When Mr. Phillips says that if the Government and the people do not accept his doctrine, he will turn scoundrel and join a party of scoundrels, he does his doctrine the very worst injury possible.
Meanwhile there was a witches' caldron boiling in the South. The Confederate States had been impoverished by the war. Their labor system had been overturned under circumstances and in a mode that no other people had ever experienced. The negroes knew nothing of the responsibilities of freedom. They could not understand the meaning of a contract. The ex-slaves, when hired for a specified time, might abandon their work the next day or the next week, and return the following day or week and run the risk of being flogged or shot, either for going away or for coming back. The ex-masters, knowing only one way of getting work out of the negro,—that of compulsion,—contended and believed that there was no other way, or none that would serve the purpose during their lifetime; and since the crops of the present year could not wait for the milder teachings of education and reason, they adopted the only means that would secure immediate results. The planters, or the majority of them, were still further crippled by having no money to pay wages. All of their money had become filthy rags by the downfall of the Confederacy. The only alternative was hiring labor on shares. This was an embarrassment that the Northern men (carpet-baggers) who went to the South directly after the war did not suffer from. Some of these, tempted by the high price of cotton and the low price of land, hired or bought plantations, and they had the pick of the labor market because they could pay cash. Their example was a fresh irritation to the impecunious native planter, who, in losing the Confederacy, had lost everything except the clothes he stood in, which were much the worse for wear.
If there was to be a crop of cotton, or of anything, in 1865, the laboring population must be kept in some kind of order. Work days must be continuous, and not alternative with hunting and fishing days and play days. The planters looked to their legislatures in this emergency, and the legislatures enacted laws as near to the old slave codes as the condition of emancipation would allow,—if not nearer. These enactments began to reach the North before the Thirty-ninth Congress assembled. They were accompanied by tales of cruelty and outrage committed upon the freedmen, and of disloyal utterances and threats on the part of the unreconciled whites, male and female, who had been deprived of every weapon except their tongues. Little account was made of the need of time in which to become reconciled to these changes and to acquire admiration for those who had brought them about.
Among letters which reached Trumbull was one from Colonel J. W. Shaffer, of the Union Army, dated New Orleans, December 25, 1865, who gave the following account of what he had observed along the Gulf Coast:
I have been to Mobile, spent a week there, have traveled around in this state, talked much with friend and enemy, and I unhesitatingly say that our President has been going too fast. I am told by all Union men that after the surrender of the rebel armies the men returned perfectly quiet, came to Southern and Northern Union men, saying, "We don't know what is expected of us by the Government, but one thing is certain, we are tired of war and desire above all things to return to the quiet pursuits of life and try to mend our fortune as best we can, and cultivate a friendly feeling with all parts of the country once more; now tell us how to do this." Soon, however, to their surprise they found that the control of everything was to be again put in their hands, and at once they became insolent, abused the Government openly, and openly declared that Union men and Yankees must leave as soon as the military is withdrawn. Had they been given to understand that the Government was going to continue to govern and control, and that Union men alone would be trusted with the management of affairs, these people would have been entirely satisfied, glad to escape with their lives, and would at once have adapted themselves to circumstances. Now they are drunk with power, ruling and abusing every loyal man, white and black.
Per contra, Dr. C. H. Ray wrote, under date September 29, 1865, on the subject of Reconstruction:
What are our Republican papers thinking of when they make war upon the President as they are now doing? I see that there is hardly one to stand up in his defense, and that he will be fought out of our ranks into the arms of the Democracy. I do not see that he is so guilty as he is said to be, and for one I cannot join the cry against him. What do his assailants expect—to carry the country on the Massachusetts idea of negro suffrage, female suffrage, confiscation, and hanging? If so, they will drive all moderate men out of the party and the remainder straight to perdition.
Only five Northern States at this time allowed negroes to vote at elections, and one of these (New York) required a property qualification from blacks but not from whites. The state of Illinois had an unrepealed black code similar to that of Kentucky, and had added to it, as lately as 1853, a law for imprisoning any black or mulatto person brought into, or coming into, the state, for the purpose of residing there, whether free or otherwise. Some litigation for the enforcement of this act was begun in Cass County in 1863, while the Civil War was in progress.[78]