"It took a cowardly wretch to commit a crime like his," said a member of the throng. The trembling man was hurried to the trapdoor, the noose was adjusted, the black cap put on, the trap sprung, all as quickly as possible, the victim kicking, scratching, clawing, the little that he could, and bellowing, "I killed a nigger! I killed a nigger!" As his body shot down, his last words were "O God, I killed a—." The sentence was finished in the other world. A few convulsive jerks, and the murderer of an innocent fellow being and the despoiler of virtue had gone to his reward.
CHAPTER XXII.
WORSE THAN DEATH.
The astounding fact brought to light in our foregoing chapter, the successful substitution of Horace Christian, a white man, for a Negro, John Wysong, would not, perhaps, have been so easy of accomplishment, if its sole reliance had been the likeness which Lanier had created and the circumstances already set forth. There were other factors that contributed to the success of the scheme, which factors we shall now mention in order that so remarkable an occurrence may be the more fully understood.
As a result of the Civil war, four million Negroes who had not been permitted individual self-management or family management, who had been rigorously prevented from developing and using collective wisdom—four million illiterate Negroes of this description were practically given control of State Governments that called for a high degree of self-mastery on the part of the units of the governing force; that demanded ability to legislate in a manner that could command the respect of the collective wisdom of an antagonistic group, rich in examples of exalted statesmanship.
The outcome of the situation was a wedding between Thomas Jefferson and Charles Darwin, the truism of the household thus formed being, "All men are created equal, but the fittest survive." In order to dislodge their former field hands who were sitting in the seats formerly occupied by Thomas Jefferson and John C. Calhoun, the more scrupulous among the whites were allowed to take back seats, while the less scrupulous resorted to violence and fraud to restore the government to the hands of its former rulers, a result well pleasing to all of them.
It can readily be seen that conditions were propitious for the exercise of talents not anywhere, in normal times, considered as desirable. With the highest needs of a community apparently calling for lawlessness and knavery; with virtue stating that she would be forever destroyed without the protection of vice—under such conditions, in some sections of the South, the reins of government fell into the hands of evil men and the taint of party politics affected everything that these men touched.
In this period of transition even the judiciary was sometimes honeycombed with politics. The same blighting shadow cast itself over the prison system where appointees were selected with regard to their "political pull." This state of affairs will account to you for the latitude allowed to the successful politician, Lanier, a product of his times, in his dealing with the condemned Negro, John Wysong.
Another factor in rendering the substitution so successful, was as follows: Under the system of slavery, the whites, being interested in the Negroes from many points of view, habitually scrutinized their features and were adepts at distinguishing one Negro from another. When freedom came, the necessity for close inspection passed away. The altered demeanor of the former slave begat a species of contempt in the former master. Thus, while self-interest under slavery led the white man's eyes to the Negro, contempt for what he regarded as insolence led his eyes away from him after the coming of freedom. The white woman who coined the phrase, "All niggers look alike to me," is but an illustration of what is here set forth.