As a result of this legislation the Negro was placed in positions of responsibility; within the next few years the race sent two senators and thirteen representatives to Congress, and in some of the state legislatures, as in South Carolina, Negroes were decidedly in the majority. The attainments of some of these men were undoubtedly remarkable; the two United States senators, Hiram R. Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, both from Mississippi, were of unquestioned intelligence and ability, and Robert B. Elliott, one of the representatives from South Carolina, attracted unusual attention by his speech in reply to Alexander Stephens on the constitutionality of the Civil Rights bill. At the same time among the Negro legislators there was also considerable ignorance, and there set in an era of extravagance and corruption from which the "carpet-baggers" and the "scalawags" rather than the Negroes themselves reaped the benefit. Accordingly within recent years it has become more and more the fashion to lament the ills of the period, and no representative American historian can now write of reconstruction without a tone of apology. A few points, however, are to be observed. In the first place the ignorance was by no means so vast as has been supposed. Within the four years from 1861 to 1865, thanks to the army schools and missionary agencies, not less than half a million Negroes in the South had learned to read and write. Furthermore, the suffrage was not immediately given to the emancipated Negroes; this was the last rather than the first step in reconstruction. The provisional legislatures formed at the close of the war were composed of white men only; but the experiment failed because of the short-sighted laws that were enacted. If the fruit of the Civil War was not to be lost, if all the sacrifice was not to prove in vain, it became necessary for Congress to see that the overthrow of slavery was final and complete. By the Fourteenth Amendment the Negro was invested with the ordinary rights and dignity of a citizen of the United States. He was not enfranchised, but he could no longer be made the victim of state laws designed merely to keep him in servile subjection. If the Southern states had accepted this amendment, they might undoubtedly have reëntered the Union without further conditions. They refused to do so; they refused to help the National Government in any way whatsoever in its effort to guarantee to the Negro the rights of manhood. Achilles sulked in his tent, and whenever he sulks the world moves on—without him. The alternative finally presented to Congress, if it was not to make an absolute surrender, was either to hold the South indefinitely under military subjection or to place the ballot in the hands of the Negro. The former course was impossible; the latter was chosen, and the Union was really restored—was really saved—by the force of the ballot in the hands of black men.
It has been held that the Negro was primarily to blame for the corruption of the day. Here again it is well to recall the tendencies of the period. The decade succeeding the war was throughout the country one of unparalleled political corruption. The Tweed ring, the Crédit Mobilier, and the "salary grab" were only some of the more outstanding signs of the times. In the South the Negroes were not the real leaders in corruption; they simply followed the men who they supposed were their friends. Surely in the face of such facts as these it is not just to fix upon a people groping to the light the peculiar odium of the corruption that followed in the wake of the war.
And we shall have to leave it to those better informed than we to say to just what extent city and state politics in the South have been cleaned up since the Negro ceased to be a factor. Many of the constitutions framed by the reconstruction governments were really excellent models, and the fact that they were overthrown seems to indicate that some other spoilsmen were abroad. Take North Carolina, for example. In this state in 1868 the reconstruction government by its new constitution introduced the township system so favorably known in the North and West. When in 1875 the South regained control, with all the corruption it found as excellent a form of republican state government as was to be found in any state in the Union. "Every provision which any state enjoyed for the protection of public society from its bad members and bad impulses was either provided or easily procurable under the Constitution of the state."[199] Yet within a year, in order to annul the power of their opponents in every county in the state, the new party so amended the Constitution as to take away from every county the power of self-government and centralize everything in the legislature. Now was realized an extent of power over elections and election returns so great that no party could wholly clear itself of the idea of corrupt intentions.
At the heart of the whole question of course was race. As a matter of fact much work of genuine statesmanship was accomplished or attempted by the reconstruction governments. For one thing the idea of common school education for all people was now for the first time fully impressed upon the South. The Charleston News and Courier of July 11, 1876, formally granted that in the administration of Governor Chamberlain of South Carolina the abuse of the pardoning power had been corrected; the character of the officers appointed by the Executive had improved; the floating indebtedness of the state had been provided for in such a way that the rejection of fraudulent claims was assured and that valid claims were scaled one-half; the tax laws had been so amended as to secure substantial equality in the assessment of property; taxes had been reduced to eleven mills on the dollar; the contingent fund of the executive department had been reduced at a saving in two years of $101,200; legislative expenses had also been reduced so as to save in two years $350,000; legislative contingent expenses had also been handled so as to save $355,000; and the public printing reduced from $300,000 to $50,000 a year. There were, undoubtedly, at first, many corrupt officials, white and black. Before they were through, however, after only a few years of experimenting, the reconstruction governments began to show signs of being quite able to handle the situation; and it seems to have been primarily the fear on the part of the white South that they might not fail that prompted the determination to regain power at whatever cost. Just how this was done we are now to see.
3. [Reaction: The KuKlux Klan]
Even before the Civil War a secret organization, the Knights of the Golden Circle, had been formed to advance Southern interests. After the war there were various organizations—Men of Justice, Home Guards, Pale Faces, White Brotherhood, White Boys, Council of Safety, etc., and, with headquarters at New Orleans, the thoroughly organized Knights of the White Camelia. All of these had for their general aim the restoration of power to the white men of the South, which aim they endeavored to accomplish by regulating the conduct of the Negroes and their leaders in the Republican organization, the Union League, especially by playing upon the fears and superstitions of the Negroes. In general, especially in the Southeast, everything else was surpassed or superseded by the KuKlux Klan, which originated in Tennessee in the fall of 1865 as an association of young men for amusement, but which soon developed into a union for the purpose of whipping, banishing, terrorizing, and murdering Negroes and Northern white men who encouraged them in the exercise of their political rights. No Republican, no member of the Union League, and no G.A.R. man could become a member. The costume of the Klan was especially designed to strike terror in the uneducated Negroes. Loose-flowing sleeves, hoods in which were apertures for the eyes, nose, and mouth trimmed with red material, horns made of cotton-stuff standing out on the front and sides, high cardboard hats covered with white cloth decorated with stars or pictures of animals, long tongues of red flannel, were all used as occasion demanded. The KuKlux Klan finally extended over the whole South and greatly increased its operations on the cessation of martial law in 1870. As it worked generally at night, with its members in disguise, it was difficult for a grand jury to get evidence on which to frame a bill, and almost impossible to get a jury that would return a verdict for the state. Repeated measures against the order were of little effect until an act of 1870 extended the jurisdiction of the United States courts to all KuKlux cases. Even then for some time the organization continued active.
Naturally there were serious clashes before government was restored to the white South, especially as the KuKlux Klan grew bolder. At Colfax, Grant Parish, Louisiana, in April, 1873, there was a pitched battle in which several white men and more than fifty Negroes were killed; and violence increased as the "red shirt" campaign of 1876 approached.
In connection with the events of this fateful year, and with reference to South Carolina, where the Negro seemed most solidly in power, we recall one episode, that of the Hamburg Massacre. We desire to give this as fully as possible in all its incidents, because we know of nothing that better illustrates the temper of the times, and because a most important matter is regularly ignored or minimized by historians.[200]
In South Carolina an act providing for the enrollment of the male citizens of the state, who were by the terms of the said act made subject to the performance of militia duty, was passed by the General Assembly and approved by the Governor March 16, 1869. By virtue of this act Negro citizens were regularly enrolled as a part of the National Guard of the State of South Carolina, and as the white men, with very few exceptions, failed or refused to become a part of the said force, the active militia was composed almost wholly of Negro men. The County of Edgefield, of which Hamburg was a part, was one of the military districts of the state under the apportionment of the Adjutant-General, one regiment being allotted to the district. One company of this regiment was in Hamburg. In 1876 it had recently been reorganized with Doc Adams as captain, Lewis Cartledge as first lieutenant, and A.T. Attaway as second lieutenant. The ranks were recruited to the requisite number of men, to whom arms and equipment were duly issued.
On Tuesday, July 4, the militia company assembled for drill and while thus engaged paraded through one of the least frequented streets of the town. This street was unusually wide, but while marching four abreast the men were interrupted by a horse and buggy driven into their ranks by Thomas Butler and Henry Getzen, white men who resided about two miles from the town. At the time of this interference the company was occupying a space covering a width of not more than eight feet, so that on either side there was abundant room for vehicles. At the interruption Captain Adams commanded a halt and, stepping to the head of his column, said, "Mr. Getzen, I did not think that you would treat me this way; I would not so act towards you." To this Getzen replied with curses, and after a few more remarks on either side, Adams, in order to avoid further trouble, commanded his men to break ranks and permit the buggy to pass through. The company was then marched to the drill rooms and dismissed.