The Negro and the Nation Part 16

We now return to the individual cases of three Southern States. To South Carolina fell the bitterest experience of misgovernment. Its black majority was organized and led by a group of white men of the worst character, who were resisted for a time without success by a better element in the party. Under four years' administration of Governor R. K.

Scott, a Northerner, and two of F. J. Moses, Jr., a South Carolinian--who later disappeared from public view in a penitentiary,--money was lavished in profligate expenditure; hundreds of thousands spent for legislative furniture and luxuries; franchises were corruptly sold; bogus enterprises enriched; debt piled up by millions, and thrown off by millions. (Repudiation, be it said, always came easily to the South,--before the war and after; during reconstruction and after; whether the borrowed money had been spent for railroads or squandered by thieves; and the ghost of an unpaid $300,000,000 still scares Southern Senators when a general arbitration treaty is discussed.) South Carolina went from bad to worse for six years.

When, in 1872, the honest Republicans bolted, under an unimpeachable candidate, Reuben Tomlinson, a Philadelphia Quaker, and gave him 35,000 votes, the Democrats stood scornfully aloof--"better a native thief than an honest Yankee!" But in 1874 came a revolution in the Republican ranks. Honesty triumphed, under the lead of the elected governor, Daniel H. Chamberlain, of Ma.s.sachusetts birth and education,--a remarkable man; shrewd, long-headed, a past master in political management; with high aims; by no means indifferent to personal success, but generally succeeding in combining personal and public service. With a Legislature in which two-thirds were Republicans, and whites and blacks were about equal in number, he achieved a surprising reversal of the evil tendencies that had prevailed. In the Legislature the best of the Democrats backed him, together with the best of the Republicans, and overmatched the corruptionists. Stealing was stopped; the abuses of the pardoning power were ended; the tax laws were amended so as to secure uniformity and equality of a.s.sessment; expenditure was reduced and regulated. These were the statements of the Charleston _News and Courier_, the leading paper of the State, in July, 1876, when another election was coming on. Most of the Democratic papers had praised and supported Governor Chamberlain. It was now very seriously contemplated, and advocated by the _News and Courier_, to let him be re-elected without opposition. But the old-time pride of race and party was too strong, and the Democrats nominated Wade Hampton. They supported him with little scruple as to means,--with free use of intimidation and proscription, with frequent threats and often the reality of violence.

There was a shocking ma.s.sacre at Hamburg. Governor Chamberlain called on the President for aid, and a thousand troops were sent into the State.

When the election came, there was claimed a majority for Chamberlain and for the Republican Presidential ticket. The claim was instantly and fiercely challenged by Hampton's supporters. And here the story pauses, until it joins the main current of national affairs.

Mississippi was under Republican control until 1875. If one attempts to judge of the character of that control, he plunges into a sea of contradictions almost enough to submerge the hope of truth. Whether we turn to standard historians, to the 1000 pages of sworn testimony before a Congressional committee, or to individual witnesses, the perplexity is the same. Thus, we consult Woodrow Wilson's _History of the American People_,--and this book invites a word of comment. Its author has woven together the immense material of the national history for three centuries, in the main with admirable judgment and skill. He has produced a comprehensive, well-proportioned, graphic narrative, which closely holds the reader's attention, and gives in general the spirit as well as the substance of the people's story. But upon the main theme of the crowning century, he misses some of the vital elements. Of the wrong and mischief of slavery he has hardly a word, waving the subject aside as if beyond his province. He gives with admirable sympathy and intelligence the att.i.tude of the well-meaning Southerner before and after the war; and this feature has special value for those familiar only with the Northern standpoint. But he has not the least appreciation of the anti-slavery spirit in its heroic phase. On the wrongs of the slave he is silent, while upon the sins of the carpet-bagger he is eloquent. This one-sidedness robs of its significance what should be the American epic of the nineteenth century.

Of the misgovernment of Mississippi, Dr. Wilson instances that "before the work of the carpet-baggers was done, 640,000 acres of land had been forfeited for taxes, twenty per cent. of the total acreage of the State." The nearest atlas or gazetteer is enough to check this statement. The total acreage of the State is 29,640,000,--of which 640,000 is not twenty per cent., but a trifle over two per cent. Dr.

Wilson goes on to say that the State tax levy in 1874 was fourteen times as great as in 1869. This is apparently taken from the "Taxpayers'

pet.i.tion" of 1875, but from whatever source, it gives an utterly exaggerated impression. Before the Congressional committee Judge H. R.

Ware, chairman of the State Republican committee,--a Kentuckian by birth, and a life-long resident of Mississippi,--gave his testimony; and it included doc.u.ments showing that the total State expense during the last two years of Democratic rule, 1864 and '65, was $1,410,250 and $1,860,809; for twenty years of Democratic administration, throwing out the extra expenses of the war period, the average cost was $699,200; under military government (always the cheapest) in 1869 it was $563,219; while under the Republicans in 1875 it was $618,259; and the average for six Republican years had been $992,920. When the Republicans came in, they had to make payments in warrants worth only sixty-five cents on the dollar, with proportionate increase of expense; they had to provide for a free population doubled by the emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves, and for the last four years they had made an annual reduction.

Yet the "Taxpayers' pet.i.tion"--addressed to the Legislature early in 1875, and without effect,--must be taken as evidence of at least a considerable extravagance and waste. A reading of it gives the impression of a needless multiplication of offices and excessive salaries. The public printing seems clearly a scandal, running above $73,000 a year, as against a cost in the sister State of Georgia of only $10,000. The general charge seems to be of laxness and needlessly high salaries rather than any wholesale corruption. Some question as to the justice of the general charge occurs when a point is encountered as to the payment of teachers in the public schools. The pet.i.tioners claim that this should be reduced to $25 a month for second-cla.s.s schools, and $50 a month for first-cla.s.s schools. In fact, when the Democrats came into power, they reduced the rate to $40 a month,--which, for a school year of four months only, seems like penny-wise economy. The pet.i.tion makes perhaps the strongest impression in its statement that the boards of supervisors, controlling local taxation, are, as a general rule, "wholly unfit to discharge their duties, and without respectability or even accountability"; that the public works under their care are recklessly and carelessly managed, and the county taxes are grievous. It would seem that in these local bodies, especially in the "black counties," lay the worst of the taxpayers' grievance.

Judge Story makes a vigorous retort, testifying after a year of Democratic administration, 1875-6, as to the question of comparative expense. He shows that the State tax had indeed been reduced from 9-1/4 mills to 6-1/2 mills, but this only by cutting off outright the school tax of two mills. Not to follow further the labyrinth of figures, it is interesting to note, as to the favorite term "carpet-bagger," that of the six Republican candidates for Congress in Mississippi, in 1876, only one was of Northern birth, and he had married and lived in the South since the war; one had been an old Southern Democrat and a circuit judge; two had been Confederate officers; and one, John R. Lynch, was a colored man of high intelligence and excellent character. He, as Speaker of the House, and B. K. Bruce, United States Senator, were among the colored men who showed capacity and character worthy of the high positions they attained. Among the Republican leaders of Northern birth were some who were honored and trusted in their old homes; such men as General Eggleston, president of the Const.i.tutional convention; Colonel Warner, afterward State Treasurer of Connecticut, and Henry W. Warren, of Ma.s.sachusetts. The first Republican governor, J. M. Alcorn, was a Southern man, very able, but apparently not of the highest moral standards. His successor, Adelbert Ames, was from Ma.s.sachusetts, conceded now to have been "honest and brave, but narrow and puritanical," and with the mysterious trait of "hating the Aryan race of the South."

These last words are quoted from the story of an old friend of the reader's,--Thomas Dabney, the "Southern planter," whose n.o.ble character was sketched in chapter XII. He had fought a brave fight with poverty and hards.h.i.+p since the war, and as we come again into his company for a moment, it is with a sense of confidence which even official doc.u.ments do not inspire. He had no doubt of the oppressiveness of Republican rule, and the need of shaking it off by vigorous measures. It is related that the taxes on his plantation for 1873 were over $900, while the income was less than $800. Yet one letter tells that he is in "a laughing humor" because he has just paid his taxes for 1875--only $375,--a reduction of more than half--and this was still under Republican rule.

One other witness may be heard, the writer's life-long friend, Henry W.

Warren, now of Holden, Ma.s.s. To those who know him his name is a synonym for integrity, efficiency and modesty; he is one of the men who never seek a public honor and never decline a public service. From his own words some statements are here condensed. "After graduating at Yale in 1865, I was called to a position as public school teacher at Nashville, Tenn.; and from there, seeing a promising opportunity, I went with two friends to work a cotton plantation in one of the 'white' counties of Mississippi. We bought it from its old owner, who had kept his slaves in his employ as paid laborers, and they continued to work for us. As slaves they had not been badly treated, except by the overseer during the master's absence. Many of the whites of the county, owning no slaves, had been indifferent to the Confederate cause, and many of them had served in its army only when hunted by the conscription officer, sometimes with bloodhounds. More than a few of them were Republicans. I was asked to serve as registrar of voters for the Const.i.tutional convention, being one of the few who could take the 'iron-clad oath'

(that is, that he had never aided the Confederacy) and this led to my going to the convention, and afterward to the Legislature. The Speaker dying, I was chosen to his place for the rest of the term. Our county going Democratic, I was not re-elected; but I was chosen chief clerk of the House, and served for four years, after my two years as a member.

All the Democrats united in signing a paper, asking me to be always present in the House,--this was after I had induced the Speaker to change a mistaken ruling. So I was in a position to know pretty well what was going on. From the first there were plenty of Confederate generals and colonels in the Legislature." (The excluding clauses were struck out of the Mississippi const.i.tution at the start.) "The manner of the blacks to the whites was habitually civil, and something of the slave's deference to the white man remained. I think the legislation was generally of reasonably good character. I knew positively of but little corruption. That there was some corruption and more extravagance, I have no doubt. But I have served since in the Ma.s.sachusetts Legislature, and I think the Southern State was but little worse than the Northern. The negro members, though with some able and honest leaders of their own, like Bruce and Lynch, followed largely the prominent white men. Of the Northerners whom I knew, almost all were men of substance and had come to stay. Six out of ten owned plantations. A 'carpet-bagger' I hardly ever met, though no doubt there were some,--but the name was given to all Northerners. As to expense, you must remember that the State had to be completely rehabilitated. The war had ruined everything; public buildings were destroyed or dilapidated; and under military rule things had simply been kept going. Everything had to be reconstructed. The slaves had become citizens, and that doubled the number to be provided for. There had been practically no public schools, and they were set up throughout the State. Taxes had fallen largely on slave property, now they came on land. So it was inevitable that there should be an increase of taxation. About county taxes I have no special knowledge, though in our locality they certainly were not burdensome. In some of the black counties it may have been worse. The Republicans, both blacks and whites, were drilled in the 'Loyal League of America,'--it was a purely political organization, often meeting in the woods at night. In those years there was immense progress on the part of the negroes,--political discussion was educational. I think if the Federal government had provided better school education, and had protected the voters at the polls, all might have gone well. That there was more or less of extravagance on the part of the Legislature is not to be denied. So there is in Ma.s.sachusetts. That there was anything to justify the means resorted to in 1875 and 1876 to get complete control of the State government, might safely be questioned."

What those means were, there is no serious question. The Democrats organized a campaign of clubs, processions, enthusiasm, and--intimidation. The better part would have disclaimed the last feature, but they did not prevent it. Thomas Dabney was among the leaders. He relates that the best men were brought out for the nominations, often against their own desire. He, in his old age, was made president of the local club, and kept busy with marchings, meetings, and barbecues. He quotes sympathetically the response of a friend to his remark that the uprising was wonderful: "Uprising? It is no uprising. It is an insurrection." He relates that at Clinton the Republicans got up a riot, that they might have a pretext for asking President Grant for troops. "They succeeded in getting up their riot, which was put down by our own people after so sanguinary a fas.h.i.+on as to strike them with a terror not easily described." There can be no doubt as to the "sanguinary fas.h.i.+on" and the "terror." Testimony abounds of the invasion of Republican meetings, enforced demands on the Republican speakers to "divide the time," with threats and occasional violence.

Sometimes the meetings were prevented, sometimes they were broken up.

There was a great deal of terrorizing and now and then a murder. In some cases the officers at the polls interposed so many hindrances that many of the negroes were unable to vote. There was but a handful of Federal troops in the State, and the President declined to send more at Governor Ames's request. The reign of terror was effective. Once again we quote Mr. Warren: "In our part of the country there were constant parades of the 'red-s.h.i.+rted cavalry,' and the negroes were thoroughly frightened.

Two rough fellows once a.s.sailed me with threats and abuse, but drew off when I stood my ground. When the election came on, to get our ballots printed I had to go to New Orleans; spies dogged me in going and coming; and as with a friend I rode toward home, we were beset and besieged in a planter's house, that they might get possession of the ballots. Finally we rode away on an unguarded road, pistol in hand, and escaped. But they afterward captured and destroyed a part of the ballots, and by such means they carried the local election. By such means and more violent measures they carried the State."

The Democratic Legislature now proceeded to impeach Governor Ames, on frivolous charges, but agreed to drop the proceedings if he would resign, which he did, and left the State, knowing that his trial would be a farce. In 1876 the campaign was of the same character as in 1875, and so Mississippi was "redeemed."

The case of Louisiana was widely different. In that State the corruption of the Republican managers was flagrant; it extended to the manipulation of election returns; and the Federal Government interfered freely, and with notable results. A knot of knavish adventurers were in control,--Henry C. Warmoth, William P. Kellogg, F. F. Casey, and United States Marshal S. B. Packard. Casey was the President's brother-in-law, and General Grant was almost as incapable of believing a relative of his to be a bad man as he was incapable of knowingly supporting a bad man.

Casey was made collector of New Orleans, and was allowed to hold the Republican convention in the custom-house, with United States soldiers guarding the doors and regulating the admissions. As he and his crew were wrecking the finances of the State, there was in 1872 a general combination against them of the better elements,--they preferred the name "Conservatives" to "Democrats,"--and they claimed to have elected their candidate, John McEnery, as governor. Warmouth, who had been governor for a four years' term, had quarreled with his confederates over the division of plunder, and gone over to the Conservatives. He controlled the State returning-board, to which the laws intrusted a very elastic and dangerous power of throwing out returns from districts where intimidation was proved, and undertook to declare McEnery elected. But there was a split in the board; then two rival boards, one awarding the governors.h.i.+p to Kellogg and the other to McEnery.

The imbroglio was suddenly ended by the intervention of a United States judge, E. H. Durell, who issued a writ at midnight, directing the United States marshal, S. B. Packard, to occupy and hold the capitol, and ordering a detachment of United States troops to support the Kellogg government. This fixed the character of the State for the next four years, by perhaps the most lawless act done under the name of law in this whole troubled period. It was perhaps only the overshadowing interest of the Presidential campaign that prevented its reversal by Congress,--that, and the lingering disposition of the North to pin faith on whatever wore the label "Republican."

McEnery kept up a shadowy claim to the governors.h.i.+p, with the countenance of the "respectable" element. But Kellogg and his pals had the actual administration, and used it to such effect that in two years the State bonds had fallen from seventy or eighty to twenty-five, and New Orleans city bonds from eighty or ninety to thirty or forty. In 1874 the Conservatives made a determined effort to carry the Legislature.

There was an organization called "The White League,"--a legitimate political society, said one side;--a revival of the Ku-Klux spirit and methods in a more guarded form, said the other side. Beyond question, there was in Louisiana, at all stages of reconstruction, some degree of terrorism, and occasional acts of cruelty and outrage. There was knavery among the Radicals, and there was violence among the Conservatives. At the 1874 election the Conservatives were successful at the polls; but the State returning-board at once began to juggle with the returns so palpably that the Conservative member protested and resigned. The remainder of the board, after a month of diligent work, threw out a number of districts, on the pretext of intimidation, and as to five seats referred the question to the House itself. That body met, organized in a hasty and irregular fas.h.i.+on, and awarded the five seats to the Democratic claimants. But Governor Kellogg had the United States troops at his disposal, and by his command General De Trobriand with a file of soldiers entered the House and ejected the five Democrats,--whereupon the Republicans organized the House anew.

But now the whole country took alarm. The President sent General Sheridan in haste to New Orleans, and his first dispatch sustained Kellogg, and threw the blame on the White League, to which Secretary of War Belknap telegraphed his full approval. But the affair transcended ordinary politics in its importance. New York spoke through Cooper Inst.i.tute, and Boston by Faneuil Hall. Such citizens as Bryant, Evarts, and George T. Curtis led the protest. Congress rose above partisans.h.i.+p.

A committee of the House, including such Republicans as George F. h.o.a.r, William A. Wheeler, Charles Foster, William W. Phelps and William P.

Frye, with Clarkson N. Potter and Samuel S. Marshall for the Democrats, visited New Orleans, and after full inquiry agreed that the returning-board had "wrongfully applied an erroneous rule of law"; that the five Democrats had been defrauded of their seats; and that the Louisiana House should be advised--the national House having no compulsory power--to "repair this great injustice." The two Democrats went further, and declared that Governor Kellogg himself held by no rightful tenure. But the Republicans backed a compromise offered by Wheeler, which the Louisianians accepted,--the Democrats took the Legislature, while the Republicans kept the governors.h.i.+p. The returning board survived, to put in its deadly work two years later.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

RECONSTRUCTION: THE LAST ACT

We turn back to the course of national politics. The Republican triumph of 1872 was followed by an overwhelming reverse at the Congressional election of 1874. There was a growing impression of maladministration at Was.h.i.+ngton. The Credit Mobilier scandal--the easy acceptance by Congressmen of financial favors from the managers of the Union Pacific Railway, followed by disingenuous denials--had especially discredited the party in power. There had been a great financial reverse in 1873, such as is always charged in the popular mind against the ruling powers.

The South had increased its Democratic vote. So from various causes, in the new House the Republicans pa.s.sed from a majority of one hundred to a minority of forty; with New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and even Ma.s.sachusetts, in the Democratic column.

But the clique of bitter partisans and radicals, with whom President Grant had become closely a.s.sociated, if they took warning from the election, drew the inference that they must make good use of the brief time left them in the final term of the old Congress. While the Louisiana imbroglio was still seething, the President sent a message, in February, 1875, recommending that the State government of Arkansas be declared illegal. It had held an unquestioned tenure for two years, and the proposal to oust it was simply in the interest of its two Senators, Powell Clayton and Stephen W. Dorsey, who belonged to the Grant faction.

At the same time there was brought forward a comprehensive measure, popularly known as the "Force bill," bringing every form of violence or intimidation of the blacks within the jurisdiction of the United States courts; putting elections under supervision and control of the Federal officials, and giving the President large power for the supervision of the _habeas corpus_. Another long debated measure aimed at the fuller enforcement of civil rights--a bill good in itself, said the moderate Republicans; better if a part of a general pacification; but with its present accompaniment it is "civil rights prodded in with bayonets." In the Republican press of the country, and in the party in Congress as well as the opposition, the battle over these measures was hot. The administration organ in Was.h.i.+ngton gave big type and prominent display to the paragraph: "The pa.s.sage of the bill"--the Force bill--"is required to preserve to the Republican party the electoral vote of the Southern States." The President's personal influence was used to its limits. Butler's unscrupulous tactics were all employed. But the weight, if not the numbers, of the House Republicans, rose in opposition. Forty of them, including Garfield, Dawes, the h.o.a.rs, Hawley, Hale, Pierce, Poland, and Ka.s.son, joined with the Democrats under the able leaders.h.i.+p of Samuel J. Randall. In the House, brains and conscience were beaten by patronage; the bill went through. But it went no further,--in spite of Morton and Conkling the Senate served again the useful function of obstruction. The Arkansas bill was beaten in the House. Only the Civil Rights bill became a law. Independence among Republicans had saved the party from its most dangerous leaders.h.i.+p.

It was perhaps this result, following the reverse of 1874, that disinclined Grant to further interference in the South, and held his hand when Governor Ames asked aid in Mississippi. The Louisiana business had so shown the risks of Federal intervention in local affairs, that even the best friends of the freedmen began to recognize that the States were most safely left to themselves. But the sectional fires were not left to die unfanned. When the new Congress met, 1875-6, the Democrats showed themselves conservative enough. They chose two excellent Northern men as speakers: Michael C. Kerr, of Indiana, and upon his death Randall, of Pennsylvania; and they showed themselves chiefly concerned to probe administrative abuses, which, in truth, needed heroic surgery. But for these prosaic matters Blaine, now leader of the opposition, subst.i.tuted a far more lively tune, when a bill for universal amnesty at the South was brought before the House. There was no serious Republican opposition, but Blaine saw his opportunity,--he moved that sole exception be made of Jefferson Davis, and on that text he roused Northern pa.s.sion by the story of Andersonville, goaded to exasperation the "Confederate brigadiers" among his listeners, and made himself most conspicuous for the time among the Republican leaders. He eclipsed the foremost of the Grant clique, Morton and Conkling, who after a little fruitless third-term talk were both hoping to be legatees of the Grant influence in the approaching Presidential convention. But at the eleventh hour a cloud swept over Blaine's prospects, in charges of discreditable receipt of favors from railroads looking for political aid. The testimony was conflicting, but Blaine's palpable seizure of his own letters from a hostile witness was hardly outweighed even by his spectacular vindication of his acts before the House. A sudden illness stopped the investigation; and later his transference to the Senate postponed its renewal until it frustrated his ambition in 1884. The convention in 1876 met at Cincinnati, with Blaine the favorite, and Morton and Conkling dividing the Grant strength. The reform element, led by George William Curtis, supported Benjamin F. Bristow, of Kentucky, who had made an honorable record as Secretary of the Treasury, by attacking powerful rings, which through their connection with the President's friends succeeded in driving Bristow out of office. The choice of the convention fell on Rutherford B. Hayes, Union general, governor of Ohio, leader of a State campaign in 1875 which had been a decisive victory for sound money, and a man highly acceptable to the reformers. Against him the Democrats nominated Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, a statesman in his aims and the craftiest of politicians in his means; tolerant of Tammany Hall while it was a necessary factor in the party, but leader in the fierce and skilful a.s.sault which drove the Tweed ring from power. As Governor he had attacked and routed a formidable gang of plunderers connected with the ca.n.a.l management. On the issues which to thoughtful men were becoming paramount,--administrative reform and sound finance,--he offered as good promise as did Governor Hayes.

The two men, and the elements supporting them, stood for the new politics instead of the old,--the replacement of the war issues and their sequels by the matters of clean administration, sound currency, and interests common alike to the whole nation. But the Republican leaders found their best campaign material in what the slang of the time called "waving the b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+rt,"--reviving the cry of abuse of the freedmen, suppression of the negro vote, and the need of national protection for the nation's wards. It was out of keeping with Hayes's record, and with his later performances,--but he let the campaign take its way, and the sectional temper that was roused provided the atmosphere in which the next act of the drama was played.

Election day came: the returns indicated the election of Tilden; Democrats went to bed jubilant and Republicans regretful. Then, just before the night-editor of the New York _Times_ put his paper to press at 3 A.M., he noticed that the returns from South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida were hardly more than conjectural, and, on the chance of making his tables more complete, he sent a neighborly inquiry to the Republican headquarters as to whether they had definite returns from those States. The inquiry came to the ears of a little knot of the party managers, among them Zachariah Chandler, chairman of the national committee. He caught at it,--"the Democrats are not sure of those States,--we have a chance." Instantly--so the story goes--he sent dispatches to the party managers in the three States, "Claim everything." So they did--and so did he. Next morning, following the first announcement of Tilden's election, came the a.s.sertion that the Republicans had carried South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida--which would give Hayes a majority of one vote in the electoral college. All hung on the vote in those three States,--no, on the counting of the votes! The returning-board of Louisiana, which had before been so useful, was in full working order; Florida was similarly equiped; South Carolina was in much the same case. The boards had authority to throw out the entire vote of districts where there was proof that intimidation had tainted the election. The business of merely counting the votes might be supplemented by the operation of throwing out enough districts to leave the prize with the party that did the counting. It soon appeared that the returning boards could be trusted by their friends.

With all reasonable speed, they threw out enough votes to give all the doubtful States to Hayes. In each of these States an indignant and protesting opposition sent in a counter set of returns giving the electoral vote to Tilden. And any one of the three States would be enough to insure Tilden's election.

The controversy extended to the state governments--in South Carolina, both Wade Hampton and Chamberlain claimed the Governors.h.i.+p, and each had a Legislature organized to support him. The case was the same in Louisiana, with Nichols and Packard. President Grant refused recognition or active support to either party; but United States troops kept the peace, and their presence prevented the Democratic claimants from summarily ousting their opponents.

The whole country was in a storm of excitement. The returning-boards had done their counting,--but who was to judge the judges? Who was to decide which of the returns of Presidential electors were the valid ones? They were to be pa.s.sed on by the two Houses of Congress in joint session. But the Senate was Republican, the Representatives were Democratic,--what if they disagreed as to the returns? The President of the Senate is to decide, claimed the Republicans,--on very slender grounds, it must be said. The House of Representatives, said the Democrats,--with more plausible yet doubtful argument. The deadlock was alarming. Then the emergency was met with a self-control, a resourcefulness and efficiency, worthy of the best that is claimed for the American character. By general agreement of the moderate men of both parties, a special tribunal was const.i.tuted for the occasion. It consisted of five Senators, five Representatives, and five Justices of the Supreme Court.

The Congressmen were evenly divided between the two parties. The justices were two and two, with the fifth place a.s.signed to David Davis, an independent. It was an ideal division. But at the critical moment, Davis was chosen by the Illinois Legislature to the Senate, so that he could not act. As a subst.i.tute, Justice Joseph Bradley, was put on the commission. He was a Republican, but in the generous temper which had risen to meet the emergency, there was a general feeling that party lines would be forgotten by the tribunal. The commission consisted of Justices Bradley, Miller, Strong, Field and Clifford; Senators Edmunds, Morton, Frelinghuysen, Bayard and Sherman; Representatives G. F. h.o.a.r, Garfield, Payne, Hunton and Abbott.

The two Houses proceeded to count the electoral votes in the usual form, and whenever the return was contested the case was referred to the commission and debated before it. Each side had its ablest lawyers to plead; for the one party, Evarts, Ka.s.son, McCrary, Stoughton and Matthews; for the other, O'Conor, Black, Field and Tucker. The commission then made its decision; and the result was reported to the two Houses for their acceptance. In the pleading, the Republicans took their stand on legality and the Democrats on equity. The Democrats claimed as the question at issue, For whom did the majority of the people of the State give their votes? The Republicans made it, Whom does the official authority of the State certify as elected? When the commission came to vote, on the preliminary questions, it was apparent that the party line was just as rigid among its members as between the advocates who pled. And it was clear that the Republicans stood upon the narrowest possible construction of the case before them. For example, in the case of Louisiana, it was moved, first, that evidence be admitted that the returning body was an unconst.i.tutional body and its acts void.

No, said the Republican eight. Moved, next, that evidence be admitted that the board was illegal because its acting members were all of one party,--No. Moved, that evidence be admitted that the board threw out votes dishonestly and fraudulently,--No. In each case, the Republican eight refused to look a hair's breadth beyond the governor's seal to the returning board's certificate. In the same way they dealt with Florida and South Carolina.

Tilden's friends had contrived an ingenious scheme to put the commission in a dilemma. They had managed that there should be two returns from Oregon,--a Republican State where one of the three electors chosen was claimed to be disqualified,--the return bearing the Governor's seal naming one Democrat along with two Republican electors. They argued, Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; if the Governor's seal is taken as settling everything, we gain the one electoral vote we need; if, confronted by the Oregon case, the commission decide that they may go back of the governor's seal,--that opens the three Southern States to our rightful challenge. But the commission, or its Republican members, were not to be so easily posed; in the case of Oregon, they accepted the seal of the Secretary of State, certifying the three Republicans. As the Springfield _Republican_ bluntly put it, "The electoral commission decided that there was no way of recovering the stolen goods in the Louisiana case; it has found a way of restoring the Oregon vote to its rightful owner."

That the goods were stolen, at least in Louisiana, there can scarcely at this day be any doubt. Whether the commission did its duty in declining to investigate and right the wrong may be debated, but the judgment of history will probably say that neither equity nor statesmans.h.i.+p, but partisans.h.i.+p guided the decision. Undoubtedly in Louisiana, and probably in Florida, the returning board deliberately threw out some thousands of votes for no other reason than to change the State's vote, and the Presidency. The commission refused to correct or even investigate the wrong, on the plea of scrupulous respect for State rights. A great victory for the principle of local rights, argues Senator h.o.a.r in his autobiography. Possibly. But it is also open to say, that the general government having tolerated and supported an iniquitous local oligarchy, a special and supreme tribunal of the nation allowed that oligarchy to decide the Presidency by a fraud.

The popular judgment of the matter at the North was largely affected by the belief that the frauds of the Republicans were offset by intimidation on the part of the Democrats. In various parts of the South, notably in Mississippi and South Carolina, and probably in Louisiana, there was a wide terrorizing of the negro Republicans. "One side was about as bad as the other," was a common feeling. A year or two later, the New York _Tribune_ unearthed and translated a number of cipher telegrams, which disclosed that while the dispute over the result was going on, agents high in the confidence of the Democratic leaders made efforts to buy up a returning board or a presidential elector. So both parties were badly smirched, and the election and its sequel furnished one of the most desperate and disreputable pa.s.sages in American politics.

Yet the better sentiment of the country, triumphant in the creation of the commission, but baffled by its partisan action, shone clear again when the decision was deliberately and calmly accepted by the beaten party. Congress had reserved to itself the power to reverse by a concurrent vote of both Houses the commission's decision upon any State.

But each decision was accepted by a party vote, except that in the case of Louisiana two Ma.s.sachusetts Republicans, Julius H. Seelye and Henry L. Pierce, spoke and voted against their party. But when the final count gave a majority to Hayes, the formal declaration of the result was supported by all save about eighty irreconcilables, chiefly Northern Democrats, who were overborne in a stormy night session. It had become simply a question between order and anarchy, and the party of order, by a strange chance, was led for the occasion by Fernando Wood, the "copperhead" of earlier days. For the body of the Southern Democrats, Henry Watterson spoke manly words, accepting the inevitable with resolution and dignity. But among the influences that weighed with the Southern Congressmen was the a.s.surance from Hayes's friends that as President he would make an end of military interference in the South. In the giving of the a.s.surance there was nothing unworthy, for the withdrawal of the troops was dictated by the whole logic of recent events, and was in keeping with Hayes's convictions.

So, quickly following the inauguration of President Hayes came the withdrawal of the blue-coats from South Carolina and Louisiana and the Republican State governments tumbled like card houses. Nicholls took the governors.h.i.+p in New Orleans and Hampton in Columbia. But it was not by this act alone that the new President inaugurated a new regime. He called to his Cabinet as postmaster-general, David M. Key, of Tennessee, who had fought for the Confederacy. Schurz, liberal and reformer of the first rank, was given the department of the interior. Evarts in the State department; Devens, of Ma.s.sachusetts, as attorney-general; Sherman in the treasury, to complete the work of resumption; McCrary, of Iowa, and Thompson, of Indiana, for the war and navy; and Blaine, Morton, Conkling, Chandler,--nowhere. The administration went steadily on its way, little loved by the old party chiefs; under some shadow from the character of its t.i.tle; but doing good work, achieving resumption of specie payments; ending the administrative scandals which had grown worse to the end of Grant's term; reforming the civil service. It was a peaceful and beneficent revolution, and in its quiet years the Southern turmoils subsided, and for better or for worse South Carolina and Mississippi worked out their own way as New York and Ohio worked out theirs.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

REGENERATION

"Evil is good in the making," says the optimist philosopher. Even the more sober view of life reveals

That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.

Out of the calamities and horrors of war came to the nation a larger life. Communities had been lifted out of pettiness, churches had half forgotten their sectarianism, to millions of souls a sublimer meaning in life had been disclosed. Lowell said it in two lines:

Earth's biggest country's got her soul, And risen up earth's greatest nation.