After it was seen that existing political institutions were to be overturned, the white councils and, to a certain extent, the negro councils became simply associations for those training for leadership in the new party soon to be formed in the state by act of Congress. The few whites who were in control did not care to admit more white members, as there might be too many to share in the division of the spoils. Hence we find that terms of admission were made more stringent, and, especially after the passage of the Reconstruction Acts, in March, 1867, many applicants were rejected. The alien element was in control of the League. The result was that where the blacks were numerous the largest plums fell to the carpet-baggers. The negro leaders,—politicians, preachers, and teachers,—trained in the League, acted as subordinates to the white leaders in controlling the black population, and they were sent out to drum up the country negroes when elections drew near. They were also given minor positions when offices were more plentiful than carpet-baggers. All together they received but few offices, which fact was later a cause of serious complaint.
The largest white membership of the League was in 1865-1866, and after that date it constantly decreased. The largest negro membership was in 1867 and 1868. Only the councils in the towns remained active after the election of 1868, for after the discipline of 1867 and 1868 it was not necessary to look so closely after the plantation negro, and he became a kind of visiting member of the council in the town.[1573] The League as an organization gradually died out by 1869, except in the largest towns. Many of them were transformed into political clubs, loosely organized under local political leaders. The Ku Klux Klan undoubtedly had much to do with breaking up the League as an organization. The League as the ally and successor of the Freedmen’s Bureau was one of the causes of the Ku Klux movement, because it helped to create the conditions which made such a movement inevitable.[1574] In 1870 the Radical leaders missed the support formerly given by the League, and an urgent appeal was sent out all over the State from headquarters in New York by John Keffer and others advocating the reëstablishment of the Union Leagues to assist in carrying the elections of 1870.[1575]
However, before its dissolution, the League had served its purpose. It made it possible for a few outsiders to control the negro by alienating the races politically, as the Bureau had done socially. It enabled the negroes to vote as Radicals for several years, when without it they either would not have voted at all or they would have voted as Democrats along with their former masters. The order was necessary to the existence of the Radical party in Alabama. No ordinary political organization could have welded the blacks into a solid party. The Freedmen’s Bureau, which had much influence over the negroes for demoralization, was too weak in numbers to control the negroes in politics. The League finally absorbed the personnel of the Bureau and inherited its prestige.[1576]
PART VI
CARPET-BAG AND NEGRO RULE
CHAPTER XVII
TAXATION AND THE PUBLIC DEBT