of Confederate property. There was, also, a tax on contracts of
from 50 cents to $1.50, and a fee on licenses for Bureau marriages. But
the money thus obtained seems to have been appropriated by the agents, who
kept no record. Rations were issued by the army to the Bureau agents and
there was no further accountability. No accounts were kept of the proceeds
from the sales of abandoned and confiscated property, a neglect which led
to grave abuses. All records were confused, loosely kept, and
unbusinesslike. There were, also, funds from private sources at the
disposal of the authorities, besides the appropriations of 1866 and 1867,
those in the former year being estimated at $851,500. There was little or
no supervision over and no check on the operations of the agents. It has
been stated that the salaries proper of the Bureau agents in Alabama
amounted to about $50,000 annually.[1162] State officials acting as agents
received no salaries. It is impossible to ascertain the amount expended in
Alabama, though the entire expenditure accounted for in the South was
nearly twenty million dollars; much was not accounted for.
During the two decades preceding the war many individual planters had
erected chapels and churches for the use of the negroes in the towns and
on the plantations. Some few such buildings belonged to the negroes and
were held in trust by the whites for them, but most of them were the
property of the planters or of church organizations that had built them.
General Swayne ordered that all such property should be secured to the
negroes.[1163] These buildings were used for schools and churches by the
missionary teachers and religious carpet-baggers who were instructing the
negro in the proper attitude of hostility toward all things southern.
The Bureau issued a retroactive order, requiring negroes to take out
licenses for marriages, and all former marriages had to be again
solemnized at the Bureau. Licenses cost fifty cents, which was considered
an extortion and was supposed to be for Buckley's benefit.[1164]
The Labor Problem
The Bureau inherited the policy of the "superintendents" in regard to the
regulation of negro labor, and the first regulations by the Bureau were
evidently modelled on the Treasury Regulations of July 29, 1864. The
monthly wage was lowered, but there was the same absurd classification of
labor with fixed wages. The first of these regulations, promulgated in
Mobile in May, 1865, was to this effect:--
Laborers were to be encouraged to make contracts with their former masters
or with any one else. The contracts were to be submitted to the
"Superintendent of Freedmen" and, if fair and honest, would be approved
and registered. A register of unemployed persons was to be kept at the
Freedmen's Bureau, and any person by applying there could obtain laborers
of both sexes at the following rates: first class, $10 per month; second
class, $8 per month; third class, $6 per month; boys under 14 years of
age, $3 per month; girls under 14 years of age, $2 per month. Colored
persons skilled in trade were also divided into three classes at the
following rates: men and women receiving the same, first class, $2.50 per
day; second class, $2 per day; third class, $1.50 per day. Mechanics were
also to receive not less than $5 per month in addition to first-class
rates. Wages were to be paid quarterly, on July 1 and October 1, and the
final payment on or before the expiration of the contract, which was to
be made for not less than three months, and not longer than to the end of
1865. In addition to his wages, the contracts must secure to the laborer
just treatment, wholesome food, comfortable clothing, quarters, fuel, and
medical attendance. No contract was binding nor a person considered
employed unless the contract was signed by both parties and registered at
the Bureau office, in which case a certificate of employment was to be
furnished. Laborers were warned that it was for their own interest to work
faithfully, and that the government, while protecting them against ill
treatment, would not countenance idleness and vagrancy, nor support those
capable of earning an honest living by industry. The laborers must fulfil
their contracts, and would not be allowed to leave their employer except
when permitted by the Superintendent of Freedmen. For leaving without
cause or permission, the laborers were to forfeit all wages and be
otherwise punished. Wages would be deducted in cases of sickness, and
wages and rations withheld when sickness was feigned for purposes of
idleness, the proof being furnished by the medical officer in attendance.
Upon feigning sickness or refusing to work, a laborer was to be put at
forced labor on the public works without pay. A reasonable time having
been given for voluntary contracts to be made, any negro found without
employment would be furnished work by the superintendent, who was to
supply the army with all that were required for labor, and gather the
aged, infirm, and helpless into "home colonies," and put them on
plantations. Employers and their agents were to be held responsible for
their conduct toward laborers, and cruelty or neglect of duty would be
summarily punished.[1165] The ignorance of conditions shown by these
seemingly fair regulations is equalled in other regulations issued by the
Bureau agents during the summer and fall of 1865. It is no wonder that the
negroes could not find work in Mobile when they wanted it.
Instructions from Howard directed that agreements to labor must be
approved by Bureau officers. Overseers were not to be tolerated. All
agents were to be classed as officers, whether they were enlisted men or
civilians. Wages were to be secured by a lien on the crops or the land,
the rate of pay being fixed at the wages paid for an able-bodied negro
before the war, and a minimum rate was to be published. All contracts were
to be written and approved by the agent of the Bureau, who was to keep a
copy of the documents.[1166]
At Huntsville, in north Alabama, orders were issued that freedmen must go
to work or be arrested and forced to work by the military authorities.
Contracts had to be witnessed by a friend of the freedmen, and were
subject to examination by the military authorities. Breach of contract by
either party might be tried by the provost marshal or by a military
commission, and the property of the employer was liable to seizure for
wages.[1167]
At first the planters thought that they saw in the contract system a means
of holding the negro to his work, and they vigorously demanded
contracts.[1168] This suited Swayne, and he issued the following
regulations, which superseded former rules:--
1. All contracts with freedmen for labor for a month or more had to be in
writing, and approved by an agent of the Freedmen's Bureau, who might
require security.
2. For plantation labor: (_a_) contracts could be made with the heads of
families to embrace the labor of all members who were able to work; (_b_)
the employer must provide good and sufficient food, quarters, and medical
attendance, and such further compensation as might be agreed upon; (_c_)
such contracts would be a lien upon the crops, of which not more than half
could be moved until full payment had been made, and the contract released
by the Freedmen's Bureau agent or by a justice of the peace in case an
agent was not at hand.
3. The remedies for violation of contracts were forfeiture of wages and
damages secured by lien.
4. In case an employer should make an oath before a justice of the peace,
acting as an agent of the Bureau, that one of his laborers had been absent
more than three days in a month, the justice of the peace could proceed
against the negro as a vagrant and hand him over to the civil authorities.
5. Vagrants when convicted might be put to work on the roads or streets or
at other labor by the county, or municipal authorities, who must provide
for their support; or they might be given into the charge of an agent of
the Freedmen's Bureau. This was usually done and the agent released them.
Besides this, he often interfered, and took charge of the negro vagrants
convicted in the community.
6. All contracts must expire on or before January 1, 1866.[1169]
The lien upon the crop was to be enforced by attachment, which must be
issued by any magistrate when any part of the crop was about to be moved
without the consent of the laborer. The plaintiff (negro) was not obliged
to give bond.[1170] These regulations had no effect in reorganizing labor,
and were only a cause of confusion.
A committee of citizens of Talladega, appointed to make suggestions in
regard to enforcing the regulations of the Freedmen's Bureau concerning
contracts, reported that: (1) contracts for a month or more between whites
and blacks should be reduced to writing and witnessed; (2) civil officers
should enforce these contracts according to law and the regulations of the
Freedmen's Bureau; (3) the law of apprenticeship should be applied to
freedmen where minors were found without means of support; (4) civil
officers should take duties heretofore devolving upon the Freedmen's
Bureau in matters of contract between whites and blacks. This practically
asked for the discontinuance of the Freedmen's Bureau as being
superfluous.[1171]
When enforced, the contract regulations caused trouble. The lien on the
crop for the negro's wages prevented the farmer from moving a bale of
cotton if the negro objected. No matter whether the negro had been paid or
not, if he made complaint, the farmer's whole crop could be locked up
until the case was settled by a magistrate or agent; and the negro was not
backward in making claims for wages unpaid or for violation of contract.
The average southern farmer had to move a great part of his crop before he
could get money to satisfy labor and other debts, and when the negro saw
the first bale being moved, he often became uneasy and made trouble.[1172]
The contract system resulted in much litigation, of which the negro was
very fond; he did not feel that he was really free until he had had a
lawsuit with some one. It gave him no trouble and much entertainment, but
was a source of annoyance to his employer. The Bureau agents were
particular that no negro should work except under a written contract, as a
fee of from fifty cents to a dollar and a half was charged for each
contract. If a negro was found working under a verbal agreement, he and
his employer were summoned before the agent, fined, and forced into a
written contract. When the negroes refused to work, the planters could
sometimes hire the Bureau officials to use their influence. The whites
charged that it was a common practice for the agents to induce a strike,
and then make the employers pay for an order to send the blacks back to
work.[1173] This was the case only under alien Bureau agents, for where
the magistrates were agents, all went smoothly with no contracts. The end
of 1865 and the spring of 1866 found the whites, who at first had insisted
on written contracts, weary of the system and disposed to make only verbal
agreements, and the negro had usually become afraid of a written contract
because it might be enforced. The legislature passed laws to regulate
contracts, which Governor Patton vetoed on the ground that no special
legislation was necessary; the laws of supply and demand should be allowed
to operate, he said. Swayne also said that contracts were not necessary,
as hunger and cold on the part of one, and demand for labor on the part of
the other, would protect both negro and white.[1174]
Some planters, having no faith in free negro labor, refused to give the
negro employment requiring any outlay of money. And "freedmen were not
uncommon who believed that work was no part of freedom." There was a
disposition, Swayne reported, to preserve as much as possible the old
patriarchal system, and the general belief was that the negro would not
work; and he did refuse to work regularly until after Christmas.[1175]
Some planters thought that the government would advance supplies to
them,[1176] and they asked Howard to bind out negroes to them. Howard
visited Mobile and irritated the whites by his views on the race
question.[1177]
Freedmen's Bureau Courts
In Alabama, the state courts were made freedmen's courts,--to test, as
Howard said, the disposition of the judges; Swayne says that it was done
from reasons of policy, and because at first there were not enough aliens
to hold Bureau courts. The reports were favorable except from north
Alabama, where the "unionists" were supposed to abound.[1178] In all cases
where the blacks were concerned the assistant commissioner was authorized
to exercise jurisdiction, and the state laws relating to apprenticeship
and vagrancy were extended by his order to include freedmen. The Bureau
officials were made the guardians of negro orphans, but each city and
county had to take care of its own paupers.[1179] Freedmen's Bureau courts
were created, each composed of three members appointed by the assistant
commissioner, one of whom was an official of the Freedmen's Bureau, and
two were citizens of the county. Their jurisdiction extended to cases
relating to the compensation of freedmen to the amount of $300, and all
other cases between whites and blacks, and criminal cases by or against
negroes where the sentence might be a fine of $100 and one month's
imprisonment.
In his report for 1866, Swayne states that "martial law administered
concurrently" by provisional and military authorities was in force
throughout the state; that the coöperation of the provisional government
and the Freedmen's Bureau had secured to the freedmen the same rights and
privileges enjoyed by the other non-voting inhabitants; in some cases, he
said, on account of prejudice, the laws were not executed, but this was
not to be remedied by any number of troops, since no good result could be
obtained by force.[1180] During 1865 and 1866 General Swayne repeatedly
spoke of the friendly relations between the Freedmen's Bureau and the
state officials--Governors Parsons and Patton and Commissioner Cruikshank,
who was in charge of relief of the poor.
By means of the Bureau courts the negro was completely removed from trial
by the civil government or by any of its officers, except when the latter
were acting as Bureau agents, which, as time went on, was less and less
often the case, and the negro passed entirely under the control of the
alien administration, and an army officer and two or three carpet-baggers
administered what they called justice in cases where the negroes were
concerned. The negroes frequently broke their contracts, telling the
provost marshal that they had been lashed, and this caused the employer to
be arrested and often to be convicted unjustly. The white planter was much
annoyed by the disposition on the part of the blacks to transfer their
failings to him in their tales to the "office," as the negro called the
Bureau and its agents. "The phrase flashed like lightning through the
region of the late Confederacy that at Freedmen's Bureau agencies 'the
bottom rail was on top.' The conditions which this expression implied
exasperated the whites in like ratio as the negroes were delighted."[1181]
In the Ku Klux testimony, the whites related their grievances against the
Bureau courts conducted by the aliens: the Bureau men always took a
negro's word as being worth more than a white's; the worst class of blacks
were continually haling their employers into court; the simple assertion
of a negro that he had not been properly paid for his work was enough to
prevent the sale of a crop or to cause the arrest of the master, who was
frequently brought ten or fifteen miles to answer a trivial charge
involving perhaps fifty cents;[1182] the negroes were taken from work and
sent to places of refuge--"Home Colonies"[1183]--where hundreds died of
disease caused by neglect, want, and unsanitary conditions; the Bureau
courts encouraged complaints by the negroes; the trials of cases were made
occasions for lectures on slavery, rebellion, political rights of negroes,
social equality, etc., and the negro was by official advice taught to
distrust the whites and to look to the Bureau for protection.[1184] The
Bureau perhaps did some good work in regulating matters among the negroes
themselves, but when the question was between negro and white, the justice
administered was rather one-sided.[1185] Genuine cases of violence and
mistreatment of negroes were usually not tried by the Bureau courts, but
by military commission. The following humorous advertisement shows the
result of a legitimate interference of the Bureau:--
"Do You Like
The Freedmen's Court? If so, come up to Burnsville and I will rent or
sell you three nice, healthy plantations with _Freedmen_. Come soon
and get a bargain. I am ahead of any farmer in this section, except on
one place, which said court 'Busteed' to-day because some of the
Freedmen got flogged.--JOHN F. BURNS."[1186]
The Bureau courts, after the aliens came into control, proceeded upon the
general principle that the negro was as good as or better than the
southern white, and that he had always been mistreated by the latter, who
wished to still continue him in slavery or to cheat him out of the
proceeds of his labor, and who, on the slightest provocation, would beat,
mutilate, or murder the inoffensive black. The greatest problem was to
protect the negroes from the hostile whites, the agents thought. The
aliens did not understand the relations of slave and master, and assumed
that there had always been hostility between them, and that for the
protection of the negro this hostility ought to continue. A system of
espionage was established that was intensely galling. Men who had held
high offices in the state, who had led armies or had represented their
country at foreign courts,--men like Hardee, Clanton, Fitzpatrick,
etc.,--were called before these tribunals at the instance of some ward of
the nation, and before a gaping crowd of their former slaves were lectured
by army sutlers and chaplains of negro regiments.[1187]
Care of the Sick
The medical department of the Freedmen's Bureau gave free attendance to
the refugees and freedmen. In 1865 there were in the state 4 hospitals,
capable of caring for 646 patients, with a staff of 11 physicians and 26
male and 22 female attendants. In the hospitals in 1866 were 18 physicians
and 16 male and 18 female attendants.[1188] In 1866 there were 6
hospitals, which number was increased in 1867 to 8, with a staff of 13
physicians and 50 male and 40 female attendants. In 1868-1869 there were
only three hospitals.
In 1865 no refugees were treated, but there were 2533 negro patients, of
whom 602, or 24 per cent, died. To August 31, 1866, 271 refugees had been
treated, of whom 8 died, and 4153 negroes, of whom 460 died. From
September 1, 1866, to June 30, 1867, 220 refugees were treated and 6
died; 2203 negroes, and 186 died; to October 31, 1866, 3801 freedmen, of
whom 473 died, and 305 refugees, of whom 12 died. After July, 1868, 289
freedmen were treated.[1189] These statistics show the relative
insignificance of the relief work.
Smallpox was the most fatal disease among the negroes in the towns, and
several smallpox hospitals were established. In Selma the complaint was
raised that the assistant superintendent encouraged the negroes to stay in
town, and insisted on caring for all their sick, but when an epidemic of
smallpox broke out, he notified the city that he could not care for these
cases. The Bureau sent supplies for distribution by the county authorities
to the destitute poor and to the smallpox patients. But the relief work
for the sick amounted to but little.[1190]
The Issue of Rations
The Department of Records had charge of the issue of supplies to the
destitute refugees and blacks. Among the whites of all classes in the
northern counties there was much want and suffering. The term "refugee"
was interpreted to include all needy whites,[1191] though at first it
meant only one who had been forced to leave home on account of his
disloyalty to the Confederacy. The best work of the Bureau was done in
relieving needy whites in the devastated districts; and for this the
upholders of the institution have never claimed credit. The negro had not
suffered from want before the end of the war, but now great crowds
hastened to the towns and congregated around the Bureau offices and
military posts. They thought that it was the duty of the government to
support them, and that there was to be no more work.
Before June, 1865, rations were issued by the army officers. From June,
1865, to September, 1866, the Freedmen's Bureau issued 2,522,907 rations
to refugees (whites) and 1,128,740 to freedmen. The following table shows
the number of people fed each month in Alabama by the Freedmen's Bureau
before October, 1866:--
============================================
WHITE ||
------------------------------------------||
Months| Men | Women| Boys |Girls | Total ||
------|------|------|------|------|-------||
1865.| | | | | ||
Nov. | 72| 483| 821| 875| 2,521||
Dec. | 271| 909| 1,059| 1,090| 3,329||
1866.| | | | | ||
Jan. | 349| 2,377| 1,735| 2,764| 7,225||
Feb. | 1,285| 3,641| 3,806| 5,039| 13,771||
March | 1,181| 4,971| 5,796| 6,758| 18,616||
April | 1,038| 4,340| 4,844| 6,642| 16,864||
May | 1,743| 5,821| 6,939| 9,064| 23,567||
June | 1,912| 5,661| 6,932| 8,092| 22,577||
July | 1,585| 5,036| 7,108| 8,076| 21,805||
Aug. | 1,376| 4,528| 5,932| 6,836| 18,672||
Sept. | 1,368| 4,454| 5,547| 6,543| 17,912||
------|------|------|------|------|-------||
Totals|12,180|42,201|50,429|61,779|166,589||
============================================
==================================
BLACK
----------------------------------
Men | Women| Boys | Girls| Total
------|------|------|------|------
| | | |
327| 656| 346| 615| 1,944
464| 860| 345| 574| 2,243
| | | |
538| 1,053| 742| 1,002| 3,335
894| 1,455| 880| 1,095| 4,324
995| 2,007| 1,389| 1,662| 6,053
1,176| 2,331| 1,904| 2,771| 8,182
1,479| 3,433| 2,898| 3,576|14,526
1,654| 3,170| 2,846| 3,151|10,821
1,294| 2,472| 2,379| 2,648| 8,793
1,178| 2,025| 2,112| 2,247| 7,562
1,242| 2,225| 1,939| 2,126| 7,532
------|------|------|------|------
11,241|21,687|17,780|21,407|72,115
==================================
Men, 23,421; women, 63,888; children, 151,295; aggregate, 238,704;
rations issued, 3,789,788; value, $643,590.18.
During the month of September, 1865, 45,771 rations were issued to 1971
refugees, and 36,295 rations to 3537 freedmen; in October, 1865, 2875
refugees and 2151 freedmen drew 153,812 rations. From September 1, 1866 to
September 1, 1867, 214,305 rations were issued to refugees and 274,329 to
freedmen. From September 1, 1867, to September 1, 1868, refugees drew only
886 rations, and freedmen 86,021. Fewer and fewer whites and more and more
freedmen were fed by the Bureau.[1192]
In 1865 and 1866, the crops were poor, and in 1866 there were at least
10,000 destitute whites and 5000 destitute blacks in the state. The Bureau
asked for 450,000 rations per month, but did not receive them. The agents
were now (1866) beginning to use the issue of rations to control the
negroes, and to organize them into political clubs or "Loyal Leagues."
During this time (1866-1867), however, the state gave much assistance, and
coöperated with the Freedmen's Bureau. Some of the agents of the Bureau
sold the supplies that should have gone to the starving.[1193]
The Bureau furnished transportation to 217 refugees and to 521 freedmen
who wished to return to their homes, and to a number of northern school
teachers. These transactions were not attended by abuses.[1194]
Demoralization caused by the Freedmen's Bureau
After the Federal occupation, when the negroes had congregated in the
towns, the higher and more responsible officers of the army used their
influence to make the blacks go home and work. If left to these officers,
the labor question would have been somewhat satisfactorily settled; they
would have forced the negroes to work for some one, and to keep away from
the towns. But the subordinate officers, especially the officers of the
negro regiments, encouraged the freedmen to collect in the towns. Few
supplies were issued to them by the army, and there was every prospect
that in a few weeks the negroes would be forced by hunger to go back to
work. The establishment of the Freedmen's Bureau, however, changed
conditions. It assumed control of the negroes in all relations, and upset
all that had been done toward settling the question by gathering many of
the freedmen into great camps or colonies near the towns. One large colony
was established in north Alabama, and many temporary ones throughout the
state,[1195] into which thousands who set out to test their new-found
freedom were gathered. On one plantation, in Montgomery County, in July,
1865, 4000 negroes were placed. There was another large colony near
Mobile.[1196] A year later the Montgomery colony had 200 invalids. Perhaps
more misery was caused by the Bureau in this way than was relieved by it.
The want and sickness arising from the crowded conditions in the towns was
only in slight degree relieved by the food distributed, and the hospitals
opened. There were 40,000 old and infirm negroes in the state, and
thousands died of disease. Not one-tenth did the Bureau reach. The
helpless old negroes were supported by their former masters, who now in
poverty should have been relieved of their care. Those who were fed were
the able-bodied who could come to town and stay around the office. The
colonies in the negro districts became hospitals, orphan asylums, and
temporary stopping places for the negroes; and the issue of rations was
longest and surest at these places.[1197] Several hundred white refugees
also remained worthless hangers-on of the Bureau.
The regular issue of rations to the negroes broke up the labor system that
had been partially established and prevented a settlement of the labor
problem. The government would now support them, the blacks thought, and
they would not have to work. Around the towns conditions became very bad.
Want and disease were fast thinning their numbers. They refused to make
contracts, though the highest wages were offered by those planters and
farmers who could afford to hire them, and the agents encouraged them in
their idleness by telling them not to work, as it was the duty of their
former masters to support them, and that wages were due them, at least
since January 1, 1863.[1198] They told them, also, to come to the towns
and live until the matter was settled.[1199] Domestic animals near the
negro camps were nearly all stolen by the blacks who were able but
unwilling to work. These marauders were frequently shot at or were
thrashed, which gave rise to the stories of outrage common at that time.
Doctor Nott of Mobile wrote that in or near Mobile no labor could be
hired; that it was impossible to get a cook or a washerwoman, while
hundreds were dying in idleness from disease and starvation, deceived by
the false hopes aroused, and false promises of support by the government,
made by wicked and designing men who wished to create prejudice against
the whites, and to prevent the negroes from working by telling them that
to go back to work was to go back to slavery. The negro women were told
that women should not work, and they announced that they never intended to
go to the field or do other work again, but "live like white
ladies."[1200] Wherever it was active the Bureau demoralized labor by
arousing false hopes and by unnecessary intermeddling. It has been claimed
for the Bureau that it was a vast labor clearing-house, and that a part of
its work was the establishment of a system of free labor.[1201] In other
states such may have been the case; in Alabama it certainly was not. The
labor system partially established all over the Black Belt in 1865 was
deranged wherever the Bureau had influence. The system proposed by the
Bureau was simply that of old slave wages paid for work done under a
written contract. The excessive wages and the interference of the agents
in the making of contracts made it impossible for the system to work, and
Swayne acquiesced in the nullification of the Bureau rules by black and
white, saying that natural forces would bring about a proper state of
affairs. Wherever the Bureau had the least influence, there industry was
least demoralized. So far from acting as a labor agency, its influence was
distinctly in the opposite direction wherever it undertook to regulate
labor. The free labor system, such as it was, was already in existence
when the Bureau reached the Black Belt, and, in spite of that institution,
worked itself out.[1202]
A general belief grew up among the freedmen that at Christmas, 1865, there
would be a confiscation and division of all land in the South. The
soldiers,--black and white,--the preachers, and especially the Bureau
agents and the school-teachers, were responsible for this belief. Swayne
reported that an impression, well-nigh universal, prevailed that the
confiscation, of which they had heard for months, would take place at
Christmas, and led them to refuse any engagement extending beyond the
holidays, or to work steadily in the meantime.[1203] Christmas or New
Year's the negro thought would be the millennium. Each would have a farm,
plenty to eat and drink, and nothing to do,--"forty acres of land and a
mule." There is no doubt that the "forty acres and a mule" idea was partly
caused by the distribution among the negroes of the lands on the south
Atlantic coast by General Sherman and others, and by the provisions of the
early Bureau acts. "Forty acres and a mule" was the expectation, and to
this day some old negroes are awaiting the fulfilment of this
promise.[1204] Many went so far, in 1865, as to choose the land that would
be theirs on New Year's Day; others merely took charge at once of small
animals, such as pigs, turkeys, chickens, cows, etc., that came within
their reach.[1205]
On account of this belief in the coming confiscation of property and their
implicit confidence in all who made promises, the negroes were deceived
and cheated in many ways. Sharpers sold painted sticks to the ex-slaves,
declaring that if set up on land belonging to the whites, they gave titles
to the blacks who set them up. A document purporting to be a deed was
given with one set of painted sticks. In part it read as follows: "Know
all men by these presents, that a naught is a naught, and a figure is a
figure; all for the white man, and none for the nigure. And whereas Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so also have I lifted this d--d
old nigger out of four dollars and six bits. Amen. Selah!" In the campaign
of 1868 this was circulated far and wide by the Democrats as a campaign
document. There is record of the sale of painted sticks in Clarke,
Marengo, Sumter, Barbour, Montgomery, Calhoun, Macon, Tallapoosa, and
Greene counties, and in the Tennessee valley. The practice must have been
general. In Sumter County, 1865-1866, the seller of sticks was an
ex-cotton agent. He had secured the striped pegs in Washington, he said,
and his charge was a dollar a peg. He instructed the buyer how to "step
off" the forty acres, and told them not to encroach upon one another and
to take half in cleared land and half in woodland.[1206] In Clarke County,
as late as 1873, the sticks were sold for three dollars each if the negro
possessed so large a sum; but if he had only a dollar, the agent would let
a stick go for that. Some of the negroes actually took possession of land,
and went to work.[1207] In Tallapoosa County the painted pegs were sold as
late as 1870.[1208] In 1902 a man was arrested in south Alabama for
collecting money from negroes in this way. It was said that one cause of
the survival of this practice was the course of Wendell Phillips, who, in
the _Antislavery Standard_, advocated the distribution of land among the
negroes, eighty acres to each, or forty acres and a furnished cottage. The
speeches of Thaddeus Stevens on confiscation were widely distributed among
the negroes. His Confiscation Bill of March, 1867, caused expectations
among the negroes, who soon heard of such propositions.[1209] General
Wilson, on his raid, had taken all the stock from Montgomery and had left
with the planters his broken-down mules and horses. The military
authorities of the Sixteenth Army Corps had declared that these animals
belonged to the planters, who had already used them a year. But the Rev.
C. W. Buckley, a Bureau chaplain, promised them to the negroes, who began
to take possession of them.[1210]
The subordinate agents of the Bureau frequently were broken-down men who
had made failures at everything they had undertaken;[1211] some were
preachers with strong prejudices, and others were the dregs of a
mustered-out army,--all opposed to any settlement of the negro question
which would leave them without an office. Such men sowed the seeds of
discord between the races and taught the negro that he must fear and hate
his former master, who desired above all things to reënslave him.[1212] In
this way they were ably abetted by the northern teachers and
missionaries.
There were some favorable reports from the Bureau in Alabama, principally
from districts where the native whites were agents. But in the summer of
1866 Generals Steedman and Fullerton, accompanied by a correspondent, made
a trip through the South inspecting the institution. They reported that in
Alabama it was better conducted than elsewhere in the South; that all of
the good of the system and not all of the bad was here most apparent. Over
the greater part of the state, they said, it interfered but little with
the negro, and consequently the affairs of both races were in better
condition. General Patton thought that Swayne was the best man to be at
the head of the Bureau, yet he was sure that the institution was
unnecessary, its only use being to feed the needy, which could be done by
the state with less demoralization. The negro, he said, should be left to
the protection of the law, since there was no discrimination against him.
As long as free rations were issued, the blacks would make no contracts
and would not work. Swayne, Patton declared, was doing his best, but he
could not prevent demoralization, and the very presence of the Bureau was
an irritation to the whites, thus operating against the good of the negro.
He stated that in Clarke and Marengo counties, where there were no agents,
the relations between the races were more friendly than in any other black
counties, and there the negro was better satisfied. The southern people
knew the negro and his needs, Steedman and Fullerton reported, and he
should be left to them; the Bureau served as a spy upon the planters; it
was the general testimony that where there was no northern agent, there
the negro worked better, and there was less disorder among the blacks and
less friction between the races. The fact was clearly demonstrated in west
Alabama, where there was little interference on the part of the Bureau,
and where the negro did well.[1213]
An account of conditions in one county where the agents were army officers
and were somewhat under the influence of the native whites will be of
interest. When the army and the Bureau came to Marengo County, the white
people, who were few in number, determined to win their good will. There
were "stag" dinners and feasts, and the eternal friendship of the
officers, with few exceptions, was won. The exceptions were those who had
political ambitions. The population, being composed largely of negroes,
was under the control of the "office," which here did not heed the tales
of "rebel outrages." The negro received few supplies and did well, though
afterwards, in places doubtful politically, supplies were issued for
political purposes. One planter in Marengo gave an order to the negroes on
his plantation to do a certain piece of work. They refused and sent their
head man to report at the "office." He brought back a sealed envelope
containing a peremptory order to cease work. The negroes were ignorant of
the contents, so the planter read the letter, called the negroes up, and
ordered them back to the same work. They went cheerfully, evidently
thinking it was the order of the Bureau. At any time the Bureau could
interfere and say that certain work should or should not be done. Another
planter lived twelve miles from Demopolis. One day ten or twelve of the
negro laborers went to Demopolis to complain to the "office" about one of
his orders. The planter went to Demopolis by another road, and was sitting
in the Bureau office when the negroes arrived. They were confused and at
first could say nothing. The planter was silent. Finally they told their
tale, and the officer called for a sergeant and four mounted men.
"Sergeant," he said, "take these people back to Mr. DuBose's on the _run_!
You understand; on the _run_!" They ran the negroes the whole twelve
miles, though they had already travelled the twelve miles. Upon their
arrival at home the sergeant tied them to trees with their hands above
their heads, and left them with their tongues hanging out. It was the most
terrible punishment the negroes had ever received, and they never again
had any complaints to pour into the ear of the "office."[1214] The white
soldiers usually cared little for the negroes, it is said.
From the first the Bureau was unnecessary in Alabama. The negro had felt
no want before the beginning of the war, and the efforts of the general
officers of the army, besides hunger and cold, would have soon forced him
to work. He was not mistreated except in rare cases which did not become
rarer under the Bureau. Cotton was worth fifty cents to a dollar a pound,
and the extraordinary demand for labor thus created guaranteed good
treatment. Much more suffering was caused by the congregation of the black
population in the towns than would have been the case had there been no
relief. Not a one did it really help to get work, because no man who
wanted work could escape a job unless it prevented, and with its red tape
it was a hindrance to those who were industrious. Its interference in
behalf of the negro was bad, as it led him to believe that the government
would always back him and that it was his right to be supported. Thus
industry was paralyzed. Yet as first organized by Swayne, the Bureau would
have been endurable, though it would have been a disturbing element, and
the negro would have been the greater sufferer from the disorder caused by
it; but, as time went on, General Swayne was gradually forced by northern
opinion to change his policy, and to put into office more and more
northern men as subordinate agents. These men, of character already
described, had to live by fleecing the negroes, by fees, and by stealing
supplies.[1215] Then, recognizing the trend of affairs and seeing their
great opportunity, they began to organize the negro for political
purposes; they themselves were to become statesmen. The Bureau was then
manipulated as a political machine for the nomination and election of
state and federal officers, and the public money and property were used
for that purpose. The Howard Investigation refused to enter that field,
but the testimony shows that the Bureau agents, teachers, the
savings-bank, and missionaries industriously carried on political
operations.[1216]
In 1869 the Bureau was intrusted with the payment of bounties to the negro
soldiers who had been discharged or mustered out. There were several
thousand of these in Alabama. Gross frauds are said to have been
perpetrated by the officials in charge of the distribution. The worst
scandals were in north Alabama, where most of the negro soldiers
lived.[1217]
SEC. 2. THE FREEDMEN'S SAVINGS-BANK
The Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company was an institution closely
connected with the Freedmen's Bureau, and had the sanction and support of
the government, especially of the Bureau officials. Many of the trustees
of the bank were or had been connected with the Bureau,[1218] and it was
generally understood by the negroes that it was a part of the Bureau. It
possessed the confidence of the blacks to a remarkable degree and gave
promise of becoming a very valuable institution by teaching them habits of
thrift and economy.[1219]
The central office was in Washington, and several branch banks were
established in every southern state. The Alabama branch banks were
established at Huntsville, in December, 1865, and at Montgomery and Mobile
early in 1866. The cashiers at the respective branches, when the bank
failed, in 1874, were Lafayette Robinson, who seems to have been an honest
man though he could not keep books, Edwin Beecher,[1220] and C. R.
Woodward, both of whom seem to have had some picturesque ideas as to their
rights over the money deposited. A bank-book was issued to each negro
depositor, and in the book were printed the regulations to be observed by
him. On one cover there was a statement to the effect that the bank was
wholly a benevolent institution, and that all profits were to be divided
among the depositors or devoted to charitable enterprises for the benefit
of freedmen. It was further stated that the "Martyr" President Lincoln had
approved the purpose of the bank, and that one of his last acts was to
sign the bill to establish it. On the cover of the book was the printed
legend:[1221]--
"I consider the Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company to be greatly
needed by the colored people and have welcomed it as an auxiliary to
the Freedmen's Bureau."--MAJOR-GENERAL O. O. HOWARD.
To the negro this was sufficient recommendation. There was also printed on
the cover a very attractive table, showing how much a man might save by
laying aside ten cents a day and placing it in the bank at 6 per cent
interest. The first year the man would save, in this way, $36.99, the
tenth year would find $489.31 to his credit. And all this by saving ten
cents a day--something easily done when labor was in such demand. This
unique bank-book had on the back cover some verses for the education of
the freedmen. The author of these verses is not known, but the negroes
thought that General Howard wrote them.
"'Tis little by little the bee fills her cell;
And little by little a man sinks a well;
'Tis little by little a bird builds her nest;
By littles a forest in verdure is drest;
'Tis little by little great volumes are made;
By littles a mountain or levels are made;
'Tis little by little an ocean is filled;
And little by little a city we build;
'Tis little by little an ant gets her store;
Every little we add to a little makes more;
Step by step we walk miles, and we sew stitch by stitch;
Word by word we read books, cent by cent we grow rich."
The verses were popular, the whole book was educative, and it was not
above the comprehension of the negro. If all the teaching of the negro had
been as sensible as this little book, much trouble would have been
avoided. It was a proud negro who owned one of these wonderful bank-books,
and he had a right to be proud. Many at once began to make use of the
savings-banks, and small sums poured in. Only the negroes in and near the
three cities--Huntsville, Montgomery, and Mobile--where the banks were
located seem to have made deposits, for those of the other towns and of
the country knew little of the institution. During the month of January,
1866, deposits to the amount of $4809 were made in the Mobile branch. This
was all in small sums and was deposited at a time of the year when money
was scarcest among laborers.[1222] In 1868 the interest paid on long-time
deposits to depositors at Huntsville was $38.02; at Mobile, $1349.40. On
May 1, 1869, the deposits at Huntsville amounted to $17,603.29; at Mobile,
$50,511.66.
The following statements of the two principal banks will show how the
scheme worked among the negroes:--
======================================================================
|HUNTSVILLE BRANCH|MOBILE BRANCH
-------------------------------------|-----------------|--------------
Total deposits to March 31, 1870 | $89,445.10 | $539,534.33
Total number of depositors | 500 | 3,260
Average amount deposited by each | $17.89 | $165.60
Drawn out to March 31, 1870 | 70,586.60 | 474,583.60
Balance to March 31, 1870 | 18,858.50 | 64,750.83
Average balance due to each depositor| 47.114 | 39.82
Spent for land (known) | 1,900.00 | 50,000.00
Dwelling houses | 800.00 | ----
Seeds, teams, agricultural implements| 5,000.00 | 15,000.00
Education, books, etc. | 1,200.00 | ----
======================================================================
STATEMENT OF THE BUSINESS DONE DURING AUGUST, 1872
======================================================================
| HUNTSVILLE | MOBILE | MONTGOMERY
----------------------|-------------|---------------|-----------------
Deposits for the month| $7,343.50 | $11,136.05 | $8,522.90
Drafts for the month | 10,127.61 | 18,645.62 | 8,679.60
Total deposits | 416,617.72 | 1,039,097.05 | 238,106.08
Total drafts | 364,382.51 | 933,424.30 | 213,861.71
Total due depositors | 52,235.21 | 105,672.75 | 24,244.37[1223]
======================================================================
These branch banks exercised a good influence over the negro population,
even over those who did not become depositors. The negroes became more
economical, spent less for whiskey, gewgaws, and finery, and when wages
were good and work was plentiful, they saved money to carry them through
the winter and other periods of lesser prosperity. Some of those who had
no bank accounts would save in order to have one, or, at least, save
enough money to help them through hard times. Much of the money drawn from
the banks was invested in property of some kind. Excessive interest in
politics prevented a proper increase in the number of depositors and in
the amount of deposits.
In 1874, after the bank failed through dishonest and inefficient
management, the liabilities to southern negro depositors amounted to
$3,299,201.[1224] A total business of $55,000,000 had been done. The
following table, compiled by Hoffman, will show the total business of the
bank, 1866 to 1874.[1225]
==================================================================
YEAR| TOTAL DEPOSITS | DEPOSITS EACH | DUE DEPOSITORS | GAIN EACH
| | YEAR | | YEAR
----|----------------|----------------|----------------|----------
1866| $305,167 | $305,167 | $199,283 | $199,283
1867| 1,624,853 | 1,319,686 | 366,338 | 167,054
1868| 3,582,378 | 1,957,525 | 638,299 | 271,960
1869| 7,257,798 | 3,675,420 | 1,073,465 | 435,166
1870| 12,605,782 | 5,347,983 | 1,657,006 | 583,541
1871| 19,952,947 | 7,347,165 | 2,455,836 | 798,829
1872| 31,260,499 | 11,281,313 | 3,684,739 | 1,227,927
1873| ---- | ---- | 4,200,000 | ----
1874| 55,000,000 | ---- | 3,013,670 | ----
==================================================================
In Alabama the depositors lost, for the time at least, $35,963 at
Huntsville; $29,743 at Montgomery; $95,144 at Mobile. After years of delay
dividends were paid; but few of the depositors profited by the late
payment.[1226] The philanthropic incorporators took care to desert the
failing enterprise in time, and Frederick Douglass, a well-known negro,
was placed in charge to serve as a scapegoat. No one was punished for the
crooked proceedings of the institution. Several of the incorporators were
dead; the survivors pleaded good intentions, ignorance, etc., and finally
placed the blame on their dead associates. Their sympathy for the negro
did not go the length of assuming money responsibility for the operations
of the bank, and thus saving the negro depositors. There were several of
the incorporators who could have assumed all the liabilities and not felt
the burden severely. Agents and lawyers got most of the later proceeds,
and the good work was all undone, for the negro felt that the United
States government and the Freedmen's Bureau had cheated him. It is said to
have affected his faith in banks to this day.[1227]
SEC. 3. THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU AND NEGRO EDUCATION
As the Federal armies occupied southern territory and numbers of negroes
were thrown upon the care of the government which gathered them into
colonies on confiscated plantations, there arose a demand from the friends
of the negro at the North that his education should begin at once. An
educated negro, it was thought, was even more obnoxious to the
slaveholding southerner than a free negro; hence educated negroes should
be multiplied. No doubt was entertained by his northern friends but that
the negro was the equal of the white man in capacity to profit by
education. To educate the negro was to carry on war against the South just
as much as to invade with armed troops, and various aid societies demanded
that, as the negro came under the control of the United States troops,
schools be established and the colored children be taught. The Treasury
agents, who were in charge of the plantations and colonies where the
negroes were gathered, were instructed by the Secretary to establish
schools in each "home" and "labor" colony for the instruction of the
children under twelve years of age. Teachers, supplied by the
superintendent of the colony, who was usually the chaplain of a negro
regiment, or by benevolent associations, were allowed to take charge of
the education of the blacks in any colony they decided to enter.[1228]
Before the end of the war only three or four such schools were established
in Alabama. One was on the plantation of ex-Governor Chapman, in Madison
County, another at Huntsville, and one at Florence.
The law of March 3, 1865, creating the Freedmen's Bureau, gave to its
officials general authority over all matters concerning freedmen. Nothing
was said about education or schools, but it was understood that
educational work was to be carried on and extended, and after the
organization of the Bureau in the state of Alabama its "Department of
Records" had control of the education of the negro. For the support of
negro education the second Freedmen's Bureau Act, July 16, 1866,
authorized the use of or the sale of all buildings and lands and other
property formerly belonging to the Confederate States or used for the
support of the Confederacy. It directed the authorities of the Bureau to
coöperate at all times with the aid societies, and to furnish buildings
for schools where these societies sent teachers, and also to furnish
protection to these teachers and schools.[1229]
The southern churches had never ceased their work among the negroes during
the war,[1230] and immediately after the emancipation of the slaves all
denominations declared that the freedmen must be educated so as to fit
them for their changed condition of life.[1231] The churches spoke for the
controlling element of the people, who saw that some kind of training was
an absolute necessity to the continuation of the friendly relations then
existing between the two races. The church congregations, associations,
and conferences, and mass meetings of citizens pledged themselves to aid
in this movement. Dr. J. L. M. Curry first appeared as a friend of negro
education when, in the summer of 1865, he presided over a mass meeting at
Marion, which made provision for schools for the negroes. On the part of
the whites whose opinion was worth anything, there was no objection worth
mentioning to negro schools in 1865 and 1866.[1232] In the latter year,
before the objectionable features of the Bureau schools appeared, General
Swayne commented upon the fact that the various churches had not only
declared in favor of the education of the negro, but had aided the work of
the Bureau schools and kept down opposition to them. He was, however,
inclined to attribute this attitude somewhat to policy. He wrote with
special approval of the assistance and encouragement given by the
Methodist Episcopal Church South, through Rev. H. N. McTyeire (later
bishop), who was always in favor of schools for negroes. He reported,
also, that there was a growing feeling of kindliness on the part of the
people toward the schools. Where there was prejudice the school often
dispelled it, and the movement had the good will of Governors Parsons and
Patton.[1233]
Just after the military occupation of the state there was the greatest
desire on the part of the negroes, young and old, for book learning.
Washington speaks of the universal desire for education.[1234] The whole
race wanted to go to school; none were too old, few too young. Old people
wanted to learn to read the Bible before they died, and wanted their
children to be educated. This seeming thirst for education was not rightly
understood in the North; it was, in fact, more a desire to imitate the
white master and obtain formerly forbidden privileges than any real desire
due to an understanding of the value of education; the negro had not the
slightest idea of what "education" was, but the northern people gave them
credit for an appreciation not yet true even of whites. There were day
schools, night schools, and Sunday-schools, and the "Blue-back Speller"
was the standard beginner's text. Yet, as Washington says, it was years
before the parents wanted their children to make any use of education
except to be preachers, teachers, Congressmen, and politicians. Rascals
were ahead of the missionaries, and a number of pay schools were
established in 1865 by unprincipled men who took advantage of this desire
for learning and fleeced the negro of his few dollars. One school,
established in Montgomery by a pedagogue who came in the wake of the
armies, enrolled over two hundred pupils of all ages, at two dollars per
month in advance. The school lasted one month, and the teacher left, but
not without collecting the fees for the second month.[1235]
When General Swayne arrived, he assumed control of negro education, and a
"Superintendent of Schools for Freedmen" was appointed. The Rev. C. M.
Buckley, chaplain of a colored regiment and official of the Freedmen's
Bureau, was the first holder of this office. In 1868, after he went to
Congress, the position was held by Rev. R. D. Harper, a northern Methodist
preacher, who was superseded in 1869 by Colonel Edwin Beecher, formerly a
paymaster of the Bureau and cashier of the Freedmen's Savings Bank in
Montgomery. There also appeared a person named H. M. Bush as
"Superintendent of Education," a title the Bureau officials were fond of
assuming and which often caused them to be confused with the state
officials of like title.[1236]
The sale of Confederate property at Selma, Briarfield, and other places,
small tuition fees, and gifts furnished support to the teachers. General
Swayne was deeply interested in the education of the blacks, and thought
that northern teachers could do better work for the colored race than
southern teachers. Most of the aid societies had spent their funds before
reaching Alabama, but Swayne secured some assistance from the American
Missionary Association. The teachers were paid partly by the Association,
but mostly by the Bureau. The Pittsburg Freedmen's Aid Commission
established schools in north Alabama, at Huntsville, Stevenson, Tuscumbia,
and Athens, and also had a school at Selma. The Cleveland Freedmen's Union
Commission worked in Montgomery and Talladega by means of Sunday-schools.
A great many of the schools with large enrolments were Sunday-schools. The
American Missionary Association, besides furnishing teachers to the
Bureau, had schools of its own in Selma, Talladega, and Mobile. The
American Freedmen's Union Commission (Presbyterian branch) also had
schools in the state. The Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist
Episcopal Church (North) did some work in the way of education, but was
engaged chiefly in inducing the negroes to flee from the wrath to come by
leaving the southern churches. At Stevenson and Athens schools were
established by aid from England.[1237] In 1866 the Northwestern Aid
Society had a school at Mobile.[1238] At the end of 1865, the Bureau had
charge of eleven schools at Huntsville, Athens, and Stevenson, one in
Montgomery with 11 teachers and 497 pupils, and one in Mobile with 4
teachers and 420 pupils.[1239] Some ill feeling was aroused by the action
of the Bureau in seizing the Medical College and Museum at Mobile and
using it as a schoolhouse. Even the Confederate authorities had not
demanded the use of it. Before the war it was said that the museum was one
of the finest in America. Many of the most costly models were now taken
away, and a negro shoemaker was installed in the chemical
department.[1240]
The attitude of the southern religious bodies enabled the Bureau to extend
its school system in 1866, and to secure native white teachers. Schools
taught by native whites, most of whom were of good character, were
established at Tuskegee, Auburn, Opelika, Salem, Greenville, Demopolis,
Evergreen, Mount Meigs, Tuscaloosa, Gainesville, Marion, Arbahatchee,
Prattville, Haynesville, and King's Station,--in all twenty schools. There
were negro teachers in the schools at Troy, Wetumpka, Home Colony (near
Montgomery), and Tuscaloosa. The native whites taught at places where no
troops were stationed, and General Swayne stated that they were especially
willing to do this work after the churches had declared their intention to
favor the education of the negro. It was of such schools that he said
their presence dispelled prejudice.[1241] The history of one of these
schools is typical: In Russell County a school was established by the
Bureau, and Buckley, the Superintendent of Schools, who had no available
northern teacher, allowed the white people to name a native white teacher.
Several prominent men agreed that a Methodist minister of the community
was a suitable person. The neighbors assured him that his family should
not suffer socially on account of his connection with the school, and that
they wanted no northern teacher in the community. The minister accepted
the offer, was appointed by the Bureau, and the school was held in his
dooryard, out buildings, and verandas, his family assisting him. The
negroes were pleased, and big and little came to school. The relations
between the whites and blacks were pleasant, and all went well for more
than two years, until politics alienated the races, and the negroes
demanded a northern teacher or one of their own color.[1242] The schools
at Huntsville, Mobile, Montgomery, Selma, Tuscumbia, Stevenson, and
Athens, where troops were stationed, were reserved for the northern
teachers who were sent by the various aid societies. The disturbing
influence of the teachers was thus openly acknowledged. The Bureau
coöperated by furnishing buildings, paying rent, and making repairs, and,
in some instances, by giving money or supplies.[1243]
The statistics of the Bureau schools are confused and incomplete. In 1866
one report states that there were 8 schools with 31 teachers and 1338
pupils under the control of the Bureau. General Swayne's list includes
the schools at the various places named above, and reports 43 schools in
23 of the 52 counties, with 68 teachers and a maximum enrolment of 3220
pupils--the average being much less.[1244] Buckley's report for March 15,
1867, gives the number of negro schools of all kinds as 68 day schools and
27 night schools. The total enrolment for the winter months had been 5352;
the average attendance, 4217. At this time the Bureau was supporting 38
day schools, 19 night schools, and paying 49 teachers. Benevolent
societies under supervision of the Bureau were conducting 21 day schools,
7 night schools, with 36 teachers and a total enrolment of 2157 pupils.
Besides these there were 10 private schools with 443 pupils. In all the
schools, there were 75 white and 20 negro teachers. There were more than
100,000 negro children of school age in the state who were not reached by
these schools.
The following table, compiled from the semiannual reports on Bureau
schools in Alabama, will show the slight extent of the educational work of
the Bureau. The list includes all the schools in charge of the Bureau, or
which received aid from the Bureau.
========================================================================
| JULY 1, | JULY 1, | JAN. 1, | JULY 1, | JULY 1,
| 1867 | 1868 | 1869 | 1869 | 1870
--------------------|---------|----------|---------|---------|----------
Day schools | 122| 59| 33| 79 | 23
Night schools | 53| 19| 2| 1 | 4
Private schools | | | | |
(negro teachers) | 8| 22| 4| 1 | --
Semi-private | 25| 48| 25| 55 | 2
Teachers transported| | | | |
by Bureau | 122| 22| 29| 3 | --
School buildings | | | | |
owned by negroes | 27| 13| 1| 4 | 11
School buildings | | | | |
owned by Bureau | 38| 36| 29| 66 | --
White teachers | 126| 67| 49| 65?| --
Negro teachers | 24| 28| 12| 23?| --
White pupils | | | | |
(refugees) | 23| -- | -- | -- | --
Black pupils | 9,799| 4,040| 3,330| 5,131 | 2,110
Tuition paid | | | | |
by negroes |$1,542.00| $3,206.56|$1,431.50|$1,248.95| $1,446.30
Bureau paid | | | | |
for tuition | 6,693.00| 2,097.73| 1,219.75| 2,938.50| 22,559.88
Bureau paid for | | | | |
school expenses |18,685.07| ------ | ------ | ------ | ------
Total expenditures | 8,235.00| 6,463.72| 2,723.25| 4,187.45|240,061.18
========================================================================
These statistics showing expenditures are not complete, but they are given
as they are in the reports, which are carelessly made from carelessly kept
and defective records. There was a disposition on the part of the Bureau
to claim all the schools possible in order to show large numbers. Many of
these so-called schools were in reality only Sunday-schools,--that is,
they were in session only on Sundays,--(and the missionary Sunday-schools
were counted), and were not as good as the Sunday-schools which for years
before the war had been conducted among the negroes by the different
churches. The Bureau did not consider of importance the private plantation
and mission schools supported by the native whites, nor the state schools,
which largely outnumbered the Bureau schools, but only those aided in some
way by itself. The schools entirely under the control of the Bureau had
small enrolment. Assistance was given to all the schools taught by
northern missionaries, to some taught by native whites, and to some taught
by negroes. It was given in the form of buildings, repairs, supplies, and
small appropriations of money for salaries. Rent was paid by the Bureau
for school buildings not owned by the schools or by the Bureau. Accounts
were carelessly kept, and after General Swayne left, if not before, abuses
crept in. At least one of the aid societies received money from the
Bureau, and its representatives established a reputation for crookedness
that was retained after the Bureau was a thing of the past. This
society,--The American Missionary Association,--along with other work
among the negroes, carried on a crusade against the Catholic Church which
was endeavoring to work in the same field. Church work and educational
work were not separated. A building in Mobile, valued at $20,000, was
given by the Bureau to the association as a training school for negro
teachers. The society charged the Bureau rent on this building, and there
were other similar cases where the Bureau paid rent on its own buildings
which were used by the aid societies.[1245]
As already stated, for two years there was little or no opposition by the
whites to the education of the negro, and to some extent they even favored
and aided it. The story of southern opposition to the schools originated
with the lower class of agents, missionaries, and teachers. Of course, to
a person who had taken the abolitionist programme in good faith, it was
incomprehensible that the southern whites could entertain any kindly or
liberal feelings toward the blacks. But Buckley reported, as late as March
15, 1867, that the native whites favored the undertaking, and that no
difficulty was experienced in getting southern whites to teach negro
schools. Some of these teachers were graduates of the State University,
some had been county superintendents of education. Crippled Confederate
soldiers and the widows of soldiers sought for positions in the
schools.[1246] There were also some northern whites of common sense and
good character engaged in teaching these Bureau schools. But too many of
the latter considered themselves missionaries whose duty it was to show
the southern people the error of their sinful ways, and who taught the
negro the wildest of the social, political, and religious doctrines held
at that time by the more sentimental friends of the ex-slaves.
The temper and manner and the beliefs in which the northern educator went
about the business of educating the negro are shown in the reports and
addresses in the proceedings of the National Teachers' Association from
1865 to 1875. The crusade of the teachers in the South was directed by the
people represented in this association, and its members went out as
teachers. Some of the sentiments expressed were as follows: Education and
Reconstruction were to go hand in hand, for the war had been one of
"education and patriotism against ignorance and barbarism."[1247] "The old
slave states [were] to be a missionary ground for the national
schoolmaster,"[1248] and knowledge and intellectual culture were to be
spread over this region that lay hid in darkness.[1249] There was a demand
for a national school system to force a proper state of affairs upon the
South, for free schools were necessary, they declared, to a republican
form of government, and the free school system should be a part of
Reconstruction. The education of the whites as well as the blacks should
be in the future a matter of national concern, because the "old rebels"
had been sadly miseducated, and they had been able to rule only because
others were ignorant and had been purposely kept in ignorance. Much
commiseration was expressed for "the poor white trash" of the South. The
"rebels" were still disloyal, and, as one speaker said, must be treated as
a farmer does stumps, that is, they must be "worked around and left to rot
out." The old "slave lords" must be driven out by the education of the
people, and no distinction in regard to color should be allowed in the
schools. The work of education must be directed by the North, for only the
North had correct ideas in regard to education. Nothing good was found in
the old southern life; it was bad and must give way to the correct
northern civilization. The work of "The Christian Hero" was praised, and
it was declared that it ought to inspire an epic even greater than the
immortal epic of Homer.[1250]
The missionary teachers who came South were supported by this sentiment in
the North, and they could not look with friendly eyes upon anything done
by the southern whites for the negroes. Altogether there were not many of
these heralds of light, and it was a year before the character of their
teaching became generally known to the whites or its results were plainly
seen. Their dislike for all things southern was heartily reciprocated by
the native whites, who soon acquired a dislike for the northern teacher
which became second nature. The negro was taught by the missionary
educators that he must distrust the whites and give up all habits and
customs that would remind him of his former condition; he must not say
master and mistress nor take off his hat when speaking to a white person.
In teaching him not to be servile, they taught him to be insolent. The
missionary teachers regarded themselves as the advance guard of a new army
of invasion against the terrible South. In recent years a Hampton
Institute teacher has expressed the situation as follows: "When the combat
was over and the Yankee schoolma'ams followed in the train of the northern
armies, the business of educating the negroes was a continuation of
hostilities against the vanquished, and was so regarded to a considerable
extent on both sides." The North in a few years became disappointed and
indifferent, especially after the negro began to turn again to the
southern whites.[1251]
The negro schools felt the influence of the politics of the day, besides
suffering from the results of the teachings of the northern pedagogues.
Buckley made a report early in 1867, stating that conditions were
favorable. On July 1, 1868, Rev. R. D. Harper, "Superintendent of
Education," reported that there was a reaction against negro schools; that
the whites were now hostile to the negro schools on account of their
teachers, who, the whites claimed, upheld the doctrines of social and
political equality; the negroes were too much interested in politics in
1867 and 1868, and spent their money in the campaigns; the teachers of the
negro schools were intimidated, ostracized from society, and could not
find board with the white people. Because of this, he said, some schools
had been broken up. The civil authorities, he declared, winked at the
intimidation of the teachers.[1252] Beecher, the Assistant Commissioner
and "Superintendent of Education," reported that the schools had been
supported on confiscated Confederate property until 1869, and that this
source of supply being exhausted, the teachers were returning to the
North. He reported that 100,000 children had never been inside a
schoolhouse. The night schools were not successful because the negroes
were unable to keep awake. A year later, Beecher reported that the schools
were recovering from unfavorable conditions, and that some of the teachers
who had proven to be immoral and incompetent had been discharged.
The last reports (1870) stated that there was less opposition by the
whites to the Bureau schools.[1253] This can be partly accounted for by
the fact that the majority of the obnoxious northern teachers had returned
to the North or had been discharged. The best ones, who had come with high
hopes for the negroes, sure that the blacks needed only education to make
them the equal of the whites, were bitterly disappointed, and in the
majority of cases they gave up the work and left. Not all of them were of
good character and a number were discharged for incompetency or
immorality; others were coarse and rude. The respectable southern whites
resigned as soon as the results of the teaching of the outsiders began to
be realized, and those who remained were beyond the pale of society. The
white people came to believe, and too often with good reason, that the
alien teachers stood for and taught social and political equality,
intermarriage of the races, hatred and distrust of the southern whites,
and love and respect for the northern deliverer only. Social ostracism
forced the white teachers to be content with negro society. Naturally they
became more bitter and incendiary in their utterances and teachings. Some
negroes were only too quick to learn such sentiments, and the generally
insolent behavior of the negro educated under such conditions was one of
the causes of reaction against negro education. The hostility against
negro schools was especially strong among the more ignorant whites, and
during the Ku Klux movement these people burned a number of schoolhouses
and drove the teachers from the country where a few years before they had
been welcomed by some and tolerated by all.
The results of the attempts by the Bureau and the missionary societies to
educate the negro were almost wholly bad. DuBois makes the astonishing
statement that the Bureau established the free public school system in
the South.[1254] It is true that some of the schools then established have
survived, but there would have been many more schools to-day had these
never existed. For the whites the public school system of Alabama existed
before the war; the example of the Bureau in no way encouraged its
extension for the blacks; reconstructive educational ideals caused a
reaction against general public education. In 1865 to 1866 the thinking
people of the state, such men as Dr. J. L. M. Curry and Bishop McTyeire,
were heartily in favor of the education of the negro, and all the churches
were also in favor of giving it a trial. As conditions were at that time,
even the best plan for the education of the negro by alien agencies would
have failed. General Swayne hoped to use both northern and southern
teachers, but it was not possible that the temper of either party would
permit coöperation in the work. Buckley seems to have had glimmerings of
this fact, when he tried to get southern teachers for the schools. But the
damage was already done. The logical and intentional result of the
teachings of the missionaries was to alienate the races. If the negro
accepted the doctrine of the equality of all men and the belief in the
utter sinfulness of slavery and slaveholders, he at once found that the
southern whites were his natural enemies.
Unwise efforts were made to teach the adult blacks, and they were
encouraged to believe that all knowledge was in their reach; that without
education they would be helpless, and with it they would be the white
man's equal. Some of the negroes almost worshipped education, it was to do
so much for them. The schools in the cities were crowded with grown
negroes who could never learn their letters. All attempts to teach these
older ones failed, and the failure caused grievous disappointment to many.
The exercise of common sense by the teachers might have spared them this.
But the average New England teacher began to work as if the negroes were
Mayflower descendants. No attention was paid to the actual condition of
the negroes and their station in life. False ideas about manual labor were
put into their heads, and the training given them had no practical bearing
on the needs of life.[1255]
From the table given above it will be seen that the Bureau schools reached
only a very small proportion of the negro children. The missionary schools
not connected with the Bureau were few. It is likely that for five years
there were not more than two hundred northern teachers in the state, yet
the effect of their work was, in connection with the operations of the
political and religious missionaries, to make a majority perhaps of the
white people hostile to the education of the negro. The crusading spirit
of the invaders touched the most sensitive feelings of the southerners,
and the insolence and rascality of the educated negroes were taken as
natural results of education. The good was obscured by the bad. The
innocent missionary suffered for the sins of the violent and incendiary.
The educated black rascal was pointed out as a fair example of negro
education. The damage was done, not so much by what was actually taught in
the relatively few schools, as by the ideas caught by the entire negro
population that came in contact with the missionaries. Naturally the
blacks were more likely to accept the radical teachers. A most unfortunate
result was the withdrawal of the southern church organizations and of all
white southerners from the work of training the negro. The profession had
been discredited. One of the hardest tasks of the negro educators of
to-day--like Washington or Councill--is to undo the work of the aliens who
wrought in passion and hate a generation before they began. The evil of
the Bureau system did not die with that institution, but when the
reconstructionists undertook to mould anew the institutions of the South,
the educational methods of the Bureau and its teachers were transferred
into the new state system which they helped to discredit.[1256]
Why the Bureau System Failed
There have been many apologies for the Freedmen's Bureau, many assertions
of the necessity for such an institution to protect the blacks from the
whites. It was necessary, the friends of the institution claimed, to
prevent reënslavement of the negro, to secure equality before the law, to
establish a system of free labor, to relieve want, to force a beginning of
education for the negro, to make it safe for northern missionaries and
teachers to work among the blacks. It was, of course, not to be expected
that the victorious North would leave the negroes entirely alone after the
war, and in theory there were only two objections to such an institution
well conducted,--(1) it was not really needed, and (2) it was, as an
institution, based on an idea insulting to southern white people. It meant
that they were unfit to be trusted in the slightest matter that concerned
the blacks. It was based on the theory that there was general hostility
between the southern white and the southern black, and that the government
must uphold the weaker by establishing a system of espionage over the
stronger. The low characters of the officials made the worst of what would
have been under the best agents a bad state of affairs. In 1865 it was
necessary for the good of the negro that social and economic laws cease to
operate for a while and allow the feelings of sentiment, duty, and
gratitude of the Southern whites to work in behalf of the black and enable
the latter to make a place for himself in the new order. After the
surrender there was, on the part of the whites, a strong feeling of
gratitude to the negroes, that was practically universal, for their
faithful conduct during the war. The people were ready, because of this
and many other reasons, to go to any reasonable lengths to reward the
blacks. The Bureau made it impossible for this feeling to find expression
in acts. The negro was taken from his master's care and in alien schools
and churches taught that in all relations of life the southern white man
was his enemy. The whites came to believe that negro education was worse
than a failure. The southern churches lost all opportunity to work among
the negroes. Friendly relations gave way to hostility between the races.
The better elements in southern society that were working for the good of
the black were paralyzed and the worst element remained active. The
friendship of the native whites was of more value to the blacks than any
amount of theoretical protection against inequalities in legislation and
justice. Finally, the claim that the Bureau was essential in establishing
a system of free labor is ridiculous. The reports of the Bureau officials
themselves show clearly, though not consciously, that the new labor system
was being worked out according to the fundamental economic laws of supply
and demand, and largely in spite of the opposition of the Bureau with its
red tape-measures. The Bureau labor policy finally gave way everywhere
before the unauthorized but natural system that was evolved.[1257]
PART V
CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION
CHAPTER XII
MILITARY GOVERNMENT UNDER THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS
SEC. I. THE ADMINISTRATION OF GENERAL POPE
The Military Reconstruction Bills
The Radicals in Congress triumphed over the moderate Republicans, the
Democrats, and the President, when, on March 2, 1867, they succeeded in
passing over the veto the first of the Reconstruction Acts. This act
reduced the southern states to the status of military provinces and
established the rule of martial law. After asserting in the preamble that
no legal governments or adequate protection for life and property existed
in Alabama and other southern states, the act divided the South into five
military districts, subject to the absolute control of the central
government, that is, of Congress.[1258] Alabama, with Georgia and Florida,
constituted the Third Military District. The military commander, a general
officer, appointed by the President, was to carry on the government in his
province. No state interference was to be allowed, though the provisional
civil administration might be made use of if the commander saw fit.
Offenders might be tried by the local courts or by military commissions,
and except in cases involving the death penalty, there was no appeal
beyond the military governor. This rule of martial law was to continue
until the people[1259] should adopt a constitution providing for
enfranchisement of the negro and for the disfranchisement of such whites
as would be excluded by the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the United
States Constitution. As soon as this constitution should be ratified by
the new electorate (a majority voting in the election) and the
constitution approved by Congress, and the legislature elected under the
new constitution should ratify the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, then
representatives from the state were to be admitted to Congress upon taking
the "iron-clad" test oath of July 2, 1862.[1260] And until so
reconstructed the present civil government of the state was provisional
only and might be altered, controlled, or abolished, and in all elections
under it the negro must vote and those who would be excluded by the
proposed Fourteenth Amendment must be disfranchised.[1261]
The President at once (March 11, 1867) appointed General George H. Thomas
to the command of the Third Military District, with headquarters at
Montgomery, but the work was not to General Thomas's liking, and at his
request he was relieved, and on March 15 General Pope was appointed in his
place.[1262] Pope was in favor of extreme measures in dealing with the
southern people and stated that he understood the design of the
Reconstruction Acts to be "to free the southern people from the baleful
influence of old political leaders."[1263]
The act of March 2 did not provide for forcing Reconstruction upon the
people. If they wanted it, they might initiate it through the provisional
governments, or if they preferred, they might remain under martial law.
While all people were anxious to have the state restored to the Union,
most of the whites saw that to continue under martial law, even when
administered by Pope, was preferable to Reconstruction under the proposed
terms. Consequently the movement toward Reconstruction was made by a very
small minority of the people and had no chance whatever of making any
headway.
Therefore, in order to hasten the restoration of the states and to insure
the proper political complexion of the new régime, Congress assumed
control of the administration of the law of March 2, by the supplementary
act of March 23, 1865. "To facilitate restoration" the commander of the
district was to cause a registration of all men over twenty-one not
disfranchised by the act of March 2, who could take the prescribed
oath[1264] before the registering officers. The commander was then to
order an election for the choice of delegates to a convention. He was to
apportion the delegates according to the registered voting population. If
a majority voted against holding the convention, it should not be held.
The boards of registration, appointed by the commanding general, were to
consist of three loyal persons. They were to have entire control of the
registration of voters, and the elections and returns which were to be
made to the military governor. They were required to take the "iron-clad"
test oath, and the penalties of perjury were to be visited upon official
or voter who should take the oath falsely. After the convention should
frame a constitution, the military commander should submit it to the
people for ratification or rejection. The same board of registration was
to hold the election. If the Constitution should be ratified by a majority
of the votes cast in the election where a majority of the registered
voters voted, and the other conditions of the act of March 2 having been
complied with, the state should be admitted to representation in
Congress.[1265]
Pope assumes Command
On April 1, 1867, General Pope arrived in Montgomery and assumed command
of the Third Military District. General Swayne was continued in command
of Alabama as a sub-district. Pope announced that the officials of the
provisional government would be allowed to serve out their terms of
office, provided the laws were impartially administered by them. Failure
to protect the people without distinction in their rights of person and
property would result in the interference of the military authorities.
Civil officials were forbidden to use their influence against
congressional reconstruction. No elections were to be held unless negroes
were allowed to vote and the whites disfranchised as provided for in the
act of March 2. However, all vacancies then existing or which might occur
before registration was completed would be filled by military appointment.
The state militia was ordered to disband.[1266] General Swayne proclaimed
that he, having been intrusted with the "administration of the military
reconstruction bill" in Alabama, would exact a literal compliance with the
requirements of the Civil Rights Bill. All payments for services rendered
the state during the war were peremptorily forbidden.[1267] The _Herald_
correspondent reported that Pope's early orders were favorably received by
the conservative press of Alabama, and that there was no opposition of any
kind manifested. The people did not seem to realize what was in store for
them. The army thought necessary to crush the "rebellious" state was
increased by a few small companies only, and now consisted of fourteen
companies detached from the Fifteenth and the Thirty-third Infantry and
the Fifth Cavalry, amounting in all to 931 men, of whom eight companies
were in garrison in the arsenal at Mount Vernon and the forts at
Mobile.[1268] The rest were stationed at Montgomery, Selma, and
Huntsville.
Writing to Grant on April 2, Pope stated that the civil officials were all
active secessionists and would oppose Reconstruction. But the people were
ready for Reconstruction, which he predicted would be speedy in Alabama.
Five days later he wrote that there would be no trouble in Alabama; that
Governor Patton and nearly all the civil officials and most of the
prominent men of the state were in favor of the congressional
Reconstruction and were canvassing the state in favor of it.[1269] He was
evidently of changeable opinions. However, he was so impressed with the
goodness of Alabama and the badness of Georgia, that, in order to be near
the most difficult work, he asked Grant to have headquarters removed to
Atlanta, which was done on April 11.[1270]
[Illustration: FEDERAL COMMANDERS, Who ruled the State, 1865-1868.
GENERAL GEORGE H. THOMAS, in command of the district including Alabama,
1864-1867.
GENERAL WAGER SWAYNE, Assistant Commissioner of Freedmen's Bureau.
GENERAL JOHN POPE, First Commander of Third Military District.
GENERAL GEORGE G. MEADE (in field uniform), Commander of Third Military
District.]
The Georgia people were evidently so bad that they caused a change in his
former favorable opinion of the people in general, or rather of the
whites, for in a letter to Grant, July 24, 1867, we find a frank
expression of his sentiments in regard to Reconstruction. He thought the
disfranchising clauses were among the wisest provisions of the
Reconstruction Acts; that the leading rebels should have been forced to
leave the country and stay away; that all the old official class was
opposed to Reconstruction and was sure to prevail unless kept
disfranchised; that it was better to have incompetent loyal men in office
than rebels of ability,--in fact, the greater the ability the greater the
danger; that in order to retain the fruits of reconstruction the old
leaders must be put beyond the power of returning to influence. He had by
this time evidently become somewhat disgusted with the reconstructionists,
for he intimated that none of the whites were fit for self-government, and
was strongly of the opinion that, in a few years, intelligence and
education would be transferred from the whites to the negroes. He
predicted ten thousand majority for Reconstruction in Alabama, but thought
that in case Reconstruction succeeded in the elections, some measures
would have to be taken to free the country of the turbulent and disloyal
leaders of the reactionary party, or there would be no peace.[1271]
Control of the Civil Government
Pope instructed the post commanders in Alabama to report to headquarters
any failures of civil tribunals to administer the laws in accordance with
the Civil Rights Bill or the recent acts of Congress. They were, above
all, to watch for discrimination on account of color, race, or political
opinion. While not interfering with the functions of civil officers, they
were instructed to give particular attention to the manner in which such
functions were discharged.[1272] Civil officials were warned that the
prohibition against their using influence against Reconstruction would be
stringently enforced. They were not to give verbal or written advice to
individuals, committees, or the public unless in favor of Reconstruction.
Officials who violated this prohibition were to be removed from office and
held accountable as the case demanded.[1273] District and post commanders
were ordered to report to Pope all state, county, or municipal officials
who were "disloyal" to the government of the United States, or who used
their influence to "hinder, delay, prevent, or obstruct the due and proper
administration of the acts of Congress."[1274] Later, Grant and Pope
decided that the paroles of soldiers were still in force and that any
attempt to "prevent the settlement of the southern question would be a
violation of parole."[1275]
In May, Pope issued orders informing the officials of Alabama of their
proper status. There was no legal government in Alabama, they were told,
and Congress had declared that no adequate protection for life and
property existed. The military authorities were warned that upon them
rested the final responsibility for peace and security. Consequently when
necessary they were to supersede the civil officials. In towns, the mayor
and chief of police were required to be present at every public meeting,
with sufficient force to render disturbance impossible. It would be no
excuse not to know of a meeting or not to apprehend trouble. Outside of
towns, the sheriff or one of his deputies was to be present at such
gatherings, and in case of trouble was to summon a posse from the crowd,
but must not summon officers of the meeting or the speakers. It was
declared the duty of civil officials to preserve peace, and assure rights
and privileges to all persons who desired to hold public meetings. In case
of disturbance, if it could not be shown that the civil officials did
their full duty, they would be deposed and held responsible by the
military authorities. When the civil authorities asked for it, the
commanders of troops were to furnish detachments to be present at
political meetings and prevent disturbance. The commanding officers were
to keep themselves informed in regard to political meetings and hold
themselves ready for immediate action.[1276]
From the beginning, Pope, supported and advised by General Swayne, pursued
extreme measures. There were soon many complaints of his arbitrary
conduct. In his correspondence with General Grant he complained of the
attitude of the Washington administration toward his acts, and largely to
support Pope (and Sheridan in the Fifth District), Congress passed the act
of July 19, 1867, which was the last of the Reconstruction Acts, so far as
Alabama was concerned. This law declared that the civil governments were
not legal state governments and were, if continued, to be subject
absolutely to the military commanders and to the paramount authority of
Congress. The commander of the district was declared to have full power,
subject only to the disapproval of General Grant, to remove or suspend
officers of the civil government and appoint others in their places.
General Grant was vested with full power of removal, suspension, and
appointment. It was made the duty of the commander to remove from office
all who opposed Reconstruction.[1277] Pope had already been making use of
the most extreme powers, and the only effect of the act was to approve his
course. Pope gave the laws a very broad interpretation, believing that
Reconstruction should be thoroughly done in order to leave no room for
future trouble and embarrassment. Grant, on August 3, wrote to him[1278]
approving his sentiments, and went on to say: "It is certainly the duty of
the district commander to study what the framers of the Reconstruction
laws wanted to express, as much as what they do express, and to execute
the law according to that interpretation."[1279] This was certainly a
unique method of interpretation and would justify any possible assumption
of power.
There had been several instances of prosecution by state authorities of
soldiers and officials for acts which they claimed were done under
military authority. Pope disposed of this question by ordering the civil
courts to entertain no action against any person for acts performed in
accordance with military orders or by sanction of the military authority.
Suits then pending were dismissed. The military authorities were to
enforce the order strictly and report all officials who might
disobey.[1280] A few weeks later a decree went forth that all jurors
should be chosen from the lists of voters registered under the acts of
Congress. They must be chosen without discrimination in regard to color,
and each juror must take an oath that he was a registered voter. Those who
could not take the oath were to be replaced by those who could.[1281]
So much for the general regulation and supervision of the civil
authorities by the army. There were but a few hundred troops intrusted
with the execution of these regulations, which were, of course, enforced
only spasmodically. The more prominent officials were closely watched, but
the only effect in country districts was to destroy all government. Many
judges, while willing to have their jurors drawn from the voting lists,
refused to accept ignorant negroes on them, or to order the selection of
mixed juries, and many courts were closed by military authority. Judge
Wood, of the city court of Selma, had a jury drawn of whites. A military
commission, sitting in Selma, refused to allow cases to be tried unless
negroes were on the jury. Pope's order was construed as requiring negroes
on each jury, and he so meant it.[1282] Later, he published an order
requiring jurors to take the "test oath," which would practically exclude
all the whites.[1283] Prisoners confined in jail under sentence by jurors
drawn under the old laws were liberated by the army officers or by
Freedmen's Bureau officials. Twice in the month of December, 1867, there
were jail deliveries by military authorities in Greene County.[1284]
Within the first month Pope began to remove civil officials and appoint
others. Mayor Joseph H. Sloss of Tuscumbia was the first to go. Pope
alleged that the election had not been conducted in accordance with the
acts of Congress and forthwith appointed a new mayor. No complaint had
been made, the removal being caused by outside influence.[1285] At this
election, negroes for the first time in Alabama had voted under the
Reconstruction Acts. Sloss had received two-thirds of all votes cast.
Evidently the blacks had been controlled by the whites, which was contrary
to the spirit of the Reconstruction.
Immediately after a riot in Mobile[1286] following an incendiary speech by
"Pig Iron" Kelly of Pennsylvania, one of the visiting orators, Colonel
Shepherd of the Fifteenth Infantry assumed command of the city. The police
were suspended. Breach of the peace was punished by the military
authorities. Out-of-door congregations after nightfall were prohibited.
Notice of public meetings had to be given to the acting mayor in time to
have a force on hand to preserve the peace. The publication of incendiary
articles in the newspapers was forbidden. The provost guard was directed
to seize all large firearms in the possession of improper persons and to
search suspected persons for small arms. The special police, when
appointed, were ordered to restrict their duties to enforcing the city
ordinances. All offences against military ordinances would be attended to
by the military authorities. A later order prohibited the carrying of
large firearms without special permission. Deposits of such arms were
seized.[1287]
Pope declared all offices vacant in Mobile and filled them anew,[1288] in
the face of a report by Swayne that reasonable precautions had been taken
to prevent disorder. The blame for this action of Pope's fell upon Swayne,
who had to carry out the orders. The officers appointed by Pope refused to
accept office, and then he seems to have offered to reappoint the old
officials, and they declined. Thereupon he lost his temper and directed
Swayne to fill the vacancies in the city government of Mobile "from that
large class of citizens who have heretofore been denied the right of
suffrage and participation in municipal affairs and whose patriotism will
prevent them from following this disloyal example." He was referring to
the refusal of the former members of the city government to accept
reappointment after suspension, and meant that negroes should now be
appointed. Swayne offered positions to some of the most respected and
influential negroes, who declined, saying that they preferred white
officials. Negro policemen were appointed.[1289] In October a case came up
in Mobile which caused much irritation. The negro policemen were
troublesome and insolent, and one day a little child ran out into the
street in front of a team driven by a negro, who paid no attention to the
mother's call to him to stop his horses. Some one snatched the baby from
under the heels of the horses, and the scared and angry mother relieved
her feelings by calling the driver a "black rascal." The negro policemen
came to her house, arrested her, and with great brutality dragged her from
the house and along the street. Another woman asked the negroes if they
had a warrant for the arrest of the first woman. She was answered by the
polite query, "What the hell is it your business?" Mayor Horton, Pope's
appointee, fined the woman ten dollars[1290]--for violation of the Civil
Rights Bill, it is to be presumed, since that was considered to cover most
things pertaining to negroes.
This Mayor Horton had a high opinion of his prerogatives as military mayor
of Mobile. The _Mobile Tribune_ had been publishing criticisms on his
administration and also of Mr. Bromberg, one of his political brethren.
Archie Johnson, a crippled, half-witted negro newsboy, was, it is said,
hired to follow the mayor about, selling his _Tribune_ papers, much to the
annoyance of Mayor Horton. On one occasion Archie cried, "Here's yer
_Mobile Tribune_, wid all about Mayor Horton and his Bromberg rats." This
was too much for the military mayor, and, considering the offence as one
against the Civil Rights Bill, he sentenced the negro to banishment to New
Orleans. Archie soon returned and was again exiled by the mayor. Here was
an opportunity for the people to get even with Horton, and suit was
brought in the Federal court before Busteed, who was now somewhat out with
his party. Horton was fined for violation of the Civil Rights Bill.[1291]
Many officials were removed and many appointments made by Pope. His
removals and appointments included mayors, chiefs of police, tax assessors
and collectors, school trustees, county commissioners, justices of the
peace, sheriffs, judges, clerks of courts, bailiffs, constables, city
clerks, solicitors, superintendents of schools, aldermen, common councils,
and all the officials of Jones and Colbert counties.[1292] Pope was
roundly abused by the newspapers and by the people for making so many
changes. I have been unable to find, however, the names of more than
thirty-four officials of any consequence who were removed by Pope. He made
224 appointments to such offices, besides minor ones. A clean sweep of all
officials from mayor to policemen was made in Mobile and again in Selma.
Most vacancies were caused by expiration of term of office or by forced
resignation.[1293]
As there was need of money to pay the expense of the convention soon to
assemble, and as the taxpayers were beginning to understand for what
purposes their money was to be used and were in many instances refusing to
pay, Pope issued an order to the post and detachment commanders directing
them to furnish military aid to state tax-collectors.[1294] The bitterest
reconstructionists were heartily in favor of aid to the tax-collecting
branch of the "rebel" administration. They needed money to carry out their
plans. When the terms of the tax-collectors expired, they were ordered to
continue in office until their successors were duly elected and
qualified,[1295] which, of course, meant to continue the present
administration until the reconstructed government should take charge. Pope
was very careful not to allow the civil government to spend any of the
money coming in from taxes. He said that he thought it proper to prohibit
the state treasurer from paying out money for the support of families of
deceased Confederate soldiers, for wooden legs for Confederate soldiers,
etc., since the convention soon to meet would probably not approve
expenditure for such purposes.[1296] Later the treasurer was ordered to
pay the _per diem_ of the delegates and the expenses of the convention,
though Pope expressed doubt, for once, of his authority in the
matter.[1297]
General Swayne, at Montgomery, who had long been at the head of the
Freedmen's Bureau in the state and also military commander of the District
of Alabama since June 1, 1866, found himself relegated to a somewhat
subordinate position after Pope assumed command in the Third District. The
latter took charge of everything. If a negro policeman were to be
appointed in Mobile, Pope made the appointment and issued the order. Nor
did he always send his orders to Swayne to be republished. In consequence,
Swayne dropped out of the records somewhat, but he had to bear much of the
blame that should have fallen on Pope, though he was in full sympathy with
the views of the latter. He was, however, a man of much more ability than
Pope, of sounder judgment, and had had legal training. Consequently, Pope
relied much upon him for advice in the many knotty questions that came up,
often coming from Atlanta to Montgomery to see Swayne, and as a rule none
of his well-known proclamations were ever issued when under the latter's
influence. The orders written for him or outlined by Swayne were
stringent, of course, but clear, short, and to the point. Pope's own
masterpieces were long, rhetorical, and blustering. His favorite
valedictory at the end of an order was a threat of martial law and
military commissions.
General Swayne was still at the head of the Freedmen's Bureau, and in this
capacity he made his authority felt. In April, 1867, he ordered probate
judges to revise former actions in apprenticing minors to former owners
and to revoke all indentures made since the war if the minors were able to
support themselves. Though the vagrancy law had never been enforced and
had been repealed by the legislature, he declared its suspension. The
chain-gang system was abolished, except in connection with the
penitentiary.[1298] In the fall, in order to secure pay for negro
laborers, he ordered a lien on the crops grown on the farm where they were
employed. This lien was to attach from date of order and to have
preference over former liens.[1299]
Pope and the Newspapers
When Pope first assumed command, it was reported that the conservative
papers were, at the worst, not hostile to him;[1300] but within a few
weeks he had aroused their hostility and the battle was joined. Pope
believed that the papers had much to do with inciting hostility against
the visiting orators from the North, resulting in such disturbances as the
Kelly riot in Mobile. Consequently, instructions were issued prohibiting
the publication of articles tending to incite to riot. This order was
aimed at the conservative press. No one except the negroes paid much
attention to the Radical press. However, after the Mobile trouble the
military commander was somewhat nervous and wanted to prevent future
troubles. The negroes, now much excited by the campaign, were supposed to
be much influenced by the violent articles appearing in the Radical paper
of Mobile,--the _National_. On May 30 an article was printed in that paper
instructing the freedmen when, where, and how to use firearms. It went on
to state: "Do not, on future occasions [like the Kelly riot], waste a
single shot until you see your enemy, be sure he is your enemy, never
waste ammunition, don't shoot until necessary, and then be sure to shoot
your enemy. Don't fire into the air." Fearing the effect upon the negroes
of such advice, the commanding officer at Mobile suppressed the edition of
May 30, and prohibited future publication unless the proof should first be
submitted to the commandant according to the regulations of May 19, issued
by Pope. Instead of approving the action of the Mobile officer, Pope
strongly disapproved of and revoked his orders. The Mobile commander was
informed that it was the duty of the military authorities, not to
restrict, but to secure, the utmost freedom of speech. No officers or
soldiers should interfere with newspapers or speakers on any pretext
whatever. "No satisfactory execution of the late acts of Congress is
practicable unless this freedom is secured and its exercise protected,"
Pope said. However, "treasonable utterances" were not to be regarded as
the legitimate exercise of the freedom of discussion.[1301]
The conservative papers managed to keep within bounds, and Pope was unable
to harm them. Finally he decided to strike at them through the official
patronage. By the famous General Order No. 49,[1302] he stated that he was
convinced that the civil officials were obeying former instructions[1303]
only so far as their personal conversation was concerned, and were using
their official patronage to encourage newspapers which opposed
reconstruction and embarrassed civil officials appointed by military
authority by denunciations and threats of future punishment. Such use of
patronage was pronounced an evasion of former orders and an employment of
the machinery of the state government to defeat the execution of the
Reconstruction Acts. Therefore it was ordered that official advertising
and official printing be given to those newspapers which had not opposed
and did not then oppose Reconstruction or embarrass officials by threats
of violence and of prosecution as soon as the troops were withdrawn.[1304]
This order affected nearly every newspaper in the state. There were
sixty-two counties, and each had public printing and advertising. On an
average, at least one paper for each county was touched in the exchequer,
and as Pope reported, "a hideous outcry" arose from the press of the
state.[1305] There were only five or six Reconstruction papers in the
state, and a modification of the order in practice was absolutely
necessary. Pope was so roundly abused by the newspapers, North and South,
and especially in Alabama and Georgia, that he seems to have been affected
by it. He endeavored to explain away the order by saying that it related
only to military officials and not to civil officials. He did not say that
in the order, though he may have meant it, and was now using the
remarkable method of interpretation suggested to him by Grant in regard to
the Reconstruction Acts. Several accounts of newspapers for public
advertisements were held up and payments disallowed. The best-known of
these papers were the _Selma Times_ and the _Eutaw Whig and
Observer_.[1306] The order was strictly enforced until General Meade
assumed command of the Third Military District.
Trials by Military Commissions
The newspapers state that many arrests of citizens were made by military
authorities, and in the spring of 1868 they generally remarked that the
jails were filled with prisoners thus arrested who were still awaiting
trial. Most of these were probably arrested under the Pope régime, since
Meade, his successor, was not so extreme. However, Pope, in spite of his
threats, had but few persons tried by military commissions. D. C. Ballard
was convicted of pretending to be a United States detective and of
stealing ninety-five bales of cotton, and was sentenced to eight years'
imprisonment.[1307] One David J. Files was arrested for inciting the Kelly
riot at Mobile. Pope said that he was the chief offender and had him
imprisoned at Fort Morgan until he could be tried by a military
commission. He was fined $100.[1308] William A. Castleberry was convicted
by a military commission, fined $200, and imprisoned for one year for
purchasing stolen property and for assisting a deserter to escape. Jesse
Hays, a justice of the peace in Monroe County, was sentenced to five
months' imprisonment and fined $100 for prescribing a punishment for a
negro that could not be prescribed for a white, that is, fifty lashes.
Matthew Anderson and John Middleton, who were tried for carrying out the
sentence imposed on the negro, were acquitted.[1309] These are all the
cases that I have been able to find of trial of civilians by military
commission under Pope. In one case there was a direct interference by Pope
with the administration of justice. Daniel and James Cash had been
indicted in Macon County for murder and had made bond. They were later
indicted and arrested in Bullock County. Pope ordered that they be
released and that all civil officials let them alone.[1310]
Registration and Disfranchisement
But the prime object of Pope's administration was not merely to carry on
the government in his military province, but to see that the
Reconstruction was rushed through in the shortest possible time and in the
most thorough manner, according to the intentions of the Congressional
leaders as he understood them. As already stated, he had very clear ideas
of what should be done, and from the first was hampered by no few doubts
as to the limits of his power. The Reconstruction laws were given the
broadest interpretation. In the liberal interpretation of his powers Pope
was equalled only by Sheridan in the Fifth District.
A week after his arrival in Montgomery Pope directed Swayne to divide the
state into registration districts. Army officers were to be used as
registrars only when no civilians could be obtained. General supervisors
were to look after the working of the registration, and there was to be a
general inspector at headquarters. Violence or threats of violence against
registration officials would be punished by military commission.[1311] May
21, 1867, the state was divided into forty-two (later forty-four)
registration districts, so arranged as to make the most effective use of
the black vote.[1312] A board of registration for each district was
appointed, each board consisting of two whites and one negro. Since each
had to take the "iron-clad" test oath, practically all native whites were
excluded, those who were on the lists being men of doubtful character and
no ability. There were numbers of northerners. For most of the districts
the white registrars had to be imported. It is not saying much for the
negro members to say that they were much the more respectable part of the
boards of registration.[1313] Again it was stated that in order to secure
full registration, the compensation would be fixed at so much for each
voter--fifteen to forty cents, the price varying according to density of
population. Five to ten cents mileage was paid in order to enable the
registrars to hunt up voters. They were directed to inform the negroes
what their political rights were and how necessary it was for them to
exercise those rights. Voters were to be registered in each precinct, and
later, in order to register those missed the first time, the board was to
sit, after due notice, for three days at each county seat. Any kind of
interference with registration, by threats or by contracts depriving
laborers of pay, was to be punished by military commission. The right of
every voter under the acts of Congress to register and to vote was
guaranteed by the military. In case of disturbance the registrars were to
call upon the civil officials or upon the nearest military authorities. If
the former refused or failed to protect the registration, they were to be
punished by a military commission.[1314] May 1, Colonel James F. Meline
was appointed inspector of registration for the Third Military
District,[1315] and William H. Smith was appointed general supervisor for
Alabama.[1316] Boards of registration were authorized to report cases of
civil officials using their influence against reconstruction.[1317] When a
voter wished to remove from his precinct after registration, he was to be
given a certificate which would enable him to vote anywhere in the state.
If he should lose this certificate, his own affidavit before any civil or
military official would suffice to obtain a new certificate.[1318]
On June 1, Pope issued pamphlets containing instructions to registrars
which were especially definite as to those former state officials who
should be excluded from registration. The list of those who were to be
disfranchised included every one who had ever been a state, county, or
town official and later aided the Confederacy;[1319] former members of the
United States Congress, former United States officials, civil and
military, members of state legislatures and of the convention of 1861; all
officials of state, counties, and towns during the war; and finally
judicial or administrative officials not named elsewhere.[1320] The
records fail to show that any officials were not excluded from
registration except the keepers of poorhouses, coroners, and health
officers. Instructions issued later practically repeated the first
instructions and added former officials of the Confederate States to the
list of disfranchised. The registrars were reminded to enforce the
disfranchising clauses of the acts both as to voters and candidates.[1321]
The stringent regulations of Pope caused much bitter comment, and the
Washington administration was besought to revoke them. Complaints were
coming in from other districts, and on June 18, 1867, at a Cabinet
meeting, the questions in controversy were brought up point by point, and
the Cabinet passed its opinion on them. A strict interpretation of the
Reconstruction Acts was arrived at, which was much more favorable toward
the southern people. Stanton alone voted against all interpretation
favorable to the South. The interpretation of the acts thus obtained was
issued as a circular, the opinion of the Attorney-General, through the War
Department and sent to the district commanders on June 20.[1322] As soon
as Pope received a copy of the opinion of the Attorney-General he wrote to
Grant protesting against the enforcement of the opinion as an order, so
far as it related to registration. If enforced, his instructions to
registrars would have to be revoked. According to all rules of military
obedience, it was his duty to consider the instructions sent him through
the adjutant-general's office as binding, though in this case the
instructions were not in the technical form of an order, but he expressed
doubt if they were to be considered as an order to him. Grant telegraphed
to him to enforce his own construction of the acts until ordered to do
otherwise.[1323]
In order to remove all doubt in the matter, Congress, in the act of July
19, 1867, sustained Pope's interpretation of the acts and made it law. The
construction placed upon the laws by the Cabinet was repudiated, and
officers acting under the Reconstruction Acts were not to consider
themselves bound by the opinion of any civil officer of the United
States.[1324] This was aimed at the Attorney-General and the Cabinet. The
law also gave the registrars full judicial powers to investigate the
records of those who applied for registration. Witnesses might be examined
touching the qualifications of voters. The boards were empowered to revise
the lists of voters and to add to or strike from it such names as they
thought ought to be added or removed. No pardon or amnesty by the
President was to avail to remove disability.[1325]
The Elections and the Convention
After the passage of this law it was smooth sailing for Pope. Registration
went on with such success that on August 31 he was induced to order an
election to be held on October 1 to 4, for the choice of delegates to a
convention, and an apportionment of delegates among the various districts
was made at the same time. In the distribution the black counties were
favored at the expense of the white counties.[1326]
The work of the registrars was thoroughly done. The negro enrolment was
enormous; the white enrolment was small. The registration of voters before
the elections was: whites, 61,295; blacks, 104,518; total, 165,813.[1327]
For the convention and for delegates 90,283 votes were cast. Of these
18,553 were those of whites, and 71,730 were negro votes. Against holding
a convention, 5583 white votes were cast, and 69,947 registered voters
failed to vote--37,159 whites and 32,788 blacks.[1328] The names of the
delegates chosen were published in general orders, and the convention was
ordered to meet in Montgomery on November 5.[1329] During the session of
the convention Pope took a rest from his labors and spent some time in
Montgomery. He was a great favorite with the reconstructionists and was
accorded special honors by the convention. But he did not think as highly
of reconstructionists as when he first assumed command, and the antics of
the "Black Crook" convention made him nervous. After a month's session he
was glad to see it disband.[1330]
One of the last important acts of Pope's administration was to order an
election for February 4 and 5, 1868, when the constitution should be
submitted for ratification or rejection, and when by his advice candidates
for all offices were to be voted for. Two weeks beforehand the registrars
were to revise their lists, adding or striking off such names as they saw
fit. Polls were to be opened at such places as the board saw fit. Any
voter might vote in any place to which he had removed by making affidavit
before the board that he was registered and had not voted before.[1331]
Removal of Pope and Swayne
Both Pope and Swayne had been charged with being desirous of representing
the states of the Third Military District in the United States Senate.
Pope had made himself obnoxious to the President, and the white people of
Alabama and Georgia were demanding his removal. So, on December 28, 1867,
an order was issued by the President, relieving Pope and placing General
Meade in command of the Third Military District. General Swayne was at the
same time ordered to rejoin his regiment,[1332] and a few days later his
place was taken by General Julius Hayden.[1333] The whites were greatly
relieved and much pleased by the removal of both Pope and Swayne. The
former had become obnoxious on account of the extreme measures he had
taken in carrying out the Reconstruction Acts, on account of his
irritating proclamations, his attitude toward the press, etc. General
Swayne had long enjoyed the confidence of the best men. His influence over
the negroes was supreme, and had been used to promote friendly relations
between the races. But as soon as the Reconstruction was taken charge of
by Congress and party lines were drawn, all his influence, personal and
official, was given to building up a Radical party in the state and to
securing the negroes for that party. He was high in the councils of the
Union League and controlled the conventions of the party. The change of
rulers is said to have had a tranquillizing effect on disturbed conditions
in Alabama.[1334] But the people of Alabama would have been pleased with
no human being as military governor invested with absolute power.
SEC. 2. THE ADMINISTRATION OF GENERAL MEADE
Registration and Elections
On January 6, 1868, General Meade arrived in Atlanta and assumed command
of the Third Military District.[1335] His first and most important duty
was to complete the military registration of voters, and hold the election
for ratification of the constitution and for the choice of officials under
it. Registration had been going on regularly since the summer of 1867, and
after the convention had adjourned there was a rush of whites to register
in order to defeat the constitution by refraining from voting on it. As
the time for the election drew near the friends of the Reconstruction,
much alarmed at the tactics of the Conservative party, brought pressure to
bear upon Grant, who suggested to Meade that an extension of time be made.
Consequently, the time for the election was extended from two to five days
in order to enable the remotest negro to be found and brought to the
polls. At the same time the number of voting places was limited to three
in each county,[1336] in order to lessen the influence of the whites over
the blacks.
General Meade was opposed to holding the election for state officials at
the same time with that on ratification of the constitution. He thought it
would be difficult to secure the adoption of the constitution on account
of the proscriptive clauses in it, but in his opinion the
candidates[1337] nominated by the convention were even more obnoxious to
the people than the constitution, and many would refrain from voting on
that account. Swayne, who seems to have still been in Montgomery, admitted
the force of the objection, but Grant objected to any change until too
late to make other arrangements.[1338]
[Illustration: REGISTRATION OF VOTERS UNDER RECONSTRUCTION ACTS, 1867.]
The election took place on February 1 to 5, and passed off without any
disorder. Meade reported that the charges of fraud made by the Radicals
were groundless, and that the constitution had been defeated on its
merits, or rather demerits. Both the constitution and the candidates were
obnoxious to a large number of the friends of Reconstruction. He reported
that the constitution failed of ratification by 13,550 votes, and advised
that the convention assemble again, revise the constitution of its
proscriptive features, and again submit to it the people.[1339]
Administration of Civil Affairs
Pending the decision of the Alabama question by Congress, Meade carried on
the military government as usual. He thoroughly understood that his power
was unlimited. No more than Pope did he allow the civil government to
stand in the way. There was, however, a vast difference in the
administrations of the two men. Meade was less given to issuing
proclamations, but was firmer and more strict, and less arbitrary. He was
not under the influence of the Radical politicians in the slightest
degree, and was abused by both sides, especially by the Radical
adventurers. It was a thankless task, for which he had no liking, but his
duty was done in a soldierly manner, and his administration was probably
the best that was possible.
He made it clear to the civil authorities that he was the source of all
power, and that they were responsible to him and must obey all orders
coming from him. If they refused, he promised trial by a military
commission, fine, and imprisonment. They must under no circumstances
interfere, under color of state authority, with the military
administration. He had no admiration for the "loyal" element; and when a
bill was before Congress providing that the officials of the civil
government be required to take the "iron-clad" test oath or vacate their
offices, he made a strong protest and declared that he could not fill half
the offices with men who could take the test oath.[1340] After the
February elections political influence was brought to bear to force Meade
to vacate the offices of the civil government and to appoint certain
individuals of the proper political beliefs. The persons voted for in the
elections were clamorous for their places. Grant suggested that when
appointments were made, the men recently voted for be put in. Meade
resisted the pressure and made few changes, and these only after
investigation. Removals were made for neglect of duty, malfeasance in
office, refusing to obey orders, and "obstructing Reconstruction." Many
appointments were made on account of the deaths or resignations of the
civil officials.[1341] Few of the officials appointed by him could take
the test oath, and he was much abused by the Radicals for saying that it
would be impossible to fill half the offices with men who could take the
oath. He was constantly besought to supersede the civil authority
altogether and rule only through the army. In this connection, he reported
that he was greatly embarrassed by the want of judgment and of knowledge
on the part of his subordinates, and by the great desire of those who
expected to profit from military intervention. So he issued an order
informing the civil officials that as long as they performed their duties
they would not be interfered with. The army officials were informed that
they should in no case interfere with the civil administration before
obtaining the consent of Meade; that the military was to act in
subordination to and in aid of the civil authority;[1342] and that no
soldiers or other persons were to be tried in court for acts done by
military authority or for having charge of abandoned land or other
property.[1343]
There was much disorder by thieves and roughs on the river boats during
the spring of 1868. To facilitate trials of these lawbreakers, Meade
directed that they be arrested and tried in any county in the state where
found, before any tribunal having jurisdiction of such offences.[1344]
The courts were not interfered with as under Pope's rule. The judges
continued to have white jurors chosen, and the army officers, as a rule,
approved. In one case, however, in Calhoun County, there was trouble. One
Lieutenant Charles T. Johnson, Fifteenth Infantry, attended the court
presided over by Judge B. T. Pope. He found that no negroes were on the
jury, and demanded that the judge order a mixed jury to be chosen. The
judge declined to comply, and Johnson at once arrested him. Johnson found
that the clerk of the court did not agree with him, and he arrested the
clerk also. Pope was placed in jail until released by Meade.[1345] The
conduct of Johnson was condemned in the strongest terms by Meade, who
ordered him to be court-martialed. A general order was published reciting
the facts of the case and expressing the severest censure of the conduct
of Johnson. Meade informed the public generally that even had Judge Pope
violated previous orders, Johnson had nothing to do in the case except to
report to headquarters. Moreover, Johnson was wrong in holding that all
juries had to be composed partly of blacks. This order stopped
interference with the courts in Alabama.[1346]
Meade did not approve of Pope's policy toward newspapers, and on February
2, 1868, he issued an order modifying General Order No. 49 on the ground
that it had in its operations proved embarrassing. In the future, public
printing was to be denied to such papers only as might attempt to
intimidate civil officials by threats of violence or prosecution, as soon
as the troops were withdrawn, for acts performed in their official
capacity. However, if there was but one paper in the county, then it was
to have the county printing regardless of its editorial opinions.
"Opposition to reconstruction, when conducted in a legitimate manner, is,"
the order stated, "not to be considered an offence." Violent and
incendiary articles, however, were to be considered illegal,[1347] and
newspapers were warned to keep within the bounds of legitimate discussion.
The Ku Klux movement, especially after it was seen that Congress was going
to admit the state, notwithstanding the defeat of the constitution, gave
Meade some trouble. Its notices were published in various papers, and
Meade issued an order prohibiting this custom. The army officers were
ordered to arrest and try offenders. Only one editor came to grief. Ryland
Randolph, the editor of the _Independent Monitor_, of Tuscaloosa, was
arrested by General Shepherd and his paper suppressed for a short
time.[1348]
General Meade was no negrophile, and hence under him there were no more
long oration orders on the rights of "that large class of citizens
heretofore excluded from the suffrage." He set himself resolutely against
all attempts to stir up strife between the races, and quietly reported at
the time, and again a year later, that the stories of violence and
intimidation, which Congress accepted without question, were without
foundation. He ordered that in the state institutions for the deaf, dumb,
blind, and insane, the blacks should have the same privileges as the
whites. The law of the state allowed to the sheriffs for subsistence of
prisoners, fifty cents a day for white and forty cents a day for negro
prisoners. Meade ordered that the fees be the same for both races, and
that the same fare and accommodations be given to both. Swayne had
abolished the chain-gang system the year before, because it chiefly
affected negro offenders. Meade gave the civil authorities permission to
restore it.[1349]
The convention had passed ordinances which amounted to stay laws for the
relief of debtors. In order to secure support for the constitution, it was
provided that these ordinances were to go into effect with the
constitution. Complaint was made that creditors were oppressing their
debtors in order to secure payment before the stay laws should go into
effect. Though opposed in principle to such laws, Meade considered that
under the circumstances some relief was needed. The price of cotton was
low, and the forced sales were ruinous to the debtors and of little
benefit to the creditors. Therefore, in January, he declared the
ordinances in force to continue, unless the constitution should be
adopted. A later order, in May, declared that the ordinances would be
considered in force until revoked by himself.[1350]
Trials by Military Commissions
When the ghostly night riders of the Ku Klux Klan began to frighten the
carpet-baggers and the negroes, Meade directed all officials, civil and
military, to organize patrols to break up the secret organizations. Civil
officials neglecting to do so were held to be guilty of disobedience of
orders. Where army officers raised _posses_ to aid in maintaining the
peace, the expenses were charged to the counties or towns where the
disturbances occurred.[1351]
Nearly all prisoners arrested by the military authorities were turned over
to the civil courts for trial. Military commissions were frequently in
session to try cases when it was believed the civil authorities would be
influenced by local considerations. The following list of such trials is
complete: H. K. Quillan of Lee County and Langdon Ellis, justice of the
peace of Chambers County, were tried for "obstructing reconstruction" and
were acquitted; Richard Hall of Hale County, tried for assault, was
acquitted;[1352] Joseph B. F. Hill, William Pettigrew, T. W. Roberts, and
James Steele of Greene County were sentenced to hard labor for five years,
for "whipping a hog thief, and threatening to ride him on a rail";[1353]
Samuel W. Dunlap, William Pierce, Charles Coleman, and John Kelley,
implicated in the same case, were fined $500 each, and sentenced to one
year's imprisonment; Frank H. Munday, Hugh L. White, John Cullen, and
Samuel Strayhorn, charged with the same offence, were each fined $500, and
sentenced to hard labor for two years;[1354] Ryland Randolph, editor of
the _Monitor_, was tried for "obstructing reconstruction" in his paper and
for nearly killing a negro, and was acquitted. During the trial Busteed
granted a writ of _habeas corpus_, and Meade and Grant both were prepared
to submit to the decision of the court, but Randolph wanted the military
trial to go on.[1355]
Meade was much irritated by the careless conduct of officers in reporting
cases for trial by military courts which were unable to stand the test of
examination. After frequent failures to substantiate charges in cases
sent up for trial, orders were issued that subordinate officials must
exercise the greatest caution and care in preferring charges, and in all
cases must state the reasons why the civil authorities could not act.
Sworn statements of witnesses must accompany the charges, and the accused
must be given an opportunity to forward evidence in his favor.[1356]
The Soldiers and the Citizens
The troops in the state during 1867 and 1868, though sadly demoralized as
to discipline, gave the people little trouble except in the vicinity of
the military posts. The records of the courts-martial show that the
negroes were the greatest sufferers from the outrages of the common
soldiers. The whites were irritated chiefly by the arrogant conduct of a
few of the post commanders and their subordinates. At Mount Vernon,
Frederick B. Shepard, an old man, was arrested and carried before Captain
Morris Schoff, who shot the unarmed prisoner as soon as he appeared. For
this murder Schoff was court-martialed and imprisoned for ten years.[1357]
Johnson, the officer who arrested Judge Pope, was cordially hated in
middle Alabama. He arrested a negro who refused to vote for the
constitution; in a quarrel he took the crutch of a cripple and struck him
over the head with it; hung two large United States flags over the
sidewalk of the main street in Tuscaloosa, and when the schoolgirls
avoided walking under them, it being well understood that Johnson had
placed them there to annoy the women, he stationed soldiers with bayonets
to force the girls to pass under the flags. For his various misdeeds he
was court-martialed by Meade.[1358]
Most of the soldiers had no love for the negroes, carpet-baggers, and
scalawags, and at a Radical meeting in Montgomery, the soldiers on duty at
the capitol gave three groans for Grant, and three cheers for McClellan
and Johnson. For this conduct they were strongly censured by Major Hartz
and General Shepherd, their commanders.[1359]
The soldiers sent to Hale County knocked a carpet-bag Bureau agent on the
head, ducked a white teacher of a negro school in the creek, and cuffed
the negroes about generally.[1360]
From Martial Law to Carpet-bag Rule
The act providing for the admission of Alabama in spite of the defeat of
the constitution was passed June 25, 1868.[1361] Three days later Grant
ordered Meade to appoint as provisional governor and lieutenant-governor
those voted for[1362] in the February elections, and to remove the present
incumbents.[1363] So Smith and Applegate were appointed as governor and
lieutenant-governor, their appointments to take effect on July 13, 1868,
on which date the legislature said to have been elected in February was
ordered to meet.[1364]
Until the state should comply with the requirements of the Reconstruction
Acts all government and all officials were to be considered as provisional
only. The governor was ordered to organize both houses of the legislature,
and before proceeding to business beyond organization each house was
required to purge itself of any members who were disqualified by the
Fourteenth Amendment.[1365]
A few days later, Congress having admitted the state to representation,
Meade ordered all civil officials holding under the provisional civil
government to yield to their duly elected successors. The military
commander in Alabama was directed to transfer all property and papers
pertaining to the government of the state to the proper civil authorities
and for the future to abstain from any interference or control over civil
affairs. Prisoners held for offences against the civil law were ordered to
be delivered to state officials.[1366] This was, in theory, the end of
military government in Alabama, though, in fact, the army retired into the
background, to remain for six years longer the support and mainstay of
the so-called civil government.[1367]
The rule of the army had been intensely galling to the people, but it was
infinitely preferable to the régime which followed, and there was general
regret when the army gave way to the carpet-bag government. In January,
1868, a day of fasting and prayer was observed for the deliverance of the
state from the rule of the negro and the alien.
CHAPTER XIII
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1867
Attitude of the Whites
In the preceding chapter the part of the army in executing the
Reconstruction Acts has been set forth. In the three succeeding chapters I
shall sketch the political conditions in the state during the same period.
The people of Alabama had, for several months before March, 1867, foreseen
the failure of the President's attempt at Reconstruction. The "Military
Reconstruction Bill" was no worse than was expected; if liberally
construed, it was even better than was expected. And there was a
possibility that Reconstruction under these acts might be delayed and
finally defeated. Though President Johnson was said to be hopeful of
better times, the people of Alabama were decided that no good would come
from longer resistance. A northern observer stated that they were so
fearfully impoverished, so completely demoralized, by the break-up of
society after the war, that they hardly comprehended what was left to
them, what was required of them, or what would become of them. Still, they
had a clear conviction that Johnson could do no more for them. Every one,
except the negroes, was too much absorbed in the struggle for existence to
pay much attention to politics. The whites seemed generally willing to do
what was required of them, or rather to let affairs take their own course
and trust that all would go well. They had given up hope of an early
restoration of the Union, but the Radicals, they thought, could not rule
forever.[1368]
On March 19, 1867, Governor Patton published an address advising
acquiescence in the plan of Congress. He had all along been opposed to
Radical Reconstruction, but he now saw that it could not be avoided and
wished to make the best of it. He said that a few thousand good men would
be disfranchised, but that there were other good men and from these a
wise and patriotic convention could be chosen. He advised that negro
suffrage be accepted as a settled fact, with no ill feeling against the
freedmen; that antagonism between the races should be discouraged, and
that no effort be made to control the votes of the blacks.[1369] More
consideration, Patton thought, should have been given to Congress as the
controlling power; antagonism to Congress had caused infinite mischief. It
was folly, he added, to expect more favorable terms, and further
opposition might cause harsher conditions to be imposed.[1370]
Other prominent men advised the people to accept the plan of Congress and
to participate in the Reconstruction. Nearly all the leading papers of the
state, in order to make the best of a bad situation, now supported
congressional Reconstruction. Consequently, when General Pope arrived in
April, the people were ready to accept the situation in good faith, and
desired that he should make a speedy registration of the voters and end
the agitation.[1371] Even at this late date the southern people seem not
to have foreseen the inevitable results of this revolution in
government.[1372]
The Organization of the Radical Party
While a large number of the influential men of the state were ready to
accept the situation, "not because we approve the policy of the
reconstruction laws, but because it is the best we can do," and while a
larger number were more or less indifferent, there were many who were
opposed to Reconstruction on any such terms, preferring a continuance of
the military government until passions were calmer and a more liberal
policy proposed. There was, however, no organized opposition to
Reconstruction for two months or more, and even then it was rendered
possible only by the arbitrary conduct of General Pope and the violent
agitation carried on among the negroes by the Radical faction. For several
months, in the white counties of north Alabama the so-called "loyal"
people, reënforced by numbers of the old "Peace Society" men, had been
holding meetings looking toward organization in order to secure the fruits
of Reconstruction. These meetings were continued, and by them it was
declared that the people of Alabama were in favor of Reconstruction by the
Sherman Bill, to which only the original secession leaders were opposed,
and the Sherman plan, negro suffrage and all, was indorsed as a proper
punishment for the planters.[1373] After the beginning of congressional
Reconstruction, however, the centre of gravity in the Radical party
shifted to the Black Belt, and no one any longer paid serious attention
to the few thousand "loyal" whites in north Alabama. The first negro
meetings held were in the larger towns, Selma leading with a large
convention of colored "Unionists," who, under the guidance of a few white
officers of the Freedmen's Bureau, declared in favor of military
Reconstruction.[1374] The Montgomery reconstructionists held a meeting in
the capitol "in which whites and blacks fraternized." The meeting was
addressed by several "rebel" officers: A. C. Felder, ---- Doster, and H.
C. Semple, and by General Swayne and John C. Keffer from the north.
General Swayne and Governor Patton served as vice-presidents. The blacks
were eulogized and declared capable of political equality; and it was
urged that only those men in favor of military Reconstruction should be
supported for office.[1375] In Mobile, a meeting held on April 17 resolved
that "everlasting thanks" were due to Congress for its wisdom in passing
the Reconstruction Acts. Both whites and negroes spoke in favor of the
rights of the negro to hold office, sit on juries, and ride in the same
cars and eat at the same tables with whites. The prejudices of the whites,
they declared, must give way. At a meeting of negroes only the next day
one of the speakers made a distinction between political and social
rights. He said that the latter would come in time but that the former
must be had at once; they were defined as the right to ride in street cars
with the whites, in first-class cars on the railroad, to have the best
staterooms on the boats, to sit at public tables with whites, and to go to
the hotel tables "when the first bell rang." What social rights were he
did not explain. Negroes attended these meetings armed with clubs,
pistols, muskets, and shotguns, most of which, of course, would not shoot;
but several hundred shots were fired, much to the alarm of the near-by
dwellers.[1376]
To counteract the effect of these meetings, the "moderate"
reconstructionists held a meeting in Mobile, April 19, presided over by
General Withers, the mayor of the city. Several influential citizens and
also a number of colored men were vice-presidents. Judge Busteed, a
"moderate" Radical, spoke, urging all to take part in the Reconstruction
and not leave it to the ignorant and vicious. Resolutions were passed to
the effect that the blacks would be accorded every legal right and
privilege. The "moderate" spirit of Pope was commended, and coöperation
was promised him. All were urged to register and vote for delegates to the
convention.[1377]
A state convention of negroes was called by white Radical politicians to
meet in Mobile on May 1, and in all of the large towns of the state
meetings to elect delegates were held under the guidance of the Union
League. The delegates came straggling in, and on May 2 and 3 the
convention was held. It at once declared itself "Radical," and condemned
the efforts of their oppressors who would use unfair and foul means to
prevent their consolidation with the Radical party. Swayne and Pope were
indorsed, a standing army was asked for to protect negroes in their
political rights, and demand was made for schools, to be supported by a
property tax. Violations of the Civil Rights Bill should be tried by
military commission, and the Union League was established in every county.
Finally, the convention resolved that it was the undeniable right of the
negro to hold office, sit on juries, ride in any public conveyances, sit
at public tables, and visit places of public amusement.[1378]
The Alabama Grand Council of the Union League, the machine of the Radicals
in Alabama,[1379] met in April and formulated the principles upon which
the campaign was to be conducted. Congress was thanked for putting the
reorganization of the state into the hands of "Union" men; the return to
the principle that "all men are created equal" and its application to a
"faithful and patriotic class of our fellow-men" was hailed with joy; any
settlement which denied the ballot to the negro could not stand, they
asserted; and "while we believe that rebellion is the highest crime known
to the law, and that those guilty of it hold their continued existence
solely by the clemency of an outraged but merciful government, we are
nevertheless willing to imitate that government in forgiveness of the
past, and to reclaim to the Republican Union party all who, forsaking
entirely the principles on which the rebellion was founded, will sincerely
and earnestly unite with us in establishing and maintaining for the future
a government of equal rights and unconditional loyalty;" "we consider
willingness to elevate to power the men who preserved unswerving adherence
to the government during the war as the best test of sincerity in
professions for the future;" and "if the pacification now proposed by
Congress be not accepted in good faith by those who staked and forfeited
their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, in rebellion, then it
will be the duty of Congress to enforce that forfeiture, by the
confiscation of the lands at least of such a stiff-necked and rebellious
people;" "the assertion that there are not enough intelligent and loyal
men in Alabama to administer the government is false in fact, and mainly
promulgated by those who aim to keep treason respectable by retaining
power in the hands of its friends and votaries."[1380] This was a
declaration of principles to which self-respecting whites could hardly be
expected to subscribe. That was the very reason for its proclamation. The
Radical leaders in control of the machinery of the Union League began to
discourage the accession of whites to the party. The negro vote was to be
their support, and not too many whites were desired at the division of
spoils.[1381] Other causes conspired to drive the respectable people from
the ranks of the reconstructionists. Prominent politicians were sent into
the state to tell the negro that, having received his freedom from the
Republican party, to it his vote was due. Senator Henry Wilson of
Massachusetts made a bitter speech against the southern whites at the
capitol in Montgomery. The negroes were informed that the Republican party
was entitled to their votes, and the whites were asked to join them, as
subordinates perhaps.[1382] This speech was delivered on May 11, and from
this date may be traced the organized opposition to Reconstruction.
General James H. Clanton[1383] replied to Wilson, maintaining that the
southern white was the real friend of the negro and declaring in favor of
full political and educational rights for the negro, while asserting that
Wilson's plan would result in a black man's party, controlled by
aliens.[1384] This speech of Clanton's had the effect of rousing the
people to organized resistance against the plans of the Radicals.
On May 14, Judge "Pig Iron" Kelly of Pennsylvania spoke in Mobile to an
audience of one hundred respectable whites and two thousand negroes, the
latter armed. His language toward the whites was violent and insulting, an
invitation for trouble, which inflamed both races. A riot ensued for which
he was almost solely to blame.[1385] Several whites were killed or wounded
and one negro. From the guarded report of General Swayne it was evident
that the blame lay upon Kelly for exciting the negroes. It was a most
unfortunate affair at a critical period, and the people began to
understand the kind of control that would be exercised over the blacks by
alien politicians.[1386]
In May the _Alabama Sentinel_, a short-lived reconstructionist newspaper
in Montgomery, assisted by a negro mass-meeting, nominated Grant for the
presidency and Busteed for vice-president. The platform demanded that the
negro have his rights at once or upon his oppressors must fall the
consequences. The Republican party was indorsed as the negro party, the
only party that had done anything for the negro.[1387]
When the registrars were appointed it was necessary, in order to get
competent men, to import both blacks and whites into some districts. The
whites were brought from north Alabama or sent out from the Bureau
contingents in the towns. They were members of the Union League, and it
was a part of their duty to spread that organization among the negroes of
the Black Belt, thus carrying out that part of their instructions which
directed them to instruct the negroes in their rights and
privileges.[1388] The Radical organization steadily progressed, but even
thus early two tendencies or lines of policy appeared which were to weaken
the Radicals and later to render possible their overthrow. The native
white reconstructionists, living mostly in the white counties, wanted a
reconstruction in which they (the native "unionists") should be the
controlling element. They were in favor of negro suffrage as a necessary
part of the scheme and because it would not directly interfere with them,
as the negro was supposed to be content with voting. These white
"scalawags" were thus to gather the fruits of reconstruction. But the
"carpet-baggers," or the alien-bureau-missionary element, having worked
among the negroes and learned their power over them, intended to use the
negroes to secure office and power for themselves. They were less
prejudiced against the negroes than were the "scalawags" and were willing
to associate with them more intimately and to give them small offices when
there were not enough carpet-baggers to take them. It was soon discovered
that the native white "unionist" and the black "Unionist," like oil and
water, would not mingle. However, all united temporarily to gain the
victory for reconstruction, each faction hoping to be the greater gainer.
On June 4, 1867, a "Union Republican Convention" met in Montgomery, and at
the same time the Union League held its convention. The Union League was
merely a select portion of the Union Republican Convention and met at
night to slate matters for the use of the convention next day. F. W. Sykes
of Lawrence County[1389] was chairman _pro tem._, and William H. Smith of
Randolph County was permanent chairman.[1390] The delegates to the
convention consisted of a large number of office-seekers, "union" men,
deserters, "scalawags," ex-Union army officers, and employees of the
Freedmen's Bureau, and negroes.[1391] There were one hundred negroes and
fifty whites. The negroes sat on one side of the house and the whites on
the other, but the committees were divided equally by color. The committee
on permanent organization consisted of "three Yankees," four "palefaces,"
and six negroes, who nominated several negroes and Bureau men for
officials.[1392] The _Mail_ said that the negroes presented a better
appearance than the whites, that they were cleaner and better dressed.
General Swayne took a prominent part in the proceedings, and with Smith
and the negroes voted out Busteed.[1393] Griffin (of Ohio) from Mobile
offered a resolution dictated by Swayne, declaring that the recent
opinions of the Attorney-General upon the registration of votes were
dangerous to the restoration of the Union according to the plan of
Congress.[1394] The proceedings were turbulent, there was much angry
discussion, and the meeting ended in a fight after having indorsed the
Radical programme and declaring against the United States cotton tax and
the state poll tax,[1395] and agreeing to support only "union" or "loyal"
men for office.[1396]
Conservative Opposition Aroused
Though the leaders complained of the "appalling apathy of the whites in
political matters,"[1397] a change was coming. The teachings of the
Radicals were beginning to have effect on the negroes, some of whom were
becoming hostile to the whites and were resisting the white officers of
the civil government. Their old belief in "forty acres of land and a mule"
was revived by the speeches of Thaddeus Stevens, which were widely
circulated by the agents of the Union League, who were sent through the
country to distribute the speeches and to organize the movement resulting
from it. Many of the whites now began to believe that at last confiscation
would be enforced and that the negroes and low whites of the Union League
would become the landowners.[1398] Clanton had been at work for two
months, and on July 23, as chairman of the state committee of the
Conservative party, called a convention of that party to meet in
Montgomery on September 4.[1399] Meetings of the Conservative party were
held in the larger towns. A slight hope was entertained that the whites
might be able, by uniting, to obtain some representation in the
convention. At a meeting in Montgomery, in August, Joseph Hodgson[1400]
urged the people to take action and save the state from
"Brownlowism,"[1401] as the worst results were to be feared from inaction;
the enemies of the Conservatives were making every effort to control the
constitutional convention; the Conservatives were in favor of conceding
every legitimate result of the war and were willing to grant suffrage to
the negro by state action--the only legitimate way; at the same time the
negro must assist in guaranteeing universal amnesty. The negroes were
asked by the speaker to reflect and to learn for what purpose the Radical
leaders were using them. The best people of the state, he said, and not
the worst, ought to reconstruct the state under the Sherman law.[1402]
Although strenuous efforts were made to secure a large attendance at the
Conservative convention in September, there were only thirteen of the
sixty-two counties represented. General M. J. Bulger was chosen to
preside. Resolutions were adopted asserting the old constitutional view of
the Federal government and declaring that the present state of affairs was
destructive of federal government, in which each state had the absolute
right to regulate the suffrage. An appeal was made to the negroes not to
follow the counsels of bad men and designing strangers. The convention
favored the education of the negro so as to fit him for his moral and
political responsibilities.[1403]
About the time of the meeting of the Conservative convention an event
occurred which showed the results of the teachings of the Radical leaders.
A plan was formed by the more violent blacks to prevent the meeting of the
Conservatives. Some of the more sensible negroes used their influence as a
"Special Committee on the Situation" to prevent the attempt to break up
the convention, and L. J. Williams, a prominent negro politician, was the
chairman of the committee. The white Radicals did nothing to prevent
violence. Later a negro Conservative speaker was mobbed by the negroes and
was rescued only by the aid of General Clanton. Other negroes who sided
with the whites were expelled from their churches.[1404]
The registrars continued to instruct "that part of the population which
has heretofore been denied the right of suffrage" in the mysteries of
citizenship or membership in the Union League. By the time of the election
they were so effectively instructed that they were sure to vote as they
were told by the League leaders. Nearly all of the respectable white
members of the League in the Black Belt had fallen away, and but few
remained in the white counties. Governor Patton yielded to Radical
pressure, wrote Reconstruction letters, appeared at Reconstruction
meetings, and deferred much to Pope and Swayne. He was harshly criticised
by the Conservatives for pursuing such a course.
The Elections; the Negro's First Vote
The elections, early in October, were the most remarkable in the history
of the state. For the first time the late slaves were to vote, while many
of their former masters could not. Of the 65 counties in Alabama, 22 had
negro majorities (according to the registration) and had 52 delegates of
the 100 total, and in nearly all of the others the negro minority held the
balance of power.[1405] To control the negro vote the Radicals devoted all
the machinery of registration and election, of the Union League, and of
the Freedmen's Bureau. The chiefs of the League sent agents to the
plantation negroes, who were showing some indifference to politics, with
strict orders to go and vote. They were told that if they did not vote
they would be reënslaved and their wives made to work the roads and quit
wearing hoopskirts.[1406] In Montgomery County, the day before election,
the Radical agents went through the county, summoning the blacks to come
and vote, saying that Swayne had ordered it and would punish them if they
did not obey. The negroes came into the city by thousands in regularly
organized bodies, under arms and led by the League politicians, and camped
about the city waiting for the time to vote. The danger of outbreak was so
great that the soldiers disarmed them. They did not know, most of them,
what voting was. For what or for whom they were voting they knew
not,--they were simply obeying the orders of their Bureau chiefs.[1407]
Likewise, at Clayton, the negroes were driven to town and camped the day
before the election began. There was firing of guns all night. Early the
next morning the local leaders formed the negroes into companies and
regiments and marched them, armed with shotguns, muskets, pistols, and
knives, to the court-house, where the only polling place for the county
was situated. The first day there were about three thousand of them, of
all ages from fifteen to eighty years of age, and no whites were allowed
to approach the sacred voting place. When drawn up in line, each man was
given a ticket by the League representatives, and no negro was allowed to
break ranks until all were safely corralled in the court-house square.
Many of the negroes had changed their names since they were registered,
and their new ones were not on the books, but none lost a vote on that
account.[1408]
In Marengo County the Bureau and Loyal League officers lined up the
negroes early in the morning and saw that each man was supplied with the
proper ticket. Then the command, "Forward, March!" was given, the line
filed past the polling place, and each negro deposited his ballot. About
twelve o'clock a bugle blew as a signal to repeat the operation, and all
the negroes present, including most of those who had voted in the morning,
lined up, received tickets, and voted again. Late in the afternoon the
farce was gone through the third time. Any one voted who pleased and as
often as he pleased.[1409]
In Dallas County the negroes were told that if they failed to vote they
would be fined $50. The negroes at the polls were lined up and given
tickets, which they were told to let no one see. However, in some cases
the Conservatives had also given tickets to negroes, and a careful
inspection was made in order to prevent the casting of such ballots. The
average negro is said to have voted once for himself and once "for Jim who
couldn't come." The registration lists were not referred to except when a
white man offered to vote. Most of the negroes had strange ideas of what
voting meant. It meant freedom, for one thing, if they voted the Radical
ticket, and slavery if they did not. One negro at Selma held up a blue
(Conservative) ticket and cried out, "No land! no mules! no votes! slavery
again!" Then holding up a red (Radical) ticket he shouted, "Forty acres of
land! a mule! freedom! votes! equal of white man!" Of course he voted the
red ticket. Numbers of them brought halters for their mules or sacks "to
put it in." Some country negroes were given red tickets and told that they
must not be persuaded to part with them, as each ticket was good for a
piece of land. The poor negroes did not understand this figurative
language and put the precious red tickets in their pockets and hurried
home to locate the land. Another darky was given a ticket and told to
vote--to put the ballot in the box. "Is dat votin'?" "Yes." "Nuttin' more,
master?" "No." "I thought votin' was gittin' sumfin." He went home in
disgust. The legend of "lands and mules" was revived during the fall and
winter of 1867-1868, and many negroes were expecting a division of
property. By this time they were beginning to feel that it was the fault
of their leaders that the division did not take place, and there were
threats against those who had made promises. However, the sellers of
painted sticks again thrived--perhaps they had never ceased to
thrive.[1410] General Swayne reported about this time that the giving of
the ballot to the negro had greatly improved his condition.[1411]
The election went overwhelmingly for the convention and for the Radical
candidates. The revision of the voting lists before election struck off
the names of many "improper" whites and placed none on the list; with the
negroes the reverse was true. The whites had no hope of carrying the
elections in most of the counties, and as the negroes were intensely
excited, and as trouble was sure to follow in case the whites endeavored
to vote or to control the negro vote, most of the Conservatives refrained
from voting. Even at this time a large number of people were unable to
believe seriously that the negro voting had come to stay. To them it
seemed something absurd and almost ridiculous except for the ill feelings
aroused among the negroes. Such a state of affairs could not last long,
they thought. Two Conservative delegates and ninety-eight Radical
delegates were elected to the convention.[1412]
CHAPTER XIV
THE "RECONSTRUCTION" CONVENTION
Character of the Convention
The delegates elected to the convention were a motley crew--white, yellow,
and black--of northern men, Bureau officers, "loyalists," "rebels," who
had aided the Confederacy and now perjured themselves by taking the oath,
Confederate deserters, and negroes.[1413] The Freedmen's Bureau furnished
eighteen or more of the one hundred members. There were eighteen
blacks.[1414] Thirteen more of the members had certified, as registrars,
to their own election and with six other members had certified to the
election of thirty-one, nineteen of whom were on the board of
registration. No pretence of residence was made by the northern men in the
counties from which they were elected. Several had never seen the counties
they represented, a slate being made up in Montgomery and sent to remote
districts to be voted for. Of these northern men, or foreigners, there
were thirty-seven or thirty-eight, from Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, New Jersey, Illinois,
Ireland, Canada, and Scotland.[1415] The native whites were for the most
part utterly unknown and had but little share in the proceedings of the
convention.[1416] Of the negro members two could write well and were
fairly well educated, half could not write a word, and the others had been
taught to sign their names and that was all. There were many negroes who
could read and write, but they were not sent to the convention. Perhaps
the carpet-baggers feared trouble from them and wanted only those whom
they could easily control.[1417]
Griffin of Ohio was appointed temporary chairman, and on the motion of
Keffer of Pennsylvania, Robert Barbour of New York was made temporary
secretary and later permanent secretary. Keffer nominated Peck, a New
Yorker who had resided for some years in Alabama, for president of the
convention, and he was unanimously elected.[1418] There were several negro
clerks in the convention. The disgusted Conservatives designated the
aggregation by various epithets, such as "The Unconstitutional
Convention," "Pope's Convention," "Swayne's World-renowned Menagerie,"
"The Circus," "Black and Tan," "Black Crook," etc. The last, which was
probably given by the New York _Herald_ correspondent, seems to have been
the favorite name. The white people still persisted in looking upon the
whole affair as a more or less irritating joke.
The carpet-baggers intended that the convention should be purged of
"improper" persons, and one of them proposed that the test oath be taken.
This aroused opposition on the part of the ex-"rebels," who did not care
to perjure themselves more than was necessary. Coon of Iowa then proposed
a simple oath to support the Constitution, which after some wrangling was
taken.[1419] Caraway, a negro, wanted no chaplain to officiate in the
convention who had not remained loyal to the United States. Skinner of
Franklin said: "Let none offer prayer who are rebels and who have not
fought under the stars and stripes." This was to prevent such reverend
members of the convention as Deal of Dale from officiating. Finally, the
president was empowered to appoint the chaplain daily. A colored chaplain
was called upon once in a while, and one of them invoked the blessings of
God on "Unioners and cusses on rebels."[1420]
Another way of showing the loyalty of the body was by directing a
committee to bring in an ordinance changing the names of the counties
"named in honor of rebellion and in glorification of traitors." Keffer of
Pennsylvania was the author of this resolution. Steed of Cleburne wanted
the name of his county changed to Lincoln, and Simmons of Colbert wanted
his county to be named Brownlow. The test votes on such questions were
about 55 to 30 in favor of changing. Baine, Colbert, and Jones counties,
established by the "Johnson" government, were abolished.[1421]
The president was directed to drape his chair with two "Federal" flags.
Generals Pope and Swayne, and Governor Patton, as friends of
Reconstruction, were invited to seats in the convention and were asked to
speak before the body. Pope was becoming somewhat nervous at the conduct
of the supreme rulers of the state and in his speech counselled moderation
and fairness. He also commended them for the "firmness and fearlessness
with which you have conducted the late campaigns," and congratulated them
upon "the success which has thus far crowned your efforts in the
pacification of this state and its restoration to the Union."[1422] The
most radical members of the convention were bringing pressure to bear to
force Pope to declare vacant at once all the offices of the provisional
government and fill them with reconstructionists. In this they were aided
by northern influence. Pope, however, refused to make the change, and thus
displeased the Radicals, who wanted offices at once.[1423]
The first ordinance of the convention reconstructed Jones County, named
for a Confederate colonel, out of existence, and the second, third, and
fourth arranged for the pay of the convention. The president received $10
a day and the members $8 each; the clerks from $6 to $8, and the pages
$4.[1424] The president and members received 40 cents as mileage for each
mile travelled. To cover these expenses an additional tax of 10 per cent
on taxes already assessed was levied. The comptroller refused to pay the
members until ordered by Pope. The latter hesitated to give the order, as
he doubted if he had the authority. However, he finally said that he would
order payment provided the compensation be fixed at reasonable rates, and
that the payments be not made before the convention completed its work. He
further added that the convention must be moderate in action; "I speak not
more for the interests of Alabama than for the interests of the political
party upon whose retention of power for several years to come the success
of Reconstruction depends." When Pope urged moderation, it is likely that
something serious was the matter. A proposition to reduce the pay of the
members from $8 to $6 per day was lost by a vote of 35 to 57. A few days
before the close of the convention, Pope ordered the payment of the _per
diem_ to the hungry delegates, many of whom refused to accept the state
obligations called "Patton money." They were told that it was receivable
for taxes, and one answered for all: "Oh, damn the taxes! We haven't got
any to pay."[1425]
The Race Question
The colored delegates brought up the negro question in several forms.
First, Rapier of Canada wanted a declaration that negroes were entitled to
all the privileges and rights of citizenship in Alabama.[1426] Then
Strother of Dallas demanded that the negroes be empowered to collect pay
from those who held them in slavery, at the rate of $10 a month for
services rendered from January 1, 1863, the date of the Emancipation
Proclamation, to May 20, 1865. An ordinance to this effect was actually
adopted by a vote of 53 to 31.[1427] The scalawags, as a rule, wished to
prohibit intermarriage of the races, and Semple of Montgomery reported an
ordinance to that effect. He would prohibit intermarriage to the fourth
generation. The negroes and carpet-baggers united to vote this down, which
was done by a vote of 48 to 30. Caraway (negro) of Mobile wanted life
imprisonment for any white man marrying or living with a black woman, but
he said it was against the Civil Rights Bill to prohibit intermarriage.
This seems to have irritated the scalawags. Gregory (negro) of Mobile
wanted all regulations, laws, and customs wherein distinctions were made
on account of color or race to be abolished, and thus allow
intermarriages. The convention refused to adopt the report providing
against amalgamation.[1428] The Mobile negroes alone seem to have been
opposed to the prohibition of intermarriage. The convention of 1865 had
recognized the validity of all slave marriages and had ordered that they
be considered legal. During 1865 and 1866 the fickle negroes, male and
female, made various experiments with new partners, and the result was
that in 1867 thousands of negroes had forsaken the husband or wife of
slavery times and "taken up" with others. All sorts of prosecutions were
hanging over them, and an ordinance was passed for the relief of such
people. It directed that marriages were to date from November 30, 1867,
and not from 1865 or earlier. All who were living together in 1867 were to
be considered man and wife, and all prosecutions for former misconduct
were forbidden.[1429]
Caraway (negro) of Mobile succeeded in having an ordinance passed
directing that church property used during slavery for colored
congregations be turned over to the latter.[1430] Some of this property
was paid for by negro slaves and held in trust for them by white trustees.
Most of it, however, belonged to the planters, who erected churches for
the use of their slaves.
Not much was said about separate or mixed schools for the races. There was
a disposition on the part of the leaders to keep such questions in the
background for a time in order to prevent irritating discussions. A
proposition for separate schools was voted down on the ground that it was
better for the children of both races to go to school together and wear
off their prejudices. This was the carpet-baggers' view, but most of the
blacks finally voted against a measure providing for mixed schools,
because, they said, they did not want to send their children to school
with white children. The matter was hushed up and left unsettled.[1431]
In spite of efforts to keep the question in the background, the social
equality of the negro race was demanded by one or two irrepressible
Mobile mulattoes, and a discussion was precipitated. The scalawags with
few exceptions were opposed to admitting negroes to the same privileges as
whites,--in theatres, churches, on railroads and boats, and at
hotels,--though they were willing to require equal but separate
accommodations for both races. Semple reported from his committee an
ordinance requiring equal and separate accommodations, but declared that
equality of civil rights was not affected by such a measure. By a vote of
32 to 46 this measure failed to pass.[1432] Griffin[1433] (white) of Ohio
briefly attacked Semple for proposing such an iniquitous measure. McLeod
(negro) said he did not exactly want social equality, and added "suppose
one of you white gentlemen want a negro in the same car with you. The
conductor would not allow it. This should be changed." Caraway (negro)
objected to having his wife travel in the coach with low and obscene white
men. Jim Green (negro) said it was a "common thing to put cullud folks in
de same cyar wid drunk and low white folks. We want nebber be subjic to no
sich disgrace," but wanted to be allowed to go among decent white people.
Gregory (negro) made some scathing observations at the expense of Semple
and his associates, who were hoping to make political use of the negro,
yet did not want to ride in the same car with him. How could the
delegates, he said, go home to their constituents, nineteen-twentieths of
whom were negroes, after voting against their enjoying the same rights as
the whites? Did Semple feel polluted by sitting by Finley, his colored
colleague? Why then should he object to sitting in the same car with him?
He (Gregory) was as good a man as Napoleon on his throne, and could not be
honored by sitting by a white man, but "in de ole worl de cullud folks
ride wid de whites" and so it should be here. Rapier (negro) of Canada
said that the manner in which colored gentlemen and ladies were treated in
America was beyond his comprehension. He (Rapier) had dined with lords in
his lifetime, and though he did not feel flattered by sitting by a white
man, yet he would vote for social equality. Some of the negroes feebly
opposed the agitation of the question on the ground that the civil and
political rights of the negro were not yet safe and should not be
endangered by the agitation of the social question. Griffin of Ohio and
Keffer of Pennsylvania supported the negroes in all their demands. The
carpet-baggers in general were in favor of social equality, but most of
them thought it much more important that the spoils be secured first. The
negroes were placated with numerous promises and by a special resolution
opening the galleries to "their ladies" and inviting the latter to be
present[1434] at the sessions of the convention.
Debates on Disfranchisement
The debates on the question of suffrage were the most extended and showed
the most violent spirit on the part of most of the members. Dustan of Iowa
proposed that the new constitution should in no degree be proscriptive,
but his resolution was voted down by a vote of 30 to 51. Some of the
negroes voted for it.[1435] Rapier (negro) proposed that the convention
memorialize Congress to remove the political disabilities of those who
might aid in reconstruction according to the plan of Congress. This was
adopted and Griffin, the most radical member of the committee, was made
chairman to make merciful recommendations. Gardner of Massachusetts,
representing Butler County, said that there were persons in the state who
should have been tried and convicted of felony and would thus have been
disfranchised, but owing to fault of courts and juries they were not
convicted. He wanted a special commission to disfranchise such persons.
The majority report on the franchise[1436] called for the disfranchisement
of those who had mistreated Union prisoners, those who were disfranchised
by the Reconstruction Acts, and those who had registered under the acts
and had later refrained from voting. Such persons were not to be allowed
to vote, register, or hold office. An oath was to be taken repudiating
belief in the doctrine of secession, accepting the civil and political
equality of all men, and agreeing never to attempt to limit the suffrage.
"The only question is," they reported, "whether we have not been too
liberal." It was necessary that all who registered be forced to vote in
the election on pain of being disfranchised, in order to get a sufficient
number of voters to the polls, though the report stated that Congress was
not bound by the law of March 23 to reject the constitution if a majority
did not vote; the convention had the right to say that men must vote or be
disfranchised; as to the oath, any one who would refuse to take it had no
faith in American principles and was hostile to the Constitution and laws
of the United States.[1437]
The minority report[1438] objected to going beyond the acts of Congress in
disfranchising whites. Lee (negro) said that such a course would endanger
the ratification of the constitution and if the negroes did not get their
rights now, they would never get them. He wanted his rights at the
court-house and at the polls and nothing more. Charity and moderation
would be better than proscription.[1439] Speed said that the measure would
disfranchise from 30,000 to 40,000 men beyond the acts of Congress.[1440]
Griffin of Ohio, speaking in favor of the majority report, said that "the
infernal rebels had acted like devils turned loose from hell," and that
his party could not stand against them in a fair political field; and
therefore proscription was necessary. Another advocate of sweeping
disfranchisement wanted all the leading whites disfranchised until 1875,
in order to prevent them from regaining control of the government.[1441]
Numerous amendments were offered to the majority report. Haughey of
Scotland wanted to disfranchise all Confederates above the rank of
captain, and all who had held any civil office anywhere, or who had voted
for secession. A stringent test oath was to discover the disabilities of
would-be electors. Again, he wanted every elector to prove that on
November 1, 1867, he was a friend of the Reconstruction Acts. He would
have voters and office-holders swear to accept the civil and political
equality of all men, and to resist any change, and also swear that they
had never held office, aided the Confederacy, nor given aid or comfort to
Confederates.[1442] Nearly all the amendments included a provision forcing
the voter or office-holder to accept the political and civil equality of
all men, and to swear never to change. Springfield of St. Clair thought
that all who were opposed to Reconstruction should be disfranchised, and
Russell of Barbour, with Applegate of Wisconsin, held that all
Confederates should be disfranchised who had voluntarily aided the
Confederacy.[1443]
D. H. Bingham of New York thought that voters should swear that on March
4, 1864, they preferred the United States government to the Confederacy,
and would have abandoned the latter had they had the opportunity.[1444]
Applegate thought that no citizen, officer, or editor who opposed
congressional Reconstruction ought to be permitted to vote before
1875.[1445] Silsby of Iowa would also exclude from the suffrage those who
had killed negroes during the last two years, who opposed Reconstruction,
or dissuaded others from attending the election.[1446] Garrison of Blount
wanted to disfranchise those who were in the convention of 1861 and voted
for secession, Confederate members of Congress who voted for the
conscription law, those disfranchised by the Reconstruction Acts,
Confederates above the rank of captain, and state and Confederate
officials of every kind above justice of the peace and bailiff.[1447]
Skinner of Franklin wanted to disfranchise enough rebels to hold the
balance of power. "We have the rod over their heads and intend to keep it
there."[1448] The most liberal amendments were proposed by Peters of
Lawrence, who would continue the disfranchisement made by Congress unless
the would-be voter would swear that he was in favor of congressional
Reconstruction. Rapier (negro) would have all disabilities removed by the
state as soon as they were removed by Congress.[1449] The price of pardon
in all ordinary cases was support of congressional Reconstruction.
The debate lasted for four days, and it was all that Swayne could do to
prevent a division in the Radical party. An agent was sent to Washington
for instructions. The violent character of the proceedings of the
convention made the northern friends of Reconstruction nervous, and Horace
Greeley persuaded Senator Wilson to exert his influence to prevent the
adoption of extreme measures by the convention. Wilson wrote to Swayne
that the convention and especially such men as D. H. Bingham were doing
much harm to Reconstruction and to the Republican party. The northern
Republican press generally seemed afraid of the action of the convention,
and suggested more liberal measures. So we find Pope and Swayne advocating
moderation.[1450] Peck, the president of the convention, still spoke out
for the test oath and disfranchisement. It was necessary to secure the
fruits of Reconstruction, and the test oath would keep out many; but, he
said, if the old leaders, who were honorable men, should take the oath,
they would abide by it,[1451] and Reconstruction would then be safe. The
oath finally adopted, which had to be taken by all who would vote or hold
office, was the usual oath to support the Constitution and laws with the
following additions: "I accept the civil and political equality of all
men; and agree not to attempt to deprive any person or persons, on account
of race, color or previous condition, of any political or civil right,
privilege or immunity, enjoyed by any other class of men; and furthermore,
that I will not in any way injure or countenance in others any attempt to
injure any person or persons on account of past or present support of the
government of the United States, the laws of the United States, or the
principles of the political and civil equality of all men, or for
affiliation with any political party."[1452] It was finally settled that
in addition to those disfranchised by the Reconstruction Acts others
should be excluded for violation of the rules of war.[1453] They could
neither register, vote, nor hold office until relieved by the vote of the
general assembly for aiding in Reconstruction, and until they had accepted
the political equality of all men.[1454] It was estimated that the
suffrage clause would disfranchise from voting or holding office 40,000
white men. The oath was likely to exclude still more. Bingham thought the
oath as adopted was a back-down, and demanded the iron-clad oath. The
committee on the franchise wanted to prohibit the legislature from
enfranchising any person unless he had aided in Reconstruction.[1455]
Legislation by the Convention
The convention organized a new militia system, giving most of the
companies to the black counties. All officers were to be loyal to the
United States, that is, they were to be reconstructionists. No one who was
disfranchised could enlist. The proceeds of the sale of contraband and
captured property taken by the militia were to be used in its
support.[1456] Stay laws were enacted to go into force with the adoption
of the constitution, also exemption laws which exempted from sale for debt
more property than nineteen-twentieths of the people possessed.[1457] The
war debt of Alabama was again declared void, and the ordinance of
secession stigmatized as "unconstitutional, null and void."[1458]
Contracts made during the war, when the consideration was Confederate
money, were declared null and void at the option of either party, as were
also notes payable in Confederate money and debts made for slaves. Bingham
forced through an ordinance providing for a new settlement in United
States currency of trust estates settled during the war in Confederate
securities.[1459] Judicial decisions in aid of the war were declared void.
Defendants in civil cases against whom judgment was rendered during the
war were entitled to a revision or to a new trial.[1460]
The negroes were complaining about the cotton tax, and a memorial was
addressed to Congress, asking for its repeal on the ground that when the
tax was imposed the state had no voice in the government; that it was
oppressive, amounting to 20 per cent of the gross value of the cotton
crop, and fell heavily on the negroes, who were the principal producers;
that for two years the tax had made cotton cultivation unprofitable, and
had driven away capital.[1461]
A memorial to Congress was adopted by a vote of 50 to 6, asking that the
part of the reconstruction law which required a majority of the registered
voters to vote in the election for the adoption of the constitution be
repealed. It was now seen that the Conservatives would endeavor to defeat
the constitution by refraining from voting.[1462]
An ordinance was passed to protect the newly enfranchised negro voters.
The penalty for using "improper influence" and thereby deceiving or
misleading an elector was to be not less than one nor more, than ten
years' imprisonment or fine of not more than $2000. The election was
ordered for February 4, 1868, to be held under direction of the military
commander. In order to bring out a large number of voters, elections were
ordered for the same time for all state and county officers, and for
members of Congress--several thousand in all. The officers thus elected
were to enter at once upon their duties, and hold office for the proper
term of years, dating from the legal date for the next general election
after the admission of the state.[1463]
Among the scalawag members of the convention, who saw that the
carpet-baggers would rule the land by controlling the negro vote, there
was much dissatisfaction and at length open revolt. Nine members signed a
formal protest against the proposed constitution, stating that a
government framed upon its provisions would entail upon the state greater
evils than any that then threatened.[1464] Another member protested
against the test oath, against the extension of proscription, and against
the absence of express provision for separate schools.[1465] The
constitution was adopted by a vote of 66 to 8, 26 not voting. A few days
after the adjournment, 15 or 20 scalawag members united in an address to
the people of Alabama, protesting against the proposed constitution
because it was more proscriptive than the acts of Congress, because of the
test oath, because the course of the convention had shown that the
government would be in the hands of a few adventurers under the control
of the blacks, to whom they had promised mixed schools and laws protecting
the negro in his rights of voting, eating, travelling, etc., with whites.
For these reasons they urged that the constitution be rejected.[1466]
Just before the convention adjourned, Caraway (negro) offered a
resolution, which was adopted, stating that the constitution was founded
on justice, honesty, and civilization, and that the enemies of law and
order, freedom and justice, were pledged to prevent its adoption. But he
asserted that God would strengthen and assist those who did right;
therefore he advised that a day be set apart "whereby the good and loyal
people of Alabama can offer up their adorations to Almighty God, and
invoke His aid and assistance to the loyal people of the state, while
passing through the bitter strife that seems to await them."[1467]
A study of the votes and debates leads to the following general
conclusion: The majority of the scalawags were ready to revolt after
finding that the carpet-bag element had control of the negro vote; the
negroes with a few exceptions made no unreasonable and violent demands
unless urged by the carpet-baggers; the carpet-baggers with a few extreme
scalawags were disposed to resort to extreme measures of proscription in
order to get rid of white leaders and white majorities, and to agitate the
question of social equality in order to secure the negroes, and to drive
off the scalawags so that there would be fewer with whom to share the
spoils.[1468]
CHAPTER XV
THE "RECONSTRUCTION" COMPLETED
"Convention" Candidates
The debates in the convention over mixed schools, proscription, militia,
and representation had seemingly resulted in a division between the
carpet-baggers, who controlled the negroes, and the more moderate
scalawags. The carpet-baggers and extreme scalawags of the convention
resolved themselves into a body for the nomination of candidates for
office. This body formed the state Union League convention. Of the 101
delegates to the convention, 67 or 68 had signed the constitution, and of
these at least 56 were candidates for office under it. Full tickets were
nominated by the convention and by the local councils of the Union League.
In the black counties only members of the League were nominated, and it
was practically the same in the white counties, where the League then had
but few members. Nearly all the election officials were candidates. Men
represented one county in the convention, and were candidates in others
for office.[1469]
"CONVENTION" CANDIDATES
======================================================================
NAME | NATIVITY | CANDIDATE FOR
-------------------|------------------------------|-------------------
Ben Alexander |Negro |Legislature
A. J. Applegate |Ohio and Wisconsin |Lieutenant Governor
W. A. Austin |Negro |State Senate
Arthur Bingham |New York |State Treasurer
W. H. Black |Ohio |Probate Judge
W. T. Blackford |Illinois |Probate Judge
Samuel Blandon |Negro |Legislature
Mark Brainard |New York |Clerk Circuit Court
Alfred E. Buck |Maine |Clerk Circuit Court
C. W. Buckley |New York, Mass., and Illinois |Congress
W. M. Buckley* |New York and Massachusetts |State Senator
J. H. Burdick |Iowa |Probate Judge
John Caraway |Negro |Legislature
Pierce Burton |Massachusetts |Legislature
J. Collins |North |State Senate
Datus E. Coon |Iowa |State Senate
Tom Diggs |Negro |Legislature
Charles W. Dustan |Iowa |Major-General Militia
S. S. Gardner |Massachusetts |Legislature
George Ely |New York, Conn., and Mass. |Probate Judge
Peyton Finley |Negro |Legislature
Jim Green |Negro |Legislature
Ovide Gregory |Negro |Legislature
Thomas Haughey |Scotland |Congress
G. Horton |Massachusetts |Probate Judge
Benjamin Inge |Negro |Legislature
A. W. Jones* |Alabama |Probate Judge
Columbus Jones |Negro |Legislature
John C. Keffer |Pennsylvania |Supt. of Industrial
| | Resources
S. F. Kennemer |Alabama |Legislature
Tom Lee |Negro |Legislature
David Lore |Negro (?) |Legislature
J. J. Martin |Georgia |Probate Judge
B. O. Masterson |Unknown |Legislature
C. A. Miller |Massachusetts and Maine |Secretary of State
Stephen Moore* |Alabama (?) |Senate
A. L. Morgan |Indiana |Clerk Circuit Court
J. F. Morton* |Unknown |Senate
B. W. Norris |Maine |Congress
E. W. Peck |New York |Chief Justice
Thomas M. Peters |Tennessee |Supreme Court
G. P. Plowman |Alabama |Probate Judge
R. M. Reynolds |Iowa |Auditor
Benjamin Rolfe |New York |Tax Collector
B. F. Royal |Negro |Senate
B. F. Saffold |Alabama |Supreme Court
J. Silsby* |Massachusetts |Clerk Circuit Court
C. P. Simmons |Tennessee |Commissioner
William P. Skinner |Alabama |Chancellor
L. R. Smith* |Massachusetts |Circuit Judge
H. J. Springfield* |Alabama |Legislature
N. D. Stanwood* |Maine and Massachusetts |Legislature
J. P. Stow |Connecticut |Senate
Littleberry Strange|Georgia |Circuit Judge
James R. Walker* |Georgia |Sheriff
B. L. Whelan |Georgia, Ireland, and Mich. |Circuit Judge
C. O. Whitney |North |Senate
J. A. Yordy |North |Senate[1472]
======================================================================
The state of politics in the average Black Belt county was like that in
Perry or Montgomery. In Perry, the Radical nominees for probate judge,
state senator, sheriff, and tax assessor were from Wisconsin; for
representative, two negroes and one white from Ohio, and for tax
collector, a northern man.[1470] In Montgomery, for the legislature, one
white from Ohio and one from Austria, and three negroes; for probate
judge, clerk of circuit court, sheriff, and tax assessor, men from New
York and other northern states.[1471] One or two negroes ran independently
in each Black Belt county. In the white counties the extreme scalawags
had a better chance for office, and most of the moderate
reconstructionists fell away at once, leaving the spoils to the Radicals.
It is doubtful if there were enough white men in the state who could read
and write and who supported the new constitution, to fill the offices
created by that instrument. Hence the assignment of candidates to far-off
counties, and the admission of negro candidates.[1473] The state ticket
was headed by an Alabama tory, William H. Smith, and the other candidates
for state offices were from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maine, and New York, five
of them being officers of the Freedmen's Bureau.[1474] The candidates for
Congress were from Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan, New York, Maine, and
Nebraska. In several instances the candidate hailed from two or more
different states.[1475]
Campaign on the Constitution
The campaign in behalf of the constitution did not differ in character
from that in behalf of the convention. The Radical candidates for office,
working through the Union League, drilled the negroes in the proper
political faith. Nearly all the whites having gone over to the
Conservatives, or withdrawn from politics, little or no attention was paid
to the white voters. All efforts were directed toward securing the negro
vote. Agents were sent over the state by the League to organize the
negroes, who were again told the old story: If the constitution is not
ratified, you will be reënslaved and your wives will be beaten and your
children sold; if you do not get your rights now you will never get them.
A subsidized press[1476] distributed campaign stories among those negroes
who could read, and they spread the news. In this way the remotest darky
heard that he was sure to return to slavery if the constitution failed of
ratification.[1477] The Union League assessed its members, especially
those who happened to be holding office under the military government, for
money for campaign purposes.[1478]
The Radicals were forced by the general denunciation of the constitution,
both in the North and in the South, to make some statement in regard to
the matter. So on January 2, 1868, the Radical campaign committee issued
an address stating that there had been general and severe criticism of
some features of the constitution, and that Congress would expect a
revision, though the state would be admitted promptly even before
revision. The existence of political disabilities need not fetter the
party, the address stated, in the choice of a candidate. A Republican
nomination was a proof that the candidate was a "proper" person, and his
disabilities would be at once removed. This was a way to mitigate the
proscription.[1479]
From the first the Conservatives[1480] had no hope of carrying the
election against the reconstructionists, who had control of the machinery
of election and were supported by the army and the government. There was
little organized opposition to the convention election, because the people
were indifferent and because the leaders feared that a contest at the
polls would result in riots with the negroes. To the Conservatives the
convention at first was a joke; the disposition was rather to stand off
and keep quiet, and let the Radicals try their hands for a while; they
could not stay in power forever. Later, the violent opinions and extreme
measures of the convention excited the alarm of many of the whites; the
moderate reconstructionists deserted their party; a large minority of the
convention refused to sign the constitution; and a number made formal
protests. The nomination of candidates by the Union League membership of
the convention and the character of the nominees showed that rule by alien
and negro was threatened. The Conservative party, now embracing nearly all
the whites except the Radical candidates, determined to oppose the
ratification of the constitution. Many of the whites,[1481] now thoroughly
discouraged, left the state forever--going to the north and west, to
Texas especially, and to South America and Mexico.[1482]
On December 10 a number of the delegates to the convention, some of whom
had signed the constitution, united in an address to the people advising
against its adoption. All of them were native whites and former
reconstructionists. They declared that under the proposed government
designing knaves and political adventurers, who had a jealous hatred of
the native whites, would use the blacks for their own selfish purposes;
that this was clearly shown in the convention when the black delegation,
with one honorable exception, moved like slaves at the command of their
masters.[1483] Several hundred citizens sent a petition to the President,
setting forth that some of the delegates to the convention were not
residents of the state, that others did not, and had not, resided in the
counties which they pretended to represent, and that others belonged to
the army or were officials of the Freedmen's Bureau, and were thus not
legally qualified to sit in the convention. The petitioners asked for an
investigation.[1484] One of the delegates, Graves of Perry County, took
the stump against the constitution framed by "strangers, deserters,
bushwhackers, and perjured men," who were characterized by "a fiendish
desire to disqualify all southern men from voting or holding office who
are unwilling to perjure themselves with a test oath."[1485]
The so-called "White Man's Movement" in Alabama is said to have been
originated in 1867, by Alexander White and ex-Governor L. E.
Parsons.[1486] At a Conservative meeting in Dallas County, in January,
1868, the former offered a series of resolutions declaring that American
institutions were the product of the wisdom of white men and were designed
to preserve the ascendency of the white race in political affairs; that
the United States government was a white man's government, and that white
men should rule America; that the negro was not fit to take part in the
government, as he had never achieved civilization nor shown himself
capable of directing the affairs of a nation; that the right of suffrage
was the fountain of all political power, therefore the negro should not be
invested with the right. Parsons proposed the same resolutions at a
Conservative conference in Montgomery in January, 1868.[1487]
The Conservative executive committee decided to advise the whites to
refrain from voting, and thus defeat the constitution by taking advantage
of the law requiring a majority of the registered voters to vote on the
question of ratification before the constitution could be ratified. No
nominations for office were made for fear that some whites might thus vote
on the constitution, and also for fear of conflicts between the races in
case of contest at the polls. All were advised to register and to remain
away from the polls on election day. It was thought that less irritation
would be caused in Congress and elsewhere if the constitution failed in
this way than if it were voted down directly. The whites could be more
easily persuaded to remain away than to go to the polls, and fewer negroes
would vote if the whites did not vote. The people were urged to form
organizations to carry out this non-participating programme.[1488]
In every county in the state the Conservatives held meetings, opposing the
constitution and pledging all the whites to stay away from the polls. The
Conservative press from day to day made known new objections to the
constitution: it exempted from sale for debt $3000 worth of
property,--whereas the old constitution exempted $500,--and this would
exempt every Radical in the state from paying his debts; the power of
taxation was in the hands of the non-taxpayers; the distribution of
representation was unequal, favoring the black counties;[1489] mixed
schools and amalgamation of the races were not forbidden, but were
encouraged by the reconstructionists; a large number of whites were
disfranchised from voting or holding office,[1490] while all the blacks
were enfranchised; the test oath required all voters to swear that they
would accept the political equality of the negro and never change their
opinions; the Board of Education was given legislative power, and could
pass measures over the governor's veto; an ordinance, which was kept
secret, required the governor to organize at once 137 companies of
militia, to be assigned almost entirely to the black counties, and under
such regulations that it was certain that few whites could serve; this
militia, when in service, was to be paid like the regular army, and was to
get the proceeds from all property captured or confiscated by it; the
government, under this constitution, would cost from one and a half to two
million dollars a year.[1491]
Under the proposed constitution it was certain that for a while the
government would be in the hands of the extremest Radical clique. The
machinery, of the Radical party, of the registration and elections and the
candidates nominated by the League were of this faction. The continued
rule of the military was preferred by the whites to the rule of the
carpet-baggers and the negro. Another reason why the Conservatives wished
to keep the state out of the Union still longer was to prevent its
electoral vote from being cast for Grant in the fall of 1868. During 1865
and 1866 Grant's moderate opinions had won the regard of many of the
people, but his course during the last year had caused him to be intensely
disliked. Though many meetings were held in opposition to the
constitution, the campaign on the Conservative side was quiet and
unexciting. The thirtieth day of January was set apart as a day of fasting
and prayer to deliver the people of Alabama "from the horrors of negro
domination."[1492]
Vote on the Constitution
The registration before the election of delegates to the convention was
165,123,[1493] of whom 61,295 were whites and 104,518 were blacks.
Registration continued, and all the eligible whites registered. It is
probable that more whites than negroes registered during December and
January. And the revision demanded by all honest people evidently had the
effect of striking off thousands of negro names; for at the end of the
year the registration stood: whites, 72,748; blacks, 88,243; total,
160,991.[1494] By February 1, 1868, the registration amounted to about
170,000,[1495] of whom about 75,000 were whites and 95,000 were blacks.
Therefore, more than 85,000 registered voters must participate in the
election, or, according to the law, the constitution would fail of
adoption.[1496]
The registrars were those who had been appointed by Pope in 1867. More
than half of them were candidates for election to office. Meade was not
favorably impressed with the character of the candidates nominated by the
constitutional convention and by the local councils of the Union League,
and he advised against holding the election for officers at the same time
that the vote was taken on the constitution. He thought that the nominees
were not such men as the friends of Reconstruction would choose if they
had a free choice. He believed that the ratification would be seriously
affected if these candidates were to be voted for at the same time. Swayne
admitted the force of the objection, but was afraid that a revocation of
the permission to elect officers at the same time would be disastrous to
Reconstruction. Later he agreed that the two elections should not be held
at the same time. But Grant objected to making the change, and the
election went on.[1497]
General Hayden, Swayne's successor, removed a dozen or more of the
registrars who were candidates for important offices,[1498] and in
consequence was abused by the Radicals, who accused him of "hobnobbing
with the rebels." He was "utterly loathed by loyal men," and they at once
began to work for his removal.[1499] Every election official was obliged
to take the iron-clad test oath, and as one-third of them were negroes, it
was not likely that any of them were hostile to Reconstruction, as was
afterwards claimed.
The elections were to begin on February 4 and last for two days. At the
suggestion of General Grant the time was extended to four days, and a
storm coming on the first day, instructions were sent out to keep the
polls open until the close of the 8th of February. But in the remote
counties no notice of the extension of time was received. There were three
voting places in each county and a person might vote at any one of them
(or at all of them if he chose). Late instructions ordered election
officials to receive the vote of any person who had registered anywhere in
the state. Of the 62 counties, 20 voted four days; 13, two days; 27, five
days; and in 2 there were no elections.[1500]
Besides being told the old stories of returning to slavery, of forty acres
and a mule, of social rights, etc., various new promises were made to the
negroes. One was promised a divorce if he would vote for Reynolds as
Auditor, and it was said that Reynolds kept his promise, and saw that the
negro afterward secured it. Numerous negro politicians were, according to
promise, relieved from "the pains of bigamy" by the first Reconstruction
legislation. The discipline of the League was brought to bear on
indifferent black citizens, and by threats of violence or of proscription
many were driven to the polls. On February 3 the negroes began to flock to
the voting places, each with a gun, a stick, a dog, and a bag of rations,
as directed by their white leaders. It was again necessary for them to
vote "early and often." The Radical candidates were desperately afraid
that the constitution would fail of ratification, and every means was
taken to swell the number of votes cast. Many negroes voted rolls of
tickets given them by the candidates. They voted one day in one precinct,
and the next day in another, or several times in the same place. Little
attention was paid to the registration lists, but every negro over sixteen
who presented himself was allowed to vote. Hundreds of negro boys voted;
it was said that none were ever turned away. Where the whites had men at
the polls to challenge voters, it was found almost impossible to follow
the lists because so many of the negroes had changed their names since
registration. The sick at their homes sent their proxies by their friends
or relatives. In one case the Radicals voted negroes under the names of
white men who were staying away. The voters migrated from one county to
another during the elections and voted in each. This was especially the
case in Mobile, Marengo, Montgomery, Macon, Lee, Russell, Greene, Dallas,
Hale, and Barbour counties.[1501] The _Mobile Register_ claimed that negro
women were dressed in men's clothes and voted. The Radical chairman of the
Board of Registration in Perry County stated that one-third of the votes
polled in that county were illegal.[1502] In Mobile, when a negro man
appeared whose name was not on the voting list and was challenged by the
Conservatives, he was directed by a "pirate"[1503] to go to one D. G.
Johnson, a registrar, who would give him, not a certificate of
registration, but a ballot, indorsed with the voter's name and Johnson's
signature. This ballot was to serve as a certificate and was also to be
voted.[1504]
The Constitution fails of Adoption
The result of the voting was: for the constitution, 70,812 votes; against
it, 1005. The 18,000 white votes for the convention had dwindled down to
5000 for the constitution. For ratification, 13,550 more votes were
necessary, and the ratification had failed. So General Meade reported. The
reasons for the falling off of the white vote have already been indicated.
The black vote fell off also. One cause of this was the chilling of the
negro's faith in his political leaders, who had made so many promises
about farms, etc., and had broken them all. Many of the old aristocratic
negroes would have nothing to do with such leaders as the carpet-baggers
and scalawags, and this class and many others also were influenced by the
whites to stay away from the polls. The general absence of respectable
whites at the elections made it easier to convince the old Conservative
negroes.[1505] In two white counties--Dale and Henry--no elections were
held because there were not enough reconstructionists to act as election
officials.[1506] Some whites, probably not many, were kept away by threats
of social and business ostracism. Most of the reconstructionists cared
nothing for such threats, as they could not be injured.[1507]
The Radicals explained the result of the election by asserting that many
whites were registered illegally, foreigners, minors, etc., that the
voters were intimidated by threats of violence, social ostracism, and
discharge from employment; that the voting places were too few and the
time too short in many of the counties; that there was a great storm and
the rivers were flooded, preventing access to the polls in some
places;[1508] that the Conservatives interfered with the votes, and tore
off that part of the ballot that contained the vote on the constitution;
that many election officials were hostile to reconstruction, and had
turned off 10,000 voters because of slight defects in the registration;
that there were not 170,000 voters in the state but only 160,000, as
several thousand had removed from the state; that in spite of all
obstructions the vote for the constitution, if properly counted, was
81,000 instead of 70,000, and that there were 120,000 "loyal" voters in
the state; that the ballot-boxes in Lowndes County were stolen, and that
the returns from Baine, Colbert, and Jones counties had been fraudulently
thrown out;[1509] that General Hayden had especially desired the defeat of
Reconstruction, and that he had managed the election in such a way as to
enable the "rebels" to gain an apparent victory; and that practically all
the army officers were opposed to the Radical programme, which was now
true; and finally, that the attendance of Conservatives as challengers at
the polls in some places was "a means of preventing the full and free
expression of opinion by the ballot."[1510]
After a thorough investigation General Meade reported that the election
had been quiet, and that there had been no disorder of any kind; that
there had been no frauds in mutilating negroes' tickets by tearing off the
vote for the constitution, and that the other charges of fraud would prove
as illusive; that the vote for the governor and other officials was less
than that for the constitution; and that a more liberal constitution would
have commanded a majority of votes. He said, "I am satisfied that the
constitution was lost on its merits;" that the constitution was fairly
rejected by the people, under the law requiring a majority of the
registered voters to cast their ballots for or against, and that this
rejection was based on the merits of the constitution itself was proved by
the fact that out of 19,000 white voters for the convention, there were
only 5000 for the constitution; it might also be partially explained by
the fact that the constitutional convention had made nominations to all
the state offices, which ticket was "not acceptable in all respects to the
party favoring reconstruction."[1511] He recommended that Congress
reassemble the convention, which should revise the constitution,
eliminating the objectionable features, and again submit it to the people.
However, as he afterwards stated, "my advice was not followed." The tone
of Meade's report showed that he did not expect Congress to refuse to
admit the state. Indeed, at times the staid general seemed almost to
approach something like disrespect toward that highly honorable body.
When the Radicals began to make an outcry about fraud, Meade complained
that they were not specific in their charges, and told the leaders to get
their proofs ready. The state Radical Executive Committee issued
instructions for all Radicals to collect affidavits concerning high water,
storms, obstruction, fraud, violence, intimidation, and discharge, and
send them to the Radical agents at Washington, who were urging the
admission of the state, notwithstanding the rejection of the constitution.
They refused to send these reports to Meade, who was not in sympathy with
the Radical programme. Many of what purported to be affidavits of men
discharged from employment for voting were printed for the use of
Congress. Most of them were signed by marks and gave no particulars. The
usual statement was "for the reason of voting at recent election."[1512]
The _Nationalist_ gave fifteen flippant reasons why the constitution had
failed, and then asserted that the state was sure to be admitted in spite
of the failure of ratification. Agents were sent to Washington to urge
the acceptance by Congress of the constitution and Radical ticket. At
first all, however, were not hopeful. There was a general exodus of the
less influential carpet-baggers from the state, such a marked movement
that the negroes afterwards complained of it. Some returned North; others
went to assist in the reconstruction of other states.[1513]
C. C. Sheets, a native Radical, speaking of the failure of the
ratification, declared that a year earlier the state might have been
reconstructed according to the plan of Congress, but a horde of army
officers sent South, followed by a train of office-seekers, went into
politics, and these "with the help of a class here at home even less fit
and less honest," if possible, had disgusted every one.[1514]
While waiting for Congress to act, the so-called legislature met, February
17, 1868, at the office of the _Sentinel_ in Montgomery. Applegate, the
candidate for lieutenant-governor, called the "Senate" to order, and
harangued them as follows: Congress would recognize whatever they might
do; it was absolutely necessary for the assembly to act before Congress,
as the life of the nation was in danger and there was a pressing
"necessity for two Senators from Alabama to sit upon the trial of that
renegade and traitor, Andrew Johnson"; he stated that General Meade was in
consultation with them and would sustain them;[1515] if protection were
necessary, Major-General Dustan[1516] could, at short notice, surround
them with several regiments of loyal militia.[1517] They attempted to
transact some business, but the unfriendly attitude of Meade and Hayden
discouraged them; and they disbanded, to await the action of Congress.
The Alabama Question in Congress
February 17, 1868, a few days after the election, Bingham of Ohio
introduced a joint resolution in the House to admit Alabama with its new
constitution.[1518] The Radicals of Alabama assumed that it was only a
question of a short time before they would be in power. On March 10,
Stevens, from the Committee on Reconstruction, reported a bill for the
admission of Alabama. During the lengthy debate which followed, the
Radical leaders undertook to show that when Congress passed the law of
March 23, it did not know what it was doing, and that therefore the law
could not now be considered binding. The carpet-bag stories about frauds
in the election, icy rivers, etc., were again told. During the debates it
developed that Beck of Kentucky and Brooks of New York, the minority
members of the Committee on Reconstruction, had not been notified of the
meeting of the committee, which was called to meet at the house of
Stevens, and hence knew nothing of the report until it was printed. They
made strong speeches against the bill and introduced the protests of the
delegates to the convention, the reports of Meade, and the petition of the
whites of the state against the proposed measure, and on March 17
introduced the minority report, which had to be read as part of a speech
in order to get it printed. It was a summary of the Conservative
objections to the constitution. For the moment Thaddeus Stevens seemed to
be convinced that it was not desirable to admit Alabama. "After a full
examination," he said, "of the final returns from Alabama, which we had
not got when this bill was drawn, I am satisfied, for one, that to force a
vote on this bill and admit the state against our own law, when there is a
majority of twenty odd thousand against the constitution, would not be
doing such justice in legislation as will be expected by the people." So
the measure was withdrawn.[1519] But the next day Farnsworth of Illinois
reported a new bill providing for the admission of Alabama. He argued
that 7000 whites had voted for the constitution, and that 20,000 whites
belonged to the Union Leagues in the state,[1520] and that only by fraud
had the constitution been defeated. Kelly of Pennsylvania, of "Mobile
riot" fame, said that "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." He
was convinced that typographical and clerical errors in the voting lists
had turned thousands away.[1521] Spalding of Ohio proposed a substitute,
which was adopted, making the new constitution the fundamental law for a
provisional government, and placing in office the candidates who were
voted for. The legislature was to be convened to adopt amendments to the
constitution and resubmit the latter to the people. The bill passed the
House, but was not taken up in the Senate.[1522] In the debates on this
bill Paine of Wisconsin said: "These men [the whites] during the war were
traitors. They have no right to vote or to hold office, and for the
present this dangerous power is most rightfully withheld." Williams, a
Republican of Pennsylvania, objected to accepting a negro minority
government. Stevens closed the debate, saying that Congress had passed an
act "authorizing Alabama and other waste territories of the United States
to form constitutions so as, if possible, to make them fit to associate
with civilized communities"; the House had foreseen difficulties about
requiring a majority to vote, and had passed an act to remedy it, but the
Senate had let it lie for two months; he knew that he was outside the
constitution, which did not provide for such a case; he wanted to shackle
the whites in order to protect the blacks.[1523]
The effect of establishing a new provisional government on the basis of
the constitution just rejected would be to require a new registration and
disfranchisement according to that instrument. The proposal pleased the
local Radicals very much. This plan was probably preferred by all the
would-be officers except those who had been candidates for Congress and
who could not sit until the state was admitted. The _Nationalist_[1524]
said: "If we can get the offices, we, and not a 'military saphead'
[Meade], can conduct the next election; we can by the Spalding bill get
the government, rule the state as long as we please provisionally, and,
when satisfied we can hold our own against the rebels, submit the
constitution to a vote. We must wait until sure of a Republican majority
if we have to wait five years."[1525] The carpet-baggers were in high
hope. A girl applied to one of the managers of the Montgomery "soup house"
for a ticket for ten days, saying that she would not need it longer, as
her father by the end of that time would be a judge.[1526]
The whites began to close ranks, to leave no room in their midst for the
white man of the North, the ruler and ally of the black. Social and
business ostracism was declared against all who should take office under
the Reconstruction Acts. They were turned away from respectable
hotels.[1527]
The _Independent Monitor_, now the head and front of opposition to
Reconstruction, gave the following advice to the white people, who,
however, did not need it: "We reiterate the advice hitherto offered to
those of our southern people who are not ashamed to honor the service of
the 'lost cause' and the memory of their kith and kin whose lives were
nobly laid down to save the survivors from a subjection incomparably more
tolerable in contemplation than in realization. That advice is not to
touch a loyal leaguer's hand; taste not of a loyal leaguer's hospitality;
handle not a loyal leaguer's goods. Oust him socially; break him
pecuniarily; ignore him politically; kick him contagiously; hang him
legally; or lynch him clandestinely--provided he becomes a nuisance as
Claus or Wilson."[1528]
The Conservative Executive Committee addressed a memorial to Congress
against the proposed measures. In conclusion the address stated: "We are
beset by secret oath-bound political societies, our character and conduct
are systematically misrepresented to you and in the newspapers of the
North; the intelligent and impartial administration of just laws is
obstructed; industry and enterprise are paralyzed by the fears of the
white men and the expectation of the black that Alabama will soon be
delivered over to the rule of the latter; and many of our people are, for
these reasons, leaving the homes they love for other and stranger lands.
Continue over us, if you will, your own rule by the sword. Send down among
us honorable and upright men of your own people, of the race to which you
and we belong, and, ungracious, contrary to wise policy and the
institutions of the country, and tyrannous as it will be, no hand will be
raised among us to resist by force their authority. But do not, we implore
you, abdicate your rule over us, by transferring us to the blighting
brutality and unnatural dominion of an alien and inferior race."[1529]
Alabama Readmitted to the Union
The proposition to establish a Radical provisional government for Alabama
was forgotten in the Senate during the progress of the impeachment trial,
and on May 11 Stevens introduced a bill providing for the admission of
Georgia, Louisiana, North and South Carolina, and Alabama.[1530] A motion
by Woodbridge of Vermont to strike Alabama from the bill was lost by a
vote of 60 to 74. Farnsworth said it was nonsense to make any distinction
between Alabama and the other states. The bill passed the House on May 14,
by a vote of 109 to 35, and went to the Senate. On June 5 Trumbull from
the Judiciary Committee reported the bill with Alabama struck out because
the constitution had not been ratified according to law. Wilson of
Massachusetts moved to insert Alabama in the bill. Alabama, he said, was
the strongest of all the states for the policy of Congress, and it would
be unjust to leave her out. Sherman repeated the old charges of fraud in
the elections, which had been contradicted by General Meade, from whose
report Sherman quoted garbled extracts. It was absolutely necessary, he
said, to admit Alabama in order to settle the Fourteenth Amendment before
the presidential election. Hendricks of Indiana objected because of
proscriptive clauses in the constitution, which would disfranchise from
25,000 to 30,000 men. Pomeroy of Kansas said it would be "a cruel thing"
to admit the other states and leave out Alabama. Morton of Indiana was of
the opinion that the bill with Alabama in it would pass over the
President's veto as well as without it, and said that Congress must waive
the condition and admit Alabama.[1531] The Radicals of Alabama kept the
wires hot sending telegrams to their agents in Washington and to Wilson
and Sumner, urging the inclusion of Alabama in the bill. On June 9 the
Senate in Committee of the Whole amended the bill as reported from the
Committee on the Judiciary by inserting Alabama. On this the vote stood 22
to 21. The next day Senator Trumbull moved to strike out Alabama, but the
motion was lost by a vote of 24 to 16. So the report of the Judiciary
Committee was revised by the insertion of Alabama, and the bill passed by
a vote of 31 to 5, 18 not voting.[1532] The House Committee on
Reconstruction recommended concurrence in certain amendments that the
Senate had made, which was done by a vote of 111 to 28, 50 not voting. The
bill was then signed by the Speaker and the President _pro tem._ of the
Senate and sent to the President.[1533] The President returned the bill
with his veto on June 25. "In the case of Alabama," he said, "it violates
the plighted faith of Congress by forcing upon that state a constitution
which was rejected by the people, according to the express terms of an act
of Congress requiring that a majority of the registered electors should
vote upon the question of its ratification."[1534] The bill was at once
passed by both houses over the President's veto, in the Senate by a vote
of 35 to 8, 13 not voting, and in the House by a vote of 108 to 31, 53 not
voting.[1535]
The bill as passed declared that Alabama with the other southern states
had adopted by large majorities the constitutions recently framed, and
that as soon as each state by its legislature should ratify the Fourteenth
Amendment it should be admitted to representation upon the fundamental
condition "that the constitution of neither of said states shall ever be
so amended or changed as to deprive any citizen or class of citizens of
the United States of the right to vote in said state who are entitled to
vote by the constitution thereof herein recognized" except as a punishment
for crime.[1536] As soon as the new legislature should meet and ratify
the Fourteenth Amendment, the officers of the state were to be
inaugurated. No one was to hold office who was disqualified by the
proposed Fourteenth Amendment.[1537]
June 29, Grant wrote to Meade that to avoid question he should remove the
present provisional governor and install the governor and
lieutenant-governor elect, this to take effect at the date of convening
the legislature. So in July, by general order, Governor Patton was removed
and Smith and Applegate installed. After the ratification of the
Fourteenth Amendment by the legislature, Meade directed all provisional
officials to yield to their duly elected successors. The military
commanders transferred state property, papers, and prisoners to the state
authorities.[1538] And for six years the carpet-bagger, scalawag, and
negro, with the aid of the army, misruled the state.
The members of Congress returned from their migrations[1539] and presented
themselves with their credentials to Congress.[1540] Brooks of New York
objected to the admission of these men on the ground that they were there
in violation of the act of Congress in force at the time of the election.
But on July 21 all were admitted by a vote of 125 to 33, 52 not voting.
After taking the iron-clad test oath, they took their seats among the
nation's lawmakers. Spencer and Warner were admitted to the Senate on July
25, and also took the iron-clad oath.[1541]
[Illustration: SOME RADICAL MEMBERS OF CONGRESS.
SENATOR GEORGE E. SPENCER.
SENATOR WILLARD WARNER.
C. W. BUCKLEY.
JOHN B. CALLIS.
J. T. RAPIER.
CHARLES HAYS.]
CHAPTER XVI
THE UNION LEAGUE OF AMERICA
Origin of the Union League
In order to understand the absolute control exercised over the blacks by
the alien adventurers, as shown in the elections of 1867-1868, it will be
necessary to examine the workings of the secret oath-bound society
popularly known as the "Loyal League." The iron discipline of this order
wielded by a few able and unscrupulous whites held together the ignorant
negro masses for several years and prevented any control by the
conservative whites.
The Union League movement began in the North in 1862, when the outlook for
the northern cause was gloomy. The moderate policy of the Washington
government had alienated the extremists; the Confederate successes in the
field and Democratic successes in the elections, the active opposition of
the "Copperheads" to the war policy of the administration, the rise of the
secret order of the Knights of the Golden Circle in the West opposed to
further continuance of the war, the strong southern sympathies of the
higher classes of society, the formation of societies for the
dissemination of Democratic and southern literature, the low ebb of
loyalty to the government in the North, especially in the cities--all
these causes resulted in the formation of Union Leagues throughout the
North.[1542] This movement began among those associated in the work of the
United States Sanitary Commission. These people were important neither as
politicians nor as warriors, and they had sufficient leisure to observe
the threatening state of society about them. "Loyalty must be organized,
consolidated, and made effective," they declared. The movement, first
organized in Ohio, took effective form in Philadelphia in the fall of
1862, and in December of that year the Union League of Philadelphia was
organized. The members were pledged to uncompromising and unconditional
loyalty to the Union, the complete subordination of political ideas
thereto, and the repudiation of any belief in states' rights. The New York
Union League Club followed the example of the Philadelphia League early in
1863, and adopted, word for word, its declaration of principles.[1543]
Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Baltimore, and other cities followed suit, and
soon Leagues modelled after the Philadelphia plan and connected by a loose
bond of federation were formed in every part of the North. These Leagues
were social as well as political in their aims. The "Loyal National
League" of New York, an independent organization with thirty branches, was
absorbed by the Union League, and the "Loyal Publication Society" of New
York, which also came under its control, was used to disseminate the
proper kind of political literature.
As the Federal armies went South, the Union League spread among the
disaffected element of the southern people.[1544] Much interest was taken
in the negro, and negro troops were enlisted through its efforts. Teachers
were sent South in the wake of the armies to teach the negroes, and to use
their influence in securing negro enlistments. In this and in similar work
the League acted in coöperation with the Freedmen's Aid Societies, the
Department of Negro Affairs, and later with the Freedmen's Bureau. With
the close of the war it did not cease to take an active interest in things
political. It was one of the earliest bodies to declare for negro suffrage
and white disfranchisement,[1545] and this declaration was made repeatedly
during the three years following the war, when it was continued as a kind
of Radical bureau in the Republican party to control the negro vote in the
South. Its agents were always in the lobbies of Congress, clamoring for
extreme measures; the Reconstruction policy of Congress was heartily
indorsed and the President condemned. Its headquarters were in New York,
and it was represented in each state by "State Members." John Keffer of
Pennsylvania was "State Member" for Alabama.
Part of the work of the League was to distribute campaign literature, and
most of the violent pamphlets on Reconstruction questions will be found to
have the Union League imprint. The New York League alone circulated about
70,000 publications,[1546] while the Philadelphia Union League far
surpassed this record, circulating 4,500,000 political pamphlets[1547]
within eight years. The literature printed consisted largely of accounts
of "southern atrocities." The conclusions of Carl Schurz's report on the
condition of the South justified, the League historian claims, the
publication and dissemination of such choice stories as these: A preacher
in Bladon (Springs), Alabama, said that the woods in Choctaw County stunk
with dead negroes. Some were hanged to trees and left to rot; others were
burned alive.
It is quite likely that such Leagues as those in New York and
Philadelphia, after the first year or two of Reconstruction, grew away
from the strictly political "Union League of America" and became more and
more social clubs. The spiritual relationship was close, however, and in
political belief they were one. The eminently respectable members of the
Union Leagues of Philadelphia and New York had little in common with the
southern Leagues except radicalism. Southern "Unionists" who went North
were entertained by the Union League and their expenses paid. In 1866 the
Philadelphia convention of southern "Unionists" was taken in hand by the
League, carried to New York, and entertained at the expense of the latter.
In 1867 several of the Leagues sent delegates to Virginia to reconcile the
two warring factions of Radicals. The formation of the Union League among
the southern "Unionists" was extended throughout the South within a few
months of the close of the war, but a "discreet secrecy" was maintained.
In Alabama it was easy for the disaffected whites, especially those who
had been connected with the Peace Society, to join the order, which soon
included Peace Society men, "loyalists," deserters, and many
anti-administration Confederates. The most respectable element consisted
of a few old Whigs who had an intense hatred of the Democrats, and who
wanted to crush them by any means. In this stage the League was strongest
in the white counties of the hill and mountain country.[1548]
Extension to the South
Even before the end of the war the Federal officials had established the
organization in Huntsville, Athens, Florence, and other places in north
Alabama. It was understood to be a very respectable order in the North,
and General Burke, and later General Crawford, with other Federal officers
and a few of the so-called "Union" men of north Alabama, formed lodges of
what was called indiscriminately the Union or Loyal League. At first but
few native whites were members, as the native "unionist" was not exactly
the kind of person the Federal officers cared to associate with more than
was necessary. But with the close of hostilities and the establishment of
army posts over the state, the League grew rapidly. The civilians who
followed the army, the Bureau agents, the missionaries, and the northern
school-teachers were gradually admitted. The native "unionists" came in as
the bars were lowered, and with them that element of the population which,
during the war, especially in the white counties, had become hostile to
the Confederate administration. The disaffected politicians saw in the
organization an instrument which might be used against the politicians of
the central counties, who seemed likely to remain in control of affairs.
At this time there were no negro members, but it has been estimated that
in 1865, 40 per cent of the white voting population in north Alabama
joined the order, and that for a year or more there was an average of half
a dozen "lodges" in each county north of the Black Belt. Later, the local
chapters were called "councils." There was a State Grand Council with
headquarters at Montgomery, and a Grand National Council with headquarters
in New York. The Union League of America was the proper designation for
the entire organization.
The white members were few in the Black Belt counties and even in the
white counties of south Alabama, where one would expect to find them. In
south Alabama it was disgraceful for a person to have any connection with
the Union League; and if a man was a member, he kept it secret. To this
day no one will admit that he belonged to that organization. So far as the
native members were concerned, they cared little about the original
purposes of the order, but hoped to make it the nucleus of a political
organization; and the northern civilian membership, the Bureau agents,
preachers, and teachers, and other adventurers, soon began to see other
possibilities in the organization.[1549]
From the very beginning the preachers, teachers, and Bureau agents had
been accustomed to hold regular meetings of the negroes and to make
speeches to them. Not a few of these whites expected confiscation, or some
such procedure, and wanted a share in the division of the spoils. Some
began to talk of political power for the negro. For various purposes, good
and bad, the negroes were, by the spring of 1866, widely organized by
their would-be leaders, who, as controllers of rations, religion, and
schools, had great influence over them. It was but a slight change to
convert these informal gatherings into lodges, or councils, of the Union
League. After the refusal of Congress to recognize the Restoration as
effected by the President, the guardians of the negro in the state began
to lay their plans for the future. Negro councils were organized, and
negroes were even admitted to some of the white councils which were under
control of the northerners. The Bureau gathering of Colonel John B. Callis
of Huntsville was transformed into a League. Such men as the Rev. A. S.
Lakin, Colonel Callis, D. H. Bingham, Norris, Keffer, and Strobach, all
aliens of questionable character from the North, went about organizing the
negroes during 1866 and 1867. Nearly all of them were elected to office by
the support of the League. The Bureau agents were the directors of the
work, and in the immediate vicinity of the Bureau offices they themselves
organized the councils. To distant plantations and to country districts
agents were sent to gather in the embryo citizens.[1550] In every
community in the state where there was a sufficient number of negroes the
League was organized, sooner or later.[1551] In north Alabama the work was
done before the spring of 1867; in the Black Belt and in south Alabama it
was not until the end of 1867 that the last negroes were gathered into the
fold.
The effect upon the white membership of the admission of negroes was
remarkable. With the beginning of the manipulation of the negro by his
northern friends, the native whites began to desert the order, and when
negroes were admitted for the avowed purpose of agitating for political
rights and for political organization afterwards, the native whites left
in crowds. Where there were many blacks, as in Talladega, nearly all of
the whites dropped out. Where the blacks were not numerous and had not
been organized, more of the whites remained, but in the hill counties
there was a general exodus.[1552] Professor Miller estimates that five per
cent of the white voters in Talladega County, where there were many
negroes, and 25 per cent of those in Cleburne County, where there were few
negroes, remained in the order for several years. The same proportion
would be nearly correct for the other counties of north Alabama. Where
there were few or no negroes, as in Winston and Walker counties, the white
membership held out better, for in those counties there was no fear of
negro domination, and if the negro voted, no matter what were his
politics, he would be controlled by the native whites. What the negro
would do in the black counties, the whites in the hill counties cared but
little. The sprinkling of white members served to furnish leaders for the
ignorant blacks, but the character of these men was extremely
questionable. The native element has been called "lowdown, trifling white
men," and the alien element "itinerant, irresponsible, worthless white men
from the North." Such was the opinion of the respectable white people, and
the later history of the Leaguers has not improved their
reputation.[1553] In the black counties there were practically no white
members in the rank and file. The alien element, probably more able than
the scalawag, had gained the confidence of the negroes, and soon had
complete control over them. The Bureau agents saw that the Freedmen's
Bureau could not survive much longer, and they were especially active in
looking out for places for the future. With the assistance of the negro
they had hoped to pass into offices in the state and county governments.
The Ceremonies of the League
One thing about the League that attracted the negro was the mysterious
secrecy of the meetings, the weird initiation ceremony that made him feel
fearfully good from his head to his heels, the imposing ritual and the
songs. The ritual, it is said, was not used in the North; it was probably
adopted for the particular benefit of the African. The would-be Leaguer
was told in the beginning of the initiation that the emblems of the order
were the altar, the Bible, the Declaration of Independence, the
Constitution of the United States, the flag of the Union, censer, sword,
gavel, ballot-box, sickle, shuttle, anvil, and other emblems of industry.
He was told that the objects of the order were to preserve liberty, to
perpetuate the Union, to maintain the laws and the Constitution, to secure
the ascendency of American institutions, to protect, defend, and
strengthen all loyal men and members of the Union League of America in all
rights of person and property,[1554] to demand the elevation of labor, to
aid in the education of laboring men, and to teach the duties of American
citizenship. This sounded well and was impressive, and at this point the
negro was always willing to take an oath of secrecy, after which he was
asked to swear with a solemn oath to support the principles of the
Declaration of Independence, to pledge himself to resist all attempts to
overthrow the United States, to strive for the maintenance of liberty,
elevation of labor, education of all people in the duties of citizenship,
to practise friendship and charity to all of the order, and to support for
election or appointment to office only such men as were supporters of
these principles and measures.[1555]
The council then sang "Hail Columbia" and "The Star-Spangled Banner,"
after which an official harangued the candidate, saying that, though the
designs of traitors had been thwarted, there were yet to be secured
legislative triumphs with complete ascendency of the true principles of
popular government, equal liberty, elevation and education, and the
overthrow at the ballot-box of the old oligarchy of political leaders.
After prayer by the chaplain, the room was darkened, the "fire of
liberty"[1556] lighted, the members joined hands in a circle around the
candidate, who was made to place one hand on the flag and, with the other
raised, swore again to support the government, to elect true Union men to
office, etc. Then placing his hand on a Bible, for the third time he swore
to keep his oath, and repeated after the president "the Freedman's
Pledge": "To defend and perpetuate freedom and union, I pledge my life, my
fortune, and my sacred honor. So help me God!" Another song was sung, the
president charged the members in a long speech concerning the principles
of the order, and the marshal instructed the members in the signs. To pass
one's self as a Leaguer, the "Four L's" were given: (1) with right hand
raised to heaven, thumb and third finger touching ends over palm,
pronounce "Liberty"; (2) bring the hand down over the shoulder and say
"Lincoln"; (3) drop the hand open at the side and say "Loyal"; (4) catch
the thumb in the vest or in the waistband and pronounce "League."[1557]
This ceremony of initiation was a most effective means of impressing the
negro, and of controlling him through his love and fear of the secret,
mysterious, and midnight mummery. An oath taken in daylight would be
forgotten before the next day; not so an oath taken in the dead of night
under such impressive circumstances. After passing through the ordeal, the
negro usually remained faithful.
Organization and Methods
In each populous precinct there was at first one council of the League. In
each town or city there were two councils, one for the whites, and
another, with white officers, for the blacks.[1558] The council met once a
week, sometimes oftener, and nearly always at night, in the negro churches
or schoolhouses.[1559] Guards, armed with rifles and shotguns, were
stationed about the place of meeting in order to keep away intruders, and
to prevent unauthorized persons from coming within forty yards. Members of
some councils made it a practice to attend the meetings armed as if for
battle. In these meetings the negroes met to hear speeches by the would-be
statesmen of the new régime. Much inflammatory advice was given them by
the white speakers; they were drilled into the belief that their interests
and those of the southern whites could not be the same, and passion,
strife, and prejudice were excited in order to solidify the negro race
against the white, thus preventing political control by the latter. Many
of the negroes still had hopes of confiscation and division of property,
and in this they were encouraged by the white leaders. Professor Miller
was told[1560] by respectable white men, who joined the order before the
negroes were admitted and who left when they became members, that the
negroes were taught in these meetings that the only way to have peace and
plenty, to get "the forty acres and a mule," would be to kill some of the
leading whites in each community as a warning to others. The council in
Tuscumbia received advice from Memphis to use the torch, that the blacks
were at war with the white race. The advice was taken. Three men went in
front of the council as an advance guard, three followed with coal-oil
and fire, and others guarded the rear. The plan was to burn the whole
town, but first one negro and then another insisted on having some white
man's house spared because "he is a good man." The result was that no
residences were burned, and they compromised by burning the Female
Academy. Three of the leaders were lynched.[1561] The general belief of
the whites was that the objects of the order were to secure political
power, to bring about on a large scale the confiscation of the property of
Confederates,[1562] and while waiting for this to appropriate all kinds of
portable property. Chicken-houses, pig-pens, vegetable gardens, and
orchards were invariably visited by members when returning from the
midnight conclaves. This evil became so serious and so general that many
believed it to be one of the principles of the order. Everything of value
had to be locked up for safe-keeping.
As soon as possible after the war each negro had supplied himself with a
gun and a dog as badges of freedom. As a usual thing, he carried them to
the League meetings, and nothing was more natural than that the negroes
should begin drilling at night. Armed squads would march in military
formation to the place of assemblage, there be drilled, and after the
close of the meeting, would march along the roads shouting, firing their
guns, making great boasts and threats against persons whom they disliked.
If the home of such a person happened to be on the roadside, the negroes
usually made a practice of stopping in front of the house and treating the
inmates to unlimited abuse, firing off their guns in order to waken them.
Later military parades in the daytime were much favored. Several hundred
negroes would march up and down the roads and streets, and amuse
themselves by boasts, threats, and abuse of whites, and by shoving whites
off the sidewalks or out of the road. But, on the whole, there was very
little actual violence done the whites,--much less than might have been
expected. That such was the case was due, not to any sensible teachings
of the leaders, but to the fundamental good nature of the blacks, who were
generally content with being impudent.[1563]
The relations between the races, with exceptional cases, continued to be
somewhat friendly until 1867-1868. In the communities where the League and
the Bureau were established, the relations were soonest strained. For a
while in some localities, before the advent of the League, and in others
where the Bureau was conducted by native magistrates, the negroes looked
to their old masters for guidance and advice, and the latter, for the good
of both races, were most eager to retain a moral control over the blacks.
Barbecues and picnics were arranged by the whites for the blacks, speeches
were made, good advice given, and all promised to go well. Sometimes the
negroes themselves would arrange the festival and invite prominent whites
to be present, for whom a separate table attended by the best waiters
would be reserved; and after dinner there would be speaking by both whites
and blacks. With the organization of the League, the negroes grew more
reserved, and finally unfriendly to the whites. The League alone, however,
was not responsible for the change. The League and the Bureau had to some
extent the same personnel, and it is impossible to distinguish clearly
between the work of the League and that of the Bureau. In many ways the
League was simply the political side of the Bureau. The preaching and
teaching missionaries were also at work. On the other hand, among the
lower classes of whites, a hostile feeling quickly sprang to oppose the
feeling of the blacks.
When the campaign grew exciting, the discipline of the order was used to
prevent the negroes from attending Democratic meetings or hearing
Democratic speakers. The League leaders even went farther and forbade the
attendance of the blacks at Radical political meetings where the speakers
were not indorsed by the League. Almost invariably the scalawag disliked
the Leaguer, black or white, and often the League proscribed the former as
political teachers. Judge Humphreys was threatened with political death
unless he joined the League. This he refused to do, as did most whites
where there were many negroes. All Republicans in good standing had to
join the League. Judge (later Governor) D. P. Lewis was a member for a
short while, but he soon became disgusted and published a denunciation of
the League. Nicholas Davis and J. C. Bradley, both scalawags, were
forbidden by the League to speak in the court-house at Huntsville because
they were not members of the order. At a Republican mass-meeting a white
republican wanted to make a speech. The negroes voted that he should not
be allowed to speak because he was "opposed to the Loyal League." He was
treated to abuse and threats of violence. He then went to another place to
speak, but was followed by the crowd, which refused to allow him to say
anything. The League was the machine of the Radical party, and all
candidates had to be governed by its edicts. Nominations to office were
usually made in its meetings.[1564]
Every negro was _ex colore_ a member or under the control of the League.
In the opinion of the League, white Democrats were bad enough, but black
Democrats were not to be tolerated. The first rule was that all blacks
must support the Radical programme. It was possible in some cases for a
negro to refrain from taking an active part in political affairs. He might
even fail to vote. But it was martyrdom for a black to be a Democrat; that
is, try to follow his old master in politics. The whites, in many cases,
were forced to advise their faithful black friends to vote the Radical
ticket that they might escape mistreatment. There were numbers of negroes,
as late as 1868, who were inclined to vote with the whites, and to bring
them into line all the forces of the League were brought to bear. They
were proscribed in negro society, and expelled from negro churches, nor
would the women "proshay" (appreciate) a black Democrat. The negro man who
had Democratic inclinations was sure to find that influence was being
brought to bear upon his dusky sweetheart or wife to cause him to see the
error of his ways, and persistent adherence to the white party would
result in the loss of her. The women were converted to Radicalism long
before the men, and almost invariably used their influence strongly for
the purpose of the League. If moral suasion failed to cause the delinquent
to see the light, other methods were used. Threats were common from the
first and often sufficed, and fines were levied by the League on
recalcitrant members. In case of the more stubborn, a sound beating was
usually effective to bring about a change of heart. The offending darky
was "bucked and gagged," and the thrashing administered, the sufferer
being afraid to complain of the way he was treated. There were many cases
of aggravated assault, and a few instances of murder. By such methods the
organization succeeded in keeping under its control almost the entire
negro population.[1565] The discipline over the active members was
stringent. They were sworn to obey the orders of the officials. A negro
near Clayton disobeyed the "Cap'en" of the League and was tied up by the
thumbs; and another for a similar offence was "bucked" and whipped. A
candidate having been nominated by the League, it was made the duty of
every member to support him actively. Failure to do so resulted in a fine
or other more severe punishment, and members that had been expelled were
still under the control of the officials.[1566]
The effects of the teachings of the League orators were soon seen in the
increasing insolence and defiant attitude of some of the blacks, in the
greater number of stealings, small and large, in the boasts, demands, and
threats made by the more violent members of the order. Most of them,
however, behaved remarkably well under the circumstances, but the few
unbearable ones were so much more in evidence that the suffering whites
were disposed to class all blacks together as unbearable. Some of the
methods of the Loyal League were similar to those of the later Ku Klux
Klan. Anonymous warnings were sent to the obnoxious individuals, houses
were burned, notices were posted at night in public places and on the
doors of persons who had incurred the hostility of the League.[1567] In
order to destroy the influence of the whites where kindly relations still
existed, an "exodus order" was issued through the League, directing all
members to leave their old homes and obtain work elsewhere. This was very
effective in preventing control by the better class of whites. Some of the
blacks were loath to leave their old homes, but to remonstrances from the
whites the usual reply was: "De word done sont to de League. We got to
go."[1568]
In Bullock County, near Perote, a council of the League was organized
under the direction of a negro emissary, who proceeded to assume the
government of the community. A list of crimes and punishments was adopted,
a court with various officials established, and during the night all
negroes who opposed them were arrested. But the black sheriff and his
deputy were arrested by the civil authorities. The negroes then organized
for resistance, flocked into Union Springs, the county seat, and
threatened to exterminate the whites and take possession of the county.
Their agents visited the plantations and forced the laborers to join them
by showing orders purporting to be from General Swayne, giving them the
authority to kill all who resisted them. Swayne sent out detachments of
troops and arrested fifteen of the ringleaders, and the Perote government
collapsed.[1569]
When first organized in the Black Belt, and before native whites were
excluded from membership, numbers of whites joined the League upon
invitation in order to ascertain its objects, to see if mischief were
intended toward the whites, and to control, if possible, the negroes in
the organization. Most of these became disgusted and withdrew, or were
expelled on account of their politics. In Marengo County several white
Democrats joined the League at McKinley in order to keep down the
excitement aroused by other councils, to counteract the evil influences of
alien emissaries, and to protect the women of the community, in which but
few men were left after the war. These men succeeded in controlling the
negroes and in preventing the discussion of politics in the meetings. The
League was made simply a club where the negroes met to receive advice,
which was to the effect that they should attend strictly to their own
affairs and vote without reference to any secret organization. Finally,
they were advised to withdraw from the order.[1570]
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF PAGE FROM UNION LEAGUE CONSTITUTION.]
For two years, 1867-1869, the League was the machine in the Radical party,
and its leaders formed the "ring" that controlled party action.
Nominations for office were regularly made by the local and state
councils. It is said that there were stormy times in the councils when
there were more carpet-baggers than offices to be filled. The defeated
candidate was apt to run as an independent, and in order to be elected
would sell himself to the whites. This practice resulted in a weakening of
the influence of the machine, as the members were sworn to support the
regular nominee, and the negroes believed that the terrible penalties
would be inflicted upon the political traitor. The officers would go among
the negroes and show their commissions, which they pretended were orders
from General Swayne or General Grant for the negroes to vote for
them.[1571] A political catechism of questions and answers meant to teach
loyalty to the Radical party was prepared in Washington and sent out among
the councils, to be used in the instruction of negro voters.[1572]
After it was seen that existing political institutions were to be
overturned, the white councils and, to a certain extent, the negro
councils became simply associations for those training for leadership in
the new party soon to be formed in the state by act of Congress. The few
whites who were in control did not care to admit more white members, as
there might be too many to share in the division of the spoils. Hence we
find that terms of admission were made more stringent, and, especially
after the passage of the Reconstruction Acts, in March, 1867, many
applicants were rejected. The alien element was in control of the League.
The result was that where the blacks were numerous the largest plums fell
to the carpet-baggers. The negro leaders,--politicians, preachers, and
teachers,--trained in the League, acted as subordinates to the white
leaders in controlling the black population, and they were sent out to
drum up the country negroes when elections drew near. They were also given
minor positions when offices were more plentiful than carpet-baggers. All
together they received but few offices, which fact was later a cause of
serious complaint.
The largest white membership of the League was in 1865-1866, and after
that date it constantly decreased. The largest negro membership was in
1867 and 1868. Only the councils in the towns remained active after the
election of 1868, for after the discipline of 1867 and 1868 it was not
necessary to look so closely after the plantation negro, and he became a
kind of visiting member of the council in the town.[1573] The League as an
organization gradually died out by 1869, except in the largest towns. Many
of them were transformed into political clubs, loosely organized under
local political leaders. The Ku Klux Klan undoubtedly had much to do with
breaking up the League as an organization. The League as the ally and
successor of the Freedmen's Bureau was one of the causes of the Ku Klux
movement, because it helped to create the conditions which made such a
movement inevitable.[1574] In 1870 the Radical leaders missed the support
formerly given by the League, and an urgent appeal was sent out all over
the State from headquarters in New York by John Keffer and others
advocating the reëstablishment of the Union Leagues to assist in carrying
the elections of 1870.[1575]
However, before its dissolution, the League had served its purpose. It
made it possible for a few outsiders to control the negro by alienating
the races politically, as the Bureau had done socially. It enabled the
negroes to vote as Radicals for several years, when without it they either
would not have voted at all or they would have voted as Democrats along
with their former masters. The order was necessary to the existence of the
Radical party in Alabama. No ordinary political organization could have
welded the blacks into a solid party. The Freedmen's Bureau, which had
much influence over the negroes for demoralization, was too weak in
numbers to control the negroes in politics. The League finally absorbed
the personnel of the Bureau and inherited its prestige.[1576]
PART VI
CARPET-BAG AND NEGRO RULE
CHAPTER XVII
TAXATION AND THE PUBLIC DEBT
Taxation during Reconstruction
After the war it was certain that taxation would be higher and expenditure
greater, both on account of the ruin caused by the war that now had to be
repaired, and because several hundred thousand negroes had been added to
the civic population. Before the war the negro was no expense to the state
and county treasuries; his misdemeanors were punished by his master. Yet
neither the ruined court-houses, jails, bridges, roads, etc., nor the
criminal negroes can account for the taxation and expenditure under the
carpet-bag régime. During the three and a half years after the war, under
the provisional governments, most of the burned bridges, court-houses, and
other public buildings had been replaced; and there were relatively few
negroes who were an expense to the carpet-bag government.
After the overthrow of Reconstruction, Governor Houston stated that the
total value of all property in Alabama in 1860 was $725,000,000, and that
in 1875 it was $160,000,000.[1577] In 1866 the assessed valuation was
$123,946,475;[1578] in 1870 it was $156,770,385,[1579] and in 1876, after
ten years of Reconstruction, it was $135,535,792.[1580] Before the war the
taxes were paid on real estate and slaves. In 1860 the taxes were paid
upon slave property assessed at $152,278,000, and upon real estate
assessed at $155,034,000.[1581]
Although there was some property left in 1865, the owners could barely pay
taxes on it. The bank capital was gone, and no one had money that was
receivable for taxes. Consequently, it was impossible to collect general
taxes, and the state government was obliged to place temporary loans and
levy license taxes. No regular taxes were collected during 1865 and 1866.
The first regular tax was levied in 1866, and was collected in time to be
spent by the Reconstruction convention.[1582] For four years after the
surrender the crops were bad, and when called good they were hardly more
than half of the crops of 1860.[1583] However, if no state taxes were paid
by the impoverished farmers, there still remained the heavy Federal tax of
$12.50 to $15 per bale on all cotton produced.
The rate of taxation before the war on real estate and on slaves was
one-fifth of one per cent. After the war the taxes were raised by the
provisional government to one-fourth of one per cent, and license taxes
were added. The reconstructed government at once raised the rate to
three-fourths of one per cent on property of all descriptions,[1584] and
added new license taxes, more than quadrupling the former rate. Under
Lindsay, the Democratic governor in 1871-1872, the rate was lowered to
one-half of one per cent. The assessment of property under Reconstruction
was much more stringent than before. There were only five other states
that paid a tax rate as high as three-fourths of one per cent, and four of
these were southern states.[1585]
Before the war the county tax was usually 60 per cent of the state tax,
never more. The city and town tax was insignificant. After the war the
town and city taxes were greatly increased, the county tax was invariably
as much as the state tax, and many laws were passed authorizing the
counties to levy additional taxes and to issue bonds. The heaviest burdens
were from local taxation, not from state taxes.[1586] In Montgomery
County, the county taxes before the war had never been more than $30,000,
and had been paid by slaveholders and owners of real estate. During
Reconstruction the taxes were never less than $90,000, and every one
except the negroes had to pay on everything that was property. In fact,
the taxes in this county were about quadrupled.[1587] In Marengo County
the taxes before the war were $12,000; after 1868 they were $25,000 to
$30,000, notwithstanding the fact that property had depreciated two-thirds
in value since the war. Land worth formerly $50 to $60 an acre now sold
for $3 to $15.[1588] In Madison County, the state taxes in 1858 were
$23,417.63 (gross); in 1870, $66,745.53 (net). The state land tax in 1858
in the same county was $7,213.10; in 1870, $51,445.30. Madison County
taxes were:--
======================================================
| STATE TAX | COUNTY TAX | TOTAL
-----------|--------------|--------------|------------
In 1859 | $26,633.71 | $13,316.85 | $39,950.56
In 1869 | 65,410.85 | 65,410.85 | 130,821.70
======================================================
The general testimony was that the exemption laws relieved from taxation
nearly all the negroes, except those who paid taxes before the war.[1589]
The following table will show the taxation for 1860 and 1870:--
============================================================
| CENSUS VALUATION | STATE TAX | COUNTY TAX | TOWN TAX
-----|-------------------|-----------|------------|---------
1860 | $432,198,762[1590]| $530,107 | $309,474 | $11,590
1870 | 156,770,387 | 1,477,414 | 1,122,471 | 403,937
============================================================
Administrative Expenses
TABLE OF RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES OF THE STATE GOVERNMENT
============================================
YEAR| RECEIPTS | EXPENDITURES
----|-------------------|-------------------
1860| ---- | $530,107.00
1865|$1,626,782.93[1591]| 2,282,355.97[1591]
1866| 62,967.80[1592]| 606,494.39[1593]
1867| 691,048.86 | 819,434.85[1594]
1868| 724,760.56[1595]| 1,066,860.24[1595]
1868| 1,788,982.43[1595]| 2,233,781.97[1595]
1869| 686,451.02[1596]| 1,394,960.30
1870| 1,283,586.52 | 1,336,398.85
1871| 1,422,494.67[1597]| 1,640,116.99[1598]
1872| ---- | ----
1873| 2,081,649.39 | 2,237,822.06[1599]
1874| ---- | ----
1875| 725,000.00 | 500,000.00[1600]
1876| 781,800.64 | 682,591.49
1886| 888,724.33 | 818,366.70
============================================
The average yearly cost of state, county, and town administration from
1858 to 1860 was $800,000; from 1868 to 1870, the average cost of the
state administration alone was $1,107,080, the cost of state, county, and
town government being at least $3,000,000.[1601] The provisional state
government disbursed in the year 1866-1867, $676,476.54, of which only
$262,627.47 was spent for state expenses; the remainder was used for
schools.[1602]
The greater expenditure of the Reconstruction government can, in small
part, be explained by the greater number of officials and by the higher
salaries paid.[1603]
SALARIES
======================================================================
| BEFORE THE | DURING
| WAR | RECONSTRUCTION
-----------------------|-----------------|----------------------------
Governor | $2,000.00 | $4,000.00
Governor's clerk | 500.00 | 5,400.00, two
Secretary of State | 1,200.00 | 2,400.00, fees and charges
Treasurer | 1,800.00 | 2,800.00
Departmental clerks | 1,000.00 each | 1,500.00
Supreme Court judge | 3,000.00 | 4,000.00
Circuit judges | 13,500.00 | 36,000.00
Chancellors | 4,500.00 three | 15,000.00
Member of Legislature, | |
_per diem_ | 4.00 | 6.00
Stationery executive | |
departments | 1,200.00 | 12,708.77[1604]
======================================================================
The administration of Lindsay to a great extent had to pay the debts of
the former administration. Expenses were curtailed when possible, and
notwithstanding the fact that the indorsed railroads defaulted in 1871,
the business of the state was conducted much more economically, and there
were fewer and smaller issues of bonds and obligations.[1605] The Senate,
however, had but one Democrat in it, and the House was only doubtfully
Democratic, as the Democratic members were young and inexperienced men or
else discontented scalawags.[1606] Consequently, the tide of corruption
and extravagance was merely checked, not stopped. The capitol expenses of
Smith and of Lindsay for a year make an instructive comparison:--
==========================================================
| GOVERNOR SMITH | GOVERNOR LINDSAY
| 1869-1870 | 1871-1872
-----------------------|----------------|-----------------
Contingent expenses | $47,197.28 | $20,531.84
Stationery, fuel, etc. | 24,310.07 | 8,847.23
Clerical services | 27,883.77 | 21,883.03
Public printing | 80,279.18 | 49,716.43
==========================================================
Other expenses, in so far as they were under the control of Lindsay,
formed a like contrast.[1607] The cost of holding sessions of the
legislature under the provisional government was $83,856.60 in 1865-1866,
and $83,852 in 1866-1867. Under Smith it was about $90,000 per session,
and there were three regular sessions the first year. One session
(1870-1871) under Lindsay cost $95,442.30, and two under Lewis, 1873-1874,
cost $175,661.50 and $166,602.65 respectively.[1608] The cost of keeping
state prisoners for trial was about $50,000 a year. The Reconstruction
legislature cut down expenses by passing a law to liberate criminals of a
grade below that of felon, upon their own recognizance.[1609]
The Democrats complained of the way the reconstructionists spent the
contingent fund of the state. This abuse was never so bad as in other
southern states at the time, but still there was continual stealing on a
small scale. Some examples[1610] may be given: Governor Lewis spent $800
on a short visit to New York and Florida;[1611] the governor's private
secretary received $21,000 for services rendered in distributing the
"political" bacon in 1874;[1612] the treasurer drew $1200 to pay his
expenses to Mobile and New York, though he had no business to attend to in
either place, and travelled on roads over which he had passes; ex-Governor
W. H. Smith, when attorney for the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad, was
paid $500 by the state for services rendered in connection with his own
road, and the committee was unable to discover the nature of these
services; the secretary of state charged $952 for signing his name to
bonds, though it was his constitutional duty to do so without charge; a
bill of stationery from Benedict of New York cost $7761.58, when the bid
of Joel White of Montgomery on the same order was $4336.54; $50 was
allowed to John A. Bingham (presumably a relative of the treasurer) for
signing enough bonds to purchase a farm for the penitentiary. Such
purchases as these were common: one refrigerator, $65; one looking-glass,
$5; one clothes-brush, $1.50. Very few of the small accounts against the
contingent fund were itemized. In no case were any of them accounted for
by proper vouchers. The private secretary of the governor was in the habit
of approving and allowing accounts against the contingent fund, even going
so far as to approve the governor's own accounts. The Investigating
Committee said that the private secretary seemed to be the acting
governor.[1613]
The Florida commissioners, J. L. Pennington, C. A. Miller, and A. J.
Walker, who were appointed to negotiate for the cession to Alabama of West
Florida, spent $10,500, of which Walker, the Democratic member, spent
$516, and Miller and Pennington spent the remainder, "according to the
best judgment and discretion" of themselves. They claimed that part of it
was used to entertain the Florida commissioners, and part to influence the
elections in West Florida.[1614]
The governor was accused of transferring appropriations. In one case, he
drew out of the treasury $484,346.76, ostensibly to pay the interest on
the public debt, and used it for other purposes. A committee appointed to
investigate was able to trace all of it except $75,196.56, which sum could
not be accounted for. The accounts were carelessly kept. The auditor,
treasurer, and governor never seemed to know within a million or two of
dollars what the public debt was. The reports for the period from 1868 to
1875 do not show the actual condition of the finances, and the Debt
Commission in 1875 was unable to get accurate information from the state
records, but had to advertise for information from the creditors and
debtors of the state.[1615]
Effect on Property Values
The misrule of the Radicals in Alabama resulted in a general shrinkage in
values after 1867, especially in the Black Belt, where financial and
economic chaos reigned supreme, and where the carpet-bagger flourished
supported by the negro votes. Recuperation was impossible until the rule
of the alien was overthrown. This was done in some of the white counties
in 1870. At that date land values were still 60 per cent below those of
1860, and the numbers of live stock 40 per cent below. This was due
largely to the condition of the Black Belt counties under the control of
the Radicals.[1616]
Thousands of landowners were unable to pay the taxes assessed, and their
farms were sold by the state. The _Independent Monitor_, on March 8, 1870,
advertised the sale of 1284 different lots of land (none less than forty
acres) in Tuscaloosa County, and the next week 2548 more were advertised
for sale, all to pay taxes. Often, it was complained, the tax assessor
failed to notify the people to "give in" their taxes, and thus caused them
trouble. In some cases, where costs and fines were added to the original
taxes, it amounted to confiscation. In 1871, F. S. Lyon exhibited before
the Ku Klux Committee a copy of the _Southern Republican_ containing
twenty-one and a half columns of advertised sales of land lying in the
rich counties of Marengo, Greene, Perry, and Choctaw.[1617] One Radical
declared that he wanted the taxes raised so high that the large
landholders would be compelled to sell their lands, so that he, and others
like him, could buy.[1618] Property sold for taxes could be redeemed only
by paying double the amount of the taxes plus the costs. A tax sale deed
was conclusive evidence of legal sale, and was not a subject for the
decision of a court.[1619]
There were hundreds of mortgage sales in every county of the state during
the Reconstruction period. At these sales everything from land to
household furniture was sold. The court-house squares on sale days were
favorite gathering places for the negroes, who came to look on, and a
traveller, in 1874, states that in the immense crowds of negroes at the
sales there were some who had come a distance of sixty miles.[1620] Each
winter, from 1869 to 1875, there was an exodus of people to Texas and to
South America, driven from their homes by mortgages, taxes, the condition
of labor, and corrupt government. Landowners sold their lands for what
they would bring and went to the West, where there were no negroes, no
scalawags, and no carpet-baggers.[1621]
Most of the farmers and tenants of that period were unable to send their
children to school and pay tuition. The reconstructed school system failed
almost at the beginning. Consequently, tens of thousands of children grew
up ignorant of schools, most of them the children of parents who had had
some education. Hence the special provision for them in the constitution
of 1901. The first Democratic legislature restricted taxation to
three-fifths of one per cent and local taxation to one-half of one per
cent. The rates were lowered gradually, until in the early nineties the
rate was only two-fifths of one per cent. Since that time, the rate has
again increased until in 1899 the state tax was again three-fourths of one
per cent, the increase being used for Confederate pensions and for
schools.
But in addition to the expenditure of the sums raised by extraordinary
taxation, the Reconstruction administration greatly increased the bonded
debt of the state and by mortgaging the future left a heavy burden upon
the people that has as yet been but slightly lessened.
The Public Bonded Debt
After 1868 it is impossible to ascertain what the public debt of the state
was at any given time until 1875, when the first Democratic legislature
began to investigate the condition of the finances.
In 1860 the total debt--state bonds and trust funds--was $5,939,654.87
(and the bonded debt was $3,445,000), most of which was due to the failure
of the state bank. The payment of the war debt, which amounted to
$13,094,732.95, was forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment. In 1865 the
total bonded debt with three years' unpaid interest was $4,065,410, while
the trust funds amounted to $2,910,000. Governor Patton reissued the bonds
to the amount of $4,087,800, and the sixteenth section and the university
trust funds with unpaid interest raised the total debt, in 1867, to
$6,130,910. In July, 1868, when the state went into the hands of the
reconstructionists, the total debt was $6,848,400. The provisional
government had been increasing the debt because no taxes were collected
during 1865 and 1866. Taxes were collected in 1867, but before the end of
1868 the debt amounted to $7,904,398.92, and after that date no one knew,
nor did the officials seem to care, exactly how large it was.[1622]
State and county and town bonds were issued in reckless haste by the
plunderers, but the reports do not show the amounts issued; no correct
records were kept. The acts of the legislature authorized the governor to
issue about $5,000,000 state bonds, besides the direct bonds issued to
railroads, which amounted to about $4,000,000 not including interest. The
counties, besides being authorized to levy heavy additional taxes, were
permitted to issue bonds for various purposes.[1623] A number of acts gave
the counties general permission to issue bonds, but there are no records
accessible of the amounts raised. There were issues of town and county
bonds without legislative authorization. This practice is said to have
been common, but in the chaotic conditions of the time little attention
was paid to such things and no records were kept.
To dispose of its bonds the state had a large number of financial agents
in the North and abroad. Some of these made no reports at all; others
reported as they pleased. Certain bonds were sold in 1870 by one of the
financial agents, and two years later the proceeds had not reached the
treasury or been accounted for. In like manner some bond sales were
conducted in 1871 and in 1872.[1624] Not only was no record kept of the
issues of direct and indorsed bonds, but no records were kept of the
payment of interest and of the domestic debts of the state. Some of the
financial agents exercised the authority of auditor and treasurer and
settled any claim that might be presented to them. Some agents, who paid
interest on bonds, returned the cancelled coupons; others did not. In
Governor Lewis's office $20,000 in coupons were found with nothing to show
that they had been cancelled. One lot of bonds was received with every
coupon attached, yet the interest on these had been paid regularly in New
York.[1625]
Provision was made for the retirement of all "state money"; but if the
treasury was empty when it came in, it was apt to be reissued without any
authority of law. A large sum was returned, but no record was made of it,
and it was not destroyed. Later it was discovered among a mass of waste
paper, where any thief might have taken it and put it again into
circulation. One transaction may be cited as an illustration of the
management of the finances: in 1873 the state owed Henry Clews & Company
$299,660.20. Governor Lewis gave his notes (twelve in number) as governor,
for the amount, and at the same time deposited with Clews as collateral
security $650,000 in state bonds. Clews, when he failed, turned over the
governor's notes to the Fourth National Bank of New York, to which he was
indebted. He had already disposed of, so the state claimed, the $650,000
in bonds which he held as collateral security; and a year later, according
to the Debt Commission, he still made a claim against the state for
$235,039.43 as a balance due him. Thus a debt of $299,660.20 had grown in
the hands of one of the state agents to $1,184,689.63, besides
interest.[1626]
In 1872 it was estimated that the general liabilities of the state,
counties, and towns amounted to $52,762,000.[1627] The country was flooded
with temporary obligations receivable for public dues, and the tax
collectors substituted these for any coin that might come into their
hands. There was much speculation in the depreciated currency by the state
and county officials. During Lewis's first year (1873), the state bonds
were quoted at 60 per cent, but on November 17, 1873, he reported, "This
department has been unable to sell for money any of the state bonds during
the present administration." He raised money for immediate needs by
hypothecation of the state securities. Thus came about the remarkable
transaction with Clews. The state money went down to 60 per cent, then to
40 per cent before the elections of 1874, and at one time state bonds sold
for cash at 20 and 21 cents on the dollar.[1628]
The Financial Settlement
After the overthrow of the Radicals in 1874 taxation was limited,
expenditures were curtailed, and the administration undertook to make some
arrangement in regard to the public debt. For two years the state had been
bankrupt; for nearly four years the railroads aided by the state had been
bankrupt; the debt was enormous, but how large no one knew. A commission,
consisting of Governor Houston, Levi W. Lawler, and T. B. Bethea, was
appointed to ascertain and adjust the public debt.[1629] After advertising
in the United States and abroad, the commission found a debt amounting in
round numbers to $30,037,563. Some claims were not ascertained; many
creditors or claimants not being heard from and many fraudulent bonds not
being presented. The debt was divided into four classes: (1) the
_recognized_ direct debt, consisting of state bonds (exclusive of bonds
issued to railroads), state obligations, state certificates or "Patton
money," unpaid interest and other direct debts of the state,--in all,
amounting to $11,677,470; (2) the state bonds issued to railroads under
the law providing for the substitution of $4000 state bonds per mile
instead of $16,000 per mile in indorsed bonds, which in all amounted to
$1,156,000; (3) a class of claims of doubtful character, among them that
of Henry Clews & Company, amounting in all to $2,573,093; (4) the indorsed
bonds of the state-aided railroads, amounting to $11,597,000 (several
millions having been retired), and state bonds loaned to railroads,--which
debt, with the unpaid interest on the same, amounting to $3,024,000, was
in all $14,641,000.
SUMMARY OF DEBT
Class One $11,667,470
Class Two 1,156,000[1630]
Class Three 2,573,093
Class Four 14,641,000
-----------
Total $30,037,563[1631]
The interest on this debt at the legal rate of 8 per cent would be over
$2,000,000, more than twice the total yearly income of the state. The
commission and the legislature declared that in the present condition of
the finances the state could not pay the interest, that it would be
several years before the state could pay any interest at all. Moreover, it
could not recognize as valid many items in the great debt. After
conference with the representatives of the more innocent creditors, the
debt was thus adjusted:--
I. (_a_) The state proposed for the next few years to confine its
attention to paying domestic claims and to retiring state obligations.
(_b_) New bonds were issued to the amount of $7,000,000, to be exchanged
for outstanding state bonds sold by the state to _bona fide_ purchasers.
These bonds, known as Class A, were to draw interest for five years at 2
per cent, for the next five years at 3 per cent, at 4 per cent for the
next ten years, and thereafter at 5 per cent. These bonds were issued to
the most innocent creditors and constituted the least questionable part of
the debt.
II. On the $1,192,000 railroad debt of Class Two the state accepted a
clear loss of one-half, and issued $596,000 in bonds, known as Class B, to
be exchanged at the rate of one for two. These bonds drew interest at 5
per cent.
III. Class Three was the worst of all, and none of the items were at the
time recognized, though the commissioners were authorized to take $310,000
of Class A bonds and distribute the amount among the innocent holders of
the $650,000 bonds sold by Henry Clews when held by him as collateral. The
other Clews claims were emphatically repudiated as fraudulent.
IV. Class Four was more complicated. (_a_) The state gave $1,000,000 in
bonds, Class C, drawing interest at 2 per cent for five years and at 4 per
cent thereafter, to the holders of the Alabama and Chattanooga first
mortgage indorsed bonds. The state was then relieved of further
responsibility. (_b_) To the holders of the $2,000,000 state bonds issued
to the Alabama and Chattanooga road, and which the commissioners were
inclined to consider fraudulent, the state transferred its lien on the
property of the Alabama and Chattanooga road, provided the bonds be
returned to the governor.
The claims of the holders of the indorsed bonds of five other railroads
were left for future settlement. They were declared fraudulent, and the
state finally declined to recognize them. The Montgomery and Eufaula road
had a loan of $300,000 in state bonds and an indorsement of $960,000. The
road was sold for $2,129,000, and the state was secured against further
loss.[1632]
This act of settlement caused the issue of $8,596,000 in bonds. There were
besides several millions more in bonds, state obligations, claims, etc.
The Commission reported that the innocent holders of the bonds were very
reasonable in their demands.[1633] Henry Clews declined to give the
Commission any information in regard to his agency for the state, but the
Commission declared that he had in his possession, or had transferred
improperly, coupons on which interest had been paid, and which he had not
surrendered to the state. They recommended a fresh repudiation of any
claim founded on Clews' securities.[1634] The Commission also discovered
that Josiah Morris & Company of Montgomery had possession of $650,000 in
state bonds which they refused to release without legal proceedings.[1635]
There is not available sufficient evidence on which to base an account of
the history of town and county debts. Some towns, unable to pay, gave up
their charters; others still pay interest on the carpet-bag debt. For
years in several counties the income was not large enough to pay the
interest on its Reconstruction debt.
After the arrangement of state obligations, the state debt soon rose to
par and above. The Democratic administration was economical even to
stinginess. Salaries were everywhere reduced 25 per cent, the pay of the
members of the legislature from $6 to $4 per day, and mileage from 40
cents to 10 cents.[1636] The people of the state even complained of too
much economy. It was said that a "deadhead" could not borrow a sheet of
writing paper in the capitol, nor in a county court-house.
There was not an honest white person who lived in the state during
Reconstruction, nor a man, woman, or child, descended from such a person,
who did not then suffer or does not still suffer from the direct results
of the carpet-bag financiering. Homes were sold or mortgaged; schools were
closed, and children grew up in ignorance; the taxes for nearly twenty
years were used to pay interest on the debt then piled up. Not until 1899
was there a one-mill school tax (until then the interest paid on the
Reconstruction debt was larger than the school fund), and not until 1891
was the state able to care for the disabled Confederate soldiers. The debt
has been slightly decreased by the retirement of state obligations, but
the bonded debt remains the same. In 1902 it was $9,357,600, on which an
annual interest of $448,680 was paid,[1637] about one-fourth of the total
income of the state.
The corrupt financiering in itself was not, by any means, the worst part
of Reconstruction. It was only a phase of the general misgovernment.
Though the whites were conservative and economical during the period of
the provisional government and did not spend money or pledge credit
recklessly, yet when the carpet-baggers began to loot the treasury, the
people were not at first alarmed. Many were in sympathy with any honest
scheme to aid internal improvements. Their Confederate experience made
them accustomed to the appropriations of large sums--in paper.
Though from the first there were several newspapers that denounced the
financial measures of the reconstructionists and warned purchasers against
buying the bonds issued under doubtful authority, still it was only the
thinking men who understood from the beginning the danger of financial
wreck. When the railroads became bankrupt, the people began to understand,
and when the state failed two years later to meet its obligations, they
had learned thoroughly the condition of affairs. Extraordinary taxation
had helped to teach them.
CHAPTER XVIII
RAILROAD LEGISLATION AND FRAUDS
Federal and State Aid to Railroads before the War
For forty years before the Civil War there was a feeling on the part of
many thoughtful citizens that the state should extend aid to any
enterprise for connecting north and south Alabama. It was an issue in
political campaigns; candidates inveighed against the political evils
resulting from the unnatural union of the two sections. South Alabama was
afraid that the northern section wanted connections with Charleston and
the Atlantic seaboard, and not with Mobile and the Gulf; the planters of
the Black Belt wanted the mineral region made accessible; the merchants of
Mobile wanted all the trade from north Alabama; the Whig counties of south
and central Alabama wanted closer connections with the white counties for
the purpose of enlightening them and preventing the continual Democratic
majorities against the Black Belt at elections.
At first it was proposed to build plank roads and turnpikes between the
sections and thus bring about the desired unity. These failed, and then
there was a demand for railroads. There were also other reasons for
internal improvements. Not only ought the two antagonistic sections to be
consolidated, but emigration to the West must be prevented, for thousands
of the citizens of the state had gone to Texas during the two decades
before the war. There was a general feeling that the state only needed
railroads to make it immensely wealthy, and a large "western" element
demanded that the state or the Federal government assist in thus
developing the resources of the state and in uniting its people. During
the session of 1855-1856, though the governor vetoed thirty-three bills
passed in aid of railroads, still the legislature voted $500,000 to two
roads.
However, conservative sentiment, strict constructionist theories,
sectional jealousies, and the knowledge of the sad experience of the
state in other public enterprises[1638] operated against state aid to
internal improvements, and before the $500,000 bonds were issued the act
appropriating them was repealed, thus putting an end to the last attempt
at direct state aid before the war.[1639]
In 1850 Senator Douglas of Illinois began the policy of Federal aid to
railroads by securing the passage of a bill in aid of the Illinois Central
Railroad. The Alabama delegation was then opposed to such a measure, but
Douglas visited Alabama, conferred with the directors of the Mobile
Railroad, and promised to include that road in his bill in return for the
support of the Representatives and Senators from Alabama and Mississippi.
The directors then brought influence to bear, and the two state
legislatures instructed their congressmen to support the measure, which
was passed.
Thus began the Federal policy of granting alternate sections of public
land along a road to the state for the corporation. Later, the grants were
made directly to the corporation. Before 1857, land to the extent of
307,373 acres had been granted to Alabama railroads,[1640] and liberal aid
had also been given for improving the river system of the state.[1641] By
the act of admission to the Union in 1819, Alabama was entitled to 5 per
cent of the proceeds from the sales of public lands, to be used for
internal improvements. Three per cent was to be expended by the
legislature, and 2 per cent by Congress. In 1841 Congress relinquished the
"two per cent fund" to the state to aid railroads and other public
enterprises from "east to west" and from "north to south." The State Bank
failed and the "three per cent fund" was lost, but the legislature assumed
it as a debt and issued state bonds to the railroads to the amount of
$858,498. The "two per cent fund" was loaned before the war as follows:--
To east and west roads $256,438.85
To north and south roads 202,551.02
Balance 52,246.23
-----------
Total $511,236.10[1642]
In 1850 there were two railroads in the state with a total of 132.5 miles
of track, which cost $1,946,209. In 1860, there were eleven roads, 743
miles long, costing $17,591,188.[1643] During the Civil War the roads
received much aid from the state and Confederate governments, though
during this time only a few miles of track were built and some grading
done. At the end of the war all were completely worn out or had been
destroyed. The want of railroad communication with the armies and between
the various sections of the state caused much suffering among soldiers and
civilians, and after the war the people were more than ever anxious to
have roads built. For two years the railway companies were busy repairing
the old roads, but by 1867 popular opinion demanded new roads.
General Legislation in Aid of Railroads
The provisional legislature, on February 19, 1867, passed an act which
served as a basis for all later legislation. The governor was authorized
to indorse its first mortgage bonds to the extent of $12,000 per mile,
when 20 miles of a new road should have been completed, and to continue
the indorsement at that rate as the road was built. No indorsed bonds were
to be sold by the road for less than 90 cents on the dollar, and the
proceeds were to be used only for construction and equipment. The state
was to have two directors, appointed by the governor, on the board of each
road receiving state aid.[1644] The Reconstruction Acts of Congress were
passed a few days later, however, and there was no opportunity for this
law to go into effect.
The first Reconstruction legislature[1645] increased the endowment to
$16,000 a mile, authorized the indorsement of bonds in five-mile blocks
instead of twenty-mile blocks, as before, and to the roads that proposed
to extend outside of the state it promised aid for 20 miles beyond the
boundaries of the state.[1646] The next session Governor Smith, in a
message to the legislature, stated that the indorsement law was
defective; that he was in favor of lending the credit of the state, but
objected to a general statute requiring indorsement of any road; that
there was danger that the roads would depend entirely upon indorsement and
would have no paid-up capital; moreover, taking advantage of the railroad
fever, roads would be built where they were not needed; that aid should be
given only to those capitalists whose enterprises promised success.
Finally, he advised that the law be repealed and aid be given only in
specific cases.[1647]
The legislature responded to the Governor's message by another general
law, practically reënacting the former laws. By its provisions proof was
required that the five-mile block had been built and that the road-bed,
rails, bridges, and cross-ties were in good order, before the first issue
of the bonds was made. The company was to show what use was made of the
bonds. The indorsement was to constitute a first lien in favor of the
state, and in case of default of interest by the road, the governor was to
seize and sell the road if necessary.[1648] A few days later a sweeping
measure was passed, declaring that all acts and "things done in the state"
for railroad purposes were ratified and made legal.[1649] This was the
last general legislation enacted while the railroad boom continued.
Governor Lindsay and the pseudo-Democratic lower house stood out against
railroad legislation, and the indorsed roads were in bad condition when
the next scalawag governor was elected. Under Governor Lewis, in 1873, an
act was passed to relieve the state of some of its obligations. Roads
entitled to an indorsement might take instead a loan of $4,000 per mile in
state bonds, and roads already indorsed might exchange indorsed bonds for
state bonds at the rate of four for one. But no state bonds were to be
given for fraudulent issues of indorsed bonds, and when exchanges were
made the road was released from all obligations to the state.[1650] Had
the roads accepted this offer, the state would have suffered only a loss
of $482,000 in interest each year. However, from this time on the state
authorities were busy trying to extricate the state from the bankruptcy
caused by indorsing the railroad bonds.
The Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad
The Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad was the first of the roads to apply
for aid under the indorsement law, and was in the worst condition. The
story of this road is the story of all, only of greater length and more
disgraceful. The Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad Company was made up of
two older corporations, which, passing into the hands of Boston
financiers, united in order to secure the spoils from the state. Before
the union the officials had secured special legislation for one of the old
roads, the Wills Valley. The sharpers who were engineering the scheme had
agents at Montgomery when the Reconstruction legislature met, and these
were instrumental in having the indorsement raised from $12,000 to $16,000
a mile. The second corporation was the Northeast and Southwest Alabama
Railroad.[1651] The proposed road would be 295 miles long, and when
completed would be entitled to $4,720,000 from the state in indorsed
bonds. The law was explicit in regard to indorsation, but Governor Smith,
notwithstanding his opposition to the principle of the law, was criminally
careless, if no worse, in the way he administered it. The first 20 miles
were not built as required by law, but were purchased from the old
Northeast and Southwest Alabama Railroad. Moreover, the road was never
properly equipped, and the 20 miles from Chattanooga, on which indorsement
amounting to $320,000 was secured, were only rented from another
corporation (which was already indorsed to the amount of $8000 per mile by
the state of Georgia), and the rent was paid from the proceeds of the
indorsed bonds, which by law should have been applied only to construction
and equipment. Nor was the rented road equipped.[1652]
The indorsed bonds of the road to November 15, 1869, amounted to
$1,800,000,[1653] and Auditor Reynolds reported in 1870 that the
indorsement to September 30, 1870, was $3,840,000 on 240 miles.[1654]
These figures should have been correct, but they were not. In fact, 240
miles had been roughly finished, but the indorsement was far above the
legal limit. On December 5, 1870, a few days before he retired from
office, Smith reported to the legislature that he had indorsed the Alabama
and Chattanooga road for $4,000,000 for 250 miles.[1655] The facts, as
afterwards disclosed, were that only 240 miles were completed, and of
these only 154 were in Alabama. Yet he had issued bonds to the amount of
$4,720,000, covering not only the whole 295 miles of the proposed road,
but also including $580,000 in excess of what the law allowed to the
completed road, which with equipment was worth only $4,018,388. So here
were $1,300,000 in bonds which were clearly fraudulent. There was no
further indorsement of this road.[1656]
As if the enormous issue of indorsed bonds was not enough for the Stantons
of Boston, who were in control of the corporation, a second descent of
railroad promoters was made on the legislature in 1869-1870, and
$2,000,000 in direct state bonds were obtained for the Alabama and
Chattanooga Railroad. Indorsement was not enough for them. The act stated
that the bonds were to be issued from time to time as needed for use in
construction within the state, and in return the railroad lands were to be
mortgaged to the state.[1657] In order to secure the passage of this act,
the most shameful bribery was resorted to by the agents of the railroad
and of the New York capitalists who were financing the Stantons. One of
the Stantons came to Montgomery, also an agent from the banking house of
Henry Clews & Company, and agents from other houses interested in the
Stanton scheme. The Stantons themselves had no money except what they
received from the state. On February 4, 1870, the bill failed in the
House; but on February 5 a reconsideration was moved and the bill was
referred back to the committee with directions "to report within fifteen
minutes." The report was favorable, and the members having seen the light,
the bill was passed by a vote of 62 to 27.[1658] From the first, specific
charges of bribery had been made against those who, within three days, had
changed from active opposition to support of the measure.[1659] A year
later the House had a majority of young and inexperienced Democrats, and
they ordered an investigation. The Senate, with one solitary exception,
was still Radical. The investigation brought to light many unpleasant
facts relating to the methods employed in securing the passage of the
$2,000,000 appropriation and other railroad bills. Jerre Haralson, a negro
member, told his experience. Jerre was opposing the grant and posing as a
Democrat because he had not been sufficiently remembered on previous
occasions when the spoils were divided. Hearing that something was to be
divided, he went to Stanton's room, where, he said, there were many
members. Caraway, the negro member from Mobile, told Haralson that he
(Caraway) would not vote for the grant for less than $500. Stanton had
four rooms at the Exchange Hotel, to which, at his invitation, all the
purchasable members went. Stanton would take the members, one at a time,
into the hall, after which that member would leave. Haralson, to his
sorrow, was not called into the hall, but the next day he heard from the
other negro members that money was to be had, so he called again. Stanton
then accused Haralson of being a Democrat, but Haralson replied that he
had left that party, and after receiving a "loan" of $50, he went
home.[1660]
George B. Holmes, of the firm of Holmes & Goldthwaite, bankers, testified
that Gilmer, president of the South and North Alabama Railroad (Stanton
had all the roads in need of "boodle" working with him), asked him for
$25,000 to be used at the capitol. Gilmer told Holmes that the banker of
the road had refused it, as had also the Farley bank. Finally, Farley and
Holmes each agreed to furnish $12,000 to Gilmer. John Hardy, the chairman
of the committee, had asked for $25,000 to oil the bearings of the
political machine, and for that amount had agreed to have the bill passed.
At the last moment Hardy demanded $10,000 more, which Holmes obtained from
Josiah Morris. The committee was thus gotten into condition "to report
within fifteen minutes," and the legislature made ready to accept the
report.[1661] Two years later, Governor Lindsay stated in his message that
the Alabama and Chattanooga $2,000,000 bill had not passed the legislature
by the two-thirds vote as required by law.[1662] The law provided for the
issue of the state bonds for $2,000,000 from time to time as the road was
completed. Instead, however, they were issued in reckless haste, within a
month, and hurried away to Europe for sale. The proceeds were used to
build a hotel and an opera house in Chattanooga, where Stanton was accused
of trying to imitate Fiske and Gould of Erie.[1663]
When Governor Lindsay went into office, he could not find the "scratch of
a pen" relating to railroad indorsement. Governor Smith, as later
developments showed, had become careless with his bond indorsement and
kept no records, or else destroyed them or carried them away. Auditor
Reynolds reported in 1871 that his office had official knowledge only of
the indorsement of the Mobile and Montgomery road.[1664] In his message of
January 24, 1871, Lindsay said, "To what extent bonds under the various
statutes have been indorsed and issued by the state it is impossible to
inform you. No record can be found in any department of the action of the
executive in this regard." None of the securities required by law could be
found. Lindsay was unable to ascertain even the form of the indorsed
bonds, except those of the Mobile and Montgomery and the Montgomery and
Eufaula roads. Lindsay telegraphed to Smith's secretary, who replied that
there was no record of the bond issues except the certificates of the
railroad presidents. Lindsay found some of these, which were plain
certificates: "This is to certify that five more miles of the (----)
railroad has been finished." On each five-mile certificate, like the one
above, the road drew $80,000. Yet the law was strict in requiring proof of
completion, of good rails, bridges, road-bed, and equipment. At this time
45 or 50 miles of the Alabama and Chattanooga road had not been completed,
and 50 miles more had only a temporary track hastily thrown together in
order to get the indorsement. Governor Lindsay believed that the road as
planned promised great success, and was of the opinion that had the bonds
been issued according to law the road would have been completed. He had to
correspond with the railroad officials in order to ascertain the amount of
the bonds.[1665] A few days before Smith went out of office he reported
$4,000,000 indorsement on 244 miles of the Alabama and Chattanooga road.
Lindsay found no record of this. Almost immediately (January, 1871) the
Alabama and Chattanooga road defaulted in payment of interest, and Lindsay
was authorized by the legislature to go to New York and provide for the
payment of interest on 4000 bonds legally issued and held by innocent
purchasers.[1666] Statements were constantly appearing in the state press
that fraudulent issues had been made, and the Democratic papers were
warning purchasers against them, declaring that when the people of Alabama
again came into power, they had no intention of paying them.
The carpet-bag régime had numerous financial agents in New York,
Philadelphia, Boston, London, Germany, and elsewhere. Most of the agents
in New York gave Lindsay assistance in his investigations. Souter &
Company stated they had sold 4000 first mortgage Alabama and Chattanooga
bonds (all that were legal), and 2000 state bonds for the Alabama and
Chattanooga Company, all for more than 90 cents on the dollar. Erlanger et
Cie., of Paris, had purchased the state bonds at 95 cents in gold. Lindsay
soon discovered that 1300 Alabama and Chattanooga bonds in excess had been
issued, 580 in excess of what the road would be entitled to when
completed. Braunfels of Erlanger et Cie. testified that he had loaned
$300,000 on 500 bonds numbered between 4000 and 4720. The trustees under
the first deed of trust held bonds 4720 to 4800 and had refused to sell
them, knowing them to be fraudulent; 344 bonds of the fraudulent excess
had been partly sold and partly hypothecated to Drexel & Company of
Philadelphia; thirty had been hypothecated to a firm in Boston for
locomotives. Lindsay saw some of these fraudulent bonds, which were signed
by Governor Smith and sealed with the seal of the state.[1667] Lindsay,
through the state agents, Duncan, Sherman, & Company, recognized as legal
the first 4000 of these indorsed bonds and the 2000 state bonds and
ordered interest to be paid on them. All the others were rejected as
fraudulent.[1668]
The acts of February 25 and March 8, 1871,[1669] authorized the governor
to pay interest on the Alabama and Chattanooga bonds which were in the
hands of innocent purchasers on January 1, 1871. At that date at least 500
of the fraudulent issue had not been sold. The other 700 or 800 bonds
numbered above 4000 were declared fraudulent by Lindsay on the ground that
the part of road which called for the extra bonds simply did not exist. At
this time he paid interest on the railroad bonds, amounting to
$545,000,[1670] and later to $834,000. No interest was paid on bonds held
by the road or hypothecated by its officials. The governor was authorized
to proceed against the road, and, in July 1871, Colonel John H. Gindrat,
the governor's secretary, was ordered to seize the road and act as
receiver. The road had ceased running two weeks before. Stanton claimed
that the default had been caused by the threats of repudiation, and when
Gindrat went to take charge every possible obstacle and embarrassment
were imposed by the company. Besides, at the Mississippi end of the line
the employees had seized the road in order to secure their pay. Gindrat
pacified them, and went slowly along the road toward Georgia, where he was
stopped at the state line. Not only had Alabama indorsed that part of the
road within Georgia and Tennessee, for $16,000 a mile, but Georgia had
also indorsed it for $8000 a mile, and the part within her boundaries she
seized. The governor was forced to employ a large number of attorneys and
institute legal proceedings, not only in Alabama, but also in Georgia,
Tennessee, Mississippi, and in the Federal courts. Bullock, the carpet-bag
governor of Georgia, would not run the road in Georgia in connection with
the Alabama section, and not until there was a new governor (Conley) could
connections be made over the whole line.[1671]
For his action in repudiating the fraudulent bonds and in seizing the
road, Lindsay was much abused by all the railroad interests, by the hungry
promoters who wanted more money from the state, and by a section of his
own party which was influenced by prominent Democrats who were officers of
the road,[1672] and especially by influential Democratic lawyers. This
fact was important in weakening the Democratic cause in 1872. There were
some who opposed the seizure of the road because they believed that in the
then unsettled condition of affairs the state would not be able to manage
the road successfully; there were others who believed that the state
should not acknowledge the legality of the indorsement by seizure of the
road. The Debt Commission in 1876 reported that, although the laws were
strict, yet they had been violated in letter and in spirit before
indorsement. But though many (including the Debt Commission) believed the
issues illegal, yet by the seizure of the road the state acknowledged the
obligations.[1673]
The history of the road while in the hands of the state authorities was
not pleasant to Democrat or Radical. The state had first seized the
section of the road that was in Alabama, and had gone into the state
courts to get the remainder. The litigation promised to be endless, and
the case was taken to the Federal courts. Finally the road was sold at a
bankrupt sale, and Lindsay purchased it for the state, paying $312,000.
The Circuit Court reversed this action, and there was a new case in which
Busteed, district judge, adjudged the company bankrupt. In May, 1872, the
Federal court placed the road in the hands of receivers for the first
mortgage bondholders, who were to issue $1,200,000 in certificates to run
the road,--this to be a _lien prior to the claim of the state_. August 24,
1874, the same court placed the road in the hands of the trustees of the
first mortgage bondholders.
The road, while in the hands of the state receiver, was either badly
managed or was unsuccessful because of the obstruction by the other roads
and by capitalists. Several attempts were made, by Governors Lindsay,
Lewis, and Houston, to sell the road, but with no success. Finally, in
1876, the Debt Commission arranged with the holders of the first mortgage
bonds to turn over to them the whole claim of the state to the road, the
state paying $1,000,000, besides the interest, to be out of the
business.[1674]
Governor Lindsay had paid $834,000 interest on the Alabama and Chattanooga
bonds, and in 1874 there were arrears amounting to $1,054,000.[1675]
Congress had made a grant of land, six sections per mile, amounting to
1,000,000 acres, for all the roads within the boundaries of Alabama, and
the state held a mortgage on this land. Much of it was sold fraudulently
by the railroad company, and titles were given where there had been no
sales. One railroad agent pocketed $33,447.97 received from fraudulent
sales of this land. The state never received a cent.[1676]
Other Indorsed Railroads
The story of the other roads that applied for aid is similar, though
shorter and of a meaner nature. The Savannah and Memphis road was the only
one that failed to default.[1677] It was indorsed for $640,000, but when
the House committee was investigating, in 1871, as there was no record of
any indorsement, the president refused to appear or to give any
information.[1678] Later it was ascertained that at the time that the road
was worth only $263,000 it had been indorsed to the extent of
$320,000.[1679]
The South and North Alabama Railroad was a persistent applicant for
legislative favors. On December 30, 1868, the available portion of the
"two and three per cent fund," amounting to $691,789.43, was turned over
to the South and North road.[1680] The road secured indorsement at the
rate of $16,000 a mile along with other roads, but this was not enough,
and, on March 3, 1870, the legislature increased its indorsement to
$22,000 a mile.[1681] Governor Smith knew so little of what he did in
regard to railroads that in his last message he stated that the South and
North road was indorsed for $1,440,000, that is, for ninety miles at
$16,000 a mile,[1682] while he raised the indorsement of the Selma and
Gulf to $22,000 a mile, thus confusing the two roads. The House Railroad
Committee declared that by means of bribery the road had secured one
hundred miles of indorsement, amounting to $2,200,000.[1683] When Lindsay
was asked to indorse more bonds for this road, he made an investigation
which convinced him that too many bonds had already been issued, and he
refused to sign any more. Under the law the road was entitled to 1900
one-thousand-dollar indorsed bonds, but had received 2200,[1684] an
indorsement of $2,200,000, while the road equipped was valued at only
$1,625,200.[1685] When it became known that fraudulent issues had been
made, the Investigating Committee called before them the ex-treasurer of
the state, Arthur Bingham, of Ohio. He claimed and was allowed the
constitutional privilege of refusing to testify on the ground that his
testimony would tend to incriminate himself.[1686] In 1870 it was
estimated that including the "three per cent" fund the road had received
from the state $2,000,000 more than the cost of building it.[1687]
Governor Lewis, in 1873, reported that the South and North road was
indorsed for $4,026,000, including $2,200,000 that was not recorded on the
books of the state.[1688]
[Illustration: SOME RECONSTRUCTIONISTS.
GOVERNOR L. E. PARSONS.
GOVERNOR WILLIAM H. SMITH.
GOVERNOR D. P. LEWIS.
NEGRO MEMBERS OF CONVENTION OF 1875 are on the left. The white man in the
back row is Sam. Rice.]
The East Alabama and Cincinnati corporation consisted of Governor W. H.
Smith, three senators (two of whom were J. J. Hinds and J. L. Pennington),
and two members of the lower house. Stanton of the Alabama and Chattanooga
was also connected with it; in fact, he was connected in some way with
nearly all the schemes to secure state aid. The road was mortgaged to
Henry Clews & Company for $500,000. It had no money of its own, but
secured state indorsement for $400,000 and a bond issue of $25,000 from
the town of Opelika. This indorsement by Governor Smith was not
discovered until 1871, when Lindsay was accused of issuing the bonds.
This he flatly denied, and he was correct. The Tennessee and Coosa rivers
road had $33,513.25, if no more, of the "two per cent fund." On March 2,
1870, that road was released from its indebtedness to the state (part of
the "two and three per cent funds") on condition that it apply for no
further aid. But now, in order to get the indorsement, a part of this road
was transferred to the East Alabama and Cincinnati road, to pass as a new
road. With an indorsement of $400,000 besides the $25,000 Opelika bonds,
the road equipped was valued at only $264,150.[1689]
The Selma and Gulf was another road without resources of its own, and, so
far as it was completed, was built with state aid. Governor Smith, in
clear violation of the law, the committee reported, indorsed the road for
$480,000. Some one, probably Smith, though Lindsay was accused of it,
raised this amount to $640,000, $160,000 of which was not recorded. At
this time the road was valued at $424,900, and the company threatened to
default unless further aid was extended. Smith thought that the road was
indorsed for $22,000 a mile and reported $660,000 indorsement.[1690]
The Mobile and Alabama Grand Trunk road, valued at $704,225, was indorsed
by the state for $800,000. The city of Mobile also issued $1,000,000 in
bonds for this road.[1691] There was no record of an application for aid
from the New Orleans and Selma Railroad. Neither Smith nor Lindsay
reported it, yet its financial agent had secretly secured an indorsement
of $320,000, contrary to law. The road was valued at $255,350. It had no
resources except $140,000 in Dallas County bonds, and its president,
Colonel William M. Byrd, resigned rather than be a party to the
stealing.[1692]
The promoters of the Selma, Marion, and Memphis road placed General N. B.
Forrest at the head of the enterprise, and for three years he worked hard
to make the road a success. Governor Smith indorsed the road for $720,000,
or $18,000 a mile, when only forty miles were completed. In 1873 the road
was valued at $738,400. When the company failed, as was intended from the
first, General Forrest gave up every dollar he could raise in order to pay
debts due on contracts, and he himself was left a poor man.[1693]
The Montgomery and Eufaula road obtained something over $30,000 of the
"three per cent fund" from the state, and in 1868 the governor was
authorized by the legislature to indorse the road, notwithstanding this
debt to the state, which was considered simply as an indorsement.[1694]
Under this act the road was indorsed for $1,280,000, and in addition state
direct bonds to the amount of $300,000 were issued to the company in 1870.
For this loan there was no security. Lewis Owen, a former president,
refused to answer when it was charged that bribery had been used to secure
the passage of the bill. At this time the road was valued at $825,289. In
1873 capitalists offered to lease the road for enough to pay the interest
on its bonds, provided the state would release the road from all claims
and give to it the $330,000 already loaned. This was done. Later it was
seized by the state and eventually sold for sufficient money to cover
losses caused by the indorsement.[1695]
The Mobile and Montgomery road secured $2,500,000 by special act of the
legislature.[1696] The road was valued at $2,516,250[1697] and was already
built, hence the indorsement was safe.
The total indorsement was about $17,000,000.
VALUE OF ALL RAILROADS IN THE STATE (FROM THE AUDITOR'S REPORTS)
1871, 1496 miles $25,943,052.59
1872, 1629 miles 29,580,737.64
1873, 1793 miles 25,408,110.76
1874, ---- miles 22,747,444.00
1875, ---- miles 12,033,763.39
1875, (returns from railroad officials) 9,654,684.99
SUMMARY
========================================================
NAME OF ROAD |LENGTH| VALUE |INDORSEMENT| VALUE |
| | PER | PER | OF |
| | MILE | MILE | ROAD |
--------------|------|-------|-----------|-------------|
Alabama and | | | | |
Chattanooga | 295 |$15,000| $16,000 |$4,018,388.00|
| | | | |
| | | | |
E. Alabama and| | | | |
Cincinnati | 25 | 10,000| 16,000 | 264,150.00|
| | | | |
Mobile and | | | | |
Alabama G.T. | 50 | 12,000| 16,000 | 704,225.00|
| | | | |
Montgomery | | | | |
and Eufaula | 60 | 13,000| 16,000 | 1,157,071.60|
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
Mobile and | | | | |
Montgomery | | 10,600| 16,000 | 2,516,250.00|
| | | | |
Savannah and | | | | |
Memphis | 40 | 10,000| 16,000 | 498,810.00|
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
Selma and Gulf| 40 | 10,000| 16,000 | 424,900.00|
| | | | |
| | | | |
Selma, Marion,| | | | |
and Memphis | 45 | 14,000| 16,000 | 738,400.00|
| | | | |
New Orleans | | | | |
and Selma | 20 | 12,000| 16,000 | 225,350.00|
| | | | |
| | | | |
South and | | | | |
North Alabama| | | | |
| 100 | 15,000| 22,000 | 2,877,730.00|
========================================================
=======================================
INDORSEMENT | PRESENT | REMARKS
OF | ROAD |
ROAD | |
----------------|----------|-----------
|Ala. Great|Seized by
$5,300,000[1698]| Southern | state.
| |Completed.
| |
| |Never
400,000 | ---- | completed.
| |
|Mobile and|
880,000[1699]| Birm'gh'm| ----
| |
|Central of|Seized and
1,280,000[1700]| Georgia | leased by
| | the state.
| |
|L'sville |
| and |
2,500,000[1701]| Nashville| ----
| |
| |Did not
640,000 | ---- | default;
| | never
| | completed.
| |
640,000[1702]| ---- |Never
| | completed.
| |
| |Never
765,000[1703]| ---- | completed.
| |
|B'ham, |Never
320,000 | Selma & | completed.
| N.O. |
| |
|L'sville |
| and |
4,026,000[1704]| Nashville| ----
=======================================
County and Town Aid to Railroads
An act of December 31, 1868, authorized the counties, towns, and cities to
subscribe to railroad stock. The road corporation was to be voted on by
the people. If "no subscription" was voted, a new election might be
ordered within twelve months, and if again voted down, the matter was to
be considered as settled. If a subscription was voted, an extra tax was to
be levied to pay the interest on the bonds; the taxpayer was to be
presented with a tax receipt which was good for its face value in the
county or city railroad stock.[1705] Several of the counties and towns
issued bonds and incurred heavy debts which have burdened them for years.
No one seems to have profited by the issues except the promoters.[1706]
The counties that suffered worst from Reconstruction bond issues were
Randolph, Chambers, Lee, Tallapoosa, and Pickens. These were hopelessly
burdened with debt and became known as the "strangulated" counties. There
was, after the Democrats came into power, much legislation for their
relief. The state gave them the state taxes to assist in paying off the
debt and also loaned money to them. Several cities and towns, notably
Mobile, Selma, and Opelika, were so deeply in debt that they were unable
to pay interest on their debts. They lost their charters, ceased to be
cities, and became districts under the direct control of the governor.
There are still several such districts in the state. The constitution of
1875 forbade state, counties, or towns to engage in works of internal
improvement, or to lend money or credit to such, or to any private or
corporate enterprise.
It is impossible to secure complete statistics of the railroad bond issues
of counties and towns. Some issues were made in ignorance, without
authority of law, others were made under the provisions of a general law.
Naturally, the counties that suffered most were those of the Black Belt
under carpet-bag control. The following is a summary of the issues made
under special acts:--
=================================================================
COUNTY | | | | |
OR TOWN |DATE| AMOUNT | ROAD AIDED |AUTHORITY| VOTE
----------|----|---------|---------------|---------|-------------
Barbour |----| ---- |Vicksburg and |Act, Dec.| ----
| | | Brunswick | 31, 1868|
Chambers |----| $150,000|East Alabama |Act, Dec.|
| | | and Cincinnati| 31, 1868| ----
Dallas |----| 140,000|New Orleans and|Act, Dec.|
| | | Selma | 31, 1868| ----
Greene |1869| 80,000|Selma, Marion, |Act, Mar.|
| | | and Memphis | 3, 1870| 1011 to 550
Hale |1869| 60,000|Selma, Marion, |Act, Mar.|
| | | and Memphis | 3, 1870| 2260 to 301
Lee |----| 275,000|East Alabama |Act, Dec.|
| | | and Cincinnati| 31, 1868| ----
Madison |1873| 130,000|Memphis and |Act, Mar.|
| | | Charleston | 27, 1873| Also earlier
Pickens |1869| 100,000|Selma, Marion, |Act, Mar.|
| | | and Memphis | 3, 1870| 1212 to 607
Randolph |----| 100,000| ---- |Act, Dec.|
| | | | 31, 1868| ----
Tallapoosa|----| 125,000| ---- | ---- | ----
Eutaw |1869| 20,000|Selma, Marion, |Act, Mar.|
| | | and Memphis | 2, 1870| 98 to 35
Greensboro|1869| 15,000|Selma, Marion, |Act, Mar.|
| | | and Memphis | 3, 1870| 164 to 1
Mobile |1871|1,000,000|Mobile and |Act, Mar.|
| | | Northwestern | 8, 1871| ----
Mobile |1873| 200,000| ---- |Act, Mar.|
| | | | 7, 1873| ----
Opelika |----| 25,000|East Alabama | |
| | | and Cincinnati| ---- | ----
Prattville|1872| 50,000|South and North|Act, Jan.|
| | | Alabama | 23, 1872| ----
Troy |1868| 75,000|Mobile and |Act, Oct.|
| | | Girard | 8, 1868| ----
=================================================================
CHAPTER XIX
RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SCHOOLS
School System before Reconstruction
The public school system of the state of Alabama was organized in 1854,
and was an expansion of the Mobile system, which was partly native and
partly modelled on the New York-New England systems.[1707] By 1856 it was
in good working order. The school fund for 1855 was $237,515.00; for 1856,
$267,694.41, and the number of children in attendance was 100,279, which
was about one-fourth of the white population. For 1857 the fund amounted
to $281,874.41; for 1858, $564,210.46, with an attendance of 98,274
children.[1708] The schools were not wholly free, since those parents who
were able to do so paid part of the tuition.[1709] In 1860 there were also
206 academies, with an enrolment of 10,778 pupils, and in the state
colleges there were 2120 students.
In spite of the war the system managed to exist until 1864, and some
schools were still open in 1865, at the time of surrender. Few of the
private schools and colleges survived until that time, and the majority of
the school buildings of all kinds were either destroyed during the war, or
after its close were placed in the hands of the Freedmen's Bureau or of
the army. The State Medical College was used for a negro primary school
for three years, and was not given up until the reconstructionists came
into power. An attempt in 1865 was made to reopen the University, although
the buildings had been burned by the Federals in 1865. The trustees met,
elected a president and two professors, but on the day appointed for the
opening (in October) only one student appeared.[1710]
During the summer and fall of 1865 and during the next year the various
religious denominations of the state and mass-meetings of citizens
declared that the changed civil relations of the races made negro
education a necessity. The Freedmen's Bureau was established and
anticipated much of the work planned by the churches and by southern
leaders, but the methods employed by the alien teachers caused many whites
to become prejudiced against negro education.[1711]
The provisional government adopted the ante-bellum public school system
and put it into operation. The schools were open to both races, from six
to twenty years of age, separate schools being provided for the blacks.
The greater part of the expenditure of the provisional government was for
schools. Relatively few negroes attended the state schools proper, as
every influence was brought to bear to make them attend the Bureau and
missionary schools, and the state negro schools soon fell into the hands
of the Bureau educators, who drew the state appropriation.
The colleges at Marion, Greensboro, Auburn, Florence, and other places
were reopened in 1866-1867. The legislature loaned $70,000 to the
University, besides paying the interest on the University fund. For three
years the University was being rebuilt, and so well were its finances
managed that in 1868, when the carpet-baggers came into power, the
buildings were completed and the institution out of debt, although it had
used only half of the loan from the state.[1712]
The Reconstruction convention of 1867 was much more interested in politics
than in education. The negro members demanded free schools and special
advantages for the negro, and a few carpet-baggers had much to say about
the malign influence of the old régime in keeping so many thousands in the
darkness of ignorance. The scalawags demanded separate schools for the
races, but pressure was brought to bear and most of them gave way. Sixteen
of the native whites refused to sign the constitution and united in a
protest against the action of the convention in refusing to provide
separate schools.[1713]
The School System of Reconstruction
The new constitution placed all public instruction under the control of a
Board of Education consisting of the Superintendent of Public Instruction
and two members from each congressional district,[1714] the latter to
serve for four years, half of them being elected by the people every two
years. Full legislative powers in regard to education were given to the
Board. Its acts were to have the force of law, and the governor's veto
could be overridden by a two-thirds vote. The legislature might repeal a
school law, but otherwise it had no authority over the Board.[1715] This
body also acted as a board of regents for the State University. One
school, at least, was to be established in every township in the state,
though some townships did not have half a dozen children in them. The
school income was fixed by the constitution at one-fifth of all state
revenue, in addition to the income from school lands, poll tax, and taxes
on railroads, navigation, banks, and insurance.[1716] The legislature
added another source of income by chartering several lotteries and
exempted them from taxation provided they paid a certain amount to the
school fund. On October 10, 1868, the Mutual Aid Association was chartered
"to distribute books, paintings, works of art, scientific instruments and
apparatus, lands, etc., stock and currency, awards, and prizes." For this
privilege it was to give $2000 a year to the school fund.[1717] Two months
later the Mobile Charitable Association was formed, which paid $1000 a
year to the school fund,[1718] and a number of other lotteries were
chartered soon after.
The school system, as a whole, did not differ greatly from the old, except
that it was top-heavy with officials, and in that all private assistance
was discouraged by a regulation forbidding the use of the public money to
supplement private payments. The first Board of Education probably
contained a collection of as worthless men as could be found in the
state.[1719] The elections had gone by default, and since only the most
incompetent men had offered themselves for educational offices, the work
suffered. Dr. N. B. Cloud, an incapable of ante-bellum days, was chosen
Superintendent of Public Instruction. He was a man without character,
without education, and entirely without administrative ability. Before the
war he was known as a cruel master to his few slaves. In August, 1868, he
proceeded to put the system into operation by appointing sixty-four county
superintendents, of Radical politics, each of whom in turn appointed three
trustees in each township. The stream rose no higher than its source, and
the school officials were a forlorn lot. One of them signed for his salary
by an X mark. Another, J. E. Summerford, the superintendent of Lee County,
was a man of bad morals, and so incompetent that, when attempting to
examine teachers for licenses, he in turn was contemptuously questioned by
them on elementary subjects. In revenge for this expression of contempt,
he revoked the license of every teacher in the county. One county
superintendent was a preacher who had been expelled from his church for
misappropriating charity funds. But Cloud paid no attention to charges
made against the integrity of his school officials.
Cloud proceeded with much haste to open the schools. A year later he made
a report which is an interesting document. There was little progress to be
noted, but much space was devoted to an appreciation of that "glorious
document," the constitution of 1867, the crowning glory of which--the
article on education--should "entitle the members to the rare merit of
statemen and sages." This provision for education, he said, was the first
blow struck in the South, and especially in Alabama, to clear out the
last vestige of ignorance with all its attendant evils; and now, in spite
of the burdens imposed by the unwise legislation of the past forty years,
the bosoms of the citizens expanded with a noble pride in the present
system of schools.
After this he proceeds to business. He reports that in every county and in
almost every township in the state his officials met with opposition, not,
he confesses, on account of opposition to schools, but on account of the
objectionable government and its agents. The reports from the white
counties, especially, indicate opposition to the establishment of negro
schools, while in the Black Belt this opposition was not so strong.
Everywhere, he states, the opposition died out, more or less, in
time.[1720]
Before the new system went into operation, a meeting of the Board was held
in Montgomery to clear away the remains of the old system. They voted to
themselves a secretary, sergeant-at-arms, pages, etc., like the House of
Representatives; all school offices were declared vacated and all school
contracts void; separate schools were provided for the races where the
parents were unwilling to send to mixed schools; eleven normal schools
were provided for, with no distinction of color; and a bill was introduced
by G. L. Putnam and passed into a law, the object of which was to merge
the Mobile schools into the state system and also to make an office for
Putnam. A sum of money had been appropriated by the previous legislatures
to pay the teachers in the state schools, and now the Board declared that
any association, society, or teacher in a school open to the public should
have a claim for part of this money.[1721] The country superintendents
were made elective after 1870; coöperation with the Freedmen's Bureau was
declared desirable, and the Bureau was asked to furnish or to rent houses,
or to assist in building, while the aid societies were asked to send
teachers who would be paid by the state, and who would be subject to the
same regulations as native teachers. The "Superintendent of Education" of
the Bureau was to have supervision over the Bureau schools, but he, in
turn, would be under the supervision of Cloud.[1722]
Reconstruction of the State University
The Board then tried to reconstruct the University. After the appearance
of the lone student in 1865, the efforts of the trustees had been directed
only towards completing the buildings. In 1868, after the constitution of
1867 had failed of adoption, the old trustees met, elected a president and
faculty, and ordered the University to be opened in October, 1868. A few
weeks later Congress imposed the constitution on the state, and the Board
of Education as regents took charge of the University. Their first act was
to declare null and void all acts of any pretended body of trustees since
the secession of the state. This was done in order to repudiate a debt
made by the University with a New York firm in 1861. No suitable candidate
for the presidency was presented, and the regents chose for that position
Mr. Wyman, the acting president.[1723] He declined, and the position was
then sought for and obtained by the Rev. A. S. Lakin, a Northern Methodist
preacher, who had been sent to Alabama in 1867 by Bishop Clark of Ohio, to
gather the negroes of the Southern Methodist Church into the northern
fold.[1724] Lakin, accompanied by Cloud, went to the University to take
charge. Wyman, who was then in charge, refused to surrender the keys, and
a Tuscaloosa mob, or Ku Klux Klan, serenaded Lakin and threatened to lynch
him if he remained in town. It is said that he was saved from the mob by
Wyman, who hid him under a bed. The next morning Lakin decided that he did
not like the place and left.[1725] He did not resign, however, and three
years later still had a claim pending for a full year's salary. On this he
collected $800 from the Board of Regents.[1726]
[Illustration:
[From the Independent Monitor, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, September 1, 1868.]
A PROSPECTIVE SCENE IN THE CITY OF OAKS, 4TH OF MARCH, 1869.
"Hang, curs, Hang! * * * * * Their complexion is perfect gallows.
Stand fast, good
fate, to _their_ hanging! * * * * * If they be not born to be
hanged, our case is miserable."
The above cut represents the fate in store for those great pests of
Southern society--the carpet-bagger and scalawag--if found in Dixie's land
after the break of day on the 4th of March next.
The _genus_ carpet-bagger is a man with a lank head of dry hair, a lank
stomach, and long legs, club knees, and splay feet, dried legs, and lank
jaws, with eyes like a fish and mouth like a shark. Add to this a habit of
sneaking and dodging about in unknown places, habiting with negroes in
dark dens and back streets, a look like a hound, and the smell of a
polecat.
Words are wanting to do full justice to the _genus_ scalawag. He is a cur
with a contracted head, downward look, slinking and uneasy gait; sleeps in
the woods, like old Crossland, at the bare idea of a Ku-Klux raid.
Our scalawag is the local leper of the community. Unlike the
carpet-bagger, he is native, which is so much the worse. Once he was
respected in his circle, his head was level, and he would look his
neighbor in the face. Now, possessed of the itch of office and the salt
rheum of radicalism, he is a mangy dog, slinking through the alleys,
hunting the governor's office, defiling with tobacco juice the steps of
the capitol, stretching his lazy carcass in the sun on the square or the
benches of the mayor's court.
He waiteth for the troubling of the political waters, to the end that he
may step in and be healed of the itch by the ointment of office. For
office he "bums," as a toper "bums" for the satisfying dram. For office,
yet in prospective, he hath bartered respectability; hath abandoned
business and ceased to labor with his hands, but employs his feet kicking
out boot-heels against lamp-post and corner-curb while discussing the
question of office.
It requires no seer to foretell the inevitable events that are to result
from the coming fall election throughout the Southern States.
The unprecedented reaction is moving onward with the swiftness of a
velocipede, with the violence of a tornado, and with the crash of an
avalanche, sweeping negroism from the face of the earth.
Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of Alabama who have recently become
squatter-]
It was in connection with Lakin's short visit that the _Independent
Monitor_ published the famous hanging picture of the carpet-bagger (Lakin)
and the scalawag (Cloud).[1727]
The next offer of the presidency was made to R. D. Harper, a Northern
Methodist Bureau minister, who at one time was the Bureau "Superintendent
of Education" for the state, and who organized the Bureau schools and the
Northern Methodist churches in north Alabama. He, after some
consideration, declined the position, which, to an alien, was one of more
danger than honor.[1728]
Difficulty was also experienced in securing a faculty. Some of the faculty
elected by the old board of trustees were reëlected. Geary of Ohio was
given the chair of mathematics, and Goodfellow of Chicago, who had
previously been a clerk of the lower house of the legislature, was elected
commandant and professor of military science. The latter said that he did
not know anything about his work, but that he guessed he could learn.
General John H. Forney, a Confederate and native, was also elected to a
chair, the Board, it is said, voting for him under a misapprehension. The
native contingent refused to serve under the regents, and the vacancies
had again to be filled.[1729] Loomis of Illinois was elected professor of
Ancient Languages; J. De F. Richards of Vermont, professor of Natural
Philosophy and Astronomy, etc. W. J. Collins, who was elected professor of
Oratory and Rhetoric, wrote, "I except the situation." The _Monitor_ said,
"We predict an uncomfortable time for the aggregation."[1730] That paper
chronicled all the weaknesses, peculiarities, and failings of the faculty.
If one of them drank a little too much and staggered on the street, the
_Monitor_ informed the public.[1731] Upon the arrival of an heir in the
Collins family, Randolph promptly demanded that he be named for
him,--Ryland Randolph Collins,--and the name stuck.
Finally, as it seemed impossible to secure a president, the regents
determined to open the University with Richards as acting president.[1732]
On April 1, 1869, the University opened with thirty students, twenty-eight
of whom were beneficiaries.[1733] The _Monitor_ said that the members of
the faculty were known as Shanghai, Cockeye, Tanglefoot, Old Dicks, etc.
Another woodcut appeared in the _Monitor_--of Richards, this time.[1734]
Thirty was the highest enrolment reached under the Reconstruction faculty.
The number gradually dwindled away until at the end of the session there
were only ten. The next session ended with only three. In October, 1870,
there were ten students, four of whom were sons of professors. William R.
Smith[1735] was elected president during this session, but he reported
that there was no prospect of success under the present conditions and
resigned. By the end of the session not one student remained. The
scientific apparatus was scattered and lost, as were also the museum
specimens and library books, and the $2000 object-glass of the telescope
had disappeared.[1736]
The people of Alabama did not favor the continuance of the University
under the reconstructed faculty, and were glad when the doors were closed.
The Ku Klux Klan took part in the work of breaking down the venture.
Notices were posted on the doors, directed to the students, advising them
to leave. One sent to the son of Governor Smith read as follows:--
DAVID SMITH: You have received one notice from us, and this shall be
our last. You nor no other d--d son of a d--d radical traitor shall
stay at our University. Leave here in less than ten days, for in that
time we will visit the place and it will not be well for you to be
found out there. The state is ours and so shall our University be.
WRITTEN BY THE SECRETARY BY ORDER OF THE KLAN.
Charles Muncel, son of Joel Muncel, the publisher, of Albany, New
York,[1737] received the following notice:--
CHARLES MUNCEL. You had better get back where you came from. We don't
want any d--d Yank at our colleges. In less than ten days we will come
to see if you obey our warning. If not, look out for hell, for d--n
you, we will show you that you shall not stay, you nor no one else, in
that college. This is your first notice; let it be your last.
THE KLAN BY THE SECRETARY.
The next warning was sent to a lone Democrat:--
HORTON: They say you are of good Democratic family. If you are, leave
the University and that quick. We don't intend that the concern shall
run any longer. This is the second notice you have received; you will
get no other. In less than ten days we intend to clear out the
concern. We will have good Southern men there or none.
BY ORDER OF THE K. K. K.[1738]
Before the summer of 1871 the reconstructed faculty had absolutely failed;
there never had been any chance for them to succeed. The regents were
unfitted to manage educational affairs, and they chose men to the faculty
who would have been objectionable anywhere.[1739] The professors and their
families were socially ostracized. Even southern men who accepted places
in the Radical faculty were made to feel that they were scorned; no one
would sit by them at public gatherings or in church. The men might have
survived this treatment, but not so the women. In 1871 the Superintendent
of Public Instruction and two members of the board of regents were
Democrats. The faculty was reorganized for the eighth time since 1865, and
a faculty of natives was elected. The effect upon the attendance was
marked. In April, 1871, there were three students and in June none, while
during the session of 1871-1872, 107 students were enrolled. In 1873 and
1874 the Radicals again had control, but they did not attempt to
reconstruct the University.[1740]
When the land grant college, provided for in the Morrill act of 1862, was
established in 1872, there was no attempt made to appoint a reconstructed
faculty or board of trustees. But there was sharp competition among the
towns of the state to secure the college. The legislature was to choose
the location, and many of the members let it be known that their votes
were to be had only in return for material considerations. It was finally
located at Auburn, in Lee County. One Auburn lobbyist went out on the
floor of one of the houses and there paid a negro solon $50 to talk no
more against Auburn. The next day the same negro was again speaking
against the location at Auburn. His purchaser went to him and
remonstrated. The negro acknowledged that he had accepted the $50 not to
speak against Auburn, but said, "Dat was yistiddy, boss." Another Auburn
man promised a cooking stove to a negro of more domestic inclinations, and
amidst the excitement forgot all about it; but after the vote the negro
came up and demanded his stove. He received it. Another was given a
sewing-machine.[1741]
There was no attempt to force the entrance of negroes into the State
University. Some reformers wanted the test made, but too many scalawags
were bitterly opposed to such a step, to say nothing of the Ku Klux Klan.
In December, 1869, the Board of Education asked the legislature to
provide a university for the negroes,[1742] and several colored normal
schools were established. In 1871, Peyton Finley, the negro member of the
Board of Education,[1743] introduced a series of resolutions declaring
that the negro had no desire to push any claim to enter the State
University, but that they wanted one of their own, and Congress was urged
to grant land for that purpose.[1744] But not until December, 1873, was
Lincoln school at Marion, Perry County, designated as the colored
university and normal school, where a liberal education was to be given
the negro.[1745]
Trouble in the Mobile Schools
For more than a year Cloud had trouble in the schools of Mobile. The
Mobile schools (always independent of the state system) were under the
control of a school board appointed by the military authorities in 1865.
When all offices and contracts were vacated, G. L. Putnam, a member of the
Board of Education, and also connected with the Emerson Institute, which
was conducted at Mobile by the American Missionary Association, had
secured the enactment, because he wanted the position, of a school law
providing for a superintendent of education for Mobile County. In August,
1868, Cloud gave him the office. The old school commissioners refused to
recognize the authority of Putnam, who was unable to displace them,
because he himself could not make bond. But, in order to give him some
kind of office, Cloud went to Mobile and proposed a compromise, which was
to appoint one of the old commissioners superintendent of education and
Putnam superintendent of negro schools under the supervision of the other
superintendent and the board of commissioners, which was still to exist.
This was an arrangement Cloud had no lawful authority to make.
As part of the compromise the principal and teachers of the American
Missionary Association were to be retained and paid by the state. The
Emerson Institute (or "Blue College," as the negroes called it) was to
remain in possession of the American Missionary Association, but the
school board and county superintendent were to have control over the
schools in it. Putnam, as superintendent of the "Blue College" school,
refused to allow the control of the board. He wanted them to pay his
teachers, but would have no supervision. The general field agent of the
American Missionary Association, Edward P. Smith, offered the "schools and
teachers" to the school commissioners to be paid but not controlled. "We
ought now in some way," he said, "to have our teachers recognized and paid
for, from the public fund, an amount equal to that paid for similar grades
to other teachers in Mobile." At the same time the state was paying $125
per month for the use of the building over which the Association and
Putnam would allow no supervision. The county superintendent and the
commissioners, unable to secure any control over the Putnam schools,
refused to recognize them as a part of the Mobile system. Cloud declared
all the offices vacant, but the commissioners refused to vacate. The case
was carried into court and the commissioners were put in jail. The supreme
court ordered them released. The Board of Education then met and abolished
the Mobile system and merged the special and independent schools of that
county into the general state system. This was done on November 13,
1869.[1746]
The judiciary committee of the legislature, consisting of three Radicals
and one Democrat, was directed to investigate the conduct of Cloud in the
Mobile troubles. It was reported (1) that Cloud had appointed two
superintendents in Mobile County, contrary to law; (2) that on January 29,
1869, G. L. Putnam, who was not an official of the state and who,
according to the compromise, should have been under the control of the
county superintendent, drew from the state treasury with the connivance of
Cloud between $5000 and $6000, with which he paid the teachers of "Blue
College," who were in the employ of the American Missionary Association
and not of the state of Alabama; (3) that in July, 1869, Cloud again
appointed Putnam superintendent of education for Mobile County, and sixty
days afterwards he made a bond which was declared worthless by the grand
jury, and after that Cloud gave Putnam a warrant for $9000, which he was
prevented from collecting only by an injunction; (4) that while the
injunction was in force as concerned both Putnam and Cloud, the latter
drew from the treasury $2000 or more of the Mobile school funds to pay
lawyers' fees; (5) that while the injunction was still in force Cloud drew
$3600 from the treasury for Putnam, the greater part or all of which was
illegally used; (6) that Cloud again drew a warrant for $3300, which the
auditor, discovering that Putnam was interested, refused to allow, and it
was destroyed; (7) the committee further stated that very large salaries
were paid to the teachers in "Blue College," or Emerson Institute,--that
one of them (Squires) received $4000 a year. The committee went beyond the
limit of the resolution and reported that county superintendents were paid
too much, and recommended the abolition of the Board of Education by
constitutional amendment, the reduction of the pay of all school officials
who acted as a sponge to absorb all the school funds, and, finally, that
no person should hold more than one school office at the same time.[1747]
Later investigation showed that Putnam had made out pay-rolls for the
teachers of the Emerson Institute for the last quarter of 1868 and
presented them to A. H. Ryland, the county superintendent of Mobile, for
his approval. This Ryland refused to give, as the compromise in regard to
the Institute dated only from January 22, 1869. Putnam then went to his
own American Missionary Association Negro Institute Board, had the
pay-rolls approved, and then, as "county superintendent of education,"
drew $5327.20, Cloud certifying to the correctness of his accounts.[1748]
Putnam padded the pay-rolls and, in order to draw principal's wages for
each teacher, divided the Institute into ten schools. As there were only
ten teachers besides the principal, there were now eleven
principals.[1749] Kelsey, the principal, stated that no matter how much
Putnam obtained for "Blue College," the teachers received none of it, but
were paid only their regular salaries by the Association. Kelsey himself
was paid only $250 a quarter. The teachers were under contract with the
Association to teach for $15 a month and board. Some of them testified
that they had received no more. However, a part of the appropriation was
turned into the treasury of the Association, and we may well ask what
became of the remainder of it.[1750]
Irregularities in School Administration
Superintendent Cloud was handicapped, not only by his own incapacity, but
also by the bad character of his subordinates, whom he appointed in great
haste from the unpromising material that supported the Reconstruction
régime. Many of the receipts for the salaries were signed by the teachers
with marks, some being unable to write their own names. From the school
officials he received inaccurate reports, and on these he based his
apportionments, which were defective, many of the teachers not receiving
their money. The county superintendents had absolute authority over the
school fund belonging to their counties, and could draw it from the
treasury and use it for private purposes nearly a year before the salaries
of the teachers were due.[1751] Complaint was made that the black counties
received more than their proper share of the school fund. In Pickens
County the superintendent neglected to draw anything but his own salary,
and a north Alabama superintendent ran away with the money for his county.
Other superintendents were accused of scaling down the pay of the teachers
from 20 to 50 per cent, and it was estimated that in some counties
two-thirds of the school money never reached the teachers. There was no
check on the county superintendent, who could expend money practically at
his own discretion.[1752] Three trustees were appointed in each township
by the county superintendent; these trustees, who were not paid, appointed
for themselves a clerk who was paid, and these clerks met in a county
convention and fixed the salary of the county superintendent.[1753]
The bookkeeping in the office of State Superintendent Cloud was irregular.
Some of the accounts were kept in pencil, and for a whole year the books
were not posted. Of $235,000 paid to the county superintendents only
$10,000 was accounted for by them. In 1871, $50,000 or more was still in
the hands of the ex-superintendents, and the state and the teachers were
taking legal proceedings against some of them.[1754] Both sons of Cloud
embezzled school money and fled from the state.[1755] Cloud receipted for
one sum of $314 in payment for sixteenth-section lands. This he forgot to
pay to the treasurer. He issued patents for 4000 acres of school land and
turned into the treasury only $323. A township in Marengo County rented
its sixteenth-section land; nevertheless, Cloud paid to this county its
sixteenth-section funds. In 1871 an investigation of Cloud's accounts
showed that a large number of his vouchers were fraudulent, hundreds being
in the same handwriting. He signed the name of J. H. Fitts & Company,
financial agents of the University, to a receipt by which he drew from the
treasury several hundred dollars to advance to a needy professor. He said,
when questioned about it, that he thought he could "draw on" Messrs. Fitts
& Company. It afterwards developed that he did not know the difference
between a receipt and a draft. His accounts were so confused that he often
paid the same bill twice. In 1871, when he went out of office, the sum
unaccounted for by vouchers amounted to $260,556.37. After two years he
succeeded in getting vouchers for all but $129,595.71.[1756]
In the black counties the school finances became confused, especially as
the negro and carpet-bag officials tolled the funds that passed through
their hands. At the end of 1870 the school funds of Selma were $40,000
short. It was found practically impossible to collect a poll tax from the
negroes, the Radical collectors being afraid to insist on the negroes'
paying taxes. In Dallas County the collector refused to allow the planters
to pay taxes for their negro hands on the ground that it would be a relic
of slavery. If the negroes refused to pay, nothing more was said about
it.[1757] In 1869 there were 200,000 polls and only $66,000 poll tax was
collected, which meant that only 44,000 men had paid the tax.[1758] In
1870 Somers states that the insurance tax was $13,327, and the number of
polls was 162,819. Yet from both sources less than $100,000 was
obtained.[1759]
The Board of Education, according to the constitution, was to classify by
lot before the election of 1870. But in 1869, when the matter was brought
up, they refused to classify. Several vacancies occurred, and these were
filled by special election. Consequently the Democrats in 1870 did not get
a fair representation on the board.[1760]
Objections to the Reconstruction Education
The Board of Education had the power to adopt a uniform series of
text-books for the public schools; Superintendent Cloud, however, assumed
this authority and chose texts which were objectionable to the majority of
the whites. This was especially the case with the history books, which the
whites complained were insulting in their accounts of southern leaders and
southern questions. Cloud was not the man to allow the southern view of
controversial questions to be taught in schools under his control. About
1869 he secured a donation of several thousand copies of history books
which gave the northern views of American history, and these he
distributed among the teachers and the schools. But most of the literature
that the whites considered objectionable did not come from Cloud's
department, but from the Bureau and aid society teachers, and was used in
the schools for blacks. There were several series of "Freedmen's Readers"
and "Freedmen's Histories" prepared for use in negro schools. But the fact
remains that for ten or fifteen years northern histories were taught in
white schools and had a decided influence on the readers. It resulted in
the combination often seen in the late southern writer, of northern views
of history with southern prejudices; the fable of the "luxury of the
aristocrats" and the numbers and wretchedness of the "mean whites" was now
accepted by numerous young southerners; on such questions as slavery the
northern view of the institution was accepted, but on the other hand the
_tu quoque_ answer was made to the North. Consequently, the task of the
historian was not to explain the southern civilization, but to accept it
as rather bad and to prove that the North was partly responsible and
equally guilty--a fruitless work.[1761]
Cloud, in his first report, admitted that the opposition to schools was
rather on account of the officials than because the people disliked free
schools. He further stated that the opposition had ceased to a great
extent. There were many whites in the Black Belt who disliked the idea of
free or "pauper" schools, and to this day some of them have not overcome
this feeling. They believed in education, but not in education that was
given away,--at least not for the whites. Each person must make an effort
to get an education. However, they, and especially the old slaveholders,
were not opposed to the education of the negro, believing it to be
necessary for the good of society. In the white counties of north and
southeast Alabama there was less opposition to the public schools for
whites. But in the same sections schools for the negroes were bitterly
opposed by the uneducated whites who were in close competition with them,
for they knew that the whites paid for the negro schools, and also that,
having a different standard of living, it would be easier for the negroes
to send their children to school than for them to send theirs. In the
Black Belt there were a few of these people, who disliked to see three or
four negro schools to one white school, for here the number of the negroes
naturally secured for them better advantages. The whites were so few in
numbers that not half of them were within easy reach of a school. Whenever
the numbers of one or both races were small, it was (and has been ever
since) a burden on a community to build two schoolhouses and to support
two separate schools, especially where the funds provided are barely
sufficient for one.[1762]
The Question of Negro Education
Before the negro question in all its phases was brought directly into
politics, and before the Radicals, carpet-baggers, and scalawags had
caused irritation between the races, there was a determination on the
part of the best whites in public and private life, as a measure of
self-defence as well as a duty and as justice, to do all that lay in their
power to fit the negro for citizenship. Most of the newspapers were in
favor of education to fit the negro for his changed condition. Now that he
had to stand alone, education was necessary to keep him from stealing,
from idleness, and from a return to barbarism; in some parts of the Black
Belt there was a tendency to return to African customs. It was necessary
to substitute the discipline of education for the discipline of
slavery.[1763] The Democratic party leaders were in favor of negro
education, and General Clanton, who for years was the chairman of the
executive committee, repeatedly made speeches in favor of it, and attended
the sessions and examinations at the negro schools, often examining the
classes himself. He and General John B. Gordon spoke in Montgomery at a
public meeting and declared that it was the duty of the whites to educate
the negro, whose good behavior during the war entitled him to it. Their
remarks were cheered by the whites.[1764] Colonel Jefferson Falkner, at a
Baptist Association in Pike County, advised that the negro be educated by
southern men and women. Pike was a white county, and while no objection
was raised to Falkner's speech, several persons told him that if he
thought southern women ought to teach negroes, he had better have his own
daughters do it. Falkner replied that he was willing when their services
were needed.[1765] White people made destitute by the war or crippled
soldiers were ready to engage in the instruction of negroes; and the
_Montgomery Advertiser_ and other papers took the ground that they should
be employed, especially the disabled soldiers.[1766] General Clanton
stated that many Confederate soldiers and the widows of Confederate
soldiers were teaching negro schools, that he had assisted them in
securing positions. Such work, he said, was indorsed by most of the
prominent people.[1767]
The blacks in Selma signed an appeal to the city council for their own
white people to teach them, and the churches made preparations to give
instruction to the freedmen.[1768] The Monroe County Agricultural
Association declared it to be the duty of the whites to teach the negro,
and a committee was appointed to formulate a plan for negro schools.[1769]
Conecuh and Wilcox counties followed with similar declarations. A public
meeting in Perry County, of such men as ex-Governor A. B. Moore and J. L.
M. Curry, declared that sound policy and moral obligation required that
prompt efforts be made to fit the negro for his changed political
condition. His education must be encouraged. The teachers, white and
black, were to be chosen with a careful regard to fitness. A committee was
appointed to coöperate with the negroes in building schoolhouses and in
procuring teachers, whom they assured of support.[1770]
Besides the purely unselfish reasons, there were other reasons why the
leading whites wanted the negro educated by southern teachers. It would be
a step towards securing control over the negro race by the best native
whites, who have always believed and will always believe that the negro
should be controlled by them. The northern school-teachers did not have an
influence for good upon the relations between the races, and thus caused
the southern whites to be opposed to any education of the negro by
strangers, as it was felt that to allow the negro to be educated by these
people and their successors would have a permanent influence for
evil.[1771]
The whites generally aided the negroes in their community to build
schoolhouses or schoolhouses and churches combined. Schoolhouses were in
the majority of cases built by the patrons of the schools; if rented, the
rent was deducted from the school money; the state made no appropriation
for building. In Dallas County forty negro schoolhouses were built with
the assistance of the whites. This was usually done in the Black Belt, but
was less general in the white counties. In Montgomery the prominent
citizens gave money to help build a negro "college"; some paid the tuition
of negro children at schools where charges were made. White men were often
members of the board of colored schools. All this was before the negro was
seen to be hopelessly in the clutches of the northerners.[1772]
[Illustration: JABEZ LAMAR MONROE CURRY.]
In spite of the fact that for several years there were southern whites
who taught negroes, the schools were judged by the results of the teaching
of the northerners. The Freedmen's Bureau brought discredit on negro
education.[1773] The work of the various aid societies was little better.
The personnel of both, to a great extent, passed to the new system, Bureau
and Association teachers becoming state teachers; and in the transfer the
teachers tried to secure a better standing for themselves than the native
teachers had. Many of the northern teachers were undoubtedly good people,
but all were touched with fanaticism and considered the white people
hopelessly bad and by nature and training brutal and unjust to negroes.
The negro teachers who were trained by them, both in the North and in the
South, and who occupied most of the subordinate positions in the schools,
had caught the spirit of the teaching. The native negro teacher, however,
never quite equalled his white instructor in wrong-headedness. He
persisted in seeing the actual state of affairs quite often. But the
results of some of the educational work done during Reconstruction for the
negro was to make many white people, especially the less friendly and the
careless observers, believe that education in itself was a bad thing for
the negroes. It became a proverb that "schooling ruins a negro," and among
the ignorant and more prejudiced whites this opinion is still firmly held.
Not all of the northern teachers were of good character, and the others
suffered for the sins of these. Almost from the first the doors of the
southern whites were closed against the northern teacher, not only on
account of the character of some and the objectionable teachings of many,
but because they generally insisted on being personally unpleasant; and,
had all of them been above reproach in character and training, their
opinions in regard to social questions, which they expressed on every
occasion, would have resulted in total exclusion from white society. They
really cared little, perhaps, but they had a great deal to say on the
subject, and made much trouble on account of it.[1774]
At first, when they wished it, some northern teachers were able to secure
board with white families. After a few weeks such was not the case, and,
except in the cities where the teachers could live together, they were
obliged to live with the negroes. This could produce only bad results. It
at once caused them to be excluded from all white society, and gained for
them the contempt of their white neighbors, at the same time losing them
the support and even the respect of the negroes. For the negro always
insists that a white person to be respected must live up to a certain
standard; otherwise, he may like, or fear, or despise, but never respect.
Again, some of the doubtful characters caused scandal by their manner of
life among the negroes, and in several instances male teachers were
visited by the Ku Klux Klan because of their irregular conduct with negro
women. One in Calhoun County was killed. Negro men who lived with white
women teachers were killed, and in some cases the women were thrashed.
Others were driven away.[1775] But on the whole there was little violence,
the forces of social proscription at length sufficing to drive out the
obnoxious teachers.[1776]
Much was said during Reconstruction days about the burning of negro
schoolhouses by the whites. There were several such cases, but not as many
as is supposed. In the records only one instance can be found of a school
building being burned simply from opposition to negro schools. As a rule
the schoolhouses (and churches also) were burned because they were the
headquarters of the Union League and the general meeting places for
Radical politicians, or because of the character of the teacher and the
results of his or her teachings. Regular instruction of the negro had been
going on for two years or more before the Ku Klux Klan began burning
schoolhouses. When one was burned, the Radical leaders used the fact with
much effect among the negroes; and in several instances it was practically
certain that the Radical leaders, when the negroes were wavering, fired a
church or a schoolhouse in order to incense them against the whites, who
were charged with the deed. When a schoolhouse was burned, the negroes
were invariably assisted to rebuild by the respectable whites. The
burnings were condemned by all respectable persons, and also by the party
leaders on account of the bad effect on political questions.[1777]
Some teachers of negro schools fleeced their black pupils and their
parents unmercifully. Teachers of private schools collected tuition in
advance and then left. In Montgomery, a teacher in the Swayne school
notified his pupils that they must bring him fifty cents each by a certain
day, and that he, in return, would give to each a photograph of
himself.[1778] In Eutaw, Greene County, the Rev. J. B. F. Hill, a Northern
Methodist preacher who had been expelled from the Southern Methodist
Church, taught a negro school and taxed his forty little scholars
twenty-five cents each to purchase a forty-cent water bucket.[1779]
In the cities where there were several negro schools, it was found
difficult at first to keep the small negro in attendance in the same
school. A little negro would attend a school until he discovered that he
did not like the teacher or the school, and then he would go to another. A
rule was made against such impromptu transfers, and then the small boy
changed his name when he decided to try another school. Finally, the
teacher was required to ask the other children the newcomer's name before
he was admitted.[1780]
The negro children were poorly supplied with books, and what few they did
have they promptly lost or tore up to get the pictures. The attendance
was very irregular. For a few days there would be a great many scholars
and perhaps after that almost none, for the parents were willing to send
their children when there was no work for them to do, but as soon as
cotton needed chopping or picking they would stop them and put them to
work.[1781] If the negroes suspected that the trustees, who were (later)
Democrats, had appointed a Democratic teacher, they would not send their
children to school to him, and in this they were upheld by their new
leaders.[1782]
When the public funds were exhausted, the majority of the white schools
continued as pay schools, but the negro schools closed at once, for after
1868 the interest of the negro in education was no longer strong enough to
induce him to pay for it. The education given the negro during this period
was little suited to prepare him for the practical duties of life. The New
England system was transplanted to the South, and the young negroes were
forced even more than the white children. As soon as a little progress was
made, the pupils were promoted into the culture studies of the whites.
Those who learned anything at all had, in turn, to teach what they had
learned; their education would help them very little in everyday
life.[1783] Negro education did not result in better relations between the
races. The northern teacher believed in the utter sinfulness of slavery
and in all the stories told of the cruelties then practised. The
_Advertiser_ gave as one reason why the southern whites should teach negro
schools, that northern teachers caused trouble by using books and tracts
with illustrations of slavery and stories about the persecution and
cruelties of the whites against the blacks.[1784] General Clanton stated
that in the school in which he had often attended the exercises and
examined the classes, and where he had paid the tuition of negro children,
the teachers ceased to ask him to make visits; that the school-books had
"Radical pictures" of the persecuted slaves and the freedman; that Radical
speeches were made by the scholars, reciting the wrongs done the negro
race; finally, that the school was a political nursery of race prejudice,
and that where the negroes were greatly in excess of the whites, it was a
serious matter.[1785] He also said that the teachers from the North were
responsible for the prejudice of the whites against negro schools. The
native whites soon refused to teach, and if they had wished to do so, they
probably could have gotten no pupils. The primary education of the negro
was left to the northern teachers and to incompetent negroes; higher
education was altogether under the control of the alien. It was most
unfortunate in every way, he added, that the southern white had had no
part in the education of the negro.[1786] The higher education of the
negroes in the state continued to be directed by northerners. Washington
and Councill have done much toward changing the nature of the education
given the negro; they have also educated many whites from opposition to
friendliness to negro schools.
The Failure of the Educational System
In 1870 Cloud was a candidate for reëlection, but was defeated by Colonel
Joseph Hodgson, the Democratic candidate.[1787] When Hodgson appeared as
president of the Board, Cloud refused to yield on the ground that Hodgson
was not eligible to the office, having once challenged a man to a duel.
The Board, however, refused to recognize Cloud, and he was obliged to
retire.[1788]
The first year of the reform administration was a successful one in spite
of the fact that the state was bankrupt and the treasury ceased to make
cash payments to county superintendents early in 1872.[1789] The second
year was a fair one, although the treasury could not pay the teachers, for
the Radical senate refused to make the appropriations for which their own
constitution provided. However, the attendance of both whites and blacks
increased, notwithstanding the fact that the United States Commissioner of
Education reported that Alabama had retrograded in educational
matters.[1790] The school officials elected in 1870 were much superior to
their predecessors in every way. A state teachers' association was
organized, and institutes were frequently held. Four normal schools were
established for black teachers and four for whites. Private assistance for
public schools was now sought and obtained, and hundreds of the schools
continued after the public money was exhausted.[1791]
Hodgson did valuable service to his party and to the state in exposing the
corrupt and irregular practices of the preceding administration. His own
administration was much more economical than that of his predecessor, as
the following figures will show:--
=================================================================
| 1870 | 1871 | DECREASE
------------------------|-----------|-----------|----------------
Salaries of county | | |
superintendents |$57,776.50 |$34,259.50 |$23,517.00
Expenses of county | | |
superintendents | 21,202.86 | 4,752.00 | 16,450.86
Expenses of disbursement| 78,979.36 | 39,009.50 | 39,969.86
Clerical expenses | | |
(at Montgomery) | 3,544.46 | 1,978.71 | 1,565.75
Cost of administration | 86,123.82 | 44,588.21 | 41,535.61[1792]
=================================================================
In the fall of 1872, owing to the operation of the Enforcement Acts, the
elections went against the Democrats. The Radicals filled all the offices,
and Joseph H. Speed was elected Superintendent of Public
Instruction.[1793] Speed was not wholly unfitted for the position, and did
the best he could under the circumstances. But nowhere in the Radical
administration did he find any sympathy with his department, not even a
disposition to comply with the direct provisions of the constitution in
regard to school funds. So low had the credit of the state fallen that the
administration could no longer sell the state bonds to raise money. The
taxes were the only resources, and the office-holding adventurers, feeling
that never again could they have an opportunity at the spoils, could spare
none of the money for schools. Practically all of the negro schools and
many of the white ones were forced to close, and the teachers, when paid
at all by the state, were paid in depreciated state obligations.
The constitution required that one-fifth of all state revenue in addition
to certain other funds be appropriated for the use of schools. Yet year by
year an increasing amount was diverted to other uses. The poll tax and the
insurance tax were used for other purposes. At the end of 1869,
$187,872.49, which should have been appropriated for schools, had been
diverted. In 1872, $330,036.93 was lost to the schools by failure to
appropriate, and in 1873, $456,138.47 was lost in the same way. By the end
of 1873 the shortage was $1,260,511.92, and a year later it was nearly two
million dollars. During 1873 and 1874 schools were taught only where there
were local funds to support them. The carpet-bag system had failed
completely.[1794]
The new constitution made by the Democrats in 1875 abolished the Board of
Education, and returned to the ante-bellum system. Separate schools were
ordered; the administrative expenses could not amount to more than 4 per
cent of the school fund;[1795] no money was to be paid to any
denominational or private school;[1796] the constitutional provision of
one-fifth of the state revenue for school use was abolished;[1797] and the
legislature was ordered to appropriate to schools at least $100,000 a year
besides the poll taxes, license taxes, and the income from trust funds.
The schools began to improve at once, and the net income was never again
as small as under the carpet-bag régime.
Neither of the Reconstruction superintendents, Cloud or Speed, furnished
full statistics of the schools. It appears that the average enrolment of
students under Cloud was, in 1870, 35,963 whites and 16,097 blacks; under
his Democratic successor the average enrolment, in spite of lack of
appropriations, was 66,358 whites and 41,308 blacks in 1871, and 61,942
whites and 41,673 blacks in 1872. Speed evidently kept no records of
attendance. In 1875, after the Democrats came into power, the attendance
was 91,202 whites and 54,595 blacks. The average number of days taught in
a year under Cloud was 49 days in white schools and the same in black;
under Hodgson the average length of term was 68.5 days and 64.33 days
respectively. Theoretically the salaries of teachers under Cloud should
have been about $75 per month, but they received increasingly less each
year as the legislature refused to appropriate the school money. The
following table will show what the school funds should have been, as
provided for by the constitution; the sums actually received were smaller
each successive year. In no case was the appropriation as great as in the
year 1858, nor was the attendance of black and white together much larger
in any year than the attendance of whites alone in 1858 or 1859.
SCHOOL FUND, 1868-1875
1868
1869 $524,621.68[1798]
1870 500,409.18[1799]
1871 581,389.29[1800]
1872 604,978.50[1801]
1873 524,452.40[1802]
1874 474,346.52[1803]
1875 565.042.94[1804]
CHAPTER XX
RECONSTRUCTION IN THE CHURCHES
SEC. 1. THE "DISINTEGRATION AND ABSORPTION" POLICY AND ITS FAILURE
The close of the war found the southern church organizations in a more or
less demoralized condition. Their property was destroyed, their buildings
were burned or badly in need of repair, and the church treasuries were
empty. It was doubtful whether some of them could survive the terrible
exhaustion that followed the war. The northern churches, "coming down to
divide the spoils," acted upon the principle that the question of separate
churches had been settled by the war along with that of state sovereignty,
and that it was now the right and the duty of the northern churches to
reconstruct the churches in the South. So preparations were made to
"disintegrate and absorb" the "schismatical" southern religious
bodies.[1805]
The Methodists
In 1864 the Northern Methodist Church declared the South a proper field
for mission work, and made preparations to enter it. None were to be
admitted to membership in the church who were slaveholders or who were
"tainted with treason."[1806] In 1865 the bishops of the northern
organization resolved that "we will occupy so far as practicable those
fields in the southern states which may be open to us ... for black and
white alike."[1807] The General Missionary Committee of the northern
church divided the South into departments for missionary work, and Alabama
was in the Middle Department. Bishop Clark of Ohio was sent (1886) to take
charge of the Georgia and Alabama Mission District. The declared purpose
of this mission work was to "disintegrate and absorb" the southern church,
the organization of which was generally believed to have been destroyed by
the war.[1808]
In August, 1865, three Southern Methodist bishops met at Columbus,
Georgia, to repair the shattered organization of the church and to infuse
new life into it. They stated that the questions of 1844 were not settled
by the war; that, "A large portion of the Northern Methodists has become
incurably radical.... They have incorporated social dogmas and political
tests into their church creeds." They condemned the northern church for
its action during the war in taking possession of southern church property
against the wishes of the people and retaining it as their own after the
war, and for its more recent attempts to destroy the southern
church.[1809]
In the confusion following the war, before the church administration was
again in working order, the Protestant Episcopal Church, especially the
northern section, attempted to secure the Southern Methodists. Some
Methodists wanted to go over in a body to the Episcopalians. The great
majority, however, were strongly opposed to such action, and the attempt
only caused more ill feeling against the North.[1810]
At the time there was a belief among the Northern Methodists that in 1845
thousands of members had been carried against their will into the southern
church, and that they would now gladly seize the opportunity to join the
northern body, which claimed to be the only Methodist Episcopal Church.
Those thousands proved to be as disappointing as the "southern loyalists"
had been, both in character and in numbers. The greatest gains were among
the negroes, and to the negroes the few whites secured were intensely
hostile. In 1866, A. S. Lakin was sent to Alabama to organize the Northern
Methodist Church.[1811] After two years' work the Alabama Conference was
organized, with 9431 members, black and white.[1812] In 1871, Lakin
reported 15,000 members, black and white.[1813] The whites were from the
"loyal" element of the population. There was great opposition by the white
people to the establishment of the northern church. Lakin and his
associates excited the negroes against the whites and kept both races in a
continual state of irritation. Governor Lindsay stated before the Ku Klux
Committee that in his opinion the people bore with Lakin and his church
with a remarkable degree of patience; that Lakin encouraged the negroes to
force themselves into congregations where they did not belong and to
obstruct the services; and that they also made attempts to get control of
church property belonging to the southern churches.[1814] No progress was
made among the whites, except in the white counties among the hills of
north Alabama and in the pine barrens of the southeast. The congregations
were small and were served by missionaries. Lakin and his assistants had a
political as well as a religious mission--General Clanton said that they
were "emissaries of Christ and of the Radical party." They claimed,
nevertheless, that they never talked politics in the pulpit. Lakin once
preached in Blountsville, and when he opened the doors of the church to
new members, he said that there was no northern church, no southern
church, there was only the Methodist Episcopal Church.[1815] But every
member of this church, he added, must be loyal, and therefore no
secessionist could join. He said that he had been ordered by his
conference not to receive "disloyal" men into the church.[1816]
The political activity of these missionaries resulted in visits from the
Ku Klux Klan. Some of the most violent ones were whipped or were warned to
moderate their sermons. Political camp-meetings were sometimes broken up,
and two or three church buildings used as Radical headquarters were
burned.[1817] Every Northern Methodist was a Republican; and to-day in
some sections of the state the Northern Methodists are known as
"Republican" Methodists, as distinguished from "Democratic" or Southern
Methodists.
The Baptists
The organization of the Baptist church into separate congregations saved
it from much of the annoyance suffered by such churches as the Methodist
and the Episcopal, with their more elaborate systems of government. Yet in
north Alabama, there was trouble when the negro members were encouraged by
political and ecclesiastical emissaries to assert their rights under the
democratic form of government by taking part in all church affairs, in the
election of pastors and other officers. Often there were more negro
members than white, and under the guidance of a missionary from the North
these could elect their own candidate for pastor, regardless of the wishes
of the whites and of the character of the would-be pastor. This danger,
however, was soon avoided by the organization of separate negro
congregations.[1818]
The Southern Baptist Convention, organized in 1845, continued its separate
existence. The northern Baptists demanded, as a prerequisite to
coöperation and fellowship, a profession of loyalty to the government.
During 1865 the southern associations expressed themselves in favor of
continuing the former separate societies, and severely censured the
northern Baptists for their action in obtaining authority from the Federal
government to take possession of southern church property against the
wishes of the owners and trustees, and for trying to organize independent
churches within the bounds of southern associations. They were not in
favor of fraternal relations with the northern Baptist societies.[1819]
The Presbyterians
In May, 1865, the Presbyterian General Assembly (New School) voted to
place on probation the southern ministers of the United Synod South who
had supported the Confederacy.[1820] Few, if any, offered themselves for
probation, while as a body the United Synod joined the Southern
Presbyterians (Old School). The General Assembly (O. S.) of the northern
church in 1865 stigmatized "secession as a crime and the withdrawal of the
southern churches as a schism." The South, the Assembly decided, was to be
treated as a missionary field, and loyal ministers to be employed without
presbyterial recommendation. Southern ministers and members were offered
restoration if they would apply for it, and submit to certain tests,
namely, proof of loyalty or a profession of repentance for disloyalty to
the government, and a repudiation of former opinions concerning
slavery.[1821] Naturally this policy was not very successful in
reconstructing their organization in the South. The General Assembly (O.
S.) of the Presbyterian Church in the South met in the fall of 1865 at
Macon, Georgia, and warned the churches against the efforts of the
northern Presbyterians to sow seeds of dissension and strife in their
congregations.[1822] A union was formed with the United Synod South (N.
S.), and the "Presbyterian Church in the United States," popularly known
as the Southern Presbyterian Church, was formed. To this acceded in 1867
the Associate Reformed Church of Alabama.[1823]
The Episcopal Church in the United States during the war had held
consistently to the same theory in regard to the withdrawal of the
southern dioceses that the Washington administration held in regard to the
secession of the southern states. There was no recognition of a
withdrawal, nor of a southern organization. The Confederate church was
called a schismatic body, and its actions considered as illegal. The roll
in the General Convention was called as usual, beginning with
Alabama.[1824] But after the war a generous policy of conciliation was
pursued; the southern churchmen were asked to come back; no tests or
conditions were imposed; the House of Bishops of the northern church
upheld Wilmer in his trouble with the military authorities. The acts of
the southern church during the war were recognized and accepted as valid
by the northern church. Such a policy easily resulted in reunion.
The attempt at Reconstruction in the churches had practically failed. Only
the Episcopal Church, one of the weakest in numbers, had reunited.[1825]
The others seemed farther apart than ever.
The other denominations had recognized the legal division of their
churches before the war. Now they acted on the principle that territory
conquered for the United States was also conquered for the northern
churches. Southern ministers and members were asked to submit to degrading
conditions in order to be restored to good standing. They must repudiate
their former opinions, and renouncing their sins, ask for pardon and
restoration. Naturally no reunion resulted.
SEC. 2. THE CHURCHES AND THE NEGRO DURING RECONSTRUCTION
At the end of the war nearly every congregation had black members as well
as white, the blacks often being the more numerous. With the changed
conditions, the various denominations felt it necessary to make
declarations of policy in regard to the former slaves. General Swayne,
Assistant Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau in Alabama, in his report
for 1866, stated that at an early date the several denominations expressed
themselves as being strongly in favor of the education of the negro. "The
principal argument," he said, "was an appeal to sectional and sectarian
prejudice, lest, the work being inevitable, the influence which must come
from it be realized by others; but it is believed that this was the shield
and weapon which men of unselfish principle found necessary at
first."[1826]
The Baptists and the Negroes
The Alabama Baptist Convention, in 1865, passed the following resolution
in regard to the relations between the white and black members:--
"_Resolved_, That the changed civil status of our late slaves does not
necessitate any change in their relations to our churches; and while we
recognize their right to withdraw from our churches and form organizations
of their own, we nevertheless believe that their highest good will be
subserved by their retaining their present relation to those who know
them, who love them, and who will labor for the promotion of their
welfare."
The Convention also ordered renewed exertions in the work among the
negroes by means of lectures, private instruction, and
Sunday-schools.[1827] In 1866 the North Alabama Baptist Association
directed that provision be made for the religious welfare of the negroes
and for their education in the common schools. The negroes were to be
allowed to choose their own pastors and teachers from among the
whites.[1828] But soon the results of the work of the northern
missionaries and political emissaries were seen in the separation of the
two races in religious matters. The negroes were taught that the whites
were their enemies, and that they must have their own separate churches.
They were encouraged to assert their rights by obstructing in all the
affairs of the churches, and in the north Alabama Baptist churches, where
they were in the majority, there was danger that they would take
advantage of the democratic system of the church government and, prompted
by emissaries from the North, control the administration. They were,
therefore, assisted by the whites to form separate congregations and
associations.[1829]
The principal work of the northern Baptists in central and south Alabama
was to separate the blacks into independent churches, and the second
Colored Baptist Convention in the United States was organized in Alabama
in 1867. The free form of government of this church attracted both
ministers and members. In 1868 Bethel Association (white) reported that a
large number of the negroes desired no religious instruction from the
whites, although they were in great need of it, and that this opposition
was caused by ignorance and prejudice. But, the report stated, there
should be no relaxation in the effort to impart to them a knowledge of the
Gospel; that the first duty of the church was to instruct the ignorant and
superstitious at home before sending missionaries to the far-off heathen;
that all self-constituted negro preachers who claimed personal interviews
with God and personal instruction from Him should be discouraged, and only
the best men selected as pastors. Advice and assistance were now given to
the negro congregations, which were organized into associations as soon as
possible. In 1872 three negro churches with a white pastor applied for
admission to Bethel Association. But it was thought best to maintain
separate associations.[1830] For years the white Baptists of Alabama
exercised a watchful care over the colored Baptists, whom they assisted in
the work of organizing congregations and associations, and in the erection
of schoolhouses and churches. Church and school buildings destroyed by the
Ku Klux Klan were rebuilt by the whites, even when the colored
congregation was only moderately well behaved. The whites in Montgomery
contributed to build the first negro Baptist church in that city, and a
white minister preached the sermon when the church was dedicated and
turned over to the blacks. A number of white ladies were present at the
services.[1831] For fifteen years Dr. I. T. Tichenor was pastor of the
First Baptist Church in Montgomery. During that time he baptized over 500
negroes into its fellowship. At the end of the war there were 300 white
and 600 negro members. Dr. Tichenor tells the story of the separation as
follows: "When a separation of the two bodies was deemed desirable, it was
done by the colored brethren, in conference assembled, passing a
resolution, couched in the kindliest terms, suggesting the wisdom of the
division, and asking the concurrence of the white church in such action.
The white church cordially approved the movement, and the two bodies
united in erecting a suitable house of worship for the colored brethren.
Until it was finished they continued to occupy jointly with the white
brethren their house of worship, as they had done previous to this action.
The new house was paid for in large measure by the white members of the
church and individuals in the community. As soon as it was completed the
colored church moved into it with its organization all perfected, their
pastor, board of deacons, committees of all sorts; and the whole machinery
of church life went into action without a jar. Similar things occurred in
all the states of the South."[1832]
The old plantation preachers were ordained and others called and regularly
ordained to the ministry by the whites. But good negro preachers were
overwhelmed by an influx of "self-called" pastors who were often
incompetent and often immoral. At last the whites seem to have given up as
hopeless their work for the negroes. In 1885 an urgent appeal from the
Colored Baptist Convention for advice and assistance met with no response
from the white convention. Politics and prejudice, imprudent and immoral
leaders, had completed the work of separation. Still something was done by
the Home Mission Board towards instructing negro preachers and deacons,
and in 1895 this Board and the Home Mission Board of the northern Baptists
agreed to coöperate and aid such negro conventions as might desire it.
But the Alabama negro convention has not yet asked for assistance.[1833]
The Presbyterians and the Negroes
In 1869, encouraged by the white members, the negro members of the
Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Tennessee and north Alabama asked for
and received separate organization and were henceforth known as the
African Cumberland Presbyterian Church.[1834]
It is this division of the Cumberland Presbyterians that is now (1905)
hindering somewhat the union of the Cumberland Presbyterian with the
Northern Presbyterian organization. The blacks demanded the separation of
the races; the whites now demand that it be continued.
Various branches of the Northern Presbyterian organizations worked in
Alabama among the negroes. The principal result of their work was the
separation of the blacks into independent churches. The Southern
Presbyterian Church (Presbyterian Church in the United States) made
earnest efforts for the negro after the war, and with some success. The
Institute at Tuscaloosa for the education of colored Presbyterian
ministers is now the only school in the South for negroes which is
conducted entirely by southern white teachers.[1835] The work of the
Presbyterians among the negroes has continued to the present day, though
in 1898 a movement was started to separate the blacks of the Southern
Presbyterian Church into an independent church. This movement was not
successful, as not a majority of the negro preachers desired separation.
But the number of colored Presbyterians has always been small.[1836]
The Roman Catholics
The Roman Catholic Church did much work among the negroes in the cities
and at first with a fair degree of success. It was strongly opposed by all
Protestant denominations, both northern and southern, and especially by
the Northern Methodist Church. It seemed to be dreadful news to the
Methodists when it was reported that the Catholic Church was about to open
fifteen schools in Alabama for the negro, where free board and tuition
would be given.[1837] The American Missionary Association, supported in
Alabama mainly by money from the Freedmen's Bureau, used its influence
among the negroes against the Catholic Church, which, the Association
stated in a report, "was making extraordinary efforts to enshroud forever
this class of the unfortunate race in Popish superstition and
darkness."[1838]
But the Catholic Church had no place for the negro preacher of little
education and less character who desired to hold a high position in the
negro church. There was better prospect for promotion in the Baptist and
Methodist churches, and to those churches went the would-be negro preacher
and, through his influence, the majority of his people.[1839]
The Episcopalians
The Protestant Episcopal Church did nearly all of its work among the
negroes in the cities and among the negroes on the large plantations of
the Black Belt. This church offered little more hope of advancement to the
average negro preacher than the Roman Catholic, and the hostility of the
military authorities to this church in 1865 and 1866 and the efforts of
the missionaries and politicians caused a loss of most of the negro
members that it had. In 1866 the laity of the State Convention seemed
rather unenthusiastic in regard to work among the negroes, and left it to
be managed by the bishop and clergy. The General Convention established
the "Freedmen's Commission" to assist in the work, which was not to be
under the jurisdiction of the bishop. Bishop Wilmer stated that he was
unwilling to accept this "schism-breeding proposition," but would be glad
of assistance which would be under his direction as bishop. No such aid
was forthcoming. In 1867 only two congregations of negroes were left, one
in Mobile and one in Marengo County. A few solitary blacks were to be
found in the white congregations, and during Reconstruction these suffered
real martyrdom on account of their loyalty to their old churches. They
were ostracized by the other negroes, were called heathen and traitors,
and were left alone in sickness and death. Under such treatment, the
majority of the negro members were forced to withdraw from the Episcopal
churches.[1840]
The Methodists and the Negroes
In 1861 the Methodist Episcopal Church South had more than 200,000 colored
members and 180,000 children under instruction. One year after the
surrender of Lee only 78,000 remained.[1841] The Montgomery Conference, in
November, 1865, decided that there was no necessity for a change in the
church relations of white and black; that in the church there should be no
distinction on account of color and race; and that the negro had special
claims on the whites. Presiding elders and preachers were directed to do
all that lay in their power for the colored congregations, and establish
Sunday-schools and day schools for them when practicable.[1842] The
Methodist Protestants announced a similar policy.[1843] General Swayne of
the Freedmen's Bureau reported that he received much assistance toward
negro education from the Southern Methodist Church, and especially from
Reverend H. N. McTyeire (afterwards bishop).[1844]
The Southern Methodist congregations lost their negro members from the
same causes that brought about the separation of the races in other
churches. The negroes were told by their new leaders that for their safety
they must consider the southerners as their natural enemies;[1845] they
were convinced that there was spiritual safety only in the northern or in
independent churches. All the forces of social ostracism were employed
against those who chose to remain in the old churches. The southern
planter was not able to support the missionary who formerly preached to
his slaves, the negroes would not pay; and the church treasury was
empty.[1846] In 1866 the General Conference directed that the colored
members be organized as separate charges when they so desired; that
colored preachers and presiding elders be appointed by the bishop, annual
conferences organized when necessary, and especial attention be directed
towards Sunday-schools for the negroes.[1847]
Against all efforts of the Southern Methodists to work among the negroes,
the Northern Methodists struggled with a persistence worthy of a better
cause. Missionaries were sent South, narrow and prejudiced, though
sincere, men and women, who were possessed with the fixed conviction that
no good could come to the negro except from the North; in this conviction
schools were established and churches organized. The injudicious and
violent methods of these persons and their bitter prejudices caused their
exclusion from all desirable society, and naturally they became more
violent and prejudiced than ever. Their letters written to their homes
showed that they believed the native white to be possessed by an inhuman
hatred of the blacks, and that on the slightest provocation the whites
would slaughter the entire negro population.[1848] They favored at least a
partial confiscation in behalf of the negro. Through the Freedmen's Aid
Society the northern church entered upon work among the whites also,
opposing the southern church on the ground that it was sectional and
condemning all its efforts among the blacks as useless and harmful. For
years there was not a word of recognition of the work done by the southern
churches among the slaves.[1849] The missionaries were afraid of "the old
feudal forces" which were still working, they thought, under various
disguises such as "Historical Societies, Memorial Days, and monuments to
the Confederate dead."[1850] Their work was thoroughly done. Two negro
Methodist churches, organized in the North, secured the greater part of
the negroes.[1851] Some joined the Northern Methodist Church, "which also
came down to divide the spoils."[1852]
After 1866 the colored congregations still adhering to the Southern
Methodists had been divided into circuits, districts, and conferences. By
1870 political differences and the efforts of other churches had so
alienated the races that it was thought best to set up an independent
organization for the negroes, for their own protection. This was done in
1870 by the General Conference. Two negro bishops were ordained, and all
church property that had ever been used for negro congregations was turned
over to the new organization, which was called the Colored Methodist
Episcopal Church. A few negroes refused to leave the white church, and in
1892 there were still 357 colored members on its rolls.[1853] Until
recently there has been strong opposition on the part of the other African
churches to the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church because of its
relations to the Southern Methodist Church. The latter has continued to
aid and direct its protégé, and the opposition is gradually
subsiding.[1854]
After thirty years' experience, most people who have knowledge of the
subject agree that the religious interests of the negro have suffered from
the separation of the races in the churches and from the enforced
withdrawal of the native whites from religious work among the blacks. The
influence of the master's family is no longer felt, and instead of the
white minister came the negro preacher, with "ninety-five superstitions to
five eternal truths,"--superstitions, many of them reminiscences from
Africa.[1855] There have been too many negro churches; every one who could
read and write wanted to preach,[1856] and many of them claimed direct
communication with the Supreme Being; every one who applied was admitted
to the churches; morality and religion were only remotely connected;
leaders of the _demi-monde_ were stout pillars of the church. A
Presbyterian minister in charge of negro interests has stated that in his
church the personnel of the independent negro congregations is inferior in
character and morality to the congregations under the supervision of the
whites. In the colored Baptist associations it is reported that frequent
and radical changes have been the custom. Discontented churches secede and
form new associations, which exist for a short while, and are then
absorbed by other associations. The boundaries of the associations also
change frequently; the church government seems to be in a kind of fluid
state. Thoughtful religious leaders now believe that the southern white,
for the good of both races, should again take part in the religious
training of the negro.[1857] But the difficulties in the way of such a
course are almost insurmountable and date back to forced separation of the
races in the churches.
* * * * *
An editorial in the _Nation_ in 1866 expressed the situation from one
point of view very clearly and forcibly: The northern churches claim that
the South is determined to make the religious division permanent, though
"slavery no longer furnishes a pretext for separation." Too much pains are
taken to bring about an ecclesiastical reunion, and irritating offers of
reconciliation are made by the northern churches, all based on the
assumption that the South has not only sinned, but sinned knowingly, in
slavery and in war. We expect them to be penitent and to gladly accept our
offers of forgiveness. But the southern people look upon a "loyal"
missionary as a political emissary, and "loyal" men do not at present
possess the necessary qualifications for evangelizing the southerners or
softening their hearts, and are sure not to succeed in doing so. We look
upon their defeat as retribution and expect them to do the same. It will
do no good if we tell the southerners that "we will forgive them if they
will confess that they are criminals, offer to pray with them, preach with
them, and labor with them over their hideous sins."[1858]
"Reconstruction" in the church was closely related to "Reconstruction" in
the state, and was so considered at the time by the reconstructionists of
both.[1859] The same mistaken, intolerant policy was followed, on the
theory that the southern whites were as incapable of good action in church
as in state. Irritating and impossible tests and conditions of readmission
were proposed before reconciliation. Later the efforts to weaken and
destroy the southern churches after attempts at reunion had failed
completed the alienation, which in several organizations seems to be
permanent. There was a Solid South in church as well as in politics.
CHAPTER XXI
THE KU KLUX REVOLUTION
The Ku Klux movement was an understanding among southern whites, brought
about by the chaotic condition of social and political institutions
between 1865 and 1876. It resulted in a partial destruction of the
Reconstruction and a return, as near as might be, to ante-bellum
conditions. This understanding or state of mind took many forms and was
called by many names. The purpose was everywhere and always the same: to
recover for the white race control of society, and destroy the baleful
influence of the alien among the blacks.[1860]
Causes of the Ku Klux Movement
When the surviving soldiers of the Confederate army returned home in the
spring and summer of 1865, they found a land in which political
institutions had been destroyed and in which a radical social revolution
was taking place--an old order, the growth of hundreds of years, seemed to
be breaking up, and the new one had not yet taken shape; all was confusion
and disorder. At this time began a movement which under different forms
has lasted until the present day--an effort on the part of the defeated
population to restore affairs to a state which could be endurable, to
reconstruct southern society. This movement, a few years later, was in one
of its phases known as the Ku Klux movement. For the peculiar aspects of
this secret revolutionary movement many causes are suggested.
For several months before the close of the war the state government was
powerless except in the vicinity of the larger towns, the country
districts being practically without government. After the surrender there
was an interval of four months during which there was no pretence of
government except in the immediate vicinity of the points garrisoned by
the Federal army. The people were forbidden to take steps toward setting
up any kind of government.[1861] From one end of the state to the other
the land was infested by a vicious element left by the war,--Federal and
Confederate deserters, and bushwhackers and outlaws of every description.
These were especially troublesome in the counties north of the Black Belt.
The old tory class in the mountain counties was troublesome.[1862] Of the
little property surviving the wreck of war, none was safe from thievery.
The worst class of the negroes--not numerous at this time--were insolent
and violent in their new-found freedom. Murders were frequent, and
outrages upon women were beginning to be heard of.[1863] The whites,
especially the more ignorant ones, were afraid of the effects of preaching
of the doctrines of equality, amalgamation, etc., to the blacks. There
were soon signs to show that some negroes would endeavor to put the
theories they had heard of into practice.[1864]
There was much talk of confiscation of property and division of land among
the blacks. The negroes believed that they were going to be rewarded at
the expense of the whites, and many of the latter began to fear that such
might be the case. The Freedmen's Bureau early began its most successful
career in alienating the races, by teaching the black that the southern
white was naturally unfriendly to him. In this work it was ably assisted
by the preaching and teaching missionaries sent out from the North, who
taught the negro to beware of the southern white in church and in school.
The Bureau broke up the labor system that had been patched up in the
summer and fall of 1865, and people in the Black Belt felt that labor must
be regulated in some way.[1865] In the white counties the poorer whites,
who had been the strongest supporters of the secession movement, not
because they liked slavery, but because they were afraid of the
competition of free negroes, began to show signs of a desire to drive the
negro tenants from the rich lands which they wanted for themselves.[1866]
For years after the war it was almost impossible for the farmer or planter
to raise cows, hogs, poultry, etc., on account of the thieving
propensities of the negroes.[1867] Houses, mills, gins, cotton pens, and
corn-cribs were frequently burned.[1868] The Union League was believed by
many to be an organization for the purpose of plundering the whites and
for the division of property when the confiscation should take
place.[1869] It was also an active political machine. Nearly all the
witnesses before the Ku Klux Committee who stated the causes of the rise
of Ku Klux said that the League was the principal one. The whites soon
came to believe that they were persecuted by the Washington government.
The cotton frauds in 1865; the cotton tax, 1865-1868; the refusal to admit
the southern states to representation in Congress, though they were
heavily taxed; the passage of the Reconstruction Acts, by which the
governments in the South were overturned, the negroes enfranchised, and
all the prominent whites disfranchised,--all combined to make the white
people believe that the North was seeking to humiliate them, to punish
them when they were weak. They did not contemplate such treatment when
they laid down their arms. As one soldier expressed it: the treatment
received was in violation of the terms of surrender as expressed in their
paroles; the southern soldiers could have carried on a guerilla warfare
for years; the United States had made terms with men who had arms in their
hands; they had laid them down, and the United States had violated these
terms and punished individuals for alleged crime without trial; yet their
paroles stated that they were not to be disturbed as long as they were
law-abiding; the whole Reconstruction was a violation of the terms of
surrender as the southern soldiers understood it; it was punishment of a
whole people by legislative enactment, and contrary to the spirit of
American institutions. It was not a matter of law, but of common
honesty.[1870]
General Clanton complained that the southern people passed out of the
hands of warriors into the hands of squaws.[1871] The government imposed
upon Alabama after the voters had fairly rejected it according to act of
Congress was administered by the most worthless and incompetent of
whites--alien and native--and negroes. Heavy taxes were laid; the public
debt was rapidly increased; the treasury was looted; public office was
treated as private property. The government was weak and vicious; it gave
no protection to person or property; it was powerless, or perhaps
unwilling, to repress disorder; and was held in general contempt. The
officials were notoriously corrupt and unjust in administration. There
were many disorders which the people believed the state and Federal
governments could not or would not regulate.[1872] There was a general
feeling of insecurity, in some sections a reign of terror. Innumerable
humiliations were inflicted on the former political people of the state by
carpet-bagger and scalawag, using the former slave as an instrument. Negro
policemen stood on the street corners annoying the whites, making a great
parade of all arrests, sometimes even of white women. The elections were
corrupt, and the law was deliberately framed to protect ballot-box
frauds.[1873] The highest officers of the judiciary, Federal and state,
took an active interest in politics, contrary to judicial traditions.
Justice, so called, was bought and sold. The most thoroughly political
people of the world, the proudest people of the English race, were the
political inferiors of their former slaves, and the newcomers from the
North never failed to make this fact as irritating as possible, by speech
and print and action.[1874]
In short, there was anarchy, social and political and economic. As the
negro said, "The bottom rail is on top." The strenuous editor Randolph
said, "The origin of Ku Klux Klan is in the galling despotism that broods
like a nightmare over these southern states,--a fungus growth of military
tyranny superinduced by the fostering of Loyal Leagues, the abrogation of
our civil laws, the habitual violation of our national constitution, and a
persistent prostitution of all government, all resources, and all powers,
to degrade the white man by the establishment of negro supremacy."[1875]
Secret Societies of Regulators, before Ku Klux Klan
On account of the disordered condition of the state in 1865, some kind of
a police power was necessary, the Federal garrisons being but few and
weak. The minds of all men turned at once to the old ante-bellum
neighborhood police patrol.[1876] This patrol had consisted of men usually
selected by the justice of the peace to patrol the entire community once a
week or once a month, usually at night. The duty was compulsory, and every
able-bodied white was subject to it, though there was sometimes
commutation of service. The principal need for this patrol was to keep the
black population in order, and to this end the patrollers were invested
with the authority to inflict corporal punishment in summary fashion.
There were about two companies, of six men and a captain each, to every
township where there was a dense negro population. The attentions of the
patrol were not confined to negroes alone, but now and then a white man
was thrashed for some misdemeanor.[1877] In this respect the patrol was a
body for the regulation of society, so far as petty misdemeanors were
concerned, and every respectable white man was by virtue of his color a
member of this police guard. He had the right, whether in active patrol or
not, to question any strange negro found abroad, or any negro travelling
without a pass, or any white man found tampering with the negroes. It was
to some extent a military organization of society. Much of this was simply
custom, the development of hundreds of years, not a statute regulation,
for that was a recent thing in the history of slavery. It was the old
English neighborhood police system become a part of the customary law of
slavery. After the war some regulation was necessary; the whites were
accustomed to settling such matters outside of law or court; it was bred
into their nature, and they returned perhaps unconsciously to the old
system.[1878]
But now, under the régime of the Freedmen's Bureau backed by the army, the
old way of dealing with refractory blacks was illegal. As a matter of fact
there was no legal way to control them. The result was natural--the
movement to regulate society became a secret one. The white men of each
community had a general understanding that they would assist one another
to protect women, children, and property. They had a system of signals for
communication, but no disguises, and the organization was not kept secret
except from the negroes. In one locality the young men alone were united
into a committee for the regulation of the conduct of negroes. They
requested the women who lived alone on the plantations, the old men, and
others who were likely to be unable to control the negroes, to inform the
committee of instances of misconduct on the part of the blacks. When such
information came, it was immediately acted upon, and the next day there
were sadder and better negroes on some one's plantation.[1879] As a rule
one thrashing in a community lasted a long time. In Hale County a
vigilance committee was formed to protect the women and children in a
section of the black country where there were few white men, most having
been killed in the war. They had a system of signals by means of
plantation bells. There were no disguises, and there was a public place of
meeting.[1880] In the same county, in the fall of 1865, the whites near
Newberne asked General Hardee, then living on his plantation, to take
command of their patrol. His answer was: "No, gentlemen, I want you to
enroll my name for service, but put a younger man in command. I have
served my day as commander. I will be ready to respond when called upon
for active duty. I want to advise you to get ready for what may come. We
are standing over a sleeping volcano."[1881] In Limestone County a similar
organization was composed of peaceable citizens united to disperse or
crush out bands of thieves.[1882] This was in a white county in the
northern section of the state, where the people had suffered during the
war, and were still suffering, from the depredations of the tories. In
Winston and Walker counties the returning Confederate soldiers banded
together and drove many of the tories from the country, hanging several of
the worst characters.[1883] In central and southern Alabama the citizens
resolved themselves into vigilance committees and hanged horse thieves and
other outlaws who were raiding the country, some of them disguised in the
uniforms of Federal soldiers.[1884]
In Marengo County while negro insurrection was feared a secret
organization was formed for the protection of the whites. The members were
initiated in a Masonic hall. Regular meetings were held, and each member
reported on the conduct of the negroes in his community. There were no
whippings necessary in this section, and after a few night rides the
society dissolved. The Bureau and Union League were never successful in
getting absolute control over the "Cane Brake" region, and therefore the
negroes were better behaved and there was less disorder.[1885]
Before Christmas, 1865, when there seemed to be danger of outbreaks of
that part of the negro population who were disappointed in regard to the
division of property, there was a disposition among the whites in some
counties, especially in the eastern Black Belt, to form militia companies,
though this was forbidden by the Washington authorities. Some of these
companies regularly patrolled their neighborhoods. Others undertook to
disarm the freedmen, who were purchasing arms of every description, and in
order to do this searched the negro houses at night. General Swayne,
recognizing the dangerous situation of the whites, forbore to interfere
with these militia companies until after Christmas, when, the negroes
remaining peaceable, he issued an order forbidding further
interference;[1886] but the militia organizations persisted in some shape
until the Reconstruction Acts were passed.
In the eastern counties of the state there was in 1865 and 1866 an
organization, preceding the Ku Klux, called the "Black Cavalry." It was a
secret, oath-bound, night-riding order. Its greatest strength was in
Tallapoosa County, where it was said to have 200 to 300 members. It was
not only a band to regulate the conduct of the negroes, but there was a
large element in it of the poorer whites, who wanted to drive the negro
from the rich lands upon which slavery had settled them, in order to get
them for themselves. This was generally true of all secret orders of
regulators in the white counties from 1865 to 1875, and exactly the
opposite was the case in the Black Belt, where the planters preferred the
negro labor, and never drove out the blacks. The "Black Cavalry," it is
said, drove more negroes from east Alabama than the Ku Klux did.[1887]
There were local bands of regulators policing nearly every district in
Alabama. Few of them had formal organizations or rose to the dignity of
having officers or names, but there were the "Men of Justice," in north
Alabama, principally in Limestone County, and the "Order of Peace,"
partially organized in Huntsville early in 1868,[1888] and many other
local orders.
The Origin and Growth of Ku Klux Klan
The local bands of regulators in existence immediately after the war were
a necessary outcome of the disordered conditions prevailing at the time,
and would have disappeared, with a return to normal conditions under a
strong government which had the respect of the people. But during the
excitement over the action of the Reconstruction convention in the fall of
1867 and the elections of February, 1868, a new secret order became
prominent in Alabama; and when, after the people had defeated the
constitution, Congress showed a disposition to disregard the popular will
as expressed in the result of the election, this order--Ku Klux
Klan--sprang into activity in widely separated localities. The campaign
of the previous six months had made the people desperate when they
contemplated what was in store for them under the rule of carpet-bagger,
scalawag, and negro. The counter-revolution was beginning.
The Ku Klux Klan originated in Pulaski, Tennessee, in the fall of
1865.[1889] The founders were James R. Crowe, Richard R. Reed, Calvin
Jones, John C. Lester, Frank O. McCord, and John Kennedy. Some were
Alabamians and some Tennesseeans. Lester and Crowe lived later in
Sheffield, Alabama. Crowe and Kennedy are the only survivors. It was a
club of young men who had served in the Confederate army, who united for
purposes of fun and mischief, pretty much as college boys in secret
fraternities or country boys as "snipe hunters." The name was an
accidental corruption of the Greek word _kuklos_, a circle, and had no
meaning.[1890] The officers had outlandish titles, and fancy disguises
were adopted. The regalia or uniform consisted of a tall cardboard hat
covered with cloth, on which were pasted red spangles and stars; there was
a face covering, with openings for nose, mouth, and ears; and a long robe
coming nearly to the heels, made of any kind of cloth--white, black, or
red--often fancy colored calico. A whistle was used as a signal.[1891]
This scheme for amusement was successful, and there were plenty of
applications for admission. Members went away to other towns, and under
the direction of the Pulaski Club, or "Den" as it was called, other Dens
were formed. The Pulaski Den was in the habit of parading in full uniform
at social gatherings of the whites at night, much to the delight of the
small boys and girls. Pulaski was near the Alabama line, and many Alabama
young men saw these parades or heard of them, and Dens were organized over
north Alabama in the towns. Nothing but horse-play and tomfoolery took
place in the meetings. In 1867 and 1868 the order appeared in parade in
the north Alabama towns and "cut up curious gyrations" on the public
squares.[1892] The Klan had not long been in existence and was still in
this first stage, and was rapidly speeding, when a pretty general
discovery of its power over the negro was made. The weird night riders in
ghostly disguises frightened the superstitious negroes, who were told that
the spirits of dead Confederates were abroad.[1893] There was a general
belief outside the order that there was a purpose behind all the
ceremonial and frolic of the Dens; many joined the order convinced that
its object was serious; others saw the possibilities in it and joined in
order to make use of it. After discovering the power of the Klan over the
negroes, there was a general tendency, owing to the disordered conditions
of the time, to go into the business of a police patrol and hold in check
the thieving negroes, the Union League, and the "loyalists." From being a
series of social clubs the Dens swiftly became bands of regulators, adding
many fantastic qualities to their original outfit. All this time the
Pulaski organization exercised a loose control over a federation of Dens.
There was danger, as the Dens became more and more police bodies, of some
of the more ardent spirits going to excess, and in several instances Dens
went far in the direction of violence and outrage. Attempts were made by
the parent Den to regulate the conduct of the Dens, but owing to the loose
organization, they met with little success. Some of the Dens lost all
connection with the original order.
Early in 1867 the Grand Cyclops of the Pulaski Den sent requests to the
various Dens in the southern states to send delegates to a convention in
Nashville. This convention met in May, 1867. Delegates from all of the
Gulf states and from several others were present, and the order of Ku Klux
Klan was reorganized. There were at this time Dens in all the southern
states, and even in Illinois and Pennsylvania.[1894] A constitution called
the "Prescript" was here adopted for the entire order. The administration
was centralized, and the entire South was placed under the jurisdiction of
its officials. The former slave states except Delaware constituted the
Empire, which was ruled by the Grand Wizard[1895] with a staff of ten
Genii; each state was a realm under a Grand Dragon and eight Hydras; the
next subdivision was the Dominion, consisting of several counties,[1896]
ruled by a Grand Titan and six Furies; the county as a Province was
governed by a Grand Giant[1897] and four Goblins; the unit was the Den or
community organization. There might be several in each county, each under
a Grand Cyclops and two Night Hawks. The Genii, Hydras, Furies, Goblins,
and Night Hawks were staff officers. Each of the above divisions was
called a Grand *. The order had no name, and at first was designated by
two **, later by three ***. The private members were called Ghouls. The
Grand Magi and the Grand Monk were the second and third officers of the
Den, and had the authority of the Grand Cyclops when the latter was
absent. The Grand Sentinel was in charge of the guard of the Den, and the
Grand Ensign carried its banner on the night rides.[1898] Every division
had a Grand Exchequer, whose duty it was to look after the revenue,[1899]
and a Grand Scribe, or secretary, who called the roll, made reports, and
kept lists of members (without anything to show what the list meant),
usually in Arabic figures, 1, 2, 3, etc. The Grand Turk was the adjutant
of the Grand Cyclops, and gave notice of meetings, executed orders,
received candidates, and administered the preliminary oaths. The officers
of the Den were elected semiannually by the Ghouls; the highest officers
of the other divisions were elected biannually by the officers of the next
lower rank. The first Grand Wizard was to serve three years from May,
1867.[1900] Each superior officer could appoint special deputies to assist
him and to extend the order. Every division made quarterly reports to the
next higher headquarters. In case a question of paramount importance
should arise, the Grand Wizard was invested with absolute authority.[1901]
The Tribunal of Justice consisted of a Grand Council of Yahoos for the
trial of all elected officers, and was composed of those of equal rank
with the accused, presided over by one of the next higher rank; and for
the trial of Ghouls and non-elective officers, the Grand Council of
Centaurs, which consisted of six Ghouls appointed by the Grand Cyclops,
who presided.[1902]
A person was admitted to the Den after nomination by a member and strict
investigation by a committee. No one under eighteen was admitted. The oath
taken was one of obedience and secrecy. The Dens governed themselves by
the ordinary rules of deliberative bodies. The penalty for betrayal of
secret was "the extreme penalty of the Law."[1903] None of the secrets was
to be written. There was a Register of alarming adjectives used in dating
the wonderful Ku Klux orders.[1904]
In the original Prescript no mention was made of the peculiar objects of
the order. The Creed acknowledged the supremacy of the Divine Being, and
the Preamble the supremacy of the laws of the United States.[1905] The
Revised and Amended Prescript sets forth the character and objects of the
order: (1) To protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenceless from the
indignities, wrongs, and outrages of the lawless, the violent, and the
brutal;[1906] to relieve the injured and oppressed; to succor the
suffering and unfortunate, and especially the widows and orphans of
Confederate soldiers. (2) To protect and defend the Constitution of the
United States and all laws passed in conformity thereto, and to protect
the states and people thereof from all invasion from any source whatever.
(3) To aid and assist in the execution of all "constitutional" laws, and
to protect the people from unlawful arrest, and from trial except by their
peers according to the laws of the land.[1907]
[Illustration: Facsimile of Page 3 of the Revised and Amended Prescript of
Ku Klux Klan.]
The questions asked of the candidate constituted a test sufficient to
exclude all except the most friendly whites. The applicant for admission
was asked if he belonged to the Federal army or the Radical party, Union
League, or Grand Army of the Republic, and if he was opposed to the
principles of those organizations. He was asked if he was opposed to negro
equality, political and social, and was in favor of a white man's
government, of constitutional liberty and equitable laws. He was asked if
he was in favor of reënfranchisement and emancipation of the southern
whites, and the restoration to the southern people of their
rights,--property, civil, and political,--and of maintaining the
constitutional rights of the South, and if he believed in the inalienable
right of self-preservation of the people against the exercise of arbitrary
and unlicensed power.
The Revised and Amended Prescript, made in 1868, was an attempt to give
more power of control to the central authorities in order to enable them
to regulate the obstreperous Dens. The purposes of the order, omitted in
the first Prescript, was clearly declared in the revision. Little change
was made in the administration of the order.[1908]
The order continued to spread after the reorganization in 1867. There were
scattered Dens over north Alabama and as far south as Tuscaloosa, Selma,
and Montgomery. It came first to the towns and then spread into the
country. It was less and less an obscure organization, and more and more a
band of regulators, using mystery, disguise, and secrecy to terrify the
blacks into good behavior. It was in many ways a military organization,
the shadowy ghost of the Confederate armies.[1909] The whites were all
well-trained military men; they looked to their military chieftains to
lead them. The best men were members,[1910] though the prominent
politicians as a rule did not belong to the order. They fought the fight
against the Radicals on the other side of the field.[1911]
After the elections in February, 1868, the Ku Klux came into greater
prominence in Alabama, especially in the northern and western portions,
while south Alabama was still quiet.[1912]
The counties of north Alabama infested were Lauderdale, Limestone,
Madison, Jackson, Morgan, Lawrence, Franklin, Madison, Winston, Walker,
Fayette, and Blount. In central Alabama, Montgomery, Greene, Pickens,
Tuscaloosa, Calhoun, Talladega, Randolph, Chambers, Coosa, and
Tallapoosa.[1913] There were bands in most of the other counties, and in
the counties of the Black Belt. The order seldom extended to the lower
edge of the Black Belt. In the Black Belt it met the Knights of the White
Camelia, the White Brotherhood, and later the White League, and in a way
absorbed them all.[1914]
The actual number of the men in regular organized Dens cannot be
ascertained. It was estimated that there were 800 in Madison County, and
10,000 in the state.[1915] Others said that it included all Confederate
soldiers.[1916] The actual number regularly enrolled was much less than
the number who acted as Ku Klux when they considered it necessary. In one
sense practically all able-bodied native white men belonged to the order,
and if social and business ostracism be considered as a manifestation of
the Ku Klux spirit, then the women and children also were Ku Klux.
It is the nature and vice of secret societies of regulators to degenerate,
and the Ku Klux Klan was no exception to the rule. By 1869 the order had
fallen largely under control of a low class of men who used it to further
their own personal aims, to wreak revenge on their enemies and gratify
personal animosities. Outrages became frequent, and the order was
dangerous even to those who founded it.[1917] It had done its work. The
negroes had been in a measure controlled, and society had been held
together during the revolution of 1865-1869. The people were still
harassed by many irritations and persecutions, but while almost
unbearable, they were mostly of a nature to disappear in time as the
carpet-bag governments collapsed. The most material evil at present was
the misgovernment of the Radicals, and this could not last always. But
though the organized Ku Klux Klan was disbanded, the spirit of resistance
was higher than ever; and as each community had problems to deal with they
were met in the old manner--a sporadic uprising of a local Klan. As long
as a carpet-bagger was in power, the principles of the Klan were asserted.
The Knights of the White Camelia
The order known as the Knights of the White Camelia originated in
Louisiana in 1867,[1918] and spread from thence through the Gulf states.
In Alabama it was well organized in the southwestern counties, and to some
extent throughout the lower Black Belt. It probably did not exist in the
southeastern white counties.[1919] The former local vigilance committees,
neighborhood patrol parties, and disbanded militia were absorbed into the
order, which gave them a uniform organization and a certain loose union,
and left them pretty much as independent as before. There was a closer
sympathy between southwest Alabama and Louisiana than between the two
sections of Alabama, which perhaps will account for the failure of Ku Klux
Klan to organize in the southern counties. The White Camelia came to
Alabama from New Orleans _via_ Mobile, and also through southern
Mississippi to southwestern Alabama. Later the White League came the same
way.
In June 1868 a convention of the Knights of the White Camelia was held in
New Orleans, and a constitution was adopted for the order.[1920] The
preamble stated that Radical legislation was subversive of the principles
of government adopted by the fathers, and in order to secure safety and
prosperity the order was founded for the preservation of those principles.
The order consisted of a Supreme Council of the United States, and of
Grand, Central, and Subordinate councils. The Supreme Council with
headquarters in New Orleans consisted of five delegates from each Grand
Council. It was the general legislative body of the order, and maintained
communication within the order by means of passwords and cipher
correspondence. Communication between and with the lowest organizations
was verbal only. All officers were designated by initials.[1921]
In each state the Grand Council[1922] was the highest body, and held its
sessions at the state capital. The membership consisted of delegates from
the Central Councils--one delegate for one thousand members. The Grand
Council had the power of legislation for the state, subject to the
constitution of the order and the laws of the Supreme Council. In each
county or parish there was a Central Council of delegates from Subordinate
Councils.[1923] It was charged with the duty of collecting the revenue and
extending the order within its limits. The lowest organization was the
Council (or Subordinate Council) in a community. This body had sole
authority to initiate members. In each county the Subordinate Councils
were designated by numbers. Each was composed of several Circles (each
under a Grand Chief); each Circle of five Groups (each under a Chief); and
each Group of ten Brothers. Officials of the order were elected by
indirect methods. An ex-member states that "during the three years of its
existence here [Perry County] I believe its organization and discipline
were as perfect as human ingenuity could have made it."[1924]
The constitution prohibited the order as a body from nominating or
supporting any candidate or set of candidates for public office. Each
subordinate rank had the right of local legislation. Quarterly reports
were made by each division. The officers of the higher councils were known
only to their immediate subordinates. When a question came up that
could not be settled it was referred to the next higher council.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF PAGE 2 OF THE ORIGINAL PRESCRIPT OF KU KLUX
KLAN.]
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF PAGE FROM RITUAL OF THE KNIGHTS OF THE WHITE
CAMELIA.]
Only whites[1925] over eighteen were admitted to membership, after
election by the order in which no adverse vote was cast. Each council
acted as a court when charges were brought against its members. Punishment
was by removal or suspension from office; there was no expulsion from the
order; punishment was simply a reducing to ranks. The candidate for
membership into the order was required first to take the oath of secrecy,
which was administered by a subordinate official, who then announced him
to the next higher official.[1926] By the latter the candidate was
presented to the commander of the Council, and in answer to his
interrogations made solemn declaration that he had not married and would
never marry a woman not of the white race, and that he believed in the
superiority of the white race. He promised never to vote for any except a
white man, and never to refrain from voting at any election in which a
negro candidate should oppose a white. He further declared that he would
devote his intelligence, energy, and influence to prevent political
affairs from falling into the hands of the African race, and that he would
protect persons of the white race in their lives, rights, and property
against encroachments from any inferior race, especially the African.
After the candidate had made the proper declarations the final oath was
administered,[1927] after which he was pronounced a "Knight of the ----."
The Commander next instructed the new members in the principles of the
order, which he declared was destined to regenerate the unfortunate
country, and to relieve the white race from its humiliating condition. Its
fundamental object was the "MAINTENANCE OF THE SUPREMACY OF THE WHITE
RACE."[1928] History and physiology were called upon to show that the
Caucasian race had always been superior to, and had always exercised
dominion over, inferior races. No human laws could permanently change the
great laws of nature. The white race alone had achieved enduring
civilization, and of all subordinate races, the most imperfect was the
African. The government of the Republic was established by white men for
white men. It was never intended by its founders that it should fall into
the hands of an inferior race. Consequently, any attempt to transfer the
government to the blacks was an invasion of the sacred rights guaranteed
by the Constitution, as well as a violation of the laws established by God
himself, and no member of the white race could submit, without humiliation
and shame, to the subversion of the established institutions of the
Republic. It was the duty of white men to resist attempts against their
natural and legal rights in order to maintain the supremacy of the
Caucasian race and restrain the "African race to that condition of social
and political inferiority for which God has destined it." There was to be
no infringement of laws, no violations of right, no force employed, except
for purposes of legitimate and necessary defence.
As an essential condition of success, the Order proscribed absolutely any
social equality between the races. If any degree of social equality should
be granted, there would be no end to it; political equality was
necessarily involved. Social equality meant finally intermarriage and a
degraded and ignoble population. The white blood must be kept pure to
preserve the natural superiority of the race. The obligation was
therefore taken "TO OBSERVE A MARKED DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE TWO
RACES,"[1929] in public and in private life.
One of the most important duties of the members was to respect the rights
of the negroes, and in every instance give them their lawful dues. It was
only simple justice to deny them none of their legitimate privileges.
There was no better way to show the inherent superiority of the white
race, than by dealing with the blacks in that spirit of firmness,
liberality, and impartiality which characterizes all superior
organizations. It would be ungenerous to restrict them in the exercise of
certain privileges, without conceding to them at the same time the fullest
measure of their legitimate rights. A fair construction of the white man's
duty to the black would be, not only to respect and observe their
acknowledged rights, but also to see that they were respected and observed
by others.
These declarations give a good idea of what was in the minds of the
southern whites in 1867 and 1868, and later.[1930]
Like the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camelia disbanded when the
objects of the order were accomplished, or were in a fair way toward
accomplishment. In some counties it lived a year or two longer than in
others. In certain counties, by order of its authorities, it was never
organized. It did not extend north of the Black Belt, though it existed in
close proximity to the more southerly of the Klans. As the oldest of the
large secret orders, the name of Ku Klux Klan was more widely known than
the others, and hence the name was applied indiscriminately to all. A
local body would assume the name of a large one when there was no direct
connection. The other organizations similar to Ku Klux in objects and
methods[1931] did not have a strong membership in Alabama.
The Work of the Secret Orders
The task before the secret orders was to regulate the conduct of the
blacks and their leaders, in order that honor, life, and property might be
made secure. They planned to do this by playing upon the fears,
superstitions, and cowardice of the black race; by creating a white terror
to offset the black one. To this end they made use of strange and horrible
disguises, mysterious and fearful conversation, midnight rides and drills,
and silent parades.
The costume varied with the locality, often with the individual.[1932] The
Tennessee regalia was too fine for the backwoods Ku Klux to duplicate. The
cardboard hat was generally worn. It was funnel-shaped, eighteen inches to
two feet high, covered with white cloth, and often ornamented with stars
of gold, or by pictures of animals. The mask over the face was sometimes
white, with holes cut for eyes, mouth, and nose. These holes were bound
around with red braid so as to give a horrible appearance. Other eyes,
nose, and mouth were painted higher up on the hat. Black cloth with white
or red braid was also used for the mask. Sometimes simply a woman's veil
was worn over the head and held down by an ordinary woollen hat. The "hill
billy" Ku Kluxes did not adorn themselves very much. To the sides of the
cardboard hats horns were sometimes attached, and to the mask a fringe of
quills, which looked like enormous teeth and made a peculiar noise. The
mask and the robe were usually of different colors. Sometimes a black sack
was drawn over the head, and eyes, mouth, and nose holes cut in it. False
or painted beards were often worn. The robe consisted of a white or
colored gown, reaching nearly to the heels, and held by a belt around the
waist; it was usually made of fancy calico; white gowns were sometimes
striped with red or black. As long as the negro went into spasms of fear
at the sight of a Ku Klux, the usual costume seems to have been white; but
after the negro became somewhat accustomed to the Ku Klux, and learned
that there were human beings behind the robes, the regalia became only a
disguise, and less attention was devoted to making fearful costumes. As a
rule the ordinary clothes worn were underneath, but in Madison County the
Ghouls sported fancy red flannel trousers with white stripes, while the
west Alabama spirits were content with wearing ordinary dark trousers, and
shirts slashed with red. The white robe was often a bed sheet held on by a
belt. After a night ride the disguise could be taken off and stowed about
the person. The horses were covered with sheets or white cloth, held on by
the saddle and by belts. There was, at times, a disguise which fitted the
horse's head, and the horses were sometimes painted. Skeleton sheep's
heads or cows' heads, or even human skulls, were frequently carried on the
saddle-bows. A framework was sometimes made to fit the shoulders of a
Ghoul and caused him to appear twelve feet high. A skeleton wooden hand at
the end of a stick served to greet negroes at midnight. Every man had a
small whistle. The costume was completed by a brace of pistols worn under
the robe.[1933]
[Illustration: KU KLUX COSTUMES. Worn in Western Alabama.]
The trembling negro who ran into the Ku Klux on his return from the
love-feasts at the Loyal League meetings was informed that the white-robed
figures he saw were the spirits of the Confederate dead, killed at
Chickamauga or Shiloh, and that they were unable to rest in their graves
because of the conduct of the negroes. He was told in a sepulchral voice
of the necessity for his remaining at home more and taking a less active
part in various predatory excursions. In the middle of the night the
sleeping negro would wake to find his house surrounded by the ghostly
company, or find several standing by his bedside, ready, as soon as he
woke, to inform him that they were the ghosts of men whom he had formerly
known, killed at Shiloh. They had scratched through from Hell to warn the
negroes of the consequences of their misconduct. Hell was a dry and
thirsty land; they asked him for water. Buckets of water went sizzling
into a sack of leather, rawhide, or rubber, concealed within the flowing
robe. At other times, Hell froze over to give passage to the spirits who
were returning to earth. It was seldom necessary at this early stage to
use violence. The black population was in an ecstacy of fear. A silent
host of white-sheeted horsemen parading the country roads at night was
sufficient to reduce the black to good behavior for weeks or months. One
silent Ghoul, posted near a League meeting place, would be the cause of
the dissolution of that club. Cow bones in a sack were rattled. A horrible
being, fifteen feet tall, walking through the night toward a place of
congregation, was pretty apt to find that every one vacated the place
before he arrived. A few figures, wrapped in bed sheets and sitting on
tombstones in a graveyard near which negroes passed, would serve to keep
the immediate community quiet for weeks, and give it a reputation for
"hants" which lasts perhaps until to-day. At times the Klan paraded the
streets of the towns, men and horses perfectly disguised. The parades were
always silent, and so conducted as to give the impression of very large
numbers. Regular drills were held in town and country, and the men showed
that they had not forgotten their training in the Confederate army. There
were no commands unless in a very low tone or in a mysterious language;
usually they drilled by signs or by whistle signals.[1934]
For a year or more,--until the spring of 1868,--the Klan was successful so
far as the negro was concerned, through its mysterious methods. The
carpet-bagger and the scalawag were harder problems. They understood the
nature of the secret order and knew its objects. As long as the order did
not use violence they were not to be moved to any great extent. Then, too,
the negro lost some of his fear of the supernatural beings. Different
methods were now used. In March and April, 1868, there was an outbreak of
Ku Kluxism over a large part of the state.[1935] For the first time the
newspapers were filled with Ku Klux orders and warnings. The warnings were
found posted on the premises of obnoxious negroes or white Radicals. The
newspapers sometimes published them for the benefit of all who might be
interested. One warning was supposed to be sufficient to cause the erring
to mend their ways.[1936] If still obstinate in their evil courses, a writ
from the Klan followed and punishment was inflicted. Warnings were sent to
all whom the Klan thought should be regulated--white or black. The
warnings were written in disguised handwriting and sometimes purposely
misspelled. The following warning was sent to I. D. Sibley, a
carpet-bagger in Huntsville:--
Mr. Selblys you had better leave here. You are a thief and you know
it. If you don't leave in ten days, we will cut your throat. We aint
after the negroes; but we intend for you damn carpet bag men to go
back to your homes. You are stealing everything you can find. We mean
what we say. _Mind your eye._
JAMES HOWSYN.
WILLIAM WHEREATNEHR.
[Rude drawing of coffin.] JOHN MIXEMUHH.
SOLIMAN WILSON.
P. J. SOLON.
Get away!
We ant no cu-cluxes but if you dont go we will make you.[1937]
[Illustration: KU KLUX WARNING.
"Dam Your Soul. The Horrible _Sepulchre_ and Bloody Moon has at last
arrived. Some live to-day to-morrow "Die." We the undersigned
understand through our Grand "Cyclops" that you have recommended a big
Black Nigger for Male agent on our nu rode; wel, sir, Jest you
understand in time if he gets on the rode you can make up your mind to
pull roape. If you have any thing to say in regard to the Matter, meet
the Grand Cyclops and Conclave at Den No. 4 at 12 o'clock midnight,
Oct. 1st, 1871.
"When you are in Calera we warn you to hold your tounge and not speak
so much with your mouth or otherwise you will be taken on supprise and
led out by the Klan and learnt to stretch hemp. Beware. Beware.
Beware. Beware.
(Signed) "PHILLIP ISENBAUM,
"_Grand Cyclops_.
"JOHN BANKSTOWN.
"ESAU DAVES.
"MARCUS THOMAS.
"BLOODY BONES.
"You know who. And all others of the Klan."]
The published orders of the Klan served a double purpose--to notify the
members of contemplated movements, and to frighten the Radicals, white or
black, who had made themselves offensive. The newspapers usually published
these orders with the remark that the order had been found or had been
sent to them with a request for publication.[1938] Each Cyclops composed
his own orders, but there was a marked resemblance between the various
decrees. The most interesting and lively orders were concocted by the
Cyclops editor of the _Tuscaloosa Independent Monitor_.[1939] Some
specimens are given below.
A Black Belt warning was in this shape:--
_K. K. K._
Friday, April 3rd, 1868
Warning--For one who understands.
26/3/68 No. 5--116
Recorded 8th / 16 / 24--B.
_K. K. K._
The following order was posted in Tuscaloosa:--
KU KLUX.
Hell-a-Bulloo Hole--Den of Skulls.
Bloody Bones, Headquarters of the
Great Ku Klux Klan, No. 1000
Windy Month--New Moon.
Cloudy Night--Thirteenth Hour.
_General Orders, No. 2._
The great chief Simulacre summons you!
Be ready! Crawl slowly! Strike hard!
Fire around the pot!
Sweltered venom, sleeping got
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot!
Like a hell broth boil and bubble!
The Great High Priest Cyclops! C. J. F. Y.
Grim Death calls for one, two, three!
Varnish, Tar, and Turpentine!
The fifth Ghost sounds his Trumpet!
The mighty Genii wants two black wethers!
Make them, make them, make them! Presto!
The Great Giantess must have a white barrow. Make him, make him, make
him! Presto!
Meet at once--the den of Shakes--the Giant's jungles--the hole of
Hell! The second hobgoblin will be there, a mighty Ghost of valor. His
eyes of fire, his voice of thunder! Clean the streets--clean the
serpents' dens.
Red hot pincers! Bastinado!! Cut clean!!! No more to be born. Fire and
brimstone.
Leave us, leave us, leave us! One, two, and three to-night! Others
soon!
Hell freezes! On with skates--glide on. Twenty from Atlanta. Call the
roll. _Bene dicte!_ The Great Ogre orders it!
By order of the Great
BLUFUSTIN.
G. S. K. K. K.
A true copy,
PETERLOO.
P. S. K. K. K.
The following was circulated around Montgomery in April, 1868:--
K. K. K.
CLAN OF VEGA.
HDQR'S K. K. K. HOSPITALLERS.
_Vega Clan_, New Moon.
3rd Month, Anno K. K. K. 1.
_Order No. K. K._
Clansmen--Meet at the Trysting Spot when Orion Kisses the Zenith. The
doom of treason is Death. _Dies Iræ._ The wolf is on his walk--the
serpent coils to strike. Action! Action!! Action!!! By midnight and
the Tomb; by Sword and Torch and the Sacred Oath at Forrester's
Altar, I bid you come! The clansmen of Glen Iran and Alpine will greet
you at the new-made grave.
_Remember the Ides of April._
By command of the Grand D. I. H.
CHEG. V.
The military authorities forbade the newspapers to publish Ku Klux
orders,[1940] and the Klan had to trust to messengers. Verbal orders and
warnings became the rule. The Den met and discussed the condition of
affairs in the community. The cases of violent whites and negroes were
brought up, one by one, and the Den decided what was to be done. Except in
the meeting the authority of the Cyclops was absolute.
C. C. Sheets, a prominent scalawag, had been making speeches to the
negroes against the whites. The Klan visited him at his hotel at Florence,
caught him as he was trying to escape over the roof, brought him back, and
severely lectured him in regard to his conduct. They explained to him that
the Klan was a conservative organization to hold society together. A
promise was required of Sheets to be more guarded in his language for the
future. He saw the light and became a changed man.[1941] When a
carpet-bagger became unbearable, he would be notified that he must go
home, and he usually went. If an official, he resigned or sold his office;
the people of the community would purchase a $100 lot from him for $2500
in order to pay for the office. The office was not always paid for; a
particularly bad man was lucky to get off safe and sound.[1942]
Objectionable candidates were forced to withdraw, or to take a
conservation bondsman, who conducted the office.[1943]
Before the close of 1868 the mysterious element in the power of Ku Klux
Klan ceased to be so effective. The negroes were learning. Most of the
mummery now was dropped. The Klan became purely a body of regulators,
wearing disguises. It was said that in order to have time to work for
themselves, and in order not to frighten away negro laborers, the Klan
became accustomed to making its rounds in the summer after the crops were
laid by, and in the winter after they were gathered.[1944]
The activities of the Klan were all-embracing. From regulating bad negroes
and their leaders they undertook a general supervision of the morals of
the community. Houses of ill-fame were visited, the inmates, white or
black, warned and sometimes whipped. Men who frequented such places were
thrashed. A white man living with a negro woman was whipped, and a negro
man living with a white woman would be killed.[1945] A negro who aired his
opinion in regard to social equality was sure to be punished. One negro in
north Alabama served in the Union army and, returning to Alabama, boasted
that he had a white wife up North and expected to see the custom of mixed
marriages grow down South. He was whipped and allowed a short time in
which to return North.[1946] White men who were too lazy to support their
families, or who drank too much whiskey, or were cruel to their families,
were visited and disciplined. Such men were not always Radicals--not by
any means.[1947] Special attention was paid to the insolent and dangerous
negro soldiers who were mustered out in the state. As a rule they had
imbibed too many notions of liberty, equality, and fraternity ever to
become peaceable citizens. They brought their arms back with them, made
much display of them, talked largely, drilled squads of blacks, fired
their hearts with tales of the North, and headed much of the deviltry. The
Klan visited such characters, warned them, thrashed them, and disarmed
them. Over north Alabama there was a general disarming of negroes.[1948]
The tories or "unionists," who had never ceased to commit depredations on
their Confederate neighbors, were taken in hand by the Klan. In parts of
the white counties where there were neither negroes nor carpet-baggers the
Klan's excuse for existence was to hold in check the white outlaws. For
years after the war the lives and property of ex-Confederates were not
safe. A smouldering civil war existed for several years, and the Klan was
only the ex-Confederate side of it.
During the administration of Governor Smith there was no organized
militia. The militia laws favored the black counties at the expense of the
white ones, and Smith was afraid to organize negro militia; he shared the
dislike of his class for negroes. There were not enough white
reconstructionists to organize into militia companies. The governor was
afraid to accept organizations of Conservatives; they might overthrow his
administration. So he relied entirely upon the small force of the Federal
troops stationed in the state to assist the state officials in preserving
order. The Conservative companies, after their services were rejected,
sometimes proceeded to drill without authority, and became a kind of
extra-legal militia. In this they were not secret. But the drills had a
quieting effect on marauders of all kinds, and the extra-legal militia of
the daytime easily became the illegal night riders of the Klan.[1949]
The operations of the Klan, especially in the white counties which had
large negro populations, were sometimes directed against negro churches
and schoolhouses, and a number of these were burned.[1950] This hostility
may be explained in several ways: The element of poor whites in the Klan
did not approve of negro education; all negro churches and schoolhouses
were used as meeting places for Union Leagues, political gatherings, etc.;
they were the political headquarters of the Radical Party;[1951] again,
the bad character of some of the white teachers of negro schools or the
incendiary teachings of others was excuse for burning the schoolhouses.
The burning of school and church buildings took place almost exclusively
in the white counties of northern and eastern Alabama. The school and
church buildings of the whites were also burned.[1952] The negroes were
invariably assisted by the whites in rebuilding the houses. Most of the
burnings were probably done by the so-called spurious Ku Klux. The
teachers of negro schools who taught revolutionary doctrines or who became
too intimate with the negroes with whom they had to board were
disciplined, and the negroes also with whom they offended.[1953] It was
likewise the case with the northern missionaries, especially the Northern
Methodist preachers who were seeking to disrupt the Southern Methodist
Church. Parson Lakin when elected president of the State University was
chased away by the Ku Klux, and life was made miserable for the Radical
faculty.[1954] Thieves, black and white, and those peculiar clandestine
night traders who purchased corn and cotton from the negroes after dark
were punished.[1955]
The quietest and most effective work was done in the Black Belt
principally by the Knights of the White Camelia. Nothing was attempted
beyond restraining the negroes and driving out the carpet-baggers when
they became unbearable. There were few cases of violence, fewer still of
riots or operations on a large scale.[1956] In northern and western
Alabama were the most disordered conditions.[1957] The question was
complicated in these latter regions by the presence of poor whites and
planters, negroes, Radicals and Democrats, Confederates and Unionists.
Tuscaloosa County, the location of the State University, is said to have
suffered worst of all. A strong organization of Ku Klux cleared it out. In
the northern and western sections of the state politics were more likely
to enter into the quarrels. The Radicals--white and black--were more apt
to be disciplined because of politics than in the Black Belt. Negroes and
offensive whites were warned not to vote the Radical ticket. There was a
disposition to suppress, not to control, the negro vote as the Black Belt
wanted to do. There were more frequent collisions, more instances of
violence.
The most famous parade and riot of the Ku Klux Klan occurred in
Huntsville, in 1868, before the presidential election. A band of 1500 Ku
Klux[1958] rode into the city and paraded the streets. Both men and horses
were covered with sheets and masks. The drill was silent; the evolutions
were executed with a skill that called forth praise from some United
States army officers who were looking on. The negroes were in a frenzy of
fear, and one of them fired a shot. Immediately a riot was on. The negroes
fired indiscriminately at themselves and at the undisguised whites who
were standing around. The latter returned the fire; the Ku Klux fired no
shots, but formed a line and looked on. Several negroes were wounded, and
Judge Thurlow, a scalawag, of Limestone County, was accidentally killed by
a chance shot from a negro's gun. The whites who took part received only
slight wounds. Some of the Ghouls were arrested by the military
authorities, but were released.[1959] This was, in the annals of the
Radical party, a great Ku Klux outrage.
Another widely heralded Ku Klux outrage was the Patona or Cross Plains
affair, in Calhoun County, in 1870. It seems that at Cross Plains a negro
boy was hired to hold a horse for a white man. He turned the horse loose,
and was slapped by the white fellow. Then the negro hit the white on the
head with a brick. Other whites came up and cuffed the negro, who went to
Patona, a negro railway village a mile away, and told his story. William
Luke, a white Canadian, who was teaching a negro school at Patona, advised
the negroes to arm themselves and go burn Cross Plains in revenge and for
protection. Thirty or forty went, under the leadership of Luke, and made
night hideous with threats of violence and burning, but finally went away
without harming any one. The next night Luke and his negroes returned, and
fired into a congregation of whites just dismissed from church. None were
injured, but Luke and several negroes were arrested. There were signs of
premeditated delay on the part of some of the civil authorities, so the Ku
Klux came and took the Canadian and four negroes from the officers,
carried them to a lonely spot, and hanged some and shot the rest.[1960]
In Greene County the county solicitor, Alexander Boyd, an ex-convict,
claimed to have evidence against members of the Ku Klux organization. He
boasted about his plans, and the Ku Klux, hearing of it, went to his hotel
in Eutaw and shot him to death.[1961]
Another famous outrage was the Eutaw riot, in 1870. Both Democrats and
Radicals had advertised political meetings for the same time and place.
The Radicals, who seem to have been the latest comers, asked the Democrats
for a division of time. The latter answered that the issues as to men or
measures were not debatable. So the Democrats and Radicals held their
meetings on opposite sides of the court-house. The Democrats' meeting
ended first, and they stood at the edge of the crowd to hear the Radical
speakers. Some of the hot bloods came near the stand and made sarcastic
remarks. One man who was to speak, Charles Hays, was so obnoxious to the
whites that even the Radicals were unwilling for him to speak. He
persisted, and some one, presumably a Conservative, pulled his feet out
from under him, and he fell off the table from which he was speaking. The
negroes, seeing his fall, rushed forward with knives and pistols to
protect him. A shot was fired, which struck Major Pierce, a Democrat, in
the pocket. Then the whites began firing, principally into the air. The
negroes tore down the fence in their haste to get away. After the whites
had chased the negroes out of town the military came leisurely in and
quelled the riot.[1962] The campaign report of casualties was five killed
and fifty-four wounded. As a matter of fact only one wounded negro was
ever found, and no dead ones.[1963]
A common kind of outrage was that on James Alston, the negro
representative in the legislature from Macon County in 1870. Alston was
shot by negro political rivals just after a League meeting in Tuskegee.
They were arrested, and Alston asked the whites to protect him. The
Democratic white citizens of Tuskegee guarded him. The carpet-bag
postmaster in Tuskegee saw the possibilities of the situation and sent
word to the country negroes to come in armed, that Alston had been shot.
They swarmed into Tuskegee, and, thinking the whites had shot Alston, were
about to burn the town. The white women and children were sent to
Montgomery for safety. About the same time the negroes murdered three
white men. The excitement reached Montgomery, and a negro militia company
was hastily organized to go to the aid of the Tuskegee negroes. General
Clanton got hold of the sheriff, and they succeeded in turning back the
negro volunteer company. The affair passed off without further bloodshed,
and Alston was notified to leave Tuskegee.[1964]
There were no collisions between the United States soldiers and the night
riders. At first they were on pretty good terms with one another. The
soldiers admired their drills and parades and the way they scared the
negroes. One impudent Cyclops rode his band into Athens, and told the
commanding officer that they were there to assist in preserving order,
and, if he needed them, would come if he scratched on the ground with a
stick.[1965]
While there was not much dependence upon central authority,[1966] there
was a loose bond of federation between the Dens. They coöperated in their
work; a Den from Pickens County would operate in Tuscaloosa or Greene and
_vice versa_. Alabama Ku Kluxes went into Mississippi and Tennessee, and
those states returned such favors. When the spurious organizations began
to commit outrages, each state claimed that the other one furnished the
men.[1967]
The oath taken by the Ku Klux demanded supreme allegiance to the order so
far as related to the problems before the South. Members of the order sat
on juries and refused to convict; were summoned as witnesses and denied
all knowledge of the order; were members of the legislature, lawyers, etc.
It is claimed that no genuine members of the order were ever caught and
convicted.[1968]
Though the Klan was almost wholly a Democratic organization,[1969] it took
little share in the ordinary activities of politics, more perhaps in the
northern counties than elsewhere. In Fayette County, in 1870, the Klan
went on a raid, and when returning stopped in the court-house, took off
disguises, resolved themselves into a convention, and nominated a county
ticket.[1970] Nothing of the kind was done in south Alabama; indeed, the
constitution of the White Camelias forbade interference in politics.[1971]
The Union League meetings were broken up only when they were sources of
disorder, thievery, etc. When cases of outrage were investigated, it was
almost invariably found that they had no political significance. Governor
Lindsay sent an agent into every community where an outrage was reported,
and in not a single instance was a case of outrage by Ku Klux discovered.
It is probably true that few, if any, of the leading Democratic
politicians were members of the Klan or of any similar organization. Under
certain conditions they might be driven by force of circumstances to join
in local uprisings against the rule of the Radicals. But as a rule they
knew little of the secret orders. There were various reasons for this. The
Conservative leaders saw the danger in such an organization, though
recognizing the value of its services. It was sure to degenerate. It might
become too powerful. It would have a bad influence on politics and would
furnish too much campaign literature for the Radicals. It would result in
harsh legislation against the South. The testimony of General
Clanton[1972] and Governor Lindsay[1973] shows just what the party leaders
knew of the order and what they thought of it. The Ku Klux leaders were
not the political leaders.[1974] The newspapers of importance opposed the
order. The opposition of the political leaders to the Klan in its early
stages was not because of any wrong done by it to the Radicals, but
because of fear of its acting as a boomerang and injuring the white party.
It was the middle classes, so to speak, and later the lower classes, who
felt more severely the tyranny of the carpet-bag rule, who formed and led
the Klan. The political leaders thought that in a few years political
victories would give relief; the people who suffered were unable to wait,
and threw off the revolutionary government by revolutionary means.[1975]
The work of the secret orders was successful. It kept the negroes quiet
and freed them to some extent from the baleful influence of alien leaders;
the burning of houses, gins, mills, and stores ceased; property was more
secure; people slept safely at night; women and children were again
somewhat safe when walking abroad,--they had faith in the honor and
protection of the Klan; the incendiary agents who had worked among the
negroes left the country, and agitators, political, educational, and
religious, became more moderate; "bad niggers" ceased to be bad; labor was
less disorganized; the carpet-baggers and scalawags ceased to batten on
the southern communities, and the worst ones were driven from the
country.[1976] It was not so much a revolution as a conquest of
revolution.[1977] Society was bent back into the old historic grooves from
which war and Reconstruction had jarred it.
Spurious Ku Klux Organizations
After an existence of two or three years the Ku Klux Klan was disbanded in
March, 1869, by order of the Grand Wizard. It was at that time illegal to
print Ku Klux notices and orders in the newspapers. It is probable,
therefore, that the order to disband never reached many Dens. However, one
or two papers in north Alabama did publish the order of dissolution, and
in this way the news obtained a wider circulation.[1978] Many Dens
disbanded simply because their work was done. Otherwise the order of the
Grand Wizard would have had no effect. Numbers of Dens had fallen into the
hands of lawless men who used the name and disguise for lawless purposes.
Private quarrels were fought out between armed bands of disguised men.
Negroes made use of Ku Klux methods and disguises when punishing their
Democratic colored brethren and when on marauding expeditions.[1979] This,
however, was not usual except where the negroes were led by whites. Horse
thieves in northern and western Alabama, and thieves of every kind
everywhere, began to wear disguises and to announce themselves as Ku Klux.
All their proceedings were heralded abroad as Ku Klux outrages.[1980]
In Morgan County a neighborhood feud was resolved into two parties calling
themselves Ku Klux and Anti Ku Klux, and frequently fights resulted. In
Blount and Morgan counties (1869) former members of the Ku Klux organized
the Anti Ku Klux along the lines of the Ku Klux, held regular meetings,
and continued their midnight deviltry as before. It was composed largely
of Union men who had been Federal soldiers.[1981] In Fayette County the
Anti Ku Klux order was styled, by themselves and others, "Mossy Backs" or
"Moss Backs," in allusion to their war record. They were regularly
organized and had several collisions with another organization which they
called the Ku Klux. The Radical sheriff summoned the "Moss Backs" as a
_posse_ to assist in the arrest of the Ku Klux, as they called the
ex-Confederates.[1982] As long as the Federal troops were in the state it
was the practice of bands of thieves to dress in the army uniform and go
on raids.
The Radicals took care that all lawlessness was charged to the account of
Ku Klux. It was to their interest that the outrages continue and furnish
political capital. Governor Smith accused Senator Spencer and Hinds and
Sibley, of Huntsville, of fostering Ku Klux outrages for political
purposes.[1983]
The disordered condition of the country during and after the war led to a
general habit among the whites of carrying arms. This fact and the
drinking of bad whiskey accounts for much of the shooting in quarrels
during the decade following the war. Few of these quarrels had any
connection with politics until they were catalogued in the Ku Klux Report
as Democratic outrages. As a matter of fact, nearly all the whites killed
by whites or by blacks were Democrats. The white Radicals were too few in
number to furnish many martyrs.[1984] The anti-negro feeling of the poorer
whites found expression after the war in movements against the blacks,
called Ku Klux outrages. In Winston County, a Republican stronghold, the
white mountaineers met and passed resolutions that no negro be allowed in
the county. General Clanton stated that he found a similar prejudice in
all the hill counties.[1985]
In the Tennessee valley the planters found difficulty in securing negro
labor because of the operations of the spurious Ku Klux. In Limestone,
Madison, and Lauderdale counties the tory element hated the negroes, who
lived on the best land, and attempts were made to drive them off. The
tories were incensed against the planters because they preferred negro
labor.[1986] Judge W. S. Mudd of Jefferson County testified that the
anti-negro outrages in Walker and Fayette counties were committed by the
poorer whites, who did not like negroes and wanted a purely white
population there. In the white counties generally the negro held no
political power and hence the outrages were not political, but because of
racial prejudice. In the north Alabama mountain counties the majority of
the whites were in favor of deportation and colonization of the blacks.
But in nearly every county there was also the large landholder, formerly a
slaveholder, who wanted the negro to stay and work, and who treated the
ex-slave kindly. The poorer whites who had never owned slaves nor much
property wanted the negro out of the way.[1987] As a general rule, where
the population was exclusively white, the people disliked the negro and
wanted no contact with the black race. They wanted a white society, and
all lands for the whites. In one precinct in Jefferson County, where all
the whites were Republican, an organization of boys and young men was
formed to drive out the negroes and keep the precinct white. In the black
counties exactly the opposite was true. The secret orders merely wanted to
control negro labor and keep it, regulate society, and protect property.
General Forney stated that in Calhoun the small mountain farmers,
non-slaveholding, poorer whites, were intensely afraid of social equality
and hated the negroes, who called them "poor white trash." The feeling was
cordially returned by the negroes.[1988]
From Tallapoosa County and from eastern Alabama generally, where the
Black Cavalry and its successors flourished, there was a general exodus of
negroes who had lived on the richer lands of the larger farms and
plantations. The white renters and small farmers were afraid, after
slavery was abolished and the negroes were free, that the latter would
drag all others down to negro level. The planters preferred negro labor.
Therefore the poorer whites united to drive out the negro. This was called
Ku Kluxism. The whites wanted higher pay.[1989] Wage-earners felt that
they could not compete with the negro, who could work for lower wages.
General Crawford, who commanded the United States troops in Alabama,
stated that the planter bore no antagonism toward the negro at all, but he
wanted his labor; that at present he saw the uselessness of interfering
with the negro's politics and was indifferent about whether the negro
voted or not; he looked forward to the time when the black voters would
fall away from their alien leaders and would vote according to the advice
of their old masters; on the other hand, the poorer whites, many of them
from the hill country, were hostile to the negroes; they disliked to see
them at work building the new railroads, and on all the rich lands, and
possessed of political privileges. If rid of the negro, they could be more
prosperous and divide the political spoils now shared by the adventurers
who controlled the black vote. In north Alabama the negro was more
generally kept away from the polls.[1990] This feeling on the part of the
poor whites was not new, but had survived from slavery days, and its
manifestations were now called Ku Kluxism. The negro was no longer under
the protection of a master, and the former master was no longer able to
protect the negro. However, there was a general movement among the
ex-slaves, under the pressure, to return to their old masters.
Attempts to suppress the Ku Klux Movement
In March and April, 1868, the operations of the Ku Klux Klan came to the
notice of General Meade, who was then in command of the Third Military
District. By his direction General Shepherd issued an order from
Montgomery, requiring sheriffs, mayors, police, constables, magistrates,
marshals, etc., under penalty of being held responsible, to suppress the
"iniquitous" organization and apprehend its members. The expenses of
_posses_ were to be charged against the county. If the code of Alabama was
silent on the subject of the offence, the prisoners were to be turned over
to the military authorities for trial by military commission. The state
officers were reminded that the code of Alabama derived its vitality from
the commanding general of the Third Military District, and in case of a
conflict between the code and military orders, the latter were paramount.
The posting of placards and the printing in newspapers of orders,
warnings, and notices of Ku Klux Klans was forbidden. In no case would
ignorance be considered as an excuse. Citizens who were not officers would
not be held guiltless in case of outrage in their community.[1991] This
was a revival of the method of holding a community responsible for the
misdeeds of individuals.
Troops were shifted about over northern and central Alabama in an endeavor
to suppress Ku Klux. Several arrests were made, but there were no trials.
There was much parade and night riding, but as yet little violence. The
soldiers could do nothing.
When the carpet-bag government was installed, the military forces of the
United States remained to support it. Every one called upon the military
commands for aid--governor, sheriffs, judges, members of Congress,
justices of the peace, and prominent politicians. No request from official
sources was ever refused, and they were frequent. From October 31, 1868,
to October 31, 1869, there were fifteen different shiftings of bodies of
troops for the purpose of checking the Ku Klux movement. This does not
include the movements made in individual cases, but only changes of
headquarters. These were principally in northern and western Alabama--at
Huntsville, Livingston, Guntersville, Lebanon, Edwardsville, Alpine,
Summerfield, Decatur, Marysville, Vienna, and Tuscaloosa.[1992]
After a few months' experience of the carpet-bag government, the bands of
Ku Klux were excited to renewed activity. The legislature which met in
September, 1868, memorialized the President to send an armed force to
Alabama to execute the laws, and to preserve order, etc., during the
approaching presidential election. Governor Smith with two members of the
Senate and three of the lower house were appointed to bear the
application to the President.[1993] In December an act was passed
authorizing any justice of the peace to issue warrants running in any part
of the state, and authorizing any sheriff or constable to go into any
county to execute such process.[1994] This enabled a sheriff of proper
politics to enter counties where the officials were not of the proper
faith, and arrest prisoners.
One of the members of the general assembly, M. T. Crossland, was killed by
the Klan, it was alleged. The legislature offered a reward of $5000 for
his slayers, and authorized the appointment of a committee to investigate
the recent alleged outrages and to report by bill.[1995] The
committee,[1996] after pretence of an examination of about a dozen
witnesses, all Radicals, some by affidavit only, reported that there was
in many portions of Alabama a secret organization, purely political, known
as Ku Klux Klan, and that Union men and Republicans were the sole objects
of its abuse, none of the opposite politics being interfered with. It
worked by means of threatening letters, warnings, and beatings; by
intimidation and threats negroes were driven from the polls; negro
schoolhouses were burned; teachers were threatened, ostracized, and driven
from employment; officers of the law were obstructed in the discharge of
their duty and driven away. In some parts of the state, the report
declared, it was impossible for the civil authorities to maintain order.
The governor was authorized and advised to declare martial law in the
counties of Madison, Lauderdale, Butler, Tuscaloosa, and Pickens.[1997]
The committee reported a bill, which was passed, with a preamble of
twenty-two lines reciting the terrible condition of the state. To appear
away from home in mask or disguise was made a misdemeanor, punishable by
a fine of $100 and imprisonment from six months to one year. For a
disguised person to commit an assault was made a felony, and punishment
was fixed at a fine of $1000, and imprisonment from five to twenty years.
Any one might kill a person in disguise. The penalty for destruction of
property by disguised persons--burning a schoolhouse or church--was
imprisonment from ten to twenty years. A warrant might be issued by any
magistrate directed to any lawful officer of the state to arrest disguised
offenders, and in case of refusal or neglect to perform his duty, the
official was to forfeit his office and be fined $500.[1998]
Two days later it was enacted that in case a person were killed by an
outlaw, or by a mob, or by disguised persons, or for political opinion,
the widow or next of kin should be entitled to recover of the county in
which the killing occurred the sum of $5000. The claimants should bring
action in the circuit court, and in case judgment were rendered in favor
of the claimants, the county commissioners should assess an additional tax
sufficient to pay damages and costs. Failure of any official to perform
his duty in such cases was punishable by a fine of $100 or imprisonment
for twelve months for every thirty days of neglect or failure. In case of
whipping the amount of damages collectible from the county was $1000. But
if the offenders were arrested and punished, there could be no claim for
damages. And if the offenders were arrested during the pendency of the
suit for damages, the presiding judge might suspend proceedings in the
damage suit until the result of the trial of the offenders was known. It
was made the duty of the solicitor to prosecute the claim for the
relatives, and his fee was fixed at 10 per cent of the amount recovered;
and if the relatives failed to sue within twelve months, the solicitor was
to prosecute in the name of the state, and the damages were to go to the
asylums for the insane, deaf, dumb, and blind.[1999]
A number of arrests were made under these acts, but only one or two
convictions were secured. It resulted that most of the arrests were of
ignorant and penniless negroes, who were unable to pay any fine whatever.
Governor Lindsay defended several such cases. The laws were so severe that
the officials were unwilling to prosecute under them, but always
prosecuted under the ordinary laws.
After 1868 there was no further anti-Ku-Klux legislation by the state
government, but in 1869-1870 some of the southern states, Alabama among
them, began to show signs of going Democratic. Virginia, Georgia,
Mississippi, and Texas had been forced to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment
in order to secure the requisite number for its adoption.[2000] President
Grant then sent in a message announcing the ratification as "the most
important event that has occurred since the nation came into life."[2001]
Congress responded to the hint in the message by passing the first of the
Enforcement Acts, which had been hanging fire for nearly two years. The
excuse for its passage was that the Ku Klux organizations would prevent
the blacks from voting in the fall elections of 1870.[2002] The act, as
approved on May 31, 1870, declared that all citizens were entitled to vote
in all elections without regard to color or race and provided that
officials should be held personally responsible that all citizens should
have equal opportunity to perform all tests or prerequisites to
registration or voting; election officials were held responsible for fair
elections; any person who hindered another in voting might be fined $500,
to go to the party aggrieved, and persons in disguise might be fined $5000
or imprisoned for ten years, or both, and should be disfranchised besides.
Federal courts were to have exclusive jurisdiction over cases arising
under this law, and Federal officials were to see to its execution; the
penalty for obstructing an official or assisting an escape might be $500
fine and six months' imprisonment; the President was given authority to
use the army and navy to enforce the law; the district attorneys of the
United States were to proceed by _quo warranto_ against disfranchised
persons who were holding office, and such persons might be fined $1000 and
imprisonment for one year,--such cases were to have precedence on the
docket; the same penalties were visited upon those who under color of any
law deprived a citizen of any right under this law; the Civil Rights Bill
of 1866, April 9, was reënacted;[2003] fraud, bribery, intimidation, or
undue influence or violation of any election law at Congressional
elections might be punished by a fine of $500 and imprisonment for three
years; registrations--congressional, state, county, school, or town--came
under the same regulation, and officials of all degrees who failed in
their duty were liable to the same penalties; a defeated candidate might
contest the election in the Federal courts when there were cases of the
negro having been hindered from voting.[2004]
This act marked the arrival of the most ruthless period of Reconstruction.
Endowing the negro with full political rights had not sufficed to overcome
the white political people. Disappointed in that, an attempt was now to be
made so to regulate southern elections as to put the mass of the white
population permanently under the control of the negroes and their white
leaders, and to secure the permanent control of those states to the
Republican party. Tennessee had already escaped from the Radical rule, and
stringent measures were necessary to prevent like action in the other
states. Notwithstanding the Enforcement Act, Alabama, in the election of
1870, went partially Democratic, which was to the Radical leaders _prima
facie_ evidence of the grossest frauds in elections. Other states were in
a similarly bad condition.
The supplementary Enforcement Act of February 28, 1871, provided for the
appointment of two supervisors to each precinct by the Federal circuit
judge upon the application of two persons; the Federal courts were to be
in session during elections for business arising under this act; the
supervisors were to have full authority around the polls, and were to
certify and send in the returns, and report irregularities, which were to
be investigated by the chief supervisor, who was to keep all records; the
supervisors were to be assisted in each precinct by two special deputy
marshals appointed by the United States marshal for that district. These
deputies and also the supervisors had full power to arrest any person and
to summon a _posse_ if necessary. Offenders were haled at once before the
Federal court. Any election offence was punishable by a fine of $3000 and
imprisonment of two years, with costs. To refuse to give information in an
investigation subjected the person to a fine of $100 and thirty days'
imprisonment and costs. State courts were forbidden to try cases coming
under the act, and proceedings after warning, by state officials, resulted
in imprisonment and fine amounting to one year and $500 to $1000, plus
costs.[2005]
It was feared that these acts might prove insufficient to carry the
southern states for the Republican party in 1872. Grant was becoming more
and more radical as the Republican nominating convention and the elections
drew nearer. Under the influence of the Radical leaders, he sent, on March
23, 1871, a message[2006] to Congress, declaring that in some of the
states a condition of affairs existed rendering life and property
insecure, and the carrying of mails and collection of revenue dangerous;
the state governments were unable to control these evils; and it was
doubtful if the President had the authority to interfere. He therefore
asked for legislation to secure life, property, and the enforcement of
law.[2007]
Congress came to the rescue with the Ku Klux Act of April 20, 1871, "in
which Congress simply threw to the winds the constitutional distribution
of powers between the states and the United States government in respect
to civil liberty, crime, and punishment, and assumed to legislate freely
and without limitation for the preservation of civil and political rights
within the state."[2008]
It gave the President authority to declare the southern states in
rebellion and to suspend the writ of _habeas corpus_--after a proclamation
against insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combinations, and
conspiracies. Such a state of affairs was declared a rebellion, and the
President was authorized to use the army and navy to suppress it. Heavy
penalties were denounced ($500 to $5000 fine, and six months' to six
years' imprisonment) against persons who conspired to overthrow or destroy
the United States government or to levy war against the United States; or
who hindered the execution of the laws of the United States, seized its
property, prevented any one from accepting or holding office or
discharging official duties, drove away or injured, in person or property,
any official or any witness in court, went in disguise on highway or on
the premises of others, and hindered voting or office-holding. Any person
injured in person, property, or privilege had the right to sue the
conspirators for damages under the Civil Rights Bill. In Federal courts
the jurors had to take oath that they were not in any way connected with
such conspiracies, and the judges were empowered to exclude suspected
persons from the jury. Persons not connected with such conspiracies, yet
having knowledge of such things, were liable to the injured party for all
damages.[2009]
On May 3, 1871, Grant issued a proclamation calling attention to the fact
that the law was one of "extraordinary public importance" and, while of
general application, was directed at the southern states, and stating that
when necessary he would not hesitate to exhaust the powers vested by the
act in the executive. The failure of local communities to protect all
citizens would make it necessary for the national government to
interfere.[2010]
Ku Klux Investigation
In order to justify the passage of the Enforcement Acts and to obtain
material for campaign use the next year, Congress appointed a committee,
which was organized on the day the Ku Klux Act was approved, to
investigate the condition of affairs in the southern states.[2011] From
June to August, 1871, the committee took testimony in Washington. In the
fall subcommittees visited the various southern states selected for the
inquisition. About one-fourth of the Alabama testimony was taken in
Washington, the rest was taken by the subcommittee in Alabama.
The members of the subcommittee that took testimony in Alabama were
Senators Pratt and Rice, and Messrs. Blair, Beck, and Buckley of the
House. Blair and Beck, the Democratic members, were never present
together. So the subcommittee consisted of three Republicans and one
Democrat. C. W. Buckley was a Radical Representative from Alabama, a
former Bureau reverend, who worked hard to convict the white people of the
state of general wickedness. The subcommittee held sessions in Huntsville,
October 6-14; Montgomery, October 17-20; Demopolis, October 23-28;
Livingston, October 30 to November 3; and in Columbus, Mississippi, for
west Alabama, November 11. All these places were in black counties.
Sessions were held only at easily accessible places, and where scalawag,
carpet-bag, and negro witnesses could easily be secured. Testimony was
also taken by the committee in Washington from June to August, 1871.
It is generally believed that the examination of witnesses by the Ku Klux
committees of Congress was a very one-sided affair, and that the testimony
is practically without value for the historian, on account of the immense
proportion of hearsay reports and manufactured tales embraced in it. Of
course there is much that is worthless because untrue, and much that may
be true but cannot be regarded because of the character of the witnesses,
whose statements are unsupported. But, nevertheless, the 2008 pages of
testimony taken in Alabama furnish a mine of information concerning the
social, religious, educational, political, legal, administrative,
agricultural, and financial conditions in Alabama from 1865 to 1871. The
report itself, of 632 pages, contains much that is not in the testimony,
especially as regards railroad and cotton frauds, taxation, and the public
debt, and much of this information can be secured nowhere else.
The minority members of the subcommittee which took testimony in Alabama,
General Frank P. Blair and later Mr. Beck of New York, caused to be
summoned before the committee at Washington, and before the subcommittee
in Alabama, the most prominent men of the state--men who, on account of
their positions, were intimately acquainted with the condition of affairs.
They took care that the examination covered everything that had occurred
since the war. The Republican members often protested against the evidence
that Blair proposed to introduce, and ruled it out. He took exceptions,
and sometimes the committee at Washington admitted it; sometimes he
smuggled it in by means of cross-questioning, or else he incorporated it
into the minority report. On the other hand, the Republican members of the
subcommittee seem to have felt that the object of the investigation was
only to get campaign material for the use of the Radical party in the
coming elections. They summoned a poor class of witnesses, a large
proportion of whom were ignorant negroes who could only tell what they had
heard or had feared. The more respectable of the Radicals were not
summoned, unless by the Democrats. In several instances the Democrats
caused to be summoned the prominent scalawags and carpet-baggers, who
usually gave testimony damaging to the Radical cause.
An examination of the testimony shows that sixty-four Democrats and
Conservatives were called before the committee and subcommittee. Of these,
fifty-seven were southern men, five were northern men residing in the
state, and two were negroes. The Democrats testified at great length,
often twenty to fifty pages. Blair and Beck tried to bring out everything
concerning the character of carpet-bag rule.[2012]
Thirty-four scalawags, fifteen carpet-baggers, and forty-one negro
Radicals came before the committee and subcommittee. Some of these were
summoned by Blair or Beck, and a number of them disappointed the
Republican members of the committee by giving Democratic testimony.[2013]
The Radicals could only repeat, with variations, the story of the Eutaw
riot, the Patona affair, the Huntsville parade, etc. Of the prominent
carpet-baggers and scalawags whose testimony was anti-Democratic, most
were men of clouded character.[2014] The testimony of the higher Federal
officials was mostly in favor of the Democratic contention.[2015] The
negro testimony, however worthless it may appear at first sight, becomes
clear to any one who, knowing the negro mind, remembers the influences
then operating upon it. From this class of testimony one gets valuable
hints and suggestions. The character of the white scalawag and carpet-bag
testimony is more complex, but if one has the history of the witness, the
testimony usually becomes intelligible. In many instances the testimony
gives a short history of the witness.
The material collected by the Ku Klux Committee, and other committees that
investigated affairs in the South after the war, can be used with profit
only by one who will go to the biographical books and learn the social and
political history of each person who testified. When the personal history
of an important witness is known, many obscure things become plain. Unless
this is known, one cannot safely accept or reject any specific testimony.
To one who works in Alabama Reconstruction, Brewer's "Alabama," Garrett's
"Reminiscences," the "Memorial Record," old newspaper files, and the
memories of old citizens are indispensable.
There is in the first volume of the Alabama Testimony a delightfully
partisan index of seventy-five pages. In it the summary of Democratic
testimony shows up almost as Radical as the most partisan on the other
side. It is meant only to bring out the violence in the testimony.
According to it, one would think all those killed or mistreated were
Radicals. The same man frequently figures in three situations, as "shot,"
"outraged," and "killed." General Clanton's testimony of thirty pages gets
a summary of four inches, which tells nothing; that of Wager, a Bureau
agent, gets as much for twelve pages, which tells something; and that of
Minnis, a scalawag, twice as much. There is very little to be found in the
testimony that relates directly to the Ku Klux Klan and similar
organizations. Had the sessions of the subcommittee been held in the white
counties of north and southwest Alabama, where the Klans had flourished,
probably they might have found out something about the organization. But
the minority members were determined to expose the actual condition of
affairs in the state from 1865 to 1871. No matter how much the Radicals
might discover concerning unlawful organizations, the Democrats stood
ready with an immense deal of facts concerning Radical misgovernment to
show cause why such organizations should arise. Consequently the three
volumes of testimony relating to Alabama are by no means pro-Radical,
except in the attitude of the majority of the examiners.[2016]
Below is given a table of alleged Ku Klux outrages, compiled from the
testimony taken. The Ku Klux report classifies all violence under the four
heads: killing, shooting, outrage, whipping. The same case frequently
figures in two or more classes. Practically every case of violence,
whether political or not, is brought into the testimony. The period
covered is from 1865 to 1871. Radical outrages as well as Democratic are
listed in the report as Ku Klux outrages. In a number of cases Radical
outrages are made to appear as Democratic. Many of the cases are simply
hearsay. It is not likely that many instances of outrage escaped notice,
for every case of actual outrage was proven by many witnesses. Every
violent death of man, woman, or child, white or black, Democratic or
Radical, occurring between 1865 and 1871, appears in the list as a Ku Klux
outrage. Evidently careful search had been made, and certain witnesses had
informed themselves about every actual deed of violence. There were then
sixty-four counties in the state, and in only twenty-nine of them were
there alleged instances of Ku Klux outrage.
TABLE OF ALLEGED OUTRAGES COMPILED FROM THE KU KLUX TESTIMONY
==========================================================
COUNTY |KILLINGS|OUTRAGES|SHOOTINGS|WHIPPINGS|TOTAL
--------------|--------|--------|---------|---------|-----
Autauga | -- | 1 | -- | -- | 1
Blount (k) | 2 | 3 | -- | 6 | 11
Calhoun | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9
Chambers (k) | 1 | -- | 1 | -- | 2
Cherokee (k) | -- | 2 | -- | 1 | 3
Choctaw (x) | 11 | 1 | 3 | -- | 15
Coosa | -- | -- | 1 | 12 | 13
Colbert (k) | 1 | 1 | -- | 1 | 3
Dallas (x) | 1 | 1 | -- | -- | 2
Fayette (k) | 1 | -- | -- | 3 | 4
Greene (x) | 11 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 19
Hale (x) | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 7
Jackson | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 10
Lauderdale | -- | -- | -- | 1 | 1
Lawrence (k) | 2 | -- | -- | -- | 2
Limestone (k) | 7 | 1 | -- | 1 | 9
Macon (x) | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 7
Madison (x) | 6 | 19 | 5 | 19 | 49
Marshall (k) | 1 | -- | 1 | 1 | 3
Marengo (x) | 1 | 6 | -- | 4 | 11
Montgomery (x)| -- | 1 | -- | -- | 1
Morgan (k) | 4 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 10
Perry (x) | 2 | -- | 2 | 2 | 6
Pickens (x) | -- | -- | -- | 9 | 9
Sumter (x) | 21 | 4 | 9 | 4 | 38
St. Clair | 1 | 1 | 1 | -- | 3
Tallapoosa (k)| -- | -- | -- | 1 | 1
Tuscaloosa (k)| 8 | -- | -- | -- | 8
Walker (k) | -- | -- | -- | 1 | 1
| | | | +-----
Total | | | | 258
==========================================================
(x) = black counties, and (k) = white counties, where Ku Klux Klan
operated.
The Ku Klux Committee reported a bill[2017] providing for the execution of
the Ku Klux Act until the close of the next session of Congress. It passed
the Senate May 21, 1872, and failed in the House on June 6.[2018] The act
of February 28, 1871, was amended by extending the Federal supervision of
elections from towns to all election districts on application of ten
persons. Other unimportant amendments were made.[2019]
The passage of these laws had no effect on the Ku Klux Klan proper, which
had died out in 1869-1870. Nor did they have any effect in decreasing
violence. It is quite likely that there was more violence toward the negro
in 1871 and 1872 than in 1869-1870. But the laws did affect the elections.
The entire machinery of elections was again under Radical control, and in
1872 the state again sank back into Radicalism. But it was the last
Republican majority the state ever cast. The execution of these laws did
much to hasten the union of the whites against negro rule.
Few cases were tried under the Enforcement Acts, though District Attorney
Minnis and United States Marshal Healy were very active.[2020] Busteed, in
1871, testified that at Huntsville he had tried several persons for an
outrage upon a negro, and that there were still untried two indictments
under the Act of 1870. He stated that his jurors and witnesses were never
interfered with. One of his grand juries, in 1871, encouraged by the
attitude of Congress, reported that while there was no organized
conspiracy throughout the middle district, there was such a thing in
Macon, Coosa, and Tallapoosa. Two of the jurors--Benjamin F. Noble and
Ex-Governor William H. Smith--objected to the report, and Busteed, the
Federal judge, condemned it as unwarranted by the facts.[2021]
Nearly all of the carpet-bag and scalawag witnesses who testified on the
Radical side before the Ku Klux Committee complained that the courts would
not punish Ku Klux when they were arrested, and that juries would not
indict them.[2022]
In 1872 a gang of men in eastern Alabama, the home of the Black Cavalry
and the spurious Ku Klux Klan, burned a negro meeting-house where
political meetings were held. They were arrested and tried under the Ku
Klux Act. Four of them, R. G. Young, S. D. Young, R. S. Gray, and Neil
Hawkins, were fined $5000 each and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in
the penitentiary at Albany, New York. Ringold Young was fined $2000 and
sent to prison for seven years. ---- Blanks and ---- Howard were each
fined $100 and imprisoned for five years. The prisoners were taken from
state officers by force, and during the trial there was much parade by a
guard of United States troops. There was complaint that the evidence was
insufficient, and the punishment disproportionate to the offence even if
proven.[2023]
In the elections of 1872 and 1874 there were numerous arrests of Democrats
by the deputy marshals, who often made their arrests before election day
and paraded the prisoners about the country for the information of the
voters. I have been unable to find record of any convictions.[2024]
Later Organizations
While the Ku Klux Klan was disbanded by order in 1869, it is not likely
that the order of the White Camelia disbanded except when there was no
longer any necessity for it. In one county it might disband; in another it
might survive several years longer. It is said that its operations were by
order suspended in counties when conditions improved.
The White Brotherhood was a later organization, but had only a limited
extension over south Alabama. The most widely spread of the later
organizations was the White League, which in some form seems to have
spread over the entire state from 1872 to 1874. The close connection
between southwestern Alabama and Louisiana accounts for the introduction
of both the White Camelia and the White League. In 1875 Arthur Bingham,
the ex-carpet-bag-treasurer of the state, stated that he had secured a
copy of the constitution of the White League and had published it in the
_State Journal_. Its members were sworn not to regard obligations taken in
courts, and to clear one another by all means.[2025]
The White League in Barbour and Mobile, in 1874, declared that no
employment should be given to negro Radicals and no business done with
white Radicals, and in Sumter County they were said to have gone on raids
like the Ku Klux of former days. Military organizations of whites were
enrolled and applications made to the Radical Governor Lewis for arms. He
rejected the services of these companies, but they remained in
organization and drilled. The Confederate gray uniforms were worn. In
Tuskegee arms were purchased for the company by private subscription. By
1874 the white people of the state had become thoroughly united in the
White Man's Party. There had been no compromises. The color and race line
had been sharply drawn by the white counties, and the black counties later
fell into line. The campaign of 1874 was the most serious of all. The
whites intended to live no longer under Radical rule, and the whole state
was practically a great Klan. There was but little violence, but there was
a stern determination to defeat the Radicals at any cost; and if
necessary, violence would have been used. At the inauguration of Governor
Houston, in 1874, several of the gray-coated White League companies
appeared from different parts of the state.[2026]
In several later elections the old Ku Klux methods were used, and there
was much mysterious talk of "dark rainy nights and bloody moons." The
"Barbour County Fever" was prevalent for many years: young men and boys
would serenade the Radicals of the community and mortify them in every
possible way, and their families would refuse to recognize socially the
families of carpet-baggers and scalawags. They would not sit by them in
church. The children at school imitated their elders.[2027]
The Ku Klux method of regulating society was nothing new; it was as old as
history; it had often been used before; it may be used again; when a
people find themselves persecuted by aliens or by the law, they will find
some means outside the law for protecting themselves; it is certain also
that such experiences will result in a great weakening of respect for law
and in a return to more primitive methods of justice.
CHAPTER XXII
REORGANIZATION OF THE INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM
Break-up of the Ante-bellum System
The cotton planter of the South, the master of many negro slaves,
organized a very efficient slave labor system. Each plantation was an
industrial community almost independent of the outside world; the division
of labor was minute, each servant being assigned a task suited to his or
her strength and training. Nothing but the most skilful management could
save a planter from ruin, for, though the labor was efficient, it was very
costly. The value of an overseer was judged by the general condition,
health, appearance, and manners of the slaves; the amount of work done
with the least punishment; the condition of stock, buildings, and
plantation; and the size of the crops. All supplies were raised on the
plantation,--corn, bacon, beef, and other food-stuffs; farm implements and
harness were made and repaired by the skilled negroes in rainy weather
when no outdoor work could be done; clothes were cut out in the "big
house" and made by the negro women under the direction of the mistress.
The skilled laborers were blacks. Work was usually done by tasks, and
industrious negroes were able to complete their daily allotment and have
three or four hours a day to work in their own gardens and "patches." They
often earned money at odd jobs, and the church records show that they
contributed regularly. Negro children were trained in the arts of industry
and in sobriety by elderly negroes of good judgment and firm character,
usually women.[2028] Children too young to work were cared for by a
competent mammy in the plantation nursery while their parents were in the
fields.
In the Black Belt there was little hiring of extra labor and less renting
of land. Except on the borders, nearly all whites were of the planting
class. Their greater wealth had enabled them to outbid the average farmer
and secure the rich lands of the black prairies, cane-brakes, and river
bottoms. The small farmer who secured a foothold in the Black Belt would
find himself in a situation not altogether pleasant, and, selling out to
the nearest planter, would go to poorer and cheaper land in the hills and
pine woods, where most of the people were white.
In the Black Belt cotton was largely a surplus money crop, and once the
labor was paid for, the planter was a very rich man.[2029] In the white
counties of the cotton states about the same crops were raised as in the
Black Belt, but the land was less fertile and the methods of cultivation
less skilful. In the richer parts of these white counties there was
something of the plantation system with some negro labor. But slavery
gradually drove white labor to the hill and mountain country, the sand and
pine barrens. No matter how poor a white man was, he was excessively
independent in spirit and wanted to work only his own farm. This will
account for the lack of renters and hired white laborers in black or in
white districts, and also for the fact that the less fertile land was
taken up by the whites who desired to be their own employers. Land was
cheap, and any man could purchase it. There was some renting of land in
the white counties, and the form it took was that now known as "third and
fourth."[2030] It was then called "shares." There was little or no tenancy
"on halves" or "standing rent." But the average farmer worked his own
land, often with the help of from three to ten slaves.
On the borders of the Black Belt in Alabama dwelt a peculiar class called
"squatters." They settled down with or without permission on lots of poor
and waste land, built cabins, cleared "patches," and made a precarious
living by their little crops, by working as carpenters, blacksmiths, etc.
Some bought small lots of land on long-time payments and never paid for
them, but simply stayed where they were. In the edge of the Black Belt in
the busy season were found numbers of white hired men working alongside of
negro slaves,[2031] for there was no prejudice against manual labor, that
is, no more than anywhere else in the world.[2032]
As soon as the war was over the first concern of the returning soldiers
was to obtain food to relieve present wants and to secure supplies to last
until a crop could be made. In the white counties of the state the
situation was much worse than in the Black Belt. The soil of the white
counties was less fertile; the people were not wealthy before the war, and
during the war they had suffered from the depredations of the enemy and
from the operation of the tax-in-kind, which bore heavily upon them when
they had nothing to spare. The white men went to the war and there were
only women, children, and old men to work the fields. The heaviest losses
among the Alabama Confederate troops were from the ranks of the white
county soldiers. In these districts there was destitution after the first
year of the war, and after 1862 from one-fourth to one-half of the
soldiers' families received aid from the state. The bountiful Black Belt
furnished enough for all, but transportation facilities were lacking. At
the close of hostilities the condition of the people in the poorer regions
was pitiable. Stock, fences, barns, and in many cases dwellings had
disappeared; the fields were grown up in weeds; and no supplies were
available. How the people managed to live was a mystery. Some walked
twenty miles to get food, and there were cases of starvation. No seeds and
no farm implements were to be had. The best work of the Freedmen's Bureau
was done in relieving these people from want until they could make a crop.
The Black Belt was the richest as well as the least exposed section of the
state and fared well until the end of the war. The laborers were negroes,
and these worked as well in war time as in peace. Immense food crops were
made in 1863 and 1864, and there was no suffering among whites or blacks.
Until 1865 there was no loss from Federal invasion, but with the spring of
1865 misfortune came. Four large armies marched through the central
portions of the state, burning, destroying, and confiscating. In June,
1865, the Black Belt was in almost as bad condition as the white counties.
All buildings in the track of the armies had disappeared; the stores of
provisions were confiscated; gin-houses and mills were burned; cattle and
horses and mules were carried away; and nothing much was left except the
negroes and the fertile land. The returning planter, like the farmer,
found his agricultural implements worn out and broken, and in all the land
there was no money to purchase the necessaries of life. But in the
portions of the black counties untouched by the armies there were supplies
sufficient to last the people for a few months. A few fortunate
individuals had cotton, which was now bringing fabulous prices, and it was
the high price received for the few bales not confiscated by the
government that saved the Black Belt from suffering as did the other
counties.
Neither master nor slave knew exactly how to begin anew, and for a while
things simply drifted. Now that the question of slavery was settled, many
of the former masters felt a great relief from responsibility, though for
their former slaves they felt a profound pity. The majority of them had no
faith in free negro labor, yet all were willing to give it a trial, and a
few of the more strenuous ones said that the energy and strength of the
white man that had made the savage negro an efficient laborer could make
the free negro work fairly well; and if the free negro would work, they
were willing to admit that the change might be beneficial to both races.
During the spring and summer and fall the masters came straggling home,
and were met by friendly servants who gave them cordial welcome. Each one
called up his servants and told them that they were free; and that they
might stay with him and work for wages, or find other homes. Except in the
vicinity of the towns and army posts the negroes usually chose to stay and
work; and in the remote districts of the Black Belt affairs were little
changed for several weeks after the surrender, which there hardly caused a
ripple on the surface of society. Life and work went on as before. The
staid negro coachmen sat upon their boxes on Sunday as of old; the field
hands went regularly about their appointed tasks. Labor was cheerful, and
the negroes went singing to the fields. "The negro knew no Appomattox. The
Revolution sat lightly,--save in the presence of vacant seats at home and
silent graves in the churchyard, in the memorials of destructive raids, in
the wonder on the faces of a people once free, now ruled, where ruled at
all, by a Bureau agent." Here it was that the master race believed that
after all freedom of the negro might be well.[2033] In other sections,
where the negro was more exposed to outside influences, people were not
hopeful. The common opinion was that with free negro labor cotton could
not be cultivated with success. The northerner often thought that it was a
crop made by forced labor and that no freeman would willingly perform such
labor; the southerner believed that the negro would neglect the crop too
much when not under strict supervision. Yet later years have shown that
free white labor is most successful in the cultivation of cotton because
of the care the whites expend upon their farms; while cotton is the only
crop that the free negro has cultivated with any degree of success,
because some kind of a crop can be made by the most careless cultivation.
At first no one knew just how to work the free negro; innumerable plans
were formed and many were tried. The old patriarchal relations were
preserved as far as possible. Truman,[2034] who made a long stay in
Alabama, reported that in most cases there was a genuine attachment
between masters and negroes; that the masters were the best friends the
negroes had; and that, though they regarded the blacks with much
commiseration, they were inclined to encourage them to collect around the
big house on the old slavery terms, giving food, clothes, quarters,
medical attendance, and a little pay.[2035] At that time no one could
understand the freedom of the negro.[2036] As one old master expressed it,
he saw no "free negroes"[2037] until the fall of 1865, when the Bureau
began to influence the blacks. But with the extension of the Bureau and
the spread of army posts, the negroes became idle, neglected the crops
that had been planted in the spring, moved from their old homes and went
to town to the Bureau, or went wandering about the country. The house
servants and the artisans, who were the best and most intelligent of the
negroes, also began to go to the towns. Negro women desiring to be as
white ladies, refused to work in the fields, to cook, to wash, or to
perform other menial duties. It was years before this "freedom" prejudice
of the negro women against domestic service died out.[2038] The negro
would work one or two days in the week, go to town two days, and wander
about the rest of the time. Under such conditions there was no hope of
continuing the old patriarchal system, and new plans, modelled on what
they had heard of free labor, were tried by the planters. In the white
counties the ex-soldiers went to work as before the war, but they had come
home from the army too late to plant full crops, and few had supplies
enough to last until the crops should be gathered. In most of the white
counties the negroes were so few as to escape the serious attention of the
Bureau, and consequently they worked fairly well at what they could get to
do.[2039]
The first work of the Bureau was to break up the labor system that had
been partially constructed, and to endeavor to establish a new system
based on the northern free labor system and the old slave-hiring system
with the addition of a good deal of pure theory. The Bureau was to act as
a labor clearing-house; it was to have entire control of labor; contracts
must be written in accordance with the minute regulations of the Bureau,
and must be registered by the agent, who charged large fees.[2040]
The result of these regulations was to destroy industry where an alien
Bureau agent was stationed, for the planters could not afford to have
their land worked on such terms. In some of the counties, where the native
magistrates served as Bureau agents, no attention was paid to the rules of
the Bureau, and the people floundered along, trying to develop a workable
basis of existence. In the districts infested by the Bureau agents the
negroes had fantastic notions of what freedom meant. On one plantation
they demanded that the plantation bell be no longer rung to summon the
hands to and from work, because it was too much like slavery.[2041] In
various places they refused to work and congregated about the Bureau
offices, awaiting the expected division of property, when they would get
the "forty acres and one old gray mule." When wages were paid they
believed that each should receive the same amount, whether his labor had
been good or bad, whether the laborer was present or absent, sick or well.
In one instance a planter was paying his men in corn according to the time
each had worked. The negroes objected and got an order from the Bureau
agent that the division should be made equally. The planter read the order
(which the negroes could not read), and at once directed the division as
before. The negroes, thinking that the Bureau had so ordered, were
satisfied. In the cane-brake region the agents were afraid of the great
planters and did not interfere with the negroes except to organize them
into Union Leagues; but elsewhere in the Black Belt the planter could not
afford to hire negroes on the terms fixed by the Bureau.[2042]
Northern and Foreign Immigration
With the break-up of the slave system the planter found himself with much
more land than he knew what to do with. He could get no reliable labor, he
had no cash capital, so in many cases he offered his best lands for sale
at low prices. The planters wanted to attract northern and foreign
immigration and capital into the country; the cotton planter sought for a
northern partner who could furnish the capital. Owing to the almost
religious regard of the negro for his northern deliverers, many white
landlords thought that northern men, especially former soldiers, might be
better able than southern men to control negro labor. General Swayne, the
head of the Bureau, said that the negroes had more confidence in a
"bluecoat" than in a native, and that among the larger planters northern
men as partners or overseers were in great demand.[2043]
For a short time after the close of the war northern men in considerable
numbers planned to go into the business of cotton raising. DeBow[2044]
gives a description of the would-be cotton planters who came from the
North to show the southern people how to raise cotton with free negro
labor. They had note-books and guide-books full of close and exact tables
of costs and profits, and from them figured out vast returns. They
acknowledged that the negro might not work for the southern man, but they
were sure that he would work for them. They were very self-confident, and
would listen to no advice from experienced planters, whom they laughed at
as old fogies, but from their note-books and tables they gave one another
much information about the new machinery useful in cotton culture, about
rules for cultivation, how to control labor, etc. They estimated that each
laborer's family would make $1000 clear gain each year. DeBow would not
say they were wrong, but he said that he thought that they should hasten a
little more slowly. Northern energy and capitol flowed in; plantations
were bought, and the various industries of plantation life started; and
mills and factories were established. Because of the paralyzed condition
of industry the southern people welcomed these enterprises, but they were
very sceptical of their final success. The northern settler had confidence
in the negro and gave him unlimited credit or supplies; consequently, in a
few years the former was financially ruined and had to turn his attention
to politics, and to exploiting the negro in that field in order to make a
living.[2045] Both as employer and as manager the northern men failed to
control negro labor. They expected the negro to be the equal of the Yankee
white. The negroes themselves were disgusted with northern employers.
Truman reported, after an experience of one season, that "it is the almost
universal testimony of the negroes themselves, who have been under the
supervision of both classes,--and I have talked with many with a view to
this point,--that they prefer to labor for a southern employer."[2046]
Northern capital came in after the war, but northern labor did not, though
the planters offered every inducement. Land was offered to white
purchasers at ridiculously low rates, but the northern white laborer did
not come. He was afraid of the South with its planters and negroes. The
poorer classes of native whites, however, profited by the low prices and
secured a foothold on the better lands. So general was the unbelief in the
value of the free negro as a laborer, especially in the Bureau districts,
and so signally had all inducements failed to bring native white laborers
from the North, that determined efforts were made to obtain white labor
from abroad. Immigration societies were formed with officers in the state
and headquarters in the northern cities. These societies undertook to send
to the South laboring people, principally German, in families at so much
per head. The planter turned with hope to white labor, of the superiority
of which he had so long been hearing, and he wished very much to give it a
trial. The advertisements in the newspapers read much like the old slave
advertisements: so many head of healthy, industrious Germans of good
character delivered f.o.b. New York, at so much per head. One of the white
labor agencies in Alabama undertook to furnish "immigrants of any nativity
and in any quantity" to take the place of negroes. Children were priced at
the rate of $50 a year; women, $100; men, $150,--they themselves providing
board and clothes. One of every six Germans was warranted to speak
English.[2047] Most of these agencies were frauds and only wanted an
advance payment on a car load of Germans who did not exist. In a few
instances some laborers were actually shipped in; but they at once
demanded an advance of pay, and then deserted. Like the bounty jumpers,
they played the game time and time again. The influence of the Radical
press of the North was also used to discourage emigration to the
South;[2048] consequently white immigration into the state did not amount
to anything,[2049] and the Black Belt received no help from the North or
from abroad, and had to fall back upon the free negro.
In the white counties there had been little hope or desire for alien
immigration. The people and the country were so desperately poor that the
stranger would never think of settling there. Many of the whites in
moderate circumstances, living near the Black Belt, took advantage of the
low price of rich lands, and acquired small farms in the prairies, but
there was no influx of white labor to the Black Belt from the white
counties.[2050] Nearly every man, woman, and child in the white districts
had to go to work to earn a living. Many persons--lawyers, public men,
teachers, ministers, physicians, merchants, overseers, managers, and even
women--who had never before worked in the fields or at manual occupations,
were now forced to do so because of losses of property, or because they
could not live by their former occupations.[2051]
While the number of white laborers had increased somewhat, negro labor had
decreased. Several thousand negro men had gone with the armies; for
various reasons thousands had drifted to the towns, where large numbers
died in 1865-1866. The rural negro had a promising outlook, for at any
time he could get more work than he could do; the city negro found work
scarce even when he wanted it.[2052]
Attempts to organize a New System
Several attempts were made by the negroes in 1865 and 1866 to work farms
and plantations on the coöperative system, that is, to club work, but with
no success. They were not accustomed to independent labor, their faculty
for organization had not been sufficiently developed, and the dishonesty
of their leading men sometimes caused failures of the schemes.[2053]
In the summer of 1865 the Monroe County Agricultural Association was
formed to regulate labor, and to protect the interests of both employer
and laborer. It was the duty of the executive committee to look after the
welfare of the freedmen, to see that contracts were carried out and the
freedmen protected in them, and, in cases of dispute, to act as
arbitrator. The members of the association pledged themselves to see that
the freedman received his wages, and to aid him in case his employer
refused to pay. They were also to see that the freedman fulfilled his
contract, unless there was good reason why he should not. Homes and the
necessaries of life were to be provided by the association for the aged
and helpless negroes, of whom there were several on every plantation. The
planters declared themselves in favor of schools for the negro children,
and a committee was appointed to devise a plan for their education. Every
planter in Monroe County belonged to the association.[2054] An
organization in Conecuh County adopted, word for word, the constitution of
the Monroe County association. In Clarke and Wilcox counties similar
organizations were formed, and in all counties where negro labor was the
main dependence some such plans were devised.[2055] But it is noticeable
that in those counties where the planters first undertook to reorganize
the labor system, there were no regular agents of the Freedmen's Bureau
and no garrisons.
The average negro quite naturally had little or no sense of the obligation
of contracts. He would leave a growing crop at the most critical period,
and move into another county, or, working his own crop "on shares," would
leave it in the grass and go to work for some one else in order to get
small "change" for tobacco, snuff, and whiskey. After three years of
experience of such conduct, a meeting of citizens at Summerfield, Dallas
County, decided that laborers ought to be impressed with the necessity of
complying with contracts. They agreed that no laborers discharged for
failure to keep contracts would be hired again by other employers. They
declared it to be the duty of the whites to act in perfect good faith in
their relations with freedmen, to respect and uphold their rights, and to
promote good feeling.[2056]
Development of the Share System
At first the planters had demanded a system of contracts, thinking that by
law they might hold the negro to his agreements. But the Bureau contracts
were one-sided, and the planters could not afford to enter into them.
General Swayne early reported[2057] a general breakdown of the contract
system, though he told the planters that in case of dispute, where no
contract was signed, he would exact payment for the negro at the highest
rates. The "share" system was discouraged, but where there were no Bureau
agents it was developing. And so bad was the wage system, that even in the
Bureau districts, share hiring was done. The object of "share" renting was
to cause the laborer to take an interest in his crop and to relieve the
planter of disputes about loss of time, etc. Some of the negroes also
decided that the share system was the proper one. On the plantations near
Selma the negroes demanded "shares," threatening to leave in case of
refusal. General Hardee, who was living near, proposed a plan for a verbal
contract; wages should be one-fourth of all crops, meat and bread to be
furnished to the laborer, and his share of crop to be paid to him in kind,
or the net proceeds in cash; the planter to furnish land, teams, wagons,
implements, and seed to the laborer, who, in addition, had all the slavery
privileges of free wood, water, and pasturage, garden lot and truck patch,
teams to use on Sundays and for going to town. The absolute right of
management was reserved to the planter, it being understood that this was
no copartnership, but that the negro was hired for a share of the crop;
consequently he had no right to interfere in the management.[2058]
On another plantation, where a share system similar to Hardee's was in
operation, the planter divided the workers into squads of four men each.
To each squad he assigned a hundred acres of cotton and corn, in the
proportion of five acres of cotton to three of corn, and forty acres of
cotton for the women and children of the four families. The squads were
united to hoe and plough and to pick the cotton, because they worked
better in gangs. Wage laborers were kept to look after fences and ditches,
and to perform odd jobs. A frequent source of trouble was the custom of
allowing the negro, as part of his pay, several acres of "outside crop,"
to be worked on certain days of the week, as Fridays and Saturdays. The
planter was supposed to settle disputes among the negroes, give them
advice on every subject except politics and religion, on which they had
other advisers, pay their fines and get them out of jail when arrested,
and sometimes to thrash the recalcitrant.[2059]
Several kinds of share systems were finally evolved from the industrial
chaos. They were much the same in black or white districts, and the usual
designations were "on halves," "third and fourth," and "standing rent."
The tenant "on halves" received one-half the crop, did all the work, and
furnished his own provisions. The planter furnished land, houses to live
in, seed, ploughs, hoes, teams, wagons, ginned the cotton, paid for half
the fertilizer, and "went security" for the negro for a year's credit at
the supply store in town, or he furnished the supplies himself, and
charged them against the negro's share of the crop. The "third and fourth"
plan varied according to locality and time, and depended upon what the
tenant furnished. Sometimes the planter furnished everything, while the
negro gave only his labor and received one-fourth of the crop; again, the
planter furnished all except provisions and labor, and gave the negro
one-third of the crop. In such cases "third and fourth" was a lower grade
of tenancy than "on halves." Later it developed to a higher grade: the
tenant furnished teams and farming implements, and the planter the rest,
in which case the planter received a third of the cotton, and a fourth of
the corn raised. "Standing rent" was the highest form of tenancy, and only
responsible persons, white or black, could rent under that system. It
called for a fixed or "standing" rent for each acre or farm, to be paid
in money or in cotton. The unit of value in cotton was a 500-pound bale of
middling grade on October 1st. Tenants who had farm stock, farming
implements, and supplies or good credit would nearly always cultivate for
"standing rent." The planter exercised a controlling direction over the
labor and cultivation of a crop worked "on halves"; he exercised less
direction over "third and fourth" tenants, and was supposed to exercise no
control over tenants who paid "standing rent." In all cases the planter
furnished a dwelling-house free, wood and water (paid for digging wells),
and pasture for the pigs and cows of the tenants. In all cases the renter
had a plot of ground of from one to three acres, rent free, for a
vegetable garden and "truck patch." Here could be raised watermelons,
sugar-cane, potatoes, sorghum, cabbage, and other vegetables. Every tenant
could keep a few pigs and a cow, chickens, turkeys, and guineas, and
especially dogs, and could hunt in all the woods around and fish in all
the waters. "On halves" was considered the safest form of tenancy for both
planter and tenant, for the latter was only an average man, and this
method allowed the superior direction of the planter.[2060] Many negroes
worked for wages; the less intelligent and the unreliable could find no
other way to work; and some of the best of them preferred to work for
wages paid at the end of each week or month. Wage laborers worked under
the immediate oversight of the farmer or tenant who hired them. They
received $8 to $12 a month and were "found," that is, furnished with
rations. In the white counties the negro hired man was often fed in the
farmer's kitchen. The laborer, if hired by the year, had a house,
vegetable garden, truck patch, chickens, a pig perhaps, always a dog, and
he could hunt and fish anywhere in the vicinity. Sometimes he was "found";
sometimes he "found" himself. When he was "found," the allowance for a
week was three and a half pounds of bacon, a peck of meal, half a gallon
of syrup, and a plug of tobacco; his garden and truck patch furnished
vegetables. This allowance could be varied and commuted. The system was
worked out in the few years immediately following the war, and has lasted
almost without change. Where the negroes are found, the larger plantations
have not been broken up into small farms, the census statistics to the
contrary notwithstanding.[2061] The negro tenant or laborer had too many
privileges for his own good and for the good of the planter. The negro
should have been paid more money or given a larger proportion of the crop,
and fewer privileges. He needed more control and supervision, and the
result of giving him a vegetable garden, a truck patch, a pasture, and the
right of hunting and fishing, was that the negro took less interest in the
crop; the privileges were about all he wanted. Agricultural industry was
never brought to a real business basis.[2062]
An essential part of the share system was the custom of advancing supplies
to the tenant with the future crop as security. The universal lack of
capital after the war forced an extension of the old ante-bellum credit or
supply system. The merchant, who was also a cotton buyer, advanced money
or supplies until the crop was gathered. Before the war his security was
crop, land, and slaves; after the war the crop was the principal security,
for land was a drug in the market. Consequently, the crop was more
important to the creditor. Cotton was the only good cash staple, and the
high prices encouraged all to raise it. It was to the interest of the
merchant, even when prices were low, to insist that his debtors raise
cotton to the exclusion of food crops, since much of his money was made by
selling food supplies to them. Before the war the planter alone had much
credit, and a successful one did not make use of the system; but after
the war all classes of cotton raisers had to have advances of supplies.
The credit or crop lien system was good to put an ambitious farmer on the
way to independence, but it was no incentive to the shiftless. Cotton
became the universal crop under the credit system, and even when the
farmer became independent, he seldom planted less of his staple crop, or
raised more supplies at home.
Negro Farmers and White Farmers
At the end of the war everything was in favor of the negro cotton raiser;
and everything except the high price of cotton was against the white
farmer in the poorer counties. The soil had been used most destructively
in the white districts, and it had to be improved before cotton could be
raised successfully.[2063] The high price of cotton caused the white
farmer, who had formerly had only small cotton patches, to plant large
fields, and for several years the negro was not a serious competitor. The
building of railroads through the mineral regions afforded transportation
to the white farmer for crops and fertilizers,--an advantage that before
this time had been enjoyed only by the Black Belt,--and improved methods
gradually supplanted the wasteful frontier system of cultivation. The
gradual increase[2064] of the cotton production after 1869 was due
entirely to white labor in the white counties, the black counties never
again reaching their former production, though the population of those
counties has doubled. Governor Lindsay said, in 1871, that the white
people of north Alabama, where but little had been produced before the
war, were becoming prosperous by raising cotton, and at the same time
raising supplies that the planter on the rich lands with negro labor had
to buy from the West. This prosperity, he thought, had done more than
anything else to put an end to Ku Klux disturbances. Somers reported, as
early as 1871, that the bulk of the cotton crop in the Tennessee valley
was made by white labor, not by black.[2065] As long as there was plenty
of cheap, thin land to be had, the poor but independent white would not
work the fertile land belonging to some one else; and before and long
after the war there was plenty of practically free land.[2066] Therefore
the tendency of the whites was to remain on the less fertile land. Dr. E.
A. Smith, in the Alabama Geological Survey of 1881-1882, and in the Report
on Cotton Production in Alabama (1884), shows the relation between race
and cotton production, and race location, with respect to fertility of
soil: (1) On the most fertile lands the laboring population was black; the
farmers were shiftless, and no fertilizers were used; there the credit
evil was worse, and the yield per acre was less than on the poorest soils
cultivated by whites. (2) Where the races were about equal the best system
was found; the soils were medium, the farms were small but well
cultivated, and fertilizers were used. (3) On the poorest soils only
whites were found. These by industry and use of fertilizers could produce
about as much as the blacks on the rich soils.
The average product per acre of the fertile Black Belt is lower than the
lowest in the poorest white counties. Only the best of soil, as in
Clarke, Monroe, and Wilcox counties, is able to overcome the bad labor
system, and produce an average equal to that made by the whites in
Winston, the least fertile county in the state. In white counties, where
the average product per acre falls below the average for the surrounding
region, the fact is always explained by the presence of blacks, segregated
on the best soils, keeping down the average product. For example, Madison
County in 1880 had a majority of blacks, and the average product per acre
was 0.28 bale, as compared with 0.32 bale for the Tennessee valley, of
which Madison was the richest county; in Talladega, the most fertile
county of the Coosa valley, the average production per acre was 0.32, as
compared with 0.40 for the rest of the valley; in Autauga, where the
blacks outnumbered the whites two to one, the average fell below that of
the country around, though the Autauga soil was the best in the region.
The average product of the rich prairie region cultivated by the blacks
was 0.27 bale per acre; the average product in the poor mineral region
cultivated by the whites was 0.26 to 0.28; in the short-leaf pine region
the whites outnumber the blacks two to one, and the average production is
0.34 bale, while in the gravelly hill region, where the blacks are twice
as numerous as the whites, the production is 0.30, the soil in the two
sections being about equal. In general, the fertility of the soil being
equal, the production varies inversely as the proportion of colored
population to white. Density of colored population is a sure sign of
fertile soil; predominance of white a sign of medium or poor soil. Outside
of the Black Belt, white owners cultivate small farms, looking closely
after them. The negro seldom owns the land he cultivates, and is more
efficient when working under direction on the small farm in the white
county. In the Black Belt, nearly all land is fertile and capable of
cultivation, but in the white counties a large percentage is rocky, in
hills, forests, mountains, etc. Many soils in southeast and in north
Alabama, formerly considered unproductive, have been brought into
cultivation by the use of fertilizers, hauled in wagons, in many cases,
from twenty to a hundred miles. Fertilizers have not yet come into general
use in the Black Belt. In the negro districts are still found horse-power
gins and old wooden cotton presses; in the white counties, steam and water
power and the latest machinery. In the white counties it has always been
a general custom to raise a part of the supplies on the farm; in the
Black Belt this has not been done since the war.[2067] Though many of the
white farmers remained under the crop lien bondage, there was a steady
gain toward independence on the part of the more industrious and
economical. But not until toward the close of the century did emancipation
come for many of the struggling whites.
In other directions the whites did better. They opened the mines of north
Alabama, cut the timber of south Alabama, built the railroads and
factories, and to some extent engaged in commerce.[2068] Market gardening
became a common occupation. Negro labor in factories failed. It was the
negro rather than slavery that prevented and still prevents the
establishment of manufactures.[2069] The development of manufactures in
recent years has benefited principally the poor people of the white
counties. "For this mill people is not drawn from foreign immigrants, nor
from distant states, but it is drawn from the native-born white
population, the poor whites, that belated hill-folk from the ridges and
hollows and coves of the silent hills."[2070] The negro artisan is giving
way to the white; even in the towns of the Black Belt, the occupations
once securely held by the negro are passing into the hands of the whites.
In the white counties, during Reconstruction, the relations between the
races became more strained than in the Black Belt. One of the
manifestations of the Ku Klux movement in the white counties was the
driving away of negro tenants from the more fertile districts by the
poorer classes of whites who wanted these lands. For years immigration was
discouraged by the northern press. Foreigners were afraid to come to the
"benighted and savage South."[2071] But in the '80's the railroad
companies began to induce Germans to settle on their lands in the poorest
of the white counties. Later there has been a slow movement from the
Northwest. As a rule, where the northerners and the Germans settle the
wilderness blossoms, and the negro leaves.
After ploughing their hilltops until the soil was exhausted, the whites,
even before the war, decided that only by clearing the swamps in the
poorer districts could they get land worth cultivating. This required much
labor and money. After the war, with the increase of transportation
facilities, fertilizers came into use, the swamps were deserted, and the
farmers went back to the uplands. "By the use of commercial fertilizers,
vast regions once considered barren have been brought into profitable
cultivation, and really afford a more reliable and constant crop than the
rich alluvial lands of the old slave plantations. In nearly every
agricultural county in the South there is to be observed, on the one hand,
this section of fertile soils, once the heart of the old civilization, now
largely abandoned by the whites, held in tenantry by a dense negro
population, full of dilapidation and ruin; while on the other hand, there
is the region of light, thin soils, occupied by the small white
freeholder, filled with schools, churches, and good roads, and all the
elements of a happy, enlightened country life."[2072]
The Decadence of the Black Belt
The patriarchal system failed in the Black Belt, the Bureau system of
contracts and prescribed wages failed, the planter's own wage system
failed,[2073] and finally all settled down to the share system. In this
there was some encouragement to effort on the part of the laborer, and in
case of failure of the crop he bore a share of the loss. After a few
years' experience, the negroes were ready to go back to the wage system,
and labor conventions were held demanding a return to that system.[2074]
But whatever system was adopted, the work of the negro was unsatisfactory.
The skilled laborer left the plantation, and the new generation knew
nothing of the arts of industry. Labor became migratory, and the negro
farmer wanted to change his location every year.[2075] Regular work was a
thing of the past. In two or three days each week a negro could work
enough to live, and the remainder of the time he rested from his labors,
often leaving much cotton in the fields to rot.[2076] He went to the field
when it suited him to go, gazed frequently at the sun to see if it was
time to stop for meals, went often to the spring for water, and spent much
time adjusting his plough or knocking the soil and pebbles from his shoes.
The negro women refused to work in the fields, and yet did nothing to
better the home life; the style of living was "from hand to mouth." Extra
money went for whiskey, snuff, tobacco, and finery, while the standard of
living was not raised.[2077] The laborer would always stop to go to a
circus, election, political meeting, revival, or camp-meeting. A great
desolation seemed to rest upon the Black Belt country.[2078]
In the interior of the state, the negroes worked better during and after
Reconstruction than where they were exposed to the ministrations of the
various kinds of carpet-baggers.[2079] In the Tennessee valley, where the
negroes had taken a prominent part in politics, and had not only seen much
of the war, but many of them had enlisted in the Federal army, cotton
raising almost ceased for several years. The only crops made were made by
whites.[2080] In Sumter County, where the black population was dense, it
was, in 1870, almost impossible to secure labor; those negroes who wished
to work went to the railways.[2081] A description of a "model negro farm"
in 1874 was as follows: The farmer purchased an old mule on credit and
rented land on shares, or for so many bales of cotton; any old tools were
used; corn, bacon, and other supplies were bought on credit, and a lien
given on the crop; a month later, corn and cotton were planted on soil not
well broken up; the negro "would not pay for no guano," to put on other
people's land; by turns the farmer planted and fished, ploughed and
hunted, hoed and frolicked, or went to "meeting." At the end of the year
he sold his cotton, paid part of his rent, and some of his debt, returned
the mule to its owner, and sang:--
"Nigger work hard all de year,
White man tote de money."[2082]
If the negro made anything, his fellows were likely to steal it. Somers
said, "There can be no doubt that the negroes first steal one another's
share of the crop, and next the planter's, by way of general
redress."[2083] Crop stealing was usually done at night. Stolen cotton,
corn, pork, etc., was carried to the doggeries kept on the outskirts of
the plantation by low white men, and there exchanged for bad whiskey,
tobacco, and cheap stuff of various kinds. These doggeries were called
"deadfalls," and their proprietors often became rich.[2084] So serious did
the theft of crops become, that the legislature passed a "sunset" law,
making it a penal offence to purchase farm produce after nightfall.
Poultry, hogs, corn, mules, and horses were stolen when left in the open.
Emancipation destroyed the agricultural supremacy of the Black Belt. The
uncertain returns from the plantations caused an exodus of planters and
their families to the cities, and formerly well-kept plantations were
divided into one-and two-house farms for negro tenants, who allowed
everything to go to ruin. The negro tenant system was much more ruinous
than the worst of the slavery system, and none of the plantations ever
again reached their former state of productiveness. Ditches choked up,
fences down, large stretches of fertile fields growing up in weeds and
bushes, cabins tumbling in and negro quarters deserted, corn choked by
grass and weeds, cotton not half as good as under slavery,--these were the
reports from travellers in the Black Belt, towards the close of
Reconstruction.[2085] Other plantations were leased to managers, who also
kept plantation stores whence the negroes were furnished with supplies.
The money lenders came into possession of many plantations. By the crop
lien and blanket mortgage, the negro became an industrial serf. The "big
house" fell into decay. For these and other reasons, the former masters,
who were the most useful friends of the negro, left the Black Belt, and
the black steadily declined.[2086] The unaided negro has steadily grown
worse; but Tuskegee, Normal, Calhoun, and similar bodies are endeavoring
to assist the negro of the black counties to become an efficient member of
society. In the success of such efforts lies the only hope of the negro,
and also of the white of the Black Belt, if the negro is to continue to
exclude white immigration.[2087]
CHAPTER XXIII
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS DURING RECONSTRUCTION
SEC. 1. POLITICS AND POLITICAL METHODS
During the war the administration of the state government gradually fell
into the hands of officials elected by people more or less disaffected
toward the Confederacy. Provisional Governor Parsons, who had been
secretly disloyal to the Confederacy, retained in office many of the old
Confederate local officials, and appointed to other offices men who had
not strongly supported the Confederacy. In the fall of 1865 and the spring
of 1866 elections under the provisional government placed in office a more
energetic class of second and third rate men who had had little experience
and who were not strong Confederates. Men who had opposed secession and
who had done little to support the war were, as a rule, sent to Congress
and placed in the higher offices of state. The ablest men were not
available, being disfranchised by the President's plan.
In 1868, with the establishment of the reconstructed government, an
entirely new class of officials secured control. Less than 5000 white
voters, of more than 100,000 of voting age, supported the Radical
programme, and, as more than 3000 officials were to be chosen, the field
for choice was limited. The elections having gone by default, the Radicals
met with no opposition, except in three counties. In all the other
counties the entire Radical ticket was declared elected, even though in
several of them no formal elections had been held.
William H. Smith, who was made governor under the Reconstruction Acts, was
a native of Georgia, a lawyer, formerly a Douglas Democrat, and had
opposed secession, but was a candidate for the Confederate Congress.
Defeated, he consoled himself by going over to the Federals in 1862. Smith
was a man of no executive ability, careless of the duties of his office,
and in few respects a fit person to be governor. He disliked the
Confederate element and also the carpet-baggers, but as long as the latter
would not ask for high offices, he was at peace with them. It was his plan
to carry on the state government with the 2000 or 3000 "unionists" and the
United States troops. He did not like the negroes, but could endure them
as long as they lived in a different part of the state and voted for him.
In personal and private matters he was thoroughly honest, but his course
in regard to the issue of bonds showed that in public affairs he could be
influenced to doubtful conduct. It is certain that he never profited by
any of the stealing that was carried on; he merely made it easy for others
to steal; the dishonest ones were his friends, and his enemies paid the
taxes. As governor he had the respect of neither party. He went too far to
please the Democrats, and not far enough to please the Radicals. He
exercised no sort of control over his local officials and shut his eyes to
the plundering of the Black Belt. He was emphatically governor of his
small following of whites, not of all the people, not even of the blacks.
During his administration the whites complained that he was very active in
protecting Radicals from outrage, but paid no attention to the troubles of
his political enemies. His government did not give adequate protection to
life and property.
His lieutenant-governor, A. J. Applegate of Ohio and Wisconsin, was an
illiterate Federal soldier left stranded in Alabama by the surrender.
During the war he was taken ill in Mississippi and was cared for by Mrs.
Thompson, wife of a former Secretary of the Treasury. Upon leaving the
Thompson house he carried some valuable papers with him, which, after the
war, he tried to sell to Mrs. Thompson for $10,000. Lowe, Walker, &
Company, a firm of lawyers in Alabama, gave Applegate $300, made him sign
a statement as to how he obtained the papers, and then published all the
correspondence.[2088] The charge of thievery did not injure his candidacy.
Before election he had been an _attaché_ of the Freedmen's Bureau. After
the constitution had been rejected in 1868, Applegate went North, so far
that he could not get back in time for the first session of the
legislature. A special act, however, authorized him to draw his pay as
having been present. In a letter written for the Associated Press, which
was secured by the Democrats, there were thirty-nine mistakes in spelling.
As a presiding officer over the Senate, he was vulgar and undignified. His
speeches were ludicrous. When the conduct of the Radical senators pleased
him, he made known his pleasure by shouting, "Bully for Alabama!"
The secretary of state, Charles A. Miller, was a Bureau agent from Maine;
Bingham, the treasurer, was from New York; Reynolds, the auditor, from
Wisconsin; Keffer, the superintendent of industrial resources, from
Pennsylvania. Two natives of indifferent reputation--Morse and
Cloud--were, respectively, attorney-general and superintendent of public
instruction. Morse was under indictment for murder and had to be relieved
by special act of the legislature. The chief justice, Peck, was from New
York; Saffold and Peters were southern men; the senators and all of the
representatives in Congress were carpet-baggers. There were six candidates
for the short-term senatorship--all of them carpet-baggers. Willard Warner
of Ohio, who was elected, was probably the most respectable of all the
carpet-baggers, and was soon discarded by the party. He had served in the
Federal army and after the war was elected to the Ohio Senate. His term
expired in January, 1868; in July, 1868, he was elected to the United
States Senate from Alabama. George E. Spencer was elected to the United
States Senate for the long term. He was from Massachusetts, Ohio, Iowa,
and Nebraska. In Iowa he had been clerk of the Senate, and in Nebraska,
secretary to the governor. He entered the army as sutler of the First
Nebraska Infantry. Later he assisted in raising the First Union Alabama
Cavalry and was made its colonel. Spencer was shrewd, coarse, and
unscrupulous, and soon secured control of Federal patronage for Alabama.
He attacked his colleague, Warner, as being lukewarm.
The representatives and their records were as follows: F. W. Kellogg of
Massachusetts and Michigan represented the latter state in Congress from
1859 to 1865, when he was appointed collector of internal revenue at
Mobile. C. W. Buckley of New York and Illinois was a Presbyterian preacher
who had come to Alabama as chaplain of a negro regiment. For two years he
was a Bureau official and an active agitator. He was a leading member in
the convention of 1867. B. W. Norris of Skowhegan, Maine, was an
oil-cloth maker and a land agent for Maine, a commissary, contractor,
cemetery commissioner, and paymaster during the war. After the war he came
South with C. A. Miller, his brother-in-law, and both became Bureau
agents. C. W. Pierce of Massachusetts and Illinois was a Bureau official.
Nothing more is known of him. John B. Callis of Wisconsin had served in
the Federal army and later in the Veteran Reserve Corps. After the war he
became a Bureau agent in Alabama, and when elected he was not a citizen of
the state, but was an army officer stationed in Mississippi. Thomas
Haughey of Scotland was a Confederate recruiting officer in 1861-1862 and
later a surgeon in the Union army. He was killed in 1869 by Collins, a
member of the Radical Board of Education. It was said that he was without
race prejudice and consorted with negroes, but he was the only one of the
Alabama delegation whom Governor Smith liked. The latter wrote that "our
whole set of representatives in Congress, with the exception of Haughey,
are ... unprincipled scoundrels having no regard for the state of the
people."[2089]
In the first Reconstruction legislature, which lasted for three years,
there were in the Senate 32 Radicals and 1 Democrat. In the House there
were 97 Radicals (only 94 served) and 3 Democrats. The lone Democrat in
the Senate was Worthy of Pike, and to prevent him from engaging in debate,
Applegate often retired from his seat and called upon him to preside; the
Democrats in the House were Hubbard of Pike, Howard of Crenshaw, and
Reeves of Cherokee.[2090] In the Senate there was only 1 negro; in the
House there were 26, several of whom could not sign their names. In the
apportionment of representatives there was a difference of 40 per cent in
favor of the black counties. Hundreds of negroes swarmed in to see the
legislature begin, filling the galleries, the windows, and the vacant
seats, and crowding the aisles. They were invited by resolution to fill
the galleries and from that place they took part in the affairs of the
House, voting on every measure with loud shouts. A scalawag from north
Alabama wanted the negroes to sit on one side of the House and the whites
on the other, but he was not listened to. The doorkeepers,
sergeant-at-arms, and other employees were usually negroes. The negro
members watched their white leaders and voted _aye_ or _no_ as they voted.
When tired they went to sleep and often had to be wakened to vote. Both
houses were usually opened with prayer by northern Methodist ministers or
by negro ministers. None but "loyal" ministers were asked to officiate.
Strobach, the Austrian member, wearied of much political prayer, moved
that the chaplain cut short his devotions.
[Illustration: SCENES IN THE FIRST RECONSTRUCTED LEGISLATURE. (Cartoons
from "The Loil Legislature," by Captain B. H. Screws.)]
The whites in the legislature were for the most part carpet-baggers or
unknown native whites. The entire taxes paid by the members of the
legislature were, it is said, less than $100. Applegate, the
lieutenant-governor, did not own a dollar's worth of property in the
state. Most of the carpet-bag members lived in Montgomery; the rest of
them lived in Mobile, Selma, and Huntsville. Few of them saw the districts
they represented after election; some did not see them before or after the
election. The representative from Jackson County lived in Chattanooga,
Tennessee. The state constitution prohibited United States officials from
holding state offices, but nearly all Federal officers in the state also
held state offices. This was particularly the case in the southwestern
counties, which were represented by revenue and custom-house officials
from Mobile. Some of them were absent most of the time, but all drew pay;
one of the negro members, instead of attending, went regularly to school
after the roll was called. No less than twenty members had been indicted
or convicted, or were indicted during the session, of various crimes, from
adultery and stealing to murder. The legislature passed special acts to
relieve members from the penalties for stealing, adultery, bigamy, arson,
riot, illegal voting, assault, bribery, and murder.[2091]
Bribery was common in the legislature. By custom a room in the capitol was
set apart for the accommodation of those who wished to "interview" negro
members.[2092] There the agents of railroad companies distributed
conscience money in the form of loans which were never to be paid back.
Harrington, the speaker, boasted that he received $1700 for engineering a
bill through the House. A lottery promoter said that it cost him only $600
to get his charter through the legislature, and that no Radical, except
one negro, refused the small bribe he offered. Senator Sibley held his
vote on railroad measures at $500; Pennington, at $1000; W. B. Jones, at
$500. Hardy of Dallas received $35,000 to ease the passage of a railroad
bond issue, and kept most of it for himself; another received enough to
start a bank; still another was given 640 acres of land, a steam mill, and
a side track on a railroad near his mill. Negro members, as a rule, sold
out very cheaply, and probably most often to Democrats who wanted some
minor measures passed to which the Radical leaders would pay no attention.
It was found best not to pay the larger sums until the governor had signed
the bill. A member accepted a gift as a matter of course, and no attention
was paid to charges of bribery.[2093]
The election of February 4 and 5, 1868, at which the constitution was
rejected on account of the whites' refraining from voting, was in many
counties a farce. The legislature, in order to remedy any defects in the
credentials of the Radical candidates, passed a number of general and
special acts legalizing the "informal" elections of February 4 and 5, and
declaring the Radical candidates elected. In seven counties no votes had
been counted, but this made no difference.[2094]
The presiding officers addressed the members as "Captain, John, Mr.
Jones," etc. Quarrels and fights were frequent. One member chased another
to the secretary's desk, trying to kill him, but was prevented by the
secretary. In the cloak-rooms and halls were fruit and peanut stands,
whiskey shops, and lunch counters. Legislative action did not avail to
clear out the sovereign negroes and keep the halls clean. Political
meetings were held in the capitol, much to the damage of the
furniture.[2095]
The only measures that excited general interest among the members were the
bond-issue bills. Other legislation was generally purely perfunctory,
except in case an election law or a Ku Klux law was to be passed. There
was much special legislation on account of individual members, such as
granting divorces, ordering release from jail, relieving from the "pains"
of marriage with more than one woman, trick legislation, vacating offices,
etc. When, as in Mobile, the Democrats controlled too many minor offices,
the legislature remedied the wrong by declaring the offices vacant and
giving the governor authority to make appointments to the vacancies. The
Mobile offices were vacated three times in this way. In connection with
the Mobile bill it was found that fraudulent interpolations were sometimes
made in a bill after its passage. It would be taken from the clerk's desk,
changed, and then returned for printing.[2096]
Some of the laws passed failed of their object because of mistakes in
spelling. A committee was finally appointed to correct mistakes in
orthography. The House and Senate constantly returned engrossed bills to
one another for correction. A joint committee to investigate the education
of the clerks reported that they were unable to ascertain which of the
clerks was illiterate, though they discharged one of them. The minority
report declared that the fault was not with the clerks, but with the
members, many of whom could not write. Finally a spelling clerk was
employed to rewrite the bills submitted by the members.[2097] For making
fun of the ignorance of the Radical members, Ryland Randolph, a Democratic
member, elected in a by-election, was expelled from the House.
In 1868 the Radicals, fearing the result of the presidential election and
afraid of the Ku Klux movement which was beginning to be felt, passed a
bill giving to itself the power to choose presidential electors. The
negroes were aroused by the Radical leaders who were not in the
legislature, and sufficient pressure was brought to bear on the governor
to induce him to veto the measure.[2098]
According to the constitution, the Senate was to classify at once after
organization, so that half should serve two years and half four years. No
one was willing to take the short term and lose the $8 _per diem_ and
other privileges. So in 1868 the Senate refused to classify. Again in 1870
it refused to classify. The Radicals permitted the usurpation because it
was known that the Democrats would carry the white counties in case the
classification were made and elections held. Then, too, it was feared that
in 1870 the Democrats would have a majority in the lower house; hence a
Radical Senate would be necessary to prevent the repudiation of the
railroad indorsation. So all senators held over until 1872, and by shrewd
manipulation and the use of Federal troops the Senate kept a Radical
majority until 1874.[2099]
County and other local officials were incompetent and corrupt. The policy
of the whites in abstaining from voting on the constitution (1868) gave
nearly every office in the state to incompetent men. In the white counties
it was as bad as in the black, because the Radicals there despaired of
carrying the elections and put up no regular candidates. However, in every
county some freaks offered themselves as candidates, and at "informal"
elections received, or said they received, a few votes. After the state
was admitted in spite of the rejection of the constitution, these people
were put in office by the legislature. Had the white people taken part in
the elections instead of relying upon the law of Congress in regard to
ratification and not refrained from voting, they could have secured nearly
all the local offices in the white counties. No other state had such an
experience; no other state had such a low class of officials in the
beginning of Reconstruction. But the very incapacity of them worked in
favor of better government, for they had to be gotten rid of and others
appointed. Not a single Bureau agent whose name is on record failed to get
some kind of an office. In Perry County most of the officials were
soldiers of a Wisconsin regiment discharged in the South; the circuit
clerk was under indictment for horse stealing. In Greene County a
superintendent of education had to be imported under contract from
Massachusetts, there being no competent Radical. In Sumter County one
Price, who had a negro wife, was registrar, superintendent of education,
postmaster, and circuit clerk. A carpet-bagger, elected probate judge,
went home to Ohio, after the supposed rejection of the constitution, and
never returned. The sheriff and the solicitor were negroes who could not
read. Another Radical was at once circuit clerk, register in chancery,
notary public, justice of the peace, keeper of the county poorhouse, and
guardian _ad litem_. In Elmore County the probate judge was under
indictment for murder. In Montgomery, Brainard, the circuit clerk, killed
his brother-in-law and tried to kill Widmer, the collector of internal
revenue. The Radical chancellor and marshal were scalawags--one a former
slave trader, the other a former divine-right slave owner. The sheriff of
Madison could not write. In Dallas the illiterate negro commissioners
voted for a higher rate of taxation, though their names were not on the
tax books; their scalawag associates voted for the lower rate. Thus it was
all over Alabama.
In July, 1868, the Reconstruction legislature continued in force the code
of Alabama, which provided for heavy official bonds. But the adventurers
could not make bond. So a special law was passed authorizing the supreme
court, chancellors, and circuit judges to "fix and prescribe" the bonds of
all "judicial and county officials." Later the suspended code went into
effect, and the Democrats succeeded in turning out many newly elected
Radicals who could not make bond. Almost at the beginning the Democrats
began the plan of refusing to make bond for Radicals, and thus made it
almost impossible for the latter to hold office until the legislature
again came to their relief.
There were many vacancies and few white Radicals to fill them; the
scalawags thought that the negro ought to be content with voting. Smith
had many vacancies to fill by appointment. Most of the paying ones were
given to Radicals, and many of the others were given to Democrats, whom he
preferred to negroes. In the black counties the property owners and the Ku
Klux began to make the most obnoxious officials sell out and leave, and
Governor Smith would, by agreement, appoint some Democrat to such
vacancies. This custom became frequent, and, in spite of himself, Smith's
"lily white" sentiments were undermining the rule of his party.[2100] An
argument used by the more liberal of the Radicals in favor of removal of
disabilities was that in some counties the local offices could not be
filled on account of the operation of the disfranchising laws.[2101]
The Federal judiciary was represented by Richard Busteed, an Irishman, who
was made Federal judge in 1864. He came South in 1865 with bloodthirsty
threats and at once began prosecutions for treason. More than 900 cases
were brought before him. There were no convictions, but a rich harvest of
costs. He was ignorant of law, and in the court room was arbitrary and
tyrannical to lawyers, witnesses, and prisoners. It was charged that he
was in partnership with the district attorney. Bribery was proven against
him. The leading lawyers, both Radical and Democratic, asked Congress to
impeach him, but to no effect. It was his custom to solicit men to bring
causes before him. A Selma editor was brought before him and severely
lectured for writing a disrespectful article about Busteed's grand jury.
There was one Democratic lawyer whom Busteed feared--General James H.
Clanton. Clanton paid no attention to Busteed's vagaries, but sat on the
bench with him, advised him and made him take his advice, won all his
cases, and bullied Busteed unrebuked. The latter was afraid he would be
killed if he angered Clanton, and Clanton played upon his fears. At first
a great negrophile, Busteed became more and more obnoxious to the Radical
party, and was soon accused of being a Democrat and removed. Another
Federal officer, Wells, the United States district attorney, had been
discharged from the Union army on the ground of insanity.[2102]
The new constitution made all judgeships elective and also provided for
the election of a solicitor in each county. The result was seen in the
number of incapable judges and illiterate solicitors. The probate judge of
Madison was "a common jack-plane carpenter from Oregon," and his sheriff
could not write. Many of the judges had never studied law and had never
practised. Public meetings were held to protest against incompetent
judges and to demand their resignations. Governor Smith usually appointed
better men, and not always those of his own party, to the places vacated
by resignation, sale, or otherwise. Before the war the state judiciary had
stood high in the estimation of the people, and judicial officers were
forbidden by public opinion to take part in party politics. Under the
Reconstruction government the judicial officials took an active part in
political campaigns, every one of them, from Busteed and the supreme court
to a county judge, making political speeches and holding office in the
party organization. From a party point of view the scarcity of white
Radicals made this necessary. Notaries public, who also had the powers of
justices of the peace, were appointed by the governor. Their powers were
great and indefinite, and in consequence they almost drove the justices
out of activity. Some of them issued warrants running into all parts of
the state, causing men to be brought forty to fifty miles to appear before
them on trifling charges.
The Reconstruction judiciary generally held that a jury without a negro on
it was not legal. In the white counties such juries were hard to form.
Northern newspaper correspondents wrote of the ludicrous appearance of
Busteed's half negro jury struggling with intricate points of maritime
law, insurance, constitutional questions, exchange, and the relative value
of a Prussian guilder to a pound sterling. When they were bored they went
to sleep. The negro jurors recognized their own incompetence and usually
agreed to any verdict decided upon by the white jurors. Had the latter
been respectable men, no harm would have been done, but usually they were
not. A negro jury would not convict a member of the Union League--he had
only to give the sign--nor a negro prosecuted by a white man or indicted
by a jury; but many negroes prosecuted by their own race were convicted by
black juries. For many years it was impossible to secure a respectable
Federal jury on account of the test oath required, which excluded nearly
all Confederates of ability. As an example of the working of a local
court, the criminal court of Dallas may be taken. The jurisdiction
extended to capital offences. Corbin, the judge, was an old Virginian who
had never read law. He refused to allow one Roderick Thomas, colored, to
be tried by a mixed jury, demanding a full negro jury. The prosecution
was then dropped because all twelve negroes drawn were of bad character.
Corbin then entered on the record that Thomas was "acquitted." Thomas had
stolen cotton, and the fact had been proven; but he soon became clerk of
Corbin's court and later took Corbin's place as judge, with another negro
for clerk. Nearly every Radical official in Dallas County was indicted for
corruption in office by a Radical or mixed jury, but negro juries refused
to convict them.[2103]
An elaborate militia system was provided for by the carpet-baggers, with
General Dustin of Iowa, a carpet-bagger, as major-general. The strength of
organization was to be in the black counties, but Governor Smith
persistently refused to organize the negro militia. He was afraid of the
effect on his slender white following, and he did not think that the negro
ought to do anything but vote. He was also afraid of Democratic militia,
afraid that it would overturn the hated state government. He tried to get
several friendly white companies to organize, but failed, and during the
rest of his term relied exclusively upon Federal troops. Even before the
Reconstruction government was set going it was seen that the whites would
be restless. Forcing the rejected constitution and the low-class state
government upon the people against the will of the majority had a very bad
effect. They recognized it as the government _de facto_ only, and they so
considered it all during the Reconstruction. Then the Ku Klux movement
began, and north Alabama especially was disturbed for several years. Smith
sometimes threatened to call out the militia, but never did so. However,
he kept the Federal troops busy answering his calls. After the election of
Grant the army was always at the service of the state officials, who used
detachments as police, marshals, and _posses_. The government had not the
respect of its own party, and had to be upheld by military force. It was a
fixed custom to call in the military when the law was to be
enforced--governor, congressmen, marshals, sheriff, judge, justice of
peace, politicians, all calling for and obtaining troops. It was
distasteful duty to the Federal officers and soldiers. Though the people
knew that only the soldiers upheld the state government, yet they were
not, as a rule, sorry to see the soldiers come in. The military rule was
preferable to the civil rule, and acted as a check on Radical
misgovernment. The whites were often sorry to see the soldiers leave, even
though they were instruments of oppression. Wholesale arrests by the army
were not as frequent during Smith's administration as later.[2104]
[Illustration: ELECTION FOR PRESIDENT, 1868.]
The state government was shaken to its foundations by the presidential
campaign and election of 1868. The whites had waked up and gone to work in
earnest. It was the first election in which the races voted against one
another. Busteed, Strobach, and other carpet-baggers toured the North,
predicting chains and slavery for the blacks and butchery for the "loyal"
whites in case Seymour were elected. The Union League whipped the negroes
into line. Brass bands lent enthusiasm to Radical parades. The negroes
were afraid that they would "lose their rights" and be reënslaved, that
their wives would have to work the roads and not be allowed to wear
hoopskirts. The Radicals urged upon the Democrats the view that those who
did not believe in negro suffrage could not take the voter's oath. Many
Democrats refused to register because of the oath. There were numbers who
would not vote against Grant because they believed that he was the only
possible check against Congress. Others felt that so far as Alabama was
concerned the election was cut and dried for Grant. But nevertheless a
majority of the whites determined to resist further Africanization in
government. Their natural leaders were disfranchised, but a strong
campaign was made. The hope was held out of overthrowing the irregular
revolutionary state government and driving out the carpet-baggers in case
Seymour became President. North Alabama declared that a vote for Grant was
a vote against the whites and formed a boycott of all Radicals. The south
Alabama leaders tried to secure a part of the negro vote, and urged that
imprudent talk be avoided and that carpet-baggers and scalawags be let
alone, and the negroes be treated kindly as being responsible for none of
the evils. Orders purporting to be signed by General Grant were sent out
among the negroes, bidding them to beware of the promises of the whites
and directing them to vote for him. Some rascally whites made large sums
of money by selling Grant badges to the blacks. They had been sent down
for free distribution; but the negroes, ordered, as they believed, by the
general, purchased his pictures at $2 each, or less. The carpet-baggers
were afraid of losing the state. Some left and went home. Others wanted
the legislature to choose electors. Still others wanted to have no
election at all, preferring to let it go by default; but the higher
military commanders, Terry and Grant, were sympathetic and troops were so
distributed over the state as to bring out the negro vote. Army officers
assisted at Radical political meetings, and the negro was informed by his
advisers that General Grant had sent the troops to see that they voted
properly. The result was that the state went for Grant by a safe
majority.[2105]
During the administration of Smith the incompatibility of the elements of
the Radical party began to show more clearly. The native whites began to
desert as soon as the convention of 1867 showed that the negro vote would
be controlled by the carpet-baggers. The genuine Unionist voters resented
the leadership of renegade secessionists. The carpet-baggers demanded the
lion's share of the spoils and were angered because Smith vetoed some of
their measures; the scalawags upheld him. The carpet-baggers felt that
since they controlled the negro voters they were entitled to the greater
consideration. Their manipulation of the Union League alarmed the native
Radicals.
The negroes were becoming conscious of their power and were inclined to
demand a larger share of the offices than the carpet-baggers wanted to
give them. Some of the negroes were desirous of voting with the whites.
Negro leaders were aspiring to judgeships, to the state Senate, to be
postmasters, to go to Congress. Even now the party was held together only
by the knowledge that it would be destroyed if divided.[2106]
In 1868 Governor Smith and other Radical leaders, convinced that they were
permanently in power, secured the passage of a law providing for the
gradual removal of disabilities imposed by state law. The same year a
complete registration had been made for the purpose of excluding the
leading whites. After disabilities were removed, so far as state action
was concerned there was no advantage to Radicals in a registration of
voters. On the other hand, it threatened to become a powerful aid to the
Democrats, who began to attend the polls and demand that only registered
voters be allowed to cast ballots, thus preventing repeating.
Consequently, as a preparation for the first general election in the fall
of 1870, the legislature passed a law forbidding the use of registration
lists by any official at any election. No one was to be asked if he were
registered. No one was to be required to show a registration certificate.
The assertion of the would-be voter was to be taken as sufficient. And it
was made a misdemeanor to challenge a voter, thus interfering with the
freedom of elections. After this a negro might vote under any name he
pleased as often as he pleased. This election system was in force until
1874, when the Democrats came into power.[2107]
To the Forty-first Congress in 1869 returned only one of the former
carpet-bag delegation, C. W. Buckley. Two so-called Democrats were chosen,
two scalawags, and a new carpet-bagger. P. M. Dox, one of the Democrats,
was a northern man who had lived in the South before the war, who was
neutral during the war; and after the war he posed as a "Unionist."
Congressional timber was scarce on account of the test oath and the
Fourteenth Amendment, so Dox secured a nomination. His opponent was a
negro, which helped him in north Alabama. The other Democrat, W. C.
Sherrod, who was also from north Alabama, had served in the Confederate
army. His opponent was J. J. Hinds, one of the most disliked of the
carpet-baggers. Robert S. Heflin, one of the scalawags, was from that
section where the Peace Society flourished during the war. At first a
Confederate, in 1864 he deserted and went within the Federal lines.
Charles Hays, the other scalawag, became the most notorious of the
Reconstruction representatives in Congress. He was a cotton planter in one
of the densest black districts and managed to stay in Congress for four
years. He is chiefly remembered because of the Hays-Hawley correspondence
in 1874. Alfred E. Buck of Maine had been an officer of negro troops. He
served only one term and after defeat passed into the Federal service. He
died as minister to Japan in 1902. This delegation was weaker in ability
and in morals than the carpet-bag delegation to the Fortieth Congress.
[Illustration: ELECTION OF 1870 FOR GOVERNOR.]
In the fall of 1870 Governor Smith was a candidate for reëlection against
Robert Burns Lindsay, Democrat. The hostility of Smith to carpet-baggers
weakened the party. The ticket was not acceptable to the whites because
Rapier, a negro, was candidate for secretary of state. The genuine
Unionists were becoming ultra Democrats, because of the prominence given
in their party to former secessionists like Parsons, Sam Rice, and Hays,
and to negroes and carpet-baggers. Lindsay was from north Alabama, which
supported him as a "white man's candidate." The negroes had been taught to
distrust scalawags, as being little better than Democrats. Smith was asked
why he ran on a ticket with a negro. He replied that now that was the only
way to get office. He also called attention to the fact that in north
Alabama the Democrats drew the color line, and called themselves the
"white man's party," while in the black counties they made an earnest
effort to secure the negro vote. The Union League, through Keffer, sent
out warning that whatever would suit "Rebels" would not suit "union men,"
who must treat their "fine professions as coming from the Prince of
Darkness himself," and that if Lindsay were elected, the "condition of
union men would be like unto hell itself." Smith and Senator Warner said
that the Democrats would repudiate railroad bonds, destroy the schools,
and repeal the Amendments and the Reconstruction Acts. In the white
counties the Radical speakers were generally insulted, and soon the white
districts were given up as permanently lost. The Black Belt alone was now
the stronghold of the Radicals. Strict inspection here prevented the
negroes from voting Democratic, as some were disposed to do. Negroes in
the white counties voted for Democrats with many misgivings. An old man
told a candidate, "I intend to vote for you; I liked your speech; but if
you put me back into slavery, I'll never forgive you." Federal troops were
again judiciously distributed in the Black Belt and in the white counties
when there was a large negro vote. As a result the election was very
close, Lindsay winning by a vote of 76,977 to 75,568.
Ex-Governor Parsons, who had now become a Radical, advised Smith not to
submit to the seating of Lindsay, but to force a contest, and meanwhile to
prevent the vote from being counted by the legislature. So, by injunction
from the supreme court, the Radical president of the Senate, Barr, was
forbidden to count the votes for governor. But the houses in joint session
counted the rest of the votes, and E. H. Moren, Democrat, was declared
elected lieutenant-governor. A majority of the House was anti-Radical. The
old Senate, refusing to classify, held over. As soon as Moren was
declared elected, Barr arose and left, followed by most of the Radical
senators, saying that he was forbidden to count the vote for governor.
Moren at once appeared, took the oath, and the joint meeting not having
been regularly adjourned, he ordered the count for governor to proceed. A
few Radical senators had lingered out of curiosity, and were retained.
Thus Lindsay was counted in, and at once took the oath of office. By the
advice of Parsons, Smith, though willing to retire, refused to give place
to Lindsay. The Radical senators recognized Smith; the House recognized
Lindsay. Smith brought Federal troops into the state-house to keep Lindsay
out, and for two or three weeks there were rival governors. Finally Smith
was forced to retire by a writ from the carpet-bag circuit court of
Montgomery.[2108]
Lindsay was born in Scotland and educated at the University of St.
Andrews. He lived in Alabama for fifteen years before the war, opposed
secession, and gave only a half-hearted support to the Confederacy. As he
said: "I would rather not tell my military history, for there was very
little glory in it.... I do not know that I can say much about my
soldiering."[2109] Lindsay was a scholar, a good lawyer, and a pure man,
but a weak executive. In this respect he was better than Smith, however,
who was supported by a unanimous Radical legislature. Under Lindsay the
Senate was Radical and the House doubtful. The Radical auditor held over;
Democrats were elected to the offices of treasurer, secretary of state,
attorney-general, and superintendent of public instruction. W. W. Allen, a
Confederate major-general, was placed in command of the militia and
organized some white companies.
The Democratic and independent majority of the House had some able
leaders, but many of the rank and file were timid and inexperienced.
Several thousand of the best citizens were still disfranchised. There were
too many young men in public office, half-educated and inexperienced. In
the House there were only fourteen negroes. So far as the legislature was
concerned, there would be a deadlock for two years. The Radicals would
consent to no repeal of injurious legislation, and thus the evil effects
of the laws relating to schools, railroads, and elections continued.
Governor Lindsay tried to bring some order into the state finances, but
the Democrats were divided on the subject of repudiating the fraudulent
bond issues, while the Radicals upheld all of the bond stealing. Lindsay
was blamed by the people for not dealing more firmly with the question,
but, as a matter of fact, he did as well as any man in his position could
do.
One cause of weakness to the administration was the fact that some of the
attorneys for the railroads were prominent Democrats who insisted upon the
recognition of the fraudulent bonds. These attorneys were few in number,
but they caused a division among the leaders. The selfish motive was very
evident, though for the sake of appearance they talked of "upholding the
state's credit," "the fair name of Alabama," etc. It is difficult to see
that their conduct was in any way on a higher plane than that of the
carpet-baggers, who issued the bonds with intent to defraud. In order to
protect themselves they mercilessly criticised Lindsay.
Most of the local officials held over from 1868 to 1872; in by-elections
it was clearly shown that the Radicals had lost all except the Black Belt,
where they continued to roll up large majorities, but even here they were
losing by resignation, sale of offices, Ku Kluxing, and removal. The more
decent carpet-baggers were leaving for the North; the white Radicals were
distinctly lower in character than before, having been joined by the dregs
of the Democrats while losing their best white county men. Lindsay made
many appointments, thus gradually changing for the better the local
administration. Owing to the peculiar methods by which the first set of
officials got into office, the local administration was never again as
bad, except in some of the black counties, as it was in 1868-1869. As the
personnel of the Radical party ran lower and lower, more and more
Democrats entered into the local administration. But in spite of the fact
that they secured representation in the state government, they were unable
to make any important reforms until they gained control of all
departments. The results of one or two local elections may be noticed. In
Mobile, which had a white majority, the carpet-bag and negro government
was overthrown in 1870. Though prohibited by law from challenging
fraudulent voters, the Democrats intimidated the negroes by standing near
the polls and fastening a fish-hook into the coat of each negro who voted.
The negroes were frightened. Rumor said that those who were hooked were
marked for jail. Repeating was thus prevented; many of them did not vote
at all. In Selma the Democrats came into power. Property was then made
safe, the streets were cleaned, and the negroes found out that they would
not be reënslaved. Governor Lindsay endeavored to reform the local
judicial administration by getting rid of worthless young solicitors and
incompetent judges, but the Radical Senate defeated his efforts. He was
unable to secure any good legislation during his term, and all reform was
limited to the reduction of administration expenses, the checking of bad
legislation, and the appointment of better men to fill vacancies.[2110]
To the Forty-second Congress Buckley, Hays, and Dox were reëlected. The
new congressmen were Turner, negro, Handley, Democrat, and Sloss,
Independent. Turner had been a slave in North Carolina and Alabama and had
secured a fair education before the war. He had at first entered politics
as a Democrat, and advised the negroes against alien leaders. To succeed
Warner, George Goldthwaite, Democrat, was chosen to the United States
Senate.
In 1872 the Democrats nominated for governor, Thomas H. Herndon of Mobile,
who was in favor of a more aggressive policy than Lindsay. He was a south
Alabama man and hence lost votes in north Alabama. David P. Lewis, the
Radical nominee, was from north Alabama and in politics a turncoat.
Opposed to secession in 1861, he nevertheless signed the ordinance and was
chosen to the Confederate Congress; later he was a Confederate judge; in
1864 he went within the Federal lines; in 1867-1868 he was a Democrat, but
changed about 1870. He was victorious for several reasons: the
administration was blamed for the division in the party and for not
reforming abuses; Herndon did not draw out the full north Alabama vote;
the presidential election was held at the same time and the Democrats
were disgusted at the nomination of Horace Greeley; Federal troops were
distributed over the state for months before the election, and the
Enforcement Acts were so executed as to intimidate many white voters. The
full Radical ticket was elected. All were scalawags, except the treasurer.
In a speech, C. C. Sheets said of the Radical candidates,
"Fellow-citizens, they are as pure, as spotless, as stainless, as the
immaculate Son of God."[2111]
[Illustration: ELECTION OF 1872 FOR GOVERNOR.]
In both houses of the legislature the Democrats had by the returns a
majority at last. The Radicals were in a desperate position. A United
States Senator was to be elected, and Spencer wanted to succeed himself.
He had spent thousands of dollars to secure the support of the Radicals,
and a majority of the Radical members were devoted to him. Most scalawags
were opposed to his reëlection, but it was known that he controlled the
negro members, and to prevent division all agreed to support him. But how
to overcome the Democratic majorities in both houses? Parsons was equal to
the occasion. He advised that the Radical members refuse to meet with the
Democrats and instead organize separately. So the Democrats met in the
capitol and the Radicals in the United States court-house, as had been
previously arranged. The Senate consisted of 33 members and the House of
100. The Democrats organized with 19 senators and 54 members in the
House, all bearing proper certificates of election, and each house having
more than a quorum. At the court-house the Radicals had 14 senators and 45
or 46 representatives who had certificates of election. There were 4
negroes in the Senate and 27 in the House. In neither Radical house was
there a quorum; so each body summoned 5 Radicals who had been candidates,
to make up a quorum. It was hard to find enough, and some custom-house
officials from Mobile had to secure leave of absence and come to
Montgomery to complete the quorum.
The regular (Democratic) organization at the capitol counted the votes and
declared all the Radical state officials elected. Lewis and McKinstry,
lieutenant-governor, accepted the count and took the oath and at once
recognized the court-house body as the general assembly. Lindsay had
recognized the regular organization, but had taken no steps to protect it
from the Radical schemes. The militia was ready to support the regular
body, but Lewis was more energetic than Lindsay. He telegraphed to the
nearest Federal troops, at Opelika, to come; when they came, he stationed
them on the capitol grounds. He proposed to the Democrats that they admit
the entire Radical body, expelling enough Democrats to put the latter in a
minority. Upon their refusal, he told the court-house body to go ahead
with legislation. Some of the Radicals--one or two whites and four or five
negroes--were dubious about the security of their _per diem_ and showed
signs of a desire to go to the capitol. These were guarded to keep them in
line, and were also paid in money and promises of Federal offices. The
weak-kneed negroes were shut up in a room and guarded, to keep them from
going to the capitol.
Spencer was determined to be elected and would not wait for the trouble to
be settled. On December 3, 1872, the court-house Radicals chose him to
succeed himself. The next thing was to prevent the regular assembly from
electing a Senator who might contest. Two of that body had died; one or
two were indifferent and easily kept away from a joint session; others
were called away by telegrams (forged by the Radicals) about illness in
their families; three members were arrested before reaching the city; one
member was drugged and nearly killed. By such methods a quorum was
defeated in both houses at the capitol until December 10, when the absent
members came in, and F. W. Sykes was chosen to the United States Senate.
Meanwhile Lewis and the Radical members had appealed to President Grant to
be sustained. By his direction United States Attorney-General Williams
prepared a plan of compromise skilfully designed to destroy the Democratic
majority in the House and produce a tie in the Senate. Lewis was assured
that the plan would be supported by the Federal authorities. The plan was
as follows: (1) Both bodies were to continue separate organizations until
a fusion was effected. (2) On a certain day, both parties of the House
were to meet in the capitol, and in the usual manner form a temporary
organization--but the Democrats whose seats were contested but who had
certificates of election were to be excluded, while the Radical
contestants were to be seated. This would give a Radical majority. Then
the contests were to be decided and a permanent organization formed. (3)
In the same way the Senate was to be temporarily organized, the regularly
elected Democrats being excluded, while their contestants were seated,
except in the case of the Democratic senator from Conecuh and Butler, who
was to sit but not to vote. By this arrangement there was a bare chance
that the Democrats might secure a majority of one in the Senate. (4) As
soon as the fusion was thus made, the permanent organization was to be
effected. Nothing was said about the legality of past legislation by each
body, but the understanding was that all was to be considered void.
Meanwhile Lewis had tried to obtain forcible possession of the capitol,
but Strobach, the sheriff whom he sent, was arrested by order of the House
and imprisoned until he apologized. The Democrats were plainly informed
that the "gentle intimations of the convictions of the law officer of the
United States" would be enforced by the use of Federal troops, and there
was nothing to do but give way. The plan was put into operation on
December 17.
In the House contests the Democrats lost their majority, as was intended.
In the Senate they lost all except one by the plan itself. To unseat
Senator Martin from Conecuh would be a flagrant outrage. So his case went
over until after Christmas. The Democrats elected the clerks, doorkeepers,
and pages. The Radicals still kept up their separate organization, not
meaning to abide by the fusion unless they could gain the entire
legislature. During the vacation Lieutenant-Governor McKinstry wrote to
Attorney-General Williams asking if the Federal government would support
him in case he himself should decide as to the rightful senator from
Conecuh. He explained that a majority of the committee on elections was
going to report in favor of Martin, Democrat, who held the certificate of
election. Further, he said that if the Senate were allowed to vote on the
question, the Democratic senator would remain seated. He proposed to
decide the contest himself upon the report made, and not allow the Senate
to vote. Williams was now becoming weary of the conduct of the Radicals;
he told McKinstry that the course proposed was contrary to both
parliamentary and statute law, and said that Federal troops would not be
furnished to support such a ruling. Moreover, he expressed strong
disapproval of the course of the Radicals in keeping up their separate
organization contrary to the plan of compromise. He ordered the marshal
not to allow the Federal court-house to be used by the Radicals, but the
marshal paid no attention to the order.
After the holidays the Democrats and anti-Spencer Radicals hoped to bring
about a new election for Senator. On February 11, 1873, Hunter of Lowndes,
a Radical member of the House, proposed that the legislature proceed to
the election of a Senator. Parsons, the speaker, refused to entertain the
motion and ordered Hunter under arrest. McKinstry refused to consider the
Senate as permanently organized until Martin was disposed of, fearing a
joint session. The Radical solicitor of Montgomery secured several
indictments against Spencer's agents for bribery, and summoned several
members of the legislature as witnesses. Parsons ordered Knox, the
solicitor, and Strobach, the sheriff, to be arrested for invading the
privileges of the House. Next, Hunter, who had been arrested for proposing
to elect a Senator, had Parsons arrested for violation of the Enforcement
Acts in preventing the election of a Senator. Busteed, Federal judge,
discharged Parsons "for lack of evidence."
In the Senate the Radicals matured a plan to get rid of Martin. A caucus
decided to sustain McKinstry in all his rulings. It was known that
Edwards, a Democratic senator, wanted to visit his home. So Glass, a
Radical senator, proposed to pair with him, and at the same time both get
leave of absence for ten days. Edwards and Glass went off at the same
time, in different directions. A mile outside of town, Glass left the
train, returned to Montgomery, and went into hiding. Now was the time.
The reports on the Martin contest were called up. A Democrat moved the
adoption of the majority report in favor of Martin; a Radical moved that
the minority report be substituted in the motion. The Democrats were
voting under protest because they wanted debate and wanted Edwards, one of
the writers of the majority report, to return. In order to move a
reconsideration, Cobb, a Democrat, fearing treachery, voted with the
Radicals; Glass appeared before his name was reached, broke his pair, and
voted; McKinstry refused to entertain Cobb's motion for a reconsideration,
and though the effect of the voting was only to put the minority report
before the Senate to be voted upon, McKinstry declared that Martin by the
vote was unseated and Miller admitted. The temporary Radical majority
sustained him in all his rulings, and thus the Democrats lost their
majority in the Senate. The whole thing had been planned beforehand;
McKinstry had arms in his desk; the cloak-rooms were filled with roughs to
support the Radicals in case the Democrats made a fight; the Federal
troops were at the doors in spite of what Williams had said. McKinstry now
announced that the Senate was permanently organized and the schism healed.
Glass was expelled by the Masonic order for breaking the pair. Spencer was
safe, since the Republican Senate at Washington was sure to admit him.
In the course of the contest Spencer had spent many thousands of dollars
in defeating dissatisfied Radical candidates for the legislature and in
purchasing voters. The money he used came from the National Republican
executive committee, from the state committee, and from the government
funds of the post-office at Mobile and the internal revenue offices in
Mobile and Montgomery. More than $20,000 of United States funds were used
for Spencer, who, after his election, refused to reimburse the postmaster
and the two collectors, who were prosecuted and ruined. Every Federal
office-holder was assessed from one-fifth to one-third of his pay during
the fall months for campaign expenses. They were notified that unless they
paid the assessments their resignations would be accepted. Spencer refused
to pay the bills of a negro saloon-keeper who had, at his orders,
"refreshed" the negro members of the legislature. But of those who voted
for Spencer in the Radical "legislature" more than thirty secured Federal
appointments. Of other agents about twenty secured Federal appointments.
One of them, Robert Barbour, was given a position in the custom-house at
Mobile with the understanding that he would not have to go there. His pay
was sent to him at Montgomery.
As a preparation for the autumn presidential contest, Spencer worked upon
the fears of Grant and secured the promise of troops, though he had some
difficulty. His letters are not at all complimentary to Grant. Finally he
wrote, "Grant is scared and will do what we want." The deputy marshals
manufactured Ku Klux outrages and planned the arrest of Democratic
politicians, of whom scores were gotten out of the way, for a week or two,
but none were prosecuted. There was no election of Senator other than that
of Spencer by the irregular body and that of Sykes by the regular
organization at the capitol, neither of which took place on the day
appointed by law. The Senate admitted Spencer on the ground that Governor
Lewis had recognized the court-house aggregation. Sykes contested and of
course failed; the Senate refused for several years to vote his expenses,
as was customary. In 1885, Senator Hoar secured $7,132 for Spencer as
expenses in the contest. In 1875 the Alabama legislature, Radical and
Democratic, united in an address to the United States Senate, asking that
Spencer's seat be declared vacant.[2112]
Under Lewis the Radical administration went to pieces. The enormous issues
of bonds, fraudulent and otherwise, by Smith and Lewis which destroyed the
credit of the state; ignorant negroes in public office; drunken judges on
the benches; convicts as officials; teachers and school officers unable to
read; intermarriage of whites and blacks declared legal by the supreme
court; the low character of the Federal officials; constant arrests of
respectable whites for political purposes; use of Federal troops; packed
juries; purchase and sale of offices; defaulters in every Radical county;
riots instigated by the Radical leaders; heavy taxes,--all these
burdens bore to the ground the Lewis administration before the end of its
term. The last year was simply a standstill while the whites were
preparing to overthrow the Radical government, which was demoralized and
disabled also by constant aid and interference from the Federal
administration.
[Illustration: DEMOCRATIC AND CONSERVATIVE LEADERS.
GOVERNOR R. M. PATTON.
GENERAL JAMES H. CLANTON. Organizer of the present Democratic Party in
Alabama.
GOVERNOR GEORGE S. HOUSTON.
GOVERNOR R. B. LINDSAY.
MAJOR J. R. CROWE, now of Sheffield, Ala., one of the founders of the Ku
Klux Klan at Pulaski, Tenn.]
Lewis appointed a lower class of officials than Smith had appointed, among
them many ignorant negroes for minor offices. Carpet-baggers and scalawags
were becoming scarce. The white counties under their own local government
were slowly recovering; the formerly wealthy Black Belt counties were
being ruined under the burden of local, state, and municipal
taxation.[2113]
To the Forty-second Congress Alabama, now entitled to eight
representatives, sent four scalawags, Pelham, Hays, White, and Sheets; one
negro, Rapier; and three Democrats or Independents, Bromberg, Caldwell,
and Glass; carpet-baggers were now at a discount; scalawags and negroes
wanted all the spoils.
In the spring of 1874 the whites began to organize to overthrow Radical
rule. They were firmly determined that there should not be another Radical
administration. In the Radical party only a few whites were left to hold
the negroes together. Some of the negroes were disgusted because of
promises unfulfilled; others were grasping at office; the Union League
discipline was missed; "outrages" were no longer so effective. The
Radicals had no new issues to present. The state credit was destroyed; the
negroes no longer believed so seriously the stories of reënslavement; the
northern public was becoming more indifferent, or more sympathetic toward
the whites. The time for the overthrow of Radical rule was at hand.
SEC. 2. SOCIAL CONDITIONS DURING RECONSTRUCTION
In previous chapters something has been said of social and economic
matters, especially concerning labor, education, religion, and race
relations. Some supplementary facts and observations may be of use.
The central figure of Reconstruction was the negro. How was his life
affected by the conditions of Reconstruction? In the first place, crime
among the blacks increased, as was to be expected. Removed from the
restraints and punishments of slavery, with criminal leaders, the negro,
even under the most African of governments, became the chief criminal. The
crime of rape became common, caused largely, the whites believed, by the
social equality theories of the reconstructionists. Personal conflicts
among blacks and between blacks and whites were common, though probably
decreasing for a time in the early '70's. Stealing was the most frequent
crime, with murder a close second. During the last year of negro rule the
report of the penitentiary inspectors gave the following statistics:--
================================================
CRIMES | WHITES | NEGROES
----------------------------|----------|--------
Murder | 11 | 43
Assault | 2 | 21
Burglary and grand larceny | 15 | 199
Arson | 1 | 4
Rape | 0 | 6
Other felonies | 2 | 14
|----------|--------
Total | 31 | 287
================================================
Thus 1 white to 16,936 of population was in prison for felony; 1 black to
2294; felonies, 1 white to 8 blacks; misdemeanors, 1 white to 64 blacks.
In Montgomery jail were confined about 12 blacks to 1 white. These
statistics do not show the real state of affairs, since most convictions
of blacks were in cases prosecuted by blacks. To be prosecuted by a white
was equivalent to persecution--so reasoned the negro jury in the Black
Belt. Under the instigation of low white leaders, the negroes frequently
burned the houses and other property of whites who were disliked by the
Radical leaders. Several attempts, more or less successful, were made to
burn the white villages in the Black Belt; hardly a single one wholly
escaped. For several years the whites had to picket the towns in time of
political excitement. The worst negro criminals were the discharged negro
soldiers, who sometimes settled in gangs together in the Black Belt. More
charges were made of crimes by blacks against whites, than by whites
against blacks. Most criminals did not go to prison after conviction. The
Radical legislature passed a law allowing the sale of the convict's labor
to relatives. A good old negro could buy the time of a worthless son for
ten cents a day and have him released.
The marriage relations of the negroes were hardly satisfactory, judged by
white standards. The white legislatures in 1865-1866 had declared slave
marriages binding. The reconstructionists denounced this as a great
cruelty and repealed the law. Marriages were then made to date from the
passage of the Reconstruction Acts. Many negro men had had several wives
before that date. They were relieved from the various penalties of
desertion, bigamy, adultery, etc. And after the passage of these laws,
numerous prominent negroes were relieved of the penalties for promiscuous
marriages. Divorces became common among the negroes who were in politics.
During one session of the legislature seventy-five divorces were granted.
This was cheaper than going through the courts, and more certain. The
average negro divorced himself or herself without formality; some of them
were divorced by their churches, as in slavery.
Upon the negro woman fell the burden of supporting the children. Her
husband or husbands had other duties. Children then began to be unwelcome
and foeticide and child murder were common crimes. The small number of
negro children during the decade of Reconstruction was generally remarked.
Negro women began to flock to towns; how they lived no one can tell;
immorality was general among them. The conditions of Reconstruction were
unfavorable to honesty and morality among the negroes, both male and
female. The health of the negroes was injured during the period 1865-1875.
In the towns the standard of living was low; sanitary arrangements were
bad; disease, especially consumption and venereal diseases, killed large
numbers and permanently injured the negro constitution.
Negro women took freedom even more seriously than the men. It was
considered slavery by many of them to work in the fields; domestic service
was beneath the freedwomen--especially were washing and milking the cows
tabooed. To live like their former mistresses, to wear fine clothes and go
often to church, was the ambition of a negro lady. After Reconstruction
was fully established the negro women were a strong support to the Union
League, and took a leading part in the prosecution of negro Democrats.
Negro women never were as well-mannered, nor, on the whole, as
good-tempered and cheerful, as the negro men. Both sexes during
Reconstruction lost much of their cheerfulness; the men gradually ceased
to go "holloing" to the fields; some of the blacks, especially the women,
became impudent and insulting toward the whites. While many of the negroes
for a time seemed to consider it a mark of servility to behave decently to
the whites, toward the close of Reconstruction and later conditions
changed, and the negro men especially were in general well-behaved and
well-mannered in their relations with whites except in time of political
excitement.
The entire black race was wild for education in 1865 and 1866, but most of
them found that the necessary work--which they had not expected--was too
hard, and by the close of Reconstruction they were becoming indifferent.
The education acquired was of doubtful value. There was in 1865-1867 a
religious furor among the negroes, and several negro denominations were
organized. The chief result, as stated at length elsewhere, was to
separate from the white churches, discard the old conservative black
preachers, and take up the smooth-tongued, ranting, emotional, immoral
preachers who could stir congregations. The negro church has not yet
recovered from the damage done by these ministers. Negro health was
affected by the night meetings and religious debauches. In general it may
be said that the negro speech grew more like that of the whites, on
account of schools, speeches, much travel, and contact with white leaders.
The negro leaders acquired much superficial civilization, and very quickly
mastered the art of political intrigue.
A very delicate question to both races was that of the exact position of
the negro in the social system. The convention of 1867 had contained a
number of equal-rights members, and there had been much discussion. A
proposition to have separate schools was not made obligatory. A measure to
prevent the intermarriage of the races was lost, and the supreme court of
the state declared that marriages between whites and blacks were lawful.
Laws were passed to prevent the separation of the races on street cars,
steamers, and railway cars, but the whites always resisted the enforcement
of such laws. Some negroes, especially the mulattoes, dreamed of having
white wives, but the average pure negro was not moved by such a desire.
When the Coburn investigation was being made, Coburn, the chairman, was
trying to convince a negro who had declared against the policy and the
necessity of the Civil Rights Bill. The negro retorted by asking how he
would like to see him sitting by his (Coburn's) daughter's side. The black
declared that he would not like to be sitting by Miss Coburn and have some
young man who was courting her come along and knock over the big black
negro; further he did not want to eat at the table nor sit in cars with
the whites, preferring to sit by his own color. Some of the negroes were
displeased at the proposed Civil Rights Bill, thinking that it was meant
to force the negro to go among the whites.[2114] There were negro police
in the larger towns, Selma, Montgomery, and Mobile, who irritated the
whites by their arrests and by discrimination in favor of blacks. The
negroes, in many cases, had ceased to care for the good opinion of the
whites and, following disreputable leaders, suffered morally. The color
line began to be strictly drawn in politics, which increased the
estrangement of the races, though individuals were getting along better
together.[2115]
The white carpet-baggers and scalawags never formed a large section of the
Radical party and constantly decreased in numbers,--the natives returning
to the white party, the aliens returning to the North. The native Radicals
were found principally in the cities and holding Federal offices, and in
the white counties were still a few genuine Republican Unionist voters.
The carpet-baggers were found almost entirely in the Black Belt and in
Federal offices. As their numbers decreased the general character was
lowered. Some of the white Radicals were sincere and honest men, but none
of this sort stood any chance for office. If they themselves would not
steal, they must arrange for others to steal. The most respectable of the
Radicals were a few old Whigs who had always disliked Democrats and who
preferred to vote with the negroes. Such a man was Benjamin Gardner, who
became attorney-general in 1872.
All white Radicals suffered the most bitter ostracism--in business, in
society, in church; their children in the schools were persecuted by other
children because of their fathers' sins. The scalawag, being a renegade,
was scorned more than a carpet-bagger. In every possible way they were
made to feel the weight of the displeasure of the whites. Small boys were
unchecked when badgering a white Radical. One Radical complained that the
youngsters would come near him to hold a spelling class. The word would be
given out: "Spell _damned rascal_." It would be spelled. "Spell _damned
Radical_." That would be spelled. "They are nearly alike, aren't they?"
The blacks always felt that the carpet-bagger was more friendly to them
than the scalawag was, for the carpet-baggers associated more closely with
the negroes. The alien white teachers boarded with negroes; some of the
politicians made it a practice to live among the negroes in order to get
their votes. The candidates for sheriff and tax collector in Montgomery
went to negro picnics, baptizings, and church services, drank from the
same bottle of whiskey with negroes, had the negro leaders to visit their
homes, where they dined together, and the white women furnished music. The
carpet-baggers seldom had families with them, and, excluded from white
society, began to contract unofficial alliances among the blacks. Scarcely
an alien office-holder in the Black Belt but was charged with immorality
and the charges proven. Numbers were relieved by the legislature of the
penalties for adultery. The average Radical politician was in time quite
thoroughly Africanized. They spoke of "us niggers," "we niggers," at first
from policy, later from habit. When Lewis was elected, in 1872, a white
Radical cried out in his joy, "We niggers have beat 'em." Two years later
white Radicals marched with negro processions and sang the song:--
"The white man's day has passed;
The negro's day has come at last."[2116]
One effect of Reconstruction was to fuse the whites into a single
homogeneous party. Before the war political divisions were sharply drawn
and feeling often bitter, so also in 1865-1867 and to a certain extent
during the early period of Reconstruction. At first there was no "Solid
South"; within the white man's party there were grave differences between
old Whig and old Democrat, Radical and Conservative. There were different
local problems before the whites of the various sections that for a while
prevented the formation of a unanimous white man's party. There were the
whites of the Black Belt, the former slaveholders, who wished well to the
negro, favored negro education, and looked upon his political activity as
a joke, but who came nearer than any other white people to recognizing the
possibility of permanent political privileges for the black. They believed
that they could sooner or later regain moral control over their former
slaves and thus do away with the evils of carpet-bag government.
It must be said that the former slaveholding class had more consideration,
then, before, and since, for the poor negro than for the poor white,
probably because the negroes only were always with them. The poorest
whites felt that the negro was not only their social but also their
economic enemy, and, the protection of the owner removed, the blacks
suffered more from these people than ever before. The negro in school, the
negro in politics, the negro on the best lands--all this was not liked by
the poorest white people, whose opportunities were not as good as those of
the blacks. Between these two extremes was the mass of the whites,
displeased at the way negro suffrage, education, etc., was imposed, but
willing to put up with the results if good. The later years of
Reconstruction found the temper of the whites more and more exasperated.
They were tired of Reconstruction, new amendments, force bills, Federal
troops, and of being ruled as a conquered province by the least fit. Every
measure aimed at the South seemed to them to mean that they were
considered incorrigible, not worthy of trust, and when necessary to punish
some whites, all were punished. And strong opposition to proscriptive
measures was called fresh rebellion. "When the Jacobins say and do low and
bitter things, their charge of want of loyalty in the South because our
people grumble back a little seems to me as unreasonable as the complaint
of the little boy: 'Mamma, make Bob 'have hisself. He makes mouths at me
every time I hit him with my stick.'" Probably the grind was harder on the
young men, who had all life before them and who were growing up with
slight opportunities in any line of activity. Sidney Lanier, then an
Alabama school-teacher, wrote to Bayard Taylor, "Perhaps you know that
with us of the young generation in the South, since the war, pretty much
the whole of life has been merely not dying." Negro and alien rule was a
constant insult to the intelligence of the country. The taxpayers were
non-participants. Some people withdrew entirely from public life, went to
their farms or plantations, kept away from towns and from speech-making,
waiting for the end to come. I know old men who refused for several years
to read the newspapers, so unpleasant was the news. The good feeling
produced by the magnanimity of Grant at Appomattox was destroyed by his
southern policy when President. There was no gratitude for any so-called
leniency of the North, no repentance for the war, no desire for
humiliation, for sackcloth and ashes and confession of wrong. The
insistence of the Radicals upon a confession of depravity only made things
much worse. There was not a single measure of Congress during
Reconstruction designed or received in a conciliatory spirit.
Under the Reconstruction régime the political, and to some extent the
social, morality of the whites declined. Constant fighting fire with fire
scorched all. While in one way the bitter discipline of Reconstruction was
not lost, yet with it the pleasantest of southern life went out. During
the war and Reconstruction there was a radical change in southern
temperament toward the severe. Hospitality has declined; old southern life
was never on a strictly business basis, the new southern life is more so;
the old individuality is partially lost; class distinctions are less felt.
The white people, by the fires of Reconstruction, have been welded into a
homogeneous society.[2117] The material evils of Reconstruction are by no
means the more lasting: the state debt may be paid and wasted resources
renewed; but the moral and intellectual results will be the permanent
ones.
In spite of the misgovernment during the Reconstruction, there was in most
of the white counties a slow movement toward industrial development. All
over the state in 1865-1868 and 1871-1874 there were poor crops. The white
counties gradually found themselves better able to stand bad seasons. The
decadence of the Black Belt gave the white farmer an opportunity. The
railroads now began to open up the mineral and timber districts, rather
than the cotton counties. During the last four years of negro rule the
coal and iron of the northern part of the state began to attract northern
capital and rapid development began. The timber of the white counties now
began to be cut. In the mines, on the railroads, and in the forests many
whites were profitably employed. Farmers in the white counties, having
thrown off the local Reconstruction government, began to organize
agricultural societies, Patrons of Husbandry, Grangers, etc., and to hold
county fairs. The Radicals maintained that this granger movement was only
another manifestation of Ku Klux, and it was, in a way.[2118]
Immigration from the North or from abroad amounted to nothing; disturbed
political conditions and the presence of the negroes prevented it. Nor did
the Reconstruction rulers desire immigration; their rule would be the
sooner overthrown. There were two movements of emigration from the
state--culminating in 1869 and in 1873-1874. Those were the gloomiest
periods of Reconstruction, especially for the white man in the Black Belt.
Most of the emigrants went to Texas, others to Mexico, to Brazil, to the
North, and to Tennessee and Georgia, where the whites were in power. It
was estimated that in this emigration the state lost more of its
population than by war.
In the Black Belt the condition of the whites grew worse. Frequent
elections demoralized negro labor, and crops often failed for lack of
laborers. The more skilful negroes went to the towns, railroads, mines,
and lumber mills. On account of this migration and the gradual dying off
of slavery-trained negroes, negro agricultural labor was less and less
satisfactory. The negro woman often refused to work in the fields. The
white population of the Black Belt decreased in comparison with the
numbers of blacks. The whites deserted the plantations, going to the towns
or gathering in villages. Taxation was heavy, tax sales became frequent.
One of the worst evils that afflicted the Black Belt was the so-called
"deadfall." A "deadfall" was a low shop or store where a white thief
encouraged black people to steal all kinds of farm produce and exchange it
with him for bad whiskey, bad candy, brass jewellery, etc. This evil was
found all over the state where there were negroes. Whites and industrious
blacks lost hogs, poultry, cattle, corn in the fields, cotton in the
fields and in the gin. The business of the "deadfall" was usually done at
night. The thirsty negro would go into a cotton field and pick a sack of
cotton worth a dollar, or take a bushel of corn from the nearest field,
and exchange it at a "deadfall" for a glass of whiskey, a plug of tobacco,
or a dime. These "deadfalls" were in the woods or swamps on the edges of
the large plantations. It was not possible to guard against them. The
"deadfall" keepers often became rich, the harvests of some amounting to 30
to 80 bales of cotton for each, besides farm produce. Careful estimates by
grand juries and business men placed the average annual loss at one-fifth
of the crop. A bill was introduced into the legislature to prohibit the
purchase after dark of farm produce from any one but the producer. The
measure was unanimously opposed by the Radicals, on the ground that it was
class legislation aimed at the negroes. The debates show that some of them
considered it proper for a negro to steal from his employer. After the
Democratic victory in 1874 a law was passed abolishing "deadfalls."[2119]
CHAPTER XXIV
THE OVERTHROW OF RECONSTRUCTION
The Republican Party in 1874
The Republican party of Alabama went into the campaign of 1874 weakened by
dissensions within its own ranks and by the lessening of the sympathy of
the northern Radicals. During the previous six years the opposition to the
radical Reconstruction policy had gradually gained strength. The
industrial expansion that followed the war, the dissatisfaction with the
administration of Grant, the disclosure of serious corruption on the part
of public officials, and the revelations of the real conditions in the
South--these had resulted in the formation of a party of opposition to the
administration, which called itself the "Liberal Republican" party and
which advocated home rule for the southern states. The Democratic party,
somewhat discredited by its course during the war, had now regained the
confidence of its former members by accepting as final the decisions of
the war on the questions involved and by bringing out conservative
candidates on practical platforms. By 1874 nine northern states had gone
Democratic in the elections; from 1869 to 1872, five southern states
returned to the Democratic columns. The lower house of Congress was soon
to be safely Democratic and no more radical legislation was to be
expected; the executive department of the government alone was in active
sympathy with the Reconstruction régime in the southern states.
The divisions within the party in the state were due to various causes. In
the first place, the action of the more respectable of the whites in
deserting the party left it with too few able men to hold the organization
well together. By 1874 all but about 4000 whites had forsaken the
Republicans and returned to the Democrats. These whites were mainly in
north Alabama, though there were some few in the Black Belt,--five, for
instance, in Marengo County, and fifty in Dallas. A further source of
weakness was the disposition of the black politician to demand more
consideration than had hitherto been accorded to him. The blacks had
received much political training of a certain kind since 1867, and the
negro leaders were no longer the helpless dupes of the carpet-bagger and
the scalawag. A meeting of the negro politicians, called the "Equal Rights
Union," was held in Montgomery in January, 1874. The resolutions adopted
demanded that the blacks have first choice of the nominations in black
counties and a proportional share in all other counties. They expressed
themselves as opposed to the efforts of the carpet-baggers to organize new
secret political societies, "having found no good to result from such
since the disbursement [_sic_] of the Union League."[2120] If the negroes
should be able to obtain these demands, nothing would be left for the
white members of the party. The rank and file of the blacks had lost much
of their faith in their white leaders and were disposed to listen to
candidates of their own color. Closely connected with the negroes' demands
for office were their demands for social rights. The state supreme court
had decided that whites and blacks might lawfully intermarry, and there
had been several instances of such marriages between low persons of each
race.[2121] Noisy negro speakers were demanding the passage of the Civil
Rights Bill then pending in Congress. A Mobile negro declared that he
wanted to drink in white men's saloons, ride in cars with whites, and go
to the same balls. The white Radicals in convention and legislature were
disposed to avoid the subject when the blacks brought up the question of
"mixed accommodations." The negroes constantly reminded the white Radicals
that the latter were very willing to associate with them in the
legislature and in political meetings. The speeches of Boutwell of
Massachusetts and Morton of Indiana in favor of mixed schools were quoted
by the negro speakers, who now became impatient of the constant request of
their leaders not to offend north Alabama and drive out of the party the
whites of that region. Lewis, a negro member of the legislature, declared
that they were weary of waiting for their rights; that the state would not
grant them, but the United States would; and then they would take their
proper places alongside the whites, and "we intend to do it in defiance of
the immaculate white people of north Alabama.... Hereafter we intend to
demand [our rights] and we are going to press them on every occasion, and
preserve them inviolate if we can. The day is not far distant when you
will find on the bench of the supreme court of the state a man as black as
I am, and north Alabama may help herself if she can."[2122] An "Equal
Rights Convention," from which white Radicals were excluded, met in
Montgomery in June, 1874. The various speakers demanded that colored
youths be admitted to the State University, to the Agricultural and
Mechanical College, and to all other schools on an equal footing with the
whites, "in order that the idea of the inferiority of the negro might be
broken up." Several delegates expressed themselves as in favor of mixed
schools, but advised delay in order not to drive out the white members of
the party. A negro preacher from Jackson County said that he wanted to
hold on to the north Alabama whites "until their stomachs grew strong
enough to take Civil Rights straight."[2123] In 1867 and 1868 there had
been some blacks who had opposed the agitation of social matters on the
ground that their civil and political rights would be endangered, but
these were no longer in politics. The result of the agitation in 1874 was
to irritate the whites generally and to cause the defection of north
Alabama Republicans.
Another cause of weakness in the Radical party was the quarrel among the
Reconstruction newspapers of the state over the distribution of the money
for printing the session laws of Congress. The _State Journal_ and the
_Mountain Home_ lost the printing, which, by direction of the Alabama
delegation in Congress, was given to the _Huntsville Advocate_ and the
_National Republican_, "to aid needy newspapers in other localities for
the benefit of the Republican party." The result was discord among the
editors and a lukewarm support of the party from those dissatisfied.[2124]
In 1874 in each county where there was a strong Republican vote discord
arose among those who wanted office. Every white Radical wanted a
nomination and the negroes also wanted a share. The results were temporary
splits everywhere in the county organizations, which were usually mended
before the elections, but which seriously weakened the party. The
Strobach-Robinson division in Montgomery County may be taken as typical.
Strobach was the carpet-bag sheriff of Montgomery County, which was
overwhelmingly black. There was reason to believe that Strobach was being
purchased by the Democrats.[2125] The stalwarts accused him of conspiring
with the Democrats to sell the administration to them. They charged that
he would not allow the negroes to use the court-house for political
meetings, that entirely too many Republicans were indicted at his
instance, and that he summoned as jurors too many Democrats and "Strobach
traitors" and too few Republicans. As leader of the regular organization
Strobach had considerable influence in spite of these charges, and his
enemies undertook to form a new organization. The leaders of the bolters,
known as the Robinson faction, were Busteed, Buckley, Barbour, and
Robinson. They made the fairest promises and secured the support of the
majority of the negroes, though Strobach still controlled many. Between
the two factions there was practically civil war during 1874. The bolters
organized their negroes in the "National Guards," a semi-military
society--5000 or 6000 strong. This body broke up the Strobach meetings,
and serious disturbances occurred at Wilson's Station, Elam Church, and at
Union Springs. At the latter place the bolters attempted to take forcible
possession of the congressional nominating convention. The negroes, led by
a few whites, invaded the town, firing guns and pistols and making threats
until it seemed as if a three-cornered fight would result between the
whites and the two factions of the blacks. Rapier, the negro congressman,
made peace by agreeing to support the Robinson-Buckley faction provided
they kept the peace and allowed him to receive the nomination for Congress
from the other faction. They forced him to sign an agreement to that
effect, which he repudiated a few days later. The bolters were not
admitted to the state convention in 1874, and thus weakness resulted.
During the summer and fall of 1874, ten or twelve negroes were killed and
numbers injured in the fights between the factions.[2126]
The Democrats naturally did all that was possible to encourage such
division in the ranks of the enemy. Bolting candidates and independent
candidates, especially negroes, were secretly supported by advice and
funds. Carpet-bag and scalawag leaders were purchased, and agreed to use
their influence to divide their party. To some of them it was clear that
the whites would soon be in control, and meanwhile they were willing to
profit by selling out their party.[2127] For two or three years it had
been a practice in the Black Belt for the Radical office-holders to farm
out their offices to the Democrats, who appointed deputies to conduct such
offices. The stalwarts now endeavored to cast these men out of the party,
but only succeeded in weakening it.
The Negroes in 1874
In spite of all adverse influence, however, the great majority of the
negroes remained faithful to the Republican party and voted for Governor
Lewis in the fall elections. They missed the rigid organization of former
years, and many of them were greatly dissatisfied because of unfulfilled
promises made by their leaders; but the Radical office-holders, realizing
clearly the desperate situation, made strong efforts to bring out the
entire negro vote. The Union League methods were again used to drive negro
men into line. They were again promised that if their party succeeded in
the elections, there would be a division of property. Some believed that
equal rights in cars, hotels, theatres, and churches would be obtained.
Clothes, bacon and flour, free homes, mixed schools, and public office
were offered as inducements to voters. In Opelika, A. B. Griffin told the
negroes that after the election all things would be divided and that each
Lee County negro would receive a house in Opelika. To one man he promised
"forty acres and an old gray horse." Heyman, a Radical leader of Opelika,
told the blacks that if the elections resulted properly, the land would be
taxed so heavily that the owners would be obliged to leave the state, and
then the negroes and northerners would get the land.[2128]
Promises of good not being sufficient to hold the blacks in line, threats
of evil were added. Circulars were sent out, purporting to be signed by
General Grant, threatening the blacks with reënslavement unless they voted
for him. The United States deputy marshals informed the blacks of Marengo
County that if they voted for W. B. Jones, a scalawag candidate who had
been purchased by the whites, they would be reënslaved. Heyman of Opelika
declared that defeat would result in the negroes' having their ears cut
off, in whipping posts and slavery. Pelham, a white congressman, told the
blacks that if the Democrats carried the elections, Jefferson Davis would
come to Montgomery and reorganize the Confederate government. So
industriously were such tales told that many of the negroes became
genuinely alarmed, and it was asserted that negro women began to hide
their children as the election approached.[2129]
The negro women and the negro preachers were more enthusiastic than the
negro men, and through clubs and churches brought considerable pressure to
bear on the doubtful and indifferent. They agreed that negro children
should not go to schools where the teachers were Democrats. In Opelika a
negro women's club was formed of those whose husbands were Democrats or
were about to be. The initiate swore to leave her husband if he voted for
a Democrat. This club was formed by a white Radical, John O. D. Smith, and
the negroes were made to believe that General Grant ordered it. A similar
organization in Chambers County had a printed constitution by which a
member, if married, was made to promise to desert her husband should he
vote for a Democrat, and a single woman promised not to marry a Democratic
negro or to have anything to do with one. The negro women were used as
agents to distribute tickets to voters. These tickets had Spencer's
picture on them, which they believed was Grant's.[2130]
In the negro churches to be a Democrat was to become liable to discipline.
Some preachers preferred regular charges against those members who were
suspected of Democracy. The average negro still believed that it was a
crime "to vote against their race" and offenders were sure of expulsion
from church unless, as happened sometimes, the bolters were strong enough
to turn the Republicans out. Nearly every church had its political club to
which the men belonged and sometimes the women. Robert Bennett of Lee
County related his experience to the Coburn Committee. He wanted to vote
the Democratic ticket, he said, and for that offence was put on trial in
his church. The "ministers and exhorters" told him that he must not do so,
saying, "We had rather you wouldn't vote at all; if you won't go with us
to vote with us, you are against us; the Bible says so.... We can have you
arrested. We have got you; if you won't say you won't vote or will vote
with us, we will have you arrested.... All who won't vote with us we will
kick out of the society--and turn them out of church;" and so it happened
to Robert Bennett.[2131]
The efforts made to hold the negroes under control indicate that numbers
of them were becoming restless and desirous of change. This was especially
the case with the former house-servant class and those who owned property.
One negro, in accounting for his change of politics, said, "Honestly, I
love my race, but the way the colored people have taken a stand against
the white people ... will not do." Of the white Radicals he said, "They
know that we are a parcel of poor ignorant people, and I think it is a bad
thing for them to take advantage of a poor ignorant person, and I do not
think they are honest men; they cannot be." He said that the Radicals
promised much and gave little; that they never helped him. The Democrats
gave him credit and paid his doctor's bills; so that it was to his
interest to vote for the Democrats--"I done it because it was to my
interest. I wanted a change." Another negro explained his change of
politics by saying that bad government kept up the price of pork, and
allowed sorry negroes to steal what industrious negroes made and
saved--eggs, chickens, and cotton. When Adam Kirk, of Chambers County, was
asked why be belonged to the "white man's party," he answered: "I was
raised in the house of old man Billy Kirk. He raised me as a body servant.
The class that he belongs to feels nearer to me than the northern white
man, and actually, since the war, everything that I have got is by their
aid and assistance. They have helped me raise up my family and have stood
by me, and whenever I want a doctor, no matter what hour of the day or
night, he is called in whether I have got a cent or not. I think they have
got better principles and better character than the Republicans."[2132]
There is no doubt that these represented the sentiments of several
thousand negroes who had mustered up courage to remain away from the polls
or perhaps to vote for the Democrats. And while in white counties the
campaign was made on the race issue, in the Black Belt the whites, as
Strobach said, "were more than kind" to negro bolters. They encouraged and
paid the expenses of negro Democratic speakers, and gave barbecues to the
blacks who would promise to vote for the "white man's party." Numerous
Democratic clubs were formed for the negroes and financed by the whites.
Of these there were several in each black county, but none in the white
counties. Though safer than ever before since enfranchisement, negro
Democrats still received rather harsh treatment from those of their color
who sincerely believed that a negro Democrat was a traitor and an enemy to
his race. Negro Democratic speakers were insulted, stoned, and sometimes
killed. At night they had to hide out. Their political meetings were
broken up; their houses were shot into; their families were ostracized in
negro society, churches, and schools. One negro complained that his
children were beaten by other children at school, and that the teacher
explained to him that nothing better could be expected as long as he, the
father, remained a Democrat. Some negro Democrats were driven away from
home and others were whipped. Most of them found it necessary to keep
quiet about politics; and the members of Democratic clubs were usually
sworn to secrecy.[2133] The colored Methodist Episcopal Church, which was
under the guardianship of the white Methodist Church, suffered from negro
persecution; several of its buildings were burned and its ministers
insulted.
The Democratic and Conservative Party in 1874
If the Republican party was weaker in this campaign than ever before, the
Democrats, on the other hand, were more united and more firmly determined
to carry the elections, peaceably if possible, by force if necessary.
There are evidences that the state government in Alabama would have been
overthrown early in 1874 if the Louisiana revolution of that year had not
been crushed by the Federal government. The different sections of the
state were now more closely united than ever before, owing to the
completion of two of the railroads which had cost the state treasury so
much. The people of the northern white counties now came down into central
Alabama and learned what negro government really was, and it was now made
clear to the Unionist Republican element of the mountain counties that
while they had local white government they were supporting a state
government by the negro and the alien, both of whom they disliked. In
order to gain the support of north Alabama, the opposition of the whites
in the Black Belt to a campaign on the race issue was disregarded, and the
campaign, especially in the white counties, was made on the simple
issue--Shall black or white rule the state?
It may be of interest here to examine the attitude of the whites toward
the blacks since the war. In 1865, the whites would grant civil rights to
the negro, but would have special legislation for the race on the theory
that it needed a period of guardianship; by 1866, many far-sighted men
were willing to think of political rights for the negro after the proper
preparation; by 1867, there was serious thought of an immediate qualified
suffrage for the black, the object being to increase the representation in
Congress, to disarm the Radicals,--the native whites believing that they
could control the negro vote. This shifting of position was checked by the
grant of suffrage to the negroes by Congress, and during the campaigns of
1867 and 1868 the whites held aloof, meaning to try to influence the negro
vote later, when the opportunity offered. From 1869 to 1872 there was an
increasing tendency, especially in the Black Belt, to appeal to the negro
for political support, but, though the former personal relations were to
some extent resumed, the effort always ended in practical failure. The
result was that by 1873-1874, the whites despaired of dividing the black
vote and many of the Black Belt whites were willing to join those of the
white counties in drawing the color line in politics.[2134]
The Democrats were aided in presenting the race issue to north Alabama by
the attitude, above referred to, of the negroes in demanding office and
social privileges and by the fact that a strong effort had been made in
Congress and would again be made to enact a stringent civil rights law
securing equal rights to negroes in cars, theatres, hotels, schools, etc.
The Alabama members of Congress, who were Republicans, had voted for such
a bill. The Democrats made the most of the issue. The speeches of
Boutwell, Morton, and Sumner were circulated among the whites as campaign
documents, and were most effective in securing the unionists and
independents of north Alabama.[2135]
The following extracts from state papers will indicate the state of mind
of the whites. The _Montgomery Advertiser_ of February 19, 1874, declared
that "the great struggle in the South is the race struggle of white
against black for political supremacy. It is all in vain to protest that
the southern wing of the Radical party is not essentially a party of black
men arrayed against their white neighbors in a close and bitter struggle
for power. The struggle going on around us is not a mere contest for the
triumph of this or that platform of party principles. It is a contest
between antagonistic races and for that which is held dearer than life by
the white race. If the negro must rule Alabama permanently, whether in
person or by proxy, the white man must ultimately leave the state." "Old
Whig" protested in the _Opelika Daily Times_ of June 6, 1874, against the
rule of the mob of 80,000 yelling negroes who, at scalawag mandate, and in
the name of liberty, deposited ballots against southern white men. Another
writer declared that "all of the good men of Alabama are for the white
man's party. Outcasts, libellers, liars, handcuffers, and traitors to
blood are for the negro party." Pinned down by bayonets and bound by
tyranny, the whites had been forced to silence and expedients and
humiliation until wrath burned "like a seven-fold furnace in the bosom of
the people." The negro must be expelled from the government. The white was
a God-made prince; the black, a God-made subordinate. "What right hath
Dahomey to give laws to Runnymede, or Bosworth Field to take a lesson from
Congo-Ashan? Shall Bill Turner give laws to Watts, Elmore, Barnes, Morgan,
and the many mighty men of the South?" "When Alabama goes down the white
men of Alabama will go with her."[2136]
The whites who still remained with the negro party were subjected to more
merciless ostracism than ever before. No one would have business relations
with a Republican; no one believed in his honor or honesty; his children
were taunted by their schoolmates; his family were socially ostracized; no
one would sit by them at church or in public gatherings.[2137] In the
white counties numerous conventions adopted a series of resolutions in
regard to ostracism, known as the "Pike County Platform," which first was
adopted in June, 1874, by the Democratic convention in Pike County. It
read in part as follows: "Resolved that nothing is left to the white man's
party but social ostracism of all those who act, sympathize, or side with
the negro party, or who support or advocate the odious, unjust, and
unreasonable measure known as the Civil Rights Bill; and that henceforth
we will hold all such persons as the enemies of our race, and will not for
the future have intercourse with them in any of the social relations of
life."[2138]
With the changed conditions in 1874 appeared a considerable number of
"independent" candidates and voters. These were (1) those whites who had
wearied of radicalism, and, foreseeing defeat, had left their party, yet
were unwilling to join the Democrats; (2) certain half-hearted Democrats
who did not want to see the old Democratic leaders come back to power; (3)
disappointed politicians, especially old Whigs of strong prejudices, who
disliked the Democrats from ante-bellum days. These people, foreseeing the
defeat of the Radicals, hastened to offer themselves as independent
candidates and voters. They hoped to get the votes of the bulk of the
Radicals and many Democrats and thus get into power. The Radicals,
otherwise certain of defeat, showed some disposition to meet those people
halfway, and a partial success was possible if the Democrats could not
whip the "independents" into line. This was successfully done. The
following dissertation on "independents" is offered as typical: The
independent is the Brutus of the South, "the protégé of radicalism, the
spawn of corruption or poverty, or passion, or ignorance, come forth as
leaders of ignorant or deluded blacks, to attack and plunder for avarice.
There may be no God to avenge the South, but there is a devil to punish
independents." The independents are only the tools of the Radicals, they
are like bloodhounds,--to be used and then killed, for no sooner than
their work is done the Radicals will knife them. "Satan hath been in the
Democratic camp and, taking these independents from guard duty, led them
up into the mountains and shown them the kingdoms of Radicalism, his
silver and gold, storehouses and bacon, and all these promised to give if
they would fall down and worship him; and they worshipped him, throwing
down the altars of their fathers and trampling them under their
feet."[2139]
The Campaign of 1874
The Democrats nominated for governor George S. Houston of north Alabama, a
"Union" man whose "unionism" had not been very strong, and the Republicans
renominated Governor D. P. Lewis, also of north Alabama. The Democratic
convention met in July, 1874, and put forth a declaration and a platform
declaring that the Radicals had for years inflamed the passions and
prejudices of the races until it was now necessary for the whites to unite
in self-defence. The convention denied the power of Congress to legislate
for the social equality of the races and denounced the Civil Rights Bill
then pending in Congress as an attempt to force social union. Legislation
on social matters was condemned as unnecessary and criminal. The Radical
state administration was blamed for extravagance and corruption, and a
declaration was made that fraudulent state debts would not be paid if the
Democrats were successful.[2140]
The fact that the race issue was the principal one is borne out by the
county platforms. In Barbour County the "white man's party" declared that
the issue was "white _vs._ black"; that if the whites were defeated, the
county would no longer be endurable and would be abandoned to the blacks;
that a conflict of races would be deplorable, but that the whites must
protect themselves, and that though in the past some had stayed away from
the polls through disgust, those who did not vote would be reckoned as of
the negro party; that the whites would be ready to protect themselves and
their ballots by force if necessary. In Lee County the convention declared
that the Democrats had long avoided the race issue, but that now it had
been forced upon them by the Radicals; that "this county is the white
man's and the white man must rule over it," and that whites or blacks who
aid the negro party "are the political and social enemies of the white
race." In the same county a local club declared that peace was wanted, but
not peace purchased by "unconditional surrender of every freeman's
privilege to fraud, Federal bayonets, and intimidation."[2141]
The Republican state convention in August pronounced itself in favor of
the Civil Rights Bill and the civil and political equality of all men
without regard to race, declared that the race issue was an invention of
the Democrats which would result in war with the United States, and
accused the Democrats of being responsible for the bad condition of the
state finances. The Equal Rights convention and the Union Labor convention
declared for the Civil Rights Bill and indorsed Charles Sumner and J. T.
Rapier, the negro congressman.[2142]
In preparation for the fall elections the Radical members of Congress had
secured the passage of a resolution by Congress appropriating money for
the relief of the sufferers from floods on the Alabama, Warrior, and
Tombigbee rivers. The floods occurred in the early spring; the
appropriation became available in May, but as late as July the governor
had not appointed agents to distribute the bacon which had been purchased
with the appropriation. The members of Congress from the state met and
agreed upon a division of the bacon without reference to flooded
districts, but with reference to the political conditions in the various
counties.[2143] Their agents were to distribute the bacon, but the
governor was unable to get their names until August. The purpose was to
hold the bacon until near the election. The governor and other Republican
leaders were opposed to the use of bacon in the campaign, and the state
refused to pay transportation; so the agents had to sell part of the bacon
to pay expenses. In Lewis's last message to the legislature, he said
pointedly, "Our beloved state has been free from pestilence, floods, and
extensive disasters to labor."[2144] As a matter of fact, there had been
the regular spring freshets, but there were no sufferers. The loss fell
upon the planters, who were under contract to furnish food, stock, and
implements to their tenants. In August, Captain Gentry of the Nineteenth
Infantry was sent by the War Department, which was supplying the bacon, to
investigate the matter of the "political" bacon. He found no suffering,
and no one was able to tell him where the suffering was, though the
members of Congress were positive that there was suffering. The crops were
doing well. In Montgomery Captain Gentry found that the agents in charge
of Congressman Rapier's share of the bacon were J. C. Hendrix and Holland
Thompson (colored), both active politicians. Distribution had been delayed
because Rapier thought that he had not received his share. Congressman
Hays had bacon sent to Calera, Brierfield, and Marion, none of the places
being near flowing water. He sent quantities to Perry, Shelby, and Bibb
counties, but none to Fayette and Baker (Chilton). As he wrote to his
agent, "Of course the overflowed districts will need more than those not
overflowed." When the War Department discovered the use that had been made
of the bacon, Captain Gentry was directed to seize the bacon in dry
districts that was being held until the election. At Eufaula, 80 miles
from the nearest flooded district, he seized 5348 pounds that Rapier had
stored there; at Seale, 7638 pounds were seized; and at Opelika, 9792
pounds; but not all was discovered at either place.[2145]
An Opelika negro thus described the method of using the bacon: It was
understood that only the faithful could get any of it. This negro was
considered doubtful, but was told, "If you will come along and do right,
you will get two or three shoulders." Bacon suppers were held at negro
churches, to which only those were admitted who promised to vote the
Republican ticket.[2146]
The use of bacon in the campaign injured the Republican cause more than it
aided it; the supply of bacon was too small to go around, and the whites
were infuriated because the negroes stopped work so long while trying to
get some of it.
In previous campaigns the Republicans had used with success the "southern
outrage" issue; stories of murder, cruelty, and fraud by the whites were
carried to Washington and found ready believers, and Federal troops and
deputy marshals were sent to assist the southern Republicans in the
elections by making arrests, thus intimidating the whites and encouraging
the blacks. In the campaign of 1874 such assistance was more than ever
necessary to the black man's party in Alabama. The race line was now
distinctly drawn and most of the whites had forsaken the black man's
party. The blacks, many of them, were indifferent; the whites were
determined to overthrow the Reconstruction rule.
The leaders of the whites were confident of success and strongly advised
against every appearance of violence, since it would work to the advantage
of the hostile party. There were some, however, who did not object to the
tales of outrage, since they would cause investigation and the sending of
Federal troops. These would, in the black districts, really protect the
whites, and any kind of an investigation would result in damage to the
Radical party.
Pursuing its plan of a peaceable campaign, the Democratic executive
committee, on August 29, 1874, issued an address as follows: "We
especially urge upon you carefully to avoid all injuries to others while
you are attempting to preserve your own rights. Let our people avoid all
just causes of complaint. Turmoil and strife with those who oppose us in
this contest will only weaken the moral force of our efforts. Let us avoid
personal conflicts; and if these should be forced upon us, let us only act
in that line of just self-defence which is recognized and provided for by
the laws of the land. We could not please our enemies better than by
becoming parties to conflicts of violence, and thus furnish them plausible
pretext for asking the interference of Federal power in our domestic
affairs. Let us so act that all shall see and that all whose opinions are
entitled to any respect shall admit that ours is a party of peace, and
that we only seek to preserve our rights and liberties by the peaceful but
efficient power of the ballot-box."[2147] There is no doubt but that the
whites engaged in less violence in this campaign than in former election
years and less than was to be expected considering their temper in 1874.
But there is also no doubt that very little incentive would have been
necessary to have precipitated serious conflict. The whites were
determined to win, peaceably if possible, forcibly if necessary. This very
determination made them inclined to peace as long as possible and made the
opposite party cautious about giving causes for conflict.
The Republican leaders industriously circulated in the North stories of
"outrages" in Alabama. The most comprehensive "outrage" story was that of
Charles Hays, member of Congress, published in the famous "Hays-Hawley
letter" of September 7, 1874. Hays had borne a bad character in Alabama
while a slaveholder and had been ostracized for being cruel to his slaves,
and as a Confederate soldier he had a doubtful record. Naturally, in
Reconstruction he had sided against the whites, and the negroes, with few
exceptions, forgot his past history. In order to get campaign material,
Senator Joseph Hawley of Connecticut wrote to Hays to get facts for
publication,--"I want to publish it at home and give it to my neighbors
and constituents as the account of a gentleman of unimpeachable honor."
Hays responded in a long letter, filled with minute details of horrible
outrages that occurred within his personal observation. The spirit of
rebellion still exists, he said; riots, murders, assassinations,
torturings, are more common than ever; the half cannot be told; unless the
Federal government interposes there is no hope for loyal men. The letter
created a sensation. Senator Hawley sent it out with his indorsement of
Hays as a gentleman. The _New York Tribune_, then "Liberal" in politics,
sent "a thoroughly competent and trustworthy correspondent who is a
lifelong Republican" to investigate the charges made by Hays. The charges
of Hays were as follows: (1) for political reasons, one Allen was beaten
nearly to death with pistols; (2) five negroes were brutally murdered in
Sumter County, for no reason; (3) "No white man in Pickens County ever
cast a Republican vote and lived after;" (4) in Hale County a negro
benevolent society was ordered to meet no more; (5) masked men drove James
Bliss, a negro, from Hale County; (6) J. G. Stokes, a Republican speaker,
was warned by armed ruffians not to make another Radical speech in Hale
County; (7) in Choctaw County 10 negroes had been killed and 13 wounded by
whites in ambuscade; (8) in Marengo County W. A. Lipscomb was killed for
being a Republican; (9) "Simon Edward and Monroe Keeton were killed in
Sumter County for political effect;" (10) in Pickens County negroes were
killed, tied to logs, and sent floating down the river with the following
inscription, "To Mobile with the compliments of Pickens;" (11) W. P.
Billings, a northern Republican, was killed in Sumter County on account of
his politics, and Ivey, a negro mail agent, was also killed for his
politics in Sumter; (12) there were numerous outrages in Coffee, Macon,
and Russell counties; (13) near Carrollton, two negro speakers were
hanged. Hays also declared that "only an occasional murder leaks out;"
Republican speakers were always "rotten-egged" or shot at, while not a
single Democrat was injured; the Associated Press agents were all "rebels
and Democrats," and systematically misrepresented the Radical party to the
North.
The _Tribune_ after investigation pronounced the Hays-Hawley letter "a
tissue of lies from beginning to end." The correspondent sent to Alabama
investigated each reported outrage and found that the facts were as
follows: (1) Allen said that he was beaten for private reasons by one
person with the weapons of nature; (2) three negroes were killed by
negroes and two were shot while stealing corn; (3) since 1867 there had
been white Republican voters and officials in Sumter County; (4) the negro
societies in Hale County denied that any of them had been ordered to
disband; (5) James Bliss himself denied that he had been driven from Hale
County; (6) affidavits of the Republican officials of Hale County denied
the Stokes story; (7) in regard to the "10 killed and 13 wounded" outrage,
affidavits were obtained from the "killed and wounded" denying that the
reported outrage had occurred (the truth was, a negro was beaten by other
negroes, and when the sheriff had attempted to arrest them, they resisted
and one shot was fired; the negroes swore that they had told Hays that
none was injured); (8) Lipscomb in person denied that he had been murdered
or injured; (9) Edward and Keeton lived in Mississippi and there was no
evidence that either had been murdered; (10) the story of the dead negroes
tied to floating logs was not heard in Pickens County before Hays
published it, and no foundation for it could be discovered; (11) Billings
was killed by unknown persons for purposes of robbery, and Republican
officials testified that the killing of Ivey was not political; (12)
nothing could be found to support the statement about outrages in Coffee,
Macon, and Russell counties; (13) the hanging of the two negroes near
Carrollton was denied by the Republicans of that district. The _Tribune_
correspondent asserted that Hays "knew that his statements were lies when
he made them"; that the whites were exercising remarkable restraint; that
they were trying hard to keep the peace; that counties in Hays's district
were showing signs of going Democratic, and since his was the strongest
Republican district, desperate measures were necessary to hold the
Republicans in line; and that the administration press "had grossly
slandered the people of the state." Governor Lewis and a few of the
Republicans had opposed the "outrage" issue, and though troops were sent
to the state it was against the wishes of Lewis.[2148]
The Washington administration readily listened to the "outrage" stories
and prepared to interfere in Alabama affairs, though Governor Lewis could
not be persuaded to ask for troops. President Grant wrote, on September 3,
1874, to Belknap, Secretary of War, directing him to hold troops in
readiness to suppress the "atrocities" in Alabama, Georgia, and South
Carolina. Early in September Attorney-General Williams began to encourage
United States Marshal Healy to make arrests under the Enforcement Acts,
and on September 29, 1874, he instructed Healy to appoint special deputies
at all points where troops were to be stationed. He promised that the
deputies would be supported by the infantry and cavalry. During October
the state was filled with deputy marshals, agents of the Department of
Justice and of the Post-office Department, and Secret Service men, most of
them in disguise, searching for opportunities to arrest whites. Most of
these men were of the lowest class, since only men of that kind would do
the work required of them. The deputies were appointed, ten to twenty-five
in each county, by Marshal Healy on the recommendation of the officials of
the Republican party. Charles E. Mayer of Mobile, chairman of the
Republican executive committee, nominated and secured the appointment of
217 deputy marshals, vouching for them as good Republicans, all except
four Democrats who were warranted to be "mild, _i.e._ honest." Robert
Barbour of Montgomery and Isaac Heyman of Opelika also nominated
deputies.[2149]
The marshals did some effective work during October. In Dallas County,
where the Democrats had encouraged a bolting negro candidate with the
intention of purchasing his office from him, the negro bolter and General
John T. Morgan were arrested for violation of the Enforcement Acts.[2150]
In Sumter County, John Little, a negro who had started a negro Democratic
club called the "Independent Thinkers," was arrested and the club was
broken up.[2151] From Eufaula several prominent whites were taken, among
them General Alpheus Baker, J. M. Buford, G. L. Comer, W. H. Courtney, and
E. J. Black.[2152]
In Livingston, where a Democratic convention was being held in the
court-house, the deputy marshals came in, pretended to search through the
whole room, and finally arrested Renfroe and Bullock, whom, with Chiles,
they handcuffed and paraded about the county, exposing them to insult from
gangs of negroes. The jailer in Sumter County refused to give up the jail
to the use of the deputy marshals and was imprisoned in his own
jail.[2153] About the same time Colonel Wedmore, chairman of the
Democratic county executive committee, was arrested with forty-two other
prominent Democrats, thus almost destroying the party organization in
Sumter County. Though there were three United States commissioners in
Sumter County, Wedmore and others were carried to Mobile for trial before
a United States commissioner there, and, instead of being carried by the
shortest route, they were for political effect taken on a long détour
_via_ Demopolis, Selma, and Montgomery. Those arrested were never tried,
but were released just before or soon after the election.[2154] The whites
were thoroughly intimidated in the black districts, but were not seriously
molested in the white counties. The houses of nearly all the Democrats in
the Black Belt were searched by the deputies and soldiers, and the women
frightened and insulted. The officers of the army were disgusted with the
nature of the work.[2155]
Such was the intimidation practised by the officials of the Federal
government. The Republican state administration took little part in the
persecutions, because it was weak, because it was not desirous of being
held responsible, and because some of the prominent officials were certain
that the intimidation policy would injure their party. In the white
counties there was considerably less effort to influence the elections.
But by no means was all of the intimidation on the Republican side. In
the counties where the whites were numerous the determination was freely
expressed that the elections were to be carried by the whites. There were
few open threats, very little violence, and none of the kind of
persecution employed by the other side. But the whites had made up their
minds, and the other side knew it, or rather felt it in the air, and were
thereby intimidated. Besides the silent forces of ostracism, etc., already
described, the whites found many other means of influencing the voters on
both sides. Where Radical posters were put up announcing speakers and
principles, the Democrats would tear them down and post instead
caricatures of Spencer, Lewis, Hays, or Rapier, or declarations against
"social equality enforced by law." In white districts some obnoxious
speakers were "rotten-egged," others forbidden to speak and asked to
leave. One Radical speaker complained that whites in numbers came to hear
him, sat on the front seats with guns across their knees, blew tin horns,
and asked him embarrassing questions about "political bacon" and race
equality under the Civil Rights Bill. "Blacklists" of active negro
politicians were kept and the whites warned against employing them;
"pledge meetings" were held in some counties and negroes strenuously
advised to sign the "pledge" to vote for the white man's party. "The
Barbour County Fever" spread over the state. This was a term used for any
process for making life miserable for white Radicals. There was something
like a revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the White Leagues or clubs whose
members were sworn to uphold "white" principles. In many towns these clubs
were organized as military companies. Some of them applied to Governor
Lewis for arms and for enrolment as militia. But he was afraid to organize
any white militia because it might overthrow his administration, and, on
the other hand, he also refused to give arms to negro militia because he
feared race conflicts. By private subscription, often with money from the
North, the white companies were armed and equipped. They drilled regularly
and made long practice marches through the country. They kept the peace,
they made no threats, but their influence was none the less forcible. The
Democratic politicians were opposed to these organizations, but the latter
persisted and several companies went in uniform to Houston's inauguration.
The Republicans found cause for anxiety in the increasing frequency of
Confederate veterans' reunions, and it is said that cavalry companies and
squadrons of ex-Confederates began to drill again, much to the alarm of
the blacks.[2156] In truth, some of the whites were exasperated to the
point where they were about ready to fight again. As one man expressed it:
"The attempt to force upon the country this social equality, miscalled
Civil Rights Bill, may result in another war. The southern people do not
desire to take up arms again, but may be driven to desperation."[2157]
The feelings of the poorer whites and those who had suffered most from
Radical rule are reflected in the following speeches. A negro who was
canvassing for Rapier, the negro congressman, was told by a white: "You
might as well quit. We have made up our minds to carry the state or kill
half of you negroes on election day. We begged you long enough and have
persuaded you, but you will vote for the Radical party." Another white man
said to negro Republicans, "God damn you, you have voted my land down to
half a dollar an acre, and I wish the last one of you was down in the
bottom of hell."[2158]
The Democratic campaign was managed by W. L. Bragg, an able organizer,
assisted by a competent staff. The state had not been so thoroughly
canvassed since 1861. The campaign fund was the largest in the history of
the state; every man who was able, and many who were not, contributed;
assistance also came from northern Democrats, and northern capitalists who
had investments in the South or who owned part of the legal bonds of the
state. The election officials were all Radicals and with Federal aid had
absolute control over the election. If inclined to fraud, as in 1868-1872,
they could easily count themselves in, but they clearly understood that no
fraud would be tolerated. To prevent the importation of negroes from
Georgia and Mississippi guards were stationed all around the state. To
prevent "repeating," which had formerly been done by massing the negroes
at the county seat for their first vote and then sending them home to vote
again, the whites made lists of all voters, white and black, kept an
accurate account of all Democratic votes cast, and demanded that the votes
be thus counted. So well did the Democrats know their resources that a
week before the election an estimate of the vote was made that turned out
to be almost exactly correct. In Randolph County, several days before the
election, the Democratic manager reported a certain number of votes for
the Democrats; on election day two votes more than he estimated were cast.
Tons of campaign literature were distributed mainly by freight, express,
and messengers, the mails having proved unsafe, being in the hands of the
Radicals. For the same reason political messages were sent by telegraph.
Every man who could speak had to "go on the stump." Toward the close of
the campaign a hundred speeches a day were made by speakers sent out from
headquarters. The lawyers did little or no business during October; it is
said that of seventy-five lawyers in Montgomery all but ten were usually
out of the city making speeches.[2159]
The Election of 1874
The election of 1874 passed off with less violence than was expected; in
fact, it was quieter than any previous campaign. The Democrats were
assured of success and had no desire to lose the fruits of victory on
account of riots and disorder. So the responsible people strained every
nerve to preserve the peace. A regiment of soldiers was scattered
throughout the Black Belt and showed a disposition to neglect the affairs
of the blacks. But here, in the counties where the numerous arrests had
been made, the blacks voted in full strength. In fact, with few
exceptions, both parties voted in full strength, and, as regards the
counting of the votes, it was the fairest election since the negroes began
to vote. There were instances in white counties of negroes being forced to
vote for the Democrats, while in the Black Belt negro Democrats were
mobbed and driven from the polls. But the negro Democrats resorted to
expedients to get in their tickets. In one county where the Democratic
tickets were smooth at the top and the negro tickets perforated, the
Democrats prepared perforated tickets for negro Democrats which went
unquestioned. In other places special tickets were printed for the use of
negro Democrats with the picture of General Grant or of Spencer on them
and these passed the hurried Radical inspection and were cast for the
Democrats. In Marengo County the Democrats purchased a Republican
candidate, who agreed for $300 that he would not be elected. By his "sign
of the button," sent out among the negroes, the latter were instructed to
vote a certain colored ticket which did not conform to law and hence was
not counted. Other candidates agreed not to qualify after election, thus
leaving the appointment to the governor.
In the Black Belt, now as before, the negroes were marshalled in regiments
of 300 to 1500 under men who wrote orders purporting to be signed by
General Grant, directing the negroes to vote for him. In Greene County
1400 uniformed negroes took possession of the polls, and excluded the few
whites.[2160] A riot in Mobile was brought on by the close supervision
over election affairs, which was objected to by a drunken negro who wanted
to vote twice, and who declared that he wanted "to wade in blood up to his
boot tops." The negro was killed. A conflict at Belmont, where a negro was
killed, and another at Gainesville were probably caused by the endeavor of
the whites to exclude negroes who had been imported from Mississippi. By
rioting the Republicans had everything to gain and the Democrats
everything to lose, and while it is impossible in most cases to ascertain
which party fired the first shot or struck the first blow, the evidence is
clear that the desperate Radical whites encouraged the blacks to violent
conduct in order to cause collisions between the races and thus secure
Federal interference. In Eufaula occurred the most serious riot of the
Reconstruction period that occurred in Alabama. The negroes came armed and
threatening to the polls, which were held by a Republican sheriff and
forty Republican deputies. Judge Keils, a carpet-bagger, had advised the
blacks to come to Eufaula to vote: "You go to town; there are several
troops of Yankees there; these damned Democrats won't shoot a frog. You
come armed and do as you please." The Democrats were glad to have the
troops, who were disgusted with the intimidation work of the previous
month. Order was kept until a negro tried to vote the Democratic ticket
and was discovered and mobbed by other blacks. The whites tried to protect
him and some negro fired a shot. Then the riot began. The few whites were
heavily armed and the negroes also. The deputies, it was said, lost their
heads and fired indiscriminately. When the fight was over it was found
that ten whites were wounded, and four negroes killed and sixty wounded.
The Federal troops came leisurely in after it was over, and surrounded
the polls. The course of the Federal troops in Eufaula was much as it was
elsewhere. They camped some distance from the polls, and when their aid
was demanded by the Republicans the captain either directly refused to
interfere, or consulted his orders or his telegrams or his law dictionary.
At last he offered to _notify_ the white men wanted by the marshal to meet
the latter and be arrested. Another commander, who took possession of the
polls in Opelika in order to prevent a riot, was censured by General
McDowell, the department commander. The troops were weary of such work,
and their orders from General McDowell were very vague.[2161] After the
election, as was to be expected, an outcry arose from the Radicals that
the troops had in every case failed to do their duty.
[Illustration: ELECTION OF 1874 FOR GOVERNOR.]
When the votes were counted, it appeared that the Democrats had triumphed.
Houston had 107,118 votes to 93,928 for Lewis. Two years before Herndon
(Democrat) had received 81,371 votes to 89,868 for Lewis. The presidential
campaign in 1872 had assisted Lewis. Grant ran far ahead of the Radical
state ticket. The legislature of 1874-1875 was to be composed as follows:
Senate, 13 Republicans (of whom 6 were negroes) and 20 Democrats; House,
40 Republicans (of whom 29 were negroes) and 60 Democrats.[2162]
The whites were exceedingly pleased with their victory, while the
Republicans took defeat as something expected. There were, of course, the
usual charges of outrage, Ku Kluxism, and the intimidation of the negro
vote, but these were fewer than ever before. There was considerable
complaint that the Federal troops had sided always with the whites in the
election troubles. The Republican leaders knew, of course, that for their
own time at least Alabama was to remain in the hands of the whites. The
blacks were surprisingly indifferent after they discovered that there was
to be no return to slavery, so much so that many whites feared that their
indifference masked some deep-laid scheme against the victors.
[Illustration: ELECTION OF 1876 FOR GOVERNOR.]
The heart of the Black Belt still remained under the rule of the
carpet-bagger and the black. The Democratic state executive Committee
considered that enough had been gained for one election, so it ordered
that no whites should contest on technical grounds alone the offices in
those black counties. Other methods gradually gave the Black Belt to the
whites. No Democrat would now go on the bond of a Republican official and
numbers were unable to make bond; their offices thus becoming vacant, the
governor appointed Democrats. Others sold out to the whites, or neglected
to make bond, or made bonds which were later condemned by grand juries.
This resulted in many offices going to the whites, though most of them
were still in the hands of the Republicans.[2163]
Houston's two terms were devoted to setting affairs in order. The
administration was painfully economical. Not a cent was spent beyond what
was absolutely necessary. Numerous superfluous offices were cut off at
once and salaries reduced. The question of the public debt was settled. To
prevent future interference by Federal authorities the time for state
elections was changed from November, the time of the Federal elections, to
August, and this separation is still in force. The whites now demanded a
new constitution. Their objections to the constitution of 1868 were
numerous: it was forced upon the whites, who had no voice in framing it;
it "reminds us of unparalleled wrongs"; it had not secured good
government; it was a patchwork unsuited to the needs of the state; it had
wrecked the credit of the state by allowing the indorsement of private
corporations; it provided for a costly administration, especially for a
complicated and unworkable school system which had destroyed the schools;
there was no power of expansion for the judiciary; and above all, it was
not legally adopted.[2164]
The Republicans declared against a new constitution as meant to destroy
the school system, provide imprisonment for debt, abolish exemption from
taxation, disfranchise and otherwise degrade the blacks. By a vote of
77,763 to 59,928, a convention was ordered by the people, and to it were
elected 80 Democrats, 12 Republicans, and 7 Independents. A new
constitution was framed and adopted in 1875.[2165]
Later Phases of State Politics
From 1875 to 1889 neither national party was able to control both houses
of Congress. Consequently no "force" legislation could be directed against
the white people of Alabama, who had control and were making secure their
control of the state administration. The black vote was not eliminated,
but gradually fell under the control of the native whites when the
carpet-bagger and scalawag left the Black Belt. In order to gain control
of the black vote, carpet-bag methods were sometimes resorted to, though
there was not as much fraud and violence used as is believed, for the
simple reason that it was not necessary; it was little more difficult now
to make the blacks vote for the Democrats than it had been to make
Republicans of them; the mass of them voted, in both cases, as the
stronger power willed it. The Black Belt came finally into Democratic
control in 1880, when the party leaders ordered the Alabama Republicans to
vote the Greenback ticket. The negroes did not understand the meaning of
the manoeuvre, did not vote in force, and lost their last stronghold. A
few white Republicans and a few black leaders united to maintain the
Republican state organization in order that they might control the
division of spoils coming from the Republican administration at
Washington. Most of them were or became Federal officials within the
state. It was not to their interest that their numbers should increase,
for the shares in the spoils would then be smaller. Success in the
elections was now the last thing desired.
[Illustration: ELECTION OF 1880 FOR GOVERNOR]
This clique of office-holders was almost destroyed by the two Democratic
administrations under Cleveland, and has been unhappy under later
Republican administrations; but the Federal administration in the state is
not yet respectable. Dissatisfaction on the part of the genuine
Republicans in the northern counties resulted in the formation of a "Lily
White" faction which demanded that the negro be dropped as a campaign
issue and that an attempt be made to build up a decent white Republican
party. The opposing faction has been called "The Black and Tans," and has
held to the negro. The national party organization and the administration
have refused to recognize the demands of the "Lily Whites"; and it would
be exceedingly embarrassing to go back on the record of the past in regard
to the negro as the basis of the Republican party in the South. In
consequence the growth of a reputable white party has been hindered.
[Illustration: ELECTION OF 1890 FOR GOVERNOR]
The Populist movement promised to cause a healthy division of the whites
into two parties. But the tactics of the national Republican organization
in trying to profit by this division, by running in the negroes, resulted
in a close reunion of the discordant whites, the Populists furnishing to
the reunited party some new principles and many new leaders, while the
Democrats furnished the name, traditions, and organization.
To make possible some sort of division and debate among the whites the
system of primary elections was adopted. In these elections the whites
were able to decide according to the merits of the candidate and the
issues involved. The candidate of the whites chosen in the primaries was
easily elected. This plan had the merit of placing the real contest among
the whites, and there was no danger of race troubles in elections. In the
Black Belt the primary system was legalized and served by its regulations
to confine the election contests to regularly nominated candidates, and
hence to whites, the blacks having lost their organization.
[Illustration: ELECTION FOR GOVERNOR 1902, UNDER NEW CONSTITUTION]
The Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments in their operation gave undue
political influence to the whites of the Black Belt, and this was opposed
by whites of other districts. It also resulted in serious corruption in
elections. There was always danger in the Black Belt that the Republicans,
taking advantage of divisions among the whites, would run in the negroes
again. There were instances when the whites simply counted out the negro
vote or used "shotgun" methods to prevent a return to the intolerable
conditions of Reconstruction. The people grew weary of the eternal "negro
in the woodpile," and a demand arose for a revision of the constitution
in order to eliminate the mass of the negro voters, to do away with
corruption in the elections and to leave the whites free. The conservative
leaders, like Governors Jones and Oates, were rather opposed to a
disfranchising movement. The Black Belt whites were somewhat doubtful, but
the mass of the whites were determined, and the work was done; the stamp
of legality was thus placed upon the long-finished work of necessity, and
the "white man's movement" had reached its logical end.[2166]
* * * * *
The mistakes and failures of Reconstruction are clear to all. Whether any
successes were achieved by the Congressional plan has been a matter for
debate. It has been strongly asserted that Reconstruction, though failing
in many important particulars, succeeded in others. The successes claimed
may be summarized as follows: (1) there was no more legislation for the
negro similar to that of 1865-66, that following the Reconstruction being
"infinitely milder"; (2) Reconstruction gave the negroes a civil status
that a century of "restoration" would not have accomplished, for though
the right to vote is a nullity, other undisputed rights of the black are
due to the Reconstruction; the unchangeable organic laws of the state and
of the United States favor negro suffrage, which will come the sooner for
being thus theoretically made possible; (3) Reconstruction prevented the
southern leaders from returning to Washington as irreconcilables, and gave
them troubles enough to keep them busy until a new generation grew up
which accepted the results of war; (4) by organizing the blacks it made
them independent of white control in politics; (5) it gave the negro an
independent church; (6) it gave the negro a right to education and gave to
both races the public school system; (7) it made the negro economically
free and showed that free labor was better than slave labor; (8) it
destroyed the former leaders of the whites and "freed them from the
baleful influence of old political leaders"; in general, as Sumner said,
the ballot to the negro was "a peacemaker, a schoolmaster, a protector,"
soon making him a fairly good citizen, and secured peace and order--the
"political hell" through which the whites passed being a necessary
discipline which secured the greatest good to the greatest number.[2167]
On the other hand, it may be maintained (1) that the intent of the
legislation of 1865-1866 has been entirely misunderstood, that it was
intended on the whole for the benefit of the negro as well as of the
white, and that it has been left permanently off the statute book, not
because the whites have been taught better by Reconstruction, but because
of the amendments which prohibit in theory what has all along been
practised (hence the gross abuses of peonage); (2) that the theoretical
rights of the negro have been no inducement to grant him actual
privileges, and that these theoretical rights have not proven so permanent
as was supposed before the disfranchising movement spread through the
South; (3) that the generation after Reconstruction is more irreconcilable
than the conservative leaders who were put out of politics in
1865-1867--that the latter were willing to give the negro a chance, while
the former, able, radical, and supported by the people, find less and less
place for the negro; (4) that if the blacks were united, so were the
whites, and in each case the advantage may be questioned; (5) that the
value of the negro church is doubtful; (6) that as in politics, so in
education, the negro has no opportunities now that were not freely offered
him in 1865-1866, and the school system is not a product of
Reconstruction, but came near being destroyed by it; (7) that negro free
labor is not as efficient as slave labor was, and the negro as a cotton
producer has lost his supremacy and his economic position is not at all
assured; (8) that the whites have acquired new leaders, but the change has
been on the whole from conservatives to radicals, from friends of the
negro to those indifferent to him. In short, a careful study of conditions
in Alabama since 1865 will not lead one to the conclusion that the black
race in that state has any rights or privileges or advantages that were
not offered by the native whites in 1865-1866.
For the misgovernment of Reconstruction, the negro, who was in no way to
blame, has been made to suffer, since those who were really responsible
could not be reached; so politically the races are hostile; the Black Belt
has had, until recently, an undue and disturbing influence in white
politics; the Federal official body and the Republican organization in the
state have not been respectable, and the growth of a white Republican
party has been prevented; the whites have for thirty-five years distrusted
and disliked the Federal administration which, until recent years, showed
little disposition to treat them with any consideration;[2168] the rule of
the carpet-bagger, scalawag, and negro, and the methods used to overthrow
that rule, weakened the respect of the people for the ballot, for law, for
government; the estrangement of the races and the social-equality
teachings of the reconstructionists have made it much less safe than in
slavery for whites to reside near negro communities, and the negro is more
exposed to imposition by low whites.
In recent years there have been many signs of improvement, but only in
proportion as the principles and practices that the white people of the
state understand are those of Reconstruction are rejected or superseded.
To the northern man Reconstruction probably meant and still means
something quite different from what the white man of Alabama understands
by the term. But as the latter understands it, he has accepted none of its
essential principles and intends to accept none of its so-called
successes.
In destroying all that was old, Reconstruction probably removed some
abuses; from the new order some permanent good must have resulted. But
credit for neither can rightfully be claimed until it can be shown that
those results were impossible under the régime destroyed.
APPENDIX I
PRODUCTION OF COTTON IN ALABAMA. 1860-1900
(_a_) Typical black counties with boundaries unchanged. (_b_) Typical
white counties.
======================================================================
COUNTY | 1860 | 1870 | 1880 | 1890 | 1900
----------------|----------|----------|----------|----------|---------
| bales | bales | bales | bales | bales
Autauga | 17,329 | 7,965 | 7,944 | 10,431 | 14,348
Baker (Chilton) | ---- | 1,360 | 3,534 | 6,233 | 9,932
Baldwin | 2,172 | 87 | 638 | 1,663 | 531
Barbour (_a_) | 44,518 | 17,011 | 26,063 | 33,440 | 29,395
Bibb | 8,303 | 3,973 | 4,843 | 5,216 | 6,535
Blount (_b_) | 1,071 | 950 | 4,442 | 9,748 | 11,449
Bullock | ---- | 17,972 | 22,578 | 30,547 | 31,774
Butler | 13,489 | 5,854 | 11,895 | 18,200 | 21,147
Calhoun | 11,573 | 3,038 | 10,848 | 11,504 | 11,554
Chambers | 24,589 | 7,868 | 19,476 | 27,276 | 30,676
Cherokee (_b_) | 10,562 | 1,807 | 10,777 | 11,870 | 12,767
Choctaw (_a_) | 17,252 | 6,439 | 9,054 | 13,586 | 13,091
Clarke (_a_) | 16,225 | 5,713 | 11,097 | 16,380 | 16,594
Clay (_b_) | ---- | 1,143 | 4,973 | 8,250 | 10,459
Cleburne (_b_) | ---- | 873 | 3,600 | 5,389 | 5,035
Coffee (_b_) | 5,294 | 2,004 | 4,788 | 11,791 | 16,747
Colbert | ---- | 3,936 | 9,012 | 3,956 | 9,234
Conecuh (_b_) | 6,850 | 1,539 | 4,633 | 8,167 | 9,801
Coosa | 13,990 | 3,893 | 8,411 | 10,141 | 11,370
Covington (_b_) | 2,021 | 689 | 1,158 | 2,740 | 5,969
Crenshaw (_b_) | ---- | 4,638 | 8,173 | 13,442 | 18,909
Cullman (_b_) | ---- | ---- | 378 | 5,268 | 9,374
Dale (_b_) | 7,836 | 4,273 | 6,224 | 16,259 | 17,868
Dallas (_a_) | 63,410 | 24,819 | 33,534 | 42,819 | 48,273
De Kalb (_b_) | 1,498 | 205 | 2,859 | 4,573 | 9,860
Elmore (_b_) | ---- | 7,295 | 9,771 | 16,871 | 18,458
Escambia | ---- | 605 | 94 | 462 | 1,131
Etowah (_b_) | ---- | 1,383 | 6,571 | 8,482 | 11,651
Fayette (_b_) | 5,462 | 1,909 | 4,268 | 6,141 | 9,128
Franklin | 15,592 | 2,072 | 3,603 | 2,669 | 6,047
Geneva (_b_) | ---- | 420 | 1,112 | 7,158 | 9,813
Greene (_a_) | 57,858 | 9,910 | 15,811 | 20,901 | 23,681
Hale | ---- | 18,573 | 18,093 | 28,973 | 28,645
Henry (_b_) | 13,034 | 7,127 | 12,573 | 23,738 | 27,281
Jackson (_b_) | 2,713 | 2,339 | 6,235 | 5,358 | 5,602
Jefferson (_b_) | 4,940 | 1,470 | 5,333 | 4,829 | 7,044
Lamar (Sanford) | | | | |
(_b_) | ---- | 1,825 | 5,015 | 6,998 | 10,118
Lauderdale | 11,050 | 5,457 | 9,270 | 5,156 | 9,708
Lawrence | 15,434 | 9,243 | 13,791 | 9,248 | 12,541
Lee | ---- | 11,591 | 13,189 | 18,332 | 22,431
Limestone | 15,115 | 7,319 | 15,724 | 8,093 | 14,887
Lowndes (_a_) | 53,664 | 18,369 | 29,356 | 40,388 | 39,839
Macon (_a_) | 41,119 | 11,872 | 14,580 | 19,099 | 20,434
Madison | 22,119 | 12,180 | 20,679 | 13,150 | 20,842
Marengo (_a_) | 62,428 | 23,614 | 23,481 | 31,651 | 38,392
Marion (_b_) | 4,285 | 463 | 2,240 | 4,454 | 6,309
Marshall (_b_) | 4,931 | 2,340 | 5,358 | 8,118 | 13,318
Mobile | 440 | 317 | 1 | 24 | 116
Monroe (_a_) | 18,226 | 6,172 | 10,421 | 15,919 | 17,101
Montgomery (_a_)| 58,880 | 25,517 | 31,732 | 45,827 | 39,202
Morgan (_b_) | 6,326 | 4,389 | 6,133 | 6,227 | 9,313
Perry (_a_) | 44,603 | 13,449 | 21,627 | 24,873 | 29,690
Pickens (_a_) | 29,843 | 8,263 | 17,283 | 18,904 | 21,485
Pike (_b_) | 24,527 | 7,192 | 15,136 | 25,879 | 34,757
Randolph (_b_) | 6,427 | 2,246 | 7,475 | 10,348 | 17,148
Russell (_a_) | 38,728 | 20,796 | 19,442 | 20,521 | 21,174
Shelby (_b_) | 6,463 | 2,194 | 6,643 | 7,308 | 10,193
St. Clair (_b_) | 4,189 | 1,244 | 6,028 | 7,136 | 9,411
Sumter (_a_) | 36,584 | 11,647 | 22,211 | 25,768 | 31,906
Talladega | 18,243 | 5,697 | 11,832 | 15,686 | 21,563
Tallapoosa (_b_)| 17,399 | 5,446 | 14,161 | 20,337 | 24,955
Tuscaloosa | 26,035 | 6,458 | 11,137 | 13,008 | 20,041
Walker (_b_) | 2,766 | 928 | 2,754 | 3,211 | 4,746
Washington | 3,449 | 1,803 | 1,246 | 2,030 | 2,213
Wilcox (_a_) | 48,749 | 20,095 | 26,745 | 32,582 | 35,005
Winston (_b_) | 352 | 205 | 568 | 1,464 | 3,686
|----------|----------|----------|----------|---------
Totals | 989,955 | 429,482 | 699,654 | 915,210 |1,093,697
======================================================================
APPENDIX II
REGISTRATION OF VOTERS UNDER THE NEW CONSTITUTION
==============================================
| MALES OF VOTING |REGISTERED VOTERS
| AGE IN 1900 | IN 1905
|-----------------------------------
COUNTY | White | Black | White | Black
----------|--------|--------|--------|--------
Autauga | 1,524 | 2,311 | 1,554 | 35
Baldwin | 2,096 | 991 | 1,390 | 206
Barbour | 2,889 | 4,201 | 2,846 | 46
Bibb | 2,701 | 1,598 | 2,725 | 59
Blount | 4,401 | 417 | 3,182 | --
Bullock | 1,415 | 5,168 | 1,291 | 14
Butler | 2,766 | 2,617 | 2,739 | 2
Calhoun | 5,390 | 2,380 | 4,892 | 130
Chambers | 3,441 | 3,380 | 3,098 | 28
Cherokee | 3,896 | 702 | 3,004 | 27
Chilton | 2,852 | 707 | 2,970 | 1
Choctaw | 1,697 | 1,929 | 1,496 | 29
Clarke | 2,652 | 3,103 | 2,485 | 158
Clay | 3,220 | 393 | 3,501 | --
Cleburne | 2,565 | 181 | 2,280 | --
Coffee | 3,508 | 996 | 3,334 | --
Colbert | 2,927 | 2,030 | 2,233 | 22
Conecuh | 2,110 | 1,608 | 2,079 | 7
Coosa | 2,338 | 942 | 2,134 | --
Covington | 2,803 | 786 | 2,857 | 3
Crenshaw | 3,062 | 1,156 | 2,982 | --
Cullman | 3,359 | 5 | 4,641 | 4
Dale | 3,492 | 1,002 | 3,021 | 11
Dallas | 2,360 | 9,871 | 2,419 | 52
De Kalb | 4,819 | 226 | 4,388 | --
Elmore | 3,202 | 2,758 | 3,030 | 54
Escambia | 1,628 | 821 | 1,676 | 46
Etowah | 5,140 | 1,031 | 4,186 | 39
Fayette | 2,698 | 338 | 2,563 | 7
Franklin | 2,989 | 634 | 2,600 | 12
Geneva | 3,355 | 981 | 2,873 | 30
Greene | 852 | 4,344 | 739 | 104
Hale | 1,358 | 5,370 | 1,362 | 92
Henry } | 4,904 | 2,933 | 2,072 | --
Houston } | (new county) | 2,757 | --
Jackson | 5,939 | 731 | 4,704 | 73
Jefferson | 21,036 | 18,472 | 18,315 | 352
Lamar | 2,715 | 592 | 2,356 | 7
Lauderdale| 4,235 | 1,586 | 3,305 | 76
Lawrence | 2,761 | 1,426 | 2,367 | 49
Lee | 2,988 | 3,472 | 2,652 | 12
Limestone | 2,832 | 2,050 | 2,722 | 28
Lowndes | 1,121 | 6,455 | 1,085 | 57
Macon | 1,042 | 3,782 | 917 | 65
Madison | 5,788 | 4,397 | 4,479 | 112
Marengo | 2,095 | 6,143 | 2,043 | 302
Marion | 2,735 | 144 | 2,698 | 25
Marshall | 4,595 | 333 | 4,251 | --
Mobile | 7,934 | 7,371 | 7,295 | 193
Monroe | 2,307 | 2,570 | 2,178 | 40
Montgomery| 5,087 | 11,429 | 4,995 | 53
Morgan | 4,987 | 1,713 | 4,506 | 60
Perry | 1,574 | 5,028 | 1,659 | 90
Pickens | 2,408 | 2,846 | 2,217 | 111
Pike | 3,598 | 2,611 | 3,126 | 26
Randolph | 3,457 | 978 | 3,363 | 13
Russell | 1,433 | 3,961 | 1,170 | 191
Shelby | 3,611 | 1,672 | 3,712 | 19
St. Clair | 3,777 | 712 | 3,340 | 50
Sumter | 1,391 | 5,304 | 1,244 | 57
Talladega | 3,934 | 3,814 | 3,303 | 81
Tallapoosa| 4,185 | 2,056 | 4,166 | 33
Tuscaloosa| 5,100 | 3,413 | 4,153 | 165
Walker | 4,582 | 1,351 | 4,894 | 1
Washington| 1,386 | 1,179 | 1,339 | 53
Wilcox | 1,686 | 5,967 | 1,522 | 41
Winston | 1,884 | 3 | 1,833 | 1
|--------|--------|--------|--------
Totals |224,212 |181,471 |205,278 | 3,654
==============================================
Number of whites of voting age not registered, estimated at 45,000.
Number of blacks of voting age not registered, estimated at 190,000.
Foreign whites of voting age, 8082.
Number of whites registered but unable to comply with other requirements
for voting, estimated at 60,000.
INDEX
Abolition sentiment in Alabama, 10.
Agriculture, during the war, 232;
since the war, 710-734.
Alabama, admitted to Union, 7;
secedes, 36;
readmitted, 547.
Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad, 591-600.
American Missionary Association and negro education, 459, 462, 463, 617,
620.
Amnesty proclamation of President Johnson, 349;
published by military commanders in Alabama, 409.
Amusements during the war, 241.
Andrew, Bishop, and the separation of the Methodist church, 22.
Anti Ku Klux, 690.
Anti-slavery sentiment in Alabama, 10.
Applegate, A. J., lieutenant-governor, 736.
Army, U. S., and the civic authorities, 410;
in conflict with Federal court, 414;
relations with the people, 417-420;
used in elections, 694-701, 746, 756, 789, 794.
Athens sacked by Colonel Turchin, 63.
Bacon used to influence elections, 785.
Banks and banking during the war, 162.
Baptist church, separation of, 22;
declaration in regard to the state of the country, 222;
during Reconstruction, 639;
relations with negroes, 642.
"Barbour County Fever," 709.
Bingham, D. H., mentioned, 346, 350, 402;
in convention of 1867, 526;
in Union League, 557.
Birney, James G., mentioned, 10.
Black Belt, during slavery, 710;
at the end of the war, 713;
share system in, 722;
decadence of, during Reconstruction, 726.
"Black Code," or "Black Laws," 378.
"Black Republican" party arraigned, 20.
Blockade-running, 183.
Bonded debt of Alabama, 580-586.
Bonds, of state, 580;
of counties and towns, 580, 581;
fraudulent issues, 581, 582;
of railroads, 587-607;
fraudulent indorsements, 596-606.
Boyd, Alexander, killed by Ku Klux, 686.
Bragg, W. L., Democratic campaign manager, 793.
Brooks, William M., president of convention of 1861, 28;
letter to President Davis, 112;
advocates limited negro suffrage, 388.
Brown, John, plans negro uprising in Alabama, 18.
Buchanan, Admiral Franklin, at battle of Mobile Bay, 69.
Buck, A. E., carpet-bagger, in convention of 1867, 518;
elected to Congress, 750.
Buckley, C. W., carpet-bagger, agent of Freedmen's Bureau, 426, 437,
440, 448, 458;
in convention of 1867, 518;
elected to Congress, 737;
on Ku Klux Committee, 702;
sides with the Robinson faction, 774.
Bulger, M. J., in secession convention, 29, 31, 33, 38;
candidate for governor, 372;
in politics, 513.
Busteed, Richard, Federal judge, on Fourteenth Amendment, 394;
in Radical politics, 511, 744, 774.
Byrd, William M., "Union" leader, 15.
Calhoun Democrats, 11.
Callis, John B., carpet-bagger, agent of Freedmen's Bureau, 426;
in Union League, 557;
elected to Congress, 738.
Campaign, of 1867, 503-516;
of 1868, 493, 747;
of 1870, 751;
of 1872, 754;
of 1874, 782-797.
Carpet-bag and negro rule, 571 _et seq._
Carpet-baggers, in convention of 1867, 517, 518, 530;
in Congress, 738, 749, 754, 761.
_See also_ Republicans.
Chain gang abolished, 393.
Charleston convention of 1860, 18.
Churches, separation of, 21-24;
during the war, 222;
seized by the Federal army and the northern churches, 227;
condition after the war, 325, 326;
attitude toward negro education and religion, 225, 457, 641;
during Reconstruction, 636-652.
Civil Rights Bill of 1866, 393.
Civil War in Alabama, 61-78;
seizure of the forts, 61;
operations in north Alabama, 62;
Streight's Raid, 67;
Rousseau's Raid, 68;
operations in south Alabama, 69;
Wilson's Raid, 71;
destruction by the armies, 74.
Clanton, Gen. James H., organizes opposition to Radicals, 508, 512;
on negro education, 625, 630;
on the religious situation, 638.
Clay, Senator C. C., speech on withdrawal from U. S. Senate, 25;
arrested by Federals, 262.
Clayton, Judge Henry D., charge to the Pike County grand jury on the
negro question, 385.
Clemens, Jere (or Jeremiah), in secession convention, 29, 34, 47;
mentioned, 64, 111;
deserter, 125, 127, 143;
advocates Reconstruction, 125, 144, 145.
Clews & Company, financial agents, 592, 596, 597.
Cloud, N. B., superintendent of public instruction, 610-632.
Cobb, W. R. W., "Union" leader, 16;
disloyal to Confederacy, 139.
Colleges during the war, 212.
Colonies of negroes, 421, 444.
Color line in politics, 779.
Commercial conventions, 25.
Commissioners sent to southern states, 46, 48.
Composition of population of Alabama, 3, 4.
Concentration camps of negroes, 421, 422, 444.
"Condition of Affairs in the South," 311.
Confederate property confiscated, 285.
Confederate States, established, 39-42;
Congress of, 130;
enrolment laws, 92, 98;
finance in Alabama, 162-183.
Confederate text-books, 217.
Confiscation, proposed in secession convention, 48;
by United States, 284 _et seq._;
frauds, 284, 290;
of cotton, 290;
of lands, 425;
supports Freedmen's Bureau, 431;
belief of negroes in, 446, 447;
for taxes, 578.
Congress, C. S., Alabama delegation to, 130.
Congress, U. S., rejects Johnson's plan, 377, 405;
imposes new conditions, 391;
forces carpet-bag government on Alabama, 547-552;
members of, from Alabama, 737, 749, 754, 761.
"Conquered province" theory of Reconstruction, 339.
Conscription, 92-108;
enrolment laws, 92-98;
trouble between state and Confederate authorities, 96-98.
Conservative party, 398, 401, 512.
_See also_ Democratic party.
Constitution, of 1865, 366, 367;
of 1868, 535,
vote on, 538,
rejected, 541;
imposed by Congress, 547-552, 797;
of 1875, 797;
of 1902, 800.
Contraband trade, 189.
"Convention" candidates in 1868, 493, 530.
Convention, of 1861, 27;
of 1865, 359;
of 1867, 491, 517;
of 1875, 797.
Coöperationists, 28;
policy of, in secession convention, 30;
speeches of, 32 _et seq._
"Cotton is King," 184.
Cotton, exported through the lines, 187, 191-193;
confiscated, 290 _et seq._;
agents prosecuted for stealing, 297, 413;
cotton tax, 303;
production of, in Alabama, 710-734, 804.
County and local officials during Reconstruction, 742, 743, 753, 761,
796.
County and town debts, 580, 581, 604, 605.
Crowe, J. R., one of the founders of Ku Klux Klan, 661.
Curry, J. L., M., in Confederate Congress, 131;
defeated, 134;
on negro education, 457, 467, 468, 625, 631.
Dargan, E. S., in secession convention, 29, 40, 41;
on impressment, 175.
Davis, Nicholas, in Nashville convention, 14;
in secession convention, 29, 33, 38, 54;
in Radical politics, 403, 511;
opposed by Union League, 564;
opinion of Rev. A. S. Lakin, 612.
"Deadfalls," 769.
Debt commission, work of, 583-586.
Debt of Alabama, 580-586.
Democratic party, ante-bellum, 7 _et seq._;
reorganized, 398, 401;
during Reconstruction, 748, 750, 755, 778;
Populist influence, 799.
Department of Negro Affairs, 421.
Deserters, 112-130;
outrages by, 119;
prominent men, 124;
numbers, 127.
Destitution, during the war, 196-205;
after the war, 277.
Destruction of property, 74, 253.
Disaffection toward the Confederacy, 108-130, 136, 137.
Disfranchisement of whites, 489, 524, 806;
of negroes, 801, 806.
"Disintegration and absorption" policy of the northern churches, 636.
Domestic life during the war, 230-247.
Drugs and medicines, 239.
Economic and social conditions, 1861-1865, 149-247;
in 1865, 251;
during Reconstruction, 710-734, 761-770.
Education, during the war, 212;
during Reconstruction, 579, 606-632, 684;
discussion of, in convention of 1867, 522;
of the negro, 456-468, 624.
Election, of Lincoln, 19, 20;
of 1861, 131;
of 1863, 134;
of 1865, 373-375;
of 1867, 491;
of 1868, 493, 747;
of 1870, 750;
of 1872, 754;
of 1874, 793;
of 1876, 796;
of 1880, 798;
of 1890, 799;
of 1902, 800.
Election methods, 748, 751, 754, 755.
_See also_ Union League.
Emancipation, economic effects of, 710-734.
Emigration of whites from Alabama, 769.
Enforcement laws, state, 695;
Federal, 697.
Enrolment of soldiers from Alabama, 78-87;
laws relating to, 92, 95.
Episcopal church, divided, 24;
closed by the Federal army, 325;
loses its negro members, 646.
Eufaula riot, 794.
Eutaw riot, 686.
Exemption from military service, 101-108;
numbers exempted, 107.
Expenditures of the Reconstruction régime, 574, 575, 577.
Factories during the war, 149-162.
Farms and plantations during the war, 232.
Federal army closes churches, 226.
Federal courts and the army, 413.
Finances during the war, 162-183;
banks and banking, 162;
bonds and notes, 164;
salaries, 168;
taxation, 169;
impressment, 174;
debts, stay laws, sequestration, 176;
trade, barter, prices, 178;
during Reconstruction, 571-606.
Financial settlement, 1874-1876, 583-586.
Fitzpatrick, Benjamin, in Nashville convention, 14;
arrested, 262;
president of convention of 1865, 360.
Florida, negotiations for purchase of West Florida, 577.
Force laws, state and Federal, 695, 697.
"Forfeited rights" theory of Reconstruction, 341.
Forsyth, John, on Fourteenth Amendment, 394;
mayor of Mobile, 430.
"Forty acres and a mule," 447, 515.
Fourteenth Amendment, proposed, 394;
rejected, 396, 397;
adopted by reconstructed legislature, 552.
Fowler, W. H., estimates of number of soldiers from Alabama, 78, 81.
Freedmen, _see_ Negroes.
Freedmen's aid societies, 459.
Freedmen's Bureau, 392, 421-470;
organization of, in Alabama, 423-427;
supported by confiscations, 431;
character of agents of, 448;
native officials of, 428, 429;
relations with the civil authorities, 427;
administration of justice, 438-441;
the labor problem, 433-438;
care of the sick, 441;
issue of rations, 442;
demoralization caused, 444;
effect on negro education, 456-468;
connection with the Union League, 557, 567, 568.
Freedmen's codes, 378.
"Freedmen's Home Colonies," 422, 439, 444.
Freedmen's Savings-bank, 451-455;
bank book, 452;
good effect of, 453;
failure, 455.
General officers from Alabama in the Confederate service, 85.
Giers, J. J., tory, 119, 147.
Gordon, Gen. John B., speech on negro education, 625.
Grant, Gen. U. S., letter on condition of the South, 311;
elected President, 747;
orders troops to Alabama, 789.
Haughey, Thomas, scalawag, deserter, elected to Congress, 488.
Hayden, Gen. Julius, in charge of Freedmen's Bureau, 426.
Hays, Charles, scalawag, in Eutaw riot, 686;
member of Congress, 749, 754;
letter to Senator Joseph Hawley on outrages in Alabama, 786-788.
Herndon, Thomas H., candidate for governor, 754.
Hilliard, Henry W., "Union" leader, 15.
Hodgson, Joseph, mentioned, 512;
superintendent of public instruction, 631.
Home life during the war, 230-247.
Houston, George S., "Union" leader, 16;
elected to U. S. Senate, 374;
on Debt Commission, 582;
elected governor, 782, 795.
Humphreys, D. C., deserter, 126, 143, 350.
Huntsville parade of Ku Klux Klan, 686.
Immigration to Alabama, 321, 717, 734;
not desired by Radicals, 769.
Impressment by Confederate authorities, 174.
"Independents" in 1874, 781.
Indian question and nullification, 8, 9.
Indorsement of railroad bonds, 596-606.
Industrial development during the war, 149-162, 234;
military industries, 149;
private enterprises, 156.
Industrial reconstruction, 710-734, 804.
Intimidation, by Federal authorities, 789;
by Democrats, 791.
"Iron-clad" test oath, 369.
Jemison, Robert, in secession convention, 28, 29, 40, 49, 54;
elected to Confederate Senate, 134.
Johnson, President Andrew, plan of restoration, 337;
amnesty proclamation, 349;
grants pardons, 356, 410;
interferes with provisional governments, 375, 419;
his work rejected by Congress, 377, 405, 406.
Joint Committee on Reconstruction, report on affairs in the South, 313.
Jones, Capt. C. ap R., at the Selma arsenal, 152.
Juries, of both races ordered by Pope, 480;
during Reconstruction, 745.
Keffer, John C., mentioned, 506, 518, 524, 554, 737, 751.
Kelly, Judge, in Mobile riot, 481, 509.
"King Cotton," confidence in, 184.
Knights of the White Camelia, 669, 684.
_See also_ Ku Klux Klan.
Ku Klux Klan, causes, 653;
origin and growth, 660;
disguises, 675;
warnings, 678;
parade at Huntsville, 685;
Cross Plains or Patona affair, 685;
drives carpet-baggers from the State University, 612-615;
burns negro schoolhouses, 628;
table of alleged outrages, 705;
Ku Klux investigation, 701;
results of the Ku Klux revolution, 674.
Labor laws, 380, 381.
Labor of negroes and whites compared, 710-734.
Labor regulations of Freedmen's Bureau, 433-438.
Lakin, Rev. A. S., Northern Methodist missionary, 637, 639, 648, 650;
in Union League, 557;
elected president of State University, 612;
Davis's opinion of, 612.
Lands confiscated for taxes, 578.
Lane, George W., Unionist, Federal judge, 125, 127.
Lawlessness in 1865, 262.
Legislation, by convention of 1861, 49;
of 1865, 366;
of 1867, 528;
about freedmen, 379.
Legislature during Reconstruction, 738-741, 752, 755-795.
Lewis, D. P., in secession convention, 29;
deserter, 126;
repudiates Union League, 563;
elected governor in 1872, 754.
Life, loss of, in war, 251.
Lincoln, effect of election of, 20;
his plan of Reconstruction, 336.
Lindsay, R. B., taxation under, 573-576;
action on railroad bonds, 594-600;
elected governor, 1870, 751.
Literary activity during the war, 211.
Loss of life and property, 251.
"Loyalists," during the war, 112, 113;
after the war, 316.
McKinstry, Alexander, lieutenant-governor, assists to elect Spencer,
756-760.
McTyeire, Bishop H. N., on negro education, 457, 467.
Meade, Gen. George G., in command of Third Military District, 493;
his administration, 493-502;
installs the reconstructed government, 552.
Medicines and drugs in war time, 239.
Methodist church, separation, 22;
during Reconstruction, 637;
favors negro education, 648.
Military commissions, _see_ Military government.
Military government, 1865-1866, 407-420;
trials by military commissions, 413-415;
objections to, 416-417.
Military government under the Reconstruction Acts, 473-502;
Pope's administration, 473-493;
Meade's administration, 493-502;
control over the civil government, 477, 495;
Pope's trouble with the newspapers, 485;
trials by military commissions, 487, 498.
Militia system during the Civil War, 88-92;
during Reconstruction, 746.
Miller, C. A., carpet-bagger, agent of the Freedmen's Bureau, 425, 426;
in convention of 1867, 518;
elected secretary of state, 737.
Mitchell, Gen. O. M., 62-65.
Mobile Bay, battle of, 69.
Mobile riot, 481, 509.
Mobile schools during Reconstruction, 617.
Moore, A. B., governor, calls secession convention, 27;
orders forts seized, 61;
objects to blockade-running, 184;
arrested by Federal authorities, 262.
Morgan, John T., in secession convention, 29, 40, 42, 49.
Morse, Joshua, scalawag, attorney-general, 737.
Mossbacks, tories, and unionists, 112, 113;
numbers, 127.
Nashville convention of 1850, 14.
"National Guards," a negro organization, 774.
National Union movement, 400, 401.
Negro Affairs, Department of, 421.
_See also_ Freedmen's Bureau.
Negro criminality, 762, 763;
negro labor, 710-734;
family relations, 763;
church in politics, 777;
women in politics, 776.
Negro education, favored by southern whites, 457, 626, 627;
native white teachers, 463;
Freedmen's Bureau teaching, 456-468;
opposition to, 628;
character of, 464, 465, 625-630.
Negroes during the war, 205-212;
in the army, 86, 87, 205;
on the farms, 209;
fidelity of, 210;
in the churches, 225;
home life, 243.
Negroes under the provisional government, test their freedom, 269;
suffering among them, 273;
colonies of, 421, 444;
civil status of, 383, 384;
insurrection feared, 368, 412;
not to be arrested by civil authorities, 411;
attitude of army to, 410-413;
negro suffrage in 1866, 386.
Negroes during Reconstruction, controlled by the Union League, 553-568;
first vote, 514;
in the convention of 1867, 518, 521, 530;
in the campaign of 1874, 775, 776;
negro Democrats, 777, 778;
punished by Ku Klux Klan, 682;
negro juries, 480, 745;
disfranchised, 801, 806.
Negroes, social rights of, allowed in street cars, 393;
not allowed at hotel table, 417;
demand social privileges, 522, 764, 780, 783.
Negroes and the churches, 642, 777.
Newspapers, during the war, 218;
under Pope's administration, 485.
Nick-a-Jack, a proposed new state, 111.
Nitre making, 152.
Non-slaveholders uphold slavery, 10, 11.
Norris, B. W., carpet-bagger, agent Freedmen's Bureau, 426;
elected to Congress, 738.
North Alabama, anti-slavery sentiment in, 10;
in secession convention, 53;
during the Civil War, 109;
during Reconstruction, 403, 404, 748, 770, 779.
Northern men, treatment of, 318, 400.
Nullification, on Indian question, 8, 9;
divides the Democratic party, 11.
Oath, "iron-clad," 369;
prescribed for voters, 475, 527.
Ordinance of Secession, 36, 37;
declared null and void, 360.
Painted stakes sold to negroes, 448.
Pardons by President Johnson, 356, 410.
Parsons, L. E., obstructionist and "Peace Society" man, 143, 147, 343;
provisional governor, 350, 353;
elected to U. S. Senate, 374;
speaks in the North, 392, 401;
advises rejection of Fourteenth Amendment, 396;
originates "White Man's Movement," 536;
Radical politician, 735, 751, 755-760.
Parties in the Convention of 1861, 28;
of 1865, 359.
Patona, or Cross Plains, affair, 686.
Patton, R. M., mentioned, 281;
elected governor, 373;
vetoes legislation for blacks, 378, 379;
on the Fourteenth Amendment, 395-397;
advises Congressional Reconstruction, 502.
Peace Society, 137-143.
Pike County grand jury, Judge Clayton's charge to, 384.
"Pike County Platform," 781.
"Political bacon," 783-785.
Political beliefs of early settlers, 7.
Politics, during the war, 130-148;
1865-1867, 398;
1868-1874, 735 _et seq._
Pope, General John, in command of Third Military District, 473-475;
his administration, 473-493;
quarrel with the newspapers, 485;
removed, 492.
Population, composition of, 3, 4.
Populist movement, 799.
Presbyterian church, separation, 22, 23, 24;
during Reconstruction, 640;
attitude toward negroes, 645.
Prescript of Ku Klux Klan, 664, 665.
President's plan of reconstruction, 333 _et seq._;
rejected by Congress, 377;
fails, 405, 406.
Prices during the war, 178.
Property, lost in war, 251;
decreases in value during Reconstruction, 578.
Provisional government, 351, 376.
Pryor, Roger A., debate with Yancey, 17.
Public bonded debt, 580-586.
Publishing-houses during the war, 221.
Race question, in convention of 1867, 521;
in the campaign of 1874, 679-782.
Races, segregation of, _see maps in text_.
Radical party organized, 505.
_See also_ Republican party.
Railroad legislation and frauds, 587-606.
Railroads aided by state, counties, and towns during Reconstruction,
591-606.
Railroads, built during the war, 155;
destroyed, 259.
Randolph, Ryland, a member of Ku Klux Klan, 612, 667, 668;
expelled from legislature, 741.
Rapier, J. T., negro member of Congress, mentioned, 488, 521, 523, 524;
supports Robinson-Buckley faction, 774.
Rations issued by Freedmen's Bureau, 442, 445.
Reconstruction, sentiment during the war, 143-148;
theories of, 333-339;
early attempts at, 341;
Reconstruction Acts, 473-475, 490;
Reconstruction Convention, 491, 517-530;
constitution rejected, 494;
completed by Congress, 531, 550-552;
its successes and failures, 801.
Reconstruction, and education, 606-632;
and the churches, 637-653.
Registration of voters, 488, 491, 493.
Regulators, _see_ Ku Klux Klan.
Reid, Dr. G. P. L., on Knights of the White Camelia, 684.
Religious conditions, during the war, 222-230;
in 1865, 324;
during Reconstruction, 637-653.
Republican party in Alabama, organized, 402-405;
numbers, 735, 765;
in the legislature, 738, 752, 755;
divisions in, 771, 775;
"Lily Whites" and "Black and Tans," 799.
"Restoration," by the President, 349 _et seq._;
convention, 358;
completed, 367;
rejected, 377.
Restrictions on trade in 1865, 284.
Riot, at Eufaula, 794;
at Eutaw, 686;
at Mobile, 481, 509.
Roddy, Gen. P. D., mentioned, 62, 68.
Roman Catholic church and the negroes, 646.
Rousseau's Raid, 68.
Salt making, 158.
Sansom, Miss Emma, guides General Forrest, 67.
Savings-bank, Freedmen's, 451-455.
Scalawags, in convention of 1867, 518, 529, 530.
_See also_ Republicans.
Schools, _see_ Education.
Schurz's report on the condition of the South, 312.
Secession, 14, 15, 19, 27-57;
convention called, 27, 28;
ordinance passed, 36, 37;
debate on, in 1865, 360.
Secession convention, parties in, 23, 29;
political theories of members, 34;
slave trade prohibited, 42;
sends commission to Washington, 48;
legislation, 49-53.
Secessionists, 28;
policy in secession convention, 30.
Secret societies, _see_ Union League _and_ Ku Klux Klan.
Segregation of races, 710-734.
_See also the maps in the text._
Seibels, J. J., favors coöperation, 15;
obstructionist, 143, 147, 343.
Sequestration of enemies' property, 176.
Share system of farming, 723.
Sheets, C. C., tory, 115, 126;
in convention of 1865, 365;
visited by Ku Klux Klan, 681.
Shorter, John G., elected governor, 131;
defeated, 134;
arrested by Federal authorities, 262.
Slaveholders and non-slaveholders, location of, 6.
Slavery, and politics, 10-14;
upheld by non-slaveholders, 10-11;
abolished, 362.
Slaves, _see_ Negroes.
Slave trade prohibited by secession convention, 42.
Smith, William H., deserter, 350, 510, 534;
a registration official, 488;
first Reconstruction governor, 735;
indorses railroad bonds, 591, 595, 601;
opinion of Senator Spencer, 692.
Smith, William R., "Union" leader, 16;
coöperationist leader in secession convention, 29, 33, 43, 49;
candidate for governor, 372;
president of State University, 612.
Social and economic conditions, during the war, 149-247;
in 1865, 251 _et seq._;
during Reconstruction, 710-734, 761 _et passim_.
Social effects of Reconstruction, on whites, 767;
on blacks, 761 _et seq._;
on carpet-baggers, 766.
Social rights for negroes, 523, 772, 775.
Soldiers from Alabama, numbers, character, organization, 78-87.
Southern Aid Society, 23.
"Southern outrages," 399, 555, 786.
"Southern theory" of Reconstruction, 334.
"Southern Unionists'" convention, 1866, 402.
Speed, Joseph H., superintendent of public instruction, 633.
Spencer, G. E., carpet-bagger, election to U. S. Senate, 737, 755, 760;
Governor Smith's opinion of, 691.
State Rights Democrats, 11, 12;
led by Yancey, 12, 13.
"State Suicide" theory of Reconstruction, 338.
Statistics of cotton frauds, 279.
Status, of freedmen, 384;
of the provisional government, 376.
Steedman and Fullerton's report on the Freedmen's Bureau, 449.
Stevens's plan of Reconstruction, 339.
Streight, Col. A. D., raids into Alabama, 67.
Strobach-Robinson division in the Radical party, 774.
Suffrage for negroes in 1866, 387.
Sumner's plan of Reconstruction, 338.
Swayne, Gen. Wager, assistant commissioner of Freedmen's Bureau, 424,
425;
on the temper of the people, 315;
opinion of the laws relating to freedmen, 379, 380, 384;
fears negro insurrection, 369;
in command of Alabama, 407, 476;
attitude toward civil authorities, 428, 439;
forces negro education, 459;
enters politics, 404, 511;
removed, 492.
Sykes, F. W., in Radical politics, 510;
elected to U. S. Senate, 757, 760.
Taxation during the war, 169;
during Reconstruction, 571-579;
amounts to confiscation, 578.
Temper of the people after the war, 308.
Test oath, iron-clad, 369, 370, 527.
Text-books, Confederate, 217;
Radical, 624.
Theories of Reconstruction, 333 _et seq._
Third Military District, under the Reconstruction Acts, 473-502.
Thomas, Gen. G. H., mentioned, 325, 407, 408, 474.
Tories and deserters, 108-430;
in north Alabama, 109;
definition, 112, 113;
outrages by, 119;
numbers, 127.
Trade through the lines, 189.
Treasury agents prosecuted, 297.
Trials by military commission, 413, 414, 487, 498.
_Tribune_, of New York, investigates the "Hays-Hawley letter," 788.
Truman, Benjamin, report on the South, 312.
Turchin, Col. J. B., allows Athens to be sacked, 63.
Underground railway in Alabama, 18.
Union League of America, 553-568;
white members, 556;
negroes admitted, 557;
ceremonies, 559;
organization and method, 561;
influence over negroes, 568;
control over elections, 514, 515;
resolutions of Alabama Council, 307.
Union troops from Alabama, 87.
Unionists, tories, mossbacks, 112, 113.
University of Alabama under the Reconstruction régime, 612.
Wages of freedmen, 422, 433, 720, 731.
Walker, L. P., in Nashville convention, 14;
at Charleston convention, 18;
on negro suffrage, 389.
Wards of the nation, 421-470.
Warner, Willard, carpet-bagger, elected to U. S. Senate, 737.
Watts, Thomas H., "Union" leader, 15;
in secession convention, 29, 35, 45, 48;
defeated for governor, 131;
elected, 134;
supports the Confederacy, 135;
troubles over militia with conscript officials, 91, 97, 104;
favors blockade-running, 185;
speech in 1865, 341;
arrested by Federal authorities, 262.
Whig party, appears, 11;
its progress on the slavery question, 12;
breaks up, 16, 17.
White Brotherhood, 708.
White Camelia, 670.
White counties, agriculture in, 727;
destitution in, 196-205;
politics in, _see maps_.
White labor superior to negro labor, 726.
White League, 709.
"White Man's Government," 364.
"White man's party," 536, 778, 779.
Wilmer, Bishop R. H., 24;
trouble with military authorities, 325-329;
suspended, 325.
Wilson's Raid, 71.
Women, interest in public questions, 230.
_Women's Gunboat_, 245.
Yancey, William Lowndes, leader of State Rights Democrats, 12, 13;
author of Alabama Platform of 1848, 13;
advocates secession, 14, 15;
debate with Roger A. Pryor, 17;
offered nomination for vice-presidency, 19;
in secession convention, 29, 31, 36, 39, 44, 46, 57.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] NATIVITIES OF THE FREE POPULATION
STATE OR COUNTRY 1850 1860
Alabama 237,542 320,026
Connecticut 91 343
Florida 1,060 1,644
Georgia 58,997 83,517
Kentucky 2,694 1,966
Louisiana 628 1,149
Maine 215 272
Maryland 757 683
Massachusetts 654 753
Mississippi 2,852 4,848
New York 1,443 1,848
North Carolina 28,521 23,504
Ohio 276 265
Pennsylvania 876 989
South Carolina 48,663 45,185
Tennessee 22,541 19,139
Virginia 10,387 7,598
England 941 1,174
France 503 359
Germany 1,068 2,601
Ireland 2,639 5,664
Scotland 584 696
Spain 163 157
Switzerland 113 138
TOTALS 1850 1860
Native 420,032 526,769
Foreign 7,638 12,352
The total population from 1820 to 1860 was as follows:--
WHITE BLACK
1820 85,451 41,879
1830 190,406 117,549
1840 335,185 253,532
1850 426,514 342,844
1860 526,271 435,080
[2] Hundly, "Social Relations"; Hodgson, "Cradle of the Confederacy," Ch.
1; Garrett, "Reminiscences," Ch. 1; Miller's and Brown's "Histories of
Alabama," _passim_; Saunders, "Early Settlers," _passim_. From 1840 to
1860 there was a slight sectional and political division between the
counties of north Alabama and those of central and south Alabama, owing to
the conflicting interests of the two sections and to the lack of
communication. By 1860 this was tending to become a social division
between the white counties and the black counties. The division to some
extent still exists.
[3] In all studies of the sectional spirit it should be remembered that
the Southwest was settled somewhat in spite of the Washington government
and without the protection of the United States army; the reverse is true
of the Northwest.
[4] Hodgson, "Cradle of the Confederacy," Chs. 2, 4, 6, 8; DuBose, "Life
of William L. Yancey"; Phillips, "Georgia and State Rights," Chs. 2, 3;
Pickett, "Alabama," Owen's edition.
[5] In 1832 there were eight emancipation societies in north Alabama: The
State Society, Courtland, Lagrange, Tuscumbia, Florence, Madison County,
Athens, and Lincoln. Publications, Southern History Association, Vol. II,
pp. 92, 93.
[6] See Hodgson, p. 7. In 1842 representation in the legislature was
changed from the "federal" basis and based on white population alone. This
change was made by the Democrats and was opposed by the Whigs. The latter
predominated in the Black Belt.
[7] Hodgson, Ch. 1; Debates of Convention of 1861, _passim_.
[8] Miller, "Alabama," p. 123.
[9] Known as the "Alabama Platform" of 1848.
[10] Benjamin Fitzpatrick led the conservative element of the Democratic
party and opposed Yancey.
[11] This division in the State Rights ranks existed until secession was
actually achieved and even after.
[12] Each extreme southern state--Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and South
Carolina--showed a desire to have some more moderate state act first. Some
prominent men in this convention were Yancey, Seibels, Thomas Williams,
John A. Elmore, B. F. Saffold, Abram Martin, A. P. Bagley, Adam C. Felder,
David Clopton, and George Goldthwaite, nearly all South Carolinians by
birth.
[13] A dodging of the question.
[14] For an account of one of these, see the _American Historical Review_,
Oct., 1900.
[15] General Pryor informs me that at the convention of 1858 no one
understood that there was any desire on the part of Yancey and others to
reopen the slave trade. They recognized that the rest of the world was
against them on that question and were demanding simply a repeal of what
they considered discriminating laws. Yancey compared the question to that
of the tea tax in the American colonies. See also Hodgson, p. 371, and
Yancey's speeches in Smith's "Debates of 1861."
[16] A branch of the Underground Railway reached from Ohio as far into
Alabama as Tallapoosa County. Kagi, one of Brown's confederates, had
marked out a chain of black counties where he had travelled and where the
negroes were expected to rise. He had travelled through South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Russell County, Alabama, was one of
those marked on his map. The people were greatly alarmed when the map was
discovered. See Seibert's "Underground Railroad," pp. 119, 160, 167, 195;
Hinton, "John Brown"; Hague, "Blockaded Family." As early as 1835
incendiary literature had been scattered among the Alabama slaves, and in
that year the grand jury of Tuscaloosa County indicted Robert G. Williams
of New York for sending such printed matter among the slaves. General
Gayle demanded that he be sent to Alabama for trial, but Governor Marcy
refused to give him up. See Brown's "Alabama," p. 167, and _Gulf States
Hist. Mag._, July, 1903.
[17] Afterwards Confederate Secretary of War.
[18] Yancey was willing to disregard instructions and not withdraw; the
rest of the delegation overruled him. See paper by Petrie in Transactions
Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. IV.
[19] Hodgson, Ch. 15.
[20] Acts of Alabama (1859-1860), pp. 689-690; Smith's "Debates," pp. 10,
11.
[21] Acts of Alabama (1859-1860), pp. 681-682; Senate Journal (1859-1860),
pp. 147, 176, 293, 302.
[22] During this session Judge Sam. Rice, in reply to John Forsyth and
others who feared that secession would lead to war, said: "There will be
no war. But if there should be, we can whip the Yankees with popguns."
After the war, when he had turned "scalawag," he was taken to task for the
speech. "You said we could whip the Yankees with popguns." "Yes,--but the
damned rascals wouldn't fight that way."
[23] The popular vote in Alabama was: for Breckenridge, 48,831; for
Douglas, 13,621; for Bell, 27,875.
[24] Many people believed that Hamlin was a mulatto.
[25] Horace Greeley, "The American Conflict," Vol. I, p. 355. For a
similar meeting in Montgomery, see Hodgson, p. 459 _et seq._
[26] See Townsend Collection, Columbia University Library, Vol. I, p. 187.
One poor white man in Tallapoosa County welcomed the election of Lincoln,
for "now the negroes would be freed and white men could get more work and
better pay." Authorities for the political history of Alabama before 1860:
Hodgson's "Cradle of the Confederacy"; Garrett's "Reminiscences of Public
Men of Alabama"; Brewer's "Alabama"; Brown's "History of Alabama";
Miller's "History of Alabama"; Pickett's "History of Alabama" (Owen's
edition); "Northern Alabama Illustrated"; "Memorial Record of Alabama";
DuBose's "Life and Times of William L. Yancey"; Hilliard's "Politics and
Pen Pictures and Speeches"; Transactions of Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. IV,
papers by Yonge, Cozart, Culver, Scott, and Petrie.
[27] O'Gorman, "History of the Roman Catholic Church in the United
States," p. 425.
[28] Carroll, "Religious Forces of the United States," p. 306; Thompson,
"History of the Presbyterian Churches in the United States," pp. 41, 135.
[29] Statistics of Churches, Census of 1890, p. 146; Riley, "History of
the Baptists in the Southern States East of the Mississippi," p. 205 _et
seq._; Newman, "History of the Baptists of the United States," pp.
443-454.
[30] See Smith, "Life of James Osgood Andrew"; Buckley, "History of
Methodism"; McTyeire, "History of Methodism"; Alexander, "History of the
Methodist Episcopal Church South"; Statistics of Churches, p. 581.
[31] Statistics of Churches, p. 566.
[32] Southern Aid Society Reports, 1854-1861.
[33] Statistics of Churches, p. 684; Carroll, "Religious Forces," pp. 281,
306; Thompson, "History of the Presbyterian Churches," p. 135.
[34] Thompson, "History of the Presbyterian Churches," p. 155; Johnson,
"History of the Southern Presbyterian Church," pp. 333, 339; McPherson,
"History of the Rebellion," p. 508; "Annual Cyclopædia" (1862), p. 707;
Statistics of Churches, p. 683.
[35] Carroll, "Religious Forces," pp. 93, 178.
[36] Annual Cyclopædia (1864), p. 683.
[37] Wilmer, "Recent Past," p. 248.
[38] Perry, "History of the American Episcopal Church," Vol. II, p. 328
_et seq._; McPherson, "History of the Rebellion," p. 515; Whitaker,
"Church in Alabama."
[39] President of Columbia College (N.Y.) during and after the war.
[40] Smith, pp. 448-450, condensed.
[41] Smith, "History and Debates of the Convention of Alabama," 1861, p.
12. My account of the convention is condensed almost entirely from Smith's
"Debates." Smith was a coöperationist member from Tuscaloosa County. He
kept full notes of the proceedings and is impartial in his reports of
speeches. Almost the entire edition of the "Debates" was destroyed by fire
in 1861. Hodgson, "Cradle of the Confederacy," and DuBose, "Life and Times
of William L. Yancey," both give short accounts of the convention.
[42] Except Yancey, who declared that the disease preying on the vitals of
the Federal Union was not due to any defect in the Constitution, but to
the heads, hearts, and consciences of the northern people; that no
guarantees, no amendments, could reëducate the northern people on the
slavery question, so as to induce a northern majority to withhold the
exercise of its power in aid of abolition. Governor Moore, in the
commissions given to the ambassadors to the other states, declared that
the peace, honor, and security of the southern states were endangered by
the election of Lincoln, the candidate of a purely sectional party, whose
avowed principles demanded the destruction of slavery.
[43] It would seem that after this vote no one would say that nearly half
of the members were "Unionists," yet nearly all accounts make this
statement.
[44] There were many indications that the opposition was more sectional
and personal than political. It is safe to state for north Alabama that
had the Black Belt declared for the Union, that section would have voted
for secession.
[45] This minority report was signed by Clemens of Madison, Lewis of
Lawrence, Winston of De Kalb, Kimball of Tallapoosa, Watkins of Franklin,
and Jemison of Tuscaloosa, all from north Alabama.
[46] c.=coöperationist; s.=secessionist; cs.=coöperationist who voted for
secession.
[47] It was he who compiled the debates of the convention.
[48] He was the oldest general officer in the Confederate service.
[49] Constitution, Article I, Section X: "No state shall without the
consent of Congress enter into any agreement or compact with another
state," etc.
[50] He was here referring indirectly to the action of the state
authorities in seizing the forts at Pensacola and Mobile before secession.
[51] Clemens was accused of voting for secession in order to obtain the
command of the militia. He had formerly been an army officer, and was now
made major-general of militia. It was not long before he deserted and went
North.
[52] Who succeeded Yancey in the convention after the latter was sent to
Europe.
[53] The present (1905) senior U. S. senator from Alabama.
[54] Bulger of Tallapoosa, Jones and Wilson of Fayette, and Sheets of
Winston voted in the negative.
[55] See below, Ch. III, sec. 5.
[56] Coffee was a white county and had very few slaves.
[57] The commissioners sent to the various states were as follows:
_Virginia_, A. F. Hopkins and F. M. Gilmer; _South Carolina_, John A.
Elmore; _North Carolina_, I. W. Garrott and Robert H. Smith; _Maryland_,
J. L. M. Curry; _Delaware_, David Clopton; _Kentucky_, S. F. Hale;
_Missouri_, William Cooper; _Tennessee_, L. Pope Walker; _Arkansas_, David
Hubbard; _Louisiana_, John A. Winston; _Texas_, J. M. Calhoun; _Florida_,
E. C. Bullock; _Georgia_, John G. Shorter; _Mississippi_, E. W. Pettus.
Only one state, South Carolina, sent a delegate to Alabama.
[58] It was not until the end of June, 1861, that the United States postal
service was withdrawn and final reports made to the United States. The
Confederate postal service succeeded. At first, the Confederate
Postmaster-General directed the postmasters to continue to report to the
United States.
[59] This account of the work of the convention is compiled from the
pamphlet ordinances in the Supreme Court Library in Montgomery.
[60] So Smith, the coöperationist historian, reported.
[61] See Smith's "Debates"; Hodgson's "Cradle of the Confederacy";
DuBose's "Yancey"; Wilmer's "Recent Past."
[62] Gov. A. B. Moore to President Buchanan, Jan. 4, 1861, in O. R. Ser.
I, Vol. I, pp. 327, 328.
[63] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 89.
[64] Miller, "History of Alabama," p. 158.
[65] See D. C. Buell, "Operations in North Alabama," in "Battles and
Leaders of the Civil War," Vol. II, pp. 701-708.
[66] Miller, p. 160; Brewer, "Alabama," p. 65; Mrs. Clay-Clopton, "A Belle
of the Fifties," Chs. 18-22; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, pp. 204, 294,
295, _et passim_. Buell stated that "habitual lawlessness prevailed in a
portion of General Mitchell's command," and that though authority was
granted to punish with death there were no punishments. Discipline was
lost. The officers were engaged in cotton speculation, and Mitchell's
wagon trains were used to haul the cotton for the speculators. Flagrant
crimes, Buell stated, were "condoned or neglected" by Mitchell. "Battles
and Leaders," Vol. II, pp. 705, 706. North Alabama was not important to
the Federals from a strategic point of view, and only the worst
disciplined troops were stationed in that section.
[67] His real name was Ivan Vasilivitch Turchinoff. Several other officers
were court-martialled at the same time for similar conduct. Keifer,
"Slavery and Four Years of War," Vol. I, p. 277; Miller, p. 160; "Battles
and Leaders," II, p. 706. A former "Union" man declared after the war that
the barbarities of Turchin crushed out the remaining "Union" sentiment in
north Alabama. Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Testimony, p. 850 (Richardson); O. R.,
Ser. I, Vols. X and XVI, _passim_; Brewer, "Alabama," pp. 319, 348.
Accounts of eye-witnesses.
[68] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, pp. 204, 294, 295.
[69] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, p. 212.
[70] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, pp. 167, 168, 174 (May, 1862); for
Clemens and Lane, see Ch. III, sec. 4.
[71] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, pp. 290-293.
[72] Brewer, p. 485, _et passim_; Miller, p. 125; O. R., Ser. I, Vol.
XXXIII, Pt. III, pp. 750-751.
[73] Gen. D. S. Stanley to Gen. William D. Whipple, Feb., 1865; O. R.,
Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. I, p. 718.
[74] Clanton's report, March, 1864; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXIII, Pt. III,
p. 718.
[75] Miller, "Alabama."
[76] Miller, p. 165.
[77] Miller, "Alabama"; Brewer, pp. 318, 348.
[78] Brewer, pp. 284, 383.
[79] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XVI, Pt. I, pp. 841, 839; Wyeth, "Life of
Forrest," pp. 111-113.
[80] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXII, Pt. I, p. 394.
[81] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XX, Pt. II, p. 442.
[82] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XX, Pt. II, p. 443.
[83] The Andrews raiders in Georgia were hanged as spies for being dressed
"in the promiscuous southern style."
[84] Wyeth, "Life of Forrest," pp. 185-222; Mathes, "General Forrest," pp.
109-127; Miller, Ch. 32.
[85] Brewer, p. 339.
[86] Miller, p. 213.
[87] After completion at Selma the _Tennessee_ was taken down the river to
defend Mobile. It was found, even after removing her armament, that the
vessel could not pass the Dog River bar, and timber was cut from the
forests up the river and "camels" made with which to buoy up the heavy
vessel. By accident these camels were burned and more had to be made. At
last the heavy ram was floated over the bar. Of course the newspapers
harshly criticised those in charge of the _Tennessee_. Maclay, "History of
the United States Navy," Vol. II, p. 448.
[88] Brewer, p. 389; Scharf, "Confederate Navy," Ch. 18; Miller, pp.
205-206.
[89] Brewer, p. 120; Miller, p. 207.
[90] Some of the Confederate gunboats were sunk (_Huntsville_ and
_Tuscaloosa_), and Commander Farrand surrendered twelve gunboats in the
Tombigbee. All of these had been built at Mobile, Selma, and in the
Tombigbee.
[91] Miller, pp. 208, 217-221.
[92] It was intended that Wilson should raid to and fro all through
central Alabama. His men were armed with repeating carbines; his train of
250 wagons was escorted by 1500 unmounted men who secured mounts as they
went farther into the interior. Greeley, Vol. II, p. 716.
[93] _N. Y. Herald_, April 6, 1865.
[94] April 5 Cahaba was captured by a part of Wilson's force and twenty
Federal prisoners released from the military prison at that place. They
reported that they had been well treated.--_N. Y. Herald_, April 29, 1865.
[95] Wyeth, "Life of Forrest," pp. 606, 607.
[96] Parsons's Cooper Institute Speech in _N. Y. Times_, Nov. 27, 1865;
Trowbridge, "The South," pp. 435, 440. Accounts of eye-witnesses.
[97] Trowbridge, "The South," p. 435.
[98] Hardy, "History of Selma," p. 51; Miller, "Alabama," pp. 221-226;
Parsons, speeches in _N. Y. Times_, Nov. 27, 1865, Apr. 20, 1866; _N. Y
Herald_, May 4, and Apr. 6, 1865; _Montgomery Advertiser_, July 14, 1867;
Wilson's Report, June 29, 1865; _Selma Times_, Feb. 13, 1866; "Our Women
in War Times," p. 277; Greeley, Vol. II, p. 719; Wyeth, "Life of Forrest,"
pp. 604-607; "Northern Alabama," p. 655.
[99] Hardy, "History of Selma," p. 52, says four regiments were organized,
and the others were driven away.
[100] 125,000 bales, according to Greeley, Vol. II, p. 719.
[101] The _Advertiser_ of April 18, 1865.
[102] _N. Y. World_, May 1 and July 18, 1865; _N. Y. Herald_, May 4 and
15, and June 17, 1865; Brewer, p. 512; Greeley, Vol. II, p. 720.
[103] _N. Y. Daily News_, May 29, 1865; _Century Magazine_, Nov., 1889;
Transactions Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. IV, p. 449.
[104] Report, June 29, 1865.
[105] Somers, "The South Since the War," pp. 134, 135.
[106] Truman in _N. Y. Times_, Nov. 2, 1865.
[107] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. III, pp. 230-233.
[108] See Brewer, "County Notes."
[109] Brewer, p. 188 _et passim_; Miller, p. 179; O. R., Ser. I, Vol.
XXIII, Pt. I, pp. 245-249.
[110] Miller, p. 183; Garrett, "Public Men."
[111] Miller, p. 301.
[112] Speech at Cooper Institute, Nov. 13, 1865, in _N. Y. Times_, Nov.
27, 1895.
[113] _N. Y. Herald_, May 4 and 15, 1865; the _World_, May 1, 1865; the
_Times_, April 20, and Nov. 2, 1865; _Montgomery Advertiser_, July 14,
1867; _Selma Times_, Feb. 13, 1866; Wilson's Report, June 29, 1865: Hardy,
"History of Selma," pp. 46, 51.
[114] "The South," p. 440.
[115] Hague, "Blockaded Family," _passim_; Riley, "Baptists in Alabama,"
pp. 304, 305; "Our Women in the War," p. 275 _et seq._; Riley, "History of
Conecuh County," p. 173.
[116] Miller, "History of Alabama," p. 359; Brewer, "History of Alabama,"
pp. 68, 69; Transactions Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. II, p. 188.
[117] Miller, "History of Alabama," p. 360; Colonel Moore's article in the
_Louisville Post_, May 30, 1900.
[118] Miller, p. 359.
[119] For other estimates, see Livermore, "Numbers and Losses," and Curry,
"Civil History of the Confederate States," pp. 152, 153.
[120] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 102, 103.
[121] Livermore, "Numbers and Losses," pp. 20, 21.
[122] Alabama did not succeed in organizing the militia.
[123] Miller, "Alabama," Appendix; Report of Col. E. D. Blake, Supt. of
Special Registration, in O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 102, 103; Brewer,
"Alabama," see "Regimental Histories."
[124] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. III, pp. 440, 445; Brewer, "Alabama." Several
commands were equipped at the expense of the commanders; others were
equipped by the communities in which they were raised; one old gentleman,
Joel E. Matthews of Selma, gave his check for $15,000 to the state,
besides paying for the outfitting of several companies of soldiers.
"Northern Alabama Illustrated," p. 661.
[125] These regiments were the 57th and 61st Infantry, and 7th Cavalry.
[126] General Lee protested against this practice as preventing the proper
recruitment of the armies. Livermore, "Numbers and Losses in the Civil
War," p. 12.
[127] The infantry regiments in Lee's army had 12 companies.
[128] See summary of Confederate legislation on the subject. Livermore, p.
30. The purpose of these laws was to discourage the formation of new
commands. It was not effective in Alabama.
[129] These were the infantry regiments numbered 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,
12, 13, 14, 15, 41, 44, 48.
[130] The infantry regiments numbered 9, 11, 44, 48.
[131] The infantry regiments numbered 43, 47, 49, 61. Brewer, "Regimental
Histories."
[132] These were the infantry regiments numbered 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,
12, 13, 14, 15, 41, 44, 48.
[133] When the regiments enlisted for a short time were retained in the
service, the men were allowed to change to other regiments if they
desired, and many did so. These transfers and reënlistments swelled the
total enrolment of popular regiments.
[134] This has since been the method of estimating the number of soldiers
furnished by Alabama,--each enlistment counting as one man.
[135] The infantry regiments numbered 20, 23, 28, 31, 34, 37, 42, 55.
[136] The 23d Infantry.
[137] The regiments that were united were: 24, 34, and 28; 33 and 38; 32
and 58; 23 and 46; 7, 39, 22, and 26-50. All were in Johnston's army
except the 32d and 58th, which were in Taylor's command. Some of these
regiments were consolidated after only one year's service; the others
after less than two years. This indicates a low enrolment. Many companies
were never recruited to the minimum. Three infantry regiments were
disbanded after short service,--1, 2 and 7,--and the men reënlisted in
other organizations.
[138] The 62d, 63d, 65th. A thousand to the regiment is a very liberal
estimate; 500 is probably more nearly correct, I am told by old soldiers.
[139] Jeff Davis Artillery, Hadaway's Battery, Jeff Davis Legion, 4th
Battalion Infantry, 23d Battalion Infantry.
[140] The 1st, 3d, 8th, 10th, and 15th Confederate regiments of cavalry
had some companies from Alabama.
[141] The 6th Infantry.
[142] Miller, p. 374.
[143] Brewer evidently follows Fowler, as to the Army of Northern
Virginia.
[144] Not that this deceived the Confederate administration, but the large
estimates sounded well in the governor's messages, and when there was a
dispute with Richmond about the quota of the state.
[145] In 1861 and 1862 some regiments enlisted for short terms, some for
three years, some for the war. I have been unable, in more than two or
three cases, to find out the exact term, but there could hardly have been
more than one reënlistment of an organization.
[146] The 1st, 2d, 7th, 11th, 21st, 25th, 26th-50th, 27th, 29th, 42d,
46th, 54th, 55th, 56th, 58th, 59th, 60th, 62d, 65th.
[147] The 3d, Russell's 4th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th.
[148] (_a_) There had been to the end of 1863, 90,857 enlistments in
Alabama. Included in these figures were all reënlistments and transfers.
(_b_) In the summer of 1863 the state took a census of all males from
sixteen to sixty years of age, a total of 40,500 names. These included
8835, and later 10,000, exempts, and all the cripples and deadheads in the
state. Since this was six months previous to the report of the 90,857
enlistments, there must have been in the latter number many that were on
the former list. See O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 101-103, 1101.
[149] West Point graduates, nine.
[150] Killed in battle, ten.
[151] Derry, "Story of the Confederate States"; Southern Hist. Soc.
Papers, Vol. VI; Brewer, "Alabama," "Regimental Histories"; Miller,
"History of Alabama," p. 375; Brown, "History of Alabama," pp. 238-254.
[152] Annual Cyclopædia (1864), p. 7.
[153] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 10.
[154] Riley, "Baptists of Alabama," p. 305; O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p.
1193.
[155] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol I, p. 1088; Vol. II, pp. 94, 197.
[156] _N. Y. World_, March 12, 1864; "The Land We Love," Vol. II, p. 296.
[157] Southern Hist. Soc. Papers, Vol. II, p. 61; Shaver, "History of the
Sixtieth Alabama," p. 106; Miller, "History of Alabama," pp. 359, 374;
Brewer, "Alabama," pp. 586-705; "Confederate Military History"--Alabama;
Longstreet, "Manassas to Appomattox"; "Memorial Record of Alabama"
(Wheeler's "Military History"); McMorries, "History of the First Alabama
Regiment."
[158] Transactions Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. II, p. 188; also John S. Wise,
"End of an Era"; Longstreet, "Manassas to Appomattox."
[159] _Montgomery Advertiser_ Almanac (1901), p. 220.
[160] Report of 1866, Appendix, Pt. I, p. 166.
[161] Report of the Secretary of War, 1866, Appendix, Pt. I, p. 69; Report
of the Secretary of War (1864-1865), p. 28; Moore, "Rebellion Record,"
Vol. VII, p. 45; Miller, p. 360; O. R., Ser. III, Vol. III, pp. 1115,
1190, and Vol. IV, pp. 16, 921, 925, 269, 1270; O. R., Ser. II, Vol. V,
pp. 589, 570, 626, 627, 716, 946, 947; "Confederate Military
History"--Alabama.
[162] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 592.
[163] Moore, "Rebellion Record," Supplement.
[164] The 89th, 94th, 95th, etc. See Moore, "Rebellion Record,"
Supplement. The highest number of a militia regiment to be found on the
records was the 102d, in Sumter County.
[165] See O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II (Shorter to Johnston).
[166] Moore, "Rebellion Record," Vol. VI; O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp.
253-256.
[167] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXIX, Pts. II and III, pp. 780, 855; Ser. IV,
Vol. III, pp. 175, 323.
[168] Act of General Assembly, Aug. 29, 1863, which seems to have followed
an act of Congress of similar nature.
[169] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 1133.
[170] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 172-174, 256, 376. The state supreme
court held the same view.
[171] Moore, "Rebellion Record," Vol. VIII, p. 378.
[172] Acts of General Assembly, Dec. 12, 1864.
[173] _N. Y. Times_, April 16, 1865; Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 10.
[174] See O. R., General Index.
[175] The 61st, 62nd, and 65th regiments were thus formed, the men
becoming subject to duty under the conscript act, or by volunteering.
[176] Act, April 16, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.
[177] Act, April 21, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.
[178] Act, Sept. 27, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 2d Sess.
[179] Act, Oct. 9, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 2d Sess. These
details were still carried on the rolls of the company.
[180] Act, Oct. 11, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 2d Sess. The
exemption of one white for twenty negroes was called the "twenty-nigger
law." One peaceable Black Belt citizen wished to stay at home, but he
possessed only nineteen negroes. His neighbors thought that he ought to go
to war, and no one would give, lend, or sell him a slave. Unable to
purchase even the smallest negro, he was sadly making preparations to
depart, when one morning he was rejoiced by the welcome news that one of
the negro women had presented her husband with a fine boy. The tale of
twenty negroes was complete, and the master remained at home.
[181] Act of April 14, 1863, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 3d Sess.
[182] Acts, Dec. 28, 1863, and Jan. 5, 1864, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong.,
4th Sess.
[183] Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 4th Sess.
[184] Act, Feb. 17, 1864, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 4th Sess.
[185] Acts, Jan. 31, 1861, 1st Called Session.
[186] Act, Aug. 29, 1863.
[187] Nov. 25, 1862.
[188] Dec. 6, 1862.
[189] Act, Aug. 29, 1863.
[190] Dec. 13, 1864. This was a measure of obstruction, since the
Confederate laws did not exempt millers. The legislature elected in 1863
contained many obstructionists.
[191] Act, Aug. 29, 1863.
[192] Resolution, Dec. 4, 1863.
[193] _Ex parte_ Hill, _In re_ Willis _et al._ _vs._ Confederate
States--38 Alabama Reports (1863), 429. All over the state at various
times men sought to avoid conscription or some certain service under every
pretext, sometimes "even resorting to a _habeas corpus_ before an ignorant
justice of the peace, who had no jurisdiction over such cases." See O. R.,
Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, p. 139; also Governor Shorter to General
Johnston. Aug., 1863.
[194] Dunkards, Quakers, Nazarenes. _In re_ Stringer--38 Alabama (1863),
457.
[195] 38 Alabama, 458.
[196] 39 Alabama, 367.
[197] 39 Alabama, 254.
[198] 39 Alabama, 457.
[199] 39 Alabama, 440.
[200] 39 Alabama, 611.
[201] 39 Alabama, 609.
[202] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 256, 463, _et passim_.
[203] Memorial, Oct. 7, 1864.
[204] Acts, Dec. 12, 1864.
[205] Dec. 13, 1864.
[206] Curry, "Civil History of the Confederate States," p. 151.
[207] The Conscript Bureau had posts at the following places: Decatur,
Courtland, Somerville, Guntersville, Tuscumbia, Fayetteville, Pikeville,
Camden, Montgomery, Selma, Lebanon, Pollard, Troy, Mobile, West Point
(Ga.), Marion, Greensborough, Blountsville, Livingston, Gadsden, Cedar
Bluff, Jacksonville, Ashville, Carrollton, Tuscaloosa, Eutaw, Eufaula,
Jasper, Newton, Clarksville, Talladega, Elyton. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III,
pp. 819-821.
[208] See De Leon, "Four Years in Rebel Capitals."
[209] President Davis visited Mobile in October, 1863, and upon reviewing
the Alabama troops recently raised, was much moved at seeing the young
boys and the old gray-haired men in the ranks before him. See Annual
Cyclopædia (1863), p. 8. The A. and I. General of Alabama reported, July
29, 1862, that not more than 10,000 conscripts could be secured from
Alabama unless the enemy could be expelled from the Tennessee valley. In
that case, 3000 more men might be secured. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 21.
[210] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 1149; Vol. II, pp. 87, 207, 208, 790.
[211] See Curry, "Civil History," p. 151.
[212] James Phelan to President Davis, O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XVII, Pt. II,
p. 790.
[213] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XVII, Pt. II, p. 790.
[214] C. C. Clay, Jr., to Secretary of War, O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp.
141, 142.
[215] I know of one man who for two years carried his arm in a sling to
deceive the enrolling officers. It was sound when he put it into the
sling. After the war ended he could never regain the use of it.
A draft from the Home Guards of Selma was ordered to go to Mobile. The
roll was made out, and opposite his name each man was allowed to write his
excuse for not wishing to go. One cripple, John Smith, wrote, "One leg too
short," and was at once excused by the Board. The next man had no excuse
whatever, but he had seen how Smith's excuse worked, so he wrote, "Both
legs too short," but he had to go to Mobile. "The Land We Love," Vol. III,
p. 430.
[216] Shorter's Proclamation, Dec. 22, 1862.
[217] M. J. Saffold, afterward a prominent "scalawag," escaped service as
an "agent to examine political prisoners." O. R., Ser. II, Vol. VI, p.
432.
[218] The list of pardons given by President Johnson will show a number of
the titles assumed by the exempts. The chronic exempts were skilled in all
the arts of beating out. If a new way of securing exemption were
discovered, the whole fraternity of "deadheads" soon knew of it. In 1864
nearly all the exemptions and details made in order to supply the
Quartermaster's Department were revoked, and agents sent through the
country to notify the former exempts that they were again subject to duty.
Before the enrolling officers reached them nearly all of them had secured
a fresh exemption, and from a large district in middle Alabama, I have
been informed by the agent who revoked the contracts, not one recruit for
the armies was secured. Often the exemption was only a detail, and large
numbers of men were carried on the rolls of companies who never saw their
commands. Often a man when conscripted would have sufficient influence to
be at once detailed, and would never join his company. Little attention
was paid to the laws regarding exemption.
[219] Curry, "Civil History," pp. 142-148. The wealthy young men
volunteered, at first as privates or as officers; the older men of wealth
nearly all became officers, chosen by their men. One company from Tuskegee
owned property worth over $2,000,000. _Opelika Post_, Dec. 4, 1903.
[220] Act of Feb. 17, 1864, Pub. Laws, C. S. A.
[221] Curry, "Civil History," pp. 142-148, 151.
[222] _N. Y. World_, March 28, 1864.
[223] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 881.
[224] The law of Feb. 17, 1864, provided for the separate enrolment of
these two classes, and the enrolling officers interpreted it as requiring
separate service. Such an interpretation would practically prohibit the
formation of volunteer commands and would leave the reserves to the
enrolling officers to be organized in camp.
[225] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 322, 323, 463, 466, 1059, 1060.
[226] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 817, 819, 920.
[227] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 821, 848. At this time there were in
the state 1223 officials who had the governor's certificate of exemption.
There were 1012 in Georgia, 1422 in Virginia, 14,675 in North Carolina,
and much smaller numbers in the other states. See O. R., Ser. IV, Vol.
III, p. 851.
[228] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 224 (March 18, 1864).
[229] An ex-Confederate related to me his experiences with the conscript
officers. In 1864 he was at home on furlough and was taken by the
"buttermilk" cavalry, carried to Camp Watts, at Notasulga, and enrolled as
a conscript, no attention being paid to his furlough. To Camp Watts were
brought daily squads of conscripts, rounded up by the "buttermilk"
cavalry. They were guarded by conscripts. When rested, the new recruits
would leave, the guards often going with them. Then another squad would be
brought in, who in a day or two would desert. This soldier came home again
with a discharge for disability. The conscript officials again took him to
Camp Watts. He presented his discharge papers; the commandant tore them up
before his face, and a few days later this soldier with a friend boarded
the cowcatcher of a passing train and rode to Chehaw. The commandant sent
guards after the fugitives, who captured the guards and then went to
Tuskegee, where they swore out, as he said, a _habeas corpus_ before the
justice of the peace and started for their homes with their papers. They
found the swamps filled with the deserters, who did not molest them after
finding that they too were "deserters."
[230] 8835 to January, 1864. See report of Colonel Preston, April, 1864,
in O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 355, 363. The estimate was based on the
census of 1860.
[231] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 101, 103, _et passim_.
[232] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 355, 363.
[233] Feb. 17, 1864.
[234] There were 1223 to Nov. 30, 1864.
[235] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 1, 103-109.
[236] G. O., No. 144, Dept. of the Cumberland, Atlanta, Ga., Oct. 4, 1864,
War Department Archives. There were other similar cases, but I found
record of no other conviction. The "tories" were sometimes in league with
the conscript officers, and sometimes they shot them at sight.
[237] D. P. Lewis of Lawrence, Jeremiah (or Jere) Clemens of Madison, and
C. C. Sheets of Winston deserted later.
[238] T. H. Clark, "Railroads and Highways," in the "Memorial Record of
Alabama," Vol. I, pp. 322-323.
[239] Smith, Clemens, Jemison, and Bulger, in Smith's "History and Debates
of the Convention of 1861"; Hodgson, "Cradle of the Confederacy"; Garrett,
"Public Men of Alabama."
[240] See Smith's "History and Debates of the Convention of 1861"; Nicolay
and Hay, "Lincoln," Vol. III, p. 186.
[241] A. B. Hendren, mayor of Athens and editor of the _Union Banner_,
wrote in 1861 to Secretary Walker, stating that he had strongly opposed
secession, but was now convinced that it was right; as mayor, he was
committed to reconstruction, which he no longer favored; he did not
proclaim his new sentiments through his paper for fear of pecuniary loss,
but people were becoming suspicious of his lukewarm reconstruction spirit.
O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, pp. 181, 182.
[242] "Northern Alabama Illustrated," p. 47; Ku Klux Rept. Ala. Test., pp.
592, 824; Saunders, "Early Settlers"; Brewer, "Alabama," p. 65; Garrett,
"Public Men"; Miller, "Alabama"; Nicolay and Hay, Vol. III, p. 186;
DuBose, "Life of Yancey," pp. 562, 563.
[243] See DuBose, "Life of Yancey," p. 563.
The non-slaveholders in the Black Belt appear to have been more
dissatisfied than those of the white counties at the outbreak of the war.
May 13, 1861, William M. Brooks, who had presided over the secession
convention, wrote from Perry County to President Davis in regard to the
bad effect of the refusal to accept short-time volunteers. He said that
though there were 20,000 slaves in Perry County, most of the whites were
non-slaveholders. Some of the latter had been made to believe that the war
was solely to get more slaves for the rich, and many who had no love for
slaveholders were declaring that they would "fight for no rich man's
slave." The men who had enlisted were largely of the hill class, poor
folks who left their work to go to camp and drill. Here, while their crops
wasted, they lost their ardor, and when they heard that their one-year
enlistment was not to be accepted, they began to murmur. They were made to
believe by traitors that a rich man could enter the army for a year and
then quit, while they had to enlist for the war. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol.
VIII, pp. 318-319.
Horace Greeley in the _Tribune_ was reported to have said: Large
slaveholders were not secessionists, they resisted disunion; those who had
much at stake hesitated a long while; it was not a "slaveholders'
rebellion"; it was really a rebellion of the non-slaveholders resident in
the strongholds of slavery, springing from no love of slavery, but from
the antagonism of race and the hatred of the idea of equality with the
blacks involved in simple emancipation.--Ku Klux Rept., p. 519. There is a
basis of truth in this.
[244] North Alabama before the war was overwhelmingly Democratic and was
called "The Avalanche" from the way it overran the Whiggish counties of
the southern and central sections. This was shown in the convention, where
representation was based on the white vote. Since the war representation
in the conventions is based on population, and the Black Belt has
controlled the white counties. "Northern Alabama Illustrated," pp. 251,
756. See also DuBose, "Yancey," p. 562.
[245] Professor George W. Duncan of Auburn, Ala., and many others have
given me information in regard to the people in that section. See also H.
Mis. Doc. No. 42, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; _N. Y. Tribune_, Nov. 14, 1862.
[246] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. III, p. 249. For much information concerning the
conditions in north Alabama during the war, I am indebted to Professor O.
D. Smith of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, a native of Vermont who was
then a Confederate Bonded Treasury Agent and travelled extensively over
that part of the country.
[247] Reid, "After the War," pp. 348-350; Saunders, "Early Settlers," pp.
115, 164; Jones, "A Rebel War Clerk's Diary," Vol. I, pp. 182, 208.
[248] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp. 141. 142.
[249] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, p. 638.
[250] Moore, "Anecdotes, Poetry, and Incidents of the War," p. 215
(Letters from the chaplain of Streight's regiment); O. R., Ser. I, Vol.
XVI, Pt. I, pp. 124, 785 (Streight's Report); Miller, "Alabama"; Jones,
"Diary," Vol. I, pp. 182-208.
[251] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. VII, p. 840.
[252] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. VII, pp. 153-156, 424.
[253] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 1149.
[254] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 258.
[255] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp. 819-821.
[256] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, p. 431.
[257] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXIX, Pt. II, p. 57.
[258] The official statement of the War Department. See also "Confederate
Military History," Vol. XII, p. 502.
[259] Act of General Assembly, Aug. 29, 1863.
[260] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 680.
[261] Joint Resolution, Dec. 4, 1863.
[262] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXII, Pt. I, p. 671.
[263] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXII, Pt. I, p. 671, and Vol. XXXIII, Pt. III,
pp. 570, 683, 856.
[264] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXIII, Pt. III, pp. 825, 826, 856.
[265] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. I, p. 659.
[266] Somers, "The Southern States since the War," p. 135; _Montgomery
Advertiser_, Aug. 17, 1902; _N. Y. Tribune_, Feb. 10, 1865; Freemantle,
"Three Months in the Southern States."
[267] Moore, "Rebellion Record," Vol. VII, p. 45; Freemantle, p. 141.
[268] Freemantle, "Three Months in the Southern States," p. 141, quoted
from a local newspaper; accounts of eye-witnesses.
[269] Miller, _passim_; Somers, "Southern States," p. 135.
[270] Miller, p. 193; Moore, "Rebellion Record," Vol. VII, p. 357.
[271] Saunders, "Early Settlers," pp. 115, 164.
[272] This correspondent defined a "unionist" or "loyalist" as one truly
devoted to the Union and who had never wavered, thus excluding from
consideration those who had gone with the Confederacy and later become
disappointed. _Boston Journal_, Nov. 15, 1864; _N. Y. Herald_, April 7,
1864; _The Tribune_, Nov. 14, 1862; _N. Y. Times_, Nov. 23, 1862; Tharin,
"The Alabama Refugee."
[273] _The World_, Feb. 15, 1865.
[274] Information in regard to affairs in southeast Alabama during the war
I have obtained from relatives (all of whom were "Union" men before the
war) and from neighbors who were acquainted with the conditions in that
section of the country.
[275] Miller, "Alabama." Sanders had been a Confederate officer.
[276] Thickets which the eye could not penetrate.
[277] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. LII, p. 403.
[278] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVIII, Pt. II, p. 273; Ser. IV, Vol. II, p.
1043.
[279] Joint Resolution, Oct. 7, 1864. J. J. Seibels proposed to raise a
regiment for state defence of men under and over military age. He wanted,
also, to get the skulkers who could not otherwise be obtained. O. R., Ser.
IV, Vol. II, p. 604.
[280] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 1042, 1043 (Solicitor James N.
Arrington and Attorney-General M. A. Baldwin).
[281] Clemens was a cousin of "Mark Twain." He was fond of drink, and once
when William L. Yancey asked him not to drink so much, he answered that he
was obliged to drink his genius down to a level with Yancey's.
[282] _N. Y. Tribune_, May 23, 1865. See Smith, "Debates," Index.
[283] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, pp. 167, 168, 174, 178. Clemens had
been captain, major, and colonel of the Thirteenth United States Infantry.
From 1849 to 1853 he was United States Senator. He died in Philadelphia a
few years after the war. Garrett, "Public Men of Alabama," pp. 176-179.
[284] Brewer, "Alabama," p. 364.
[285] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. LII, Pt. II, p. 35.
[286] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, pp. 161-163.
[287] "Northern Alabama Illustrated," p. 327; Acts of Alabama, 1862, p.
225; Moore, "Anecdotes, Poetry, and Incidents of the War," p. 215.
[288] Lewis became the second "Radical" or scalawag governor of Alabama,
serving from 1872 to 1874. Miller, "Alabama," pp. 260, 261; Brewer,
"Alabama," p. 368.
[289] O. R., Ser. II, Vol. VIII, p. 86.
[290] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXX, Pt. III, pp. 750-751.
[291] It is a notable fact that among the disaffected persons of
prominence there were none of the old Whigs, or Bell and Everett men.
Nearly all were Douglas Democrats. The Bell and Everett people so
conducted themselves during the war that afterwards they were as
completely disfranchised and out of politics as were the Breckenridge
Democrats. The work of reconstruction under the Johnson plan fell mainly
to the former Douglas Democrats and the lesser Whigs.
[292] Report of the Secretary of War, 1865, Vol. I, p. 45; "Confederate
Military History," Vol. XII, p. 501.
[293] Report of the Secretary of War, Vol. I, p. 45; "Confederate Military
History," Vol. XII, p. 501.
[294] I am indebted to old soldiers for descriptions of conditions in
north and west Alabama before and following Taylor's surrender. All agree
in their accounts of the conditions in Alabama and Mississippi at that
time.
[295] These estimates are based on half a hundred other estimates made
during the war by state, Confederate, and Federal officials, and by other
observers, and from estimates made by persons familiar with conditions at
that time. They are rather too small than too large. O. R., Ser. IV, Vols.
I to IV _passim_.
[296] O. R., Ser. IV, pp. 880, 881.
[297] See also Pollard, "Lost Cause," p. 563; Schwab, p. 190.
[298] See below, Ch. XXI.
[299] See DuBose, "Yancey," pp. 566, 567, and Brewer and Garrett under the
names of the above.
[300] Brewer, p. 126; Garrett, p. 723.
[301] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 709.
[302] Joint Resolution, Acts of 1st Called Sess., 1861, p. 142.
[303] Joint Resolution, Acts of Called Sess. and 2d Regular Sess., 1862,
p. 202.
[304] Acts of Called Sess. and 3d Regular Sess., 1863, p. 52.
[305] A "bomb-proof" was a person who secured a safe position in order to
keep out of service in the field. A "feather bed" was one who stayed at
home with good excuse,--a teacher, agriculturist, preacher, etc., who had
only recently been called to such profession.
[306] By act of the legislature soldiers in the field were to vote, but no
instance is found of their having done so.
[307] See Hannis Taylor, "Political History of Alabama," in "Memorial
Record of Alabama," Vol. I, p. 82.
[308] Jones, "A Rebel War Clerk's Diary," Vol. I, pp. 250, 335, 391;
Schwab, "Confederate States," p. 210; Garrett, p. 385; Brewer, p. 411.
[309] Acts of 2d Regular Sess., 1862, p. 200.
[310] Annual Cyclopædia (1862), p. 9; Schwab, "Confederate States," pp.
195, 196; Brewer, 127; Garrett, pp. 722, 724. See _infra_, p. 97.
[311] Shorter's Proclamation, Dec. 22, 1862, in Moore, "Rebellion Record,"
Vol. IV, and above, p. 88.
[312] Annual Cyclopædia (1863), p. 6; O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 126;
Brewer, pp. 66, 126, 460; Garrett, p. 722; Hannis Taylor, in "Memorial
Record of Alabama," p. 82.
[313] Acts, 3d Regular Sess., 1864, p. 217.
[314] Annual Cyclopædia (1863), p. 7. Francis Wayland, Jr., in a "Letter
to a Peace Democrat" in the _Atlantic Monthly_, Dec., 1863, quotes
Governor Watts as saying immediately after he had been elected: "If I had
the power I would build up a wall of fire between Yankeedom and the
Confederate States, there to burn for ages." See also O. R., Ser. IV, Vol.
I, p. 120; McMorries, "History of the First Alabama Regiment of Infantry."
[315] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 37, 463, 466, 817, 820. See also
above, pp. 97, 103, 104.
[316] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 683, 685, 735, 736.
[317] Act, Oct. 7, 1864.
[318] Act, Dec. 12, 1864.
[319] See McPherson, "Rebellion," pp. 419-421.
[320] The "Confederate Military History" states that in 1864 the people
hoped for terms of peace, believing that Democratic successes in the
northern elections would result in an armistice, and later reconstruction;
that the people were always ready to go back to the principles of 1787,
and it was believed that Davis was willing, but that the unfavorable
elections of 1864 and the military interference by the Federal
administration in the border states killed this constitutional peace
party. See Vol. I, pp. 505, 537.
[321] Williamson R. W. Cobb of Jackson County, a very popular politician,
a member of the 36th Congress, met his first defeat in 1861, when a
candidate for the Confederate Congress. In 1863 he was successful over the
man who had beaten him in 1861. After the election, if not before, he was
in constant communication with the enemy and went into their lines several
times. The Congress expelled him by a unanimous vote. It was rumored that
President Lincoln intended to appoint him military governor, but he killed
himself accidentally in 1864. Cobb was a "down east Yankee" who had come
into the state as a clock pedler. He had no education and little real
ability, but was a smooth talker and was master of the arts of the
demagogue. In political life he was famed for shaking hands with the men,
kissing the women, and playing with the babies. At a Hardshell
foot-washing he won favor by carrying around the towels, in striking
contrast with his Episcopalian rival, who sat on the back bench. Cobb was
for the Confederacy as long as he thought it would win; when luck changed,
he proceeded to make himself safe. After his desertion he lost influence
among the people of his district. See Brewer, pp. 286, 287; McPherson, pp.
49, 400, 402, 411.
[322] O. R., Vol. II, p. 726 (W. T. Walthall, commandant of conscripts for
Alabama, Talladega, Aug. 6, 1863). In the fall of 1864 a secret peace
society was discovered in southwest Virginia, North Carolina, and
Tennessee. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 802-820.
[323] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, pp. 555-557.
[324] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, p. 548.
[325] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, pp. 551, 552.
[326] The 61st Alabama Regiment was composed largely of conscripts under
veteran officers. It was evidently at first called the 59th. Brewer, p.
673.
[327] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, p. 550.
[328] The 57th Alabama Regiment was recruited in the counties of Pike,
Coffee, Dale, Henry, and Barbour. See Brewer, p. 669.
[329] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, p. 550.
[330] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, p. 556. The 59th Alabama Regiment
was formed from a part of Hilliard's Legion. Brewer, p. 671.
[331] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, pp. 552, 556.
[332] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, p. 556; Brewer, "Alabama," p. 671.
It may be that the 59th Regiment here spoken of as consolidated was not
the 59th under the command of Bolling Hall, but was merely the first
number given to the regiment, which later became the 61st. See Brewer, pp.
671, 673. However, the society existed in Bolling Hall's regiment.
[333] See Nicolay and Hay, "Lincoln," Vol. VIII, pp. 410-415; McPherson,
"Rebellion," pp. 320-322.
[334] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXIII, Pt. III, pp. 682, 683, and Vol. XXII,
Pt. I, p. 671; Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 393-397. A fuller account of the
Peace Society will be found in the _South Atlantic Quarterly_, July, 1903.
Some of the prominent leaders in the Peace Society were said to be: Lewis
E. Parsons, later provisional governor, said to be the head of it; Col. J.
J. Seibels of Montgomery; R. S. Heflin, state senator from Randolph
County; W. W. Dodson, William Kent, David A. Perryman, Lieut.-Col. E. B.
Smith, W. Armstrong, and A. A. West, of Randolph County; Capt. W. S.
Smith, Demopolis; L. McKee and Lieut. N. B. DeArmon.
General James H. Clanton testified in 1871 that while in the Alabama
legislature during the war L. E. Parsons, afterwards governor, introduced
resolutions invoking the blessings of heaven on the head of Jefferson
Davis and praying that God would spare him to consummate his holy
purposes. Jabez M. Curry charged Parsons with being a "reconstructionist"
during the war, that is, with being disloyal to the government. Parsons
had two young sons in the Confederate army, and one of them was so
indignant at the charge against his father that he shot and wounded Curry.
Dr. Ware of Montgomery afterwards made the same charge. Ku Klux Rept.,
Ala. Test., p. 234.
[335] See O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. I, p. 718. "Confederate Military
History," Vol. I, pp. 505, 509, 511, 512, 537.
[336] A Douglas Democrat, a Douglas elector, and a strong secessionist,
who had deserted to the enemy. Brewer, p. 364.
[337] _N. Y. Times_, Feb. 14, 1864; Annual Cyclopædia (1864), pp. 10, 11;
_N. Y. Daily News_, April 16, 1864, from Columbus (Ga.) Sun.
[338] _N. Y. Tribune_, May 23, 1865.
[339] _N. Y. World_, March 28, 1864.
[340] _N. Y. Times_, March 24, 1864; _N. Y. World_, March 28, 1864.
Busteed was a newly appointed Federal judge who afterward became notorious
in "carpet-bag" days. He succeeded George W. Lane in the judgeship.
[341] There were several regular, reliable correspondents in north
Alabama, for the New York, Boston, and Chicago papers. Their accounts are
corroborated by the reports made later by Confederate and Federal
officials.
[342] At this time Bulger was in active service. See Brewer, "Alabama,"
pp. 548, 660; "Confederate Military History"--Alabama, see Index. Bradley
was a north Alabama man who had gone over to the enemy to save his
property. This was his chief claim to notoriety. He became a prominent
"scalawag" later.
[343] _N. Y. Herald_, Nov. 29, 1864; _N. Y. Times_, Feb. 10, 1865; _Boston
Journal_, Nov. 15, 1864; _The World_, March 28, 1864, Feb. 11, 1865; O.
R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. I, pp. 590, 659.
[344] Later governor, succeeding Parsons.
[345] Letter from Giers at Decatur, Jan. 26, 1865; O. R., Ser. I, Vol.
XLIX, Pt. I, pp. 590, 718. See also Report of Joint Committee on
Reconstruction, Pt. III, pp. 13-15, 60, 64.
[346] Giers, from Nashville, to Grant; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. I, p.
659.
[347] Judging from the correspondence of Giers, the plan had the approval
of General Grant.
[348] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. II, p. 560.
[349] This fear is expressed in all their correspondence.
[350] Davis, "Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," Vol. I, p.
471; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. III, p. 440.
[351] Miller, "History of Alabama," p. 158; Davis, "Confederate
Government," Vol. I, p. 476; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. III, p. 440.
[352] Acts of 2d Called and 1st Regular Sess. (1861), pp. 75, 211.
[353] April 10, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.
[354] April 16, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.; Governor's
Proclamation, March 1, 1862.
[355] April 17, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.
[356] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. III, pp. 870, 875.
[357] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 986, 987; Davis, Vol. I, p. 480;
"Southern Hist. Soc. Papers," Vol. II, p. 61.
[358] Miller, "History of Alabama," pp. 180, 181; Davis, Vol. I, pp. 480,
481; Hardy, "History of Selma," pp. 46, 47; _N. Y. Times_, Nov. 2, 1865
(Truman); O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 986, 987. The arsenal was
commanded by Col. J. L. White; the naval foundries and the rolling mills
were under the direction of Capt. Catesby ap Roger Jones, the designer of
the _Virginia_; Commodore Ebenezer Farrand superintended the construction
of war vessels at the Selma navy-yard. Captain Jones cast the heavy
ordnance for the forts at Mobile, Charleston, and Wilmington. Five
gunboats were built at Selma in 1863 and two or three others in 1864-1865.
The ram _Tennessee_, built in 1863-1864, was constructed like the
_Virginia_, but was an improvement except for the weak engines. When the
keel of the _Tennessee_ was laid, in the fall of 1863, some of the timbers
to be used in her were still standing in the forest, and the iron for her
plates was ore in the mines. Scharf, "Confederate Navy," pp. 50, 534, 550,
555; "Northern Alabama Illustrated," p. 654; Maclay, "History of United
States Navy," Vol. II, pp. 446, 447; Wilson, "Ironclads in Action," Vol.
I, p. 116.
[359] Ball, "Clarke County," p. 765.
[360] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp. 29, 102.
[361] Miller, pp. 201, 230; Davis, Vol. I, p. 473; Porcher, p. 378.
[362] April 11, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.
[363] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 195, 697.
[364] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 695.
[365] One of the most valuable of these caves was the "Santa Cave." See O.
R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp. 29, 102.
[366] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 695, 698.
[367] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp. 29, 102.
[368] In 1861 the War Department gave Leonard and Riddle of Montgomery an
order for 60,000 pounds of nitre, and a company near Larkinsville in north
Alabama was making 700 pounds a day, which it sold to the government at 22
to 35 cents a pound. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 556.
[369] April 17, 1862. Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.; Acts of
Ala., Dec. 7, 1861, and Dec. 2, 1862; O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 195,
698, 702, 987; Davis, Vol. I, pp. 316, 473, 477; Miller, pp. 201, 230;
Schwab, "Confederate States," p. 270; Annual Cyclopædia (1862), p. 9; Le
Conte's "Autobiography," p. 184.
[370] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 556.
[371] Somers, "Southern States," p. 162.
[372] Somers, p. 175.
[373] April 9, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.
[374] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 695, 700, 702, 990.
[375] Freight rates in Alabama were as follows in December, 1862:--
1. Ammunition $0.60 per 100 lbs., per 100 miles.
2. (Second class) 0.30 per 100 lbs., per 100 miles.
3. Live stock 30.00 per car, per 100 miles.
4. Hay, fodder, wagons,
ambulances, etc. 20.00 per car, per 100 miles.
Troops were to be carried for 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 cents a mile per man. O. R.,
Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 276.
[376] Charles T. Pollard, president of the Montgomery and West Point R.R.,
who ran his road under direction of the government, reported, April 4,
1862, that he had placed the whole line between Montgomery and Selma under
contract, and that it would be completed within the year if iron could be
obtained. He thought the road between Selma and Meridian ought to be
completed at once. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, pp. 10, 48. On Sept. 14, 1864,
it was reported that the grading was finished on the road between
Montgomery and Union Springs, but that no iron could be obtained. O. R.,
Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 576.
[377] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 941; Pub. Laws, C.S.A., Feb. 15, 1862.
[378] On April 4, 1862, the Secretary of War wrote to A. S. Gaines that
the road from Selma to Demopolis had been completed; from Demopolis to
Reagan, a distance of 24 miles, a part of the grading had been done; while
the road from Reagan to Meridian, a distance of 27 miles, had been graded,
bridged, and some iron had been laid. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, pp.
1048-1049, 1061. Gaines stated, April 24, 1852, that on the Mississippi
end of the road the road was completed to within 8 miles of Demopolis,
Ala., and was being built at the rate of 3 miles a week. Connection was
made by boat to Gainesville, within 2 miles of which a spur of the Mobile
and Ohio, 21 miles long, had been completed. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p.
1089.
[379] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 1171.
[380] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, pp. 1089, 1145; Vol. II, pp. 106, 148, 149,
655.
[381] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp. 144-145; Vol. III, p. 312;
Stats.-at-Large, Prov. Cong., C.S.A., Feb. 15, 1862; Pub. Laws, C.S.A.,
1st Cong., 1st Sess., April 7 and Oct. 2, 1862.
[382] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 783.
[383] Acts, Feb. 8, 1861.
[384] Acts, 2d Called and 1st Regular Sess., p. 70.
[385] Governor Moore to Sec. L. P. Walker, July 2, 1861, O. R., Ser. IV,
Vol. I, p. 493; Somers, p. 136.
[386] Schwab, "Confederate States," p. 271.
[387] Somers, p. 136.
[388] Acts, Dec. 13, 1864, Acts of Ala., 2d Called and 1st Regular Sess.
_passim_.
[389] Le Conte states that in 1863 he found the only Bessemer furnace in
the Confederacy at Shelbyville; it was the first that he had ever seen.
"Autobiography," pp. 184-185. It was probably the first in America.
[390] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 3.
[391] Miller, pp. 179, 180, 181, 193; Davis, Vol. I, p. 481; _Montgomery
Advertiser_, July 14, 1867; _N. Y. Herald_, May 15, 1865.
[392] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 1010.
[393] This act authorized the governor to lease the salt springs belonging
to the state and to require the lessee to sell salt at 75 cents a bushel
at the salt works. The state paid 10 cents a bushel bounty and advanced
$10,000 to the salt maker. Acts, Nov. 11 and Nov. 19, 1861.
[394] One private maker with one furnace and from 15 to 20 hands made 60
bushels a day. Another, with 15 hands, burning 5 cords of wood, made 36
bushels a day. There were also many other private salt makers.
[395] Ball, "Clarke County," pp. 645-649, 765; "Our Women in War," p. 275
_et seq._
[396] Acts, Nov. 9, 1861, and Dec. 9, 1862.
[397] Acts, Dec. 9, 1862, Oct. 11, 1864, and Dec. 13, 1864.
[398] Miller, "Alabama," pp. 156, 167, 230; Hague, "Blockaded Family";
"Our Women in War," pp. 267, 268.
[399] _N. Y. Herald_, Sept. 20, 1864; Miller, p. 167.
[400] _American Cyclopædia_ (1864), p. 10; _N. Y. Times_, April 15, 1864.
To show the character of the white laborers employed in the salt works: in
reconstruction days, a prominent negro politician told how, when a slave,
he had to keep accounts, and read and write letters for the whites at the
salt works, who were very ignorant people.
[401] Later the Southern Express Company, which is still in existence. It
was the southern division of the Adams Express Company.
[402] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 711.
[403] Miller, pp. 179, 180, 181, 193; Davis, Vol. II, p. 481; _Montgomery
Advertiser_, July 14, 1867; _N. Y. Herald_, May 15, 1865; Acts of the
General Assembly of Alabama, 1861-1864, _passim_. The Freedman's Bureau
was largely supported by sales of the remnants of iron works, etc.
[404] Smith, "Debates," pp. 38, 39.
[405] Smith, "Debates," pp. 37, 39.
[406] In his message of Oct. 25, 1861, Governor Shorter made a report
showing that the finances of the state for 1861 were in good condition,
and advised against levying a tax on the people to pay the state's quota
of the Confederate tax. He stated that the banks had done good service to
the state; that, though in time of peace they were a necessary evil, now
they were a public necessity; that all the money used to date by the state
in carrying on the war had come from the banks. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I,
pp. 697-700.
[407] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, pp. 697-699; Acts of Gen. Assembly, Feb. 2,
Nov. 27 and 30, and Dec. 7 and 9, 1861; Patton's Message, Jan. 16, 1866.
[408] Ordinance No. 33, amending sections 1373, 1375, 1393, of the Code,
March 16, 1861.
[409] In 1861 two banks were chartered, two in 1862, five in 1863, and two
in 1864. Several of these were savings-banks.
[410] Ordinance No. 18, Jan. 19, 1861; Nos. 35 and 36, March 18, 1861.
[411] Schwab, p. 302; Davis, Vol. I, p. 495; Journal of the Convention of
1865, p. 61; Acts of Ala., Jan. 29, Feb. 6 and 8, Dec. 10, 1861;
Stats.-at-Large, Prov. Cong., C. S. A., Feb. 8, 1861; Miller, "Alabama,"
pp. 152, 157.
[412] Journal of the Convention, 1865, p. 61; Acts of Ala., Nov. 8, Dec.
4, 8, and 9, 1862; Miller, p. 168.
[413] Jour. of the Convention of 1865, p. 61; Acts of Ala., Aug. 29, Dec.
8, 1863; Miller, pp. 186, 189.
[414] Miller, p. 215; Acts of Ala., Oct. 7 and Dec. 13, 1864.
[415] Resolutions of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 1, 1862; Schwab, p. 50.
[416] Resolutions, Dec. 8, 1863.
[417] Confederate Funding Act, Feb. 17, 1864.
[418] Acts of Ala., Oct. 7, 1864; Schwab, pp. 73, 74.
[419] Acts of Ala., Dec. 10, 1861.
[420] Acts of Ala., _passim_. Notes of the state and of state banks were
hoarded, while Confederate notes were distrusted. Pollard, "Lost Cause,"
p. 421.
[421] Acts of Ala., Nov. 9, 1861; Schwab, p. 8. It was considered a matter
of patriotism to invest funds in Confederate securities. Not many other
investments offered; there was little trade in negroes. Pollard, "Lost
Cause," p. 424.
[422] Acts of Ala., Dec. 8, 1863.
[423] Acts of Ala., Dec. 13, 1864.
[424] Clark, "Finance and Banking," in the "Memorial Record of Alabama,"
Vol. I, p. 341. Statement of J. H. Fitts.
[425] Patton's Message, Jan. 16, 1866.
[426] Jones, "Diary," Vol. I, p. 114. North Carolina alone had contributed
more--$325,000.
[427] Clark, "Education in Alabama," p. 90.
[428] Acts of Ala., Dec. 7, 1863.
[429] The state authorities considered it inexpedient to levy heavier
state taxes. The people had always been opposed to heavy state taxes, but
paid county taxes more willingly. So the gift of $500,000 to the
Confederate government in 1861 and the $2,000,000 war tax of the same year
were assumed by the state, and bonds were issued. Stats.-at-Large, Prov.
Cong., C.S.A., Feb. 8, 1861; Acts of Ala., Nov. 27, 1861.
[430] Another measure aimed at the speculator.
[431] Acts of Ala., Dec. 8, 1863.
[432] Acts of Ala., Dec. 13, 1864.
[433] Pub. Laws, 1st Cong., 1st Sess., April 21, 1862.
[434] Pollard, "Lost Cause," p. 427.
[435] Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 3d Sess., April 24, 1863.
[436] See also Curry, "Confederate States," p. 110.
[437] Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 4th Sess., Jan. 30, 1864.
[438] Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 2d Cong., 1st Sess., June 10 and 14, 1864.
[439] Miller, "Alabama," p. 190.
[440] _N. Y. Times_, Feb. 2, 1864.
[441] Fitzgerald Ross, "Cities and Camps of the Confederate States," pp.
237, 238.
[442] Miller, p. 230.
[443] Acts of Ala., Nov. 19, 1862.
[444] Acts of Ala., Nov. 17, 1862.
[445] Acts of Ala., Oct. 31, 1862.
[446] O. R., Ser. II, Vol. III, p. 933; G. O., 86, A. and I. G. Office,
Richmond, Dec. 12, 1864; Miller, pp. 198, 199; Beverly, "History of
Alabama,"; A. C. Gordon, in _Century Magazine_, Sept., 1888; David Dodge,
in _Atlantic Monthly_, Aug., 1886.
[447] Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 3d Sess., March 26, 1863.
[448] A conference of impressment commissioners met in Augusta, Ga., Oct.
26, 1863. Among those present were Wylie W. Mason, of Tuskegee, Ala., and
Robert C. Farris, of Montgomery, Ala. See O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp.
898-906.
[449] Schwab, p. 202; Saunders, "Early Settlers." Schedules were printed
in all the newspapers, and many have been reprinted in the Official
Records.
[450] Jones, "Diary," Vol. I, p. 194; Miller, "Alabama," pp. 198, 199;
Pollard, "Lost Cause," pp. 487-488.
[451] Acts of Ala., Nov. 25, 1863.
[452] Jones, "Diary," Vol. I, p. 301.
[453] Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 2d Cong., 1st Sess., June 14, 1864; Saunders,
"Early Settlers."
[454] Resolutions of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 26, 1864.
[455] Ball, "Clarke County," p. 501.
[456] Smith, "Debates," pp. 174-183.
[457] Stats.-at-Large, Prov. Cong., C.S.A.
[458] Stat.-at-Large, Prov. Cong., 2d Sess.; McPherson, "Rebellion," pp.
203, 204. European merchants and capitalists also had a large trade with
the South when the war broke out, and thus sustained great losses. They
had made large advances to southern planters and merchants, and were also
interested in property in the South. Proceeds were remitted to foreign
creditors or owners in Confederate or state currency or bonds for there
was no other form of remittance. Robertson, "The Confederate Debt and
Private Southern Debts" (English pamphlet).
[459] McPherson, "Rebellion," pp. 203, 204; Acts of Prov. Cong., Aug. 30,
1861; Benjamin's "Instructions to Receivers," Sept. 12, 1861.
[460] Stats.-at-Large, Prov. Cong., 3d Sess., Feb. 15, 1862.
[461] McPherson, "Rebellion," p. 613.
[462] Acts of Ala., Dec. 10, 1861.
[463] Two years after the passage of the Sequestration Law its entire
proceeds in the Confederacy amounted to less than $2,000,000. Pollard,
"Lost Cause," p. 220.
[464] Suspension of specie payments had been made in order to prevent a
drain on the banks. The Confederate government took possession of some of
the coin, while much was used in the contraband and blockade trade. All
this contributed to discredit Confederate paper currency. Pollard, "Lost
Cause," p. 421. In May, 1862, General Beauregard seized $500,000 in coin
from a bank in Jackson, Ala. The coin belonged to a New Orleans bank and
had been sent out to prevent confiscation by Butler. Confederate money was
almost worthless at Mobile in 1864, while in the interior of the state it
still had a fair value.
[465] Confederate paper held up well in 1861 and 1862, though prices were
very high. The people were opposed to fixing a depreciated value to
Confederate money, but they were forced to do so by speculators. The money
was worth more the farther away from Richmond, though comparison with gold
should not be made, as gold was scarce, and prices in gold fell. Board,
which formerly cost $2 a day, could now be had for fifty cents in gold.
Gold was not a standard of value, but an article of commerce with a
fictitious value. Pollard, "Lost Cause," p. 425.
[466] Clark, "Finance and Banking Memorial Record," Vol. I, p. 341; "Two
Months in the Confederate States by an English Merchant," pp. 111, 115;
DeBow's Review for 1866.
[467] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. X, Pt. II, p. 639.
[468] Ball, "Clarke County," pp. 294, 295; Miller, p. 230; oral accounts.
[469] _N. Y. Times_, April 5, 1864 (from Mobile papers).
[470] _N. Y. Times_, Sept. 6, 1864.
[471] Smedes, "A Southern Planter," p. 226.
[472] Hague, "Blockaded Family," _passim_; "Our Women in the War,"
_passim_; Jacobs, "Drug Conditions."
[473] Ball, "Clarke County," p. 501.
[474] Miller, p. 232. A negro went to a conscript camp in 1864 with a
fifty-cent jug of whiskey. He gave his master a bottleful from the jug,
replacing what he had taken out by water. The resulting mixture he sold
for $5 a drink, a drink being a cap-box full. Each drink poured out of the
jug was replaced by the same measure of water. In this way he made $300
before the mixture was so diluted that the thirsty soldiers would not buy.
Related by the negro's master.
[475] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 686.
[476] _Montgomery Daily Advertiser_, April 18, 1865. But for another month
state money circulated in Montgomery.
[477] See Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, p. 14.
[478] Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, pp. 15, 37.
[479] In 1860 the South exported $150,000,000 worth of cotton, and Mobile
was the second cotton port of America. Scharf, "History of the Confederate
Navy," pp. 439, 533. Besides the regular ship channel there were two
shallow entrances to Mobile Bay, through which blockade-runners passed.
Soley, "The Blockade and the Cruisers," p. 134. Regular water
communication with New Orleans was kept up until 1862 through Mississippi
Sound. Scharf, p. 535; Maclay, "A History of the United States Navy," Vol.
II, p. 445.
[480] Miller, "Alabama," p. 167; Acts of the Called Sess. (1861), p. 123;
Acts of 2d Called and 1st Regular Sess. (1861), pp. 151, 168, 214, 278.
[481] The blockading force before Mobile in 1861 often consisted of only
one vessel (Soley, p. 134), and the people of Mobile believed that foreign
nations would not recognize the blockade as effective. There was an
English squadron under Admiral Milne in the Gulf, and on Aug. 4, 1861, the
_Mobile Register and Advertiser_ said that a conflict between the English
and United States forces was expected; the English were then to raise the
blockade. Scharf, p. 442.
[482] This, however, was not the plan favored by Ex-Gov. A. B. Moore, who,
on Feb. 3, 1862, wrote to President Davis stating his belief that the
permission given by the Federal fleet to export cotton was a "Yankee
trick" to get cotton to leave port in order to seize it. He thought that
the Confederate government should forbid all exportation of cotton until
the close of the war. "This leaky blockade system should be deprecated as
one [in which the parties] are either dupes or knaves and [is] not in the
least calculated to demonstrate the fact that our cotton crops are a
necessity to the commerce of the world." If cotton was not a necessity to
Europe, then the sooner the South knew it the better; if it was a
necessity, the sooner Europe knew it the better. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I,
p. 905.
[483] Acts of Feb. 6 and Dec. 10, 1861.
[484] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 735; Ser. I, Vol. XXXIII, Pt. III, p.
805.
[485] The Confederate War and Treasury Departments required that each
steamship coming and going should reserve one-half its tonnage for
government use. The owners of an outgoing vessel had to make bond to
return with one-half the cargo for the government and the other half in
articles the importation of which was not prohibited by the Confederate
government. The Confederate government paid five pence sterling a pound on
outgoing freight, payable in a British port. On return freight £25 a ton
was paid in cotton at a Confederate port. The expenses of one
blockade-runner for one trip amounted to $80,265; while the gross profits
were $172,000, leaving a net gain of $91,735 on the trip. Scharf, pp. 481,
485.
[486] Joseph Jacobs, "Drug Conditions."
[487] Soley, pp. 44, 156.
[488] See Taylor, "Running the Blockade." A typical blockade-runner of
1862-1864 was a long, low, slender, rakish sidewheel steamer, of 400 to
600 tons, about nine times as long as broad, with powerful engines, twin
screws, and feathering paddles. The funnels were short and could be
lowered to the deck. It was painted a dull gray or lead color, and the
masts being very short, it could not be seen more than two hundred yards
away. When possible to obtain it, anthracite coal was burned, and when
running into port all lights were turned out and the steam blown off under
water. Scharf, p. 480; Soley, p. 156; Spears, Vol. IV, p. 55.
[489] "Two Months in the Confederate States by English Merchant," p. 111;
Taylor, "Running the Blockade"; Hague, "A Blockaded Family"; "Our Women in
War," _passim_; Jacobs, "Drug Conditions."
[490] Report of A. Roane, Chief of the Produce Loan Office; Richmond, to
Secretary of Treasury Trenholm, Oct. 30, 1864, in H. Mis. Doc., No. 190,
44th Cong., 1st Sess.; "Two Months in the Confederate States," p. 111.
[491] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 462.
[492] Jones, "A Rebel War Clerk's Diary," Vol. I, p. 350.
[493] Scharf, pp. 484, 486; Spears, Vol. IV, p. 56.
[494] Bancroft. "Seward," Vol. II, p. 209; Wilson, "Ironclads in Action,"
Vol. I, pp. 196-197.
[495] Scharf, p. 487; Wilson, pp. 187, 192.
[496] Scharf, p. 446, says that the press and public sentiment were
against allowing shipment of cotton to districts or through ports held by
the United States. When in danger of capture the cotton was burned.
Pollard states that the Richmond authorities were opposed to allowing any
extensive cotton trade through the lines or through blockaded ports,
because it was believed that the Union finances were in bad condition and
would not stand the loss of cotton manufacturing. Moreover, the
Confederate authorities were afraid of the demoralization caused by
contraband trade, and also feared that Europe might consider that licensed
trade through ports in possession of the enemy, like New Orleans, was a
confession of the weakness of King Cotton, and would refuse to recognize
the Confederacy. "Lost Cause," pp. 484-485.
[497] The North was determined to show that cotton was not king, and to do
this it must get all the cotton possible from the South by allowing a
contraband trade in which nearly or quite all the profits on the cotton
should be stripped off, leaving only the bare cost to the Confederate
government or cotton planter. The North was willing that the South should
sell all its cotton, but the North was to be middleman. Scharf, p. 443;
"Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant," Vol. I, p. 331.
[498] The various proclamations, orders, regulations, and laws affecting
commercial intercourse between the United States and the Confederate
States will be found in a compilation of the United States Treasury
Department entitled "Acts of Congress and Rules and Regulations prescribed
by the Secretary of the Treasury, in pursuance thereto, with the approval
of the President, concerning Commercial Intercourse with and in States and
parts of States declared in insurrection, Captured, Abandoned, and
Confiscable Property, the care of freedmen, and the purchase of products
of insurrectionary districts on government account." The proclamations of
the President will be found in the Messages and Papers of the Presidents.
See also Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 56, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., and No. 23, 43d
Cong., 3d Sess., p. 58; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. __, 45th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 36;
Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 190, 44th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 39. A fuller account of
the trade regulations is in the _South Atlantic Quarterly_, July, 1905.
[499] Act, April 19, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.
[500] Act, Feb. 6, 1864, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 4th Sess.
[501] The state officials in 1862-1863 planned to exchange cotton from
Mississippi and Alabama with the cotton speculators in Tennessee for
bacon. Davis opposed (Pollard, p. 481), but, nevertheless, the change was
made. Along the Tennessee River there was much trading with the enemy. In
order to conform with the United States regulations forbidding the payment
of coin for Confederate staples, the northern speculator bought
Confederate and state money, often at a high price ($100 gold for $225 in
Confederate currency or $120 to $125 in Alabama, Georgia, or South
Carolina bank-notes), with which to carry on the cotton trade. O. R., Ser.
IV, Vol. II, p. 10.
[502] Shorter, who was opposed to contraband trade, complained in July,
1862, that the cotton speculators in Mobile had an understanding with
Butler and Farragut by which salt was allowed to come in and cotton, in
unlimited quantities, allowed to go out. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 21.
[503] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 16, 38th Cong., 2d Sess.
[504] Ho. Rept., No. 24, 38th Cong., 2d Sess.
[505] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 16, 38th Cong., 2d Sess.
[506] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 1180, 1181. Davis probably made his
last official indorsement on this report, Apr. 10, 1865. He forwarded it
to the Adjutant and Inspector-General with instructions to look into the
matter.
[507] Somers, "The Southern States since the War," p. 134. General Grant,
July 21, 1863, stated that this trade through west Tennessee was injurious
to the United States forces. "Restriction, if lived up to," he said,
"makes trade unprofitable and hence none but dishonest men go into it. I
will venture to say, that no honest man has made money in west Tennessee
in the last year, while many fortunes have been made there during the
time." So vexed was General Grant with the speculators that, early in
1865, he suspended all permits, but within a month he had to remove the
suspensions. Scharf, pp. 443, 446, 447.
[508] Taylor, "Destruction and Reconstruction," pp. 227, 235.
[509] Confederate currency was plentiful in the North, where it was made
even more cheaply than in the South, and the southerners did not notice
the difference.
[510] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, pp. 291-293, 638-640.
[511] Ho. Rept., No. 83, 45th Cong., 3d Sess.; No. 618, 46th Cong., 2d
Sess.
[512] _N. Y. Herald_, April 7, 1864.
[513] Jacobs, "Drug Conditions," p. 7. The Southern Express Company worked
in connection with the Adams, of which it had been a part before 1861.
[514] Jacobs, "Drug Conditions," pp. 7-10.
[515] Ho. Repts., 38th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 174. Before this, Samuel Noble
of Rome, Georgia, representing himself as a "loyal" man (he was introduced
and vouched for by George W. Quintard), made a contract with a United
States Treasury agent to deliver 250,000 bales of cotton from Alabama,
Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina. In Alabama at that time he owned
800 bales at Selma, 1256 at Mobile, and had much more contracted for. The
cotton was to be delivered at Huntsville, Mobile, and places in the
adjoining states. Noble was to get three-fourths of the proceeds,
according to the regulations. Ho. Rept., No. 24, 38th Cong., 2d Sess.
[516] Statement of Professor O. D. Smith of Auburn, Ala., who was then a
Confederate bonded agent operating in north Alabama.
[517] Taylor, "Destruction and Reconstruction," p. 232.
[518] Letter of Secretary Chase to Hon. E. B. Washburne, in Ho. Mis. Doc.,
No. 78, 38th Cong., 1st Sess.
[519] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 11, 1861. As early as Jan. 14, 1861,
Governor Moore reported that the poorest classes were in want and that
much suffering, perhaps starvation, would result unless aid were given. O.
R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 51. The soldiers' families were reported to be
almost destitute in April, 1861. _Idem_, p. 220.
[520] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 31, 1861.
[521] Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 29, 1861.
[522] Annual Cyclopædia (1862), p. 9.
[523] Jones, "Diary," Vol. I, pp. 194, 198.
[524] Act of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 8, 1862.
[525] Act of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 11, 1862.
[526] Act of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 8, 1862.
[527] Act of Gen. Assembly, Oct. 16, 1864.
[528] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Oct. 9 and Dec. 9, 1862, and Aug. 29, 1863.
Miller, "Alabama," p. 167.
[529] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 26, 1862.
[530] Act of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 28, 1862.
[531] Jones, "Diary," Vol. I, p. 194.
[532] Annual Cyclopædia (1863), p. 6.
[533] _N. Y. Herald_, Dec. 26, 1863.
[534] Act, April 19, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 18th Sess.; Act
of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 5, 1863.
[535] Act of Gen. Assembly, Aug. 29, 1863.
[536] Act of Gen. Assembly, Aug. 27, 1863.
[537] Act of Gen. Assembly, Aug. 27, 1863.
[538] Resolutions of Gen. Assembly, Aug. 27, 1863.
[539] Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 8, 1863.
[540] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 4 and Dec. 7, 1863.
[541] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Oct. 7, 1864, and Dec. 13, 1864.
[542] Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 9, 1864.
[543] Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 13, 1864.
[544] Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 4, 1864.
[545] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 8, 1862, Aug. 27 and 29, 1863, and Dec.
13, 1864.
[546] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 8, 1863. There were Confederate soldiers
who were paid only twice in two years' service, and then not enough to buy
a new uniform. The following incident is related of the 9th Alabama
Infantry: at Chancellorsville some Federals had been captured by the
regiment, and as they were being sent back over the field covered with
dead Federals, one of the prisoners remarked: "You rebs are sharper than
you used to be. You used to shoot us anywhere; now you shoot us in the
head so as not to bloody our clothes." The 9th was a regiment of
sharpshooters from north Alabama. The narrator says that the prisoner was
alluding to "the practice of stripping the dead of their clothing to cover
our nakedness."--"The Land We Love," Vol. II, pp. 216.
[547] The legislature had offered $200,000 for 50,000 pairs of shoes, but
received none.
[548] Miller, p. 167; Acts of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 8, 1863; O. R., Ser. IV,
Vol. II, pp. 32, 196.
[549] Resolutions of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 28, 1863.
[550] Miller, "Alabama," p. 229.
[551] Miller, p. 198.
[552] Miller, "Alabama," pp. 198, 199, 229.
[553] Saunders, "Early Settlers," p. 68.
[554] Saunders, "Early Settlers," p. 206; Hague, "Blockaded Family";
Clayton, "White and Black under the Old Régime"; "Our Women in the War."
[555] Governor Shorter's Proclamation, March 1, 1862; Annual Cyclopædia
(1862), p. 9.
[556] Annual Cyclopædia (1863), p. 6; Resolution, April 4, 1863, Pub.
Laws, 15th Cong., 3d Sess.
[557] A report to Davis in October, 1864, stated that Alabama, Georgia,
and Mississippi had been supplying the Confederate armies. Georgia was
exhausted, and Alabama, having sent 125,000 pounds of bacon, could do no
more. Pollard, "Lost Cause," pp. 648-649. But in remote counties were
large stores of supplies that could not be moved for want of
transportation facilities.
[558] "Our Women in the War," p. 275 _et seq._
[559] Moore, "Rebellion Records," p. 3; O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 701.
[560] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 11, 1862.
[561] Jones, "Diary," Vol. I, p. 198; Schwab, p. 180.
[562] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 8, 1862.
[563] Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 13, 1864.
[564] Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 8, 1862.
[565] Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 8, 1863.
[566] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, p. 971.
[567] In September, 1864, Surgeon Richard Potts was instructed to buy all
the apple brandy to be had, at not more than $35 a gallon, but to purchase
as a private individual in order not to have to pay too much. O. R., Ser.
IV, Vol. III, p. 682.
[568] Saunders, "Early Settlers of Alabama," p. 29; O. R., Ser. IV, Vol.
I, p. 608.
[569] See also article by C. C. Jones, Jr., in _Magazine of American
History_, Vol. XVI, pp. 168-175; J. W. Beverly (colored), "History of
Alabama," p. 22.
[570] Act, Jan. 31, 1861; Beverly, "Alabama," p. 200.
[571] April 15 and 21, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 2d Sess.
[572] Acts, Oct. 31 and Nov. 20, 1862.
[573] Resolutions, Aug. 29, 1863.
[574] I have known two men who hired negro substitutes to go to the army,
and the negroes having been killed in battle, the whites were forced to
go.
[575] Beverly, "Alabama," p. 200; Miller, "Alabama," pp. 198, 199, 207;
Curry, "Civil History," p. 110; O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 933.
[576] John S. Wise, "End of an Era," pp. 161, 212, speaks of the
impression made by the 3d Alabama before and after the two years' service.
The privates in one company in this regiment paid tax on $3,000,000.
[577] See also Beverly, "Alabama," p. 200. Several of these old
body-servants have related their experiences to me.
[578] _Sewanee Review_, Vol. II, pp. 94-95; Acts of Ala., Nov. 20, 1863,
and Resolution of Aug. 29, 1863; Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 10.
[579] See also C. C. Jones, Jr., in the _Magazine of American History_,
Vol. XVI, pp. 168-175. When the war ended General (now Senator) Morgan was
recruiting near Selma for a Confederate negro brigade.
[580] His master was named Godwin. Horace learned to make bridges, and
became so skilful and was so much in demand that he was set free. By
special act of the Alabama legislature he was given civil rights and at
once he became a slave owner. After the war he was in Republican politics
for a while, but soon went back to bridge-building.
[581] Some masters, like General John B. Gordon, informed their slaves
that the victory of the North meant the freedom of the negroes. See Ku
Klux Rept., Ga. Test., and _Sewanee Review_, Vol. II, p. 95. I have been
told by ex-slaves that the negroes in the quarters believed from the first
that their freedom would follow the defeat of the masters, but that few
slaves believed that their masters could be defeated.
[582] The following are some of the various occupations in which slaves
relieved whites: spinners, weavers, dyers, cutters and dressmakers,
body-servants, butlers, coachmen, gardeners, carpenters, planters, brick
masons, painters, tanners, shoemakers, harness makers, barrel makers,
wheelwrights, blacksmiths, machinists, engineers, millers, seine and sail
makers, and ship carpenters, besides farm occupations. Nearly all of the
skilled laborers were negroes. Their industrial capacity was even greater
during the war than in time of peace. President Winston in Proceedings of
Fourth Conference for Education in the South, pp. 40, 41. See also the
books of Miss Hague, Mrs. Clayton, and Booker T. Washington.
[583] Harrison, "Gospel Among the Slaves," p. 299.
[584] See Mallard, pp. 209, 210; Hague, "Blockaded Family"; Clayton,
"White and Black"; "Our Women in War"; _Sewanee Review_, Vol. II, p. 95.
[585] See Mallard, p. 210; _Sewanee Review_, Vol. II, pp. 94-95; _Southern
Magazine_, Jan., 1874.
[586] It has been estimated that one-fourth of the total number of negroes
was not engaged in field labor, but in some kind of service which brought
them into close relations with the whites. Tillinghast, "Negro in Africa
and America," p. 126. And on the farms and smaller plantations also the
blacks knew their "white folks."
[587] See W. H. Thomas, "American Negro," p. 41.
[588] The experiences of Reconstruction showed that the negro had only to
feel the touch of a stronger hand, and, with most of them, the attachments
of a lifetime were of no force. The negro was as wax in the hands of a
stronger race. Hence the influence of the carpet-baggers, who were for a
time the stronger power.
[589] Harrison, "Gospel among the Slaves," pp. 299, 300; McTyeire, "A
History of Methodism"; Riley, "Baptists in Alabama"; Mallard, "Plantation
Life," p. 74 _et seq._ W. H. Thomas (colored), "American Negro," pp. 41,
149, gives as reasons why the slaves did not revolt during the war: (1)
genuine affection for the whites; (2) the desire on the part of the negro
to do the duty intrusted to him; (3) and most important--the supreme and
all-pervading influence of religion. The mission work among the negroes
was kept up all during the war. Harrison, pp. 292-300; Tichenor, "Work of
Southern Baptists among the Negroes" (pamphlet).
[590] Harrison, pp. 299, 300. For general information in regard to the
negroes during the war, consult Beverly (colored), "Alabama," pp. 201,
202; Miller, "Alabama," pp. 142-157; Mallard, "Plantation Life";
Washington, "Up from Slavery"; Washington, "Future of the American Negro";
Thomas, "The American Negro"; Tillinghast, "Negro in Africa and America";
Hague, "A Blockaded Family"; Clayton, "White and Black under the Old
Régime"; Smedes, "Southern Planter"; "Our Women in War."
[591] W. G. Clark, "Education in Alabama," pp. 87-92; W. G. Clark, "The
Progress of Education," in "Memorial Record," Vol. I, p. 160; Acts, 1st
Called Sess. (1861), p. 56; _N. Y. Daily News_, May 29, 1865; _Century
Magazine_, Nov., 1889. In recent years Congress has made a grant of lands
in north Alabama to replace the burned buildings. Rept. Comr. of Ed.,
1899-1900, Vol. I, p. 484.
[592] Clark, "Education in Alabama," pp. 149, 152, 153, 156; "Northern
Alabama Illustrated," p. 453.
[593] Clark, "Education in Alabama," pp. 164, 174, 179, 180.
[594] Clark, "Education in Alabama," pp. 204, 208, 259; Acts, 1st Called
Sess. (1861), pp. 67, 70, 82, 113; Acts, 2d Called Sess. and 1st Regular
Sess., pp. 92, 93, 94; Brewer, "Alabama," p. 347.
[595] "Northern Alabama Illustrated," p. 513.
[596] Clark, "Education in Alabama," pp. 6, 7, 224, 226, 229, 239, 259;
Ingle, "Southern Side-Lights," p. 172.
[597] Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess., April 21, 1862; 1st Cong.,
2d Sess., Oct. 11, 1862.
[598] Acts, 1st Called Sess. (1861), p. 82.
[599] Acts (1862), p. 97.
[600] Acts, 2d Called and 1st Regular Sess. (1861), pp. 65, 182, 183, 223,
253, 255; Acts of 1863 and 1864, _passim_.
[601] My chief source of information in regard to the common schools
during the war has been the accounts of persons who were teachers and
pupils in the schools.
[602] From 1863 to 1865 W. G. Clark and Co. of Mobile, the chief
educational publishers of the state, brought out a series of five readers,
"The Chaudron Series,"--by Adelaide de V. Chaudron, a well-known writer of
Mobile. Large numbers were sold. S. H. Goetzel of Mobile published Madame
Chaudron's spelling-book, of which 40,000 copies were sold in 1864 and
1865. W. G. Clark and Co. printed a revision of Colburn's Mental
Arithmetic in 1864. A Mental Arithmetic by G. Y. Browne of Tuscaloosa is
dated Atlanta, 1865, but was probably published in North Carolina. In 1864
W. G. Clark and Co. announced "A Book of Geographical Questions." Before
the close of the war Confederate text-books were quite common in the
state. The series were usually named "Confederate," "Dixie," "Texas,"
"Virginia," etc. Stephen B. Weeks, in "A Preliminary Bibliography of
Confederate Text-books" (Rept. of Comr. of Ed., 1898-1899, Vol. I, p.
1139), lists 16 primers, 14 spellers, 29 readers, 4 geographies, 1
dictionary, 12 arithmetics, 12 grammars, 8 books in foreign languages, 20
Sunday-school and religious works, and 10 miscellaneous educational
publications. Those published in Georgia, North and South Carolina, and
Virginia sold largely in Alabama. Few came from the West. See also Yates
Snowden, "Confederate Books."
[603] See Weeks, "Bibliography of Confederate Text-books."
[604] See Mrs. Clayton, "White and Black," p. 115, and Hague, "Blockaded
Family."
[605] See Hague, "A Blockaded Family." Miss Hague was a teacher in a
plantation school during the war.
[606] W. W. Screws, "Alabama Journalism," in "Memorial Record," Vol. II,
pp. 195, 234.
[607] Screws, pp. 194, 195, 205, 212, 218, 233, 234; Pub. Laws, C.S.A.,
1st Cong., 1st Sess., April 21, 1862; 2d Sess., Oct. 11, 1862; Yates
Snowden, "Confederate Books."
[608] Screws, pp. 161, 166, 188, 192, 231.
[609] See also Yates Snowden, "Confederate Books." I have examined copies
of most of the books mentioned.
[610] Riley, "History of the Baptists of Alabama," p. 279.
[611] McPherson, "Rebellion," p. 514.
[612] Smith, "Life and Letters of James Osgood Andrew," p. 473.
[613] _N. Y. World_, Dec. 26, 1860.
[614] Riley, "Baptists of Alabama," p. 291.
[615] McPherson, "Rebellion," p. 591.
[616] Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess., April 21, 1862, and 2d
Sess., Oct. 11, 1862.
[617] Acts of Ala., Dec. 9, 12, and 13, 1864.
[618] _N. Y. Times_, Aug. 30, 1865.
[619] Rev. J. William Jones, "The Great Revival in the Southern Armies";
Rev. J. William Jones, "Confederate Military History," Vol. XII, p. 119
_et seq._; Bennett, "The Great Revival in the Southern Armies"; Alexander,
"History of the Methodist Church South," p. 74.
[620] Hague, "Blockaded Family," pp. 111, 112, 142; Ball, "Clarke County,"
p. 283.
[621] For one instance, see Hague, "Blockaded Family," p. 141; and for
others, Jones on the "Morale of the Confederate Armies," in Vol. XII,
"Confederate Military History."
[622] By the Alabama Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South,
there was appropriated for slave missions in the state
From 1829 to 1844 $17,366.36
From 1845 to 1864 340,166.67
Before the separation the planters were not favorably inclined toward
Methodist missionaries on account of the attitude of the northern section
of the church. They preferred the Baptists and Presbyterians, who did most
of their work with the blacks in connection with the white congregations.
After the separation, in 1845, there was a greater demand for Methodist
missionaries. Many planters of the Episcopal Church paid the salaries of
Baptist and Methodist missionaries to their slaves, and erected chapels
for their use. Harrison, "Gospel among the Slaves," pp. 302, 312, 313,
326. In 1860 there were 20,577 negro southern Methodists in Alabama, about
half of whom were attached to the white churches and the rest to
plantation missions. The number was rapidly increasing. The number of
negro Baptists was much greater, but there are no exact statistics of
membership. There were smaller numbers in all the other churches.
[623] The following statistics relate to colored mission work by the
Methodists:--
=================================================================
YEAR| NUMBER OF MISSIONS |MEMBERS|MISSIONARIES|APPROPRIATIONS
----|-----------------------|-------|------------|---------------
1859| 38 | 8381 | 39 | $25,849.10
1860| 40 | 9208 | 40 | 27,091.66
1861| 40 | ---- | 40 | 27,091.66
1862| 36 | 8962 | 35 | 10,800.00
1863| 37 | 9020 | 37 | 31,311.59
1864| 22 | 5153 | 22 | 24,508.00
|(Montgomery Conference)| | |
1864| 23 | 5684 | 33 | 26,938.16
| (Mobile Conference) | | |
1865| | | |Some money was
| | | | raised in 1864
| | | | for 1865.
=================================================================
The General Conference raised, in 1862, $93,509.87 for negro missions; in
1864, $158,421.96; and, for 1865, $80,000.
[624] Harrison, p. 314.
[625] Riley, "Baptists of Alabama."
[626] Hague, pp. 10, 11.
[627] Riley, "Baptists of Alabama," pp. 286, 300; McTyeire, "A History of
Methodism," p. 671; Tichenor, "The Work of the Baptists among the
Negroes." The war records of the churches show that sometimes the slaves
gave more money for church purposes than the whites; for example, in the
Methodist church of Auburn, Ala.
[628] Smith, "Methodists in Georgia and Florida."
[629] McPherson, p. 521.
[630] McPherson, p. 521.
[631] McPherson, pp. 521, 522; Nicolay and Hay, Vol. V, p. 337.
[632] See _Gulf States Hist. Mag._, Sept., 1902, on "The Churches in
Alabama during Civil War and Reconstruction"; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX,
Pt. I, p. 718; _Southern Review_, April, 1872, p. 414; _Boston Journal_,
Nov. 15, 1864; McTyeire, "A History of Methodism," p. 673.
[633] Richardson, "Lights and Shadows of Itinerant Life," p. 183.
[634] See Whitaker's paper in Transactions Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. IV, p.
211 _et seq._
[635] Col. Higginson seems to understand the influence of the women, but
not the reason for their interest in public questions. He says: "But for
the women of the seceding states, the War of the Rebellion would have been
waged more feebly, been sooner ended, and far more easily forgotten....
Had the voters of the South been all women, it would have plunged earlier
into the gulf of secession, dived deeper, and come up even more
reluctantly." Higginson, "Common Sense about Women," pp. 54, 209.
Professor Burgess, with a better understanding, explains the reason for
the interest of the women in sectional questions. He says that, after the
attempt of John Brown to incite the slaves to insurrection, "especially
did terror and bitterness take possession of the hearts of the women of
the South, who saw in slave insurrection not only destruction and death,
but that which to feminine virtue is a thousand times worse than the most
terrible death. For those who would excite such a movement or sympathize
with anybody who would excite such a movement, the women of the South felt
a hatred as undying as virtue itself. Men might still hesitate ... but the
women were united and resolute, and their unanimous exhortation was: 'Men
of the South, defend the honor of your mothers, your wives, your sisters,
and your daughters. It is your highest and most sacred duty.'" Burgess,
"Civil War and the Constitution," Vol. I, p. 42.
[636] "Our Women in War," _passim_; Ball, "Clarke County," pp. 261-274;
oral accounts, scrap-books, letters.
[637] One of my acquaintances says that quite often she had only bread,
milk, and syrup twice a day. Sometimes she was unable to eat any
breakfast, but after spinning an hour or two she was hungry enough to eat.
To many the diet was very healthful, but the sick and the delicate often
died for want of proper food.
[638] At the close of the war my mother was twelve years old; for more
than two years she had been doing a woman's task at spinning. Her sister
had been spinning for a year, though she was only six years old.
[639] Many of the heavier articles woven during the war, such as
coverlets, counterpanes, rugs, etc., are still, after forty years, almost
as good as new.
[640] Acts, Dec., 1861, 2d Called and 1st Regular Sess., p. 70.
[641] Hague, "Blockaded Family," _passim_; Miller, pp. 223-232; "Our Women
in the War," p. 275 _et seq._; Clayton, "White and Black under the Old
Régime," pp. 112-149; Porcher, "Resources of the Southern Fields and
Forests," pp. 70, 107, 284-295, 351, 372, 657.
[642] Clayton, "White and Black under the Old Régime"; Hague, "Blockaded
Family," _passim_; Miller, p. 229; Jacobs, "Drug Conditions," p. 16; oral
accounts; Porcher, _passim_.
[643] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 1073-1075; Jacobs, "Drug Conditions."
[644] Jacobs, pp. 4-6, 12-14, 16-21; Porcher, p. 65.
[645] Hague, "Blockaded Family."
[646] Jacobs, "Drug Conditions," pp. 4-6, 12-14, 16-21; Hague, "Blockaded
Family," _passim_; "Our Women in the War"; Ball, "Clarke County"; Miller,
"Alabama"; Porcher; Pub. So. Hist. Ass'n, March, 1903.
[647] Smedes, "A Southern Planter," p. 226.
[648] In the early part of the war when a soldier received a slight wound
he was given a furlough for a few weeks until he was well again. Slight
wounds came to be called "furloughs," and some soldiers when particularly
homesick are said to have exposed themselves unnecessarily in order to get
a "furlough."
[649] See _Boston Journal_, Sept. 29 and Nov. 15, 1864.
[650] See Mrs. Clayton's "White and Black" in regard to rations for
negroes.
[651] See Acts of Ala., Nov. 28 and 30, 1861, Dec. 9, 1862, and Dec. 8,
1863; Transactions Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. IV, pp. 219 _et seq._
[652] It was estimated that one-fourth of the people of the state were
furnished for three years with meal and salt.
[653] Moore, "Rebellion Record," Vol. IV (1862).
[654] _N. Y. News_, March 29, 1864, from the _Richmond Whig_, from the
_Mobile Evening News_; oral accounts. There were numbers of women who
actually cut off their hair, thinking that it could be sold through the
blockade. For a while they were hopeful and enthusiastic in regard to the
plan of selling their hair.
[655] P. A. Hague's "Blockaded Family" is the best account of life in
Alabama during the war. Mrs. Clayton's "White and Black under the Old
Régime" is very good, but brief. "Our Women in the War" is a valuable
collection of articles by a number of women. Nearly all the incidents
mentioned I have heard related by relatives and friends. "John Holden,
Unionist," by T. C. De Leon, gives a good account of life in the hill
country. Mary A. H. Gay's "Life in Dixie during the War" and Miller's
"History of Alabama" give information based on personal experiences.
Porcher's "Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests," published in
1863, is a mine of information in regard to economic conditions in the
South. Porcher quotes much from the newspapers and from correspondence.
The second edition, published in 1867, omits much of the more interesting
material.
[656] In his inaugural proclamation of July 20 (or 21), 1865, Governor
Parsons gives the following figures:--
Alabama male population (1860), 15 to 60 years 126,587
Connecticut male population (1860), 15 to 60 years 120,249
Alabama soldiers enlisted 122,000
Connecticut soldiers enlisted 40,000
Alabama soldiers died in service 35,000
Alabama soldiers disabled 35,000
_N. Y. Times_, Aug. 2, 1865; _N. Y. Herald_, Aug. 11, 1865; Parsons's
Message, Nov. 22, 1865; Parsons's Speech at Cooper Institute, Nov. 13,
1865.
[657] Fowler's Report, Transactions Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. II, p. 188.
[658] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 114, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[659] _N. Y. Times_, Oct. 31, 1865.
[660] Southern Hist. Soc. Papers, Vol. XV (Paroles at Appomattox); Miller,
"History of Alabama," p. 233; Brewer, "Regimental Histories."
[661] Census of 1866, _Selma Times and Messenger_, March 24, 1868.
[662]
WHITES BLACKS
1860 526,271 1860 437,770
1866 522,799 1866 423,445
1870 521,384 1870 475,510
Censuses of 1860, 1866, 1870.
[663] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 114, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[664] Miller, "History of Alabama," p. 141.
[665] Miller, "Alabama," p. 141 (Auditor's Report).
[666] 1860, 6,385,724 acres; 1880, 6,375,706 acres.
[667] 1860, $7,433,178; 1890, $4,511,645; 1900, $8,675,900.
[668] Which must be reduced by one-fifth for depreciated currency.
[669] See Census Bulletin, No. 155, 12th Census.
[670] Census, 1860 and 1900; Miller, "Alabama," p. 235.
[671] _N. Y. Times_, Nov. 2, 1865 (Truman).
[672] The explosion was caused by fire reaching the ordnance stores left
by the Confederate troops. One of the cotton agents claimed that 9000
bales of cotton were destroyed for him in the explosion. But the
government held otherwise. It was charged, without satisfactory proof,
that the cotton agents caused the explosion to cover their shortage.
[673] "Northern Alabama Illustrated," p. 321.
[674] "Northern Alabama Illustrated," p. 427.
[675] M. G. Molinari, "Lettres sur les États-Unis et le Canada," p. 233;
Somers, "Southern States," pp. 181, 183.
[676] Somers, "Southern States," p. 114; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 114, 39th
Cong., 1st Sess.
[677] John Hardy, "History of Selma," pp. 51, 52; Reid, "After the War,"
pp. 211, 214, 222, 371; Miller, "Alabama," pp. 233-235; Ho. Mis. Doc., No.
114, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (Patton to Congress); _N. Y. Times_, Nov. 2,
Oct. 31, and Aug. 17, 1865; Riley, "History of Conecuh County"; Riley,
"Baptists of Alabama," pp. 304, 305; Brewer, "Alabama," pp. 65, 69; Brown,
"Alabama," pp. 254, 256; DuBose, "Alabama," pp. 114, 115; "Our Women in
the War," p. 277 _et seq._
[678] Somers, "Southern States," p. 115.
[679] Somers, "Southern States," p. 115.
[680] Somers, "Southern States," p. 114.
[681] Reid, "After the War," pp. 222, 371; Ball, "Clarke County," p. 294;
Riley, "Baptists of Alabama," pp. 304-305; _N. Y. Times_, Oct. 31, 1865;
_N. Y. Herald_, July 23, 1865.
[682] An indignant northern newspaper correspondent appealed to the
military authorities to check this "rebellious discrimination," but
nothing was done. The railroad officials, as well as all other southern
people, were now suspicious of paper money.
[683] Ho. Repts., Vol. IV, 39th Cong., 2d Sess., on "Affairs of Southern
Railroads"; Trowbridge, "The South," p. 451; Reid, "After the War," p.
212; Brewer, "Alabama," pp. 78, 79; Miller, "Alabama," pp. 141, 234; _N.
Y. World_, July 18, 1865; _Selma Times_, Jan. 25 and Feb. 2, 1866; _N. Y.
Times_, Oct. 31, 1865; April 25 and July 2, 1866; Berney, "Handbook of
Alabama"; Hodgson, "Alabama Manual and Statistical Register."
[684] _N. Y. Herald_, June 17 and Aug. 30, 1865; Taylor, "Destruction and
Reconstruction," pp. 227, 228; Miller, "History of Alabama," p. 237;
McCulloch, "Men and Measures," p. 235.
[685] _N. Y. Herald_, July 17 and 20, 1865; _N. Y. World_, July 20, 1865;
_N. Y. Times_, Aug. 17 and Dec. 27, 1865; Miller, "History of Alabama,"
pp. 235, 237; Herbert, "The Solid South," pp. 18, 19; Ku Klux Rept., Ala.
Test., p. 451; oral accounts.
[686] "Our Women in the War," p. 279; Riley, "Baptists of Alabama," pp.
304, 305. See also Elizabeth McCracken, "The Southern Woman and
Reconstruction," in the _Outlook_, Nov., 1903.
[687] Miller, "History of Alabama," p. 238; Patton's Message, Jan. 16,
1866.
[688] Brewer, "Alabama," pp. 205, 206.
[689] _N. Y. Times_, Nov. 2, 1865 (Truman).
[690] _N. Y. Herald_, Oct. 5, 1895; Report of Carl Schurz.
[691] _Chicago Tribune_, (fall of) 1865, Montgomery correspondence.
[692] Governor Patton's Message, Jan. 16, 1866.
[693] Oral accounts; _Daily News_, Sept. 3, 1865 (Selma correspondence).
[694] Ordinances, No. 4, Sept. 20, 1865, and No. 54, Sept. 30, 1865.
[695] Reid, "After the War," pp. 351, 352; Ordinance, No. 43, Sept. 30,
1865.
[696] _Daily Times_, Aug. 17, Nov. 2, and Dec. 27, 1865; Report of Carl
Schurz; oral accounts.
[697] Report of the Freedmen's Bureau, Oct. 24, 1865; Patton's Message,
Jan. 16, 1866; Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III,
p. 140.
[698] _N. Y. Times_, Oct. 10, 1865. See also Resolutions of Legislature,
1865-1866.
[699] Joint Memorial and Resolutions of the General Assembly, in Acts of
Ala. (1865-1866), pp. 598-600.
[700] Memorial and Joint Resolutions, Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), pp.
601-603.
[701] Miller, "Alabama," p. 242.
[702] _N. Y. Herald_, Dec. 15, 1865.
[703] The wife of one of these officers was a notorious prostitute.
[704] _Selma Times_, Feb. 22, 1866.
[705] From Ms. account by a citizen of Greensboro. The young man who came
so near hanging was some years later a hotel proprietor in Birmingham and
created much newspaper discussion by ordering General Sherman to leave his
hotel.
[706] See Mrs. Clayton, "White and Black Under the Old Régime," pp.
152-153.
[707] Washington, "Up From Slavery," pp. 23, 24.
[708] _Columbus_ (Ga.) _Sun_, Nov. 22, 1865; _The World_, July 20, 1865;
_N. Y. Herald_, July 23, 1865; Parsons's Speech, Cooper Institute, Nov.
13, 1865; Riley, "Baptists of Alabama," pp. 305, 307; Ball, "Clarke
County," p. 294; Herbert, "Solid South," pp. 19, 20; Miller, "History of
Alabama," Ch. CXLI; oral accounts.
[709] _N. Y. Herald_, Aug. 27, 1865; _Mobile Register_, Aug. 16, 1865.
[710] _Huntsville Advocate_, July 26 and Nov. 9, 1865; McTyeire, "History
of Methodism"; Riley, "Baptists of Alabama"; conversations with various
negroes and whites.
[711] Hardy, "History of Selma," p. 85.
[712] _DeBow's Review_, March, 1866.
[713]
Negro population in 1860 437,770
Negro population in 1866 423,325
-------
Decrease 14,445
[714] Estimated 20,000--Census of 1866.
[715] _Southern Mag._, Jan., 1874. Authorities as already noted and
_DeBow's Review_, March, 1866; _Montgomery Advertiser_, March 21, 1866;
Hardy, "History of Selma," p. 85; _N. Y. Times_, Oct. 31, 1865;
_Huntsville Advocate_, Nov. 9, 1865; _N. Y. Herald_, July 17, 1865; _N. Y.
News_, Sept. 7 and Dec. 4, 1865; Census of 1866 in _Selma Times and
Messenger_, March 24, 1868; Mrs. Clayton, "White and Black," pp. 152, 153;
"Our Women in the War"; Thomas, "The American Negro," p. 190; Report of
the Joint Committee, Pt. III, p. 140; B. C. Truman, Report to the
President, April 9, 1866; Carl Schurz, Report to the President, see Sen.
Ex. Doc., No. 2, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; General Grant, Report to the
President, Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 2, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[716] _Southern Mag._, Jan., 1874.
[717] Protestant Episcopal Freedmen's Commission, Occasional Papers, Jan.,
1866.
[718] _N. Y. Times_, Aug. 17, 1865, Jan. 25, Feb. 12, and July 2, 1866;
_N. Y. Herald_, June 24, 1866; _The Nation_, Feb. 15 and April 19, 1866;
Reid, "After the War," pp. 369-371; Reports of Grant, Truman, and Schurz;
Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction (Fisk); Herbert, "Solid
South," p. 20; Paper by Petrie in Transactions Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. IV,
p. 465.
[719] Brown, "Alabama," p. 259.
[720] _Montgomery Advertiser_, Dec., 1865, and Jan. 31, 1866; _N. Y.
Times_, Oct. 31 and Dec. 27, 1865; _N. Y. News_, Dec. 4, 1865; _N. Y.
Herald_, Dec., 1865, and Jan. 31, 1866; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong.,
1st Sess.; Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 42, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (W. H. Smith);
Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6, 39th Cong., 2d Sess. (Swayne's Report); Riley,
"Baptists of Alabama," p. 305; Trowbridge, "The South," p. 445; Miller,
"Alabama," pp. 228, 229; Somers, "South since the War," p. 134;
_Huntsville Advocate_, Nov. 23, 1865.
[721] _Montgomery Advertiser_, Jan. 31, 1866.
[722] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Buckley's Report, Jan.
16, 1865; Report of John H. Hurst and A. B. Strickland, Oct. 4, 1865.
[723] Swayne's Report, Oct. 31, 1866; R. T. Smith to Swayne, Jan. 6, 1866
(in Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.); W. H. Smith, D. C.
Humphreys, and J. J. Giers, Memorial to Congress, Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 42,
39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Patton's Message, Jan. 16, 1866.
[724] Report of M. H. Cruikshank, March, 1866.
[725] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 114, 39th Cong., 1st Sess; _National
Intelligencer_, Oct. 2, 1866.
[726] _Huntsville Independent_, April 3 and 19, 1866; _Selma Times_, June
9, 1866; oral accounts.
[727] W. Garrett to Swayne, Jan. 15, 1866, in Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 38th
Cong., 1st Sess.
[728] _Chicago Tribune_, June 2, 1866 (Correspondent at Bellefonte,
Jackson County); _Huntsville Independent_, April 3 and 19, 1866; Reports
of General Swayne, 1865-1866.
[729] March 8, 1867, General Howard of the Freedmen's Bureau reported that
in Alabama there were 10,000 whites and 5000 blacks in a destitute
condition, and that during the next five months, owing to the failure of
the crops in 1866, there would be needed 2,250,000 rations valued at
$562,500, or 25 cents per ration. Sen. Ex. Docs., No. 1, 40th Cong., 1st
Sess. Report of Swayne, Oct. 31, 1866; Report of Com. Bureau, Nov. 1,
1867; G. O., No. 4, Hq. Dist. of Ala., Montgomery, Oct. 10, 1866.
[730] Freedmen's Bureau Report, Oct. 24, 1868.
[731] Swayne's Report, Nov., 1866; Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6, 39th Cong., 2d
Sess.; Reid, "After the War," p. 221; Freedmen's Bureau Report, Nov. 1,
1866, Nov. 1, 1867, Oct. 2, 1868; and other authorities noted above.
[732] These were general agents, supervising special agents, assistant
special agents, local special agents, agency aids, aids to the revenue,
customs officers, and superintendents of freedmen. Rules and Regulations,
July 29, 1864. Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 190, 44th Cong., 1st Sess.
[733] Amended regulations, Sec. IV, March 30, 1865.
[734] Rules and Regulations, Sec. IX, Treasury Department, May 9, 1865.
Renewed by Circular Instructions, May 16, 1865, and in force to June 30,
1865. In Alabama the regulation was enforced during the entire summer. Ho.
Rept., No. 83, 45th Cong., 3d Sess.
[735] McPherson, "Reconstruction," p. 9.
[736] Proclamations, June 13 and 23, 1865.
[737] Proclamation, Aug. 29, 1865.
[738] Wilson burned at Selma 32,000 bales, and at Columbus, Ga., 150,000
bales, much of which came from Alabama. During the raid he destroyed
275,000 bales, 125,000 of which were burned in Alabama. The Confederates
destroyed at Montgomery 80,000 bales (other accounts say 97,000 and
125,000; see Greeley, Vol. II, p. 19). Government cotton was, of course,
the first destroyed, and there is no doubt but that nearly all of it was
burned either by the raiders or by the Confederates to prevent its falling
into the hands of the enemy. Cotton was also destroyed at Mobile and by
the Federal armies that came up from the South.
[739] Report of A. Roane, Chief of the Produce Loan, C.S.A. Office, in Ho.
Mis. Doc., No. 190, 44th Cong., 1st Sess.
[740] Roane then estimated that by April 1, 1865, the Confederacy owned in
all no more than 150,000 bales. Dr. Curry, a member of the Confederate
Congress, stated that only 250,000 bales were ever owned by the
Confederate government. "Civil History," pp. 115, 128. F. S. Lyon, when a
member of the Confederate Congress in 1864, found that the Confederacy had
a claim on about 150,000 bales scattered over ten states. Ku Klux Rept.,
Ala. Test., 1426.
[741] J. Barr Robertson, "The Confederate Debt and Private Southern
Debts," p. 25.
[742] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 78, 38th Cong., 1st Sess. (Chase).
[743] Circular, Sept. 9, 1865.
[744] Act, March 12, 1863.
[745] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 114, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.; Treasury Department
Doc., No. 2261. According to a decision of the Supreme Court in case of
Klein _vs._ United States (13 Wallace, 128), "disloyal" owners might
become "loyal" by pardon and thus have all rights of property restored.
This was the effect of proclamations of the President. "The restoration of
the proceeds [then] became the absolute right of persons pardoned." See
Ho. Repts., No. 784, 51st Cong., 1st Sess., and No. 1377; 52d Cong., 1st
Sess. The Attorney-General stated that "Congress took notice of the fact
that captures of private property on land had been made and would continue
to be made by the armies as a necessary and proper means of diminishing
the wealth and thus reducing the powers of the insurgent rulers," and that
after a seizure had been made there could be no question of whether the
usages of war were observed or violated, except through the courts; the
President and the Secretary of the Treasury had no discretion in the
matter. Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 114, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. According to the
opinion of the United States law officers, "No one who submitted to the
Confederate States, obeyed their laws, and contributed to support their
government ought to recover under the statute" of March 12, 1863, See Sen.
Ex. Doc., No. 22, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.
[746] Secretary McCulloch to President of the Senate, Jan. 16, 1869. Sen.
Ex. Doc., No. 22, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., No. 37, 39th Cong., 25th Sess.
[747] Department Circular, No. 4, Jan. 9, 1900; 15 Stats.-at-Large, p.
251.
[748] See Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 16, 42d Cong., 2d Sess.; No. 12, 42d Cong.,
3d Sess.; No. 23, 43d Cong., 1st Sess.; No. 18, 43d Cong., 2d Sess.; No.
30, 44th Cong., 1st Sess.; No. 4, 45th Cong., 2d Sess.; Nos. 10 and 30,
46th Cong., 2d Sess.; also Treasury Department Doc., No. 2261 (1901);
Department Circular, No. 4. Jan. 9, 1900.
[749] Sen. Rept., No. 41, Pt. I, pp. 442, 445, 42d Cong., 2d Sess.
[750] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 1941.
[751] Curry, "Civil History Confederate States," pp. 115, 126, 128. See
testimony of Lieut.-Col. Hunter Brooke in Rept. Joint Committee on
Reconstruction, Pt. III, p. 115.
[752] Whitelaw Reid, "After the War," p. 204.
[753] Reid, "After the War," pp. 208, 209.
[754] Miller, "Alabama," p. 236.
[755] One who suffered writes from Selma: "Our cotton, the only thing left
us with which to buy the necessaries of life, was seized at the point of
the bayonet under the plea that it was Confederate cotton and that it was
being seized by the government for its own use, whereas it was taken by
the officers and sold, and the money put into their own pockets. It was
then worth $255 a bale. Gen. ---- commanded at this place, and he and his
staff coined money faster than a mint could turn it out." Judge B. H.
Craig. In July, 1865, a train of wagons at Talladega was sent to the
ginnery of Ross Green, at Alexandria, and 59 bales of cotton, Green's own
property, worth $100 a bale in gold, were carried off. Miller, p. 236.
[756] Testimony in Rept. of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III, p.
115; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 1426. F. S. Lyon said that the people
would have been better reconciled to the confiscation had the cotton been
sold for the benefit of the United States, but it was plainly stolen by
the agents and the army, and they began to resist in every way. Some of
them concealed Confederate cotton; some stole from the government, some
from the agents what the latter had stolen from them; some went into
partnership with the agents. No one believed that any one except the
original owner had a right to the cotton, and they did anything to get
even.
[757] Miller, p. 236; _N. Y. Times_, March 2 and Aug. 30, 1865. In the
Black Belt the United States military authorities collected the
tax-in-kind which had been levied by the Confederate authorities but not
collected. One planter had to pay one thousand bushels of corn, two
barrels of syrup, and smaller quantities of other produce. From those who
refused to pay the tax was taken forcibly. See Ku Klux Rept., p. 446 (F.
S. Lyon).
[758] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 30, 46th Cong., 2d Sess.
[759] Trowbridge, "The South," p. 447; Reid, "After the War," pp. 208,
209, 375; _N. Y. Times_, Aug. 30, 1865; _N. Y. Herald_, June 23, 1865.
[760] _N. Y. Times_, Aug. 30 and Nov. 2, 1865; _De Bow's Review_, 1866;
oral accounts.
[761] McCulloch, "Men and Measures," pp. 234, 235.
[762] Sen. Rept., No. 41, Pt. I, 42d Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 442-445.
[763] The minority Ku Klux Report asserted that it was a well-known fact
that Draper when appointed cotton agent was a bankrupt, and that when he
died he was a millionnaire.
[764] The cotton secured in this way was, it was claimed, sold as "waste,"
"trash," or "dog tail" to some friend of the agent, who would divide with
the latter.
[765] All freight, agency, auctioneer, insurance, storage, etc., charges,
and fees for legal advice, were charged against the cotton, and had to be
paid before it was restored.
[766] Probably Draper was correct here. The agents would consign to him
all cotton that they felt sure the government had record of, and the rest
they sold for their own benefit.
[767] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 190, 44th Cong., 1st Sess.
[768] Secretary McCulloch to President of the Senate, March 2, 1867, in
Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 37, 39th Cong., 2d Sess. In this way, during the summer
of 1865, $616,844.34 was restored to owners, and to the end of 1866
$1,018,459.83 was restored. Most of the owners lived in Alabama and
Louisiana.
[769] See Brewer, p. 375, and Garrett, p. 587. Lyon was one of the most
useful, reliable, and respected public men of Alabama and his account is
entitled to confidence. He had been a lawyer, clerk of the senate,
senator, member of Congress, state bank commissioner, presidential
elector, member Confederate Congress, etc.
[770] Letter to F. P. Blair, in Sen. Rept., No. 41, Pt. I, p. 445, 42d
Cong., 2d Sess.
[771] Under the reconstruction government Dustin held the office of
major-general of militia.
[772] See Ku Klux Rept., pp. 444-446. Letter of F. S. Lyon to General
Blair. Also Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 1410-1426, 1661.
Lyon had been agent for the Confederate Produce Loan, and consequently
knew what was government cotton and what was not. After the war he acted
as attorney for those whose cotton was unlawfully seized. The general
officers commanding in his district approved his conduct, but he was hated
by the cotton agents, who frequently complained of his "rebellious
conduct." Lyon tried to save even the cotton pledged to the Confederacy,
on the ground that the promise or sale had not been completed and that the
transaction was void from the beginning, and that the right of capture did
not exist after the close of the war.
[773] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 190, 44th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 146.
[774] Calculation based on subscriptions to Produce Loan. Most of it had
been destroyed.
[775] _N. Y. Times_, June 2, 1865; _Huntsville Advocate_, May 26, 1866.
Report of Grand Jury.
[776] _N. Y. Times_, June 2, 1866.
[777] Worth $500,000, at the lowest price.
[778] G. O., No. 55, Department of Ala., Oct. 30, 1865; G. O., No. 8,
Department of Ala., Feb. 14, 1866; Ms. records in War Department archives.
For years these men were in prison while their friends were working to
secure their release. The principal arguments for Dexter's release were
the virtue of his wife's relations in New England and the illegality of
the trial before the military commission in time of peace. Judging from
the tone of the indorsements he was probably released, though there is no
record of the fact in the archives. The manuscript proceedings of the
trial show that thousands of bales of cotton had been "spirited away," but
everything was in such a state of confusion that little could be plainly
proven against the agents. Only one thing was certain, "that much more
cotton was seized for the government than was received by the government."
The investigation was hushed up as soon as possible; too many were
implicated.
[779] Sen. Rept., No. 41, Pt. I, pp. 442, 445, 42d Cong., 2d Sess. This
estimate is probably too large for both numbers.
[780] "Civil History, Confederate States," pp. 115, 128.
[781] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 37, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.
[782] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 56, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.
[783] Sen. Rept., No. 41, Pt. I, p. 444, 42d Cong., 2d Sess.
[784] After which date confiscation was forbidden by Treasury regulation.
[785] An example of the way charges were piled up: A lot of 448 bales of
cotton was seized in Eufaula, Alabama, and shipped to New York, _via_
Appalachicola. The expenses were:--
Expenses to and at Appalachicola $24,264.85
Freight 4,164.69
Expenses at New York 2,500.05
Information and collecting 30,893.31
---------
Total expenses 61,822.90
Gross proceeds of sale 78,352.56
Net proceeds of sale 16,529.66
Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 23, 43d Cong., 2d Sess.
The following cotton statistics show how the Mobile agents ran up
expenses:--
J. R. Dillon, 1st Agency: Cotton sales $57,033.66
Total proceeds of all sales 129,076.33
Expenses, total 64,350.01
S. B. Eaton, 1st Agency: Cotton sold 15,963.01
Total receipts 27,799.48
Total expenses 27,799.48
T. C. A. Dexter, 9th Agency: Cotton sold 39,945.39
Total receipts 783,152.62
Expenses 485,137.77
J. M. Tomeny, 9th Agency: Cotton sold 14,159.51
Total receipts 208,185.63
Expenses 208,185.63
Total expenses of every kind amounted to 6,546,000.95
On receipts of 34,396,189.95
Of which cotton sold for 29,518,041.17
[786] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 56, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.
[787] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 97, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.
[788] See Ku Klux Rept., pp. 443-446; Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 37, 39th Cong.,
2d Sess.; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 97, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.; Ho. Ex. Doc., No.
113, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.; Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 23, 43d Cong., 2d Sess.;
Department Circular, No. 4, Jan. 9, 1900.
[789] Department Circular, No. 4, Jan. 9, 1900; Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 23, 43d
Cong., 2d Sess. There are imperfect records of only two Alabama agencies,
which reported a certain number of bales seized. The other agencies did
not report their operations in Alabama. The agents not reporting were: J.
R. Dillon, H. M. Buckley, S. B. Eaton, E. P. Hotchkiss, L. Ellis, A. D.
Banks, James and Ellis Carver, and perhaps others. None of the numerous
collecting agents made reports or kept records. In 1876, thirty-three
cotton agents were defaulters to the United States, one man owing the
United States $337,460.44. Of these, sixteen were not to be found
anywhere. Four of the defaulters had operated in Alabama. These men were
by their own records defaulters--having failed to turn over to the
government the proceeds of sales they had reported. Ho. Mis. Doc., No.
190, 44th Cong., 1st Sess.
[790] In addition to the tax of twenty-five per cent on purchases of
cotton levied by a Treasury regulation during the war and in force during
1865. Treasury regulations, May 9, 1865. See also President's
proclamation, in McPherson, "Reconstruction," p. 9.
[791] Governor Patton, in his message of Nov. 12, 1866, stated that the
cotton tax of three cents a pound was oppressive and unjust, a burden on
the farmers and on the laborers also; that the tax went into the United
States Treasury and then passed into the hands of the manufacturers as a
gratuity of three cents per pound; that there was no way of getting the
ruinous tax raised or lightened unless by an appeal in the form of a
petition; that the people of Alabama had no voice in the government; that
this "law paralyzes our energies and represses the development of our
resources and is injurious to the whole country." Governor's Message,
House Journal, 1866-1867, p. 21.
[792] Twenty states and territories are not included in these sums, as no
reports were received from them. Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 181, 42d Cong., 3d
Sess., and Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 2, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.
[793] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 181, 42d Cong., 3d Sess.
[794] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 47, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 181,
42d Cong., 3d Sess.
[795] $54,191,229 in 1870.
[796] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 181, 42d Cong., 3d Sess.
[797] The cotton tax was justified on the ground that while Alabama had
paid $14,200,982 from 1862 to 1872, New Jersey had paid a total tax of
$48,528,298, the two states having very nearly the same population. But no
account was taken of the fact that for four years no tax was collected
from Alabama by the United States, while nearly all of the movable wealth
was destroyed during the war, and that in 1865 property was almost
non-existent in Alabama. New Jersey, however, was a rich state. Alabama
had besides paid an enormous war tax and had been looted of millions of
dollars' worth of cotton. And in Alabama there were 500,000 negroes who
paid no tax, while most of the population of New Jersey were taxpayers.
Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 181, 42d Cong., 3d Sess.
[798] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 34, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[799] Sen. Mis. Doc., No. 100, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (A. A. Low, Chairman
of Committee of the N. Y. Chamber of Commerce).
[800] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 383, 403 (General Pettus); Journal of
the Convention of 1867.
[801] See Saunders, "Early Settlers," p. 31 (Reverdy Johnson to Saunders).
Jan. 18, 1872, the Alabama legislature (Republican Senate and Democratic
House) memorialized Congress, asking to have the cotton tax refunded to
the impoverished people, and stating that the tax was "most unjust and
oppressive, a direct tax upon industry"; that to refund the tax would be
"evenhanded but tardy justice." Acts of Ala., 1871-1872, pp. 445-446. A
similar petition was made on Feb. 23, 1875. Acts of Ala., 1874-1875, p.
674.
[802] In December, 1903, Representative J. S. Williams of Mississippi
introduced a measure in Congress to refund the amount of the cotton tax to
the southern states.
[803] It is difficult to understand now how thoroughly the Confederate
soldier realized that the questions at issue were decided against him. But
that it was a crime to have been a Confederate soldier, he did not
understand. See also testimony of John B. Gordon and of Edmund W. Pettus
in the Ku Klux Testimony.
[804] A neglected point of view is the attitude of the Confederate
soldier. He had surrendered with arms in hand, and certain terms had been
made with him, as he thought, a contract, embodied in the parole. This he
believed secured his rights in return for laying down arms, and that as
long as he was law-abiding his rights were to be inviolate. He was well
pleased with the "spirit of Appomattox," but nearly all that happened
after Appomattox was in violation, he felt, of the terms of surrender. The
whole radical programme was contrary to the contract made with men who had
arms in their hands. Lee had decided that there should be no guerilla
warfare, and in return certain moral obligations rested on the North. See
the statements of General (now Senator) Edmund W. Pettus, in Ku Klux
Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 377, 383, and of General John B. Gordon, in Ga.
Test., pp. 314, 332, 333, 343.
[805] See "Our Women in the War," p. 280; Ball, "Clarke County," p. 463;
Le Conte, "Autobiography," p. 236.
[806] _N. Y. Herald_, June 17 and Aug. 30, 1865; _N. Y. Times_, Aug. 17
and Oct. 31, 1865; Mrs. Clay, "A Belle of the Fifties"; _Nation_, Feb. 15,
1865; oral accounts; Clayton, "White and Black under the Old Régime."
[807] Letter concerning affairs at the South, Dec. 18, 1865, Sen. Ex.
Doc., No. 2, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.; McPherson, "Reconstruction," p. 67.
General Grant's conclusions were undoubtedly correct, but they evidently
could not be based on the information gathered in a week's journeying
through the South. This gave the Radicals an opportunity to attack his
report as being based on insufficient information. But General Grant knew
the men against whom he had fought, he had talked with many of the
representative men of the South, and through military channels was well
informed as to actual conditions at the South.
[808] Report of Carl Schurz, Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 2, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
Schurz made a journey of more than two months through the southern states.
Judging from the testimony which he submits, his confidence must have been
confined to the officers of the Freedmen's Bureau. As a foreigner (a
German), he would not be able, even if so inclined, to ascertain anything
of the sentiments of the representative people. However, his report was
evidently not based entirely on the evidence submitted with it; if it had
been, it would have been even more unfavorable. In _McClure's Magazine_,
January, 1904, Schurz has an article which is practically a rewriting of
this report made nearly forty years before. He repeats some of the same
stories told him then, and endeavors to reconcile his attitude in
1865-1866 with his course as a Liberal Republican in 1871-1872.
[809] Report of Benjamin C. Truman to the President, April 9, 1866, Sen.
Ex. Doc., No. 43, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; _N. Y. Times_, March 2, 1865.
Truman spent two months in Alabama, and saw many prominent men whom Schurz
did not see, and came in contact with thousands of other citizens. His aim
was to picture conditions as they were. The newspaper correspondents,
regardless of politics, gave better accounts than the volunteer officers,
who had little training or education and much prejudice.
[810] See Blaine, Vol. II, p. 127.
[811] The sub-committee: Senator Harris (New York) and Senator Boutwell
(Massachusetts) and Morrill (Vermont) from the House.
[812] Smith and Humphreys.
[813] J. J. Giers.
[814] M. J. Saffold. He was pardoned by President Johnson for that
offence.
[815] George E. Spencer, Colonel 1st Alabama Union Cavalry.
[816] The witnesses who furnished testimony to the Congressional committee
were:--
==================================================================
NAME | NATIVITY | REMARKS
------------------------------|----------------|------------------
1. Warren Kelsey | Massachusetts | Cotton speculator
2. General Edward Hatch | Iowa | Volunteer army
3. General George E. Spencer | Iowa | Volunteer army
4. William H. Smith | Alabama | Deserter
5. J. J. Giers | Alabama | Tory
6. Mordecai Mobley | Iowa |
7. General George H. Thomas | Virginia | U. S. Army
8. General Clinton B. Fisk | North | Freedmen's Bureau
9. M. J. Saffold | Alabama | "Union" man
10. D. C. Humphreys | Alabama | Deserter
11. Colonel Milton M. Bane | Illinois | Volunteer army
12. General Joseph R. West | California | Volunteer army
13. Colonel Hunter Brooke | North | Volunteer army
14. General Grierson | Illinois | Volunteer army
15. General Swayne | North | Freedmen's Bureau
16. General C. C. Andrews | Minnesota | Volunteer army
17. General Chetlain | Illinois | Volunteer army
18. General Tarbell | North | Volunteer army
==================================================================
[817] One of these men (W. H. Smith) became the first scalawag governor of
Alabama, another (George E. Spencer) became a United States senator by
negro votes, the third (Giers) was provided for in the departments at
Washington, the fourth (Saffold) became a circuit judge in Alabama, and
the fifth (Humphreys) a judge of the Supreme Court of the District of
Columbia. See Herbert, "The Solid South," pp. 19, 20.
[818] Testimony of General Swayne, Report of the Joint Committee on
Reconstruction, 1866, Pt. III, pp. 138-141.
[819] Other witnesses gave, in some respects, more favorable testimony,
though most of them were very much more bitter. General Swayne showed no
bias except the natural bias of one who did not understand the people, and
who had no sympathy with any of the southern social or political
principles. Of the northern men he was the best qualified by experience
and observation to testify as to conditions in the South. He was an
intelligent, educated man, trained in the law, and had a good military
record. Most of the others were distinctly below his standard,--ignorant,
prejudiced officers of volunteers from the West.
[820] General Swayne was in Alabama nearly three years as the head of the
unpopular Freedmen's Bureau, and his accounts, from first to last, of
conditions in Alabama were marked by a fairness which can be found in but
little of the official correspondence from the South. He believed in the
Freedmen's Bureau, in negro suffrage, and in the political proscription of
white leaders; but his feelings influenced his judgment but little, and,
unlike other Bureau officials, he never made misrepresentations.
[821] _The Nation_, Feb. 15, 1866.
[822] _Huntsville Advocate_, July 26, 1865.
[823] Herbert, "Solid South," pp. 29, 30; _Atlantic Monthly_, Feb., 1901.
[824] See Memorial of William H. Smith, J. J. Giers, and D. C. Humphreys
to Congress, Feb., 1866, in Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 42, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
Testimony of the same and of M. J. Saffold in Report of Joint Committee on
Reconstruction, 1866; letter of D. H. Bingham from West Point, New York;
Reid, "After the War," _passim_.
[825] See Le Conte, "Autobiography," p. 236; Montgomery correspondent in
_N. Y. Daily News_, May 7, 1866.
[826] A newspaper correspondent, the guest of ex-Governor C. C. Clay,
wrote: "While the Yankee boldly marched in at the front door into his
[Clay's] parlors and best chambers to dream loyal dreams and rest now that
the warfare's o'er, the quondam aristocrat [a son of ex-Governor Clay,
editor of a paper in Huntsville, had been outlawed for his sentiments
during the occupation of north Alabama by the Federal troops and was in
hiding] must plod around to the rear and there eat the (corn) bread of mad
passion weighed down with mad remorse." Letter from a travelling
correspondent of the _N. Y. Times_, Aug. 17, 1865. The _Times_ usually had
very little of such correspondence. The _Times_, the _Herald_, and the
_World_ had good correspondents in the South, especially during
Reconstruction.
[827] An old Alabama river steamboat captain had had his boat burned by
Wilson, but had secured another. The Federal army regarded him as a most
unmitigated "rebel." He would play "Dixie" in spite of all prohibitions.
He was finally arrested on a more serious charge.
"What do you answer to the charge against you?"
"Faith, an' which one?"
"That you refuse to take the bodies of dead Federal soldiers on your boat
to Montgomery."
"No, no, that's not true. God knows it would be the pleasure of my life to
take the whole Yankee nation up the river _in that same fix_." "Our Women
in the War," p. 281.
Colonel Robert McFarland returned to Florence in the only suit he
possessed--a gray uniform. He was peremptorily ordered by the Federal
officers not to wear it. He was in a quandary until a friend secured a
long linen duster for him to wear. "Northern Alabama," p. 291.
[828] Gen. T. Kilby Smith, on Sept. 14, 1865, in Mobile, made a statement
for Carl Schurz in which he asserted that one of the most intelligent,
well-bred, pious ladies of Mobile wanted the military authorities to whip
or torture into a confession of theft two negroes whom she suspected of
stealing. She considered it a hardship, he said, that a negro might not be
whipped or tortured in order to force a confession, when there was no
evidence against him. "I offer this," he wrote, "as an instance of the
feeling that exists in all classes against the negro." See Doc. No. 9,
accompanying the report of Schurz.
[829] I have seen a coarse article reflecting on the character of southern
women originally published in the _Tribune_ and copied in a small Alabama
paper each issue for several weeks. It asserted in thinly veiled terms
that many of the young southern women were too intimate with negro men;
the solution of the race question by amalgamation was asserted as sure to
come; details of such a solution were suggested, and examples of what was
taking place were cited.
[830] General Terry attempted to explain the condition of affairs by
saying that the results of the war were but the legitimate consequence of
a conflict between an inferior and a superior race. "Land We Love," Vol.
IV, p. 243. Gen. T. Kilby Smith, in September, 1865, complained that
Federal officers were not received in society in Mobile. General Wood, he
said, had been six weeks in Mobile, "ignored socially and damned
politically"; and this, he said, in a community which before the war was
considered one of the most refined and hospitable of all the southern
maritime cities, the favorite home of army and naval officers. Doc. No. 9,
accompanying the report of Schurz.
[831] In addition to references cited above, see also _Huntsville
Advocate_, March 9 and 23, July 26, 1865; Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 42, 39th
Cong., 1st Sess.; Sen. Mis. Doc., No. 43, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (Truman);
Reid, "After the War," pp. 211, 212, 218, 219; "The Land We Love,"
_passim_; "Our Women in the War," p. 279 _et passim_; Abbott, "The Rights
of Man," pp. 224-226; Clayton, "White and Black," pp. 150-152; Clay, "A
Belle of the Fifties"; Straker, "The New South Investigated," pp. 24, 57;
Report of the Joint Committee, 1866, Pt. III; _N. Y. Daily News_, April
16, 1864, and Dec. 4, 1865; Reports of Schurz, Truman, and Grant; Reports
of the Freedmen's Bureau; _Southern Magazine_, 1874 (DeLeon); _N. Y.
Times_, Oct. 31, 1865; _N. Y. Herald_, July 23, 1865; Miller, "Alabama,"
pp. 233-251; Columbus (Ga.) _Sun_, March 22 and April 19, 1865; _The
Nation_, Feb. 15, 1866; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., _passim_;
Reconstruction articles in _Atlantic Monthly_, 1901.
[832] Trowbridge, "The South," p. 448.
[833] Thomas W. Conway, of the Freedmen's Bureau, who passed through the
state in 1866, stated that there were men in Alabama who, rather than sell
their lands to northern men or borrow money in the North, would see their
plantations lie waste, and before they would hire their former slaves as
free laborers they would starve. The spirit of hatred toward northern men
was universal, he said. Report to Chamber of Commerce, New York, June 7,
1866.
[834] Jan. 17, 1867, the state legislature declared that the reports
published in the northern papers that it was unsafe for northern men to
reside in Alabama were false. The lower house declared that "we, in the
name of the people of Alabama, most cordially invite skilled labor and
capital from the world, and particularly from all parts of the United
States, and pledge the hearty coöperation and support of the state."
Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 15. For several years every inducement was
offered by the planters to encourage immigration to the Black Belt. As
late as 1869 immigration conventions were held. Annual Cyclopædia (1869),
p. 10. During 1865 the north Alabama "unionists" hoped to see northern
white men come in and take the place of the negroes. _The Nation_, Aug.
17, 1865.
[835] Report of Truman, Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 43, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Reid
"After the War," _passim_; Trowbridge, "The South," p. 448; _N. Y. Times_,
Nov. 10, 1865, July 2 and Oct. 31, 1866; General Swayne's testimony,
Report Joint Committee, Pt. III, p. 141; General Tarbell's testimony,
Report Joint Committee, Pt. III, pp. 155, 156.
[836] Report Joint Committee, 1866, Pt. III, pp. 139-141.
[837] In addition to the above references, see _The World_, Nov. 13, 1865;
_N. Y. Times_, July 2 and Sept. 9, 1866; _N. Y. Herald_, July 23 and Aug.
28, 1865 (Swayne); Truman's Report, April 9, 1866; Swayne's Report, Jan.,
1866; _Harper's Monthly Magazine_, Jan., 1874.
[838] Pastoral Letters, May 30 and June 20, 1865.
[839] Perry, "History of the American Episcopal Church," Vol. II, p. 328
_et seq._; Whitaker, "The Church in Alabama," pp. 172-175; _N. Y. Herald_,
Sept. 4, 1865; Wilmer, "The Recent Past from a Southern Standpoint," p.
143. Gen. T. Kilby Smith said that Wilmer had great influence among the
better class of people, especially the women. Doc. No. 9, accompanying the
report of Carl Schurz.
[840] Perry, "History of the American Episcopal Church," Vol. II, p. 328
_et seq._; Whitaker, pp. 175, 176; Wilmer, pp. 143-145.
[841] Whitaker, p. 177; Wilmer, "Recent Past," p. 145. A copy of the order
was also found in the War Department archives.
[842] Pastoral Letter, Sept. 28, 1865.
[843] Whitaker, pp. 180, 181; Wilmer, pp. 145, 146; _Montgomery Mail_,
Oct. 2, 1865.
[844] Whitaker, p. 182; Wilmer, p. 146; Copy of order in War Department
archives. Republished on G. O. 2, Jan. 10, 1866, Hq. Dept. Ala., Mobile.
[845] Whitaker, p. 186; _Mobile Register_, Jan. 9, 1866; _Montgomery
Mail_, Jan. 19, 1866.
[846] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 25; Wilmer, pp. 147-152; Whitaker, pp.
189-194; Perry, Vol. II, p. 328 _et seq._ The northern conferences of the
Methodist Protestant Church returned in 1877 to the southern organization.
See "Statistics of Churches," p. 566.
[847] See Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. X, p. 562.
[848] See Dunning, "Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction," pp.
100-103.
[849] McPherson, "Reconstruction," pp. 121, 122, 504, 505.
[850] Taylor, "Destruction and Reconstruction"; Report of Joint Committee
on Reconstruction, Pt. III, pp. 15, 60.
[851] See Dunning, "Essays," pp. 103-104.
[852] With only two dissenting votes.
[853] Some of these were southerners who were about to withdraw.
[854] _Cong. Globe_, July 22, 24, 25, 1861.
[855] _Cong. Globe_, Dec. 5, 1862.
[856] Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, pp. 5-12.
[857] Proclamation, Dec. 8, 1863, in Messages and Papers of the
Presidents, Vol. VI, p. 213.
[858] Proclamation, July 8, 1864, Messages and Papers of the Presidents,
Vol. VI, p. 223.
[859] Lincoln to Reverdy Johnson, Nicolay and Hay, p. 349.
[860] Nicolay and Hay, Vol. IX, p. 457; Vol. X, p. 123.
[861] Nicolay and Hay, Vol. VIII, p. 434.
[862] Message, Dec. 4, 1865, in Messages and Papers of the Presidents,
Vol. VI, p. 379.
[863] _Cong. Globe_, Feb. 11, 1862.
[864] _Atlantic Monthly_, Oct., 1863.
[865] _Globe_, Feb. 25, 1865, and Dec. 4, 1865. See Henry Adams,
"Historical Essays."
[866] Speeches in the _Globe_, 1865-1867.
[867] _Globe_, Aug. 2, 1861.
[868] _Globe_, Jan. 8, 1863.
[869] _Globe_, Jan. 22, 1864.
[870] _Globe_, Jan. 8, 1863.
[871] _Globe_, Dec. 4, 1865, March 10, 1866; Taylor, "Destruction and
Reconstruction," p. 244.
[872] See also Dunning, "Essays," pp. 106-108.
[873] See Dunning, "Essays," pp. 99-112; Texas _versus_ White (1869), 7
Wallace 700; Scott, "Reconstruction during the Civil War"; McCarthy,
"Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction"; Burgess, "Reconstruction and the
Constitution," pp. 1-143.
[874] _N. Y. Times_, April 4, 1865.
[875] Elected in 1863.
[876] Testimony of M. J. Saffold, Report Joint Committee, 1866, Pt. III,
p. 60. The "union" men greatly exaggerated the strength of the "union"
sentiment in the state during the war and their individual part in the
peace movement. This was necessary in order to secure recognition as
representatives of a strong "union" element. When the plan of the
President was so modified as to leave them in their natural position of no
influence, they became very bitter against it and played the martyr act to
perfection.
[877] Testimony of J. J. Giers, Report Joint Committee, Pt. III, p. 15; O.
R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. II, pp. 473, 485, 505, 506.
[878] See pp. 143-148.
[879] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. II, p. 560.
[880] Judge Byrd was elected to the Supreme Court in 1865. He was a
distant relative of Colonel William Byrd, of Westover, Va., Esq. Brewer,
p. 224.
[881] General C. C. Andrews, in O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. II, p. 727;
_N. Y. Commercial Advertiser_, May 27, 1865; _N. Y. Tribune_, June 2,
1865.
[882] There were present: Ex-Gov. John G. Shorter, M. A. Baldwin
(Attorney-General, Brewer, p. 445), W. B. Bell, A. B. Clitherall (Brewer,
p. 479), all of whom had been ardent secessionists, and L. E. Parsons (see
p. 143), Col. J. C. Bradley, Col. J. J. Seibels (Brewer, p. 459; see p.
143), W. J. Bibb, J. G. Strother, M. J. Saffold (Brewer, p. 215), George
Goldthwaite (Brewer, p. 451, A. and I. General). It was a fairly
representative body of government officials and "stay-at-homes."
[883] Garrett, p. 166. Reese was a "Union" man.
[884] _N. Y. Commercial Advertiser_, May 27, 1865; _N. Y. Tribune_, June
2, 1865; _Montgomery Mail_, May 12, 1865. The members of the committee
which went to Washington were: Joseph C. Bradley, L. E. Parsons, M. J.
Saffold, Lewis Owen, George S. Houston, James Birney, W. J. Bibb, John M.
Sutherlin, Albert Roberts, Luke Pryor. None of the committee had been
secessionists. Reese had been a "Union" man, Saffold a "political agent."
W. J. Bibb had made a visit to Washington during the war and had a
consultation with Lincoln. Parsons was a "Union" man. Houston and Pryor
(see Brewer, pp. 324, 326) were neither "Union" nor "secessionist," but
"constitutional." The others were unknown to public life.
[885] Formerly colonel of the 48th Alabama Infantry.
[886] _N. Y. Daily News_, May 29, 1865.
[887] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. II, p. 826.
[888] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. II, p. 971.
[889] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. II, pp. 810, 854, 877.
[890] Member of Congress, Confederate colonel of the 36th Alabama, former
Whig. Brewer, p. 425.
[891] Former Whig, Adjutant and Inspector-General during the war. Brewer,
p. 397.
[892] _N. Y. Herald_, June 15, 1865.
[893] _N. Y. World_, June 13, 1865. The absence of the old names in all
these movements is noticeable. The old leaders had been strongly in favor
of the Confederacy and now took back seats while smaller men came forward.
They never came into power again.
[894] _Huntsville Advocate_, July 19, 1865.
[895] In one of the mountain counties, but the exact location was never
named in any of the accounts of the convention.
[896] _N. Y. Herald_, June 17, 1865.
[897] He represented Talladega in the convention of 1867.
[898] See above, p. 125.
[899] Parsons, Bradley, Houston, Nicholas Davis, Pryor, Saffold, Bibb,
Roberts, etc.
[900] Letter in _N. Y. Herald_, June 17, 1865.
[901] See McPherson, "Rebellion," p. 286.
[902] The _Mobile Register_ and _Advertiser_ (John Forsyth, editor)
supported the President's policy: "The states were never out of the
Union"--July 18, 1865. The _Huntsville Advocate_, July 19, said, "The
presidential policy is simple, direct, and emphatic." Henry W. Hilliard,
General Cullen A. Battle, Ex-Governors Shorter, Moore, Watts, and
Fitzpatrick declared that there would be no opposition but a hearty effort
"to get straight."
[903] Lilian Foster, "Andrew Johnson: Services and Speeches," pp. 199,
210, "Address to Loyal Southerners," April, 1865.
[904] There is little reason to believe that Lincoln could have succeeded
in the struggle with Congress.
[905] See Foster, "Andrew Johnson," for change of feeling in Johnson as
expressed in his speeches in 1865 and 1866.
[906] "President Tamers" the Radicals called them.
[907] McCulloch, p. 517 and Preface; _Nation_, Oct. 26, 1865; Mayes, "L.
Q. C. Lamar"; Reid, "After the War," pp. 404, 405, 578; _Mobile Register
and Advertiser_, July 18, 1865; _Huntsville Advocate_, July 18, 1865.
[908] McPherson, p. 10; Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, p.
310.
[909] McPherson, p. 10.
[910] G. O., Nos. 5, 13, and 14, Department of Alabama, 1865.
[911] _N. Y. Herald_, June 21, 1865; Brewer and Garret, _sub. nom._
[912] Article II, section 2: Article IV, section 4.
[913] Lewis Eliphalet Parsons, born 1817, Boone County, New York, was the
son of a farmer and the grandson of the celebrated Jonathan Edwards. He
came to Alabama in 1840 and practised law in Talladega, was a Whig, later
a Douglas Democrat, and on both sides during the war. See above, p. 143.
[914] Here "loyal" seems to mean those who had taken the amnesty oath.
[915] Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, p. 323.
[916] Those who could take the iron-clad test oath of 1862.
[917] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 26, p. 97, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[918] James Redpath in _The Nation_, Aug. 17, 1865, condensed.
[919] See Foster, "Andrew Johnson," pp. 199, 210, 214, 220, 250.
[920] The 22d of May was the date when the Confederate state government
ceased to exist.
[921] Garrett, p. 735, says Aug. 30 and Sept. 12. The convention met on
Sept. 12.
[922] Parsons's Proclamation, July 20 (or 22), 1865; in _N. Y. Herald_,
July 26 and Aug. 11, 1865; Garrett, p. 735; McPherson, p. 21.
[923] Parsons's Message to Convention, Sept. 21, 1865; Proclamation, July
20, 1865; in _N. Y. Herald_, Aug. 11, 1865.
[924] _Huntsville Advocate_, Aug. 17, 1865.
[925] See McCulloch, p. 517 and _passim_; _N. Y. Tribune_, May 4, 1866;
_Mobile Times_, April 25, 1866.
[926] _N. Y. Herald_, Sept. 3, 1865.
[927] Testimony of M. J. Saffold, Report of Joint Committee, 1866, Pt.
III, pp. 59-63.
[928] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 16, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.
[929] Others were pardoned for having aided the Confederacy in the
following occupations: agents of the Nitre and Mining Bureau; tax
collector and state assessor; tax receiver (Confederate); general officer
of the Confederate army; postmasters who had held office before the war;
members of the state legislature; cotton agents; foreign agents and
commissioners; graduates of West Point and Annapolis; resigning United
States service to join Confederacy; mail contractors; clerks of the
Confederate government; state and Confederate judges; members of Congress;
receivers of subscriptions for the Confederacy; marshals and deputy
marshals; clerks of state and Confederate courts; agents for the purchase
of supplies; members of advisory board; cotton bond agent; Confederate
government official; commissioner of appraisement; depositary; route
agent; commissioner of Indian affairs; member of convention of 1861; prize
commissioner; commissioner to take testimony; Indian agent; Confederate
financial agent; commissioner to examine prisoners held by military
authorities; agent of the Produce Loan; receiver of the tax-in-kind;
leaving loyal state; commissioner of "fifteen million loan"; agent to
receive subscriptions for cotton and produce loans; depot agent to receive
the tax-in-kind; agent under sequestration laws; enrolling officer;
impressment agent; Treasury agent; Confederate contractor; sequestration
commissioner; agent to collect provisions for the army; district attorney;
state printer; border agriculturist; custom officer; agent to receive
titles; commissioner to examine political prisoners. Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 16,
40th Cong., 2d Sess., gives a list of those pardoned. Some of the more
well-known men pardoned were: R. M. Patton, "agent for the sale of rebel
bonds, and worth over $20,000"; Nicholas Davis, "member of rebel
provisional Congress"; Charles Hays, worth over $20,000; Benjamin
Fitzpatrick, "resigned United States Senate"; J. G. Gilchrist, "member of
Secession Convention"; S. F. Rice, worth over $20,000; S. S. Scott, Indian
agent; H. C. Semple, worth over $20,000; Thomas H. Watts, "member of rebel
convention, voted for ordinance of secession, colonel in rebel army,
attorney-general of the would-be Southern Confederacy, rebel governor of
Alabama, and worth $20,000"; M. J. Saffold, "commissioner to examine
political prisoners, and state printer."
[930] The names and offences of those pardoned are given in Ho. Ex. Doc.,
No. 99, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; No. 16, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.; and No. 31,
39th Cong., 2d Sess.
[931] _N. Y. Herald_, Oct. 15, 1865.
[932] _Montgomery Daily Advertiser_, Oct. 1, 1865.
[933] _N. Y. Herald_, Sept. 26 and Oct. 15, 1865.
[934] _N. Y. Herald_, Sept. 26, 1865.
[935] Journal of the Convention, 1865, p. 28.
[936] Journal of the Convention, 1865, pp. 16, 57, 58; _N. Y. Herald_,
Sept. 26 and Oct. 15, 1865.
[937] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), pp. 16, 17; Journal of the Convention,
1865, pp. 57, 58.
[938] The vote cast was 92, probably all who were present. Journal of the
Convention, p. 59; _N. Y. Herald_, Sept. 26, 1865; Shepherd, "Constitution
and Ordinances," 1865, p. 48; Code of 1867, Ordinance No. 13, Sept. 25,
1865. Early in the session Mardis of Shelby, a "loyal" member, proposed a
resolution to the effect that the ordinance of secession was
"unconstitutional and therefore illegal and void, [and that] the leaders
of the rebellion having been forced to lay down their arms and turn over
to the conservative people of the state the reigns of the civil government
by which the state has become more peaceful and loyal to the United States
government. She is now entitled to all the rights as before ordinance of
secession." Journal of the Convention, 1865, p. 16. The resolutions of the
"loyalists" were curiosities, and the secretary did not always expurgate
bad spelling, etc.
[939] Shepherd, "Constitution and Ordinances," 1865, p. 49; Ordinance No.
14.
[940] _N. Y. Herald_, Sept. 22, 1865.
[941] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 17; _N. Y. Times_, Sept. 29, 1865; _N.
Y. Herald_, Oct. 15, 1865; Shepherd, "Constitution and Ordinances," 1865,
pp. 53, 54; Ordinances Nos. 25-28, September, 1865. In spite of this
ordinance certain war debts were paid. Fowler, Superintendent of Army
Records, was paid $3000 for his work during the war, the legislature
buying the records from him. Coleman, a Confederate judge, was paid for
services during the war. See Acts 65-66 and the Journal of the Convention
of 1867. The newspaper reports give summaries of the debates on the more
important ordinances; the Journal of the Convention gives only the votes
and resolutions.
[942] Chairman of the committee on suffrage, Convention of 1901.
[943] It seems to have been taken for granted by the convention that
slavery was already abolished.
[944] The amnesty proclamation expressly excepted property in slaves.
[945] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 14; _N. Y. Times_, Sept. 30, 1865.
[946] "Loyalist," and later a "scalawag."
[947] _N. Y. Herald_, Oct. 15, 1865.
[948] Journal of the Convention, 1865, p. 49.
[949] Journal of the Convention, 1865, pp. 49, 50; _N. Y. Herald_, Oct.
15, 1865; Shepherd, "Constitution and Ordinances," 1865, p. 45, Ordinance
No. 6. The three members who voted against the abolition ordinance were
Crawford of Coosa, Cumming of Monroe, and White of Talladega. They wanted
to let the Supreme Court decide. The Supreme Court of Alabama, a year
later, held that, as a matter of history which the court would recognize,
slavery was dead as a result of war before the passage of the ordinance of
Sept. 22, 1865.
[950] That class of men called all negroes "free negroes" and "freedmen"
for years after the war as a term of contempt.
[951] Afterwards second provisional governor.
[952] _N. Y. Times_, Sept. 30, 1865.
[953] _N. Y. Herald_, Oct. 15, 1865.
[954] _N. Y. Times_, Sept. 30, 1865.
[955] Journal of the Convention, 1865, p. 80; Shepherd, "Constitution and
Ordinances," 1865, p. 61, Ordinance No. 34.
[956] _Huntsville Advocate_, Sept. 28, 1865. A "Johnson reconstruction
paper."
[957] _Huntsville Advocate_, Oct. 12, 1865.
[958] Shepherd, p. 57, Ordinance No. 30; Journal of the Convention, 1865,
pp. 67, 68. See Constitution of 1865, Article IV, Section 4.
[959] Journal of the Convention, 1865, p. 34.
[960] A member of the convention of 1861.
[961] _N. Y. Herald_, Oct. 15, 1865.
[962] Journal of the Convention, 1865, p. 74.
[963] Shepherd, p. 44, Ordinance No. 5.
[964] Shepherd, p. 54, Ordinance No. 26.
[965] Shepherd, p. 46, Ordinance No. 7.
[966] Shepherd, p. 63, Ordinance No. 39.
[967] Shepherd, p. 74, Ordinance No. 42. See Constitution, 1865, Article
IV, Section 31.
[968] Shepherd, pp. 44, 53, 65, Ordinances Nos. 4, 23, 43.
[969] Shepherd, pp. 49, 62, 68, Ordinances Nos. 15, 37, 49.
[970] Ordinances Nos. 8, 16, 22, 33.
[971] Shepherd, p. 70.
[972] _N. Y. Herald_, Oct. 15, 1865; Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 26, 39th Cong.,
1st Sess. (Parsons); Report Joint Committee, 1866, Pt. III, pp. 138-141.
[973] Parsons's Proclamation, Sept. 28, 1865.
[974] _Montgomery Advertiser_, May 12, 1866.
[975] In Macon, Russell, and Lowndes counties.
[976] _N. Y. Daily News_, Sept. 7, 1865; _N. Y. Tribune_, Feb. 6, 1866;
Swayne's Report, Jan., 1866, in Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st
Sess.; Report Joint Committee of Reconstruction, 1866, Pt. III, p. 140
(Swayne).
[977] "I, _A. B._, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have never
voluntarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a
citizen thereof; that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance,
counsel or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto;
that I have never sought nor accepted nor attempted to exercise the
functions of any office whatever, under any authority or pretended
authority, in hostility to the United States; that I have not yielded a
voluntary support to any pretended government, authority, power or
constitution within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto; and I
do further swear (or affirm) that, to the best of my knowledge and
ability, I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States
against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and
allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any
mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and
faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to
enter. So help me God." McPherson, "Reconstruction," p. 193.
[978] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 81, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., McCulloch, Report,
March 19, 1866; McCulloch, "Men and Measures," pp. 227, 233. The Finance
Committee reported in favor of paying these officials, accepting as
correct the secretary's statement. They were paid, in spite of the
opposition of Sumner, who voted not to pay "those rebels." McCulloch, p.
232.
[979] On March 17, 1866, the Postmaster-General, in a letter to the
President, stated that the test oaths of July 2, 1862, and March 3, 1863,
hindered the reconstruction of the postal service in the South. Of 2258
mail routes in 1861, only 757 had been restored. Before the war there were
8902 postmasters, and in 1866 there were but 2042, of whom 420 were women
and 865 others could not take the oath. Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 81, 39th Cong.,
1st Sess.
[980] _N. Y. News_, Dec. 8 and Oct. 23, 1865; _N. Y. Times_, July 2, 1866.
[981] Cox, "Three Decades," p. 603; Reid, "After the War," pp. 401, 402;
_N. Y. Daily News_, Oct. 23 and Dec. 8, 1865; _N. Y. Times_, July 2, 1866.
[982] _Selma Times_, April 10, 1866. The rejection of such men as Dr. F.
W. Sykes of Lawrence as tax commissioner was especially discouraging to
the anti-Democratic party in the state. Sykes had been an obstructionist
in the legislature during the war. Brewer, p. 309.
[983] One official who had suffered from objections made against his past
record inserted the following advertisement in the _Selma Times_, April
11, 1866:--
"Having been elected twice, given three approved bonds, and sworn in five
times, I propose opening the business of the city courts of Selma.
"E. M. GARRETT,
"_Clerk City Court of Selma_."
[984] There were no nominating conventions; the candidates were announced
by caucuses of friends. Several other men were spoken of, but the contest
narrowed down to three.
[985] _N. Y. Times_, Nov. 10, 1865.
[986] R. M. Patton, 21,442; M. J. Bulger, 15,234; W. R. Smith, 8194. The
total vote was 44,870; the registration to Sept. 22, 1865, had been
65,825; the vote for delegates to the convention had been about 56,000;
the vote for presidential electors in 1860 had been 89,579. The falling
off in the vote may be explained by the death and disfranchisement of
voters and by the indifference of south Alabama people to the north
Alabama candidates.
[987] The convention in September had proceeded to correct the theory of
the situation by conferring the powers of a civil governor upon Parsons,
and authorizing him to act as governor until the elected governor should
be qualified.
[988] McPherson, "Reconstruction," p. 21. Alabama was the twenty-seventh
state to ratify, and with seven other seceding states made up the
necessary three-fourths of the thirty-six states. So far the Johnson state
governments were recognized. _Tribune_ Almanac, 1866. Later, when all that
the "restoration" administration had done was found to be useless or worse
than useless, an Alabama writer, in "The Land We Love," complained:--
"The constitutional amendment abolishing slavery could only be passed
constitutionally when the southern states were in the Union. We were then
in the Union for the few weeks during which time this was being done. For
this brief privilege we lost 4,000,000 of slaves valued at $1,200,000,000.
We have every reason to be thankful for being wakened out of our brief
dream of being in the Union. A few more weeks of such costly sleep would
have stripped us entirely of houses and lands."
[989] _N. Y. Herald_, Dec. 19, 1865.
[990] Inaugural Addresses, Dec. 13, 1865; Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 19.
[991] Both Parsons and Houston had been "Unionists," but neither could
have subscribed to the oath exacted from members of Congress. The
representatives chosen were: (1) C. C. Langdon, Whig, Bell and Everett
man, of northern birth, opposed secession, a member of the legislature of
1861; (2) George C. Freeman, Whig, Bell and Everett man, opposed
secession, captain and major 47th Alabama; (3) Cullen A. Battle, Democrat,
major-general C.S.A.; (4) Joseph W. Taylor, Whig, Bell and Everett man,
opposed secession; (5) Burwell T. Pope, Whig, opposed secession; (6)
Thomas J. Foster, Whig, Bell and Everett man, opposed secession. None of
the congressmen-elect could subscribe to the test oath. The people would
have voted for no man who could take the test oath.
[992] McPherson, p. 15.
[993] _Cong. Globe_, Dec. 4, 1865.
[994] _Globe_, Dec. 4, 1865. This was a distinct refusal to recognize, for
the present at least, the restoration as done by the President.
[995] _Cong. Globe_, Dec. 18, 1865.
[996] Herbert, "Solid South," p. 12.
[997] McPherson made a collection of extracts from various newspapers
relating to his action in omitting the names of the southern members. Few
of the editorials seem to indicate any belief that a grave constitutional
question was to be settled. Most of the editors believed that he had
exceeded his authority, but approved his action because the southern
members were Democrats. The general opinion seemed to be that their
politics alone was a cause of offence. See McPherson's scrap-book, "The
Roll of the 39th Congress," in the Library of Congress.
[998] _Globe_, March 2, 1866.
[999] Swayne's Report, Oct. 31, 1866, Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6, 39th Cong.,
1st Sess.
[1000] Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), p. 601.
[1001] Swayne's Reports, Dec. 26, 1865, Jan. 31, 1866, and Oct. 31, 1866,
in Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., and Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6,
39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Patton's Message, Jan. 16, 1866; _N. Y. Times_,
Jan. 18, 1866; _N. Y. Evening Post_, Jan. 29, 1865; McPherson,
"Reconstruction," p. 21; McPherson's scrap-book, "Freedmen's Bureau Bill,"
1866.
[1002] McPherson, "Reconstruction," pp. 21, 22; Act, approved Feb. 23,
1866, Penal Code of Ala., pp. 6-8; Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), pp. 121, 124.
[1003] Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), Act of Dec. 15, 1865; Penal Code of Ala.,
p. 12. The compilers of the Penal Code placed this act in the Code
separate from the rest, as irreconcilable with the provisions of the Code
and with other legislation. That is, they refused to codify it and left it
for the courts to decide. The law was meant to suppress a common practice
of encouraging negroes to steal cotton, etc., for sale.
[1004] Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), p. 98; Penal Code, pp. 164, 165. In one
respect the negro had a better standing in court than the white: he was a
competent witness in his own behalf, and his wife might also be a witness.
[1005] Acts, Dec. 11 and 26, 1865. See below, Ch. XII.
[1006] In an interview with General Swayne, in 1901, he informed me that
he was present when the bills were drawn up. The governor and the
president of the Senate in consultation decided that all measures already
brought forward should be vetoed or dropped; the apprentice and contract
laws as they stood on the statute book were then drawn up, and no
objection was made to them by General Swayne, who was present by request.
He made suggestions as to what would be acceptable to the Bureau and to
northern public opinion.
[1007] Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), pp. 111, 112 (Act of Feb. 16, 1866);
Penal Code, p. 13.
[1008] Penal Code, pp. 50, 51.
[1009] Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), pp. 128-131 (Act Feb. 23, 1866).
[1010] Penal Code, pp. 34, 35.
[1011] Penal Code of Ala., pp. 10-12; Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), pp.
119-121. This was another act which the compilers refused to incorporate
into the Penal Code. It was an amendment to the law already on the statute
books, and the constitution of the state provided that the law revised or
amended must be set forth in full (Article IV, Section 2.) The next
legislature repealed this and similar laws as being in conflict with the
Code. Acts of Ala. (1866-1867), pp. 107, 115, 504. It was never in force,
being practically repealed by the later adoption of the Penal Code, which
had the old ante-bellum law of vagrancy, which provided a fine of $10 to
$50 for the first offence, and for a second conviction, $50 to $100 and
hard labor for not more than six months. (See Penal Code, p. 37). The laws
regulating labor and vagrancy were so carelessly drawn that it would have
been practically impossible to enforce them. Not only were they
technically unconstitutional, but they were also in conflict with the
provisions of the Code. The consequence was confusion and the suspension
of both Code and statutes. Colonel Herbert, in "The Solid South" (pp.
31-36), gives a summary of similar laws of the northern states which were
more stringent than the Alabama laws. As a matter of fact, all the states
had similar laws, but in the South they had always been a dead letter on
the statute book.
[1012] See Blaine, "Twenty Years," Vol. II, p. 93.
[1013] It was not possible then, nor is it now, to pass any law in regard
to labor contracts, vagrancy, or minor crimes, that would not affect the
negroes to a much greater degree than the whites. All laws regulating
society, if strictly enforced, would bear with much greater force upon
blacks than upon whites.
[1014] Neither Swayne nor Howard made any objection to the apprentice and
vagrancy laws, and so far as I can gather from the reports of General
Swayne, they were not enforced. If so, there were no results unfavorable
to the freedmen. In 1901, in an interview, Swayne stated that all measures
that he considered objectionable had either failed to pass the Senate or
had been vetoed by the governor. He intimated that he had a great deal to
do with the suppression of such measures and the framing of new ones.
[1015] Feb. 13, 1866.
[1016] The date of the beginning of the provisional government.
[1017] General Swayne's account.
[1018] _Montgomery Advertiser_, Feb. 14, 1865; Swayne's Report, Oct. 31,
1866; Swayne's Testimony, Report Joint Committee, Pt. III, pp. 138-141.
[1019] Truman's Report, April 19, 1866; Mrs. Clayton, "White and Black,"
p. 152 _et passim_; "Our Women in the War," _passim_; _The Nation_, Oct.
5, 1865; Reid and Trowbridge.
[1020] Truman's Report, April 19, 1865.
[1021] _The Nation_, Feb. 15, 1866.
[1022] Referring to the emigration movement to Mexico, Brazil, Europe,
etc.
[1023] This charge was published in the general presentments of the Pike
County grand jury and was immediately taken up by the northern Democratic
and the conservative Republican papers and given a wide publication. Mrs.
Clayton republished it in her book (pp. 156-165). Judge Clayton was
disfranchised by the Reconstruction Acts, and not until 1874 was he again
able to hold judicial office. The bench and bar were generally in favor of
admitting the negro to the fullest standing in the courts. Under slavery,
when a case turned on negro testimony, extra-legal trials were often held
and the decision given by "lynch-law" jury, the court officials presiding.
In 1865 the lawyers and judges were ready to admit negro testimony,
according to General Swayne, but made more or less objection in order not
to alienate those of the people who objected.
[1024] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 43, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1025] _The Nation_, Oct. 5, 1865.
[1026] Brooks was a cousin of Preston Brooks of South Carolina, and had
been president of the convention of 1861. The measure was indorsed by
Governor Patton, Judge Goldthwaite, and a respectable minority. Ku Klux
Rept., Ala. Test., p. 226.
[1027] McPherson's scrap-book, "Fourteenth Amendment," p. 55.
[1028] First Confederate Secretary of War, brigadier-general, C.S.A.
[1029] For this incident my authority is a statement of General Swayne
made to me in 1901. He was much interested in the movement, and was
positive that in time the native whites would have given the suffrage to
the negro had not the Reconstruction Acts and other legislation so
alienated the races. General Swayne gave me full explanations of his
policy in Alabama. His death, a year after the interview, prevented him
from verifying some details. His account, though given thirty-five years
after the occurrences, was correct so far as I could compare it with the
printed matter available. It agreed almost exactly with his reports as
printed in the public documents, though he had not those at hand, and had
not seen them for thirty years. I have several times been told by old
citizens that negroes voted in 1866, in minor elections, by consent of the
whites.
[1030] "Diary and Correspondence of S. P. Chase," in the Annual Report of
the Amer. Hist. Assn. (1902), Vol. II, p. 517.
[1031] Stephen B. Weeks, in _Polit. Sci. Quarterly_ (1894), Vol. IX, pp.
683-684.
[1032] See Herbert, "Solid South," pp. 29, 30, 37.
[1033] Resolution, Dec. 2, 1865, Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), p. 598.
[1034] Resolution, Jan. 16, 1866, Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), p. 603.
[1035] Resolution, Dec. 15, 1865, Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), p. 604.
[1036] Resolution, Feb. 22, 1866, Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), p. 607;
McPherson, p. 22; _Selma Times_, Feb. 27, 1867.
[1037] See _N. Y. Herald_, April 17, 1866 (Alabama correspondence).
[1038] McPherson's scrap-book, "The Campaign of 1866," Vol. I, pp. 84,
122.
[1039] See Burgess, "Reconstruction," pp. 64-67.
[1040] McPherson's scrap-book, "Freedmen's Bureau Bill, 1866," pp. 47,
128.
[1041] The reconstruction laws of Congress were almost invariably referred
to as "Bills" even in official documents and military orders.
[1042] McPherson's scrap-book, "Civil Rights Bill, 1866," pp. 136, 151.
[1043] McPherson's scrap-book, "Civil Rights Bill, 1866," p. 135.
[1044] McPherson's scrap-book, "Civil Rights Bill, 1866," p. 110.
[1045] McPherson's scrap-book, "Civil Rights Bill, 1866," p. 120.
[1046] McPherson's scrap-book, "Fourteenth Amendment," pp. 33, 34.
[1047] The cotton tax, for instance.
[1048] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 226.
[1049] _N. Y. Tribune_, Nov. 30, 1866. I have not been able to discover
what the name of the paper was, but very likely it was the _Mobile
National_.
[1050] McPherson's scrap-book, "Fourteenth Amendment," pp. 39, 55, 56.
[1051] Governor's Message, Nov. 12, 1866, in House Journal (1866-1867), p.
35; _N. Y. Tribune_, Nov. 19, 1866; Annual Cyclopædia (1866), pp. 11, 12.
[1052] House Journal (1866-1867), p. 198.
[1053] McPherson, p. 194; McPherson's scrap-book, "Fourteenth Amendment,"
p. 55; _N. Y. Times_, Jan. 23, 1867. General Wager Swayne to S. P. Chase,
Dec. 10, 1866, wrote, in substance, that--the evident intention of
Congress to enforce its own plan makes it seem possible to secure from the
Alabama legislature the ratification of the Amendment; that the Senate was
ready to ratify in spite of the governor's message against it, and of the
certain disapproval of "the people, poor, ignorant, and without mail
facilities," but a despatch had been sent to Parsons in the North for
advice, and he advised rejection; inspired, it was asserted by the
President, the cry was raised, "we can't desert _our_ President," and the
measure was lost; but when they return (in January) they will be prepared
for either course, and the governor will recommend ratification. "Diary
and Correspondence of S. P. Chase," in the Annual Rept. of the Amer. Hist.
Assn. (1902), Vol. II, pp. 516-517.
[1054] _N. Y. Times_, Jan. 9, 1867. Patton also went to Washington during
the recess.
[1055] Annual Cyclopædia (1866), pp. 11, 12.
[1056] McPherson, pp. 352, 353; McPherson's scrap-book, "Fourteenth
Amendment," pp. 60, 66. The telegrams are in the Impeachment Testimony,
Vol. I, pp. 271-272. Interview with General Swayne, 1901.
[1057] Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 15.
[1058] See McPherson, pp. 118, 240, 241.
[1059] _N. Y. Herald_, July 19, 1866.
[1060] According to his own report. See _Nation_, Feb. 15, 1866. Hart,
"American History as told by Contemporaries," Vol. IV, p. 49.
[1061] Report of B. C. Truman, April 9, 1866; Report of Joint Committee,
1866, Pt. III, _passim_; Report of Schurz with accompanying documents; _N.
Y. Times_, Sept. 9 and Oct. 3, 1866; _Nation_, Feb. 15, _et passim_;
_World_ and _Tribune_; _Herald_ and _Tribune_ correspondent, 1865;
_Montgomery Mail and Advertiser_; _Selma Times_; _Tuscaloosa Monitor and
Blade_, 1865 to 1875. Of the New York papers the _Nation_ and _Tribune_
were especially violent at first, but changed later. The _Times_ and the
_Herald_ had fair correspondents most of the time.
[1062] _N. Y. Daily News_, May 7, 1866 (Montgomery correspondent).
[1063] See _N. Y. Times_, Sept. 9, 1866 (Federal soldier), Oct. 3, 1866
(Ohio man); _N. Y. News_, May 7, 1866 (Montgomery correspondent).
[1064] Lewis E. Parsons (New York), Whig; George S. Houston; A. B. Cooper
(New Jersey), Whig; John Forsyth, State Rights Democrat; R. B. Lindsay
(Scotch), Douglas Democrat; James W. Taylor, Whig; Benjamin Fitzpatrick,
Douglas Democrat.
[1065] Some of them were W. H. Crenshaw (Democrat), who
presided,--Crenshaw was then president of the Senate; John G. Shorter
(Democrat), war governor of Alabama; H. D. Clayton (Whig), Confederate
general; C. C. Langdon (Whig); William S. Mudd (Whig); William Garrett
(Whig); M. J. Bulger (Douglas Democrat), Confederate general; C. A. Battle
(Democrat), Confederate general; A. Tyson (Whig). See Brewer and Garrett,
and _N. Y. Times_, Aug. 3 and 9, 1866.
[1066] McPherson, pp. 240, 241.
[1067] _N. Y. Times_, Aug. 27, 1866. By "Union" party, Parsons evidently
meant those who opposed secession.
[1068] The northern business men were on the side of the whites.
[1069] McPherson, p. 124.
[1070] McPherson, p. 242.
[1071] _N. Y. Times_, Sept. 8, 1866.
[1072] Davis was of good middle-class Virginia stock. A Whig in politics,
Mrs. Chesnut called him "a social curiosity." In convention of 1861 he
voted against immediate secession, threatened resistance among the hills
of north Alabama, and ended by signing the ordinance of secession; was
chosen to succeed Dr. Fearn in the Confederate Provisional Congress; was
appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 19th Alabama Infantry, but declined;
commanded a battalion for a while; his "loyalty" consisted in his leaving
the Confederate service and returning to Huntsville within the Federal
lines. Brewer, p. 365, Garrett, pp. 341, 342; Smith's Debates, _passim_.
He soon fell out with the carpet-baggers and "formed a party of one."
[1073] The disposition of some of the north Alabama leaders (even among
the Conservatives) to play the childish act was one of the disgusting
features of Reconstruction.
[1074] _N. Y. Times_, Jan. 23, 1867. Among those present were: D. C.
Humphreys (Douglas Democrat), Confederate officer, who deserted to
Federals (he was in the first carpet-bag legislature, and later judge of
the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia; see Garrett, p. 364); John
B. Callis, agent of the Freedmen's Bureau, Veteran Reserve Corps, member
of Congress, 1868; C. C. Sheets, in convention of 1861, refused to sign
ordinance of secession and deserted to Federals, a member of Congress,
1868; Thomas M. Peters, Whig, deserted to Federals, later judge of Supreme
Court of Alabama (see Brewer, p. 309; Garrett, p. 440); F. W. Sykes,
member of legislature during war, soon returned to Conservative party
(Brewer, p. 309); J. J. Hinds, afterward a notorious scalawag.
[1075] One new man was S. C. Posey of Lauderdale, who had been in the
convention of 1861 and refused to sign the ordinance of secession and was
in the legislature during the war. Returned soon to Conservative party.
Brewer, p. 299, Garrett, p. 389.
[1076] The Radical party might have done much worse than to send him to
the Senate. Warren and Spencer, the senators elected, were far inferior in
character and abilities to Swayne. He was too decent a man to suit the
Radicals and was soon dropped.
[1077] _N. Y. Herald_, March 6, 1867.
[1078] The proclamation announcing that the rebellion had ended was issued
April 2, 1866. McPherson, p. 15.
[1079] Van Horne, Life of Thomas, pp. 153, 399, 400, 408; _Huntsville
Advocate_, June 9, 1866 (for copy of order relating to Department of the
South that I have not found elsewhere); G. O. No. 1, Mil. Div. Tenn., June
20, 1865; G. O. No. 118, W. Dept., June 27, 1865; G. O. No. 1, Dept. Ala.,
July 18, 1865; G. O. No. 1, Dist. Ala., June 4, 1866; G. O. No. 1, Dept.
Tenn., Aug. 13, 1866; G. O. No. 42, Dept. Tenn., Nov. 1, 1866. The general
and special orders cited in this chapter are on file in the War Department
at Washington.
[1080] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. II, pp. 505, 560, 727, 826, 854, 971;
Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III.
[1081] Miller, "Alabama," p. 236; Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), pp. 598, 601.
[1082] That is, the officers had the privileges and authority of officers
of a division. G. O. Nos. 1, 9, 17, 29, 54, Dept. Ala., 1865; G. O. No. 1,
Mil. Div. Tenn., 1865.
[1083] The "Amnesty Oath." The oath of allegiance had already been
administered to all who would take it. See McPherson, "Reconstruction,"
pp. 9, 10.
[1084] G. O. Nos. 13 and 14, Dept. Ala., 1865.
[1085] G. O. No. 3, Dept. Ala., July 21, 1865. There was complaint about
the stealing of cotton by troops.
[1086] G. O. No. 6, Post of Montgomery, May 15, 1865. This order is
printed on thin, blue Confederate writing paper, which seems to have been
shaped with scissors to the proper size. Supplies had not followed the
army.
[1087] G. O. No. 24, Dept. of Ala., Aug. 25, 1865.
[1088] G. O. No. 6, Post of Mobile, in _N. Y. Daily News_, June 27, 1865.
[1089] G. O. No. 48, Dept. Ala., Oct. 18, 1865.
[1090] Statement of General Woods, Sept. 4, 1865, Document No. 11,
accompanying the Report of Schurz.
[1091] See statement of Woods, Sept. 4, 1865, Schurz's Report.
[1092] G. O. No. 4, Dept. Ala., Jan. 26, 1866.
[1093] _N. Y. Daily News_, Sept. 7, 1865.
[1094] Statement of Gen. T. K. Smith, Sept. 14, 1865, in Schurz's Report.
[1095] Statement of General Woods, Sept. 4, 1865.
[1096] G. O. No. 5, Sub-dist. Ala., Oct. 13, 1866.
[1097] See Ch. VI, sec. 1.
[1098] G. O. No. 30, Dept. of Ala., Sept. 4, 1865; Statement of General
Woods, Sept. 4, 1865, in Schurz's Report.
[1099] See Ch. VI, sec. 1.
[1100] _N. Y. Herald_, Nov. 26 and Dec. 15, 1865.
[1101] Document No. 19, accompanying Schurz's Report.
[1102] G. O. No. 55, Dept. Ala., Oct. 30, 1865.
[1103] G. O. No. 8, Dept. Ala., Feb. 17, 1866.
[1104] G. O. No. 1, Dept. Ala., Jan. 5, 1866.
[1105] G. O. No. 13, Dept. Ala., 1866.
[1106] G. O. No. 17, Dept. Ala., 1866.
[1107] G. O. No. 20, Dept. Ala., 1866.
[1108] G. O. No. 23, Dept. Ala., 1866.
There were other trials, but the records are missing and the names of the
parties are unknown. A large number of cases were prosecuted before
military commissions convened at the instance of the Freedmen's Bureau.
[1109] For two years after the war the Confederate sympathizers in north
Alabama suffered from persecution of this kind. During the war the
Confederates in north Alabama had been classed as guerillas by the Federal
commanders.
[1110] G. O. No. 29, Mil. Div. Tenn., Sept. 21, 1865; G. O. No. 42, Dept.
Ala., Sept. 26, 1865.
[1111] G. O. No. 3, H. Q. A., Jan. 12, 1866; G. O. No. 7, Dept. Ala., Feb.
12, 1866.
[1112] G. O. No. 48, Dept. Ala., Oct. 18, 1865.
[1113] G. O. No. 6, Mil. Div. Tenn., Feb. 21, 1866.
[1114] G. O. No. 25, Mil. Div. Tenn., Sept. 13, 1865.
[1115] G. O. No. 44, H. Q. A., July 6, 1866; G. O. No. 13, Dept. of the
South, July 21, 1866.
[1116] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 26, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1117] P. M. Dox to Governor Parsons, Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 26, 39th Cong.,
1st Sess.
[1118] See p. 327.
[1119] _Selma Times_, Feb. 3, 1866.
[1120] There were really three governments in Alabama based on the war
powers of the President: (1) the army ruling through its commanders; (2)
the Freedmen's Bureau, with its agents; (3) the provisional civil
government.
[1121] Circular No. 1, Aug. --, 1865; G. O. No. 21, Dept. Ala., April 9,
1866.
[1122] _De Bow's Review_, 1866. De Bow made a trip through the South.
_Nation_, Oct. 5 and 26, 1865; Truman, Report to President, April 9, 1866.
See also Grant, Letter to President, Dec. 18, 1865.
[1123] Colonel Herbert says that the relations between the soldiers and
the ex-Confederates were very kindly, but the latter hoped the army would
soon be removed, when civil government was established. "Solid South," p.
30.
[1124] Miller, "Alabama," p. 242; Resolutions of the Legislature, Jan. 16,
1866.
[1125] Testimony of Swayne, Report Joint Committee, 1866, Pt. III, p. 139;
various reports of Swayne as assistant commissioner of Freedmen's Bureau.
It was noticeable that when Swayne was placed in command of the army in
the state there was less interference and better order than before, though
he never obtained the cavalry.
[1126] For instance: In the city of Mobile a petition of some kind might
be made out in proper form and given to the commander of the Post of
Mobile. The latter would indorse it with his approval or disapproval, and
send it to the commander of the District of Mobile, who likewise forwarded
it with his indorsement to the commander of the Department of Alabama at
Mobile or Montgomery. In important cases the paper had to go on until it
reached headquarters in Macon, Nashville, Louisville, Atlanta, or
Washington, and it had to return the same way.
The following orders relate to the changes made so often:--
G. O. Nos. 1, 9, 10, 12, 17, 19, 20, 27, Dept. Ala., from July 18 to Sept.
1, 1865; G. O. No. 18, Dept. Ala., March 30, 1866; G. O. No. 1, Dist.
Ala., June 1, 1866; G. O. No. 1, Sub-dist. Ala., Oct. --, 1866; G. O. No.
1, Mil. Div. Tenn., June 20, 1865; G. O. Nos. 1 and 42, Dept. of the
Tenn., Aug. 13 and Nov. 1, 1866; G. O. No. 1, Dept. of the South, June 1,
1866; G. O. No. 1, Dept. of the Gulf, ----, 1865; G. O. No. 1, Dist. of
the Chattahoochee, Aug. --, 1866.
There were numerous general orders from local headquarters of the same
nature. See also Van Horne, "Life of Thomas," pp. 153, 399, 400, 418; and
Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 13, 38th Cong., 2d Sess.
[1127] G. O. No. 1, Sub-dist. Ala., March 28, 1867.
[1128] Freedmen's Bureau Report, Oct. 20, 1869; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 143,
41st Cong., 2d Sess.
[1129] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 28, 38th Cong., 2d Sess.
[1130] Regulations, July 9, 1864.
[1131] Stats.-at-Large, Vol. XIII, pp. 507-509. See also O. O. Howard,
"The Freedmen during the War," in the _New Princeton Review_, May and
Sept., 1886.
[1132] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 7, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.
[1133] McPherson, "Reconstruction," pp. 69-74, 147-151, 349, 350, 378;
Burgess, "Reconstruction," pp. 87-90.
[1134] _N. Y. Times_, Oct. 31, 1865.
[1135] Circular No. 16, Sept. 19, 1865 (Howard); Circular No. 6, June 13,
1865 (Howard); Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Circular No.
1, July 14, 1865 (Conway); Circular No. 2, July 14, 1865 (Conway).
[1136] One of them--Chaplain C. W. Buckley--was guardian of the blacks at
Montgomery. He afterwards played a prominent part in carpet-bag politics.
[1137] Ku Klux Rept., p. 441; _N. Y. World_, July 20, 1865; oral accounts
and letters. It was on this theory that the Bureau was established, and at
the head of the institution was placed General O. O. Howard, who was a
soft-hearted, unpractical gentleman, with boundless confidence in the
negro and none whatever in the old slave owner. A man of hard common sense
like Sherman would have done less harm and probably much good with the
Bureau.
[1138] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1139] Circular No. 5, June 2, 1865 (Howard); Circular No. 2, July 14,
1865 (Conway); Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1140] Freedmen's Bureau Report, Dec., 1865.
[1141] In November, 1866, the following army officers, most of whom were
members of the Veteran Reserve Corps, were made superintendents of these
depots: Montgomery, Capt. J. L. Whiting, V.R.C.; Mobile, Brevet Major G.
H. Tracy, 15th Infantry; Huntsville, Brevet Col. J. B. Callis, V.R.C.;
Selma, Lieut. George Sharkley; Greenville, James F. McGogy, Late First
Lieut. U.S.A.; Tuscaloosa, Capt. W. H. H. Peck, V.R.C.; Talladega, J. W.
Burkholder, A.A.G., U.S.A.; Demopolis, Brevet Major C. W. Pierce, V.R.C.
Other Bureau officials who afterward became well-known carpet-baggers
were: Major C. A. Miller, 2d Maine Cavalry, A.A.G.; Major B. W. Norris,
Additional Paymaster; Lieut.-Col. Edwin Beecher, Additional Paymaster;
Rev. C. W. Buckley, Chaplain 47th U.S.C. Infantry. Other officers of the
V.R.C. who arrived later were Capt. Roderick Theune, Lieuts. George F.
Browing, G. W. Pierce, John Jones, P. E. O'Conner, and Joseph Logan. See
Swayne's Report, Oct. 31, 1866; Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 21, 40th. Cong., 2d
Sess. With one exception these later assisted in Reconstruction.
[1142] Freedmen's Bureau Report, Oct. 24, 1869.
[1143] Freedmen's Bureau Report, Oct. 24, 1868.
[1144] McPherson's scrap-book, "Freedmen's Bureau Bill, 1866," p. 128.
[1145] For examples, see Schurz's Report and accompanying documents, Nos.
20, 21, 22, 28; Taylor, "Destruction and Reconstruction"; article by
Schurz in _McClure's Magazine_, Jan., 1904.
[1146] _The Nation_, Feb. 15, 1866.
[1147] Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III, p. 138.
[1148] G. O. No. 7, Montgomery, Aug. 4, 1865.
[1149] No one ever knew exactly how far the military commander was bound
to obey the assistant commissioner and _vice versa_. The problem was at
last solved by making Swayne military commander also.
[1150] Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III, p. 138
(testimony of General Wager Swayne).
[1151] Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III, p. 138.
[1152] Swayne did not hesitate to intimidate such men as Parsons. He would
treat old men--former senators, governors, and congressmen--as if they
were bad boys; he himself was under thirty.
[1153] The reason for this was that the day before several Federal drunken
officers had been careering around the bay in a boat, and Forsyth, who was
on this boat, did not want his party of ladies to meet them.
[1154] Statement of Swayne, 1901; _N. Y. News_, Aug. 21, 1865.
[1155] Circular No. 20 (Freedmen's Bureau), War Dept., Nov. 30, 1865.
[1156] Circular No. 15, Sept. 12, 1865.
[1157] McPherson, "Reconstruction," p. 13.
[1158] Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, p. 352;
G. O. No. 64, Dept. Ala., Dec. 10, 1865; Swayne's Report, Jan. 31, 1865;
Freedmen's Bureau Reports, Dec., 1865, and Nov., 1866.
[1159] Freedmen's Bureau Report, Dec., 1895; Swayne's Reports, Jan. 31 and
Oct. 31, 1866, in Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, and Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6, 39th
Cong., 1st Sess.
[1160] Freedmen's Bureau Report, Nov. 1, 1866.
[1161] Ho. Rept., No. 121, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.; Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6,
39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1162] Freedmen's Bureau Reports, Dec., 1865, and Nov., 1866; Ho. Ex.
Doc., No. 142 41st Cong., 2d Sess.; Miller, "History of Alabama," p. 240.
Congress appropriated $20,000,000, and there was an immense amount of
Confederate property confiscated and sold for the benefit of the Bureau.
Of this no account was kept. One detailed estimate of Bureau expenses is
as follows:--
Appropriations by Congress $20,000,000
General Bounty Fund 8,000,000
Freedmen and Refugee Fund 7,000,000
Retained Bounty Fund (Butler) 2,000,000
School Fund (Confiscated Property) 2,500,000
-----------
Total $39,500,000
Edwin De Leon, "Ruin and Reconstruction of the Southern States," in
_Southern Magazine_, 1874. See also Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 142, 41st Cong., 2d
Sess.
[1163] G. O. No. 4, July 28, 1865.
[1164] _N. Y. News_, Sept. 7, 1865 (Montgomery correspondent); Ku Klux
Rept., p. 441; oral accounts.
[1165] _Montgomery Mail_, May 12, 1865.
[1166] Howard's Circular, May 30, 1865; War Department Circular No. 11,
July 12, 1865.
[1167] _Huntsville Advocate_, July 26, 1865. This was when the army
officials were conducting the Bureau. Later the civilian agents charged $2
for making every contract, and the negroes soon wanted the Bureau
abolished so far as it related to contracts. _N. Y. Times_, March 12, 1866
(letter from Florence, Ala.). In Madison County some of the negroes tarred
and feathered a Bureau agent who had been collecting $1.50 each for
drawing contracts. _N. Y. Herald_, Dec. 22, 1867.
[1168] Swayne's Report, Jan. 31, 1866.
[1169] These regulations bear the approval of the other two rulers of
Alabama--General Woods and Governor Parsons. See G. O. No. 12, Aug. 30,
1865.
[1170] G. O. No. 13, Sept., 1865. This order was in force until 1868. See
_N. Y. World_, Nov. 20, 1867.
[1171] These propositions were approved by A. Humphreys, assistant
superintendent at Talladega, and by General Chetlain, commanding the
District of Talladega. _Selma Times_, Dec. 4, 1865.
[1172] _Selma Messenger_, Nov. 15, 1865; _N. Y. World_, Nov. 20, 1867.
[1173] Ku Klux Rept., p. 441; _N. Y. News_, Sept. 7, 1865; oral accounts.
[1174] Swayne's Report, Jan., 1866. Rev. C. W. Buckley, in a report to
Swayne (dated Jan. 5, 1866), of a tour in Lowndes County, stated that
while the Bureau and the army and the "government of the Christian
nation," each had done much good, all was as nothing to what God was
doing. The hand of God was seen in the stubborn and persistent reluctance
of the negro to make contracts and go to work; God had taught the
8,000,000 arrogant and haughty whites that they were dependent upon the
freedmen; God had ordained that "the self-interest of the former master
should be the protection of the late slaves."
[1175] Swayne's Report, Oct. 31, 1865.
[1176] Freedmen's Bureau Report, Oct. 24, 1868.
[1177] _De Bow's Review_, 1866.
[1178] Freedmen's Bureau Report, Dec., 1865.
[1179] Howard's Circular Letter, Oct. 4, 1865.
[1180] Report, Oct. 31, 1866.
[1181] Herbert, "Solid South," p. 31; _N. Y. News_, Sept. 3, 1865 (Selma
correspondent).
[1182] In one case the agent in Montgomery sent to Troy, fifty-two miles
distant, and arrested a landlord who refused to rent a house to a negro.
The negro told the Bureau agent that he was being evicted.
[1183] There were several plantations near Montgomery, Selma, Mobile, and
Huntsville where negroes were thus collected.
[1184] In Montgomery, the Rev. C. W. Buckley, a "hard-shell" preacher,
looked after negro contracts. A negro was not allowed to make his own
contract, but it must be drawn up before Buckley. When a negro broke his
contract, Buckley always decided in his favor, and avowed that he would
sooner believe a negro than a white man. His delight was to keep a white
man waiting for a long time while he talked to the negro, turning his back
to and paying no attention to the white caller. He preached to the negroes
several times a week, not sermons, but political harangues. The audience
was composed chiefly of negro women, who, if they had work, would leave it
to attend the meetings. They would not disclose what Buckley said to them,
and when questioned would reply, "It's a secret, and we can't tell it to
white folks." Buckley advocated confiscation, but Swayne, who had more
common sense, frowned upon such theological doctrines.
[1185] Barker, a carriage-maker at Livingston, was arrested and confined
in prison for some time, and finally was released without trial. He was
told that a negro servant had preferred charges against him, and later
denied having done so. Such occurrences were common. Ku Klux Rept. Ala.
Test., pp. 357, 371, 390, 475, 487, 1132; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 27, 39th
Cong., 1st Sess.; Swayne's Reports, Dec., 1865, and Jan., 1866.
[1186] _Selma Times_, April 11, 1866. Busteed was a much-disliked
carpet-bag Federal judge. Mr. Burns survived the _Busting_, and was a
member of the Constitutional Convention of 1901.
[1187] The Bureau courts continued to act even after the state was
readmitted to the Union. In 1868, two constables arrested a negro charged
with house-burning in Tuscumbia. Col. D. C. Rugg, the Bureau agent at
Huntsville, raised a force of forty negroes and came to the rescue of the
negro criminal. "If you attempt to put that negro on the train," he said,
"blood will be spilled. I am acting under the orders of the military
department." The officers were trying to take him to Tuscumbia for trial.
Rugg thought the Bureau should try him, and said, "These men [the negroes]
are not going to let you take the prisoner away, and blood will be shed if
you attempt it." _N. Y. World_, Oct. 23, 1868; _Tuscaloosa Times_.
[1188] Probably more. Freedmen's Bureau Report, Nov. 1, 1866.
[1189] Bureau Reports, 1865-1869.
[1190] Freedmen's Bureau Reports, 1865-1870; Hardy, "History of Selma";
_N. Y. World_, Nov. 13, 1865.
[1191] The Southern Famine Relief Commission of New York, which worked in
Alabama until 1867, reported that there was much greater suffering from
want among the whites than among the blacks. This society sent corn alone
to the state,--65,958 bushels. See Final Proceedings and General Report,
New York, 1867.
[1192] Freedmen's Bureau Reports, 1865-1868.
[1193] Ho. Rept., No. 121, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.
[1194] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1195] Freedmen's Bureau Report, Dec., 1865.
[1196] Swayne's Report, Oct. 31, 1866; _N. Y. Daily News_, Sept. 7, 1865
(Montgomery correspondent).
[1197] Trowbridge, "The South," p. 446.
[1198] In the convention of 1867 this teaching bore fruit in the ordinance
authorizing suits by former slaves to recover wages from Jan. 1, 1863.
[1199] _N. Y. World_, Nov. 13, 1865 (Selma correspondent); oral accounts.
[1200] _De Bow's Review_, March, 1866 (Dr. Nott); _N. Y. Times_, Oct. 3,
1865; _Montgomery Advertiser_, March 21, 1866.
[1201] Du Bois in _Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1901.
[1202] A Tallapoosa County farmer stated that for three years after the
war the crops were very bad. Yet the whites who had negroes on their farms
felt bound to support them. But if the whites tried to make the negroes
work or spoke sharply to them, they would leave and go to the Bureau for
rations. P. M. Dox, a Democratic member of Congress in 1870, said that in
north Alabama, in 1866-1867, negro women would not milk a cow when it
rained. Servants would not black boots. There was a general refusal to do
menial service. Ala. Test., pp. 345, 1132. The Alabama cotton crop of 1860
was 842,729 bales; of 1865, 75,305 bales; of 1866, 429,102 bales; of 1867,
239,516 bales; of 1868, 366,193 bales. Of each crop since the war an
increasingly large proportion has been raised by the whites.
[1203] Swayne's Report, Oct. 31, 1866.
[1204] Within the last five years I have seen several old negroes who said
they had been paying assessments regularly to men who claimed to be
working to get the "forty acres and the mule" for the negro. They
naturally have little to say to white people on the subject. From what I
have been told by former slaves, I am inclined to think that the negroes
have been swindled out of many hard-earned dollars, even in recent times,
by the scoundrels who claim to be paying the fees of lawyers at work on
the negroes' cases.
[1205] Swayne's Report, Oct. 31, 1866; Freedmen's Bureau Report, Dec.,
1865; Grant's Report; Truman's Report, April 9, 1866; _DeBow's Review_,
March, 1866; _Montgomery Advertiser_, March 1, 1866; _N. Y. News_, Nov.
25, 1865 (Selma correspondent); _N. Y. World_, Nov. 13, 1865; _N. Y.
Times_, Oct. 31, 1865; _N. Y. News_, Sept., and Oct. 2, 7, 1865. B. W.
Norris, a Bureau agent from Skowhegan, Maine, told the negroes the tale of
"forty acres and a mule," and they sent him to Congress in 1868 to get the
land for them. He told them that they had a better right to the land than
the masters had. "Your work made this country what it is, and it is
yours." Ala. Test., pp. 445, 1131.
[1206] Ala. Test., p. 314.
[1207] Ball, "Clarke County," p. 627.
[1208] Ala. Test., p. 1133.
[1209] Ala. Test., p. 460; see Annual Cyclopædia (1867), article
"Confiscation."
[1210] _Montgomery Advertiser_, March, 1866. Buckley was known among the
"malignants" as "the high priest of the nigger Bureau." _N. Y. World_,
Dec. 22, 1867.
[1211] _N. Y. Herald_, July 23, 1865; Herbert, "Solid South," p. 30.
[1212] _DeBow's Review_, 1866; oral accounts.
[1213] _N. Y. Times_, Feb. 12, 1866 (letter of northern traveller);
Steedman and Fullerton's Reports; _N. Y. Herald_, June 24, 1866;
_Columbus_ (Ga.) _Sun_, Nov. 22, 1865; _N. Y. Times_, Jan. 25, 1866.
[1214] Account by Col. J. W. DuBose in manuscript.
[1215] Herbert, "Solid South," pp. 30, 31; _N. Y. Times_, Jan. 25, 1866.
[1216] Ho. Rept., No. 121, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.; Ku Klux Rept., p. 441.
See chapter in regard to Union League.
[1217] See also DuBois, in _Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1901; Ho. Ex. Doc.,
No. 241, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.
[1218] Ho. Rept., No. 121, p. 47, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.
[1219] Some of the prominent incorporators were Peter Cooper, William C.
Bryant, A. A. Low, Gerritt Smith, John Jay, A. S. Barnes, J. W. Alvord, S.
G. Howe, George L. Stearns, Edward Atkinson, and A. A. Lawrence. The act
of incorporation was approved by the President on March 3, 1865, at the
same time the Freedmen's Bureau Bill was approved. Numbers of the
incorporators and bank officials were connected with the Bureau. See Ho.
Mis. Doc., No. 16, 43d Cong., 2d Sess.
[1220] A Bureau paymaster.
[1221] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 16, 43d Cong., 2d Sess.
[1222] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1223] See Williams, "History of the Negro Race in America," Vol. II, p.
410. August was a month in which there was little money-making among the
negroes. It was vacation time, between the "laying by" and the gathering
of the crop.
[1224] Hoffman, "Race Traits and Tendencies," p. 290, says $3,013,699.
[1225] Hoffman, p. 290; also Sen. Rept., No. 440, 46th Cong., 2d Sess.
Williams, Vol. II, p. 411, states that the total deposits amounted to
$57,000,000, an average of $284 for each depositor.
[1226] Dividends were declared as follows: Nov. 1, 1875, 20%; March 20,
1875-1878, 10%; Sept. 1, 1880, 10%; June 1, 1882, 15%; May 12, 1883, 7%;
making 62% in all. To 1886, $1,722,549 had been paid to depositors, and
there was a balance in the hands of the government receivers of $30,476.
[1227] Williams, "History of the Negro Race," Vol. II, pp. 403-410; Fred
Douglass, "Life and Times," Ch. XIV; Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 16, 43d Cong., 2d
Sess.; Du Bois, "The Souls of Black Folk"; the various reports of the
Freedmen's Bureau and of the commissioners appointed to settle the affairs
of the Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company, to 1902; Hoffman, "Race
Traits and Tendencies," pp. 289, 290; Fleming, "Documents relating to
Reconstruction," Nos. 6 and 7.
[1228] Regulations of the Treasury Dept., July 29, 1864.
[1229] McPherson, "Rebellion," pp. 594, 595; McPherson, "Reconstruction,"
pp. 147-151.
[1230] See Ch. IV, sec. 7.
[1231] DuBois (_Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1901) declares that the
opposition to the education of the negro was bitter, for the South
believed that the educated negro was a dangerous negro. This statement is
perhaps partially correct for fifteen or twenty years after 1870, but it
is not correct for 1865-1869.
[1232] _The Gulf States Hist. Mag._, Sept., 1902; Report of General Swayne
to Howard, Dec. 26, 1865. The evidence on this point that is worthy of
consideration is conclusive. It is all one way. See also Chs. XIX and XX,
below.
[1233] Report of Swayne, Oct. 31, 1866.
[1234] "Up from Slavery," pp. 29, 30.
[1235] _Daily News_, Sept. 7, 1865 (Montgomery correspondence). Oral
accounts.
[1236] G. O. No. 11, July 12, 1865 (Montgomery); Freedmen's Bureau
Reports, 1865-1869.
[1237] Swayne's Report, Oct. 31, 1866; Freedmen's Bureau Report, 1866.
[1238] Swayne's Report., Oct. 31, 1866.
[1239] Freedmen's Bureau Report, Dec., 1865; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th
Cong., 1st Sess.
[1240] _Daily News_, Oct. 21, 1865 (Mobile correspondent); _De Bow's
Review_, 1866 (Dr. Nott).
[1241] Swayne's Report, Oct. 31, 1866.
[1242] The account of this particular school was given me by Dr. O. D.
Smith of Auburn, Ala., who was one of the men who chose the white teacher.
[1243] Swayne's Report, Oct. 31, 1866.
[1244] Report, Oct. 31, 1866.
[1245] Rent was usually paid at the rate of $20 a month for thirty pupils.
Ho. Rept., No. 121, pp. 47, 369, 374, 377, 41st Cong., 2d Sess. The books
of the American Missionary Association showed that it had received, in
1868 and 1869, from the Freedmen's Bureau for Alabama, the following
amounts in cash, though how much it received before these dates is not
known.
December, 1867 $4000.00
October, 1868 583.86
February, 1868 25.41 (?)
January, 1869 218.25
April, 1869 683.53
May, 1869 1397.49
June, 1869 95.87
July, 1869 527.00
September, 1869 3049.59
November, 1869 3469.50
December, 1869 2083.78
For building (?) 20,000.00
An item in the account of the Association was "Chicago to Mobile,
$20,000." No one was able to explain what it meant unless it was the
$20,000 building in Mobile used as a training school for negro teachers
and on which the Bureau paid rent. In the southern states the Bureau paid
to the American Missionary Association, as shown by the books of the
latter, $213,753.22. Judging from the variable items not noted above, rent
was evidently not included nor even all the cash. Ho. Rept., No. 121, p.
369 _et seq._, 41st Cong., 2d Sess. (Howard Investigation).
[1246] Buckley's Report for March 15, 1867; Semiannual Report on Schools
for Freedmen, July 4, 1867; General Clanton in Ku Klux Rept. Ala. Test.
[1247] Francis Wayland.
[1248] S. G. Greene, president of the association.
[1249] President Hill of Harvard College.
[1250] Reports, Proceedings, and Lectures of the National Teachers'
Association, 1865 to 1880; Reports of the Freedmen's Aid Societies of the
Methodist Episcopal Church. For results of the mistaken teachings of the
radical instructors, see Page's article on "Lynching" in the _North
American Review_, Jan., 1904.
[1251] Miss Alice M. Bacon, in the Slater Fund Trustees, Occasional
Papers, No. 7, p. 6. Armstrong, at Hampton, Va., was a shining exception
to the kind of teachers described above.
[1252] The Reconstruction government was now in power. There were, at this
time, thirty-one Bureau schools at thirty-one points in the state.
[1253] Freedmen's Bureau Reports, 1867-1870.
[1254] _Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1901.
[1255] Sir George Campbell, "White and Black," pp. 131, 383; Thomas, "The
American Negro," p. 240; Washington, "The Future of the American Negro,"
pp. 25-27, 55; _DeBow's Review_, 1866; Slater Fund Trustees, Occasional
Papers, No. 7. Washington tells of the craze for the education in Greek,
Latin, and theology. This education would make them the equal of the
whites, they thought, and would free them from manual labor, and above all
fit them for office-holding. Nearly all became teachers, preachers, and
politicians. "Up from Slavery," pp. 30, 80, 81; "Future of the American
Negro," p. 49.
[1256] From the surrender of the Confederate armies, to his death in 1903,
Dr. Curry was a stanch believer in the work for negro education. No other
man knew the whole question so thoroughly as he. And he had the advantage
of a close acquaintance with the negro from his early childhood. His
observations as to the effects of alien efforts to educate the black will
be found in the Slater Fund Occasional Papers, and in an address delivered
before the Montgomery Conference in 1900. See also Ch. XIV.
[1257] I have talked with many who uniformly assert that they were unable
to conform to the Bureau regulations. It was better to let land remain
uncultivated. Wherever possible no attention was paid to the rules. The
negro laborers themselves have no recollections of any real assistance in
labor matters received from the Bureau. They remember it rather as an
obstruction to laboring freely.
[1258] The President and the Supreme Court now being powerless.
[1259] That is, blacks and such whites as were not "disfranchised for
participation in the rebellion or for felony."
[1260] July 11, 1868, the oath was modified for those whose disabilities
had been removed by Congress; Feb. 15, 1871, those not disfranchised by
the Fourteenth Amendment were allowed to take the modified oath of July
11, 1868, instead of the iron-clad oath. See MacDonald, "Select Statutes."
The Alabama representatives all took the "iron-clad" oath.
[1261] Text of the Act, McPherson, "Reconstruction," pp. 191, 192; G. O.
No. 2, 3d M. D., April 3, 1867. For criticism, Burgess, "Reconstruction,"
pp. 112-122; Dunning, "Civil War and Reconstruction," pp. 123, 126-135,
143.
[1262] G. O. Nos. 10 and 18, H. Q. A., March 11 and 15, 1867; McPherson,
p. 200.
[1263] Report of Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 321.
[1264] The oath was: "I, ---- ----, do solemnly swear (or affirm), in the
presence of Almighty God, that I am a citizen of the State of Alabama;
that I have resided in said State for ---- months, next preceding this
day, and now reside in the county of ---- in said State; that I am
twenty-one years old; that I have not been disfranchised for participation
in any rebellion or civil war against the United States, nor for felony
committed against the laws of any State or of the United States; that I
have never been a member of any State legislature, nor held any executive
or judicial office in any State and afterward engaged in insurrection or
rebellion against the United States or given aid and comfort to the
enemies thereof; that I have never taken an oath as a member of Congress
of the United States, 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 and afterwards
engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or given
aid and comfort to the enemies thereof; that I will faithfully support the
Constitution and obey the laws of the United States, and will, to the best
of my ability, encourage others to do so, so help me God!" McPherson,
"Reconstruction," pp. 192, 205; G. O. No. 5, 3d M. D., April 8, 1867.
[1265] McPherson, "Reconstruction," pp. 192-194; Burgess,
"Reconstruction," pp. 129-135; Dunning, "Civil War and Reconstruction,"
pp. 124, 125.
[1266] G. O. Nos. 1 and 2, 3d M. D., April 1 and 3, 1866; _N. Y. Herald_,
April 6, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 19; McPherson, pp. 201, 205;
Report of Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 322; Herbert, "Solid South,"
p. 38.
[1267] G. O. No. 1, Dist. Ala., April 2, 1867; McPherson, p. 206.
[1268] Report of Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 466; _N. Y. Herald_,
April 6, 1867.
[1269] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 20, 40th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1270] G. O. No. 52, H. Q. A., April 11, 1867.
[1271] Report of Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 353.
[1272] G. O. No. 4, 3d M. D., April 4, 1867.
[1273] G. O. No. 10, 3d M. D., April 23, 1867.
[1274] G. O. No. 48, 3d M. D., Aug. 6, 1867.
[1275] Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 17.
[1276] G. O. No. 25, 3d M. D., May 29, 1867. (This was to favor Radical
meetings. There were many stump speakers sent down from the North to tell
the negro how to vote, and it was feared they might excite the whites to
acts of violence.) _N. Y. Herald_, June 4, 1867 (explanatory order).
[1277] McPherson, "Reconstruction," pp. 335, 336; Dunning, pp. 153, 154.
[1278] As long as Pope was in command at Montgomery and Atlanta, he and
Grant kept up a rapid and voluminous (on the part of Pope) correspondence.
They were usually agreed on all that pertained to Reconstruction, both now
being extreme in their views.
[1279] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 30, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.; No. 20, 40th Cong., 1st
Sess.; McPherson, p. 312.
[1280] G. O. No. 45, 3d M. D., Aug. 2, 1867; McPherson, p. 319.
[1281] G. O. Nos. 53 and 55, 3d M. D., Aug. 19 and 23, 1867; Report of the
Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 331; McPherson, p. 319.
[1282] See _Selma Messenger_, Jan. 17, 1868.
[1283] See McPherson, p. 312.
[1284] _Eutaw Whig and Observer_, Dec. 12 and 24, 1867.
[1285] S. O. No. 2, 3d M. D., April 15, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p.
20; _Montgomery Mail_, April 30, 1867.
[1286] See p. 509.
[1287] G. O. Nos. 35, 38, 40, Post of Mobile, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia
(1867), pp. 20-23; _N. Y. Times_, May 21, 1867.
[1288] _N. Y. World_, May 28, 1867; S. O. No. 34, 3d M. D., May 31, 1867;
Herbert, "Solid South," p. 40; _N. Y. Times_, May 21, 1867.
[1289] S. O. No. 38, 3d M. D., June 6, 1867; S. O. No. 27, 3d M. D., May
22, 1867; _N. Y. Tribune_, June 12, 1867; _Selma Messenger_, June 18,
1867; _Evening Post_, May, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), pp. 20-25;
_Mobile Register_, Oct. --, 1867.
[1290] _Mobile Register_, Oct. --, 1867.
[1291] Herbert, "Solid South," pp. 40, 41; _N. Y. Times_, Dec. 27, 1867.
See above, p. 393.
[1292] S. O. Nos. 9, 10, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 31, 32, 35,
36, 37, 38, 39, 3d M. D., 1867; Report of the Secretary of War, 1867, Vol.
I, p. 327. (Some of the persons appointed were B. T. Pope and David P.
Lewis, judges; George P. Goldthwaite, solicitor; and B. F. Saffold, mayor
of Selma.)
[1293] Report of the Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 364.
[1294] G. O. No. 77, 3d M. D., Oct. 19, 1897; McPherson, p. 319.
[1295] G. O. No. 103, 3d M. D., Dec. 21, 1867.
[1296] Report of the Secretary of War, 1877, Vol. I, p. 333; McPherson, p.
316.
[1297] S. O. 254, 3d M. D., Nov. 26, 1867; Pope to Swayne, Nov. 20, 1867;
_N. Y. World_, Dec. 14, 1867.
[1298] G. O. No. 3, Sub-dist. Alabama, April 12, 1867; McPherson, p. 319.
[1299] McPherson, p. 319.
[1300] _N. Y. Herald_, April 6, 1867.
[1301] _N. Y. Tribune_, June 1, 1867; _N. Y. Herald_, June 4, 1867; G. O.
No. 28, 3d M. D., June 3, 1867; Report of the Secretary of War, 1867, Vol.
I, p. 326.
[1302] Aug. 12, 1867.
[1303] G. O. Nos. 1 and 10.
[1304] G. O. No. 49, 3d M. D., Aug. 12, 1867.
[1305] Report of the Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 235.
[1306] _Selma Messenger_, Dec. 25, 1867.
[1307] G. O. No. 25, 3d M. D., 1867.
[1308] S. O. No. 53, 3d M. D., June 27, 1867; G. O. No. 44, 3d M. D., Aug.
1, 1867; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 30, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.
[1309] G. O. No. 94, 3d M. D., 1867.
[1310] S. O. No. 96, 3d M. D., Aug 5. 1867; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 30, 40th
Cong., 2d Sess. There were other cases not referred to in general and
special orders, but this was the only case in which Pope himself directly
interfered.
[1311] G. O. No. 5, 3d M. D., April 8, 1867.
[1312] In this way, white majorities in ten counties were overcome by
black majorities in the adjoining counties of the district.
[1313] Of the registrars who later became somewhat prominent in politics,
the whites were Horton, Dimon, Dereen, Sillsby, William M. Buckley,
Stanwood, Ely, Pennington, Haughey--all being northern men. Of the negro
members of the boards, Royal, Finley, Williams, Alston, Turner, Rapier,
and King (or Godwin) rose to some prominence, and their records were much
better that those of their white colleagues.
[1314] G. O. No. 20, 3d M. D., May 21, 1867.
[1315] G. O. No. 12, 3d M. D., 1867.
[1316] Smith was later the first Reconstruction governor of Alabama.
[1317] G. O. No. 41, 3d M. D., 1867.
[1318] G. O. No. 50, 3d M. D., Aug. 15, 1867.
[1319] Governor, secretary of state, treasurer, comptroller, sheriff,
judicial officers of every kind, and all court clerks and other officials,
commissioners, tax assessors and collectors, county surveyors, treasurers,
mayor, councilmen, justices of the peace, solicitors.
[1320] Special Instructions to Registrars in Alabama, Report of the
Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 339.
[1321] Registration Orders, June 17, 1867.
[1322] Record of Cabinet Meeting, June 18, 1867, in Ho. Ex. Doc., No, 34,
40th Cong., 1st Sess.; Burgess, p. 136; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 20, 40th Cong.,
1st Sess.
[1323] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 20, 40th Cong., 1st Sess.; McPherson, p. 311. See
above, p. 479.
[1324] McPherson, pp. 335, 336; Burgess, pp. 138-142.
[1325] McPherson, pp. 335, 336.
[1326] G. O. No. 59, 3d M. D., Aug. 31, 1867; Journal of Convention of
1867, pp. 3-5; Report of the Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, pp. 356, 357;
_Tribune_ Almanac, 1868.
[1327] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 53, 40th Cong., 2d Sess. _Tribune_ Almanac,
1867, 1868; Report of Col. J. F. Meline, Inspector of Registration, Jan.
27, 1868. These figures are based on the latest reports of 1867. According
to the census of 1866, there would be in 1867, 108,622 whites over
twenty-one years of age, and 89,663 blacks.
[1328] Meline's Report, Jan. 27, 1868. See also Ch. XIII below.
[1329] G. O. No. 76, Oct. 18, 1867; Journal of Convention of 1867, pp.
1-3.
[1330] McPherson, p. 319; Journal of Convention, 1867, pp. 110, 111, 276;
_N. Y. World_, Dec. 14, 1867. When the convention passed a resolution
indorsing the "firm and impartial, yet just and gentle," administration of
Pope, three delegates voted against it because they said Pope had not done
his full duty in removing disloyal persons from office but, after being
informed of their politics, had left them in office. Journal of
Convention, 1867, pp. 110, 111. For account of the convention, see below,
Ch. XIV.
[1331] G. O. No. 101, Dec. 20, 1867; McPherson, p. 319; Journal of
Convention, p. 267.
[1332] The 45th United States Infantry, a negro regiment.
[1333] McPherson, p. 346; G. O. No. 104, H. Q. A. (A. G. O.), Dec. 28,
1867; G. O. No. 1, 3d M. D., Jan. 1, 1868.
[1334] Herbert, "Solid South"; _N. Y. Times_, Jan. 24, 1868.
[1335] G. O. No. 3, 3d M. D., Jan. 6, 1868.
[1336] G. O. No. 16, 3d M. D., Jan. 27, 1868; Annual Cyclopædia (1868), p.
15; Report of Major-General Meade's Military Operations and Administration
of the 3d M. D., etc. (pamphlet); _N. Y. Times_, Jan. 24, 1868.
[1337] See Ch. XV for "convention" candidates.
[1338] Report of Meade, etc., 1868; Telegrams of Meade to Grant, Jan. 11,
12, and 18, and of Grant to Meade, Jan. 13 and 18.
[1339] Report of Meade, etc., 1868; Herbert, "Solid South," pp. 48, 49. In
his first report Meade estimated that the constitution failed of
ratification by 8114 votes (Herbert, "Solid South," p. 49). In his report
at the end of the year, based on the official report of General Hayden,
which was made a month after the election, he changed the number to
13,550. See also Ch. XVI, on the rejection of the constitution.
[1340] G. O. No. 42, 3d M. D., March 12, 1868; McPherson, p. 320; Meade's
Report, 1868.
[1341] In one case he reinstated Charles R. Hubbard, Clerk of the District
Court, who had been removed by Swayne. This was contrary to instructions
from the War Department, which forbade the reappointment of an officer who
had been removed. Annual Cyclopædia (1868), p. 15.
[1342] Report of Meade, etc., 1868; G. O. No. 10, 3d M. D., Jan. 15, 1868.
[1343] G. O. No. 7, Jan. 11, 1868, republishing G. O. No. 3, War
Department, 1866.
[1344] G. O. No. 47, 3d M. D., March 21, 1868.
[1345] Pope was in feeble health, and this treatment hastened his death,
which occurred shortly after being released from jail. Brewer, "Alabama,"
p. 524.
[1346] G. O. No. 53, 3d M. D., April 7, 1868; _N. Y. Herald_, April 1,
1868. Judge Pope was arrested for violating Pope's G. O. Nos. 53, 55,
which certainly provided for mixed juries. Meade was simply putting his
own interpretation on these orders.
[1347] G. O. No. 22, 3d M. D., Feb. 2, 1868; Report of Meade, etc., 1868.
[1348] Report of Meade, etc,. 1868; _Independent Monitor_, April and May,
1868. The _Independent Monitor_ was a long-established and well-known
weekly paper. F. A. P. Barnard, who was afterwards president of Columbia
College, New York, was, when a professor at the University of Alabama, the
editor of the _Monitor_, and under him it won a reputation for spiciness
which it did not lose under Randolph. See also Ch. XXI, for Randolph and
the Ku Klux Klan.
[1349] G. O. No. 31, Feb. 28, 1868; G. O. No. 44, March 18, 1868; G. O.
No. 69, April 24, 1868; McPherson, p. 320; Report of Meade, etc., 1868.
[1350] G. O. No. 6, Jan. 10, 1868; G. O. No. 79, May 20, 1868; McPherson,
p. 320; Report of Meade, 1868.
[1351] Report of Meade, 1868.
[1352] G. O. No. 64, 3d M. D., April 19, 1868; _Selma Times and
Messenger_, April 29, 1868.
[1353] This was the offence according to conservative testimony. The
Radical testimony did not differ greatly, but the "hog thief" happened to
be a carpet-bag politician also.
[1354] These were the "Eutaw cases," and were tried at Selma. Meade
commuted some of the sentences at once. The prisoners were sent to Dry
Tortugas, and were later pardoned by Meade. The officials spoiled the
effect of his leniency by putting the pardoned prisoners ashore at
Galveston, Texas, without money and almost without clothes, while some of
the party were ill. Annual Cyclopædia (1868), p. 17; _Selma Times and
Messenger_, May 5, 1868; _N. Y. World_, May 28, 1868; G. O. No. 80, 3d M.
D., May 20, 1868.
[1355] _Independent Monitor_, April and May, 1868; Report of Meade, 1868;
G. O. No. 78, 3d M. D., May 13, 1868.
[1356] G. O. Nos. 64 and 65, 3d M. D., April 19 and 20, 1868.
During the eight months of Meade's administration in the Third District,
there were thirty-two trials by military commission in Georgia, Florida,
and Alabama. Only fifteen persons were convicted. The sentences in four
cases were disapproved, in eight cases remitted, and two cases were
referred to the President, leaving only one person confined in prison.
Report of Meade, 1868.
[1357] _Selma Messenger_, Oct. 25, 1867.
[1358] _Montgomery Mail_, June 17, 1868; _Independent Monitor_, June 16,
1868.
[1359] Annual Cyclopædia (1868), p. 17; _Montgomery Advertiser_, June 5,
1868.
[1360] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 1285-1286.
[1361] McPherson, p. 337; see below, Ch. XV.
[1362] Only the Radical candidates had been voted for.
[1363] Report of Meade, 1868.
[1364] G. O. No. 91, 3d M. D., June 28, 1868.
[1365] G. O. No. 100, July 9, 1868.
[1366] G. O. No. 101, July 14, 1868.
[1367] The volume of orders numbered 598 in the Adjutant-General's office
at Washington contains the General Orders of the Third Military District.
Volume 599 relates to civil affairs in the same district.
[1368] _N. Y. Herald_, June 27, 1867.
[1369] Washington (in "The Future of the American Negro," pp. 11, 112,
136) thinks it unfortunate that the native whites did not make stronger
efforts to control the politics of the negro, and prevent him from falling
under the control of unscrupulous aliens. But any attempt to influence the
negro voters was looked upon as "obstructing reconstruction," and, in
fact, was contrary to the spirit of the reconstruction laws and rendered a
person liable to arrest. This was recognized by Patton and others, who,
however, never dreamed that the negroes would be so successfully exploited
by political adventurers, or perhaps they would have pursued a different
policy. General Clanton, the leader of the Conservatives, said that early
in 1867 the whites had endeavored to keep the blacks away from Radical
leaders by giving them barbecues, etc. On one occasion a Radical, who had
once been kept from mistreating negroes by the military authorities at
Clanton's request, told the negroes that the whites intended to poison
them at the barbecue. Two long tables had been set, one for each race, and
the preachers, speakers, and the whites were present, but the blacks did
not come. Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 237, 246.
[1370] _N. Y. Herald_, March 26, 1867.
[1371] Herbert, "Solid South," p. 39; Herbert, "Political History" in
"Memorial Record of Alabama," Vol. I, p. 88; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p.
16.
[1372] Northern observers who were friendly to the South saw the danger
much more clearly than the southerners themselves, who seemed unable to
take negro suffrage seriously or to consider it as great a danger as it is
generally believed they did. Two years of the Freedmen's Bureau had not
wholly succeeded in alienating the best of the whites and the negroes. The
whites thought that the removal of outside interference would quiet the
blacks. To give the negro the ballot was absurd, they thought, but they
did not consider it necessarily as dangerous as it turned out to be. A
remarkable prophecy of Reconstruction is found in Calhoun's Works, Vol.
VI, pp. 309-310. The behavior of the negro during and after the war, in
spite of malign influences, had been such as to reassure many whites, who
began to believe that to accept negro suffrage and get rid of the
Freedmen's Bureau and the army would be a good exchange. The northern
friendly observers saw more clearly because, perhaps, they better
understood the motives of the Radicals. The _N. Y. Herald_ said: "Briefly,
we may regard the entire ten unreconstructed southern states, with
possibly one or two exceptions, as forced by a secret and overwhelming
revolutionary influence to a common and inevitable fate. They are all
bound to be governed by blacks, spurred on by worse than blacks--white
wretches who dare not show their faces in respectable society anywhere.
This is the most abominable phase barbarism has assumed since the dawn of
civilization. It was all right and proper to put down the rebellion. It
was all right, perhaps, to emancipate the slaves, although the right to
hold them had been acknowledged before. But it is not right to make slaves
of white men, even though they may have been former masters of blacks.
This is but a change in a system of bondage that is rendered the more
odious and intolerable because it has been inaugurated in an enlightened
instead of a dark and uncivilized age." See Annual Register, 1867.
[1373] See McPherson's scrapbook, "The Campaign of 1876," Vol. I, p. 105,
for an account of a typical meeting.
[1374] _Selma Times_, March 19, 1867.
[1375] _N. Y. Herald_, March 27, 1869.
[1376] _N. Y. Herald_, April 25, 1869; Annual Cyclopædia (1869), p. 19.
[1377] Annual Cyclopædia (1869), p. 19; _N. Y. Herald_, April 25, 1869.
[1378] _N. Y. Herald_, May 17, 1869; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), pp. 18, 21.
It is noticeable all through Reconstruction that most of the demands for
social rights or privileges came from Mobile mulattoes.
[1379] For an estimate of the importance of the Union League, see Ch. XVI.
[1380] McPherson, "Reconstruction," pp. 249, 250. The last assertion
refers to such statements as those of Secretary McCulloch and the
Postmaster-General in regard to the character of the "loyalists." See
McCulloch, "Men and Measures," p. 228.
[1381] See Herbert, "Solid South," p. 41.
[1382] On March 15, 1867, Senator Wilson, in a speech in favor of negro
suffrage, said that when the purpose of the act of March 2 was carried
out, the "majority of these states will, within a twelvemonth, send here
senators and representatives that think as we think, and speak as we
speak, and vote as we vote, and will give their electoral vote for whoever
we nominate as candidate for President in 1868. The power is all in our
hands." _Cong. Globe_, March 15, 1867.
[1383] Clanton had been a Whig, had opposed secession, made a brilliant
war record, became the leader of the Democratic and Conservative party in
1866, and led the fight against the carpet-bag government until his death
in 1871. He was killed in Knoxville by a hireling of one of the railroad
companies which had looted the state treasury and against which he was
fighting. Brewer, p. 466; Garrett, pp. 632-645.
[1384] See Herbert, "Solid South," p. 40; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p.
249.
[1385] _N. Y. Tribune_, May 16, 1867, editorial. When the shots were fired
Kelly showed the white feather, and reclined upon the platform behind and
under the speaker's chair; afterwards he ran hatless to the hotel, and
told the clerk to "swear he was out." A special boat at once took him from
the city to Montgomery.
[1386] _N. Y. Tribune_, May 16, 1767; _N. Y. Times_, May 21, 1867; _N. Y.
World_, May 28, 1867; _Mobile Times_, ----, 1867; _Mobile Register_, ----,
1867; _Evening Post_, ----, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), pp. 22, 23.
[1387] _N. Y. Herald_, May 26, 1867.
[1388] See Herbert, "Solid South," p. 43; oral accounts, etc.
[1389] Sykes soon deserted the Radicals, and was a Seymour elector the
next year. Later he was a candidate for the U. S. Senate against Spencer.
Brewer, p. 309.
[1390] He was the north Alabama candidate for appointment as provisional
governor in 1865, but was defeated by Parsons, the middle Alabama
candidate. Parsons made him a judge, but he resigned because the lawyers
who argued before him spoke in insulting phrases concerning his war
record. In 1867 Pope appointed him superintendent of registration for the
state. He was a prominent member of the Union League. Brewer, p. 508; _N.
Y. Herald_, June 20, 1867; Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction,
Pt. III.
[1391] _N. Y. Herald_, June 20, 1867, a northern Republican account.
[1392] Nicholas Davis of Madison County and Judge Busteed were both
candidates for the chairmanship. But the negroes and Union Leaguers were
hostile to Davis, because he did not like negro politicians and
carpet-baggers and was opposed to the Union League. Busteed was not a
favorite for practically the same reasons, and because the negroes thought
he was trying to "ride two horses at once." He had spoken at a meeting of
moderate reconstructionists in Mobile, had presided over the Kelly meeting
where the riot occurred, and was believed to be in favor of moderate
measures. He wrote a letter to the president of the convention, advising
moderation and criticising certain methods of the Radicals. This letter
was styled the "God save the Republic" letter, and was characterized, his
enemies said, by its bad taste and malignant spirit, and was a stab at his
best friends. He was chosen a member of the Lowndes County delegation, but
his name was erased from the list of delegates. He then asked to have the
privileges of the floor as a courtesy, but his request was denied. One
cause of dislike of him was that he was believed to have senatorial
aspirations, and expected the support of the moderates, or "rebel"
reconstructionists. But he was very unfortunate, for the "rebels" also
thought he was trying to play a double game and were dropping him. Suits
were pending against him charging him with malfeasance in office,
fraudulent conversion of money, and corrupt abuse of the judicial office.
Ex-Governor Watts, Judges S. F. Rice and Wade Keys, John A. Elmore, H. C.
Semple, D. S. Troy, and R. H. Goldthwaite were the parties prosecuting
him. _N. Y. Herald_, June 20, 1867; Brewer, p. 365; _Montgomery Mail_,
June 5, 1867.
[1393] Swayne, as well as Busteed, was an aspirant for senatorial honors.
Busteed had succeeded in causing the rejection of Albert Griffin, the
editor of the _Mobile Nationalist_, as register in chancery. Griffin was
Swayne's friend, and now each gave the other the benefit of his influence.
_N. Y. Herald_, June 20, 1867; _Montgomery Mail_, June 5, 1867.
[1394] _N. Y. Herald_, June 17, 1867.
[1395] The only taxes that affected these people.
[1396] Annual Cyclopædia (1869), pp. 25, 26; _Montgomery Mail_, June 5,
1867; _N. Y. Herald_, June 19, 20, 1867.
[1397] _Montgomery Advertiser_, July 19, 1867.
[1398] Herbert, pp. 43, 44; _N. Y. Herald_, June 20 and 27, 1867. Most of
the violent and radical schemes originated and were advocated by the white
Radical leaders. Generally the negro leaders made moderate demands.
Holland Thompson, a negro leader, in a speech at Tuskegee, advised his
race not to organize a negro military company, as it would be sure to
cause trouble. He said that the negro did not ask for social equality. He
told the negroes to stop buying guns and whiskey and go to work.
McPherson's scrapbook, "The Campaign of 1867," Vol. I, p. 107. In striking
contrast were the speeches of such white men as B. W. Norris and A. C.
Felder, who undertook to persuade the negroes that Reconstruction was the
remedy for all the ills that affected humanity. McPherson's scrapbook,
"The Fourth of July" (1867), pp. 124, 125.
[1399] Herbert, p. 44.
[1400] Lawyer, colonel of 7th Alabama Cavalry, superintendent of
education, 1870-1872, author of "The Cradle of the Confederacy," "Alabama
Manual and Statistical Register," editor _Montgomery Mail_, _Mobile
Register_, etc.
[1401] A reign of terror had followed the reconstruction of Tennessee
under "Parson" Brownlow.
[1402] _N. Y. Times_, Aug. 19, 1867.
[1403] _N. Y. Herald_, Sept. 6, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 28;
Herbert, p. 44.
[1404] Herbert, pp. 44, 45; _N. Y. Herald_, Sept. 6, 1867.
[1405] _Montgomery Sentinel_, July 3, 1867; _N. Y. Herald_, Aug. 5, 1867.
[1406] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 357. A frequent threat.
[1407] _N. Y. World_, Nov. 11, 1867; Harris, "Political Conflict in
America," p. 479.
[1408] _N. Y. Herald_, Oct. 13, 1867.
[1409] Accounts of negroes and whites who were at the polls.
[1410] _Selma Messenger_, Oct. 10 and 12, Dec. 20 and 22, 1867, and Jan.
2, 1868; _Montgomery Mail_, Jan. 30, 1868; Ball, "Clarke County"; oral
accounts.
[1411] Freedmen's Bureau Report, Nov. 1, 1867.
[1412] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 53, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 238,
40th Cong., 2d Sess. The _N. Y. Tribune_, Oct. 21, 1867, gives slightly
different figures. Statements of the vote do not agree. There was much
confusion in the records. For statistics, see above, pp. 491, 494.
[1413] Samuel A. Hale, a dissatisfied Radical from New Hampshire, a
brother of John P. Hale, wrote to Senator Henry Wilson, on Jan. 1, 1868,
concerning the character of the members of the convention. He said that
many were negroes, grossly ignorant; a large proportion were northern
adventurers who had manipulated the negro vote; and all were "worthless
vagabonds, homeless, houseless, drunken knaves." Hale had lived for
several years in Alabama. Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 1815-1830.
[1414] There is doubt about four or five men, whether they were black or
white. The lists made at the time do not agree.
[1415] _N. Y. World_, Nov. 11, 1867, and Feb. 22, 1868; _Selma Messenger_,
Dec. 20 and 22, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 30; Herbert, "Solid
South," p. 45. A partial list of aliens as described by a northern
correspondent: A. J. Applegate of Wisconsin; Arthur Bingham of Ohio and
New York; D. H. Bingham of New York, who had lived in the state before the
war, an old man, and intensely bitter in his hatred of southerners; W. H.
Block of Ohio; W. T. Blackford of New York, a Bureau official, "the wearer
of one of the two clean shirts visible in the whole convention"; M. D.
Brainard of New York, a Bureau clerk who did not know, when elected to
represent Monroe, where his county was located; Alfred E. Buck of Maine, a
court clerk of Mobile appointed by Pope; Charles W. Buckley of
Massachusetts, New York, and Illinois, chaplain of a negro regiment, later
a Bureau official; William M. Buckley of New York, his brother; J. H.
Burdick of Iowa, extremely radical; Pierce Burton of Massachusetts, who
had been removed from the Bureau for writing letters to northern papers,
advocating the repeal of the cotton tax, but now that the negroes desired
the repeal of the tax, the breach was healed; C. M. Cabot of (unknown),
member of Convention of 1865; Datus E. Coon of Iowa; Joseph H. Davis of
(unknown), surgeon U.S.A., member of convention of 1865; Charles H. Dustan
of Illinois; George Ely of Massachusetts and New York; S. S. Gardner of
Massachusetts, of the Freedmen's Bureau; Albert Griffin of Ohio and
Illinois, Radical editor; Thomas Haughey of Scotland, surgeon U.S.A.; R.
M. Johnson of Illinois, lived in Montgomery and represented Henry County;
John C. Keffer of Pennsylvania, chairman of Radical Executive Committee,
"known to malignants as the 'head devil' of the Loyal League"; David Lore
of (unknown); Charles A. Miller of Maine, Bureau official, "wore the
second clean shirt in the convention"; A. C. Morgan of (unknown); B. W.
Norris of Maine, Commissioner of National Cemetery, 1863-1865, Commissary
and Paymaster, 1864-1866, Bureau official; E. Woolsey Peck of New York; R.
M. Reynolds of Iowa, six months in Alabama and "knew all about it"; J.
Silsby of Massachusetts, another Bureau reverend; N. D. Stanwood of
Massachusetts, a Bureau official who had caused several serious negro
disturbances in Lowndes County; J. P. Stow of (unknown); Whelan of
Ireland; J. W. Wilhite of (unknown), U.S. sutler; Benjamin Yordy of
(unknown), a Bureau official and revenue official who never saw the county
he represented; Benjamin Rolfe, a carriage painter from New York, was too
drunk to sign the constitution, and was known as "the hero of two shirts,"
because when he failed to pay a hotel bill in Selma his carpet-bag was
seized, and was found to contain nothing but two of those useful garments.
Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., _passim_; _N. Y. World_, Nov. 11, 1867;
Herbert, p. 45.
[1416] Some of the better known were: R. Deal of Dale County, a Baptist
preacher, one of those who, in 1865, negligently reconstructed the state,
and the hope was now expressed that "he has better success in
reconstructing souls than sovereignties"; W. C. Ewing of Baine County,
"one of the original Moulton Leaguers who, in 1865, first organized the
Radical party in Alabama," a bitter Radical; W. R. Jones of Covington, had
been barbarously murdered in "a rebel outrage," but came to the convention
notwithstanding; B. F. Saffold, an officer of the Confederate army and
military mayor of Selma; Henry C. Semple, ex-Confederate, nephew of
President Tyler; Joseph H. Speed, cousin of Attorney-General Speed.
[1417] The negro members were: Ben Alexander of Greene, field hand; John
Caraway of Mobile, assistant editor of the _Mobile Nationalist_; Thomas
Diggs of Barbour, field hand; Peyton Finley, formerly doorkeeper of the
House; James K. Green of Hale, a carriage driver; Ovid Gregory of Mobile,
a barber; Jordan Hatcher of Dallas and Washington Johnson of Russell,
field hands, were the blackest negroes in the convention; L. S. Latham of
Bullock; Tom Lee of Perry, field hand, who had a reputation for
moderation; Alfred Strother of Dallas; J. T. Rapier of Lauderdale,
educated in Canada; J. W. McLeod of Marengo; B. F. Royal of Bullock; J. H.
Burdick of Wilcox; H. Stokes and Jack Hatcher of Dallas; Simon Brunson and
Benjamin Inge of Sumter; Samuel Blandon of Lee; Lafeyette Robinson and
Columbus Jones of Madison. Beverly, "History of Alabama," p. 203; _N. Y.
World_, Nov. 11, 1867; Owen, "Official and Statistical Register," p. 125.
[1418] Journal Convention of 1867, pp. 3-5.
[1419] Journal Convention of 1867, p. 5; _N. Y. Herald_, Nov. 13, 1867;
Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 30.
[1420] _Selma Messenger_, Dec. 22, 1867; Journal Convention of 1867, p. 6;
_N. Y. World_, Nov. 11, 1867.
[1421] Journal, pp. 69-71, 249, 251, 264; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 32;
_N. Y. Herald_, March 16, 1867.
[1422] Journal, pp. 10, 12, 13; _N. Y. World_, Nov. 20, 1869; Annual
Cyclopædia (1867), p. 30.
[1423] Journal, pp. 13, 110, 111, 276; _N. Y. Herald_, Nov. 13, 1867.
[1424] Twice the pay in the convention of 1865.
[1425] Journal, pp. 79, 178, 249-251; Pope to Swayne, Nov. 20, 1867; _N.
Y. World_, Dec. 14, 1867; G. O. No. 254, 3d M. D., Nov. 26, 1867.
[1426] Journal, p. 57.
[1427] Journal, p. 61; _N. Y. Herald_, Nov. 15, 1867.
[1428] Journal, p. 189; Herbert, "Solid South," p. 46; _N. Y. Herald_,
Nov. 13, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 33.
[1429] Journal, pp. 262, 263.
[1430] Journal, pp. 15, 212, 263; _N. Y. Herald_, Nov. 13, 1867.
[1431] Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 33; _Selma Messenger_, Dec. 22, 1867.
[1432] Journal, p. 149; _N. Y. World_, Dec. 14, 1867.
[1433] Dubbed "the incarnate fiend" by the whites because of his violent
prejudice.
[1434] _N. Y. World_, Dec. 14, 1867; _Montgomery Mail_, Nov., 1867; _N. Y.
Herald_, Nov. 13 and 23 and Dec. 8, 1867.
[1435] Journal, pp. 8, 12, 17; _N. Y. Herald_, Nov. 13, 1867.
[1436] By Griffin of Ohio, Keffer of Pennsylvania, Norris of Maine, and
Davis of (?). It was said that Norris and Davis had to be influenced by
Swayne to sign the majority report. _N. Y. World_, Nov. 20, 1867.
[1437] Journal, pp. 30-34; _N. Y. World_, Nov. 20, 1867.
[1438] By Speed of Virginia, Whelan of Ireland, and Lee (negro).
[1439] Journal, pp. 36, 37; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 31.
[1440] Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 32; _N. Y. World_, Nov. 20, 1867.
[1441] _N. Y. Herald_, Nov. 13, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 31.
[1442] Journal, pp. 42, 55, 82, 100.
[1443] Journal, pp. 47, 48, 54, 83.
[1444] Journal, p. 47.
[1445] Journal, p. 47.
[1446] Journal, p. 45.
[1447] Journal, p. 53.
[1448] _Selma Messenger_, Dec. 22, 1867.
[1449] Journal, pp. 84, 85.
[1450] _N. Y. World_, Nov. 20 and Dec. 6 and 14, 1867.
[1451] Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 33.
[1452] Code of Alabama, 1876, p. 113. Griffin said that the oath required
the voter never to favor a change in the new constitution so far as the
suffrage was concerned; that "it was the determination of the committee to
forever fasten this constitution on the people of Alabama. He wanted to
tie the hands of rebels, so that complete political equality should be
secured to the negro." Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 32.
[1453] This was aimed at the Confederate soldiers of north Alabama, who
had imprisoned and in some cases hanged the tories and outlaws of that
section.
[1454] Code of Alabama, 1876; Constitution of 1868, Article VII.
[1455] Annual Cyclopædia (1867), pp. 34, 35; Journal, pp. 186, 187.
[1456] Journal, pp. 257-262; _N. Y. World_, Nov. 20, 1867.
[1457] Journal, pp. 265-269.
[1458] Journal, pp. 255, 571.
[1459] Journal, pp. 271, 272, 273; _N. Y. World_, Nov. 11, 1867.
[1460] Journal, pp. 272, 273.
[1461] Journal, p. 63. The whites had for more than two years been asking
for the repeal of this unjust tax, but they were not heeded. As soon as
the negroes demanded its repeal, it was repealed. That was certainly one
advantage they received from the possession of political rights. One
petition from the negroes asked that the tax be repealed because, in many
instances, it was greater than the value of the land. If this was not
done, they wanted the land taken from the owners and worked in common. _N.
Y. Herald_, Nov. 13, 1867.
[1462] Journal, p. 244.
[1463] Journal, pp. 266, 267.
[1464] Journal, p. 240; Meade, Speed, Semple, Cabot, Graves, J. L.
Alexander, Ewing, Latham, and Hurst.
[1465] Journal, p. 242; J. P. Stow of (?).
[1466] Address of Protesting Delegates to the People of Alabama, Dec. 10,
1867.
[1467] Journal, p. 243.
[1468] The Codes of Alabama for 1876 and 1896 do not recognize the
validity of the constitution of 1868. It is listed as the "Constitution
(so-called) of the State of Alabama, 1868." The president of the
convention of 1875 said, "What is called the present constitution of the
state of Alabama is a piece of unseemly mosaic, composed of shreds and
patches gathered here and there, incongruous in design, inharmonious in
action, discriminating and oppressive in the burdens it imposes, reckless
in the license it confers on unjust and wicked legislation, and utterly
lacking in every element to inspire popular confidence and the reverence
and affection of the people." Journal, 1875, p. 5.
[1469] Ely, a delegate from Russell, was a candidate in Montgomery;
Brainard, a delegate from Monroe, was a candidate in Montgomery; R. M.
Johnson, a delegate from Henry, was also a candidate in Montgomery. These
men, however, lived in Montgomery and had never seen the counties they
represented.
[1470] _Selma Messenger_, Jan. 10, 1868.
[1471] Herbert, "Solid South," p. 47; _N. Y. World_, Feb. 5, 1868.
[1472] _N. Y. World_, Feb. 13 and 22, 1868; _Selma Times and Messenger_,
Feb. 28, 1868; _Cong. Globe_, March 11, 1868; Herbert, "Solid South";
Beverly, "Alabama"; Owen, p. 125.
The above list is not complete, as there were undoubtedly other candidates
among those who did not sign the constitution, since a number of them fell
into line later. The starred names are those of candidates who were also
registrars, and who not only conducted their own elections for the
convention, but also for office under the new constitution. Three members
of the majority who signed the report were not eligible for office when
the election came off, two being in jail,--one for stealing and the other
for fraud,--while a third "had been betrayed into an act of virtue by
dying." _N. Y. World_, Feb. 13, 1868.
[1473] After the election, Governor Patton, who at first had supported
Reconstruction, issued an address complaining that nearly all the
candidates voted for were strangers to the people; that many were ignorant
negroes, and that in one county all the commissioners-elect were negroes
who were unable to read; that unlicensed lawyers, wholly uneducated, were
chosen for state solicitors; that the strangers were too often of bad
character; and that the Radical party consisted almost entirely of
negroes, the native whites having forsaken the party as soon as the
negroes fell under the control of the imported Radicals who ran the
machine. _N. Y. Times_, April 23, 1868.
[1474] Herbert, p. 47.
[1475] _Montgomery Mail_, July 25, 1868; _N. Y. World_, Sept. 22, 1868.
[1476] The Radical papers in Alabama were supported almost entirely by
campaign funds and by appropriations from the government for printing the
session laws of the United States. They styled themselves the "Official
Journals of the United States Government." When one offended and the
Washington patronage was withdrawn, it always collapsed. In 1867 the
reconstructionist papers in the state were _Alabama State Sentinel_, _The
Nationalist_, _Elmore Standard_, _East Alabama Monitor_, _Alabama
Republican_, _The Tallapoosian_, _The Reconstructionist_, _Huntsville
Advocate_, _Moulton Union_, _Livingston Messenger_. See Journal Convention
of 1867, p. 242. The circulation of each paper was small and almost
entirely among the negroes. Special campaign editions were printed and
scattered broadcast. The constitution was printed in all of the
above-named papers, and also in a Washington paper which was franked by
the thousands from Congressmen through the Union League as a campaign
document. _N. Y. World_, Feb. 22, 1868.
[1477] See, for example, _The Nationalist_, Feb. 4, 1868 (editorial). On
Jan. 16, 1868, an "Address to the Laboring Men of Alabama" stated in part,
"If you fail to vote and the constitution fails to be ratified, your right
to vote hereafter closes and all participation on your part in the
administration of the laws of the state is at an end." _Montgomery Mail_,
Jan., 1868.
[1478] _Selma Messenger_, Jan. 24, 1868.
[1479] _Cong. Globe_, March 28, 1868, p. 2195.
[1480] Not yet called Democrats, but sometimes "Democratic and
Conservative."
[1481] Popular accounts say thousands, but not as many went this time as
later, in the early 70's.
[1482] Herbert, p. 46, and Journal Convention of 1867.
[1483] _Cong. Globe_, March 12, 1868, p. 1824.
[1484] _Selma Messenger_, Dec. 20, 1867.
[1485] _Selma Messenger_, Dec. 22, 1867.
[1486] Both later became Radicals.
[1487] _Tuskegee News_, Oct. 1, 1874.
[1488] _N. Y. Times_, Jan. 14, 1898; _Montgomery Mail_, Jan. 17, 1868;
Herbert, p. 48; Annual Cyclopædia (1868), p. 15.
[1489] Thirty-five white counties with a population of 393,441--282,282
whites and 111,159 blacks--had 135 representatives, or one representative
to 11,241 of the population. Twenty-four black counties with a population
of 580,717--252,407 whites and 328,300 blacks--had 65 representatives, or
one to 8933. Three small white counties were not represented, but had to
vote with others.; _Selma Times and Messenger_, March 10, 1868; _Cong.
Globe_, 1867-1868, pp. 2197, 2198.
[1490] Variously estimated at from 10,000 to 40,000.
[1491] _Selma Times and Messenger_, March 10, 1868. The minority report,
March 17, 1868, of Beck of Kentucky and Brooks of New York, on the
admission of Alabama, sums up the Conservative objections to the
constitution. See _Cong. Globe_, March 17, 1868, p. 1937.
[1492] Annual Cyclopædia (1868), p. 15; _N. Y. Times_, Jan. 24, 1865;
_Selma Times and Messenger_, March 10, 1868.
[1493] _Tribune_ Almanac, 1868. Pope reported 164,800; Meline, 165,000.
[1494] _Tribune_ Almanac, 1868. The methods of the registrars may be
imagined, since Meade had more than 15,000 names of negroes struck from
the lists.
[1495] It is impossible to obtain exact figures of the registration; no
one ever knew exactly what they were, and accounts never agree. Meade's
estimate was 170,734, Report, 1868. Another estimate was 170,000, _Cong.
Globe_, March 17, 1868, p. 1904; and still another 171,378, Alabama Manual
and Statistical Register, p. xxiii. It is evident that the registration
was about 170,000.
[1496] In 1867 the vote on holding a convention had been more than a
majority of registered voters.
[1497] Report of Meade, 1868, published in Atlanta.
[1498] For instance, William H. Smith, candidate for governor.
[1499] _The Nationalist_, Aug. 24, 1868; _Mobile Register_, Feb. 6, 1868;
Report of Meade, 1868.
[1500] Report of Meade, 1868.
[1501] _Montgomery Mail_, Feb. 4, 5, 12, and 19, 1868; _N. Y. World_,
March 14, 1868; _Cong. Globe_, March 17, 1868, p. 1937; _Mobile Register_,
Feb. 6, 1868; _Selma Times and Messenger_, Feb. 29, 1868.
[1502] _Selma Times and Messenger_, Feb. 29, 1868.
[1503] A political adviser at the polls.
[1504] The Conservatives had challenged such voters several times and
Johnson sent the following order:--
"AT OFFICE, MOBILE, Feb. 5, 1868.
"The Judges of the Election at the Mississippi Hotel will receive all
ballots endorsed by the voter and my signature. The certificate of voters
is in my possession.
"Respectfully,
"D. G. JOHNSON,
"Registrar District No. 1."
--_Mobile Register_, Feb. 6, 1868.
[1505] _Cong. Globe_, March 17, 1868, p. 1937; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 303, 40th
Cong., 2d Sess.; _N. Y. World_, March 14, 1868.
[1506] In Henry County the registrars had all forsaken the party and
resigned. On the last day the United States troops opened the polls and 29
people voted. _Abbeville Register_, Feb. 16, 1868. In Dale County it was
much the same way. After a careful search one John Metcalf of Skipperville
was found to make complaint on behalf of the reconstructionists. It was a
sad story: "We had," he said, "depended on Mr. Deal, the delegate to the
convention, to bring the registration books, 'but he fused with the
destructive party' and we couldn't register. On the fourth day an election
was held anyway, but the Conservatives would not let us hold it on the
fifth. It was the almost united wish of the voters of the county to adopt
the constitution. There are about 150 in the county that are opposed to
it, and they united on the fifth and broke us up. We would have polled
1400 to 1500 votes for the constitution." Ho. Mic. Doc., No. 111, 40th
Cong., 2d Sess.
[1507] In Montgomery 41 whites of 4200 voted. Of these 15 were
carpet-baggers and nearly all were candidates for office. The _Montgomery
Mail_ of Feb. 11 printed the entire list, with sarcastic comments on their
past history and present aspirations. The list was headed, _Our White
Black List, The Roll of Dishonor_. See _Cong. Globe_, March 11, 1868, p.
1827.
[1508] The storm played a very effective part in the debates in Congress
later. Moving tales were told of negroes swimming the swollen streams in
order to get to the polls. One instance was given where, in swimming the
Alabama River, which was beyond its banks and floating with ice, a negro
was drowned. _Cong. Globe_, 1867-1868, p. 2865. The river at this point
when out of its banks is not less than a mile wide, and there was never
any ice in it since the glacial epoch.
[1509] The Conservatives claimed that the Lowndes county box was stolen by
the Radicals themselves as soon as they saw the constitution had failed of
ratification, in order to give point to charges of fraud. In the same way
the returns from Baine, Colbert, and Jones counties were so tampered with
by the Radical election officials that the military canvassers were
obliged to reject them. _Montgomery Mail_, Feb. 12, 1868; _Cong. Globe_,
1867-1868, p. 2139.
[1510] _The Nationalist_, Feb. 13 and 20, and Aug. 24, 1868; _N. Y.
World_, March 14, 1868; _Selma Times and Messenger_, Feb. 28, 1868; _Cong.
Globe_, March 11, 1868, pp. 1818, 1823. This is a statement signed by
Griffin of Ohio, Keffer of Pennsylvania, Burton of Massachusetts, Hardy
and Spencer of Ohio, and indorsed by Joshua Morse, who signed himself as
"disfranchised rebel."
[1511] Report of Meade, 1868. Meade made this report to Grant at the time,
and at the end of the year he made practically the same, though perhaps a
little stronger. The _Nationalist_ (Albert Griffin of Ohio, editor) said,
April 9, 1868, that the statements of Meade, the "military saphead," were
"false in letter and false in spirit."
[1512] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 111, 40th Cong., 2d Sess. The whites were
complaining loudly because of the scarcity of labor, and few would
discharge a negro laborer, no matter how often he might vote the Radical
ticket. General Hayden sent a list of eighteen questions in regard to the
election to every election official. They covered every possible point,
and full answers were required. One of the questions was in regard to the
proportion of white voters. A summary of the answers is here given: 1.
_Elmore County._ Intimidation and threats of discharge; of the 1000 to
1200 whites who registered, from 12 to 15 voted. 2. _Autauga._ No
intimidation, but threats of discharge; of the 900 whites registered, 200
voted. 3. _Chambers._ Fair election, with 23 white voters of the 1400
registered. 4. _Russell._ Threats of discharge; one-thirty-sixth of the
whites voted. 5. _Tallapoosa._ "Persuasion and arguments" deterred the
blacks from voting; 20 whites voted of the 1500 who registered. 6.
_Coosa._ Two discharges; one-third of the whites voted. 7. _Montgomery._
"Ostracism," and two discharges; 41 whites voted of the 4200 who
registered. 8. _Macon._ Fair election and 4 whites voted of the 800
registered. 9. _Lee._ One discharge and threats; 30 or 40 whites voted of
1500 registered. 10. _Randolph._ Fair election. 11. _Clay._ Threats of
ostracism and one discharge. 12. _Crenshaw._ Two discharges. 13.
_Lowndes._ Three threats of discharge; "too much challenging;" 10 whites
voted of 850 registered. 14. _Barbour._ Four threats of discharge; "whites
afraid of social proscription." 15. _Bullock._ "Needless questions" to
voters, and three threats of discharge; no whites voted. 16. _Pike._ One
threat of discharge; one-fourth of the whites voted. 17. _Butler._ Eight
threats; 3 whites of 1400 voted. 18. _Covington._ "Threats;" 225 whites
voted of the 900. 19. _Coffee._ "Threats" and "proscription." 20-21.
_Dale_ and _Henry_. No election; no registrars; none would serve. In Dale
County were a number of "outrageous acts committed by a Mr. Oats." 22-27.
_Mobile_, _Washington_, _Baldwin_, _Clarke_, _Monroe_, and _Conecuh_.
"Threats and social ostracism;" 125 of 3750 whites voted. 28. _Walker._
Fair election; one negro driven away; "more whites voted than were
expected." 29-30. _Winston_ and _Jackson_. More whites voted than were
expected; one threat in Jackson. 31-32. _Madison_ and _Lauderdale_. Fair
elections; in Lauderdale 150 of 1500 whites voted. 33. _Lawrence._
"Persuasion;" 311 of 1400 whites voted. 34-35. _Colbert_ and _Franklin_.
Twenty-five per cent of the whites voted; 75 per cent "were opposed to
article 7, paragraph 4, of constitution." 36-38. _Limestone_, _Morgan_,
and _Cherokee_. Fair elections; few whites voted. 39. _Marshall._
"Threats"; one-third of the whites voted. 40. _De Kalb._ Fair; 650 of the
900 whites. 41. _Baine._ "Handbills advised people not to vote;" only
one-fifth voted. 42. _Blount._ One threat; "persuasion;" one-fourth of the
whites voted. 43. _St. Clair._ Threats; one-third of the whites voted.
44-45. _Marion_ and _Jones_. Fair; two-sevenths of the whites voted. 46.
_Fayette._ Speeches published against the constitution, three drunken men
threatened the managers at one box; liquor given to negroes to "vote
against their intentions," all of which "prevented full and free
expression of opinion by ballot"; two-sevenths of the whites voted. 47.
_Shelby._ Fair; one-fourth of the whites voted. 48. _Talladega._ Fair,
though threats were heard; three-tenths of the whites voted. 49. _Perry._
Fair; 24 of the 1066 whites voted. 50. _Bibb._ Fair; 167 of the 1021
whites. 51. _Dallas._ Fair; 78 whites voted; others suffered from "want of
independence." 52. _Wilcox._ Ten threats; 12 whites of 800. 53.
_Tuscaloosa._ One threat; one-fifth of the whites voted. 54. _Pickens._
"Threats too numerous to mention;" 60 to 70 of the 1100 whites voted. 55.
_Jefferson._ Fair; one-fifth of the whites voted. 56. _Sumter._ Threats
against blacks; whites to be ostracized. 57. _Greene._ Threats, though the
"Union Men" were afraid to tell who threatened them; 446 ballots had
"Constitution" torn off. 58. _Marengo._ Voters were refused at one box
because the names were not on the list, though the parties were willing to
swear they had been registered. Threats and speeches were made at the
polls and one man made 16 discharges; 16 whites of the 997 voted. 59-62.
No reports from _Choctaw_, _Calhoun_, _Cleburne_, and _Hale_.
Nearly all officials reported quiet elections; the assertions about
threats were almost invariably hearsay. Even the few specific instances
were based on hearsay. The worst complaint was that Conservatives
sometimes attended and challenged the votes of certain negroes, and made
speeches or used persuasion to induce the negroes not to vote. Much
importance was attached to the ridicule and jeers of the white leaders.
These reports were made by the election officials, who were thoroughgoing
reconstructionists. General Meade denied the charges of fraud and
intimidation.
It will be noticed that the heaviest white vote was cast in the counties
where there were few negroes, and where the Peace Society had been
strongest during the war. If the estimates given above by the registrars
were correct, it is doubtful if 5000 whites voted in the election, as was
asserted. The judges were supposed to mark "C" on the ballot of a negro
and "W" on that of a white. Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 111, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.;
Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 303, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.; Report of Meade, 1868;
_Montgomery Mail_, Feb. 19, 1868; _N. Y. World_, March 14, 1868.
[1513] Strobach, the Austrian, went so far off in the Northwest that after
the state was admitted he could not return to the special session of the
legislature. He drew his pay, however, the Speaker certifying that he was
present. _N. Y. World_, Oct. 8, 1868; _Montgomery Mail_, April 14, 1869;
_Nationalist_, Feb. 18, 1868.
[1514] In _North Alabamian_, 1868.
[1515] He had evidently not seen Meade's report.
[1516] Dustan had been a candidate for major-general of militia.
[1517] Annual Cyclopædia (1868), p. 16.
[1518] _Globe_, Feb. 17, 1868, p. 1217.
[1519] _Cong. Globe_, March 10, 11, and 17, 1868, pp. 1790, 1818, 1821,
1823, 1824, 1825, 1827, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1938.
[1520] Both statements were incorrect.
[1521] _Globe_, March 18 and 26, 1868, pp. 1972, 2138, 2139, 2140.
[1522] McPherson, "Reconstruction," p. 337; _Globe_, March 28, 1868, pp.
2193, 2216.
[1523] _Globe_, March 28, 1868, pp. 2203, 2209, 2214.
[1524] April 23, 1868.
[1525] _Nationalist_, April 9, 1868.
[1526] _Independent Monitor_, April 21, 1868.
[1527] Yordy, a carpet-bag Bureau agent, registrar, and senator-elect from
Sumter County, was turned out of a hotel at Eutaw and told to go to the
negro inn. _Tuscaloosa Independent Monitor_, Sept. 1, 1868.
[1528] _Globe_, March 28, 1868, p. 2140. Claus and Wilson were two
carpet-baggers of Tuscaloosa.
[1529] Annual Cyclopædia (1868), p. 16; _Cong. Globe_, March 11, 1868, p.
1825.
[1530] _Globe_, May 11, 1868, p. 2412.
[1531] _Cong. Globe_, June 5 and 6, 1868, pp. 2858, 2865, 2867, 2900,
2964; McPherson, "Reconstruction," p. 340; Foulke, "Life of Morton," Vol.
II, p. 47.
[1532] _Globe_, June 9 and 10, 1868, pp. 2965, 3017.
[1533] _Globe_, June 12, 1868, pp. 3089, 3090, 3097.
[1534] _Globe_, June 25, 1868, p. 3484.
[1535] _Globe_, June 25, 1868, pp. 3466, 3484; McPherson, p. 338.
[1536] McPherson, p. 337. The present constitution of the state, adopted
in 1901, nullifies this fundamental condition. Other southern states have
also disregarded this limitation.
[1537] McPherson, p. 338.
[1538] G. O. No. 101, July 14, 1868.
[1539] Warner, who was said to have gone to his own state--Ohio--and run
for office, now returned.
[1540] The credentials were signed by E. W. Peck, president of the
convention of 1867, who certified to their election. _Globe_, July 24,
1868, p. 4294.
[1541] _Globe_, July 17, 18, 21, and 25, 1868, pp. 4173, 4213, 4293, 4295,
4459, 4466.
[1542] President Jay's Address, March 26, 1868; Bellows, "History Union
League Club of New York," pp. 6-9; "Chronicle of Philadelphia Union
League," pp. 5-8.
[1543] "Chronicle of Philadelphia Union League," pp. 5-8; Bellows, "Union
League Club," p. 9.
[1544] First Annual Report of Board of Directors of Union League of
Philadelphia; Bellows, pp. 9, 32; "Chronicle of Philadelphia Union
League," pp. 70, 112.
[1545] See Bellows, "History Union League Club."
[1546] Bellows, p. 90.
[1547] There were 144 different pamphlets published by the Philadelphia
League and 44 posters; 56,380 pamphlets were issued in 1865; 867,000
pamphlets were issued in 1866; 31,906 pamphlets were issued in 1867;
1,416,906 pamphlets were issued in 1868; 4,500,000 pamphlets were issued
in eight years. "Chronicle of Philadelphia Union League," pp. 106, 107,
145.
[1548] "Chronicle of Philadelphia Union League," p. 169; Bellows, pp. 90,
99, 100, 102; Reports of the Executive Committee, Union League Club of N.
Y., 1865-1866; _Century Magazine_, Vol. VI, pp. 404, 949; oral accounts.
[1549] I am especially indebted to Professor L. D. Miller, Jacksonville,
Ala., for many details concerning the Loyal Leagues. He made inquiries for
me of people who knew the facts. I have also had other oral accounts. See
also Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Pierce), p. 305; (Lowe), p. 894; (Forney),
p. 487.
[1550] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Sayre), p. 357; (Governor Lindsay), p.
170; (Nicholas Davis), p. 783; (Richardson), pp. 815, 855; (Ford), p. 684;
(Lowe), p. 892; (Forney), p. 487; Miller, "Alabama," p. 246; Herbert,
"Solid South," pp. 36, 41; also oral accounts.
[1551] There is a copy of the charter of a local council in the Alabama
Testimony of the Ku Klux Report, p. 1017. The Montgomery Council was
organized June 2, 1866, and three days later General Swayne, of the
Freedmen's Bureau, joined it. It was charged that even thus early he was
desirous of representing Alabama in the Senate. Herbert, pp. 41-43.
[1552] _N. Y. Herald_, Aug. 5, 1867.
[1553] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Lowe), p. 872; (English), pp. 1437,
1438; (Lindsay), p. 170; _N. Y. Herald_, Aug. 5, 1869, and June 20, 1867;
Professor Miller's account; oral accounts.
[1554] In Sumter County a northern teacher of a negro school informed a
planter that the Leaguers were sworn to defend one another, and that he,
the planter, would be punished for striking a Leaguer whom he had caught
stealing and had thrashed. _Selma Times and Messenger_, July 21, 1868.
[1555] The Montgomery Council, May 22, 1867, resolved "That the Union
League is the right arm of the Union Republican party of the United
States, and that no man should be initiated into the League who does not
heartily indorse the principles and policy of the Union Republican party."
Herbert, "Solid South," p. 41. A Confederate could not be admitted to the
League unless he would acknowledge that during the war he had been guilty
of treason.
[1556] Alcohol on salt burns with a peculiar flame, making the faces of
those around, especially the negroes, appear ghostly.
[1557] A copy of the constitution and ritual was secured by the whites and
published in the _Montgomery Advertiser_, July 24, 1867; printed also in
Fleming, "Documents relating to Reconstruction," No. 3.
[1558] The Montgomery Council was composed of white Radicals, and the
Lincoln Council in the same city was for blacks. Most of the officers of
the latter were whites. Herbert, p. 41.
[1559] This fact will partly explain why there were burnings of negro
churches and schoolhouses by the Ku Klux Klan. These were political
headquarters of the Radical party in each community.
[1560] See Miller, "Alabama," pp. 246, 247; Lester and Wilson, "Ku Klux
Klan," pp. 45, 46.
[1561] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Lindsay), pp. 170, 179; (Nicholas
Davis), p. 783; (Richardson), pp. 839, 355; (Lowe), pp. 872, 886, 907;
(Pettus), p. 384; (Walker), pp. 962, 975.
[1562] Thaddeus Stevens's speech on confiscation, through the Loyal
League, had a wide circulation in Alabama. Agents were sent to the state
to organize new councils and to secure the benefits of the proposed
confiscation; free farms were promised the negroes. _N. Y. Herald_, June
20, 1867. Many whites now believed that wholesale confiscation would take
place.
[1563] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Sanders), pp. 1803, 1811; (Dox), p. 432;
(Herr), pp. 1662, 1663.
[1564] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Lowe), pp. 886, 887, 894, 997; (Davis),
p. 783; (Cobbs), p. 1637; (Pettus), p. 6393.
[1565] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Ford), p. 684; (Herr), p. 1665;
(Pettus), p. 381; (Jolly), pp. 283, 291; (Sayre), p. 357; (Pierce), p.
313; _N. Y. Herald_, Dec. 4, 1867, Oct. 2, 1868; Herbert, "Solid South,"
p. 45. One Wash Austin, a Democratic negro, was attacked by a mob,
pursued, and when he reached home his wife called him "a damned
Conservative," struck him on the head with a brick, and then left him.
Norris V. Hanley, in Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 15, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.
[1566] _N. Y. Herald_, Oct. 13 and Nov. 11, 1867, Eufaula correspondence;
Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Sanders), p. 1812; (Pettus), p. 381; (Herr), p.
1663; (Pierce), p. 313; (Sayre), p. 357; Harris, "Political Conflict in
America," p. 479.
[1567] A notice posted on the door of a citizen of Dallas County was to
this effect, "Irvin Hauser is the damnedest rascal in the neighborhood,
and if he and three or four others don't mind they will get a ball in
them." _Selma Times and Messenger_, April 21, 1868; oral accounts; see
also Brown, "Lower South," Ch. IV; Herbert, pp. 3, 8.
[1568] _The Macon Telegraph_, March 12, 1905.
[1569] _N. Y. Herald_, Dec. 5 and 22, 1867; _Montgomery Advertiser_, Dec.
4, 1867 (J. M. Chappell).
[1570] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Lyon), pp. 1422, 1423; (Abrahams), pp.
1382, 1384.
[1571] See Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Alston), p. 1017; (Herr), p. 1665;
(Sayre), p. 357; (Pierce), p. 313.
[1572] _Selma Messenger_, July 19, 1867; see Fleming, "Documents relating
to Reconstruction," No. 3.
[1573] It is certain that the estimate of 18,000 white and 70,000 black
members at the same time is not correct. As the latter increased in
numbers the former decreased. Early in 1867 Keffer said there were 38,000
whites and 12,000 blacks in the League. _N. Y. Herald_, May 7, 1867.
Perhaps he meant the total enrolment early in the year. In 1868 he claimed
20,000 whites, about 17,000 too many.
[1574] Lester and Wilson, "Ku Klux Klan," p. 47; also Ku Klux Rept., Ala.
Test., _passim_.
[1575] _Montgomery Mail_, Aug. 20, 1870.
[1576] In the Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., the Conservative and sometimes
the Radical witnesses assert that the Ku Klux movement was caused partly
by the workings of the Union League.
[1577] Senate Journal, 1875-1876, p. 214.
[1578] Ku Klux Rept., p. 171.
[1579] Ku Klux Rept., p. 318.
[1580] Auditor's Report, 1902, p. 19.
[1581] Ku Klux Rept., p. 170; Census of 1860. The assessed valuation of
property increased 117% from 1850 to 1860. The comptroller's report of
Nov. 12, 1858, states that the slave property of the state at that time
paid nearly half the taxes. This was true of all ordinary taxes to 1865.
See Senate Journal, 1866-1867, p. 291.
[1582] Journal Convention of 1867, p. 125; Patton's Report to the
Convention, Nov. 11, 1867.
[1583]
Cotton crop, 1860 842,729 bales
Cotton crop, 1865 75,305 bales
Cotton crop, 1866 429,102 bales
Cotton crop, 1867 239,516 bales
Cotton crop, 1868 366,193 bales
Most of the war crop was confiscated by the United States. The crops of
1866-1868 show the effects of politics among the negro laborers rather
than unfavorable seasons. Hodgson, "Alabama Manual and Statistical
Register," 1869.
[1584] The exemption laws were so framed as to release the average negroes
from paying tax, and also the class of whites that supported the Radical
policy. The following list will show the incidence of taxation for 1870:--
=======================================================
| VALUE | TAX
------------------------|-----------------|------------
Lands | $81,109,102.03 | $607,979.52
Town property | 36,005,780.50 | 268,865.89
Cattle | 1,180,106.00 | 8,851.36
Mules | 4,845,736.00 | 36,042.68
Horses | 2,214,376.00 | 16,599.83
Sheep and goats | 111,001.00 | 832.50
Hogs | 277,735.50 | 2,083.02
Wagons, carriages, etc. | 131,235.00 | 8,480.81
Tools | 237,534.50 | 1,769.96
Farming implements | 235,600.00 | 1,744.71
Household furniture | 1,691,807.00 | 12,731.98
Cotton presses | 41,360.00 | 310.30
=======================================================
Besides these items, heavy taxes were laid on the following: wharves, toll
bridges, ferries, steamboats, and all water craft, stocks of goods,
libraries, jewellery, plate and silverware, musical instruments, pistols,
guns, jacks and jennies, race-horses, watches, money in and out of the
state, money loaned, credits, commercial paper, capital in incorporated
companies in or out of the state, bonds except of United States and
Alabama, incomes and gains over $1000, banks, poll tax, insurance
companies, auction sales, lotteries, warehouses, distilleries, brokers,
factors, express and telegraph companies, etc. See Ku Klux Report and
Auditor's Report, 1871.
[1585] Revenue Laws of Ala., 1865-1870; Report of the Debt Commission,
Jan. 24, 1876; Governor Lindsay's Message, Nov. 21, 1871; Ku Klux Rept.,
Ala. Test., pp. 227, 340, 976, 1056, 1504.
[1586] See Acts of Ala., 1868-1874, _passim_.
[1587] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 240, 360.
[1588] Ala. Test., pp. 1303, 1304.
[1589] Ala. Test., pp. 461, 963, 964.
[1590] Taxes are paid on $307,312,000, slaves included; see Census of
1860; Census of 1870; Ku Klux Rept., pp. 170, 171, 175, 317, 318.
[1591] Includes receipts and disbursements in Confederate money.
[1592] License taxes only.
[1593] License taxes, bond issues, and temporary loans.
[1594] Interest paid on the public debt with bond issues included, and
expenses of the convention of 1867. The actual expenses of the state
administration were $262,627.47.
[1595] The first figures for 1868 include the receipts from taxes and the
expenditures for state purposes only; the other figures include the
proceeds from sale of bonds used for state purposes. The Radicals always
gave the first set of figures, and the Democrats the second.
[1596] $620,000 should be added for the sale of bonds and state
obligations.
[1597] Issue of bonds to railroads included.
[1598] Includes interest paid on railroad bonds.
[1599] Currency had depreciated. Many claims went unpaid. The "home debt"
amounted to $823,454.64. The actual state expenses were $1,384,044.46.
[1600] State expenses only. Democrats in power. See Auditor's Reports,
1869-1873, 1900; Ku Klux Rept., pp. 170, 174, 176, 1055, 1057; Report of
the Debt Commission, 1876; Journal Convention of 1867, p. 125.
[1601] Ku Klux Rept., pp. 170, 174, 176; Auditor's Reports, 1869-1870;
Reports of the Alabama Debt Commission.
[1602] Report of Governor Patton to the Convention, Nov. 11, 1867; Journal
Convention of 1867, p. 125.
[1603] See _Tuskegee News_, June 3, 1875; Auditor's Reports, 1868-1874.
[1604] The average legislator in 1872-1873 was paid $904.00 and mileage.
The Senate had 33 members and 44 attending officers, clerks, and
secretaries; the lower house, with a membership of 100, had from 77 to 84
attending officials. Besides these there were dozens of pages,
doorkeepers, firemen, assistants, etc. In 1869 there were 105 regular
capitol servants who received $31,900 in wages. Auditor's Report,
1869-1873; _Montgomery Mail_, Dec. 31, 1870. There were about 10 in 1900.
[1605] Journal of the "Capitol" Senate, 1872, p. 19-34; in Senate Journal,
1873.
[1606] The older and abler men were disfranchised.
[1607] _Montgomery Mail_, Sept. 22, 1872.
[1608] Auditor's Reports, 1869-1873.
[1609] The purpose of the act was to liberate negro prisoners and save
money for the officials to spend in other ways.
[1610] These items are taken from the accounts of Lewis's administration.
[1611] The Investigating Committee remarked that had he chartered a parlor
car and paid hotel bills at the rate of $10 a day, he would have been
unable to spend $800 on that trip.
[1612] See Ch. XXIV.
[1613] Report of the Committee to Investigate the Contingent Fund, 1875;
Senate Journal, 1874-1875, pp. 581-607.
[1614] Caffey, "The Annexation of West Florida to Alabama," p. 10; Senate
Journal, 1869-1870, pp. 234-244.
[1615] Report of the Committee to examine the Offices of Auditor and
Treasurer, 1875; Report of the Debt Commission, 1875, 1876.
[1616] See Edwin DeLeon, "Ruin and Reconstruction of the Southern States,"
in the _Southern Magazine_, Jan., 1874.
[1617] Ala. Test., p. 1409.
[1618] _State Journal_, April 19, 1874.
[1619] Ala. Test., p. 1409. The Radical newspapers that had the public
printing made money from the tax sale notices by dividing each lot into
sixteenths of a section, advertising each, and charging for each division.
The author of the tax sale law was Pierce Burton, a Radical editor.
[1620] _Scribner's Monthly_, Aug., 1874; King, "The Great South."
[1621] _Southern Argus_, Jan. 17 and Feb. 8, 1872; _Scribner's Monthly_,
Aug., 1874; Herbert, "Solid South," pp. 64, 67. Colonel Herbert believes
that during the six years of Reconstruction the state gained practically
nothing by immigration, while it lost more by emigration than it had by
the Civil War.
[1622] Auditor's Reports, 1869-1873; Comptroller's Reports, 1861-1865,
1866; Patton's Report, 1867, to the Convention; Journal Convention of
1867, pp. 46, 123; Ku Klux Rept., pp. 169, 317, 1055.
[1623] The following is a partial list compiled from the session laws:--
ISSUES OF COUNTY BONDS
1868. Walker County $14,000.00
1868. Dallas County 50,000.00
1868. Bullock County 40,000.00
1868. Limestone County 100,000.00
1869. Hale County 60,000.00
1869. Greene County 80,000.00
1869. Pickens County 100,000.00
1870. Baldwin County 5,000.00
1870. Bibb County 5,000.00
1870. Choctaw County (?) unlimited
1870. Crenshaw County 10,000.00
1872. Pickens County 30,000.00
1873. Butler County 12,000.00
1873. Jefferson County 50,000.00
1873. Montgomery County 130,000.00
1873. Madison County 130,000.00
(?) Dallas County 140,000.00
(?) Chambers County 150,000.00
(?) Lee County 275,000.00
(?) Randolph County 100,000.00
(?) Barbour County (?)
(?) Tallapoosa County 125,000.00
ISSUES OF TOWN AND CITY BONDS
1868. Troy $75,000.00
1869. Eutaw 20,000.00
1869. Greensboro 15,000.00
1871. Mobile 1,400,000.00
1871. Selma 5 00,000.00
1872. Prattville 50,000.00
1873. Mobile 200,000.00
Opelika 25,000.00
And in addition each county and town had a large floating debt in "scrip"
or local obligations. Speculators gathered up such obligations and sold
them at reduced prices to those who had local taxes, fines, and licenses
to pay.
[1624] Auditor's Reports, 1871-1872; Report of Committee on Public Debt,
1876; McClure, "The South: Industrial, Financial, and Political
Condition," p. 83.
[1625] Report of the Committee on Public Debt, 1876; Senate Journal,
1872-1873, p. 544; Auditor's Report, 1873.
[1626] Senate Journal, 1875-1876, pp. 212, 213; Report of the Committee on
the Public Debt, 1876. In his book Clews tells how he invested in the
securities of the struggling southern states, being desirous of assisting
them. But when the ungrateful states refused to pay the claims that he and
others like him presented, he says it was because they, the creditors,
were northern men. See Clews, "Twenty-eight Years in Wall Street," pp.
550, 551.
[1627] DeLeon, "Ruin and Reconstruction," in the _Southern Magazine_,
Jan., 1874. The state debts of the ten southern states were then estimated
at $291,626,015, while the debts of the other twenty-seven states amounted
to only $293,872,552.
[1628] Houston's Message, 1876; Senate Journal, 1874-1875, p. 7.
[1629] Act of Dec. 17, 1874.
[1630] Later increased to $1,192,000.
[1631] Report of the Debt Commission, 1876. This was nearly half the value
of the farm lands of the state, which were worth $67,700,000, and was much
more than the gross value of a year's cotton crop.
[1632] Report of the Debt Commission, Jan. 24, 1876; Senate Journal,
1875-1876, pp. 203-232; Report of the Joint Committee on the Public Debt,
Feb. 23, 1876; Annual Cyclopædia (1875), p. 14; "Northern Alabama," p. 52;
Final Report of the Committee of the Alabama and Chattanooga Bondholders,
London, 1876; McClure, "The South," p. 83; Second Report of the Debt
Commission, Dec. 13, 1876.
[1633] Senate Journal, 1876-1876, p. 316.
[1634] Second Report, Dec. 13, 1876.
[1635] Second Report of the Debt Commission, Dec. 13, 1876.
[1636] Annual Cyclopædia (1875), p. 14; "Northern Alabama," pp. 51, 51;
Acts of 1874-1875.
[1637] Auditor's Report, 1902, p. 14.
[1638] _E.g._ the State Bank.
[1639] T. H. Clark, "Railroads and Navigation," in "Memorial Record of
Alabama," Vol. II, pp. 322-323; Martin, "Internal Improvements in
Alabama," pp. 72-77; Garrett, "Public Men," pp. 577, 580.
[1640] Martin, "Internal Improvements," pp. 65-68.
[1641] Martin, "Internal Improvements," p. 42 _et seq._
[1642] Martin, "Internal Improvements," pp. 68-71; Auditor's Report, Oct.
12, 1869.
[1643] Census, 1850, 1860.
[1644] Acts of Ala., 1866-1867, pp. 686-694.
[1645] The constitution of 1867, Art. 13, Sec. 13, provided that the
credit of the state should not be given nor loaned except in aid of
railways or internal improvements, and then only by a two-thirds vote of
each house.
[1646] Acts of Ala., Aug. 7 and Sept. 22, 1868. The promoters of the roads
claimed that the old law was useless, but that $16,000 a mile would
attract northern and European capital. Herbert, "Solid South," p. 52.
[1647] Governor's Message, Nov. 15, 1869. The carpet-bag auditor also
advocated the repeal of the law. He thought that no road should be
indorsed for more than $10,000 a mile, since the average value was less
than $13,000 a mile.
[1648] Act of Feb. 21, 1870, Acts of Ala., 1869-1870
[1649] Act of March 1, 1870, Acts of Ala., 1869-1870, p. 286.
[1650] Act of April 21, 1873, Acts of Ala., 1872-1873, p. 45.
[1651] Acts of Oct. 6 and Nov. 17, 1868, Acts of Ala., 1868, pp. 207, 347;
Herbert, "Solid South," p. 52; Annual Cyclopædia (1871), pp. 7, 8. The
railroad must have intended to profit by the indorsement, and must have
paid for it, for when, a year later, ex-Governor Patton, who for the sake
of respectability was made the nominal president, was in Boston, he was
reproached by the Alabama and Chattanooga officials for allowing their
charter to cost them $200,000. See Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 232.
[1652] Alabama _vs._ Burr, 115 United States Reports, p. 418. Burr, J. C.
Stanton, and D. N. Stanton had been prosecuted by the state of Alabama for
the fraudulent use of indorsed bonds.
[1653] Governor Smith's Message, Nov. 15, 1869.
[1654] Auditor's Report, 1870.
[1655] Message in _Independent Monitor_, Dec. 13, 1870.
[1656] _Independent Monitor_, June 14, 1871; Ku Klux Rept., pp. 172, 317;
Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 193; Auditor's Report, 1871.
[1657] Act of Feb. 11, 1870, Acts of Ala., 1869-1870.
[1658] _Montgomery Mail_, Jan. 25, 1871; _Southern Argus_, Feb. 2, 1872,
and Feb. 28, 1873; Somers, "Southern States," p. 157; Report of the House
Railroad Investigation Committee, 1871; Herbert, "Solid South," pp. 52,
53. Colonel Herbert says that the Alabama and Chattanooga officials
_demanded_ the $2,000,000 and received it. "Solid South," p. 53. The
legislature that voted the gift of $2,000,000 was composed as follows:
Senate, 32 Radicals and 1 Democrat; House, 85 Radicals (of whom 20 were
negroes) and 15 doubtful Democrats. The carpet-bag editor of the
_Demopolis Republican_ said: "Men who never paid ten dollars' tax in their
lives talk as flippantly of millions as the schoolboy of his marbles.
Meanwhile, outsiders talk of buying and selling men at prices which would
have been a disgrace to a slave before the war." _Montgomery Mail_, Jan.
25, 1871.
[1659] Annual Cyclopædia (1870), p. 10.
[1660] Report of the House Railroad Committee, 1871; Ku Klux Rept., p.
319.
[1661] Ku Klux Rept., p. 319; House Journal, 1870-1871, p. 236; Report of
the House Railroad Investigating Committee, 1871; Ku Klux Rept., Ala.
Test., p. 232; J. P. Stow, Radical senator from Montgomery, said that when
Hardy left at the end of the session, he carried away $150,000. Not all of
it was his own; some of it he had collected for others. One senator is
said to have held his vote at $1000 regularly.
[1662] Senate Journal, 1873; Appendix containing Journal of the Capitol
Senate, 1872, pp. 19-34; Lindsay's Message, 1872, to the Capitol
Legislature. Lindsay said that all the Democrats worked hard to prevent
the passage of the $2,000,000 bill; that he himself worked in the lobby
until three o'clock in the morning trying to defeat the thieves. Ku Klux
Rept., Ala. Test., p. 199.
[1663] Ku Klux Rept., p. 318; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 196; Report of
the House Investigation Committee, p. 1871. Ex-Governor Patton testified
that though president of the Alabama and Chattanooga road, he had opposed
the bill and in consequence had been displaced, D. N. Stanton of Boston
being elected. Patton stated that none of the capital stock had at this
time been paid in by the stockholders.
In 1870-1871 "another set of financiers had made up their minds to come
down South and help Alabama. Their demand was for $5,000,000 with which to
set furnaces and factories going. They were too late. If they had only
come the session before, there was no chance for a bill containing
$5,000,000, properly pressed, to have failed." But the lower house now had
a Democratic majority. Herbert, "Solid South," p. 57.
[1664] Senate Journal, 1870-1871, p. 78; Lindsay's Message, Nov. 21, 1871;
Senate Journal, 1870-1871.
[1665] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 195, 196; Lindsay's Messages,
1871-1872; Lindsay's Statement of Facts, April 22, 1871; Report of
Commissioners of the Public Debt, Jan. 24, 1876.
[1666] Act of Feb. 25, 1871.
[1667] Statement of Facts which influenced Governor Robert B. Lindsay in
his Action in regard to the Bonds of the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad
Company, April 22, 1871; Lindsay's Message, Nov. 21, 1871. While Lindsay
was in New York, Ex-Governor Smith called on him and half acknowledged the
whole affair. Ala. Test., p. 199. Afterwards in a letter Smith strongly
protested that some of the bonds signed and sealed by himself were
fraudulent, and blamed Governor Lindsay and the legislature for
recognizing them. He acknowledged that his carelessness had resulted in
the present state of affairs. Somers, "Southern States," p. 158. April 3,
1871, Smith wrote, "I admit that if I had attended strictly to the
indorsement and issue of these bonds, that all this never would have
occurred." Herbert, "Solid South," p. 53.
[1668] Statement of Facts, April 22, 1871; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp.
198, 199. Lindsay said that since the Alabama and Chattanooga road was
indorsed under the laws of 1867 and 1868, it did not come under the laws
of 1870. Consequently, when the Alabama and Chattanooga defaulted, the
state was not bound to pay interest on the $2,000,000 state bonds until
the legislature acted in March, 1871.
In his Statement of Facts, Lindsay relates a suggestive and illuminating
incident: On Dec. 13, 1870, John Demerett, an Alabama and Chattanooga
bondholder, brought suit in the Superior Court of King's County, New York,
against the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad Company, the state of
Alabama, and one F. B. Loomis (of the Alabama and Chattanooga Company),
alleging that the said railway company was about to place on the market
500 first mortgage bonds numbered from 4800 to 5300, indorsed by the
governor of Alabama in violation of the law. Demerett prayed for an
injunction to restrain the company from selling the bonds. The records
showed that the state of Alabama appeared by her attorney, one William D.
Vieder, who declared on affidavit that he was employed by Henry Clews &
Company, financial agents of Alabama. Vieder filed an answer in behalf of
Alabama, stating that the bonds numbered 4801 to 5300 were properly
indorsed, and were of the same class as others issued by the company, that
the indorsement was in conformity to law, and that in no case would the
bonds be repudiated. The injunction was dissolved and the company
permitted to sell. To the Ku Klux Committee Lindsay suggested that Smith
might have signed the illegal bonds after he went out of office, as they
were not placed on the market until January, 1871. (See Ala. Test., p.
197.) But the Demerett case seems to disprove this and to show that the
bonds were issued while Smith was governor. The House Railroad
Investigation Committee, in 1871, reported that Smith asserted that the
fraudulent indorsements were secured by the active coöperation of Henry
Clews & Company, Souter & Company, and Braunfels of Émile Erlanger et
Cie., with the Stantons. _Southern Argus_, Feb. 2, 1875. Lindsay further
stated that there were evidences of collusion between Stanton and Smith to
secure the election of the latter in 1870 at all hazards. They wanted to
gain time in order to conceal the irregularity in the issue of bonds.
Stanton furnished much money to the campaign fund, and on election day
marched to the registration office at the head of 900 railroad employees,
who came from the entire length of the road, had them registered, gave
each of them a Radical ticket, and then voted them in a body. Ala. Test.,
pp. 193, 197.
[1669] Acts of Alabama, 1870-1871, pp. 12, 13.
[1670] Ku Klux Rept., p. 172.
[1671] Annual Cyclopædia (1871), pp. 7, 8; Lindsay's Message, Nov. 21,
1871; Senate Journal, 1871-1872, pp. 44, 320; Report of John H. Gindrat,
Receiver of the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad, 1871.
The engineers in the employ of the state reported that to put the road in
Alabama in fair condition at the time it was seized would require
$507,983.74. Twenty-four miles of rails were old ones that Sherman had
burned. Report of Farrand and Thom, Nov. 9, 1871; Senate Journal,
1871-1872, p. 43. To complete the road, Gindrat reported that $1,000,000
would be needed. Senate Journal, 1871-1872, p. 337.
At the time the road was seized $10,500,000 from all sources had
disappeared. Part of it was spent on the road, which, with all equipment,
in 1871 was valued at $6,120,995. (An estimate of its value in 1873 was
$4,183,388.) The capital stock authorized was $7,500,000, of which only
$2,700,000 was ever paid in. Ku Klux Rept., pp. 172, 173; Auditor's
Report, 1871 and 1873. The earnings of the road from November, 1872, to
November, 1873, were $232,583.96. The expenses of the road from November,
1872, to November, 1873, were $1,083,851.90. Report of the Receiver of the
Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad, 1873.
[1672] Rice and Chilton, attorneys of the Alabama and Chattanooga road,
gave the state much trouble. Rice was a scalawag, but several partners he
had at that time and later were Democrats.
[1673] During the whole time there was a large element in favor of not
recognizing the legality of the bond issues authorized by the carpet-bag
legislatures. The carpet-bag government was not a government of the
people, but was imposed and upheld by military force, some said, and had
no right to vote away the money of the people without their consent. The
_Selma Times_, March 5, 1874, voiced this sentiment: "Alabama must and
will be ruled by whites.... We will not pay a single dollar of the
infamous debt, piled upon us by fraud, bribery, and corruption, known as
the 'bond swindle' debt. Let the bondholders take the railroads." See
Senate Journal, 1875-1876, pp. 213-221.
[1674] Annual Cyclopædia (1871), p. 8; (1872), pp. 8, 9; Lewis's Message,
Dec. 20, 1872; Senate Journal, 1872-1873, p. 43; Lewis's Message, Nov.
1874; Senate Journal, 1874-1875; Final Report of the Committee of the
Alabama and Chattanooga Bondholders, London, 1876; Acts of Ala., Dec. 21,
1872; Acts of Ala., March 20, 1875.
[1675] Lewis's Message, Nov., 1874.
[1676] Ku Klux Rept., p. 173; Governor Houston's Message, Dec., 1875;
Senate Journal, 1875-1876.
[1677] Governor Lewis's Message, Nov., 1874; Senate Journal, 1874-1875.
[1678] Report of House Railroad Committee; Auditor's Report, 1873.
[1679] Auditor's Report, 1871.
[1680] Martin, "Internal Improvements," p. 70; Auditor's Report, 1869;
Acts of Dec. 30, 1869, Acts of Ala., 1868, pp. 487, 494. The South and
North road was merely an expansion of "The Mountain Railroad Company," an
old corporation.
[1681] Acts of 1869-1880, p. 374.
[1682] Message, in _Independent Monitor_, Dec. 13, 1870.
[1683] Report of House Railroad Inv. Com., 1871. See also Report of
Auditor, 1870, which says $1,980,000 indorsement.
[1684] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 197.
[1685] Auditor's Report, 1871.
[1686] Ku Klux Rept., p. 318; Report of House Railroad Inv. Com., 1871.
[1687] _Montgomery Mail_, Feb. 24, 1870.
[1688] Message, Nov. 17, 1874.
[1689] Report of House Railroad Inv. Com., 1871; Lewis's Message, Nov. 17,
1873; Auditor's Report, 1869; Auditor's Report, 1873; House Journal,
1871-1872, pp. 305, 353; Acts of 1869-1870, p. 290.
[1690] _Southern Argus_, Feb. 2, 1872; Governor Lewis's Message, Nov. 17,
1873; Auditor's Report, 1871 and 1873.
[1691] Lewis's Message, Nov. 17, 1873; Auditor's Report, 1873; Act of Jan.
17, 1870.
[1692] _Southern Argus_, Feb. 2, 1872; Auditor's Report, 1873; Lewis's
Messages, 1873.
[1693] _Southern Argus_, Feb. 2, 1872; Auditor's Reports, 1871 and 1873;
Mathes, "General Forrest," p. 362; Wyeth, "Life of General Nathan Bedford
Forrest," pp. 617, 619. When Smith had indorsed this road for $720,000, he
reported the amount as $640,000. _Independent Monitor_, Dec. 13, 1870.
[1694] Act of Dec. 30, 1868.
[1695] Senate Journal, 1872-1873, pp. 416-422; Acts of Ala., 1872-1873, p.
58; Auditor's Reports, 1871, 1873; Governor Lewis's Report, Nov. 17, 1873.
[1696] Act of Feb. 25, 1870.
[1697] Auditor's Report, 1873.
[1698] $1,300,000 fraudulent indorsement; $2,000,000 in state bonds in
addition.
[1699] No record of $80,000 indorsement.
[1700] Also "three per cent fund" amounting to $30,000+, and state bonds
amounting to $300,000. No record of $720,000.
[1701] No record of $1,500,000.
[1702] No record of $160,000. Also a loan of $40,000.
[1703] No record of $45,000.
[1704] Including $2,200,000, of which no record was found.
[1705] Act of Dec. 31, 1868; Acts of 1868, p. 514.
[1706] _Southern Argus_, June 14, 1872; Miller, "Alabama," p. 278; Acts of
Ala., _passim_; "Northern Alabama," p. 737; Brown, "Alabama," p. 291;
Herbert, "Solid South," p. 53.
[1707] A commission from Mobile visited the schools in New York, Boston,
and other cities of the North.
[1708] Exclusive of Mobile County, which, as the honored pioneer, has
always been outside of, and a model for, the state system.
[1709] Clark, "History of Education in Alabama," pp. 221-241; Report of
the United States Commissioner of Education, 1876, p. 6.
[1710] The son of ex-Governor Watts. Clark, p. 94.
[1711] See Ch. XI, Sec. 3.
[1712] Clark, p. 95 _et passim_. In 1869 N. B. Cloud, the Superintendent
of Public Instruction, asked the legislature to make the loan a gift,
since the destruction of the buildings was "the natural fruits of
secession," the fault of the "purblind leaders" who "pretended to secede."
Therefore he thought the state was responsible for the damage done the
University.
[1713] See Journal Convention of 1867, p. 242 _et passim_, and above, Chs.
XIV and XV.
[1714] There were four congressional districts.
[1715] The supreme court decided in regard to the Board of Education: "The
new system has not only administrative, but full legislative, powers
concerning all matters having reference to the common school and public
educational interests of the state. It cannot be destroyed nor essentially
changed by legislative authority." Report of the Commissioner of
Education, 1873, p. 5. But in 1873-1874 the legislature, however, by
refusing appropriations, did manage to nullify the work of the Board.
[1716] Constitution of 1867, Art. XI.
[1717] In 1871 the legislature repealed this act, and a case that arose
was carried to the United States supreme court, which, reversing a former
decision of the state supreme court, held that the action of one
legislature could not restrain subsequent legislatures from legislating
for the public welfare by suppressing practices that tended to corrupt
public morals. Besides, the court professed itself unable to find in the
act any authority for a lottery. See Boyd _vs._ Alabama, 94 United States
Reports, p. 645 (opinion by Justice Field).
[1718] Act of Dec. 31, 1868. At the same time the office of Commissioner
of Lotteries was created, with a salary of $2000 a year.
[1719] This is the opinion of two subsequent members--one a Democrat and
one a Radical. See also Ku Klux Report, Ala. Test., p. 426. The members
were G. L. Putnam, A. B. Collins (Collins was made a professor in the
University, but murdered Haughey, the Radical Congressman, and fled from
the state), W. D. Miller, Jesse H. Booth, Thomas A. Cook, James Nichols,
William H. Clayton, Gustavus A. Smith,--four scalawags and four
carpet-baggers. The first two named resigned to accept offices created by
the board. See Register of the University of Alabama, 1831-1901, p. 20.
[1720] Report, Nov. 10, 1869.
[1721] This was done at the instance of the aid societies from the North
which had been doing work among the negroes.
[1722] Acts, Aug. 11, 1868. Public School Laws (pamphlet). See also Acts
of Ala., 1868, pp. 147-160.
[1723] Clark, p. 98.
[1724] See Ch. XX.
[1725] Nicholas Davis, a north Alabama Republican, had this to say about
Lakin to the Ku Klux subcommittee: "He called on me to explain why I said
unkind things about his being candidate for president of the Alabama
University, and I said, 'Mr. Lakin, you and I are near neighbors, and I
don't want to have much to do with you--not much; but I think this: didn't
you try to be president of the Alabama University?' He said he did. I
said, 'It would have been a disgrace to the state. You don't know an
adjective from a verb, nor nothing else.'... He says, '... but I rather
didn't like what you said.' I said, 'Doctor, you will have to like it or
let it alone.' He let it alone."--Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 784.
[1726] Clark, p. 98, is not correct on this point; Ku Klux Rept., Ala.
Test., pp. 111, 112, 113, 114; account of Dr. O. D. Smith of the second
Board of Education; _Independent Monitor_, Aug. 9 and Sept. 1, 1868.
[1727] For the picture see Ala. Test., p. 113, or the _Independent
Monitor_, Sept 1, 1868. Ryland Randolph, the editor of the _Monitor_ at
that time, says that the picture was made from a rough woodcut, fashioned
in the _Monitor_ office. The _Cincinnati Commercial_ published an edition
of 500,000 copies of the hanging picture for distribution as a campaign
document. A Columbus, Ohio, newspaper also printed for distribution a
larger edition containing the famous picture. This was during the
Seymour-Grant campaign, and the Democratic newspapers and leaders of the
state were furious at Randolph for furnishing such excellent campaign
literature to the Radicals.
[1728] Clark, p. 98; _Independent Monitor_, Jan. 5 and March 23, 1869.
[1729] _Selma Times and Messenger_, Aug. 9, 1868.
[1730] Clark, pp. 98, 99. _Monitor_, Jan. 5, March 1 and 23, 1869. "The
Reconstruction University," a farce, was acted at the court-house for the
benefit of the brass band. There was no hope whatever that the
reconstructed faculty would have a pleasant time.
[1731] See the _Monitor_, March 1, 1869.
[1732] Richards was at the same time state senator from Wilcox, sheriff of
the same county, contractor to feed prisoners, and professor in the
University. His income from all the offices was about $12,000, the
professorship paying about $2500.
[1733] Report of Cloud, Nov., 1869. Clark, p. 99.
[1734] See _Monitor_, April 6, 1869. The editor of the _Monitor_ finally
came to grief because of his attacks on the Radical faculty. His paper had
charged Professor V. H. Vaughn with drunkenness, whipping his wife,
incompetence, etc. After a year of such pleasantries, Vaughn, who was a
timid man, determined to secure assistance and be revenged. In the
University was a student named Smith, son of a regent and nephew of the
governor, who, on account of his Union record, was given the position of
steward of the mess hall, after the removal of the old steward. Smith had
been in trouble about abstracting stores from the University commissary,
and the _Monitor_ had not spared him. So he and Vaughn with their guns
went after Randolph, and Smith shot him "while Vaughn stood at a
respectful distance." Randolph lost his leg from the shot. Smith and
Vaughn were put in jail, but through the connivance of the officials made
their escape. Vaughn went to Washington and was given an office in Utah
territory. See Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 1979.
[1735] He was a competent man, well educated and possessing administrative
ability. In the secession convention he had led the coöperationist forces.
[1736] Clark, pp. 99-101; _Monitor_, Jan. 10 and 25 and March 28, 1871.
The Register of the University (p. 218) gives only thirteen names for the
session 1870-1871. No record was kept at the University.
[1737] See Register of the University of Alabama, p. 217.
[1738] These notices were printed in the Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p.
418. They were fastened to the door with a dagger. The students who were
notified left at once.
[1739] See Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 426 (Speed).
[1740] The following table gives the enrolment of students during
Reconstruction:--
SESSION STUDENTS
1868-9
1869-70 30
1870-1 21
1871-2 107
1872-3 135
1873-4 53
1874-5 74
1875-6 111
1876-7 164
[1741] I have this account from the men who furnished the bribes.
[1742] Clark, p. 99.
[1743] Finley had been doorkeeper for the first Board (1868-1870), and in
1870 was elected to serve four years. He was a member of the convention of
1867 and of the legislature. He had no education and no ability, but he
was a sensible negro and was an improvement on the white men of the
preceding Board.
[1744] Journal of the Board of Education and Regents, June 20, 1871.
[1745] Act of Dec. 6, 1873, School Laws.
[1746] Clark, p. 232; Report of Cloud, Nov., 1869; _Montgomery Mail_,
Sept. 16, 1870. In connection with the act merging the Mobile schools into
the state system, the Board of Education took occasion to enlarge or
complete its constitutional powers. There was no limit, according to the
Constitution, to the time for the governor to retain acts of the Board.
Governor Smith had pocketed several obnoxious educational bills, and the
Board now resolved "that the same rules and provisions which by law govern
and define the time and manner in which the governor of the state shall
approve of or object to any bill or resolution of the General Assembly
shall also apply to any bill or resolution having the force of law passed
by this Board of Education." The governor approved neither resolution nor
the Mobile act, but they were both declared in force. _Montgomery Mail_,
Nov. 3, 1870.
[1747] Senate Journal, 1869-1870, p. 419.
[1748] _Montgomery Mail_, Sept. 16, 1870.
[1749] A specimen pay-roll of Emerson Institute ("Blue College") for the
quarter ending March 31, 1869:--
======================================================================
|MONTHS| SALARY | TOTAL
-------------------------------------------|------|---------|---------
G. L. Putnam, Supt. of Colored Schools | 3 | $333.33 | $1000.00
H. S. Kelsey, Prin. Emerson Institute | 3 | 225.00 | 675.00
E. I. Ethridge, Prin. Grammar School | 3 | 200.00 | 600.00
Susie A. Carley, Prin. Lower School | 3 | 180.00 | 540.00
A. A. Rockfellow, Prin. Intermediate School| 3 | 105.00 | 315.00
Sarah A. Primey, Prin. Intermediate School | 3 | 105.00 | 315.00
M. L. Harris, Prin. Intermediate School | 3 | 105.00 | 315.00
M. A. Cooley, Prin. Intermediate School | 3 | 105.00 | 315.00
M. E. F. Smith, Prin. Intermediate School | 3 | 105.00 | 315.00
Ruth A. Allen, Primary School | 3 | 105.00 | 315.00
N. G. Lincoln, Primary School | 3 | 105.00 | 315.00
M. L. Theyer, Primary School | 3 | 105.00 | 315.00
Judge Rapier, legal opinion | -- | -- | 50.00
American Missionary Association, fuel | -- | -- | 40.00
| | |---------
Total | | | $5425.00
======================================================================
At this time the average salary of the teacher in the state schools was
$42 a month.
[1750] _Montgomery Mail_, Sept. 16, 1876. Cloud's Report, Nov., 1869,
shows that $10,447.23 had been drawn out of the treasury by Putnam, and he
had also drawn $2000 for his salary as county superintendent.
[1751] Report of the Auditor, 1871; Report of the Commissioner of
Education, 1871, 1876.
[1752] See Act of Dec. 2, 1869; Somers, "Southern States," pp. 169, 170.
[1753] The law stated that the trustees were to receive $2 a day, but
Cloud said that it was a mistake, as it should be the clerks who were
paid, and thus it was done. There were 1485 clerks in the state; they were
paid about $60,000 a year. The county superintendents received about
$65,000, an average of $1000 each, which was paid from the school fund.
Before the war the average salary of the county superintendent was $300
and was paid by the county. In few counties was the work of the county
superintendent sufficient to keep him busy more than two days in the week.
Many of the superintendents stayed in their offices only one day in the
week. The expenses of the Board of Education were from $3000 to $5000 a
year, not including the salary of the state superintendent. _Montgomery
Mail_, Sept. 15 and 16, 1870.
[1754] Hodgson's Report, 1871; Ala. Test., p. 233.
[1755] Cloud, the state superintendent, had power of attorney to act for
certain county superintendents. This he sub-delegated to his son, W. B.
Cloud, who drew warrants for $8551.31, which were allowed by the auditor.
This amount was the school fund for the following counties: Sumter,
$1,535.59; Pickens, $6,423.17; Winston, $215.89; Calhoun, $176.66;
Marshall, $200.00.
A clerk in the office of C. A. Miller, the secretary of state, forged
Miller's name as attorney and drew $3,238.39 from the Etowah County fund.
Miller swore that he had notified both auditor and treasurer that he would
not act as attorney to draw money for any one.
John B. Cloud bought whiskey with tax stamps. See Hodgson's Report, 1871;
Ala. Test., p. 233; _Montgomery Advertiser_, Sept. 27, 1872.
[1756] Hodgson's Report, 1871; _Montgomery Advertiser_, Sept. 27, 1872;
Report of the Commission to Examine State Offices, 1871.
[1757] Somers, pp. 169, 170.
[1758] _Montgomery Mail_, Sept. 15, 1870.
[1759] Somers, "Southern States," p. 170; voters only counted as polls.
[1760] _Montgomery Mail_, Sept. 15, 1870.
[1761] In recent years the people have demanded and obtained a different
class of school histories, such as those of Derry, Lee, Jones, Thompson,
Cooper, Estill, and Lemmon. Adams and Trent is an example of one of the
compromise works that resulted from the demand of the southerners for
books less tinctured with northern prejudices.
[1762] Cloud's Report, Nov., 1869; Hodgson's Report, 1871; Ku Klux Rept.,
Ala. Test., p. 426; Montgomery Conference, "Race Problems," p. 107.
[1763] See Ala. Test., p. 236 (General Clanton).
[1764] Ku Klux Rept., p. 53; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 234, 235.
[1765] Ala. Test., p. 1123.
[1766] _Montgomery Advertiser_, July 30, 1866; _Selma Times_, June 30,
1866.
[1767] Ala. Test., p. 236.
[1768] _Selma Times_, Dec. 30, 1865; _Gulf States Hist. Mag._, Sept.,
1902.
[1769] Trowbridge, "The South," p. 431.
[1770] _Marion Commonwealth_; meeting held May 17, 1866.
[1771] _Montgomery Advertiser_, July 24, 1867; Ala. Test., p. 236.
[1772] _Montgomery Advertiser_, July 24, 1867; Ala. Test., pp. 236, 246.
[1773] See Ch. XI, Sec. 3.
[1774] For specimen letters written to their homes, see the various
reports of the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Church, and the
reports of other aid societies.
[1775] The best-known instances of the killing of such negroes were in
Tuscaloosa and Chambers counties. The Ku Klux Report gives only about half
a dozen cases of outrages on teachers. See Ala. Test., pp. 52, 54, 67, 71,
140, 252, 755, 1047, 1140, 1853. Cloud in his report made no mention of
violence to teachers, nor did the governor. Lakin said a great deal about
it, but gave no instances that were not of the well-known few. There was
much less violence than is generally supposed, even in the South.
[1776] Ala. Test., p. 252.
[1777] See Ala. Test., pp. 236, 1889; Somers, "Southern States," p. 169;
Report of the Joint Committee on Outrages, 1868. In Crenshaw, Butler, and
Chambers counties some schools existed for a year or more until teachers
of bad character were elected. Then the neighborhood roughs burned the
school buildings. Neither Cloud nor any other official reported cases of
such burnings. The legislative committee could discover but two, and in
both instances the women teachers were of bad character. In the records
can be found only seventeen reports of burnings, and several of these were
evidently reports of the same instance; few were specific. Lakin, who
spent several years in travelling over north Alabama, and who was much
addicted to fabrication and exaggeration, made a vague report of "the
ruins of a dozen" schoolhouses. (Ala. Test., pp. 140, 141.) There may have
been more than half a dozen burnings in north Alabama, but there is no
evidence that such was the case. The majority of the reports originated
outside the state through pure malice. The houses burned were principally
in the white counties and were, as Lakin reports, slight affairs costing
from $25 to $75. It was so evident that some of the fires were caused by
the carelessness of travellers and hunters who camped in them at night,
that the legislature passed a law forbidding that practice. See Acts of
Ala., p. 187. About as many schoolhouses for whites were destroyed as for
blacks. Some were fired by negroes for revenge, others were burned by
accident.
[1778] _Weekly Mail_, Aug. 18, 1869.
[1779] _Demopolis New Era_, April 1, 1868.
[1780] Hodgson's Report, Nov. 11, 1871.
[1781] Hodgson's Report, Nov. 15, 1871.
[1782] Hodgson's Report, Nov. 15, 1871.
[1783] For opinions in regard to the value of the early education among
the negroes, see Washington's "Future of the American Negro" and "Up from
Slavery"; W. H. Thomas's "American Negro"; P. A. Bruce's "Plantation Negro
as a Freeman"; J. L. M. Curry, in Montgomery Conference.
[1784] _Montgomery Advertiser_, July 24, 1867.
[1785] Ala. Test., p. 236.
[1786] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. Dr. J. L. M. Curry, who, in 1865, began
his work for the education of the negro, has thus expressed his opinion of
the early attempts to educate the blacks: "The education was unsettling,
demoralizing, pandered to a wild frenzy for schooling as the quick method
of reversing social and political conditions. Nothing could have been
better devised for deluding the poor negro, and making him the tool, the
slave, of corrupt taskmasters.... With deliberate purpose to subject the
southern states to negro domination and secure the states permanently for
partisan ends, the education adopted was contrary to common sense, to
human experience, to all noble purposes. The aptitude and capabilities and
needs of the negro were wholly disregarded. Especial stress was laid on
classics and liberal culture to bring the race _per saltum_ to the same
plane with their former masters, and realize the theory of social and
political equality. Colleges and universities, established and conducted
by the Freedmen's Bureau and northern churches and societies, sprang up
like mushrooms, and the teachers, ignorant and fanatical, without
self-poise, proceeded to make all possible mischief." Montgomery
Conference, "Race Problems," p. 109. See also the papers of Rev. D. Clay
Lilly and Dr. P. B. Barringer in Montgomery Conference, "Race Problems,"
p. 130; William H. Baldwin and Dr. Curry in Second Capon Springs
Conference; Barringer, "The American Negro: His Past and Future";
Barringer, W. T. Harris, and J. D. Dreher in Proceedings Southern
Education Association, 1900; Haygood, "Pleas for Progress" and "Our
Brother in Black"; Abbott, "Rights of Man," pp. 225-226.
[1787] The United States Commissioner of Education, in his report for that
year, made before the elections, stated that in educational matters the
state of Alabama was about to take a "backward step," meaning that it was
about to become Democratic. Report, 1870, p. 15. Later he made similar
remarks, much to the disgust of Hodgson, who was an enthusiast in
educational matters.
[1788] Journal of the Board of Education and Regents, 1870. Dr. O. D.
Smith, who was one of the newly elected Democratic members of the Board,
says that Cloud refused to inform the Board of the contents of Hodgson's
communications. Thereupon Hodgson addressed one to the Board directly and
not to Cloud. When it came in through the mail, Cloud took possession of
it, but Dr. Smith, who was on the lookout, called his attention to the
fact that it was addressed to the Board and reminded him of the penalties
for tampering with the mail of another person. The secretary read
Hodgson's communication, and the Board was then free to act. The
Democratic members convinced the Radicals that if Cloud continued in
office they would not be able to draw their _per diem_, so Cloud was
compelled to vacate at once. When he left he had his buggy brought to the
door, and into it he loaded all the government coal that was in his office
and carried it away.
[1789] Hodgson's Report, 1872.
[1790] See Hodgson's Report, 1871.
[1791] Hodgson's Report, 1871; Report of the Commissioner of Education,
1876, p. 7; Journal of the Board of Education and Regents, 1871; Acts of
the Board of Education, pamphlet.
[1792] And this was the case notwithstanding the fact that the county
superintendents were now allowed mileage at the rate of eight cents a mile
in order to get them to come to Montgomery for their money and thus to
decrease the chances of corrupt practices of the attorneys. Hodgson
complained that many old claims which should have been settled by Cloud
were presented during his administration.
[1793] Speed was a southern Radical. During the war he was a state salt
agent at the salt works in Virginia. He was a member of the Board of
Education from 1870 to 1872, and was far above the average Radical
office-holder in both character and ability.
[1794] Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1873, 1874, 1876; Speed's
Report, 1873. Speed was ill much of the time, and his bookkeeping was
little better than Cloud's. Two clerks, who, a committee of investigation
stated, were distinguished by a "total want of capacity and want of
integrity," managed the department with "such a want of system ... as most
necessarily kept it involved in inextricable confusion." Money was
received and not entered on the books. A sum of money in coin was received
in June, 1873, and six months later was paid into the treasury in
depreciated paper. Vouchers were stolen and used again. Bradshaw, a county
superintendent, died, leaving a shortage of $10,019.06 in his accounts. A
large number of vouchers were abstracted from the office of Speed by some
one and used again by Bradshaw's administrator, who was no other than Dr.
N. B. Cloud, who made a settlement with Speed's clerks, and when the
shortage was thus made good, the administrator still had many vouchers to
spare. This seems to have been Cloud's last raid on the treasury.
_Montgomery Advertiser_, Dec. 18, 1873; Report of the Joint Committee on
Irregularities in the Department of Education, 1873.
[1795] Under the Reconstruction administrative expenses amounted to 16 per
cent, and even more.
[1796] The experiences with the American Missionary Association, etc.,
made this provision necessary.
[1797] The United States Commissioner of Education gave a disapproving
account of these changes. It was exchanging "a certainty for an
uncertainty," he said. Speed had not found it a "certainty" by any means.
[1798] Plus the poll tax, which was not appropriated as required by the
constitution, but diverted to other uses.
[1799] There was a shortage of $187,872.49, diverted to other uses.
[1800] Shortage unknown; teachers were paid in depreciated state
obligations.
[1801] Shortage was $330,036.93.
[1802] Only $68,313.93 was paid, the rest diverted; shortage now was
$1,260,511.92.
[1803] None was paid, all diverted; shortage nearly two millions.
[1804] All was paid (by Democrats, who were now in power).
[1805] McTyeire, "A History of Methodism," p. 670; Smith, "Life and Times
of George F. Pierce"; _Southern Review_, April, 1872.
[1806] Buckley, "History of Methodism in the United States," pp. 516, 517.
[1807] Matlack, "Anti-Slavery Struggle and Triumph in the Methodist
Episcopal Church," p. 339; Smith, "Life and Times of George F. Pierce," p.
530.
[1808] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 552; Caldwell, "Reconstruction of
Church and State in Georgia" (pamphlet).
[1809] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 552.
[1810] "The schismatical plans of the Northern Methodists and the subtle
proselytism of the Episcopalians" (Pierce). See Smith, "Life and Times of
George F. Pierce," pp. 491, 499, 505, 530; West, "History of Methodism in
Alabama," p. 717; McTyeire, "A History of Methodism," p. 673.
[1811] A Federal official in north Alabama who had known of Lakin in the
North testified that he had had a bad reputation in New York and in
Illinois and had been sent South as a means of discipline. See Ku Klux
Rept., Ala. Test., p. 619 (L. W. Day, United States Commissioner).
Governor Lindsay said that Lakin was a shrewd, cunning, strong-willed man,
given to exaggeration and lying,--one who had a "jaundiced eye," "a
magnifying eye," and who among the blacks was a power for evil. Ala.
Test., p. 180.
[1812] _N. Y. Herald_, May 10, 1868; Buckley, "History of Methodism," Vol.
II, p. 191.
[1813] In 1871, Lakin stated that of his 15,000 members, three-fourths
were whites of the poorer classes; that there were under his charge 6
presiding elders' districts with 70 circuits and stations, and 70
ministers and 150 local preachers; and that he had been assisted in
securing the "loyal" element by several ministers who had been expelled by
the Southern Methodists during the war as traitors. Ala. Test., pp. 124,
130. Governor Lindsay stated that some of the whites of Lakin's church
were to be found in the counties of Walker, Winston, and Blount; that
there were few such white congregations, and that some of these afterward
severed their connection with the northern church, and by 1872 there were
only two or three in the state. Lakin worked among the negro population
almost entirely, and his statement that three-fourths of his members were
whites was not correct. See Ala. Test., pp. 180, 208.
[1814] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 111, 112, 124, 180, 623, 957. Lakin
secured all church property formerly used by the southern church for negro
congregations.
[1815] Lakin never acknowledged the present existence of the southern
church.
[1816] Ala. Test., pp. 238, 758.
[1817] One of Lakin's relations was that while he was conducting a great
revival meeting among the hills of north Alabama, Governor Smith and other
prominent and sinful scalawag politicians were under conviction and were
about to become converted. But in came the Klan and the congregation
scattered. Smith and the others were so angry and frightened that their
good feelings were dissipated, and the devil reëntered them, so that he
(Lakin) was never able to get a hold on them again. Consequently, the Klan
was responsible for the souls lost that night. Lakin told a dozen or more
marvellous stories of his hairbreadth escapes from death by
assassination,--enough, if true, to ruin the reputation of north Alabama
men for marksmanship.
[1818] Shackleford, "History of the Muscle Shoals Baptist Association," p.
84.
[1819] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 106. In 1905 there is a much better
spirit, and the churches of the two sections are on good terms, though not
united.
[1820] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 705. See p. 23 and Ch. IV, Sec. 7,
above.
[1821] Thompson, "History of the Presbyterian Churches," p. 167.
[1822] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 706.
[1823] Carroll, "Religious Forces," p. 281; Thompson, "History of the
Presbyterian Churches," pp. 163, 171; Johnson, "History of the Southern
Presbyterian Churches," pp. 333, 339.
[1824] Perry, p. 328 _et seq._
[1825] Later the northern congregations of the Methodist Protestant Church
rejoined the main body, which was southern.
[1826] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.
[1827] Riley, "History of the Baptists in Alabama," p. 310; _Montgomery
Advertiser_, Oct. 15, 1865; _N. Y. Times_, Oct. 22, 1865; George Brewer,
"History of the Central Association," pp. 46, 49.
[1828] _Huntsville Advocate_, May 16, 1866.
[1829] Shackleford, "History of the Muscle Shoals Baptist Association," p.
84.
The Radical missionaries, in order to further their own plans, encouraged
the negroes to assert their equality by forcing themselves into the
congregations of the various denominations. Governor Lindsay related an
incident of a negro woman who went alone into a white church, selected a
good pew, and calmly appropriated it. No one molested her, of course. Ku
Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 208.
America Trammell, a negro preacher of east Alabama, before the war and
afterward as late as 1870 preached to mixed congregations of blacks and
whites. A part of the church building was set apart for the whites and a
part for the blacks. Later he became affected by the work of the
missionaries, and in 1871 began to preach that "Christ never died for the
southern people at all; that he died only for the northern people." A
white woman teacher lived in his house, and he was killed by the Ku Klux
Klan. Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 1119.
[1830] Ball, "History of Clarke County," pp. 591, 630; Statistics of
Churches, p. 171.
[1831] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 236, 1067.
[1832] "The Work of the Southern Baptists among the Negroes" (pamphlet).
[1833] See the _Southern Baptist Convention Advanced Quarterly_, p. 30,
"Missionary Lesson, The Negroes," March 29, 1903, which is a most
interesting, artless, southern lesson. The northern Baptists also have a
mission lesson on the negroes which is distinctly of the abolitionist
spirit. The average student will get about the same amount of prepared
information from each. See "Home Mission Lesson No. 3, The Negroes."
[1834] Foster, "Sketch of History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,"
p. 300; Carroll, "Religious Forces," p. 294; Thompson, "History of the
Presbyterian Churches," p. 193.
[1835] Thompson, "History of the Presbyterian Churches," p. 193; Scouller,
"History of the United Presbyterian Church of North America," p. 246.
[1836] Montgomery Conference, "Race Problems," p. 114.
[1837] Eighth Annual Report of the Freedmen's Aid Society.
[1838] House Rept., No. 121, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.
[1839] See "Race Problems," p. 139, for a statement of the work now being
done among the negroes in Alabama by the Catholic Church.
[1840] Whitaker, "The Church in Alabama," pp. 193, 205, 206-212. The work
of the Episcopal Church among the negroes is more promising in later
years. See "Race Problems," pp. 126-131. It is not a sectional church,
with a northern section hindering the work of a southern section among the
negroes, as is the Methodist Episcopal Church.
[1841] Carroll, "Religious Forces," p. 263.
[1842] _Montgomery Advertiser_, Nov. 24, 1865.
[1843] _Montgomery Advertiser_, Nov. 11, 1865.
[1844] Report for 1866, Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.
[1845] Lakin fomented disturbances between the races. His daughter wrote
slanderous letters to northern papers, which were reprinted by the Alabama
papers. Lakin told the negroes that the whites, if in power, would
reëstablish slavery, and advised them, as a measure of safety, physical as
well as religious, to unite with the northern church. The scalawags did
not like Lakin, and one of them (Nicholas Davis) gave his opinion of him
and his talks to the Ku Klux Committee as follows: "The character of his
[Lakin's] speech was this: to teach the negroes that every man that was
born and raised in the southern country was their enemy, that there was no
use trusting them, no matter what they said,--if they said they were for
the Union or anything else. 'No use talking, they are your enemies.' And
he made a pretty good speech, too; awful; a hell of a one; ...
inflammatory and game, too, ... it was enough to provoke the devil. Did
all the mischief he could.... I tell you, that old fellow is a hell of an
old rascal." Ala. Test., pp. 784, 791. One of Lakin's negro congregations
complained that they paid for their church and the lot on which it stood,
and that Lakin had the deed made out in his name.
[1846] In the Black Belt and in the cities the slaveholders often erected
churches or chapels for the use of the negroes, and paid the salary of the
white preacher who was detailed by conference, convention, association, or
presbytery to look after the religious instruction of the blacks. Nearly
always the negro slaves contributed in work or money towards building
these houses of worship, and the Reconstruction convention in 1867 passed
an ordinance which transferred such property to the negroes whenever they
made any claim to it. See Ordinance No. 25, Dec. 2, 1867. See also Acts of
1868, pp. 176-177; Governor Lindsay in Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 180;
_Montgomery Advertiser_, Nov. 24, 1865.
[1847] _Huntsville Advocate_, May 5, 1865; Carroll, "Religious Forces," p.
263.
[1848] Reports of the Freedmen's Aid Society, 1866-1874.
[1849] The first recognition of such work, I find, is in the Report of the
Freedmen's Aid Society in 1878.
[1850] Tenth and Eleventh Reports of the Freedmen's Aid Society.
[1851] These religious bodies were the African Methodist Episcopal and the
African Methodist Episcopal Zion. The former was organized in Philadelphia
in 1816, and the latter in New York in 1820. Both were secessions from the
Methodist Episcopal Church. See Statistics of Churches, pp. 543, 559. At
first there were bitter feuds between the blacks who wished to join the
northern churches and those who wished to remain in the southern churches,
but the latter were in the minority and they had to go. See Ala. Test., p.
180; Smith, "History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida"; "Life and Times
of George F. Pierce," p. 491.
The main difference between the A. M. E. and the A. M. E. Zion Church,
according to a member of the latter, is that in one the dues are 25 cents
a week and in the other 20 cents.
[1852] McTyeire, "History of Methodism," pp. 670-673. A Southern Methodist
negro preacher in north Alabama was trying to reorganize his church and
was driven away by Lakin, who told his flock that there was a wolf in the
fold. See Ala. Test, p. 430. The statements of several of the negro
ministers would seem to indicate that Lakin took possession of a number of
negro congregations and united them with the Cincinnati Conference without
their knowledge. Few of the negroes knew of the divisions in the Methodist
Episcopal Church, and most of them thought that Lakin's course was merely
some authorized reorganization after the destruction of war. One witness
who knew Lakin in the North said that he was an original secessionist,
since, in Peru, Indiana, he broke up a church and organized a secession
congregation because he was opposed to men and women sitting together. The
same person testified that once in north Alabama Lakin asked for lodging
one night at a white man's house. The host was treated to a lecture by
Lakin on the equality of the races, and thereupon sent out and got a negro
and put him in a bed to which Lakin was directed at bedtime. He hesitated,
but slept with the negro. Ala. Test., pp. 791-794. Lakin was a strange
character, and for several years was a powerful influence among the
Radicals and negroes of north Alabama. See Ala. Test., p. 959. A Northern
Methodist leader among the negroes of Coosa County was the Rev. ----
Dorman, who had formerly belonged to the southern church, but had been
expelled for immorality. He lived with the negroes and led a lewd life. He
advised the negroes to arm themselves and assert their rights, and
required them to go armed to church. See Ala. Test., pp. 164, 230. Rev. J.
B. F. Hill of Eutaw was another ex-Southern Methodist who taught a negro
school and preached to the negroes. He had been expelled from the Alabama
Conference (Southern) for stealing money from the church, and it was
charged that he tried to sell a coffin which had been sent him and in
which he was to send to Ohio the body of a Federal soldier who had died in
Eutaw. See _Demopolis New Era_, April 1, 1868. During the worst days of
Reconstruction a number of negro churches which were used as Radical
headquarters were burned by the Ku Klux Klan. The Northern Methodist
Church is the weakest of the three negro churches; mountaineers and
negroes do not mix well. The church is not favored by the whites, and
there is opposition to the establishment of a negro university at Anniston
by the Freedmen's Aid Society of this church, on the ground that socially,
commercially, and educationally the interests of the white race suffer
where an institution is located by this society. See _Brundidge_ (Ala.)
_News_, Aug. 22, 1903.
[1853] McTyeire, "A History of Southern Methodism," p. 670; Carroll,
"Religious Forces," p. 263; Alexander, "Methodist Episcopal Church South,"
pp. 91-133.
[1854] Carroll, "Religious Forces," p. 263; Bishop Halsey in the _N. Y.
Independent_, March 5, 1891; Statistics of Churches, p. 604.
[1855] W. T. Harris, Richmond Meeting, Southern Educational Association
(1900), p. 100.
[1856] See Washington, "Up from Slavery." One church with two hundred
members had eighteen preachers. Exhorters or "zorters" and "pot liquor"
preachers were still more numerous.
[1857] "Race Problems," pp. 114, 120, 123, 126, 130, 131, 135; Haygood,
"Our Brother in Black," _passim_; Statistics of Churches, p. 171.
[1858] _The Nation_, July 12, 1866, condensed.
[1859] Caldwell, "Reconstruction of Church and State in Georgia"
(pamphlet). The circulars of advice to the blacks by the Freedmen's Bureau
officials repeatedly mention the advisability of the separation of the
races in religious matters. But this was less the case in Alabama than in
other southern states.
[1860] See Testimony of Minnis in Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test.; Brown, "Lower
South," Ch. IV.
[1861] See above, Ch. VIII, Sec. 2.
[1862] Saunders, "Early Settlers"; Miller, "Alabama"; Ku Klux Rept., Ala.
Test., p. 394 (General Pettus); Somers, "Southern States," p. 153.
[1863] Ku Klux Rept., pp. 80-81; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 170
(Governor Lindsay).
[1864] Ala. Test., pp. 433, 459 (P. M. Dox, M. C.); p. 1749 (W. S. Mudd);
p. 476 (William H. Forney); Beard, "Ku Klux Sketches."
[1865] Somers, p. 153; _Birmingham Age-Herald_, May 19, 1901 (J. W.
DuBose); Ala. Test., p. 487 (Gen. William H. Forney).
[1866] Ala. Test., p. 230 (General Clanton); pp. 1751, 1758, 1765 (W. S.
Mudd).
[1867] Planters who before the war were able to raise their own bacon at a
cost of 5 cents a pound now had to kill all the hogs to keep the negroes
from stealing them, and then pay 20 to 28 cents a pound for bacon. The
farmer dared not turn out his stock. Ala. Test., pp. 230, 247 (Clanton).
[1868] _N. Y. World_, April 11, 1868 (_Montgomery Advertiser_). There was
a plot to burn Selma and Tuscumbia; Talladega was almost destroyed; the
court-house of Greene County was burned and that of Hale set on fire. In
Perry County a young man had a difficulty with a carpet-bag official and
slapped his face. That night the carpet-bagger's agents burned the young
man's barn and stables with horses in them. It was generally believed that
the penalty for a dispute with a carpet-bagger was the burning of a barn,
gin, or stable. See also Brown, "Lower South," Ch. IV.
[1869] Ala. Test., p. 487 (Gen. William H. Forney).
[1870] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 377, 381, 382, 400, statement of
General Pettus, the present junior Senator from Alabama. Pope and Grant
continually reminded the old soldiers that their paroles were still in
force. Also Beard, "Ku Klux Sketches"; testimony of John D. Minnis, a
carpet-bag official, in Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 527-571.
[1871] Ala. Test., p. 224.
[1872] Ala. Test., p. 873 (William M. Lowe).
[1873] See Ch. XXIII.
[1874] For general accounts: Lester and Wilson, "Ku Klux Klan"; Beard, "Ku
Klux Sketches"; Brown, "The Lower South in American History," Ch. IV;
Nordhoff, "Cotton States in 1875"; Somers, "The Southern States." For
documents, see Fleming, "Docs. relating to Reconstruction." For
innumerable details, see the Ku Klux testimony and the testimony taken by
the Coburn investigating committee.
[1875] _Independent Monitor_ (Tuscaloosa), April 14, 1868.
[1876] The negroes called them "paterollers."
[1877] Ala. Test., p. 490 (William H. Forney).
[1878] Ala. Test., p. 873 (William. M. Lowe); p. 443 (P. M. Dox); oral
accounts. It must be remembered that, so far as numbers of whites are
considered, the Black Belt has always been as a thinly populated frontier
region, where every white must care for himself.
[1879] Rev. W. E. Lloyd and Mr. R. W. Burton, both of Auburn, Ala., and
numerous negroes have given me accounts of the policy of the black
districts soon after the war.
[1880] Ala. Test., p. 1487 (J. J. Garrett).
[1881] _Birmingham Age-Herald_, May 19, 1901 (J. W. DuBose).
[1882] Ala. Test., p. 592 (L. W. Day).
[1883] Saunders, "Early Settlers"; oral accounts.
[1884] Ala. Test., p. 445 (P. M. Dox); Miller, "Alabama." The negroes
still point out and avoid the trees on which these outlaws were hanged.
[1885] J. W. DuBose and accounts of other members.
[1886] Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 1866, Pt. III, p.
140 (Swayne).
[1887] Ala. Test., pp. 1125, 1126 (Daniel Taylor); pp. 1136, 1142 (Col.
John J. Holley).
[1888] Ala. Test., p. 877 (Wm. M. Lowe); p. 664 (Daniel Coleman).
[1889] "The so-called Ku Klux organizations were formed in this state
(Alabama) very soon after the return of our soldiers to their homes,
following the surrender. To the best of my recollection, it was during the
winter of 1866 that I first heard of the Klan in Alabama."--Ryland
Randolph. The quotations from Randolph are taken from his letters, unless
his paper, the _Independent Monitor_, is referred to.
[1890] "This fellow Jones up at Pulaski got up a piece of Greek and
originated it, and then General Forrest took hold of it."--Nicholas Davis,
in Ala. Test., p. 783.
[1891] Lester and Wilson, "Ku Klux Klan," p. 17; Ala. Test., pp. 660, 661,
1282; accounts of members.
[1892] Ala. Test., p. 660.
[1893] "It [the Klan] originated with the returned soldiers for the
purpose of punishing those negroes who had become notoriously and
offensively insolent to white people, and, in some cases, to chastise
those white-skinned men who, at that particular time, showed a disposition
to affiliate socially with negroes. The impression sought to be made was
that these white-robed night prowlers were the ghosts of the Confederate
dead, who had arisen from their graves in order to wreak vengeance upon an
undesirable class of white and black men."--Randolph.
[1894] Lester and Wilson, Ch. I; Ala. Test., p. 1283 (Blackford); Somers,
p. 152; oral accounts.
[1895] General Forrest was the first and only Grand Wizard.
[1896] There could not be more than two Dominions in a single
congressional district.
[1897] There might be two Grand Giants in a province.
[1898] The office of Grand Ensign was abolished by the Revised and Amended
Prescript, adopted in 1868. The banner was in the shape of an isosceles
triangle, five feet by three, of yellow cloth with a three-inch red
border. Painted on it in black was a _Draco volans_, or Flying Dragon, and
this motto, "Quod semper, quod umbique, quod ab omnibus." This, in a note
to the Prescript, was translated, "What always, what everywhere, what by
all is held to be true."
[1899] Sources of revenue: (1) sale of the Prescript to Dens for $10 a
copy, of which the treasuries of Province, Dominion, and Realm each
received $2 and the treasury of the Empire $4; (2) a tax levied by each
division on the next lower one, amounting to 10% of the revenue of the
subordinate division; (3) a special tax, unlimited, might be levied in a
similar manner, when absolutely necessary; (4) the Dens raised money by
initiation fees ($1 each), fines, and a poll tax levied when the Grand
Cyclops saw fit.
[1900] The Revised Prescript made all officers appointive except the Grand
Wizard, who was elected by the Grand Dragons,--a long step toward
centralization.
[1901] It was by virtue of this authority that the order was disbanded in
1869.
[1902] The judiciary was abolished by the Revised Prescript.
[1903] "We had a regular system of by-laws, one or two of which only do I
distinctly remember. One was, that should any member reveal the names or
acts of the Klan, he should suffer the full penalty of the identical
treatment inflicted upon our white and black enemies. Another was that in
case any member of the Klan should become involved in a personal
difficulty with a Radical (white or black), in the presence of any other
member or members, he or they were bound to take the part of the member,
even to the death, if necessary."--Randolph.
[1904] "Terrible, horrible, furious, doleful, bloody, appalling,
frightful, gloomy," etc. The Register was changed in the Revised
Prescript. It was simply a cipher code.
[1905] The Revised Prescript says "the constitutional laws." Lester and
Wilson, p. 54.
[1906] Compare with the declaration of similar illegal societies,--the
"Confréries" of France in the Middle Ages,--which sprang into existence
under similar conditions seven hundred years before, "pour defendre les
innocents et réprimer les violences iniques." See Lavisse et Rambaud,
"Histoire Générale," Vol. II, p. 466.
[1907] See also Lester and Wilson, pp. 55, 56.
[1908] I have before me the original Prescript, a small brown pamphlet
about three inches by five, of sixteen pages. The title-page has a
quotation from "Hamlet" and one from Burns. At the top and bottom of each
page are single-line Latin quotations: "Damnant quod non intelligunt";
"Amici humani generis"; "Magna est Veritas, et prevalebit"; "Hic manent
vestigia morientis libertatis"; "Cessante causa, cessat effectus";
"Dormitur aliquando jus, moritur nunquam"; "Deo adjuvante, non timendum";
"Nemo nos impune lacessit," etc. This Prescript belonged to the Grand
Giant of the Province of Tuscaloosa County, the late Ryland Randolph,
formerly editor of the _Independent Monitor_, and was given to me by him.
It is the only copy known to be in existence. He called it the "Ku Klux
Guide Book," and states that it was sent to him from headquarters at
Memphis. An imperfect copy of the original Prescript was captured in 1868,
and printed in Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 53, pp. 315-321, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.,
and again in the Ku Klux Rept., Vol. XIII, pp. 35-41.
There is a copy of the Revised and Amended Prescript in Columbia
University Library, the only copy known to be in existence. No committee
of Congress ever discovered this Prescript, and when the Klan disbanded,
in March, 1869, it was strictly ordered that all papers be destroyed. A
few Prescripts escaped destruction, and years afterward one of these was
given to the Southern Society of New York by a Nashville lady. The
Southern Society gave it to Columbia University Library. It was printed in
the office of the _Pulaski Citizen_ in 1868. The Revised and Amended
Prescript is reproduced in facsimile as No. 2 of the W. Va. Univ. "Docs,
relating to Reconstruction." Lester and Wilson use it incorrectly (p. 54)
as the one adopted in Nashville in 1867. At this time General Forrest is
said to have assumed the leadership. See Wyeth, "Life of Forrest," p. 619;
Mathes, "General Forrest," pp. 371-373; Ku Klux Rept., Vol. XIII,
Forrest's testimony.
[1909] Somers, p. 153.
[1910] "Breckenridge Democrats, Douglas Democrats, Watts State Rights
Whigs, Langdon Consolidation Know-Nothings," united in Ku Klux.
_Birmingham Age-Herald_, May 19, 1901; Ala. Test., p. 323 (Busteed) _et
passim_.
[1911] But some survivors are now inclined to remember all opposition to
the Radical programme as Ku Klux, that is, to have been a Democrat then
was to have been a member of Ku Klux.
[1912] General Terry, in Report of Sec. of War, 1869-1870, Vol. II, p. 88.
[1913] "The Ku Klux organizations flourished chiefly in middle and
southern Alabama; notably in Montgomery, Greene, Tuscaloosa, and Pickens
counties."--Randolph.
[1914] Ku Klux Rept., p. 21; Ala. Test., pp. 67, 68 (B. W. Norris); pp.
364, 395 (Swayne); p. 443 (P. M. Dox); p. 385 (General Pettus); p. 462
(William H. Forney); p. 77 (Parsons); pp. 1282, 1283 (Blackford); p. 547
(Minnis); p. 660 (Daniel Coleman); p. 323 (Busteed).
[1915] Ala. Test., p. 785 (Nicholas Davis); pp. 79, 80 (Governor Parsons).
[1916] Ala. Test., p. 1282.
[1917] "Had these organizations confined their operations to their
legitimate objects, then their performances would have effected only good.
Unfortunately the Klan began to degenerate into a vile means of wreaking
revenge for personal dislikes or personal animosities, and in this way
many outrages were perpetrated, ultimately resulting in casting so much
odium on the whole concern that about the year 1870 there was an almost
universal collapse, all the good and brave men abandoning it in disgust.
Many outrages were committed in the name of Ku Klux that really were done
by irresponsible parties who never belonged to the Klan."--Randolph.
[1918] It was evidently organized May 23, 1867, since the constitution
directed that all orders and correspondence should be dated with "the year
of the B.--computing from the 23d of May, 1867.... Thursday the 20th of
July, 1868, shall be the 20th day of the 7th month of the 2d year of the
B. of the ----." Constitution, Title VIII, Article 77.
[1919] Ala. Test., pp. 1282-1283 (Blackford); p. 9 (William Miller);
accounts of former members. P. J. Glover testified in the Coburn-Buckner
Report, pp. 882-883 (1875), that in 1867-1868 he was a member of the order
of the White Camelia in Marengo County, and that it coöperated with a
similar order in Sumter County. The Ku Klux testimony relating to Alabama
(p. 1338) shows that in 1871 Glover had denied any knowledge of such
secret orders.
[1920] W. Va. Univ. Docs., No. 1; Brown, "Lower South," Ch. IV.
[1921] The officers of the Supreme Council were: (1) Supreme Commander,
(2) Supreme Lieutenant Commander, (3) Supreme Sentinel, (4) Supreme
Corresponding Secretary, (5) Supreme Treasurer.
[1922] The officers were Grand Commander, Grand Lieutenant Commander, etc.
[1923] The officers of a Central Council were Eminent Commander, etc.; of
a Subordinate Council, Commander, etc.
[1924] Dr. G. P. L. Reid, Marion, Alabama, formerly an official in the
order. Mr. William Garrott Brown gives the statement of one of the leaders
of the order: "The authority of the commander [this office I held] was
_absolute_. All were sworn to obey his orders. There was an inner circle
in each circle, to which was committed any particular work; its movements
were not known to other members of the order. This was necessary because,
in our neighborhood, almost every southern man was a member." "Lower
South," p. 212.
[1925] It is said that the Ku Klux Klan had a number of negro members.
[1926] In making the presentation the following dialogue took place: _Q._
Who comes there? _Ans._ A son of your race. _Q._ What does he wish? _Ans._
Peace and order; the observance of the laws of God; the maintenance of the
laws and Constitution as established by the Patriots of 1776. _Q._ To
obtain this, what must be done? _Ans._ The cause of our race must triumph.
_Q._ And to secure its triumph, what must we do? _Ans._ We must be united
as are the flowers that grow on the same stem, and, under all
circumstances, band ourselves together as brethren. _Q._ Will he join us?
_Ans._ He is prepared to answer for himself, and under oath.
[1927] The oath: "I do solemnly swear, in the presence of these witnesses,
never to reveal, without authority, the existence of this Order, its
objects, its acts, and signs of recognition; never to reveal or publish,
in any manner whatsoever, what I shall see or hear in this Council; never
to divulge the names of the members of the Order, or their acts done in
connection therewith; I swear to maintain and defend the social and
political superiority of the White Race on this continent; always and in
all places to observe a marked distinction between the White and African
races; to vote for none but white men for any office of honor, profit, or
trust; to devote my intelligence, energy, and influence to instil these
principles in the minds and hearts of others; and to protect and defend
persons of the White Race, in their lives, rights, and property, against
the encroachments and aggressions of persons of any inferior race. I
swear, moreover, to unite myself in heart, soul, and body with those who
compose this Order; to aid, protect, and defend them in all places; to
obey the orders of those who, by our statutes, will have the right of
giving those orders; to respond at the peril of my life, to a call, sign,
or cry coming from a fellow-member whose rights are violated; and to do
everything in my power to assist him through life. And to the faithful
performance of this Oath I pledge my life and sacred honor."
[1928] The motto is printed in large capitals in the original text.
[1929] Large capitals in the original text.
[1930] The Constitution and the Ritual of the Knights of the White Camelia
are reprinted in W. Va. Univ. Docs., No. 1. They were preserved by Dr. G.
P. L. Reid of Perry County, Alabama, who buried his papers when the order
was disbanded, and years afterward dug them up. The secrets of the Knights
of the White Camelia were more closely kept than those of the Ku Klux
Klan, and the Federal officials were unable to find out anything about the
order.
[1931] Constitutional Union Guards, Sons of '76, The '76 Association, Pale
Faces, White Boys, White Brotherhood, Regulators, White League, White
Rose, etc. Sumarez de Haviland, in an article on "Ku Klux Klan" in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_, Vol. XL, 1888 (evidently based on Lester and
Wilson), gives the names of a number of secret societies, which he says
were connected in some way; the first group was absorbed into Ku Klux
Klan; the second consisted of opposing societies; they existed before,
during, and after the Civil War. 1. The Lost Clan of Cocletz, Knights of
the Golden Circle, Knights of the White Camelia, Centaurs of Caucasian
Civilization, Angels of Avenging Justice, etc. 2. The Underground
Railroad, The Red String Band, The Union League, The Black Avengers of
Justice, etc.
"The generic name of Ku Klux was applied to all secret organizations in
the South composed of white natives and having for their object the
execution of the 'first law of nature.' There were many organizations
(principally of local origin) which had no connection one with another;
others, again, were more extended in their influence and operations. The
one numerically the largest and which embraced the most territory was the
White Camelia."--Dr. G. P. L. Reid.
[1932] "Their robes used in these nocturnal campaigns consisted simply of
sheets wrapped around their bodies and belted around the waist. The lower
portion reached to the heels, whilst the upper had eyeholes through which
to see, and mouth holes through which to breathe. Of course, every man so
caparisoned had one or more pistols in holsters buckled to his
waist."--Randolph.
[1933] Ala. Test., pp. 149-152, 275, 452, 453, 535, 574, 579, 597, 668,
707, 919, 1048, 1553; Somers, "Southern States," p. 152; Report of Joint
Committee, Alabama Legislature, 1868; oral accounts. The Ku Klux costumes
represented in Wilson's "History of the American People," Vol. V, Ch. I,
were captured after a Ku Klux parade in Huntsville, Ala. When costumes
were to be made, the materials were sometimes sent secretly to the women,
who made them according to directions and returned them secretly.
[1934] Ala. Test., pp. 352, 452, 453, 490, 533, 534; Beard, "Ku Klux
Sketches"; Brown, "Lower South," Ch. IV; Lester and Wilson, Ch. III; Weir,
"Old Times in Georgia," p. 32; accounts of former members.
[1935] "Concerning any elaborate organization, I am unable to state from
any personal experience. There were certain heads of departments or
organizations, under heads or chiefs bearing titles intended to strike awe
into the minds of the ignorant. In some instances organizers were sent to
towns to establish the Klans. These latter were formed into companies
officered somewhat in military style. In (1868) I was honored by being
chosen leader of the Tuscaloosa Klan, and even at this late day I am
gratified to be able to say that my company did good service to
Tuscaloosa."--Randolph.
[1936] "We had regular meetings about once a week, at which the conduct of
certain offensive characters would be discussed, and if the majority voted
to punish such, it would be done accordingly on certain prescribed nights.
Sometimes it was deemed necessary only to post notices of warning, which,
in some cases, were sufficient to alarm the victims and to induce them to
reform in their behavior. To the best of my recollection, our company
consisted of about sixty members. As soon as our object was effected,
viz., got the negroes to behave themselves, we disbanded. I well remember
those notices in _The Monitor_, for they were concocted and posted by my
own hand--disguised of course."--Randolph.
[1937] Printed in Report of Joint Committee, Alabama Legislature, 1868.
The warning is not in the ordinary Ku Klux form. The purpose is clear,
however. The illiteracy is probably assumed, though not necessarily.
[1938]
HEADQUARTERS S. V. W.,
ANCIENT COMMANDERY,
Mother Earth.
1st Quarter New Moon.
1st year of Revenge.
_Special Order_:
The worldly medium for the expression of +SOUTHERN OPINION+ is notified to
publish for the eyes of humanity the orders of the offended Ghosts.
Failing to do so, let him prepare his soul for travelling beyond the
limits of his corporosity.
Cyclops warns it--print it well,
Or glide instanter down to h--l!
By order of the Great
BLUFUSTIN
The Mighty Chief. +HOBGOBLIN.+
True Copy, +PETERLOO.+
S. K. K. K.
--_Independent Monitor_, April 1, 1868.
[1939] "They [Ku Klux orders] had this meaning: the very night of the day
on which said notices made their appearance, three notably offensive negro
men were dragged out of their beds, escorted to the old boneyard (3/4 mile
from Tuscaloosa) and thrashed in the regular ante-bellum style, until
their unnatural nigger pride had a tumble, and humbleness to the white man
reigned supreme."--Randolph.
[1940] Report of Meade, 1868.
[1941] Report of Joint Committee, 1868; Ala. Test., p. 876 (William M.
Lowe).
[1942] In 1869-1870 there was an epidemic of resignations in the Black
Belt. It was in the rich Black Belt that the carpet-bagger flourished. The
departing Radical could always sell his property at a high price, the
whites often uniting to purchase it. In Perry, Pickens, Choctaw, Marengo,
Hale, and other Black Belt counties the carpet-baggers resigned and left.
Ala. Test., pp. 103, 104.
[1943] The case of W. B. Jones of Marengo County was well known. See Ala.
Test., p. 1455 _et passim_.
[1944] Ala. Test., p. 935 (a Bureau agent). It is more likely that this
was when the Klan was dying out and the class of men composing it had no
time to go on night rides while the crops were needing their attention.
During the leisure seasons time would hang heavy on their hands, and they
would begin their deviltry again.
[1945] I have learned of only two such cases; one was in Tuscaloosa
County. The woman was a Bureau school-teacher from the North. _Independent
Monitor_, May 24, 1871. The other was the case of America Trammell in east
Alabama. Ala. Test., p. 1119.
[1946] Ala. Test., pp. 166, 433, 459, 462, 476, 1125, 1126, 1749.
[1947] Ala. Test., pp. 476, 1125, 1126.
[1948] Ala. Test., pp. 922, 923, _et passim_. I have been told that in one
place 2000 muskets were collected, taken from negroes.
[1949] Ala. Test., p. 1179. The legal militia consisted of Major-General
Dustan only.
[1950] Not nearly so many as is usually supposed. Lakin, who never
underestimated anything, could think of only six in all north Alabama.
[1951] Ala. Test., 1138; Coburn-Buckner Report.
[1952] Several southern churches seized by Lakin for the northern church
were burned.
[1953] Report of Joint Committee, 1868; Ala. Test., p. 1138.
[1954] Ala. Test., pp. 126, 127, 230, 418. See above, p. 612.
[1955] Ala. Test., p. 1983.
[1956] "Of the acts of this Order much has been written which is untrue;
every disturbance between the races was laid at its door; every act of
violence, in which the negro or the northern man was the victim, it was
charged with. I do not deny that extreme measures were sometimes resorted
to, but of such I have no personal knowledge.... Four hours would have
been in [Perry County] ample time to secure the assembly, at any central
point, of a thousand resolute men who would have done the bidding of their
commander whatever it might have been, yet in this time [three years] no
single act of violence was committed on the person or property of a negro
or alien by its order or which received its sanction or indorsement."--Dr.
G. P. L. Reid.
[1957] However, in 1871 Governor Lindsay stated that there were in the
state fewer feuds, crimes, difficulties, etc., than since 1819, when the
state was admitted. This was especially the case, he said, in northern
Alabama, for this reason: the people of the mountain and hill county were
now prosperous; cotton was selling for $100 to $150 a bale; these white
mountaineers by their own labor were doing well. Such was not the case
with the planter who had to hire negro labor and pay high prices for
provisions, farming implements, and mules. Meat that cost the planter 22
cents a pound was raised by the mountain people. Outrages against negroes
were now very rare. Ala. Test., pp. 206-207. It is certain that the
prosperity of the white counties which in 1870 got rid of the alien local
officials had much to do with allaying disorder.
[1958] The estimate is Lakin's.
[1959] Report Joint Committee of 1868; Ala. Test., p. 115 _et passim_. The
_N. Y. Tribune_, Nov. 14, 1868, states that Gustavus Horton, the first
Radical mayor of Mobile, was killed in this riot. After the riot was over
the United States troops appeared too late, as they usually were in such
cases.
[1960] Ala. Test., pp. 77, 429 _et passim_; _Montgomery Mail_, July 16,
1870. The mountain people had another grudge against Luke. He associated
constantly with negroes and was said to be a miscegenationist. The
mountain farmers had the greatest horror of such.
[1961] Ala. Test., pp. 257, 266, 275, _et passim_. Boyd had many private
enemies, among them relatives of a man he had killed, and it was charged
that they killed him. He was a man of low character, and his own party was
not sorry to lose him.
[1962] It was a marked fact that no resistance to the United States
soldiers was ever attempted. When the soldiers appeared, all violence
ceased. The soldiers were as a rule in favor of the whites and sometimes
took a hand in the Ku Kluxing. They usually appeared after the row was
over.
[1963] Ala. Test., pp. 81, 221, _et passim_; _Eutaw Whig_, Oct. 27, 1870.
[1964] Ala. Test., p. 229 _et passim_. When he testified before the Ku
Klux Committee, Alston swore that it was the men whom he had asked to
protect him that had shot him,--such men as General Cullen A. Battle.
[1965] Ala. Test., p. 723.
[1966] "The company of K. K. K.'s which was organized in Tuscaloosa, was
an independent organization, _i.e._ it was altogether a local affair,
having no connection with any general Klan."--Randolph.
[1967] Miss. Test., pp. 60, 223, 249; Ala. Test., pp. 213, 1822-1824;
Garner, "Reconstruction in Mississippi," pp. 345, 346.
[1968] Ala. Test., p. 942; Lester and Wilson, p. 78.
[1969] The anti-negro bands of the hills and mountains were rather of the
spurious Ku Klux and were largely composed of tories and Radicals.
[1970] Ala. Test., p. 1763.
[1971] Constitution, Article 76; Brown, "Ku Klux Movement," _Atlantic
Monthly_, May, 1901.
[1972] Ala. Test., pp. 226-257.
[1973] Ala. Test., pp. 159-225.
[1974] With the White Camelia in south Alabama the case was somewhat
different.
[1975] See Testimony of Lindsay and Clanton, cited above; also Ala. Test.,
p. 376 (Pettus); p. 896 (Lowe).
[1976] Somers, "Southern States," pp. 4, 15, 21; Lester and Wilson, Chs.
III, IV, V; Sanders, "Early Settlers," p. 31. "The peaceful citizen knew
that a faithful patrol had guarded his premises while he slept."--Mrs.
Stubbs. Brown, "Lower South," Ch. IV; Ala. Test., pp. 432, 1520, 1532,
1803.
[1977] Throughout the pages of the Ku Klux Testimony are found assertions
that Ku Klux was not an organization, but merely the understanding of the
southern people, the spirit of the community, the concert of feeling of
the whites, a state of mind in the population.
[1978] Ala. Test., pp. 165, 380, 649, 724; Somers, "Southern States," p.
154. Governor Lindsay said that the so-called Ku Klux who went over to
Mississippi were roughs and that the people were glad when they heard that
one of them had been shot. In 1870-1871, while living in Alabama, General
Forrest, the reputed Grand Wizard, repeatedly condemned in the strongest
terms the conduct of the so-called Ku Klux. Ala. Test., pp. 212, 213.
[1979] Ala. Test., pp. 162, 376.
[1980] Ala. Test., p. 719.
[1981] Ala. Test., pp. 610, 778.
[1982] Ala. Test., pp. 559, 560, 1229.
[1983] Ala. Test., p. 679. Governor Smith, a Radical, said in regard to
the motives of Senator George E. Spencer, I. D. Sibley, and J. J. Hinds,
carpet-baggers: "My candid opinion is that Sibley does not want the law
executed, because that would put down crime and crime is his life's bread.
He would like very much to have a Ku Klux outrage every week to assist him
in keeping up strife between the whites and blacks, that he might be more
certain of the votes of the latter. He would like to have a few colored
men killed every week to furnish semblance of truth to Spencer's libels
upon the people of the state generally. It is but proper in this
connection that I should speak in strong terms of condemnation of the
conduct of two white men in Tuskegee a few days ago, in advising the
colored men to resist the authority of the sheriff; these men were not Ku
Klux, but Republicans." Letter in _Huntsville Advocate_, June 25, 1870.
See also Herbert, "Solid South," p. 55.
[1984] See Ala. Test., p. 433.
[1985] Ala. Test., p. 230. In some communities a negro is still told that
he must not let the sun go down on him before leaving.
[1986] Ala. Test., pp. 944, 947, 948.
[1987] Ala. Test., pp. 1757, 1758, 1764, 1765, 1768. Judge Mudd was by no
means a representative of the old slaveholding element, but rather of the
white county people.
[1988] Ala. Test., p. 492.
[1989] Ala. Test., pp. 1127, 1128, 1139.
[1990] Ala. Test., pp. 1175, 1179.
[1991] G. O. No. 11, Sub-Dist. Ala., April 4, 1868; _Selma Times and
Messenger_, April 9, 1868; _N. Y. Herald_, April 7, 1868.
[1992] Report of the Secretary of War, 1869, p. 83 _et seq._; Report of
Meade, 1868.
[1993] Joint Resolution, Sept. 22, 1868, in Acts of Ala., p. 292. The
delegation to Washington did not provide themselves with an authenticated
copy of the resolution and had to wait for it. Governor Smith, who was
with the delegation, spoiled everything by declaring that there was no
disorder except along the Tennessee River and in southwestern Alabama and
that troops were not needed. No officials had been resisted, he said, and
it would be imprudent to send troops. _N. Y. Herald_, Sept. 27, 1868. The
citizens of Montgomery held a mass-meeting and denied _in toto_ the
allegations of the memorial, denouncing it as a move of partisan politics.
The strangers were sure to fall from power unless upheld by outside force.
_N. Y. Herald_, Sept. 25, 1868.
[1994] Act of Dec. 24, 1868; Acts of Ala., p. 439.
[1995] Joint Resolutions, Nov. 14 and Dec. 8, 1868; Acts of Ala., pp. 593,
594.
[1996] J. DeF. Richards and G. R. McAfee of the Senate, and E. F.
Jennings, W. R. Chisholm, and G. W. Malone of the House.
[1997] Report of Joint Committee on Outrages, 1868.
[1998] Act Dec. 26, 1868; Acts of Ala., 444-446. A supplementary act had
to be passed allowing the probate judges to license _for one dollar_ the
wearing of masks or disguises at balls, theatres, and circuses and other
places of amusement, public and private. Application had to be made at
least three days beforehand by "three responsible persons of established
character and reputation." Act Dec. 31, 1868; Acts of Ala., p. 521.
[1999] Act of Dec. 28, 1868; Acts of Ala., pp. 452-454.
[2000] See Dunning, "Essays," pp. 243-246.
[2001] Messages and Papers, Vol. VII, pp. 55, 56, March 30, 1871.
[2002] _The Nation_, Feb. 4, 1875, in regard to the "Force" legislation:
"It would not have been possible for the most ingenious enemy of the
blacks to draw up a code better calculated to keep up and fan the spirit
of strife and contention between the races." James L. Pugh, later United
States Senator from Alabama: The people were tired of being reconstructed
by President and by Congress. Now the Enforcement Laws punish all for the
crime of a few. They are an insult to a whole people, assuming them
incorrigible. Alabama Testimony, pp. 407, 408, 411.
[2003] See Burgess, "Reconstruction," pp. 69-73.
[2004] Text of act in McPherson, pp. 549-550. This act was ostensibly to
provide for the enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments.
Its constitutionality has been criticised on these grounds: (1) the
amendments were directed against _states_, not _persons_; (2) the law
enacted penalties not only against state officers, but also against any
_person_ who might offend against the election laws of the state or
against this act; (3) it is entirely out of the question to claim that the
amendments protect the right of a person within a state against
infringement by other persons, or even against the state itself unless on
account of race, color, or previous condition. See Burgess, pp. 253-255.
[2005] Text of act in McPherson, "Handbook of Politics," 1872, pp. 3-8.
While only the congressional elections and all the registrations were to
be guarded, the chief purpose of the act was to control state elections,
which were held at the same time and place. See Burgess, "Reconstruction,"
pp. 256-257. This was so clearly the purpose that after the rescue of the
state government from carpet-bag rule the time of the state and local
elections was changed from November to August in order to escape Federal
espionage.
[2006] "Upon the basis of information which turned out to be very
insufficient and unreliable."--Burgess, p. 257.
[2007] Messages and Papers, Vol. VII, pp. 127-128.
[2008] Burgess, pp. 257, 258.
[2009] Text in McPherson, "Handbook," 1872, pp. 85-87. For criticism,
Burgess, pp. 257, 259.
[2010] Messages and Papers, Vol. VII, pp. 134, 135.
[2011] Report of the Committee, pp. 1, 2.
[2012] Some of the Conservatives who testified were Gen. Cullen A. Battle,
R. H. Abercrombie, Gen. James H. Clanton, P. M. Dox, Gov. Robert B.
Lindsay, Reuben Chapman, Thomas Cobbs, Daniel Coleman, Jefferson M.
Falkner, William H. Forney, William M. Lowe, William Richardson, Francis
S. Lyon, William S. Mudd, Gen. Edmund W. Pettus, Turner Reavis, James L.
Pugh, P. T. Sayre, R. W. Walker,--all prominent men of high character.
[2013] Some of those who gave, willingly or unwillingly, Democratic
testimony: W. T. Blackford (c.), Judge Busteed (c.), General Crawford,
Nicholas Davis (s.), L. W. Day (c.), Samuel A. Hale (c.), J. H. Speed
(s.), Senator Willard Warner (c.), N. L. Whitfield (s.). (c.) =
carpet-bagger; (s.) = scalawag.
[2014] Charles Hays (s.), W. B. Jones (s.), S. F. Rice (s.), John A.
Minnis (c.), A. S. Lakin (c.), B. W. Norris (c.), L. E. Parsons (s.), E.
W. Peck (s.), and L. R. Smith (c.).
[2015] Day, Busteed, Van Valkenburg, General Crawford, etc.
[2016] Senate Report, No. 48, 42d Cong., 2d Sess., Pts. 8, 9, and 10, and
House Report, No. 22, 42d Cong., 2d Sess., Pts. 8, 9, and 10, contain the
Alabama Testimony.
[2017] Feb. 17, 1872; Report of Committee, p. 626.
[2018] McPherson, "Handbook," 1872, pp. 89, 90.
[2019] McPherson, "Handbook," 1872, pp. 90, 91. These provisions had to be
inserted in the Sundry Civil Bill, which was approved June 10, 1872.
Kellogg of Louisiana introduced the "rider."
[2020] For instances of petty annoyances to the people from marshals,
deputy marshals, and supervisors, see Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 119, 47th Cong.
1st Sess., and Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 246, 48th Cong., 2d Sess. These
annoyances lasted for several years.
[2021] Ku Klux Rept., pp. 320, 330.
[2022] In his Message, Nov. 15, 1869, Smith stated: "Nowhere have the
courts been interrupted. No resistance has been encountered by the
officers of courts in their effort to discharge the duties imposed upon
them by law." Smith was criticised by the carpet-baggers for not calling
out the negro militia to "enforce the laws." He stood out against them,
and on July 25, 1870, he replied to their criticisms, denouncing George E.
Spencer (United States Senator), J. D. Sibley, J. J. Hinds, and others as
systematically uttering every conceivable falsehood. "During my entire
administration of the state government," he said, "but one officer had
certified to me that he was unable, on account of lawlessness, to execute
his official duties. That officer was the sheriff of Morgan County. I
immediately made application to General Crawford for troops. They were
sent and the said sheriff refused their assistance." "Solid South," p. 55.
[2023] _Montgomery Mail_, July 3, 1872. The Black Cavalry and its spurious
Ku Klux successors infested those parts of eastern Alabama where, in 1903,
the existence of a system of peonage was discovered.
[2024] _Tuskegee News_, Sept. 3, 1874; Report of Joint Committee on
Election of George Spencer. During the remainder of Reconstruction under
the Enforcement Acts, the Federal government exercised supervision over
all elections. Election outrages by the Democrats probably decreased,
while outrages by the Radicals tended to increase. The Democrats put in
their work of influence and intimidation in the summer and early fall, and
when the elections came were quiet, trusting to the influence brought to
bear some months previously. After the carpet-bag government collapsed,
the Federal Enforcement Acts still gave supervision of elections to the
Washington government. The Democrats in Congress were unable to secure the
repeal of the force legislation. "We do not expect to repeal any of the
recent enactments [Force Laws]. They may stand forever, but we intend by
superior intelligence, stronger muscle, and greater energy, to make them
dead letter upon the statute books." _Birmingham News_, quoted in the
_State Journal_, June 24, 1874. But in 1880 no appropriation was made for
the pay of the deputy marshals and supervisors.
In 1875 the supreme court in the case of United States _vs._ Reese
declared the two most important sections of the Enforcement Act of 1870
unconstitutional. In 1883, in the case of the United States _vs._ Harris,
the Ku Klux Act of April 20, 1871, was declared unconstitutional. In 1888,
when House, Senate, and President were Republican, an attempt was made by
Mr. McKinley (afterward President) to pass a Force Bill to enforce the old
election laws, which were still on the statute book. The measure failed to
pass. It was in opposition to this Force Bill that Colonel Hilary A.
Herbert of Alabama and other southern congressmen wrote the work called
"Why the Solid South? or Reconstruction and its Results." It is said that
this book had some influence in causing a halt in force legislation. It
was the first attempt to write the history of the Reconstruction period,
and is still the best general account. In 1894, when House, Senate, and
President were Democratic, the remnants of the Enforcement Acts were
repealed, and thus was swept away the last of the Radical system. See
Dunning, "The Undoing of Reconstruction," in the _Atlantic Monthly_, Oct.,
1901.
[2025] Coburn-Buckner Report, p. 238. The constitution is not in the
_Journal_, however.
[2026] Coburn-Buckner Report, pp. 7, 12, 19, 702, 882, 883.
[2027] Cameron Report, 1876, pp. 53, 108; oral accounts.
[2028] The accounts of the wild and idle negro children of the rice and
tobacco districts are not true of those in the Cotton Belt. The smallest
tot could do a little in a cotton field.
[2029] See _Birmingham Age-Herald_, March 31 and April 7, 1901 (J. W.
DuBose); _Review of Reviews_, Sept., 1903, on "The Cotton Crop of To-day,"
by R. H. Edmonds; Ingle, "Southern Sidelights," p. 271; Address of
President Thach, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, before the American
Economic Association, 1903; Tillinghast, "Negro in Africa and America,"
pp. 126, 143; Mallard, "Plantation Life before Emancipation"; Washington,
"Up from Slavery," and "The Future of the American Negro," _passim_. The
immense cost of slave labor is seen when the value of the slaves is
compared with the value of the lands cultivated by their labor. In 1859
the cash value of the lands in Alabama was $175,824,622, and that of the
slaves was $215,540,000. The larger portion of this land had not a negro
on it, and if cultivated, was cultivated exclusively by whites. See Census
of 1860. The effect of the loss of slaves on the welfare of a planter is
shown in the case of William L. Yancey. His slaves were accidentally
poisoned and died. The loss ruined him, and he was forced to sell his
plantation and engage in a profession. A farmer in a white county
employing white labor would have been injured only temporarily by such a
loss of labor.
[2030] The tenant furnished labor, supplies, and teams, and paid the
landlord a fourth of the cotton and a third of the corn produced.
[2031] There was usually good feeling between the whites and blacks at
work together; but the negroes, at heart, scorned the poor whites, and had
to be closely watched to keep them from insulting or abusing them. The
negro had little respect for the man who owned no slaves or who owned but
few and worked with them in the fields. To protect the slaves against
outsiders was one reason why discipline was strict, supervision close,
passes required, etc. When both white and black were allowed to go at will
over the plantation and community, trouble was sure to result from the
impudent behavior of the negro to "white trash" and the consequent
retaliation of the latter. The whites often came to the master and wanted
him to whip his best slaves for impudence to them. The master, to prevent
this, regulated the liberty of the slave by passes, etc., and the whites,
especially strangers, were expected not to trespass on a plantation where
slaves were.
[2032] The idea of the so-called "prejudice" against manual labor is
perhaps due largely to abolitionist theories and arguments, which have
been partially accepted since the war by some southerners who think it due
to the old system to show its lofty attitude toward the common things of
life. But the negro had, and still has, a contempt for a white who works
as he does. And it has always been a custom of mankind,--white, yellow, or
black,--to get out of doing manual labor if there was anything else to do.
[2033] Accounts from old citizens, former planters.
[2034] The agent of President Johnson.
[2035] Report to President, April 9, 1866.
[2036] Colonel Saunders, a noted slaveholder in one of the white counties
in north Alabama, established a patriarchal protectorate over his former
slaves. He built a church for them, and organized a monthly court,
presided over by himself, in which the old negro men tried delinquents. It
is said that the findings of this court were often ludicrous in the
extreme, but order was preserved, and for a long while there was no resort
to the Bureau. Saunders, "Early Settlers," p. 31. Many similar
protectorates were established in the remote districts, but the policy of
the Bureau was to break them up.
[2037] A term of contempt.
[2038] See _Sewanee Review_, Jan., 1905, article on "Servant Problem in a
Black Belt Village."
[2039] _N. Y. Herald_, July 17, 1865; Reid, "After the War," pp. 211, 218,
219; Tillet, in _Century Magazine_, Vol. XI; Reports of General Swayne,
1865, 1866; Van de Graaf, in _Forum_, Vol. XXI, pp. 330, 339; _DeBow's
Review_, Feb., 1866, p. 220; oral accounts.
[2040] For a description of the Bureau labor regulations, see Chapter XI,
Sec. 1. Also _Montgomery Mail_, May 12, 1865; Howard's Circular, May 30,
1865; Circular No. 11, War Department, July 12, 1865; _Huntsville
Advocate_, July 26, 1865; Swayne's Reports, 1865, 1866; G. O. No. 12,
Dept. Ala., Aug. 30, 1865; G. O. No. 13, Dept. Ala., Sept., 1865; _Selma
Times_, Dec. 4, 1865. The so-called "Black Laws" passed by the legislature
in 1865-1866 to regulate labor were scarcely heard of by the people who
hired negroes.
[2041] Somers, "Southern States," 130.
[2042] _Southern Magazine_, Jan., 1874; _Selma Messenger_, Nov. 15, 1865;
_Harper's Monthly Magazine_, Jan., 1874; _Selma Times_, Dec. 4, 1865; oral
accounts; _DeBow's Review_, Feb., 1866.
[2043] Swayne to A. F. Perry, _N. Y. Herald_, Aug. 28, 1865; _N. Y.
Herald_, July 17, 1865; Reid, "After the War," pp. 211-219; _DeBow's
Review_, 1866, pp. 213, 220; Somers, "Southern States," p. 131.
[2044] _DeBow's Review_, Feb., 1866.
[2045] Many of the carpet-bag politicians were northern men who had failed
at cotton planting.
[2046] Report to the President, April 9, 1866; "Ten Years in a Georgia
Plantation," by the Hon. Mrs. Leigh; oral accounts. On account of the
general failure of the northern men who invested capital in the South in
1865 and 1866, there grew up in the business world an unfavorable feeling
against the South, and for the remainder of Reconstruction days that
section had to struggle against adverse business opinion. _Harper's
Magazine_, Jan., 1874.
[2047] _Selma Times_, Dec. 4, 1865. Nearly all the newspapers printed
advertisements of the immigration societies.
[2048] "Northern Alabama Illustrated," p. 378.
[2049] _Selma Times_, Dec. 4, 1865; _N. Y. Times_, July 2, 1866.
[2050] The great evil of slavery was its tendency to drive the whites who
were in moderate circumstances away from the more fertile lands of the
prairie and cane-brake and river bottoms, leaving them to the few
slaveholders and the immense number of slaves. Emancipation thus left on
the finest lands of the state a shiftless laboring population, which still
retains possession. Now, as in slavery times, the white prefers not to
work as a field hand in the Black Belt when he can get more independent
work elsewhere. And besides, he does not wish to live among the negroes.
Slavery kept white farmers from settling on the fertile lands; the negro
keeps whites from taking possession now.
[2051] _Mobile Daily Times_, Oct. 21, 1860; _Montgomery Advertiser_, March
21, 1866; _DeBow's Review_, March 18, 1866.
Several young women of Montgomery, who were once wealthy, worked in the
printing-office of the _Advertiser_. One of them was a daughter of a
former President of the United States. Many women became teachers,
displacing men, who then went to the fields. Disabled soldiers generally
tried teaching.
There seems to be a belief that emancipation had a good effect in driving
to work a certain "gentleman of leisure" class, who had been supported by
the work of slaves and who had scorned labor. (See W. B. Tillett, in the
_Century Magazine_, Vol. XI, p. 769.) It is a mistake to regard the
slaveholding, planting class as, in any degree, idle, unless from the
point of view of the negro or the ignorant white, who believed that any
man who did not work with his hands was a gentleman of leisure. The
Alabama planter was and had to be a man of great energy, good judgment,
and diligence. It was a belief that a man who could not manage a
plantation or other business should not be intrusted with an official
position. One of the most serious objections made by the cotton planters
to Jefferson Davis as President was that he had failed to manage his
plantation with success. See also Somers, "Southern States," p. 127.
[2052] _DeBow's Review_, Feb. and March, 1866; _Montgomery Advertiser_,
March 21, 1866; _N. Y. Herald_, July 17, 1866. It was estimated that in
the fall of 1865 the negro male population of the state was reduced by
50,000 able-bodied men, who were hanging around the cities and towns,
doing nothing. At Mobile there were 10,000; at Meridian, Miss., 5000; at
Montgomery, 10,000; at Selma, 5000; and at various smaller points, 20,000.
_Mobile Times_, Oct. 21, 1865.
[2053] See also Reid, "After the War," p. 221.
[2054] Trowbridge, "The South," p. 431 _et seq._
[2055] Trowbridge, "The South," p. 431; Reports of General Swayne, Dec.
26, 1865, and Jan., 1866, in Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
General Swayne strongly approved the objects of these societies. He said
there was not and never had been any question of the right of the negro to
hold property. Free negroes had held property before the war.
[2056] _DeBow's Review_, Feb., 1868.
[2057] Jan. 31, 1866.
[2058] I have this account from a planter of the district.
[2059] Somers, an English traveller, thought that the economic relations
of planter and negro were startling, and that anywhere else they would be
considered absurd. The tenant, he said, was sure of a support, and did not
much care if the crop failed. Even his taxes, when he condescended to pay
any, were paid by his master. For all work outside of his crop he had to
be paid, and often he went away and worked for some one else for cash. And
his privileges were innumerable. "The soul is often crushed out of labor
by penury and oppression. Here a soul cannot begin to be infused into it
through the sheer excess of privilege and license with which it is
surrounded." "Southern States since the War," pp. 128, 129.
[2060] My father's tenants, white and black, rented on all systems. The
negroes usually began as wage laborers or as tenants "on halves," for they
had no supplies when they came. Then the more industrious and thrifty
would save and rent farms for "third and fourth" or for "standing rent."
The whites usually obtained the highest grade, and the average white man
would save enough of his earnings to purchase a team, wagon, buggy, farm
implements, and a year's supply and spend all else, though some saved
enough to buy land of their own in cheaper districts or to support
themselves for a year or two while opening up a homestead in the pine
woods. The negro, as a rule, rented "on halves," for he spent all his
earnings and required supervision. The average negro stays only a year or
two at one place before he longs for change and removes to another farm.
About Christmas, or just before, the negroes and many of the whites begin
to move to new homes. For a description of conditions in Mississippi,
where the negro has somewhat better opportunities than in Alabama, see Mr.
A. H. Stone's article in the _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, Feb., 1905.
[2061] In the census each person cultivating a crop is counted as a farmer
and the land he cultivates as a farm. Thus a plantation might be
represented in the census statistics by from five to twenty-five farms.
[2062] See also Otken, "Ills of the South"; Somers, "South since the War,"
p. 281; _Harper's Monthly_, Jan., 1874; _DeBow's Review_, Feb., 1868.
[2063] Any stick is good enough to beat slavery with, so it is usually
stated that slavery was responsible for the wasteful methods of
cultivation that prevailed in the South before the war. That can be true
only indirectly, for the soil always received the worst treatment in the
white counties. Like frontiersmen everywhere, the Alabama white farmers
found it easier to clear new land or to move West than to fertilize
worn-out soils. The lack of transportation facilities in the white
districts made it almost impossible to bring in commercial fertilizers or
to move the crops when made. The railroads had opened up only the rich
slave districts. If there had not been a negro in the state, the frontier
methods would have prevailed, as they still do among the farmers in some
parts of the West. On the other hand, the rich lands worked by slave labor
under intelligent direction were kept in good condition. Under free negro
labor they are in the worst possible condition. Experience, necessity, the
disappearance of free land, and the increase of transportation facilities
have caused the white county farmer to employ better methods, and to keep
up and increase the fertility of the land by using fertilizers.
[2064] But it was nearly forty years before the entire cotton crop of the
state was as large as in 1859.
[2065] _Southern Magazine_, Jan., 1874; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp.
206, 207; Somers, "Southern States," p. 117. In 1860 it was estimated that
of the whole cotton crop 10 to 12 per cent was produced by white labor; in
1876 the proportion of whites to blacks in the cotton fields was 30 to 51;
in 1883 white labor produced 44 per cent of the cotton crop; in 1884, 48
per cent; in 1885, 50 per cent; in 1893, 70 per cent. And this was done by
the whites on inferior lands. See W. B. Tillett, in _Century Magazine_,
Vol. XI, p. 771; Hammond, "The Cotton Industry," pp. 129, 130, 132.
[2066] DeBow estimated that the entire acreage of the cotton crop was as
follows:--
1836. 2,000,000 acres
1840. 4,500,000 acres
1850. 5,000,000 acres
1860. 6,968,000 acres
The Commissioner of Agriculture in 1876 estimated that the acreage in 1860
was 13,000,000. Taking this estimate, which, while probably too large, is
more nearly correct, only 4 per cent of the arable land was planted in
cotton--the staple crop. Hammond, "The Cotton Industry," p. 74.
[2067] Smith, "Cotton Production in Alabama" (1884); Census, 1880; Smith
in Ala. Geolog. Survey, 1881-1882; Kelsey, "The Negro Farmer"; oral
accounts and personal observation.
[2068] So poor were the people after the war that, even though the value
of the mineral and timber lands was well known, there was no native
capital to develop them, and the lion's share went to outsiders, who
bought the lands at tax and mortgage sales during and after the carpet-bag
régime.
[2069] Slavery or negroes prevented the establishment of manufactures by
crowding out a white population capable of carrying on manufactures. The
census shows that in 1860 the white districts had a fair proportion of
manufactures for a state less than forty years old.
[2070] Address of President C. C. Thach, Dec. 29, 1903.
[2071] "Northern Alabama Illustrated," p. 378; see article on "Immigration
to the Southern States" in the _Political Science Quarterly_, June, 1905.
[2072] Address of President C. C. Thach, Dec. 29, 1903.
[2073] The decreasing value of the wage laborer is shown by the following
table of wages:
===========================================
YEAR | MEN | WOMEN | YOUTHS, 14-20
---------|---------|--------|--------------
1860 |$138 | $89 | $66
1865-1866| 150-200 | 100-150| 75-100
1867 | 117 | 71 | 52
1868 | 87 | 50 | 40
1890 | 150 | 100 | 60-75
===========================================
The figures of 1860 are based on the wages of an able-bodied negro. The
statistics of 1865-1866 are taken from tables of wages prescribed by the
Freedmen's Bureau; those for 1867 and 1868 show the decline caused by the
inefficiency of the free negro laborer. Yet the demand for labor was
always greater than the supply. In 1860 clothing and rations were also
given; in 1866-1868 rations and no clothing. In 1890 nothing was
furnished. In 1866-1868 the currency was inflated, and the wages for 1868
were really much lower. Hammond, "The Cotton Industry," p. 124;
_Montgomery Mail_, May 16, 1865; Freedmen's Bureau Reports, 1865-1870.
[2074] A convention held in Montgomery, in 1873, recommended that the
share system be abolished and a contract wage system be inaugurated; wages
should be secured by a lien on the employer's crop; separate contracts
should be made with each laborer, and the "squad" system abolished. In
this way the laborer would not be responsible for bad crops. To aid the
laborers, Congress was asked to pass the Sumner Civil Rights Bill,
providing for the recognition of certain social rights for negroes, to
exempt homesteads from tax action, and to increase the tax on property
held by speculators. And the President was asked to supply bread and meat
to the negro farmers. Annual Cyclopædia (1873), p. 19; _Tuscaloosa Blade_,
Nov. 30, 1873.
[2075] See Willet, "Workers of the Nation," Vol. II, pp. 701, 702.
[2076] Willet, Vol. II, p. 714.
[2077] Washington, in _Atlantic Monthly_, Vol. LXXVIII, pp. 324-326.
[2078] Somers, p. 166.
[2079] _Southern Magazine_, Jan., 1874.
[2080] Somers, p. 117.
[2081] Somers, p. 159.
[2082] _Southern Magazine_, March, 1874.
[2083] "Southern States," p. 131.
[2084] The prosperity of several large commercial houses in Alabama is
said to date from the corner groceries of the '70's.
[2085] Somers, "Southern States," pp. 159, 272; _Harper's Monthly
Magazine_, Jan., 1874; King, "The Great South"; C. C. Smith, "Colonization
of Negroes in Central Alabama"; _Southern Magazine_, Jan., 1874; _The
Forum_, Vol. XXI, p. 341; Hoffman, p. 261; Hammond, p. 191. See also
Appendix II.
[2086] A northern traveller in the Alabama Black Belt in recent years says
of it: "The white population is rapidly on the decrease and the negro
population on the increase.... There are hundreds of the 'old mansion
houses' going to decay, the glass broken in the windows, the doors off the
hinges, the siding long unused to paint, the columns of the verandas
rotting away, and the bramble thickets encroaching to the very doors. The
people have sold their land for what little they could get and moved to
the cities and towns, that they may educate their children and escape the
intolerable conditions surrounding them at their old beloved homes....
These friends have largely gone from the negro's life, and he is left
alone in the wilderness, held down by crop liens and mortgages given to
the alien. Land rent is half its value; the tenant must purchase from the
creditor's store and raise cotton to pay for what he has already eaten and
worn." C. C. Smith, "Colonization of Negroes in Central Alabama,"
published by the Christian Women's Board of Missions, Indianapolis, Ind.
[2087] See also Edmunds, in _Review of Reviews_, Sept., 1900; Dillingham,
in _Yale Review_, Vol. V, p. 190; Stone, "The Negro in the
Yazoo-Mississippi Delta"; Stone, in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_,
Feb., 1905; _Gunton's Magazine_, Sept., 1902 (Dowd); Brown, in _North
American Review_, Dec., 1904; Census 1900, Vol. VI, Pt. II, pp. 406-416;
_Harper's Monthly Magazine_, Jan., 1874, and Jan., 1881; Stone, in _South
Atlantic Quarterly_, Jan., 1905; Kelsey, "The Negro Farmer"; Hammond, "The
Cotton Industry."
Another solution of the problem is often suggested, viz. the crowding out
of the blacks from the Black Belt by the whites--especially northerners
and Germans--who want to cultivate the Black Belt lands, who settle in
colonies, and who have no place for the negro in their plans of industrial
society. The Black Belt landlords are becoming weary of negro labor, and
some are disposed to make special inducements to get whites to settle in
the Black Belt. In Louisiana and Mississippi, Italians have replaced
negroes on many sugar and cotton plantations. Georgia and Alabama, in
order to make the negro work, have recently passed stringent vagrancy
laws, and the planters are talking of Chinese labor. For the opinions of
those who favor white immigration to the South, see the _Manufacturers
Record_, the _Atlanta Constitution_, and the _Montgomery Advertiser_,
during recent years. There is a general demand for foreigners who will
perform agricultural labor.
[2088] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 879 (Lowe); _N. Y. World_, Dec. 14,
1867, Aug. 15, 1868.
[2089] For information in regard to the Radical congressmen: Barnes,
"History of the 40th Congress," Index; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Clanton,
Lowe, Lindsay); _Harper's Weekly_, May 1, 1869 (picture of Spencer);
_Elyton Herald_, ----, 1868; _Montgomery Mail_, July 25, 1868; _N. Y.
World_, Feb. 15 and Sept. 22, 1868; Alabama Manual (1869), p. 32; _N. Y.
Herald_, ----, 1868.
[2090] Pike was the only county that never fell completely into the hands
of the Radicals.
[2091] "North Alabama Illustrated," p. 50; _Montgomery Advertiser_, July
13, 1866; _N. Y. World_, April 11 and July 23, 1868; Ku Klux Rept., Ala.
Test., pp. 187, 188, 881, 1815, 1956; Acts of Ala. (1868), p. 414;
(1869-1870), pp. 157, 336; Beverly, "Alabama," p. 203. A vivid description
of the first session of the reconstructed legislature was published by
Capt. B. H. Screws, "The Loil Legislature."
[2092] Tradition says that what is now known as the Davis Memorial Room
was the one thus used.
[2093] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 231, 881, 1411, 1424, 1468; _Weekly
Mail_, March 24, 1869; _Independent Monitor_, Jan. 11, 1870; Report of
Investigating Committee; Miller, "Alabama," p. 254; "Northern Alabama," p.
50; oral accounts of former members.
[2094] Acts of Ala. (1868), pp. 67, 71, 79, 212, 305, 352.
[2095] Senate Journal (1868), pp. 168, 176, 297.
[2096] Acts of Ala. (1868), pp. 113, 129, 133, 350, 407, 414, 421;
(1869-1870), p. 451; _Montgomery Mail_, Feb. 24, 1870; Annual Cyclopædia
(1870), p. 12.
[2097] Annual Cyclopædia (1870), p. 13; Journal (1869-1870), _passim_;
Brown, "Alabama," p. 268.
[2098] Annual Cyclopædia (1870), p. 19; _N. Y. Herald_, Aug. 17, 1868.
[2099] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 90, 91, 187; Senate Journals
(1868-1874).
[2100] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 189, 239, 240, 324, 435, 523, 962,
1421, 1590, 1816, 1819, 1820, 1957; Herbert, "Solid South," p. 53; Coburn
Report, p. 256; _N. Y. World_, April 11, 1868; _Montgomery Mail_, April
21, 1870.
[2101] Annual Cyclopædia (1870), p. 13.
[2102] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 510; _Augusta Chronicle and
Sentinel_, June 13, 1866; _Selma Times and Messenger_, June 9, 1868.
[2103] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 93, 103, 104, 358, 435, 1878; _N. Y.
World_, Nov. 3, 1868; Coburn Report, p. 512; Herbert, "Solid South," p.
60.
[2104] Annual Cyclopædia (1870), p. 14; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 91,
1177, 1178, 1179, 1242; _N. Y. Herald_, Sept. 27 and Oct. 26, 1868; Report
of Sec. of War, 1869, vol. I, p. 88.
[2105] McPherson's scrap-book, "Campaign of 1868," Vol. I, p. 156; Vol. V,
pp. 43, 45, 46, 48, 49; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 95, 360, 502, 1956;
_N. Y. World_, Sept. 12, 1868; G. O. No. 27, Dept. of the South, Oct. 8,
1868; G. O. No. 38, Dept. of the South, Nov. 10, 1868; _Tuskegee News_,
July 29, 1876.
[2106] _N. Y. Times_, Sept. 7, 1868 (speech of Judge T. M. Peters).
[2107] Nordhoff, "Cotton States in 1870," pp. 85, 86; Ku Klux Rept., Ala.
Test., pp. 185, 209, 210, 434, 435, 1879.
[2108] Miller, "Alabama," p. 256; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 84, 182,
183, 216, 232, 311, 356, 357, 378, 379, 512, 531, 1038, 1625; McPherson's
scrap-book, "Campaign of 1870," Vol. I, pp. 55, 61; Annual Cyclopædia
(1870), pp. 16, 17; "Northern Alabama," p. 50; _Montgomery Mail_, Aug. 20,
1870 (Union League Appeal).
[2109] Somers, "Southern States," p. 132; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p.
225; Miller, "Alabama," p. 256.
[2110] Somers, "Southern States," pp. 167, 186; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test.,
214, 232, 381, 423, 1299, 1371, 1558-1561 (see also the whole of Lindsay's
testimony); "Northern Alabama," p. 50; Annual Cyclopædia (1871), p. 11;
Miller, "Alabama," pp. 259-261; Beverly, "Alabama," p. 204.
[2111] _Montgomery Advertiser_, Sept. 23, 1872.
[2112] Report of Joint Committee in regard to election of George E.
Spencer; Taft, "Senate Election Cases," pp. 558, 562, 574-578; Annual
Cyclopædia (1872), pp. 11, 12; (1873), 16-18; Memorial of General Assembly
(Radical) to President, November, 1872; Coburn Report, p. 716; Senate
Journal (1872-1873), pp. 15-86 ("Court-House Senate"); Senate Journal,
1871 ("Capitol Senate"), Appendix; McPherson, "Handbook of Politics"
(1874), pp. 85, 86; Acts of Ala. (1872-1873), p. 532; Acts of Ala., 1873,
p. 156; _Montgomery Advertiser_, Nov. 12 and 24, 1872; Jan. 4, Feb. 22 and
23, 1873; _Southern Argus_, Nov. 22, 1872; Jan. 10, 1873; Herbert, "Solid
South," pp. 57-59; Miller, "Alabama," p. 261.
[2113] Coburn Report, pp. 230, 262, 267, 271, 274, 280, 525, 528, 529;
"Northern Alabama," p. 51; _Tuscaloosa Blade_, Nov. 27, 1873; _Montgomery
Advertiser_, Sept. 27, 1872.
[2114] See Coburn Report, pp. 154, 161.
[2115] _Montgomery Advertiser_, March, 1870; Report of Inspector of
Penitentiary, 1873-1874; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 230, 244, 1220,
1380, 1384; Acts of Ala. (1869-1870), p. 28; Washington, "Up from
Slavery," pp. 83-90; _N. Y. World_, Feb. 22 and April 11, 1868;
_Tuscaloosa Monitor_, Dec. 18, 1867; Coburn Report, pp. 108, 110, 161,
203, 204, 295; Clowes, "Black America," pp. 131, 140; Herbert, "Solid
South," p. 59.
[2116] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 71, 233, 390, 391, 881, 1815, 1816;
Coburn Report, p. 861; _Huntsville Democrat_, 1872; Straker, "The New
South Investigated," pp. 24, 41, 57; _Ala. State Journal_, May 20, 1874;
McPherson's Scrap-book, "Campaign of 1869," Vol. I, p. 57.
[2117] _International Monthly_, Vol. V, p. 220; Coburn Report, p. 527;
"The Land We Love," Vol. I, p. 446; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 390,
391, 405, 411, 926; Riley, "Baptists of Alabama," pp. 321, 322, 329;
Clowes, "Black America," pp. 53, 131, 140, 144; Murphy, "The Present
South."
[2118] See also Ch. XXII.
[2119] Charge of Judge H. D. Clayton to Barbour County grand jury in
Coburn Report, p. 839; Report of Montgomery grand jury in _Advertiser_,
Oct. 20, 1871; _Tuskegee News_, March 16, 1876; Little, "History of Butler
County," p. 111; _Tuscaloosa Blade_, Nov. 19, 1874; Coburn Report, pp.
524, 1219; _Montgomery Advertiser_, Nov. 27, 1873; Ku Klux Rept., Ala.
Test., pp. 230, 1175, 1179; _Scribner's Monthly_, Sept., 1874; Herbert,
"Solid South," pp. 63, 67.
[2120] _Ala. State Journal_, Jan. 14, 1874.
[2121] _State Journal_, March 10, 1874. The justice who performed the
ceremony in one case gave as his excuse that the woman was so bad that
nothing she could do would make her worse.
[2122] _Montgomery Advertiser_ and other Montgomery papers of March 5,
1873.
[2123] Coburn Report on Affairs in Alabama, 1874, pp. xiv, 341, 519, 520,
521, 743; _Montgomery Advertiser_, Oct. 23, 1902.
[2124] See _State Journal_, Jan. 10 and Feb. 1, 1874.
[2125] A few years ago Strobach offered to tell me all about his political
career in exchange for $50, but died before he could begin the account.
[2126] Coburn Report, pp. 225, 230, 272, 280-282; _State Journal_, May 20
and 27, 1874; _Montgomery Advertiser_, Oct. 23, 1902.
[2127] See Coburn Report, pp. 225, 282-288.
[2128] Coburn Report, pp. 118, 135, 145, 151, 279. When the Coburn
Committee was in Opelika, Washington Jones, colored, appeared before it
and demanded that the promises made to him be fulfilled. He wanted the
mule, the land, "overflow" bacon, etc. The committee got rid of him in a
hurry. See Coburn Report, p. 135.
[2129] Coburn Report, pp. 59, 63, 106, 118, 122, 142, 181, 641; _State
Journal_, June 10, 1874.
[2130] Coburn Report, pp. 58, 59, 92, 106, 136, 275, 295, 296, 416, 641.
[2131] Coburn Report, pp. 58, 59, 106, 203, 204.
[2132] Coburn Report, pp. 59, 63, 109, 118, 119. See also Ku Klux Rept.,
Ala. Test., pp. 1072-1075.
[2133] Coburn Report, pp. 58, 59, 61, 118, 278, 280, 308, 317, 320, 446.
[2134] The _State Journal_ of Aug. 1, 1874, has a list of extracts from
Democratic papers from 1868 to 1874, showing the change of attitude in
regard to the negro.
[2135] _Tuskegee News_, June 4, and Aug. 20, and Sept. 10, 1874; Coburn
Report, pp. 120, 860, 861, 1231, 1232, _et passim_; _Eufaula Times_, July
30, 1874, quoting from the _Birmingham News_, _Shelby Guide_, and _Eutaw
Whig_; _State Journal_, June 24, 1874.
[2136] _Opelika Times_, Aug. 22, 1874, condensed; Coburn Report, pp. 97,
100, 104.
[2137] See testimony of Dunbar and Gardner in Coburn Report, pp. 101, 209,
210, 300, 302; _Opelika Daily Times_, Sept. 30, 1874.
[2138] _State Journal_, June 16, 1874. For a typical readoption of this
platform see the resolutions of the Tuscaloosa County Democrats in _State
Journal_, June 24, 1874. "Old Whig" in the _Opelika Daily Times_, Sept.
30, 1874, proposed that the whites "fall back upon the old Wesleyan
doctrine 'to prefer one another in business';" "Give the Radicals no
support;" "The adder that stings should find no warmth in the bosom of the
dying victim."
[2139] _Opelika Times_, Oct. 14, 1874; Coburn Report, pp. 97, 103-104.
[2140] Coburn Report, p. 856; Annual Cyclopædia (1874), p. 15.
[2141] Coburn Report, pp. 99, 101, 856, 859; _Opelika Daily Times_, June
29 and Oct. 3, 1874; _Montgomery Advertiser_, Oct. 23, 1902.
[2142] _State Journal_, June 4 and 27, 1874; Coburn Report, p. 881; Annual
Cyclopædia (1874), pp. 15, 16; _Tuskegee News_, July 2, 1874.
[2143] The division was as follows:--
=====================================================
DISTRICT | DISTRIBUTING POINTS | POUNDS
-----------------|---------------------------|-------
| |
First | Mobile, Selma, Camden | 55,851
Second | Montgomery | 44,402
Third | Opelika, Talladega, Seale | 41,802
Fourth | Demopolis | 53,663
Fifth and sixth | Decatur | 31,278
=====================================================
[2144] Senate Journal, 1874-1875, p. 7.
[2145] For full account of the bacon question see Ho. Doc., No. 110, 43d
Cong., 2d Sess.; also _Tuskegee News_, June 4, Aug. 27, and Sept. 24,
1874; Coburn Report, pp. 36, 50, 69, 207, 241.
The following list shows how one distribution was made in October, just
before the elections:--
=====================================
COUNTY | POUNDS
-----------------------------|-------
Montgomery | 14,151
Lowndes | 8,283
Butler | 4,235
Dale (to P. King, Haw Ridge) | 2,482
Barbour | 4,527
Bullock | 5,169
Pike (to Gardner and Wiley) | 2,066
Henry | 1,036
Clay | 3,000
Randolph | 2,000
Coosa | 3,000
Elmore | 3,500
Talladega | 7,500
Lee (to W. H. Betts) | 9,792
Russell (to W. H. Betts) | 2,390
Walker | 2,178
"To G. P. Plowman, by order |
of Charles Pelham, M. C." | 1,000
=====================================
[2146] Coburn Report, pp. 59, 60.
[2147] Annual Cyclopædia (1874), p. 13; Coburn Report, pp. 247-254.
[2148] _The Tribune_, Oct. 7, 8, and 12, 1874; _The Nation_, Aug. 27, and
Oct. 15 and 27, 1874; Annual Cyclopædia (1874), p. 12; Foulke, "Life of O.
P. Morton," Vol. II, p. 350. The Hays-Hawley letter was first published in
the _Hartford Courant_ and in the _Boston Daily Advertiser_. It is also in
the Coburn Report, pp. 1254-1260.
[2149] _N. Y. Tribune_, Oct. 7, 1874; Coburn Report, pp. 244, 245, 1221,
1226, 1241, 1247, 1264, 1266.
[2150] Coburn Report, p. 512.
[2151] Coburn Report, p. 931.
[2152] _Eufaula News_, Sept. 3, 1874; Coburn Report, p. 855.
[2153] Coburn Report, pp. 679, 681, 746.
[2154] Coburn Report, pp. 514, 515, 681, 1239.
[2155] Coburn Report, pp. 680, 682; "An appeal to Governor Lewis from the
People of Sumter."
[2156] Coburn Report, pp. 236, 244, 245, 289, 291, 702, 1201, 1231-1235.
[2157] _Union Springs Herald and Times_, quoted in _State Journal_, June
13, 1874.
[2158] Coburn Report, pp. 130, 948.
[2159] For information in regard to the campaign of 1874 I am indebted to
several of those who took part in it, and especially to Mr. T. J.
Rutledge, now state bank examiner, who was then secretary of the
Democratic campaign committee.
[2160] Coburn Report, pp. 125, 530.
[2161] Coburn Report, pp. xix, 43, 80-84, 427, 434, 476, 794, 850, 851,
949, 1200-1204; _Tuskegee News_, Nov. 5, 1874; _State Journal_, Oct. and
Nov., 1874.
[2162] Annual Cyclopædia (1874), p. 17; _Tribune_ Almanac, 1875.
[2163] Coburn Report, pp. 239, 253, 701, 703; _The Nation_, Nov. 30, 1874;
_Tuskegee News_, Dec. 10, 1874.
[2164] In the code of Alabama (1876), pp. 100-120, is printed the
"Constitution (so-called) of the State of Alabama, 1868," as the code
terms it. The last three amendments are thus noted, "Adoption proclaimed
by the Secretary of State, Dec. 18, 1865" (or July 20, 1868, or March 30,
1870). The other amendments have notes stating date of submission and date
of ratification by the state. See code of 1876, pp. 27, 28; also code of
1896.
[2165] The negroes voted against it. Some of them were told that, if
adopted, a war with Spain would result and that the blacks, being the
"only truly loyal," would have to do most of the fighting against the
Spanish, who would land at Apalachicola, Milton, and Eufaula. See
_Tuskegee News_, Dec. 9, 1875. See also in regard to the new constitution,
_Tuskegee News_, June 3, 1875; "Northern Alabama Illustrated," pp. 51, 52;
Annual Cyclopædia (1875), p. 14; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 46, 43d Cong., 2d
Sess.; "Report of the Joint Committee in regard to the Amendment of the
Constitution."
[2166] Most whites believe that eliminating the negro has solved the
problem of the negro in politics. It seems to me that this is a
superficial view. The black counties are still represented in party
conventions and legislature in proportion to population. The white
counties are jealous of this undue influence and would like to reduce this
representation. The party leaders have been able to repress this jealousy,
but it is not forgotten. Before it will submit to loss of representation
the Black Belt, it is believed, will gradually admit to the franchise
those negroes who have been excluded, and they will vote with the whites.
Such a course will undoubtedly cause political realignments. Notice on the
maps that the Republican strongholds are now in the white counties. The
"Lily Whites" are increasing in numbers.
[2167] These views are set forth most clearly by Alexander Johnston in
Lalor's "Cyclopædia of Political Science," Vol. III, p. 556. See also
McCall, "Thaddeus Stevens," and his article in the _Atlantic Monthly_,
June, 1901; Blaine, "Twenty Years"; Schurz, in _McClure's Magazine_, Jan.,
1905; Grosvenor, in _Forum_, Aug., 1900.
[2168] For a belated recognition of the reasons for this, see H. L.
Nelson, "Three Months of Roosevelt," in the _Atlantic Monthly_, Feb.,
1902.
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