"A DANIEL COME TO JUDGMENT."
The Reconstruction period in the South was offensively institutional. There was a fascination about the spoils principle, the "cohesive power of public plunder" that allured all conditions of men who put themselves in juxtaposition to the new order of things. There was not a negro who valued his manhood suffrage that did not yield implicit faith and obedience to all that was told him by the carpet-baggers, who came south as the "waves come when navies are stranded." The elective judiciary too was no mean accessory in the wholesale plunder of the people; in the sale, delay and denial of justice. The presence of the judge in the county town to hold the court was, an event that was commonly distinguished by farcical displays; exhibitions as it were of harlequins, bazaars, organ-grinders and negroes. From the four quarters of the county exhausted mules and oxen were brought into requisition and hitched to primitive vehicles; negroes who were the worthless heads of pauper families, astride the bare backs of horned cattle, arriving in the town before the break of day and thronging the public buildings, thoroughfares and court house. The leaders among the negroes would call upon the judge in his chamber with a disgusting obsequiousness that marked the depravity of their origin. Punishments at times were the refinement of oppression and as often a mockery of the law. Partisan judgments were not unusual or surprising.
An untried judge had come to hold the assizes; he had come without the blast of a trumpet, but the compact assemblage awaited with every demonstration of joy his presence upon the bench. The judge was a young man, seemingly of great intellectual reserve, possessing a steel gray eye that shot its glances through the subject as if it were but marking a point through which his judgment of a man would enter. There were courage, self poise, wisdom, integrity apparent in the man who had arrived to administer the law. For the first time this judicial officer saw before him an indistinguishable mass of the freedmen of the south. He knew by intuition that they were ignorant, vicious and corruptible; he saw that the prosecuting attorney was a negro, the deputies of the sheriff were negroes, the foreman of the grand jury was a negro and doubtless he addressed to himself this interrogatory in the law latin cui bono?
"There were indictments almost without number for frauds, embezzlements and forgeries; the travail of reconstruction."
Laflin had been perniciously active all the morning. Before the judge had taken his seat upon the bench, he had interviewed many of the men who had been summoned upon the venire to try a veteran of the lost cause for murder and their pockets were filled with small bribes. He had checked off twelve names and given the list to the solicitor with the heartless remark "Now we'll hang the old secesh higher than Haman, and you and I Mr. Solicitor will divide between us his homestead." At this point of time an interruption came from one of the negro jurors to this effect, "Boss dere's wun secesh nigger dat sez he's agwine to hang de jurer epseps yu gin him wun mo dollar."
"Blast the wretch!" came the curse of this man of baleful power, "Where is he?" he enquired.
"See dat man standin dere ergin dat postess, dats him."
"Here you fellow," said Laflin, "How much money have you been paid to find the old secesh guilty?"
The negro in an abstracted way felt in his pockets and told the wretch that one juror had been paid two dollars, while he had received only one dollar, "und he mout conwic de rong man, den yu see boss, de pay mout not be ekal to de sponuality. Fling in wun mo dollar und de jurer gwine to hang dat secesh sho."
This conclave of diabolical spirits was held in the office of the sheriff at the hour of 9 a. m. Back yonder in the common jail, behind the fretted bars, was the veteran in the cell with black felons.
Why should the catalogue of this poor man's misfortune be enlarged, by super-adding to the loss of domestic tranquility, that greatest of all calamities, the loss of his liberty, aggravated by the imputation of crime and its consequent ignominy. He feels that the storm without is fraught with lightning, that renders desolate the face of nature, his mind has lost its elasticity, its spring, its pride; and who is the prisoner, whom the black crowd follow with the gaping vacuity of vulgar ignorance, assaulting him now and again with obscene gibes, as he is led from the cell to the dock? He is gifted by the God of nature with rare endowments, whose unconquered spirit breaks forth in a sentiment such as this,
"Let the hangman lead these miscreants to the gibbet,
And let the ravens of the air
Fatten upon their flesh until they pick each tainted carcass from the bones."
There were indictments also for capital felonies, and in the dock sat three hardened black criminals, and one aged white man of distinguished presence, who was whispering now and then to a beautiful maiden in tears, a maiden so radiant in personal attractions that she might have sat approvingly for the portrait of Beatrice Cenci that looks down upon the upturned faces in the Art Gallery in Florence. He was a veteran of the civil war; a hero at Malvern Hill; colonel commanding the regiment of cavalry that by an extra hazardous maneuver drove a Federal brigade into the death trap. By his side sat as his attorney a white-haired gentleman, who like a stately man of war, just going out of commission, was sighting his guns upon the enemy for the last time. This spectacle was so full of the pathos of human life that it deserves to be perpetuated in the memory, after the dry rot shall have utterly honey-combed the odious system of reconstruction. The arraignment of the prisoner was proceeded with; the negro solicitor presuming upon the hearty co-operation of the judge ventilated his spleen upon the unfortunate prisoner.
"Stand up, prisoner at the bar," he commanded as he fairly spat his venom like a jungle serpent into the face of the poor man. "Are you guilty or not guilty of the felony and murder with which you stand charged?" he cried.
"Not Guilty," answered the prisoner with a quiet dignity.
"By whom will you be tried," the officer inquired wrathfully.
"By God and my country," was the answer of this veteran of a hundred battles; this wise counsellor of the law.
Were the twelve black jurors in the box his country? had they ever given direction to his impulses as a patriot? had they ever nerved his arm to strike down the foe, that scourged his home into barrenness and peopled the city of the dead with his kindred? Had they like Joshua and Hur ever stayed the hand of the prisoner, when with drawn sword he guarded the portal of the temple? Great God! Shall these human chattels, without a single intellectual resource, without one ray of discernment, besotted and bedraggled by fanaticism, superstition and ignorance bring to this poor man in this extremity a safe deliverance? In conducting the prosecution, in the examination of the witnesses the same brutish treatment was observed by the solicitor for the state toward the aged prisoner, and with an offensive parade of authority he announced that the state had closed its case; thereupon the white-haired Governor arose to ask for the discharge of the prisoner for want of sufficient evidence to convict. Now came the first interruption upon the part of the judge, who up to this moment had observed a reticence quite noteworthy in a high judicial officer who was holding his first court where the negroes ruled.
"It is unnecessary Governor that I should hear you," he remarked with evident self-poise.
Turning to the solicitor he asked with deliberation,
"Can you tell me how the indictment against this old man found its way into this court?"
"I can, sir," the solicitor impudently replied, "and I propose," he exclaimed vehemently, "to make good the charge by convicting this assassin before this conscientious jury."
"Ah, indeed!" rejoined the judge quite complacently. "Are you quite sure of your premises?"
"Yes indeed!" replied the solicitor.
"Take your seat, sir," the judge commanded, with a frown upon his intelligent face. "I am informed," said he, addressing the negro solicitor, "that you have been perniciously active in the persecution of this feeble old man; that you have gone out of your way to harass and humiliate him in all possible situations; that you have advised and encouraged and rewarded placable agents and emissaries to render his life burdensome and his condition intolerable; that you have caused inquisitorial visits to be made to his home by ruffianly negroes in the dead hours of the night; that you have conspired and confederated with a loathsome being—a man, however, of controlling influence with the negroes—by the name of Laflin, to inflict upon him and his daughter every indignity your evil imagination could suggest; that acting under your devilish advice and inventions, lawless, brutish negroes have set at defiance every dictate of humanity, every precept of religion, and every commandment of the law, and have turned his home into a hell; that when a superficial examination into this case would have shown you that this negro, whom you say was murdered by this unfortunate prisoner gathered around him a bestial mob of the most despicable, offensive negroes, armed with guns and swords to take his life by force of insurrectionary combinations, you dare to clutch the ermine of this court with your defiled fingers! You have disgraced the position you occupy; your right to prosecute the criminal docket in this court is suspended. You will take your seat in the prisoner's dock until I can have you tried and sentenced to the penitentiary. This man is in your custody, Mr. Sheriff. Mr. Clerk, you will at once issue a bench warrant for the arrest of Abram Laflin and the coroner, Jackson Thorp, and have them brought before me at once. Colonel Seymour," he continued, addressing the prisoner, and at the same time extending his hand, "you have my sympathy. I have observed with pain and indignation the alarming condition of affairs in your county. I am sitting upon this bench as a judge to discharge my duty in the fear of God. You are fully vindicated, sir, and may retire when you please."
A stampede of negroes who had thronged the court room swept away every obstruction, and within one hour after the arrest of the carpet-bagger and the coroner, mules, oxen, negroes, dogs and organs and monkeys were in precipitate flight through the town.
"Grate Jerusalem!" exclaimed an old negro who had fallen down the stairway in his flight, "de debbil has sho broke loose in dis hear town. Dat ar jedge is wusser dan a harrykane."
The scene that followed was intensely dramatic. Men who had never been demonstrative before, at the hour of recess, thronged the judge to thank him for his honesty and courage in this hour of trial. The Governor, Colonel Seymour and his beautiful daughter awaited the presence of the judge in the parlor of the public inn, and as the learned man entered the room greatly embarrassed, Alice thought he was the manliest man she ever saw—faultlessly handsome, with the poise of a patrician. The judge took her extended hand, and blushing deeply, looked down into the lustrous blue eyes that were laughing through tears and said, almost audibly, to himself, "Is it possible that this beauty will ever fade?" Could we introspect the great man's heart, we should find even then a little weaver picking up here and there golden threads and cris-crossing them into entangling meshes; and perhaps a little archer was drawing back his bow to transfix two hearts and hold them up before him while he laughed and laughed again at his conquest.
"Miss Seymour," the judge exclaimed, quite compassionately, "I regret that your father has been so greatly outraged. I hope he will soon forget it and that his life will be happy. I am grateful to you for the pleasure of this visit. May I hope to see you at your home in the country?"
Alice replied, both weeping and smiling, that she could never repay the debt of gratitude.
"I feel that there is not now a cloud upon my little horizon—that your considerate judgment has dispelled the shadows that veiled in my life, and I shall live now for my father and his happiness."
"Ah, my dear miss!" replied the judge, somewhat confused, "do not thank me for doing my duty. You don't know how my heart yearned towards your helpless father in the hands of these barbarians." And all the while the little archer, now an imprisoned eaves-dropper, was peeping out of the curtains with his chubby hand to his tiny ear and whispering, "Love at first sight."
Joshua was a unit in this compact mass of freedmen that squatted here and there upon rude benches and crowded the aisles in that great auditorium of negroes. There were snow-white dishevelled locks under primitive hats and bonnets; there were hollow cheeks and lack lustre eyes; there were hungry stomachs, limbs palsied and stiffened here in the very May day of reconstruction. The commissariat with its great reservoirs of fatness was ever so far away, and its approaches were guarded by armed freedmen who like bearded pards demanded money. "Old Glory" too, hung inert from the flag staff, blushing perhaps because the judge is sitting upon the bench to despatch business; because a Daniel has come to judge Laflin and to give him his pound of flesh without blood. As the colonel was assisting his daughter into the buggy, after the tumult was over, Joshua ambled up to him with his battered beaver in his hand with fulsome congratulations.
"I knowed all de time ole marser dat yu was agwine to get clar. I seed it in dat jedge's eyes when he heered dat ditement red. He got wexed dat ar minit, und shuck his hed und I knowed den dat de state had flung de fat in de farr, und I said to mysef, Joshaway, yu und ole marser is agwine home wid wun anuder dis werry nite und it cum out lak I spishuned."
"Uncle Joshua," interrupted Alice feelingly, "father and I are very grateful for your kindness and you shall never suffer as long as we live. Here is a dollar; buy Aunt Hannah what she needs, remember, you must not buy whiskey with it."
"Tank yu yung missis, tank yu a fousand times. I am gwine to lay dis out for Hannah. I aint agwine to tech narry cent of it, und when dat nigger sees me coming home with all my bundles she is agwine to jump clean clar outen her skin. I don't care ef I nebber sees dat kommissary no mo," and in the transport of joy the old negro tossed his old beaver high into the air while he lustily cried out, "free cheers for Miss Alice und ole marser."
There were many things that pre-occupied the minds of Alice and her father as they were driving home. The old man in a sentimental spirit felt like exclaiming with the sacred writer "These, and such as these are spots in our feasts of charity; clouds they are without water, trees whose fruit withereth; raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame; wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever."
As they neared the old homestead, Clarissa was standing in the gateway, jumping up and down automatically with arms tossing like the fans of a Dutch windmill, shouting frantically, "glory, glory, the dead has cum to life agin, blessed Lord de insurreckshun has done und riz agen. Jurusulum my happy home" and she threw her arms around her young mistress and in the excess of feeling hugged even the old hound. "Come in to de kitchen ole marser und Miss Alice fur de lans sake und see what a snipshus dinner I has got, barbecue, taters and chicken and homily und sich lak."
Joshua stood in the road to watch his ole marser fast disappearing in the distance; then taking the crisp note from the lining of his old hat, brandished it aloft as if it were 'old glory.' It was the first currency of the kind he had ever seen, for the coroner had refused to pay his per diem as a juror at the inquest, averring as an excuse therefor dat dat wote was agin de consecushon und hit jam nigh spiled de hole werdict. Joshua steadied himself against an empty whisky barrel and began to calculate as to the purchasing capacity of the dollar note.
"Now lem me count on de tip eend of the fingers scusing de fumb dat don't count," said he. "Hanner she wants a kote und a par of brogans, allus awanting mo dan de munny is agwine to fetch," he observed parenthetically, "und den dare is me, bleeged to have a weskote und gallusses, und dat will take every bit und grane; und how is I agwine to git eny bakker, und I'm bleeged to have a drap of sperrits. Now lem me count over gin und git dis ole fumb outen de way; de kote is fifty cents und de shoes is seventy five cents, dat won't do," he said as he scratched his head, "I'm gwine to leabe off de kote; den dere is de shoes seventy-five cents, und de weskote seventy-five cents; dat won't do nudder. I'm agwine to leabe off de shoes; den dare is de gallusses twenty-five cents, und de weskote seventy-five cents; den whar is de bakker? I'm agwine to lebe off de weskote; den dare is de gallusses twenty-five cents, und de bakker twenty-five cents, und de sperrits fifty cents; de munny haint ergwine to hole out no udder way I can fix it; now den de sperrits fust, und de bakker nex und gallusses las," and when the old negro had solved the problem he struck a bee line to the nearest groggery, saying to himself, "Ef Miss Alice had axed me not to buy no sperrits I'd a been kotched pine plank."
"Two years in the penitentiary," Joshua heard some one exclaim as he was passing the court house.
"Who dat boss gwine to de penitenshur?" he stopped to enquire.
"Abram Laflin," came the answer.
"Don't you heer dat!" exclaimed Joshua, "Fredum is sho gin out now. Ellic dun und gon und got hissef drounded, und on de tip eend of dat de boss is dun und got hissef in de penitenshur. Land sakes alive! Niggers got to walk perpendickkler now," and with that the old negro dodged into the tippling shop.
"Say boss?" Joshua said to the rum-seller, "Fill me a tickler rite full er rum; don't put narry drap of whiskey in hit, kase ef yu dus my creddick is dun und gon fur ebber. Now what dus I have to pay?" he asked as he put the bottle into his haversack.
"Seventy-five cents," sharply answered the salesman.
"My King!" ejaculated Joshua, "Den what is I gwine to do about dem gallusses?"
"Come old negro," the clerk crustily replied, "get out and let that man come to the counter."
As Joshua was moving suspiciously out of the dram shop he glanced savagely at the man and said to himself, "Dis heer low down white trash is a gwine to be de ruinashun ob dis kentry yit, agougging de werry eyeballs out ob yer hed, und yu are standin rite dare urseein dem do hit. I wishes dat dar jedge wud git holt ob dese speretual shops und squashes dem lak he dun dat ditement agin ole marser."
In the small hours of the night Joshua stumbled against the door of his cabin crying like a lunatic.
"Fer de lan sake Hanner, run out here und kill dese heer snakes, und fetch my muskit along wid yu."
And Hannah in her night robes ran out frantically crying, "Show me dem dar sarpents, whar is dey Joshaway?"
"Dar dey go," said he, and seizing the musket he banged away at the earth exclaiming, "Ef yu is sho naff snakes yu is in a bad fix und ef yu aint sho nuff snakes den I's in a wusser wun."
"Yu stracted fool," angrily shouted Hannah, "Yu is got de lerium tremenjous, dat's what ails yu."