CHAPTER X.

¹ J. W. Alvord, Superintendent of Schools for the Freedmen's Bureau, 1866.

Not only did the negroes want schooling, but both the North and the South proposed to give it to them. Neither side was actuated entirely by altruistic motives. A Hampton Institute teacher in later days remarked: "When the combat was over and the Yankee school-ma'ams followed in the train of the northern armies, the business ofeducating the negroes was a continuation of hostilities against the vanquished and was so regarded to a considerable extent on both sides."

The Southern churches, through their bishops and clergy, the newspapers, and prominent individuals such as J. L. M. Curry, John B. Gordon, J. L. Orr, Governors Brown, Moore, and Patton, came out in favor of negro education. Of this movement General Swayne said: "Quite early … the several religious denominations took strong ground in favor of the education of the freedmen. The principal argument was an appeal to sectional and sectarian prejudice, lest, the work being inevitable, the influence which must come from it be realized by others; but it is believed that this was but the shield and weapon which men of unselfish principle found necessary at first." The newspapers took the attitude that the Southern whites should teach the negroes because it was their duty, because it was good policy, and because if they did not do so some one else would. TheAdvertiserof Montgomery stated that education was a danger in slavery times but that under freedom ignorance became a danger. For a time there were numerous schools taught by crippled Confederates and by Southern women.

But the education of the negro, like his religious training, was taken from the control of the Southern white and was placed under the direction of the Northern teachers and missionaries who swarmed into the country under the fostering care of the Freedmen's Bureau, the Northern churches, and the various Freedmen's Aid Societies. In three years the Bureau spent six million dollars on negro schools and everywhere it exercised supervision over them. The teachers pursued a policy akin to that of the religious leaders. One Southerner likened them to the "plagues of Egypt," another described them as "saints, fools, incendiaries, fakirs, and plain business men and women." A Southern woman remarked that "their spirit was often high and noble so far as the black man's elevation was concerned, but toward the white it was bitter, judicial, and unrelenting." The Northern teachers were charged with ignorance of social conditions, with fraternizing with the blacks, and with teaching them that the Southerners were traitors, "murderers of Lincoln," who had been cruel taskmasters and who now wanted to restore servitude.

The reaction against negro education, which began to show itself before reconstruction was inaugurated, found expression in the view of most whitesthat "schooling ruins a negro." A more intelligent opinion was that of J. L. M. Curry, a lifelong advocate of negro education:

It is not just to condemn the negro for the education which he received in the early years after the war. That was the period of reconstruction, the saturnalia of misgovernment, the greatest possible hindrance to the progress of the freedmen.… The education was unsettling, demoralizing, [and it] pandered to a wild frenzy for schooling as a quick method of reversing social and political conditions. Nothing could have been better devised for deluding the poor negro and making him the tool, the slave of corrupt taskmasters. Education is a natural consequence of citizenship and enfranchisement … of freedom and humanity. But with deliberate purpose to subject the Southern States to negro domination, and secure the States permanently for partisan ends, the education adopted was contrary to common-sense, to human experience, to all noble purposes. The curriculum was for a people in the highest degree of civilization; the aptitude and capabilities and needs of the negro were wholly disregarded. Especial stress was laid on classics and liberal culture to bring the raceper saltumto the same plane with their former masters, and realize the theory of social and political equality. A race more highly civilized, with best heredities and environments, could not have been coddled with more disregard of all the teachings of human history and the necessities of the race. Colleges and universities, established and conducted by the Freedmen's Bureau and Northern churches and societies, sprang up like mushrooms,and the teachers, ignorant, fanatical, without self-poise, proceeded to make all possible mischief. It is irrational, cruel, to hold the negro, under such strange conditions, responsible for all the ill consequences of bad education, unwise teachers, reconstruction villainies, and partisan schemes. ¹

¹ Quoted inProceedingsof the Montgomery Conference on Race Problems (1900), p. 128.

Education was to be looked upon as a handmaid to a thorough reconstruction, and its general character and aim were determined by the Northern teachers. Each convention framed a more or less complicated school system and undertook to provide for its support. The negroes in the conventions were anxious for free schools; the conservatives were willing; but the carpetbaggers and a few mulatto leaders insisted in several States upon mixed schools. Only in Louisiana and South Carolina did the constitutions actually forbid separate schools; in Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and Arkansas the question was left open, to the embarrassment of the whites. Generally the blacks showed no desire for mixed schools unless urged to it by the carpetbaggers. In the South Carolina convention a mulatto thus argued in favor of mixed schools: "The gentleman from Newberry said he was afraid we were taking a wrongcourse to remove these prejudices. The most natural method to effect this object would be to allow children when five or six years of age to mingle in schools together and associate generally. Under such training, prejudice must eventually die out; but if we postpone it until they become men and women, prejudice will be so established that no mortal can obliterate it. This, I think, is a sufficient reply to the argument of the gentleman."

The state systems were top-heavy with administrative machinery and were officered by incompetent and corrupt officials. Such men as Cloud in Alabama, Cardozo in Mississippi, Conway in Louisiana, and Jillson in South Carolina are fair samples of them. Much of the personnel was taken over from the Bureau teaching force. The school officials were no better than the other officeholders.

The first result of the attempt to use the schools as an instrument of reconstruction ended in the ruin of several state universities. The faculties of the Universities of North Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama were made radical and the institutions thereupon declined to nothing. The negroes, unable to control the faculty of the University of South Carolina, forced negro students in and thusgot possession. In Louisiana the radical Legislature cut off all funds because the university would not admit negroes. The establishment of the land grant colleges was an occasion for corruption and embezzlement.

The common schools were used for radical ends. The funds set aside for them by the state constitutions or appropriated by the legislatures for these schools seldom reached their destination without being lessened by embezzlement or by plain stealing. Frequently the auditor, or the treasurer, or even the Legislature diverted the school funds to other purposes. Suffice it to say that all of the reconstruction systems broke down financially after a brief existence.

The mixed school provisions in Louisiana and South Carolina and the uncertainty of the educational situation in other States caused white children to stay away from the public schools. For several years the negroes were better provided than the whites, having for themselves both all the public schools and also those supported by private benevolence. In Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina the whites could get no money for schoolhouses, while large sums were spent on negro schools. The Peabody Board, then recentlyinaugurated, ¹ refused to coöperate with school officials in the mixed school States and, when criticized, replied: "It is well known that we are helping the white children of Louisiana as being the more destitute from the fact of their unwillingness to attend mixed schools."

¹ To administer the fund bequeathed by George Peabody of Massachusetts to promote education in the Southern States. SeeThe New South,by Holland Thompson (inThe Chronicles of America).

As was to be expected the whites criticized the attitude of the school officials, disapproved of the attempts made in the schools to teach the children radical ideas, and objected to the contents of the history texts and the "Freedmen's Readers." A white school board in Mississippi, by advertising for a Democratic teacher for a negro school, drew the fire of a radical editor who inquired: "What is the motive by which this call for a 'competent Democratic teacher' is prompted? The most damning that has ever moved the heart of man. It is to use the vote and action of a human being as a means by which to enslave him. The treachery and villainy of these rebels stands without parallel in the history of men."

A negro politician has left this account of a radical recitation in a Florida negro school:

After finishing the arithmetic lesson they must next go through the catechism:"Who is the 'Publican Government of the State of Florida?"Answer: "Governor Starns.""Who made him Governor?"Answer: "The colored people.""Who is trying to get him out of his seat?"Answer: "The Democrats, Conover, and some white and black Liberal Republicans.""What should the colored people do with the men who is trying to get Governor Starns out of his seat?"Answer: "They should kill them." …This was done that the patrons, some of whom could not read, would be impressed by the expressions of their children, and would be ready to put any one to death who would come out into the country and say anything against Governor Starns.

After finishing the arithmetic lesson they must next go through the catechism:

"Who is the 'Publican Government of the State of Florida?"Answer: "Governor Starns."

"Who made him Governor?"Answer: "The colored people."

"Who is trying to get him out of his seat?"Answer: "The Democrats, Conover, and some white and black Liberal Republicans."

"What should the colored people do with the men who is trying to get Governor Starns out of his seat?"Answer: "They should kill them." …

This was done that the patrons, some of whom could not read, would be impressed by the expressions of their children, and would be ready to put any one to death who would come out into the country and say anything against Governor Starns.

The native white teachers soon dropped out of negro schools, and those from the North met with the same social persecution as the white church workers. The White League and Ku Klux Klan drove off obnoxious teachers, whipped some, burned negro schoolhouses, and in various other ways manifested the reaction which was rousing the whites against negro schools.

The several agencies working for negro education gave some training to hundreds of thousands of blacks, but the whites asserted that, like the church work, it was based on a wrong spirit and resulted in evil as well as in good. Free schoolsfailed in reconstruction because of the dishonesty or incompetence of the authorities and because of the unsettled race question. It was not until the turn of the century that the white schools were again as good as they had been before 1861. After the reconstruction native whites as teachers of negro schools were impossible in most places. The hostile feelings of the whites resulted and still result in a limitation of negro schools. The best thing for negro schools that came out of reconstruction was Armstrong's Hampton Institute program, which, however, was quite opposed to the spirit of reconstruction education.

Carpetbag and Negro Rule

TheSouthern States reconstructed by Congress were subject for periods of varying length to governments designed by radical Northerners and imposed by elements thrown to the surface in the upheaval of Southern society. Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina each had a brief experience with these governments; other States escaped after four or five years, while Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida were not delivered from this domination until 1876. The States which contained large numbers of negroes had, on the whole, the worst experience. Here the officials were ignorant or corrupt, frauds upon the public were the rule, not the exception, and all of the reconstruction governments were so conducted that they could secure no support from the respectable elements of the electorate.

The fundamental cause of the failure of thesegovernments was the character of the new ruling class. Every State, except perhaps Virginia, was under the control of a few able leaders from the North generally called carpetbaggers and of a few native white radicals contemptuously designated scalawags. These were kept in power by negro voters, to some seven hundred thousand of whom the ballot had been given by the reconstruction acts. The adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment in March, 1870, brought the total in the former slave States to 931,000, with about seventy-five thousand more negroes in the North. The negro voters were most numerous, comparatively, in Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia. There were a few thousand carpetbaggers in each State, with, at first, a much larger number of scalawags. The latter, who were former Unionists, former Whigs, Confederate deserters, and a few unscrupulous politicians, were most numerous in Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee. The better class, however, rapidly left the radical party as the character of the new régime became evident, taking with them whatever claims the party had to respectability, education, political experience, and property.

The conservatives, hopelessly reduced by theoperation of disfranchising laws, were at first not well organized, nor were they at any time as well led as in antebellum days. In 1868 about one hundred thousand of them were forbidden to vote and about two hundred thousand were disqualified from holding office. The abstention policy of 1867-68 resulted in an almost complete withdrawal of the influence of the conservatives for the two years, 1868-70. As a class they were regarded by the dominant party in State and nation as dangerous and untrustworthy and were persecuted in such irritating ways that many became indifferent to the appeals of civil duty. They formed a solid but almost despairing opposition in the black districts of Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina. For the leaders the price of amnesty was conversion to radicalism, but this price few would pay.

The new state governments possessed certain characteristics in common. Since only a small number of able men were available for office, full powers of administration, including appointment and removal, were concentrated in the hands of the governor. He exercised a wide control over public funds and had authority to organize and command militia and constabulary and to call for Federaltroops. The numerous administrative boards worked with the sole object of keeping their party in power. Officers were several times as numerous as under the old régime, and all of them received higher salaries and larger contingent fees. The moral support behind the government was that of President Grant and the United States army, not that of a free and devoted people.

Of the twenty men who served as governors eight were scalawags and twelve were carpetbaggers—men who were abler than the scalawags and who had much more than an equal share of the spoils. The scalawags, such as Brownlow of Tennessee, Smith of Alabama, and Holden of North Carolina, were usually honest but narrow, vindictive men, filled with fear and hate of the conservative whites. Of the carpetbaggers half were personally honest, but all were unscrupulous in politics. Some were flagrantly dishonest. Governor Moses of South Carolina was several times bribed and at one time, according to his own statement, received $15,000 for his vote as speaker of the House of Representatives. Governor Stearns of Florida was charged with stealing government supplies from the negroes; and it was notorious that Warmoth and Kellogg of Louisiana, each of whom served onlyone term, retired with large fortunes. Warmoth, indeed, went so far as to declare: "Corruption is the fashion. I do not pretend to be honest, but only as honest as anybody in politics."

The judiciary was no better than the executive. The chief justice of Louisiana was convicted of fraud. A supreme court judge of South Carolina offered his decisions for sale, and Whipper and Moses, both notorious thieves, were elected judges by the South Carolina Legislature. In Alabama there were many illiterate magistrates, among them the city judge of Selma, who in April, 1865, was still living as a slave. Governor Chamberlain, a radical, asserted that there were two hundred trial judges in South Carolina who could not read.

Other officers were of the same stripe. Leslie, a South Carolina carpetbagger, declared that "South Carolina has no right to be a State unless she can support her statesmen," and he proceeded to live up to this principle. The manager of the state railroad of Georgia, when asked how he had been able to accumulate twenty or thirty thousand dollars on a two or three thousand dollar salary, replied, "By the exercise of the most rigid economy." A North Carolina negro legislator was found on one occasion chuckling as he countedsome money. "What are you laughing at, Uncle?" he was asked. "Well, boss, I'se been sold 'leben times in my life and dis is de fust time I eber got de money." Godkin, in theNation,said that the Georgia officials were "probably as bad a lot of political tricksters and adventurers as ever got together in one place." This description will fit equally well the white officials of all the reconstructed States. Many of the negroes who attained public office showed themselves apt pupils of their carpetbag masters but were seldom permitted to appropriate a large share of the plunder. In Florida the negro members of the Legislature, thinking that they should have a part of the bribe and loot money which their carpetbag masters were said to be receiving, went so far as to appoint what was known as a "smelling committee" to locate the good things and secure a share.

From 1868 to 1870 the legislatures of seven States were overwhelmingly radical and in several the radical majority held control for four, six, or eight years. Negroes were most numerous in the legislatures of Louisiana, South Carolina, and Mississippi, and everywhere the votes of these men were for sale. In Alabama and Louisiana negro legislators had a fixed price for their votes: forexample, six hundred dollars would buy a senator in Louisiana. In South Carolina, negro government appeared at its worst. A vivid description of the Legislature of this State in which the negroes largely outnumbered the whites is given by James S. Pike, a Republican journalist: ¹

¹ Pike,The Prostrate State,pp. 12 ff.

In the place of this old aristocratic society stands the rude form of the most ignorant democracy that mankind ever saw, invested with the functions of government. It is the dregs of the population habilitated in the robes of their intelligent predecessors, and asserting over them the rule of ignorance and corruption.… It is barbarism overwhelming civilization by physical force. It is the slave rioting in the halls of his master, and putting that master under his feet. And, though it is done without malice and without vengeance, it is nevertheless none the less completely and absolutely done.… We will enter the House of Representatives. Here sit one hundred and twenty-four members. Of these, twenty-three are white men, representing the remains of the old civilization. These are good-looking, substantial citizens. They are men of weight and standing in the communities they represent. They are all from the hill country. The frosts of sixty and seventy winters whiten the heads of some among them. There they sit, grim and silent. They feel themselves to be but loose stones, thrown in to partially obstruct a current they are powerless to resist.…This dense negro crowd … do the debating, thesquabbling, the lawmaking, and create all the clamor and disorder of the body. These twenty-three white men are but the observers, the enforced auditors of the dull and clumsy imitation of a deliberative body, whose appearance in their present capacity is at once a wonder and a shame to modern civilization.… The Speaker is black, the Clerk is black, the doorkeepers are black, the little pages are black, the chairman of the Ways and Means is black, and the chaplain is coal black. At some of the desks sit colored men whose types it would be hard to find outside of Congo; whose costumes, visages, attitudes, and expression, only befit the forecastle of a buccaneer. It must be remembered, also, that these men, with not more than a half dozen exceptions, have been themselves slaves, and that their ancestors were slaves for generations.…But the old stagers admit that the colored brethren have a wonderful aptness at legislative proceedings. They are "quick as lightning" at detecting points of order, and they certainly make incessant and extraordinary use of their knowledge. No one is allowed to talk five minutes without interruption, and one interruption is a signal for another and another, until the original speaker is smothered under an avalanche of them. Forty questions of privilege will be raised in a day. At times, nothing goes on but alternating questions of order and of privilege. The inefficient colored friend who sits in the Speaker's chair cannot suppress this extraordinary element of the debate. Some of the blackest members exhibit a pertinacity of intrusion in raising these points of order and questions of privilege that few white men can equal. Their struggles to get the floor, their bellowings and physical contortions, baffle description.The Speaker's hammer plays a perpetual tattoo to no purpose. The talking and the interruptions from all quarters go on with the utmost license. Everyone esteems himself as good as his neighbor, and puts in his oar, apparently as often for love of riot and confusion as for anything else.… The Speaker orders a member whom he has discovered to be particularly unruly to take his seat. The member obeys, and with the same motion that he sits down, throws his feet on to his desk, hiding himself from the Speaker by the soles of his boots.… After a few experiences of this sort, the Speaker threatens, in a laugh, to call the "gemman" to order. This is considered a capital joke, and a guffaw follows. The laugh goes round and then the peanuts are cracked and munched faster than ever; one hand being employed in fortifying the inner man with this nutriment of universal use, while the other enforces the views of the orator. This laughing propensity of the sable crowd is a great cause of disorder. They laugh as hens cackle—one begins and all follow.But underneath all this shocking burlesque upon legislative proceedings, we must not forget that there is something very real to this uncouth and untutored multitude. It is not all sham, nor all burlesque. They have a genuine interest and a genuine earnestness in the business of the assembly which we are bound to recognize and respect.… They have an earnest purpose, born of conviction that their position and condition are not fully assured, which lends a sort of dignity to their proceedings. The barbarous, animated jargon in which they so often indulge is on occasion seen to be so transparently sincere and weighty in their own minds that sympathy supplants disgust. The whole thing is a wonderful noveltyto them as well as to observers. Seven years ago these men were raising corn and cotton under the whip of the overseer. Today they are raising points of order and questions of privilege. They find they can raise one as well as the other. They prefer the latter. It is easier and better paid. Then, it is the evidence of an accomplished result. It means escape and defense from old oppressors. It means liberty. It means the destruction of prison-walls only too real to them. It is the sunshine of their lives. It is their day of jubilee. It is their long-promised vision of the Lord God Almighty.

This dense negro crowd … do the debating, thesquabbling, the lawmaking, and create all the clamor and disorder of the body. These twenty-three white men are but the observers, the enforced auditors of the dull and clumsy imitation of a deliberative body, whose appearance in their present capacity is at once a wonder and a shame to modern civilization.… The Speaker is black, the Clerk is black, the doorkeepers are black, the little pages are black, the chairman of the Ways and Means is black, and the chaplain is coal black. At some of the desks sit colored men whose types it would be hard to find outside of Congo; whose costumes, visages, attitudes, and expression, only befit the forecastle of a buccaneer. It must be remembered, also, that these men, with not more than a half dozen exceptions, have been themselves slaves, and that their ancestors were slaves for generations.…

But the old stagers admit that the colored brethren have a wonderful aptness at legislative proceedings. They are "quick as lightning" at detecting points of order, and they certainly make incessant and extraordinary use of their knowledge. No one is allowed to talk five minutes without interruption, and one interruption is a signal for another and another, until the original speaker is smothered under an avalanche of them. Forty questions of privilege will be raised in a day. At times, nothing goes on but alternating questions of order and of privilege. The inefficient colored friend who sits in the Speaker's chair cannot suppress this extraordinary element of the debate. Some of the blackest members exhibit a pertinacity of intrusion in raising these points of order and questions of privilege that few white men can equal. Their struggles to get the floor, their bellowings and physical contortions, baffle description.The Speaker's hammer plays a perpetual tattoo to no purpose. The talking and the interruptions from all quarters go on with the utmost license. Everyone esteems himself as good as his neighbor, and puts in his oar, apparently as often for love of riot and confusion as for anything else.… The Speaker orders a member whom he has discovered to be particularly unruly to take his seat. The member obeys, and with the same motion that he sits down, throws his feet on to his desk, hiding himself from the Speaker by the soles of his boots.… After a few experiences of this sort, the Speaker threatens, in a laugh, to call the "gemman" to order. This is considered a capital joke, and a guffaw follows. The laugh goes round and then the peanuts are cracked and munched faster than ever; one hand being employed in fortifying the inner man with this nutriment of universal use, while the other enforces the views of the orator. This laughing propensity of the sable crowd is a great cause of disorder. They laugh as hens cackle—one begins and all follow.

But underneath all this shocking burlesque upon legislative proceedings, we must not forget that there is something very real to this uncouth and untutored multitude. It is not all sham, nor all burlesque. They have a genuine interest and a genuine earnestness in the business of the assembly which we are bound to recognize and respect.… They have an earnest purpose, born of conviction that their position and condition are not fully assured, which lends a sort of dignity to their proceedings. The barbarous, animated jargon in which they so often indulge is on occasion seen to be so transparently sincere and weighty in their own minds that sympathy supplants disgust. The whole thing is a wonderful noveltyto them as well as to observers. Seven years ago these men were raising corn and cotton under the whip of the overseer. Today they are raising points of order and questions of privilege. They find they can raise one as well as the other. They prefer the latter. It is easier and better paid. Then, it is the evidence of an accomplished result. It means escape and defense from old oppressors. It means liberty. It means the destruction of prison-walls only too real to them. It is the sunshine of their lives. It is their day of jubilee. It is their long-promised vision of the Lord God Almighty.

The congressional delegations were as radical as the state governments. During the first two years there were no Democratic senators from the reconstructed States and only two Democratic representatives, as against sixty-four radical senators and representatives. At the end of four years the Democrats numbered fifteen against seventy radicals. A negro succeeded Jefferson Davis in the Senate, and in all the race sent two senators and thirteen representatives to Congress, but though several were of high character and fair ability, they exercised practically no influence. The Southern delegations had no part in shaping policies but merely voted as they were told by the radical leaders.

The effect of dishonest government was soon seen in extravagant expenditures, heavier taxes,increase of the bonded debt, and depression of property values. It was to be expected that after the ruin wrought by war and the admission of the negro to civil rights, the expenses of government would be greater. But only lack of honesty will account for the extraordinary expenses of the reconstruction governments. In Alabama and Florida the running expenses of the state government increased two hundred per cent, in Louisiana five hundred per cent, and in Arkansas fifteen hundred per cent—all this in addition to bond issues. In South Carolina the one item of public printing, which from 1790 to 1868 cost $609,000, amounted in the years 1868-1876 to $1,326,589.

Corrupt state officials had two ways of getting money—by taxation and by the sale of bonds. Taxes were everywhere multiplied. The state tax rate in Alabama was increased four hundred per cent, in Louisiana eight hundred per cent, and in Mississippi, which could issue no bonds, fourteen hundred per cent. City and county taxes, where carpetbaggers were in control, increased in the same way. Thousands of small proprietors could not meet their taxes, and in Mississippi alone the land sold for unpaid taxes amounted to six million acres, an area as large as Massachusetts andRhode Island together. Nordhoff ¹ speaks of seeing Louisiana newspapers of which three-fourths were taken up by notices of tax sales. In protest against extravagant and corrupt expenditures, taxpayers' conventions were held in every State, but without effect.

¹ Charles Nordhoff,The Cotton States in the Spring and Summer of 1875.

Even the increased taxation, however, did not produce enough to support the new governments, which now had recourse to the sale of state and local bonds. In this way Governor Holden's Administration managed in two years to increase the public debt of North Carolina from $16,000,000 to $32,000,000. The state debt of South Carolina rose from $7,000,000 to $29,000,000 in 1873. In Alabama, by 1874, the debt had mounted from $7,000,000 to $32,000,000. The public debt of Louisiana rose from $14,000,000 in 1868 to $48,000,000 in 1871, with a local debt of $31,000,000. Cities, towns, and counties sold bonds by the bale. The debt of New Orleans increased twenty-five fold and that of Vicksburg a thousandfold. A great deal of the debt was the result of fraudulent issues of bonds or overissues. For this form of fraud the state financial agents in New York were usuallyresponsible. Southern bonds sold far below par, and the time came when they were peddled about at ten to twenty-five cents on the dollar.

Still another disastrous result followed this corrupt financiering. In Alabama there was a sixty-five per cent decrease in property values, in Florida forty-five per cent, and in Louisiana fifty to seventy-five per cent. A large part of the best property was mortgaged, and foreclosure sales were frequent. Poorer property could be neither mortgaged nor sold. There was an exodus of whites from the worst governed districts in the West and the North. Many towns, among them Mobile and Memphis, surrendered their charters and were ruled directly by the governor; and there were numerous "strangulated" counties which on account of debt had lost self-government and were ruled by appointees of the governor.

A part of the money raised by taxes and by bond sales was used for legitimate expenses and the rest went to pay forged warrants, excess warrants, and swollen mileage accounts, and to fill the pockets of embezzlers and thieves from one end of the South to the other. In Arkansas, for example, the auditor's clerk hire, which was $4000 in 1866, cost twenty-three times as much in 1873. In Louisianaand South Carolina stealing was elevated into an art and was practiced without concealment. In the latter State the worthless Hell Hole Swamp was bought for $26,000 to be farmed by the negroes but was charged to the state at $120,000. A free restaurant maintained at the Capitol for the legislators cost $125,000 for one session. The porter who conducted it said that he kept it open sixteen to twenty hours a day and that someone was always in the room eating and drinking or smoking. When a member left he would fill his pockets with cigars or with bottles of drink. Forty different brands of beverages were paid for by the State for the private use of members, and all sorts of food, furniture, and clothing were sent to the houses of members and were paid for by the State as "legislative supplies." On the bills appeared such items as imported mushrooms, one side of bacon, one feather bed, bustles, two pairs of extra long stockings, one pair of garters, one bottle perfume, twelve monogram cut glasses, one horse, one comb and brush, three gallons of whisky, one pair of corsets. During the recess, supplies were sent out to the rural homes of the members.

The endorsement of railroad securities by the State also furnished a source of easy money tothe dishonest official and the crooked speculator. After the Civil War, in response to the general desire in the South for better railroad facilities, the "Johnson" governments began to underwrite railroad bonds. When the carpetbag and negro governments came in, the policy was continued but without proper safeguards. Bonds were sometimes endorsed before the roads were constructed, and even excess issues were authorized. Bonds were endorsed for some roads of which not a mile was ever built. The White River Valley and Texas Railroad never came into existence, but it obtained a grant of $175,000 from the State of Arkansas. Speaker Carter of the Louisiana Legislature received a financial interest in all railroad endorsement bills which he steered through the House. Negro members were regularly bribed to vote for the bond steals. A witness swore that in Louisiana it cost him $80,000 to get a railroad charter passed, but that the Governor's signature cost more than the consent of the Legislature.

When the roads defaulted on the payment of interest, as most of them did, the burden fell upon the State. Not all of the blame for this perverted legislation should be placed upon the corrupt legislators, however, for the lawyers who saw thebills through were frequently Southern Democrats representing supposedly respectable Northern capitalists. The railroads as well as the taxpayers suffered from this pernicious lobbying, for the companies were loaded with debts and rarely profited by the loans. Valuation of railroad property rapidly decreased. The roads of Alabama which were valued in 1871 at $26,000,000 had decreased in 1875 to $9,500,000.

The foundation of radical power in the South lay in the alienation of the races which had been accomplished between 1865 and 1868. To maintain this unhappy distrust, the radical leaders found an effective means in the negro militia. Under the constitution of every reconstructed State a negro constabulary was possible, but only in South Carolina, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi were the authorities willing to risk the dangers of arming the blacks. No governor dared permit the Southern whites to organize as militia. In South Carolina the carpetbag governor, Robert K. Scott, enrolled ninety-six thousand negroes as members of the militia and organized and armed twenty thousand of them. The few white companies were ordered to disband. In Louisiana the governorhad a standing army of blacks called the Metropolitan Guard. In several States the negro militia was used as a constabulary and was sent to any part of the State to make arrests.

In spite of this provocation there were, after the riots of 1866-67, comparatively few race conflicts until reconstruction was drawing to a close. The intervening period was filled with the more peaceful activities of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Camelia. ¹ But as the whites made up their minds to get rid of negro rule, the clashes came frequently and always ended in the death of more negroes than whites. ² They would probably have continued with serious consequences if the whites had not eventually secured control of the government.

¹ See pages 243-264.² Among the bloodiest conflicts were those in Louisiana at Colfax, Coushatta, and New Orleans in 1873-74, and at Vicksburg and Clinton, Mississippi, in 1874-75.

¹ See pages 243-264.

² Among the bloodiest conflicts were those in Louisiana at Colfax, Coushatta, and New Orleans in 1873-74, and at Vicksburg and Clinton, Mississippi, in 1874-75.

The lax election laws, framed indeed for the benefit of the party in power, gave the radicals ample opportunity to control the negro vote. The elections were frequently corrupt, though not a great deal of money was spent in bribery. It was found less expensive to use other methods of getting out the vote. The negroes were generallymade to understand that the Democrats wanted to put them back into slavery, but sometimes the leaders deemed it wiser to state more concretely that "Jeff Davis had come to Montgomery and is ready to organize the Confederacy again" if the Democrats should win; or to say that "if Carter is elected, he will not allow your wives and daughters to wear hoopskirts." In Alabama many thousand pounds of bacon and hams were sent in to be distributed among "flood sufferers" in a region which had not been flooded since the days of Noah. The negroes were told that they must vote right and receive enough bacon for a year, or "lose their rights" if they voted wrongly. Ballot-box stuffing developed into an art, and each negro was carefully inspected to see that he had the right kind of ticket before he was marched to the polls.

The inspection and counting of election returns were in the hands of the county and state boards, which were controlled by the governor, and which had authority to throw out or count in any number of votes. On the assumption that the radicals were entitled to all negro votes, the returning boards followed the census figures for the black population in order to arrive at the minimum radical vote. The action of the returning boardswas specially flagrant in Louisiana and Florida and in the black counties of South Carolina.

Notwithstanding the fact that the very best arrangements had been made at Washington and in the States for the running of the radical machine, everywhere there were factional fights from the beginning. Usually the scalawags declared hostilities after they found that the carpetbaggers had control of the negroes and the inside track on the way to the best state and federal offices. Later, after the scalawags had for the most part left the radicals, there were contests among the carpetbaggers themselves for the control of the negro vote and the distribution of spoils. The defeated faction usually joined the Democrats. In Arkansas a split started in 1869 which by 1872 resulted in two state governments. Alabama in 1872 and Louisiana in 1874-75 each had two rival governments. This factionalism contributed largely to the overthrow of the radicals.

The radical structure, however, was still powerfully supported from without. Relations between the Federal Government and the state governments in the South were close, and the policy at Washington was frequently determined by conditions in the South. President Grant, though atfirst considerate, was usually consistently radical in his Southern policy. This attitude is difficult to explain except by saying that Grant fell under the control of radical advisers after his break with Johnson, that his military instincts were offended by opposition in the South which his advisers told him was rebellious, and that he was impressed by the need of holding the Southern radical vote against the inroads of the Democrats. After about 1869 Grant never really understood the conditions in the South. He was content to control by means of Federal troops and thousands of deputy marshals. For this policy the Ku Klux activities gave sufficient excuse for a time, and the continued story of "rebel outrages" was always available to justify a call for soldiers or deputies. The enforcement legislation gave the color of law to any interference which was deemed necessary.

Federal troops served other ends than the mere preservation of order and the support of the radical state governments. They were used on occasion to decide between opposing factions and to oust conservatives who had forced their way into office. The army officers purged the Legislature of Georgia in 1870, that of Alabama in 1872, and that of Louisiana in 1875. In 1875 the city governmentof Vicksburg and the state government of Louisiana were overturned by the whites, but General Sheridan at once intervened to put back the negroes and carpetbaggers. He suggested to President Grant that the conservatives be declared "banditti" and he would make himself responsible for the rest. As soon as a State showed signs of going over to the Democrats or an important election was lost by the radicals, one House or the other of Congress in many instances sent an investigation committee to ascertain the reasons. The Committees on the Condition of the South or on the Late Insurrectionary States were nearly always ready with reports to establish the necessity of intervention.

Besides the army there was in every State a powerful group of Federal officials who formed a "ring" for the direction of all good radicals. These marshals, deputies, postmasters, district attorneys, and customhouse officials were in close touch with Washington and frequently dictated nominations and platforms. At New Orleans the officials acted as a committee on credentials and held all the state conventions under their control in the customhouse.

Such was the machinery used to sustain a partywhich, with the gradual defection of the whites, became throughout the South almost uniformly black. At first few negroes asked for offices, but soon the carpetbaggers found it necessary to divide with the rapidly growing number of negro politicians. No negro was elected governor, though several reached the office of lieutenant governor, secretary of state, auditor, superintendent of education, justice of the state supreme court, and fifteen were elected to Congress. ¹ It would not be correct to say that the negro race was malicious or on evil bent. Unless deliberately stirred up by white leaders, few negroes showed signs of mean spirit. Few even made exorbitant demands. They wanted "something"—schools and freedom and "something else," they knew not what. Deprived of the leadership of the best whites, they could not possibly act with the scalawags—their traditional enemies. Nothing was left for them but to follow the carpetbagger.

¹ Revels, Lynch, and Bruce represent the better negro officeholders; Pinchback, Rainey, and Nash, the less respectable ones; and below these were the rascals whose ambition was to equal their white preceptors in corruption.

The Ku Klux Movement

TheKu Klux movement, which took the form of secret revolutionary societies, grew out of a general conviction among the whites that the reconstruction policies were impossible and not to be endured. Somers, an English traveler, says that at this time "nearly every respectable white man in the Southern States was not only disfranchised but under fear of arrest or confiscation; the old foundations of authority were utterly razed before any new ones had yet been laid, and in the dark and benighted interval the remains of the Confederate armies—swept after a long and heroic day of fair fight from the field—flitted before the eyes of the people in this weird and midnight shape of a Ku Klux Klan." Ryland Randolph, an Alabama editor who was also an official of the Klan, stated in his paper that "the origin of Ku Klux Klan is in the galling despotism that broods like a night-mareover these Southern States—a fungus growth of military tyranny superinduced by the fostering of Loyal Leagues, the abrogation of our civil laws, the habitual violation of our national Constitution, and a persistent prostitution of all government, all resources and all powers, to degrade the white man by the establishment of negro supremacy."

The secret orders, regardless of their original purposes, were all finally to be found opposing radical reconstruction. Everywhere their objects were the same: to recover for the white race their former control of society and government, and to destroy the baneful influence of the alien among the blacks. The people of the South were by law helpless to take steps towards setting up any kind of government in a land infested by a vicious element—Federal and Confederate deserters, bushwhackers, outlaws of every description, and negroes, some of whom proved insolent and violent in their newly found freedom. Nowhere was property or person safe, and for a time many feared a negro insurrection. General Hardee said to his neighbors, "I advise you to get ready for what may come. We are standing over a sleeping volcano."

To cope with this situation ante-bellum patrols—the"patter-rollers" as the negroes called them—were often secretly reorganized. In each community for several months after the Civil War, and in many of them for months before the end of the war, there were informal vigilance committees. Some of these had such names as the Black Cavalry and Men of Justice in Alabama, the Home Guards in many other places, while the anti-Confederate societies of the war, the Heroes of America, the Red Strings, and the Peace Societies, transformed themselves in certain localities into regulatory bodies. Later these secret societies numbered scores, perhaps hundreds, varying from small bodies of local police to great federated bodies which covered almost the entire South and even had membership in the North and West. Other important organizations were the Constitutional Union Guards, the Pale Faces, the White Brotherhood, the Council of Safety, the '76 Association, the Sons of '76, the Order of the White Rose, and the White Boys. As the fight against reconstruction became bolder, the orders threw off their disguises and appeared openly as armed whites fighting for the control of society. The White League of Louisiana, the White Line of Mississippi, the White Man's party of Alabama, and the RifleClubs of South Carolina, were later manifestations of the general Ku Klux movement.

The two largest secret orders, however, were the Ku Klux Klan, from which the movement took its name, and the Knights of the White Camelia. The Ku Klux Klan originated at Pulaski, Tennessee, in the autumn of 1865, as a local organization for social purposes. The founders were young Confederates, united for fun and mischief. The name was an accidental corruption of the Greek wordKuklos, a circle. The officers adopted queer sounding titles and strange disguises. Weird night riders in ghostly attire thoroughly frightened the superstitious negroes, who were told that the spirits of dead Confederates were abroad. This terrorizing of the blacks successfully provided the amusement which the founders desired and there were many applications for admission to the society. The Pulaski Club, or Den, was in the habit of parading in full uniform at social gatherings of the whites at night, much to the delight of the small boys and girls. Pulaski was near the Alabama line, and many of the young men of Alabama who saw these parades or heard of them organized similar Dens in the towns of Northern Alabama. Nothing but horseplay, however, took place at themeetings. In 1867 and 1868 the order appeared in parade in the towns of the adjoining States and, as we are told, "cut up curious gyrations" on the public squares.

There was a general belief outside the order that there was a purpose behind all the ceremonial and frolic of the Dens; many joined the order convinced that its object was serious; others saw the possibilities of using it as a means of terrorizing the negroes. After men discovered the power of the Klan over the negroes, indeed, they were generally inclined, owing to the disordered conditions of the time, to act as a sort of police patrol and to hold in check the thieving negroes, the Union League, and the "loyalists." In this way, from being merely a number of social clubs the Dens swiftly became bands of regulators, taking on many new fantastic qualities along with their new seriousness of purpose. Some of the more ardent spirits led the Dens far in the direction of violence and outrage. Attempts were made by the parent Den at Pulaski to regulate the conduct of the others, but, owing to the loose organization, the effort met with little success. Some of the Dens, indeed, lost all connection with the original order.

A general organization of these societies wasperfected at a convention held in Nashville in May, 1867, just as the Reconstruction Acts were being put into operation. A constitution called thePrescriptwas adopted which provided for a national organization. The former slave States, except Delaware, constituted the Empire, which was ruled by the Grand Wizard (then General Forrest) with a staff of ten Genii; each State was a realm under a Grand Dragon and eight Hydras; the next subdivision was a Dominion, consisting of several counties, ruled by a Grand Titan and six Furies; the county or Province was governed by a Grand Giant and four Goblins; the unit was the Den or community organization, of which there might be several in each county, each under a Grand Cyclops and two Nighthawks. The Genii, Hydras, Furies, Goblins, and Nighthawks were staff officers. The private members were called Ghouls. The order had no name, and at first was designated by two stars (**), later by three (***). Sometimes it was called the Invisible Empire of Ku Klux Klan.

Any white man over eighteen might be admitted to the Den after nomination by a member and strict investigation by a committee. The oath demanded obedience and secrecy. The Dens governed themselves by the ordinary rules ofdeliberative bodies. The punishment for betrayal of secrecy was "the extreme penalty of the Law." None of the secrets was to be written, and there was a "Register" of alarming adjectives, such as terrible, horrible, furious, doleful, bloody, appalling, frightful, gloomy, which was used as a cipher code in dating the odd Ku Klux orders.

The general objects of the order were thus set forth in the revisedPrescript: first, to protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless from the indignities, wrongs, and outrages of the lawless, the violent, and the brutal; to relieve the injured and oppressed; to succor the suffering and unfortunate, and especially the widows and orphans of Confederate soldiers; second, to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and all laws passed in conformity thereto, and to protect the States and people thereof from all invasion from any source whatever; third, to aid and assist in the execution of all "constitutional" laws, and to protect the people from unlawful arrest, and from trial except by their peers according to the laws of the land. But the tests for admission gave further indication of the objects of the order. No Republican, no Union Leaguer, and no member of the G. A. R. might become a member. The memberswere pledged to oppose negro equality of any kind, to favor emancipation of the Southern whites and the restoration of their rights, and to maintain constitutional government and equitable laws.

Prominent men testified that the order became popular because the whites felt that they were persecuted and that there was no legal protection, no respectable government. General (later Senator) Pettus said that through all the workings of the Federal Government ran the principle that "we are an inferior, degraded people and not fit to be trusted." General Clanton of Alabama further explained that "there is not a respectable white woman in the Negro Belt of Alabama who will trust herself outside of her house without some protector.… So far as our State Government is concerned, we are in the hands of camp-followers, horse-holders, cooks, bottle-washers, and thieves.… We have passed out from the hands of the brave soldiers who overcame us, and are turned over to the tender mercies of squaws for torture.… I see negro police—great black fellows—leading white girls around the streets of Montgomery, and locking them up in jails."

The Klan first came into general prominence in 1868 with the report of the Federal commanders inthe South concerning its activities. Soon after that date the order spread through the white counties of the South, in many places absorbing the White Brotherhood, the Pale Faces, and some other local organizations which had been formed in the upper part of the Black Belt. But it was not alone in the field. The order known as the Knights of the White Camelia, founded in Louisiana in 1867 and formally organized in 1868, spread rapidly over the lower South until it reached the territory occupied by the Ku Klux Klan. It was mainly a Black Belt order, and on the whole had a more substantial and more conservative membership than the other large secret bodies. Like the Ku Klux Klan, it also absorbed several minor local societies.

The White Camelia had a national organization with headquarters in New Orleans. Its business was conducted by a Supreme Council of the United States, with Grand, Central, and Subordinate Councils for each State, county, and community. All communication within the order took place by passwords and cipher; the organization and the officers were similar to those of the Ku Klux Klan; and all officers were designated by initials. An ex-member states that "during the three years of its existence here [Perry County, Alabama] I believeits organization and discipline were as perfect as human ingenuity could have made it." The fundamental object of the White Camelia was the "maintenance of the supremacy of the white race," and to this end the members were constrained "to observe a marked distinction between the races" and to restrain the "African race to that condition of social and political inferiority for which God has destined it." The members were pledged to vote only for whites, to oppose negro equality in all things, but to respect the legitimate rights of negroes.

The smaller orders were similar in purpose and organization to the Ku Klux Klan and the White Camelia. Most of them joined or were affiliated with the large societies. Probably a majority of the men of the South were associated at some time during this period with these revolutionary bodies. As a rule the politicians, though approving, held aloof. Public opinion generally supported the movement so long as the radicals made serious attempts to carry out the reconstruction policies.

The task before the secret orders was to regulate the conduct of the blacks and their leaders in order that honor, life, and property might be secure. They planned to accomplish this aim by playingupon the fears, superstitions, and cowardice of the black race—in a word, by creating a white terror to counteract the black one. To this end they made use of strange disguises, mysterious and fearful conversation, midnight rides and drills, and silent parades. As long as secrecy and mystery were to be effective in dealing with the negroes, costume was an important matter. These disguises varied with the locality and often with the individual. High cardboard hats, covered with white cloth often decorated with stars or pictures of animals, white masks with holes cut for eyes, nose and mouth bound with red braid to give a horrible appearance, and frequently a long tongue of red flannel so fixed that it could be moved with the wearer's tongue, and a long white robe—these made up a costume which served at the same time as a disguise and as a means of impressing the impressionable negro. Horses were covered with sheets or white cloth held on by the saddle and by belts, and sometimes the animals were even painted. Skulls of sheep and cattle, and even of human beings were often carried on the saddlebows to add another element of terror. A framework was sometimes made to fit the shoulders of a Ghoul which caused him to appear twelve feet high. Askeleton wooden hand at the end of a stick served to greet terrified negroes at midnight. For safety every man carried a small whistle and a brace of pistols.

The trembling negro who ran into a gathering of the Ku Klux on his return from a Loyal League meeting was informed that the white-robed figures he saw were the spirits of the Confederate dead killed at Chickamauga or Shiloh, now unable to rest in their graves because of the conduct of the negroes. He was told in a sepulchral voice of the necessity for his remaining more at home and taking a less active part in predatory excursions abroad. In the middle of the night a sleeping negro might wake to find his house surrounded by a ghostly company, or to see several terrifying figures standing by his bedside. They were, they said, the ghosts of men whom he had formerly known. They had scratched through from Hell to warn the negroes of the consequences of their misconduct. Hell was a dry and thirsty land: and they asked him for water. Bucket after bucket of water disappeared into a sack of leather, rawhide, or rubber, concealed within the flowing robe. The story is told of one of these night travelers who called at the cabin of a radical negro in AttakapasCounty, Louisiana. After drinking three buckets of water to the great astonishment of the darky, the traveler thanked him and told him that he had traveled nearly a thousand miles within twenty-four hours, and that that was the best water he had tasted since he was killed at the battle of Shiloh. The negro dropped the bucket, overturned chairs and table in making his escape through the window, and was never again seen or heard of by residents of that community. Another incident is told of a parade in Pulaski, Tennessee: "While the procession was passing a corner on which a negro man was standing, a tall horseman in hideous garb turned aside from the line, dismounted and stretched out his bridle rein toward the negro, as if he desired him to hold his horse. Not daring to refuse, the frightened African extended his hand to grasp the rein. As he did so, the Ku Klux took his own head from his shoulders and offered to place that also in the outstretched hand. The negro stood not upon the order of his going, but departed with a yell of terror. To this day he will tell you: 'He done it, suah, boss. I seed him do it.'"

It was seldom necessary at this early stage to use violence, for the black population was in an ecstasy of fear. A silent host of white-sheeted horsemenparading the country roads at night was sufficient to reduce the blacks to good behavior for weeks or months. One silent Ghoul posted near a meeting place of the League would be the cause of the immediate dissolution of that club. Cow bones in a sack were rattled within earshot of the terrified negroes. A horrible being, fifteen feet tall, walking through the night toward a place of congregation, was very likely to find that every one had vacated the place before he arrived. A few figures wrapped in sheets and sitting on tombstones in a graveyard near which negroes were accustomed to pass would serve to keep the immediate community quiet for weeks and give the locality a reputation for "hants" which lasted long.

To prevent detection on parade, members of the Klan often stayed out of the parade in their own town and were to be seen freely and conspicuously mingling with the spectators. A man who believed that he knew every horse in the vicinity and was sure that he would be able to identify the riders by their horses was greatly surprised upon lifting the disguise of the horse nearest him to find the animal upon which he himself had ridden into town a short while before. The parades were always silent and so arranged as to give the impression of very largenumbers. In the regular drills which were held in town and country the men showed that they had not forgotten their training in the Confederate army. There were no commands save in a very low tone or in a mysterious language, and usually only signs or whistle signals were used.

Such pacific methods were successful to a considerable degree until the carpetbaggers and scalawags were placed in office under the Reconstruction Acts. Then more violent methods were necessary. The Klans patrolled disturbed communities, visited, warned, and frightened obnoxious individuals, whipped some, and even hanged others. Until forbidden by law or military order, the newspapers were accustomed to print the mysterious proclamations of the Ku Klux. The following, which was circulated in Montgomery, Alabama, in April 1868, is a typical specimen:

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