NEGRO SUFFRAGE
CONGRESS was determined that one of the conditions of reconstruction should be the admission of colored men to the right of suffrage. Most of those who advised this were influenced by politico-economic rather than moral or sentimental considerations. They said to the South, the action of your legislatures and the utterances of your public men and newspapers all evince your determination virtually to restore slavery by establishing peonage. We must either garrison every school district in the South with soldiers at enormous cost in order to protect the Negro, or else we must give him the ballot and enable him to protect himself. If he is made a voter, the struggle of candidates to obtain his vote may protect him.
Congress, as subsequently appeared, was determined to make Negro suffrage an essential part of any plan of reconstruction. Johnson was equally determined to refuse the franchise to the black man, and he had the power to do it.
KU-KLUX OUTRAGES
ONE of the most potent instrumentalities in discrediting Andrew Johnson was the Ku-Klux Klan. It would be impossible within the limits of this article to give even a brief synopsis of the outrages of this remarkable band of outlaws. The report of the “Congressional Committee on Affairs in the Insurrectionary States,” made to the Forty-second Congress, fills thirteen large volumes. The Ku-Klux organization extended over eleven States. It was estimated that its membership exceeded one hundred thousand, and included men who otherwise were reputable and respected citizens. Its avowed purpose was to exclude from participation in public affairs, either as voters or office-holders, all Negroes, all “carpet-baggers,” as incomers from the North were called, and all “scallywags,” as Southern Union men were designated.
The purpose of the Ku-Klux Klan was not primarily to depredate private property, but for a long period they were merciless in dealing with those who came under their ban. A white man obnoxious to them was ordered to leave the vicinage. If he failed to obey, the torch was applied to his home, and he was openly assaulted or secretly assassinated. If he offered armed resistance, he was murdered. The colored man who attempted to exercise the right of suffrage was called from his cabin at midnight, tied to a tree, and whipped, and his house was burned to the ground. Prosecutions of the members of the Ku-Klux instituted in the Federal courts in North Carolina, in South Carolina, and in other States almost invariably resulted in failure for want of proof, hard to get; and not until the second administration of General Grant were these outlaws finally disbanded and dispersed.
PUBLIC SENTIMENT AGAINST JOHNSON’S POLICIES
TWO great national conventions were held in the year 1866, one at Pittsburg and the other at Philadelphia. The latter, beginning on September 3, was made up in large measure of Southern loyalists and other civilians, among whom the tide of patriotism ran high. It made a tremendous impression upon the country and upon the recalcitrant and dissatisfied South. Among the delegates were Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John G. Whittier, eleven governors, and eight United States senators. Among the thousands of Unionists whom I met there was James A. Garfield, who had won his spurs as a major-general in the field, who subsequently served in the House of Representatives, became President, and died that tragic death which history has sadly recorded. In his joyousness and geniality he seemed to me like a great overgrown boy. While masses of shouting, cheering, and singing men were parading through Independence Square, within the sound of the Liberty Bell, that big man passed his arms affectionately about the shoulders of a young soldier, whom he did not know, and strode proudly along as though the latter had been his lifelong friend. It was enough for Garfield to know that the other was a comrade. I was the obscure young soldier.
The object of the convention was to devise means for the protection of the imperiled lives and property of loyal Southerners. The chairman, the Hon. Charles Gibbons, voiced the purpose of the convention when he said: “It is the honest sentiment of the North, held and uttered in the interests of union, of peace, and of Christianity, that when the South returns to her duty she must come in new robes, with new covenants for liberty, equality, and justice, led by her own loyal Unionists, who are free from the guilt of treason.”
The Union Soldiers’ and Sailors’ convention, at Pittsburg, followed the other in the same month. It was equally large, equally serious and determined in its character and utterances. It was attended by hosts of soldiers of all grades, from private to major-general. The speeches and resolutions breathed a sentiment of deep devotion to the restored Union, expressed a fearless determination to prevent the fruits of the nation’s sacrifices from being snatched away or diluted. Revolt against the tendencies in the White House and the South was general among the friends of the Union.