Judge J. Q. Smith went from Selma to Montgomery, and before him Lindsay and Grant instituted proceedings, demanding that the seal and all books and papers and other property pertaining to the offices of governor and treasurer be delivered to them, respectively. The proceedings lasted several days. Meanwhile, Montgomery was fast filling up with young men, strangers in the community, and there were rumors that bodies of men in near-by towns were awaiting summons to the capital, and that locomotives with steam up and cars attached, ready for service, were side-tracked at a number of stations. Judge Smith’s court-room was daily crowded with strange men. Excitement was intense.
Lindsay in his complaint alleged that he was the qualified successor of Governor Smith; that he had made a demand upon him for the books, papers and paraphernalia of the office of governor, and that Smith refused to deliver them. The trial was set for three o’clock in the afternoon, and Governor Smith was ordered to appear in person in court and show cause why he should not be compelled to deliver the property demanded. Governor Smith did not like the appearance which Montgomery had assumed, nor did he relish the necessity of appearing in that court-room and before that audience contesting the right of the people’s representatives to assume the offices to which they had elected them, nor the certainty that as soon as judgment should be given against him an order for commitment to custody would issue. Accordingly, he had a conference with General Pettus, and soon thereafter announced that he “would yield, upon the ground that, although he was satisfied he was fairly and lawfully re-elected, his continuance of the litigation and the contest in the palpable excitement that surrounded the whole matter would tend to disturb the public peace; and the detriment to the material interests of the people of the state would be infinitely greater than the possession of the office itself by any particular man could possibly compensate.”
Thus negro domination in Alabama was overcome.
And the Ku Klux rode no more.