Historical Romance of the American Negro

by Charles Henry Fowler

Nor did the mischief end there, for in their mistaken sympathy, many of the Northern legislatures passed resolutions condemning President Grant for sending troops into the South, although he only did so in the discharge of his most legitimate duty, and in accordance with the law. These movements caused the next Congress, which was the Forty-fourth, to be organized by the Democrats, when the very cabinet ministers themselves were divided upon the policy to be pursued towards the South, one half pulling one way, and the other half pulling the other way. To help on the bad cause still further, although a majority of colored people exists in Mississippi, and that State ought to have gone Republican, still the shot-gun policy of the rebels carried that State before them, and the Republican Government ceased to exist.

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES.

The country was truly in a dangerous condition; a portion of the Northern population were in favor of General Grant and his policy, and the rest were in favor of a change in the South. A house divided against itself will not stand: at least, it will not stand long. Men even deserted the grand Republican party, not for any ill it had done, but simply because others deserted it. It was even charged against the Grant administration that it was responsible for the ruin of the Republican government in the Southern States, and even for the great business disasters that had overtaken the whole country, North and South. It is easy to find a stick to beat a dog. Such puerile charges remind me rather of the tricks of children than actions of men. All those charges were entirely false, and the Democrats, both North and South, must have known it themselves. We still remember well the mischief that President Andrew Johnson did in his great sympathy for the rebels after they had laid down their arms, and how the Southern States had been ruled by hands far too weak for the task; that is, by colored men, formerly unaccustomed to politics, by scalawags and carpet-baggers. The cleverest of the rebels refused to lend a hand in the work of Reconstruction, and sat sullenly at home nursing their wrath to keep it warm. They never moved a hand in the work of building up their own country, till they moved as the Ku-Klux-Klan, reached for the shot-gun, and murdered those who ruled the Southern States. The rebel legislatures were now made up of those very men whom the North had put down in the war. They thronged the State halls and corridors, dressed in the very same robes that they had worn on the battle-field when we were fighting for the Union and freedom: and they were as rebellious in heart as before!

There was one great man in the Republican party who might have done a great deal for the colored people of the South, if he had tried, but he did not try; nay, he himself wanted to be President, and did not wish to hurt himself when his own selfish interests were at stake. This man was the Hon. James G. Blaine, of Maine. He opposed the Force Bill, and lost no opportunity of opposing President Grant's administration whenever the latter wished to do anything against the late rebels, and in favor of the people. But Mr. Blaine never became President, and it served him right, for he might have proved a bad one, as Andrew Johnson did.

General Rutherford B. Hayes was Governor of Ohio, and in 1876 the Republican party gave him the nomination for the Presidency. The convention met at Cincinnati. The Democrats ran Samuel Jones Tilden as their candidate. By the aid of the shot-gun the South had suppressed the Republican legislatures of the States lately in rebellion, and having gained an inch they went boldly on with the intention of taking a yard. They certainly did expect to carry things their own way, especially if Mr. Tilden could be elected, which appeared very likely at the time. Though really done by means of the shot-gun in several Southern States, it was still pretended that those States had been carried for Tilden and the Democrats, which was a most unblushing falsehood on the very face of it, for although returning officers came up as bold as rats from those very States that had gone Democratic by the aid of the shot-gun, and put in their claims, every child in the land, both North and South, knew where the truth lay. A long wrangle followed over the counting of the electoral votes, and as several Southern States had been carried unlawfully, they were flung out, and General Rutherford B. Hayes was declared duly elected President of the United States, and took his seat on the Fourth of March, 1877. Now arose a wild cry about injustice from all the Democrats of the land that what they called "a great steal" had been done. The rebel South (that cared for no rights but the right of their murderous shot-guns) was exasperated to the last degree. In fact they were ready to fight for what they considered their rights, that is the right to do as they pleased. They had hoped that with the restoration of the Democratic government at that time they would be able to collect their rebel war claims of the National Treasury at Washington, and even get the price of their lost slaves from the same source. They considered that they had a perfect right to all such claims, and that the very rebel soldiers wounded in the war ought to receive pensions the same as those who fought against them for the Union and for freedom. When colored girls called upon those old rebel ladies of Secessia at this time, asking for employment, those female rebels replied, "Oh, we will hire you from your masters or mistresses," thus clearly indicating that they fully expected the restoration of slavery itself!

So the Democrats of the North, and the Bourbon Democrats of the South settled down in a sullen mood to four years more of Republican rule. It was nothing but right and proper that they should be disappointed of their prey. Even St. Paul, in the New Testament, tells us that no man is entitled to the prize unless he contends lawfully. Of course, the South neither cared for the opinion of St. Paul, lawful contention, nor anything else of the same kind. So long as they could carry the elections by the shot-gun it was all right, and good enough for them.

The South was still discontented and sullen. They had, indeed, knocked down the Republican governments of her several States, but though allowed to govern was not allowed all war claims on the treasury at Washington, and there was not one single ray of hope for the restoration of slavery. None, none whatever! That was settled for all time. "Dixie" sat down like a sulky, sullen woman by her own hearthstone, and refused to be comforted. While she was in sorrow, others were in joy. Uncle Sam, like a kind and tender husband, next tried the gentler arts of pacifying and pleasing his termagant wife—the wife who in former days, yea, even for fifty years, had always threatened to go out of the Union unless she could have her own way! So an ex-Major-General of the late Confederate army was called into the cabinet of President Hayes, and was given a portfolio for the purpose of trying what he could do to better the condition of the South. Then General Longstreet, also a leader in the army of the rebellion, was made postmaster at Gainesville, in Georgia, and was afterwards sent as minister to Turkey. Colonel Mosby, the famous Confederate guerilla, was sent to China, and Colonel Fitzsimmons was made marshal of Georgia. The South nevertheless did not show any signs of real improvement. They stuck together, however, in a certain fashion, like solid rocks of ice, all congealed and frozen tight and hard together into one lump, and became known as the "Solid South." They showed the greatest repugnance to the scalawags and carpet-baggers, and all white Republicans generally, who were intimidated, persecuted and driven out of all participation in the reconstruction of the States. Black Republicans were allowed to vote, but the Democrats of Secessia took the counting of the votes into their own hands, and secured the offices, all the same! At this time President Hayes was under the influence of Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, and Wade Hampton, of South Carolina. President Hayes expected much, but received nothing in return. The more kindness and consideration he showed them the more arrogant and ungrateful they became. The Southern leaders in Congress even tried to deprive the President of his Constitutional veto—tried to starve the army, and even to protract the session of Congress. The North was indeed holding out the olive branch of peace to the late rebel States, and these States were trampling the kindness of the North beneath their feet. Southern insolence went on, grew and increased. There were loyal Republican men at Washington, who could have assisted the President to steer the ship of state better than he did; but President Hayes did not seem to care for their advice; he preferred to shut himself up altogether in his own abilities, and left his real well-wishers and friends on the outside. There was evidently no such thing as satisfying the demands of the South. With unthankfulness she took all that was given and demanded more, and never as much as said "Thank you!" She considered that she had done right to secede, and was only sorry that she had not succeeded with her rebellion. President Hayes refused to surrender his veto power to those arrogant and secessionist Congressmen at Washington. At last he saw clearly that the South was not capable of appreciating his kindness as she ought, and that all his good intentions had been flung away. He now decided to change front, being worn out with so much arrogance and ingratitude. Dealing out kindness to a gang of ex-rebel officers, who had once owned and whipped their slaves, was found to be very irksome work. The entire Republican party were now firmly and solidly united against the South. The Cabinet, which was a splendid one, became more and more unanimous than before; the administration was without fault, and other good things that followed in their train did wonders for the Republican party all over the land. Among these was the resumption of specie payment—a source of delight to the nation. Thus, at last we see the Republican ranks of the North were firmly united. They saw clearly that the arrogance of the South was simply unlimited, and that nothing short of the state of things before the war would satisfy her, unless, indeed, it was the complete extension of her darling slavery from the Gulf of Mexico to all the Northern States of the Union along the Canadian border.

There was one man in this country at the time who clearly saw what the country needed next to tide her over the present state of things. This clear-sighted man was the Hon. Charles Foster, Congressman from Ohio. Mr. Foster returned home to Ohio from Washington in the summer of 1878. He had been watching with eagle eyes the follies of President Hayes in the vain attempt he made to pacify the South by love and kindness. He had watched the governments of the Northern States slipping away from their allegiance to the Republican party one after another, and, indeed, he took in the whole situation, and saw what was needed to steer the ship of state through the right channel in safety. Mr. Foster saw that the South had been thoroughly disloyal in every respect; they had acted with treason to the Union; they had not shown the least desire to protect the new citizens, the colored voters at the polls, but in fact had purposely murdered them with the shot-gun; they had shown the whole nation that they were bent on rebellion, and nothing else.

On the first of August, 1878, Mr. Foster made a great and famous speech at Upper Sandusky, Ohio, when he raised a battle-cry that thrilled the entire North, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, "A Solid North Against a Solid South!" This speech was published in all the papers of the land, and was kept up till it elected Garfield, in 1880. On account of its immense influence during these two years, I will here reproduce it. Such a battle-cry as this should be committed to memory.