In 1875 the supreme court in the case of United States vs. Reese declared the two most important sections of the Enforcement Act of 1870 unconstitutional. In 1883, in the case of the United States vs. Harris, the Ku Klux Act of April 20, 1871, was declared unconstitutional. In 1888, when House, Senate, and President were Republican, an attempt was made by Mr. McKinley (afterward President) to pass a Force Bill to enforce the old election laws, which were still on the statute book. The measure failed to pass. It was in opposition to this Force Bill that Colonel Hilary A. Herbert of Alabama and other southern congressmen wrote the work called “Why the Solid South? or Reconstruction and its Results.” It is said that this book had some influence in causing a halt in force legislation. It was the first attempt to write the history of the Reconstruction period, and is still the best general account. In 1894, when House, Senate, and President were Democratic, the remnants of the Enforcement Acts were repealed, and thus was swept away the last of the Radical system. See Dunning, “The Undoing of Reconstruction,” in the Atlantic Monthly, Oct., 1901.
[2025] Coburn-Buckner Report, p. 238. The constitution is not in the Journal, however.
[2026] Coburn-Buckner Report, pp. 7, 12, 19, 702, 882, 883.
[2027] Cameron Report, 1876, pp. 53, 108; oral accounts.
[2028] The accounts of the wild and idle negro children of the rice and tobacco districts are not true of those in the Cotton Belt. The smallest tot could do a little in a cotton field.
[2029] See Birmingham Age-Herald, March 31 and April 7, 1901 (J. W. DuBose); Review of Reviews, Sept., 1903, on “The Cotton Crop of To-day,” by R. H. Edmonds; Ingle, “Southern Sidelights,” p. 271; Address of President Thach, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, before the American Economic Association, 1903; Tillinghast, “Negro in Africa and America,” pp. 126, 143; Mallard, “Plantation Life before Emancipation”; Washington, “Up from Slavery,” and “The Future of the American Negro,” passim. The immense cost of slave labor is seen when the value of the slaves is compared with the value of the lands cultivated by their labor. In 1859 the cash value of the lands in Alabama was $175,824,622, and that of the slaves was $215,540,000. The larger portion of this land had not a negro on it, and if cultivated, was cultivated exclusively by whites. See Census of 1860. The effect of the loss of slaves on the welfare of a planter is shown in the case of William L. Yancey. His slaves were accidentally poisoned and died. The loss ruined him, and he was forced to sell his plantation and engage in a profession. A farmer in a white county employing white labor would have been injured only temporarily by such a loss of labor.
[2030] The tenant furnished labor, supplies, and teams, and paid the landlord a fourth of the cotton and a third of the corn produced.
[2031] There was usually good feeling between the whites and blacks at work together; but the negroes, at heart, scorned the poor whites, and had to be closely watched to keep them from insulting or abusing them. The negro had little respect for the man who owned no slaves or who owned but few and worked with them in the fields. To protect the slaves against outsiders was one reason why discipline was strict, supervision close, passes required, etc. When both white and black were allowed to go at will over the plantation and community, trouble was sure to result from the impudent behavior of the negro to “white trash” and the consequent retaliation of the latter. The whites often came to the master and wanted him to whip his best slaves for impudence to them. The master, to prevent this, regulated the liberty of the slave by passes, etc., and the whites, especially strangers, were expected not to trespass on a plantation where slaves were.
[2032] The idea of the so-called “prejudice” against manual labor is perhaps due largely to abolitionist theories and arguments, which have been partially accepted since the war by some southerners who think it due to the old system to show its lofty attitude toward the common things of life. But the negro had, and still has, a contempt for a white who works as he does. And it has always been a custom of mankind,—white, yellow, or black,—to get out of doing manual labor if there was anything else to do.
[2033] Accounts from old citizens, former planters.