Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

But it was soon disclosed that on the part of the large mass of those who had participated in the rebellion, properly speaking, indeed, on the part of the vast majority of the white men of the South, there was really no intention to acquiesce in the legislation of Congress, no purpose to abide by the Constitutional Amendment in good faith. A majority of the white people of the South adopted rather the creed of General Blair, whom they had supported for Vice-President, and regarded themselves justified in opposing, repudiating, and if possible destroying, the governments that had grown up under the protection of the Reconstruction Laws. The re-admission of their States to representation was taken by them only as the beginning of the war in which they would more freely wage conflict against that which was distasteful and, as they claimed, oppressive. It is not to be denied that they had the inherent right, inside of Constitutional limitations, to repeal the laws of their States, and even to change the Constitution itself, if they should do it by prescribed methods and by honest majorities, and should not, in the process, disturb the fundamental conditions upon which the General Government had assented to their re-admission to the right of representation in Congress. It was not, however, the purpose of the Southern Democrats to be fettered and embarrassed by any such exemplary restraints. By means lawful or unlawful they determined to uproot and overthrow the State governments that had been established in a spirit of loyalty to the Union. They were resolved that the negro should not be a political power in their local governments; that he should not, so far as their interposition could prevent it, exert any influence over elections, either State or national; and that his suffrage, if permitted to exist at all, should be only in the innocent form of a minority.

Seeing this determination, the National Government interposed its strong arm, and a detail of soldiers at the principal points throughout the South gave a certain protection to those whose rights were otherwise in danger of being utterly trodden down. It certainly has never been proved in a single instance that a legal voter in any Southern State was deprived of his right of suffrage by the presence of United-States troops in those states; but the issue was at once made by the Democratic party against the administration of President Grant, that free elections were impossible in the Southern states unless soldiers of the Regular Army were excluded; that their simple presence was a form of coercion absolutely inconsistent with Republican government. Many of them, as they now declared, had been willing to accept a Military government—as it had existed under Reconstruction; but they objected to the presence of troops in States where self-government had been conceded by Congress.

There was undoubtedly an instinctive reluctance among the people of all sections to permit the location of troops in the neighborhood of polling-places. It had happened that in the long-continued strife in Kansas, Republicans complained that the anti-slavery voters felt intimidated by the presence of troops of the Regular Army. The application was, therefore, readily made to the existing case; and it was not unnaturally or inaptly asked whether the presence of the military at the elections of a State of the Union was not even more offensive than their presence at the elections in a Territory of the Union, which was directly under the control of the National Government. On the abstract issue thus presented the Republicans were placed somewhat at a disadvantage; and yet every white man making the complaint knew that the influence of the troops was not to deprive him of a single right, but was to prevent him from depriving the colored man of all his rights.

Between the effort, therefore, of President Grant's administration to protect free suffrage in the South, and the protest of the Democratic party against protecting it by the military arm of the Government, a physical contest ensued in the Southern States and a political contest throughout the Union. It was perfectly understood, and openly proclaimed, in the South, that the withdrawal of the protection of the National Government from the States lately in rebellion meant the end of suffrage to the colored man, or at least such impairment of its force and influence as practically implied its total destruction. So bitter was the hostility to impartial suffrage, so determined were the men who had lately been in rebellion to concentrate all the political power of the Southern States in their own hands, that vicious organizations, of which the most notable were the Ku-Klux-Klans, were formed throughout the South for the express purpose of depriving the negro of the political rights conferred upon him by law. To effect this purpose they resorted to a series of outrages calculated to inspire the negroes with terror if they attempted to resist the will of white men.

In prosecuting their purposes these clans and organizations hesitated at no cruelty, were deterred by no considerations of law or of humanity. They rode by night, were disguised with masks, were armed as freebooters. They whipped, maimed, or murdered the victims of their wrath. White men who were co-operating with the colored population politically were visited with punishments of excessive cruelty. It was difficult to arrest the authors of these flagrant wrongs. Aside from their disguises, they were protected against inculpating testimony by the fear inspired in the minds of those who might be witnesses; and they were protected even by that portion of the white race who were not willing to join in their excesses. It was well said of the leading members of the clans, that "murder with them was an occupation, and perjury was a pastime." The white man who should give testimony against them did so at the risk of seeing his house burned, of being himself beaten with many stripes; and if the offender had been at all efficient in his hostility, he was, after torture, in many instances, doomed to death.

Congress did its utmost to strengthen the hands of the President in a contest with these desperate elements. By the Act of April 20, 1871, "to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States" (commonly known as the Ku-Klux Act, or the Enforcement Act), the President was empowered to go to the extreme of suspending the writ of habeas corpus where peace and order could not otherwise be restored. Before acting under the provisions of that vigorous statute, General Grant gave warning to the Southern people by proclamation of May 3, 1871, that they might themselves, by good behavior, prevent the necessity of its enforcement. "Sensible," said the President, "of the responsibility imposed upon the Executive by the Act of Congress to which public attention is now called, and reluctant to call into exercise any of the extraordinary powers thereby conferred upon me, except in case of imperative necessity, I do, nevertheless, deem it my duty to make known that I will not hesitate to exhaust the powers thus vested in the Executive, whenever and wherever it shall become necessary to do so, for the purpose of securing to all citizens of the United States the peaceful enjoyment of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution and laws." The extreme power of suspending the writ of habeas corpus now placed in the President's hands was limited in time, and would necessarily end, if not renewed, at the close of the next regular session of Congress.

But the task of enforcing obedience to laws, when obedience is not in the hearts of the people, is the most difficult undertaking ever imposed upon the governing power. If the South had been standing alone, if it had not been receiving daily words of encouragement, of aid, and of comfort, from the North, if it had not seen that the Democratic party in Congress was fighting its battle, it might have yielded to the prestige and power of the National Government. But the situation invited, urged, induced men, to persist. They clearly saw, as their co-operating friends in the North had seen long before, that a compact vote of all the Southern States could be used as the sure foundation of a formidable, and, as they hoped, irresistible political power. It was this hope which nerved their arms for every encounter: it was this prospect of domination that steadily encouraged them to continue a battle which must at times have seemed desperate indeed. As the Southern leaders of an earlier day had strenuously endeavored to maintain equality of membership in the Senate, so now their successors promised to themselves such solidification of their electoral vote, as would by its very force attract sufficient strength in the North to restore the South to a position of command in the National Government.

The instinctive hostility of the American people against the use of troops at elections was not the only weapon of offense which the Democratic party was able to use in this prolonged contest. As soon as the war had closed there was a considerable influx of Northern men in the States of the late Confederacy. The original motive which induced the migration was financial and speculative. A belief was prevalent in the North that great profit might be derived from the cotton-culture, and that with the assured sympathy of the colored men they would be able to command the requisite labor more readily than the old slave masters. As a mere business enterprise cotton-growing at that period, except in a very few instances, proved to be unprofitable. The complete disorganization of labor throughout the South, consequent upon emancipation, had embarrassed production and added largely to its cost. It would inevitably require time to build up a labor-system based on the new relation of the negro to the white race, and it was the misfortune of the Northern men to embark on their venture at the time of all others when it was least likely to prove remunerative. But these men, though pecuniarily unsuccessful, quickly formed relations of kindness and friendship with the negro race. They addressed them in different tone, treated them in a different manner, from that which they had been accustomed in the past to receive from the white race, and it was natural that a feeling of friendship should grow up between the liberated and those whom they regarded as liberators.

It was soon apparent that, under the protection of the National power and with the numerical superiority of the negroes in several States (certain Southern leaders being under political disabilities), it would be easy for the loyal white men to obtain control of the local governments. Out of these circumstances there came into political power the class of men known as "Carpet-baggers"—so described from the insulting presumption that the entire worldly estate of each one of the class was carried in a carpet-bag, enabling him to fly at any moment of danger from the State whose domestic policy he sought to control. The prospect of the success of the new movement induced a number of former rebels to join in it, and to them the epithet of "Scalawag" was applied. This combination was not without disadvantages to the negro. By as much as it gave strength to his political organization, it increased the hatred and desperation of the ruling element among the whites, and demonstrated that the negro could secure the rights conferred upon him by the Constitution and laws, only through violence and bloodshed.

Many of those denounced under the epithet of Carpet-bagger and Scalawag were honorable and true men; but a majority of these were unobtrusive and not brought strongly into popular view, while many of those who became entrusted with the power of State governments and found themselves unexpectedly in possession of great authority were not morally equal to its responsibility. The consequence was that some of the States had wretched governments, officered by bad men, who misled the negro and engaged in riotous corruption. Their transgressions were made so conspicuous that the Republican leaders of other Southern States, who were really trying to act their part worthily and honorably, were obscured from view, and did not obtain a fair hearing at the bar of public opinion. The government of South Carolina, under its series of Republican administrations, was of such character as brought shame upon the Republican party, exposed the negro voters to unmerited obloquy, and thus wrought for the cause of free government and equal suffrage in the South incalculable harm. These Southern State governments proved a source of angry contention inside the Republican party in the North, and thus brought one more calamity to the negro, and gave one more advantage to the rebel element of the South that so persistently sought for his disfranchisement.