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Title: The Reconstruction of Georgia
Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1901
Author: Edwin C. Woolley
Release Date: March 12, 2011 [EBook #35559]
Language: English
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3
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA
STUDIES IN HISTORY, ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC LAW
EDITED BY THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE OF
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
VOLUME XIII] [NUMBER 3
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA
BY EDWIN C. WOOLLEY, Ph.D.
New York
THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, AGENTS
LONDON: P. S. KING & SON
1901
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
Presidential Reconstruction 9
CHAPTER II
The Johnson Government 16
CHAPTER III
Congress and the Johnson Governments--The Reconstruction
Acts of 1867 24
CHAPTER IV
The Administrations of Pope and Meade 38
CHAPTER V
The Supposed Restoration of 1868 49
CHAPTER VI
The Expulsion of the Negroes from the Legislature and
the Uses to which this Event was applied 56
CHAPTER VII
Congressional Action Regarding Georgia from December,
1868, to December, 1869 63
CHAPTER VIII
The Execution of the Act of December 22, 1869, and the
Final Restoration 72
CHAPTER IX
Reconstruction and the State Government 87
CHAPTER X
Conclusion 109
Bibliography 111
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
A. A. C. = American Annual Cyclopaedia.
B. A. = Address of Bullock to the people of Georgia, a pamphlet dated
1872.
B. L. = Letter from Bullock to the chairman of the Ku Klux Committee,
published in Atlanta in 1871.
C. G. = Congressional Globe.
C. R. = Report of the State Comptroller.
E. D. = United States Executive Documents.
E. M. = Executive Minutes (of Georgia).
G. O. D. S. = General Orders issued in the Department of the South.
G. O. H. = General Orders issued from the headquarters of the army.
G. O. M. D. G. = General Orders issued in the Military District of
Georgia.
G. O. T. M. D. = General Orders issued in the Third Military District.
H. J. = Journal of the Georgia House of Representatives.
H. M. D. = United States House Miscellaneous Documents.
J. C., 1865 = Journal of the Georgia Constitutional Convention of 1865.
J. C., 1867-8 = Journal of the Georgia Constitutional Convention of
1867-8.
K. K. R. = Ku Klux Report (Report of the Joint Committee of Congress on
the Conditions in the Late Insurrectionary States, submitted at the 2d
session of the 42d Congress, 1872).
M. C. U. = Milledgeville _Confederate Union_.
M. F. U. = Milledgeville _Federal Union_.
R. C. = Reports of Committees of the United States House of
Representatives.
R. S. W. = Report of the Secretary of War.
S. D. = United States Senate Documents.
S. J. = Journal of the Georgia Senate.
S. L. = Session Laws of Georgia.
S. R. = United States Senate Reports.
S. O. M. D. G. = Special Orders issued in the Military District of
Georgia.
S. O. T. M. D. = Special Orders issued in the Third Military District.
U. S. L. = United States Statutes at Large.
CHAPTER I
PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION
The question, what political disposition should be made of the Confederate
States after the destruction of their military power, began to be
prominent in public discussion in December, 1863. It was then that
President Lincoln announced his policy upon the subject, which was to
restore each state to its former position in the Union as soon as
one-tenth of its population had taken the oath of allegiance prescribed in
his amnesty proclamation and had organized a state government pledged to
abolish slavery. This policy Lincoln applied to those states which were
subdued by the federal forces during his administration, viz., Tennessee,
Arkansas and Louisiana. When the remaining states of the Confederacy
surrendered in 1865, President Johnson applied the same policy, with some
modifications, to each of them (except Virginia, where he simply
recognized the Pierpont government).
Before this policy was put into operation, however, an effort was made by
some of the leaders of the Confederacy to secure the restoration of those
states to the Union without the reconstruction and the pledge required by
the President. After the surrender of Lee's army (April 9, 1865), General
J. E. Johnston, acting under the authority of Jefferson Davis and with the
advice of Breckenridge, the Confederate Secretary of War, and Reagan, the
Confederate Postmaster General, proposed to General Sherman the surrender
of all the Confederate armies then in existence on certain conditions.
Among these was the condition that the executive of the United States
should recognize the lately hostile state governments upon the renewal by
their officers of their oath of allegiance to the federal Constitution,
and that the people of the states so recognized should be guaranteed, so
far as this lay in the power of the executive, their political rights as
defined by the federal Constitution. Sherman signed a convention with
Johnston agreeing to these terms, on April 18. That he intended by the
agreement to commit the federal government to any permanent policy is
doubtful. But when the convention was communicated for ratification to his
superiors at headquarters, they showed the most decided opposition to
granting the terms proposed even temporarily. The convention was
emphatically disavowed, and on April 26 Sherman had to content himself
with the surrender of Johnston's army only, agreed to on purely military
terms.[1]
Georgia formed a part of the district under the command of General
Johnston. As soon, therefore, as the news of the surrender could reach
that state, hostilities there ceased. On May 3, Governor Brown issued a
summons for a meeting of the state legislature to take place on May 22, in
order that measures might be taken "to prevent anarchy, restore and
preserve order, and save what [could be saved] of liberty and
civilization."[2] At a time of general consternation, when military
operations had displaced local government and closed the courts in many
places, when the whole population was in want[3] through the devastation
of the war or through the collapse of the Confederate currency which
followed the collapse of the Confederate army,[4] the need of such
measures was apparent.
The calling of the legislature incurred the disapproval of the federal
authorities for two reasons. First, they regarded it as an attempt to
prepare for further hostilities, and they accordingly arrested Brown,
carried him to Washington, and put him in prison.[5] Second, in any case,
as the disavowal of the convention of April 18 had shown, they did not
intend to allow the state governments of the South to resume their regular
activities at once, and accordingly the commander of the Department of the
South issued orders on May 15, declaring void the proclamation of Joseph
E. Brown, "styling himself Governor of Georgia," and forbidding obedience
thereto.[6]
The federal army now took control of the entire state government.
Detachments were stationed in all the principal towns and county seats,
and the commanders sometimes removed the civil officers and appointed
others, sometimes allowed them to remain, subject to their direction.
Military orders were issued regarding a wide range of civil affairs, such
as school administration, sanitary provisions, the regulation of trade,
the fixing of prices at which commodities should be sold, etc.[7] The
provost marshal's courts were further useful, to some extent, as
substitutes for the state courts, whose operations were largely
interrupted.[8] Directions to the officers of the Department admonished
them that "the military authority should sustain, not assume the functions
of, civil authority," except when the latter course was necessary to
preserve the peace.[9] This admonition from headquarters, issued after the
President's plan for reinstating Georgia in the Union had been put into
operation, reflects his desire for a quick restoration of normal
government.
President Johnson announced his policy toward the seceded states in his
proclamation of May 29, 1865, regarding North Carolina. By it a
provisional governor was appointed for that state, with the duty of making
the necessary arrangements for the meeting of a constitutional convention,
to be composed of and elected by men who had taken the oath of allegiance
prescribed by, the President's amnesty proclamation of the same date, and
who were qualified voters according to the laws of the state in force
before the war. The proclamation did not state what the President would
require of the convention, but we may mention by way of anticipation that
his requirements were the revocation of the ordinance of secession, the
construction of a new state government in place of the rebel government,
the repudiation of the rebel debt, and the abolition of slavery within the
state. The provisional governor was further authorized to do whatever was
"necessary and proper to enable [the] loyal people of the state of North
Carolina to restore said state to its constitutional relations to the
federal government."[10]
For each of the states subdued in 1865, except Virginia, a provisional
governor was appointed by a similar proclamation. On June 17, James
Johnson, a citizen of Georgia, was appointed to the position in that
state.[11] On July 13th, he issued a proclamation providing for the
election of the convention. Delegates were distributed on the basis of the
legislature of 1860; the first Wednesday in October was set for the
election, and the fourth Wednesday in the same month for the meeting of
the convention.[12] Next, the provisional governor undertook the task of
securing popular support to the programme of restoration. To encourage
subscription to the amnesty oath (a prerequisite to voting for delegates
to the convention) he removed the disagreeable necessity of taking it
before the military authorities by directing the ordinary and the clerk of
the Superior Court of each county to administer it.[13] He made many
speeches throughout the state urging the citizens to take the amnesty
oath, to enter earnestly into the election of the convention, and to
submit quietly to the conditions imposed by the President.
His efforts were very successful. This was partly due to the place he held
in public estimation. He was a lawyer widely known and universally
respected. It was also partly due to the attitude of Governor Brown.
Brown, after a confinement of several weeks in prison at Washington,
secured an interview with President Johnson, and satisfied the President
that his object in calling the legislature was simply public relief, that
he had no intention to prolong the war, but calmly submitted to the fact
that his side was defeated.[14] This explanation and the spirit displayed
were so satisfactory to Johnson that Brown was released, and permitted to
return to Georgia. His return, remarked Johnson, "can be turned to good
account. He will at once go to work and do all he can in restoring the
state."[15] This prediction proved correct. The war governor of Georgia
became the type of those Secessionists who practised and counseled quiet
acceptance of the terms imposed by the conqueror, as the most sensible and
advantageous course. On June 29th he issued an address to the people of
Georgia, resigning the governorship, and advising acquiescence in the
abolition of slavery and active participation in the reorganization of the
state government according to the President's wishes.[16] The assumption
of this attitude by Brown grieved and offended some of his fellow
Secessionists. But the majority shared his opinion. The provisional
governor was welcomed, and his speeches approved on all sides.[17] The
result was that the convention which met on October 25th was a body
distinguished for the reputation and ability of its members.
The convention was called to order by the provisional governor, and chose
as permanent chairman Herschel V. Johnson.[18] Then a message from the
provisional governor was read, suggesting certain measures of finance and
other state business requiring immediate action, suggesting also certain
alterations in the state judiciary, but especially pointing out the chief
objects of the convention, viz., the passage of those acts requisite for
the restoration of the state.[19] These measures the convention quickly
proceeded to pass. On October 26th it repealed the ordinance of secession
and the ordinance ratifying the Confederate constitution;[20] by paragraph
20 of article I. of the new constitution it abolished slavery in the
state; and on November 8th, the last day of the session, it declared the
state debt contracted to aid the Confederacy void.[21] The convention
provided for a general state election on the following November 15th, and
to expedite complete restoration, anticipated the regular work of the
legislature by creating congressional districts, in order that Georgia's
representatives might be chosen at that election.[22]
One thing now remained to be done before the President would withdraw
federal power and leave the state to its own government, viz.,
ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment. The legislature elected on
November 15th assembled on December 4th.[23] The provisional governor,
according to the President's directions,[24] laid the Thirteenth Amendment
before it. The Amendment was ratified on December 9th.[25] After this the
provisional governor was relieved, the governor elect was inaugurated
(December 14th), and the President sent a courteous message of recognition
to the latter.[26]
Thus the President, having reconstructed the state government, had
restored Georgia to statehood so far as its internal government was
concerned. There remained only the admission of its representatives to
Congress to complete the restoration.
CHAPTER II
THE JOHNSON GOVERNMENT
From the conduct of the state governments formed in Georgia and the other
southern states under the direction of President Johnson, the public
opinion of the North drew conclusions regarding three things; the
disposition of the people represented by those governments toward the
emancipated slaves, their attitude toward the cause for which they had
fought, and their feeling toward the power which had subdued them. This
chapter treats the Johnson government of Georgia from the same points of
view.
Whatever may have been the prevailing disposition of the white people
toward the slaves while slavery flourished, shortly before the close of
the war that disposition was characterized by benevolence and gratitude.
In spite of the opportunities of escape, and of plunder and other
violence, offered by the times, the slaves had acted with singular
faithfulness and devotion.[27] The gratitude of their masters even went so
far as to propose plans for the general education of the negroes.[28]
The close of the war and the advent of emancipation produced a change in
the conduct of the negroes, which in time produced a change in the
attitude of the white people. The negroes, from the talk which they heard
and did not understand, and from their ignorant imaginations, conceived
strange ideas of emancipation. They supposed it meant governmental
bounty, idleness, and wealth. They abandoned their work, wandered about
the country, collected in towns--in short, manifested a general
restlessness and demoralization. This caused alarm and apprehension among
the white people. There were other causes of friction between the two
races. Many negroes, on discovering that they were free, assumed what are
known as "airs;" and then as now, among things intolerable to a southern
white man a "sassy nigger" held a curious pre-eminence. The airs of the
negro and the wrath of the white man were both augmented by officious
members of the Freedmen's Bureau. Moreover, because the negroes had gained
by the humiliation of the South, they received a share of the venom of
defeat. Another element of discord was furnished by a particular part of
the white population, the so-called poor whites. These saw in the new
_protégés_ of the United States not only a rival laboring class, but a
menace to their social position, and hence assumed an attitude of jealousy
and hatred. Such were the conditions favorable to social disturbance which
followed emancipation. In the latter part of 1865 they had already begun
to produce their natural result. Violent encounters between negroes and
white men (in which the latter were almost always the aggressors) were
noticeably frequent.[29]
To this social demoralization was added economic distress and perplexity.
The devastation of the war had fallen with especial severity upon Georgia.
Worse still, the people seemed unable to repair the damage or to return to
productive activity. Planters seemed unable to adapt themselves to the new
economic conditions. Slavery, the system which they understood, was gone;
they used the new system with little success, all the less because of the
restlessness of the negroes.
Such were the conditions and dangers with which the Johnson government had
to deal as it best could. It was believed by northern statesmen that the
situation would be mastered by enfranchising the negroes and investing
them with a citizenship exactly equal to that of white persons.[30] The
Georgia constitution of 1865 made it clear that the Georgia law-makers
were not disciples of that school. That constitution confined the
electoral franchise to "free white male citizens."[31] It ordered the
legislature at its first session "to provide by law for the government of
free persons of color," for "guarding them and the state against any evil
that may arise from their sudden emancipation," and "for the regulation of
their transactions with citizens;" also "to create county courts with
jurisdiction in criminal cases excepted from the exclusive jurisdiction of
the Superior [county] Court, and in civil cases whereto free persons of
color may be parties," and to make rules "prescribing in what cases their
testimony shall be admitted in the courts."[32]
The legislation enacted in 1866 in the interest of the public peace and
order consisted of--
1. An apprentice law. By this it was made the duty of the judges of the
county courts to bind out minors whose parents were dead or unable to
support them as apprentices until the age of twenty-one. A master
receiving an apprentice under this law was to teach him a trade, furnish
him food, clothes, and medicine, teach him habits of industry, honesty,
and morality, teach him to read the English language, and govern him with
humanity. On default of any of these requirements a master was to be
fined. The judge having charge of this law might, on application from an
apprentice or an apprentice's friend, dissolve the contract on account of
cruelty on the part of the master. An apprentice at the end of his term
was entitled to an allowance from the master "with which to begin life."
The amount was left to the master's generosity, but if he offered less
than $100 the apprentice might complain to the court, which should then
fix the amount.[33]
2. A vagrancy law. Vagrancy was defined in the usual language of our
criminal codes. The penalty was heavier than these usually provide,
because the need of suppressing the vice was more urgent than usual. A
vagrant might be fined or imprisoned at the discretion of the court, or
sentenced to labor on the public works for not more than one year; or he
might, at the discretion of the court "be bound out to some person for a
time not more than one year, upon such valuable consideration as the court
may prescribe."[34]
3. Alterations in the penal laws. These alterations were of two
contrasting kinds. The penalty for burglary in the night, arson, horse
stealing and rape was changed from long imprisonment[35] to death,[36]
which, however, might be in every case commuted to life imprisonment.[37]
On the other hand, several hundred crimes, including all the species of
larceny except that mentioned above, were reduced from felonies to
misdemeanors, and the penalties from imprisonment in the penitentiary to
fine, imprisonment in the county jail, or whipping, at the discretion of
the court.[38] This mitigation of punishment was made in consideration of
the negroes' ignorance of the nature of their offences, due to the fact
that these had before been punished by their masters and not by the law.
Probably the capacity of the penitentiary was also considered.
To facilitate the transition from the old labor system to the new by
remedying in some degree the instability of the labor supply, the
legislature made it a crime to employ any servant during the term for
which he had contracted to work for another, or to induce a servant to
quit the service of an employer before the close of the period contracted
for.[39]
Regarding the civil rights and relations of the negroes the following
legislation was passed:
1. A law in these words:
That persons of color shall have the right to make and enforce
contracts; to sue, be sued; to be parties and give evidence; to
inherit; to purchase, lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal
property; and to have full and equal benefit of all laws and
proceedings for the security of person and estate; and shall not be
subject to any other or different punishment, pain or penalty for the
commission of any act or offence than such as are prescribed for
white persons committing like acts or offences.[40]
2. A provision, implied in the law above quoted, that negroes were to be
held competent witnesses in all courts in cases, civil or criminal,
whereto persons of color should be parties.[41]
3. Certain provisions for establishing among the negroes the regular
relations between husband and wife, parent and child, in place of the
irregular relations which had prevailed under slavery.[42]
4. The prohibition of marriage between negroes and white persons.[43]
This last provision, and also the exclusion of the testimony of negroes
from cases whereto a colored person was not party, are of social rather
than legal importance, since their effect was to separate the two races,
but not to deprive the negroes of the equal protection and benefit of the
law. They were like the school law, which provided that only "free white
inhabitants of the state" were entitled to instruction in the public
schools.[44]
The Johnson government thus assigned to the negroes a position of
political incapacity, social inferiority, but equality of civil rights.
This plan was very remote from that in favor in the North, but it is not
thereby condemned. As to the measures of the Johnson government for
remedying industrial distress and guarding against social dangers, we
search them in vain for the inhuman harshness to the negroes which they
were reputed to embody. This legislation of Georgia was more favorable to
the negroes than that of the other Johnson governments. But the North
looked at the conquered South as a whole, and if the difference of the
laws of Georgia from those of other states was noticed, it was quickly
forgotten. To northern public opinion the scheme for the treatment of the
negroes embodied in the Georgia laws, even if its mildness had been
recognized, would have been a cause of indignation. This was the
consummate hour of a humanitarian enthusiasm sprung from forty years of
anti-slavery agitation, and now intensified by the passions of the war. In
such an hour a plan which frankly denied to the negroes political and
social equality was looked upon as an offence against justice and
humanity. The Georgia law-makers had sought for a plan to meet immediate
necessities, not a plan for the elevation of the black race. To demand
that Georgia, stricken and menaced as she was, should pass by the needs of
the present and enter upon a vague scheme of philanthropy, was
unreasonable. It was just as unreasonable to conclude from the course
which Georgia took, that the black race in Georgia would be forever held
down, or that positive encouragement would be withheld as time went on.
Nevertheless the public opinion of the North made this demand and drew
these conclusions.
Having stated the attitude of the Johnson government to the emancipated
slave, we next come to its attitude toward the fallen Confederacy and
toward the federal government. And with reference to this subject the
following facts are to be noticed:
1. Almost the first act of the constitutional convention was to vote a
memorial to the President in behalf of Jefferson Davis.[45]
2. The convention, instead of declaring that the ordinance of secession
was an act of illegality and error, and was null and void, laconically
declared it "repealed."[46]
3. The convention anticipated the function of the legislature in order to
provide pensions for the wounded Confederate soldiers and for widows of
the dead.[47]
Through the legislature Georgia showed herself equally frank in expressing
affection and regret for the lost cause, and equally wanting in an
attitude of humility to the federal government--or at least to the
dominant party in Congress. On the recommendation of the governor she
rejected the Fourteenth Amendment by an almost unanimous vote, largely
because of the disabilities it imposed on the leaders of the
Confederacy.[48] Instead of remaining a humbly silent spectator of the
controversy between the President and Congress, she boldly thanked the
President for his "regard for the constitutional rights of states," and
for "the determined will that says to a still hostile faction of her
recent foes, 'Thus far shalt thou go and no farther. Peace, be
still.'"[49] She continued to provide for the unfortunate champions of
the Confederacy, characterizing this action as "a holy and patriotic
duty."[50] She extended expressions of "sincerest condolence and warmest
sympathy" to the illustrious state prisoner, Jefferson Davis, declaring
that her "warmest affections cluster[ed] around the fallen chief of a once
dear but now abandoned cause."[51]
These acts and resolutions expressed through the government the spirit
which was found among the people by direct observers--a spirit of
submission to irresistible force, in some cases sullen, in most cases
unrepentant.[52] At that time the absence of that spirit would have been
extraordinary. But the public opinion of the North regarded it not as the
aftermath of war, which would soon pass, but as a spirit which, if left
undisciplined, would break out in another war.
This belief, and the belief that the negroes were destined by the southern
governments to suffer injustice and debasement, and that the ballot was
their only salvation, gave rise to two corresponding purposes--to chasten
the rebellious spirit of the South, and to invest the negroes with the
voting franchise by force. To destroy the state governments of the South
and rebuild them on a basis of negro suffrage would accomplish both these
purposes. This plan was also supported for the sake of a third purpose,
viz., to secure for the Republican party the votes of the negroes. There
were thus three classes of men bent on abolishing the Johnson government.
We may call them the Disciplinarians, the Humanitarians, and the
Republican Politicians.
CHAPTER III
CONGRESSIONAL DELIBERATIONS AND ACTIONS CONCERNING THE JOHNSON
GOVERNMENTS, ENDING IN THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS OF 1867
When Congress met on December 4, 1865, President Johnson informed it of
the measures he had taken for restoring the southern states and of the
conditions he had required as necessary to restoration. He emphasized the
requirement that the Thirteenth Amendment be ratified (which, as stated in
Chapter I, was complied with in Georgia five days later).
It is not too much to ask [he said], in the name of the whole people,
that, on the one side, the plan of restoration shall proceed in
conformity with a willingness to cast the disorders of the past into
oblivion; and that, on the other, the evidence of sincerity in the
future maintenance of the Union shall be put beyond any doubt by the
ratification of the proposed amendment.... The amendment to the
Constitution being adopted, it would remain for the states ... to
resume their places in the two branches of the national
legislature.[53]
That Congress was not entirely pleased with the President's course; that
it did not agree with him considering the adoption of the Thirteenth
Amendment, the most that could be asked of the southern states, and that
it did not intend to give effect to his last suggestion, soon became
apparent. In the Senate, on the day on which the President's message was
read, Sumner offered resolutions to the effect that before the southern
states should be admitted to representation in Congress they must
enfranchise "all citizens," establish systems of education open to negroes
equally with white people, and choose loyal persons for state and
national offices.[54] The resolutions concluded: "That the states cannot
be precipitated back to political power and independence, but they must
wait until these conditions are in all respects fulfilled."[55]
The House of Representatives, after organizing, immediately proposed to
the Senate a joint committee to "inquire into the condition of the states
which formed the so-called Confederate States of America, and report
whether they, or any of them, are entitled to be represented in either
house of Congress." The Senate accepted the proposal, and on December 13
the committee was formed.[56]
Five months passed before the committee reported. During that interval
Congress took no action determining the question at issue. A vast number
of bills and resolutions was introduced proposing various modes of
treatment for the southern states and various theories regarding their
status, which are interesting to the historian, but all of which fell by
the way. The Freedmen's Bureau Bill, if it had become law during this
period, would have implied that in the opinion of Congress the late
Confederate States were simply territory of the United States and not
states in the Union.[57] But this bill failed to be repassed over the
President's veto.[58] The Civil Rights Bill, which became law on April 9,
1866, made it a crime to discriminate against any person on account of his
race or color under the alleged authority of any state law or custom, gave
the federal judicial authorities power to arrest and punish any person
guilty of this offense, and also gave the federal courts jurisdiction
over any case before a state court in which such discrimination was
attempted.[59] This law created entirely new relations between federal and
state authority, but since it was passed as an act to enforce the
Thirteenth Amendment,[60] and applied to all states alike, it committed
Congress to no declaration regarding the status of the southern states.
The joint committee made its long-expected report on April 30, 1866.[61] A
great number of witnesses had been examined regarding conditions in the
South, whose testimony fills a large volume and purports to be the basis
of the committee's report. The committee thought that since the Johnson
governments had been set up under the military authority of the President
and were merely instruments through which he had exercised that power in
governing conquered territory, they were not regular state governments.
This belief was confirmed by the fact that the existing state
constitutions had been framed by conventions acting under the constant
direction of the President, and also by the fact that they had not been
submitted to the people for adoption. The Johnson governments then were
not state governments at all, and so could not send representatives to
Congress.
The committee appealed less to this constitutional argument than to
arguments of policy. It was willing to grant the "profitless abstraction"
that the southern states still remained states. The people of those states
had waged war on the United States. Though subdued, they were defiant,
disloyal, and abusive. They showed no disposition to abate their hatred
for the Union or their affection for the Confederacy. To accord to such a
people entire independence, taking no measures for security from future
danger; to admit their representatives to Congress; to allow conquered
enemies "to participate in making laws for their conquerors;" to turn over
to the custody of recent enemies the treasury, the army, the whole
administration--this would be madness unexampled.
For these reasons the committee recommended a joint resolution and two
bills. The resolution proposed an amendment to the Constitution forbidding
any state to abridge the civil rights of citizens of the United States, or
to deny to any person the equal protection of the laws, providing that a
state which withheld the electoral franchise from negroes should suffer a
deduction from its Congressional representation, and providing that until
1870 all adherents to the Confederacy should be excluded from voting for
members of Congress and for Presidential electors. The first of the two
bills was to enact "that whenever the above recited amendment [should]
have become a part of the Constitution of the United States, and any state
lately in insurrection [should] have ratified the same, and [should] have
modified its constitution and laws in accordance therewith," then its
representatives might be admitted to Congress. The second bill was to make
ineligible to office under the United States men who had been prominent in
the service of the Confederacy.
A minority of the committee took issue with the majority on both its legal
and its political views. The states under consideration, said the
minority, had never gone out of the Union; therefore, being states of the
Union, Congress could not lawfully deprive them of their rights as states.
That the Johnson governments were only the machinery of military
occupation, set up by the conquering general, was denied.
We know [said the minority report] that [the southern states] have
governments completely organized, with legislative, executive, and
judicial functions. We know that they are now in successful
operation; no one within their limits questions their legality, or is
denied their protection. How they were formed, under what auspices
they were formed, are inquiries with which Congress has no concern.
A state is under no restriction as to the mode of altering its
constitution; if it chooses to receive assistance from the President, or
any one else, the validity of the amended constitution is not affected.
To the statement of the majority regarding the disposition of the southern
people, the minority opposed the high authority of General Grant. In an
official report he had said:
I am satisfied that the mass of thinking men of the South accept the
present situation of affairs in good faith.... [They] are in earnest
in wishing to do what they think is required by the government ...
and if such a course was pointed out they would pursue it in good
faith.
The right way in which to deal with the southern people was, then, to
conciliate them, as the President had tried to do, not to perpetuate their
hostility.
If Congress adopted the program recommended by the majority, said the
minority, it would repudiate its own solemn declaration made in 1861,
that this war is not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression,
nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or
established institutions of those states, but to defend and maintain
the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with
all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several states
unimpaired.[62]
The proposed provisions regarding ineligibility would dishonor the
government by annulling the pardons granted by the President. Further, the
program contradicted itself, since it proposed to treat the southern
communities as states, in submitting a constitutional amendment to them,
while at the same time imposing on them conditions to which a state could
not lawfully be subjected.
After a debate of which these two opposing reports are a convenient
summary, Congress adopted the program of the committee. The joint
resolution, changed into a form embodying the present Fourteenth
Amendment, was passed on June 13, 1866.[63] The two bills proposed were
taken up, but Congress adjourned without bringing them to a final vote,
leaving the South to be regulated during the recess by the Civil Rights
Act, and by an act, passed over the President's veto on July 16, embodying
in a less drastic form the provisions of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill which
had failed in February.[64]
When Congress met in December, 1866, the same voluminous mass of
reconstruction proposals and declaratory resolutions appeared in both
houses as at the last session. But the denunciation of the President and
of the Johnson governments was more emphatic in these bills and
resolutions, as well as in the debates. Sumner proposed a resolution to
this effect:
That all proceedings with a view to reconstruction originating in
executive power are in the nature of usurpation; that this usurpation
becomes especially offensive when it sets aside the fundamental
truths of our institutions; that it is shocking to common sense when
it undertakes to derive new governments from the hostile populations
which have just been engaged in armed rebellion, and that all
governments having such origin are necessarily illegal and void.[65]
Another resolution proposed that the committee of the House on territories
be instructed to take steps for organizing the districts known as
Virginia, North Carolina, etc., into states. Cullom said in a speech:
During the last session of this Congress we sent to the country a
proposed amendment to the Constitution.... The people of the rebel
states by their pretended legislatures are treating it with scorn and
contempt.... It is time, sir, that the people of the states were
informed in language not to be misunderstood that the people who
saved this country are going to reconstruct it in their own way, the
opposition of rebels to the contrary notwithstanding.[66]
Another fact which appeared prominently in the speeches and resolutions of
this session was the growing fear, real or assumed, that freedmen and
loyal persons in the South were in mortal danger. Bills for their
protection were introduced by the dozen.
Shall we shut our eyes [said a speaker] to the abuse and murders of
loyal men in the South, and the continued destruction of their
property by wicked men, and give them no means of protection?[67]
Stevens exclaimed that the United States would be disgraced
unless Congress proceed[ed] at once to do something to protect these
people from the barbarians who [were] daily murdering them; who
[were] murdering the loyal whites daily, and daily putting into
secret graves not only hundreds but thousands of the colored
people.[68]
At first the lower house resumed its consideration of the bills
recommended at the last session by the joint committee. But early in
February, 1867, these were dropped in favor of a new bill. This was the
Reconstruction Bill which became law on March 2. It provided that the
South should be divided into five districts, each to comprise the
territory of one or more of the southern states. The President should
assign to each district a military officer not below the rank of
brigadier-general, and should detail for his use a sufficient military
force. The duties of these officers should be "to protect all persons in
their rights of person and property, to suppress insurrection, disorder
and violence, and to punish, or cause to be punished, disturbers of the
public peace and criminals." To this end they might either allow local
courts to exercise their usual jurisdiction or organize special military
courts, for the procedure of which a few general regulations were provided
in the bill. Until the states should be by law restored to the Union, the
governments existing in them were declared "provisional only, and in all
respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States, at any
time to abolish, modify, control or suspend the same."
In section 5 of this bill were stated the conditions upon which the
southern states might regain their places in the Union. In each of them a
constitutional convention should be elected. For members of this
convention all male "citizens" of the voting age should vote, except those
excluded from office by the pending Fourteenth Amendment. These were
forbidden to sit in the convention or to vote for delegates. The
convention thus formed should frame a new constitution, which should give
the franchise to all persons qualified to vote for delegates by the
present bill. The constitution should be submitted to the people of the
state for ratification, and to Congress for approval. When these should
have been received, and when the legislature elected under the new
constitution should have ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, then Congress
should pass an act admitting the reconstructed state to Congressional
representation, and the present law should cease to operate in that
state.[69]
The principle of this bill was the same as that of the reconstruction
measures first undertaken at the suggestion of the joint committee, namely
the punishment of an enemy. The debate in the House was opened by a
felicitous quotation from Vattel on the public law applicable to the case
of a conquered enemy.[70] The punishment here provided was, however, more
severe than that first proposed. The former program was designed to offer
to the states the alternative of adopting the Fourteenth Amendment or
remaining out of the Union and under the Freedman's Bureau--which was,
indeed, regarded as a very obnoxious alternative. But the present bill
required them not only to ratify the amendment, but to adopt new
constitutions, elect new governments, enfranchise the negroes, and
disfranchise their most prominent and respected citizens; and meanwhile
imposed upon them not simply a bureau, to interfere in individual cases,
but the virtually absolute rule of a military governor.
This bill was passed over Johnson's veto on March 2, 1867. On March 23 a
supplementary act was passed, providing means for executing section 5 of
the preceding act. The initiative in calling the constitutional
conventions, instead of being left to the states, to be exercised or not,
as they chose, was now assigned to the military governor. He, with the
assistance of such boards of registry as he might create, was directed to
register all persons qualified to vote for delegates. He should then fix
the number of delegates and arrange the plan of representation, set the
day for election and summon the convention.[71]
A third reconstruction act was passed on July 19, 1867. It is unnecessary
to discuss it, since it was only explanatory of the acts of March 2 and
23, and added nothing which needs mention here to their provisions.[72]
* * * * *
Were the Reconstruction Acts constitutional? Since the Supreme Court has
failed, either voluntarily or otherwise, to decide every case brought
before it depending upon this question,[73] reasoning is not rendered idle
by authority. The Supreme Court has indeed expressed a definite opinion on
the subject, but has given no decision.
The opinion referred to was expressed in the case of Texas _versus_
White.[74] The Court said:
These new relations [namely, those created by the civil war] imposed
new duties upon the United States. The first was that of suppressing
the rebellion. The next was that of re-establishing the broken
relations of the states with the Union. The authority for the
performance of the first had been found in the power to suppress
insurrection and to carry on war; for the performance of the second,
authority was derived from the obligation of the United States to
guarantee to every state a republican form of government.
This the Court considered good authority for the passage of the
Reconstruction Acts. Most of the advocates of the acts based them upon
this theory.
Now, upon that clause of Article IV., Section 4, of the Constitution which
says: "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a
republican form of government," the _Federalist_ remarks:
It may possibly be asked whether [this clause] may not become a
pretext for alterations in the state governments without the
concurrence of the states themselves.... But the authority extends no
further than to a _guarantee_ [the _Federalist's_ italics] of a
republican form of government, which supposes a pre-existing
government of the form which is to be guaranteed.[75]
The intention of the clause, says the _Federalist_ in the same paper, is
simply to guard "against aristocratic or monarchic innovations." To one
not interested in establishing the constitutionality of the Reconstruction
Acts, it seems indisputable that the clause is rightly interpreted by the
_Federalist_. Story accepts this interpretation as a matter of course.[76]
Cooley groups the clause with that which forbids the states to grant
titles of nobility.[77] If this interpretation is correct, then the
guarantee clause gives no authority for destroying a state government of a
republican form and substituting another.
There is, however, a constitutional basis for the Reconstruction Acts. It
is the war power of Congress.
If a section of the people of a stale rebel against the government, the
resulting contest is not a war, in the sense of international law. But as
it may assume the physical character of a war, so it may call into
existence the rights and customs incident to war. Upon this principle the
federal government acquired the rights of war in the contest of
1861-1865.[78] Now the rights of war do not end with military operations;
one of these rights is the right of the victorious party, after an
unconditional surrender, to occupy the territory of the defeated party, to
govern or punish the people as it sees fit. If the United States
government acquired the rights of war, this right was included. The close
of a war is not simultaneous with the cessation of fighting. The surrender
of the southern armies was an important incident in the civil war; it was
not the end. If the federal government had the rights of war before this
incident, it had them after.
The United States government might therefore say to the persons composing
the military power which it had subdued: As the terms of war, you are to
be governed by military government. If the persons against whom this
sentence is assumed to have been pronounced formed the majority of the
population of a state, one result of the sentence would be to suspend
independent state government. The United States government might choose
another punishment. It might say to the lately hostile persons: We forbid
you to participate in the federal government. If the persons so sentenced
form the majority of the population of a state, that state can send no
representatives to Congress while the sentence remains. These sentences
might be imposed permanently or only until such time as the people
sentenced should fulfil certain demands--hold certain conventions, pass
certain laws, adopt certain resolutions in certain ways. The federal
government can thus effect through its war powers what it cannot effect
through any power to interfere directly with a state government. It had no
right to reconstruct the government of Maine in 1865, because Maine had no
body of people over whom the federal government could exercise war powers.
It had the right to reconstruct the government of Georgia, because
nine-tenths of the people of Georgia were lawfully at its mercy as a
conqueror.
Even if it be admitted, however, that the federal government had the power
described, it may still be argued that the Reconstruction Acts are not
legally justified. A conqueror has a right to govern a conquered people as
he pleases and as long as he pleases; he also has a right to alter his
mode of treatment and substitute another mode. But after he has imposed
certain terms as final, after the requirements of these terms have been
complied with, after he has restored the conquered people to their normal
position and rights and has unmistakably terminated the relation of
conqueror to conquered--then his rights of war are at an end. It may be
argued that this was the case when the Reconstruction Acts were passed. It
may be argued that in December, 1865, the federal government had, through
the President, terminated its capacity as a conqueror, and could regain
that capacity only by another war; that after that termination it had no
more power to reconstruct Georgia than to reconstruct Maine.
This argument is irrefutable if we assume that the President had full
power to act for the federal government in the disposition of the defeated
Secessionists, and that therefore his acts of 1865 were the acts of the
federal government. In case of an international war, which is closed by a
treaty, the President may (if supported by the Senate) act finally for the
federal government, and estop that government (so far as international law
is concerned) from further action. But at the close of a civil war he
cannot exercise his diplomatic power. The disposition of the defeated
people in this case falls to the legislative branch of the government.
If the President had pardoned a great majority of the Secessionists, that
fact perhaps might have legally estopped Congress from passing the
Reconstruction Acts. These acts were a war punishment, and a pardon cuts
off further punishment.[79] But the total number of persons who received
amnesty under the proclamation of May 29, 1865, was 13,596,[80] which was
of course only a small fraction of the Secessionist population.
The passage of the Reconstruction Acts may thus be regarded, from a legal
point of view, as simply the substitution of one method of treating the
defeated enemy for another. The change was from mildness to harshness. It
was doubly bitter to the defeated enemy, after he had been led to believe
that his punishment was over, to be subjected to a worse one. But these
are not legal considerations.
That the Reconstruction Acts required communities not states to ratify a
constitutional amendment did not affect their legality. That an amendment
depended for its validity on such ratification might make the amendment
void (though even from this result there is a means of escape in the
theory of relation, to be mentioned later), but that would not affect the
act requiring the ratification. That this requirement was not made with
the exclusive purpose of obtaining votes for the passage of the amendment
is shown by a resolution introduced into the House of Representatives on
July 21, 1867, which reads:
_Resolved_, That in ratifying amendments to the Constitution of the
United States ... the said several states ... are wholly incapable
either of accepting or rejecting any such amendment so as to bind the
loyal states of the Union, ... and that when any amendment ... shall
be adopted by three-fourths of the states recognized by the Congress
as lawfully entitled to do so, ... the same shall become thereby a
part of the Constitution.[81]
What virtues the Reconstruction Acts had besides legal regularity will be
discussed later.
CHAPTER IV
THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF POPE AND MEADE
In the Third Military District, of which Georgia was a part, the
Reconstruction Acts were administered from April 1, 1867, to January 6,
1868, by General Pope, and from January 6 to July 30, 1868, by General
Meade.[82] The present chapter will describe, first, the manner in which
these men conducted the political rebuilding of Georgia, and second, the
manner in which they governed during this process.
On April 8 Pope issued his first orders regarding the registration of
voters. The three officers commanding respectively in the sub-districts of
Georgia, Florida and Alabama were directed to divide the territory under
them into registration districts, and for each of these to appoint a board
of registry consisting as far as possible of civilians.[83] On May 2 the
scheme of districts for Georgia was published. The state was divided into
forty-four districts of three counties each, and three districts of a city
each. For each district the names of two white registrars were announced,
and each of these pairs was ordered to complete the board by selecting a
negro colleague. The compensation of registrars was to be from fifteen
cents to forty cents for every name registered, varying according to the
density or sparseness of the population. It was made the duty of
registrars to explain to those unused to the enjoyment of suffrage the
nature of this function. After the lists were complete they were to be
published for ten days.[84]
The unsettled condition of the negro population suggested to Pope the
possibility that many negroes would lose their right to vote by change of
residence. He therefore ordered on August 15 that persons removing from
the district where they were registered should be furnished by the board
of registry with a certificate of registration, which should entitle them
to vote anywhere in the state.[85]
The election for deciding whether a constitutional convention should be
held, and for choosing delegates in case the affirmative vote prevailed,
was ordered to begin on October 29 and to continue three days. Registrars
were ordered to revise their lists during the fortnight preceding the
election, to erase names wrongly registered, and to add the names of
persons entitled to be registered. The boards of registry were to act as
judges of election, but registrars who were candidates for election were
forbidden to serve in the districts where they sought election.[86]
The election was to occupy the last three days of October. On October 30
Pope extended the time to the night of November 2, in order to give the
negroes ample opportunity to vote, which in their inexperience they might
otherwise fail to do.[87]
After the election the following figures were announced:[88]
Number of registered voters in Georgia 188,647
Of these the negroes numbered 93,457
" the white men[89] 95,214
Number of votes polled 106,410
" " for a convention 102,283
" " against a convention 4,127
The delegates elected were ordered to meet in convention on December
9th.[90] On that day the convention met in Atlanta. Its business was not
completed until the middle of March in the following year. The
constitution which it framed more than met the demands of the
Reconstruction Acts. A single citizenship was established for all
residents of the state, in language borrowed from the Fourteenth Amendment
to the federal Constitution.[91] Legislation on the subject of social
status of citizens was forever prohibited.[92] The electoral right was
given to all male persons born or naturalized in the United States who
should have resided six months in Georgia.[93] Electors were privileged
from arrest (except for treason, felony or breach of the peace) for five
days before, during, and for two days after, elections, and the
legislature was ordered to provide such other means for the protection of
electors as might be necessary.[94] Other provisions presumably acceptable
to northern sentiment were the prohibition of whipping as a penalty for
crime,[95] and the command that the legislature should create a system of
public schools free to all children of the state.[96]
By an ordinance of the convention, made valid by being embodied in
military orders, April 20, 1868, was appointed for the submission of the
new constitution to popular vote, and also for the election of members of
Congress and officers of the new state government.[97] This election
resulted in the adoption of the constitution by a majority of 17,699
votes, and in the election of a governor (Rufus B. Bullock by name), a
legislature, and a full delegation to the lower house of Congress.[98] The
remaining requirement of the Reconstruction Acts was that the new
legislature convene and ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. This transaction
will be reserved for the next chapter.
* * * * *
General Pope was inspired by the ideas and emotions from which
reconstruction had sprung. He was an ardent friend of the reconstruction
measures. He was convinced of the importance of suppressing the old
political leaders in his district. He held with enthusiasm the optimistic
views prevalent in the North regarding the negroes. Their recent progress
in "education and knowledge," he said, was "marvellous," and if continued,
in five years the intelligence of the community would shift to the colored
portion.[99] The purport of his orders, the didactic style in which they
are couched, the declarations of his principles which frequently accompany
these orders, indicate the spirit in which he administered the office of
military governor.
Most of the official acts of Pope concerned either the enforcement of
obedience and the suppression of disobedience to the letter and spirit of
the Reconstruction Acts, or the protection and promotion of the present
interests of the freedmen.
In assuming command he announced that in the absence of special orders all
persons holding office under the state government would be permitted to
retain their positions until the expiration of their terms. Their
successors, however, were to be appointed by Pope alone; no elections
should be held in the state except those required by Congress. The general
expressed the hope that no necessity for interference in the regular
operation of the state government would arise. It could arise, he said,
only from the failure of state tribunals to do equal justice to all
persons.[100] A few weeks later he announced that this necessity would
also arise if any state officer interfered with or opposed the
reconstruction measures; such an officer, it was "distinctly announced,"
would be deposed.[101] Governor Jenkins, on April 10, had issued a letter
to the public, advising them to abstain from registering and voting under
the Reconstruction Acts. Pope had excused him with a lecture, and then
issued the order referred to, to make clear that no more advice of that
sort from state officers would be permitted.[102] Opposition to
reconstruction by state officers was declared to include also the awarding
of state printing to newspapers which opposed reconstruction, and it was
ordered that thereafter the state's patronage should be given only to
loyal papers.[103] Another measure to the same end was the order that no
state court should entertain any action against any person for any acts
done under the military authority.[104] But while opposition by state
officers was thus dealt with, freedom of public opinion was emphatically
declared. The declaration accompanied a public reprimand administered to
the post commander at Mobile for interference with a newspaper.[105]
The careful consideration for the needs of the freedmen shown in the
general's method of forming the boards of registry, in his instructions to
the registrars, in his provision of certificates of registration to
migrating citizens, and in his extension of the time of election, has been
pointed out. Of a similar character was the warning to employers that any
attempt to prevent laborers from voting, or to influence their votes by
docking wages, threats, or any other means, would be severely dealt
with.[106]
In his first general orders, as we have said, Pope warned the judiciary
against racial prejudice. It was probably disregard of this warning which
caused the removal of about a dozen judges, justices of the peace, and
sheriffs.[107] In the interest of equal justice, Pope also ordered that
grand and petit jurors should be selected impartially from the lists of
voters registered under the Reconstruction Acts.[108] Besides this general
protection, individual relief was given by release from arrest, mitigation
of the conditions of confinement, reduction of fines, and other special
dispensations.[109] The method of securing justice mentioned in the Act of
March 2, 1867, namely by ordering the trial of cases by military
commissions, was employed by Pope only once.[110]
Such was the administration of Pope. Its influence on the _personnel_ of
the state government was large, but was exercised only slightly through
removal, chiefly through appointment to fill vacancies. Pope removed about
fifteen state officers (almost all of whom were the judicial officers
mentioned in the preceding paragraph). He filled about two hundred
vacancies.[111] It is significant that a great number of these were caused
by resignation. His acts of interference with the action of state officers
were few, and with all his zeal for the success of reconstruction, he
favored freedom of speech. Nevertheless, his opinions and his personal
character, combined with such interference as he did practice, served to
gain for him the dislike of the people and the rather unjust reputation of
a petty tyrant.
Though Meade lacked Pope's zealous enthusiasm for reconstruction, yet he
held much the same opinion as his predecessor regarding the duties with
which he was charged. Like Pope, he forbade the bestowal of public
patronage on anti-reconstruction newspapers.[112] Like Pope, he thought
it his duty to depose state officers who opposed the execution of the
Reconstruction Acts. When he assumed command he found the convention at
loggerheads with the governor and the state treasurer. The convention had
levied a tax to pay its expenses, and pending the collection of it had
directed the treasurer to advance forty thousand dollars.[113] The
treasurer (Jones by name) declined to do this except on a warrant from the
governor, according to the regular practice. Meade requested Jenkins to
issue the warrant. Jenkins refused, on the ground that the act would
violate the state constitution under which he held office, and that even
if it were authorized by the Reconstruction Acts (which he denied), that
was an authorization contrary to the Constitution of the United States,
upon which he would not act.[114] Thereupon, on January 13, 1868, Meade
issued an order by which the governor (designated as the "provisional
governor") and the treasurer (also designated as "provisional") were
removed and Brigadier-General Ruger and Captain Rockwell "detailed" to act
as governor and treasurer respectively.[115] For this act the convention
rewarded Meade with a resolution of gratitude.[116] Before the end of the
same month the state comptroller and the secretary of state were also
removed for obstructing reconstruction,[117] and later the mayor and the
entire board of aldermen of Columbus shared the same fate.[118]
Toward the freedmen General Meade assumed the attitude of his predecessor.
He made similar rules to protect them, in voting, from coercion by
employers.[119] On the other hand, observing that too frequent enticement
of negroes to political meetings was disturbing industry, he announced
that interference of this sort with the rights of employers by political
agitators would meet with the same punishment as interference with the
rights of freedmen.[120]
Besides following the two policies of suppressing resistance and
protecting freedmen, Meade used his power to a great extent simply in the
interest of the general welfare. Public peace and order seemed threatened
on the eve of the April election. Orders issued on April 4 expressed the
belief that there existed a concerted plan, extending widely through the
Third District and apparently emanating from a secret organization, to
overawe the population and affect elections. Both military and civil
officers were ordered to arrest publishers of incendiary articles and to
organize special patrols.[121] Troops were distributed so as to command
the parts chiefly in danger,[122] and the frequent resignation of office
by sheriffs occasioned the order that no more resignations would be
permitted, but that the sheriffs must retain their offices and execute the
law.[123] By way of benevolent despotism, Meade, at the request of the
convention, suspended the operation of the bail process and of the writ of
_capias satisfaciendum_, and promulgated the provisions of the new
constitution for the relief of debtors until the constitution should
become law.[124] Likewise he gave special orders in eight or ten cases
suspending trails, releasing prisoners, and otherwise preventing hardship
or failure of justice. Whereas Pope had convened one military court, Meade
convened six,[125] and before these thirty two cases were tried. Meade
appointed about seventy state officers and removed about twenty.
These facts show that the two administrations we are considering were
alike in policy, and that in action Meade's was the more vigorous.
Nevertheless, while Pope was disliked, Meade, thanks to a more attractive
character, enjoyed a certain popularity.
* * * * *
Such was the process by which the Disciplinarians, the Humanitarians, and
the Republican Politicians hoped to gain their respective purposes. What
were the results of the process by the end of the administration of Meade?
For the Disciplinarians they were not encouraging. Military government was
received not as discipline but as bullying. The spirit which
reconstruction was designed to quell was only embittered; for to those who
entertained it reconstruction was not the chastening of the nation, but
the domineering of a political party, which it was hoped and believed
would soon lose its ascendency.[126]
For the Humanitarians reconstruction had produced written laws regarding
equality of civil and political rights, which were deemed a subject of
congratulation. Outside the laws they would have found less encouragement.
The kindness of the white people toward the negroes had been changed to
apprehension by the events of 1865. When the advent of negro suffrage
brought the carpet-baggers to the South to marshal the negro voters for
their own benefit, and when these men began to disturb the negroes by
organizing them into mysterious Union Leagues and giving them
indigestible ideas of their rights, apprehension became alarm. Negroes
seized property of all kinds--including even plantations--by violence,
supposing this to be one of their new rights. Already they had raised a
new terror by crimes against white women, hitherto unknown. Some
thoughtful men believed that the best defence against the dangers
apprehended from the disturbed black population was kindness and friendly
influence.[127] That opinion was not heard after the arrival of the
carpet-baggers; its methods were then seen to be inadequate. Secret
organizations were formed by white men for protection against the negroes.
These organizations, which sowed the seed of a subsequent harvest of
crime, at first included men of the best character and of the highest
standing.[128] Thus reconstruction, together with its written laws, had
produced conditions which made the net Humanitarian results doubtful, at
least for the moment.
For the Republican Politicians reconstruction did not produce in Georgia
all that was to be desired. When the enterprise was first launched some of
the white men, though offended, favored accepting the inevitable and
endeavoring to elect good men to the constitutional convention and to the
new state government.[129] Others, carried further by their anger,
determined to take no part in elevating the negroes and debasing their
heroes. Prominent among these, as we have said, was Governor Jenkins.
These men stayed at home on October 29, 1867, contemptuously ignoring the
"bogus concern called an election," which occurred on that day.[130] Many
of these latter, by the time the "motley crew assembled at Atlanta" had
finished its labors, decided to follow the example of the former. A
convention met at Macon on December 5, 1867, formed a party, the Georgia
Conservatives, named a ticket, with John B. Gordon at the head, and began
a powerful campaign for the defeat of negroes and adventurers at the April
election.[131] To make an active fight was recognized as a better course
than to stand in ineffectual scorn.[132] As a result the sweeping victory
expected by the Republican Politicians did not occur in Georgia. A
Republican governor was elected; but in the state senate the seats were
equally divided between the Republicans and the Conservatives, in the
state house of representatives the Conservatives obtained a large
majority, and of the seven Congressmen elected three were
Conservatives.[133]
CHAPTER V
THE SUPPOSED RESTORATION OF 1868
The passage of the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 determined the course of
reconstruction, but did not stop discussion. When Congress met in
December, 1867, the acts passed continued to be attacked and defended and
new bills to be introduced and dropped. But the plan as adopted remained
untouched, with one exception.
One of the reasons given by the joint committee on reconstruction for
abolishing the Johnson governments was that the Johnson constitutions had
not been ratified by popular vote, and therefore did not rest upon the
consent of a majority of the people. To avoid a like defect in the new
governments the act of March 23 had provided that the new constitutions
should be regarded as adopted only if a majority of the registered voters
took part in the vote on the question of adoption. At its next session
Congress repented of this provision; it was now seen to involve the risk
that the opponents of reconstruction in the southern states would defeat
the new constitutions by the plan of inaction. This risk should be
avoided, since the adoption of a state constitution probably meant the
election of a Republican state government, and hence of Republican
Senators, as well as Republican Congressional Representatives and
Republican Presidential Electors in November, 1868. These advantages would
be lost if the new constitutions were defeated. Therefore, by an act which
became law on March 11, 1868, the reconstruction legislation was amended
so as to provide that elections held under that legislation should be
decided by a majority of the votes cast. This act also adopted as part of
the general scheme two expedients already employed by Pope in the Third
District. That is to say, it provided that any registered voter might vote
in any election district in his state, provided he had lived there ten
days, and that the elections should be "continued from day to day."[134]
Aside from these alterations, Congress allowed reconstruction to complete
its course according to the first plan. Within the first six months of
1868 North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida, besides
Georgia, had adopted new constitutions. According to the Act of March 2,
1867, two more steps would complete the process for these states; namely,
the ratification by their legislatures of the Fourteenth Amendment, and
the declaration "by law" (provided Congress approved the constitutions)
that they were entitled to representation in Congress.[135] Congress now
decided, instead of waiting for the ratification of the amendment, to pass
the declaratory law at once, which should operate as soon as the
ratification should have occurred. By this method one act would suffice
for all the states which had adopted constitutions.
The bill for this purpose was called the Omnibus Bill. It provided that
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, and also
Alabama,[136] should be admitted to representation in Congress as soon as
their legislatures elected under the new constitution should have ratified
the Fourteenth Amendment, on condition that the provisions of that
amendment regarding eligibility to office should at once go into
operation in those states, and on condition that the constitution of none
of them should ever be amended so as to deprive of the right to vote any
citizens entitled to that right as the constitutions then stood. A special
condition was imposed on Georgia; namely, that Article V., section 17, §§
1 and 3 of her constitution be declared void by the legislature. A
precedent for such a requirement was found in the act of 1821, admitting
Missouri to statehood.[137] The bill gave the governors-elect in the
states concerned authority to call the legislatures immediately to fulfill
the required conditions.[138]
The Omnibus Bill became law on June 25, 1868. On the same day Rufus B.
Bullock, the governor-elect of Georgia, issued a proclamation in
accordance with the act, summoning the legislature to meet on July
4th.[139]
Now, the Reconstruction Act of July 10th, 1867, had provided as follows:
All persons hereafter elected or appointed to office in said military
districts, under any so-called state or municipal authority, or by
detail or appointment of the district commanders, shall be required
to take ... the oath of office prescribed by law for officers of the
United States.[140]
On April 15th Meade had announced that in accordance with this provision
the members of the legislature to be elected on April 20th would be
required to subscribe to the Test Oath. But he was later advised from
headquarters, and by certain prominent members of Congress, that the
persons contemplated by the act of July 19, 1867, were those elected under
the Johnson government, not under the new government; and that therefore
the men elected on April 20th were not "officers elected under any
so-called state authority" in the sense of the act of July 19th. The
eligibility of these men, he was told, was to be determined by the
provisions of the new constitution and by the Fourteenth Amendment, and
they were not required to take the Test Oath.[142] Meade therefore did not
enforce his order. But though the new government was exempt from this one
requirement of the Reconstruction Acts, it was subject to the provision
which said:
... until the people of said rebel states shall be by law admitted to
representation in the Congress of the United States, any civil
government which may exist therein shall be deemed provisional only,
and in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United
States.
Over the new state government, as over the old, Meade would exercise the
powers of a district commander until the legislature by complying with the
requirements of the Omnibus Act, should have made that act operative.
On June 28 Meade relieved General Ruger of the office of governor and
appointed in his place the governor-elect, Bullock, whom he directed to
organize the legislature on July 4.[143] When the legislature met on that
day, therefore, Bullock called each house to order in turn, and under his
direction as chairman the members were sworn in (by the official oath
prescribed in the state constitution), and the presiding officers elected.
On July 7 the legislature informed the governor that it was organized and
ready to proceed to business. Bullock, instead of replying, wrote to
Meade, stating that it was alleged that a number of men seated in the
legislature were ineligible to office according to the proposed Fourteenth
Amendment, and hence were disqualified from holding their seats by the
Omnibus Act.[144] Meade replied on July 8 that the allegation was serious,
and that he would not recognize as valid any act of the legislature until
satisfactory evidence should be presented that the legislature contained
no member who would be disqualified from office by the Fourteenth
Amendment.[145] Bullock sent Meade's letter to the legislature, and both
houses appointed committees to investigate the eligibility of every
member. These committees reported on July 17. The senate committee
reported that no senators were ineligible. A minority of the committee
found, on evidence detailed in its report, that four were ineligible.
After much debate the majority report was adopted.[146] The house
committee reported that two representatives were ineligible. A minority
report found three ineligible. A second minority report found that none
were ineligible. The last was adopted.[147]
The conclusions of the two houses may be regarded, in view of these
proceedings, with some just suspicion. Bullock in informing Meade of them
expressed the opinion that the legislature had failed to furnish the
"satisfactory evidence" upon which Meade had conditioned his
recognition.[148] If Meade had desired to know the exact truth, he might
well have accepted Bullock's advice and ignored the reports, investigated
the records of the legislators himself, and excluded those whom he found
ineligible. But Meade desired only to see that the acts of Congress were
complied with. "Satisfactory evidence" was evidence not logically, but
formally satisfactory. Meade followed the established principle that
legislative bodies are the final judges of the eligibility of their
members. He considered the statement of the legislature that its members
were all eligible formally satisfactory evidence that the acts of Congress
were obeyed. Having this evidence, he refused to interfere further. His
decision was influenced partly by reluctance to interfere more than was
necessary, and partly by aversion to aiding Bullock to gain a party
advantage, which he alleged to be the governor's chief motive in urging
the rejection of the reports.[149] He acted with the approval of the
general of the army.[150]
He notified the governor that the legislature was legally organized from
the date of the adoption of the reports (July 17).[151] Bullock
transmitted this message to the legislature on July 21. On that day both
houses ratified the Fourteenth Amendment and declared void the sections of
the constitution required to be so declared by the Omnibus Act.[152]
As soon as the legislature had performed these acts Georgia was,
presumably, according to the acts of Congress, a state of the Union. On
July 22 Meade directed all state officers holding by military appointment
to turn over their offices to those elected or appointed under the new
government.[153] On July 28 orders issued from the headquarters of the
army stating that the general commanding in the Third Military District
had ceased to exercise authority under the Reconstruction Acts, and that
Georgia, Florida and Alabama no longer constituted a military district,
but should henceforth constitute an ordinary military circumscription--the
Department of the South.[154] On July 22 Bullock, who had up to that time
been governor by military appointment, was inaugurated in the regular
manner and became governor under the state constitution.[155] On July 25,
the seven congressmen-elect from Georgia were seated in the House of
Representatives.[156] The Georgia Senators would doubtless have been
seated at this time if they had arrived before the close of the session;
but they were elected by the legislature on July 29,[157] two days after
Congress adjourned.[158] In view of Georgia's compliance with the
Reconstruction Acts and the Omnibus Act, and in view of the various
official recognitions that that compliance was complete, there could now
be no doubt that her reconstruction was accomplished and her statehood
regained.
CHAPTER VI
THE EXPULSION OF THE NEGROES FROM THE LEGISLATURE AND THE USES TO WHICH
THIS EVENT WAS APPLIED
When the Georgia Republicans, or Radicals, as they were locally called,
found that instead of a sweeping victory they had won only a governorship
hemmed in by a hostile legislature, an effort was made, as we have said,
to improve their position through the interference of Meade. Meade refused
to aid them. When, a short time afterwards, federal power, on which they
had hitherto relied, was completely withdrawn, they seemed left to make
the best of an uncomfortable position without any assistance. At this
point a god appeared from the machine.
In the state senate there were three negroes, in the lower house
twenty-five.[159] Their presence was an offense. It was an offense not
merely to the Conservative members. Some of the Republicans entertained
Conservative sentiments and principles, but supported reconstruction
simply in order to hasten the liberation of the state from Congressional
interference.[160] To them as well as to the Conservatives "negro rule"
was obnoxious. Negro rule, so far as it consisted in negro suffrage, was
established by the constitution. But negro office-holding was not so
established expressly. As early as July 25, 1868, the question, whether
negroes were eligible to the legislature, was raised in the state
senate.[161]
Legally considered, the question had two sides, each supported by eminent
lawyers. For the negroes it was argued that Irwin's Code, which was made
part of the law of the state by the constitution,[162] enumerated among
the rights of citizens the right to hold office.[163] Negroes were made
citizens of equal rights with all other citizens by the new
constitution.[164] Therefore they had the right to hold office. It was
true that the constitution did not grant the right to hold office to the
negroes expressly, as it granted the right to vote; but in view of the
fact that the convention which made the constitution was elected by 25,000
white and 85,000 colored men, and that that constitution was adopted by
35,000 white and 70,000 colored men, it would be absurd to suppose that
the intent of that instrument was to withhold office from the
negroes.[165] On the other side, it was argued that the right to hold
office did not belong to every citizen, but only to such citizens as the
law specially designated, or to such as possessed it by common law or
custom. Irwin's Code could not be cited to prove that negroes had the
right, because that law had been enacted before the negroes had been made
citizens, and the word _citizens_ in it referred to those who were
citizens at that time. As the negro had no right to hold office because he
was a citizen, and as he could not claim the right from common law or
custom, he could obtain it only by specific grant of law. There was no
such grant. The argument for the negro was made by the Supreme Court of
the state in 1869, the opposing argument by one of the justices of that
court in a dissenting opinion.[166]
Such were the legal aspects of the question, which were of course less
important than the political and the emotional aspects. The legislature
passed upon the issue in the early part of September, 1868, by declaring
all the colored members ineligible, and admitting to the vacated seats the
candidates who had received respectively the next highest number of
votes.[167] If there was some legal ground for unseating the negroes,
there was none for seating the minority candidates. It was done on the
authority of the clause in Irwin's Code which said:
If at any popular election to fill any office the person elected is
ineligible, ... the person having the next highest number of votes,
who is eligible, whenever a plurality elects, shall be declared
elected.[168]
But this clause is found under the title "Of the Executive Department,"
and under the sub-head "Regulations as to All Executive Offices and
Officers." Under the next title "Of the Legislative Department," there is
no such provision.
For a legislature to unseat some of the elected members because on not
untenable legal grounds it finds them ineligible, is not unusual. But the
act of the Georgia legislature could not, under the circumstances, be
regarded in the ordinary way. It showed strong racial prejudice. It was a
startling breach of the system which reconstruction had been designed to
institute, committed the very moment after the federal government withdrew
its hand. It fixed on Georgia at once the earnest and unfavorable
attention of northern public opinion. This fact enabled the Georgia
Republicans to bring the federal government again to their assistance.
Their leader, Governor Bullock, at the next session of Congress (December,
1868), presented a letter to the Senate, saying that Georgia had not yet
been admitted to the Union. She had not been admitted by the Omnibus Act,
for that act provided that she should be admitted when certain things had
been done, and those things had not been done. By the Reconstruction Act
of July 19, 1867, all persons elected in Georgia were required to take the
Test Oath. The members of the present legislature had never taken it.
Therefore the action which that body had taken on July 21st, regarding the
Fourteenth Amendment, was not a ratification by a legislature formed
according to the Reconstruction Acts; it was simply a ratification by a
body which called itself the legislature. Hence the Omnibus Act had not
yet gone into effect as to Georgia, and Georgia was not yet entitled to
representation in Congress.[169]
If this argument was valid in the winter of 1868, it must also have been
valid in the preceding summer. Yet in July Bullock had made no objection
to being inaugurated as governor of Georgia, on the ground that Georgia
had not become a state. He had not refused on that ground to issue on
September 10th a commission to Joshua Hill, reciting that he had been
regularly elected to the Senate of the United States by the legislature of
the state, and signed "Rufus B. Bullock, governor."[170] The argument was
an afterthought, not advanced until the expulsion of the negroes created a
favorable opportunity for a hearing. It conflicted with the declarations
and acts of the military authorities, and of the House of Representatives,
but the sentiment aroused by the expulsion of the negroes was considered
strong enough to sustain a repudiation of those declarations and acts.
Direct appeal to this sentiment was the auxiliary to the above argument.
Bullock's letter to the Senate was accompanied by a memorial from a
convention of colored men held at Macon in October. It said that there
existed in Georgia a spirit of hatred toward the negroes and their
friends, which resulted in the persecution, political repression,
terrorizing, outrage and murder of the negroes, in the burning of their
schools, and in the slander, ostracism and abuse of their teachers and
political friends. Of this the act of the legislature was an instance and
an evidence. The aid of the federal government was implored.[171]
Similar charges had been made, it will be remembered, in the debates of
1866 and 1867. Now, however, they began to be urged with an earnestness
and persistence altogether new. So conspicuous is this fact in the debates
in Congress that a southern writer ironically remarks: "From this time
forth the entire white race of the South devoted itself to the killing of
negroes."[172] The rest of this chapter will be devoted to considering how
much truth there was in the reported abuse of negroes and "loyal" persons.
We stated in Chapter II. that after the war a bitter jealousy and
animosity toward the negroes arose among the lower class of the white
population, and in Chapter IV. that the restless conduct of the negroes
under the influences of reconstruction filled the upper class with such
alarm that they formed secret organizations in self-defence. This
practice, at first supported and led by good men of the higher class,
simply for defence, soon fell into the hands of the poor white class, the
criminal class, and the turbulent and discontented young men of all
classes, and became an instrument of revenge, crime and oppression. The
change, however, was not a complete transformation. A great deal of the
whipping inflicted upon negroes was _bona fide_ chastisement for actual
misdemeanors. This mode of punishment was the natural product of the
transition from the old social conditions, when the negroes were
disciplined by their masters, to the new conditions.[173] But besides
these acts of correction many outrages were committed upon negroes, and
also upon white men, simply from malice or vengeance, or other private
motive.[174] These outrages included some homicides.[175] The testimony of
credible contemporaries belonging to both political parties agrees that
the Ku Klux Klan and similar organizations were used only to a very small
extent for political purposes.[176]
How many of these corrective or purely vicious acts were perpetrated upon
negroes? Democrats of that time commonly said that the number was
insignificant, that the peace was as well kept in Georgia as in any
northern state, and that statements to the contrary were invented for
political purposes.[177] The number was, indeed, greatly exaggerated by
Republicans, as some of the Republicans themselves admitted.[178] Making
allowance for the warping of the truth in both directions, and considering
the statements of the moderate Republicans,[179] and the admissions of
some of the Democrats,[180] remembering also the recent disbandment of the
army and the disturbed conditions of society, we must conclude that the
attacks on negroes, made by disguised bands and otherwise, were very
numerous.
The friends of the negroes also fared badly. Philanthropic women who came
from the North to teach in the negro schools were almost invariably
treated with contempt and avoided by the white people.[181] This was due
partly to the lingering bitterness of the war and partly to the connection
of the negro schools with the Freedmen's Bureau. This institution, the
office of which was to set up strangers, from a recently hostile country,
to instruct the southern people in their private affairs, was in itself
odious. It was rendered more odious by the want of intelligence and tact,
and even of honesty, which is said to have frequently characterized its
officers. That the hatred thus aroused should be visited upon true
philanthropists who were connected with the Bureau was unfortunate, but
inevitable. As for the political friends of the negroes, the "loyal" men,
or in other words the white men who supported reconstruction, they were
habitually treated by the Conservative press and by Conservative speakers
with violent invective. Conservative editors and orators neither engaged
in nor recommended the slaughter or outrage of Radicals, but by
continually voicing furious sentiments, they furnished encouragement to
action of that sort by men of less intelligence and self-control.[182]
The accounts of lawlessness and persecution in Georgia, though
exaggerated, undoubtedly had a substantial foundation. Whether this fact
was a good argument for renewed interference in the state government by
Congress is another question.
CHAPTER VII
CONGRESSIONAL ACTION REGARDING GEORGIA FROM DECEMBER, 1868, TO DECEMBER,
1869
On December 7, 1868, the credentials of Joshua Hill, one of the Senators
elected by the Georgia legislature in the previous July, were presented in
the United States Senate. Immediately the letter of Governor Bullock and
the memorial of the negro convention were also presented. These documents,
seconded by a speech from a Senator dwelling on the fact that Georgia was
under "rebel control," secured the reference of Hill's credentials to the
committee on the judiciary.[183] This committee on January 25, 1869,
recommended that Hill be not admitted to the Senate.[184]
The reason for this recommendation, said the committee's report, was that
Georgia had failed to comply with the requirements of the Omnibus Act, and
so was not yet entitled to representation in Congress. The failure here
referred to was not that alleged by Bullock--that the members of the
legislature had not taken the Test Oath--but the failure of the two houses
to exclude persons disqualified by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Omnibus
Act had provided that Georgia should be entitled to representation in
Congress when her legislature had "_duly_" ratified the Fourteenth
Amendment. The word _duly_ meant _in a certain manner_--namely, the manner
required by the rest of the act. The failure to exclude the disqualified
members was a departure from this manner.
We saw in Chapter V. that each of the committees appointed by the Georgia
legislature in July to investigate the eligibility of members was divided,
that both houses voted that all were eligible in the face of detailed
evidence to the contrary, that the decision of the lower house
contradicted the majority of its committee, and that Meade accepted the
decision rather for the sake of convenience and finality than because it
was indisputably correct. On these facts and on some independent
investigation the Senate judiciary committee based its belief that the
legislature had failed to obey the Omnibus Act in this respect.
Trumbull, of this committee, submitted a minority report. He admitted that
the decision of the legislature may have been incorrect. But he protested
that if the United States government intended to regard the presence of
half a dozen ineligible members in a body of two hundred and nineteen as
entirely vitiating the action of the legislature, it should have taken
this stand at first. If at first it had, through its representative,
Meade, overlooked the irregularity as a trifle, it seemed only just to
continue to overlook it, and not to make it now the occasion for
augmenting the turmoil in the state by fresh interference.
But the majority rejoined that there were very good reasons for not
overlooking the irregularity. It was not a mere trifling departure from
the letter of the act of Congress, it was a violation of the spirit of
that act. "The obvious design" of the Omnibus Act "was to prevent the new
organization from falling under the control of enemies of the United
States." The expulsion of the negroes showed that that design had been
frustrated and that the government was under "rebel control;" it showed a
"common purpose to ... resist the authority of the United States."
Moreover, the "disorganized condition of society" in the state made it
necessary for the federal government to intervene again in Georgia, not
only to vindicate its law, but to preserve order.
The protest of Trumbull is significant as an early sign of the growth
within the Republican party of an opposition to the prolongation of
Congressional interference with the southern state governments.
The report of the judiciary committee was not acted upon, and thus the
Senate avoided a categorical decision. But Hill was not admitted. A number
of bills relating to Georgia were introduced; a bill "to carry out the
Reconstruction Acts in Georgia" by Sumner,[185] a bill to repeal the act
of June 25, 1868, in so far as it admitted Georgia, and to provide for a
provisional government in that state, by Edmunds,[186] and others. All of
these soon lapsed.
Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives the committee on reconstruction
had been instructed to examine the public affairs of Georgia and to
inquire what measures ought to be taken regarding the representatives of
Georgia in the House.[187] Many citizens of Georgia, black and white,
testified before the committee.[188] Among them Governor Bullock was
conspicuous, advocating the enforcement of the Test Oath qualification--a
fact which aroused great indignation in the state.
The doubtful position in which Georgia now hung raised the question, what
should be done with her electoral votes in February, 1869? Congress had
passed a joint resolution on July 20, 1868, to the effect that none of the
states affected by the Omnibus Act should be entitled to vote in the
Electoral College in 1869 unless at the time for choosing electors it had
become entitled to representation in Congress.[189] As February 10, the
day for counting the votes, approached, it was considered desirable, in
order that the ceremony might pass off smoothly, that the Senate and the
House should agree by a special rule what should be done with Georgia's
votes. Now, the Senate could not agree to a rule declaring that the votes
should be counted, for that would imply that the state had become entitled
to representation in Congress, and the Senate had refused to admit Hill.
But the House could not concur in declaring that the votes should not be
counted; for that would imply that the state had not become entitled to
representation in Congress, and the House had admitted seven
Representatives from the state. It was therefore agreed by a concurrent
resolution passed February 8, that at the count of the electoral votes, in
case the Georgia votes should be found not to affect the result
essentially (which it was well known would be the case), then the
presiding officer should make the following announcement:
Were the votes presented as of the state of Georgia to be counted,
the result would be for ---- for President of the United States, --
votes; if not counted, for ----, for President of the United States,
-- votes; but in either case ---- is elected President of the United
States;
and a similar announcement of the votes for Vice-President.[190]
Accordingly, on February 10, amid the wildest uproar, caused by the
blunders of a perplexed chairman and the violent protest of a group of
Representatives, led by Butler, against the execution of the special rule,
which had been rushed through the House without their knowledge, it was
announced that the electoral vote was as follows:
For Grant and Colfax
Including Georgia's votes 214
Excluding Georgia's votes 214
For Seymour and Blair
Including Georgia's votes 80
Excluding Georgia's votes 71
and that in either case Grant and Colfax were elected.[191]
On March 5, the first day of the forty-first Congress, the House of
Representatives was able to get rid of the Georgia Representatives on a
technicality. The same delegation which had represented Georgia since
July, 1868, appeared again to finish its supposed term. Their credentials
failed to state to what Congress they had been elected, but authorized
them to take seats in the House of Representatives according to the
ordinance of the Georgia constitutional convention passed March 10, 1868.
Now, this ordinance provided that all the public officers who should be
elected on April 20 should enter on their duties as soon as authorized by
Congress or by the general commanding the military district, but should
continue in the same as long as they would if elected in the November
following.[192] These Congressmen, then, were elected to serve as if
elected in November, 1868, that is, they were elected members of the
forty-first Congress. But they had already served several months in the
fortieth. If they should serve through the forty-first they would exceed
the constitutional term. The convention of Georgia could make the first
term of all state officers longer than the regular term subsequently to
obtain; it could not so lengthen the term of members of the Congress of
the United States. The credentials were referred to the committee of
elections, and the House was thus relieved of the presence of the Georgia
representatives, which would have been an embarrassment in the subsequent
proceedings.[193]
Several bills relating to Georgia were then introduced, which, though they
were not advanced very far, are worth noticing.[194] Their titles indicate
the purpose "to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment." Now, the Fourteenth
Amendment consists principally of prohibitions on states; it could not be
enforced in Georgia unless Georgia was a state. Georgia had (it was
assumed) admitted to her legislature men subject to the disqualifications
of the Fourteenth Amendment, and had excluded men from the legislature on
the ground of color, thus denying the equal protection of the laws to
citizens. The latter act had been done after the Fourteenth Amendment went
into effect (July 28, 1868[195]), the former before, but its effect
continued. If Georgia was a state, then, she had violated the amendment,
and Congress might correct these two acts by virtue of its power to
enforce the amendment. If Georgia was not a state, she had not violated
the Fourteenth Amendment, but her acts were subject to correction by
Congress, because her government was "provisional only." If, therefore,
Congress proposed to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment in Georgia, it
acknowledged that Georgia was a state, and so debarred itself from any
interference not necessary to enforce that Amendment. If it proposed to
interfere simply as with a provisional government, there was no such
limitation.
The bills of the first session of the forty-first Congress proposed to
enforce the Fourteenth Amendment. To secure the enforcement of the
disqualification clause they provided that each member of the legislature
should be required to take an oath saying that he was not disqualified by
the amendment, and that those who did not so swear should be excluded. To
secure equal rights to the colored legislators they provided that all
persons elected to the legislature (according to General Meade's
announcement of the result of the election of 1868) who should take the
test oath required should be admitted, and that the expulsion of the
negroes should be declared void. The federal military authority was to
assist in executing these measures if requested by the governor. These
measures, it will be observed, were only such as might legally be taken
regarding Massachusetts if it violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
At the next session of Congress, beginning in December, 1869, the policy
of enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment was abandoned for the alternative
policy of legislating for a provisional government. The reason for the
change was an emergency in which the Republican Politicians found
themselves. In the previous February Congress had passed the joint
resolution proposing the Fifteenth Amendment. By December it seemed
certain that the number of ratifying states would fall short of the
required three-fourths by just one, unless Congress could prevent it.[196]
Georgia furnished the means of preventing it. In March her legislature had
rejected the proposed amendment.[197] It could now be forced to ratify and
thus complete the necessary majority. Georgia must then be treated not as
a state which had violated the Fourteenth Amendment, but as a provisional
organization subject to the uncontrolled will of Congress. A bill was
accordingly prepared containing the same provisions as the bills of the
preceding session, but adding this clause: "That the legislature shall
ratify the Fifteenth Amendment before Senators and Representatives from
Georgia are admitted to seats in Congress." In accordance with its
different legal basis the bill was entitled: "An act to promote the
reconstruction of the state of Georgia."
Little need be said of the manner in which this bill was passed. The
usual partisan abuse prevailed on both sides. The Democrats made a
remarkable opposition, led by Beck of Kentucky.[198] The Republicans were
aided by a message from President Grant urging the intervention of
Congress,[199] by the report of the reconstruction committee on affairs in
Georgia,[200] and by a report from General Terry, who was stationed in the
Department of the South, alleging that disorder was rampant in Georgia and
the need of further military government by federal authority
imperative.[201] Terry's superior officer, General Halleck, added a
postscript to Terry's report to the effect that Terry was mistaken, that
the disorder in Georgia was much less than was commonly believed, and that
federal interference was highly inadvisable.[202] Aided by the report and
undeterred by the postscript, the Republicans discoursed of "rebel
control" and "murder" with unprecedented effect. Butler said that Congress
must act instantly; if action on the bill is postponed, he said, "the rest
of the Republican majority of that state may be murdered, even during
Christmas week, when the Son of God came on earth to bring peace and good
will to man."[203]
The bill became law on December 22, 1869.[204] Congress thus decided at
last to adopt the opinion of the Senate judiciary committee, that Georgia
had not become a state through the Omnibus Act. General Meade, in
declaring the contrary, had been mistaken. Bullock, in calling himself
governor, had been mistaken. The House of Representatives, in admitting
members sent from Georgia, had been mistaken; they were _de facto_
members, but had no legal right there.[205] The legal basis of the act of
December 22 was then the same as that of the original Reconstruction Acts.
The question which had been raised in the debates on these acts--What
legal effect could the action of a body not the legislature of a state
have on the adoption of an amendment to the constitution?--was raised
again here. Some of the Republicans argued that such action could have no
effect and should not be required.[206] Under these circumstances there
was a more earnest effort than any heretofore made to defend such a
requirement. It was answered: True, the body which will ratify the
amendment in Georgia will not be a state legislature at the time; but it
will later become a state legislature, and then by relation the
ratification will be imputed to the state legislature and will thus have
legal effect. Relation, an operation known to private law, had been
applied to constitutional law in several previous cases, in order to give
to acts done by the legislatures of territories the same effect as if they
had been done after statehood was obtained.[207] The ratification by
Georgia would be valid by relation.[208]
CHAPTER VIII
THE EXECUTION OF THE ACT OF DECEMBER 22, 1869, AND THE FINAL RESTORATION
Before relating the manner in which the act of December 22, 1869 (which we
shall call the Reorganization Act), was executed, we must mention its
provisions in more detail than we did in the last chapter. It first
"authorized and directed" the governor by proclamation to summon
"forthwith" all persons elected to the legislature in April, 1868,
according to Meade's announcement of the result of the election then
held,[209] to meet in special session "on some day certain." The act
continued:
and thereupon the said general assembly shall proceed to perfect its
organization in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the
United States, according to the provisions of this act.
When the legislature was assembled, every person claiming to be a member
should take a test oath prescribed in the act, to the effect that he had
never been a member of Congress or of a state legislature, nor held any
civil office created by law for the administration of any general law of a
state, or for the administration of justice in any state, or under the
laws of the United States, nor served in the military or naval forces of
the United States as an officer, and thereafter engaged in or supported
hostilities against the United States; each person should take this oath
or else an oath (also prescribed _verbatim_) that he had been relieved
from disability by Congress according to section 3 of the Fourteenth
Amendment. The exclusion on the ground of color of any person elected and
otherwise qualified, the act declared "would be illegal and
revolutionary," and was "prohibited." The act directed the President to
use force in executing the act upon application from the governor.
The process ordered by the act seems simple and obvious, but the general
of the army deduced much from it not apparent on its face. This act, he
reasoned, implies that the Georgia government is provisional, and has
never ceased to be so since March 2, 1867. And in that case the act of
March 2, 1867, has never ceased to operate as to Georgia, since by its own
terms it is to remain in force in each "rebel state" until each
respectively has been "by law admitted to representation in the congress
of the United States." Georgia has not been so admitted, since she did not
comply with the Omnibus Act. Therefore the Reconstruction Acts are still
in force in Georgia, and the general orders of July 28, 1868, declaring
the Third Military District abolished were a mistake. Accordingly those
orders were countermanded by the general of the army on January 4, 1870,
and General Terry, a prominent advocate, as we have seen, of the revival
of military government in Georgia, was placed in command of the remnant of
the Third Military District.[210]
The War Department's deduction from the Reorganization Act of authority to
institute again the system of the Reconstruction Acts came a month or two
later under the consideration of the Senate judiciary committee, and was
pronounced a gratuitous perversion of the act last passed. That act
implied, to be sure, that the Georgia government was provisional; but it
was plainly intended not to revive but to supersede the former regulations
regarding that government. The purpose of the Reorganization Act was
simply that the legislature should reorganize itself and ratify the
Fifteenth Amendment. To this purpose military government had no relation.
The Reconstruction Acts had not expired according to their own provisions
as to Georgia, it was true, but they had been repealed by the
Reorganization Act. This was further proved by the latter's provision that
military force should be used "upon the application of the governor." The
Reorganization Act, said the committee, "invokes military action in what
it provides shall be done, and no more."[211] Unfortunately this opinion
was delivered some time after the theory which it demolished had been in
practical operation.
Terry, having received the _rôle_ of military governor, played it as the
true heir to the power of his great predecessors. He removed from office
three sheriffs and a county ordinary and appointed successors.[212] He
intervened in eight private controversies and composed them with a strong
hand.[213] In two cases before the state courts he substituted his command
for the regular process.[214] Still more apparent was the official
character which he had assumed, in his conduct toward the legislature.
Possessing the power wielded by Pope and Meade, he could issue any orders
he pleased to that body. For this reason, and because he was in sympathy
with them, the Georgia Republicans ardently embraced and tenaciously clung
to the theory that he was not a mere assistant in executing the
Reorganization Act, but a military governor under the Reconstruction Acts.
On December 22, 1869, Governor Bullock issued his proclamation (which he
signed "Rufus B. Bullock, Provisional Governor"), summoning the men
elected to the legislature in 1868 to meet in Atlanta on January 10
following.[215] This duty, besides that of calling on the President for
aid if he saw fit, was the only one expressly entrusted to Bullock by the
Reorganization Act. Another one, however, was deduced by the following
process of reasoning: The legislature can do nothing before its members
are qualified according to the act. Since it can do nothing, it cannot
even organize itself. But it is the purpose of the act that the
legislature be organized. Therefore some one else must be intended to
organize it. This duty naturally belongs to the governor, since the
cognate duty of convening the body is imposed on him. In accordance with
this reasoning, Bullock appointed a temporary clerk for each house, who
should call the house to order and preside until all the members should be
qualified or declared disqualified, by taking or failing to take one of
the test oaths of the Reorganization Act.[216] This appointment of Bullock
rested not only upon the reasoning stated above, but upon the approval of
Terry, who, whether the reasoning was correct or not, could do, or order
to be done, to the legislature anything he chose.[217]
When the legislature convened on January 10, each house was called to
order by its temporary clerk, who proceeded to call the roll of names
announced by Meade after the election of 1868, for the administration to
each person of one of the required test oaths. On the same day the upper
house completed the roll call and the swearing in of members, and effected
a permanent organization. A Republican (Conley) was elected president by a
large majority. On assuming the chair he delivered an oration, the spirit
of which may be perceived from the following sentence: "The government has
determined that in this republic, which is not, never was, and never can
be, a democracy--that in this republic Republicans shall rule."[218]
Far different was the course of events in the lower house. When that house
assembled it found one Harris in the chair. Forgetting that his
appointment had been indorsed by Terry and that he was, therefore, the
virtual agent of a military governor who had the power to do anything he
chose to the legislature, the Conservatives raised objection to his
presiding and attempted to elect a temporary chairman in the usual way.
This attempt precipitated a violent scene in the house, but was
unsuccessful. Harris kept his seat and ordered the roll call for the
swearing in of members to proceed. The names of seventy-eight persons were
called and as many of these as were present were sworn in. At this point,
the journal records, "the clerk _pro tem._ announced that the house would
take a recess" until the next day. This the house did.[219] On January 11
and 12, the same proceedings occurred, the swearing in continuing until it
was suspended and the house adjourned by the "clerk _pro tem._"[220]
Without the theory that the Reconstruction Acts were still in force these
proceedings in the lower house would have constituted the plainest
illegality. But if Terry was a military governor and Harris his agent,
they were legal. Though the Senate judiciary committee later declared this
a false interpretation of the law, yet it was the official interpretation
of the War Department, as we saw by the order appointing Terry.[221] The
War Department had a right to decide what the Reorganization Act, which it
was to aid in executing, meant. Its decision, whatever its character, was
never officially overruled. Therefore the proceedings in the legislature
were officially regular.
Before the legislature met, the Conservative papers had published an
article by a state judge on the meaning of the first test oath of the
Reorganization Act. It concerned especially the phrase: "any civil office
created by law for the administration of any general law of a state." It
was argued that there were many state offices not included in this
phrase--among them those of mayor, alderman and state librarian. Since
these offices were not "for the administration of any general law," but
only for that of special or local law, former occupants of them who had
supported the Confederacy could take the present test oath.[222] This
construction would give an advantage to the Conservatives. To counteract
it, Bullock applied to the attorney general for an official
interpretation. That officer (Farrow by name) responded with a very
reasonable opinion. He admitted that officers with merely local functions
were not included in the phrase in question, but pointed out that many
municipal officers had the powers of a justice of the peace. In such cases
they were charged with the administration of general law and were included
in the phrase. The state librarian, said Farrow, executed general law and
was included.[223]
After the swearing in of members had gone on in the house of
representatives, as we have said, it was believed by the Radicals that
some Conservatives were acting upon the judge's interpretation and
disregarding the attorney general's, and that others had sworn or intended
to swear falsely who were debarred even by the former. Ordinarily, if a
man intends to swear falsely to a test oath there is no way of preventing
him. In the existing state of public opinion, prosecution for perjury
after the oath of office was taken was impossible. But Georgia had a
military governor. By issuing orders he could prevent men whom he believed
ineligible from swearing and could unseat those whom he believed to have
sworn falsely. This Terry decided to do.
On January 13 he detailed a board of soldiers to investigate the cases of
twenty-one members elect whose eligibility was questioned.[224] This
board sat for two weeks, and found five men ineligible[225] and eleven
eligible.[226] Terry accordingly forbade the five, and ordered the eleven,
to be sworn in. The remaining five of the twenty-one, together with
nineteen others, confessed ineligibility by filing with Bullock
application for the removal of their disabilities by Congress. These also
Terry forbade to be sworn in.[227] The actions and the decision of the
board of inquiry were pronounced fair and honorable even by the
Conservatives.[228] The nineteen applications for Congressional grace were
said to have been procured by the Radicals through intimidation and
fraud.[229] If the applicants were in fact ineligible but intended
nevertheless to take the oath, then we must admire the cleverness of the
Radicals in dissuading them, by whatever means they did it. If they used
intimidation and fraud, their means were no worse than the end sought by
their victims--the frustration of a law by perjury. On the other hand, if
nineteen Conservatives who were eligible were induced by Radicals to
petition for the removal of ineligibility, the fact may excite disapproval
of the Radicals, but hardly pity for the Conservatives.
On January 13, when the board of inquiry was appointed, the "clerk _pro
tem._" of the lower house, by order of Bullock countersigned by Terry, had
declared the house adjourned till January 17, to await the decision of the
board.[230] On the 17th the house met and listened to the reading of two
orders from Bullock indorsed by Terry; the one directing the state
treasurer to issue fifty dollars to each member of the house, the other
ordering the house to adjourn till January 19.[231] On the 19th the house
met, and after one man had been sworn in was adjourned in the same manner
till the 24th.[232] On the 24th it met and after two men had been sworn in
was again adjourned by order of the governor.[233] On the morning of the
25th it met and was adjourned till afternoon. In the afternoon it was
adjourned as soon as it had met till the next day. To the countersignature
of Terry in this case was added the promise that this was the last
adjournment of the series, since the board had now rendered so much of its
decision as related to members of the lower house. The house was therefore
ordered to swear in, on the next day, all the remaining members elect
except those found or confessed ineligible, and to elect its permanent
officers.[234] On January 26 this order was complied with; the Radical
candidate for chairman was elected by a large majority, and the
redoubtable "clerk _pro tem._," having presided for the last time,
retired.[235]
The reorganized legislature on February 2 complied with the remaining
requirements of the Reorganization Act by ratifying the Fifteenth
Amendment. On the advice of Bullock it also repassed the resolutions of
July, 1868, required by the Omnibus Act. This was not necessary to
re-admission. It is true, the requirements of the Omnibus Act had, by the
hypothesis of the Reorganization Act, never been "duly" fulfilled. But the
Omnibus Act had been superseded by other legislation, which made new
requirements and did not renew the old. The renewal of the unfulfilled
requirements had been discussed in Congress and rejected.[236]
Nevertheless, the resolutions were passed gratuitously.[237]
The Omnibus Act had definitely said that Georgia should be "entitled and
admitted to representation in Congress as a state of the union when the
legislature" had complied with the conditions mentioned in the act. The
Reorganization Act was not so definite. It said; "The legislature shall
ratify the Fifteenth Amendment ... before Senators and Representatives
from Georgia are admitted to seats in Congress." This might be construed
as granting title to representation as a state as soon as the Fifteenth
Amendment should be ratified, or as merely requiring the ratification and
making no definite provision as to restoration but leaving that subject to
be provided for by another act. The latter construction was adopted by the
Georgia Radicals, since it prolonged the tenure of their military
governor. It followed from this construction that the state government was
still "provisional" and could not proceed with its business like a regular
state government. So after electing United States Senators (the election
of July, 1868, being regarded as invalid,[238] and the present election
probably being designed to become valid by relation), the legislature
adjourned until April 18, to await Congressional action.[239] In April
Congress had taken no action, and the legislature, after sitting a
fortnight, took another recess of two months.[240] Meantime the theory of
military government had been faithfully observed. Though the legislature
was only provisional, it could legislate with Terry's permission. It
passed a stay law on February 17, and asked Terry to enforce it.[241] On
May 2 it passed revenue and appropriation acts,[242] but not before Terry
had informed it through the governor that he would allow those acts to
have the validity of regularly issued military orders.[243]
* * * * *
Whatever may have been the merits of the construction of the
Reorganization Act adopted by the War Department, it is certain that the
proceedings taken under it greatly astonished those who had passed the
act. On January 19 the House of Representatives adopted a resolution
requesting the general of the army to inform it by what authority three
United States soldiers were acting as a committee in the legislature of
Georgia.[244] On February 4 the Senate asked for official information
regarding the proceedings had under the Reorganization Act.[245] The facts
disclosed in response to this request created such surprise that the
Senate directed the judiciary committee to inquire and report whether the
act had been complied with.[246] The answer of the committee, as we saw in
the early part of the chapter, was that the act had been misconstrued and
violated. The appointment of presiding officers by the governor, the acts
of those officers, the revival of the military governorship, and in
particular the interference of Terry in the organization of the
legislature--these, said the committee, were wholly unlawful. But though
unlawful they had resulted in no substantial injustice, since all the men
debarred by Terry were undoubtedly ineligible. And in any case a general
state election was approaching, so that if any injustice had been done it
would soon be righted. For these reasons the committee recommended that
Congress undertake no more legislation for Georgia, but admit her
representatives to each house as soon as possible.[247]
The committee believed that the Reorganization Act was to be construed as
a law entitling Georgia to representation in Congress as soon as she had
ratified the Fifteenth Amendment. This opinion was held by many
Republicans, who had followed Trumbull's example and who appeared from
this time on as opponents of further Congressional interference in the
South. The radical Republicans, however, led by Butler--those Republicans
characterized by a Republican paper of the time as "the screeching wing"
of the party[248]--insisted that Georgia must be admitted, as the first
Reconstruction Act had said, "by law," and that no law to that effect had
been passed. The reason why this argument was urged was that the passage
of a new act for restoring the state would give an opportunity to annex
other provisions besides the declaration of restoration. The particular
provisions designed to be annexed were for the purpose of prolonging the
term of the present state government.
On February 25 Butler introduced the bill to admit Georgia.[249] One of
its sections was as follows:
That the power granted by the constitution of Georgia to the general
assembly to change the time of holding elections ... shall not be so
exercised as to postpone the election for members of the next general
assembly beyond the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in the
year 1872.
The power here referred to was that conferred by Article III., section 1,
of the state constitution;
The election for members of the general assembly shall begin on
Tuesday after the first Monday in November of every second year ...
but the general assembly may by law change the time of election, and
members shall hold until their successors are elected and qualified.
The constitutional term of the present legislature (except of one-half of
the senators, who held four years) would expire in November, 1870. But
this section of the constitution, Butler pointed out, would enable the
legislature to postpone the election and perpetuate its power. This grave
danger he proposed to remove by the clause of his bill above quoted. In
order to prevent the legislature from prolonging its tenure forever, he
proposed, not to forbid prolongation, but to allow it for two years.
I also propose [he said] by this [clause] to give to the present
State officers of Georgia a two years' term of office in that state
as a state in this Union.
That Congress should pose as the defender of the people of Georgia against
a usurping legislature, and at the same time by the guaranty of its
approval encourage that legislature to double its constitutional
term--this was a conception of political genius which, independently of
its realization, should make Butler immortal.
The moderate Republicans of the House of Representatives were willing, for
the sake of settling doubt, to pass a bill declaring Georgia restored, but
were decidedly opposed the scheme to use the bill as a means of prolonging
the tenure of the Georgia Radicals. An amendment to Butler's bill, known
as the Bingham amendment, was offered, to the following effect:
... neither shall this act be construed to extend the official tenure
of any officer of said state beyond the term limited by the
constitution thereof, dating from the election or appointment of such
officer.[250]
The bill with this amendment passed the House by a large majority on March
8.[251]
In the Senate the necessity of any bill and the propriety of the Bingham
amendment were warmly debated for some weeks. Then the so-called Drake
amendment was offered. It provided that whenever the legislature or
governor of any state should inform the President of the existence within
that state of associations organized for the purpose of obstructing the
law and doing violence to persons, then the President should send troops
to that state, declare martial law, suspend the privileges of the writ of
_habeas corpus_, and take such other military measures as he saw fit, and
should levy the cost of the expedition on the people of the state.[252]
The propriety of grafting this general measure on a special bill like the
present should not be discussed, it was said, in view of the pressing
necessity of passing it in some way, no matter how.[253] The debate thus
complicated continued until April 19, when the bill went to the committee
of the whole. There, the night being far spent, two entirely new
amendments were suddenly offered. One commanded Georgia to hold a general
election in the present year; the other declared that the existing
government of Georgia was still "provisional" and provided that the
Reconstruction Acts of 1867 should continue to be enforced there. These
amendments were adopted by the committee. The Drake amendment was also
adopted. Finally, the entire bill as it came from the house was stricken
out.[254] Thus transformed so that, as a Senator said, "it would not be
recognized by the oldest inhabitant," the bill was passed by the
Senate.[255]
The House of Representatives did not take up the bill again until June 23.
On June 24 it decided to insist on the passage of the bill substantially
as before passed.[256] As a result of the conference following, the Senate
yielded to the House. The bill became law on July 15, 1870. It said:
... It is hereby declared that the state of Georgia is entitled to
representation in the Congress of the United States. But nothing in
this act contained shall be construed to deprive the people of
Georgia of the right to an election for members of the general
assembly of said state, as provided for in the constitution
thereof.[257]
One would suppose that this act of July 15 should close the chapter; that
it recognized Georgia as a state, and that henceforth all peculiar
relations between Georgia and the federal government were at an end. The
Georgia Radicals were able to avoid this conclusion. In a message to the
legislature on July 18 the governor said that according to the act of
March 2, 1867, the federal military power was to remain until the state
was not only entitled to representation but actually represented in
Congress. Section 5 of that act contained this language:
When ... any one of said rebel states shall have [fulfilled all
requirements], said state shall be declared entitled to
representation in Congress, and Senators and Representatives shall be
admitted therefrom ... and then and thereafter the preceding sections
of this act shall be inoperative in said state.
Hence, the military authority, said Bullock, would continue in Georgia
until the following December. But he informed the legislature that it
might proceed with legislation, since Terry had informed him that he would
allow it.[258]
The Radicals in the legislature took advantage of the theory announced by
the governor to make one last attempt at prolongation of power. On July 26
a resolution was offered in the upper house to this effect: That the
authority of the United States was still paramount in Georgia; that no
offence ought to be offered to Congress by an apparent denial of this
fact; that therefore no election should be held in the state until
Congress had fully recognized its statehood by receiving its
representatives.[259] On July 29 the senate adopted a resolution similar
to this, but the lower house rejected it by a few votes.[260] With the
failure of this attempt, the Reconstruction Acts ceased to operate in
Georgia, either in fact or in any one's theory.
At the next session of Congress a delegation from Georgia composed of men
elected in December, 1870, was seated in the House of Representatives.[261]
In the Senate, Farrow and Whitely, elected by the legislature in February,
1870, presented credentials. They were referred to the judiciary
committee, which reported adversely. It recommended that Hill, elected in
1868, be seated, and reported that Miller, elected with Hill, would be
entitled to a seat except that he was unable to take the Test Oath
required of members of Congress by the act of July 2, 1862.[262] Since
this committee had decided in January, 1869, that the Georgia legislature
was not legally organized in 1868, and in March, 1870, that its
organization in January of that year was also illegal, and since therefore
the election of Hill and Miller and that of Farrow and Whitely were both
illegal, the committee had to decide the question: To which of these
illegal elections ought we to give _de facto_ validity? It decided in
favor of the earlier one on grounds of equity. The Senate adopted the
committee's opinion. The Test Oath act was suspended in favor of Miller by
a special act of Congress, and he and Hill were sworn in, in February,
1871.[263]
Thus, after federal intervention had been imposed in 1865 and apparently
withdrawn in the same year, again imposed in 1867 and again apparently
withdrawn in 1868, and yet again imposed in 1869, it was now withdrawn for
the last time, and Georgia was completely restored to statehood.
CHAPTER IX
RECONSTRUCTION AND THE STATE GOVERNMENT
In the preceding chapters we have mentioned the immediate effect of
reconstruction upon social conditions. To its immediate effects upon
political conditions, in other words to the character and conduct of the
new state government, which have been mentioned only incidentally, we
shall now give a more direct and consecutive consideration.
With reference to the political reforms of reconstruction the white men of
Georgia formed three distinct parties. There were those who favored them,
either on their ethical and political merits or (more often) as a means of
attaining political power otherwise unattainable. They were called
Scalawags, Carpet-baggers and Radicals, of which terms we shall adopt the
last. There were those unalterably opposed to them, called Rebels by their
critics and Conservatives by themselves. There were, thirdly, those who
supported them not upon their merits, which they doubted, but because they
saw the state at the mercy of a conqueror and believed that, bad as the
measures were, it was better to accept them quickly than to make a vain
resistance, which could only prolong the social and commercial
disturbances in the state, and which might occasion the administration of
a still worse dose. This group embraced many of the commercial class,
which was especially large in Georgia, and one of the men prominent in
former politics, namely Governor Brown. They were classed by the
Conservatives with the basest of Radicals, but we shall call them the
Moderate Republicans. The admixture of this group with the Radical party
had important consequences. Differing from their party in principle and
allying themselves with it to bring peace to the state, when the peace of
the state seemed secure, they sometimes adhered to their principles rather
than to their party. It is true, many of them became so interested in the
great game of politics then going on that they played it for its own sake,
but some party splits of importance occurred.
The first fruit of the policy of negro enfranchisement and rebel
disenfranchisement was the constitutional convention of 1867-68. It was
stated in the latter part of Chapter IV. that in the election for members
of this convention many Conservatives declined to take part. For this
reason the Radicals obtained a predominance in the convention which they
did not retain in the state government after the Conservatives decided to
fight. The convention, in fact, was extremely Radical. The constitution
which it framed shows the thoroughness with which it entered into the
Humanitarian reforms. The speeches and resolutions show that a close
sympathy with the Republican party and a bitter antagonism to the
Conservatives were entertained by most of the members. The temporary
chairman, Foster Blodgett, in his opening speech, mentioned the
suspicious, hostile and contemptuous attitude of the Conservatives toward
the convention. He said:
They may stand and rail at us and strive to distract us from our
patriotic labors; but we are engaged in a great work ... we are
building up the walls of a great state.[264]
Parrot, the permanent chairman, said:
Many of us come here from amongst a people who have spurned us and
spit upon us ... the enemies of the convention are watching with
envious eyes to see whether we shall be able to meet public
expectation.... We should form a state government for an unwilling
people based upon the soundest principles ... and in governing them
rescue human liberty from the grave, and prevent them from trampling
us under foot.
On the other side, he said:
The Republican party of the nation is waiting with intense anxiety
the movements of this body. Our friends will soon be able to
determine whether we shall be a burden upon them ... or aid them in
the great work of restoring our state.[265]
When Governor Jenkins brought suit against Stanton on behalf of the state,
the convention declared the action unauthorized and in the name of the
people of Georgia demanded that the suit be dismissed.[266] On December
17, 1867, a resolution was passed, asking Pope to appoint, in lieu of
Governor Jenkins, a provisional governor, and asking that the person
appointed be Rufus B. Bullock.[267] Unsuccessful here, the convention
tried again on January 21. It requested Congress to allow it to vacate the
governorship and all other offices now filled by men unfriendly to
reconstruction and to fill them with new appointees.[268] These two last
named resolutions suggest not only Radical sentiment, but also Radical
organization in the convention.
The attitude of the convention toward the military authorities was most
cordial. On December 20, a reception was given to Pope. The general made a
speech and received an ovation.[269] Resolutions of friendship and
gratitude were voted him on his departure.[270] Meade, on his arrival,
received resolutions of welcome,[271] and resolutions of friendly import
on various other occasions.[272] Meade did not entirely reciprocate this
cordiality.
Toward Congress the convention was not only cordial; it was almost filial.
Not only was the United States government eloquently thanked for its
magnanimity,[273] but it was appealed to by the convention as a kind
parent by a child confident of favor. It was petitioned to appropriate
thirty million dollars to be loaned on mortgage to southern
planters;[274] to loan a hundred thousand dollars to the South Georgia and
Florida railroad,[275] and "to make a liberal appropriation" for building
the proposed Air Line railroad.[276]
The constitutional convention of 1865 had met on October 25, and adjourned
on November 8, thus completing its work in fourteen days. This dispatch,
as well as the style of its resolutions and of the speeches of its
members,[277] had marked it as a body where good taste, decorum and public
spirit prevailed.
The reconstruction convention met on December 9, 1867, and continued in
session (excepting a recess from December 24 to January 7), until March
11, 1868. The first article of the new constitution on which the
convention took action was reported on January 9.[278] Before that time
many resolutions and ordinances were introduced. Most of them related to
"relief" (such as suspension of tax collections, homestead exemption, stay
of execution for debt, etc.), or to the pay and mileage of delegates, and
only rarely was anything said about the constitution. On December 16 the
more conscientious members secured the appointment of a committee to
inquire whether the convention had power to do any business besides frame
a constitution.[279] This committee did not discuss the law of the
question, but recommended on moral grounds a resolution to this effect:
That all ordinances or other matter ... already introduced and
pending are hereby indefinitely postponed; and in future no ordinance
or other matter ... not necessarily connected with the fundamental
law shall be entertained by this convention [except relief
legislation].
This report met with vigorous opposition. It was saved from the table by
two votes. But it was adopted.[280] The contemporary Conservative press
describes the convention as very infamous and very disgusting.[281] It
contained thirty-three negroes, and the transactions recorded in the
official journal show that it was composed largely of men of low
character.
Hence, to many of the delegates, framing the constitution was only a minor
incident of the convention, and the main part of that work was left to a
small number of men. Their work shows intelligence and ability. Moreover,
in the records of the convention there are not wanting traces of that
undoubted public spirit which animated many of the supporters of
reconstruction--the honest desire to repair and develop the material
welfare of the state. This spirit is evident in the speeches we have
cited, and in some of the resolutions.
We have stated how the campaign of 1868 resulted in giving the
governorship to the Republicans and a majority of twenty-nine in the
legislature to the Conservatives; how Governor Bullock tried to reduce
that majority through Meade, and how Meade refused his aid; and how the
majority was more than doubled by the expulsion of the negroes and the
seating of the minority candidates. From that time to the reorganization
of the legislature in 1870, the most remarkable fact in the state politics
was the hostility between the governor and the legislature.
After the expulsion of the negroes, the lower house asked the governor to
send it the names of the candidates who at the election had received the
next highest vote to the persons expelled. The governor sent the names and
with them a long protest against the expulsion of the negroes.[282] The
house, on hearing the message, adopted a tart resolution, reminding the
governor that the members of each house were "the keepers of their own
consciences, and not his Excellency."[283] A similar message to the upper
house in response to a similar request provoked a similar resolution,
which was defeated by two votes.[284]
It will be remembered that in December, 1868, and January, 1869, the
governor urged upon Congress, through his letter presented in the Senate
and through his testimony before the Reconstruction Committee, the theory
that Georgia had not yet been restored. On January 15, 1869, he urged the
same view upon the legislature. He advised it to reorganize itself by
summoning all men elected members in 1868, requiring each to take the Test
Oath, excluding only those who should not take it, and thus constituted to
repass the resolutions required by the Omnibus Act. If the legislature did
not do this, it must submit to Congressional interference.[285] This
message apparently caused the legislature some apprehension. It adopted a
joint resolution to the effect that it desired the question of the
eligibility of negroes to office to be determined by the supreme court of
the state. The governor sent this resolution back with one of his
admirably keen and powerful messages. He said that Congress had two
grievances against the present legislature; that it had admitted members
disqualified by the Fourteenth Amendment, contrary to the Omnibus Act, and
that it had expelled twenty-eight negroes. The present resolution,
intended to appease Congress, ignored the first grievance and proposed no
remedy for the second; therefore it was meaningless and absurd.[286]
On January 21, 1869, the state treasurer, Angier, in response to an
inquiry from the house of representatives regarding the affairs of his
department, intimated that the governor had drawn money from the treasury
under suspicious circumstances.[287] Thus began the feud between the
governor and the treasurer which continued during the rest of Bullock's
term. Angier's report was referred to the committee on finance. The
majority of the committee reported that the governor's acts had been
irregular but in good faith. The minority reported that his acts were
culpable and his explanations inadequate, and concluded: "The facts herein
set forth develop the necessity for further legislation for the security
of the treasury."[288] This report the house adopted by a large
majority.[289]
Another index of the relations between the governor and the legislature is
furnished by the governor's message submitting the proposed Fifteenth
Amendment. It opened thus:
It is especially gratifying to learn, as I do from the published
proceedings of your honorable body, that senators and representatives
who have heretofore acted with a political organization which adopted
as one of its principles a denunciation of the acts of a Republican
Congress ... should now give expression to their anxious desire to
lose no time in embracing this opportunity of ratifying one of the
fundamental principles of the Republican party ... and I very much
regret that the preparation necessary for a proper presentation of
this subject to your honorable body has necessarily caused a short
delay, and thereby prolonged the suspense of those who are so anxious
to concur.[290]
The radicals probably desired the rejection of the amendment, since it
would furnish another strong argument to Congress in favor of reorganizing
the legislature. Hence, the Radical governor, as his message shows, did
not do his best to induce the legislature to ratify, and probably some
Radical members for the same reason voted against the amendment or
refrained from voting for it. It was defeated in the lower house on March
12,[291] and in the upper on March 18.[292]
In the last chapter we saw that Terry excluded five men from the
legislature because the board of inquiry had found them ineligible, and
excluded nineteen others because they had failed to take the required
oath, and had applied to Congress for removal of disabilities. It is safe
to assume that all of these twenty-four men were conservatives. Nineteen
of them had been elected to the lower house, five to the senate.[293]
Immediately after organization, on advice of Bullock and with the sanction
of Terry, the senate gave the five vacated seats to the minority
candidates,[294] and the house gave fourteen of its vacated seats to the
minority candidates.[295] The result was that the Republicans secured a
majority in each house.[296] The Republican control thus secured remained
uninterrupted for the remainder of 1870. Perfect accord now existed
between the governor and legislature, and in the quarrel between Bullock
and Angier, which went on with increased acerbity in the press and before
a congressional committee,[297] the legislature proceeded to transfer its
support to the governor.[298]
But Republican supremacy was in danger. It was threatened by the Moderate
Republicans. J. E. Bryant, a Republican, prominent in the state politics
since the beginning of the new _régime_, in testifying before the
Reconstruction Committee in January, 1869, had advocated reorganization of
the legislature, but had opposed any other interference, especially the
restoration of military government.[299] He and other Republicans who
shared his opinion were disgusted with the proceedings of Bullock and
Terry. As early as January 12, 1870, there were reports that the Radicals
were apprehensive of a combination between the Moderate Republicans and
the Conservatives.[300] Probably the strenuous efforts of the Radicals to
take and make every possible advantage for themselves in the
reorganization is partly accounted for by this apprehension. On February
2, Bryant caused to be entered on the journal of the house of
representatives a protest denouncing the reorganization proceedings as
illegal.[301] Shortly afterwards he published a statement of his position.
He said that he was a Republican, but was opposed to the corrupt ring
which controlled the party in Georgia.[302] From this time on the papers
frequently referred to the alliance between the followers of Bryant and
the Conservatives as the salvation of the state.[303]
The Radical majority was not quite strong enough to pass a resolution
declaring that there should be no election in 1870, as was attempted in
August of that year.[304] But it was strong enough to pass an election law
very favorable to the Radical party. It changed the date of the election
from the regular time in November to December 22, and following the
example set by General Pope in 1867, provided that it should continue
three days. It established a board of five election managers for each
county, three to be appointed by the governor and senate, and two by the
county ordinary. It provided that the board should have "no power to
refuse the ballot of any male person of apparent full age, a resident of
the county, who [had] not previously voted at the said election." Also it
said: "They [the managers] shall not permit any person to challenge any
vote."[305] Another act was passed, calculated to prevent the loss of
Republican votes through disqualification of negroes for non-payment of
taxes. It declared the poll tax levied in 1868, 1869 and 1870
illegal.[306]
At the election thus provided for were to be chosen a new legislature
(except half of the senators, who held four years) and Congressmen. To
what extent the Republicans availed themselves of the advantages offered
by the election law we do not know. At any rate, the Conservatives
obtained two-thirds of the seats in the legislature, and five of the seven
seats in Congress.[307]
This result meant trouble for the governor, whose term ran to November,
1872. His efforts to secure Congressional interference, his conduct in
January, 1870, and the accusations of extravagance, corruption, and other
crimes continually made by an intemperate press, had raised public
indignation to a high point. It was certain that when the new legislature
met it would investigate the charges, and it was hoped that the governor
would be impeached.[308] The time of reckoning had been postponed,
however, by the prudence of the outgoing legislature, which had provided
that the next session of the legislature should begin, instead of in
January, the regular time set by the constitution,[309] on the first
Wednesday in November, 1871.[310]
The first Wednesday in November, 1871, was November 1. On October 23, the
governor recorded in the executive minutes that he resigned his office,
for "good and sufficient reasons," the resignation to take effect on
October 30.[311] He then quietly left the state. The fact that he had
resigned was kept secret until October 30.[312]
In case of a vacancy in the office of governor, the constitution directed
the president of the senate to fill the office.[313] On October 30,
therefore, Conley, the president of the senate at its last session,
hastened to be sworn in as governor.[314] By resigning just before the
meeting of the incoming Conservative legislature, Bullock had thus
cleverly prolonged Republican power, while at the same time resigning. The
question whether under the constitution the governor's office should not
be filled by the president of the newly-organized senate, was raised by
the papers.[315] But Conley was by common consent left in possession of
the office. Though, as he said in his first message to the
legislature,[316] "a staunch Republican," he was not personally
unpopular.[317] Moreover, the legislature intended to furnish a successor
very soon.
On November 22, a bill was passed ordering a special election for governor
for the remainder of the unexpired term, to be held on the third Tuesday
in December.[318] The authority for this act was found in the following
provision of the constitution: "The general assembly shall have power to
provide by law for filling unexpired terms by a special election."[319]
Conley vetoed the bill, on the ground that the section of the constitution
quoted empowered the legislature to make general provisions for filling
unexpired terms, not to make special provision for single cases.[320] The
bill was passed over his veto.
Although Republican power was now doomed in a few weeks, and although
resistance to a legislature which could easily override his vetoes was
futile, yet Conley stubbornly continued to offer obstructions to the
legislature at every possible point up to the very day when his successor
was inaugurated.[321] He exhibited a courage and a political efficiency
worthy of his predecessor, but accomplished nothing. He was able, however,
to help his friends by means of the pardoning power. Several prominent
Republicans were indicted at this time for various acts of public
malfeasance. On the ground that in the existing state of public excitement
these men could not obtain a fair trial, Conley ordered proceedings
against several of these to be discontinued.[322]
On January 11, 1872, the returns from the special election were sent to
the legislature by Conley, under protest,[323] and James M. Smith was
declared elected. On January 12, Smith was inaugurated. Conley assisted at
this ceremony, thus yielding the last inch of Republican ground.[324]
Reviewing the events recorded from the beginning of this chapter, we
observe that the period of reconstruction in Georgia was not a period when
a swarm of harpies took possession of the state government and preyed at
will upon a helpless people. The constitutional convention of 1867-68
forebodes such a period, but when the Conservatives rouse themselves, from
that time on the stage presents an internecine war between two very well
matched enemies. This struggle is usually represented as between a wicked
assailant and a righteous assailed. That it was a struggle between
Republicans and Democrats is much more characteristic. In such a contest
mutual vilifying of course abounded, and it is not to be supposed _a
priori_ that the vilifying of one party was more truthful than that of the
other.
It is often vaguely said that reconstruction resulted in government by
carpet-baggers. John B. Gordon, the Conservative candidate for governor
who was defeated by Bullock, expressed before a Congressional committee in
1870 the belief that there were not more than a dozen men holding offices
in Georgia who had recently been non-residents. He further said that the
judges appointed by the Republican governor were entirely
satisfactory.[325]
The reconstruction government is charged with having imposed such heavy
taxes that as a result the people were impoverished, industry was checked,
and many plantations went to waste. During the decade before the war the
law provided that a tax should be annually levied at such a rate as to
produce $375,000, provided the rate should not exceed one-twelfth of one
per cent.[326] The revenue law of 1866 provided that a tax should be
levied at such a rate as to produce $350,000.[327] Owing to the vast
destruction of property during the war, this necessitated a higher rate
than that before the war. The law of 1867 ordered a levy at such a rate as
to raise $500,000.[328] This law, made by the Johnson government, before
reconstruction began, was continued by the legislature in the four
following years.[329] In 1870 the rate of assessment was two-fifths of one
per cent.[330] This rate was much higher than the one prevailing before
the war, but this misfortune cannot be charged to reconstruction, since
the reconstruction government merely followed the example of the Johnson
government.
That the reconstruction _régime_ did not do the economic harm often
attributed to it is shown by the fact that during that _régime_ the value
of land and of all property in the state steadily increased, as appears
from the following table:
ASSESSED VALUATION.
Land. Town and Total
City Property. Property.
1868[331] $79,727,584 $40,315,621 $191,235,520
1869[332] 84,577,166 44,368,096 204,481,706
1870[333] 95,600,674 47,922,544 226,119,519
1871[334] 96,857,512 52,159,734 234,492,468
Nevertheless, the reconstruction government spent the public money
extravagantly. This fact is shown by a comparison of the expenditures of
the state under Bullock's administration and under that of his
predecessor. Such a comparison, it is true, has been employed to prove the
contrary. Governor Bullock was wont to rebut charges of extravagance by
showing that the state spent more under Jenkins' administration than under
his, in proportion to the time occupied by each.[335] This was true, as
the following figures show:[336]
Gross expenditures in 1866 and 1867 $3,223,323.46
Average annual expenditure during these years 1,601,661.73
Gross expenditures from August 11, 1868, to Jan. 1, 1870 2,260,252.15
Gross expenditures in 1870 1,444,816.73
Gross expenditures in 1871 1,476,978.86
Average annual expenditure during this period 1,554,614.32
A comparison of gross expenditures, however, is of no significance unless
the sums contrasted represent payments for the same purposes. Under the
earlier administration the government undertook large expenditures for the
relief of destitute persons, especially of wounded soldiers and the
relicts of soldiers.[337] This accounts for the remarkable size of the
amounts credited to "special appropriations" in the report for 1866 and
1867. Under Bullock's administration the government spent nothing for
these purposes. For a fair comparison of the economy of the Johnson
government and the reconstruction government, it is necessary to compare
the amounts which they spent respectively for the same objects. Their
payments for the more important administrative purposes are shown in the
following table:[338]
+----------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| | 1866. | 1867. | 1868. | 1869. |
+----------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
|Civil Establishment |$20,771.66|$75,222.44|$50,373.72|$85,666.41|
|Contingent Fund | 6,128.62| 15,430.74| 10,059.06| 19,968.16|
|Printing Fund | 1,021.75| 16,114.90| 20,452.96| 7,673.38 |
|Special Appropriations|304,955.05|879,897.77|210,916.11|261,097.37|
+----------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
+----------+----------+
| 1870. | 1871. |
+----------+----------+
|$77,851.77|$78,365.21|
| 38,284.44| 20,296.95|
| 60,011.78| 20,000.00|
|260,442.05|806,419.08|
+----------+----------+
These figures show that almost all the annual expenditures of Bullock's
administration, aside from "special appropriations," were well above those
of the preceding administration, and that the payments from the printing
fund, especially in 1870, and from the contingent fund in 1870, were so
large as to convict the administration of great extravagance.
The reconstruction legislature was reproached because of its large _per
diem_--nine dollars. This _per diem_ was established by the Johnson
government,[339] and is, therefore, not a charge against reconstruction.
But the other expenses of the legislature fully corroborate the charges of
extravagance made against it. This is shown by the following table:[340]
+-----+---------------------+-------------+-------------------+
| | Length of Session. | Total |Average Expenditure|
| | |Expenditure. | per month. |
+-----+---------------------+-------------+-------------------+
| | Dec. 4 to Dec. 15. | | |
|1865 | Jan. 15 to March 13.| | |
| and | Nov. 1 to Dec. 14. | $121,759.75 | $33,207.18 |
|1866.| ------------------- | | |
| | 3-2/3 months.| | |
+-----+---------------------+-------------+-------------------+
|1867.| No session. | | |
+-----+---------------------+-------------+-------------------+
|1868 | July 4 to Oct. 6. | | |
| and | Jan. 13 to March 18.| $446,055.00 | $84,161.33 |
|1869.| ------------------- | | |
| | 5-3/10 months.| | |
+-----+---------------------+-------------+-------------------+
| | Jan. 10 to Feb. 17. | | |
| | Apr. 18 to May 4. | | |
|1870.| July 6 to Oct. 25. | $526,891.00 | $95,798.32 |
| | ------------------- | | |
| | 5-1/2 months. | | |
+-----+---------------------+-------------+-------------------+
The state debt created by the reconstruction government was of two kinds;
direct and contingent. When the reconstruction government went into
operation the state debt was $6,544,500.[341] The reconstruction
government incurred a bonded debt of $4,880,000.[342] This includes bonds
to the amount of $1,880,000 which were issued to a railroad in exchange
for its bonds to a greater amount and bearing interest at the same rate.
This amount, therefore, was not a burden on the state, provided the
railroad remained solvent; though in form a direct, it was virtually a
contingent liability. Further, $300,000 of the money borrowed was used to
pay the principal of the old debt. Deducting these two sums, we find that
the burden of direct debt was increased by $2,700,000.
Contingent debt was incurred by the indorsement of railroad bonds. In 1868
the state offered aid of this kind to three railroad companies,[343] in
1869 to four,[344] and in 1870 to thirty.[345] The state offered to
indorse the bonds of each of these companies to the amount, usually, of
from $12,000 to $15,000 per mile, sometimes more and sometimes less. If
all the roads had accepted the full amount of aid offered, the state would
have become contingently liable for about $30,000,000.[346] But only six
roads accepted, and the contingent liability thus created was
$6,923,400.[347] The laws offering the aid involved little risk to the
state; they made substantial progress in construction and substantial
evidence of soundness conditions precedent to indorsement, and secured to
the state a lien on all the property of each road in case it defaulted.
The indorsement of railroad bonds is not a reproach to the reconstruction
government. The great policy of that government, when it was sufficiently
free from partisan labors to have a policy, was to repair the prosperity
of the state, and the construction of railroads was an important means to
this end.[348]
The worst stain on the reconstruction government is its management of the
state railroad. The Western and Atlantic Railroad, owned and operated by
the state until 1871, was placed under the superintendence of Foster
Blodgett by the governor in January, 1870.[349] Thenceforth hundreds of
employees were discharged to make room for Republican favorites; important
positions were filled by strangers to the business; the receipts were
stolen,[350] or squandered in purchases made from other Republicans at
monstrous prices; and the road suffered great dilapidation.[351]
The preferred object of the Conservative abuse in the reconstruction
government was Governor Bullock. We have seen that he was remarkably
powerful as well as remarkably active in promoting the interests of his
party. He was abused for that. For the extravagance of the state
government the governor was held largely responsible. He was abused for
that. But he was further accused of fraud in financial matters.
Although this charge has never been established, the public had some
excuse for believing it at the time. As a result of the quarrel between
the governor and the treasurer, the governor ordered the bankers who were
the financial agents of the state to hold no further communication with
the treasurer after June 3, 1869, but to communicate only with the
governor.[352] The effect upon the public was an impression of great
confusion and irregularity in the finances. The treasurer's reports could
not give a complete account of state moneys, and the governor was not
careful to inform the public of the condition of that part of the finances
over which he had assumed control. Moreover, the governor and the
treasurer kept up a constant interchange of accusation and insinuation in
the newspapers. In another way the governor put himself in an unfortunate
light. In his letter to the Ku Klux Committee his statements regarding his
bond transactions were so vague as to give the impression (rightly or
wrongly) of a desire to conceal something.[353] The same laxity of
statement appears in Conley's statement of the use to which the bonds
issued by Bullock had been put.[354] His sudden resignation and departure
on the eve of a threatened investigation seemed to confirm the evidence of
his guilt.
But though he did not keep the public informed, it has never been
established that his accounts were wrong. He spent money freely, and in
some cases without authority;[355] but none of his accusers has ever
proved that he spent any without regular and correct record by the
comptroller. And though he issued bonds perhaps in excess, he issued none
without proper registration in the comptroller's records.[356] His
apparent efforts to conceal facts do not prove fraud; a sufficient motive
would be furnished by desire to conceal the extravagance of his
administration. Furthermore, he has been positively acquitted of the
charge of fraud. In 1878 he returned to Georgia, and the courts proceeded
to give him "a speedy and public trial." Of his many alleged crimes,
indictments were secured for three. One indictment was quashed.[357] Upon
the other two the verdict was "not guilty."[358] His resignation was
explained in a letter to his "political friends," published on October 31,
1871.[359] He said that he had obtained evidence of a concerted design
among certain prominent members of the incoming legislature to impeach
him (as they could easily do, with the immense Conservative majority), and
instal as governor the Conservative who would be elected president of the
senate. To resign and put the governorship in the hands of a Republican
who could not be impeached was the only way to defeat this "nefarious
scheme." This explanation was of course ignored by Bullock's enemies when
it was made; but in view of the lack of evidence that he was guilty of any
fraud, and in view of the positive evidence to the contrary, there is now
no reason to doubt it.
The governor made extraordinary use of the pardoning power. According to a
statement sanctioned by him, he pardoned four hundred and ninety-eight
criminals, forty-one of whom were convicted or accused of murder,
fifty-two of burglary, five of arson, and eight of robbery.[360] The
leader of the Conservative party at that time, B. H. Hill, emphatically
declared in a public statement that the governor had no worse motive than
"kindness of heart."[361]
To sum up the case against the reconstruction government, we have seen
that it was extravagant, that it mismanaged the state railroad, and that
it pardoned a great many criminals. It was not guilty of the enormities
often associated with reconstruction; but it was a government composed of
men who obtained political position only through the interference of an
outside power--it was the product of a system conceived partly in
vengeance, partly in folly, and partly in political strategy, and imposed
by force. It was hated partly for what it did, but more for what it was.
CHAPTER X
CONCLUSION
A Confederate veteran recently remarked amid great applause at an assembly
in Atlanta that there never was a conqueror so magnanimous as the North,
for within six years from the surrender of the southern armies she had
allowed the South to take part in her national councils. Nevertheless,
within those six years the Congressional Disciplinarians gave the South a
discipline which she will never forget. It did not result in permanent
estrangement between the North and the South, for sectional bitterness
seems extinct. But whether there was any profit in it--whether, in case
the South never again attempts to secede, that happy omission will be due
to reconstruction--may be doubted.
Was there a clearer gain from the humanitarian point of view? We have seen
that at the close of the war a spirit of gratitude and philanthropy
prevailed among the most influential of the southern white people as
regards the negroes. Instead of allowing this spirit to develop and in the
course of time to produce its natural results, the North, believing that
suffrage was essential to the negro's welfare and progress, forced the
South to enfranchise him, by reconstruction. This caused the negro untold
immediate harm (since reconstruction was a contributary cause of
Kukluxism), and delayed his ultimate advance by giving the friendly spirit
of the white people a check in its development from which it has not yet
recovered.
From the point of view of the Republican Politicians, reconstruction at
first succeeded, but later proved a mistaken policy. By it they lost the
support of the southern white men who had been opposed to secession. These
formed a large party in Georgia. The victory of the federal arms had the
nature of a party victory for them. They would have added their strength
to the Republican party. Reconstruction, with its threat of negro
domination, drove them into the Democratic party, where they still remain.
For a time this loss was made good by negro votes, but not long.
Without reconstruction there would have been no Fifteenth Amendment. But
the good will and philanthropy of the people among whom the negro lives,
which reconstruction took away, would have brought him more benefit than
the Fifteenth Amendment. Without reconstruction there would have been no
Fourteenth Amendment. But a long line of decisions of the Supreme Court
has determined that the Fourteenth Amendment did not achieve the
nationalization of civil rights--an end which might justify reconstruction
as a means. In short, reconstruction seems to have produced bad
government, political rancor, and social violence and disorder, without
compensating good.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
PUBLIC RECORDS AND DOCUMENTS.
_Of the United States Government._
Congressional Globe.
Public Documents.
Statutes at Large.
Supreme Court Reports.
Military orders in the archives of the Department of War.
Correspondence in the same archives.
Correspondence in the archives of the Department of State.
Unpublished records in the same archives.
_Of the Government of Georgia._
Journal of the constitutional convention of 1865.
Journal of the constitutional convention of 1867-8.
Journals of the legislature.
Reports of the four committees appointed by the legislature in December,
1871 to investigate respectively--
The management of the state railroad.
The lease of the same road.
The official conduct of Governor Bullock.
The transactions of Governor Bullock's administration relating to
the issue of state bonds and the indorsement of railroad bonds.
These reports were published in Atlanta in 1872.
Session Laws.
Supreme Court Reports.
Reports of the State Comptroller.
Executive minutes in the archives of the state in Atlanta.
Minutes of the Fulton County Superior Court in the office of that court
in Atlanta.
NEWSPAPERS.
Atlanta _New Era_.
Atlanta _Constitution_.
Milledgeville _Federal Union_ (during the war called the _Confederate
Union_).
Savannah _News_.
Savannah _Republican_.
CONTEMPORARY PAMPHLETS.
A letter from Rufus B. Bullock to the chairman of the Ku Klux committee,
Atlanta, 1871.
Address of the same to the people of Georgia, dated October, 1872.
Letter from the same "to the Republican Senators and Representatives who
support the Reconstruction Acts," Washington, May 21, 1870.
HISTORICAL WORKS AND COMPENDIA.
_American Annual Cyclopædia_. New York.
Avery, I. W., _History of Georgia_. New York, 1881.
Bancroft, F. A., _The Negro in Politics_. New York, 1885.
Clews, Henry, _Twenty-eight Years in Wall Street_. London, 1888.
Cox, S. S., _Three Decades of Federal Legislation_. Providence, 1886.
Dunning, W. A., _The Civil War and Reconstruction_. New York, 1898.
Fielder, H., _The Life and Times of Joseph E. Brown_. Springfield,
Mass., 1883.
Hill, B. H., Jr., _The Life, Speeches and Writings of Benjamin H. Hill_.
Atlanta, 1891.
Lalor, J. J., _Cyclopædia of Political Science_. New York, 1893.
Articles on Reconstruction, Georgia, and Ku Klux.
Poor, H. V., _Manual of the Railroads of the United States_. New York,
published yearly.
Sherman, W. T., _Memoirs_. New York, 1875.
Stephens, Alex., _The War between the States_. Philadelphia, 1868-70.
Taylor, Richard, _Destruction and Reconstruction_. New York, 1893.
_Tribune Almanac_. New York.
Wilson, Henry, _History of the Reconstruction Measures_. Hartford, 1868.
Footnotes:
[1] Alex. Stephens, _The War Between the States_, vol. ii, p. 623; W. T.
Sherman, _Memoirs_, vol. ii, pp. 346-362.
[2] M. C. U., May 9, 1865.
[3] See the account of the gigantic relief operations of the federal army,
A. A. C., 1865, p. 392.
[4] M. C. U., May 9, 1865.
[5] Letter from Joseph E. Brown to Andrew Johnson, dated May 20, 1865, in
the Department of War, Washington. Brown was arrested on May 10. On May 8,
upon surrendering the state troops to the federal general Wilson, he had
been paroled. (The parole paper is in the above mentioned archives.) Hence
the arrest was a violation of his parole. When Wilson entered into the
parole engagement he had not been informed how his superiors would regard
the summoning of the legislature. Immediately afterward he probably
received orders from the central authorities to arrest Brown. He preferred
obeying orders to observing his engagement.
[6] G. O. D. S., 1865, no. 63.
[7] See G. O. D. S., 1865, _passim_. Also Savannah _Republican_, May 1, 2,
3, etc., 1865.
[8] Savannah _Republican_, July 4, 1865. See also James Johnson's
proclamation of July 13, 1865, M. F. U. of same date.
[9] M. F. U., July 25, 1865.
[10] U. S. L., vol. 13, 760. The provisional governorship, it may be
remarked, was characterized by the Secretary of War as "ancillary to the
withdrawal of military force, the disbandment of armies, and the reduction
of military expenditure by provisional [civil organizations] to take the
place of armed force." The salaries of the provisional governors were paid
from the army contingencies fund. See S. D., 39th Congress, 1st session,
no. 26.
[11] U. S. L., vol. 13, p. 764.
[12] M. F. U., July 13, 1865; A. A. C., 1865, p. 394.
[13] M. F. U., August 15, 1865; A. A. C., _loc. cit._
[14] Letter from Brown to Johnson, dated May 20, 1865, archives of the
Department of War, Washington.
[15] Letter from Johnson to Stanton dated June 3, 1865, in same archives.
[16] M. F. U., July 11, 1865.
[17] M. F. U., July 18. Savannah _Republican_, July 1 and 3.
[18] J. C., 1865, p. 3.
[19] J. C., 1865, p. 8.
[20] _Ibid._, pp. 17, 18.
[21] _Ibid._, p. 234. The ordinance to this effect was passed only after a
hard fight, and after a telegraphic warning from the President that if it
failed the state would fail of restoration. See S. D., 39th Congress, 1st
session, no. 26, p. 81.
[22] J. C., 1865, pp. 18 and 28.
[23] S. J., 1865-6, p. 3.
[24] S. D., 39th Congress, 1st session, no. 26, p. 95.
[25] S. L., 1865, p. 313.
[26] M. F. U., December 19 and 26, 1865.
[27] See Jenkins' message to the legislature, M. F. U., December 19, 1865.
[28] K. K. R., vol. 6, p. 320 (testimony of John B. Gordon).
[29] Report of Carl Schurz on conditions in the South, made in December,
1865. S. D., 39th Congress, 2d session, no. 2.
[30] Report of Carl Schurz on conditions in the South, made in December,
1863. S. D., 39th Congress, 2d session, no. 2.
[31] Art. v, sect. 1, § 1.
[32] Art. ii, sec. 5, § 5.
[33] S. L., 1865-66, p. 6.
[34] S. L., 1865-66, p. 234.
[35] Before, the maximum penalty for rape, arson, and burglary in the
night had been imprisonment for 20 years, and for horse stealing
imprisonment for 5 years.
[36] S. L., 1865-66, p. 232; 1866, p. 151.
[37] _Ibid._, 1866, p. 150.
[38] _Ibid._, 1865-66, p. 233.
[39] S. L., 1866, p. 153.
[40] _Ibid._, 1865-66, p. 239.
[41] _Ibid._
[42] _Ibid._, p. 240.
[43] _Ibid._, 241.
[44] S. L., 1866, p. 59.
[45] J. C., 1865, p. 16.
[46] _Ibid._, p. 17.
[47] _Ibid._, 137.
[48] S. L., 1866, p. 216. For the governor's message and the report of the
committee to which the amendment was referred, see A. A. C., 1865, p. 352.
For a further expression of public opinion, see Atlanta _New Era_, October
19, 1866.
[49] S. L., 1865-66, p. 315.
[50] S. L., 1865-66, p. 14, and S. L., 1866, p. 143.
[51] S. L., 1866, p. 219.
[52] Report of Carl Schurz above cited.
[53] C. G., 39th Congress, 1st session. Appendix, p. 1.
[54] One of the Senators elect from Georgia had been Vice-President of the
defunct Confederacy.
[55] C. G., 39th Congress, 1st session, p. 2.
[56] R. C., 39th Congress, 1st session, vol. ii, p. iii.
[57] C. G., 39th Congress, 1st session, appendix, p. 82.
[58] C. G., 39th Congress, 1st session, p. 915.
[59] U. S. L., vol. 14, p. 27.
[60] Trumbull's speech, C. G., 39th Congress, 1st session, p. 474.
[61] R. C., 39th Congress, 1st session, vol. ii.
[62] Senate resolution (by Andrew Johnson), C. G., 37th Congress, 1st
session, pp. 243, 265; House resolution (by Crittenden), _ibid._, pp. 209,
222.
[63] U. S. L., vol. 14, P. 358.
[64] _Ibid._, p. 173.
[65] U. S. Senate Journal, 39th Congress, 2d session, p. 21.
[66] C. G., 39th Congress, 2d session, p. 814.
[67] _Ibid._
[68] C. G., 39th Congress, 2d session, p. 251.
[69] U. S. L., vol. 14, p. 428.
[70] C. G., 39th Congress, 2d session, p. 1076.
[71] U. S. L., vol. 15, p. 2.
[72] _Ibid._, p. 14.
[73] Mississippi _versus_ Johnson, 4 Wallace, 475; Georgia _versus_
Stanton, 6 Wallace, 51; _Ex parte_ McCardle, 6 Wallace, 324, and 7
Wallace, 512.
[74] 7 Wallace, 700.
[75] The _Federalist_, no. 43.
[76] Story on the Constitution, chap. 41 (4th edition).
[77] Cooley on the Constitution, p. 23 (4th edition).
[78] Prize Cases, 2 Black, 687.
[79] _Ex parte_ Garland, 4 Wallace, 333.
[80] Archives of the Department of State, Washington.
[81] C. G., 39th Congress, 2d session, p. 615. For other expressions of
the same doctrine, see Cullom's speech, _ibid._, p. 814; Sumner's
resolutions, C. G., 39th Congress, 1st session, p. 2; Sumner's
resolutions, C. G., 40th Congress, 2d session, p. 453.
[82] G. O. H., 1867, no. 18 and 104; 1868, no. 55; G. O. T. M. D., 1867,
no. 1; 1868, no. 3 and 108.
[83] G. O. T. M. D., 1867, no. 5.
[84] _Ibid._, 1867, no. 20.
[85] G. O. T. M. D., 1867, no. 50.
[86] _Ibid._, 1867, no. 69.
[87] _Ibid._, 1867, no. 83.
[88] _Ibid._, 1867, no. 89. Also see Pope's Report, in R. S. W., 40th
Congress, 2d session, vol. i, p. 320.
[89] There is a slight inaccuracy in the official figures.
[90] G. O. T. M. D., 1867, no. 89.
[91] Georgia Constitution of 1868, art. i, sec. i.
[92] _Ibid._, art. i, sect. xi.
[93] _Ibid._, art. ii, sect. ii.
[94] _Ibid._, art. ii, sect. vii, § 10.
[95] _Ibid._, art. i, sect. xxii.
[96] _Ibid._, art. vi, sect. i.
[97] G. O. T. M. D., 1868, no. 39 and 40.
[98] _Ibid._, no. 76, 90 and 93. Also, E. D., 40th Congress 2d session,
no. 300.
[99] Pope's Report in R. S. W., 40th Congress, 2d session, vol. i, p. 320.
[100] G. O. T. M. D., 1867, no. 1.
[101] G. O. T. M. D., 1867, no. 10.
[102] For the correspondence between Jenkins and Pope see A. A. C., 1867,
p. 363.
[103] G. O. T. M. D., 1867, no. 49.
[104] _Ibid._, 1867, no. 45.
[105] _Ibid._, 1867, no. 28.
[106] _Ibid._, 1867, no. 69.
[107] S. O. T. M. D., 1867, _passim_.
[108] G. O. T. M. D., 1867, no. 53.
[109] S. O. T. M. D., 1867, no. 92, 100, 104.
[110] _Ibid._, 1867, no. 263.
[111] These figures are compiled from the special orders of the Third
Military District.
[112] G. O. T. M. D., 1868, no. 22.
[113] Ordinance of Dec. 20, 1867, J. C., 1867-8, p. 564.
[114] Avery, _History of Georgia_, p. 378.
[115] G. O. T. M. D., 1868, no. 8. Meade acted with the greatest courtesy,
and the relations between him and the officers remained friendly. See
Meade's letter to Jenkins, A. A. C., 1867, p. 367. The removal of the
treasurer was a formality to preserve the appearance of due discipline;
Jones was allowed to retain the money then in the treasury, and to use it
in paying the state debt and other expenses of the state government. See
his report to the legislature, Sept. 18, 1868; H. J., 1868, p. 359.
[116] J. C., 1867-8, p. 581.
[117] G. O. T. M. D., 1868, no. 12 and 17.
[118] S. O. T. M. D., 1868, no. 112.
[119] G. O. T. M. D., 1868, no. 39 and 57.
[120] _Ibid._, 1868, no. 58.
[121] _Ibid._, 1868, no. 51.
[122] _Ibid._, 1868, no. 54.
[123] _Ibid._, 1868, no. 57.
[124] _Ibid._, 1868, no. 27 and 37.
[125] G. O. T. M. D., 1868, no. 27, 55, 99, 123, 136, and 148.
[126] M. F. U., Oct. 29, 1867.
[127] Atlanta _New Era_, Nov. 16, 1866; March 13, 1867; March 19, 1867.
[128] Testimony of John B. Gordon, K. K. R., vol. 6, p. 308.
[129] Atlanta _New Era_, March 13, 16 and 30, 1867.
[130] M. F. U., Oct. 29 and Nov. 5, 1867.
[131] A. A. C., 1868, p. 309.
[132] Testimony before the reconstruction committee, H. M. D., 40th
Congress, 2d session, no. 52, p. 26. See also M. F. U., March 10 and 17,
1867.
[133] Tribune Almanac for 1869, p. 78.
[134] U. S. L., vol. 15, Public Laws, p. 41.
[135] See sects. 5 and 6.
[136] The vote in Alabama on the adoption of the constitution resulted in
favor of adoption; but less than half of the registered voters voted, and
the vote was taken before the passage of the act of March 11, 1868, above
mentioned. Excuse was found by the Republican leaders for waiving this
irregularity. C. G., 40th Congress, 2d session, p. 2463.
[137] C. G., 40th Congress, 2d session, p. 2859 (Trumbull's speech).
[138] U. S. L., vol. 15, Public Acts, p. 73.
[139] S. J., 1868. p. 3.
[140] The Iron Clad or Test Oath, to the effect that the person swearing
had never borne arms against the United States, or in any way served the
Confederacy. U. S. L., vol. 12, p. 502.
[141] G. O. T. M. D., 1868, no. 61.
[142] S. R., 40th Congress, 3d session, no. 192, p. 38. See also C. G.,
41st Congress, 1st session, p. 594.
[143] G. O. T. M. D., 1868, no. 98.
[144] S. R., 40th Congress, 3d session, no. 192, p. 7.
[145] _Ibid._ See also H. J., 1868, p. 25.
[146] S. J., 1868, p. 34.
[147] H. J., 1868, pp. 36, 44.
[148] S. R., 40th Congress, 3d session, no. 192, p. 8.
[149] S. R., 40th Congress, 3d session, no. 192, p. 38.
[150] _Ibid._
[151] _Ibid._, p. 13.
[152] H. J., 1868, p. 52.
[153] G. O. T. M. D., 1868, no. 103.
[154] G. O. H., 1868, no. 55.
[155] H. J., 1868, p. 57.
[156] C. G., 40th Congress, 2d session, pp. 4472, 4499, 4500.
[157] H. J., 1868, p. 104.
[158] C. G., 40th Congress, 2d session, p. 4518.
[159] A. A. C., 1868, p. 312.
[160] The most prominent of these was Ex-Governor Brown. He went as a
delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1868, but in a speech
there declared his opposition to the granting of political power to the
negro. Avery, _History of Georgia_, p. 385.
[161] S. J., 1868, p. 84.
[162] Constitution of 1868, Art. xi, § 3.
[163] Irwin's Code, 1868, § 1648.
[164] Art. i, sec. 2.
[165] This ingenious argument of intent was made by Bullock. H. J., 1868,
p. 300.
[166] White _versus_ Clements, Georgia Reports, vol. 39, p. 232.
[167] H. J., 1868, pp. 242, 247. S. J., 1868, pp. 278, 280.
[168] Irwin's Code, 1868, § 121.
[169] C. G., 40th Congress, 3d session, p. 3.
[170] _Ibid._, p. 2.
[171] C. G., 40th Congress, 3d session, p. 3.
[172] Richard Taylor, _Destruction and Reconstruction_.
[173] K. K. R., vol. 6, p. 93 (testimony of Augustus R. Wright); p. 274
(testimony of Ambrose R. Wright); p. 236 (testimony of J. H. Christy); p.
818 (testimony of J. E. Brown).
[174] _Ibid._, vol. 7, pp. 812, 818 (testimony of J. E. Brown); p. 786
(testimony of B. H. Hill).
[175] _Ibid._, vol. 6, pp. 21 (testimony of C. D. Forsythe), 118
(testimony of Aug. R. Wright); vol 7, pp. 988 (testimony of Linton
Stephens), 1071.
[176] _Ibid._, vol. 6, pp. 426, 440 (testimony of J. H. Caldwell), 108
(testimony of Aug. R. Wright); vol. 7, p. 818 (testimony of J. E. Brown).
[177] _Ibid._, vol. 6, p. 344 (testimony of J. B. Gordon).
[178] C. G., 41st Congress, 2d session, p. 1929 (Trumbull's remarks).
[179] Report of committee on reconstruction, H. M. D., 40th Congress, 3d
session, no. 52, pp. 12 (testimony of Akerman), 27 (testimony of J. E.
Bryant).
[180] K. K. R., vol. 6, p. 107 (testimony of Aug. R. Wright).
[181] K. K. R., vol. 7, p. 838 (testimony of C. W. Howard).
[182] This statement is corroborated by the testimony of B. H. Hill, K. K.
R., vol. 7, p. 767.
[183] C. G., 40th Congress, 3d session, p. 2.
[184] S. R., 40th Congress, 3d session, no. 192.
[185] C. G., 40th Congress, 3d session, p. 27.
[186] _Ibid._, p. 144.
[187] _Ibid._, pp. 10 and 674.
[188] H. M. D., 40th Congress, 3d session, no. 52.
[189] U. S. L., vol. 15, Public Laws, p. 257.
[190] C. G., 40th Congress, 3d session, pp. 934, 976. A precedent for this
rule was found in the similar treatment of Missouri's electoral vote in
1821.
[191] C. C. 40th Congress, 3d session, pp. 1057, ff.
[192] G. C., 1867-8, p. 567.
[193] C. G., 41st Congress, 1st session, pp. 16, 18. The committee of
elections reported on Jan. 28, 1870, that the Georgia representatives were
not entitled to seats in the 41st Congress, having sat in the 40th. R. C.,
41st Congress, 2d session, no. 16.
[194] C. G., 41st Congress, 1st session, pp. 8, 263, 591.
[195] U. S. L., vol. 15, appendix, p. xii.
[196] W. A. Dunning, _The Civil War and Reconstruction_, pp. 226-228, 243.
[197] S. J., 1869, p. 806; H. J., p. 610.
[198] C. G., 41st Congress, 2d session, p. 251.
[199] _Ibid._, p. 4.
[200] H. M. D., 40th Congress, 3d session, no. 52.
[201] S. D., 41st Congress, 2d session, no. 3.
[202] _Ibid._ Halleck's annual report of Nov. 6, 1869, speaks to the same
effect. R. S. W., 1869, abridged edition, p. 70.
[203] C. G., 41st Congress, 2d session, p. 246.
[204] U. S. L., vol. 16, Pub. Laws, p. 59.
[205] C. G., 41st Congress, 2d session, p. 1710 (Lawrence's speech).
[206] _Ibid._, pp. 165 (Carpenter's speech) and 208 (Conkling's speech).
[207] C. G., 41st Congress, 2d session, p. 2062.
[208] _Ibid._, p. 1710 (Lawrence's speech).
[209] G. O. T. M. D., 1868, no. 90.
[210] G. O. II., 1870, no. 1. This and other documents relating to Terry's
administration are published in E. D., 41st Congress, 2d session, no. 288.
[211] S. R., first Congress, 2d session, no. 58.
[212] G. O. M. D. G., 1870, no. 2, 14, 16, 17.
[213] S. O. M. D. G., no. 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 14, 17.
[214] _Ibid._, no. 10 and 11.
[215] H. J., 1870, p. 3.
[216] S. J., 1870, p. 3; H. J., p. 7.
[217] H. J., p. 17.
[218] S. J., 1870., p. 26.
[219] H. J., 1870, p. 3.
[220] _Ibid._, pp. 19 and 21.
[221] See also a letter from Sherman to Terry, published in K. K. R., vol.
i, p. 311.
[222] Judge Cabaniss in Atlanta _Constitution_, Jan. 8, 1870.
[223] H. J., 1870, p. 9.
[224] G. O. M. D. G., 1870, no. 3 and 4.
[225] _Ibid._, no. 9 and 11.
[226] _Ibid._, no. 9.
[227] _Ibid._, no. 9 and 11.
[228] Atlanta _Constitution_, Jan. 27, 1870.
[229] C. G., 41st Congress, 2d session, p. 1926 (Trumbull's speech).
[230] H. J., 1870, p. 22.
[231] H. J., 1870, p. 23.
[232] _Ibid._, p. 25.
[233] _Ibid._, p. 26.
[234] G. O. M. D. G., 1870, no. 10.
[235] H. J., 1870, p. 33.
[236] C. G., 41st Congress, 2d session, p. 208.
[237] S. J., 1870, p. 74; H. J., p. 74.
[238] See Bullock's message, H. J., 1870, p. 52.
[239] H. J., 1870, p. 95.
[240] _Ibid._, pp. 113, 156.
[241] H. J., 1870, p. 106.
[242] _Ibid._, p. 140.
[243] _Ibid._, p. 121.
[244] C. G., 41st Congress, 2d session, p. 576. For Sherman's reply see E.
D., 41st Congress, 2d session, no. 82.
[245] C. G., 41st Congress, 2d session, p. 1029.
[246] _Ibid._, p. 1128.
[247] S. R., 41st Congress, 2d session, no. 58.
[248] Chicago _Tribune_, Dec. 7, 1868.
[249] C. G., 41st Congress, 2d session, pp. 1570, 1704.
[250] C. G., 41st Congress, 2d session, p. 1770.
[251] _Ibid._
[252] _Ibid._, p. 1988.
[253] C. G., 41st Congress, 2d session, p. 2091.
[254] _Ibid._, pp. 2820, ff.
[255] _Ibid._, p. 2829.
[256] _Ibid._, p. 4747.
[257] U. S. L., vol. 16, Public Laws, p. 363.
[258] H. J., 1870, p. 181.
[259] S. J., 1870, vol. ii, p. 29.
[260] _Ibid._, p. 50; H. J., p. 343.
[261] C. G., 41st Congress, 3d session, pp. 527, 530, 678, 703, 1086.
[262] S. R., 41st Congress, 3d session, no. 308.
[263] C. G., 41st Congress, 3d session, pp. 871, 1632.
[264] J. C., p. 14.
[265] J. C., pp. 16, 17.
[266] _Ibid._, p. 587.
[267] _Ibid._, pp. 49, 53.
[268] _Ibid._, p. 581.
[269] _Ibid._, p. 75.
[270] _Ibid._, p. 63.
[271] _Ibid._, p. 84.
[272] _Ibid._, pp. 581, 594.
[273] _Ibid._, p. 68.
[274] J. C., p. 583.
[275] _Ibid._, p. 593.
[276] _Ibid._, p. 591.
[277] See J. C., 1865, p. 201 (speech of H. V. Johnson).
[278] J. C., 1867-8, p. 90.
[279] _Ibid._, p. 39.
[280] _Ibid._, p. 47.
[281] M. F. U., Dec. 24, 1867, Jan. 7, Jan. 14, 1868.
[282] H. J., 1868, p. 294.
[283] H. J., 1868, p. 303.
[284] S. J., 1868, p. 326.
[285] H. J., 1869, p. 5.
[286] _Ibid._, p. 228.
[287] H. J., p. 54.
[288] _Ibid._, p. 260.
[289] _Ibid._, p. 265.
[290] H. J., 1869, p. 575.
[291] _Ibid._, 1869, p. 618.
[292] S. J., p. 806.
[293] G. O. M. D. G., 1870, no. 9 and 11.
[294] S. J., 1870, p. 39.
[295] H. J., pp. 34, 40, 84, 88.
[296] The complexion of the legislature when composed of the men elected
in April, 1868, was as follows:
Senate. Lower House.
+-------------+-------+------------+
| Republicans | 22 | 73 |
|Conservatives| 22 | 102 |
+-------------+-------+------------+
After the colored members were expelled and their seats given to the
minority candidates, it was as follows:
Senate. Lower House.
+-------------+-------+------------+
| Republicans | 19 | 48 |
|Conservatives| 25 | 127 |
+-------------+-------+------------+
After the reorganization of 1870 it was as follows:
Senate. Lower House.
+-------------+-------+------------+
| Republicans | 27 | 87 |
|Conservatives| 17 | 83 |
+-------------+-------+------------+
The figures in the second and third tables are based upon the changes
produced only by the official transactions referred to. Perhaps some
slight corrections might be made on account of accidental circumstances,
such as the non-attendance or death of a few members.
[297] See K. K. R., vol. 6, p. 149; vol. 7, p. 1062.
[298] H. J., 1870, p. 156.
[299] H. M. D., 40th Congress, 3d session, no. 52, p. 27.
[300] Savannah _News_, Jan. 12, 1870.
[301] H. J., p. 50.
[302] M. F. U., Feb. 15, 1870
[303] M. F. U., Jan. 25, 1870.
[304] H. J., p. 343.
[305] S. L., 1870, p. 62.
[306] _Ibid._, p. 431.
[307] Tribune Almanac, 1871, p. 75.
[308] M. F. U., March 14, 8871; Atlanta _Constitution_, Oct. 26 and 31,
1871.
[309] Art. iii, sect. i, § 3.
[310] S. L., 1870, p. 419.
[311] E. M., 1870-74, p. 197.
[312] See entry of the secretary of state, _ibid._
[313] Art. iv, sect. i,§ 4.
[314] E. M., 1870-74, p. 198.
[315] Atlanta _Constitution_, Nov. 3, 1871.
[316] S. J., 1871, p. 17.
[317] Atlanta _Constitution_, Nov. 2, 1871.
[318] S. L., 1871, p. 27.
[319] Art. iv, sect. i, § 4.
[320] H. J., 1871, p. 179.
[321] For vetoed bills see S. L., 1871 and 1872, pp. 12, 15, 18, 27, 68,
74. See also _ibid._, p. 260, and H. J., 1872, p. 25.
[322] E. M., 1870-74, p. 277 (pardon of V. A. Gaskill); Minutes of Fulton
County Superior Court, vol. J, p. 404 (pardon of F. Blodgett).
[323] H. J., 1872, p. 25.
[324] _Ibid._, p. 31.
[325] K. K. R., vol. 6, p. 327.
[326] Digest of tax laws, 1859, p. 11.
[327] S. L., 1865-66, p. 253.
[328] _Ibid._, 1866, p. 164.
[329] _Ibid._, 1868, p. 152; 1869, p. 159.
[330] B. L., p. 11.
[331] C. R., 1870 (printed in S. J., 1870, part ii, p. 83).
[332] C. R., 1870.
[333] C. R., April, 1871.
[334] C. R., April, 1872.
[335] B. L., p. 9; B. A., p. 42.
[336] Report of state treasurer Jones, published in H. J., 1868, p. 361;
R. C., 1870; R. C., April, 1871; R. C., April, 1872.
[337] S. L., 1865-1866, pp. 12 and 14; _ibid._, 1866, pp. 10, 11, 143.
[338] Compiled from the financial documents above cited.
[339] S. L., 1865-66, p. 250.
[340] Compiled from the financial reports above cited.
The enemies of reconstruction were fond of placing the state expenses of
Bullock's administration in juxtaposition with those before the war.
Contrasts truly horrible could thus be produced. But it was not a fair
comparison, for the expenses in such circumstances as prevailed after the
war and after the social revolution would naturally be larger than before.
The expenses of many states besides those which enjoyed reconstruction
increased largely after the war. _E.g._ the records of Pennsylvania show
that "Expenses of Government" were--
In 1857 $423,448.89
1858 399,888.36
1860 404,863.41
1866 668,909.63
1867 802,878.58
1868 845,539.89
1869 804,730.17
1870 826,069.25
Pennsylvania Executive Documents, Auditor's Reports, for the years named.
In Massachusetts the "Ordinary Expenses" were--
In 1857 $1,236,204.26
1858 1,008,620.50
1859 999,899.76
1860 1,193,896.41
1866 6,877,720.85
1867 5,953,003.31
1868 5,908,678.48
Massachusetts Public Documents for the years named.
[341] C. R., 1870.
[342] C. R., April, 1871, p. 14; C. R., April, 1872, p. 17; B. L., p. 13;
Conley's message to the legislature, Jan. 11, 1872 (quoted in B. A., p. 6,
and in K. K. R., vol. i, p. 141).
Of these bonds 3,000, representing a debt of $3,000,000, were issued under
a law of Sept. 15, 1870 (S. L., 1870, p. 10), authorizing the governor to
issue bonds for various purposes without specified limit as to amount. The
rest were issued under an act of Oct. 17, 1870 (omitted from the session
laws, see Conley's message just cited), authorizing the governor to issue
to the Brunswick and Albany railroad state bonds to the amount of
$1,880,000 in exchange for bonds of the railroad to the amount of
$2,350,000.
In addition to the bonds already mentioned, bonds to the amount of
$600,000 were issued under acts of 1868 (S. L., 1868, pp. 14 and 138.)
These were not sold and were returned to the possession of the state
during Bullock's administration (Angier's statement, K. K. R., vol. 6, p.
162). Also, before the issue of $3,000,000 mentioned, bonds to the amount
of $2,000,000 were issued (Conley's message cited). These were
hypothecated with several bankers in New York. Some of them, amounting to
$500,000, were returned and cancelled during Bullock's administration
(Conley's message). The rest, amounting to $1,500,000, remained in the
hands of the bankers. Conley stated, in January, 1872 (message cited),
that these bonds had been replaced by bonds of a later issue and canceled
during Bullock's administration, and had therefore ceased to be a claim
against the state. This statement conflicts with three facts. 1. The
bankers who held these bonds refused to return them after their alleged
cancellation. 2. One of these bankers sold the bonds which he held after
their alleged cancellation (Henry Clews, _Twenty-eight Years in Wall
Street_, p. 277). 3. The legislature of Georgia repudiated these bonds in
1872, which would have been unnecessary if they had been cancelled. It
seems probable, therefore, though not certain, that this $1,500,000 should
be added to the debt incurred by the reconstruction government.
[343] S. L., 1868, title xvii.
[344] _Ibid._, 1869, title xv.
[345] _Ibid._, 1870, title xi, division vii.
[346] Angier's statement, K. K. R., vol. i, p. 129.
[347] Conley's message above cited.
[348] It is to be remarked, however, that four of the roads whose bonds
the state had guaranteed became bankrupt before 1874. See Poor's Railroad
Manual for 1873-4, pp. 432 and 582; and for 1874-5, p. 426.
[349] E. M., 1870-74, p. 449.
[350] See the case of Hoyt, Minutes of Fulton County Superior Court, vol.
I, pp. 371, 445.
[351] Report of the investigating committee of the legislature appointed
in Dec., 1871. Its report was printed in Atlanta in 1872. It is bitterly
partisan, but a minority report made by a Republican admits, with humorous
resignation, that the charges are true.
[352] A. A. C., 1869, P. 305.
[353] See K. K. R., vol. i, pp. 137 and 138. The statements are on pp. 11
and 12 of the letter as published in Atlanta in 1871.
[354] See Conley's message cited.
[355] In the latter part of 1868 and in 1869 the governor paid to a
certain H. I. Kimball $54,500 from the treasury. He paid this to be used
in furnishing a building which was at that time occupied as the state
capital. (Bullock's statement, B. A., p. 29.) There was no law authorizing
this payment, nor was the state under any obligation to make it. The state
bought the building in 1870 by an act of the legislature which provided
that the $54,500 should be counted as part of the price. Thus Bullock's
advance was ratified by the state. (S. L., 1870, p. 494.) This, however,
does not change the character of the act.
[356] See C. R., April, 1871, and April, 1872. Bullock was accused of
indorsing the bonds of three railroads contrary to law. In the case of two
of these (the Cartersville and Van Wert, or Cherokee railroad, and the
Bainbridge, Cuthbert and Columbus railroad) he refuted the charge beyond
contradiction in his address to the public of 1872. In the case of the
third (the Brunswick and Albany railroad) he admitted that he had indorsed
bonds before the road had complied with the conditions required by law,
but said that he did it for the public good. (B. A., pp. 39-41.)
[357] Atlanta _Constitution_, Jan. 3, 1878; Minutes of the Fulton County
Superior Court, vol. N, p. 261.
[358] _Ibid._, pp. 263, 273.
[359] Atlanta _New Era_, Oct. 31, 1871. Printed as an appendix to B. A.
[360] Appendix to B. L. (printed in K. K. R., vol. 7, p. 825).
[361] K. K. R., vol. 7, pp. 767 and 780.
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the page.
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"conventton" corrected to "convention" (page 12)
"repudiaation" corrected to "repudiation" (page 12)
"and and" corrected to "and" (page 14)
"attitnde" corrected to "attitude" (page 22)
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"admendment" corrected to "amendment" (page 83)
"we we" corrected to "we" (page 87)
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