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Here,
we pick up where we left off—the Honorable James Beck from Kentucky (the
man in the white hat) on the House floor countering the machinations of
Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts, not only black hatted, but like the majority of his Republican colleagues, black hearted.
Having failed back in July 1868 with the election schemes to get
its progressive constitution ratified and Republican ticket elected; having failed to
get General Gillem, Commander of the Fourth Military District, to launch an investigation into what he’d already investigated;
having failed to get Bingham’s Bill through the Senate the previous summer; having failed to circumvent
General Gillem’s report to the Reconstruction Committee; and having failed to sell the House
Select Reconstruction Committee at the beginning of the 40th Congress’ third
session on charges of fraud, the representatives of the Mississippi constitutional
convention of 1868, trudged on, harping through that congressional session and
into the 41st Congress, where we just happen to find Massachusetts’ Benjamin Butler chairing the ever-growing House Select Committee on Reconstruction.
Butler had in hand a “new” bill to resolve the reentry problem for Mississippi.
The Butler Bill, which by its very design
was meant to take martial law out of the hands of the commanding general
(remember the state has been under military rule since the spring of 1867) and
invest it in the Mississippi constitutional convention along with giving that
body full authority over the new election to be held on the civil
administration and the constitution, its registrars and its judges, and
relegating the commanding general to supporting the convention’s whims. James Beck
regarded the individuals comprising the constitutional convention to be “the
last body of men upon earth in whose hands the protection of either the lives,
the liberty, or the property of that people ought to be intrusted, especially
with such arbitrary and despotic powers as this bill proposes to invest them.”
It’s my opinion that the constitutional convention’s committee of sixteen worked with Benjamin Butler on that bill, just as convention members had agents in
place to work with Bingham the summer before in drafting his similar one. Butler’s
Bill gave the committee of five of the Mississippi constitutional convention
everything it wanted/needed to ensure full tyrannical control over the state of
Mississippi, its property, and its taxpayer.
The charges of fraud and intimidation presented to the House
Select Committee on Reconstruction during the 40th Congress’ 3rd Session
(December 1868) had been discounted by the committee (this according to Beck,
who knew it as fact because he was a member of the committee).
The biggest lie and the one James Beck fed upon and pounded
into the members of the House was the November 1868 declaration from the
meeting rooms of the committee of five in Jackson, Mississippi that the people of Mississippi had ratified the proposed constitution and the Republican Party ticket had been elected. Those members announced that in Jackson, then sent the
committee of sixteen to Washington, D.C. and announced it to the House
reconstruction committee—and presented their “memorial” testifying to fraud,
discrimination, and intimidation (and any other catch-word they could think of)
to show their statement was true.
The committee of five got their numbers, giving themselves
the victory, by throwing out the results from the counties of Carroll, Desoto,
Chickasaw, Lafayette, Rankin, Copiah, and Yalobusha; however, during that third
session of Congress, not only was the committee of sixteen busy working with
the likes of Benjamin Butler to concoct that full-proof contract to ensure
Radical tyranny of the people of Mississippi, but the more conservative political
elements active in the state (the liberal Republicans, also known as scalawags,
and the democrats) were conducting some investigating on their own—and apparently did a
much more thorough job than did the “Eggleston clique.” Keep in mind as
you read this, the officers at the polling booths had been hand-picked/vetted
by both General Gillem and the Mississippi constitutional convention—remember
that was a power convention members granted themselves during the convention. The judges, registrars, and clerks were at worse neutral (Gillem’s
picks) and at best the committee’s own.
The finding’s of the conservatives showed that when
questioned regarding the results of Chickasaw
County, every judge, registrar, and clerk testified that the election had been
fair—not one person they knew of had hinted at unfairness. In Rankin County only one man swore to any
fraud or unfairness, while every judge and registrar swore that the election
was fairly conducted. Turns out that the man swearing to fraud was one D.S.
Harriman. Beck himself had a military commission report, signed by Brevet Major
General Pennypacker [I suspect that’s a misprint for Pennybacker], an honest
and respected officer, stating that Harriman, a former officer with the
Freedmen’s Bureau, had been removed from office and charged with six counts of
dereliction of duty and fraud. He was convicted of five and sentenced to a
$50.00 fine and one year in prison. He’d recently disappeared while out on
bail.
In Desoto County,
the only white man who swore to anything being unfair was one Theodore Wiseman,
who provided long and able affidavits of fraud and intimidation in Desoto County: The Klan had the roads blocked, he said, and he told of violence, intimidation, and murder. Beck
focuses his rebuttal on the man’s character and the comments made of him.
Also one might glean something from Beck’s reference to “the only white man”
indicating there may have been affidavits made by Negroes attesting to fraud.
Recall that subsequent to the election, the “committee of five” was overwhelmed by Negroes coming to Jackson [the committee of five had sent for them] and
conferring behind closed doors to fraud and intimidation—then signing their
prepared statements with an “x.” I do admit to have an interest in seeing those
affidavits—did they all read similarly, for instance? Beck, as a member of the
reconstruction committee no doubt read them. His point of following up with the
case of Harriman and Wiseman and their likes was to ascertain what kind of
white men made these statements in contradiction to hand-chosen registrars and
judges? I assume members of the committee automatically determined the bulk of
the Negro testimony fabricated or indeterminate, and therefore the white
testimony the more compelling of the two. On the subject of Wiseman, the sheriff
of Desoto County, Joseph Rogers, reported to James Beck that Wiseman was
another of those “ex” Freedmen’s Bureau fellas. He’d been cashiered by General
Gillem himself for abuse of authority in office—he apparently had been charging
fines and pocketing the money. He was working as a commissioner (yeah, you
guessed it—one of the “committee of five’s” hand-picked commissioners) at the
Desoto County poll, when an individual he’d illegally fined spied him and
challenged him with the wrong [and I can’t help but believe the individual pointed out to
everyone present this thief was acting as a “commissioner” at a Mississippi
polling booth in support, obviously, of Republican interests]. The sheriff
stated that the altercation in no way hindered/prevented anyone from voting.
Other than that one instance, voting went off without a hitch.
There’s more to the story of Theodore
Wiseman. He was, in fact, a card-carrying Radical, who along with the rest of
the Republican team in Desoto County was responsible for organizing the “Loyal
Leagues” (Negro voters). He ran for office in Desoto County on the Republican
ticket in the 1868 election. So what was he doing serving as a voting commissioner? Later
in the Reconstruction drama of Desoto County, his life in danger, he billed the
Republican hierarchy for services rendered and left town in the dark of night
to evade monetary obligations. It was subsequently made known that a week
before he requested monetary support from his party, he’d approached the
Democracy in that county and offered to burn all the Radical tickets for $500.00.
The democrats regarded the price as too steep and declined the offer—guess
that’s why he felt the need to tap his “beloved” party, after failing to
sabotage it.
There’s more on the story of Joseph
Rogers, too, the sheriff of Desoto County who gave the less than flattering
report on Mr. Wiseman. He was a General Ord appointee back in November of 1867,
after the enactment of the Reconstruction Acts. Rogers had been a citizen of
Iroquois, Illinois when the war broke out. He’d formed up and commanded a
company in the 113th Illinois Infantry Volunteers for the duration, serving
with Grant from the time the latter was promoted to brigadier-general until he
became General of the Army at war’s end (that included the Vicksburg campaign
and stomping all over Mississippi). Anyway, with the end of the war, Rogers
bought a plantation in Desoto County and subsequently served as one of General
Ord’s registrars in compiling the voter rolls under the Reconstruction Acts and during the election for a constitutional convention. According to Rogers,
he supported Congressional Reconstruction (his service supports that) and
continued to do so. As sheriff, he served under Ord, then Gillem, McDowell, and
Gillem again. He voted for Grant, his old commander. He was a good sheriff, the
people of Desoto County were content with him, at least. Then, guess what? One
month after James Beck referred to his denunciation of Wiseman’s testimony on
abuse and intimidation in Desoto County, General Ames removed him from office
for, according to Rogers, not working for the interests of the extreme Radical
faction. Anyone want to wager Ames’ father-in-law influenced that move? My
other thought is how many more honest Northern carpetbaggers, not to mention
Southerners, did Ames manage to remove between the time he relieved Gillem and
Alcorn went in as governor, and how big a role did those removals make in shaping the outcome of the subsequent election?
There was something else I found interesting
in Desoto County’s testimony presented before the reconstruction committee—and
that was the sworn testimony of a Negro Radical by the name of Jessie Paine,
and Negro democrats, Edmund Cox, Thomas W. White, Richard Cobb, Henry
Alexander, and William Robertson, who swore that the county’s election was,
from what they saw and from their participation, peacefully conducted and the
constitution fairly defeated.
Beck didn’t elaborate on the other
counties cited in the Radical memorial, but he did finish this assessment of
claims of abuse and intimidation with a great big smoking gun, sent, no less,
to George S. Boutwell back in December 1868 when he was chairman of the
reconstruction committee. It was Boutwell himself who laid it before the
committee. Lester Williams, Jr., chaplain of the Mississippi constitutional convention,
who was himself a native of West Springfield, Massachusetts and had returned home at some point between
losing the election and the opening of the 40th Congress’ third session in
December 1868. He was intimately involved in the convention, he said (and those
dregs did say a prayer every day—I’ve seen the journal). Williams campaigned
for the constitution and made a study of all the people of Mississippi and believed he knew the people and the
politics—wonder if this self-possessed knowledge included the interlopers, too? (Isn’t it funny, looking back, how the people of Massachusetts felt they were uniquely qualified to assess others? Guess that kept them from having to take a good, long look at themselves.) Williams said, in
retrospect, (and probably taking the people’s rejection of the constitution for
what it was—a rejection), that to force Mississippi’s restoration in the Union
under [that constitution] would be a calamity. He understood the Republicans
wanted the state back in the Union—but their project (that constitution) was
hollow and visionary, but the past warned against it.
So, the man did understand some things, now if he’d only understood that the vision of the men framing that constitution was not for the good of the people of Mississippi, he might have understood how others manipulate the self-righteousness of New England Yankees. But, my bitter opinions aside, here’s the really good part of the Reverend William’s letter:
So, the man did understand some things, now if he’d only understood that the vision of the men framing that constitution was not for the good of the people of Mississippi, he might have understood how others manipulate the self-righteousness of New England Yankees. But, my bitter opinions aside, here’s the really good part of the Reverend William’s letter:
“I understood this
whole plan, of declaring the constitution carried on the charge of fraud in seven
counties, so throwing out the count, as long ago as in July last. But there was
the same kind of fraud and intimidation practiced in every county in the State,
so that the whole, if investigated, might be pronounced a nullity with equal
force as the part. If you will observe the location of these counties thrown
out you may perhaps note that they are culled, here and there, with a special
purpose in view. There the result of the election was acquiesced in by the
great body of the Republicans all over the state, without a loud press, for the
space of three or four months. [In other words, fraud and intimidation were endemic throughout the state (by both parties, though the good reverend does not explicitly say so), but to challenge every county would nullify the entire election. I further interpret the reverend to mean the Republicans never had created a sound foothold in those
counties, so they could throw out the results and better their numbers. Further—and this jumps right out at me—having written those counties off/having never made a strong effort, they conducted no fraud of their own during the election, and therefore were
safe to challenge, their own dirty laundry buried in those where they concentrated their canvass.]
This is growing into a long post, and here is as good a place to break as any. My main point with this post is to put the accusations of “fraud, intimidation, and violence” long attributed to the racist white Southerner during this era (or any era for that matter) in proper perspective and emphasize how much of the truth has been lost to intentional historical deception.
I’ll finish up the Butler Bill next time.
I’ll finish up the Butler Bill next time.
Thanks for reading,
Charlsie
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