Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama

by Walter L. Fleming

CHAPTER XXIV

THE OVERTHROW OF RECONSTRUCTION

The Republican Party in 1874

The Republican party of Alabama went into the campaign of 1874 weakened by dissensions within its own ranks and by the lessening of the sympathy of the northern Radicals. During the previous six years the opposition to the radical Reconstruction policy had gradually gained strength. The industrial expansion that followed the war, the dissatisfaction with the administration of Grant, the disclosure of serious corruption on the part of public officials, and the revelations of the real conditions in the South—these had resulted in the formation of a party of opposition to the administration, which called itself the “Liberal Republican” party and which advocated home rule for the southern states. The Democratic party, somewhat discredited by its course during the war, had now regained the confidence of its former members by accepting as final the decisions of the war on the questions involved and by bringing out conservative candidates on practical platforms. By 1874 nine northern states had gone Democratic in the elections; from 1869 to 1872, five southern states returned to the Democratic columns. The lower house of Congress was soon to be safely Democratic and no more radical legislation was to be expected; the executive department of the government alone was in active sympathy with the Reconstruction régime in the southern states.

The divisions within the party in the state were due to various causes. In the first place, the action of the more respectable of the whites in deserting the party left it with too few able men to hold the organization well together. By 1874 all but about 4000 whites had forsaken the Republicans and returned to the Democrats. These whites were mainly in north Alabama, though there were some few in the Black Belt,—five, for instance, in Marengo County, and fifty in Dallas. A further source of weakness was the disposition of the black politician to demand more consideration than had hitherto been accorded to him. The blacks had received much political training of a certain kind since 1867, and the negro leaders were no longer the helpless dupes of the carpet-bagger and the scalawag. A meeting of the negro politicians, called the “Equal Rights Union,” was held in Montgomery in January, 1874. The resolutions adopted demanded that the blacks have first choice of the nominations in black counties and a proportional share in all other counties. They expressed themselves as opposed to the efforts of the carpet-baggers to organize new secret political societies, “having found no good to result from such since the disbursement [sic] of the Union League.”[2120] If the negroes should be able to obtain these demands, nothing would be left for the white members of the party. The rank and file of the blacks had lost much of their faith in their white leaders and were disposed to listen to candidates of their own color. Closely connected with the negroes’ demands for office were their demands for social rights. The state supreme court had decided that whites and blacks might lawfully intermarry, and there had been several instances of such marriages between low persons of each race.[2121] Noisy negro speakers were demanding the passage of the Civil Rights Bill then pending in Congress. A Mobile negro declared that he wanted to drink in white men’s saloons, ride in cars with whites, and go to the same balls. The white Radicals in convention and legislature were disposed to avoid the subject when the blacks brought up the question of “mixed accommodations.” The negroes constantly reminded the white Radicals that the latter were very willing to associate with them in the legislature and in political meetings. The speeches of Boutwell of Massachusetts and Morton of Indiana in favor of mixed schools were quoted by the negro speakers, who now became impatient of the constant request of their leaders not to offend north Alabama and drive out of the party the whites of that region. Lewis, a negro member of the legislature, declared that they were weary of waiting for their rights; that the state would not grant them, but the United States would; and then they would take their proper places alongside the whites, and “we intend to do it in defiance of the immaculate white people of north Alabama.... Hereafter we intend to demand [our rights] and we are going to press them on every occasion, and preserve them inviolate if we can. The day is not far distant when you will find on the bench of the supreme court of the state a man as black as I am, and north Alabama may help herself if she can.”[2122] An “Equal Rights Convention,” from which white Radicals were excluded, met in Montgomery in June, 1874. The various speakers demanded that colored youths be admitted to the State University, to the Agricultural and Mechanical College, and to all other schools on an equal footing with the whites, “in order that the idea of the inferiority of the negro might be broken up.” Several delegates expressed themselves as in favor of mixed schools, but advised delay in order not to drive out the white members of the party. A negro preacher from Jackson County said that he wanted to hold on to the north Alabama whites “until their stomachs grew strong enough to take Civil Rights straight.”[2123] In 1867 and 1868 there had been some blacks who had opposed the agitation of social matters on the ground that their civil and political rights would be endangered, but these were no longer in politics. The result of the agitation in 1874 was to irritate the whites generally and to cause the defection of north Alabama Republicans.

Another cause of weakness in the Radical party was the quarrel among the Reconstruction newspapers of the state over the distribution of the money for printing the session laws of Congress. The State Journal and the Mountain Home lost the printing, which, by direction of the Alabama delegation in Congress, was given to the Huntsville Advocate and the National Republican, “to aid needy newspapers in other localities for the benefit of the Republican party.” The result was discord among the editors and a lukewarm support of the party from those dissatisfied.[2124]

In 1874 in each county where there was a strong Republican vote discord arose among those who wanted office. Every white Radical wanted a nomination and the negroes also wanted a share. The results were temporary splits everywhere in the county organizations, which were usually mended before the elections, but which seriously weakened the party. The Strobach-Robinson division in Montgomery County may be taken as typical. Strobach was the carpet-bag sheriff of Montgomery County, which was overwhelmingly black. There was reason to believe that Strobach was being purchased by the Democrats.[2125] The stalwarts accused him of conspiring with the Democrats to sell the administration to them. They charged that he would not allow the negroes to use the court-house for political meetings, that entirely too many Republicans were indicted at his instance, and that he summoned as jurors too many Democrats and “Strobach traitors” and too few Republicans. As leader of the regular organization Strobach had considerable influence in spite of these charges, and his enemies undertook to form a new organization. The leaders of the bolters, known as the Robinson faction, were Busteed, Buckley, Barbour, and Robinson. They made the fairest promises and secured the support of the majority of the negroes, though Strobach still controlled many. Between the two factions there was practically civil war during 1874. The bolters organized their negroes in the “National Guards,” a semi-military society—5000 or 6000 strong. This body broke up the Strobach meetings, and serious disturbances occurred at Wilson’s Station, Elam Church, and at Union Springs. At the latter place the bolters attempted to take forcible possession of the congressional nominating convention. The negroes, led by a few whites, invaded the town, firing guns and pistols and making threats until it seemed as if a three-cornered fight would result between the whites and the two factions of the blacks. Rapier, the negro congressman, made peace by agreeing to support the Robinson-Buckley faction provided they kept the peace and allowed him to receive the nomination for Congress from the other faction. They forced him to sign an agreement to that effect, which he repudiated a few days later. The bolters were not admitted to the state convention in 1874, and thus weakness resulted. During the summer and fall of 1874, ten or twelve negroes were killed and numbers injured in the fights between the factions.[2126]

The Democrats naturally did all that was possible to encourage such division in the ranks of the enemy. Bolting candidates and independent candidates, especially negroes, were secretly supported by advice and funds. Carpet-bag and scalawag leaders were purchased, and agreed to use their influence to divide their party. To some of them it was clear that the whites would soon be in control, and meanwhile they were willing to profit by selling out their party.[2127] For two or three years it had been a practice in the Black Belt for the Radical office-holders to farm out their offices to the Democrats, who appointed deputies to conduct such offices. The stalwarts now endeavored to cast these men out of the party, but only succeeded in weakening it.

The Negroes in 1874

In spite of all adverse influence, however, the great majority of the negroes remained faithful to the Republican party and voted for Governor Lewis in the fall elections. They missed the rigid organization of former years, and many of them were greatly dissatisfied because of unfulfilled promises made by their leaders; but the Radical office-holders, realizing clearly the desperate situation, made strong efforts to bring out the entire negro vote. The Union League methods were again used to drive negro men into line. They were again promised that if their party succeeded in the elections, there would be a division of property. Some believed that equal rights in cars, hotels, theatres, and churches would be obtained. Clothes, bacon and flour, free homes, mixed schools, and public office were offered as inducements to voters. In Opelika, A. B. Griffin told the negroes that after the election all things would be divided and that each Lee County negro would receive a house in Opelika. To one man he promised “forty acres and an old gray horse.” Heyman, a Radical leader of Opelika, told the blacks that if the elections resulted properly, the land would be taxed so heavily that the owners would be obliged to leave the state, and then the negroes and northerners would get the land.[2128]