Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama Part 47

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 const.i.tution.

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 s.e.xes 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 pa.s.sed 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 cla.s.s. The word would be given out: "Spell _d.a.m.ned rascal_." It would be spelled. "Spell _d.a.m.ned 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 a.s.sociated 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 n.i.g.g.e.rs," "we n.i.g.g.e.rs," at first from policy, later from habit. When Lewis was elected, in 1872, a white Radical cried out in his joy, "We n.i.g.g.e.rs have beat 'em." Two years later white Radicals marched with negro processions and sang the song:--

"The white man's day has pa.s.sed; The negro's day has come at last."[2116]

One effect of Reconstruction was to fuse the whites into a single h.o.m.ogeneous 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 cla.s.s 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 ma.s.s 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-partic.i.p.ants. 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 grat.i.tude 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 regime 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; cla.s.s distinctions are less felt.

The white people, by the fires of Reconstruction, have been welded into a h.o.m.ogeneous 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, bra.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 regime 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 disburs.e.m.e.nt [_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 pa.s.sage 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 b.a.l.l.s. 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 a.s.sociate with them in the legislature and in political meetings. The speeches of Boutwell of Ma.s.sachusetts 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 reenslavement 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 reenslaved. 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 a.s.serted 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 const.i.tution 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 a.s.sistance. 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, 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 att.i.tude 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 att.i.tude, 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 doc.u.ments, 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 G.o.d-made prince; the black, a G.o.d-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 protege of radicalism, the sp.a.w.n of corruption or poverty, or pa.s.sion, or ignorance, come forth as leaders of ignorant or deluded blacks, to attack and plunder for avarice.