CHAPTER XVI
THE UNION LEAGUE OF AMERICA
Origin of the Union League
In order to understand the absolute control exercised over the blacks by the alien adventurers, as shown in the elections of 1867-1868, it will be necessary to examine the workings of the secret oath-bound society popularly known as the “Loyal League.” The iron discipline of this order wielded by a few able and unscrupulous whites held together the ignorant negro masses for several years and prevented any control by the conservative whites.
The Union League movement began in the North in 1862, when the outlook for the northern cause was gloomy. The moderate policy of the Washington government had alienated the extremists; the Confederate successes in the field and Democratic successes in the elections, the active opposition of the “Copperheads” to the war policy of the administration, the rise of the secret order of the Knights of the Golden Circle in the West opposed to further continuance of the war, the strong southern sympathies of the higher classes of society, the formation of societies for the dissemination of Democratic and southern literature, the low ebb of loyalty to the government in the North, especially in the cities—all these causes resulted in the formation of Union Leagues throughout the North.[1542] This movement began among those associated in the work of the United States Sanitary Commission. These people were important neither as politicians nor as warriors, and they had sufficient leisure to observe the threatening state of society about them. “Loyalty must be organized, consolidated, and made effective,” they declared. The movement, first organized in Ohio, took effective form in Philadelphia in the fall of 1862, and in December of that year the Union League of Philadelphia was organized. The members were pledged to uncompromising and unconditional loyalty to the Union, the complete subordination of political ideas thereto, and the repudiation of any belief in states’ rights. The New York Union League Club followed the example of the Philadelphia League early in 1863, and adopted, word for word, its declaration of principles.[1543] Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Baltimore, and other cities followed suit, and soon Leagues modelled after the Philadelphia plan and connected by a loose bond of federation were formed in every part of the North. These Leagues were social as well as political in their aims. The “Loyal National League” of New York, an independent organization with thirty branches, was absorbed by the Union League, and the “Loyal Publication Society” of New York, which also came under its control, was used to disseminate the proper kind of political literature.
As the Federal armies went South, the Union League spread among the disaffected element of the southern people.[1544] Much interest was taken in the negro, and negro troops were enlisted through its efforts. Teachers were sent South in the wake of the armies to teach the negroes, and to use their influence in securing negro enlistments. In this and in similar work the League acted in coöperation with the Freedmen’s Aid Societies, the Department of Negro Affairs, and later with the Freedmen’s Bureau. With the close of the war it did not cease to take an active interest in things political. It was one of the earliest bodies to declare for negro suffrage and white disfranchisement,[1545] and this declaration was made repeatedly during the three years following the war, when it was continued as a kind of Radical bureau in the Republican party to control the negro vote in the South. Its agents were always in the lobbies of Congress, clamoring for extreme measures; the Reconstruction policy of Congress was heartily indorsed and the President condemned. Its headquarters were in New York, and it was represented in each state by “State Members.” John Keffer of Pennsylvania was “State Member” for Alabama.
Part of the work of the League was to distribute campaign literature, and most of the violent pamphlets on Reconstruction questions will be found to have the Union League imprint. The New York League alone circulated about 70,000 publications,[1546] while the Philadelphia Union League far surpassed this record, circulating 4,500,000 political pamphlets[1547] within eight years. The literature printed consisted largely of accounts of “southern atrocities.” The conclusions of Carl Schurz’s report on the condition of the South justified, the League historian claims, the publication and dissemination of such choice stories as these: A preacher in Bladon (Springs), Alabama, said that the woods in Choctaw County stunk with dead negroes. Some were hanged to trees and left to rot; others were burned alive.
It is quite likely that such Leagues as those in New York and Philadelphia, after the first year or two of Reconstruction, grew away from the strictly political “Union League of America” and became more and more social clubs. The spiritual relationship was close, however, and in political belief they were one. The eminently respectable members of the Union Leagues of Philadelphia and New York had little in common with the southern Leagues except radicalism. Southern “Unionists” who went North were entertained by the Union League and their expenses paid. In 1866 the Philadelphia convention of southern “Unionists” was taken in hand by the League, carried to New York, and entertained at the expense of the latter. In 1867 several of the Leagues sent delegates to Virginia to reconcile the two warring factions of Radicals. The formation of the Union League among the southern “Unionists” was extended throughout the South within a few months of the close of the war, but a “discreet secrecy” was maintained. In Alabama it was easy for the disaffected whites, especially those who had been connected with the Peace Society, to join the order, which soon included Peace Society men, “loyalists,” deserters, and many anti-administration Confederates. The most respectable element consisted of a few old Whigs who had an intense hatred of the Democrats, and who wanted to crush them by any means. In this stage the League was strongest in the white counties of the hill and mountain country.[1548]