Twenty Years of Congress Volume Ii Part 5

These representations of the prevailing spirit in the South and of the conduct of Southern men were not the loose and exaggerated statements of Northern partisans put forth in influence political opinion in the loyal States. They were the deliberate and conscientious statements of an eminent committee of the two Houses of Congress, of which Senator Fessenden of Maine was chairman. The quotations already made are from the same official report--a report based upon exhaustive testimony and prepared with scrupulous care.

In that report, which is to be taken as an absolutely truthful picture of the Southern States at the time, it is averred that "witnesses of the highest character testify that, without the protection of United-States troops, Union men, whether of Northern or Southern origin, would be obliged to abandon their homes. The feeling in many portions of the country toward the emanc.i.p.ated slaves, especially among the ignorant and uneducated, is one of vindictive and malicious hatred. The deep-seated prejudice against color is a.s.siduously cultivated by the public journals and leads to acts of cruelty, oppression, and murder, which the local authorities are at no pains to prevent or punish."

It was further declared by Mr. Fessenden's committee "that the evidence of an intense hostility to the Federal Union, and an equally intense love for the late Confederacy, nurtured by the war, is decisive. While it appears that nearly all are willing to submit, at least for the time being, to the Federal authority, it is equally clear that the ruling motive is a desire to obtain the advantages which will be derived from a representation in Congress." It was also proved before the committee, on the testimony, or rather the admissions, of witnesses who had been prominent in the Rebellion, that "the generally prevailing opinion in the late Confederacy defends the legal right of secession and upholds the doctrine that the first allegiance of the people is due to the States and not to the United States." It was further admitted by the same cla.s.s of witnesses that "the taxes levied by the United States will be paid only on compulsion and with great reluctance," and that "the people of the rebellious States would, if they could see a prospect of success, repudiate the National debt." It was stated by witnesses from the South, with evident pride, that "officers of the Union Army, on duty in the South, and Northern men who go there to engage in business, are generally detested and proscribed," and that "Southern men who adhered to the Union are bitterly hated and relentlessly persecuted."

Upon the conclusion of the work of the respective conventions, the election of State Legislatures and of senators and representatives in Congress followed as promptly as was practicable in the several States. The Legislatures were all in session before the close of the year 1865, and their proceedings startled the country. If any need existed for proof of the spirit that animated the conventions, or of the ends to which they had directed their work, it was furnished in full by the action of the Legislatures. Indeed, when the latter bodies a.s.sembled, they were inspired with a fresh accession of courage and daring, imparted by the example of the former and the apparent acquiescence of the North in their proceedings. The period between the adjournment of the conventions and the a.s.sembling of the Legislatures was so short that there was no time for the maturing of public opinion in the North, and still less for bringing it to bear in any way upon Southern action. It is, moreover, doubtful whether any representation, however strong, from the North, would have exerted the slightest influence in holding the South back from its mad course.

Emboldened by the support of the National Administration, the Southern leaders believed that they could carry their designs through, and, instead of being restrained by the protest or the advice of Republicans, they chose with apparent gladness the course that would prove most offensive to them. It would indeed, according to their own boasts, add a peculiar gratification to their antic.i.p.ated triumph if they could feel a.s.sured that it would bring chagrin or a sense of humiliation to the Republican ma.s.ses of the loyal States.

At this critical period it was the ill fortune of the South to be misled by the Democratic press and the Democratic orators of the North, as it had been before on perilous occasions. The South had been induced by the same press and the same orators to believe, in the winter of 1860-61, that efforts at secession would not be resisted by arms. Many Northern Democrats had indeed given the a.s.surance that if any attempt at coercion should be made by the Republican National Administration, they would themselves meet it with force, and that, if war should come, it would be in the free States and not in the slave States. The South, in 1865, had apparently forgotten these baseless a.s.surances; they had forgotten that, in the hour of conflict, the Democrats who did not become loyal, at once became silent, and that the few--scattering exceptions to a general rule--who were demonstrative and loud in their sympathy for the rebels were compelled to flee or accept imprisonment in Fort Lafayette. They seemed again ready and eager to believe all the unsupported a.s.sertions which the Northern Democrats, in a spirit of effrontery and not without gasconade, ventured to put forth. It might be difficult to determine which displayed the greater folly--those who made false representations, or those who, warned by previous deception, appeared so ready to be influenced anew by deception equally gross.

The truth was that the Republicans of the North, const.i.tuting, as was shown by the elections of 1865, a majority in every State, were deeply concerned as to the fate and fortune of the colored population of the South. Only a minority of Republicans were ready to demand suffrage for those who had been recently emanc.i.p.ated, and who, from the ignorance peculiar to servitude, were presumably unfit to be intrusted with the elective franchise. The minority, however, was composed of very earnest men of the same type as those who originally created and combined the anti-slavery sentiment of the country, and who now espoused the right of the negro to equality before the law. Equality, they believed, could neither be conferred nor maintained unless the negro were invested with the badge of American manhood--the right to vote--a right which they were determined to guarantee as firmly to the colored man as it was already guaranteed to the white man.

The great ma.s.s of the Republicans stopped short of the demand for the conferment of suffrage on the negro. That privilege was indeed, still denied him in a majority of the loyal States, and it seemed illogical and unwarrantable to expect a more advanced philanthropy, a higher sense of justice, from the South than had been yet attained by the North. But without raising the question of suffrage, there were rights with which the negro must be endowed before he could essentially better his material condition or advance in knowledge. It was, first of all, required that he should have the full protection of the law of marriage, of which he had always been deprived, and that with the privilege he should be subjected to the honest observance of the obligations which marriage imposes--to the end that good morals should be inculcated, and that every child should have a responsible father.

It was, in the second place, in the highest degree necessary that he should have the benefit of such laws as would a.s.sure to him the wages of his labor and confer upon him the right to acquire and hold real estate and other property, with the same security and protection enjoyed by the whites. In the third place, it was imperatively demanded that some provision be made for the rudimentary instruction of colored children, in order that they might learn the mechanical arts and have the privilege of working at such callings as were best adapted to them. The list of requirements might be enlarged, but the three which are given represent primary and indisputable necessities, without the concession and free establishment of which the negro, with nominal freedom, would be in a worse condition than if he had been left in slavery.

In view of these facts, the course of the new organized Legislatures was watched with deep and jealous interest. It was in their power to repair, in large degree, the blunders of policy--nay, the crimes against human rights--which the Reconstruction Conventions had abetted if not committed. The membership of the Legislatures in all the States was composed wholly of those who, either in the military or civil service, had aided the Rebellion. If in such an organization a spirit of moderation and justice should be shown, if consideration should be exhibited for the negro, even so far as to a.s.sure to him the inherent rights of human nature, a deep impression would be made on the conscience and the public opinion of the North. Such a course in the South might, indeed, open the way for the success of the simple and speedy process of reconstruction, upon which Mr. Seward had staked his reputation as a statesman, and to which Mr. Johnson had pledged the power and committed the fortunes of his Administration.

As soon as the Southern Legislatures a.s.sembled, it was made evident that their members disregarded, and even derided, the opinion of those who had conquered the Rebellion and held control of the Congress of the United States. If the Southern men had intended, as their one special and desirable aim, to inflame the public opinion of the North against them, they would have proceeded precisely as they did. They treated the negro, according to a vicious phrase which had at one time wide currency, "as possessing no rights which a white man was bound to respect." a.s.sent to the Thirteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution by the Southern States was but a gross deception as long as they accompanied it with legislation which practically deprived the negro of every trace of liberty. That which was no offense in a white man was made a misdemeanor, a heinous crime, if committed by a negro. Both in the civil and criminal code his treatment was different from that to which the white man was subjected. He was compelled to work under a series of labor laws applicable only to his own race. The laws of vagrancy were so changed as, in many of their provisions, to apply only to him, and under their operation all freedom of movement and transit was denied. The liberty to sell his time at a fair market rate was destroyed by the interposition of apprentice laws. Avenues of usefulness and skill in which he might specially excel were closed against him lest he should compete with white men. In short his liberty in all directions was so curtailed that it was a bitter mockery to refer to him in the statutes as a "freedman." The truth was, that his liberty was merely of form and not of fact, and the slavery which was abolished by the organic law of a Nation was now to be revived by the enactments of a State.

Some of these enactments were peculiarly offensive, not to say atrocious. In Alabama, which might indeed serve as an example for the other rebellious States, "stubborn or refractory servants" and "servants who loiter away their time" were declared by law to be "vagrants," and might be brought before a justice of the peace and fined fifty dollars; and in default of payment they might be "hired out," on three days' notice by public outcry, for the period of "six months." No fair man could fail to see that the whole effect, and presumably the direct intent, of this law was to reduce the helpless negro to slavery for half the year--a punishment that could be repeated whenever desired, a punishment sure to be desired for that portion of each recurring year when his labor was specially valuable in connection with the cotton crop, while for the remainder of the time he might shift for himself. By this detestable process the "master" had the labor of the "servant" for a mere pittance; and even that pittance did not go to the servant, but was paid into the treasury of the county, and thus relived the white men from their proper share of taxation. There may have been more cruel laws enacted, but the statute-books of the world might be searched in vain for one of meaner injustice.

The foregoing process for restoring slavery in a modified form was applicable to men or women of any age. But for "minors" a more speedy and more sweeping methods was contrived by the law-makers of Alabama, who had just given their a.s.sent to the Thirteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution. They made it the "duty of all sheriffs, justices of the peace, and other civil officers of the several counties," to report the "names of all minors under the age of eighteen years, whose parents have not the means or who refuse to support said minors," and thereupon it was made the duty of the Court to "apprentice said minor to some suitable person on such terms as the Court may direct." Then follows a suggestive _proviso_ directing that "if said minor be the child of a freedman" (as if any other cla.s.s were really referred to!) "the _former owner_ of said minor shall have the preference;" and "the judge of probate shall make a record of all the proceedings," for which he should be ent.i.tled to a fee of one dollar in each case, to be paid, as this atrocious law directed, by "the master or mistress." To tighten the grasp of ownership on the minor who was now styled an apprentice, it was enacted in almost the precise phrase of the old slave-code that "whoever shall entice said apprentice from his master of mistress, or furnish food or clothing to him or her, without said consent, shall be fined in a sum not exceeding five hundred dollars."

The ingenuity of the Alabama legislators in contriving schemes to re-enslave the negroes was not exhausted by the odious and comprehensive statutes already cited. They pa.s.sed an Act to incorporate the city of Mobile, subst.i.tuting a new charter for the old one. The city had suffered much from the suspension and decay of trade during the war, and it was in great need of labor to make repairs to streets, culverts, sewers, wharves, and all other public property. By the new charter, the mayor, aldermen, and common council were empowered "to cause all vagrants," . . . "all such as have no visible means of support," . . . "all who can show no reasonable cause of employment or business in the city," . . . "all who have no fixed residence or cannot give a good account of themselves," . . . "or are loitering in or about tippling-houses," "to give security for their good behavior for a reasonable time and to indemnify the city against any charge for their support, and in case of their inability or refusal to give such security, to cause them to be confined to labor for a limited time, not exceeding six calendar months, which said labor shall be designated by the said mayor, aldermen, and common council, for the benefit of said city."

It will be observed even by the least intelligent that the charge made in this city ordinance was, in substance, the poverty of the cla.s.ses quoted--a poverty which was of course the inevitable result of slavery.

To make the punishment for no crime effective, the city government was empowered "to appoint a person or persons to take those sentenced to labor from their place of confinement to the place appointed for their working, and to watch them while at labor and return them before sundown to their place of confinement; and, if they shall be found afterwards offending, such security may again be required, and for want thereof the like proceeding may again be had from time to time, as often as may be necessary." The plain meaning of all this was, that these helpless and ignorant men, having been robbed all their lives of the fruit of their labor by slavery, and being necessarily and in consequence poor, must be punished for it by being robbed again of all they had honestly earned. If they stubbornly continued in their poverty, the like proceeding (of depriving them of the fruits of their labor) "may again be had from time to time, as often as may be necessary." It would, of course, be found "necessary" just as long as the city of Mobile was in need of their labor without paying for it.

It has been abundantly substantiated, by impartial evidence, that when these grievous outrages were committed under the forms of law, by the joint authority of the Alabama Legislature and the city government of Mobile, the labor of thousands of willing men could be hired for the low wages of twenty-five cents per day, with an allowance of a peck of corn-meal and four pounds of bacon for each man per week. It does not change the character of the crime against these humble laborers, but it certainly enhances its degree that the law-makers of Alabama preferred an oppressive fraud to the honest payment of a consideration so small as to be almost nominal. A man must be in abject poverty when he is willing to work an entire week for a sum usually accorded in the Norther States for the labor of one day. But only a community blind to public justice and to public decency as well, could enact a law that in effect declares the poverty of the laborer to be a crime, in consideration of which he shall be deprived of the beggarly mite for which he is willing to give the sweat of his face.

Apparently fearing that the operations of the law already referred to would not secure a sufficient number of laborers for the work required in the city, the law-makers of Alabama authorized the munic.i.p.al government of Mobile to "restrain and prohibit the nightly and other meetings or disorderly a.s.semblies of all persons, and to punish for such offenses by affixing penalties not exceeding fifty dollars for any one offense; and in case of the inability of any such person to pay and satisfy said fine or penalty and the cost thereof, to sentence such person to labor for said city for such reasonable time, not exceeding six calendar months, for any one offense, as may be deemed equivalent to such penalty and costs, which labor shall be such as may be designated by the mayor, aldermen, and common council of the city."

Power was thus given to consider any evening meeting of colored persons a disorderly one, and to arrest all who were partic.i.p.ating in it.

Nothing was more natural than that the negroes, with their social and even gregarious habits, should, in their new estate of freedom, be disposed to a.s.semble for the purpose of considering their own interests and their future prospects. It is eminently to the discredit of the State of Alabama and of the city of Mobile that so innocent a purpose should be thwarted, perverted, made criminal and punished.

The fact will not escape attention that in these enactments the words "master," "mistress," and "servant" are constantly used, and that under the operation of the laws a form of servitude was re-established, more heartless and more cruel than the slavery which had been abolished.

Under the inst.i.tution of slavery a certain attachment would spring up between the master and his salve, and with it came a certain protection to the latter against want and against suffering in his old age. With all its wrongfulness and its many cruelties, there were ameliorations in the slave system which softened its asperities and enabled vast number of people possessing conscience and character to a.s.sume the relation of master. But in the treatment of the colored man, now proposed, there was absolute heartlessness and rank injustice. It was proposed to punish him for no crime, to declare the laborer not worthy of his hire, to leave him friendless and forlorn, without sympathy, without rights under the law, socially an outcast and industrially a serf--a serf who had no connection with the land he tilled, and who had none of the protection which even the Autocracy of Russia extended to the lowliest creature that acknowledged the sovereignty of the Czar.

These laws were framed with malignant cunning so as not to be limited in specific form of words to the negro race, but they were exclusively confined to that race in their execution. It is barely possible that a white vagrant of exceptional depravity might, now and then, be arrested; but the negro was arrested by wholesale on a charge of vagrancy which rested on no foundation except an arbitrary law specially enacted to fit his case. Loitering around tippling-shops, one of the offenses enumerated, was in far larger proportions the habit of white men, but they were left untouched and the negro alone was arrested and punished. In the entire code this deceptive form, of apparently including all persons, was a signally dishonest feature.

The makers of the law evidently intended that it should apply to the negro alone, for it was administered on that basis with rigorous severity. The general phrasing was to deceive people outside, and, perhaps, to lull the consciences of some objectors at home, but it made no difference whatever in the execution of the statutes. White men, who had no more visible means of support than the negro, were left undisturbed, while the negro, whose visible means of support were in his strong arms and his willingness to work, was prevented from using the resources conferred upon him by nature, and reduced not merely to the condition of a slave, but subjected to the demoralization of being adjudged a criminal.

In Florida the laws resembled those of Alabama, but were perhaps more severe in their penalties. The "vagrant" there might be hired out for full twelve months, and the money arising from his labor, in case the man had no wife and children, was directed to be applied for "the benefit of the orphans and poor of the county," although the negro had been declared a vagrant because he had no visible means of support, and was therefore quite as much in need of the avails of his labor as those to whom the law diverted them. Among the curious enactments of that State was one to establish and organize a criminal court for each county, empowered to exercise jurisdiction in the trial of all offenses where the punishment did not affect the life of the offender. It is obvious that the law was originated mainly for the punishment of negroes; and to expedite its work it was enacted that "in the proceedings of said court, no presentment, indictment, or written pleading shall be required, but it shall be sufficient to put the party accused upon his or her trial, that the offense and facts are plainly set forth with reasonable certainty in the warrant of arrest." It was further provided that when fines were imposed and the party was unable to pay them, "the county commissioner may hire out, at public outcry, the said party to any person who will take him or her for the shortest time, and pay the fine imposed and the cost of prosecution." The fines thus paid went in the county treasury for the general expenses of the county. The law was thus cunningly contrived to hurry the negro into an odious form of slavery, and to make the earnings which came from his hard labor pay the public expenses, which were legitimately chargeable upon the property of the county.

Accompanying the Act establishing this court was a law prescribing additional penalties for the commission of offenses against the State; and this, like the former, was framed especially for the negro. Its first section provided that where punishment of an offense had hitherto been limited to fine or imprisonment, there should be superadded, as an alternative, the punishment of standing in the pillory for one hour, or whipping, not exceeding thirty-nine lashes, on the bare back. The latter punishment was reserved expressly for the negro. It was provided further that it "shall not be lawful for any negro, mulatto, or person of color to own, use, or keep and bowie-knife, dirk, sword, fire-arms, or ammunition of any kind, unless he first obtain a license to do so from the judge of probate for the county in which he is a resident." The judge could issue the license to him only upon recommendation of two respectable white men. Any negro attempting to keep arms of any kind was to be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, compelled to "forfeit the arms for the use of the informer, stand in the pillory" (and be pelted by the mob) "for one hour, and then whipped with thirty-nine lashes on the bare back." The same penalty was prescribed for any person of color "who shall intrude himself into any religious or other public a.s.sembly of white persons, or into any railroad-car or other vehicle set apart for the accommodation of white persons," and with a mock show of impartiality it was provided that a white man intruding himself into an a.s.sembly of negroes, or into a negro-car, might be subjected to a like punishment. This restriction upon the negro was far more severe than that imposed in the days of slavery, when, in many of the Southern States, the gallery of the church was permitted to be freely occupied by them. A peculiarly atrocious discrimination against the negro was included in the sixth section of the law from which these quotations are made. It was provided therein that "if any person or persons shall a.s.sault a white female with intent to commit rape, or be accessory thereto, he or they, upon conviction, shall suffer death;" but there was no prohibition and no penalty prescribed for the same crime against a negro woman. She was left unprotected by law against the brutal l.u.s.t and the violence of white men.

In the laws of South Carolina the oppression and injustice towards the negro were conspicuously marked. The restriction as to fire-arms, which was general to all the States, was especially severe. A negro found with any kind of weapon in his possession was punished by "a fine equal to twice the value of the weapon so unlawfully kept, and, if that be not immediately paid, by corporal punishment." Perhaps the most radically unjust of all the statutes was reserved for this State. The Legislature enacted that "no person of color shall pursue the practice, art, trade, or business of an artisan, mechanic, or shopkeeper, or any other trade or employment besides that of husbandry, or that of a servant under contract for labor, until he shall have obtained a license from the judge of the District Court, which license shall be good for one year only." If the license was granted to the negro to be a shopkeeper or peddler, he was compelled to pay a hundred dollars a year for it; and if he wished to pursue the rudest mechanical calling, he was compelled to pay a license-fee of ten dollars. No such fees were exacted of white men and no such fees were exacted of the free black man during the era of slavery. Every avenue for improvement was closed against him; and in a State which boasted somewhat indelicately of its chivalric dignity, the negro was mercilessly excluded from all chances to better his condition individually, or to improve the character of his race.

Mississippi followed in the general line of penal enactments prescribed in South Carolina, though her code was possibly somewhat less severe in the deprivations to which the negro was subjected. It was, however, bad enough to stir the indignation of every lover of justice. The Legislature had enacted a law that "if the laborer shall quit the service of the employer before the expiration of his term of service without just cause, he shall forfeit his wages for the year up to the time of quitting." Practically the negro was himself never permitted to judge whether the cause which drove him to seek employment elsewhere was just, the white man being the sole arbiter in the premises. It was provided that "every civil officer shall, and every person may, arrest and carry back to his or her legal employer any freedman, free negro or mulatto, who shall have quit the service of his or her employer before the expiration of his term of service without good cause, and said officer shall be ent.i.tled to receive for arresting and carrying back every deserting employee aforesaid the sum of five dollars, and ten cents per mile from the place of arrest to the place of delivery, and these sums shall be held by the employer as a set-off for so much against the wages of said deserting employee; _provided_ that said arrested party, after being so returned home, may appeal to a justice of the peace, or a member of the Board of Police, who shall summarily try whether said appellant is legally employed by the alleged employer."

It required little familiarity with Southern administration of justice between a white man and a negro to know that such appeal was always worse then fruitless, and that its only effect, if attempted, would be to secure even harsher treatment than if the appeal had not been made.

The provisions for enticing a negro from his employer, included in this Act, were in the same spirit and almost in the same language as the provisions of the slave-code applicable to the negro before the era of emanc.i.p.ation. The person "giving or selling to any deserting freedman, free negro or mulatto, any food, raiment, or other things, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor," and might be punished by a fine of two hundred dollars and costs, or he might be put in prison, and be also sued by the employer for damages. For attempting to entice any freedman or free negro beyond the limits of the State, the person offending might be fined five hundred dollars; and if not immediately paid, the court could sentence the delinquent to imprisonment in the county jail for six months. The entire code of Mississippi for freedmen was in the spirit of the laws quoted. Justice was defied, and injustice incorporated as the very spirit of the laws. It was altogether a shameless proclamation of indecent wrong on the part of the Legislature of Mississippi.

Louisiana probably attained the worst eminence in this vicious legislation. At the very moment when the Thirty-ninth Congress was a.s.sembling to consider the condition of the Southern States and the whole subject of their reconstruction, it was found that a bill was pending in the Legislature of Louisiana providing that "every adult freed man or woman _shall furnish themselves with a comfortable home and visible means of support within twenty days after the pa.s.sage of this act,_" and that "any freed man or woman failing to obtain a home and support as thus provided shall be immediately arrested by any sheriff or constable in any parish, or by the police officer in any city or town in said parish where said freedman may be, and by them delivered to the Recorder of the parish, and by him hired out, by public advertis.e.m.e.nt, to some citizen, being the highest bidder, for the remainder of the year." And in case the laborer should leave his employer's service without his consent, "he shall be arrested and a.s.signed to labor on some public works without compensation until his employer reclaims him." The laborers were not to be allowed to keep any live-stock, and all time spent from home without leave was to be charged against them at the rate of two dollars per day, and worked at that rate. Many more provisions of the same general character were contained within the bill, the whole character and scope of which were forcibly set before the Senate by Mr. Wilson of Ma.s.sachusetts. It was not only a proof of cruelty enacted into law, but was such a defiance to the spirit of the Emanc.i.p.ation amendment that it subjected the Legislature which approved the amendment and enacted these laws, to a charge of inconsistency so grave as to make the former act appear in the light of both a legal and moral fraud.

It was declaring the negro to be free by one statute, and immediately proceeding to re-enslave him by another.

By a previous law Louisiana had provided that all agricultural laborers should be compelled to "make contracts for labor during the first ten days of January for the entire year." With a demonstrative show of justice it was provided that "wages due shall be a lien on the crop, one-half to be paid at times agreed by the parties, the other half to be retained until the completion of the contract; but in case of sickness of the laborer, wages for the time shall be deducted, and where the sickness is supposed to be feigned for the purpose of idleness, double the amount shall be deducted; and should the refusal to work extend beyond three days, the negro shall be forced to labor on roads, levees, and public works without pay." The master was permitted to make deduction from the laborer's wages for "injuries done to animals or agricultural implements committed to his care, or for bad or negligent work," he, of course, being the judge. "For every act of disobedience a fine of one dollar shall be imposed upon the laborer;"

and among the cases deemed to be disobedience were "impudence, swearing, or using indecent language in the presence of the employer, his family, or his agent, or quarreling or fighting among one another."

It has been truthfully said of this provision that the master or his agent might a.s.sail the ear with profaneness aimed at the negro man, and outrage every sense of decency in foul language addressed to the negro woman; but if one of the helpless creatures, goaded to resistance and crazed under tyranny, should answer back with impudence, or should relieve his mind with an oath, or retort indecency upon indecency, he did so at the cost to himself of one dollar for every outburst. The agent referred to in the statute was the well-known overseer of the cotton region, who was always coa.r.s.e and often brutal, sure to be profane, and scarcely knowing the border-line between ribaldry and decency. The care with which the law-makers of Louisiana provided that his delicate ears and sensitive nerves should not be offended with an oath or with an indelicate word from a negro, will be appreciated by all who have heard the crack of the whip on a Southern plantation.

The wrongs inflicted under the name of law, thus far recited, were still further aggravated in a majority of the rebellious States by the exaction of taxes from the colored man to an amount altogether disproportionate to their property. Indeed, of property they had none.

Just emerging from a condition of slavery in which their labor had been constantly exacted without fee or reward of any kind, it was impossible that they could be the owners of any thing except their own bodies. Notwithstanding this fact, the negroes, _en ma.s.se,_ were held to be subjects of taxation in the State Governments about to be re-organized. In Georgia, for example, a State tax of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars was levied in the first year of peace. The property of the State, even after all the ruin of the war, exceeded two hundred and fifty million dollars. This tax, therefore, amounted to less than one-seventh of one per cent upon the aggregate valuation of the State,--equal to the imposition of only a dollar and a half upon each thousand dollars of property. The Legislature of the State decreed, however, that a large proportion of this small levy should be raised by a poll-tax of a dollar per head upon every man in the State between the ages of twenty-one and sixty years. There were in Georgia at the time from eighty-five thousand to ninety thousand colored men subject to the tax: perhaps, indeed, the number reached one hundred thousand. It was thus ordained that the negroes, who had no property at all, should pay one-third as much as the white men, who had two hundred and fifty millions of property in possession. This odious and unjust tax was stringently exacted from the negro. To make sure that not one should escape, the tax was held as a lien upon his labor, and the employer was under distraint to pay it. In Alabama they devised for the same purpose two dollars on every person between the ages of eighteen and fifty, causing a still larger proportion of the total tax to fall on the negro than the Georgia law-makers deemed expedient.

Texas followed with a capitation tax of a dollar per head, while Florida levied upon every inhabitant between the ages of twenty-one and fifty-five years a capitation tax of three dollars, and upon failure or refusal to pay the same the tax-collector was "authorized and required to seize the body of the delinquent, and hire him out, after five days' public notice before the door of the Court House, to any person who will pay the said tax and the costs incident to the proceedings growing out of said arrest, for his services for the shortest period of time." As the costs as well as the capitation tax were to be worked out by the negro, it is presumable that, in the spirit of this tax-law, they were enlarged to the utmost limit that decency, according to the standard set up by this law, would permit.

It is fair to presume that, in any event, the costs would not be less than the tax, and might, indeed, be double or treble that amount. As a negro could not, at that time, be hired out for more than seven dollars and a half per month, the plain inference is that for the support of the State of Florida the negro might be compelled to give one month's labor yearly. Even by the capitation tax alone, without the incident of the costs, every negro man was compelled to give the gains and profits of nearly two weeks' labor.

A poll-tax, though not necessarily limited in this manner, has usually accompanied the right of suffrage in the different States of the Union, but in the rebellious States it conferred no franchise. It might be supposed that ordinary generosity would have devoted it to the education of the ignorant cla.s.s from which it was forcibly wrung, but no provision of the kind was even suggested. Indeed, in those States there was scarcely an attempt made to provide for the education of the freedmen, and the suggestions made in that direction carried with them another display of studied wrong. As an example of rank injustice the course of the Legislature of Florida may be profitably cited. That body pa.s.sed an Act concerning schools for freedmen, in which the governor was authorized to appoint a superintendent of common schools for freedmen, and in each county the county commissioners were authorized to appoint a.s.sistant superintendents. These officers were directed to "establish schools for freedmen when the number of colored children in any county will warrant the same, provided" (and the proviso is one of great significance) "that the sums hereinafter authorized shall be sufficient to meet the expenses thereof." The funds provided for this seemingly philanthropic design were to be derived exclusively from a tax upon the colored man. The law directed that all colored men between the ages of twenty-one and fifty-five years should pay annually a dollar each, to be collected at the same time and in the same manner as the three-dollar poll-tax, which should be paid into the treasury of the State for the use of the freedmen, and should const.i.tute a fund to be denominated "the common-school fund for the education of freedmen." It was further provided in this law, that "a tuition-fee shall be collected from each pupil, under such regulations as the superintendents shall prescribe, and paid into the treasury as a portion of the common-school fund for freedmen."

The salary of the superintendents of the schools for freedmen was fixed at a thousand dollars, and of the county superintendents at two hundred dollars. There were, at that time, about twelve thousand negro men subject to the capitation tax of three dollars, already referred to, and under that law they paid thirty-six thousand dollars annually into the State Treasury of Florida; but the school law forbade that the salary of superintendents and a.s.sistant superintendents should be paid from the fund derived from the poll-tax. They provided that it should be chargeable solely to the fund raised for common schools. As there were thirty-seven counties in Florida at that time, it is a fair presumption that twenty-five of them had a.s.sistant superintendents, whose aggregate salaries would amount to five thousand dollars. With the superintendent's salary, which was a thousand dollars, a draft of six thousand dollars for the salaries of white men was at once made upon the twelve thousand dollars which were to be collected from freedmen. Every teacher who was to teach in these schools was required to pay five dollars for his certificate, which also went into the school-fund; and the end of the whole matter was, that a bare pittance was left for the thirty thousand negro children in Florida of the school age. The whole scheme was a ghastly wrong, one which, if attempted upon that cla.s.s of any population in the North which is able to pay only a poll-tax, would consign the party attempting it to defeat and disgrace, and, if its enforcement were attempted, would lead to riot and bloodshed.

These laws, with all their wrong (even a stronger word might be rightfully employed), were to become, and were, indeed, already an integral part of the reconstruction scheme which President Johnson had devised and proclaimed. Whoever a.s.sented to the President's plan of reconstruction a.s.sented to these laws, and, beyond that, a.s.sented to the full right of the rebellious States to continue legislation of this odious type. It was at once seen that if the party which had insisted upon the emanc.i.p.ation of the slave as a final condition of peace, should now abandon him to his fate, and turn him over to the anger and hate of the cla.s.s from whose ownership he had been freed, it would countenance and commit an act of far greater wrong than was designed by the most malignant persecutor of the race in any one of the Southern States. When the Congress of the United States, acting independently of the Executive power of the Nation, decreed emanc.i.p.ation by amending the Const.i.tution, it solemnly pledged itself, with all its power, to give protection to the emanc.i.p.ated at whatever cost and at whatever sacrifice. No man could read the laws which have been here briefly reviewed without seeing and realizing that, if the negro were to be deprived of the protecting power of the Nation that had set him free, he had better at once be remanded to slavery, and to that form of protection which cupidity, if not humanity, would always inspire.

The South had no excuse for its course, and the leaders of its public opinion at that time will always, and justly, be held to a strict accountability. Even the paltry pretext, afterwards so often advanced, that they were irritated and maddened by the interposition of carpet-bag power, does not avail in the least degree for the outrages in the era under consideration. When Mr. Johnson issued his proclamation of reconstruction, the hated carpet-bagger was an unknown element in the Southern states. What was done during the year immediately following the surrender of the rebel armies was done at Southern suggestion, done by Southern men, done under the belief that the President's policy would protect them in it, done with a fixed and merciless determination that the gracious act of emanc.i.p.ation should not bring amelioration to the colored race, and that the pseudo-philanthropy, as they regarded the anti-slavery feeling in the North, should be brought into contempt before the world. They deliberately resolved to prove to the public opinion of mankind that the negro was fit only to be a chattel, and that in his misery and degradation, sure to follow the iniquitous enactments for the new form of his subjection, it would be proved that he had lost and not gained by the conferment of freedom among a population where it was impossible for him to enjoy it. They resolved also to prove that slavery was the normal and natural state of the negro; that the Northern people, in taking any other ground, had been deceived by a sentiment and had been following a chimera; that the Southern people alone understood the question, and that interference with them by war or by law should end in establishing their justification before the public opinion of the world. The Southern men believed and boasted that they would subject to general reproach and expose to open shame that whole cla.s.s of intermeddlers and fanatics (as they termed opponents of slavery) who had destroyed so many lives and wasted so much treasure in attempting the impossible and, even if possible, the undesirable.

There can be no doubt that the objectionable and cruel legislation of the Southern States--examples of which might be indefinitely cited in addition to those already given--exerted a strong influence upon Mr.

Seward's mind. It is well known that, to those who were on intimate terms with him, he expressed a sorrowful surprise that the South should respond with so ill a grace to the liberal and magnanimous tenders of sympathy and friendship from the National Administration.

He could not comprehend why confidence did not beget confidence, why generosity should not call forth generosity in return. There are good reasons for believing that Mr. Seward desired some modification of the President's policy of Reconstruction after he comprehended the spirit which had been exhibited by the Southern Conventions, and the still more objectionable spirit shown by the Southern Legislatures.

His philanthropic nature, the record of his public life, his great achievements in the anti-slavery field, all forbid the conclusion that he could knowingly and willingly consent to the maltreatment and the permanent degradation of the freedmen. If he had no higher motives, the selfish one of preserving his own splendid fame must have inspired him.

Mr. Seward had reached the age of sixty-five years, and he surely could not consent to undo the entire work of his mature manhood.

Consistency, it is true, is not the highest trait of statesmanship.

Crises often arise in the conduct of National affairs when cherished opinions must be sacrificed and new departures taken. But this necessity can never apply to that cla.s.s of political questions closely and inseparably allied with moral obligation. Mr. Seward had himself taught the nation that conflict on questions involving the rights of human nature is irrepressible. The slavery against which he had warred so long and so faithfully had been abolished in vain if another form of servitude, even more degrading in some of its aspects, was to take its place. To desert the colored man, and leave him to his fate, undefended, and defenseless against the wrongs already perpetrated and the greater wrongs foreshadowed, would do dishonor to the entire spirit of Mr. Seward's statesmanship, and would certainly be unworthy of his fame.

He strove no doubt to persuade himself, as Mr. Marcy had done in the Cabinet of President Pierce, that even if he did not approve the policy pursued, it was better for him to remain and prevent many evils sure to follow if he should resign. Mr. Seward felt moreover a certain embarra.s.sment in deserting the Administration after he had induced the President to adopt the very policy which was now resulting adversely.

But for his energetic interposition the President would have been executing an entirely different policy--one of severe and perhaps sanguinary character. After persuading Mr. Johnson to abandon his proposed line of action and to adopt that which Mr. Seward had himself originated, it might well occur to the distinguished Secretary of State that good faith to the President required him to remain at his post and aid in working out the best result possible. It would to Mr. Seward's apprehension be an act of unpardonable selfishness if in such a crisis to the Republic he should seek to increase his own popularity in the Northern States by separating from Mr. Johnson who had generously trusted him and cordially accepted his leadership. By resigning he could only add to the excitement which he especially desired to allay, whereas he might by continuing in his place of power be able to hold a part of the ground which would all be finally lost if he should join the crusade against the Administration. Under these motives Mr. Seward retained his portfolio. He staid on and on, continually hoping to do some act of patriotic service, and steadily losing that great host of friends who for twenty years had looked to him with unfaltering faith for counsel and direction.

Many who had been steadfastly devoted to Mr. Seward for the whole generation in which he had been prominent in public affairs, never could become reconciled to his course at this period. Some, indeed, refused to concede to him the benefit of worthy motives. He had, as they believed and declared, been incurably wounded in his pride, and disappointed in his ambition, when Mr. Lincoln, then a comparatively unknown man, was preferred to him by the Republican party as a candidate for the Presidency in 1860. He had, as they believed, bided his time for revenge. During the war, the pressure of patriotic duty, as his new but reluctant enemies alleged, held him steadily to his old faith; but now, when he could do it without positive danger to the country, he was bent on administering discipline to the party and its leaders. They likened him to Mr. Van Buren, revengefully defeating General Ca.s.s in 1848; to Mr. Webster, who on his death-bed gave his sympathy to the party which had always reviled him; to Mr. Fillmore, who deserted his anti-slavery professions in the hour of most pressing responsibility. Comments even more severe were made by many who had been deeply attached to Mr. Seward, and had deplored his defeat at Chicago. At such a period of excitement, it was not possible that a man of Mr. Seward's exalted position could in any degree change his party relations without great exasperation on the part of old friends, --an exasperation sure to lead to extravagance of expression and to personal injustice.

Mr. Seward's course at this period must not be judged harshly by a standard established from a retrospective view of the circ.u.mstances surrounding him. It is more just to consider the situation as it appeared to his own observation when his eyes were turned to the future. He no doubt looked buoyantly forward, according to his temperament, trusting always to the healing influences of time and to that re-action in the headlong course of Southern men which he felt sure would be brought about by the sting of personal reflection and the power of public opinion. A silver lining to the darkest cloud was always visible to his eye of faith, and he now brought to the contemplation of the adverse elements in the political field a full measure of that confidence which had always sustained him when adverse elements in the field of war caused many strong hearts to faint and grow weary.

The course of events developed occasions when Mr. Seward's influence proved valuable to the country, but it did not serve to recall his popularity. He was thwarted and defeated at all points by the Southern leaders whom he had induced the President to forgive and re-instate.

These men had originally established their relations with Mr. Johnson by reason of Mr. Seward's magnanimous interposition. But once established they had been able, from motives adverted to in the previous chapter, to fasten their hold upon Mr. Johnson even to the exclusion of Mr. Seward. When Mr. Seward was beaten for the Presidential nomination in a convention composed of anti-slavery men who had learned their creed from him, Senator Toombs, in a tone full of exultation but not remarkable for delicacy, declared that "Actaeon had been devoured by his own dogs." The fable would be equally applicable in describing the manner in which the Southern men, who owed their forgiveness and their immunity to Mr. Seward, turned upon him with hatred and with imprecation. They were graciously willing to accept benefits and favors at his hands so long as he would dispense them, but they never forgave him for the work of that grand period of his life, between his election to the Senate and the outbreak of the civil war, when he wrought most n.o.bly for humanity and established a fame which no error of later life could blot from the minds of a grateful people.

Mr. Seward could not have been surprised at the treatment he thus received. He had for nearly half a century been an intelligent observer of the political field, and he could not recall a single Northern man who had risked his popularity at home in defense of what were termed the rights of the South who had not in the supreme crisis of his public life been deserted by the South. Mr. Webster, General Ca.s.s, William L. Marcy, Mr. Douglas, and President Pierce were among the most conspicuous of those who had been thus sacrificed. The last sixty days of Mr. Buchanan's Presidency furnished the most noted of all the victims of Southern ingrat.i.tude. Men of lower rank but similar experience were to be found in the years preceding the war in nearly every Norther State--men who had ventured to run counter to the principles and prejudices of their own const.i.tuency to serve those who always abandoned a political leader when they feared he might have lost the power to be useful to them. The pro-slavery men of the South, in following this course, presented a striking contrast to the anti-slavery men of the North who, under all circ.u.mstances and against all temptation, were faithful to the leaders who proved faithful to their cause.

CHAPTER VI.

During the progress of events in the South, briefly outlined in the preceding chapter, the Thirty-ninth Congress came together--on the first Monday of December, 1865. The Senate and House each contained a large majority of Republicans. In the House Mr. Colfax was re-elected Speaker, receiving 139 votes to 36 cast for James Brooks of New York.

The address of the Speaker on taking the chair is usually confined to thanks for his election and courteous a.s.surance of his impartiality and good intentions. But Mr. Colfax, instinctively quick, as he always was, to discern the current of popular thought, incorporated in the ceremonial address some very decisive political declarations.

Referring to the fact that the Thirty-eighth Congress has closed nine months before, with "the storm-cloud of war still lowering over us,"