XIV "I would rather err with Plato than hold the truth with the philosophers." "Nor be my service long delayed, But quickened by a song, Forever glad and unafraid -Cicero. To seize and smite the wrong."-George E. Bowen. "In spite of laws made to oppress Laws which give the fruit of toil Of many men, to few-a spoil."-R. E. Chadwick. 1. The attempts to resume the equivalents of ante-bellum conditions were supposed to have been extinguished by the action taken under the authority of the Constitution during the years immediately following the cessation of military hostilities. What those measures were and what were the conditions they were intended to ameliorate have been perverted in history, and are to-day being assiduously suppressed, if not falsified, by so many writers, speakers and public men, that even students and academic philosophers and professors have contributed to mislead, if not to debauch, the public mind respecting them. One notable instance is in a speech recently made in Ohio, wherein a South Carolina Senator said: "If after the war the North had not, in its passion and sectional hatred, gone far beyond the bounds of reason, decency and righteousness, there would to-day be no race problem. We resent and resist the doctrine of equality under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. . . You have done wrong. The North has done wrong. It can remedy the feeling by repealing the Fifteenth Amendment and letting the States control the franchise." For To this asseveration the senior Ohio Senator replied at Bellefontaine at some length, exhibiting the historical errors. that speech see Appendix G. Another illustration of the discoloration of historic fact, if not of actual misstatements, by men claiming to be jurists and posing as public instructors, while receiving the honors of public office as well as of collegiate institutions, is furnished by the comments in a speech, where accuracy might have been expected, made in New York City at the 1905 Columbia University Commencement. See its discolorations* denoted in Appendix H. During the period of years immediately following the surrender of the defeated armies, a most benign and benevolent government was in truth conducted by the United States military authorities, with an honest endeavor to bring about and install such local government as would correspondingly meet the necessarily changed conditions in the States concerned and at the same time maintain order, industrial peace and harmony with the institutions of the Republic. What the actual conditions were and how mild, conservative and safe for all concerned were the measures taken by the United States could be easily shown by their mere recital; and any conscientious student of history, absorbing his information from original sources, from public documents, statutes and official instructions and from contemporaneous records of incontestable facts, can arrive at no other conclusion than that there was not harshness or injustice imposed upon any individual or community whose heart and soul were animated by * Ii sumus, qui omnibus veris falsa quædam adjuncta esse dicamus, tanta similitudine, ut in iis nulla insit certa judicandi et adsentiendi nota,—CICERO, the true spirit of democracy, although there is a school of writers to-day garbling facts and portraying false pictures. The admirable poise, wisdom and sagacity with which the situation was met, and the changed conditions faced and dealt with are abundantly evidenced by Committee reports to Congress on the Reconstruction bills and the provisions of Statutes themselves, both proposed and enacted, whichthough some provisions were thwarted by an adverse President-remain a record showing consummate statesmanship and far-sightedness.* While the effort to harmonize the changed circumstances was progressing towards success, the onward work was interrupted by the machinations of politicians formerly allied to the "old civilization" so-called, the members of which hoped for renewed power. This period was that which nowadays is styled the Reconstruction period; and it has been anathematized so that "Reconstruction" itself has become a noxious noun in the mouths of those who have not studied what in truth is the history it represents. The interruptions materialized in the shape of localized armed resistance to the representatives of the United States government, extending in some instances to the murder of soldiers. The disorders of that period came from intrigues aided by force and fraud. In some States there occurred what to-day, if happening in South America republics, for instance, would be called armed revolutions. Because the President who was elected in 1868, having been a man of war, was still a veritable man of peace, he placed before Congress the facts from time to time as they were reported to him, not himself exercising a power that perhaps he might justly have wielded. Instead, he left it to Congress to take such action as in its judgment the reported facts seemed to warrant. Unhappily this encouraged, rather than allayed, partisan strife. * See Appendices E and G. If the student of history, instead of taking the perverted statements regarding that period from current literature, would gather his history from original sources, he would discover such conditions, for example, as those by which the capital of South Carolina was invaded by armed bodies, some of them eagerly transported by the railroad corporations in that State. These military bodies, under various technical pretences advanced by their leaders, seized the entire governmental machinery of the State, its banks, its offices, its moneys, and by intrigue and bravado finally persuaded the Washington authorities to withdraw the little handful of United States soldiers who meanwhile had idly rested in the State capitol as the symbol of United States authority. It was nothing short of a State revolution that thus forcibly seized the State authority and installed Hampton as Governor. That was in the year 1877, under the pretext of a State vote for Governor at the preceding autumn election when the State voted for the Hayes electoral ticket.* Another illustration of conditions may be found in the history of Louisiana in 1873-4-5, where also they culminated in armed revolution. In respect to that State the conditions are recorded in official documents sent to Congress. Other illustrations may be found in corresponding occurrences and revolutions by force and intrigue that occurred in Arkansas and in Mississippi. An official report, May, 1865, came from the authorities in Arkansas that destitute freedmen were coming there almost daily from Texas and reported that anarchy and despotism reigned there. "Many are driven from their homes and *It is common tradition that the imbecility of the national authorities at that time resulted from an intriguing bargain that the electoral vote of that State should be counted for the Republican candidate, in return for allowing the State government to be deposed at local pleasure,—a bargain which, if made, was violated by the contest instituted over the electoral vote of the State after having been really cast for Hayes, the Republican candidate. families, and many have been shot and hung for expressing a desire to enjoy their rights as freemen."-New York Times despatch from Washington of May 26, 1865. In 1875, General Sheridan sent dispatches from New Orleans to the Secretary of War, in which he said: "January 4, 1875. "It is with deep regret that I have to announce to you the existence in this State of a spirit of defiance to all lawful authority, and an insecurity of life which is hardly realized by the General Government or the country at large. The lives of citizens have become so jeopardized that unless something is done to give protection to the people, all security usually afforded by law will be overridden. Defiance to the laws and the murder of individuals seem to be looked upon by the community here from a standpoint which gives impunity to all who choose to indulge in either, and the civil government appears powerless to punish or even arrest. I have to-night assumed control over the Department of the Gulf. "January 5, 1875. Please say to the President that he need give himself no uneasiness about the condition of affairs here. I will preserve the peace, which it is not hard to do with the naval and military forces in and about the city, and if Congress will declare the White Leagues and other similar organizations, white or black, banditti, I will relieve it from the necessity of any special legislation for the preservation of peace and equality of rights in the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and the Executive from much of the trouble heretofore had in this section of the country. Again he wrote: "January 5, 1875. "I think that the terrorism now existing in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas could be entirely removed and confidence and fair-dealing established by the arrest and trial of the ringleaders of the armed White Leagues. If Congress would pass a bill declaring them banditti they could be tried by a military commission. The ringleaders of these banditti, who murdered men here on the 14th of last September, and also more recently at Vicksburg, Miss., should, in justice to law and order and the peace and prosperity of this Southern part of the country, be punished. It is possible that if the President would issue a proclamation declaring them banditti, no further action need be taken, except that which would devolve upon me. |