Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama Part 30

[Ill.u.s.tration: REGISTRATION OF VOTERS UNDER RECONSTRUCTION ACTS, 1867.]

The election took place on February 1 to 5, and pa.s.sed off without any disorder. Meade reported that the charges of fraud made by the Radicals were groundless, and that the const.i.tution had been defeated on its merits, or rather demerits. Both the const.i.tution and the candidates were obnoxious to a large number of the friends of Reconstruction. He reported that the const.i.tution failed of ratification by 13,550 votes, and advised that the convention a.s.semble again, revise the const.i.tution 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 circ.u.mstances 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 embarra.s.sed 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 embarra.s.sing. 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 const.i.tution, 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 cla.s.s 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 inst.i.tutions 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 pa.s.sed ordinances which amounted to stay laws for the relief of debtors. In order to secure support for the const.i.tution, it was provided that these ordinances were to go into effect with the const.i.tution. 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 circ.u.mstances 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 const.i.tution 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 a.s.sault, 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 const.i.tution; 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 pa.s.s 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 const.i.tution was pa.s.sed 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 inc.u.mbents.[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 regime 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

Att.i.tude 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 partic.i.p.ate 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 pa.s.sions 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, reenforced 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 pa.s.sing 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-cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed to the effect that the blacks would be accorded every legal right and privilege. The "moderate" spirit of Pope was commended, and cooperation 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 amus.e.m.e.nt.[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 cla.s.s of our fellow-men" was hailed with joy; any settlement which denied the ballot to the negro could not stand, they a.s.serted; 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 a.s.sertion 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 Ma.s.sachusetts made a bitter speech against the southern whites at the capitol in Montgomery. The negroes were informed that the Republican party was ent.i.tled 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 a.s.serting 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, a.s.sisted by a negro ma.s.s-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 a.s.sociate 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"