The registration of voters for the election of 1868 was under military supervision and regulation. Registration was kept open at polling places up to and including time of election. The registers of voters and election officers were appointed by military officers, and nearly every register was a candidate for office. He was given power to reject any applicant for registration. Soldiers were present at all polling places to enforce the regulations, which forbade the challenging of illegal voters: citizens were forbidden under severe penalties to warn election judges or expose the fact even if they should see a non-resident or minor or repeater offer to deposit a ballot. Voters were permitted to cast their ballots at any precinct in the county. Negroes were eligible to all offices.
The returns of the election disclosed the fact that the majority of the registered voters had abstained from participation in the election, and hence the constitution was not adopted by the people—according to the declaration of the military authorities, lacking 8,000 of the requisite number of votes. In view of this authoritative declaration, the radical candidates did not claim the offices to which they had aspired, and the incumbents for the time being were not disturbed. But, to the amazement of the people and its own dishonor, Congress in June, 1868, accepted the constitution as ratified by the people, and recognized the candidates as elected officers, and in July they were installed by military power, the former officers retiring under protest.
In order that the reader may understand the situation and how poorly prepared were the people for such a reign, we must go back to the beginning and note other occurrences which had a direct bearing on that situation.
CHAPTER FOUR
A Grave Problem
At the termination of the war between the sections, the southern people had thrust upon them for solution the gravest and most difficult problem with which the white race on this continent was ever perplexed,—how to preserve their civilization with the government operating in opposition to their efforts.
After four years of warfare, the south was prostrate before the victorious people of the north, whose armies were quartered in garrisons everywhere in the surrendered territory, to enforce with arms, if necessary, whatever oppressive and humiliating measures might be conceived in hatred and vengeance by fanatics whose intolerance had made the bloody conflict irrepressible, and who were determined to extend and perpetuate the political power gained by conquest. The means adopted were enfranchisement of the emancipated slaves and disfranchisement of all white men who had at all distinguished themselves as leaders, while extending favors to those who would ally themselves with the oppressors and betray their countrymen.
The difficulties of the situation in which the defeated southerners were placed were appalling. Naught of the former wealth of the country was left save the land—which in the disorganized state of labor was almost a burden to the possessors—and some cotton which had accumulated because exportation was prevented by the blockade of the ports; and upon this the federal government imposed an unconstitutional tax of three cents a pound. Farm implements were crude and scarce; the necessities of the Confederate government in its expiring struggles had stripped the country of the best of the draft and food animals; in the Black Belt there were no factories; development of transportation had been checked in its incipiency; education was almost abandoned, and the civil laws suspended. Everything had to be organized or reorganized.