The spring of 1867 saw the white Radical party stronger than it ever was again. The few native whites who were to take part in the Reconstruction had chosen their side. After this time the party gradually lost all its respectable members. The carpet-baggers and Bureau agents had not yet shown their strength. The scalawags did not foresee that to the carpet-baggers would fall the lion’s share of the plunder, owing to their control over the negro vote.
The President’s plan failed, not because of any inherent defect in itself, but because of the bungling manner in which it was administered. If President Johnson had been content to place confidence in any one of the agencies to which were intrusted the government of the South, it would have been better. Had the governments set up by him been endowed with vigor, it is probable that Congress would not have fallen wholly under the control of the Radicals. The penalty for the indiscretions of the President was visited upon the South. To-day the southern people like to believe that, had Lincoln lived, his policy would have succeeded, and the horrors of Reconstruction would have been mitigated or prevented. Johnson’s policy was that of Lincoln, except that he reserved to himself a much larger part in setting up and running the provisional governments. He established state governments, pronounced them constitutional, completed, perfected, and asked Congress to recognize them before he had proclaimed the rebellion at an end or restored the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.[1078]
He interfered himself, and allowed or ordered the army to interfere, in the smallest details of local administration. The military rule in Alabama was on the whole as well administered as it could be, which is seldom well. There were too few soldiers and the posts were too widely separated for the exercise of any firm or consistent authority. But the people were sorry to see even the worst of this give place to the reign of carpet-bagger, scalawag, and negro. The interference of the army and the President discredited the civil government in the minds of the people. The absolute rule of the President over the whole of ten states, though never used for bad purposes, was, nevertheless, not to be viewed with equanimity by those who were afraid of the almost absolute power that the executive had assumed during the war. That the power had not been used for bad purposes was no guarantee against future misuse. There was some excuse for the pretended fright of the Radical leaders, like Sumner and Stevens, and the real anxiety of more moderate men, at the dictatorial course of Johnson. But it must be said that a desire for a share in political appointments was a cause of much of this “real anxiety.”
From 1865 to 1868, and even later, there was, for all practical purposes, over the greater part of the people of Alabama, no government at all. There was little disorder; the people were busy with their own affairs. Public opinion ruled the respectable people. Until the close of Reconstruction, the military and civil government touched the people mainly to annoy. From 1865 to 1874 government and respect for government were weakened to a degree from which it has not yet recovered. The people governed themselves extra-legally and have not recovered from the practice.
By taking cases from the civil authorities for trial before military commission, by dictating the course of the civil government, by nullifying the actions of the highest executive officers, the acts of the legislature, and the decisions of the highest courts, the army was mainly responsible for the lack of confidence in the civil administration.
CHAPTER X
MILITARY GOVERNMENT, 1865-1866
In the account of the affairs thus far we have seen many evidences of the active participation of the military power of the United States in the conduct of government in Alabama. It will be useful at this point to examine with some care the form and scope of the authority concerned during the period of the provisional state government’s existence.