Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama

by Walter L. Fleming

Promises of good not being sufficient to hold the blacks in line, threats of evil were added. Circulars were sent out, purporting to be signed by General Grant, threatening the blacks with reënslavement unless they voted for him. The United States deputy marshals informed the blacks of Marengo County that if they voted for W. B. Jones, a scalawag candidate who had been purchased by the whites, they would be reënslaved. Heyman of Opelika declared that defeat would result in the negroes’ having their ears cut off, in whipping posts and slavery. Pelham, a white congressman, told the blacks that if the Democrats carried the elections, Jefferson Davis would come to Montgomery and reorganize the Confederate government. So industriously were such tales told that many of the negroes became genuinely alarmed, and it was asserted that negro women began to hide their children as the election approached.[2129]

The negro women and the negro preachers were more enthusiastic than the negro men, and through clubs and churches brought considerable pressure to bear on the doubtful and indifferent. They agreed that negro children should not go to schools where the teachers were Democrats. In Opelika a negro women’s club was formed of those whose husbands were Democrats or were about to be. The initiate swore to leave her husband if he voted for a Democrat. This club was formed by a white Radical, John O. D. Smith, and the negroes were made to believe that General Grant ordered it. A similar organization in Chambers County had a printed constitution by which a member, if married, was made to promise to desert her husband should he vote for a Democrat, and a single woman promised not to marry a Democratic negro or to have anything to do with one. The negro women were used as agents to distribute tickets to voters. These tickets had Spencer’s picture on them, which they believed was Grant’s.[2130]

In the negro churches to be a Democrat was to become liable to discipline. Some preachers preferred regular charges against those members who were suspected of Democracy. The average negro still believed that it was a crime “to vote against their race” and offenders were sure of expulsion from church unless, as happened sometimes, the bolters were strong enough to turn the Republicans out. Nearly every church had its political club to which the men belonged and sometimes the women. Robert Bennett of Lee County related his experience to the Coburn Committee. He wanted to vote the Democratic ticket, he said, and for that offence was put on trial in his church. The “ministers and exhorters” told him that he must not do so, saying, “We had rather you wouldn’t vote at all; if you won’t go with us to vote with us, you are against us; the Bible says so.... We can have you arrested. We have got you; if you won’t say you won’t vote or will vote with us, we will have you arrested.... All who won’t vote with us we will kick out of the society—and turn them out of church;” and so it happened to Robert Bennett.[2131]

The efforts made to hold the negroes under control indicate that numbers of them were becoming restless and desirous of change. This was especially the case with the former house-servant class and those who owned property. One negro, in accounting for his change of politics, said, “Honestly, I love my race, but the way the colored people have taken a stand against the white people ... will not do.” Of the white Radicals he said, “They know that we are a parcel of poor ignorant people, and I think it is a bad thing for them to take advantage of a poor ignorant person, and I do not think they are honest men; they cannot be.” He said that the Radicals promised much and gave little; that they never helped him. The Democrats gave him credit and paid his doctor’s bills; so that it was to his interest to vote for the Democrats—“I done it because it was to my interest. I wanted a change.” Another negro explained his change of politics by saying that bad government kept up the price of pork, and allowed sorry negroes to steal what industrious negroes made and saved—eggs, chickens, and cotton. When Adam Kirk, of Chambers County, was asked why be belonged to the “white man’s party,” he answered: “I was raised in the house of old man Billy Kirk. He raised me as a body servant. The class that he belongs to feels nearer to me than the northern white man, and actually, since the war, everything that I have got is by their aid and assistance. They have helped me raise up my family and have stood by me, and whenever I want a doctor, no matter what hour of the day or night, he is called in whether I have got a cent or not. I think they have got better principles and better character than the Republicans.”[2132] There is no doubt that these represented the sentiments of several thousand negroes who had mustered up courage to remain away from the polls or perhaps to vote for the Democrats. And while in white counties the campaign was made on the race issue, in the Black Belt the whites, as Strobach said, “were more than kind” to negro bolters. They encouraged and paid the expenses of negro Democratic speakers, and gave barbecues to the blacks who would promise to vote for the “white man’s party.” Numerous Democratic clubs were formed for the negroes and financed by the whites. Of these there were several in each black county, but none in the white counties. Though safer than ever before since enfranchisement, negro Democrats still received rather harsh treatment from those of their color who sincerely believed that a negro Democrat was a traitor and an enemy to his race. Negro Democratic speakers were insulted, stoned, and sometimes killed. At night they had to hide out. Their political meetings were broken up; their houses were shot into; their families were ostracized in negro society, churches, and schools. One negro complained that his children were beaten by other children at school, and that the teacher explained to him that nothing better could be expected as long as he, the father, remained a Democrat. Some negro Democrats were driven away from home and others were whipped. Most of them found it necessary to keep quiet about politics; and the members of Democratic clubs were usually sworn to secrecy.[2133] The colored Methodist Episcopal Church, which was under the guardianship of the white Methodist Church, suffered from negro persecution; several of its buildings were burned and its ministers insulted.

The Democratic and Conservative Party in 1874

If the Republican party was weaker in this campaign than ever before, the Democrats, on the other hand, were more united and more firmly determined to carry the elections, peaceably if possible, by force if necessary. There are evidences that the state government in Alabama would have been overthrown early in 1874 if the Louisiana revolution of that year had not been crushed by the Federal government. The different sections of the state were now more closely united than ever before, owing to the completion of two of the railroads which had cost the state treasury so much. The people of the northern white counties now came down into central Alabama and learned what negro government really was, and it was now made clear to the Unionist Republican element of the mountain counties that while they had local white government they were supporting a state government by the negro and the alien, both of whom they disliked. In order to gain the support of north Alabama, the opposition of the whites in the Black Belt to a campaign on the race issue was disregarded, and the campaign, especially in the white counties, was made on the simple issue—Shall black or white rule the state?

It may be of interest here to examine the attitude of the whites toward the blacks since the war. In 1865, the whites would grant civil rights to the negro, but would have special legislation for the race on the theory that it needed a period of guardianship; by 1866, many far-sighted men were willing to think of political rights for the negro after the proper preparation; by 1867, there was serious thought of an immediate qualified suffrage for the black, the object being to increase the representation in Congress, to disarm the Radicals,—the native whites believing that they could control the negro vote. This shifting of position was checked by the grant of suffrage to the negroes by Congress, and during the campaigns of 1867 and 1868 the whites held aloof, meaning to try to influence the negro vote later, when the opportunity offered. From 1869 to 1872 there was an increasing tendency, especially in the Black Belt, to appeal to the negro for political support, but, though the former personal relations were to some extent resumed, the effort always ended in practical failure. The result was that by 1873-1874, the whites despaired of dividing the black vote and many of the Black Belt whites were willing to join those of the white counties in drawing the color line in politics.[2134]

The Democrats were aided in presenting the race issue to north Alabama by the attitude, above referred to, of the negroes in demanding office and social privileges and by the fact that a strong effort had been made in Congress and would again be made to enact a stringent civil rights law securing equal rights to negroes in cars, theatres, hotels, schools, etc. The Alabama members of Congress, who were Republicans, had voted for such a bill. The Democrats made the most of the issue. The speeches of Boutwell, Morton, and Sumner were circulated among the whites as campaign documents, and were most effective in securing the unionists and independents of north Alabama.[2135]

The following extracts from state papers will indicate the state of mind of the whites. The Montgomery Advertiser of February 19, 1874, declared that “the great struggle in the South is the race struggle of white against black for political supremacy. It is all in vain to protest that the southern wing of the Radical party is not essentially a party of black men arrayed against their white neighbors in a close and bitter struggle for power. The struggle going on around us is not a mere contest for the triumph of this or that platform of party principles. It is a contest between antagonistic races and for that which is held dearer than life by the white race. If the negro must rule Alabama permanently, whether in person or by proxy, the white man must ultimately leave the state.” “Old Whig” protested in the Opelika Daily Times of June 6, 1874, against the rule of the mob of 80,000 yelling negroes who, at scalawag mandate, and in the name of liberty, deposited ballots against southern white men. Another writer declared that “all of the good men of Alabama are for the white man’s party. Outcasts, libellers, liars, handcuffers, and traitors to blood are for the negro party.” Pinned down by bayonets and bound by tyranny, the whites had been forced to silence and expedients and humiliation until wrath burned “like a seven-fold furnace in the bosom of the people.” The negro must be expelled from the government. The white was a God-made prince; the black, a God-made subordinate. “What right hath Dahomey to give laws to Runnymede, or Bosworth Field to take a lesson from Congo-Ashan? Shall Bill Turner give laws to Watts, Elmore, Barnes, Morgan, and the many mighty men of the South?” “When Alabama goes down the white men of Alabama will go with her.”[2136]

The whites who still remained with the negro party were subjected to more merciless ostracism than ever before. No one would have business relations with a Republican; no one believed in his honor or honesty; his children were taunted by their schoolmates; his family were socially ostracized; no one would sit by them at church or in public gatherings.[2137] In the white counties numerous conventions adopted a series of resolutions in regard to ostracism, known as the “Pike County Platform,” which first was adopted in June, 1874, by the Democratic convention in Pike County. It read in part as follows: “Resolved that nothing is left to the white man’s party but social ostracism of all those who act, sympathize, or side with the negro party, or who support or advocate the odious, unjust, and unreasonable measure known as the Civil Rights Bill; and that henceforth we will hold all such persons as the enemies of our race, and will not for the future have intercourse with them in any of the social relations of life.”[2138]