“The White Proletariat in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida” in “Black Reconstruction in America: Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880”
The White Proletariat in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida
How in those Southern States where Negroes formed a minority there ensued strife between planters, poor whites, Negroes and carpetbaggers which after varying forms of alliance finally ended in the subjection of black labor.
We have studied Reconstruction in three states where the preponderance of Negro population, and the political part which it played during Reconstruction, makes it fair to say that the Negro during part of the time exercised a considerable dictatorship over the state governments of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana. In these states, the material for studying the participation of the Negro in Reconstruction is large, although by no means complete.
We now come to states where the Negro population is large, but where from the beginning the political influence of the Negro was comparatively small.
In Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Texas and the Border States, the interests of black labor were never in the ascendant; but from the first there was a battle between carpetbaggers and planters to control white and black labor. For a time, the ancient breach between planters and poor whites gave control to carpetbaggers and scalawags supported by Negroes. But war and poverty had depleted the old planter families; and some poor whites, eager for land and profits, and jealous of Negroes, came to join the planters. They gradually drove the carpetbaggers to the wall, and took forcible control of colored labor, with the help of the whole labor vote which they controlled. The carpetbaggers made the hardest fight in North Carolina, Alabama and Georgia.
Alabama had 85,451 whites when it entered the Union in 1820, and 42,450 Negroes. By 1860, there were 526,271 whites and 437,770 Negroes.
There was competition for appointment to the provisional governorship of Alabama, but Louis E. Parsons was appointed June 1, 1865. He called an election for a convention based on white suffrage. The convention in September admitted that “the institution of slavery has been destroyed in the State of Alabama.” It adjourned September 30, and the legislature met November 20. This legislature adopted the Thirteenth Amendment, “with the understanding that it does not confer upon Congress the power to legislate upon the political status of freedmen in this State.”1
The Black Code adopted by the legislature was one of the most severe in the South. Most of these laws, however, were vetoed by Governor R. M. Patton, who saw the reaction in the North, and was trying to keep in careful touch with Washington. He warned the lawmakers that the Negro was at work, and that such severe legislation was not needed. Patton said with regard to these bills:
I have carefully examined the laws which under this bill would be applied to the freedmen; and I think that a mere recital of some of these provisions will show the impolicy and injustice of enforcing it upon the Negroes in their new condition.2
The final code contained the usual provisions for vagrancy, apprenticeship, enticing labor, etc., but was drawn without obvious color discrimination, although there naturally was that in fact.
The chief characteristic of Reconstruction in Alabama was the direct fight for mastery between the poor whites and the planters. The poor whites of Alabama were largely segregated in the Northern part of the state. A correspondent of The Nation, who traveled among them in August, 1865, said:
They are ignorant and vindictive, live in poor huts, drink much, and all use tobacco and snuff; they want to organize and receive recognition by the United States government in order to get revenge—really want to be bushwhackers supported by the Federal government; they “wish to have the power to hang, shoot, and destroy in retaliation for the wrongs they have endured”; they hate the “big nigger holders,” whom they accuse of bringing on the war and who, they are afraid, would get into power again; they are the “refugee,” poor white element of low character, shiftless, with no ambition.3
The poor whites won their first victory after the Constitution of 1865, when a law was passed providing for a census in 1866, and for apportionment of Senators and Representatives according to the white population. The delegates from the white counties of north and south-east Alabama voted in favor of this, and thirty white delegates from the Black Belt voted against it. This measure destroyed the political power of the Black Belt, and if the Johnson government had survived, the state would have been ruled by the white counties, instead of by the black counties.
The planters were thus thrown into involuntary alliance with Negro labor, and the matter of Negro suffrage was discussed. The planters were sure they could control the Negro vote, while the poor white merchants and farmers opposed Negro voters.
Brooks, once President of the Secession Convention of 1861, and a brother of Bully Brooks of South Carolina, who nearly killed Sumner, introduced a bill in the lower house providing for a qualified Negro suffrage, based on education and property. He represented Lowndes County in the Black Belt. This bill was indorsed by Governor Patton and Judge Goldthwaite, but there were two difficulties: first, the unbending opposition of the triumphant poor whites, and secondly, the suspicion of the planters themselves that their ability to dictate to the blacks was not so certain. The movement did not get far.
From 1865 to 1868, and even later, there was for all practicable purposes over the greater part of the people of Alabama, no government at all… . From 1865 to 1874, government and respect for government were weakened to a degree from which it has not yet recovered. The people governed themselves extra-legally, and have not recovered from the practice.4
In 1866 the Negroes held a convention in Mobile and complained of lawless aggression and the refusal of the legislature to receive their petitions.
There was continual fear of insurrection in the Black Belt. This vague fear increased toward Christmas, 1866. The Negroes were disappointed because of the delayed division of lands. There was a natural desire to get possession of firearms, and all through the summer and fall, they were acquiring shotguns, muskets, and pistols, in great quantities. In several instances, the civil authorities, backed by the militia, searched Negro houses for weapons, and sometimes found supplies which were confiscated.
The financial condition of Alabama was difficult. There was not only loss of slaves, destruction, and deterioration of property, but the cotton tax and war confiscation fell heavily on this cotton section.
The cotton spirited away by thieves and confiscated by the government would have paid several times over all the expenses of the army and the Freedmen’s Bureau during the entire time of the occupation. Many times as much money was taken from the Negro tenant, in the form of this cotton tax, as was spent in aiding him.5
At the end of the war, at least five thousand Northern men were in Alabama engaged in trade and farming. They brought with them a good deal of capital, and since cotton was selling for 40¢ to 50¢ a pound, they naturally expected to make large profits. After the Reconstruction laws, these capitalists sought to control the labor vote. Encouraged by them, the Negroes called a convention in Mobile, which met in May, 1867. The convention declared itself in favor of the party of the new capitalists, and asked protection in their civil rights and schools supported by a property tax. They declared that it was the undeniable right of the Negro to hold office, sit on juries, ride in public conveyances, and visit places of public amusement.
That same month, Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts made a political speech in Montgomery to a great crowd of black and white people. He made a plea for coöperation between whites and Negroes. The Confederates objected that this would lead to a union of alien capitalists and colored people, and the state thus would be taken out of the control of natives. Later, May 14, when Judge Kelley of Pennsylvania tried to speak in Mobile, there was a race riot.
General Pope wrote in 1867 from Alabama:
It may be safely said that the marvelous progress made in the education of these people, aided by the noble charitable contributions of Northern societies and individuals, finds no parallel in the history of mankind. If continued, it must be by the same means, and if the masses of the white people exhibit the same indisposition to be educated that they do now, five years will have transferred intelligence and education, so far as the masses are concerned, to the colored people of this District.6
His district included Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.
In July, General Clanton formed the Conservative party of Alabama, and knowing what this represented in reaction, there was a widespread desire among colored people around Montgomery to prevent the meeting of this convention. A few leading colored people formed themselves into a special committee, and resolved that they would “use all the influence they may choose to counteract any acts of violence to the convention.” The result was that the meeting was held without the fact being known that there was any movement against it.
In the election under the Reconstruction laws, 61,295 Negroes and 104,518 whites registered. But of the whites, only 18,533 voted in favor of a convention. In the convention were 31 Northerners, of whom 18 were officials of the Freedmen’s Bureau and 18 Negroes; the rest were Southern whites. The Alabama Negroes had few educated leaders in their ranks and were, in the main, poor, ignorant field hands.
The Negro members of the convention are noted as follows: Ben Alexander of Greene, field hand; John Carraway of Mobile, assistant editor of the Mobile Nationalist; Thomas Diggs of Barbour, field hand; Peyton Finley, formerly doorkeeper of the House; James K. Green of Hale, a carriage driver; Ovid Gregory of Mobile, a barber; Jordan Hatcher of Dallas, Washington Johnson of Russell, field hand; L. S. Lathan of Bullock; Tom Lee of Perry, field hand, who had a reputation for moderation; Alfred Strother of Dallas; and J. T. Rapier of Lauderdale. Rapier was educated in Canada and was a man of power. Several of his proposals are embodied in the present Constitution of Alabama.
Of these members, two were well educated, and one, Rapier, a national leader; about half could not write. Nevertheless their actions, their votes and their speeches, were encouraging. They were, as in practically all cases, conservative, and willing to follow leadership.
The debates touched the disfranchisement of Confederate leaders, mixed schools, and inter-marriage. Many white people at this time proposed to leave the state, but the elections of 1867 in the North encouraged them, especially the defeat of Negro suffrage in several states.
The majority of the Scalawags were ready to revolt after finding that the carpetbag element had control of the Negro vote; the Negroes with a few exceptions made no unreasonable and violent demands unless urged by the carpetbaggers; the carpetbaggers, with a few extreme Scalawags, were disposed to resort to extreme measures of proscription in order to get rid of white leaders and white majorities, and to agitate the question of social equality in order to secure the Negroes, and to drive off the Scalawags.7
The debates on suffrage were long, and many took part. Duston White, formerly of Iowa, proposed that the new Constitution should admit former rebels to the ballot, but his resolution was voted down by a vote of 30 to 51. Some of the Negroes voted for it. Rapier proposed that the convention memorialize Congress to remove the political disabilities of those who might aid in Reconstruction, according to the plan of Congress. This was adopted, and Griffin, a radical member, was made chairman of the committee to make these recommendations.
The Majority Report of the committee did not wish to go beyond the acts of Congress in disfranchising former Confederates, but attempts were made to disfranchise all Confederates above the rank of captain, and all who held any civil office anywhere. Sisby wanted to exclude from suffrage those who had killed Negroes during the last two years, or opposed Reconstruction, or persuaded voters not to take part in the election.
It was finally settled that in addition to those disfranchised by the Reconstruction Acts, others should be excluded for violation of the rules of war. Such persons could neither register, vote, nor hold office, until relieved by the vote of the General Assembly, and until they had “accepted the civil and political equality of men.”
Lee, Negro, said that such a course would endanger the ratification of the Constitution and if the Negroes did not get their rights now, they would never get them. He wanted his rights at the court-house and at the polls and nothing more.8
The colored representative of Dallas County demanded that the Negroes be empowered to collect pay from those who held them in slavery at the rate of ten dollars per month for service rendered, from January 1, 1863, the date of the Emancipation Proclamation, to May 20, 1865. An ordinance to this effect was adopted by a vote of 53 to 31.
The scalawags, as a rule, wished to prohibit inter-marriage of the races, and Simple of Montgomery reported an ordinance to that effect. Carraway, a Negro, wanted life imprisonment for any white man marrying or living with a black woman, but he said it was against the civil rights bill to prohibit inter-marriage. Gregory, a Negro of Mobile, wanted all regulations, laws and customs wherein distinctions were made on account of color or race to be abolished.
Carraway succeeded in having an ordinance passed, directing that church property used during slavery for colored congregations be turned over to the latter. Some of the property was paid for by Negro slaves and held in trust for them by white trustees. Some of it had belonged to the planters, who had erected churches for the use of their slaves.
The Negro members demanded free schools and special advantages for the Negro, and a few carpetbaggers spoke of the malign influence of the old régime in keeping so many thousands in ignorance. The scalawags demanded separate schools for the races, but pressure was brought to bear, and most of them gave way. Sixteen of the native whites finally refused to sign the Constitution, and united in a protest against the action of the convention in refusing to provide separate schools.
The protest said that the Constitution agreed upon “tended to the abasement and degradation of the white population of the state,” because it authorized mixed schools, and because the convention had refused to prohibit the inter-marriage of the races. The protest pointed out, as evidencing the degree in which leading white Republicans deferred to their colored colleagues, that
though the Judiciary Committee had unanimously reported a measure providing against amalgamation, yet the Convention tabled it; and many members of the Committee, who had concurred in the report of the Committee, receding from their position, voted to lay it on the table.9
The Constitution was adopted by the convention by a vote of 66-6, twenty-six not voting. Just before the convention adjourned, Carraway, a Negro, offered a resolution, which was adopted, stating that the Constitution was founded on justice, honesty, and civilization, and the enemies of law and order, freedom and justice, were pledged to prevent its adoption.
This Constitution was afterward repudiated by the convention of 1875, when the Negroes had been driven from political power. Nevertheless it was a more modern and democratic instrument than any of the preceding Constitutions of the state, and the new Constitution of 1875 retained many of its provisions.
On the first, second and third of February, 1868, the new Constitution was to be voted on. According to the Reconstruction Act, the adoption of the Constitution required a majority of the registered vote. A conference of Conservatives was held in Montgomery, January 1; it was decided that as many as possible should register, and then stay away from the polls. The time of voting was extended to five days; the Constitution received 70,812 affirmative votes and only 1,005 negative; yet this was not a majority of the registered vote, so that the plan of the Conservatives was successful. However, Congress changed the law so as to make a majority of the vote cast valid for adopting the Constitution, and thus declared it adopted. Alabama was admitted to the Union, June 25.
On July 13, the General Assembly convened. The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, and William H. Smith elected Governor. The legislature held three sessions during 1868, on July 13, September 16, and November 2. There were twenty-six Negroes in the House and one in the Senate. One of the first things that the legislature did by means of the Negro votes was to relieve the disabilities of those disfranchised by the state Constitution. In 1869, a general state system of schools was put into operation, and the private schools of Mobile merged into the system. November 25, the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified.
At the beginning of the Reconstruction government, the debt of the state was $8,355,683. At the first session of the legislature there was no important legislation, but at the second session of the legislature, the previous custom of Alabama, of aiding railroads, was taken up, and the aid increased from $12,000 to $16,000 a mile. The argument was that under the old law capitalists had not been attracted, but that now they would come in. Under this law, there was a good deal of waste of money through railroads failing to complete building for which they had been paid.
These railroad acts were adopted by votes of men of both parties; the first by the Democratic provisional legislature of 1867, and those of 1868-1879 by the Republicans; additional aid to one railroad was opposed and many charges of corruption made.
Railroad building increased in Alabama. In 1860, there were 743 miles; in 1867, 851 miles. In 1871-1872, 1,697 miles were completed, with other lines in construction. The cost of the miles completed, with equipment, was over $60,000,000.
One peculiarity of the dispute about railroad legislation during Reconstruction is that money secured on the credit of the state was controlled and spent very largely by Southern men. The question, therefore, of the liability of the states in the future to pay such of these debts as the railway corporations did not pay, was really, in most cases, a question as to how far Southern people were going to conduct railroads so as to pay debts owed their own state. Thus the large contingent railway debts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia, would not have been debts at all if Southern people had handled investments efficiently and wisely. Yet their failure to do this enabled them to make the charge of extravagance against the carpet-baggers all the greater.
Election for Governor and for the Lower House in the legislature was held in November, 1870. Lindsay, a Democrat, was elected in November, and after some contest with the Republican incumbent, was seated. His administration was admittedly not a success, and there was as much railroad graft as ever. In 1872, Lewis, a Republican, was elected, but two bodies, one Democratic and the other Republican, both claimed to be the legislature of the state. The Democrats met at the State House, and the Republicans at the United States Court House. Both appealed to the President, and December 11, 1872, the President submitted an unofficial plan for compromise. The Republicans finally secured a majority in both Houses.
In 1874, the debt, including railroad bonds, amounted to $25,503,593. There were conflicts between whites and blacks during the election, but the Democrats carried all the state officers, and had majorities in both Houses of the legislature. A new Constitution was adopted; the number of officers was cut down and the salaries; and the school funds were seriously curtailed, and the system weakened.
The Ku Klux Klan was rampant in Alabama. In one district, six churches were burned by incendiaries before the election of 1870. Many schoolhouses were burned. Between 1868 and 1871, there were 371 cases of violence, including 35 murders.
The planters and poor whites after their first enmity early made alliance in Alabama, and their concentrated social weight descended on whites who dared to vote with the blacks. Such persons were warned and attacked until they fled the state or made peace with the new masters. Later, Northern capital poured into the poor white belt to develop coal and iron. Convict labor was widely used and exploitation developed, with labor divided by race, and helpless.
“It is absolutely essential,” declared a great Negro convention in Montgomery, December, 1874, “to our protection in our civil and political rights that the laws of the United States shall be enforced so as to compel respect and obedience for them. Before the state laws and state courts, we are utterly helpless.” The force acts were failing, and to the Negro, the question presented by the failure of their execution was whether his constitutional rights as a citizen were to be “a reality or a mockery; a protection and a boon, or a danger and a curse”; whether they were to be “freemen in fact or only in name”; whether the last two amendments to the Constitution were to be “practically enforced,” or to become nullities, and stand only as dead letters on the statute books.10
The state of Georgia had, in 1790, 52,886 whites and 29,662 Negroes. The increase was rapid, but fairly uniform up until 1850, when there were 384,613 Negroes and 521,572 whites. In 1860, this had increased to 465,698 Negroes and 591,550 whites. There were, in 1860, 3,500 free Negroes in the state.
The assets of the state of Georgia in 1860 included $600,000,000 of taxable property, besides stock in banks and railroads amounting to about $800,000. The state debt in 1861, including nearly $15,000,000 worth of currency, came to a total of $18,035,775. Georgia lost forty thousand of its white population during the war.
Georgia clung to slavery. Howell Cobb wrote in June, 1865: “The institution of slavery, in my judgment, provided the best labor system that could be devised for the Negro race.”11 He had his capital invested in thousands of Negroes and hundreds of acres of land in middle and southwestern Georgia.
In 1866, there was a sufficient migration of Negroes from Georgia to the West to cause some alarm. The Georgia Land and Immigration Company was formed in 1865 to encourage white immigrants. It was not successful. Some who came demanded better wages and were dissatisfied with the food. The project was given up.
By May, 1866, 1,200 citizens of Georgia had received special pardons from the President under the $20,000 exemption clause, and as early as 1865 and 1866, there was evident in Georgia a transition of leadership from the old landed aristocracy to the new commercial class.
In June, James Johnson, a lawyer of Columbus, was appointed Provisional Governor of Georgia, instead of Joshua Hill, who had been strongly urged, and had urged himself. Former Governor Brown had summoned the State Legislature, acting on the assumption that the state was already restored. The State Legislature was prevented from assembling by military order, and Brown resigned the Governorship. He had, however, great influence with Andrew Johnson, and “may have been one of the influences that changed Johnson from severe to moderate measures toward the rebels.”12
Elections for the Convention were held in October, 1865. Nearly three hundred delegates assembled at Milledgeville, of whom the great majority were insignificant men. They were “a conservative body, unprogressive, mostly old men and rising politicians.”13
This convention repealed but refused to nullify the ordinance of secession, and abolished slavery with the proviso that
this acquiescence in the action of the Government of the United States, is not intended to operate as a relinquishment, waiver or estoppel of such claim for compensation or loss sustained by reason of the emancipation of his slaves, as any citizen of Georgia may hereafter make upon the justice and magnanimity of that government.14
The Convention adjourned and in the November election C. J. Jenkins was elected Governor, after Alexander Stephens and former Governor Brown had refused to be candidates. The legislature convened in Milledgeville in December, 1865, and elected two leading former Confederates, Alexander Stephens and H. V. Johnson, as Senators. President Johnson wanted Governor Johnson, and Joshua Hill greatly desired the place. The New York Times regretted that two men had been selected apparently because of their prominence in the rebellion.15
The first work of the legislature was a series of eleven laws which formed the Black Code. Georgia, however, under ex-Governor Brown’s advice, was more careful than the other states, and listened to the storm of criticism against the other black codes.
The Black Code contained an apprentice law in the usual form; a vagrancy law with heavy penalties; various alterations in the penal laws, and laws about the “enticing” of labor. Civil rights were established for Negroes, giving them the right to testify in courts, but only where colored people were concerned. Every colored child hereafter born was declared the legitimate child of his mother and also of his colored father, if acknowledged by that father.16
Alexander Stephens suggested extending the franchise to the Negro, after he had reached a certain cultural standard and acquired an amount of wealth, but no one paid the slightest attention to this proposal. The Fourteenth Amendment was rejected in 1866 unanimously in both Houses.
In the summer of 1867, Toombs suddenly returned from Europe, where he had been hiding. He declared: “I regret nothing in the past, but the dead and the failure; and I am ready today to use the best means I can command to establish the principles for which I fought.”17
The Negro early began to organize. Meetings were held in Macon and in Savannah, and a particularly large convention was assembled in Augusta, in 1866, before the Reconstruction legislation. There were over 100 delegates from 18 counties. James Porter was elected President, and the convention went on record as not asking universal suffrage, but advocating property and educational tests as qualifications for the right to vote. It appointed a board to look after the education of the Negroes within the state, and finally formed itself into a body to be called the Equal Rights Association of Georgia. The platform of the Association sought to inculcate principles of honesty, industry and sobriety among Negroes, and a kindly feeling toward former masters. Negroes were advised to work hard, to learn to read and write, and to buy homes.
There were two other important resolutions passed: one, that the coast lands held by Negroes were not to be regarded as territories, and that land was not to be confiscated from its owners; the other, that the Georgia legislature should give equal rights to Negroes before the Courts.18
Another meeting was held in Macon, March 26, 1867, two months after the Reconstruction Acts. The Macon Telegraph carried a long account of this gathering. The meeting was to be held at the Second Colored Baptist Church, but this was not large enough, and it convened in a grove near Rose Hill cemetery. Here a huge platform was erected for the speakers, Federal officials and school teachers. There were speeches by white and colored men, and the procession carried banners. On one banner was the inscription: “As we have got to live and vote together in one state, let us be friends.”19
This was followed by another meeting in Savannah. On the platform were ex-Governor Johnson, several army officers, and three colored men. Ex-Governor Johnson was made President. Five resolutions were passed recognizing the power of Congress, the enfranchisement of colored people, the education of the whole people as of the highest importance, and early registration and election for the convention.20
The last of this series of meetings was held in Augusta with an attendance of one thousand people. Again ex-Governor Johnson was the principal speaker; but the meeting was not quite as harmonious as the former meetings. In the other meetings, there had been evidently a careful attempt to reconcile the desires of the white and colored people. But in this meeting, the wishes of the colored people were more frankly expressed. The resolutions asked for equal political rights and the abolition of corporal punishment. White papers reported that “many intelligent colored men disapproved of the spirit of the resolutions,” but this was evidently white propaganda.21
When the military reconstruction of Georgia was ordered by General Pope, Governor Jenkins went to Washington to seek an injunction before the Supreme Court on the part of the state of Georgia against the Secretary of War, General Grant, and General Pope. His petition was dismissed May 13 for want of jurisdiction.
Later, the Governor returned to Washington, carrying the Great Seal of the state and about $400,000 in cash which disappeared. He filed a Bill of Complaint in the Supreme Court, against General Grant, General Meade, and others, for illegal seizure of the property of the state, and again asked for an injunction but was unsuccessful. General Pope gave Negroes the right to serve on juries in August, and in January, he was removed by President Johnson, and General Meade substituted.
In the registration under the Reconstruction laws, 93,457 Negroes registered and 95,214 whites. This meant that the whites were registering in spite of the advice of leading men like Ben Hill. Joseph Brown, on the other hand, counseled the whites not to let the newcomers and Negroes sweep on to victory unopposed, and Brown’s advice was evidently followed. Notwithstanding this, 24,000 Negroes were persuaded or intimidated into not voting, and 60,000 whites did not take part.
While it is often stated that the great mass of white people were debarred by the Reconstruction Acts, it is notable in Georgia that the average vote, before the war, was 102,585, while the registration of whites was 95,214. Thus those debarred from registering were estimated at between 7,000 and 10,000.
The convention met in Atlanta on December 9, 1867, and sat until the middle of March, 1868. Of the 169 delegates to the convention, 37 were Negroes, 9 were white carpetbaggers, and 12 Conservative whites. The great majority, then, were native whites. This convention therefore was not controlled by carpetbaggers and Negroes, but by native whites. A reporter of the Savannah News, December 14, 1867, declared that “the Negroes in the convention appeared well-dressed and well-behaved, with few exceptions.”22
The convention was interested in suffrage, qualifications for office-holding, relief, and a liberal Constitution. In these matters, Negroes took active part in the discussions, and used their political privilege intelligently, and with caution.
Among the most capable colored members of this meeting were Aaron A. Bradley, Tunis George Campbell, J. B. Costin and Henry McNeal Turner. Bradley was a fighter, and attacked both Democrats and Republicans when they tried to coerce the Negroes. He was, therefore, given much publicity as a dangerous and undesirable Negro, who would cause trouble.
Bradley had a colorful and eventful career and was a man of great eloquence, and the Negroes could not be made to lose confidence in him. He attacked racial discrimination on public carriers, and requested the General in command to have the jails and prisons examined so as to release persons unlawfully deprived of their liberties. Bradley left the convention because of charges that he had deceived Negroes on an island off the coast of Savannah. As a matter of fact, he was trying to protect their land, and they had so much confidence in him that they sent him back as Senator in 1888.23
Turner was the most prominent of the Negroes. He was born in South Carolina in 1833 and was appointed Chaplain in the army by President Lincoln. He was a preacher in the African M. E. Church, of which he eventually became Bishop. In 1865, he was appointed to the Freedmen’s Bureau in Georgia. He traveled over the whole state, and when he became a part of the Republican organization in 1867, was well-known for his speeches in all parts of Georgia.
Turner was not liked by the whites. The Atlanta Intelligencer called him an “unscrupulous fellow, shrewd enough to deceive the poor, deluded Negro.” He had to withstand all sorts of attempts to involve him in difficulties. He said that the whites accused him “of every crime in the catalogue of villany; I have even been arrested and tried on the wildest and most groundless accusations ever distilled from the laboratory of hell.” He was acquitted, however, in every case.24
Turner, nevertheless, sought to win the confidence of the Conservatives. He tried to prevent the sale of property on which owners were unable to pay taxes; and he introduced a resolution for the relief of banks. Both these passed the convention. He desired civil rights, but did not wish the downfall of the aristocracy. There was enthusiasm in his efforts to secure pardon for Jefferson Davis. He tried to secure internal improvements by state action rather than by private companies. As a member of the education committee, he sought to insert provisions that five years after the common school system had come into full operation, no person on becoming 21 years of age should vote, unless he possessed an educational qualification.
Another Negro leader was Tunis Campbell. He was born in Massachusetts, and came South as an agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau. He first established himself on an island off the coast of Savannah, where he established his own government, and armed force was necessary to remove him. He then went to Darien, where he acquired wide control over the Negroes, and virtually ruled them. In the Constitutional Convention, he was particularly interested in relief, seeking unsuccessfully to abolish imprisonment for debt.25
The convention prohibited slavery, established a single citizenship without discrimination, and gave the right to vote to all males born or naturalized in the United States and resident in Georgia six months. In laying down qualifications for voters, it was said especially that all voters should be eligible to office. This stipulation was afterward stricken out by an almost unanimous vote on the ground that it was unnecessary. This was probably a trick engineered by ex-Governor Brown for election purposes, and was the basis of the subsequent expulsion of colored men from the legislature.
In the Constitution, a general system of education free to all children of the state was provided. There was no attempt to disqualify Confederates for office, beyond the demands of the Reconstruction Acts.
The convention devoted much of its efforts at first toward relief from taxes, foreclosures, executions for debt, etc.
On April 20, 1868, the Constitution was adopted by a majority of 17,699 votes, and Rufus B. Bullock was elected Governor. Bullock is usually classed as a carpetbagger; but he had lived in Georgia before the war, and served as an officer in the Confederate army.
In the election of 1868, the Democratic Conservatives attacked the Constitution because they claimed that it established social, political and educational equality of whites and blacks, and that it would result in depreciation of property and a fearful increase of taxation. They declared it was framed by adventurers, convicts, and ignorant Negroes.
Both parties appealed to the poor whites, the Conservatives through race prejudice and the Republicans by class prejudice. One of the latter appeals was:
Be a man! Let the slave-holding aristocracy no longer rule you. Vote for a constitution which educates your children free of charge; relieves the poor debtor from his rich creditor; allows a liberal homestead for your families; and more and more than all, places you on a level with those who used to boast that for every slave they were entitled to three-fifths of a vote in congressional representation. Ponder this well before you vote.26
The result of the election was mixed, but the Conservative Democrats had seventeen of the forty-four members of the Senate, and eighty-eight of the 170 members of the House. There was evidence of fraud and intimidation of the Negroes in many counties where the Negroes were in the majority, and the electoral vote of the state was given to Seymour. In this legislature, three Negroes were elected to the Senate, and twenty-nine to the House.
Bullock was installed as Governor, June 28, but he complained to the Military Commander that many men ineligible to office under the Fourteenth Amendment were seated in the legislature. The legislature investigated, but finally found none ineligible.
The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified July 21. Georgia was duly restored to the Union by the Omnibus Bill, passed by Congress, June 25, 1868. Military authority was withdrawn. Seven Congressmen from Georgia were seated in the House, but the Senators were elected too late to take their seats before Congress adjourned.
Just as soon as Congressional power was withdrawn, the Georgia legislature turned upon its Negro members, of whom there were three in the Senate, and twenty-nine in the House. “Their presence was an offense.”27
Former Governor Brown had maintained during the campaign that Negroes were not eligible to office, and the Conservatives immediately took up the question, citing ex-Governor Brown’s opinion, and asking investigation. Led by Milton Candler, a white Democratic Senator, a movement was started to declare that since Negroes were not citizens, they could not hold office. There was long and heated discussion. Bradley, one of the black Senators, argued forcibly and ably in the Senate on the Negro’s eligibility, and after his speech, it was moved that Candler’s resolutions be expunged from the minutes.
Later Bradley’s own eligibility to his seat was attacked because of an alleged previous criminal conviction in New York. A majority of a special committee (all white men) sustained the accusation, but a minority declared that the evidence was incomplete. Nevertheless, Bradley was not allowed to defend himself, and resigned. Thereupon in September, the effort was continued to declare Campbell and Wallace, the other two colored Senators, ineligible. The Negroes were given one hour for defense. After vigorous debate, the three colored Senators were expelled by a vote of 24-11.
The following protest was sent in by Wallace and Campbell:
We claim to be the legally elected representatives of a very large portion of—nearly one-half of—the legal electors of the State of Georgia. Sirs, the Constitution and the laws of Georgia strictly provide that no laws shall be made or enforced which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, or of this state, or deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws.
Therefore, in behalf of ourselves, our constituents, and also in behalf of nearly five hundred thousand loyal citizens of this State, we do enter our solemn protest against the illegal, unconstitutional, unjust and oppressive action of this body, based upon the resolutions of the Senator from the 35th Senatorial District, declaring us ineligible on account of color.28
In the House, the resolution was introduced in August, and passed in September by a vote of 83-23. The Negroes refused to vote. Four of the colored members, who were so white that their Negro blood could not be proven, were permitted to remain. They were Beard, Belcher, Davis and Fyall.
Turner made an elaborate defense of the right of the Negro to hold office:
Cases may be found where men have been deprived of their rights for crimes and misdemeanors; but it has remained for the State of Georgia in the very heart of the Nineteenth Century, to call a man before the bar and there charge him with an act for which he is no more responsible than for the head which he carries upon his shoulders. The Anglo-Saxon race, sir, is a most surprising one. No man has ever been more deceived in that race than I have been for the last three weeks. I was not aware that there was in the character of that race so much cowardice, or so much pusillanimity… .
The Negro is here charged with holding office. Why, sir, the Negro never wanted office. I recollect that when we wanted candidates for the Constitutional Convention, we went from door to door in the “Negro belt,” and begged white men to run. Some promised to do so; and yet, on the very day of election, many of them first made known their determination not to comply with their promises. They told the black men, everywhere, that they would rather see them run; and it was this encouragement of the white men that induced the colored man to place his name upon the ticket as a candidate for the Convention. In many instances, these white men voted for us… .
It is very strange, if a white man can occupy on this floor a seat created by colored votes, and a black man cannot do it. Why, Gentlemen, it is the most short-sighted reasoning in the world… .
If Congress has simply given me merely sufficient civil and political rights and made me a mere political slave for Democrats, or anybody else—giving them the opportunity of jumping on my back in order to leap into political power—I do not thank Congress for it. Never, so help me God, shall I be a political slave… . You have all the elements of superiority upon your side; you have our money and your own; you have our education and your own; and you have our land and your own, too. We, who number hundreds of thousands in Georgia, including our wives and families, with not a foot of land to call our own—strangers in the land of our birth; without money, without education, without aid, without a roof to cover us while we live, nor sufficient clay to cover us when we die! It is extraordinary that a race such as yours, professing gallantry, chivalry, education, and superiority, living in a land where ringing chimes call child and sire to the Church of God—a land where Bibles are read and Gospel truths are spoken, and where courts of justice are presumed to exist; it is extraordinary, I say, that with all these advantages on your side, you can make war upon the poor defenseless black man.29
This speech was not printed in the minutes of the legislature, but issued as a pamphlet in Augusta the same year.
In September, 1868, the legislature declared all colored members ineligible, and it then proceeded to put in their seats the persons who had received the next largest number of votes. The outrages of the Ku Klux Klan on Negroes and whites became widespread. Bullock protested and appealed to Congress, citing that members of the legislature had not all taken the test oath. Bullock’s letter was accompanied by the memorial of the convention of colored people held in Macon in October.
The Republicans brought the case to the state Supreme Court in June, 1869. Two of the three judges decided that the Negroes were eligible. Immediately there came the question as to whether this decision affected the legislature. Alexander Stephens and many others thought it did not.
Negroes immediately began a movement to reseat their members. A closed convention was held at Macon with 136 delegates, many of whom walked from ten to forty miles to attend the meeting. The Constitution said that there were “venomous” and “incendiary” speeches, but these largely unlettered men went about to do their work of recovery of their privileges in extraordinarily practical ways. Eighty-two counties were represented, and Turner presided. Reports of outrages and conditions were brought together and sent to Congress. Turner and Sims went to carry the report and relate their hardships before the Committee on Reconstruction.30
There was a disposition in Georgia to stand firm and not to reseat the Negroes. Several papers advised the Assembly to persist in the attitude which it had adopted, and to reseat the Negroes only under compulsion. In spite of such advice, Nelson Tift, Democratic Representative-elect to Congress, from the Second District, had pledged certain parties in Washington that Georgia would reseat the colored members and ratify the Fifteenth Amendment, if Congress would not interfere. This rumor ruined Tift’s chance for a seat in Congress, for the Democrats said that they had not granted him such power and never would do so, for they did not intend to reseat the Negroes, unless Congress should use force.31
Joshua Hill, one of the Senators elected by the Georgia legislature in July, presented his credentials to the United States Senate, December 7, 1868. It was recommended that Hill be not admitted on the ground that Georgia had failed to comply with the Omnibus Act. In the House of Representatives, the Committee on Reconstruction was instructed to examine public affairs in Georgia; they took testimony during January, 1869, hearing Governor Bullock, James Sims, a colored preacher, H. M. Turner, and others. The lawlessness in the treatment of blacks was emphasized, there being 260 cases of outrages between January and November. Meantime, there was a grave question as to whether Georgia’s vote could be cast in the Presidential election of 1868. It was finally decided that if Georgia’s vote did not effect the result, the final vote should be announced in two ways, with and without the vote of Georgia.
On a technicality, the members of the lower house who had already been representing Georgia were excluded, as not entitled to sit in the 41st Congress. Several bills concerning Georgia were introduced into Congress. Finally, in March, 1869, when Georgia refused to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment, a bill was passed making the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment necessary before Georgia was admitted. The testimony as to the lawlessness in Georgia helped the passage of this bill, which became a law December 27, 1869. Georgia thus came again under military authority, and all persons elected to the legislature were called to meet in special session by General Meade. A legislature convened January 10, and the test oath was administered under military supervision.
This legislature ratified the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and not only recognized the twenty-four colored members, but paid them for lost time. There was thus a double expense for the salary of members that year, since both sets of members were paid, the white members on the motion of a colored Senator.
There was a question as to how long members of this legislature, originally elected in 1869, but stopped by the expulsion of colored members, should hold office; and many attempts were made to bribe members of the legislature to secure their votes for and against prolonging their terms.
Georgia members were admitted to the 3rd session of the 41st Congress, and Georgia entered her third and final stage of Reconstruction, January 10, 1870. The one colored Congressman from Georgia, Jefferson Long (1869-1871), opposed removing Confederate disabilities. Speaking in the House, he said, February 1, 1871:
What do those men say? Before their disabilities are removed, they say: “We will remain quiet until all of our disabilities are removed, and then we shall again take the lead.” Why, Mr. Speaker, in my state since emancipation there have been over five hundred loyal men shot down by the disloyal men there, and not one of those who took part in committing those outrages has ever been brought to justice. Do we, then, really propose here today, when the country is not ready for it, when those disloyal people still hate this government, when loyal men dare not carry the “Stars and Stripes” through our streets, for if they do they will be turned out of employment, to relieve from political disability the very men who have committed these Ku Klux outrages? I think that I am doing my duty to my constituents and my country, when I vote against any such proposition… .32
The parties in Georgia were now three: the Conservatives, who represented the former planters; the scalawags and carpetbaggers, or Radicals, who stood together as a commercial, capitalistic group; and a moderate group who held the balance of power.
The legislature of 1868 was evenly divided between Conservatives and Radicals in the Senate, but the House had a majority of the Conservatives, and after the exclusion of colored members, the Conservatives had a majority in both, 25-19 in the Senate, 127-48 in the House. When the legislature was reorganized in 1870, the Radicals had a majority in both Houses, 27-17 in the Senate, 87-83 in the House. In the election of 1871, the Moderates threw their power to the Conservatives; and the combination gained two-thirds of the seats.
Negroes in the Georgia legislature introduced numbers of bills. Senator Campbell not only introduced bills for education, but on the jury system, in regard to churches, concerning the city government of Savannah and of Reidville, on pleading and practice in the courts, and on better government of cities and towns. Most of these were reported back by the various committees with recommendations that they pass.
The number of Negro members was reduced to 26 by the death of Representative Lumpkin, of Macon County. He had spoken little but his vote could be counted on always for worthy bills. Although several of the members of the General Assembly, 1868-1870, had died, in no case was the resolution of eulogy so pronounced as that concerning Lumpkin: “We cheerfully record our appreciation of his modest worth, his integrity as a man, a citizen and a Representative.”33
Turner introduced the following bills:
To establish a state police; to secure chaplains for convicts; to enforce an act donating lands to the Georgia State Orphan’s Home; to amend the Constitution of Georgia so as to enable females to vote; to appropriate the State Capitol and the Governor’s mansion, at Milledgeville, to educational purposes; to repeal an act to amend the several acts now in force, regulating the fees of magistrates and constables in the State of Georgia, so far as relates to the counties of Bibb, Richmond, Monroe and Lee, and to provide for the mode of collecting the same, approved January 22, 1852; and the several acts amendatory thereof, and to prescribe the costs in insolvent cases due magistrates and constables in this state; to add an additional section to the 9th division of the Penal Code; also, a bill declaring certain persons husband and wife.34
Turner’s resolution extending sympathy to the inhabitants of Richmond, Virginia, who had just suffered a terrible disaster, was adopted by the House.
The Negroes in the General Assembly seem to have had a special interest in correcting the methods of maintaining and managing the penitentiary of this state. Representative Turner offered several resolutions for reform in the system.
This penitentiary system began to characterize the whole South. In Georgia, at the outbreak of the Civil War, there were about 200 white felons confined at Milledgeville. There were no Negro convicts, since under the discipline of slavery, Negroes were punished on the plantation. The white convicts were released to fight in the Confederate armies. The whole criminal system came to be used as a method of keeping Negroes at work and intimidating them. Consequently there began to be a demand for jails and penitentiaries beyond the natural demand due to the rise of crime.
Federal officials began the custom of leasing the convicts to private persons for work. This system was extended by Bullock, who leased 500 victims to a firm of contractors. The legislature of 1871 confirmed this lease, and in 1876, the Democrats hastened to order a twenty-year lease of convicts, which began the horrible system of convict leasing, and gave to the state a profit in crime, not to mention the vast profits which came to the private contractors.
Naturally, then, the colored members of the legislature, even before this system was settled, were interested in securing better conditions for convicts. Senator George Wallace and Representative James Sims served on a joint committee from the Senate and the House respectively, to ascertain the number of inmates, and how they were treated. Peter O’Neal offered a bill for the abolishment of the penitentiary system.
As a result of this movement, changes were made in the drastic methods used to punish convicts. This amelioration led to the issuing of many pardons, for which the Bullock administration was severely criticized.
The most energetic Negro on the standing committee on penitentiary investigation was Representative J. M. Sims of Chatham County. He had spoken only twice in 1868. On his return to the General Assembly in 1870, Sims offered many bills:
To amend an act for the more efficient preservation of peace and good order on election days in this State; to repeal an act prohibiting the sale and purchase of agricultural products in the counties of Lowndes and Macon; to incorporate the Chatham Mercantile, Loan and Trust Company; to repeal the act passed in 1869 to encourage immigration into this state; to repeal the local laws of Savannah and Chatham County, so far as relates to the fees and costs of Justices of the Peace, Notaries, ex-officio Justices and Constables in criminal cases and warrants; to provide for the re-opening of the books of registration by the Clerk of the Common Council of the city of Savannah.35
Two of these bills passed; the last two were indefinitely postponed.
Representative Porter was prominent. He
was born in Charleston, South Carolina, of free parents. Before the war he was a member of the Underground Railroad, and he opened a secret school in his home. He was a music teacher and tailor by trade. In 1856 he had won some distinction in music, which led the Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Savannah to have him to come there to train a choir for the Saint Stephens Episcopal Church… . After the war between the States, Porter opened an eight-grade private school, and later on, he was called to be the principal of the first Negro public school in Savannah. He left this position to become the first principal in the public school of Thomasville, Georgia. While there, he published his first book, “English Grammar for Beginners.” Finally, he became principal of a school in Yazoo, Mississippi.36
Porter was especially prominent in the Negro conventions which preceded the state conventions of 1867.
Jefferson Long was sent to Congress from Georgia. He was born in Crawford County in 1836; educated himself, and went into business as a merchant tailor in Macon, Georgia. He was elected a Representative from Georgia to the Forty-first Congress, by a majority of nine hundred over Lawton, a Democrat. He was admitted to his seat January 16, 1871.
The record of the Negro in the Georgia legislature is creditable, and yet Clark Howell afterwards declared Negro members of this legislature were “unlettered,” ignorant politicians, who seemed a “stack of puppets and harlequins of a menagerie.”
Outrages and guerrilla warfare against Negroes were widespread in Georgia. General Lewis of the Freedmen’s Bureau reported 260 attacks, whippings and murders of freedmen between January and November, 1868. In September, there was a race riot at Camilla.
Nordhoff found about 1875 that the Negroes in and near the cities and towns were usually prosperous.
There are many colored mechanics, and they receive full wages where they are skillful. Near Atlanta and other places, they own small truck-farms, and supply the market with vegetables. There are fewer black than white beggars in the cities; and a missionary clergyman surprised me by the remark that the blackberry crop, which was ripening, was “a blessing to dozens of poor white families whom he knew,” who lived half the year, he said, in a condition of semi-starvation.
There are many colored mechanics, and they are all thrifty people, and very commonly own the houses they live in, and often a town lot besides. In the cotton country, an increasing number of colored men own farms of from forty to a hundred acres, but many of these were free before the war. In the towns and villages, the colored people have a prosperous look; they dress neatly, and very commonly live in frame houses. On the whole, their condition appears to me very comfortable and satisfactory.37
He gives these facts:
In an official report of the Comptroller-General of the state for 1874, giving the character and value of property and amount of taxes returned by colored taxpayers for that year, the number of colored polls listed was 83,318. These returned an aggregate value of taxable property amounting to $6,157,798, on which they actually paid $30,788 in taxes. They owned 338,769 acres of agricultural land, and city and town property to the amount of $1,200,115. Now, remembering that these people were slaves only nine years before… I think it clearly establishes that, first, they have labored with creditable industry and perseverance, and, second, that they have been fairly protected in the rights of life and property by the Democratic rulers of the State. I do not think the colored people in any other State I have visited own half as much real estate, or indeed, a quarter as much, as those of Georgia.38
The difficulty of securing adequate wages led to a Negro labor movement. This step was undertaken by two Negro leaders: Congressman Jeff Long and State Representative H. M. Turner. Their purpose was to organize a union among Negroes, demanding a minimum wage of $30 a month for fieldhands, and $15 for women. The convention received considerable notice, and the employers condemned it. There were strikes in Macon and Dougherty County. In Houston County, there was agitation, and county associations of fieldhands were attempted. But this movement for rural unions was not very successful.
Georgia was thus a state where a coalition of planters and Negroes began before Reconstruction. But while the planters advised the Negroes and made fair promises, they took no active part with them. When the new political life began, the planters and the poor whites combined to put the Negroes out of the legislature.
The carpetbaggers and scalawags formed a “Moderate” bloc and fought with the planters to gain control of the poor whites. In this way they succeeded and were able to ignore the Negroes, bribe white labor with silence and make commerce and business triumphant in the state.
The carpetbaggers and scalawags spent money extravagantly, but they spent it, in their printing and contingent funds, with Southern merchants and supply houses, thus combining capitalistic interests. Georgia does not present the stock picture of a state looted by outsiders. It looted itself.
Reviewing the events recorded from the beginning of this chapter, we observe that the period of reconstruction in Georgia was not a period when a swarm of harpies took possession of the state government and preyed at will upon a helpless people. The constitutional convention of 1867-1868 forebodes such a period, but when the Conservatives rouse themselves, from that time on the stage presents an internecine war between two very well matched enemies. This struggle is usually represented as between a wicked assailant and a righteous assailed. That it was a struggle between Republicans and Democrats is much more characteristic. In such a contest mutual vilifying of course abounded, and it is not to be supposed a priori that the vilifying of one party was more truthful than that of the other.39
None were more proud of the extravagance that accompanied this building of the commercial state than white Georgians. They welcomed the bearers of Northern capital then as now. The most extraordinary man in the Reconstruction history of Georgia was Hannibal I. Kimball, who was a capitalist interested in railroads, and often associated for business purposes with ex-Governor Brown. He was especially close to Governor Bullock, and was a focus of bribery and corruption. He was a type
of a class of aspiring Northern men who have rushed to the South since the war, some to run plantations, some to open mines of coal and iron, some to build railroads, others to establish great hotels, and all to give a grand impulse to Southern progress, and show the “old fogies” in the South how to do it. Many of these enterprising men have already come to grief and left the country, while others are in full career to Fortune, or—her eldest daughter—Miss Fortune. 40
Kimball has been of course represented as bribing Negroes; but what Kimball and his kind bribed was the city of Atlanta, the state of Georgia, and the whole South. And while he doubtless gave his tens and hundreds to Negro legislators, his thousands and tens of thousands went to that vast majority of white men who saw in him and his methods the salvation of the new capitalistic South, and who made the wealth and advertising of Atlanta overshadow the old-fashioned conservatism of Savannah and Macon.
Moreover, Georgia was not ruled by carpetbaggers.
Facts do not warrant the description of the Reconstruction government of Georgia as a Negro-carpet-bagger combination. There were some of both classes in the constitutional convention and in the legislature of 1868, already mentioned, and many in the Federal service, particularly as internal revenue officers, but they generally held minor positions.41
The planter candidate for Governor, who opposed Bullock, testified that in 1870 no more than a dozen former non-residents were holding office in Georgia, and that the judges appointed by Bullock were entirely satisfactory. The economic boom of Georgia was evident. The value of total property rose steadily from 191 million in 1868 to 234 million in 1871. By 1870, the cotton crop of Georgia had surpassed the largest crop raised under slavery; a proof that Negro labor had not been demoralized by emancipation. Manufactures increased during 1860-1870, and the lumber business greatly increased. There had been 643 miles of railroad in 1850, and 1,420 in 1860. By 1870, this had increased to 1,845 miles, and 2,160 in 1872.
This business and industrial prosperity of Georgia was largely at the expense of the laboring classes. The educational system was started, but it received little support. Instead of preventing crime, crime was deliberately increased by the convict lease system. The poor, the blind, and the insane were neglected, and although peasant-farmers, because of the high price of produce, were able to buy some land, there was no effort to place large numbers of small owners on their own farms. There was no real labor legislation.
On the other hand, capital began to receive large returns, and speculation was rife. It is of especial interest to note that in Georgia, where the native white man never lost control, there was practically the same increase in debt, and the same railway scandals. There was graft in printing, advertising and attorney’s fees, and the state debt was greatly increased, so that including endorsed railway bonds, it reached a total liability of over twenty million dollars in 1872.
It may be gathered from this that extravagance and theft in the Reconstruction South was a matter neither of race nor of geography; rather it was a question of poverty, opportunity, and current American morals. Nevertheless there were in Georgia the same charges of theft and waste as elsewhere and the same final desire to shoulder the blame on the Negroes.
In the election of December, 1870, there was a large Democratic majority in both Houses of the legislature, and the Democrats continued in power. Bullock, foreseeing impeachment, resigned in October, 1871. The legislature met in November. In December, there were several investigating committees. Robert Toombs became prosecuting attorney, and the investigations were thoroughly partisan.
Railroad manipulation in Georgia as elsewhere led to Wall Street and many financiers of New York, like Henry Clews and Company, and Russell Sage. The acts granting aid to railroads “were passed by votes of members of both political parties, and the State is considered secure against loss if the law be properly enforced.”42 The lease of the state-owned railroad, undoubtedly involved corruption, but among the lessees were former Governor Brown, Alexander Stephens, and Ben Hill, in addition to H. I. Kimball and others. Naturally, no Negroes were involved, except as possible recipients of bribes. Representative Turner seems to have worked hard to secure more reasonable terms—payment only after the work was actually finished. Bullock himself was charged with many financial frauds but none of them were ever proven; his worst deed, the establishment of the convict lease system, was not held against him but adopted by the state with avidity.
Florida had long been a refuge for runaway slaves, and the desire to reclaim these slaves had led to the so-called Seminole Wars and the final annexation. There were 27,943 whites and 26,534 Negroes in 1840, the first census after the state entered the Union. In 1860 there were 77,746 whites and 62,677 Negroes. There never were as many as 1,000 free Negroes in the state before emancipation.
Florida was a poor state with a small population. It had been dominated by rich planters and the poor whites had had little opportunity. The state therefore in many respects resembles South Carolina rather than Alabama in that the black man was the dominant labor and no white proletariat ever ruled. On the other hand black labor never came to self-assertion, while planters and carpetbaggers manipulated it from the first and gerrymandered its representation. White rule was ever in control, but it was only partially proletarian in character.
Although there were hundreds of Negro soldiers in the state at the time of Johnson’s proclamation, he ordered a convention based on white suffrage, and the convention met October 2, 1865. It was composed almost entirely of Confederates, and the message of the provisional governor, Marvin, gave them encouragement.
It is doubtful if there was any noticeable opinion among the whites in favor of Negro suffrage. Certainly Marvin spoke decidedly against it.
“It does not appear to me that the public good of the State or of the nation at large, would be promoted by conferring at the present time upon the freedmen the elective franchise.” “Neither the white people nor the colored people are prepared for so radical a change in their social relations.” “Nor have I any reason to believe that any considerable number of the freedmen desire to possess this privilege.”43
The convention finally said:
The people of the State of Florida, in general convention assembled, do ordain and declare, that while we recognize the freedom of the colored race, and are desirous of extending to them full protection… we declare it the unalterable sentiment of this convention, that the laws of the State shall be made and executed by the white race.44
The convention sat twelve days and adjourned for the ensuing election. E. S. Walker was elected governor. He recommended the removal of black soldiers from the state and advocated various black laws. He said with regard to Negro suffrage:
Each one of us knows that we could not give either an honest or conscientious assent to Negro suffrage. There is not one of us that would not feel that he was doing wrong, and bartering his self-respect, his conscience and his duty to his country and to the Union itself, for the benefits he might hope to obtain by getting back into the Union.45
A commission of three was appointed to report laws concerning the Negro. They recommended a County Criminal Court mainly for Negro offenders and the same discrimination against emancipated slaves which had been used formerly against free Negroes. They were not sure how they could keep the Negro at work, and they were tearful concerning his future:
If, after all, their honest efforts shall prove unavailing, and this four millions of the human family but recently dragged up from barbarism, and through the influence of Southern masters elevated to the status of Christian men and women, shall be doomed by the inscrutable behest of a mysterious Providence to follow in the footsteps of the fast fading aborigines of this continent; and when the last man of the race shall be standing upon the crumbling brink of a people’s grave, it will be some compensation to the descendants of the Southern master to catch the grateful and benignant recognition of this representative man, as he points his withered finger to the author of his ruin and exclaims, “Thou didst it.”46
The black laws of Florida followed: “To save them from the ruin which inevitably awaits them if left to the ‘tender mercy’ of the canting hypocrisy and mawkish sentimentality which has precipitated them to the realization of their present condition.”47
There were the usual vagrancy and apprenticeship laws, and laws against firearms. On the other hand, there were laws regarding marriage and the right to testify in court, but only in matters in which Negroes were concerned.
After the Federal law of June 21, 1866, a large number of Negroes flocked to Florida. From 1865 to 1867, the chief thought of the freedmen of Florida, as in other states, concerned itself with what the government was going to do for them with regard to farms, and they were victims of many speculators.
The duel in Florida for the control of labor was between two sets of Northern men, mostly Federal officeholders of various sorts and the planters. The policy of the planters was so to shift their influence between the Northerners so as to gain their ends by political strategy, which they finally did. At the same time, they made some effective efforts to keep in touch with the Negroes so that they retained a good deal of influence over their vote.
When the elections of 1867 under the Reconstruction laws were about to take place, the Negroes sought to get in touch with leading white Southerners. One meeting was held in Leon County and several white planters invited to address it and give the Negroes information as to their newly acquired duties as citizens. This increased the rivalry between the planters and the carpetbaggers, with the result that the planters made few further open efforts to coöperate with the Negro voters. The Southern whites tried to kill the convention by refraining from voting, so that the total vote cast was 14,503, of which all but 1,220 was cast by Negroes.
In the convention of 1868, forty-six delegates were returned. Eighteen of these were Negroes. Of the twenty-seven whites two were Conservatives, fifteen carpetbaggers, and the rest Southern whites.
The most cultured member of the convention, probably, was Jonathan Gibbs, a Negro. Gibbs was a tall and slightly-built black with a high forehead and a color indicating mulatto origin. His voice was clear and ringing. He possessed some of the qualities of a born orator and a genuine sentimentalist.48
E. Fortune, another colored member, was a native of Florida with a fair education, courageous in his opinions. Among other colored leaders were Armstrong, Oats, and Wallace, who wrote the history of Reconstruction in Florida.
The convention which met January 20, 1868, had a colored man of Tallahassee, C. H. Pearce, as temporary president. He was not a strong man and was later convicted of technical bribery. But, on the whole, his advice and effort seem to have been sincere and he had the confidence of large numbers of colored people. Of the 46 delegates there were only 20 present. Richards, a white man of Illinois, who, as Wallace says, had been only two days in the county from which he had been returned, was elected permanent chairman.
Richards, however, struck the right note in his speech. He said:
We should provide for a system by which all may obtain homes of their own and a comfortable living, and also provide for schools in which all may be educated free of expense; clothe honest industry with respectability; inaugurate a public sentiment that shall crown the man with honors as the benefactor of his race who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before, and prohibit all laws that are not equal and just to all within our State.49
The first difficulty was a matter of money. There was only $500 in the treasury, and the convention had to issue scrip to pay its expenses. This scrip circulated at less than par value and made the expenses appear much larger than they actually were. Two factions early developed among the carpetbaggers, and the policy of the planters was to wait and take advantage from time to time of the outcome of this internal fight. This left the Negroes in a peculiarly helpless condition, and it was only the ability and sanity of men like Gibbs that enabled them to make any headway at all.
On the second day of the convention, an ordinance was passed forbidding the sale of property for debt, suspending the collection of taxes, releasing all persons held to labor for non-payment of taxes, but not forbidding the laborer the right to collect wages from his employer. It was distinctly legislation in the interest of labor.
The convention had been in session about two weeks when the planters took a hand. The two factions among the Northern white leaders were the conservative Osborne faction, which leaned toward the planters, and the more radical Billings faction which sought complete control of the Negroes. The Osborne faction and the planters, under the leadership of ex-Governor Walker, succeeded in breaking up the convention so that nearly half of it seceded and went off secretly to a neighboring town to work on a constitution. This rump convention adopted a constitution and sent it to the Federal General of the District for his approval. They then took a recess. Afterwards they returned to Tallahassee, broke into the legislative hall at midnight, and declared themselves the rightful convention.
General Meade intervened and made the two factions come together and adopt a constitution which proved to be mainly the constitution drawn by the seceders. This constitution was a peculiar document. It put vast appointing power in the hands of the Governor, making him a practical dictator of the state, and it was also charged that the basis of representation was so unfair that less than one-fourth of the registered voters would elect a majority in the state Senate and less than one-third a majority of the Assembly.
6,700 voters in the rebel counties elect as many Senators… as 20,282 voters elect in Union counties. Seven Senators are elected by 3,027 voters in rebel counties, and only one Senator is elected by 3,181 in Union County [Leon], and twenty-three voters elect one Senator in a rebel district.
In the assembly, 8,330 voters in rebel counties choose twenty-seven members… . Madison County [Union], with 1,802 voters sends two representatives, while the rebel sent from Dade County has a constituency of eight registered voters.50
This was accomplished by discriminating against the localities where the Negro vote was large so that the Negroes never had in the legislatures a representation anywhere near as large as their population called for. The constitution relieved the former Confederates from taking the registration oath. Charles Sumner and others opposed the admission of the state under this constitution but, nevertheless, after a delay from February to June, the state was admitted.
In the election on the constitution and for state officers, Billings was the candidate of the radical branch of the Northern white leaders, and the planters nominated a Confederate cavalry colonel, but in reality threw their support to Harrison Reed, the candidate of the Osborne faction which had made the constitution. The Republican ticket, headed by Reed, received 14,421 votes; the Democratic ticket, headed by Scott, 7,731; and the Independent Radical ticket, 2,251.
In the first legislature there were 17 Republicans and 8 Democrats in the Senate, and 36 Republicans and 15 Democrats in the House. Of these 76, 19 were Negroes, 13 carpetbaggers, 21 Southern loyalists, and 23 Conservatives.
Harrison Reed was a Johnson Democrat and formerly chief postal agent in Florida. He was present at Johnson’s inauguration, as an unofficial representative of the state, and was a strong opponent of Chase. He was a curious character. Like Warmoth of Louisiana, he was an adroit politician and was repeatedly threatened with impeachment. But he was not as unscrupulous a grafter as Warmoth and exercised his great power with considerable care. His policy always was to favor the planters as much as possible, and then, when the Negroes or Northern whites revolted, to yield to them sufficiently so as to retain their support. In his cabinet, the more important places went to exslaveholders.
The number of Negro members in subsequent Florida legislatures is not clear. Wallace mentions twenty-five colored members of the House in the legislature of 1873. The number of representatives in the legislature who could neither read nor write, during the seven years of carpetbag rule in Florida, was six, of whom four were white.
Under the constitution, the Governor appointed all of the chief state officers except the lieutenant-governor and judges; and also he named most of the county officers. Nevertheless, the constitution of 1869 gave the Negroes the right to vote and gave Florida its first approach to a real government of the people.
Reed’s administration started out with strength and respectability, but it was weak because of lack of recognition of the colored people. His opponents, therefore, tried one method of attacking him by introducing a civil rights bill, compelling hotel keepers and railroad companies to receive Negroes on the same terms as whites. The bill was passed in the assembly, but the Governor called in members of the Senate and explained why he thought it was not wise to push such legislation. Colored people became alarmed, but through Pearce and other leaders their apprehensions were allayed.
The ill-will against Reed began when electors were chosen in November, 1868. Impeachment proceedings against him were begun, but the Supreme Court ruled that there was no quorum in the Senate at the time. The Secretary of State, Alden, had joined in the opposition to Reed and was removed; Gibbs, the colored leader, was selected as his successor, which greatly increased the strength of Reed among the freedmen.
The ensuing turmoil in Florida cannot be understood unless one keeps carefully in mind just what was taking place. The planters were encouraging lawlessness and inciting the Negroes to make extravagant demands for equality in order to embarrass the carpetbaggers and excite the poor whites. The carpetbaggers and Northern capitalists were seeking to get rid of Reed, and bribing white and black members of the legislature in order to get through special legislation for capital. The Negroes were trying to find a program of labor legislation, which would help and uplift the masses; Reed was playing capital, labor and planters against each other, and in the midst of these contradictory and opposing forces, the state staggered on. The Governor informed the legislature that the past seven years of anarchy and insurrection had left nothing in the treasury, with $600,000 of debts and a large amount repudiated. The former inadequate school fund had been robbed of its last dollar to aid the Confederate forces. The railroad system, half completed, was bankrupt, the revenue laws inadequate, no schools or school systems, no benevolent institutions, no almshouses, penitentiaries, and scarcely a jail.
In the first Reconstruction legislature, Negro leaders, Harmon and Black, tried to pass a school law for the education of the masses. At the second session of the legislature a homestead law was passed and the school laws amended. Acts of violence throughout the state continued and there was considerable bribery in the legislature.
The second session of the legislature met January 5, 1869. There was a second attempt to impeach Reed, foiled by the action of two colored members, H. S. Harmon and E. Fortune, and finally defeated by a vote of 43 to 5. An extraordinary session of the legislature was called May 17, 1869, on account of financial difficulties and matters connected with the sale of the Pensacola and Georgia Railroad and the Tallahassee Railroad.51
Railroad legislation was introduced, Littlefield and Swepson, already operating in North Carolina, being connected with the matter. State aid was asked at the rate of $12,000 a mile for these railroads, which would amount to $4,000,000. Wallace says that members of the legislature were openly bought, white men receiving from $2,000 to $6,000 and colored men $500 or less.
There were disturbances in various counties and open violence and bloodshed in 1868-1869. Reed was asked to declare martial law, but instead he sent Secretary Gibbs to the centers of disturbance. Gibbs received close attention from the colored people and openly attacked the carpetbagger leaders.
The legislature met in January, 1870, in its third regular session. The Governor repeated a statement which he had made before.
In several counties organized bands of lawless men have combined to over-ride the civil authorities, and many acts of violence have occurred; but these have been incidental to the State in all its past history, and arise less, perhaps, from special enmity to the present form of government than from opposition to the restraints of law in general.52
It is true that these same localities, being, to all intents, border sections, have from time immemorial been the resorts of lawless and reckless men, and in some of them, as in earlier periods of the existence of the Western and South-western States, the law of Judge Lynch and the “Regulators” for years before the war, had been the only code of much efficacy.
I had hoped better results from the reorganization of government under Republican auspices; but the bitterness resulting from the war, the noxious teachings of disappointed and defeated political opponents, assisted by the occasional lack of discretion on the part of injudicious political friends, succeeded for a long time in setting at naught the advice and the efforts of the better men of all classes, until improvement at times seemed to be hopeless; and I have been strongly and forcibly urged to the declaration of martial law.53
Again an attempt was made to impeach Reed but the colored members stood by him. The impeachment committee sent in two reports; a majority report signed by four, and a minority report signed by one. The minority report, which was adopted, said:
Looking back over the history of the State for the last ten years, so full of excitement, agitation, and turmoil, we are profoundly impressed with a sense of the value of the results of the reconstructive legislation of the National Government, and its subsequent result in the organization of our own State government… .
We feel bound in duty to call attention to the many difficulties and embarrassments, particularly of a financial description, with which in the administration of a newly organized government, Governor Reed has found himself continually surrounded. Without sympathy, with scanty resources, without the support from a portion of his Cabinet, as it appears from the testimony and from official documents, called to fill a multitude of offices by the appointment of comparative strangers, he must have been seriously embarrassed and hampered on every hand.
After deliberate consideration of the charges, the evidence, the surrounding and difficult circumstances, and in view of the results that may be expected to follow the action taken, we do not find the charges preferred to be so far sustained by the evidence given as to warrant us in recommending an impeachment. The report was adopted by a vote of 27 to 22; all the colored members of the legislature except one voted against impeachment.54
In 1870 the Democratic party put in nomination Bloxham for Lieutenant-Governor. The Republican politicians declared that if Bloxham was elected they would unite with the Democrats so as to impeach Governor Reed and make Bloxham Governor. Wallace thinks that Bloxham was in fact elected but counted out by the Returning Board, of which Gibbs, the colored Secretary of State, was a member. He says that Gibbs consented with great reluctance and under threat of impeachment if he did not yield. It must be remembered, however, that Bloxham was the friend and mentor of Wallace and edited his book.
The legislature met in January, 1872, and again sought to impeach the Governor. The more ignorant of the members of the assembly were secured to vote for the impeachment. A Southern county judge was promised appointment as a circuit judge, and a Democratic member of the assembly was promised a share of the new bonds. Ex-Governor Walker promised the support of the Democrats.
The Governor in his message complained that more than two-thirds of the bonds issued in aid of Littlefield roads had been wasted without any real progress. The bonds were intrusted to firms of swindlers in New York. Impeachment proceedings were based on this, and the Governor was suspended from office; but the trial was never held and at an extra session of the legislature he was restored to office.
There had been much corruption in every legislature under Reed, but Wallace says: “The colored members at this session began to show more manhood by openly denouncing the tricks of the carpetbaggers and refusing to be enslaved by caucus rule.” They showed their independence by this resolution introduced by Daniel McInnis, colored, of Duval County:
Whereas it appears that after several attempts to have a Civil Rights bill, which gives to every citizen the same protection in the enjoyment of his liberties; and, whereas it has become a painful fact from the action of Liberty Billings, acting president pro tem. of the Senate of the State of Florida, and others who are opposed to seeing the colored citizens of this State enjoy the same rights that he and his associates do, we again witness on today another defeat of the Civil Rights bill, caused by only those who profess to be our friends in connection with this great cause of civil rights; therefore:
Resolved that we, the colored members, and those who honestly sympathize with us, do unhesitatingly repudiate such friendship, and do now and henceforth withdraw from and decline from ever affiliating with, politically, or to aid in electing any such man or men who have so basely misrepresented our people.55
These resolutions were ruled out of order; McInnis was fought and denounced in his county, and lost the next election to the legislature, although “one of the most faithful and honest representatives of the colored people.”
The delegation elected from Leon County, all colored, “stood opposed to the system of plunder which had been inaugurated in almost every county of the state.” This was shown when Gleason introduced a bill to authorize corporations to change their names and consolidate their capital stock, etc. The measure was adopted by the Republican caucus, but when the matter came up for final consideration, the Leon County delegates opposed the bill and John W. Wyatt, a Negro, made a speech which was the first ordered spread on the minutes of the legislature of Florida.
We want no Tom Scotts, Jim Fisks or Vanderbilts in this State to govern us, by means of which they would influence legislation tending to advance personal interests.
The great curse of Florida has been dishonest corporations, rings and cliques, with an eye single to their central interest, and if this bill is suffered to pass this Assembly, in my opinion we may look for a continuation of abuses and a usurpation of the rights of citizens who ay be opposed to the evil machinations such as are generally exerted by consolidated bodies… .
The recent exposé of the Tammany Ring in New York has satisfied all right thinking men that the power exercised by strong bodies, composed of many corporations, is the most dangerous to the public good and safety. Therefore, it ill becomes us to pass a bill enveloped in darkness as the title to this bill indicates it to be… .
A last attempt was made in this session to impeach Reed. Wallace says: As one of the members of the committee, I never saw the report of the investigating committee nor any other evidences upon which the subsequent articles of impeachment presented by the committee were based.56
After a long and intricate fight, Reed, supported loyally by his Secretary of State, Gibbs, out-generaled his opponents. However, Reed was not renominated, although the colored people wanted him. The planters now felt strong enough to assert themselves, and secured the selection, as Republican candidate for Governor, of Justice O. B. Hart. The carpetbaggers filled the rest of the ticket, except that the freedmen received recognition by the nomination of J. T. Walls, as one of the candidates for United States Representative. The campaign was bitter and the results of the election close. The Republicans carried it by a small margin. Hart was the first native governor of Florida in Reconstruction times, but was a vacillating and uncertain man.
The legislature met in January, 1873, and nominated a colored man, Scott, for speaker. He was defeated by the revolt of the colored delegation from Leon County on account of his connection with politicians. In return, the white leaders insisted that no colored man was fit for a cabinet position except Jonathan C. Gibbs, and he, they charged, had attempted to count in Bloxham in the previous election. The Negroes insisted on Gibbs. Hart refused until the colored members in caucus demanded Gibbs’ appointment, with a threat that they would otherwise combine with the Democrats and clog the wheels of the administration. Colored members of both branches of the legislature went to Hart in a body and finally he had to accede to their demand. Gibbs was appointed Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Gibbs held this office during 1872-1874, when the school system was tottering and the collection of funds difficult. He virtually established the public schools of the state as an orderly system; but when a student of Florida history recently tried to examine the records of his administration, he discovered that they had all disappeared from the state archives.
The extraordinary political complications of the day are illustrated by Hart and his cabinet. Hart was a Southern planter backed by carpetbaggers and his Secretary of State was McLin. Wallace says:
The Cabinet was a very fair one, with the exception of McLin, who was a deserter from the rebel army, and being self-condemned for his own treachery for having volunteered in the Confederate service and then deserted before he smelled gunpowder, he was satisfied that neither the Democrats nor the carpetbaggers cared to trust him, and he was therefore the tool of the most rabid and unprincipled members of the carpetbag dynasty of the State.57
In 1873, Gibbs and the trustees of the Agricultural College frustrated an attempt to invest the $100,000 received from the general government in bonds which would have put the cash in possession of the politicians.
When Hart died in 1874, Stearns became Governor. He wanted to ask the resignation of Gibbs, but Gibbs was too popular. Stearns had promised to nominate Gibbs for Congress but was afraid that he could not control him. Gibbs was in perfect health before the meeting of the convention and during its sitting. He delivered a powerful speech in the Stearns convention, attacking one of his supporters. He went home and ate a hearty dinner, after which he suddenly died. “It was whispered and generally believed that he was poisoned by some of the carpetbaggers, because they dreaded his growing popularity.”
His brother, Judge Mifflin Gibbs of Arkansas, gives a different cause for his death but notes his fear of assassination.
My brother, Jonathan C. Gibbs, was then Secretary of State of Florida, with Governor Hart as executive. He had had the benefit of a collegiate education, having graduated at Dartmouth, New Hampshire, and had for some years filled the pulpit as a Presbyterian minister. The stress of Reconstruction and obvious necessity for ability in secular matters induced him to enter official life. Naturally indomitable, he more than fulfilled the expectations of his friends and supporters by rare ability as a thinker and a speaker, with unflinching fidelity to his party principles. I found him at Tallahassee, the capital, in a well-appointed residence, but his sleeping place in the attic resembled, as I perceived, considerably an arsenal. He said that for better advantage it had been his resting place for several months, as his life had been threatened by the “Ku Klux.” . . . It was my last interview or sight of my brother. Subsequently after a three hours’ speech, he went to his office and suddenly died of apoplexy.58
In the legislature of 1873 there were twenty-five colored members of whom 19 were in revolt against the political leaders. The methods of the white politicians were illustrated in the case of two colored members who wished to inspect the state prison. Everything was done to impede them. A special train was prepared for the comfort of the visiting guests, but it left just two hours before the time designated and the colored men were left behind. But the Negroes were energetic and determined and reached the grounds by other means. The warden at once set out liquors and cigars, but the colored men refused to partake and went about their investigation.
The Civil Rights Bill finally passed at this session without great opposition. The matter of land distribution continued to come up, and the Northern politicians assured the freedmen that they favored high taxes upon the lands of the ex-slaveholders so as to compel them to sell these lands cheaply. On the other hand, they accused the planters of being in favor of low taxes so that the whites could hold the land and rent it to the colored people. This propaganda influenced Negro votes but resulted in no real action.
In the legislature of 1875, most of the minor offices were filled with colored men. The Republican state convention renominated Stearns for Governor and adopted a platform arraigning both state and national governments for corruption, extravagance and oppression. The state debt was only $1,329,757.68; the state taxation, which had been less than 2 mills on a dollar in 1861, had increased to 5 mills in 1867 and 13 7/10 mills in 1872. It was then reduced to seven mills in 1875. The expenditures were but $190,000 against receipts of about $220,000. Thus the Democratic cry of extravagance was not particularly effective.
In the campaign of 1876, the Democrats won. McLin, the ex-Confederate in the Cabinet, celebrated in the Tallahassee Sentinel the victory of Hayes.
In general, Florida presents no abnormal picture. There was some waste and high taxation but it did not reach extremes; it had, as in other states, to contend with deliberate efforts to sabotage its advance. The Floridan said in 1871:
No greater calamity could befall the State of Florida, while under the rule of its present carpetbag, scalawag officials, than to be placed in good financial credit… . Our only hope is in the state’s utter financial bankruptcy; and Heaven grant that that may speedily come! On the other hand, establish for the State financial credit on Wall Street, so that Florida bonds can be sold by Reed & Company, as fast as issued, and you give these foul harpies a life-tenure of these offices… . The temporal salvation of the taxpayers is having scrip low, so that they can buy it to pay taxes with, and in having the State’s financial redit low so that Reed & Co. can’t sell State bonds so as to raise money with which to perpetuate their hold on office.
There was bribery of Negro legislators, as Wallace frankly shows, but he also says of his history:
The design of this work is to correct the settled and erroneous impression that has gone out to the world that the former slaves, when enfranchised, had no conception of good government, and therefore their chief ambition was corruption and plunder… .
That it was white men, and not colored men, who originated corruption and enriched themselves from the earnings of the people of the State from the year 1868 to 1877; that the loss of the State to the National Republican Party was not due to any unfaithfulness of the colored people to that party, but to the corruption of these strange white leaders termed “carpetbaggers”; that the colored people have done as well as any other people could have done under the same circumstances, if not better.”59
Wallace particularly laments the effect of corrupt leaders on the Negro:
The Northern machine politicians assert that it was the incompetence and unfaithfulness of the Negro voter to the Republican Party that brought about the unhealthy condition of things which made the Solid South—it was these and kindred acts of the carpetbaggers which furnish the key to unlock the door that reveals the secrets of the Solid South, while these very carpetbaggers were sustained by the Northern machine politicians. From the beginning to the end of Stearns’ so-called administration it was contaminated with packed juries for political purposes, and during the last two years of his term it became a patent fact that scarcely a person brought before the courts in the Black Belt counties could be convicted from the fact that the petit juries were mostly composed of the very worst element among the freedmen.60
This is not the whole truth. The reactionary planters, in whom Wallace and other colored men pathetically believed, were not honest or sincere in their advice to and support of Negroes. They encouraged lawlessness among poor whites, extravagance among carpetbaggers and bribery among Negroes. They deliberately befouled the whole political nest in order to discredit its rulers and voters.
Shall I sing of Liberty when there is no liberty?
Shall I sing of Freedom when there is none?
Shall I sing love-songs to young lovers who are slaves?
My soul thrills even as I think the laburnum
In Spring-time thrills to link her chains of gold.
I am lost in the great miracle which Nature
Has endlessly wrought out of freedom.
But Man sits amid his own ruins, eating husks.
Charles Erskine Scott Wood
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