Reconstruction and the Constitution, 1866-1876

by John William Burgess

CHAPTER XII

"CARPET-BAG" AND NEGRO DOMINATION IN THE SOUTHERN STATES BETWEEN 1868 AND 1876

[Escape of Virginia, Georgia and Texas from Negro Rule]—[North Carolina's Rapid Recovery from Negro Rule]—[The Loyal League]—[Origin of the K. K. K.'s]—[Methods of the Ku-Klux]—[Periods in the History of Negro Rule]—[The Act for the Enforcement of the New Amendments]—[The Corruption in the New "State" Governments]—[The Supplemental Enforcement Act]—[The President's Proclamation of March 23d, 1871]—[The Ku-Klux Act of April 20th, 1871]—[Interference of the United States Military Power in the Affairs of South Carolina]—[The President's Proclamation of May 3d, 1871]—[The President's Proclamation to the People of South Carolina]—[The Ku-Klux Trials]—[Corruption in the "State" Governments of the South]—[The Revolt in the Republican Party]—[The Liberal Republican Convention of 1872]—[Acceptance of the Liberal Republican Candidates by the Democrats]—[Division in the Democratic Party]—[The Republican Platform and Nominees]—[The Republican Triumph]—[Events in Alabama]—[Events in Louisiana]—[The Downward Course between 1872 and 1874—The Elections of 1874]—[The Change in Alabama, Arkansas and Texas]—[The Status in South Carolina in 1874]—[The Day of Complete Deliverance—The Status in Mississippi in 1875]—[Fiat Money and the Resumption of Specie Payments]—[The Inflation Bill of 1874 and the Veto of it by the President].

Virginia, Texas and Georgia had been in no great hurry, as we have seen, to exchange military government exercised by the white officers

Escape of Virginia,
Georgia and Texas
from negro rule.

In spite of the threats of Congress, and the ever-increasing conditions imposed by that body upon the permission to resume the "State" status, these three communities held out under military rule until so many of their leading citizens had been amnestied by Congress and made again eligible to office and mandate, and until so much better provisions concerning the enfranchisement of the ex-Confederates had been secured, as to put them in a far better position to resume "State" government than was the case two years before. Moreover, these communities had larger white than black populations. After their full restoration, consequently, Virginia and Georgia escaped largely the suffering experienced by most of the others, and Texas also managed to pull through the years from 1870 to 1874 with only about a four-fold increase of taxation, and the creation of a debt of only about 5,000,000 of dollars, when she reached the period of union of almost all her best citizens in the Democratic party, which, in the election of Richard Coke as Governor in 1874, and of a majority of the legislative members, permanently triumphed in Texas. Mississippi also had held back in 1868 and 1869, as we have seen, in order to secure better terms for the ex-Confederates in the enfranchising and disfranchising provisions of the "State" constitution, and by doing so had accomplished this result. But Mississippi was one of the three Southern communities in which the negro population far outnumbered the white. Mississippi was not, for this reason chiefly, so fortunate as Virginia, Texas and Georgia. She was obliged, with South Carolina and Louisiana, to pass through the fiery furnace in order to fuse the respectable white elements in her population into a single political party with a well-understood and a well-determined purpose.

Of all the "States" included in the Congressional Act of June 25th, 1868, only North Carolina had been fortunate enough to rid herself,

North Carolina's
rapid recovery
from negro rule.

Already before the Reconstruction Acts were passed, the political adventurers in the South had begun organizing the negroes into secret

The Loyal League.

It is difficult to determine whether the Ku-Klux organization preceded that of the Loyal League and provoked it or not. So far as we know,

Origin of the
K. K. K.'s.

After the Reconstruction Acts were passed and put into operation, and especially after the Southern communities were reorganized as "States"

Methods of
the Ku-Klux.

The appearance of both the Loyal Leagues and the Ku-Klux Klans in the manner in which they appeared, and at the time when they appeared,

The naturalness of
these organizations.

And, again, when by the Reconstruction Acts and the restoration of martial law in the South under them, Congress turned the tables upon the Southern white people, and placed the ignorant barbarians in political control of them, and made every open attempt to resist this control a penal offence, it was also rather natural, though not praiseworthy, that men should have bound themselves together by secret oaths to do anything and everything in their power to defeat this blunder-crime against civilization. Whether natural or not, it always happens when such attempts are made, and it is always to be expected.

But to return to the order of the narrative. The formation of the Union Leagues in 1867 and 1868 enabled the negroes to vote in these

The opportunity for
political adventurers.

The landing places in this story may be placed at the years 1872, 1874, and 1876. The year 1872 is the date of the national revolt against the

Periods in
the history of
negro rule.

Before all of the Southern communities had been admitted to representation in Congress, and before any of them except Tennessee had

The Act for the
enforcement of the
new Amendments.

It is entirely clear from this language that, in the enforcement of these new provisions of the Constitution, the United States Government must direct its powers against the action of the "States," respectively, through their legislators and officials, and against that only. But in this bill which became law on the 31st of May, 1870, Congress enacted penalties not only against "State" officers and agents for the violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, but severe penalties against any person within the "States," as well as the Territories, who should undertake to deprive by unlawful means any other person of his right to qualify and vote at any election, and against any person who under color of any law, statute or ordinance, regulation or custom, should undertake to deprive any other person of his civil rights and civil equality. Congress also, in this Act, vested the jurisdiction over such cases in the United States courts and authorized the President of the United States to enforce their decisions by the aid of the United States army and navy if necessary. Now, while it may probably be rightly claimed that the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which reads: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States, or in any place subject to their jurisdiction," empowers Congress to make laws protecting the civil rights and civil equality of persons within the "States" against infringement by other persons, and to invest the officers of the United States, both judicial and executive, with the power to enforce these laws, since in this Amendment the prohibition of slavery or involuntary servitude is not directed against "State" action solely, but against any attempt made by anybody to create an involuntary servitude, it cannot on the other hand be claimed, with any show of correct interpretation, that the Fourteenth Amendment warrants the exercise of any such power by the United States Government, and it is entirely out of the question to claim that the Fifteenth Amendment protects the right of a person, within a State, to vote against the attempt of another person or of other persons to infringe the same, or even against the "State" itself to do so, except it be on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.

There is not the slightest doubt in the mind of any good constitutional lawyer, at the present time, that Congress overstepped its

Criticism
of the Act.

Meanwhile the new "State" governments had well begun their career of corruption, shame and vulgarity. They were plundering the treasury,

The corruption in the
new "State" governments.

The Congress passed the Act of the 28th of February, 1871, which so supplemented the Act of May 31st, 1870, as to place the whole control

The supplemental
enforcement Act.

But this was not yet enough in the views of the Administration. In the two years of his incumbency of the Presidential office, General Grant

The President's Message
of March 23d, 1871.

Congress answered this appeal with the noted, not to say notorious, Ku-Klux Act of April 20th, 1871, in which Congress simply threw to the

The Ku-Klux Act of
April 20th, 1871.

The first part of this Act was, unquestionably, an unconstitutional encroachment upon the powers of the "States," in so far as it is

The unconstitutionality
of the Act.

As a matter of fact, the Governor of South Carolina had asked the President to give him United States soldiers for the protection of the

Interference of the
United States military
power in the affairs
of South Carolina.

On the 3d day of May following the passage of the Ku-Klux Act, the President issued his general proclamation warning the people that the

The President's
proclamation of
May 3d, 1871.

On the 12th of the following October, the President directed his proclamation to the people of South Carolina alone, declaring that

The President's
proclamation to
the people of
South Carolina.

At the end of the five days of grace, the President issued a third

Suspension of the
privileges of the writ
of Habeas Corpus
by the President in
certain counties of
South Carolina.

On the 3d day of the following November a fourth proclamation was published, in which the President acknowledged his error in including the county of Marion in the list of counties in which the privileges of the writ were suspended, but declared that the situation in Union county was such as to warrant the suspension of those privileges in that county also, and warned the insurgents in that county to deliver up their arms and accoutrements and disperse to their abodes within five days. This warning not having been obeyed, according to the views of the President, a final proclamation was issued by him on the 10th day of November suspending the privileges of the writ of Habeas Corpus in Union county.

In execution of the Act of April 20th, and in pursuance of these proclamations, the President now sent a strong force of United States

The Ku-Klux trials.

During the year 1872, in addition to all this, there came to the knowledge of Congress and of the people of the North the frightful and

Corruption in the
"State" governments
of the South.
In South Carolina.

Then came the sale of franchises of all kinds, and the pledging of the credit of the "State" in the form of bonds to aid all sorts of enterprises pretended to be set on foot, or promoted as is now said, by combinations of legislators or officials or their friends. In 1868 the "State" debt was about five millions of dollars, with almost enough assets to pay it. In 1872 the assets had disappeared and the debt was more than eighteen millions, and nothing worth mentioning to show for it. And all this when the "State" taxes had been raised from less than a half million of dollars a year on a valuation of over four hundred millions to two millions of dollars a year on a valuation of less than two hundred millions of property.

In Louisiana, under the leadership of the brilliant young adventurer, Henry C. Warmoth of Illinois, the financial history of the "State" was

In Louisiana.

In the counties and municipalities of both "States" the corruption was equally rampant, shameless, and vulgar. It is impossible to obtain exact figures in regard to it, or to estimate with any degree of exactness, or even probability, the amounts stolen and made away with. In the other reconstructed "States" where the adventurers and the negroes held sway, the "State" governments worked along the same lines, though not to the same appalling extent.

It was the most soul-sickening spectacle that Americans had ever been called upon to behold. Every principle of the old American polity was here reversed. In place of government by the most intelligent and virtuous part of the people for the benefit of the governed, here was government by the most ignorant and vicious part of the population for the benefit, the vulgar, materialistic, brutal benefit of the governing set.

It is no subject of surprise or wonder that, confronted with these frightful results of radical Republican policy and administration in

The revolt in the
Republican party.

The Liberal Republicans were bolters, of course, from the regular organization, and there was no sufficient opportunity for them to

The Liberal Republican
convention of 1872.

The platform which it presented to the people demanded the removal, at once, of all political disabilities from the white men of the South,

Their platform.

It was at first supposed that the choice of the convention for the Presidency would lay between Judge David Davis of Illinois, Charles

Their nominees.

But stranger than the fact that the prince of protectionists was now running for the presidency on a platform which ignored protection, was

Acceptance of the
Liberal Republican
candidates by the
Democrats.

Mr. Greeley was, indeed, in strange company, but the company had come to him. He had not gone to them. He welcomed their support, and became

Mr. Greeley and
the Democrats.

As the last move, the "straight-out" Democrats bolted the ticket in September, and at a convention held in Louisville, Kentucky, nominated

Division in the
Democratic Party.

The September and October elections in Vermont, Maine, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana demonstrated the hopelessness of the opposition to

The Republican
platform and
nominees.

In the election, they swept all of the Northern "States" by heavy popular majorities, and with their election machinery in the Southern

The Republican
triumph.

While there is no doubt that the re-election of General Grant, and the election of a strong Republican majority in Congress, quieted the mind

The effect of the
triumph of the
Republicans.

In several of the reconstructed "States" the Democrats had made strong efforts to secure control of the "State" governments. The Amnesty Act of May 22d, 1872, had removed the disqualifications of the Fourteenth Amendment from all the Southern leaders, except such as had been members of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses, or had held judicial, military, naval, or diplomatic office under the United States, or had been heads of departments in ministerial office. A large number of these leaders had thus been placed in a position to participate as candidates for office and legislative position in the election, and to aid greatly in the work of rescuing their "States" from negro Republican rule. In Alabama and Louisiana they had very nearly succeeded. In Alabama they had elected the Governor and a majority of the members to the lower house of the legislature in the autumn of 1870, and in 1872 they claimed to have elected a majority of the members to both houses.

In Alabama, the Democratic members-elect of the legislature convened in the capitol, and the Republican members-elect in the court-house. The

Events in
Alabama.

In Louisiana the events were far more extraordinary and violent. Warmoth's rule was approaching its end, and his Republican enemies,

Events in
Louisiana.

The Warmoth Board had the returns, and it was also generally felt that the Democratic candidate for Governor, John McEnery, had been chosen by the voters. Moreover, the right of Herron to retain the office of Secretary of State was immediately brought before the supreme court of the "State," and the court gave its decision against Herron's contention. It seemed now certain that the Warmoth Returning Board would declare McEnery to have been elected Governor. But the Republican candidate, W. P. Kellogg, then a Senator from Louisiana in Congress, was watchful and resourceful. He secured from United States District Judge Durell an injunction which forbade the Warmoth Board to do anything except in the presence of the Lynch Board, and forbade McEnery from claiming his election under the returns which might be given out by the Warmoth Board.

Warmoth met this by a move which was equally a coup de surprise. The legislature had at its last session passed a law vesting the power to

Warmoth
and Durell.

A more palpable outrage upon the lawful powers of a "State" could hardly have been conceived. The Judge had not a scintilla of authority upon which to rest his proceeding. It is claimed that he was drunk when he made the order. But this can hardly have been true, that is he could not have been any more than ordinarily drunk, since the order was not withdrawn when he became ostensibly sober again, but was made the basis of a proceeding which lasted through many days, and the results of which were the counting in of Kellogg and of a Republican legislature by the Lynch Board, the immediate instalment of the Lynch Board legislature, the almost immediate impeachment of Warmoth by it and his removal from the governorship, the installation of the Lieutenant-Governor, the negro Pinchback, in his seat, the recognition of the Lynch Board legislature and of Pinchback by the President of the United States as the lawful legislature and executive of Louisiana, and the inauguration of Kellogg as Governor at the end of the Warmoth-Pinchback term. If this was all the work of a drunken spree, it must have been a very long one, and there must have been many participants in it besides the Judge.

The Warmoth Board Governor and legislature undertook to set up government also, sustained as they undoubtedly were both by the law, and by public opinion in Louisiana and probably throughout the country, and partially organized a militia force. It was the fighting between this militia and the metropolitan police in the streets of New Orleans which occasioned the suppression of the McEnery government at last by United States soldiers.

For two years more now the government of the adventurers, based on negro support, continued in the "States" south of the Tennessee line,

The downward
course between
1872 and 1874.
The elections
of 1874.

Moreover, three more of the Southern "States" freed themselves, at this time, from "Black Republican" rule. In Alabama, the respectable whites

The change in Alabama,
Arkansas and Texas.

Even South Carolina very nearly escaped her thraldom, and came near to electing a white Democrat Governor. As it was, she got a moderate

The status in South
Carolina in 1874.
Governor
Chamberlain.

The day of complete deliverance was now, however, rapidly approaching. The election of 1875 in Mississippi showed that the domination of the

The day of
complete
deliverance.
The status in
Mississippi
in 1875.

It was thus that the eventful year 1876 was introduced, and it was an earnest of the relief which was now to come to the remaining "States" of the South suffering under the rule of the adventurers and their negro allies.

While the Republican party had step by step, and almost unconsciously, involved itself in the support of dishonest and oppressive government

Fiat money and
the resumption of
of specie payments.

After the panic of 1873 had resulted in such a depression of business and depreciation of values throughout the country as to create greater discontent with the existing political management, and this discontent had manifested itself so distinctly in the elections of 1874, announcing to the Republican party that after March 5th, 1875, a Democratic majority would prevail in the House of Representatives, it was manifest to the Republican leaders, in Congress and out of Congress, that if anything was to be done in regard to the resumption of specie payment, anything for bringing the paper currency of the United States up to a coin value, it must be done speedily, and on the 21st of December, 1874, Mr. Sherman reported a bill from the Finance Committee to the Senate for this purpose, which became a law on the 14th day of January following, and which provided for the redemption of the fractional currency with silver coins of the value of ten, twenty-five and fifty cents, so rapidly as these coins could be minted; abolished the charge of one-fifth of one per centum on the coinage of gold, making the coinage of gold at the mints of the United States free; repealed the law limiting the aggregate amount of the circulating notes of the national banking associations, and the law for the withdrawal of national-bank currency from, and its redistribution among, the several "States" and Territories; ordered the Secretary of the Treasury in issuing new circulating notes to the national banking associations to retire United States legal tender notes to the amount of eighty per centum of such issues, until the United States legal tender notes should be reduced to three hundred millions of dollars, and after January 1st, 1879, to redeem these legal tender notes in coin on their presentation at the office of the Assistant Treasurer of the United States in the city of New York, in sums of not less than fifty dollars; and, to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to do this, authorized him to use any unappropriated surplus revenue which might be, from time to time, in the Treasury, and to sell bonds of the description mentioned in the Act of July 14th, 1870, in such amounts as he should find necessary to accomplish the purpose.

It is true that the Republican majority in Congress had not taken this high ground concerning the public credit and sound money without some wavering. The President himself had become frightened by the panic of the autumn of 1873, and in his annual message of December 1st following had made recommendations that might be regarded as favorable to an inflation of the existing body of paper money. His party friends in

The inflation bill
of 1874 and the
veto of it by the
President.

While at the moment this law for the resumption of specie payments in the short period of four years, or rather less, from the time of its enactment seemed a rather hazardous, not to say desperate, move on the part of the Republicans, it soon became manifest that they could have done nothing so calculated to strengthen the hold of the party upon the solid and conservative men of the country as just this very thing. Many of these men who had usually voted with the Republicans disapproved of the Southern policy of the party, and were on the point of turning against it. With the Resumption Act the financial policy of the Republican party, and of the country, was dragged to the front, and the Southern policy was forced backward, and made to constitute a less prominent issue in the campaign of 1876. This was not only wise party management, but it was also a fortunate thing for the entire country. The country was not yet in a position to endure a Democratic administration, and, on the other hand, it was surfeited with reconstruction Republican administrations. It wanted a sound money Republican administration, which would devote itself to the development of the economic interests of the whole people, and would let the "State" governments in the South have a chance to work out their own salvation. And this was just what it got in the election of 1876, and in the administration of President Rutherford B. Hayes.