"When these extra-hazardous reconstruction acts were submitted to the Legislature of the South, they refused to "chop logic" with the Reconstruction party. It would have been contrary to the experience of mankind, and an exception to all the teachings of history, if in the high excitement then prevailing—the exasperation of the people—the outrages threatened and inflicted, the South had yielded one jot or tittle or swerved from its honest, patriotic convictions. The transition was from a state in which the integrity and intelligence of the white race, ennobled by centuries of meritorious service, had ruled; to a government by a black race that less than five generations before had been hunted like wild beasts in the jungles of the dark continent; who were handcuffed and decoyed into slave ships, and who had been slaves until the proclamation of President Lincoln emancipated them in the territory protected by the U. S. Army. The transition was to a condition of things in which white men to the number of three hundred thousand were disfranchised and deprived of the right to vote and to hold office, and the enfranchisement of more than a corresponding number of benighted negroes with the right to vote and hold office. The transition of the slave, was too sudden—too alarming—too degrading. No people who were proud of their traditions, their institutions, could have looked upon such a change with complacency; nor seen their local government pass into the hands of their slaves—irresponsible, illiterate, brutish, rapacious, without being goaded into violent resistance.
"It has been remarked 'Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name.' If the gift of the elective franchise enabled the negro to protect himself in his rights of person and property, the denial of it to the white man took away from him that protection and that right. They went even to lower depths, and by the election and registration laws basely surrendered into the hands of the carpet-baggers all power. The judiciary, the last refuge of the unfortunate and oppressed is stricken down and stripped of both ermine and respectability. The ballot box—the sanctuary of freedom—the ballot box—the only secure refuge of liberty—the ballot box, the armory where freedom's weapons are wont to terrify tyrants, is made the charnel house in which the assassinated liberties of a defenceless, prostrated people are buried; is made the dice box in which are staked and played for by the freedmen of the South the revenues of plundered commonwealths. What wonder in this lust for power men should become strangers to the people they govern, outlaws to honesty and patriotism.
"They know no law but that of force, and no God but Mammon. They ply their theft upon every citizen, enthrall him with taxation, deny him the right to be seen or heard or felt at the ballot box or before the court. In the train of these outrages and indignities came a flood of unwholesome oppressive laws, creating new offices, increasing the salaries of incompetent and truculent officials, multiplying the cost and expenditures of government, and correspondingly increasing the burdens of taxation. Then came martial law, militia campaigns, loyal leagues, murders, arsons, burglaries, rapes, and a reign of terror and intimidation to make the way for the easy perpetration of the most monstrous and unparallelled wrongs, frauds and outrages that ever cursed the earth. The South, like a beautiful captive, was turned over to be deflowered and defiled. She could only cry in her desperation—"I am within your brutal power, and gagged and pinioned must submit."
"Our elective judiciary has contributed immeasurably to the vicious, demoralizing spirit of the age." The intelligent and upright judge is the representative of the law in its simplicity, sufficiency and learning. He is the living exponent of its justice. Whatever the law is will appear in him, and whatever it does will be done through him. The different departments of industrial activity center in him. The plowman in the field, the smith at his anvil, the miner in the earth, the operative in the factory, the banker at his desk, are all a vital part of his being. He is the foremost agent of providence in keeping up the natural distinction of race and position. His creed is that men are not to be antagonists, but friends. Differ they must in usages and institutions, in habits and pursuits; but in his opinion they differ, not that they may be separated, but for a truer sympathy and a compacter union. Mountains and seas insulate, language and religion differentiate men, but the law in its economical administration corrects these things into the elements of a genuine brotherhood. The fortunes of the world, so far as they are delegated to human care, are in his hands. The peaceful progress of society is blended with his personal integrity. Commonwealths, corporations and individuals vest their wealth, their reputation, their security in him, and if any one man more than another is under the most sacred of earthly obligations to be an example of the highest integrity, the most exact justice, the noblest virtue of thought, word and action, it is the judge of our courts of record. No feudal baron—no courtly knight—ever had the power that may now be exercised by him.
"Our civilization pledges us to the sway of moral principles; its rule is imperative, because we have assumed the title of men, domesticated our hearts, and accepted the religion of Jesus Christ. Judicial life, by the earnestness with which it has acted in the past crisis of our state and national history, by the patriotic devotion and interpretation of the constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof, by its conservative temper in resisting fanaticism, vice, corruption and fraud has shown itself a watchful guardian of the momentous trusts confided to its keeping. The honest, learned judge has pledged himself for the faith of contracts and treaties; he has jealously guarded the institutions of the country and bravely upheld them as the embodiment of our doctrines and our hopes. The traditions, laws and customs of the country have been committed to him, and with the ever active jealousy of encroachment, he has not disguised his fears of centralization or oppression. Hitherto, irrespective of all party relations, the judicial system was slowly but surely working out the great problems of domestic prosperity. Times have changed, however, and we have changed with them. Our present elective judiciary is indeed the black vomit of reconstruction.
"It may be seriously questioned whether under any circumstances the elective system is adequate for the purpose designed. All classes, high and low, sooner or later come before the tribunal of justice. Its judgments and decrees affect the humblest, as well as the most powerful individual and control the strongest combinations of men. We know that it is utterly impossible to keep the nomination and election clear of mere political influences and those of the worst kind. It is said that revolutions never go backward; nevertheless in the teeth of the adage I confess that I can see no better way of selecting judges than the mode pointed out by the unamended constitutions and the laws and by the general good sense of mankind. I believe that this method is wise and conservative, in harmony with our institutions and sufficiently democratic to satisfy the people. All the rest is faction, demagogism and cabal. The judge should represent no interest, no party, only the law; he is an umpire between man and man, between the individual and the body social.
"What is required in the judge is ability, learning, integrity. In public station it is as necessary to be thought honest as to be so, and the moment the popular mind once takes in the true position of the elective judge, the moment that it perceives the magistrate to be possessed of neither true power nor real dignity, and exposed perpetually to temptation, that moment the influence and usefulness of the judge will be destroyed. Their judgments in such cases will be received without respect and obeyed only so far as they can be enforced, and if the people shall ever break down and trample under foot the defences of unpopular power; the Judiciary will be scouted from their seats, their filthy and tattered ermine will be torn from their backs, and they will be driven out into hopeless ignominy as the meanest of sycophants, and the most truculent of demagogues.... A hundred and eighty years ago the English parliament, sick of the miseries resulting from a corrupt judiciary, changed the tenure of the office, abolished their dependence on the sovereign and made the tenure of their existence dependent on their good behavior alone. From that time to this the English judiciary has risen in character and influence. With us the system is elective. The judicial candidate, like a fish monger, goes with his wares into a market overt. He advertises his opinions—his promises, he makes his pledges, he puts a premium upon the ballot, he weighs to a nicety the purchasable value of negro electors. The rival candidate does the same, and hence the office is purchasable at the price of manhood, integrity, learning and capacity. Thus the whole machinery of the courts is run with an eye single to making political capital for the radical party and intensifying their hatred toward the South.
"And now gentlemen," the governor said in conclusion, "our meeting here to-day will be without its influence upon a power that can 'kill and make alive.'"
At the conclusion of the speech of the governor, it was resolved that messengers should be sent to the president with full power to enter into any treaty or compact for the maintenance of peace and order, and that Governor Ainsworth and Colonel Seymour shall be charged with the execution of the mission.