Blackford became alarmed at this manifestation of displeasure, and fled to the hills north of the town. There he was pursued by the rioters in uniform, and, resuming his flight, sought refuge at the home of a citizen, who apprised leading citizens of Greensboro of his whereabouts and peril. They informed the military commander, who, in turn, dispatched a squad of cavalry to rescue him and conduct him to town. Blackford, on his return, renounced his political heresies and aspirations to the judgeship, which he declared he would not accept; but, recovering his confidence in the stability of the military powers and his negro backing, he quickly recanted and relapsed into arrogance.
Tuscaloosa county was not neglected by place-hunters, but the preponderance of whites in that county was a restraining influence.
Luther R. Smith, a carpetbagger from Michigan, provisional circuit judge in 1866, was elected to that position in 1868, and simultaneously a member of the legislature, but had decency to resign the latter trust. Notwithstanding he subsequently violated the judicial proprieties by presiding over a radical state convention in Selma. He was one of the most respectable of the intruders, and reputed to be just, impartial and courteous on the bench. Nevertheless he shared, in a lesser measure, the odium which attached to all. The feeling of the people was that no right-minded man would thrust himself into public position under the peculiar circumstances.
All the members of the United States House of Representatives from Alabama were carpetbaggers—officers in the United States army. Charles W. Pierce represented the fourth district. He held a commission as major. His course in the interval when the constitution was in abeyance was the same as that of Colonel Callis, who caused more discussion. Colonel Callis was elected to Congress from the Huntsville district, in competition with General Joseph W. Burke, a man of character and education. General Burke was the Republican nominee, and Callis bolted. Callis was a federal soldier and agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau, at Huntsville. While canvassing, he was attired in the uniform of a colonel. When the constitution was rejected and declared rejected by General Meade, and the fact communicated to General Grant and by him communicated to Congress, and the action of Congress looked to the rejection of the constitution, Colonel Callis left Huntsville and went upon duty to Mississippi as an army officer. When Congress accepted the constitution and admitted Alabama under the “omnibus” measure, Callis hurried to Washington and took his seat as a representative from Alabama, notwithstanding he had never been a citizen of the state and was then a resident of Mississippi. Pierce was succeeded by Charles Hays, of Greene county, in November, 1869.
The state was represented in the federal Senate by Willard Warner and George E. Spencer, the first named a northern general, the other, an army contractor. Judge Busteed, under oath, said that when elected Warner was not a citizen of Alabama; that when summoned a short while before as a juror in his court, Warner claimed exemption on the plea that he was a senator of the state of Ohio. Governor William H. Smith, in a letter published in the Huntsville Advocate, said: “Spencer lives upon the passions and prejudices of the races. The breath of peace would leave him on the surface, neglected and despised.” And Spencer characterized his colleague as a “a trifling and worthless man.”
Being unobjectionable as to “loyalty,” all of these non-citizens were permitted to take their seats; and for the first time since 1861 Alabama was represented (?) in the federal Congress, notwithstanding the fact that during a part of that period the people were taxed by the government which denied them representation—taxed unconstitutionally (in the case of cotton), as the Supreme Court subsequently decided.
William H. Smith, of Randolph county, displaced Governor Patton. His character will be revealed as these pages multiply.
The state supreme court justices were evicted, and S. W. Peck, Thomas M. Peters and B. F. Saffold substituted for them. There is little to be said of them by a layman, except that the first named favored suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, during the Ku Klux era, and the last named declared unconstitutional the law under which a justice of the peace was convicted of solemnizing the rites of matrimony between a white man and a negro, and reversed the judgment of the lower court.
President Lincoln in 1863 appointed Richard Busteed United States district judge, and in 1865 the appointee came to the state and assumed the bench. Whatever else may be said of him, he was bold in expression of opinion, judicial and personal; and during the carpetbag régime he testified that “the general character of Alabama office-holders for intelligence and honesty was not good.” In 1870 Francis S. Lyon, of Demopolis, testified that a bill was filed in Judge Busteed’s court to foreclose two mortgages on the Alabama Central Railroad (Selma to Meridian), and the cost of that suit, paid by New York creditors of the road, amounted to $122,000. The institution presided over by Judge Busteed was costly to litigants, to say the least.
A. J. Applegate became lieutenant-governor. Mr. William M. Lowe, of Huntsville, testifying before the congressional commission in 1870, said of him: