THE RESTORATION OF WHITE DOMINION
IN THE SOUTH
When President Hayes was inaugurated on March 4, 1877, the southern whites had almost shaken off the Republican rule which had been set up under the protection of Federal soldiers at the close of the Civil War. In only two states, Louisiana and South Carolina, were Republican governors nominally in power, and these last "rulers of conquered provinces" had only a weak grip upon their offices, which they could not have maintained for a moment without the aid of Union troops stationed at their capitals. By secret societies, like the Ku Klux Klan, and by open intimidation, the conservative whites had practically recovered from the negroes, whom the Republicans had enfranchised, the political power which had been wrested from the old ruling class at the close of the War. In this nullification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution and other measures designed to secure the suffrage for the former bondmen, President Grant had acquiesced, and it was openly rumored that Hayes would put an end to the military régime in Louisiana and South Carolina, leaving the southern people to fight out their own battles.
Nevertheless, the Republicans in the North were apparently loath to accept accomplished facts. In their platform of 1876, upon which Hayes was elected, they recalled with pride their achievement in saving the Union and purging the land of slavery; they pledged themselves to pacify the South and protect the rights of all citizens there; they pronounced it to be a solemn obligation upon the Federal government to enforce the Civil War amendments and to secure "to every citizen complete liberty and exact equality in the exercise of all civil, political, and public rights." Moreover, they charged the Democratic party with being "the same in character and spirit as when it sympathized with treason."
But this vehement declaration was only the death cry of the gladiators of the radical Republican school. Stevens and Sumner, who championed the claims of the negroes to full civil and political rights, were gone; and the new leaders, like Conkling and Blaine, although they still waxed eloquent over the wrongs of the freedmen, were more concerned about the forward swing of railway and capitalist enterprises in the North and West than they were about maintaining in the South the rule of a handful of white Republicans supported by negro voters. Only a few of the old-school Republicans who firmly believed in the doctrine of the "natural rights" of the negro, and the officeholders and speculators who were anxious to exploit the South really in their hearts supported a continuance of the military rule in "the conquered provinces."
Moreover, there were special circumstances which made it improbable that President Hayes would permit the further use of troops in Louisiana and South Carolina. His election had been stoutly disputed and it was only a stroke of good fortune that permitted his inauguration at all. It was openly charged that his managers, during the contest over the results of the election in 1876, had promised the abolition of the military régime in the South in return for aid on the part of certain Democrats in securing a settlement of the dispute in his favor. Hayes himself had, however, maintained consistently that vague attitude so characteristic of practical politicians. In his speech of acceptance, he promised to help the southern states to obtain "the blessings of honest and capable self-government." But he added also that the advancement of the prosperity of those states could be made most effectually by "a hearty and generous recognition of the rights of all by all." Moreover, he approved a statement by one of his supporters to the effect that he would restore all freemen to their rights as citizens and at the same time obliterate sectional lines—a promise obviously impossible to fulfill.
Whether there was any real "bargain" between Hayes and the Democratic managers matters little, for the policy which he adopted was inevitable, sooner or later, because there was no active political support even in the North for a contrary policy. A few weeks after his inauguration Hayes sent a commission of eminent men to Louisiana to investigate the claims of the rival governments there—for there were two legislatures and two governors in that commonwealth contending for power. The commission found that the Republican administration, headed by Governor Packard, was little more than a sham, and advised President Hayes of the fact. Thereupon the President, on April 9, 1877, ordered the withdrawal of the Federal troops from the public buildings, and Louisiana began the restoration of her shattered fortunes under the conservative white leadership. A day later, the President also withdrew the troops from the capitol at Columbia, South Carolina, and the Democratic administration under Governor Wade Hampton, a former Confederate veteran, was duly recognized. Henceforward, the freedmen of the South were to depend upon the generosity of the whites and upon their own collective efforts, aided by their sympathizers, for whatever civil and political rights they were permitted to enjoy.
The Disfranchisement of the Negro
Having secured the abolition of direct Federal military interference with state administrations in the South, the Democrats turned to the abrogation of the Federal election laws that had been passed in 1870-1871, as a part of the regular reconstruction policy for protecting the negroes in the exercise of the suffrage. These election laws prescribed penalties for intimidation at the polls, provided for the appointment, by Federal circuit courts, of supervisors charged with the duty of scrutinizing the entire election process, and authorized the employment of United States marshals, deputies, and soldiers to support and protect the supervisors in the discharge of their duties and to keep the peace at the polls.
These laws, the Republican authors urged, were designed to safeguard the purity of the ballot, not only in the South but also in the North, and particularly in New York, where it was claimed that fraud was regularly employed by the Democratic leaders. John Sherman declared that the Democrats in Congress would be a "pitiful minority, if those elected by fraud and bloodshed were debarred," adding that, "in the South one million Republicans are disfranchised." Democrats, on the other hand, replied that these laws were nothing more than a part of a gigantic scheme originated by the Republicans to fasten their rule upon the country forever by systematic interference with elections. Democratic suspicions were strengthened by reports of many scandals—for instance, that the supervisors in Louisiana under the Republican régime had registered "eight thousand more colored voters than there were in the state when the census was taken four years later." Undoubtedly, there were plenty of frauds on both sides, and it is an open question whether Federal interference reduced or increased the amount.
At all events, the Democrats, finding themselves in a majority in the House of Representatives in 1877, determined to secure the repeal of the "force laws," and in their desperation they resorted to the practice of attaching their repeal measures to appropriation bills in the hope of compelling President Hayes to sign them or tying up the wheels of government by a stoppage in finances. Hayes was equal to the occasion, and by a vigorous use of the veto power he defeated the direct assaults of the Democrats on the election laws. At length, however, in June, 1878, he was compelled to accept a "rider" in the form of a proviso to the annual appropriation bill for the army making it impossible for United States marshals to employ federal troops in the execution of the election laws. While this did not satisfy the Democrats by any means, because it still left Federal supervision under the marshals, their deputies and the election supervisors, it took away the main prop of the Republicans in the South—the use of troops at elections.