XI. THE WARDS OF THE NATION…

XI. THE WARDS OF THE NATION

SEC. 1. THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU

Department of Negro Affairs

Any account of the causes of disturbed conditions in the South during the two years succeeding the war must include an examination of the workings of the Freedmen's Bureau, the administration of which was uniformly hostile to the President's policy and in favor of the Radical plans.

As soon as the Federal armies reached the Black Belt, it became a serious problem to care for the negroes who stopped work and flocked to the camps. Some of the generals sent them back to their masters, others put them to work as laborers in the camps and on the fortifications. Officers--usually chaplains--were temporarily detailed to look after the blacks who swarmed about the army, and thus the so-called "Department of Negro Affairs" was established extra-legally, and continued until the passage of the Freedmen's Bureau Act in 1865. The "Department" was supported by captured and confiscated property, and was under the direction of the War Department.[1128]

For a year after north Alabama was overrun by the Federal troops, no attempt was made to segregate the blacks; but in 1863 a camp for refugees and captured negroes was established on the estate of ex-Governor Chapman, near Huntsville in Madison county, and Chaplain Stokes of the Eighteenth Wisconsin Infantry was placed in charge. It was not intended that the negroes should remain there permanently, but they were to be sent later to the larger concentration camps at Nashville. No records were kept, but the report of the inspector states that several hundred negroes were received before August, 1864, of whom only a small proportion was sent to Nashville. Those who remained were employed in cultivating the land,--planting corn, cotton, sorghum, and vegetables,--and in building log barracks and other similar houses. Schools were established for the children. The War Department issued three-fourths rations to the negroes, and the aid societies also helped them, although this colony was nearer self-sustaining than any other.[1129]

In 1864 the Treasury Department assumed partial charge of negro refugees and captive slaves. Regulations provided that captured and abandoned property should be rented and the proceeds devoted to the purchase of supplies for the blacks, who, when possible, were to be employed as laborers. In each special agency there was to be a "Freedmen's Home Colony" under a "Superintendent of Freedmen," whose duty it was to care for the blacks in the colony, to obtain agricultural implements and supplies, and to keep a record of the negroes who passed through the colony. A classification of laborers was made and a minimum schedule of wages fixed as follows:--

No. 1 hands, males, 18 to 40 years of age, minimum wage, $25 per month; No. 2 hands, males, 14 to 18, 40 to 55 years of age, minimum wage, $20 per month; No. 3 hands, males, 12 to 14 years of age, minimum wage, $15 per month; corresponding classes of women, $18, $14, $10, respectively.

It was the duty of the superintendent to see that all who were physically able secured work at the specified rates. He acted as an employment agent, and the planters had to hire their labor through him. He exercised a general supervision over the affairs of all freedmen in the district. Beside paying the high wages fixed by the schedule, the planter was obliged to take care of the young children of the family hired by him; to furnish without charge a separate house for each family with an acre of ground for garden, medical attendance for the family, and schooling for the children; to sell food and clothing to the negroes at actual cost; and to pay for full time unless the laborer was sick or refused to work. Half the wages was paid at the end of the month, and the remainder at the end of the contract. Wages due constituted a first lien on the crop, which could not be moved until the superintendent certified that the wages had been paid or arranged for. Not more than ten hours a day labor was to be required. Cases of dispute were to be settled by civil courts (Union), where established,--otherwise the superintendent was vested with the power to decide such cases. Provision was made for accepting the assistance of the aid societies, especially in the matter of schools.[1130] Under such regulations it was hardly possible for the farmer to hire laborers, and we find that only 205 negroes were disposed of by the colony near Huntsville. If the wages could have been paid in Confederate currency, they would have been reasonable; but United States currency was required, and most people had none of it.

In the fall of 1864 the army again took charge of negro affairs and administered them along the lines indicated in the Treasury regulations. Wherever the army went its officers constituted themselves into freedmen's courts, aid societies, etc., and exercised absolute control over all relations between the two races and among the blacks.

The Freedmen's Bureau Established

The law of March 3, 1865, created a Bureau in the War Department to which was given control of all matters relating to freedmen, refugees, and abandoned lands. All officials were required to take the iron-clad test oath.[1131] No appropriation was made for the purpose of carrying out this law, and for the first year the Bureau was maintained by taxes on salaries and on cotton, by fines, donations, rents of buildings and lands, and by the sales of crops and confiscated property.[1132] On July 16, 1866, a second Bureau Bill, amplifying the law of March 3, 1865, and extending it to July 16, 1868, was passed over the President's veto. In 1868 the Bureau was continued for one year, and on January 1, 1869, it was discontinued, except in educational work.[1133] There is no indication that the provisions of the laws had much effect on the administration of the Bureau. From the beginning it had entire control of all that concerned freedmen, who thus formed a special class not subject to the ordinary laws. In Alabama there were nearly 500,000 negroes thus set apart, of whom 100,000 were children and 40,000 were aged and infirm.[1134]

It was several months before the organization of the Bureau was completed in Alabama. Meanwhile army officers acted as ex officio agents of the Bureau, and regulated negro affairs. They were disposed to persuade the negroes to go home and work, and not congregate around the military posts. They issued some rations to the negroes in the towns who were most in want, but discouraged the tendency to look to the United States for support. Only a small proportion of the race was affected by the operations of the Bureau during the months of April, May, and June, 1865. In north and south Alabama, above and below the Black Belt, the negroes were more under control of the Bureau than in the Black Belt itself. The assistant commissioner for Tennessee had jurisdiction over the negroes in north Alabama, who had been under nominal northern control since 1862. The Bureau was established at Mobile in April and May, under the control of the army, and was an offshoot of the Louisiana Bureau, T. W. Conway, assistant commissioner for Louisiana, being for a short while in charge of negro affairs in Alabama. At the same time there was at Mobile one T. W. Osborn, who was called the assistant commissioner for Alabama. Later he was transferred to Florida, and in July, 1865, General Wager Swayne succeeded Conway in Alabama.[1135]

There were but few regular agents in Alabama before the arrival of General Swayne. A few stray missionaries and preachers, representing the aid societies, came in, and were placed in charge of the camps of freedmen near the towns. Conway appointed agents at Mobile, Demopolis, Selma, and Montgomery, who were officers in the negro regiments.[1136] For several months the army officers were almost the only agents, and, as has been stated, the higher officials, and some of the subordinates pursued a sensible course, giving the negroes sensible advice, and laboring to convince them that they could not expect to live without work. Others encouraged them in idleness and violence and advised them to stop work and congregate in the towns and around the military posts. The black troops and their commanders were a source of disorder and cause of irritation between the races. The officers of these troops, and others also, were probably often sincere in their convictions that the southern white, especially the former slave owner, could not be trusted in anything where negroes were concerned, that he was the natural enemy of the black and must be guarded against.[1137]

It was on June 20, 1865, that General Swayne was appointed assistant commissioner for Alabama, and on July 14, T. W. Conway directed all officials of the Bureau in the state (except those in north Alabama who were under the control of the assistant commissioner of Tennessee) to report to Swayne on his arrival.[1138] On July 26 the latter assumed charge and appointed Charles A. Miller as his assistant adjutant-general, later another saviour of his country in Reconstruction days. General Swayne stated that on his arrival he was kindly received by most of the people, and that he was "agreeably disappointed" in the temper of the people and their attitude toward him. Howard's instructions made it the duty of the assistant commissioner or his agents to adjudicate all differences among negroes and between negroes and whites. Exclusive and final jurisdiction was vested in him.[1139]

The Bureau in Alabama was organized in five departments: (1) the Department of Abandoned and Confiscated Lands; (2) the Department of Records (Labor, Schools, and Supplies); (3) the Department of Finance; (4) the Medical Department; (5) the Bounty Department. Before the end of August, 1865, the organization was completed, on paper, and the state had been divided into five districts, each controlled by a superintendent. These districts were:

(1) Mobile, with seven counties; (2) Selma, with ten counties; (3) Montgomery, with nine counties; (4) Troy, with six counties: (5) Demopolis, with eight counties; later, (6) north Alabama, consisting of twelve counties, was withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the assistant commissioner of Tennessee, General Fiske, and became the sixth division in Alabama.

The officials of the Freedmen's Bureau, except the state officials and subordinate employees, numbered, in 1865, twenty-seven army officers, and two civilians.[1140] By November the Bureau was well organized, and as many offices as possible were established to examine into labor contracts. Each superintendent had charge of the issue of rations in the county where he was stationed, and in each of the other counties of his district he had an assistant superintendent. It was the duty of these seventy-five or more officers to investigate complaints against county or state officials, who had been made ex officio Freedmen's Bureau agents; and when a negro made a complaint, Swayne forced Parsons to appoint a new officer. Later, when complaint was made, Swayne would replace a civil agent by a regular Bureau agent. Thus the Bureau gradually passed out of the hands of the state officials. The superintendents and the assistant superintendents had the power to arrest outlaws and evil-doers. They could also delegate the charge of contracts to responsible persons. Depots were established from which supplies were issued to the counties, each county furnishing transportation and distributing the supplies under the observation of the superintendent.[1141]

General Swayne was succeeded, January 14, 1868, by Brevet Brigadier-General Julius Hayden, who in turn was succeeded, March 31, 1868, by Brevet Brigadier-General O. L. Shepherd, Colonel of the Fifteenth Infantry, and he was relieved on August 18, 1868, by Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Edwin Beecher, who wound up the affairs of the Bureau in the state, except the educational and bounty divisions.[1142] The sub-districts were continued during the existence of the Bureau. These consisted of four to six counties each, and were sometimes under the charge of regular army officers, sometimes under civilians.[1143] The Tribune correspondent had doubts of the benefits of the Freedmen's Bureau where army officers, especially West Pointers, were in charge. The West Pointers were strict with the negroes, there was no idleness; the negro had to work; and the officers always took the side of the white.[1144]

Pressure from the northern Radicals was brought to bear on Swayne, as time went on, to force him to do away more and more with army officers and civil officials of the state, and to substitute civilians from the North, who had a different plan for helping the negro. The alien agents were opposed to Swayne's plan of appointing native whites as agents, and told him tales of outrage that had been committed, but he paid no attention to them. The Bureau officers told much more horrible tales than any of the army officers.[1145]

The Nation's correspondent seemed disappointed because the Freedmen's Bureau and the people and the negro were getting along fairly well.[1146]

The Freedmen's Bureau and the Civil Authorities

There was, according to the state laws of 1861, no provision for the negro in the courts, and Swayne asked Governor Parsons to issue a proclamation opening the courts to them and giving them full civil rights. He reminded Parsons that he (Parsons) was merely a military official, and that the law administered by him was martial law, which had its limits only in the discretion of the commander. Parsons and his advisers thought that the people would oppose such action and so refused to issue the proclamation.[1147]

Thereupon Swayne himself issued a proclamation, stating that exclusive control of all matters relating to the negroes belonged to him. He was unwilling, however, he said, to establish tribunals in Alabama conducted by persons foreign to her citizenship and strangers to her laws. Consequently, all judicial officers, magistrates, and sheriffs of the provisional government were made Bureau agents for the administration of justice to the negroes. The laws of the state were to be applied so far as no distinction was made on account of color. Processes were to run in the name of the provisional government and according to the forms provided by state law. The military authorities were to support the civil officials of the Bureau in the administration of justice. Each officer was to signify his acceptance of this appointment, and failure to accept or refusal to administer the laws without regard to color would result in the substitution of martial law in that community.[1148]

This order was remarkable for several reasons. In the first place, it was rather an arrogant seizure of the provisional administration and subordination of it to the Bureau. All officials were forced to accept by the threat of martial law in case of refusal to serve. Again, Swayne was not in command of the military forces of the state, though the army was directed to support the Bureau. This law gave to Swayne unlimited discretion, so that by a short order he practically placed himself at the head of the whole administration,--civil and military,--and throughout his term of service in Alabama he never allowed anything to stand in his way.[1149] Again, the act of March 3, 1865, provided that all officials of the Bureau must take the "iron-clad," and it is doubtful if a single state official could have taken it. Swayne did not require it.

As soon as Swayne's proclamation was made known, the majority of the judges and magistrates applied to Governor Parsons for instructions in the matter. Parsons, who disliked the Bureau, but who was a timid and prudent man, issued a proclamation requiring compliance, and even enforced compliance by removing those who refused and appointing in their places nominees of Swayne. The entire body of state and county officials finally signified their acceptance, and the negro was then given exactly the same civil rights as possessed by the whites.[1150] Had all the state officials refused to serve, there would have ensued an interesting state of affairs; an official of the Freedmen's Bureau would have overturned the state government set up by the President. It was, however, done with a good purpose, and for a while worked well by not working at all. Swayne was a man of common sense, a soldier, and a gentleman, and honestly desired to do what was best for all--the negro first. He did not profess much regard for the native white, and he made it plain that his main purpose was to secure the rights which he thought the negro ought to have. Incidentally, he pursued a wise and conciliatory policy, as he understood it, toward the whites, for he saw that this was the best way to aid the negro. The work of the Bureau under his charge was probably the least harmful of all in the South, and for most of the harm done he was not responsible. General Swayne attributed what he termed his success with the Freedmen's Bureau to the fact that he used at first the native state and county officials as his agents, and thus dispensed to some, extent with alien civilians and army officials, who were obnoxious to the mass of the people. The requisite number of army officials of proper character could not have been secured, and they would not have understood the conditions. The same was true of alien civilians. Even the best ones would have inclined toward the blacks in all things, and thus would have incensed the whites, or they would have been "seduced by social amenities" to become the instruments of the whites, or they would have become merchantable. In any case the negro would suffer. General Swayne said that he thoroughly understood that he was expected by the Radicals to pursue no such policy, and that he half expected to be forced from the service for so doing. Influence was brought to bear to cause him to change and with some success.

Later some few officials were removed, the most notable case being that of Major H. H. Slough and the police of Mobile.[1151] It was reported to Swayne that Slough was not enforcing the laws without regard to color. A staff officer was sent at once to Mobile to demand instant acceptance or rejection of Swayne's proclamation. The mayor rejected it, and Swayne then informed Parsons that Mobile had to have either a new mayor, or martial law and a garrison of negro troops.[1152] Parsons yielded, and made all the changes that Swayne demanded. Two commissions were made out,--one appointed John Forsyth as mayor, and the other, F. C. Bromberg, a "Union" man. Swayne was to deliver the commission he wished. He went to Mobile and decided to try Forsyth, who at that time was down the bay at a pleasure resort. Swayne went after him in a tug, and met a tug with Forsyth on board coming up the bay. He hailed it and asked it to stop, but the tug only went the faster. He chased it for several miles,[1153] and at length the pursued boat was overtaken. Swayne called for Forsyth, and all thought that he was to be arrested. But to the great relief of the party the appointment as mayor was offered to him, and Forsyth soon decided to accept the office. As Swayne said, he was a "hot Confederate," a Democrat, and would fight, and no one would dare criticise him. He soon had the confidence of both white and black.[1154]

The order admitting the testimony of and conferring civil rights upon the negro was favored by most of the lawyers of the state. The "testimony" was the fulcrum to move other things. The tendency of the law of evidence is to receive all testimony and let the jury decide. So there was no trouble from the lawyers, and their opinion greatly influenced the people. None of the respectable people of Alabama were opposed to allowing the negro to testify. They were not afraid of such testimony, for no jury would ever convict a reputable man on negro testimony alone. This was one objection to it--its unreliability and consequent possible injustice.

Bureau supported by Confiscations

Landlords were prevented from evicting negroes who had taken possession of houses or lands until complete provision had been made for them elsewhere. Thus the negroes would do nothing and kept others from coming in their places.[1155] "Loyal" refugees and freedmen were made secure in the possession of land which they were cultivating until the crops were gathered or until they were paid proper compensation.[1156] Little captured, abandoned, or confiscated private property remained in the hands of the Bureau officials after the wholesale pardoning by the President. As soon as pardoned, the former owner regained rights of property except in slaves, though the personal property had been sold and the proceeds used for various purposes.[1157] There was, however, a great deal of Confederate property and state and county property that had been devoted to the use of the Confederacy. In every small town of the state there was some such property--barns, storehouses, hospital buildings, foundries, iron works, cotton, supplies, steamboats, blockade-runners. An order from the President, dated November 11, 1865, directed the army, navy, and Treasury officials to turn over to the Freedmen's Bureau all real estate, buildings, and other property in Alabama that had been used by the Confederacy. The sale of this property furnished sufficient revenue for one year, and, until withdrawn several years later, the educational department was sustained by the proceeds of similar sales.[1158] The failure of Congress to appropriate funds made it almost necessary to use state officials as agents, as there was no money to pay other agents. The Confederate iron works at Briarfield were sold for $45,000, three blockade-runners in the Tombigbee River for $50,000, and some hospital buildings for $8000. There was besides a large amount of Confederate property in Selma, Montgomery, Demopolis, and Mobile. Of private property, at the close of 1865, the Bureau was still holding 2116 acres of land and thirteen pieces of town property.[1159] A year later all of this property, except seven pieces of town property, had been restored to the owners.[1160]

In 1866 a blockade-runner was sold for $4000 and a war vessel in the Tombigbee for $27,351.93. The expenses of the Bureau in 1865, so far as accounts were kept, amounted to $126,865.77.[1161] This sum was obtained from sales of Confederate property. There was, also, a tax on contracts of from 50 cents to $1.50, and a fee on licenses for Bureau marriages. But the money thus obtained seems to have been appropriated by the agents, who kept no record. Rations were issued by the army to the Bureau agents and there was no further accountability. No accounts were kept of the proceeds from the sales of abandoned and confiscated property, a neglect which led to grave abuses. All records were confused, loosely kept, and unbusinesslike. There were, also, funds from private sources at the disposal of the authorities, besides the appropriations of 1866 and 1867, those in the former year being estimated at $851,500. There was little or no supervision over and no check on the operations of the agents. It has been stated that the salaries proper of the Bureau agents in Alabama amounted to about $50,000 annually.[1162] State officials acting as agents received no salaries. It is impossible to ascertain the amount expended in Alabama, though the entire expenditure accounted for in the South was nearly twenty million dollars; much was not accounted for.

During the two decades preceding the war many individual planters had erected chapels and churches for the use of the negroes in the towns and on the plantations. Some few such buildings belonged to the negroes and were held in trust by the whites for them, but most of them were the property of the planters or of church organizations that had built them. General Swayne ordered that all such property should be secured to the negroes.[1163] These buildings were used for schools and churches by the missionary teachers and religious carpet-baggers who were instructing the negro in the proper attitude of hostility toward all things southern.

The Bureau issued a retroactive order, requiring negroes to take out licenses for marriages, and all former marriages had to be again solemnized at the Bureau. Licenses cost fifty cents, which was considered an extortion and was supposed to be for Buckley's benefit.[1164]

The Labor Problem

The Bureau inherited the policy of the "superintendents" in regard to the regulation of negro labor, and the first regulations by the Bureau were evidently modelled on the Treasury Regulations of July 29, 1864. The monthly wage was lowered, but there was the same absurd classification of labor with fixed wages. The first of these regulations, promulgated in Mobile in May, 1865, was to this effect:--

Laborers were to be encouraged to make contracts with their former masters or with any one else. The contracts were to be submitted to the "Superintendent of Freedmen" and, if fair and honest, would be approved and registered. A register of unemployed persons was to be kept at the Freedmen's Bureau, and any person by applying there could obtain laborers of both sexes at the following rates: first class, $10 per month; second class, $8 per month; third class, $6 per month; boys under 14 years of age, $3 per month; girls under 14 years of age, $2 per month. Colored persons skilled in trade were also divided into three classes at the following rates: men and women receiving the same, first class, $2.50 per day; second class, $2 per day; third class, $1.50 per day. Mechanics were also to receive not less than $5 per month in addition to first-class rates. Wages were to be paid quarterly, on July 1 and October 1, and the final payment on or before the expiration of the contract, which was to be made for not less than three months, and not longer than to the end of 1865. In addition to his wages, the contracts must secure to the laborer just treatment, wholesome food, comfortable clothing, quarters, fuel, and medical attendance. No contract was binding nor a person considered employed unless the contract was signed by both parties and registered at the Bureau office, in which case a certificate of employment was to be furnished. Laborers were warned that it was for their own interest to work faithfully, and that the government, while protecting them against ill treatment, would not countenance idleness and vagrancy, nor support those capable of earning an honest living by industry. The laborers must fulfil their contracts, and would not be allowed to leave their employer except when permitted by the Superintendent of Freedmen. For leaving without cause or permission, the laborers were to forfeit all wages and be otherwise punished. Wages would be deducted in cases of sickness, and wages and rations withheld when sickness was feigned for purposes of idleness, the proof being furnished by the medical officer in attendance. Upon feigning sickness or refusing to work, a laborer was to be put at forced labor on the public works without pay. A reasonable time having been given for voluntary contracts to be made, any negro found without employment would be furnished work by the superintendent, who was to supply the army with all that were required for labor, and gather the aged, infirm, and helpless into "home colonies," and put them on plantations. Employers and their agents were to be held responsible for their conduct toward laborers, and cruelty or neglect of duty would be summarily punished.[1165] The ignorance of conditions shown by these seemingly fair regulations is equalled in other regulations issued by the Bureau agents during the summer and fall of 1865. It is no wonder that the negroes could not find work in Mobile when they wanted it.

Instructions from Howard directed that agreements to labor must be approved by Bureau officers. Overseers were not to be tolerated. All agents were to be classed as officers, whether they were enlisted men or civilians. Wages were to be secured by a lien on the crops or the land, the rate of pay being fixed at the wages paid for an able-bodied negro before the war, and a minimum rate was to be published. All contracts were to be written and approved by the agent of the Bureau, who was to keep a copy of the documents.[1166]

At Huntsville, in north Alabama, orders were issued that freedmen must go to work or be arrested and forced to work by the military authorities. Contracts had to be witnessed by a friend of the freedmen, and were subject to examination by the military authorities. Breach of contract by either party might be tried by the provost marshal or by a military commission, and the property of the employer was liable to seizure for wages.[1167]

At first the planters thought that they saw in the contract system a means of holding the negro to his work, and they vigorously demanded contracts.[1168] This suited Swayne, and he issued the following regulations, which superseded former rules:--

1. All contracts with freedmen for labor for a month or more had to be in writing, and approved by an agent of the Freedmen's Bureau, who might require security.

2. For plantation labor: (a) contracts could be made with the heads of families to embrace the labor of all members who were able to work; (b) the employer must provide good and sufficient food, quarters, and medical attendance, and such further compensation as might be agreed upon; (c) such contracts would be a lien upon the crops, of which not more than half could be moved until full payment had been made, and the contract released by the Freedmen's Bureau agent or by a justice of the peace in case an agent was not at hand.

3. The remedies for violation of contracts were forfeiture of wages and damages secured by lien.

4. In case an employer should make an oath before a justice of the peace, acting as an agent of the Bureau, that one of his laborers had been absent more than three days in a month, the justice of the peace could proceed against the negro as a vagrant and hand him over to the civil authorities.

5. Vagrants when convicted might be put to work on the roads or streets or at other labor by the county, or municipal authorities, who must provide for their support; or they might be given into the charge of an agent of the Freedmen's Bureau. This was usually done and the agent released them. Besides this, he often interfered, and took charge of the negro vagrants convicted in the community.

6. All contracts must expire on or before January 1, 1866.[1169]

The lien upon the crop was to be enforced by attachment, which must be issued by any magistrate when any part of the crop was about to be moved without the consent of the laborer. The plaintiff (negro) was not obliged to give bond.[1170] These regulations had no effect in reorganizing labor, and were only a cause of confusion.

A committee of citizens of Talladega, appointed to make suggestions in regard to enforcing the regulations of the Freedmen's Bureau concerning contracts, reported that: (1) contracts for a month or more between whites and blacks should be reduced to writing and witnessed; (2) civil officers should enforce these contracts according to law and the regulations of the Freedmen's Bureau; (3) the law of apprenticeship should be applied to freedmen where minors were found without means of support; (4) civil officers should take duties heretofore devolving upon the Freedmen's Bureau in matters of contract between whites and blacks. This practically asked for the discontinuance of the Freedmen's Bureau as being superfluous.[1171]

When enforced, the contract regulations caused trouble. The lien on the crop for the negro's wages prevented the farmer from moving a bale of cotton if the negro objected. No matter whether the negro had been paid or not, if he made complaint, the farmer's whole crop could be locked up until the case was settled by a magistrate or agent; and the negro was not backward in making claims for wages unpaid or for violation of contract. The average southern farmer had to move a great part of his crop before he could get money to satisfy labor and other debts, and when the negro saw the first bale being moved, he often became uneasy and made trouble.[1172] The contract system resulted in much litigation, of which the negro was very fond; he did not feel that he was really free until he had had a lawsuit with some one. It gave him no trouble and much entertainment, but was a source of annoyance to his employer. The Bureau agents were particular that no negro should work except under a written contract, as a fee of from fifty cents to a dollar and a half was charged for each contract. If a negro was found working under a verbal agreement, he and his employer were summoned before the agent, fined, and forced into a written contract. When the negroes refused to work, the planters could sometimes hire the Bureau officials to use their influence. The whites charged that it was a common practice for the agents to induce a strike, and then make the employers pay for an order to send the blacks back to work.[1173] This was the case only under alien Bureau agents, for where the magistrates were agents, all went smoothly with no contracts. The end of 1865 and the spring of 1866 found the whites, who at first had insisted on written contracts, weary of the system and disposed to make only verbal agreements, and the negro had usually become afraid of a written contract because it might be enforced. The legislature passed laws to regulate contracts, which Governor Patton vetoed on the ground that no special legislation was necessary; the laws of supply and demand should be allowed to operate, he said. Swayne also said that contracts were not necessary, as hunger and cold on the part of one, and demand for labor on the part of the other, would protect both negro and white.[1174]

Some planters, having no faith in free negro labor, refused to give the negro employment requiring any outlay of money. And "freedmen were not uncommon who believed that work was no part of freedom." There was a disposition, Swayne reported, to preserve as much as possible the old patriarchal system, and the general belief was that the negro would not work; and he did refuse to work regularly until after Christmas.[1175] Some planters thought that the government would advance supplies to them,[1176] and they asked Howard to bind out negroes to them. Howard visited Mobile and irritated the whites by his views on the race question.[1177]

Freedmen's Bureau Courts

In Alabama, the state courts were made freedmen's courts,--to test, as Howard said, the disposition of the judges; Swayne says that it was done from reasons of policy, and because at first there were not enough aliens to hold Bureau courts. The reports were favorable except from north Alabama, where the "unionists" were supposed to abound.[1178] In all cases where the blacks were concerned the assistant commissioner was authorized to exercise jurisdiction, and the state laws relating to apprenticeship and vagrancy were extended by his order to include freedmen. The Bureau officials were made the guardians of negro orphans, but each city and county had to take care of its own paupers.[1179] Freedmen's Bureau courts were created, each composed of three members appointed by the assistant commissioner, one of whom was an official of the Freedmen's Bureau, and two were citizens of the county. Their jurisdiction extended to cases relating to the compensation of freedmen to the amount of $300, and all other cases between whites and blacks, and criminal cases by or against negroes where the sentence might be a fine of $100 and one month's imprisonment.

In his report for 1866, Swayne states that "martial law administered concurrently" by provisional and military authorities was in force throughout the state; that the coöperation of the provisional government and the Freedmen's Bureau had secured to the freedmen the same rights and privileges enjoyed by the other non-voting inhabitants; in some cases, he said, on account of prejudice, the laws were not executed, but this was not to be remedied by any number of troops, since no good result could be obtained by force.[1180] During 1865 and 1866 General Swayne repeatedly spoke of the friendly relations between the Freedmen's Bureau and the state officials--Governors Parsons and Patton and Commissioner Cruikshank, who was in charge of relief of the poor.

By means of the Bureau courts the negro was completely removed from trial by the civil government or by any of its officers, except when the latter were acting as Bureau agents, which, as time went on, was less and less often the case, and the negro passed entirely under the control of the alien administration, and an army officer and two or three carpet-baggers administered what they called justice in cases where the negroes were concerned. The negroes frequently broke their contracts, telling the provost marshal that they had been lashed, and this caused the employer to be arrested and often to be convicted unjustly. The white planter was much annoyed by the disposition on the part of the blacks to transfer their failings to him in their tales to the "office," as the negro called the Bureau and its agents. "The phrase flashed like lightning through the region of the late Confederacy that at Freedmen's Bureau agencies 'the bottom rail was on top.' The conditions which this expression implied exasperated the whites in like ratio as the negroes were delighted."[1181] In the Ku Klux testimony, the whites related their grievances against the Bureau courts conducted by the aliens: the Bureau men always took a negro's word as being worth more than a white's; the worst class of blacks were continually haling their employers into court; the simple assertion of a negro that he had not been properly paid for his work was enough to prevent the sale of a crop or to cause the arrest of the master, who was frequently brought ten or fifteen miles to answer a trivial charge involving perhaps fifty cents;[1182] the negroes were taken from work and sent to places of refuge--"Home Colonies"[1183]--where hundreds died of disease caused by neglect, want, and unsanitary conditions; the Bureau courts encouraged complaints by the negroes; the trials of cases were made occasions for lectures on slavery, rebellion, political rights of negroes, social equality, etc., and the negro was by official advice taught to distrust the whites and to look to the Bureau for protection.[1184] The Bureau perhaps did some good work in regulating matters among the negroes themselves, but when the question was between negro and white, the justice administered was rather one-sided.[1185] Genuine cases of violence and mistreatment of negroes were usually not tried by the Bureau courts, but by military commission. The following humorous advertisement shows the result of a legitimate interference of the Bureau:--

"Do You Like

The Freedmen's Court? If so, come up to Burnsville and I will rent or sell you three nice, healthy plantations with Freedmen. Come soon and get a bargain. I am ahead of any farmer in this section, except on one place, which said court 'Busteed' to-day because some of the Freedmen got flogged.--JOHN F. BURNS."[1186]

The Bureau courts, after the aliens came into control, proceeded upon the general principle that the negro was as good as or better than the southern white, and that he had always been mistreated by the latter, who wished to still continue him in slavery or to cheat him out of the proceeds of his labor, and who, on the slightest provocation, would beat, mutilate, or murder the inoffensive black. The greatest problem was to protect the negroes from the hostile whites, the agents thought. The aliens did not understand the relations of slave and master, and assumed that there had always been hostility between them, and that for the protection of the negro this hostility ought to continue. A system of espionage was established that was intensely galling. Men who had held high offices in the state, who had led armies or had represented their country at foreign courts,--men like Hardee, Clanton, Fitzpatrick, etc.,--were called before these tribunals at the instance of some ward of the nation, and before a gaping crowd of their former slaves were lectured by army sutlers and chaplains of negro regiments.[1187]

Care of the Sick

The medical department of the Freedmen's Bureau gave free attendance to the refugees and freedmen. In 1865 there were in the state 4 hospitals, capable of caring for 646 patients, with a staff of 11 physicians and 26 male and 22 female attendants. In the hospitals in 1866 were 18 physicians and 16 male and 18 female attendants.[1188] In 1866 there were 6 hospitals, which number was increased in 1867 to 8, with a staff of 13 physicians and 50 male and 40 female attendants. In 1868-1869 there were only three hospitals.

In 1865 no refugees were treated, but there were 2533 negro patients, of whom 602, or 24 per cent, died. To August 31, 1866, 271 refugees had been treated, of whom 8 died, and 4153 negroes, of whom 460 died. From September 1, 1866, to June 30, 1867, 220 refugees were treated and 6 died; 2203 negroes, and 186 died; to October 31, 1866, 3801 freedmen, of whom 473 died, and 305 refugees, of whom 12 died. After July, 1868, 289 freedmen were treated.[1189] These statistics show the relative insignificance of the relief work.

Smallpox was the most fatal disease among the negroes in the towns, and several smallpox hospitals were established. In Selma the complaint was raised that the assistant superintendent encouraged the negroes to stay in town, and insisted on caring for all their sick, but when an epidemic of smallpox broke out, he notified the city that he could not care for these cases. The Bureau sent supplies for distribution by the county authorities to the destitute poor and to the smallpox patients. But the relief work for the sick amounted to but little.[1190]

The Issue of Rations

The Department of Records had charge of the issue of supplies to the destitute refugees and blacks. Among the whites of all classes in the northern counties there was much want and suffering. The term "refugee" was interpreted to include all needy whites,[1191] though at first it meant only one who had been forced to leave home on account of his disloyalty to the Confederacy. The best work of the Bureau was done in relieving needy whites in the devastated districts; and for this the upholders of the institution have never claimed credit. The negro had not suffered from want before the end of the war, but now great crowds hastened to the towns and congregated around the Bureau offices and military posts. They thought that it was the duty of the government to support them, and that there was to be no more work.

Before June, 1865, rations were issued by the army officers. From June, 1865, to September, 1866, the Freedmen's Bureau issued 2,522,907 rations to refugees (whites) and 1,128,740 to freedmen. The following table shows the number of people fed each month in Alabama by the Freedmen's Bureau before October, 1866:--

============================================ WHITE || ------------------------------------------|| Months| Men | Women| Boys |Girls | Total || ------|------|------|------|------|-------|| 1865.| | | | | || Nov. | 72| 483| 821| 875| 2,521|| Dec. | 271| 909| 1,059| 1,090| 3,329|| 1866.| | | | | || Jan. | 349| 2,377| 1,735| 2,764| 7,225|| Feb. | 1,285| 3,641| 3,806| 5,039| 13,771|| March | 1,181| 4,971| 5,796| 6,758| 18,616|| April | 1,038| 4,340| 4,844| 6,642| 16,864|| May | 1,743| 5,821| 6,939| 9,064| 23,567|| June | 1,912| 5,661| 6,932| 8,092| 22,577|| July | 1,585| 5,036| 7,108| 8,076| 21,805|| Aug. | 1,376| 4,528| 5,932| 6,836| 18,672|| Sept. | 1,368| 4,454| 5,547| 6,543| 17,912|| ------|------|------|------|------|-------|| Totals|12,180|42,201|50,429|61,779|166,589|| ============================================

================================== BLACK ---------------------------------- Men | Women| Boys | Girls| Total ------|------|------|------|------ | | | | 327| 656| 346| 615| 1,944 464| 860| 345| 574| 2,243 | | | | 538| 1,053| 742| 1,002| 3,335 894| 1,455| 880| 1,095| 4,324 995| 2,007| 1,389| 1,662| 6,053 1,176| 2,331| 1,904| 2,771| 8,182 1,479| 3,433| 2,898| 3,576|14,526 1,654| 3,170| 2,846| 3,151|10,821 1,294| 2,472| 2,379| 2,648| 8,793 1,178| 2,025| 2,112| 2,247| 7,562 1,242| 2,225| 1,939| 2,126| 7,532 ------|------|------|------|------ 11,241|21,687|17,780|21,407|72,115 ==================================

Men, 23,421; women, 63,888; children, 151,295; aggregate, 238,704; rations issued, 3,789,788; value, $643,590.18.

During the month of September, 1865, 45,771 rations were issued to 1971 refugees, and 36,295 rations to 3537 freedmen; in October, 1865, 2875 refugees and 2151 freedmen drew 153,812 rations. From September 1, 1866 to September 1, 1867, 214,305 rations were issued to refugees and 274,329 to freedmen. From September 1, 1867, to September 1, 1868, refugees drew only 886 rations, and freedmen 86,021. Fewer and fewer whites and more and more freedmen were fed by the Bureau.[1192]

In 1865 and 1866, the crops were poor, and in 1866 there were at least 10,000 destitute whites and 5000 destitute blacks in the state. The Bureau asked for 450,000 rations per month, but did not receive them. The agents were now (1866) beginning to use the issue of rations to control the negroes, and to organize them into political clubs or "Loyal Leagues." During this time (1866-1867), however, the state gave much assistance, and coöperated with the Freedmen's Bureau. Some of the agents of the Bureau sold the supplies that should have gone to the starving.[1193]

The Bureau furnished transportation to 217 refugees and to 521 freedmen who wished to return to their homes, and to a number of northern school teachers. These transactions were not attended by abuses.[1194]

Demoralization caused by the Freedmen's Bureau

After the Federal occupation, when the negroes had congregated in the towns, the higher and more responsible officers of the army used their influence to make the blacks go home and work. If left to these officers, the labor question would have been somewhat satisfactorily settled; they would have forced the negroes to work for some one, and to keep away from the towns. But the subordinate officers, especially the officers of the negro regiments, encouraged the freedmen to collect in the towns. Few supplies were issued to them by the army, and there was every prospect that in a few weeks the negroes would be forced by hunger to go back to work. The establishment of the Freedmen's Bureau, however, changed conditions. It assumed control of the negroes in all relations, and upset all that had been done toward settling the question by gathering many of the freedmen into great camps or colonies near the towns. One large colony was established in north Alabama, and many temporary ones throughout the state,[1195] into which thousands who set out to test their new-found freedom were gathered. On one plantation, in Montgomery County, in July, 1865, 4000 negroes were placed. There was another large colony near Mobile.[1196] A year later the Montgomery colony had 200 invalids. Perhaps more misery was caused by the Bureau in this way than was relieved by it. The want and sickness arising from the crowded conditions in the towns was only in slight degree relieved by the food distributed, and the hospitals opened. There were 40,000 old and infirm negroes in the state, and thousands died of disease. Not one-tenth did the Bureau reach. The helpless old negroes were supported by their former masters, who now in poverty should have been relieved of their care. Those who were fed were the able-bodied who could come to town and stay around the office. The colonies in the negro districts became hospitals, orphan asylums, and temporary stopping places for the negroes; and the issue of rations was longest and surest at these places.[1197] Several hundred white refugees also remained worthless hangers-on of the Bureau.

The regular issue of rations to the negroes broke up the labor system that had been partially established and prevented a settlement of the labor problem. The government would now support them, the blacks thought, and they would not have to work. Around the towns conditions became very bad. Want and disease were fast thinning their numbers. They refused to make contracts, though the highest wages were offered by those planters and farmers who could afford to hire them, and the agents encouraged them in their idleness by telling them not to work, as it was the duty of their former masters to support them, and that wages were due them, at least since January 1, 1863.[1198] They told them, also, to come to the towns and live until the matter was settled.[1199] Domestic animals near the negro camps were nearly all stolen by the blacks who were able but unwilling to work. These marauders were frequently shot at or were thrashed, which gave rise to the stories of outrage common at that time.

Doctor Nott of Mobile wrote that in or near Mobile no labor could be hired; that it was impossible to get a cook or a washerwoman, while hundreds were dying in idleness from disease and starvation, deceived by the false hopes aroused, and false promises of support by the government, made by wicked and designing men who wished to create prejudice against the whites, and to prevent the negroes from working by telling them that to go back to work was to go back to slavery. The negro women were told that women should not work, and they announced that they never intended to go to the field or do other work again, but "live like white ladies."[1200] Wherever it was active the Bureau demoralized labor by arousing false hopes and by unnecessary intermeddling. It has been claimed for the Bureau that it was a vast labor clearing-house, and that a part of its work was the establishment of a system of free labor.[1201] In other states such may have been the case; in Alabama it certainly was not. The labor system partially established all over the Black Belt in 1865 was deranged wherever the Bureau had influence. The system proposed by the Bureau was simply that of old slave wages paid for work done under a written contract. The excessive wages and the interference of the agents in the making of contracts made it impossible for the system to work, and Swayne acquiesced in the nullification of the Bureau rules by black and white, saying that natural forces would bring about a proper state of affairs. Wherever the Bureau had the least influence, there industry was least demoralized. So far from acting as a labor agency, its influence was distinctly in the opposite direction wherever it undertook to regulate labor. The free labor system, such as it was, was already in existence when the Bureau reached the Black Belt, and, in spite of that institution, worked itself out.[1202]

A general belief grew up among the freedmen that at Christmas, 1865, there would be a confiscation and division of all land in the South. The soldiers,--black and white,--the preachers, and especially the Bureau agents and the school-teachers, were responsible for this belief. Swayne reported that an impression, well-nigh universal, prevailed that the confiscation, of which they had heard for months, would take place at Christmas, and led them to refuse any engagement extending beyond the holidays, or to work steadily in the meantime.[1203] Christmas or New Year's the negro thought would be the millennium. Each would have a farm, plenty to eat and drink, and nothing to do,--"forty acres of land and a mule." There is no doubt that the "forty acres and a mule" idea was partly caused by the distribution among the negroes of the lands on the south Atlantic coast by General Sherman and others, and by the provisions of the early Bureau acts. "Forty acres and a mule" was the expectation, and to this day some old negroes are awaiting the fulfilment of this promise.[1204] Many went so far, in 1865, as to choose the land that would be theirs on New Year's Day; others merely took charge at once of small animals, such as pigs, turkeys, chickens, cows, etc., that came within their reach.[1205]

On account of this belief in the coming confiscation of property and their implicit confidence in all who made promises, the negroes were deceived and cheated in many ways. Sharpers sold painted sticks to the ex-slaves, declaring that if set up on land belonging to the whites, they gave titles to the blacks who set them up. A document purporting to be a deed was given with one set of painted sticks. In part it read as follows: "Know all men by these presents, that a naught is a naught, and a figure is a figure; all for the white man, and none for the nigure. And whereas Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so also have I lifted this d--d old nigger out of four dollars and six bits. Amen. Selah!" In the campaign of 1868 this was circulated far and wide by the Democrats as a campaign document. There is record of the sale of painted sticks in Clarke, Marengo, Sumter, Barbour, Montgomery, Calhoun, Macon, Tallapoosa, and Greene counties, and in the Tennessee valley. The practice must have been general. In Sumter County, 1865-1866, the seller of sticks was an ex-cotton agent. He had secured the striped pegs in Washington, he said, and his charge was a dollar a peg. He instructed the buyer how to "step off" the forty acres, and told them not to encroach upon one another and to take half in cleared land and half in woodland.[1206] In Clarke County, as late as 1873, the sticks were sold for three dollars each if the negro possessed so large a sum; but if he had only a dollar, the agent would let a stick go for that. Some of the negroes actually took possession of land, and went to work.[1207] In Tallapoosa County the painted pegs were sold as late as 1870.[1208] In 1902 a man was arrested in south Alabama for collecting money from negroes in this way. It was said that one cause of the survival of this practice was the course of Wendell Phillips, who, in the Antislavery Standard, advocated the distribution of land among the negroes, eighty acres to each, or forty acres and a furnished cottage. The speeches of Thaddeus Stevens on confiscation were widely distributed among the negroes. His Confiscation Bill of March, 1867, caused expectations among the negroes, who soon heard of such propositions.[1209] General Wilson, on his raid, had taken all the stock from Montgomery and had left with the planters his broken-down mules and horses. The military authorities of the Sixteenth Army Corps had declared that these animals belonged to the planters, who had already used them a year. But the Rev. C. W. Buckley, a Bureau chaplain, promised them to the negroes, who began to take possession of them.[1210]

The subordinate agents of the Bureau frequently were broken-down men who had made failures at everything they had undertaken;[1211] some were preachers with strong prejudices, and others were the dregs of a mustered-out army,--all opposed to any settlement of the negro question which would leave them without an office. Such men sowed the seeds of discord between the races and taught the negro that he must fear and hate his former master, who desired above all things to reënslave him.[1212] In this way they were ably abetted by the northern teachers and missionaries.

There were some favorable reports from the Bureau in Alabama, principally from districts where the native whites were agents. But in the summer of 1866 Generals Steedman and Fullerton, accompanied by a correspondent, made a trip through the South inspecting the institution. They reported that in Alabama it was better conducted than elsewhere in the South; that all of the good of the system and not all of the bad was here most apparent. Over the greater part of the state, they said, it interfered but little with the negro, and consequently the affairs of both races were in better condition. General Patton thought that Swayne was the best man to be at the head of the Bureau, yet he was sure that the institution was unnecessary, its only use being to feed the needy, which could be done by the state with less demoralization. The negro, he said, should be left to the protection of the law, since there was no discrimination against him. As long as free rations were issued, the blacks would make no contracts and would not work. Swayne, Patton declared, was doing his best, but he could not prevent demoralization, and the very presence of the Bureau was an irritation to the whites, thus operating against the good of the negro. He stated that in Clarke and Marengo counties, where there were no agents, the relations between the races were more friendly than in any other black counties, and there the negro was better satisfied. The southern people knew the negro and his needs, Steedman and Fullerton reported, and he should be left to them; the Bureau served as a spy upon the planters; it was the general testimony that where there was no northern agent, there the negro worked better, and there was less disorder among the blacks and less friction between the races. The fact was clearly demonstrated in west Alabama, where there was little interference on the part of the Bureau, and where the negro did well.[1213]

An account of conditions in one county where the agents were army officers and were somewhat under the influence of the native whites will be of interest. When the army and the Bureau came to Marengo County, the white people, who were few in number, determined to win their good will. There were "stag" dinners and feasts, and the eternal friendship of the officers, with few exceptions, was won. The exceptions were those who had political ambitions. The population, being composed largely of negroes, was under the control of the "office," which here did not heed the tales of "rebel outrages." The negro received few supplies and did well, though afterwards, in places doubtful politically, supplies were issued for political purposes. One planter in Marengo gave an order to the negroes on his plantation to do a certain piece of work. They refused and sent their head man to report at the "office." He brought back a sealed envelope containing a peremptory order to cease work. The negroes were ignorant of the contents, so the planter read the letter, called the negroes up, and ordered them back to the same work. They went cheerfully, evidently thinking it was the order of the Bureau. At any time the Bureau could interfere and say that certain work should or should not be done. Another planter lived twelve miles from Demopolis. One day ten or twelve of the negro laborers went to Demopolis to complain to the "office" about one of his orders. The planter went to Demopolis by another road, and was sitting in the Bureau office when the negroes arrived. They were confused and at first could say nothing. The planter was silent. Finally they told their tale, and the officer called for a sergeant and four mounted men. "Sergeant," he said, "take these people back to Mr. DuBose's on the run! You understand; on the run!" They ran the negroes the whole twelve miles, though they had already travelled the twelve miles. Upon their arrival at home the sergeant tied them to trees with their hands above their heads, and left them with their tongues hanging out. It was the most terrible punishment the negroes had ever received, and they never again had any complaints to pour into the ear of the "office."[1214] The white soldiers usually cared little for the negroes, it is said.

From the first the Bureau was unnecessary in Alabama. The negro had felt no want before the beginning of the war, and the efforts of the general officers of the army, besides hunger and cold, would have soon forced him to work. He was not mistreated except in rare cases which did not become rarer under the Bureau. Cotton was worth fifty cents to a dollar a pound, and the extraordinary demand for labor thus created guaranteed good treatment. Much more suffering was caused by the congregation of the black population in the towns than would have been the case had there been no relief. Not a one did it really help to get work, because no man who wanted work could escape a job unless it prevented, and with its red tape it was a hindrance to those who were industrious. Its interference in behalf of the negro was bad, as it led him to believe that the government would always back him and that it was his right to be supported. Thus industry was paralyzed. Yet as first organized by Swayne, the Bureau would have been endurable, though it would have been a disturbing element, and the negro would have been the greater sufferer from the disorder caused by it; but, as time went on, General Swayne was gradually forced by northern opinion to change his policy, and to put into office more and more northern men as subordinate agents. These men, of character already described, had to live by fleecing the negroes, by fees, and by stealing supplies.[1215] Then, recognizing the trend of affairs and seeing their great opportunity, they began to organize the negro for political purposes; they themselves were to become statesmen. The Bureau was then manipulated as a political machine for the nomination and election of state and federal officers, and the public money and property were used for that purpose. The Howard Investigation refused to enter that field, but the testimony shows that the Bureau agents, teachers, the savings-bank, and missionaries industriously carried on political operations.[1216]

In 1869 the Bureau was intrusted with the payment of bounties to the negro soldiers who had been discharged or mustered out. There were several thousand of these in Alabama. Gross frauds are said to have been perpetrated by the officials in charge of the distribution. The worst scandals were in north Alabama, where most of the negro soldiers lived.[1217]

SEC. 2. THE FREEDMEN'S SAVINGS-BANK

The Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company was an institution closely connected with the Freedmen's Bureau, and had the sanction and support of the government, especially of the Bureau officials. Many of the trustees of the bank were or had been connected with the Bureau,[1218] and it was generally understood by the negroes that it was a part of the Bureau. It possessed the confidence of the blacks to a remarkable degree and gave promise of becoming a very valuable institution by teaching them habits of thrift and economy.[1219]

The central office was in Washington, and several branch banks were established in every southern state. The Alabama branch banks were established at Huntsville, in December, 1865, and at Montgomery and Mobile early in 1866. The cashiers at the respective branches, when the bank failed, in 1874, were Lafayette Robinson, who seems to have been an honest man though he could not keep books, Edwin Beecher,[1220] and C. R. Woodward, both of whom seem to have had some picturesque ideas as to their rights over the money deposited. A bank-book was issued to each negro depositor, and in the book were printed the regulations to be observed by him. On one cover there was a statement to the effect that the bank was wholly a benevolent institution, and that all profits were to be divided among the depositors or devoted to charitable enterprises for the benefit of freedmen. It was further stated that the "Martyr" President Lincoln had approved the purpose of the bank, and that one of his last acts was to sign the bill to establish it. On the cover of the book was the printed legend:[1221]--

"I consider the Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company to be greatly needed by the colored people and have welcomed it as an auxiliary to the Freedmen's Bureau."--MAJOR-GENERAL O. O. HOWARD.

To the negro this was sufficient recommendation. There was also printed on the cover a very attractive table, showing how much a man might save by laying aside ten cents a day and placing it in the bank at 6 per cent interest. The first year the man would save, in this way, $36.99, the tenth year would find $489.31 to his credit. And all this by saving ten cents a day--something easily done when labor was in such demand. This unique bank-book had on the back cover some verses for the education of the freedmen. The author of these verses is not known, but the negroes thought that General Howard wrote them.

"'Tis little by little the bee fills her cell; And little by little a man sinks a well; 'Tis little by little a bird builds her nest; By littles a forest in verdure is drest; 'Tis little by little great volumes are made; By littles a mountain or levels are made; 'Tis little by little an ocean is filled; And little by little a city we build; 'Tis little by little an ant gets her store; Every little we add to a little makes more; Step by step we walk miles, and we sew stitch by stitch; Word by word we read books, cent by cent we grow rich."

The verses were popular, the whole book was educative, and it was not above the comprehension of the negro. If all the teaching of the negro had been as sensible as this little book, much trouble would have been avoided. It was a proud negro who owned one of these wonderful bank-books, and he had a right to be proud. Many at once began to make use of the savings-banks, and small sums poured in. Only the negroes in and near the three cities--Huntsville, Montgomery, and Mobile--where the banks were located seem to have made deposits, for those of the other towns and of the country knew little of the institution. During the month of January, 1866, deposits to the amount of $4809 were made in the Mobile branch. This was all in small sums and was deposited at a time of the year when money was scarcest among laborers.[1222] In 1868 the interest paid on long-time deposits to depositors at Huntsville was $38.02; at Mobile, $1349.40. On May 1, 1869, the deposits at Huntsville amounted to $17,603.29; at Mobile, $50,511.66.

The following statements of the two principal banks will show how the scheme worked among the negroes:--

====================================================================== |HUNTSVILLE BRANCH|MOBILE BRANCH -------------------------------------|-----------------|-------------- Total deposits to March 31, 1870 | $89,445.10 | $539,534.33 Total number of depositors | 500 | 3,260 Average amount deposited by each | $17.89 | $165.60 Drawn out to March 31, 1870 | 70,586.60 | 474,583.60 Balance to March 31, 1870 | 18,858.50 | 64,750.83 Average balance due to each depositor| 47.114 | 39.82 Spent for land (known) | 1,900.00 | 50,000.00 Dwelling houses | 800.00 | ---- Seeds, teams, agricultural implements| 5,000.00 | 15,000.00 Education, books, etc. | 1,200.00 | ---- ====================================================================== STATEMENT OF THE BUSINESS DONE DURING AUGUST, 1872 ====================================================================== | HUNTSVILLE | MOBILE | MONTGOMERY ----------------------|-------------|---------------|----------------- Deposits for the month| $7,343.50 | $11,136.05 | $8,522.90 Drafts for the month | 10,127.61 | 18,645.62 | 8,679.60 Total deposits | 416,617.72 | 1,039,097.05 | 238,106.08 Total drafts | 364,382.51 | 933,424.30 | 213,861.71 Total due depositors | 52,235.21 | 105,672.75 | 24,244.37[1223] ======================================================================

These branch banks exercised a good influence over the negro population, even over those who did not become depositors. The negroes became more economical, spent less for whiskey, gewgaws, and finery, and when wages were good and work was plentiful, they saved money to carry them through the winter and other periods of lesser prosperity. Some of those who had no bank accounts would save in order to have one, or, at least, save enough money to help them through hard times. Much of the money drawn from the banks was invested in property of some kind. Excessive interest in politics prevented a proper increase in the number of depositors and in the amount of deposits.

In 1874, after the bank failed through dishonest and inefficient management, the liabilities to southern negro depositors amounted to $3,299,201.[1224] A total business of $55,000,000 had been done. The following table, compiled by Hoffman, will show the total business of the bank, 1866 to 1874.[1225]

================================================================== YEAR| TOTAL DEPOSITS | DEPOSITS EACH | DUE DEPOSITORS | GAIN EACH | | YEAR | | YEAR ----|----------------|----------------|----------------|---------- 1866| $305,167 | $305,167 | $199,283 | $199,283 1867| 1,624,853 | 1,319,686 | 366,338 | 167,054 1868| 3,582,378 | 1,957,525 | 638,299 | 271,960 1869| 7,257,798 | 3,675,420 | 1,073,465 | 435,166 1870| 12,605,782 | 5,347,983 | 1,657,006 | 583,541 1871| 19,952,947 | 7,347,165 | 2,455,836 | 798,829 1872| 31,260,499 | 11,281,313 | 3,684,739 | 1,227,927 1873| ---- | ---- | 4,200,000 | ---- 1874| 55,000,000 | ---- | 3,013,670 | ---- ==================================================================

In Alabama the depositors lost, for the time at least, $35,963 at Huntsville; $29,743 at Montgomery; $95,144 at Mobile. After years of delay dividends were paid; but few of the depositors profited by the late payment.[1226] The philanthropic incorporators took care to desert the failing enterprise in time, and Frederick Douglass, a well-known negro, was placed in charge to serve as a scapegoat. No one was punished for the crooked proceedings of the institution. Several of the incorporators were dead; the survivors pleaded good intentions, ignorance, etc., and finally placed the blame on their dead associates. Their sympathy for the negro did not go the length of assuming money responsibility for the operations of the bank, and thus saving the negro depositors. There were several of the incorporators who could have assumed all the liabilities and not felt the burden severely. Agents and lawyers got most of the later proceeds, and the good work was all undone, for the negro felt that the United States government and the Freedmen's Bureau had cheated him. It is said to have affected his faith in banks to this day.[1227]

SEC. 3. THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU AND NEGRO EDUCATION

As the Federal armies occupied southern territory and numbers of negroes were thrown upon the care of the government which gathered them into colonies on confiscated plantations, there arose a demand from the friends of the negro at the North that his education should begin at once. An educated negro, it was thought, was even more obnoxious to the slaveholding southerner than a free negro; hence educated negroes should be multiplied. No doubt was entertained by his northern friends but that the negro was the equal of the white man in capacity to profit by education. To educate the negro was to carry on war against the South just as much as to invade with armed troops, and various aid societies demanded that, as the negro came under the control of the United States troops, schools be established and the colored children be taught. The Treasury agents, who were in charge of the plantations and colonies where the negroes were gathered, were instructed by the Secretary to establish schools in each "home" and "labor" colony for the instruction of the children under twelve years of age. Teachers, supplied by the superintendent of the colony, who was usually the chaplain of a negro regiment, or by benevolent associations, were allowed to take charge of the education of the blacks in any colony they decided to enter.[1228] Before the end of the war only three or four such schools were established in Alabama. One was on the plantation of ex-Governor Chapman, in Madison County, another at Huntsville, and one at Florence.

The law of March 3, 1865, creating the Freedmen's Bureau, gave to its officials general authority over all matters concerning freedmen. Nothing was said about education or schools, but it was understood that educational work was to be carried on and extended, and after the organization of the Bureau in the state of Alabama its "Department of Records" had control of the education of the negro. For the support of negro education the second Freedmen's Bureau Act, July 16, 1866, authorized the use of or the sale of all buildings and lands and other property formerly belonging to the Confederate States or used for the support of the Confederacy. It directed the authorities of the Bureau to coöperate at all times with the aid societies, and to furnish buildings for schools where these societies sent teachers, and also to furnish protection to these teachers and schools.[1229]

The southern churches had never ceased their work among the negroes during the war,[1230] and immediately after the emancipation of the slaves all denominations declared that the freedmen must be educated so as to fit them for their changed condition of life.[1231] The churches spoke for the controlling element of the people, who saw that some kind of training was an absolute necessity to the continuation of the friendly relations then existing between the two races. The church congregations, associations, and conferences, and mass meetings of citizens pledged themselves to aid in this movement. Dr. J. L. M. Curry first appeared as a friend of negro education when, in the summer of 1865, he presided over a mass meeting at Marion, which made provision for schools for the negroes. On the part of the whites whose opinion was worth anything, there was no objection worth mentioning to negro schools in 1865 and 1866.[1232] In the latter year, before the objectionable features of the Bureau schools appeared, General Swayne commented upon the fact that the various churches had not only declared in favor of the education of the negro, but had aided the work of the Bureau schools and kept down opposition to them. He was, however, inclined to attribute this attitude somewhat to policy. He wrote with special approval of the assistance and encouragement given by the Methodist Episcopal Church South, through Rev. H. N. McTyeire (later bishop), who was always in favor of schools for negroes. He reported, also, that there was a growing feeling of kindliness on the part of the people toward the schools. Where there was prejudice the school often dispelled it, and the movement had the good will of Governors Parsons and Patton.[1233]

Just after the military occupation of the state there was the greatest desire on the part of the negroes, young and old, for book learning. Washington speaks of the universal desire for education.[1234] The whole race wanted to go to school; none were too old, few too young. Old people wanted to learn to read the Bible before they died, and wanted their children to be educated. This seeming thirst for education was not rightly understood in the North; it was, in fact, more a desire to imitate the white master and obtain formerly forbidden privileges than any real desire due to an understanding of the value of education; the negro had not the slightest idea of what "education" was, but the northern people gave them credit for an appreciation not yet true even of whites. There were day schools, night schools, and Sunday-schools, and the "Blue-back Speller" was the standard beginner's text. Yet, as Washington says, it was years before the parents wanted their children to make any use of education except to be preachers, teachers, Congressmen, and politicians. Rascals were ahead of the missionaries, and a number of pay schools were established in 1865 by unprincipled men who took advantage of this desire for learning and fleeced the negro of his few dollars. One school, established in Montgomery by a pedagogue who came in the wake of the armies, enrolled over two hundred pupils of all ages, at two dollars per month in advance. The school lasted one month, and the teacher left, but not without collecting the fees for the second month.[1235]

When General Swayne arrived, he assumed control of negro education, and a "Superintendent of Schools for Freedmen" was appointed. The Rev. C. M. Buckley, chaplain of a colored regiment and official of the Freedmen's Bureau, was the first holder of this office. In 1868, after he went to Congress, the position was held by Rev. R. D. Harper, a northern Methodist preacher, who was superseded in 1869 by Colonel Edwin Beecher, formerly a paymaster of the Bureau and cashier of the Freedmen's Savings Bank in Montgomery. There also appeared a person named H. M. Bush as "Superintendent of Education," a title the Bureau officials were fond of assuming and which often caused them to be confused with the state officials of like title.[1236]

The sale of Confederate property at Selma, Briarfield, and other places, small tuition fees, and gifts furnished support to the teachers. General Swayne was deeply interested in the education of the blacks, and thought that northern teachers could do better work for the colored race than southern teachers. Most of the aid societies had spent their funds before reaching Alabama, but Swayne secured some assistance from the American Missionary Association. The teachers were paid partly by the Association, but mostly by the Bureau. The Pittsburg Freedmen's Aid Commission established schools in north Alabama, at Huntsville, Stevenson, Tuscumbia, and Athens, and also had a school at Selma. The Cleveland Freedmen's Union Commission worked in Montgomery and Talladega by means of Sunday-schools. A great many of the schools with large enrolments were Sunday-schools. The American Missionary Association, besides furnishing teachers to the Bureau, had schools of its own in Selma, Talladega, and Mobile. The American Freedmen's Union Commission (Presbyterian branch) also had schools in the state. The Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church (North) did some work in the way of education, but was engaged chiefly in inducing the negroes to flee from the wrath to come by leaving the southern churches. At Stevenson and Athens schools were established by aid from England.[1237] In 1866 the Northwestern Aid Society had a school at Mobile.[1238] At the end of 1865, the Bureau had charge of eleven schools at Huntsville, Athens, and Stevenson, one in Montgomery with 11 teachers and 497 pupils, and one in Mobile with 4 teachers and 420 pupils.[1239] Some ill feeling was aroused by the action of the Bureau in seizing the Medical College and Museum at Mobile and using it as a schoolhouse. Even the Confederate authorities had not demanded the use of it. Before the war it was said that the museum was one of the finest in America. Many of the most costly models were now taken away, and a negro shoemaker was installed in the chemical department.[1240]

The attitude of the southern religious bodies enabled the Bureau to extend its school system in 1866, and to secure native white teachers. Schools taught by native whites, most of whom were of good character, were established at Tuskegee, Auburn, Opelika, Salem, Greenville, Demopolis, Evergreen, Mount Meigs, Tuscaloosa, Gainesville, Marion, Arbahatchee, Prattville, Haynesville, and King's Station,--in all twenty schools. There were negro teachers in the schools at Troy, Wetumpka, Home Colony (near Montgomery), and Tuscaloosa. The native whites taught at places where no troops were stationed, and General Swayne stated that they were especially willing to do this work after the churches had declared their intention to favor the education of the negro. It was of such schools that he said their presence dispelled prejudice.[1241] The history of one of these schools is typical: In Russell County a school was established by the Bureau, and Buckley, the Superintendent of Schools, who had no available northern teacher, allowed the white people to name a native white teacher. Several prominent men agreed that a Methodist minister of the community was a suitable person. The neighbors assured him that his family should not suffer socially on account of his connection with the school, and that they wanted no northern teacher in the community. The minister accepted the offer, was appointed by the Bureau, and the school was held in his dooryard, out buildings, and verandas, his family assisting him. The negroes were pleased, and big and little came to school. The relations between the whites and blacks were pleasant, and all went well for more than two years, until politics alienated the races, and the negroes demanded a northern teacher or one of their own color.[1242] The schools at Huntsville, Mobile, Montgomery, Selma, Tuscumbia, Stevenson, and Athens, where troops were stationed, were reserved for the northern teachers who were sent by the various aid societies. The disturbing influence of the teachers was thus openly acknowledged. The Bureau coöperated by furnishing buildings, paying rent, and making repairs, and, in some instances, by giving money or supplies.[1243]

The statistics of the Bureau schools are confused and incomplete. In 1866 one report states that there were 8 schools with 31 teachers and 1338 pupils under the control of the Bureau. General Swayne's list includes the schools at the various places named above, and reports 43 schools in 23 of the 52 counties, with 68 teachers and a maximum enrolment of 3220 pupils--the average being much less.[1244] Buckley's report for March 15, 1867, gives the number of negro schools of all kinds as 68 day schools and 27 night schools. The total enrolment for the winter months had been 5352; the average attendance, 4217. At this time the Bureau was supporting 38 day schools, 19 night schools, and paying 49 teachers. Benevolent societies under supervision of the Bureau were conducting 21 day schools, 7 night schools, with 36 teachers and a total enrolment of 2157 pupils. Besides these there were 10 private schools with 443 pupils. In all the schools, there were 75 white and 20 negro teachers. There were more than 100,000 negro children of school age in the state who were not reached by these schools.

The following table, compiled from the semiannual reports on Bureau schools in Alabama, will show the slight extent of the educational work of the Bureau. The list includes all the schools in charge of the Bureau, or which received aid from the Bureau.

======================================================================== | JULY 1, | JULY 1, | JAN. 1, | JULY 1, | JULY 1, | 1867 | 1868 | 1869 | 1869 | 1870 --------------------|---------|----------|---------|---------|---------- Day schools | 122| 59| 33| 79 | 23 Night schools | 53| 19| 2| 1 | 4 Private schools | | | | | (negro teachers) | 8| 22| 4| 1 | -- Semi-private | 25| 48| 25| 55 | 2 Teachers transported| | | | | by Bureau | 122| 22| 29| 3 | -- School buildings | | | | | owned by negroes | 27| 13| 1| 4 | 11 School buildings | | | | | owned by Bureau | 38| 36| 29| 66 | -- White teachers | 126| 67| 49| 65?| -- Negro teachers | 24| 28| 12| 23?| -- White pupils | | | | | (refugees) | 23| -- | -- | -- | -- Black pupils | 9,799| 4,040| 3,330| 5,131 | 2,110 Tuition paid | | | | | by negroes |$1,542.00| $3,206.56|$1,431.50|$1,248.95| $1,446.30 Bureau paid | | | | | for tuition | 6,693.00| 2,097.73| 1,219.75| 2,938.50| 22,559.88 Bureau paid for | | | | | school expenses |18,685.07| ------ | ------ | ------ | ------ Total expenditures | 8,235.00| 6,463.72| 2,723.25| 4,187.45|240,061.18 ========================================================================

These statistics showing expenditures are not complete, but they are given as they are in the reports, which are carelessly made from carelessly kept and defective records. There was a disposition on the part of the Bureau to claim all the schools possible in order to show large numbers. Many of these so-called schools were in reality only Sunday-schools,--that is, they were in session only on Sundays,--(and the missionary Sunday-schools were counted), and were not as good as the Sunday-schools which for years before the war had been conducted among the negroes by the different churches. The Bureau did not consider of importance the private plantation and mission schools supported by the native whites, nor the state schools, which largely outnumbered the Bureau schools, but only those aided in some way by itself. The schools entirely under the control of the Bureau had small enrolment. Assistance was given to all the schools taught by northern missionaries, to some taught by native whites, and to some taught by negroes. It was given in the form of buildings, repairs, supplies, and small appropriations of money for salaries. Rent was paid by the Bureau for school buildings not owned by the schools or by the Bureau. Accounts were carelessly kept, and after General Swayne left, if not before, abuses crept in. At least one of the aid societies received money from the Bureau, and its representatives established a reputation for crookedness that was retained after the Bureau was a thing of the past. This society,--The American Missionary Association,--along with other work among the negroes, carried on a crusade against the Catholic Church which was endeavoring to work in the same field. Church work and educational work were not separated. A building in Mobile, valued at $20,000, was given by the Bureau to the association as a training school for negro teachers. The society charged the Bureau rent on this building, and there were other similar cases where the Bureau paid rent on its own buildings which were used by the aid societies.[1245]

As already stated, for two years there was little or no opposition by the whites to the education of the negro, and to some extent they even favored and aided it. The story of southern opposition to the schools originated with the lower class of agents, missionaries, and teachers. Of course, to a person who had taken the abolitionist programme in good faith, it was incomprehensible that the southern whites could entertain any kindly or liberal feelings toward the blacks. But Buckley reported, as late as March 15, 1867, that the native whites favored the undertaking, and that no difficulty was experienced in getting southern whites to teach negro schools. Some of these teachers were graduates of the State University, some had been county superintendents of education. Crippled Confederate soldiers and the widows of soldiers sought for positions in the schools.[1246] There were also some northern whites of common sense and good character engaged in teaching these Bureau schools. But too many of the latter considered themselves missionaries whose duty it was to show the southern people the error of their sinful ways, and who taught the negro the wildest of the social, political, and religious doctrines held at that time by the more sentimental friends of the ex-slaves.

The temper and manner and the beliefs in which the northern educator went about the business of educating the negro are shown in the reports and addresses in the proceedings of the National Teachers' Association from 1865 to 1875. The crusade of the teachers in the South was directed by the people represented in this association, and its members went out as teachers. Some of the sentiments expressed were as follows: Education and Reconstruction were to go hand in hand, for the war had been one of "education and patriotism against ignorance and barbarism."[1247] "The old slave states [were] to be a missionary ground for the national schoolmaster,"[1248] and knowledge and intellectual culture were to be spread over this region that lay hid in darkness.[1249] There was a demand for a national school system to force a proper state of affairs upon the South, for free schools were necessary, they declared, to a republican form of government, and the free school system should be a part of Reconstruction. The education of the whites as well as the blacks should be in the future a matter of national concern, because the "old rebels" had been sadly miseducated, and they had been able to rule only because others were ignorant and had been purposely kept in ignorance. Much commiseration was expressed for "the poor white trash" of the South. The "rebels" were still disloyal, and, as one speaker said, must be treated as a farmer does stumps, that is, they must be "worked around and left to rot out." The old "slave lords" must be driven out by the education of the people, and no distinction in regard to color should be allowed in the schools. The work of education must be directed by the North, for only the North had correct ideas in regard to education. Nothing good was found in the old southern life; it was bad and must give way to the correct northern civilization. The work of "The Christian Hero" was praised, and it was declared that it ought to inspire an epic even greater than the immortal epic of Homer.[1250]

The missionary teachers who came South were supported by this sentiment in the North, and they could not look with friendly eyes upon anything done by the southern whites for the negroes. Altogether there were not many of these heralds of light, and it was a year before the character of their teaching became generally known to the whites or its results were plainly seen. Their dislike for all things southern was heartily reciprocated by the native whites, who soon acquired a dislike for the northern teacher which became second nature. The negro was taught by the missionary educators that he must distrust the whites and give up all habits and customs that would remind him of his former condition; he must not say master and mistress nor take off his hat when speaking to a white person. In teaching him not to be servile, they taught him to be insolent. The missionary teachers regarded themselves as the advance guard of a new army of invasion against the terrible South. In recent years a Hampton Institute teacher has expressed the situation as follows: "When the combat was over and the Yankee schoolma'ams followed in the train of the northern armies, the business of educating the negroes was a continuation of hostilities against the vanquished, and was so regarded to a considerable extent on both sides." The North in a few years became disappointed and indifferent, especially after the negro began to turn again to the southern whites.[1251]

The negro schools felt the influence of the politics of the day, besides suffering from the results of the teachings of the northern pedagogues. Buckley made a report early in 1867, stating that conditions were favorable. On July 1, 1868, Rev. R. D. Harper, "Superintendent of Education," reported that there was a reaction against negro schools; that the whites were now hostile to the negro schools on account of their teachers, who, the whites claimed, upheld the doctrines of social and political equality; the negroes were too much interested in politics in 1867 and 1868, and spent their money in the campaigns; the teachers of the negro schools were intimidated, ostracized from society, and could not find board with the white people. Because of this, he said, some schools had been broken up. The civil authorities, he declared, winked at the intimidation of the teachers.[1252] Beecher, the Assistant Commissioner and "Superintendent of Education," reported that the schools had been supported on confiscated Confederate property until 1869, and that this source of supply being exhausted, the teachers were returning to the North. He reported that 100,000 children had never been inside a schoolhouse. The night schools were not successful because the negroes were unable to keep awake. A year later, Beecher reported that the schools were recovering from unfavorable conditions, and that some of the teachers who had proven to be immoral and incompetent had been discharged.

The last reports (1870) stated that there was less opposition by the whites to the Bureau schools.[1253] This can be partly accounted for by the fact that the majority of the obnoxious northern teachers had returned to the North or had been discharged. The best ones, who had come with high hopes for the negroes, sure that the blacks needed only education to make them the equal of the whites, were bitterly disappointed, and in the majority of cases they gave up the work and left. Not all of them were of good character and a number were discharged for incompetency or immorality; others were coarse and rude. The respectable southern whites resigned as soon as the results of the teaching of the outsiders began to be realized, and those who remained were beyond the pale of society. The white people came to believe, and too often with good reason, that the alien teachers stood for and taught social and political equality, intermarriage of the races, hatred and distrust of the southern whites, and love and respect for the northern deliverer only. Social ostracism forced the white teachers to be content with negro society. Naturally they became more bitter and incendiary in their utterances and teachings. Some negroes were only too quick to learn such sentiments, and the generally insolent behavior of the negro educated under such conditions was one of the causes of reaction against negro education. The hostility against negro schools was especially strong among the more ignorant whites, and during the Ku Klux movement these people burned a number of schoolhouses and drove the teachers from the country where a few years before they had been welcomed by some and tolerated by all.

The results of the attempts by the Bureau and the missionary societies to educate the negro were almost wholly bad. DuBois makes the astonishing statement that the Bureau established the free public school system in the South.[1254] It is true that some of the schools then established have survived, but there would have been many more schools to-day had these never existed. For the whites the public school system of Alabama existed before the war; the example of the Bureau in no way encouraged its extension for the blacks; reconstructive educational ideals caused a reaction against general public education. In 1865 to 1866 the thinking people of the state, such men as Dr. J. L. M. Curry and Bishop McTyeire, were heartily in favor of the education of the negro, and all the churches were also in favor of giving it a trial. As conditions were at that time, even the best plan for the education of the negro by alien agencies would have failed. General Swayne hoped to use both northern and southern teachers, but it was not possible that the temper of either party would permit coöperation in the work. Buckley seems to have had glimmerings of this fact, when he tried to get southern teachers for the schools. But the damage was already done. The logical and intentional result of the teachings of the missionaries was to alienate the races. If the negro accepted the doctrine of the equality of all men and the belief in the utter sinfulness of slavery and slaveholders, he at once found that the southern whites were his natural enemies.

Unwise efforts were made to teach the adult blacks, and they were encouraged to believe that all knowledge was in their reach; that without education they would be helpless, and with it they would be the white man's equal. Some of the negroes almost worshipped education, it was to do so much for them. The schools in the cities were crowded with grown negroes who could never learn their letters. All attempts to teach these older ones failed, and the failure caused grievous disappointment to many. The exercise of common sense by the teachers might have spared them this. But the average New England teacher began to work as if the negroes were Mayflower descendants. No attention was paid to the actual condition of the negroes and their station in life. False ideas about manual labor were put into their heads, and the training given them had no practical bearing on the needs of life.[1255]

From the table given above it will be seen that the Bureau schools reached only a very small proportion of the negro children. The missionary schools not connected with the Bureau were few. It is likely that for five years there were not more than two hundred northern teachers in the state, yet the effect of their work was, in connection with the operations of the political and religious missionaries, to make a majority perhaps of the white people hostile to the education of the negro. The crusading spirit of the invaders touched the most sensitive feelings of the southerners, and the insolence and rascality of the educated negroes were taken as natural results of education. The good was obscured by the bad. The innocent missionary suffered for the sins of the violent and incendiary. The educated black rascal was pointed out as a fair example of negro education. The damage was done, not so much by what was actually taught in the relatively few schools, as by the ideas caught by the entire negro population that came in contact with the missionaries. Naturally the blacks were more likely to accept the radical teachers. A most unfortunate result was the withdrawal of the southern church organizations and of all white southerners from the work of training the negro. The profession had been discredited. One of the hardest tasks of the negro educators of to-day--like Washington or Councill--is to undo the work of the aliens who wrought in passion and hate a generation before they began. The evil of the Bureau system did not die with that institution, but when the reconstructionists undertook to mould anew the institutions of the South, the educational methods of the Bureau and its teachers were transferred into the new state system which they helped to discredit.[1256]

Why the Bureau System Failed

There have been many apologies for the Freedmen's Bureau, many assertions of the necessity for such an institution to protect the blacks from the whites. It was necessary, the friends of the institution claimed, to prevent reënslavement of the negro, to secure equality before the law, to establish a system of free labor, to relieve want, to force a beginning of education for the negro, to make it safe for northern missionaries and teachers to work among the blacks. It was, of course, not to be expected that the victorious North would leave the negroes entirely alone after the war, and in theory there were only two objections to such an institution well conducted,--(1) it was not really needed, and (2) it was, as an institution, based on an idea insulting to southern white people. It meant that they were unfit to be trusted in the slightest matter that concerned the blacks. It was based on the theory that there was general hostility between the southern white and the southern black, and that the government must uphold the weaker by establishing a system of espionage over the stronger. The low characters of the officials made the worst of what would have been under the best agents a bad state of affairs. In 1865 it was necessary for the good of the negro that social and economic laws cease to operate for a while and allow the feelings of sentiment, duty, and gratitude of the Southern whites to work in behalf of the black and enable the latter to make a place for himself in the new order. After the surrender there was, on the part of the whites, a strong feeling of gratitude to the negroes, that was practically universal, for their faithful conduct during the war. The people were ready, because of this and many other reasons, to go to any reasonable lengths to reward the blacks. The Bureau made it impossible for this feeling to find expression in acts. The negro was taken from his master's care and in alien schools and churches taught that in all relations of life the southern white man was his enemy. The whites came to believe that negro education was worse than a failure. The southern churches lost all opportunity to work among the negroes. Friendly relations gave way to hostility between the races. The better elements in southern society that were working for the good of the black were paralyzed and the worst element remained active. The friendship of the native whites was of more value to the blacks than any amount of theoretical protection against inequalities in legislation and justice. Finally, the claim that the Bureau was essential in establishing a system of free labor is ridiculous. The reports of the Bureau officials themselves show clearly, though not consciously, that the new labor system was being worked out according to the fundamental economic laws of supply and demand, and largely in spite of the opposition of the Bureau with its red tape-measures. The Bureau labor policy finally gave way everywhere before the unauthorized but natural system that was evolved.[1257]

XII. MILITARY GOVERNMENT UNDER THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS

SEC. I. THE ADMINISTRATION OF GENERAL POPE

The Military Reconstruction Bills

The Radicals in Congress triumphed over the moderate Republicans, the Democrats, and the President, when, on March 2, 1867, they succeeded in passing over the veto the first of the Reconstruction Acts. This act reduced the southern states to the status of military provinces and established the rule of martial law. After asserting in the preamble that no legal governments or adequate protection for life and property existed in Alabama and other southern states, the act divided the South into five military districts, subject to the absolute control of the central government, that is, of Congress.[1258] Alabama, with Georgia and Florida, constituted the Third Military District. The military commander, a general officer, appointed by the President, was to carry on the government in his province. No state interference was to be allowed, though the provisional civil administration might be made use of if the commander saw fit. Offenders might be tried by the local courts or by military commissions, and except in cases involving the death penalty, there was no appeal beyond the military governor. This rule of martial law was to continue until the people[1259] should adopt a constitution providing for enfranchisement of the negro and for the disfranchisement of such whites as would be excluded by the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. As soon as this constitution should be ratified by the new electorate (a majority voting in the election) and the constitution approved by Congress, and the legislature elected under the new constitution should ratify the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, then representatives from the state were to be admitted to Congress upon taking the "iron-clad" test oath of July 2, 1862.[1260] And until so reconstructed the present civil government of the state was provisional only and might be altered, controlled, or abolished, and in all elections under it the negro must vote and those who would be excluded by the proposed Fourteenth Amendment must be disfranchised.[1261]

The President at once (March 11, 1867) appointed General George H. Thomas to the command of the Third Military District, with headquarters at Montgomery, but the work was not to General Thomas's liking, and at his request he was relieved, and on March 15 General Pope was appointed in his place.[1262] Pope was in favor of extreme measures in dealing with the southern people and stated that he understood the design of the Reconstruction Acts to be "to free the southern people from the baleful influence of old political leaders."[1263]

The act of March 2 did not provide for forcing Reconstruction upon the people. If they wanted it, they might initiate it through the provisional governments, or if they preferred, they might remain under martial law. While all people were anxious to have the state restored to the Union, most of the whites saw that to continue under martial law, even when administered by Pope, was preferable to Reconstruction under the proposed terms. Consequently the movement toward Reconstruction was made by a very small minority of the people and had no chance whatever of making any headway.

Therefore, in order to hasten the restoration of the states and to insure the proper political complexion of the new régime, Congress assumed control of the administration of the law of March 2, by the supplementary act of March 23, 1865. "To facilitate restoration" the commander of the district was to cause a registration of all men over twenty-one not disfranchised by the act of March 2, who could take the prescribed oath[1264] before the registering officers. The commander was then to order an election for the choice of delegates to a convention. He was to apportion the delegates according to the registered voting population. If a majority voted against holding the convention, it should not be held. The boards of registration, appointed by the commanding general, were to consist of three loyal persons. They were to have entire control of the registration of voters, and the elections and returns which were to be made to the military governor. They were required to take the "iron-clad" test oath, and the penalties of perjury were to be visited upon official or voter who should take the oath falsely. After the convention should frame a constitution, the military commander should submit it to the people for ratification or rejection. The same board of registration was to hold the election. If the Constitution should be ratified by a majority of the votes cast in the election where a majority of the registered voters voted, and the other conditions of the act of March 2 having been complied with, the state should be admitted to representation in Congress.[1265]

Pope assumes Command

On April 1, 1867, General Pope arrived in Montgomery and assumed command of the Third Military District. General Swayne was continued in command of Alabama as a sub-district. Pope announced that the officials of the provisional government would be allowed to serve out their terms of office, provided the laws were impartially administered by them. Failure to protect the people without distinction in their rights of person and property would result in the interference of the military authorities. Civil officials were forbidden to use their influence against congressional reconstruction. No elections were to be held unless negroes were allowed to vote and the whites disfranchised as provided for in the act of March 2. However, all vacancies then existing or which might occur before registration was completed would be filled by military appointment. The state militia was ordered to disband.[1266] General Swayne proclaimed that he, having been intrusted with the "administration of the military reconstruction bill" in Alabama, would exact a literal compliance with the requirements of the Civil Rights Bill. All payments for services rendered the state during the war were peremptorily forbidden.[1267] The Herald correspondent reported that Pope's early orders were favorably received by the conservative press of Alabama, and that there was no opposition of any kind manifested. The people did not seem to realize what was in store for them. The army thought necessary to crush the "rebellious" state was increased by a few small companies only, and now consisted of fourteen companies detached from the Fifteenth and the Thirty-third Infantry and the Fifth Cavalry, amounting in all to 931 men, of whom eight companies were in garrison in the arsenal at Mount Vernon and the forts at Mobile.[1268] The rest were stationed at Montgomery, Selma, and Huntsville.

Writing to Grant on April 2, Pope stated that the civil officials were all active secessionists and would oppose Reconstruction. But the people were ready for Reconstruction, which he predicted would be speedy in Alabama. Five days later he wrote that there would be no trouble in Alabama; that Governor Patton and nearly all the civil officials and most of the prominent men of the state were in favor of the congressional Reconstruction and were canvassing the state in favor of it.[1269] He was evidently of changeable opinions. However, he was so impressed with the goodness of Alabama and the badness of Georgia, that, in order to be near the most difficult work, he asked Grant to have headquarters removed to Atlanta, which was done on April 11.[1270]

The Georgia people were evidently so bad that they caused a change in his former favorable opinion of the people in general, or rather of the whites, for in a letter to Grant, July 24, 1867, we find a frank expression of his sentiments in regard to Reconstruction. He thought the disfranchising clauses were among the wisest provisions of the Reconstruction Acts; that the leading rebels should have been forced to leave the country and stay away; that all the old official class was opposed to Reconstruction and was sure to prevail unless kept disfranchised; that it was better to have incompetent loyal men in office than rebels of ability,--in fact, the greater the ability the greater the danger; that in order to retain the fruits of reconstruction the old leaders must be put beyond the power of returning to influence. He had by this time evidently become somewhat disgusted with the reconstructionists, for he intimated that none of the whites were fit for self-government, and was strongly of the opinion that, in a few years, intelligence and education would be transferred from the whites to the negroes. He predicted ten thousand majority for Reconstruction in Alabama, but thought that in case Reconstruction succeeded in the elections, some measures would have to be taken to free the country of the turbulent and disloyal leaders of the reactionary party, or there would be no peace.[1271]

Control of the Civil Government

Pope instructed the post commanders in Alabama to report to headquarters any failures of civil tribunals to administer the laws in accordance with the Civil Rights Bill or the recent acts of Congress. They were, above all, to watch for discrimination on account of color, race, or political opinion. While not interfering with the functions of civil officers, they were instructed to give particular attention to the manner in which such functions were discharged.[1272] Civil officials were warned that the prohibition against their using influence against Reconstruction would be stringently enforced. They were not to give verbal or written advice to individuals, committees, or the public unless in favor of Reconstruction. Officials who violated this prohibition were to be removed from office and held accountable as the case demanded.[1273] District and post commanders were ordered to report to Pope all state, county, or municipal officials who were "disloyal" to the government of the United States, or who used their influence to "hinder, delay, prevent, or obstruct the due and proper administration of the acts of Congress."[1274] Later, Grant and Pope decided that the paroles of soldiers were still in force and that any attempt to "prevent the settlement of the southern question would be a violation of parole."[1275]

In May, Pope issued orders informing the officials of Alabama of their proper status. There was no legal government in Alabama, they were told, and Congress had declared that no adequate protection for life and property existed. The military authorities were warned that upon them rested the final responsibility for peace and security. Consequently when necessary they were to supersede the civil officials. In towns, the mayor and chief of police were required to be present at every public meeting, with sufficient force to render disturbance impossible. It would be no excuse not to know of a meeting or not to apprehend trouble. Outside of towns, the sheriff or one of his deputies was to be present at such gatherings, and in case of trouble was to summon a posse from the crowd, but must not summon officers of the meeting or the speakers. It was declared the duty of civil officials to preserve peace, and assure rights and privileges to all persons who desired to hold public meetings. In case of disturbance, if it could not be shown that the civil officials did their full duty, they would be deposed and held responsible by the military authorities. When the civil authorities asked for it, the commanders of troops were to furnish detachments to be present at political meetings and prevent disturbance. The commanding officers were to keep themselves informed in regard to political meetings and hold themselves ready for immediate action.[1276]

From the beginning, Pope, supported and advised by General Swayne, pursued extreme measures. There were soon many complaints of his arbitrary conduct. In his correspondence with General Grant he complained of the attitude of the Washington administration toward his acts, and largely to support Pope (and Sheridan in the Fifth District), Congress passed the act of July 19, 1867, which was the last of the Reconstruction Acts, so far as Alabama was concerned. This law declared that the civil governments were not legal state governments and were, if continued, to be subject absolutely to the military commanders and to the paramount authority of Congress. The commander of the district was declared to have full power, subject only to the disapproval of General Grant, to remove or suspend officers of the civil government and appoint others in their places. General Grant was vested with full power of removal, suspension, and appointment. It was made the duty of the commander to remove from office all who opposed Reconstruction.[1277] Pope had already been making use of the most extreme powers, and the only effect of the act was to approve his course. Pope gave the laws a very broad interpretation, believing that Reconstruction should be thoroughly done in order to leave no room for future trouble and embarrassment. Grant, on August 3, wrote to him[1278] approving his sentiments, and went on to say: "It is certainly the duty of the district commander to study what the framers of the Reconstruction laws wanted to express, as much as what they do express, and to execute the law according to that interpretation."[1279] This was certainly a unique method of interpretation and would justify any possible assumption of power.

There had been several instances of prosecution by state authorities of soldiers and officials for acts which they claimed were done under military authority. Pope disposed of this question by ordering the civil courts to entertain no action against any person for acts performed in accordance with military orders or by sanction of the military authority. Suits then pending were dismissed. The military authorities were to enforce the order strictly and report all officials who might disobey.[1280] A few weeks later a decree went forth that all jurors should be chosen from the lists of voters registered under the acts of Congress. They must be chosen without discrimination in regard to color, and each juror must take an oath that he was a registered voter. Those who could not take the oath were to be replaced by those who could.[1281]

So much for the general regulation and supervision of the civil authorities by the army. There were but a few hundred troops intrusted with the execution of these regulations, which were, of course, enforced only spasmodically. The more prominent officials were closely watched, but the only effect in country districts was to destroy all government. Many judges, while willing to have their jurors drawn from the voting lists, refused to accept ignorant negroes on them, or to order the selection of mixed juries, and many courts were closed by military authority. Judge Wood, of the city court of Selma, had a jury drawn of whites. A military commission, sitting in Selma, refused to allow cases to be tried unless negroes were on the jury. Pope's order was construed as requiring negroes on each jury, and he so meant it.[1282] Later, he published an order requiring jurors to take the "test oath," which would practically exclude all the whites.[1283] Prisoners confined in jail under sentence by jurors drawn under the old laws were liberated by the army officers or by Freedmen's Bureau officials. Twice in the month of December, 1867, there were jail deliveries by military authorities in Greene County.[1284]

Within the first month Pope began to remove civil officials and appoint others. Mayor Joseph H. Sloss of Tuscumbia was the first to go. Pope alleged that the election had not been conducted in accordance with the acts of Congress and forthwith appointed a new mayor. No complaint had been made, the removal being caused by outside influence.[1285] At this election, negroes for the first time in Alabama had voted under the Reconstruction Acts. Sloss had received two-thirds of all votes cast. Evidently the blacks had been controlled by the whites, which was contrary to the spirit of the Reconstruction.

Immediately after a riot in Mobile[1286] following an incendiary speech by "Pig Iron" Kelly of Pennsylvania, one of the visiting orators, Colonel Shepherd of the Fifteenth Infantry assumed command of the city. The police were suspended. Breach of the peace was punished by the military authorities. Out-of-door congregations after nightfall were prohibited. Notice of public meetings had to be given to the acting mayor in time to have a force on hand to preserve the peace. The publication of incendiary articles in the newspapers was forbidden. The provost guard was directed to seize all large firearms in the possession of improper persons and to search suspected persons for small arms. The special police, when appointed, were ordered to restrict their duties to enforcing the city ordinances. All offences against military ordinances would be attended to by the military authorities. A later order prohibited the carrying of large firearms without special permission. Deposits of such arms were seized.[1287]

Pope declared all offices vacant in Mobile and filled them anew,[1288] in the face of a report by Swayne that reasonable precautions had been taken to prevent disorder. The blame for this action of Pope's fell upon Swayne, who had to carry out the orders. The officers appointed by Pope refused to accept office, and then he seems to have offered to reappoint the old officials, and they declined. Thereupon he lost his temper and directed Swayne to fill the vacancies in the city government of Mobile "from that large class of citizens who have heretofore been denied the right of suffrage and participation in municipal affairs and whose patriotism will prevent them from following this disloyal example." He was referring to the refusal of the former members of the city government to accept reappointment after suspension, and meant that negroes should now be appointed. Swayne offered positions to some of the most respected and influential negroes, who declined, saying that they preferred white officials. Negro policemen were appointed.[1289] In October a case came up in Mobile which caused much irritation. The negro policemen were troublesome and insolent, and one day a little child ran out into the street in front of a team driven by a negro, who paid no attention to the mother's call to him to stop his horses. Some one snatched the baby from under the heels of the horses, and the scared and angry mother relieved her feelings by calling the driver a "black rascal." The negro policemen came to her house, arrested her, and with great brutality dragged her from the house and along the street. Another woman asked the negroes if they had a warrant for the arrest of the first woman. She was answered by the polite query, "What the hell is it your business?" Mayor Horton, Pope's appointee, fined the woman ten dollars[1290]--for violation of the Civil Rights Bill, it is to be presumed, since that was considered to cover most things pertaining to negroes.

This Mayor Horton had a high opinion of his prerogatives as military mayor of Mobile. The Mobile Tribune had been publishing criticisms on his administration and also of Mr. Bromberg, one of his political brethren. Archie Johnson, a crippled, half-witted negro newsboy, was, it is said, hired to follow the mayor about, selling his Tribune papers, much to the annoyance of Mayor Horton. On one occasion Archie cried, "Here's yer Mobile Tribune, wid all about Mayor Horton and his Bromberg rats." This was too much for the military mayor, and, considering the offence as one against the Civil Rights Bill, he sentenced the negro to banishment to New Orleans. Archie soon returned and was again exiled by the mayor. Here was an opportunity for the people to get even with Horton, and suit was brought in the Federal court before Busteed, who was now somewhat out with his party. Horton was fined for violation of the Civil Rights Bill.[1291]

Many officials were removed and many appointments made by Pope. His removals and appointments included mayors, chiefs of police, tax assessors and collectors, school trustees, county commissioners, justices of the peace, sheriffs, judges, clerks of courts, bailiffs, constables, city clerks, solicitors, superintendents of schools, aldermen, common councils, and all the officials of Jones and Colbert counties.[1292] Pope was roundly abused by the newspapers and by the people for making so many changes. I have been unable to find, however, the names of more than thirty-four officials of any consequence who were removed by Pope. He made 224 appointments to such offices, besides minor ones. A clean sweep of all officials from mayor to policemen was made in Mobile and again in Selma. Most vacancies were caused by expiration of term of office or by forced resignation.[1293]

As there was need of money to pay the expense of the convention soon to assemble, and as the taxpayers were beginning to understand for what purposes their money was to be used and were in many instances refusing to pay, Pope issued an order to the post and detachment commanders directing them to furnish military aid to state tax-collectors.[1294] The bitterest reconstructionists were heartily in favor of aid to the tax-collecting branch of the "rebel" administration. They needed money to carry out their plans. When the terms of the tax-collectors expired, they were ordered to continue in office until their successors were duly elected and qualified,[1295] which, of course, meant to continue the present administration until the reconstructed government should take charge. Pope was very careful not to allow the civil government to spend any of the money coming in from taxes. He said that he thought it proper to prohibit the state treasurer from paying out money for the support of families of deceased Confederate soldiers, for wooden legs for Confederate soldiers, etc., since the convention soon to meet would probably not approve expenditure for such purposes.[1296] Later the treasurer was ordered to pay the per diem of the delegates and the expenses of the convention, though Pope expressed doubt, for once, of his authority in the matter.[1297]

General Swayne, at Montgomery, who had long been at the head of the Freedmen's Bureau in the state and also military commander of the District of Alabama since June 1, 1866, found himself relegated to a somewhat subordinate position after Pope assumed command in the Third District. The latter took charge of everything. If a negro policeman were to be appointed in Mobile, Pope made the appointment and issued the order. Nor did he always send his orders to Swayne to be republished. In consequence, Swayne dropped out of the records somewhat, but he had to bear much of the blame that should have fallen on Pope, though he was in full sympathy with the views of the latter. He was, however, a man of much more ability than Pope, of sounder judgment, and had had legal training. Consequently, Pope relied much upon him for advice in the many knotty questions that came up, often coming from Atlanta to Montgomery to see Swayne, and as a rule none of his well-known proclamations were ever issued when under the latter's influence. The orders written for him or outlined by Swayne were stringent, of course, but clear, short, and to the point. Pope's own masterpieces were long, rhetorical, and blustering. His favorite valedictory at the end of an order was a threat of martial law and military commissions.

General Swayne was still at the head of the Freedmen's Bureau, and in this capacity he made his authority felt. In April, 1867, he ordered probate judges to revise former actions in apprenticing minors to former owners and to revoke all indentures made since the war if the minors were able to support themselves. Though the vagrancy law had never been enforced and had been repealed by the legislature, he declared its suspension. The chain-gang system was abolished, except in connection with the penitentiary.[1298] In the fall, in order to secure pay for negro laborers, he ordered a lien on the crops grown on the farm where they were employed. This lien was to attach from date of order and to have preference over former liens.[1299]

Pope and the Newspapers

When Pope first assumed command, it was reported that the conservative papers were, at the worst, not hostile to him;[1300] but within a few weeks he had aroused their hostility and the battle was joined. Pope believed that the papers had much to do with inciting hostility against the visiting orators from the North, resulting in such disturbances as the Kelly riot in Mobile. Consequently, instructions were issued prohibiting the publication of articles tending to incite to riot. This order was aimed at the conservative press. No one except the negroes paid much attention to the Radical press. However, after the Mobile trouble the military commander was somewhat nervous and wanted to prevent future troubles. The negroes, now much excited by the campaign, were supposed to be much influenced by the violent articles appearing in the Radical paper of Mobile,--the National. On May 30 an article was printed in that paper instructing the freedmen when, where, and how to use firearms. It went on to state: "Do not, on future occasions [like the Kelly riot], waste a single shot until you see your enemy, be sure he is your enemy, never waste ammunition, don't shoot until necessary, and then be sure to shoot your enemy. Don't fire into the air." Fearing the effect upon the negroes of such advice, the commanding officer at Mobile suppressed the edition of May 30, and prohibited future publication unless the proof should first be submitted to the commandant according to the regulations of May 19, issued by Pope. Instead of approving the action of the Mobile officer, Pope strongly disapproved of and revoked his orders. The Mobile commander was informed that it was the duty of the military authorities, not to restrict, but to secure, the utmost freedom of speech. No officers or soldiers should interfere with newspapers or speakers on any pretext whatever. "No satisfactory execution of the late acts of Congress is practicable unless this freedom is secured and its exercise protected," Pope said. However, "treasonable utterances" were not to be regarded as the legitimate exercise of the freedom of discussion.[1301]

The conservative papers managed to keep within bounds, and Pope was unable to harm them. Finally he decided to strike at them through the official patronage. By the famous General Order No. 49,[1302] he stated that he was convinced that the civil officials were obeying former instructions[1303] only so far as their personal conversation was concerned, and were using their official patronage to encourage newspapers which opposed reconstruction and embarrassed civil officials appointed by military authority by denunciations and threats of future punishment. Such use of patronage was pronounced an evasion of former orders and an employment of the machinery of the state government to defeat the execution of the Reconstruction Acts. Therefore it was ordered that official advertising and official printing be given to those newspapers which had not opposed and did not then oppose Reconstruction or embarrass officials by threats of violence and of prosecution as soon as the troops were withdrawn.[1304] This order affected nearly every newspaper in the state. There were sixty-two counties, and each had public printing and advertising. On an average, at least one paper for each county was touched in the exchequer, and as Pope reported, "a hideous outcry" arose from the press of the state.[1305] There were only five or six Reconstruction papers in the state, and a modification of the order in practice was absolutely necessary. Pope was so roundly abused by the newspapers, North and South, and especially in Alabama and Georgia, that he seems to have been affected by it. He endeavored to explain away the order by saying that it related only to military officials and not to civil officials. He did not say that in the order, though he may have meant it, and was now using the remarkable method of interpretation suggested to him by Grant in regard to the Reconstruction Acts. Several accounts of newspapers for public advertisements were held up and payments disallowed. The best-known of these papers were the Selma Times and the Eutaw Whig and Observer.[1306] The order was strictly enforced until General Meade assumed command of the Third Military District.

Trials by Military Commissions

The newspapers state that many arrests of citizens were made by military authorities, and in the spring of 1868 they generally remarked that the jails were filled with prisoners thus arrested who were still awaiting trial. Most of these were probably arrested under the Pope régime, since Meade, his successor, was not so extreme. However, Pope, in spite of his threats, had but few persons tried by military commissions. D. C. Ballard was convicted of pretending to be a United States detective and of stealing ninety-five bales of cotton, and was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment.[1307] One David J. Files was arrested for inciting the Kelly riot at Mobile. Pope said that he was the chief offender and had him imprisoned at Fort Morgan until he could be tried by a military commission. He was fined $100.[1308] William A. Castleberry was convicted by a military commission, fined $200, and imprisoned for one year for purchasing stolen property and for assisting a deserter to escape. Jesse Hays, a justice of the peace in Monroe County, was sentenced to five months' imprisonment and fined $100 for prescribing a punishment for a negro that could not be prescribed for a white, that is, fifty lashes. Matthew Anderson and John Middleton, who were tried for carrying out the sentence imposed on the negro, were acquitted.[1309] These are all the cases that I have been able to find of trial of civilians by military commission under Pope. In one case there was a direct interference by Pope with the administration of justice. Daniel and James Cash had been indicted in Macon County for murder and had made bond. They were later indicted and arrested in Bullock County. Pope ordered that they be released and that all civil officials let them alone.[1310]

Registration and Disfranchisement

But the prime object of Pope's administration was not merely to carry on the government in his military province, but to see that the Reconstruction was rushed through in the shortest possible time and in the most thorough manner, according to the intentions of the Congressional leaders as he understood them. As already stated, he had very clear ideas of what should be done, and from the first was hampered by no few doubts as to the limits of his power. The Reconstruction laws were given the broadest interpretation. In the liberal interpretation of his powers Pope was equalled only by Sheridan in the Fifth District.

A week after his arrival in Montgomery Pope directed Swayne to divide the state into registration districts. Army officers were to be used as registrars only when no civilians could be obtained. General supervisors were to look after the working of the registration, and there was to be a general inspector at headquarters. Violence or threats of violence against registration officials would be punished by military commission.[1311] May 21, 1867, the state was divided into forty-two (later forty-four) registration districts, so arranged as to make the most effective use of the black vote.[1312] A board of registration for each district was appointed, each board consisting of two whites and one negro. Since each had to take the "iron-clad" test oath, practically all native whites were excluded, those who were on the lists being men of doubtful character and no ability. There were numbers of northerners. For most of the districts the white registrars had to be imported. It is not saying much for the negro members to say that they were much the more respectable part of the boards of registration.[1313] Again it was stated that in order to secure full registration, the compensation would be fixed at so much for each voter--fifteen to forty cents, the price varying according to density of population. Five to ten cents mileage was paid in order to enable the registrars to hunt up voters. They were directed to inform the negroes what their political rights were and how necessary it was for them to exercise those rights. Voters were to be registered in each precinct, and later, in order to register those missed the first time, the board was to sit, after due notice, for three days at each county seat. Any kind of interference with registration, by threats or by contracts depriving laborers of pay, was to be punished by military commission. The right of every voter under the acts of Congress to register and to vote was guaranteed by the military. In case of disturbance the registrars were to call upon the civil officials or upon the nearest military authorities. If the former refused or failed to protect the registration, they were to be punished by a military commission.[1314] May 1, Colonel James F. Meline was appointed inspector of registration for the Third Military District,[1315] and William H. Smith was appointed general supervisor for Alabama.[1316] Boards of registration were authorized to report cases of civil officials using their influence against reconstruction.[1317] When a voter wished to remove from his precinct after registration, he was to be given a certificate which would enable him to vote anywhere in the state. If he should lose this certificate, his own affidavit before any civil or military official would suffice to obtain a new certificate.[1318]

On June 1, Pope issued pamphlets containing instructions to registrars which were especially definite as to those former state officials who should be excluded from registration. The list of those who were to be disfranchised included every one who had ever been a state, county, or town official and later aided the Confederacy;[1319] former members of the United States Congress, former United States officials, civil and military, members of state legislatures and of the convention of 1861; all officials of state, counties, and towns during the war; and finally judicial or administrative officials not named elsewhere.[1320] The records fail to show that any officials were not excluded from registration except the keepers of poorhouses, coroners, and health officers. Instructions issued later practically repeated the first instructions and added former officials of the Confederate States to the list of disfranchised. The registrars were reminded to enforce the disfranchising clauses of the acts both as to voters and candidates.[1321]

The stringent regulations of Pope caused much bitter comment, and the Washington administration was besought to revoke them. Complaints were coming in from other districts, and on June 18, 1867, at a Cabinet meeting, the questions in controversy were brought up point by point, and the Cabinet passed its opinion on them. A strict interpretation of the Reconstruction Acts was arrived at, which was much more favorable toward the southern people. Stanton alone voted against all interpretation favorable to the South. The interpretation of the acts thus obtained was issued as a circular, the opinion of the Attorney-General, through the War Department and sent to the district commanders on June 20.[1322] As soon as Pope received a copy of the opinion of the Attorney-General he wrote to Grant protesting against the enforcement of the opinion as an order, so far as it related to registration. If enforced, his instructions to registrars would have to be revoked. According to all rules of military obedience, it was his duty to consider the instructions sent him through the adjutant-general's office as binding, though in this case the instructions were not in the technical form of an order, but he expressed doubt if they were to be considered as an order to him. Grant telegraphed to him to enforce his own construction of the acts until ordered to do otherwise.[1323]

In order to remove all doubt in the matter, Congress, in the act of July 19, 1867, sustained Pope's interpretation of the acts and made it law. The construction placed upon the laws by the Cabinet was repudiated, and officers acting under the Reconstruction Acts were not to consider themselves bound by the opinion of any civil officer of the United States.[1324] This was aimed at the Attorney-General and the Cabinet. The law also gave the registrars full judicial powers to investigate the records of those who applied for registration. Witnesses might be examined touching the qualifications of voters. The boards were empowered to revise the lists of voters and to add to or strike from it such names as they thought ought to be added or removed. No pardon or amnesty by the President was to avail to remove disability.[1325]

The Elections and the Convention

After the passage of this law it was smooth sailing for Pope. Registration went on with such success that on August 31 he was induced to order an election to be held on October 1 to 4, for the choice of delegates to a convention, and an apportionment of delegates among the various districts was made at the same time. In the distribution the black counties were favored at the expense of the white counties.[1326]

The work of the registrars was thoroughly done. The negro enrolment was enormous; the white enrolment was small. The registration of voters before the elections was: whites, 61,295; blacks, 104,518; total, 165,813.[1327] For the convention and for delegates 90,283 votes were cast. Of these 18,553 were those of whites, and 71,730 were negro votes. Against holding a convention, 5583 white votes were cast, and 69,947 registered voters failed to vote--37,159 whites and 32,788 blacks.[1328] The names of the delegates chosen were published in general orders, and the convention was ordered to meet in Montgomery on November 5.[1329] During the session of the convention Pope took a rest from his labors and spent some time in Montgomery. He was a great favorite with the reconstructionists and was accorded special honors by the convention. But he did not think as highly of reconstructionists as when he first assumed command, and the antics of the "Black Crook" convention made him nervous. After a month's session he was glad to see it disband.[1330]

One of the last important acts of Pope's administration was to order an election for February 4 and 5, 1868, when the constitution should be submitted for ratification or rejection, and when by his advice candidates for all offices were to be voted for. Two weeks beforehand the registrars were to revise their lists, adding or striking off such names as they saw fit. Polls were to be opened at such places as the board saw fit. Any voter might vote in any place to which he had removed by making affidavit before the board that he was registered and had not voted before.[1331]

Removal of Pope and Swayne

Both Pope and Swayne had been charged with being desirous of representing the states of the Third Military District in the United States Senate. Pope had made himself obnoxious to the President, and the white people of Alabama and Georgia were demanding his removal. So, on December 28, 1867, an order was issued by the President, relieving Pope and placing General Meade in command of the Third Military District. General Swayne was at the same time ordered to rejoin his regiment,[1332] and a few days later his place was taken by General Julius Hayden.[1333] The whites were greatly relieved and much pleased by the removal of both Pope and Swayne. The former had become obnoxious on account of the extreme measures he had taken in carrying out the Reconstruction Acts, on account of his irritating proclamations, his attitude toward the press, etc. General Swayne had long enjoyed the confidence of the best men. His influence over the negroes was supreme, and had been used to promote friendly relations between the races. But as soon as the Reconstruction was taken charge of by Congress and party lines were drawn, all his influence, personal and official, was given to building up a Radical party in the state and to securing the negroes for that party. He was high in the councils of the Union League and controlled the conventions of the party. The change of rulers is said to have had a tranquillizing effect on disturbed conditions in Alabama.[1334] But the people of Alabama would have been pleased with no human being as military governor invested with absolute power.

SEC. 2. THE ADMINISTRATION OF GENERAL MEADE

Registration and Elections

On January 6, 1868, General Meade arrived in Atlanta and assumed command of the Third Military District.[1335] His first and most important duty was to complete the military registration of voters, and hold the election for ratification of the constitution and for the choice of officials under it. Registration had been going on regularly since the summer of 1867, and after the convention had adjourned there was a rush of whites to register in order to defeat the constitution by refraining from voting on it. As the time for the election drew near the friends of the Reconstruction, much alarmed at the tactics of the Conservative party, brought pressure to bear upon Grant, who suggested to Meade that an extension of time be made. Consequently, the time for the election was extended from two to five days in order to enable the remotest negro to be found and brought to the polls. At the same time the number of voting places was limited to three in each county,[1336] in order to lessen the influence of the whites over the blacks.

General Meade was opposed to holding the election for state officials at the same time with that on ratification of the constitution. He thought it would be difficult to secure the adoption of the constitution on account of the proscriptive clauses in it, but in his opinion the candidates[1337] nominated by the convention were even more obnoxious to the people than the constitution, and many would refrain from voting on that account. Swayne, who seems to have still been in Montgomery, admitted the force of the objection, but Grant objected to any change until too late to make other arrangements.[1338]

The election took place on February 1 to 5, and passed off without any disorder. Meade reported that the charges of fraud made by the Radicals were groundless, and that the constitution had been defeated on its merits, or rather demerits. Both the constitution and the candidates were obnoxious to a large number of the friends of Reconstruction. He reported that the constitution failed of ratification by 13,550 votes, and advised that the convention assemble again, revise the constitution of its proscriptive features, and again submit to it the people.[1339]

Administration of Civil Affairs

Pending the decision of the Alabama question by Congress, Meade carried on the military government as usual. He thoroughly understood that his power was unlimited. No more than Pope did he allow the civil government to stand in the way. There was, however, a vast difference in the administrations of the two men. Meade was less given to issuing proclamations, but was firmer and more strict, and less arbitrary. He was not under the influence of the Radical politicians in the slightest degree, and was abused by both sides, especially by the Radical adventurers. It was a thankless task, for which he had no liking, but his duty was done in a soldierly manner, and his administration was probably the best that was possible.

He made it clear to the civil authorities that he was the source of all power, and that they were responsible to him and must obey all orders coming from him. If they refused, he promised trial by a military commission, fine, and imprisonment. They must under no circumstances interfere, under color of state authority, with the military administration. He had no admiration for the "loyal" element; and when a bill was before Congress providing that the officials of the civil government be required to take the "iron-clad" test oath or vacate their offices, he made a strong protest and declared that he could not fill half the offices with men who could take the test oath.[1340] After the February elections political influence was brought to bear to force Meade to vacate the offices of the civil government and to appoint certain individuals of the proper political beliefs. The persons voted for in the elections were clamorous for their places. Grant suggested that when appointments were made, the men recently voted for be put in. Meade resisted the pressure and made few changes, and these only after investigation. Removals were made for neglect of duty, malfeasance in office, refusing to obey orders, and "obstructing Reconstruction." Many appointments were made on account of the deaths or resignations of the civil officials.[1341] Few of the officials appointed by him could take the test oath, and he was much abused by the Radicals for saying that it would be impossible to fill half the offices with men who could take the oath. He was constantly besought to supersede the civil authority altogether and rule only through the army. In this connection, he reported that he was greatly embarrassed by the want of judgment and of knowledge on the part of his subordinates, and by the great desire of those who expected to profit from military intervention. So he issued an order informing the civil officials that as long as they performed their duties they would not be interfered with. The army officials were informed that they should in no case interfere with the civil administration before obtaining the consent of Meade; that the military was to act in subordination to and in aid of the civil authority;[1342] and that no soldiers or other persons were to be tried in court for acts done by military authority or for having charge of abandoned land or other property.[1343]

There was much disorder by thieves and roughs on the river boats during the spring of 1868. To facilitate trials of these lawbreakers, Meade directed that they be arrested and tried in any county in the state where found, before any tribunal having jurisdiction of such offences.[1344]

The courts were not interfered with as under Pope's rule. The judges continued to have white jurors chosen, and the army officers, as a rule, approved. In one case, however, in Calhoun County, there was trouble. One Lieutenant Charles T. Johnson, Fifteenth Infantry, attended the court presided over by Judge B. T. Pope. He found that no negroes were on the jury, and demanded that the judge order a mixed jury to be chosen. The judge declined to comply, and Johnson at once arrested him. Johnson found that the clerk of the court did not agree with him, and he arrested the clerk also. Pope was placed in jail until released by Meade.[1345] The conduct of Johnson was condemned in the strongest terms by Meade, who ordered him to be court-martialed. A general order was published reciting the facts of the case and expressing the severest censure of the conduct of Johnson. Meade informed the public generally that even had Judge Pope violated previous orders, Johnson had nothing to do in the case except to report to headquarters. Moreover, Johnson was wrong in holding that all juries had to be composed partly of blacks. This order stopped interference with the courts in Alabama.[1346]

Meade did not approve of Pope's policy toward newspapers, and on February 2, 1868, he issued an order modifying General Order No. 49 on the ground that it had in its operations proved embarrassing. In the future, public printing was to be denied to such papers only as might attempt to intimidate civil officials by threats of violence or prosecution, as soon as the troops were withdrawn, for acts performed in their official capacity. However, if there was but one paper in the county, then it was to have the county printing regardless of its editorial opinions. "Opposition to reconstruction, when conducted in a legitimate manner, is," the order stated, "not to be considered an offence." Violent and incendiary articles, however, were to be considered illegal,[1347] and newspapers were warned to keep within the bounds of legitimate discussion. The Ku Klux movement, especially after it was seen that Congress was going to admit the state, notwithstanding the defeat of the constitution, gave Meade some trouble. Its notices were published in various papers, and Meade issued an order prohibiting this custom. The army officers were ordered to arrest and try offenders. Only one editor came to grief. Ryland Randolph, the editor of the Independent Monitor, of Tuscaloosa, was arrested by General Shepherd and his paper suppressed for a short time.[1348]

General Meade was no negrophile, and hence under him there were no more long oration orders on the rights of "that large class of citizens heretofore excluded from the suffrage." He set himself resolutely against all attempts to stir up strife between the races, and quietly reported at the time, and again a year later, that the stories of violence and intimidation, which Congress accepted without question, were without foundation. He ordered that in the state institutions for the deaf, dumb, blind, and insane, the blacks should have the same privileges as the whites. The law of the state allowed to the sheriffs for subsistence of prisoners, fifty cents a day for white and forty cents a day for negro prisoners. Meade ordered that the fees be the same for both races, and that the same fare and accommodations be given to both. Swayne had abolished the chain-gang system the year before, because it chiefly affected negro offenders. Meade gave the civil authorities permission to restore it.[1349]

The convention had passed ordinances which amounted to stay laws for the relief of debtors. In order to secure support for the constitution, it was provided that these ordinances were to go into effect with the constitution. Complaint was made that creditors were oppressing their debtors in order to secure payment before the stay laws should go into effect. Though opposed in principle to such laws, Meade considered that under the circumstances some relief was needed. The price of cotton was low, and the forced sales were ruinous to the debtors and of little benefit to the creditors. Therefore, in January, he declared the ordinances in force to continue, unless the constitution should be adopted. A later order, in May, declared that the ordinances would be considered in force until revoked by himself.[1350]

Trials by Military Commissions

When the ghostly night riders of the Ku Klux Klan began to frighten the carpet-baggers and the negroes, Meade directed all officials, civil and military, to organize patrols to break up the secret organizations. Civil officials neglecting to do so were held to be guilty of disobedience of orders. Where army officers raised posses to aid in maintaining the peace, the expenses were charged to the counties or towns where the disturbances occurred.[1351]

Nearly all prisoners arrested by the military authorities were turned over to the civil courts for trial. Military commissions were frequently in session to try cases when it was believed the civil authorities would be influenced by local considerations. The following list of such trials is complete: H. K. Quillan of Lee County and Langdon Ellis, justice of the peace of Chambers County, were tried for "obstructing reconstruction" and were acquitted; Richard Hall of Hale County, tried for assault, was acquitted;[1352] Joseph B. F. Hill, William Pettigrew, T. W. Roberts, and James Steele of Greene County were sentenced to hard labor for five years, for "whipping a hog thief, and threatening to ride him on a rail";[1353] Samuel W. Dunlap, William Pierce, Charles Coleman, and John Kelley, implicated in the same case, were fined $500 each, and sentenced to one year's imprisonment; Frank H. Munday, Hugh L. White, John Cullen, and Samuel Strayhorn, charged with the same offence, were each fined $500, and sentenced to hard labor for two years;[1354] Ryland Randolph, editor of the Monitor, was tried for "obstructing reconstruction" in his paper and for nearly killing a negro, and was acquitted. During the trial Busteed granted a writ of habeas corpus, and Meade and Grant both were prepared to submit to the decision of the court, but Randolph wanted the military trial to go on.[1355]

Meade was much irritated by the careless conduct of officers in reporting cases for trial by military courts which were unable to stand the test of examination. After frequent failures to substantiate charges in cases sent up for trial, orders were issued that subordinate officials must exercise the greatest caution and care in preferring charges, and in all cases must state the reasons why the civil authorities could not act. Sworn statements of witnesses must accompany the charges, and the accused must be given an opportunity to forward evidence in his favor.[1356]

The Soldiers and the Citizens

The troops in the state during 1867 and 1868, though sadly demoralized as to discipline, gave the people little trouble except in the vicinity of the military posts. The records of the courts-martial show that the negroes were the greatest sufferers from the outrages of the common soldiers. The whites were irritated chiefly by the arrogant conduct of a few of the post commanders and their subordinates. At Mount Vernon, Frederick B. Shepard, an old man, was arrested and carried before Captain Morris Schoff, who shot the unarmed prisoner as soon as he appeared. For this murder Schoff was court-martialed and imprisoned for ten years.[1357] Johnson, the officer who arrested Judge Pope, was cordially hated in middle Alabama. He arrested a negro who refused to vote for the constitution; in a quarrel he took the crutch of a cripple and struck him over the head with it; hung two large United States flags over the sidewalk of the main street in Tuscaloosa, and when the schoolgirls avoided walking under them, it being well understood that Johnson had placed them there to annoy the women, he stationed soldiers with bayonets to force the girls to pass under the flags. For his various misdeeds he was court-martialed by Meade.[1358]

Most of the soldiers had no love for the negroes, carpet-baggers, and scalawags, and at a Radical meeting in Montgomery, the soldiers on duty at the capitol gave three groans for Grant, and three cheers for McClellan and Johnson. For this conduct they were strongly censured by Major Hartz and General Shepherd, their commanders.[1359]

The soldiers sent to Hale County knocked a carpet-bag Bureau agent on the head, ducked a white teacher of a negro school in the creek, and cuffed the negroes about generally.[1360]

From Martial Law to Carpet-bag Rule

The act providing for the admission of Alabama in spite of the defeat of the constitution was passed June 25, 1868.[1361] Three days later Grant ordered Meade to appoint as provisional governor and lieutenant-governor those voted for[1362] in the February elections, and to remove the present incumbents.[1363] So Smith and Applegate were appointed as governor and lieutenant-governor, their appointments to take effect on July 13, 1868, on which date the legislature said to have been elected in February was ordered to meet.[1364]

Until the state should comply with the requirements of the Reconstruction Acts all government and all officials were to be considered as provisional only. The governor was ordered to organize both houses of the legislature, and before proceeding to business beyond organization each house was required to purge itself of any members who were disqualified by the Fourteenth Amendment.[1365]

A few days later, Congress having admitted the state to representation, Meade ordered all civil officials holding under the provisional civil government to yield to their duly elected successors. The military commander in Alabama was directed to transfer all property and papers pertaining to the government of the state to the proper civil authorities and for the future to abstain from any interference or control over civil affairs. Prisoners held for offences against the civil law were ordered to be delivered to state officials.[1366] This was, in theory, the end of military government in Alabama, though, in fact, the army retired into the background, to remain for six years longer the support and mainstay of the so-called civil government.[1367]

The rule of the army had been intensely galling to the people, but it was infinitely preferable to the régime which followed, and there was general regret when the army gave way to the carpet-bag government. In January, 1868, a day of fasting and prayer was observed for the deliverance of the state from the rule of the negro and the alien.

Chapter XIII

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1867

Attitude of the Whites

In the preceding chapter the part of the army in executing the Reconstruction Acts has been set forth. In the three succeeding chapters I shall sketch the political conditions in the state during the same period. The people of Alabama had, for several months before March, 1867, foreseen the failure of the President's attempt at Reconstruction. The "Military Reconstruction Bill" was no worse than was expected; if liberally construed, it was even better than was expected. And there was a possibility that Reconstruction under these acts might be delayed and finally defeated. Though President Johnson was said to be hopeful of better times, the people of Alabama were decided that no good would come from longer resistance. A northern observer stated that they were so fearfully impoverished, so completely demoralized, by the break-up of society after the war, that they hardly comprehended what was left to them, what was required of them, or what would become of them. Still, they had a clear conviction that Johnson could do no more for them. Every one, except the negroes, was too much absorbed in the struggle for existence to pay much attention to politics. The whites seemed generally willing to do what was required of them, or rather to let affairs take their own course and trust that all would go well. They had given up hope of an early restoration of the Union, but the Radicals, they thought, could not rule forever.[1368]

On March 19, 1867, Governor Patton published an address advising acquiescence in the plan of Congress. He had all along been opposed to Radical Reconstruction, but he now saw that it could not be avoided and wished to make the best of it. He said that a few thousand good men would be disfranchised, but that there were other good men and from these a wise and patriotic convention could be chosen. He advised that negro suffrage be accepted as a settled fact, with no ill feeling against the freedmen; that antagonism between the races should be discouraged, and that no effort be made to control the votes of the blacks.[1369] More consideration, Patton thought, should have been given to Congress as the controlling power; antagonism to Congress had caused infinite mischief. It was folly, he added, to expect more favorable terms, and further opposition might cause harsher conditions to be imposed.[1370]

Other prominent men advised the people to accept the plan of Congress and to participate in the Reconstruction. Nearly all the leading papers of the state, in order to make the best of a bad situation, now supported congressional Reconstruction. Consequently, when General Pope arrived in April, the people were ready to accept the situation in good faith, and desired that he should make a speedy registration of the voters and end the agitation.[1371] Even at this late date the southern people seem not to have foreseen the inevitable results of this revolution in government.[1372]

The Organization of the Radical Party

While a large number of the influential men of the state were ready to accept the situation, "not because we approve the policy of the reconstruction laws, but because it is the best we can do," and while a larger number were more or less indifferent, there were many who were opposed to Reconstruction on any such terms, preferring a continuance of the military government until passions were calmer and a more liberal policy proposed. There was, however, no organized opposition to Reconstruction for two months or more, and even then it was rendered possible only by the arbitrary conduct of General Pope and the violent agitation carried on among the negroes by the Radical faction. For several months, in the white counties of north Alabama the so-called "loyal" people, reënforced by numbers of the old "Peace Society" men, had been holding meetings looking toward organization in order to secure the fruits of Reconstruction. These meetings were continued, and by them it was declared that the people of Alabama were in favor of Reconstruction by the Sherman Bill, to which only the original secession leaders were opposed, and the Sherman plan, negro suffrage and all, was indorsed as a proper punishment for the planters.[1373] After the beginning of congressional Reconstruction, however, the centre of gravity in the Radical party shifted to the Black Belt, and no one any longer paid serious attention to the few thousand "loyal" whites in north Alabama. The first negro meetings held were in the larger towns, Selma leading with a large convention of colored "Unionists," who, under the guidance of a few white officers of the Freedmen's Bureau, declared in favor of military Reconstruction.[1374] The Montgomery reconstructionists held a meeting in the capitol "in which whites and blacks fraternized." The meeting was addressed by several "rebel" officers: A. C. Felder, ---- Doster, and H. C. Semple, and by General Swayne and John C. Keffer from the north. General Swayne and Governor Patton served as vice-presidents. The blacks were eulogized and declared capable of political equality; and it was urged that only those men in favor of military Reconstruction should be supported for office.[1375] In Mobile, a meeting held on April 17 resolved that "everlasting thanks" were due to Congress for its wisdom in passing the Reconstruction Acts. Both whites and negroes spoke in favor of the rights of the negro to hold office, sit on juries, and ride in the same cars and eat at the same tables with whites. The prejudices of the whites, they declared, must give way. At a meeting of negroes only the next day one of the speakers made a distinction between political and social rights. He said that the latter would come in time but that the former must be had at once; they were defined as the right to ride in street cars with the whites, in first-class cars on the railroad, to have the best staterooms on the boats, to sit at public tables with whites, and to go to the hotel tables "when the first bell rang." What social rights were he did not explain. Negroes attended these meetings armed with clubs, pistols, muskets, and shotguns, most of which, of course, would not shoot; but several hundred shots were fired, much to the alarm of the near-by dwellers.[1376]

To counteract the effect of these meetings, the "moderate" reconstructionists held a meeting in Mobile, April 19, presided over by General Withers, the mayor of the city. Several influential citizens and also a number of colored men were vice-presidents. Judge Busteed, a "moderate" Radical, spoke, urging all to take part in the Reconstruction and not leave it to the ignorant and vicious. Resolutions were passed to the effect that the blacks would be accorded every legal right and privilege. The "moderate" spirit of Pope was commended, and coöperation was promised him. All were urged to register and vote for delegates to the convention.[1377]

A state convention of negroes was called by white Radical politicians to meet in Mobile on May 1, and in all of the large towns of the state meetings to elect delegates were held under the guidance of the Union League. The delegates came straggling in, and on May 2 and 3 the convention was held. It at once declared itself "Radical," and condemned the efforts of their oppressors who would use unfair and foul means to prevent their consolidation with the Radical party. Swayne and Pope were indorsed, a standing army was asked for to protect negroes in their political rights, and demand was made for schools, to be supported by a property tax. Violations of the Civil Rights Bill should be tried by military commission, and the Union League was established in every county. Finally, the convention resolved that it was the undeniable right of the negro to hold office, sit on juries, ride in any public conveyances, sit at public tables, and visit places of public amusement.[1378]

The Alabama Grand Council of the Union League, the machine of the Radicals in Alabama,[1379] met in April and formulated the principles upon which the campaign was to be conducted. Congress was thanked for putting the reorganization of the state into the hands of "Union" men; the return to the principle that "all men are created equal" and its application to a "faithful and patriotic class of our fellow-men" was hailed with joy; any settlement which denied the ballot to the negro could not stand, they asserted; and "while we believe that rebellion is the highest crime known to the law, and that those guilty of it hold their continued existence solely by the clemency of an outraged but merciful government, we are nevertheless willing to imitate that government in forgiveness of the past, and to reclaim to the Republican Union party all who, forsaking entirely the principles on which the rebellion was founded, will sincerely and earnestly unite with us in establishing and maintaining for the future a government of equal rights and unconditional loyalty;" "we consider willingness to elevate to power the men who preserved unswerving adherence to the government during the war as the best test of sincerity in professions for the future;" and "if the pacification now proposed by Congress be not accepted in good faith by those who staked and forfeited their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, in rebellion, then it will be the duty of Congress to enforce that forfeiture, by the confiscation of the lands at least of such a stiff-necked and rebellious people;" "the assertion that there are not enough intelligent and loyal men in Alabama to administer the government is false in fact, and mainly promulgated by those who aim to keep treason respectable by retaining power in the hands of its friends and votaries."[1380] This was a declaration of principles to which self-respecting whites could hardly be expected to subscribe. That was the very reason for its proclamation. The Radical leaders in control of the machinery of the Union League began to discourage the accession of whites to the party. The negro vote was to be their support, and not too many whites were desired at the division of spoils.[1381] Other causes conspired to drive the respectable people from the ranks of the reconstructionists. Prominent politicians were sent into the state to tell the negro that, having received his freedom from the Republican party, to it his vote was due. Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts made a bitter speech against the southern whites at the capitol in Montgomery. The negroes were informed that the Republican party was entitled to their votes, and the whites were asked to join them, as subordinates perhaps.[1382] This speech was delivered on May 11, and from this date may be traced the organized opposition to Reconstruction. General James H. Clanton[1383] replied to Wilson, maintaining that the southern white was the real friend of the negro and declaring in favor of full political and educational rights for the negro, while asserting that Wilson's plan would result in a black man's party, controlled by aliens.[1384] This speech of Clanton's had the effect of rousing the people to organized resistance against the plans of the Radicals.

On May 14, Judge "Pig Iron" Kelly of Pennsylvania spoke in Mobile to an audience of one hundred respectable whites and two thousand negroes, the latter armed. His language toward the whites was violent and insulting, an invitation for trouble, which inflamed both races. A riot ensued for which he was almost solely to blame.[1385] Several whites were killed or wounded and one negro. From the guarded report of General Swayne it was evident that the blame lay upon Kelly for exciting the negroes. It was a most unfortunate affair at a critical period, and the people began to understand the kind of control that would be exercised over the blacks by alien politicians.[1386]

In May the Alabama Sentinel, a short-lived reconstructionist newspaper in Montgomery, assisted by a negro mass-meeting, nominated Grant for the presidency and Busteed for vice-president. The platform demanded that the negro have his rights at once or upon his oppressors must fall the consequences. The Republican party was indorsed as the negro party, the only party that had done anything for the negro.[1387]

When the registrars were appointed it was necessary, in order to get competent men, to import both blacks and whites into some districts. The whites were brought from north Alabama or sent out from the Bureau contingents in the towns. They were members of the Union League, and it was a part of their duty to spread that organization among the negroes of the Black Belt, thus carrying out that part of their instructions which directed them to instruct the negroes in their rights and privileges.[1388] The Radical organization steadily progressed, but even thus early two tendencies or lines of policy appeared which were to weaken the Radicals and later to render possible their overthrow. The native white reconstructionists, living mostly in the white counties, wanted a reconstruction in which they (the native "unionists") should be the controlling element. They were in favor of negro suffrage as a necessary part of the scheme and because it would not directly interfere with them, as the negro was supposed to be content with voting. These white "scalawags" were thus to gather the fruits of reconstruction. But the "carpet-baggers," or the alien-bureau-missionary element, having worked among the negroes and learned their power over them, intended to use the negroes to secure office and power for themselves. They were less prejudiced against the negroes than were the "scalawags" and were willing to associate with them more intimately and to give them small offices when there were not enough carpet-baggers to take them. It was soon discovered that the native white "unionist" and the black "Unionist," like oil and water, would not mingle. However, all united temporarily to gain the victory for reconstruction, each faction hoping to be the greater gainer.

On June 4, 1867, a "Union Republican Convention" met in Montgomery, and at the same time the Union League held its convention. The Union League was merely a select portion of the Union Republican Convention and met at night to slate matters for the use of the convention next day. F. W. Sykes of Lawrence County[1389] was chairman pro tem., and William H. Smith of Randolph County was permanent chairman.[1390] The delegates to the convention consisted of a large number of office-seekers, "union" men, deserters, "scalawags," ex-Union army officers, and employees of the Freedmen's Bureau, and negroes.[1391] There were one hundred negroes and fifty whites. The negroes sat on one side of the house and the whites on the other, but the committees were divided equally by color. The committee on permanent organization consisted of "three Yankees," four "palefaces," and six negroes, who nominated several negroes and Bureau men for officials.[1392] The Mail said that the negroes presented a better appearance than the whites, that they were cleaner and better dressed. General Swayne took a prominent part in the proceedings, and with Smith and the negroes voted out Busteed.[1393] Griffin (of Ohio) from Mobile offered a resolution dictated by Swayne, declaring that the recent opinions of the Attorney-General upon the registration of votes were dangerous to the restoration of the Union according to the plan of Congress.[1394] The proceedings were turbulent, there was much angry discussion, and the meeting ended in a fight after having indorsed the Radical programme and declaring against the United States cotton tax and the state poll tax,[1395] and agreeing to support only "union" or "loyal" men for office.[1396]

Conservative Opposition Aroused

Though the leaders complained of the "appalling apathy of the whites in political matters,"[1397] a change was coming. The teachings of the Radicals were beginning to have effect on the negroes, some of whom were becoming hostile to the whites and were resisting the white officers of the civil government. Their old belief in "forty acres of land and a mule" was revived by the speeches of Thaddeus Stevens, which were widely circulated by the agents of the Union League, who were sent through the country to distribute the speeches and to organize the movement resulting from it. Many of the whites now began to believe that at last confiscation would be enforced and that the negroes and low whites of the Union League would become the landowners.[1398] Clanton had been at work for two months, and on July 23, as chairman of the state committee of the Conservative party, called a convention of that party to meet in Montgomery on September 4.[1399] Meetings of the Conservative party were held in the larger towns. A slight hope was entertained that the whites might be able, by uniting, to obtain some representation in the convention. At a meeting in Montgomery, in August, Joseph Hodgson[1400] urged the people to take action and save the state from "Brownlowism,"[1401] as the worst results were to be feared from inaction; the enemies of the Conservatives were making every effort to control the constitutional convention; the Conservatives were in favor of conceding every legitimate result of the war and were willing to grant suffrage to the negro by state action--the only legitimate way; at the same time the negro must assist in guaranteeing universal amnesty. The negroes were asked by the speaker to reflect and to learn for what purpose the Radical leaders were using them. The best people of the state, he said, and not the worst, ought to reconstruct the state under the Sherman law.[1402]

Although strenuous efforts were made to secure a large attendance at the Conservative convention in September, there were only thirteen of the sixty-two counties represented. General M. J. Bulger was chosen to preside. Resolutions were adopted asserting the old constitutional view of the Federal government and declaring that the present state of affairs was destructive of federal government, in which each state had the absolute right to regulate the suffrage. An appeal was made to the negroes not to follow the counsels of bad men and designing strangers. The convention favored the education of the negro so as to fit him for his moral and political responsibilities.[1403]

About the time of the meeting of the Conservative convention an event occurred which showed the results of the teachings of the Radical leaders. A plan was formed by the more violent blacks to prevent the meeting of the Conservatives. Some of the more sensible negroes used their influence as a "Special Committee on the Situation" to prevent the attempt to break up the convention, and L. J. Williams, a prominent negro politician, was the chairman of the committee. The white Radicals did nothing to prevent violence. Later a negro Conservative speaker was mobbed by the negroes and was rescued only by the aid of General Clanton. Other negroes who sided with the whites were expelled from their churches.[1404]

The registrars continued to instruct "that part of the population which has heretofore been denied the right of suffrage" in the mysteries of citizenship or membership in the Union League. By the time of the election they were so effectively instructed that they were sure to vote as they were told by the League leaders. Nearly all of the respectable white members of the League in the Black Belt had fallen away, and but few remained in the white counties. Governor Patton yielded to Radical pressure, wrote Reconstruction letters, appeared at Reconstruction meetings, and deferred much to Pope and Swayne. He was harshly criticised by the Conservatives for pursuing such a course.

The Elections; the Negro's First Vote

The elections, early in October, were the most remarkable in the history of the state. For the first time the late slaves were to vote, while many of their former masters could not. Of the 65 counties in Alabama, 22 had negro majorities (according to the registration) and had 52 delegates of the 100 total, and in nearly all of the others the negro minority held the balance of power.[1405] To control the negro vote the Radicals devoted all the machinery of registration and election, of the Union League, and of the Freedmen's Bureau. The chiefs of the League sent agents to the plantation negroes, who were showing some indifference to politics, with strict orders to go and vote. They were told that if they did not vote they would be reënslaved and their wives made to work the roads and quit wearing hoopskirts.[1406] In Montgomery County, the day before election, the Radical agents went through the county, summoning the blacks to come and vote, saying that Swayne had ordered it and would punish them if they did not obey. The negroes came into the city by thousands in regularly organized bodies, under arms and led by the League politicians, and camped about the city waiting for the time to vote. The danger of outbreak was so great that the soldiers disarmed them. They did not know, most of them, what voting was. For what or for whom they were voting they knew not,--they were simply obeying the orders of their Bureau chiefs.[1407] Likewise, at Clayton, the negroes were driven to town and camped the day before the election began. There was firing of guns all night. Early the next morning the local leaders formed the negroes into companies and regiments and marched them, armed with shotguns, muskets, pistols, and knives, to the court-house, where the only polling place for the county was situated. The first day there were about three thousand of them, of all ages from fifteen to eighty years of age, and no whites were allowed to approach the sacred voting place. When drawn up in line, each man was given a ticket by the League representatives, and no negro was allowed to break ranks until all were safely corralled in the court-house square. Many of the negroes had changed their names since they were registered, and their new ones were not on the books, but none lost a vote on that account.[1408]

In Marengo County the Bureau and Loyal League officers lined up the negroes early in the morning and saw that each man was supplied with the proper ticket. Then the command, "Forward, March!" was given, the line filed past the polling place, and each negro deposited his ballot. About twelve o'clock a bugle blew as a signal to repeat the operation, and all the negroes present, including most of those who had voted in the morning, lined up, received tickets, and voted again. Late in the afternoon the farce was gone through the third time. Any one voted who pleased and as often as he pleased.[1409]

In Dallas County the negroes were told that if they failed to vote they would be fined $50. The negroes at the polls were lined up and given tickets, which they were told to let no one see. However, in some cases the Conservatives had also given tickets to negroes, and a careful inspection was made in order to prevent the casting of such ballots. The average negro is said to have voted once for himself and once "for Jim who couldn't come." The registration lists were not referred to except when a white man offered to vote. Most of the negroes had strange ideas of what voting meant. It meant freedom, for one thing, if they voted the Radical ticket, and slavery if they did not. One negro at Selma held up a blue (Conservative) ticket and cried out, "No land! no mules! no votes! slavery again!" Then holding up a red (Radical) ticket he shouted, "Forty acres of land! a mule! freedom! votes! equal of white man!" Of course he voted the red ticket. Numbers of them brought halters for their mules or sacks "to put it in." Some country negroes were given red tickets and told that they must not be persuaded to part with them, as each ticket was good for a piece of land. The poor negroes did not understand this figurative language and put the precious red tickets in their pockets and hurried home to locate the land. Another darky was given a ticket and told to vote--to put the ballot in the box. "Is dat votin'?" "Yes." "Nuttin' more, master?" "No." "I thought votin' was gittin' sumfin." He went home in disgust. The legend of "lands and mules" was revived during the fall and winter of 1867-1868, and many negroes were expecting a division of property. By this time they were beginning to feel that it was the fault of their leaders that the division did not take place, and there were threats against those who had made promises. However, the sellers of painted sticks again thrived--perhaps they had never ceased to thrive.[1410] General Swayne reported about this time that the giving of the ballot to the negro had greatly improved his condition.[1411]

The election went overwhelmingly for the convention and for the Radical candidates. The revision of the voting lists before election struck off the names of many "improper" whites and placed none on the list; with the negroes the reverse was true. The whites had no hope of carrying the elections in most of the counties, and as the negroes were intensely excited, and as trouble was sure to follow in case the whites endeavored to vote or to control the negro vote, most of the Conservatives refrained from voting. Even at this time a large number of people were unable to believe seriously that the negro voting had come to stay. To them it seemed something absurd and almost ridiculous except for the ill feelings aroused among the negroes. Such a state of affairs could not last long, they thought. Two Conservative delegates and ninety-eight Radical delegates were elected to the convention.[1412]

XIV. THE "RECONSTRUCTION" CONVENTION

Character of the Convention

The delegates elected to the convention were a motley crew--white, yellow, and black--of northern men, Bureau officers, "loyalists," "rebels," who had aided the Confederacy and now perjured themselves by taking the oath, Confederate deserters, and negroes.[1413] The Freedmen's Bureau furnished eighteen or more of the one hundred members. There were eighteen blacks.[1414] Thirteen more of the members had certified, as registrars, to their own election and with six other members had certified to the election of thirty-one, nineteen of whom were on the board of registration. No pretence of residence was made by the northern men in the counties from which they were elected. Several had never seen the counties they represented, a slate being made up in Montgomery and sent to remote districts to be voted for. Of these northern men, or foreigners, there were thirty-seven or thirty-eight, from Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, New Jersey, Illinois, Ireland, Canada, and Scotland.[1415] The native whites were for the most part utterly unknown and had but little share in the proceedings of the convention.[1416] Of the negro members two could write well and were fairly well educated, half could not write a word, and the others had been taught to sign their names and that was all. There were many negroes who could read and write, but they were not sent to the convention. Perhaps the carpet-baggers feared trouble from them and wanted only those whom they could easily control.[1417]

Griffin of Ohio was appointed temporary chairman, and on the motion of Keffer of Pennsylvania, Robert Barbour of New York was made temporary secretary and later permanent secretary. Keffer nominated Peck, a New Yorker who had resided for some years in Alabama, for president of the convention, and he was unanimously elected.[1418] There were several negro clerks in the convention. The disgusted Conservatives designated the aggregation by various epithets, such as "The Unconstitutional Convention," "Pope's Convention," "Swayne's World-renowned Menagerie," "The Circus," "Black and Tan," "Black Crook," etc. The last, which was probably given by the New York Herald correspondent, seems to have been the favorite name. The white people still persisted in looking upon the whole affair as a more or less irritating joke.

The carpet-baggers intended that the convention should be purged of "improper" persons, and one of them proposed that the test oath be taken. This aroused opposition on the part of the ex-"rebels," who did not care to perjure themselves more than was necessary. Coon of Iowa then proposed a simple oath to support the Constitution, which after some wrangling was taken.[1419] Caraway, a negro, wanted no chaplain to officiate in the convention who had not remained loyal to the United States. Skinner of Franklin said: "Let none offer prayer who are rebels and who have not fought under the stars and stripes." This was to prevent such reverend members of the convention as Deal of Dale from officiating. Finally, the president was empowered to appoint the chaplain daily. A colored chaplain was called upon once in a while, and one of them invoked the blessings of God on "Unioners and cusses on rebels."[1420]

Another way of showing the loyalty of the body was by directing a committee to bring in an ordinance changing the names of the counties "named in honor of rebellion and in glorification of traitors." Keffer of Pennsylvania was the author of this resolution. Steed of Cleburne wanted the name of his county changed to Lincoln, and Simmons of Colbert wanted his county to be named Brownlow. The test votes on such questions were about 55 to 30 in favor of changing. Baine, Colbert, and Jones counties, established by the "Johnson" government, were abolished.[1421]

The president was directed to drape his chair with two "Federal" flags. Generals Pope and Swayne, and Governor Patton, as friends of Reconstruction, were invited to seats in the convention and were asked to speak before the body. Pope was becoming somewhat nervous at the conduct of the supreme rulers of the state and in his speech counselled moderation and fairness. He also commended them for the "firmness and fearlessness with which you have conducted the late campaigns," and congratulated them upon "the success which has thus far crowned your efforts in the pacification of this state and its restoration to the Union."[1422] The most radical members of the convention were bringing pressure to bear to force Pope to declare vacant at once all the offices of the provisional government and fill them with reconstructionists. In this they were aided by northern influence. Pope, however, refused to make the change, and thus displeased the Radicals, who wanted offices at once.[1423]

The first ordinance of the convention reconstructed Jones County, named for a Confederate colonel, out of existence, and the second, third, and fourth arranged for the pay of the convention. The president received $10 a day and the members $8 each; the clerks from $6 to $8, and the pages $4.[1424] The president and members received 40 cents as mileage for each mile travelled. To cover these expenses an additional tax of 10 per cent on taxes already assessed was levied. The comptroller refused to pay the members until ordered by Pope. The latter hesitated to give the order, as he doubted if he had the authority. However, he finally said that he would order payment provided the compensation be fixed at reasonable rates, and that the payments be not made before the convention completed its work. He further added that the convention must be moderate in action; "I speak not more for the interests of Alabama than for the interests of the political party upon whose retention of power for several years to come the success of Reconstruction depends." When Pope urged moderation, it is likely that something serious was the matter. A proposition to reduce the pay of the members from $8 to $6 per day was lost by a vote of 35 to 57. A few days before the close of the convention, Pope ordered the payment of the per diem to the hungry delegates, many of whom refused to accept the state obligations called "Patton money." They were told that it was receivable for taxes, and one answered for all: "Oh, damn the taxes! We haven't got any to pay."[1425]

The Race Question

The colored delegates brought up the negro question in several forms. First, Rapier of Canada wanted a declaration that negroes were entitled to all the privileges and rights of citizenship in Alabama.[1426] Then Strother of Dallas demanded that the negroes be empowered to collect pay from those who held them in slavery, at the rate of $10 a month for services rendered from January 1, 1863, the date of the Emancipation Proclamation, to May 20, 1865. An ordinance to this effect was actually adopted by a vote of 53 to 31.[1427] The scalawags, as a rule, wished to prohibit intermarriage of the races, and Semple of Montgomery reported an ordinance to that effect. He would prohibit intermarriage to the fourth generation. The negroes and carpet-baggers united to vote this down, which was done by a vote of 48 to 30. Caraway (negro) of Mobile 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 intermarriage. This seems to have irritated the scalawags. Gregory (negro) of Mobile wanted all regulations, laws, and customs wherein distinctions were made on account of color or race to be abolished, and thus allow intermarriages. The convention refused to adopt the report providing against amalgamation.[1428] The Mobile negroes alone seem to have been opposed to the prohibition of intermarriage. The convention of 1865 had recognized the validity of all slave marriages and had ordered that they be considered legal. During 1865 and 1866 the fickle negroes, male and female, made various experiments with new partners, and the result was that in 1867 thousands of negroes had forsaken the husband or wife of slavery times and "taken up" with others. All sorts of prosecutions were hanging over them, and an ordinance was passed for the relief of such people. It directed that marriages were to date from November 30, 1867, and not from 1865 or earlier. All who were living together in 1867 were to be considered man and wife, and all prosecutions for former misconduct were forbidden.[1429]

Caraway (negro) of Mobile succeeded in having an ordinance passed directing that church property used during slavery for colored congregations be turned over to the latter.[1430] Some of this property was paid for by negro slaves and held in trust for them by white trustees. Most of it, however, belonged to the planters, who erected churches for the use of their slaves.

Not much was said about separate or mixed schools for the races. There was a disposition on the part of the leaders to keep such questions in the background for a time in order to prevent irritating discussions. A proposition for separate schools was voted down on the ground that it was better for the children of both races to go to school together and wear off their prejudices. This was the carpet-baggers' view, but most of the blacks finally voted against a measure providing for mixed schools, because, they said, they did not want to send their children to school with white children. The matter was hushed up and left unsettled.[1431]

In spite of efforts to keep the question in the background, the social equality of the negro race was demanded by one or two irrepressible Mobile mulattoes, and a discussion was precipitated. The scalawags with few exceptions were opposed to admitting negroes to the same privileges as whites,--in theatres, churches, on railroads and boats, and at hotels,--though they were willing to require equal but separate accommodations for both races. Semple reported from his committee an ordinance requiring equal and separate accommodations, but declared that equality of civil rights was not affected by such a measure. By a vote of 32 to 46 this measure failed to pass.[1432] Griffin[1433] (white) of Ohio briefly attacked Semple for proposing such an iniquitous measure. McLeod (negro) said he did not exactly want social equality, and added "suppose one of you white gentlemen want a negro in the same car with you. The conductor would not allow it. This should be changed." Caraway (negro) objected to having his wife travel in the coach with low and obscene white men. Jim Green (negro) said it was a "common thing to put cullud folks in de same cyar wid drunk and low white folks. We want nebber be subjic to no sich disgrace," but wanted to be allowed to go among decent white people. Gregory (negro) made some scathing observations at the expense of Semple and his associates, who were hoping to make political use of the negro, yet did not want to ride in the same car with him. How could the delegates, he said, go home to their constituents, nineteen-twentieths of whom were negroes, after voting against their enjoying the same rights as the whites? Did Semple feel polluted by sitting by Finley, his colored colleague? Why then should he object to sitting in the same car with him? He (Gregory) was as good a man as Napoleon on his throne, and could not be honored by sitting by a white man, but "in de ole worl de cullud folks ride wid de whites" and so it should be here. Rapier (negro) of Canada said that the manner in which colored gentlemen and ladies were treated in America was beyond his comprehension. He (Rapier) had dined with lords in his lifetime, and though he did not feel flattered by sitting by a white man, yet he would vote for social equality. Some of the negroes feebly opposed the agitation of the question on the ground that the civil and political rights of the negro were not yet safe and should not be endangered by the agitation of the social question. Griffin of Ohio and Keffer of Pennsylvania supported the negroes in all their demands. The carpet-baggers in general were in favor of social equality, but most of them thought it much more important that the spoils be secured first. The negroes were placated with numerous promises and by a special resolution opening the galleries to "their ladies" and inviting the latter to be present[1434] at the sessions of the convention.

Debates on Disfranchisement

The debates on the question of suffrage were the most extended and showed the most violent spirit on the part of most of the members. Dustan of Iowa proposed that the new constitution should in no degree be proscriptive, but his resolution was voted down by a vote of 30 to 51. Some of the negroes voted for it.[1435] Rapier (negro) 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, the most radical member of the committee, was made chairman to make merciful recommendations. Gardner of Massachusetts, representing Butler County, said that there were persons in the state who should have been tried and convicted of felony and would thus have been disfranchised, but owing to fault of courts and juries they were not convicted. He wanted a special commission to disfranchise such persons. The majority report on the franchise[1436] called for the disfranchisement of those who had mistreated Union prisoners, those who were disfranchised by the Reconstruction Acts, and those who had registered under the acts and had later refrained from voting. Such persons were not to be allowed to vote, register, or hold office. An oath was to be taken repudiating belief in the doctrine of secession, accepting the civil and political equality of all men, and agreeing never to attempt to limit the suffrage. "The only question is," they reported, "whether we have not been too liberal." It was necessary that all who registered be forced to vote in the election on pain of being disfranchised, in order to get a sufficient number of voters to the polls, though the report stated that Congress was not bound by the law of March 23 to reject the constitution if a majority did not vote; the convention had the right to say that men must vote or be disfranchised; as to the oath, any one who would refuse to take it had no faith in American principles and was hostile to the Constitution and laws of the United States.[1437]

The minority report[1438] objected to going beyond the acts of Congress in disfranchising whites. 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. Charity and moderation would be better than proscription.[1439] Speed said that the measure would disfranchise from 30,000 to 40,000 men beyond the acts of Congress.[1440] Griffin of Ohio, speaking in favor of the majority report, said that "the infernal rebels had acted like devils turned loose from hell," and that his party could not stand against them in a fair political field; and therefore proscription was necessary. Another advocate of sweeping disfranchisement wanted all the leading whites disfranchised until 1875, in order to prevent them from regaining control of the government.[1441]

Numerous amendments were offered to the majority report. Haughey of Scotland wanted to disfranchise all Confederates above the rank of captain, and all who had held any civil office anywhere, or who had voted for secession. A stringent test oath was to discover the disabilities of would-be electors. Again, he wanted every elector to prove that on November 1, 1867, he was a friend of the Reconstruction Acts. He would have voters and office-holders swear to accept the civil and political equality of all men, and to resist any change, and also swear that they had never held office, aided the Confederacy, nor given aid or comfort to Confederates.[1442] Nearly all the amendments included a provision forcing the voter or office-holder to accept the political and civil equality of all men, and to swear never to change. Springfield of St. Clair thought that all who were opposed to Reconstruction should be disfranchised, and Russell of Barbour, with Applegate of Wisconsin, held that all Confederates should be disfranchised who had voluntarily aided the Confederacy.[1443]

D. H. Bingham of New York thought that voters should swear that on March 4, 1864, they preferred the United States government to the Confederacy, and would have abandoned the latter had they had the opportunity.[1444] Applegate thought that no citizen, officer, or editor who opposed congressional Reconstruction ought to be permitted to vote before 1875.[1445] Silsby of Iowa would also exclude from the suffrage those who had killed negroes during the last two years, who opposed Reconstruction, or dissuaded others from attending the election.[1446] Garrison of Blount wanted to disfranchise those who were in the convention of 1861 and voted for secession, Confederate members of Congress who voted for the conscription law, those disfranchised by the Reconstruction Acts, Confederates above the rank of captain, and state and Confederate officials of every kind above justice of the peace and bailiff.[1447] Skinner of Franklin wanted to disfranchise enough rebels to hold the balance of power. "We have the rod over their heads and intend to keep it there."[1448] The most liberal amendments were proposed by Peters of Lawrence, who would continue the disfranchisement made by Congress unless the would-be voter would swear that he was in favor of congressional Reconstruction. Rapier (negro) would have all disabilities removed by the state as soon as they were removed by Congress.[1449] The price of pardon in all ordinary cases was support of congressional Reconstruction.

The debate lasted for four days, and it was all that Swayne could do to prevent a division in the Radical party. An agent was sent to Washington for instructions. The violent character of the proceedings of the convention made the northern friends of Reconstruction nervous, and Horace Greeley persuaded Senator Wilson to exert his influence to prevent the adoption of extreme measures by the convention. Wilson wrote to Swayne that the convention and especially such men as D. H. Bingham were doing much harm to Reconstruction and to the Republican party. The northern Republican press generally seemed afraid of the action of the convention, and suggested more liberal measures. So we find Pope and Swayne advocating moderation.[1450] Peck, the president of the convention, still spoke out for the test oath and disfranchisement. It was necessary to secure the fruits of Reconstruction, and the test oath would keep out many; but, he said, if the old leaders, who were honorable men, should take the oath, they would abide by it,[1451] and Reconstruction would then be safe. The oath finally adopted, which had to be taken by all who would vote or hold office, was the usual oath to support the Constitution and laws with the following additions: "I accept the civil and political equality of all men; and agree not to attempt to deprive any person or persons, on account of race, color or previous condition, of any political or civil right, privilege or immunity, enjoyed by any other class of men; and furthermore, that I will not in any way injure or countenance in others any attempt to injure any person or persons on account of past or present support of the government of the United States, the laws of the United States, or the principles of the political and civil equality of all men, or for affiliation with any political party."[1452] 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.[1453] They could neither register, vote, nor hold office until relieved by the vote of the general assembly for aiding in Reconstruction, and until they had accepted the political equality of all men.[1454] It was estimated that the suffrage clause would disfranchise from voting or holding office 40,000 white men. The oath was likely to exclude still more. Bingham thought the oath as adopted was a back-down, and demanded the iron-clad oath. The committee on the franchise wanted to prohibit the legislature from enfranchising any person unless he had aided in Reconstruction.[1455]

Legislation by the Convention

The convention organized a new militia system, giving most of the companies to the black counties. All officers were to be loyal to the United States, that is, they were to be reconstructionists. No one who was disfranchised could enlist. The proceeds of the sale of contraband and captured property taken by the militia were to be used in its support.[1456] Stay laws were enacted to go into force with the adoption of the constitution, also exemption laws which exempted from sale for debt more property than nineteen-twentieths of the people possessed.[1457] The war debt of Alabama was again declared void, and the ordinance of secession stigmatized as "unconstitutional, null and void."[1458] Contracts made during the war, when the consideration was Confederate money, were declared null and void at the option of either party, as were also notes payable in Confederate money and debts made for slaves. Bingham forced through an ordinance providing for a new settlement in United States currency of trust estates settled during the war in Confederate securities.[1459] Judicial decisions in aid of the war were declared void. Defendants in civil cases against whom judgment was rendered during the war were entitled to a revision or to a new trial.[1460]

The negroes were complaining about the cotton tax, and a memorial was addressed to Congress, asking for its repeal on the ground that when the tax was imposed the state had no voice in the government; that it was oppressive, amounting to 20 per cent of the gross value of the cotton crop, and fell heavily on the negroes, who were the principal producers; that for two years the tax had made cotton cultivation unprofitable, and had driven away capital.[1461]

A memorial to Congress was adopted by a vote of 50 to 6, asking that the part of the reconstruction law which required a majority of the registered voters to vote in the election for the adoption of the constitution be repealed. It was now seen that the Conservatives would endeavor to defeat the constitution by refraining from voting.[1462]

An ordinance was passed to protect the newly enfranchised negro voters. The penalty for using "improper influence" and thereby deceiving or misleading an elector was to be not less than one nor more, than ten years' imprisonment or fine of not more than $2000. The election was ordered for February 4, 1868, to be held under direction of the military commander. In order to bring out a large number of voters, elections were ordered for the same time for all state and county officers, and for members of Congress--several thousand in all. The officers thus elected were to enter at once upon their duties, and hold office for the proper term of years, dating from the legal date for the next general election after the admission of the state.[1463]

Among the scalawag members of the convention, who saw that the carpet-baggers would rule the land by controlling the negro vote, there was much dissatisfaction and at length open revolt. Nine members signed a formal protest against the proposed constitution, stating that a government framed upon its provisions would entail upon the state greater evils than any that then threatened.[1464] Another member protested against the test oath, against the extension of proscription, and against the absence of express provision for separate schools.[1465] The constitution was adopted by a vote of 66 to 8, 26 not voting. A few days after the adjournment, 15 or 20 scalawag members united in an address to the people of Alabama, protesting against the proposed constitution because it was more proscriptive than the acts of Congress, because of the test oath, because the course of the convention had shown that the government would be in the hands of a few adventurers under the control of the blacks, to whom they had promised mixed schools and laws protecting the negro in his rights of voting, eating, travelling, etc., with whites. For these reasons they urged that the constitution be rejected.[1466]

Just before the convention adjourned, Caraway (negro) offered a resolution, which was adopted, stating that the constitution was founded on justice, honesty, and civilization, and that the enemies of law and order, freedom and justice, were pledged to prevent its adoption. But he asserted that God would strengthen and assist those who did right; therefore he advised that a day be set apart "whereby the good and loyal people of Alabama can offer up their adorations to Almighty God, and invoke His aid and assistance to the loyal people of the state, while passing through the bitter strife that seems to await them."[1467]

A study of the votes and debates leads to the following general conclusion: The majority of the scalawags were ready to revolt after finding that the carpet-bag element had control of the negro vote; the negroes with a few exceptions made no unreasonable and violent demands unless urged by the carpet-baggers; the carpet-baggers 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 so that there would be fewer with whom to share the spoils.[1468]