The courts were not interfered with as under Pope’s rule. The judges continued to have white jurors chosen, and the army officers, as a rule, approved. In one case, however, in Calhoun County, there was trouble. One Lieutenant Charles T. Johnson, Fifteenth Infantry, attended the court presided over by Judge B. T. Pope. He found that no negroes were on the jury, and demanded that the judge order a mixed jury to be chosen. The judge declined to comply, and Johnson at once arrested him. Johnson found that the clerk of the court did not agree with him, and he arrested the clerk also. Pope was placed in jail until released by Meade.[1345] The conduct of Johnson was condemned in the strongest terms by Meade, who ordered him to be court-martialed. A general order was published reciting the facts of the case and expressing the severest censure of the conduct of Johnson. Meade informed the public generally that even had Judge Pope violated previous orders, Johnson had nothing to do in the case except to report to headquarters. Moreover, Johnson was wrong in holding that all juries had to be composed partly of blacks. This order stopped interference with the courts in Alabama.[1346]
Meade did not approve of Pope’s policy toward newspapers, and on February 2, 1868, he issued an order modifying General Order No. 49 on the ground that it had in its operations proved embarrassing. In the future, public printing was to be denied to such papers only as might attempt to intimidate civil officials by threats of violence or prosecution, as soon as the troops were withdrawn, for acts performed in their official capacity. However, if there was but one paper in the county, then it was to have the county printing regardless of its editorial opinions. “Opposition to reconstruction, when conducted in a legitimate manner, is,” the order stated, “not to be considered an offence.” Violent and incendiary articles, however, were to be considered illegal,[1347] and newspapers were warned to keep within the bounds of legitimate discussion. The Ku Klux movement, especially after it was seen that Congress was going to admit the state, notwithstanding the defeat of the constitution, gave Meade some trouble. Its notices were published in various papers, and Meade issued an order prohibiting this custom. The army officers were ordered to arrest and try offenders. Only one editor came to grief. Ryland Randolph, the editor of the Independent Monitor, of Tuscaloosa, was arrested by General Shepherd and his paper suppressed for a short time.[1348]
General Meade was no negrophile, and hence under him there were no more long oration orders on the rights of “that large class of citizens heretofore excluded from the suffrage.” He set himself resolutely against all attempts to stir up strife between the races, and quietly reported at the time, and again a year later, that the stories of violence and intimidation, which Congress accepted without question, were without foundation. He ordered that in the state institutions for the deaf, dumb, blind, and insane, the blacks should have the same privileges as the whites. The law of the state allowed to the sheriffs for subsistence of prisoners, fifty cents a day for white and forty cents a day for negro prisoners. Meade ordered that the fees be the same for both races, and that the same fare and accommodations be given to both. Swayne had abolished the chain-gang system the year before, because it chiefly affected negro offenders. Meade gave the civil authorities permission to restore it.[1349]
The convention had passed ordinances which amounted to stay laws for the relief of debtors. In order to secure support for the constitution, it was provided that these ordinances were to go into effect with the constitution. Complaint was made that creditors were oppressing their debtors in order to secure payment before the stay laws should go into effect. Though opposed in principle to such laws, Meade considered that under the circumstances some relief was needed. The price of cotton was low, and the forced sales were ruinous to the debtors and of little benefit to the creditors. Therefore, in January, he declared the ordinances in force to continue, unless the constitution should be adopted. A later order, in May, declared that the ordinances would be considered in force until revoked by himself.[1350]
Trials by Military Commissions
When the ghostly night riders of the Ku Klux Klan began to frighten the carpet-baggers and the negroes, Meade directed all officials, civil and military, to organize patrols to break up the secret organizations. Civil officials neglecting to do so were held to be guilty of disobedience of orders. Where army officers raised posses to aid in maintaining the peace, the expenses were charged to the counties or towns where the disturbances occurred.[1351]
Nearly all prisoners arrested by the military authorities were turned over to the civil courts for trial. Military commissions were frequently in session to try cases when it was believed the civil authorities would be influenced by local considerations. The following list of such trials is complete: H. K. Quillan of Lee County and Langdon Ellis, justice of the peace of Chambers County, were tried for “obstructing reconstruction” and were acquitted; Richard Hall of Hale County, tried for assault, was acquitted;[1352] Joseph B. F. Hill, William Pettigrew, T. W. Roberts, and James Steele of Greene County were sentenced to hard labor for five years, for “whipping a hog thief, and threatening to ride him on a rail”;[1353] Samuel W. Dunlap, William Pierce, Charles Coleman, and John Kelley, implicated in the same case, were fined $500 each, and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment; Frank H. Munday, Hugh L. White, John Cullen, and Samuel Strayhorn, charged with the same offence, were each fined $500, and sentenced to hard labor for two years;[1354] Ryland Randolph, editor of the Monitor, was tried for “obstructing reconstruction” in his paper and for nearly killing a negro, and was acquitted. During the trial Busteed granted a writ of habeas corpus, and Meade and Grant both were prepared to submit to the decision of the court, but Randolph wanted the military trial to go on.[1355]
Meade was much irritated by the careless conduct of officers in reporting cases for trial by military courts which were unable to stand the test of examination. After frequent failures to substantiate charges in cases sent up for trial, orders were issued that subordinate officials must exercise the greatest caution and care in preferring charges, and in all cases must state the reasons why the civil authorities could not act. Sworn statements of witnesses must accompany the charges, and the accused must be given an opportunity to forward evidence in his favor.[1356]
The Soldiers and the Citizens
The troops in the state during 1867 and 1868, though sadly demoralized as to discipline, gave the people little trouble except in the vicinity of the military posts. The records of the courts-martial show that the negroes were the greatest sufferers from the outrages of the common soldiers. The whites were irritated chiefly by the arrogant conduct of a few of the post commanders and their subordinates. At Mount Vernon, Frederick B. Shepard, an old man, was arrested and carried before Captain Morris Schoff, who shot the unarmed prisoner as soon as he appeared. For this murder Schoff was court-martialed and imprisoned for ten years.[1357] Johnson, the officer who arrested Judge Pope, was cordially hated in middle Alabama. He arrested a negro who refused to vote for the constitution; in a quarrel he took the crutch of a cripple and struck him over the head with it; hung two large United States flags over the sidewalk of the main street in Tuscaloosa, and when the schoolgirls avoided walking under them, it being well understood that Johnson had placed them there to annoy the women, he stationed soldiers with bayonets to force the girls to pass under the flags. For his various misdeeds he was court-martialed by Meade.[1358]