tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6414736478737679352024-03-05T06:47:52.992-08:00Loblolly LogThe blog for Charlsie Russell's Loblolly Writer's House. Love and romance, sex, violence, mystery, suspense, and happily ever after from the deepest of the Deep South. Subjects include writing, independent publishing, book marketing, and history.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.comBlogger106125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-62565073798426314592018-09-12T13:05:00.000-07:002018-09-12T13:05:57.671-07:00State Rights was About Federalism, not Slavery<div class="MsoNormal">
I just finished reading <i>From Founding Fathers to
Fire-Eaters</i> by James Rutledge Roesch. It’s a new book (2018) on an old
subject, but it’s an excellent, entertaining, and both an enjoyable and easy
read considering the complexity of the subject and the brilliant minds of the
Southern political theorists whose works Mr. Roesch has compiled and edited
into a succinct outline of the state rights doctrine of the Old South. [Take
that in conjunction with <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-inauguration-of-mississippis.html" target="_blank">Alcorn’s comment</a> in his 1870
inaugural speech about how Southerners should quit <i>political theorizing</i> and
jump in and wallow in the trough with the Yankees.]<br />
<br />
The doctrine did not begin
with the abolitionists or the Missouri Compromise or even the Constitutional
Convention, and it was never about slavery. As Mr. Roesch shows to any
reasonably intelligent person with only a modicum of knowledge regarding this
nation’s history, the doctrine was there at the beginning, inherent in the
colonial charters, the oldest of which was Virginia’s. I highly recommend
anyone interested in truth regarding the state rights doctrine vis-a-vis the
post-republic egalitarian/centralization doctrine get the book, devour it, and share it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The nationalists (centralizers) have been part of our
government from the start, much like the serpent was integral to the Garden of
Eden. They were the Tories who reluctantly joined the Patriot cause after the
short-sighted British Parliament refused to stop interfering with home rule, undermining
their influence at home. [This is me talking here. Mr. Roesch is kinder to all
the founders.] Embracing the cause of independence, these self-aggrandizers
embarked on the quest to build a new economic empire. To realize their goal,
they needed a supreme, centralized government and a national “democracy,”
served by said government.<o:p></o:p></div>
<o:p></o:p>
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Patriots to the republic managed to forestall them for
the bulk of the next century, first with the Articles of Confederation, then
with federalism, hallmarked by the state rights doctrine woven into the
Constitution. Nevertheless, with the ratification of said Constitution, the
states had sown the seeds of their demise. The destruction of the Southern
Confederacy ended the federal republic and gave the ghosts of those old Tories
their long-coveted crown. Hopefully they celebrated their victory in…, well,
never mind where.<o:p></o:p></div>
<o:p></o:p>
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Today, some neo-cons still give lip service to the
republic, or the Lincolnites’ perverse take on it, but with the Left picking up
their banner of egalitarianism/pure democracy and exploding it, the neo-cons
should be rethinking their position [Lincoln’s on the chopping block, too, and
it’s not us Southerners putting him there]. Instead, they appease. Truth is the
nationalists and the Left are both statists. Both need all references to state
rights (true federalism) gone.<o:p></o:p>
</div>
<o:p></o:p>
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The nationalists have hidden behind the holy crusade to
end slavery to justify their egregious violations of the Constitution since
halfway through the “Civil War.” [They had other unifying causes before the
abolitionists gave them slavery]. The farther time moves from those long-ago
events, the more clouded the historical memory of everyday folk, and lack of
education on the subject of both that War and the founding of the republic
hastens the encroaching shadows. That is by design. There is no difference in
the goal of modern Democrats and Republicans in regards to the republic.<o:p></o:p>
</div>
<o:p></o:p>
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Today’s attacks on the South not only go unchallenged by
“so-called” conservatives, who by default the South supports, but are actually
echoed by these same people, who mollify their treachery by stating something
to the effect that we need to keep the history, but annotate it to <i>remember </i>our
mistakes (sins). Pittance, I guess, is what these curs are trying to foster. Problem
is slavery isn’t the operative <i>mistake</i> here, and what really needs to be
remembered is being buried deeper and deeper beneath their obfuscation. The
gutless wonders fear the PC crowd and believe they are protecting themselves
from the Left’s onslaught by tossing such bones. Believers in the republic, or
perhaps those who simply respect its memory, whether Southern or not, have no
champion. Granted the republic is dead. The majority of Americans rejected it
long ago. Today most don’t even know what it was, its having been perverted by
self-aggrandizing politicians into something it wasn’t. But we Southerners
being told to piss on our ancestors’ graves, all too often now by other
Southerners, in order to further the ambitions of one statist group over those of
another, is going too far.<o:p></o:p></div>
<o:p></o:p>
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One can pinpoint a number of places in our antebellum
history highlighting the states’ and the peoples’ rejection of our federal
republic. The states’ failure to support Kentucky's and Virginia's resolutions
against Adams’ Alien and Sedition Acts and later South Carolina during the
Nullification Crisis; the application of the Constitution to the states by the
Supreme court under Marshall; and the Northern states’ answering Lincoln’s call
for troops to invade the South. The Missouri Crisis was a biggie. <i>That’s</i> when
the South should have left the Union. It was clear then that sectional
interests were simply too conflicting.<o:p></o:p>
</div>
<o:p></o:p>
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Reconstruction itself abounds with violations, but those
violations may not have been so pervasive had the Northern populace not given
Congress to the Radicals in the fall of 1866. But what did it matter at that
point? The South was in shambles, and Northerners as a block had already shown
how little they cared about our founders’ republic. They had, in fact, rejected
it. They wanted a centralized Union, and they created one by force of arms.
Today the old republic is only a memory being twisted into something evil, the
final step before the statists feel comfortable in eradicating it altogether.
</div>
<o:p></o:p>
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We need to keep that history untarnished, y’all. It’s what our Confederate
ancestors fought for. In another time and another place, Patriots will need a
foundation on which to build again. </div>
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Thanks for reading,</div>
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Charlsie</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-17309128532639856182018-08-27T07:33:00.001-07:002018-08-27T07:33:23.710-07:00The Inauguration of Mississippi’s Republican Administration <br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This post is number fifty-two in a historical series
discussing Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn,
following the War Between the States and continues the “saga” resulting from
the Democratic victory over the Republican “reconstruction” constitution framed
during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868. That
Republican defeat resulted in a second election—Washington’s Radicals were
simply not going to take Mississippians’ rejection of their agenda as the
answer. As planned, the election of a Radical administration in Mississippi
followed. This post opens in Mississippi during the late fall of 1869
immediately following the Radical victory and continues through Alcorn’s
inaugural address as governor. For earlier posts in this Alcorn-driven series,
see the sidebar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On 20 December, the Radical Republican ticket
victorious in the fall election, Adelbert Ames, commander of the fourth
military district and still provisional governor, issued an order announcing
ratification of the progressive constitution and directed 11 January 1870 as
the date for the new legislature to meet in Jackson. Further, by the authority invested in
him by President Grant, (who received his authority from George Boutwell of
Massachusetts—yes, I’m being what is known in the vernacular as a smart ass), Ames directed Alcorn to assume the role of provisional
governor prior to his actual inauguration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Alcorn refused. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">He informed Ames that he’d been elected governor by the people of
Mississippi and he’d take his seat on inauguration day, [not under the shadow
of military tyranny—my words, not his, but that was his point].</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As governor, James Lusk Alcorn became the leader,
for the first time in his political career, of a majority party with a new
state constitution that gave him more power than any Mississippi chief
executive who had held power before him. Given that state civil elections were
not scheduled until the fall, he inherited from the military dictator who
preceded him the right to appoint normally elected civil servants, to be approved by the state senate. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Evidence supports Alcorn’s political descent from Federalist (in spirit if not in fact), to National Republican, to Whig. He
<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2014/02/james-lusk-alcorns-role-in-secession.html" target="_blank">came to Mississippi</a> as a National Republican, became a Whig under the guidance of Henry Clay, and resorted
to embracing the Northern offshoot of that defunct group out of pragmatic
necessity. Personally, I don’t think he was ever really a Republican, but I
think he was quick to embrace those strands of the Federalist wing of the old
National Republicans when it served his purpose. Alcorn considered Jefferson
Davis a weak “tyrant.” One might surmise from this how he would conduct his
governorship.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">During his campaign, Alcorn had attacked the
civil-military government in Mississippi (because of its divided loyalty) for
the rise in crime. I take this to mean he accused the civil powers (Southern
residents) to turning a blind eye whenever their “side” committed (political)
“crimes.” I say this, other than the opposite, because between 1867-1869, the
period of the “Reconstruction Acts” and martial law, he had wanted the military
governor given full reign over civil government, and he told his wife Amelia
that if the Democrats won the legislature, he would advise Congress to continue
martial law. Yeah, he was a believer in “democracy” all right. Of course, he
couldn’t work with the Democrats—turned out he couldn’t work with the
Republicans either for long. The Carpetbag Republicans had their agenda, the
Scalawags theirs, the Democrats (who represented the majority of tax-paying
Mississippians) theirs and then there was Alcorn who had his. Alcorn was
focused on Congressional money, which he’d seen Congress bestow on the Northern
states for decades, to rebuild Mississippi. He’d also watched the state’s Democrats,
who stood on the principle that selling one’s soul to the central government
undermined the rights of the states and their people to govern themselves,
reject such funds his entire public life in Mississippi. Alcorn needed power to get that money, and now
he thought he had it. The Carpetbaggers, of course, were in the state to line
their pockets and the more money in the kitty, the better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">R. C. Powers, ex-United States Army, and by all accounts an honest man, had been
elected Alcorn’s lieutenant governor; James Lynch, a Northern Negro minister,
secretary of state; Henry Musgrove, another ex-member of the Grand Army of the “Union”,
auditor; W. H. Vasser, a pre-war Mississippian, state treasurer; another
Mississippian, Joshua A. Morris, attorney general; and Henry R. Pease,
ex-U.S.A., superintendent of education.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Alcorn’s inaugural speech identified the South’s
secession as failed treason against the Constitution, and he hailed the
magnificent mercy of the Federal government in their handling of the failed
rebellion—his way of giving thanks, I guess, for their <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ensuring his governorship</i> instead of executing him given his
bringing the house down on the 7th of January 1861 when he voted <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2014/02/james-lusk-alcorns-role-in-secession.html" target="_blank">to take Mississippi out of the Union</a>. His
“statesmanship” of course, was predicated on the concept that the only time
treason isn’t treason is when the traitors win. Very pragmatic. So, why didn’t
he just fall on his sword? Like I said, the man was pragmatic. Alcorn placed
the central government, now in the hands of traitors of the first rank, ahead
of the Constitution, the republic, and the South. He intended not only to
survive, but to thrive. One thing for certain can be said to his credit, he
intended Mississippi to thrive right along with him. He was wrong, not only
about his own people, whose attitude might have been a little better if he
hadn’t been so delusional about the central government/Congress from which
he assumed he and the state would receive succor. He actually thought the South
was going to get its share of the pie now that Republicans were in control down
here. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lillian Pereyra says Alcorn “...was one of the few Southerners on whom
the reality of the preceding events had made an impression...” Really? Does she
think the reality of preceding events had not impressed all Southerners? I
think what she meant was he was one of the few Southerners on whom those events
had made the “right” impression. You can interpret that to mean, in my opinion, Pereyra was either an idealist who in contemporary times embraced the concept
of one Leviathan United <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">State </i>or a
realist who accepted the fact the republic was dead and gone, time to move on
and share in un-republican greed. I don’t know what she really believed, but I
do think Alcorn suffered from a false impression of whom he was dealing with in
the North, or those with whom he was wheeling and dealing in Washington had led
him down the garden path. [Of course, if one were to hear Ames and the other
Radicals in Mississippi tell it today, they might well say it was Alcorn who
led those with whom he was dealing in Washington down the garden path.] <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Maybe Alcorn realized he was taking a gamble and
thought the potential gains worth the risk. I think the majority of old leaders
in the South—those who remained, at least<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">—</span>knew exactly what they were up
against and weren’t willing to stroll down the path or gamble with the Republicans because
they knew the deck was stacked and the South was not going to benefit in any
form or fashion. Any plum awarded the South would serve the North or some
Republican sycophant tenfold. So, call Southerners stupid and stubborn if you
want. Stubborn I’ll buy, stupid no. Those old Southrons were right about the
South’s fate. And,<i> no</i>, kowtowing to those traitors up North wouldn’t have made a
difference. They had a war to pay off, long-postponed public works to restart, and coffers to refill to make it all work. Rebuilding the
South was not part of their agenda. Needless to say, the biggest fault found
with Alcorn’s speech was his calling the South’s secession “treason.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In addition to his despicable “confession” regarding
secession, Alcorn lectured the people on the responsibility of government (this
to a people who long believed that the least government was the best
government). Now, said he, given the new order, the state had a duty to look
out for the welfare of all people rather than the heads of a few chosen
families. [That<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">’</span>s a mercantilist theme, not Southern Democrat!] Because of this greater
responsibility, taxation would be much greater, but application of those taxes
would tend to enrich the state through industrial colleges and public schools
because the highest production of wealth follows what’s created by combining
muscle and intelligence. You know, the “intelligentsia” that builds factories
and industry to provide jobs for the rest of us peons—get off the farm and live
in a slum for a pittance. Just where does that produced wealth end up? Factory work may or may not provide
security. At least the farm boy would no longer be at the mercy of the weather, but he would be at
the mercy of new workers if he demanded increased wages—labor unions backed by
the government hadn’t evolved yet; in fact, the situation was just the
opposite—industrialists backed by the government using what was for all intents
and purposes “slave” labor, except their workers received a pittance, which was the
qualifier between free and slave labor. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To put it succinctly, Alcorn was going
to make Mississippi like the North, and Mississippians were going to pay higher
taxes to live in Utopia. Theoretically, at least, all that
industrialization would increase income/profits which leads naturally to
increased taxation, managed by increased bureaucracy, which meant more jobs.
The real cost to all this government control? Individual liberty, what our
ancestors had fought for roughly a century earlier and Southerners had struggled
to hold onto less than a decade before.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the interest of economy, Alcorn stated in his
speech that he was not in favor of large expenditures on public works. That part had
been a bone to the upper classes who paid the majority of the taxes (property).
Plus, his plan was to use Federal aid to pay for any public improvements he did
enact. That’s the way the North did it. And it should be noted that in this
part of his speech, he invoked the memory of Henry Clay...and love of the
“Union.” He also let it be known that he planned to inactivate the militia, but
would call it out if lawlessness broke out, which would result in heavier
taxation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve done a little research, but I’m still not sure
about the status of the militia at that time. All Southern militias had been deactivated in
March 1867 with martial law, and I don’t know what authority the provisional
governors had to reactivate them, nor, with the army present, if any would
have. Alcorn’s statement, however, seems to <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>indicate there was an active militia at the
time of his inauguration. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Alcorn stated there would be equality at the ballot
box, jury box, and in the distribution of public office to coloreds and poor
whites, but softened his egalitarian stance by stating that wealth,
intelligence, and social position have always been and trusted always would be
great powers in the state.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Then he contrasted the more “practical”
accomplishments of the North—their canals, harbors, railroads with the
intellectual political theorizing in the South, stating Southerners must
abandon it for the “wiser” statesmanship which devotes itself to the fosterage
of material interests. Now, read that again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And there it is, folks, in a nutshell.
Think about Alcorn’s words above and Pereyra’s assumption he understood the
reality of what had just happened. This is the reason for the war and you can
combine those thoughts with hundreds of others, but what comes readily to mind
are <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2017/03/myths-union-war-and-lost-cause.html" target="_blank">Sherman’s words referring to state-rights “nonsense”</a> to his subordinate
over in Alabama. Here, now,
Alcorn is telling his people to forget the Constitution and wallow in the
greed/power that can only be fostered through centralization. Of course, it
would be those with money and political influence who would always have
benefited. Yeoman farmers were savvy enough to know who would provide the
muscle for this new “statesmanship.” The Negro, looking to Alcorn for
leadership and drunk on his political value, didn’t realize (and
may not have cared) where this was leading. Blacks and poor whites were being
lumped together at the bottom of the totem pole as cheap labor. Bones in the form of work,
wages, and education were being tossed their way. Everyone would be free and
happy, taxed to pay for their often “unsolicited” benefits...or for benefits
demanded by and for someone else. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">With every government benefit provided, a piece of
individual liberty is lost. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Alcorn considered himself the ideal man to lead
Mississippi from the abyss and back into the Union. Whether he was the ideal
man or not is somewhat irrelevant. That abyss is Alcorn’s concept. The South
had already been pushed into the abyss. He was the one willing to contaminate
himself, pulling Mississippi up and over the edge by breaching the gap between
invading Radicals and native conservatives.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ll continue with the actual Alcorn administration next time.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thanks for reading,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Charlsie<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-38488010045579191922018-05-31T16:18:00.000-07:002018-05-31T16:18:00.037-07:00Mississippi’s Readmission to the Union, With Conditions<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
This post is number fifty-one in a historical series
discussing Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn,
following the War Between the States and continues the “saga” resulting from
the Democratic victory over the Republican “reconstruction” constitution framed
during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868. With
proscription conditions in the new constitution modified, the Republicans
triumphed in the second election and the new puppet legislature enacted the
final requirements for readmission. This post picks up the story in Washington
during the winter of 1870. For earlier posts in this Alcorn-driven series, see
the sidebar.</div>
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The legislature having completed its requirements as laid
down by Congress, it retired to await the blessings of Congress, from which the
new puppet Republican legislature expected the state’s speedy admission to the
Union equal to that of the original state. In reality, true “equality” vis-à-vis the central government was dead for all the states—federalism
itself having been butchered along with the Confederacy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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To emphasize this point: In conjunction with Mississippi’s
readmission, Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts introduced a bill making it a qualification that any
state officer swear under oath never to have born arms against the United
States, unless that encumbrance had already been removed. It was the same old
“iron-clad oath” requirement. Recall we’d been through this with<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2015/12/behind-scenes-and-butlers-bill.html" target="_blank"> Butler</a> before. This new iteration referred to holding office, sans the voting
restriction, but the stipulation already existed in the Fourteenth Amendment. <i>But</i> the bill also added the condition that the recalcitrant states could never
amend their constitutions to deprive a citizen of the vote, right to hold
office, or attend public schools. Such amendments to their constitutions of
course, new, old, or amended, are the prerogatives of the individual states
themselves. And more telling, why should such conditions be relegated to the
“recalcitrant” states? And the condition that any state not be able to alter
its constitution ...no matter for what “noble” cause the restraint was
perpetrated, is (<i>was</i> I should say)
anathema to our federal system. Except where specifically outlined in the
Constitution, the central government had no say in state matters. The
restrictions in Butler’s “recalcitrant” state bill would shortly deprive Mississippi,
Virginia, and Texas of their equality with the original members of the Union,
and the denial of a state’s right to change its organic laws is contrary to
federalism. Kentucky’s James Beck,<b> </b><a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/02/james-burnie-beck-prelude-to-countering.html" target="_blank">still fighting</a><b>, </b>offered a counter
proposal, “unconditional readmission.” The Butler Bill passed the House 136-56.</div>
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The debate in the Senate on Butler’s bill continued for two
weeks at which point moderate Republican John Sherman of Ohio, who was no
friend of the South (yes, he is little Billy’s brother) said on February 17th
that he was going to start messing with other pieces of legislation if there
wasn’t movement on the bill (don’t know which side he was taking). The senate
judiciary committee, chaired by Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, another individual
who was no friend of the South, found that Mississippi met all prior
requirements for readmission and recommended unconditional readmission. The
Senate rejected those findings, then passed the House (Butler’s) bill, in
conjunction with Mississippi’s readmission, and sent it to the president. Grant signed it on
the 23 February 1870. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is the final aftermath<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2015/03/defying-tyranny-mississippi-stands-up.html" target="_blank"> of the battle</a> that had been fought and
won by the people of Mississippi in the summer of 1868.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grant himself recommended separate votes on
the proscription clauses and the constitution. As a result, in the fall of 1869
proscription was defeated and the progressive constitution passed. Now, only
months later, Congress has made a de facto repudiation of the Mississippi
taxpayer’s will and its token Republican president has participated in the
treachery. I do not know Alcorn’s take on this treachery, but he is on record
for telling his wife Amelia prior to the <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-1869-gubernatorial-campaign-in.html" target="_blank">gubernatorial election in the fall of 1869</a>, that if the Democrats won (Dent)<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">,
</b>he’d recommend Congress continue martial law in the state. Looking at the
votes in both houses of Congress, it’s clear <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/03/so-what-was-that-effort-in-july-1868.html" target="_blank">the bill was a collusion</a> to give
Mississippi’s usurping Republicans what the people of the state had denied
them. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Writing in 1901, James Garner in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Reconstruction in Mississippi </i>states that after five years with no
representation in Washington, and three of those years under martial law,
Mississippi was readmitted to the Union under “conditions” that impaired her
sovereignty. Congress, in assuming the power to deprive the state of the right
to change its governing constitution in certain particulars, arrogated to
itself sovereign powers, and had it been able to enforce its commands, the
principle of the federal system would have been destroyed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">[H]ad it been able to
enforce its commands</i>...? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Garner was writing at a time when Republican hegemony over
the federal government had been cracked, a time when folks who still believed
in the Constitution and understood the basic tenants of federalism it governed.
Sadly, those conditions do not exist today, and the underlying weaknesses of
federalism framed during Reconstruction, the usurpation of state rights by a
tyrannical central government, is today characterized by a worthless Congress and
an overreaching executive branch, which Congress itself has been strengthening
for decades with powerful, unconstitutional agencies to the detriment of us all.
To us true believers in the founders’ republic, federal law does <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not </i>trump state law. Federal law only
trumps state law where the federal government has been delegated supreme power
by the states, and those instances are limited. But that means nothing when the
states fail to react, just like they did nothing in 1861 when Lincoln opted to
make war on the Southern states after they legally seceded from a hostile
“Union.” Well, okay, those Northern states <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">did</i>
do something. They supported him against sister states to the detriment not only
of the South, but to the republic. With the forced ratification of the 14th and
15th Amendments, the principle of the federal system framed by our founders was
destroyed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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After President Grant signed the bill readmitting Mississippi to the Union (with the
conditions attached), Henry Wilson, the junior senator from Massachusetts,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>presented the credentials of Hiram
Revels to the Senate.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>Revels’
credentials had been signed by Brevet Major General <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and </i>Provisional Governor Adelbert Ames. A point rose as to the
appropriateness of Ames’ signing Revels’ credentials—ha, wait until they get to
Ames’—on two counts: Military officer certification was not on the list of
evidence required by law, and Ames was not the true executive, Alcorn was. But
remember, Alcorn couldn’t execute anymore than the legislature could legislate
until after the bill admitting the state into the Union was signed by the
president (by which time Ames and Revels were already in Washington. Perhaps they
should have waited, huh? Got their credentials in order, then caught a later
train?). I conclude the Senators figured Alcorn could have signed them and
should have. Instead the arrogant Ames had done the deed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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They hemmed and hawed over Revels’ credentials for two days,
then one of them proposed to just let the Senate vote to seat him, which it
proceeded to do, 48-8. Popular sentiment brands those Democrats who opposed
Revels’ seating as racists and the Republicans who supported him as brave
reformers determined to eliminate the special burdens placed on the Negro.
Hogwash. The Republicans were just as racist, and their constituents more
malevolent in their opposition to the Negro than a Southern Democrat whose
racism was condescending, yes, but comparatively benevolent. The Republicans
sacrificed their racial prejudices to permanently break the link between the government
framed in 1787 and the nationalist one they were codifying into law as of 1870.
Whether the Democrats were racist, benevolent, malevolent, or whatever, is
irrelevant. Their unsuccessful struggle was an effort to halt the creation of a
tyrannical central government and its ancillary destruction of republican
principles. The law/arguments used to seat Revels in 1870 were unconstitutional.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The race card was not needed to make their
point. The Republicans, however, did need it to make theirs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now, as to those platitudes of poetic justice made in the
case of a Negro taking Jeff Davis’ seat in the U. S. Senate. Davis’ physical chair
had long before been taken by a Kansas senator who refused to give it up. (That
actual, physical chair, of course, is another irrelevancy, but was considered
symbolic by the idealists of the day). And as for the story that had been bouncing around
since Davis resigned his seat in the Senate in 1861 in which Davis supposedly told Pennsylvania Senator Simon Cameron that he’d probably be replaced by a
Negro in a few years time, that story has also been turned on its ear and reiterated with
it being a prescient Cameron informing Davis of that dire fate. It doesn’t
matter which one said it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s all faux “poetic
justice.” The seat Revels filled was the one vacated in 1861 by Mississippi’s
junior senator, Albert Brown. Ames took Davis’ seat, and personally, I think
Revels would have made a much better fill. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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When Ames presented his credentials to the Senate, signed by
his own hand, the issue of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">his</i> seating
went to the judiciary committee. The committee reported back that Ames had gone
to Mississippi under orders as a military officer, and he was not a citizen of
the state. That report from its own judiciary committee was not sufficient for the Senate to simply say, “go home,” preferably to Maine.<br />
[All those Republican senators were mad at Trumbull, anyway, for breaking ranks and not voting to convict Andrew Johnson at his impeachment trial.]<br />
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Seating Ames took weeks. His chief supporters in the
Senate were Radical Republicans Oliver P. Morton (Indiana’s gubernatorial
tyrant; now, Senator), George Boutwell (Massachusetts), and George Edmunds (Vermont),
and moderate Republican John Sherman (Ohio). Ames’ primary opponents were
Democrats Thomas Bayard (Delaware) and Allen Thurman (Ohio). <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Again citing Garner, Ames’ acceptance of the Senate seat
from Mississippi’s legislature, over which, as provisional governor, he wielded
influence, was (at best) in poor taste. He owned no real property in the state and
paid little or no taxes. He knew little of the state or its needs. He was a
stranger to Mississippi and her people. He had no respect for their tastes,
habits, and prejudices, and he admitted that had he failed to get his appointment
to the Senate, he would not have made Mississippi his home.<br />
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And on that note, back
in Jackson, the puppet legislature passed a joint resolution to Congress stating that Ames’
election had been regular and legal, so seat him. Given that, the Senate
rejected 40-12 the judiciary committee’s report. This non-resident Ames not only represented Mississippi in the U.S. Senate,
he would go on to do so as governor. Ames turned out to be a special emissary
of the Negro race, and he later admitted that in leaving the military for a
civil career he’d made the “fatal” error of his life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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No matter what else, by General Order 25 of 26 February
1870, the Fourth Military District ceased to exist. [Arkansas, the other state
making up the Fourth Military District, had been readmitted to the Union in
1868, also under a puppet administration.]<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Back to Mississippi, next time, and Alcorn’s inaugural speech, outlining
his optimistic vision for the brand new United States, and the South’s finally
getting its hand in the till.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In your dreams, Alcorn.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks for reading, <o:p></o:p></div>
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Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-25583584308425154012018-02-03T07:23:00.000-08:002018-02-03T07:23:42.322-08:00They Gulped the Blood and Gobbled the Flesh...<u>A post in the “Skewing Southern History Series”</u><br />
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It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I’d become strained
doing too many things at once and finishing nothing, so last summer I took a hiatus from blogging. My historical research, however, has not suffered, only the dissemination of my findings, aside from comments and what I hope have been
appropriate shares on Google Plus, Twitter, and to a lesser extent, Facebook. But as I’ve stated before, sometimes something crosses one’s path that cannot be left go. Such was a Pinterest prompt for my “Confederacy” board on which I pin photos of Confederate soldiers, Southern memorials, and other such tidbits related to a short-lived sovereign nation to which I pay homage.<br />
<br />
The prompt was a photo of an unidentified
Confederate soldier in cavalry boots (which I would have naturally pinned). I
clicked the photo and was taken to an <i>All
Things Interesting</i> article published on 27 September 2017. The title of the
article was<a href="http://allthatsinteresting.com/civil-war-photos?utm_medium=email&utm_source=transactional&utm_campaign=wp-email" target="_blank"> “America’s Darkest Hour: 39 Haunting Photos of The Civil War.”</a> Now
I’m not real big on dead soldiers on the battle ground, even Yankee ones, which
considering my loyalties might be considered a little more palatable...though certainly not much. All I wanted was the fella in cavalry boots. But one had to click to go somewhere else to see the photos,
so I started reading the article instead. At the git-go, it appeared to be a
bipartisan accounting of a terrible tragedy that happened a long time ago; in
short, a quick overview to accompany the photos, an account one would write for
a child or foreigner who’d just parachuted in here and knew nothing of our War
Between the States [talk about fire bells clamoring in the night]. I’ve got a
pretty good laywoman’s knowledge of events, so initially there was nothing in
there I wasn’t aware of. Then, halfway through the article (it isn’t a long one)
came something I was <i>not</i> familiar
with. I quote:</div>
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<i>“For
four deadly years, the country endured not only its bloodiest and most vicious
military conflict, but also some of its cruelest racial hatred. Adding to the
already immense heap of skulls, Confederates used disease, starvation,
exposure, and outright execution to kill hundreds of thousands of former slaves
during the war, a figure not included in death toll estimates thanks to a
deliberate lack of record keeping.”</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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Not “hundreds”, y’all, not even “thousands”, but <i>hundreds of thousands</i>. And exactly when did
this “lack of evidence” proving the occurrence of genocide come to light? And
speaking of creating fact from non-existent evidence, why didn’t the writer take the gruesome lie one step further and explain away the
absence of hundreds of thousands of Negroid skulls? Allow me to demonstrate: “There’s
no evidence of the holocaust dear gullible reader (the article’s readership) because the Confederates <i>ate</i>
the murdered slaves.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ha, you see, I really can write compelling fiction! Yes
siree, that’s the perfect sequel to this horror story being attributed to my Southern
ancestors, and my embellishment makes so much sense. The Confederates were,
after all, hungry. Shortages were rampant due to invasion and blockade, so they
“gulped the blood and gobbled the flesh and greedily gorged on the lifeless
corpse[s].”* And once they had eaten their fill, they boiled the fat for soap,
then ground the skeletal mass into meal for bread and cake. That’s why today’s fine
teams of modern investigative journalists, such as the writer of the dung defecated in the ATI article, can’t find where the bodies are buried.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Let’s break down the above paragraph further.
Consider the line about “a deliberate lack of record keeping?” That alone should
tell any reasonable reader how far the writer will go to insult his
intelligence. Why, if one were to do such a thing, would the executioners make
a record of it? It’s not as if the victims had property to account for; they were property. Maybe that explains it. The executioners were keeping the murders secret from the rightful owners who were off somewhere else fighting Yankees. Ya think? Duh. Consider, too, the time it would have taken away from the
army’s defending against invaders. I wonder if the writer of the article has any idea how many Yankees were running around in the South between 1862-1865. Certainly enough to come across hundreds of thousands of murdered slaves. I wonder if he/she even knows Yankees invaded the South or where the war was fought? Besides, don’t you know [I’m being facetious
here], few Southerners could read and write, so keeping a record would have
been difficult. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But the underlying implications are more sinister than that.
Note the use of the words “deliberate lack...” By referencing a perceived
requirement for such a record, of which <i>someone</i>
in a position of power would have made a conscious effort to forgo, the writer
is implicating the Confederate government in a conspiracy to annihilate its
Negro population. Where exactly is the writer of this article going with this? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Yes, well, I know, too. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Next, let’s look at the line “used disease, starvation,
exposure, and outright execution....” That is blatant plagiarism of Southern
charges of Federal excesses (national policy) against Southern civilians, black
and white. That is precisely where the writer of the ATI article stole that
line. Such policy is a component of total war and during the War Between the
States was routinely carried out by <i>Federal</i> officers in command in the South as
sanctioned by their civilian head, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, and blessed
by their sanctified leader Abraham Lincoln.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The charge against the Confederacy is, of course, false, and the proof (other than those yet-to-be-uncovered heaps up skulls) is evident
by the simple fact that such horrendous deeds make no sense. There’s no record,
not because of poor record keeping or pre-sanctioned omission, but because it
didn’t happen. Why would Southerners who had, for two and a half centuries,
lived intimately with the Negro: Slept with him, ate with him, nursed and been
nursed by him, fought and died along side him for more than two centuries in our nation’s struggles leading up to the War Between the States suddenly start exterminating him?
I’m not talking about Negroes who fell
behind enemy lines and ended up in the Federal army. They chose to take up arms
as soldiers (or we could hope so, anyway) and were fair game like all soldiers taking
up arms and invading the sovereign South. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The charge of premeditated extermination [and that’s what
paragraph four of the ATI article is] is equally oxymoronic in light of the
fallacious argument that the South seceded to preserve slavery..., <i>then</i> decided to exterminate its slaves?
But wait! Maybe we’ve stumbled upon yet another point to ponder. Is the
“all about slavery” narrative morphing into “it was all about removing the perceived inferior race from the United States?” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Sorry, folks, that exclusive “white-man’s-only nation” attitude
was the battle cry of another group. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m not going to argue that the antebellum white Southerner
wasn’t racist; he definitely was. But his racism was predominantly benevolent, and no matter how
demeaning that benevolence, it falls well shy of atrocity. I say this, one, because
Southerners are basically good people and, two, because that benevolence helped them
justify the institution. It was the Northern attitude towards the Negro that
was malevolent and that malevolence played out against the “contaminated” South
and white Southerners, who had supposedly degenerated vis-à-vis their superior Northern counterparts after two hundred
and fifty years of intimacy with the Negro race. In my
opinion, and this is strictly my opinion, the greatest shame of the Southern Democrats and
the modern Klan (not the original) is their self-aggrandizing embracing, then
making truth of, a Yankee lie.<br />
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In light of the sordid tale of genocide
masquerading as “fact” presented above, the rather slipshod description of
Davis’ capture near the end of the article comes as no surprise.<br />
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I had never heard of <i>All
Things Interesting</i>, but it has a substantial readership and is part of the
online media, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBH_Network" target="_blank">PBH Network</a>.<b> </b>There
are no by lines, attributions, or supporting references in the 27 September
article. Whoever wrote the
thing conducted only superficial research in slapping the piece together. They
are unconcerned with the war, its causes, its
repercussions, or the people involved. They are either convinced that all right-thinking Americans
regard those who defended/still defend the Confederacy as either dead or to have
seen the light and become “good” Americans, or they’re trying to convince the
rest of us that’s the case. Extant defenders are nothing more than lunatics who
support “proven” racist traitors and represent only a fringe of the Southern population.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Promulgation of such lies is what ATI counts on to grow its
readership. That’s how propaganda works. The Left (assuming ATI isn’t financed
by the Left) finds such ignorance a useful tool to achieve its agenda. This is the legacy “neo-conservatives”, many
in leadership positions across the South, have left us. A large number of Americans
don’t know where this nation, or they themselves, came from. They look at America’s
ante-bellum past as they do that of the Roman Republic: It was long ago, and
there’s no one invested in it any longer. They feel right in saying and/or
accepting whatever nonsense they “think they know,” packaging it as truth, and
shouting it to the world if it furthers their agenda. These born-yesterday
Americans derive from two different sources, new arrivals and the much more
egregious multi-<i>generationals</i> who
find validation in detaching themselves from ancestors who sacrificed their
immortal souls, according to their progeny’s self-righteous interpretation of
right and wrong, to give them what they have today. We in the South have long
been blessed with a paucity of both. Disgracefully, the number among the latter
is growing.<br />
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*<i>Beowulf</i> for those
of you who have forgotten that classic example of old-English alliteration from
high school.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thanks for reading,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-87240013090900208302017-09-11T12:14:00.000-07:002018-05-29T15:20:30.516-07:00The Selection of Hiram Revels to the U. S. Senate<div class="MsoNormal">
This post is number fifty in a historical series discussing
Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn, following the
War Between the States and continues with the results of the fall 1869 victory
of the Republican ticket headed by Alcorn and the Radical party. This post
falls prior to the inauguration of the new governor, but subsequent to calling
to order the new legislature by the interim military governor, Adelbert Ames.</div>
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As discussed in my last post, the ratification of the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments was (at the time) the last hurdle placed in
front of Mississippi before she would be accepted back into the loving arms of
the hate-filled Union. Until that blessing occurred, Mississippi could not participate
in the legislative process, but there was one last duty she could and should
perform prior to soliciting Congress for readmission. That was the selection of
her U.S. Senators. <o:p></o:p></div>
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To quickly <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2017/05/mississippis-final-stretch-for-reentry.html" target="_blank">recap</a>, Alcorn was elected to fill the full session beginning 4 March
1871, roughly one year in the future, and Adelbert Ames was elected to fill an
unfinished term of four years, the seat vacant since the late winter of 1861.
Still to be chosen was the individual who would fill the second seat vacant since
that same secession winter. That term had less than 14 months left on it and
was the seat Alcorn anticipated filling the following March. In the meantime,
an interim Senator was needed to fill the chair. The story passed down is that
the Negro legislators, whose people had been instrumental in the election of
the majority Carpetbaggers and Scalawags now holding power in Mississippi,
insisted a black man fill that seat. How many white “allies” they had among the
Carpetbaggers and Scalawags (and their strongest allies would have been among
the Carpetbaggers) is not known. Negro legislator John Roy Lynch representing
Adams County in the house, states that the Republicans were in agreement on the
selection of a black Senator, but the house journal casts doubt on that,
because when the voting started there were a number of Carpetbag hopefuls.
Moreover, the record implies that the black legislators weren’t even in
agreement on who their choice for U. S. Senator would be. According to James
Garner in <i>Reconstruction in Mississippi</i>
the battle was between <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2015/03/alcorns-final-option-joining-republican.html" target="_blank">B.B. Eggleston</a> and Hiram Revels, and for a brief blip on
the radar screen in the middle of the voting, that was indeed the case, but
that was as much fluke as fact.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Ignorant of Mississippi’s values, reckless of the burden
placed on her taxpayer, and heedless of the long-term welfare of her people,
neither Revels nor Eggleston were representative of a devastated state vying
against a Congress that had anything but Mississippi’s interest at heart. I,
myself, find poetic justice in Revels’ victory occurring over the likes of
Eggleston (and a number of other Radicals). Self-serving righteousness aside
(not Revels’, but the Radicals’), Senator Revels was well educated and capable
even if neither representative of the state nor appreciative of the role of a
U.S. Senator—a failing permeating many Republican Senators at the time, not
counting those hell-bent to knowingly alter the republic overall. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Revels had joined Federal service in Baltimore at the
outbreak of the war, and he had assisted in the organization of Negro troops.
He came with the U. S. Army to Jackson in 1863 and aided in the formation there
of the Freedman’s Bureau. In time he would become the first president of Alcorn
College for Negroes, and he has the distinction of being the first Negro seated
in the U.S. Senate.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The Mississippi senate’s selection of Alcorn and Ames for
the U.S. Senate occurred on the 18th of January, 1870. The Mississippi senate,
however, failed to make a selection for the short-term seat, nor did the house
and as of the following day when senate and house went into joint session to
elect the Mississippi Senators, Hiram Revels had not even been mentioned as a
possible candidate (at least, in the official record). He, himself, voted for
the Carpetbagger Alston Mygatt on the first ballot and on the second, the
Scalawag Abel Alderson, an 1850 transplant from Maryland, who did not take part
in the war and was not serving in the legislature at the time of his nomination.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The 19 January joint session readily confirmed J. L. Alcorn
for the new term beginning in March 1871 (119 to 2, the lone votes against him
going to W. L. Sharkey, the old-line Whig who had served as Mississippi’s
provisional governor during the earliest days of Presidential Reconstruction and Adelbert Ames, the then
provisional governor). On cue, Ames was confirmed for the longer unfinished
term, 94 votes to Robert Lowry’s 24. Alcorn also got a vote here as did Horace
Greeley, a facetious jab, no doubt, at the hostile editor of the <i>New York Tribune’s </i>having<i> </i>as much right to represent Mississippi
in the U. S. Senate as did Adelbert Ames. Unfortunately, no record is made of
who initiated the vote, but a Democrat is a solid bet. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The unfinished, short-term seat proved up for grabs, however,
no one candidate having a majority in either branch of the legislature. From
what I’m able to gather, the joint session combined the votes of both houses
from the previous day’s separate sessions to form the baseline for the 19
January voting: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2015/03/alcorns-final-option-joining-republican.html" target="_blank">R. W. Flournoy</a>,
who you may recall from an earlier post as a man James Garner in <i>Reconstruction in Mississippi </i>described
as one of the most Radical Republicans in the state, received 27 votes [he was
not a member of the legislature]<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The aforementioned Abel Alderson 21<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
B. B. Eggleston [not in the legislature] 19<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
State senator Alston Mygatt, a Carpetbagger representing
Warren and Issaquena counties, 8<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
C. B. New [not a member of the legislature] 2<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Alexander Warren, a Scalawag representing Madison county 1<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
T. W. Stringer, a Negro representing Warren and Issaquena
counties in the senate 1 <o:p></o:p></div>
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J. J. Spelman, a Negro representing Madison County in the
Mississippi house 4 <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-participants-gather-and-plot.html" target="_blank">J. W. C. Watson,</a> an old-line Whig who served as a senator in the Confederate Congress, now a Democrat not serving in the legislature,
but who had proved a thorn in the side of the Republicans during the Black and
Tan Convention 18 <o:p></o:p></div>
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J. W. Vance [another
non-member of the legislature, who had been nominated in the house the day
before by Scalawag M. Campbell representing Desoto County and in the senate by
F. H. Little representing Chickasaw and Monroe Counties. Vance was a favorite
of Democrats and a number of (I think we can safely assume) moderate Scalawags]
19<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 48.0pt;">
I would like to
expand here, if I may, on my reckless use of the term “safely assume.” I am
making some effort here at home to identify all these legislators by party
affiliation and faction. I had identified senator Little as a probable
Carpetbagger, based on his voting, but the only thing I’m sure of at this point
is that he was a Republican. His nomination of Vance for the U.S. Senate seat
indicates he might very well have been a Scalawag. However, on the second round
of voting for this seat, also on 19 January, he voted against Vance, casting
his ballot for B.B. Eggleston—can’t get much more “Carpetbag” than that. Of
course, when studying the legislative journals, one doesn’t see the
behind-the-scenes maneuvering going on, just clear indications that something
is amiss. And “what” senator Little really was remains a mystery for now (at
least to me). <o:p></o:p></div>
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The field proved smaller for the first <i>joint</i> ballot, six candidates as opposed to ten. Clearly some
wheeling and dealing had gone on. The leading Democratic candidate from Wednesday’s
last ballot, Watson, was no longer in the running and Eggleston’s total had jumped
by twenty votes and the Southern wing’s choice, J. W. Vance, by 12. The
withdrawal of Watson from the running resulted in his 18 votes being divvied up
primarily between J. W. Vance, Robert Lowry (Newt Knight’s nemesis, who would eventually become governor of the state), and Abel Alderson: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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R. W. Flournoy, 22<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Abel Alderson, 23<o:p></o:p></div>
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B. B. Eggleston, 39<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Flournoy, Alderson and Eggleston (the first two Scalawags,
one radical, one moderate, and Eggleston, the Carpetbagger, were trading Negro
and Carpetbagger votes at this point).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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J. W. Vance, 31<o:p></o:p></div>
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Robert Lowry, 5<o:p></o:p></div>
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C. B. New, 1<o:p></o:p></div>
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Hiram Revels’ name finally appears on the second ballot in
the joint session when he was nominated by Mr. W. H. Roane, a Carpetbagger
representing Pike County in the Mississippi house. One Carpetbag and three
Negro senators voted for him as did eighteen Negroes and eight Carpetbaggers in
the house. He received no Scalawag or Democratic votes on this ballot.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Abel Anderson 15<o:p></o:p></div>
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B. B. Eggleston 19<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
R. W. Flournoy 11<o:p></o:p></div>
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Robert Lowry 2<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hiram Revels 30<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. J. Spelman 3<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stafford, [not a member of the legislature] 1<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. W. Vance, 39 <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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As of this juncture, Vance had gained two Democratic
senators who had voted for Robert Lowry and a Scalawag who now chose to abandon
Eggleston (or decided Eggleston was a lost cause). The battle at this point
became one between Revels and Vance vice Revels and Eggleston, because once
Revels’ hat was in the ring, the Negroes abandoned Eggleston (except the
gentleman senator Revels and representative J. J. Spelman from Madison County
who had nominated Eggleston in the first place, and Charles Caldwell, the Negro
senator from Hinds County, who remained loyal to Abel Anderson). Eggleston,
Alderson, and Flournoy had received a significant number of Negro votes prior
to Revels’ nomination. Eggleston lost 10 Negro votes to Revels in addition to 5
Carpetbaggers; Flournoy lost 7 Negroes to Revels; and Abel Alderson lost 2
Negroes and 2 Carpetbaggers. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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By the third ballot, Flournoy, Stafford, the Negro Spelman,
and Lowry are gone and numbers are shifting:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Abel Alderson 13<o:p></o:p></div>
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B. B. Eggleston 19<o:p></o:p></div>
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Hiram Revels 40<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. W. Vance 49<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And by the fourth ballot the quest for the sixty-one
required votes is really between only two men, the Scalawag nominee, J. W.
Vance, and the Negro nominee, Hiram Revels:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Abel Alderson 8<o:p></o:p></div>
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B. B. Eggleston 18<o:p></o:p></div>
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Hiram Revels 43<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J. W. Vance 50 (who received 2 Carpetbag votes, one from the
Alderson camp and one, actually, from Revels’ camp).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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At this point, the legislative body adjourned until Tuesday,
20 January 1870, and the next day, the Scalawag senator, J. H. Pierce
representing Panola and Tallahatchie Counties, withdrew J. W. Vance’s name from
the list of hopefuls, and on the sixth ballot, Hiram Revels received 81 votes,
twenty more than needed to win election. But here are a couple of interesting
things to ponder. The first deals with the withdrawal of John W. Vance’s name
and the second is the re-dissemination of the votes once Vance’s name was
removed. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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What happened over night to compel the Scalawag senator
Pierce to remove Vance’s name from the competition before the first vote on 20
January? Of the five Scalawags in the senate who had supported Vance without
fail, four now cast their votes to Revels. The fifth, H. N. Ballard
representing Desoto County, does not appear to have voted. All seven Democratic
senators who had supported Vance (the senate total), cast their ballots to the
wind as did his 22 Democratic supporters in the house. John Surratt (Lincoln
assassination conspiracy) and John Smith (Pocahontas’ old flame) being among
the nominees. To be fair, there were votes cast for good nominees such as J. Z.
George, lawyer and future Mississippi supreme court justice prior to his
election to the U. S. Senate in 1881 and W. S. Featherston, antebellum
legislator and Confederate war hero who would remain active in politics in the
fight against the Carpetbag administration and into Redemption. W. L. Sharkey
even received a couple of votes, but my point here is that in the election for
the short-term U.S. Senate seat, in January 1870, there was no further
coordinated vote among this now rudderless group once Vance was removed from
the field. Six of the 13 Scalawag representatives who had supported Vance in
the house, threw in their lots with Revels, backing their senators, the
remainder, less one, cast their votes for Abel Alderson.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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So what happened? Why did the Scalawags (and it does appear
that it was the senate Scalawags who “sold out” and suddenly withdrew the name
of the leading contender right from under their nominally allied Democratic
compatriots with whom they appeared in lockstep on their way to sending a
Democrat to the U.S. Senate. [Just can’t
trust those Scalawags]. Ah, but was it the sell-out it appears? Vance’s name
wasn’t the only one missing from that final vote—B. B. Eggleston’s was, too.
Fourteen Carpetbaggers, 2 Negroes, and 1 Scalawag who had voted for the
ex-Union general now cast their votes for Revels. With Revels’ already existing
43, that made 60 votes—not quite enough to win the seat. And the plot thickens.<o:p></o:p></div>
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John W. Vance (the leader on the night before the decision)
was father to two Confederate veterans. He was a long-time lawyer and resident in
Desoto County (the same county represented by Scalawag Senator Ballard who
didn’t vote in the final poll), and on the 10th of May 1870, the Mississippi
senate confirmed Alcorn’s appointment of J. W. Vance as judge on Mississippi’s Twelfth
Circuit. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Here’s what I think happened. The Carpetbaggers, foiled by
their Negro supporters, who were sticking by their guns regarding a Negro
getting that senate seat, now accepted the fact that Eggleston, sheared of his
Negro votes, would not win that seat. The Eggleston clique (there were always
Carpetbaggers who opposed Eggleston just like there were those who supported
Revels) capitulated and cast their lots with the Revels’ ascendancy. But even if
all Eggleston’s votes shifted to Revels (and there was no guarantee of that), there
were Carpetbaggers adamantly opposed to a Negro getting that seat. Add to that,
the popular Scalawag Abel Anderson was still in the running. That meant Revels would
still come up shy of the votes he needed to win. So after that final vote the
evening of 19 January and adjournment, the pro-Vance moderate Scalawags
approached the Radical camp and offered their Republican colleagues a deal. The
Scalawags would withdraw Vance’s name and cast their support (or, at least <i>enough</i> support) to Revels, if the Radicals
would support John W. Vance for judge on Mississippi’s Twelfth Circuit. I would
guess that Alcorn would have been privy to the agreement. I for one can believe
those moderate Senate Scalawags (and their Democratic allies who nevertheless
refused to vote for Revels (nor were they needed at that point)) found more
value in having their man as a judge on the Twelfth Circuit than they did in a
lame-duck senator whose term would end in fourteen months. [And, of course, it
could have been the other way around—the Radicals could have approached the Scalawags.
I simply have my suspicions as to which group was the smarter of the two.
Shoot, the Scalawags could have supported Vance all along hoping for an
opportunity to make such a deal. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but
there’s no doubt in my mind that it did happen in much this way]. The moderate
Scalawags cut a deal with the Carpetbaggers, putting Revels in the U. S. Senate
in return for placing Vance on the Twelfth Circuit—really not much of a
sacrifice for Alcorn, who would have preferred a Southerner on the circuit
anyway. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
One last aside. I had some initial
trouble with my theory on the selection of Judge Vance for the Twelfth Circuit
in that other Mississippi records place him on the Third Circuit (Adams,
Claiborne, Franklin, and Jefferson Counties). It was a major glitch in that it
simply made no sense for that particular man—critical to my theory—to be
assigned to the <i>Third</i> Circuit. My J.
W. Vance, the one leading the vote count on the evening of the 19th, came from
Desoto County, and for the deal I proposed to work he <i>had </i>to have been appointed to the Twelfth Circuit. Sure enough, a
review of the of 19 May 1870 <i>Hernando
Press</i> confirmed the state senate had approved native son J. W. Vance for
the Twelfth Circuit and stated specifically the Twelfth Circuit was comprised
of Desoto, Panola, Sunflower, and Tallahatchie Counties. Yeah, you catch that?
Panola and Tallahatchie Counties were represented by Senator J. H. Pierce, the
same man who had withdrawn Vance’s name on the morning of the 20th of January. Why
the other historical records have it wrong, I don’t know. Of course, it was
probably a one-time error that kept repeating itself. Research is so much fun.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The seating of Hiram Revels in the U. S. Senate next
time—along with all the other “conditions” for Mississippi’s reentry into the
Union. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Thanks for reading, <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-64331147979179055412017-05-07T09:53:00.000-07:002017-05-07T09:53:31.244-07:00Mississippi’s Final Stretch for Reentry into a Union She Supposedly Never Left<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
This post is number forty-nine in a historical series
discussing Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn,
following the War Between the States and continues the “saga” resulting from
the Democratic victory over the Republican “reconstruction” constitution framed
during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868. That
Republican defeat resulted in a second election—Washington’s Radicals were simply
not going to take Mississippians’ rejection of their agenda as the
answer. For earlier posts in this Alcorn-driven series, see the sidebar.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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_______________________________________<o:p></o:p></div>
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Upon <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/09/alcorns-gubernatorial-victory-november.html" target="_blank">ratification of the progressive constitution and election of state officers</a>, Mississippi’s military governor, Adelbert Ames, ordered the new legislature
to meet 11 January 1870. This was the first legislature to meet since the
inauguration of martial law and Congressional Reconstruction in the spring of
1867. The Radical U.S. Congress made two more demands of the state before considering
Mississippi for readmission to the “new nation,” those being ratification of
the unconstitutional Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Once the legislature was assembled and organized, Ames,
acting in his capacity of provisional governor, requested it consider passage
of the two amendments, which forever altered the fundamental relationship
between the central government and the states. The legislature not only
considered the two amendments, it readily ratified them, but that had been the
plan all along.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Much has been said of the abuses of “Negro Rule”during the course of these puppet governments set up during Reconstruction in the South, but as of 11 January 1870, Mississippi was not yet to that point. To be fair to the Negro, Negro Rule is a misnomer, because the people calling the shots were always white politicians aiding and abetting corruption in return for votes, both at election time and in the state house. The more accurate term, and one used routinely for the period, is Carpetbag Rule.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of the 139 men making up the puppet legislature that passed the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, only thirty-one were Negroes, mostly ex-slaves, many illiterate, and none with legislative
experience or understanding of how legislatures operated. Most were ignorant of
the history and the intent of the framers of the U. S. Constitution, which is
why the Radicals in Congress ensured their citizenship, suffrage, and
election to legislative positions. The Negroes’ case was not unlike that of European immigrants in Northern cities who joined Lincoln’s army to
fight for “freedom” and democracy which could only be accomplished, by some
obtuse reasoning, by a forced marriage between North and South. All were
manipulated by a political system determined to pervert what the founders had
created in 1787 and create something new. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Within the ranks of those thirty-one Negroes were very capable individuals, primarily black ministers, who were both
well-educated and knowledgeable, yet still lacking legislative experience,
but in lockstep with those whose goal it was to alter the Republic. Twelve such had been elected
to the house, and three of Mississippi’s five Negro senators were ministers. It
should be noted that black ministers dominated black leadership across the entire South. The Republican hierarchy reached the black voter through the black
ministers. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
The legislators representing the wealthiest counties in the state were
now ex-slaves: one senator and three representatives from Warren County, the
location of Vicksburg; two representatives and one senator from Hinds County, the
location of the state capitol Jackson; two representatives and one senator from
Adams County, the location of Natchez; two representatives and one senator from
Washington County in Mississippi’s Yazoo-Mississippi Delta where Greenville is
located; Lowndes County, site of Columbus, sent one senator and one representative; Noxubee County sent three Negro representatives to the state house; Holmes,
Panola, and Wilkinson Counties had two Negro representatives each; and
seventeen other counties sent one Negro each to Jackson to represent their
interests. In addition to the black legislators, there were forty-nine Carpetbaggers, primarily ex-Union soldiers who were recent inhabitants of the
state, twenty-five Scalawags composed in large part of ex-Whigs and ex-Confederates and home-grown
opportunists who never, or no longer, saw eye-to-eye with the Democrats; four additional Republicans in the house, who I have yet to confirm as Carpetbagger or Scalawag*; and
finally there were thirty Democrats made up of both <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-democratic-party-and-its-quest-for.html" target="_blank">New Departure</a> adherents who had acquiesced to the new order and the Bourbons, the democrats of old (and
probably some old-line Whigs) who remained true to the principles of the old
republic: the Constitution, state rights, and home rule—you know, liberty. Not some lofty ideal of “freedom” dictated by those who felt qualified to define exactly what that abstract quality is within a controlled state, not
“democracy” imposed and manipulated by centralized government, but <i>liberty, </i>a quality achieved only by the absence of as much government as possible and still guarantee the protection of property. A government limited by laws framed and controlled at the local level. Needless to
say, people who thought like the Bourbons were outnumbered in the recreated Southern legislatures, in a nation led by men, both Radical and non-, hell-bent to shape it into Leviathan. Those latter needed government-enforced democracy and the illusion of “freedom,” and though the Bourbons might have elicited sympathy from their fellow Democrats and even many Scalawags, they garnered little real support among men who, even though they might have disdained Leviathan, were now determined to carry on in an altered state where liberty was now an ephemeral beauty whose time had passed.<br />
<blockquote>
[I have yet to narrow down which was which among the Democrats, and I imagine I will find the two groups will polarize significantly during the course of Carpetbag Rule before finally consolidating in the wake of Republican corruption and misrule.]</blockquote>
Doctor Franklin representing Yazoo County, but who was in fact a Carpetbagger from New York, was
elected speaker of the Mississippi house. The vote for the Fourteenth Amendment was 24-2 in the senate (twelve Carpetbaggers, five Scalawags, five Negroes, and two Democrats; the two nays were both Democrats. Three Carpetbaggers, one Scalawag, and two Democrats did not cast votes). The house vote for the Fourteenth Amendment was 87-6 <span style="font-size: 12pt;">(thirty-four Carpetbaggers, thirteen Scalawags, one additional Republican whom I’ve yet to determine if Carpetbagger or Scalawag, twenty-six Negroes, twelve Democrats, and one member who I am unable to determine if he was Republican or Democrat. Five Democrats and one Scalawag opposed the amendment. Six Democrats and seven Republicans did not record a vote. The latter group was composed of six Carpetbaggers and one Negro who were absent, but of the six Democrats who did not cast a vote, only one was absent. The other five simply did not vote. One hundred six legislators sat in the Mississippi house.</span><br />
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<br />
The senate vote on the Fifteenth Amendment was 28-0 (twelve Carpetbaggers, six Scalawags, five Negroes, and five Democrats. There were no negative votes, but three Democrats and two Carpetbaggers did not cast votes). The house vote was 92-1 (thirty-four Carpetbaggers, fourteen Scalawags, twenty-six Negroes, and eighteen Democrats).
<br />
<blockquote>
[The lone nay vote was cast by Democrat J. K. McLeod representing Greene County in south-central Mississippi. Of note, his was one of the six votes against the Fourteenth Amendment. Hmmm...might have our first Bourbon identified here.]</blockquote>
There were 26 Republicans and 7 Democrats in the senate for a total of 33 state senators. Given the number of Democratic votes cast in support of these amendments, readmission to the Union and the end of martial
law took precedent over principle. We might also conclude here that in the fall of 1869 the majority of Democrats elected to the legislature were of the New Departure persuasion. The Fourteenth Amendment had been ratified in
July of 1868, so was already law, but the Fifteenth wasn’t ratified until 3
February 1870. Mississippi was the twenty-third state to approve (twenty-eight
were needed to ratify). Looking at the ratification process for both those amendments,
neither would have been ratified without the coercion of the Southern states,
which didn’t even have a vote in Congress when those amendments were passed by that tainted assembly.</div>
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The state’s ratification of these two egregious changes to
the U.S. Constitution fulfilled the demands of Congress and placed the question
of Mississippi’s readmission to the <i>new</i> United States in Congress’ hands.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The legislature could not legislate until Congress approved Mississippi’s
admission; however, there was one more matter to which it could attend before
adjourning. That was the election of Mississippi’s U.S. Senators, one for the
full term beginning the following spring (4 March 1871) and two to fill Mississippi’s
senatorial seats vacant since Jeff Davis and Albert G. Brown walked away from
the U.S. Senate in 1861. Alcorn was elected to fill the full term beginning in
March 1871. Of the two unfulfilled terms, one seat had four years remaining on
it, the other thirteen months. Adelbert Ames was the predisposed choice to fill
the four-year term. He received all the votes in the senate and seventy-two
votes in the house, two of which were Democrats. Hmmm...wonder what that bought them? I hope it cost them their next election.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The compromise choice for the shorter-term seat was Adams County senator <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiram_Rhodes_Revels" target="_blank">Hiram Revels</a>, a Negro of mixed blood who had
been born free in North Carolina and raised and educated in Indiana. In <i>Reconstruction in Mississippi</i>, James Garner states Revels beat out
the favored B. B. Eggleston to fill the term. Y’all remember <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2015/05/detailing-black-and-tan-convention-of.html" target="_blank">Eggleston</a>?
He was president of the Black
and Tan Convention and subsequently headed the Republican ticket <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2015/03/defying-tyranny-mississippi-stands-up.html" target="_blank">defeated by the Democratic-Scalawag coalition led by J. L. Wofford </a>in tandem with the progressive
constitution in the summer of 1868. He was the man who accepted the surrender of Atlanta in 1864 and the man
from whom Alcorn usurped the Radical party in the state back in the fall of
1869. Eggleston was <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2015/12/behind-scenes-and-butlers-bill.html" target="_blank">Butler’s man</a><b>.</b>
Now he was dealt his coup de grace, displaced by a Negro for U. S. senator from
Mississippi. The delusion of poetic justice, of course, was (and remains so to this day) at work here, the downtrodden Negro taking Jeff Davis’ seat in the Senate. In fact, Revel’s
election to fill the seat is widely regarded as the fulfillment of Davis’ reputed prophecy to Simon Cameron back in 1861 when he supposedly said that in all probability a
Negro would be sent to take his place in the Senate. I’ve also heard that it was Cameron who warned Davis of that possibility and not the other way around. There would, in my opinion, be more reason for such sentimentality had an illiterate, ex-slave from <i>Mississippi</i> been elected for the job, but to my mind it is mawkish affectation either way. </div>
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The contemporary Negro representative from Adams County, John Roy Lynch, in <i>The Facts of Reconstruction </i>covertly
suggests the powers making up that soon-to-be legislature had already agreed on a
Negro filling the short-term seat prior to its opening session on 11 January 1870. Analysis of the house journal, however, suggests the decision that a Negro would fill that seat was one agreed to only by the Negroes and that it was more a determination than a decision. Moreover, when entering the fray, Hiram Revels was not their first choice (nor was he, from what I gather, seeking the job). In fact, the black caucus, shall we say, hadn’t settled on a choice.<br />
<br />
On a pragmatic note, what I liked about the subsequent sequence of votes to fill the seat is that the roll-call votes and the manner in which hopefuls were nominated, then supported, has helped me determine who was who among the Republicans in the Mississippi legislature...Carpetbagger or Scalawag.<br />
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Hiram Revels next time.<br />
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Thanks for reading, <o:p></o:p></div>
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Charlsie<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
*Though I think I have a good handle on who was a Scalawag and who was a Carpetbagger, there may be a discrepancy here and there. One thing is certain, there were thirty-one Negroes and seventy-eight white Republicans, for a total of 109 Republicans, opposed to thirty Democrats making up the Mississippi legislature in the winter of 1870.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-40988004467436927292017-03-22T06:47:00.001-07:002017-03-22T06:48:53.719-07:00Myths: The Union, The War, and The Lost Cause<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
This is my second post prompted by the application of the
Lost Cause <i>myth </i>to the Newt Knight/Free State of Jones legend recently claimed by some with a political agenda
and represents my counter thoughts <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2017/03/its-not-whether-newton-knight-was.html" target="_blank">to those presented </a>in Victoria
Bynam’s <i>The Free State of Jones</i> and
Sally Jenkins and Paul Stauffers’ <i>State
of Jones</i>. I address the issue in support of my conviction that we Southerners should be reading, writing, and teaching Southern history, not to mention
<a href="https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/films-from-the-south/" target="_blank">making movies of our own</a>. </div>
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<b>___________________________________________<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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One
who gives credence to Daniel Webster believes the Union predated the states. <i>What</i>, you might ask? Yes, well, that’s
what our Southern ancestors thought, too, when they heard that foolishness. But
Webster had to do something to debunk the validity of state rights, and that
was less violent than what Lincoln did. [Don’t forget, however, that Webster
wrote the <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/12/clays-objectives-in-settling.html" target="_blank">Force Bill</a> promulgating a federal military attack on South Carolina
in 1833. I figure Webster would have approved of Lincoln.]<br />
<br />
Now take Webster’s imaginative recast of history in
tandem with William T. Sherman’s words in an 1864 missive to a subordinate in
Huntsville, Alabama on dealing with Southern “treason” and intransigence
against the United States government at whose pleasure the South even existed:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>For
my part, I believe that this war is the result of false political doctrine, for
which we are all as a people responsible, viz: That any and every people has a
right to self-government...In this belief, while I assert for our Government
the highest military prerogatives, I am willing to bear in patience that political
nonsense of...State Rights, freedom of conscience, freedom of press, and other
such trash as have deluded the Southern people into war, anarchy, bloodshed,
and the foulest crimes that have disgraced any time or any people.</i> <o:p></o:p></div>
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Yeah, old war-is-hell Billy was a true patriot all right—a
real supporter and defender of the Constitution. Then there was Charles
Sumner’s stated belief “promulgated” during Congressional Reconstruction that the only rights
the states had were <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2015/10/shoot-who-needed-fourteenth-amendment.html" target="_blank">those Congress blessed them with.</a> <i>Excuse
me?</i> Yes, it was Southern intransigence that provoked his revealing himself,
but that arrogant, self-righteous traitor to the very concept of the republic was
referring to all the states. Then there was Thaddeus Stevens (Pennsylvania),
speaking, also during Reconstruction, to defeated Confederate general Richard
Taylor (Louisiana), stating that the Constitution needed to be discarded; it
was not a fit document to govern the nation. Well, the Radicals didn’t discard
the Constitution, they desecrated it instead.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And <i>we</i> in the
South didn’t know what we were fighting for against thugs such as
those?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Just as a writer of historical
fiction justifies her use of an anachronistic word using the yard-stick of a its
having been in general usage for twenty years prior to its first appearance in
the dictionary, the layman or woman should be forthright enough to consider the
political opinions of such men had been floating around for some time before
the South threw in the towel and said she’d had enough working with those
undermining the basic tenants of our federal system (state sovereignty/limited
federal supremacy). Extrapolating, anti-Southern encroachments harkened back to
the 1830s—and that’s provable—all a forthright layperson has to do is pick up a
history book. Alas, fewer and fewer indulge in such informed opinion now, but
I would be willing to bet my Southern ancestors were very aware of this perfidious attitude
spawned by self-aggrandizing economics, which required centralization to
accomplish and maintain. This is the crop sown by Hamilton, tilled by Henry
Clay, and fertilized with American blood by Lincoln’s Republicans. We’re
reaping the results now. Next comes plowing under the fallow fields, a
wasteland of lost liberty—eclipsing a Lost Cause. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Both Bynum’s work and the Jenkins-Stauffer book on the Newt
Knight legend make much ado
about the Jones County unionists, particularly Jesse Collins, who I would agree
was a unionist—such as he thought a “unionist” was. It’s just my opinion, but what
Jesse Collins wanted was the status quo that existed before the South seceded,
which he didn’t have once Northern aggression forced an oft-resisted centralization
of the Confederate government in its effort to survive invasion. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Davis had problems with his
governors, not just Piney Woods farmers, the latter being a more direct problem for the
governors than they were to Richmond. Anyone who has studied the history of this period—or
history period—knows this. People at war often balk at the demands of their beleaguered government. The people of the Confederacy sure weren’t the first,
and before it was all over, their government was under extreme duress, so, therefore, were its citizens. As a people they remained loyal to their government, particularly when faced with the hated alternative. And rest assured that alternative was hated and rightly so. Those comprising the alternative had just proven how evil they really were and things weren't going to improve for a long, long time. Given
the nature of how Southern history is taught these days (or rather not taught), the Bynums, the
Jenkinses, the Stauffers, and the Gary Rosses now making up the bulk of mainstream historians/media are taking the opportunity to try and persuade a Southern populace, who they assume to be ignorant until enlightened by them, to piss on their ancestors’ graves. All assumption aside, why
would anyone worthy of respect—or whose respect we would aspire to gain—do such
a thing? The only people more reprehensible are Southerners who buy off on
these pied pipers and actually <i>do</i> it. That’s not to say the acceptance of facts when confronted with incontrovertible evidence should be considered
sacrilege. We did lose the war after all, and there are a number of valid reasons for
it—but Southern treachery falls too far down the list to be relevant. These subversives, however, would have Southerners believe otherwise. Worse, they portray men, whose feet of clay have long been regarded by Southerners with contempt, as <i>American</i> patriots. Historical studies identifying mistakes and even suggesting blame, where possible, should not be considered disloyalty to the Southern Cause, but critical self-analysis and the study of lessons learned are a
good light-year away from sleeping with the enemy. That’s what the mainstream
today is demanding Southerners do in order to become <i>true</i> Americans. Count among today’s mainstream many of our own
Southern leaders; that is, after all, what they are doing.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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In my opinion, Jessie Collins couldn’t see the forest for
the trees. On page 49 of their book, Jenkins and Stauffer inserted a ditty:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>I’m
de po’ folks’ lan’ with my miles of sand,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>and
my cottonwoods moan and groan,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>An’
I’m gonna stay free from hills to the sea and<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>my
forest are all my own.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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The authors maintain the ballad supports the regional pride
and independence of the poor whites in the region of Jones County and
surrounds. I agree. Now tell me how in Hades anyone can deduce loyalty to Lincoln’s Union out of that? What we have today is the absolute last thing those
folks would have wanted. If they were here, vice their great-greats...they’d still
be in the swamps. What the “federal union” resulting from ratification of the
Constitution gave Collins and his neighbors was freedom <i>from </i>government and for seven decades state government stood as a
bulwark against federal overreach. Secession—in tandem with all-out war waged
against the state(s)—changed that. The interference on the part of the
Confederate government, the government Collins forsook, was the direct result
of unwarranted war waged against the South. His hatred of the Confederacy [which
I suspect had more to do with partisan alignments within his county itself,
divided along the lines of those actually working for the government
(collecting taxes) and those who were not] probably translated more along the lines
of “this wouldn’t have happened if you people hadn’t seceded. Everything would
have been fine.” No, it wouldn’t have, but the Jesse Collinses couldn’t see
that. Independent, primarily subsistence farmers/grazers, they had been isolated
from the conflicting economic interests dividing North and South and the
North’s ever-increasing push to marginalize the South’s political power in the
central government. The Confederacy, through necessity, had
dared to “bother” Jesse Collins, disrupt his life, and interfere with his
well-ordered existence, which had been relatively free of governmental presence.
The war was the Confederacy’s fault, not Yankee aggression—they’d always left
him alone. Bynum, Jenkins, and Stauffer’s implication that those so-called Jones-county unionists would be pleased with Hobbs’ Leviathan of today is misleading and in
my personal opinion, false. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Two other implications which run through both books—and this
goes hand in hand with the authors’ attempt to marginalize the “Lost Cause”—are that secession equals war and the
South opted for war to protect slavery. No, the South risked a war to protect her posterity by that time already threatened economically (the tariff),
politically (denial of the formation of slave-holding states in the new
territories, exacerbating a situation that was already pivotal and in only a few
years would leave the South totally outvoted in the general government,
something both sides knew and which the North promoted and the South, for
obvious reasons, resisted) and physically (the threat to Southern property, i.e. the underground railroad encouraging theft and the much more ominous threat of terrorism and anarchy which manifested
itself in the raid of John Brown on
Harper’s Ferry. That attack was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Six" target="_blank">financed by</a> Northern industrialists,
philanthropists, and abolitionists who created a martyr of a psychopath while
the Northern populace exalted his life and mourned his death. The financiers were never brought to trial, leaving them and those of their ilk free to continue their madness.)</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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I feel no embarrassment in conceding the South’s agrarian economy was
based on slave labor, especially when challenged by those supporting a regime sustained by a seemingly unlimited labor force of hapless immigrants
ushered into poverty in filthy Northern cities to serve the masters of industry
for a pittance. Really, who has the right to be judging anyone here on the
basis of “humanitarianism”? But both perceived wrongs are irrelevant, because
secession, no matter the reason, did not cause the war. Lincoln’s aggression
did. And here’s the real crux of that second implication—Lincoln waged the war
to free the slaves. What hogwash. Lincoln’s war to “free the slaves” is the
greatest spin of all. I’d go so far as to call it an out-’n-out cyclone. The
refusal of the North, again for self-aggrandizing economic reasons, to accept
an independent South with free-market ports, and the more immediate loss of
tariff revenue, is what prompted Lincoln’s aggression. It was the <i>North</i> that opted for war, and it did so for economic reasons.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But let’s just suppose those Southerners so long ago really
did not know what they were fighting for or believed after times got tough they
were fighting for the rich man’s slaves, that the state-rights issue and home
rule and curbing the growing tyranny of a central government in the hands of
industry never even crossed their poor “stupid” minds—it certainly should be
crossing our minds now, because <i>those</i>
were the issues that mattered and that’s what the mainstream is trying to deflect.
If we don’t do something to reclaim our history, in fifty years all our Southern ancestors
will have been opposed to the Confederacy—there will be nothing left
spearheading those old battles, but evil slave owners, and the federal republic
created by our founders will be a forgotten political theory swallowed up by a
fabricated democracy embracing the concept of a worldwide, “elitist-supervised,”
mediocre humanity. (The lowest common denominator is the only way to make
egalitarianism work). </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Next time, a documented history of Jones County from another
point of view.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thanks for reading,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-45049856190102846542017-03-06T15:05:00.000-08:002017-03-06T15:05:22.754-08:00It’s Not Whether Newton Knight was a Traitor and a Criminal. His Threat Lies in the Spin<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Almost a year ago now, when a Google+ follower asked for my
opinion on the then upcoming <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_of_Jones_(film)" target="_blank">Gary Ross’ movie </a>based on Newt Knight and the free state of Jones County,
Mississippi, I really couldn’t say much except that I didn’t intend to see the
thing. I knew from the git-go where the movie would go; and its focus, as is
all focus concerning the South at present, disturbed me. I’ve worked on this
post off and on since then. As far as the movie is concerned, I haven’t seen it
and <a href="https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/the-free-state-of-jones-history-or-hollywood/" target="_blank">a critique</a> from a
pro-South point of view has already been done more effectively than I could
have managed. So in structuring my thoughts on the subject, I decided to let my
focus on writing and teaching Southern history be my guide. This is my first of
several posts resulting from this most recent regurgitation of the Jones’
County legend. Though discussion of the movie is now dated, the theme of
Southerners championing Southern history is not and, I hope, never will be.</div>
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At the time the question was asked of me, I had a general knowledge of Newton Knight and Jones County,
had been aware of the history since I was in high school—and that was a long
time ago. I had a copy of Ethel Knight’s <i>Echo
of the Black Horn</i>—I’d paid a pretty penny for it, too—but I hadn’t read it.
(It, as well as Thomas Knight’s tale of his father’s adventures, were reprinted
in time for the movie’s debut and are now on sale at a reasonable price).
Reading about a criminal and a deserter from Jones County didn’t interest me nearly
as much as sorting out the causes of unwarranted war (kidding—there’s always a
reason, but its noble justification is too often created by the twenty-twenty hindsight
of the victor. That’s the spin, and our War Between the States is a classic
example.). Of even greater interest to me is the war’s result—in this case the
loss of liberty and the creation of Hobbs’ Leviathan right here in North
America.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have since read both Knight books and three more on the
subject. Aided with the ignorance of the masses, Ross’ movie, with its reach,
is one more notch in the gun of those pushing that spin of righteousness on the
part of Lincoln’s Union in waging war on the South. And the South is not the
only victim here. So, too, is our Founder’s Republic, now threatened by the determination of this most recent group of centralizers to portray what came out of Philadelphia in
1787 as the blueprint for democracy rather than a federal republic.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The present attack on Southern history has been ongoing since
the 60’s, but the intensity has fluctuated markedly over the past five decades.
The present onslaught hasn’t seen the like since Reconstruction and, for all
intents and purposes, is unwarranted—when taken out of the context of the
Left’s attack on all things American [ah, but that’s an important context to
note]—and amounts to nothing less than a purge of the South and its history. But purgers can only accomplish their objective through genocide of the people
they seek to erase...or if survivors themselves capitulate. What I’m saying
is the obliteration of Southern history, i.e. the South’s role in colonial history,
the Revolution, the framing of the Republic, and as the champion of state rights can only be destroyed if we Southerners
allow it to happen. <o:p></o:p></div>
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If I’ve connected the dots right, the book from which Gary
Ross derived his idea for a movie, <i>The
Free State of Jones</i>, was written by Victoria Bynum over fifteen years
ago. Sometime during the ensuing period, Ross wrote a screenplay and did some
research of his own, then turned that screenplay over to Sally Jenkins of the <i>Washington Post</i> and Paul Stauffer, a
Harvard history professor, to co-write <i>The
State of Jones</i>, a book paralleling/supportive of the screenplay. The Bynum
book is a scholarly piece of work and comes replete with a lot of history
regarding the origins of the families who settled the Piney Woods during territorial days—she is, in fact, a branch off the tree. For that reason,
if none other, folks interested in the history of the South and migration from
the Carolinas and Georgia west will find value in her work. It’s the spin that
I find disconcerting, but I expected it when I embarked on this study. Bynum meets
my expectations in the afterward to the second printing (timed again to
coincide with the movie’s release): Reviving this history is to undermine the
Lost Cause “myth” of a solid South struggling in defense of its way of life against
the Northern aggressor. The implication is that those who initiated the
struggle were slave owners determined to protect slavery, and, in this retelling
of the tale, there is a substantial number of Southerners who were against
secession and hence, war. Oh, then there’s the emphasis on an interracial
love story between Newt Knight (a married man with children) and Rachel, (his
grandfather’s slave with numerous children of her own), a “subplot” ignored
during the founding of the legend. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>The State of Jones</i>,
the Jenkins and Stauffer book, is another entertaining read, an excellent
example of fiction masquerading as historical fact. The work is fraught
with <i>“probablys,”
may-haves, can-be-guessed-ats, “perhapses,” </i>and <i>likes</i>, to mention a few, followed by passages culled from valid
accounts and then near seamlessly superimposed into the Newt Knight story
leaving the non-partisan reader to accept the skewed narrative as fact. <o:p></o:p></div>
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What are these people trying to accomplish here? Would you
buy into their trying to establish a warm and fuzzy feeling between still
divided sections because after 150 years, two World Wars and numerous other major
conflicts with Yank and Reb fighting side by side we are still at each others’
throats? [Cow patties don’t stink, folks, unless someone takes a stick and
stirs them up.] Is the production of these recent books and movie an
acknowledgement by our intellectual betters that all Southerners aren’t really
bad after all? That the majority of our ancestors were merely the stupid dupes
of a few evil, self-aggrandizing men and their progeny has remained stymied in
that same ignorance ever since? And now, by swallowing this kaa-kaa being
rammed down our throats, we will be forgiven and welcomed back into the
egalitarian, feminist, and pure democracy of Thomas Jefferson as “true”
Americans? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Forget that ever happening. It never will. First off,
Jefferson was a slave owner and a Virginian and no amount of deflection will
change that—it’s such second guessing and apologizing for slavery for which we have no right or need to make that has painted the South into a corner. Second,
Jefferson believed in liberty, and the only way to ensure liberty is to <i>limit</i> government. Democracy and limited
government fell under the purview of the states and the locales within them, not the
general government. But no matter which road we take at this point in history, Southerners
will never be the intellectual equals of leftist elites; in fact very few
will, Southern or not. The elites are superior, don’t you know? More importantly, we should never aspire
to be. Once we Southrons swallow and digest their poison, the nation of our
forefathers will be worth no more than what we defecate out our other end. We will no longer be of concern to those supreme beings, because the threat we pose to their goals will have ceased to exist, our having finally achieved the
mainstream’s ideal of what an “American” is supposed to be. Then, all of us will be good for nothings. But, I digress.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Regarding secession, a major factor in the Jones County
legend, a lot of Southerners opposed it, but I’m informed enough to know that
being against secession and being pro-Union are two different things. For a
variety of reasons, including internal interests, anti-secessionists did not
think separating from the Union was a good idea, preferring to weather Northern
abuse. Understand they were aware of the problems with their Northern
counterparts: the tariffs, the application of public money for internal
improvements in the North, the efforts to minimize Southern representation in
Congress so the North could expand its advantage. A preference for staying in
the Union didn’t necessarily compute to agreeing with the Union cause, which,
as it turned out, meant keeping all the territory together under one supreme
ruler and keeping the South around to serve as its cash cow and cannon fodder; individual
liberty be damned. The Whigs—the biggest, richest slave owners in Mississippi
(and across the South), were passionately <i>opposed</i>
to secession, but do not delude yourself into thinking these Southern patriots,
regardless of their stance on slavery, accepted subordination to Northern
interests. They simply preferred the economic/defensive security guaranteed by
membership in the Union and hoped to negotiate the injustice/share in the
wealth; it was to their economic advantage to do so. Certainly, as in any other
state in the Union, each Southern state had diverse economic interests and
rivalries. That existed in the beginning and continues today. What I find galling are people, with an
agenda, assuming to tell Southerners the reason they seceded and what they were
fighting for, of twisting facts around to make them appear as something else. What
happened folks <i>ain’t</i> complicated and
it sure the devil wasn’t altruistic. Worse yet are native Southerners—and I
mean people who can trace their roots back to colonial days and the early
Republic, and there are lots of us down here, buying off on the so-called neo-Confederate/Lost Cause <i>myth</i>. Consider
that in January, 1864, Irish-born Confederate general Patrick Cleburne of
Helena, Arkansas stated: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i> “It is said slavery is all we are fighting
for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we
deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the
pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of
government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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And Confederate General Richard Taylor pointed out in <i>Destruction and Reconstruction</i>
(published in 1879):<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>“During
all these years the conduct of the Southern people has been admirable....they
have struggled in all honorable ways, and for what? For their slaves? Regret
for their loss has neither been felt nor expressed. But they have striven for
that which brought our forefathers to Runnymede, the privilege of exercising
some influence in their own government.”</i> (For those of you who don’t recall
from your social studies days, Runnymede is the place where the Magna Carta was
signed).<o:p></o:p></div>
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And my third and last rebuttal, though thousands of such
exist: It was Edward A. Pollard, editor of the <i>Richmond Examiner</i>, who, in 1866, first used the term, “Lost Cause,”
as the title of his book on the War Between the States. Yet today’s mainstream
historians/or pseudo-historians are trying to convince today’s Southerners we
don’t know what our ancestors were fighting for between 1861-1865 (1861-1877
actually) and The Lost Cause is actually a myth created by the Southern Democrats
at the end of the 19th century, then expanded upon well into the 20th to keep
themselves in power. Beyond its bogus application of the term “myth” in this
case, I won’t argue the mainstream’s point, but it has gotten a bit ahead of
itself here. First those Southern Democrats had to get themselves back in power.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Throughout the travails of Reconstruction while New
Departure Democrats, infiltrated with old-line Southern Whigs,<span style="color: #ff6600;"> </span><a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-democratic-party-and-its-quest-for.html" target="_blank">routinely sacrificed principle in their efforts to counter the Republicans</a>, the old-line Democrats, the Bourbons, stuck
to the principles of home rule, sovereign states, and decentralization. In the
end they prevailed over a corrupt and treasonous Republican Party—and in so
doing eclipsed the failed policies of the less Conservative Democrats. This
brings the reader up to 1875-1877 and a long way (in human years) from the turn
of the century.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What did develop near the end of the 19th century and
expanded well into the 20th in the wake of the perceived Negro betrayal of the
Populist Movement, when jolted white politicians decided it was more cost
effective to eliminate the Negro vote than court it, was the emphasis on white
supremacy historians link to pro-slavery. Now <i>that </i>those Southern Democrats did tie to the Lost Cause. They then
used the threat of “Negro rule,” which proved so devastating during
Reconstruction, to keep themselves in power. That today’s historians link the
evolution of the Lost Cause of state rights and limited federal government and
the legality of the South’s secession under the Tenth Amendment to the
white-supremacy tact of the old Southern Democrats nearly a half-century later is
indicative of one of two things, ignorant and unthinking historians or those
with an agenda. I don’t think they’re ignorant and I think they’re doing a lot
of thinking—about how to twist the facts to meet their agenda in tandem with
the hope readers don’t pick up a history book with a copyright prior to 1960.
Okay, I’m being facetious here, but you get my drift. This double whammy
against the South serves a (leftist) mainstream agenda, and is a real coup in supporting
their perversion of our federal system into the faux democracy lauded today as
the enemy of racism and champion of civil rights. For any American who cares
about our Republic, to buy off on this deflection due to ignorance is unconscionable.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now, if, on the other hand, you believe the Founders were
wrong, and you reject the Constitution they framed, and you believe we really should
be a democracy where social norms are dictated and enforced by an all-powerful
central government, then have at it, but don’t ream the South for believing as
it did, because when it comes to the Founders and the Constitution, the South
was right and Southerners who aren’t aware of that, or deny it, shame on them. The
biggest threat to the preservation of Southern rights (state rights), values,
principles, and history is the Southerner.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My point in what I
presented above is to argue there is no break in the Lost Cause faith through
the war up to and including the present day and to imply it was all concocted
by the <i>sons</i> of Bourbons at the turn
of the last century, and that, in fact, the South seceded for the cause of an
institution that was legal and protected by the Constitution is a falsehood,
one perpetrated by design and bought only by the ignorant drunk on their own “feel-good”
propaganda...or those with a self-serving agenda. The mainstream media,
hopelessly infested with a leftist ideology, is not trying to expose a lie
inherent to the “Lost Cause”; it is determined to obliterate the truth, a truth
rooted in the Founding itself.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Next in this series I’ll delve into the real “myths” of the
War for Southern Independence—or the Civil War if you druther. That’s what the <i>mythmakers</i> call it, anyway.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thanks for reading,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-87016536406135669062017-02-20T13:14:00.000-08:002017-02-20T13:14:41.357-08:00Southern Whiggery and Southern States <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
This is post number eight in a series detailing Southern Whiggery. See the sidebar for earlier posts.<br />
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In my last post, I made reference to a 1954 <i>American Historical Review</i> article by
Charles Grier Sellers titled “Who Were the Southern Whigs”<i>.</i> In the article, Mr. Sellers argued against Southern Whiggery being
the result of state-rights sentiment, but rather the result of adverse reaction
to Jackson’s Bank War. In that same post, I countered that had Whiggery been
simply National Republicans in drag the Southern state righters would have
never been involved at all. Taking that one step further, Clay would not have g<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2017/01/jacksons-removal-of-deposits-from.html" target="_blank">ained control of the Senate committees</a> in December 1833, and the term Whig would have remained where it belonged with the
patriots of ’76, John C. Calhoun, and the Southern Nullifiers/state
righters who opposed the central government’s overreach (protective
tariff/military coercion against a sovereign state). No matter what Southern
Whiggery became, or Whiggery <i>period</i>
for that matter, its roots are South Carolina’s nullifiers and the grudging
support Calhoun’s principles found among the likes of John Tyler of Virginia,
Wylie P. Mangum of North Carolina, and Dixon Lewis of Alabama. It is this core
that Henry Clay locked his sights on and into which he moved the National
Republicans lock, stock, and barrel, leaving the Old Jeffersonian Party to the
Jacksonians. In so doing, Clay struck out anew, freed of the overt “nominal”
baggage of the defunct Federalists who had found their way into National
Republican ranks. Covert or not, those men followed Clay out of the
Jeffersonian Party and shortly after identified as Whigs (Northern Whigs).</div>
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Add to that the <i>Southern</i>
National Republicans, who were already sitting in good political stead when
Clay consolidated his new party. These men remained nationalists in the
“National Republican” scheme of things. Oh, they wanted the South to have her
rights within the nation, but with the choice between nationalism
(Union/centralization) and state-rights, nationalism held sway. For those of
that stripe, Southern Whiggery <i>evolved</i>,
and Southern sectionalism evolved along with it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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For those of you who have been
following my series on Alcorn, think back on his criticism of Jefferson Davis’
execution of the War Between the States. <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2014/09/james-lusk-alcorns-wartime-activities.html" target="_blank">James Alcorn was a Southern nationalist...and a centralizer.</a> That is a characteristic of Southern Whiggery
passed down from the National Republicans.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Another failure in the study of Southern Whiggery that Charles Sellers
points to is the <i>missing</i>, according
to him, application of geographical sectionalism within the states
themselves—the division between upcountry and low country, hill country and
black belt. Sellers suggests the study of that aspect of Southern Whiggery has
been omitted due to the focus on national sectionalism and state rights and that
the Southern Whigs’ opposition to the nationalistic leg of the party has been
over emphasized. Well, maybe it had dropped out of the narrative by 1954, but
Arthur Cole certainly mentioned it in <i>Whig
Party of the South </i>published in 1914. Perhaps in the not so distant past
(sixty years ago) there was a tendency to focus on the party after attacks on
slavery had caused Southerners to close ranks, obscuring the look back at the
social, economic, and ideological lines that originally crisscrossed within
each state—Sellers did make reference to the “modern” scholar of the subject,
but Sellers specific references to Cole’s shortcomings in his article mitigates
against that. I’ve not noted that omission myself. I’ve always known that the
Whigs represented business and banking interests and in the South included the
wealthiest cotton planters. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Sellers goes on to imply that recent studies (circa 1954)
fail to recognize that when the Whig party formed, the antebellum South had a
vigorous two-party system, and the individual voter was focused on his party
and its place and success within the section of the state he resided. The
banding together of Southern Whigs (and Democrats) against a common,
anti-Southern foe didn’t evolve until the late 1840s. Now, I do believe the study
of Southern Whiggery is lacking...or lost. Where I disagree with Sellers is
where...well... the point made when I started this post—Sellers’ argument that the
formation of the party in the South was over the Bank, not state-rights. I believe
it was both. I think there was a big dichotomy in Southern Whiggery—strict
construction/loose construction, republicanism/nationalism, state rights/Union,
and constitutionality/tyranny. I say this because I can see the dual nature of
Southern Whiggery in my study of Reconstruction. Both strains bled through to
the end.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Let’s look first at the <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-primordial-soup-whence-sprang-whig.html" target="_blank">1824 election </a>that sent John Quincy
Adams to the White House and the more popular Andrew Jackson back to Tennessee
and how it panned out in Dixie: Andrew Jackson carried Mississippi, Alabama,
Louisiana (except the extreme southeast, where the sugar barons resided—they
went for Adams), both North and South Carolina, and most of Maryland. Missouri
and Kentucky went for Clay. Georgia went for William Crawford (a native son) as
did Virginia and extreme western Maryland. <o:p></o:p></div>
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[It’s sometimes hard to align the
politicians of this era primarily because party principles/platforms hadn’t
solidified. The term National Republican doesn’t appear until 1830, and since
we know that some National Republicans had started calling themselves Whigs by
the spring of 1834, the term wasn’t around long (though you wouldn’t know it by
the way it pops up in history). Nevertheless, though the life of the name was
brief during its day, the principles of National Republicanism within the
Democratic-Republican ranks went back to the presidency of James Madison who promoted
a kinder, gentler form of government interference...oops, excuse me..., I meant
to say, <i>promotion</i> of the national
economy manifested by Henry Clay’s American System. In applying terms to the Adams’
administration, these men are often called anti-Jacksonians; however, that
term is used well into the Jacksonian period and it does not follow (at least,
in my mind) that all anti-Jacksonians were National Republicans in the “Madisonian”sense of the term.] <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now let’s look at the Southern state legislative elections
following the formation of the Whig Party in the winter/spring of 1833-1834.
And before I continue, this is how I plan to frame this series on the Southern
Whigs—reviewing politics within each Southern state vis-à-vis what’s happening
with the national party and the Whig delegations in Congress.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This information on the 1834 and 1835 state elections is culled
primarily from Michael Holt’s <i>Rise and
Fall of the American Whig Party.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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In <b>Maryland,
Kentucky, </b>and<b> Louisiana </b>the National Republicans already had a hold. Here
the National Republicans carried on under their new name and the conversion was pretty much seamless. <b>Maryland </b>always
having been a predominantly National Republican state, the Whigs won 5 of 8 congressional seats in 1835, and in Clay’s <b>Kentucky
</b>during the summer/fall of 1835, Whigs won 8 of 13 congressional seats, up 5
seats from the previous Congress (Kentucky also gained a seat that year). <o:p></o:p></div>
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Much farther south, <b>Louisiana’s
</b>Whigs won the governorship in July of 1834. An overly optimistic Clay
attributed the victory (along with gubernatorial wins in Indiana and Illinois)
as a referendum against Jackson. In Louisiana, however, the Whig victory dealt more with the popularity of the candidates and factional
rivalries than national issues. Though Louisiana’s Whig legislators denounced
removal of the deposits in the spring, it was ethnic rivalries between French
Creoles in Southern Louisiana and native Americans in the northern part of the
state (I think Holt here refers to white folks who had moved in vs the
French-mix, who had been in Southeastern Louisiana since the early 18th century) had
long shaped state politics. The Creoles had maintained power through suffrage
restrictions, gubernatorial patronage, and over representation in the legislature.
When the Democratic nominee suggested changing the situation in 1834, the
Creoles rallied behind the Whig candidate, who just happened to be a Creole,
and the Whigs prevailed.*<o:p></o:p></div>
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In <b>Virginia, </b>nationalists
in the west (National Republicans representing the region’s mining interests)
who’d backed Clay in the 1832 presidential contest merged with the more
numerous eastern state-rights advocates to condemn <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2017/01/jacksons-removal-of-deposits-from.html" target="_blank">Jackson’s removal of the deposits </a><b>. </b>This coalition
adopted the Whig name and took the Virginia legislature in 1834. The
legislature then forced the resignation of Jacksonian William C. Rives from the
Senate by instructing him to vote for restoration of the deposits (which he
refused to do). In his stead, it elected prominent state righter Benjamin
Watkins Leigh to replace Rives. John Tyler, another state righter, was
Virginia’s senior senator. State righter Littleton W. Tazewell was elected
governor. In Virginia, the struggle was one between liberty and power, rather
than bank or no bank. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In <b>North Carolina, </b>Calhounites
led by John Branch, state-rights followers of the influential Senator Willie P.
Mangum, and a tiny group of National Republicans joined forces to protest
Jackson’s removal of the deposits and to contest the August legislative election.
By the summer of 1834, they were using the name Whig to identify themselves
even though North Carolina Whigs didn’t hold their first state convention until
December 1835. As it turned out, the national issue of the bank deposits didn’t
make the cut in North Carolina. The Whigs needed state issues with which to
confront the Democrats, because taking on Jackson with only a national issue didn’t engage the voting populace.* The Democrats defeated the Whigs in August
and immediately tried to push Mangum out (but he held on until November 1836). By
the summer/fall of 1835 the Whigs held only six of thirteen Congressional
seats. Still, that’s more than the three seats held the year Jackson won
reelection. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Georgia’s </b>congressional
election of 1834 and the 1835 gubernatorial race was between a pro-Jackson Union
party and an anti-Jackson state-rights party led by John M. Berrien. The
state-rights party denounced the removal of the deposits as tyranny and
economically pernicious, but its main platform was support of state rights and
hostility to Jackson’s <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-nullification-crisis-sowing-soil.html" target="_blank">Proclamation to the people of South Carolina and</a> the
Force Bill. But again, Holt points
out that state issues* were missing and what the Georgia “Whigs” had in their
arsenal were national issues. The Georgia pro-Jackson Democrats swept the
congressional and legislative elections. In 1835, the Democrats elected both
the governor and four congressmen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In <b>Mississippi</b>, a
state-rights association formed in the spring of 1834 in protest of the Force
Bill, and in December, a Whig convention met denouncing the removal of the
deposits and Jackson’s tyranny. This group then arranged a ticket, designed to gain state-rights support for the
gubernatorial and congressional elections scheduled for November. The plan was to fuse the two major anti-Jacksonian groups
in the state. In 1835, the Whigs won the governorship, but lost both
congressional seats and the legislature by more than a two to one margin.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Missouri </b>gave up
no congressional seats to the Whigs in 1835; <i>however</i>, John Bull, a National Republican (and prior Jackson
elector) was the first occupant of a newly created congressional seat in 1833
(Missouri’s second). That says something to me. He was replaced by a Jacksonian
Democrat, Albert Harrison in 1835—well, that says something, too, doesn’t it?<o:p></o:p></div>
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By the end of 1834, <b>Alabama</b>
was one of only three Southern states that had not formed an anti-Democratic
party that might align with the Whigs. The other two were <b>Tennessee </b>and<b> South
Carolina. </b>In 1835 Whigs held two of Alabama’s five Congressional seats.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the spring and fall of 1835, <b>Tennessee </b>Whigs won 8 of 13 congressional seats, a major shift from
the one seat National Republicans had traditionally held in that state in the
years leading up to the Twenty-fourth Congress. The Whigs also won the
gubernatorial contest over three-time incumbent Democrat William Carroll, but
that victory had less to do with national issues and more to do with both state
issues and Hugh White’s nomination as the Whig candidate for president to run against
Van Buren. White’s candidacy, in fact, was the impetus for the formation of the
Whig Party in Tennessee (1835). The Whig candidate for governor, Newton
Cannon, won based on the huge vote from east Tennessee where Cannon’s advocacy
for state-financed internal improvements found favor. The voter turnout in the
1835 gubernatorial contest was huge, even greater than that in the presidential
race a year later (not unusual, except that Hugh White was a native son).
Nevertheless, it was the gubernatorial race, not White’s candidacy, that
solidified the Whig Party in Tennessee.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have omitted <b>South Carolina</b> from the study, for she
never formally participated in Clay’s altered Whiggery. <o:p></o:p></div>
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*Professor Holt makes this observation in discussing the
state elections: Where the Whig Party campaigned almost exclusively against
Jackson, one on one—especially where the only issues were national ones, the
Jacksonians won. So for the Whigs, the glow of the spring of ’34 was dimming by
the fall and had grown dismal as of 1835 (well, except in Tennessee where
Whiggery was apparently booming). The improving economic situation resulting from an
infusion of European capital and Biddle’s easing up on contraction had relieved
the brief resentment against Democratic banking policies and prevented the
Whigs from exploiting Jackson’s new anti-banking initiatives: specifically, his
hard money initiative undermining circulatability of private banknotes and his Species Circular prohibiting the
purchase of public land with paper money, an act that alienated Democratic
businessmen. In time these practices would provide ammunition for Whig campaigners, but the
three year boom starting in 1834 nullified Whig gains to date.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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The election of 1836, Van Buren, the sub-treasury...and their effects on Whiggery in Dixie yet to come. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Thanks for reading,</div>
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Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-32379117889936125292017-02-06T12:38:00.003-08:002017-02-06T12:38:57.499-08:00Identifying Those Earliest Southern Whigs and Where That Has Led Me<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
This is post number seven in a series detailing Southern
Whiggery. See the sidebar for earlier posts.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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___________________________________________<o:p></o:p></div>
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The proof is in the pudding, and by that I mean the “truth”
is in the pudding—in the taste, not in the pretty picture on the box. Calhoun
and his fellow nullifiers from South Carolina were the Whigs and the original
anti-Jackson “party” as opposed to a mere “faction” of the Old Jeffersonians.
If the Whig Party had looked at the beginning like what it evolved into (over
a relatively short period) there would have been no reason to involve the
Southern state righters. The National Republican faction (which already
contained Southerners) would have simply broken with the Jacksonian Democrats
(which had a lot more Southerners) and life would have continued pretty much as
it eventually did anyway. Ah, but Henry Clay would have had no more Southern
support in 1836, 1840, or whenever, looking into the then unforeseeable future,
than he’d had in 1832 when Andrew Jackson smashed him in his second win of the
presidency. Southern Whiggery, at its inception, was not an endorsement of
Clay’s policies, but was anti-Jacksonian in its own right. The National Republicans
and the state righters making up the new “Whig Party” were allies operating on
opposite ends of the spectrum regarding Constitutional interpretation and were personified
in the beings of Clay and Calhoun. <o:p></o:p></div>
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From the very beginning, there were Americans in the young
Republic, in then much less polarized sections, who fought liberal
interpretation of the Constitution. But with the end of the War of 1812, a
spirit of nationalism swept the country and found a home in the hearts of many
Southerners, Calhoun among them. Recall that Federalist New England had opposed
the war because, simply put, blockades and embargoes declared necessary by the
central government hurt her interests. As a result, focus was placed on the
interests of the nation as a whole, which meant using the powers of the central
government for the “general welfare” of all. By the 1830s the “revenue” only
tariff had morphed into a high protective tariff benefiting New England (and
Midwestern) mercantilists to the detriment of everyone else, in particular the
agrarian South. The by now more pragmatic ex-young nationalist John C. Calhoun
had stopped second-guessing what had gone wrong and was determined to set
things right. Funny thing about setting precedents, once that cat is out of the
bag, it’s hard to get him back in. A generation of American leaders had failed
to heed what the political theorists of the founding generation had warned
against, utilization of a centralized state to promote self-aggrandizing, un-republican
values. Folks tend to cite Thomas Jefferson here, and I certainly have no
problem with that, but he did support ratification of the Constitution. My
favorite is Patrick Henry who warned us <i>not</i>
to ratify the thing with its nominally limited central government...the first
and biggest precedent of all. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Another, who was still around and kicking at the time, was
North Carolina’s Nathaniel Macon, who also opposed ratification, but represented
his state in the House and later the Senate almost from the inception of the
new government. The focus of his career of thirty-seven years was keeping the
central government limited as decreed by its charter. An original opponent of the Federalist Party, Macon never fell under the spell of its brand of economic
nationalism, forwarded in turn by Clay and the National Republicans. The fact
remained that a central government had been created and what would follow would
be generations of self-serving men seeking to control it. Their weapon of
choice and, not coincidentally the one most conducive to wheedling power and
money from the people in the name of common good, was the general welfare
clause.<o:p></o:p></div>
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By the time the nationalistic ardor created by the War of
1812 had cooled and the stark reality of having fallen victim to its passion
struck home, dramatic action was called for. President Andrew Jackson, an ardent nationalist of
the Jacksonian mold (I’m being facetious, but I can’t think of a better way to
say it—he was an anti-New England Unionist) struck against <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2017/01/jacksons-removal-of-deposits-from.html" target="_blank">Biddle’s National Bank</a>
to the cheers of the common folk in the South and the West and the jeers of the
National Republicans regardless of section. Calhoun (and South Carolina) struck
against the tariff. Ah, but a strike against the tariff was a strike against
the national government, which the nationalist Jackson could not tolerate. Jackson’s
counter was to propose a military strike against South Carolina. That was
something the Jacksonian-Democrat state righters—even those not in sympathy
with Calhoun—could not sit idly by and abide. The nullifiers were limited in
number and weak, but Southerners were plentiful, and Jackson was pushing the
envelope (and Southerners made up a good chunk of his base). <o:p></o:p></div>
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But the Nullification Crisis didn’t occur in a vacuum. Many
wealthy and powerful Southerners (the sugar planters of Louisiana, Kentucky hemp-growers,
the mining industries of western Virginia) supported a protective tariff, but
also of significance in the abandonment of Jackson by some state righters was
the issue of the U.S. National Bank, an entity which had Southern supporters in the
aforementioned sugar merchants, miners, and hemp-growers as well as black-belt
cotton planters. These men were primarily of the National Republican variety,
but the existence of nominal supporters of a national bank among state righters
does have purchase. A national bank stabilized the money and banking in general.
The problem with Biddle’s bank was its partisanship; it catered to and was
supported by, a certain, finite, class of people. <o:p></o:p></div>
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[I believe an argument could be made
that support of Biddle’s bank was not necessarily the same as support for a
national bank for which, at a number of junctures in our early history, an
amendment to the Constitution was suggested to accommodate.] <o:p></o:p></div>
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To rehash, Dr. Michael Holt in the <i>Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party</i> states that at the opening
of Congress, December 1833, there were twenty National Republicans and twenty
Jacksonians squaring off in the U.S. Senate along with two nullifiers and six
Southern state-rights senators who had abandoned the Jackson camp in the wake
of Jackson’s overt threat to South Carolina. These eight senators held the
balance of power in the Senate. Neither Holt nor Arthur Cole in <i>History of the Whig Party of the South</i>
identified precisely who these men were. South Carolina’s nullifiers, of course,
are easy to identify: John C. Calhoun and William C. Preston. I’m not
absolutely sure who the other six were, but having done a little research, I hereby
take a stab at identification: Gabriel Moore of Alabama, John Black and George
Poindexter of Mississippi, Willie P. Mangum of North Carolina, John Tyler of
Virginia, and Joseph Kent of Maryland. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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Originally a Jacksonian, Mangum is on record for warning his
fellow Southerners to trust no administration forcing the South to wear the
chains of the American System, and in 1833, he broke with Jackson for doing what
he perceived as that very thing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
Just for the record, at the same time
the anti-Jacksonians seized control of the Senate, the House gained an
additional eleven Southern anti-Jacksonians and five additional nullifiers—four
of the latter from South Carolina and one from Alabama. Of course, it made no
difference in the House, where Jacksonian Democrats had things locked up. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In the course of searching for the identity of those six
senators, I came across a 1954 article by Princetonian Charles Grier Sellers in
<i>The American Historical Review </i>titled
<a href="http://nature.berkeley.edu/~c-merchant/Sellers/articles/8.pdf" target="_blank">“Who Were the Southern Whigs.”</a> From the
title, as you may have guessed, I had hoped for specific identities of those
six men, but his article didn’t deal with the U. S. Senate, but rather focused
broadly on the House and on state legislatures. Mr. Sellers’ argues it was the
Bank War, not state rights, that shaped the Southern Whig Party. He appears to be
challenging the prevailing belief 63 years ago that state rights shaped
Southern Whiggery. Perhaps this is still the prevailing academic position, particularly
among Southerners. I admit that I have trouble seeing the Southern Whigs as
state righters, but I have less of a problem seeing them as strict constructionists,
and therein might be the problem—using the term “strict constructionist”
interchangeably with “state righter”. Swap nullifier and secessionist for
strict constructionist and the problem increases. Those latter were definitely
strict constructionists, but does it follow that all strict constructionists
were secessionists? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
[Now, in my mind, if you apply strict
construction to the Tenth Amendment, then you believe in the <i>right</i> to secede—how could you not? Whether
you’re in <i>favor</i> of secession or not
is a different question. But that’s me.]<o:p></o:p></div>
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Throughout their history, Southern Whigs compromised their
strict-constructionist stance, condoning violation of the Constitution only in “certain
situations.” But who determines what constitutes those “situations”? One cannot
simply qualify what is necessary and proper under certain conditions, then
proceed with the violation in the name of an arbitrary, so-called good. Not,
that is, and remain a strict constructionist. A “so-called good” is relative,
all too often, to one’s self-interest, and the basest form of self-interest is
greed. This is a classic un-republican concept. Further, one can’t advocate the sanctity of Union, then vote for
secession, which is what a lot of them eventually did, indicating the Union wasn’t quite
so sacred after all. Pondering that, when push came to shove, sounds like the
Southern Whigs’ state-right colors bled through. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m gonna close the post at this juncture because the story
of Southern Whiggery is as much about <i>what</i>
the Southern Whigs were as it is about <i>who</i>
they were. Throughout its evolution, the character of Southern Whiggery varied
from state to state and was shaped not only by the interests of the individual
states, but by the interests of different sections within each state. The story
is as rich and varied as everything else about the South and goes hand in hand
with what can be detailed about the opposition Southern Democrats. Each state
had a healthy, viable two-party system before sectionalism (and <i>nationalism</i>, darn it) clouded the
political horizon. I think it’s a story worth telling and is, in my humble
opinion, critical to understanding what led to sectionalism, war, discord within the Confederacy, Reconstruction, Redemption, and eventually the solid “Democratic” South.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So, my anticipated “brief” junket into the history of
Southern Whiggery has taken on a life of its own. I will continue with who/what
were the Southern Whigs next time. At the same time I plan to return to Alcorn
and the dark days of Reconstruction, and the two series will parallel each
other.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Thanks for reading,<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-55833856517672066302017-01-09T06:26:00.001-08:002017-02-06T11:48:46.729-08:00Jackson’s Removal of the Deposits from the Second National Bank and the Hijacking of Southern WhiggeryThis is post number six in a series detailing Southern Whiggery. This post continues with the year 1833, the year of the Nullification Crisis, the removal of the government deposits from the Second National Bank of the United States, and the birth of the Whig Party. See the sidebar for earlier posts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
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______________________________________________<br />
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The senate adjourned on the 2nd of March 1833, the same day
it passed both the <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/12/clays-objectives-in-settling.html" target="_blank">Compromise Tariff of 1833 and the Force Bill</a>, the former
effectively canceling the need for the latter and averting Federal action
against South Carolina. Henry Clay’s effort to make a bloodless end to the
Nullification Crisis had placed this devout nationalist in the state-rights camp. I doubt that’s where he wanted to be for the long term, but I’m not so sure
how he felt being there at that moment. Clay was in search of Southern
support—and that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i> for the long
haul. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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The Nullification Crisis had also fed the ambition of Daniel
Webster, who now saw himself as a champion of the Union (that would be the
Northern concept of Union, the nationalists’ Union, the gimmick through which
he advanced the interests of his New England constituents) in opposition to the
subversive South, which aimed to triumph over the American System and to blow
up a storm over the slavery issue. Now, that last is a paraphrase of Webster’s
own words. It’s not clear to me what the man was thinking—he may have been referring to
the issue of slavery in the territories or the South’s raising a ruckus over
the repeated unrestrained abuses perpetrated by abolitionists. Maybe both, but odds
were the South wouldn’t have been making an issue over slavery unless someone
else had brought it up first. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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Then in September of that same stress-filled year (clearly
the president considered his re-election a mandate), Andrew Jackson removed the federal
deposits from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Biddle_(banker)" target="_blank">Nicholas Biddle’s Second National Bank</a> of the United States with plans to disburse
those assets to state banks. <br />
<blockquote>
[I tried to find out what physically happened to the money—did government agents actually march into the bank in Philadelphia, make a huge withdrawal, and move specie to a treasury vault in Washington? It’s all rather murky, but as I understand it, what Jackson actually did was direct the government to use its deposits in the Second National Bank for operating expenses while at the same time to cease making deposits to the bank, so that within a short time, Biddle’s bank had more banknotes circulating than it had specie to cover them. If anyone reading this knows the particulars, I’d love for you to comment.]</blockquote>
Jackson did this while Congress was adjourned, and no matter how one feels about the national bank and its patron “American System,” Jackson’s action was a usurpation of Congressional power, and don’t forget that no matter how arrogant we allow Congress to become or how worthless our representatives prove, they still represent the people of the United States. The executive tasked to carry out the laws they promulgate should respect that. He has veto power, and the people’s representatives have override.<br />
<br />
Jackson’s move didn’t come out of
the blue...well, kinda, maybe, sorta. The National Republicans had expected him
to try something. During his annual report to Congress that past December, Jackson
had referenced the Bank of the United States as an unsafe repository for
America’s money, and he’d earlier requested the government sell its extensive
bank stock, but Congress denied the request. In September 1833, with his trusted
advisors, Post Master General <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_Kendall" target="_blank">Amos Kendall</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Preston_Blair" target="_blank">Francis Blair</a> watching approvingly, Andrew Jackson removed his
disapproving Secretary of the Treasury, William Duane, and replaced him with
his more amenable attorney general, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Roger-B-Taney" target="_blank">Roger Taney</a>. Taney had, in fact, drafted the lion’s share of Jackson’s bill vetoing the bank’s re-charter. Taney dubbed the National Bank an unfit habitat for the people’s money, citing as misconduct: political partisanship, the denial of information to government-appointed directors, monolithic financial power, and the
inherent corruption of the democratic principles of the Republic. With that justification, he...um, “reallocated” let’s say, the use of government deposits. At the same time, Jackson dispatched Kendall to find safe
repositories for the government’s money in private banks. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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In his December 1833 report to Congress, Jackson explained
that the Bank of the United States interfered in politics to the point it had
become a veritable electioneering machine. It made loans to influence
legislation, and at that very moment, Nicholas Biddle was out there fomenting a
vindictive financial crisis proving that the nation’s finances should not be at
his mercy. Actually, Biddle had instigated the financial crisis by contraction
and calling in loans that past summer in the wake of Jackson’s veto of the
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_War" target="_blank">Bank’s re-charter</a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">. </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></b></div>
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When challenged to provide the authority by which the
Secretary of the Treasury had usurped a Congressional prerogative, Taney
responded to Congress that, according to the charter, if Treasury deemed removal of the
deposits necessary and Congress was not sitting, the treasury secretary was to take action and inform the Congress
as soon as possible upon its reassembling. That’s what he was doing now,
informing Congress. [Just as an aside, Congress turned around and told this Jackson “appointee” to Secretary of Treasury they hoped he enjoyed his short-lived reign, because they weren’t approving him as secretary (okay, it didn’t play out <em>exactly</em> that way—I embellished it a bit). Jackson eventually took care of him, though, nominating him to fill the deceased John Marshall’s chair, Taney became the fifth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court].<o:p><br />
</o:p><br />
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Suffice it to say there was much ado concerning not only the manner in which the removal of the deposits was carried out, but also about the contemporary damage then being done to the nation’s economy. Clay insisted the deposits were safe, Jackson that the institution posed a danger to the Republic and again alluded to Biddle’s self-made financial crisis affecting the nation. [Actually, I believe Clay and Jackson may have been talking apples and oranges here.] Impeachment would have been the proper recourse for Jackson’s perceived overreach, but it was out of the question given the Democrats had the House, so Henry Clay opted for a senatorial censure of Jackson to be entered in the Senate Journal. A majority of the senators agreed, and it was done. Several years later, Thomas Hart Benton, the long-lived Democratic senator from Missouri, got it expunged.<br />
</div>
Volumes have been written on the Bank War, and it’s not the purpose of this series of posts to detail events, but rather to provide the reader an overview under which the Whig Party came into being. So, where <em>is</em> the Whig Party in all of this? Let’s
start with the anti-Jacksonians. As of December 1833, they consisted of : </div>
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</div>
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(1) The National
Republicans, proponents of the American System <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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(2) Calhoun’s Nullifiers<o:p></o:p></div>
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(3) State righters who abhorred the National Republicans
economic agenda, but who were opposed to nullification (see my <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/12/clays-objectives-in-settling.html" target="_blank">Clay’s Objectives in Settling the Nullification Crisis</a>).</div>
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It was Clay, determined to organize an anti-Jackson
coalition, who took charge of this hodge-podge in the early winter of
1833-1834. Webster would remain absent until Jackson’s dispensation of the deposits from
the National Bank went through in late January. [Recall <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/12/clays-objectives-in-settling.html" target="_blank">Webster deserted Clay</a> and entered the Jackson camp during the Nullification Crisis and was Jackson’s hammer behind the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_Bill" target="_blank">Force Bill</a>] Then, his hopes having
proved futile, he returned to the Clay camp. Jackson may have had control of
the House, but as stated in my last post,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>the Senate was up for grabs: The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23rd_United_States_Congress" target="_blank">Senate of the 23rd Congress</a> of the United States comprised
20 Jacksonian Democrats, 20 National Republicans and eight independent Southern
senators, six who had departed the Jackson camp after the Nullification Crisis
and South Carolina’s two nullifiers. With those eight, the anti-Jacksonians
seized control of the Senate Committees in mid-December 1833. It is from this
point that Professor Michael Holt (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rise
and Fall of the American Whig Party</i>) dates the party’s birth. [Cole, <em>The Whig Party in the South,</em> dates it to the spring of 1834. More on that later.]<o:p> </o:p></div>
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In the early winter of 1833-1834, Clay knew it would be his
(new) allies in the South—represented by those eight independent Senators who had
broken with Jackson <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and </i>who had little use for the
National Republicans—who would prove his vanguard in rescuing the government
and public liberty from Andrew Jackson. But Clay wanted more from the South. With
the poignant sense of history (sadly a subject Clay had little interest in) the
new party kept the name the South Carolinians had revived during the
Nullification Crisis and the “Whig” Party became the umbrella under which could
gather all those opposed to Jackson and (a short time later) Van Buren and their effort to
concentrate power under the executive branch [as opposed to the National
Republican effort to concentrate government power in the hands of bankers and
the manufacturing elite]. The irony is Calhoun and his South Carolinians never embraced the “Whig Party,” but remained independent (Forever nullifiers. You rock, South Carolina!)</div>
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But, back to the point, what I’m seeing is a principle dealing with the abuse of
executive power against the legislative branch (the people’s representatives); therefore, the abuse was translated by those representatives as abuse
against liberty. But Clay fell short of the beliefs held by his allies in the
South, whose focus was on state rights. This was, and albeit this is me talking
here, the keystone of our federal system. The division of powers between the three branches of the Federal government was to balance
power between the executive, the legislative, and the judicial branches of the <em>central</em> government and nothing more. That division/separation had nothing to do with state
rights and the threat that the executive/central government made against the state of South
Carolina and her elected leaders, yet it was the state-rights issue that gave
birth to the Whig Party and nominally gave Clay his Southern supporters. Once the
Federal government—and its three branches—were in charge, superior to the
states, as is the case today, who was going to rescue liberty from the
government? Congress always had the tool to rein Jackson in: Impeachment. The
House, held by his own Jacksonians, refused to bring the man to trial. The states had their sovereignty in all matters except the limited ones delegated to the central<o:p> government.</o:p></div>
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The choice of the Southern name rather than the continuation
of “National Republican” for the new party says a lot about what Clay had done.
He’d pulled off a coup is what he did. He and his cohorts infiltrated a band of
strict-constructionist state righters, took their name, gave lip-service to
their republican principles, and housed their anti-republican American System
there. If only the South and West had chosen, at that point, to stand alone. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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How, one asks, could this work? Well, I’m not convinced that
it did...ever. Nevertheless, the Whig party did come into existence and the South
played a big role within it. More importantly it played a big role in the
South, one that’s never really, in my opinion, been done justice. Like
so many things dealing with the South, her<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>role in the foundation of the Whig Party and
the founding principles to which the Southern faction devoted itself have been
marginalized, leaving the primarily Northern National Republicans and their
anti-republican American System representative of the Party’s principles. The
result leaves the Southern Whig smelling worse, perhaps, than he should. I’ll continue
with Southern Whiggery next time.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thanks for reading,<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-67877369215199593992016-12-22T02:00:00.000-08:002017-02-06T11:49:23.326-08:00Clay’s Objectives in Settling the Nullification CrisisThis is post number five in a
sub-series detailing Southern Whiggery. See the sidebar for earlier posts.<br />
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_____________________________________<o:p></o:p></div>
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I give some thought to Henry
Clay from time to time, the great compromiser, “America’s greatest senator.” What
I see is a man with little or no interest in history and even less
understanding of it or, at least, the consequences of ignoring it, who made a
career fomenting crises, then jumping in before the shooting started and
winning glory for quelling the actions of “mad men”, thus averting the near
disasters he was instrumental in creating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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With the South Carolina <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ordnull.asp" target="_blank">Ordnance of Nullification</a>, the
Jackson administration had two months to come up with a plan to address the Carolinians’
grievances, either by reforming the tariff or by taking military action against the state. Now, I
don’t know if those were the only options, but they were the ones being looked
at. Despite the bluster that accompanied Jackson’s threatening <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_to_the_People_of_South_Carolina" target="_blank">Proclamation to the People of South Carolina</a> on
10 December 1832, Jackson did embark on a fix by drawing up a reform tariff
that only a Democrat could possibly love (I’m speaking tongue-in-cheek). That
task was assigned to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulian_C._Verplanck" target="_blank">Gulian Verplanck</a> a four-term Democratic congressman from
New York and a member of Van Buren’s camp.
Verplanck was a devoted free-trader and the new chair of the House Ways and
Means Committee. What he came up with was a tariff bill designed to rid the
treasury of its surplus and return the tariff to the original 1816 level—the
<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/11/jacksonian-democracy-national.html" target="_blank">post-War-of-1812 tariff</a> passed to protect the young Republic from designs
Britain (or any European power for that matter), still had on what now belonged
to the United States. Twelve years later, that tariff had mushroomed into the
protective Tariff of Abominations behind which Northern industry sat fat and
getting fatter while the rest of the nation, in particularly the vocal South,
suffered the price.<o:p> </o:p></div>
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Touted as the Administration’s offer, the Verplanck Bill was
actually Van Buren’s Bill, and I do believe the verdict is still out as to whether
or not Jackson wanted it to pass, but rumor was he didn’t. Given his
nationalist leanings that was probably the case. South Carolina’s representative
on this matter was her senator, John C. Calhoun, who had personal as well as
professional conflicts with both Jackson and Van Buren. Supporters of the
American System, of course, spurned the bill.
Under it, protection for American industry would have been withdrawn within two years. Leading Southerners such as Littleton Tazewell and John Tyler of Virginia, and Robert Hayne of South Carolina, all opposed to the protective tariff, had for years suggested a gradual reduction in the tariff as a concession to Northern manufacturers (who, it should be remembered, felt the tariff was the patriotic duty of the rest of the nation—and the South dared “offer a concession” in the process of eliminating it? Why the very nerve!). No such option was being offered here.
National Republicans feeding off the American System never wanted protection to
end and weren’t the least bit interested in sacrificing their interests to
appease South Carolina.<o:p> </o:p></div>
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Henry Clay, despondent over his electoral defeat in 1832,
initially displayed only fleeting interest in the crisis, but once confronted
with the Verplanck Bill, he was faced with the stark reality of saving the
Union by sacrificing the American System—that’s really the choice the
Verplanck Bill offered. As representatives of the New England/Pennsylvania
manufacturers were gearing up to do battle against the Verplanck Bill (early
winter of 1833), Clay introduced a compromise tariff bill that called for the
gradual reduction in the protective tariff over a period of seven years, at the
end of which the tariff would be reduced to revenue only and protection ended.
Clay argued that after seven years, businesses should be able to hold their own.
Needless to say, Massachusetts’ Daniel Webster and the interests he served were appalled at the
thought of ending protection and still more so at Clay’s apparent betrayal of
the system he had so strongly supported. They would never willingly abandon protection.
Clay countered, apologizing that in reality nothing could bind Congress
seven years down the road. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Clay’s excuse speaks volumes. This was
why strict construction/limiting the Federal government to its delegated
responsibilities was so important. Once the precedent was set, proponents saw
no limit to the tariff’s possibilities until South Carolina challenged its
constitutionality. Reading Clay’s words, it’s obvious he intended the
compromise to be temporary, designed only to meet current exigencies. Once the
climate calmed, the National Republicans could again raise the issue of the
protective tariff. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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Webster, seeking his own leadership role among the National
Republicans, now balked at Clay’s leadership and forsook the compromise,
twisting support for the tariff as patriotism and in accordance with the
Constitution. For Webster and other radical National Republicans (probably
those with Federalist blood flowing through their veins), abandoning protection
was tantamount to treason. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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Given Webster and New England’s reaction to the plan, Clay
shelved it, and the House began debate on the Verplanck/Van Buren Bill knowing
it would not get out of the Senate, even if it did make it out of the House. By
now it was January, and the nullifiers in South Carolina were calling for secession
if Jackson dared to defy their Ordinance of Nullification. Secession was a more
extreme measure than what Calhoun anticipated, his goal being to prove
<a href="http://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/qa-on-nullification-and-interposition/" target="_blank">“interposition”</a> a viable recourse for a state when faced with federal overreach.
Along the periphery, folks were starting to believe Jackson might take military
action against South Carolina, and politically, given Jackson’s nationalism and
aggressive stance toward a sovereign state, a growing rift was fracturing the
Democratic Party across the South. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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Webster’s ambitions were well-served by the crisis. Within the
National Republican Party, Clay had Webster checked, but Webster was not above
changing affiliations. At Jackson’s request, Edward Livingston, his secretary
of state, approached the Massachusetts Senator for help in framing the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_Bill" target="_blank">Force Bill.</a> Webster complied. Calhoun referred to Webster’s Force Bill as the
Revenue Collection Bill, a bill to make war on a sovereign state. For Calhoun,
the issue was a theoretical one—what the central government could and could not
do under the Constitution. The Senate majority, seriously lacking in theorists,
placed little merit on the theoretical. The Force Bill passed.<o:p> </o:p></div>
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Now here’s the question: With the Force Bill passed and the
Verplanck Bill on the verge of defeat, why did Henry Clay waltz in again with
yet another compromise designed to be acceptable to the administration, to South
Carolina and with, at least, a chance of making it through Congress? In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Great Triumvirate </i>Merrill Patterson
suggests he acted out of fear for the American System at the hands of the Jackson administration. That, yes, but I think in the wake of
his disastrous showing in the 1832 election, Clay realized he needed Southern electoral
support. Certainly the Southern Democrats accused him of that course as did the
New England manufacturers, so mine is not an original thought. Another point was
that Clay suspected South Carolina preferred anyone <em>but</em> Jackson get credit for the
compromise; likewise, Webster believed Clay would come up with anything to get
credit for the settlement of the crisis. When Clay approached Calhoun, the
latter jumped at the hope of resolving the crisis. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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Clay’s new plan was the same basic one he’d offered back in
January (it was mid-February by then, and Congress was scheduled to adjourn
the first week of March). The current plan took the Tariff of 1832, with major
modifications, and tacked on a gradual reduction, down to the
revenue level, over a period of nine and a half years (to 1 January 1842) at
which time it was to revert to a revenue-only tariff with the understanding the
rate could change depending on the needs of the government (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> private industry). Proponents of the American System
accused Clay of abandoning the economic program he had created. Clay countered
that nullification was not the threat to the American System, Jackson was.<o:p> </o:p></div>
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Clay argued, as he had a month earlier, that in nine plus years
the manufacturers should be able to stand alone without the aid of
government—and hinted again that a lot could happen over almost ten years—how does one
hold Congress to an agreement made almost a decade earlier? Clay was merely pushing the issue down the road to relieve the immediate crisis. With the protective tariff, a <em>precedent</em> had
been set and would be forever abused. Clay argued that for the next near
decade the North would have its protection and the South would faithfully do its duty believing the end of the thing was in sight. </div>
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In debate, Clay challenged Webster’s writing the Force Bill to
wage a bloody war against the people of South Carolina, yet was now
unwilling to offer this compromise to accompany the threat and return the
nation to peace and stability? To Webster and his constituents in the
Northeast, the compromise tariff neutered the Force Bill and surrendered
protection under intimidation. Despite Webster’s protest, the package passed, and the
Enforcement Bill and the Compromise Bill went out together. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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Calhoun rushed home to South Carolina where the compromise
was considered a victory. [And I guess it was...<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">something </i>gained—a distant light at the end of a long, long tunnel,
perhaps? Certainly Calhoun had shown “nullification” could get a reaction, if
nothing else. The settlement of the affair puts me in mind of Mao Tse-tung’s
adage of “two steps forward (for proponents of the American System) and one step back.”] The South
Carolina legislature repealed its Ordinance of Nullification, then a few days
later declared the Enforcement Bill null and void. The latter was a matter of
necessity. No matter how one cut it, the Force Bill implied the central government could, at its discretion,
interfere in sovereign states on matters outside the scope of its limited
powers. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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Meanwhile back in Washington, Clay’s hopes for Jackson’s “alienation” again failed to bear fruit, because the state righters
who broke with Jackson did not rally to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">National
Republican</i> cause. (You know, those same National Republicans some members
of which had just concocted the Force Bill calling for the invasion of South Carolina by
Federal troops? Oh, duh.) <o:p> </o:p></div>
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Still, something significant had occurred. When Congress reconvened in December of 1833, six Southern senators had defected the Jackson camp and now identified themselves as independents. In addition, South Carolina sent two nullifiers. The
make-up of the Senate stood at twenty National Republicans, twenty Jacksonians, and
those eight independents, who held the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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And they all had another executive crisis to deal with. Next time.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thanks for reading,<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
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</div>
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</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-57089779244532851662016-12-06T04:37:00.000-08:002017-02-06T11:50:56.087-08:00The Nullification Crisis: Sowing the Soil That Produced the Whig PartyThis is post number four related to Southern Whiggery and constitutes an overview of the
Nullification Crisis, an unexpected distraction (contradictory in substance) intricately woven into
Jackson’s war on the American System. The Nullification Crisis was intimately
related to the ongoing battle between the principles of strict construction and
nationalism. See the
sidebar for earlier posts. <br />
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_____________________________<o:p></o:p></div>
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What discontent Jackson engendered among adherents to the
American System when he vetoed re-charter of the Second National Bank, he soothed
by tacitly supporting the protective Tariff of 1832, a modification of the 1828
Tariff of Abominations. The National Bank had friends among Southern planters, too,
but the tariff had far fewer. Jackson’s acceptance of a “protective” tariff
frustrated predominately strict-constructionist/state rights Southrons weary of
carrying the load for what they considered an unconstitutional measure. These
had hoped by electing the nominally state-rights Jackson to the presidency that he
would do something about the tariff—beyond mere modification of a monstrosity
they’d dubbed abominable. Jackson, however, did support a protective tariff to
protect “American labor,” and he was actually a Southern nationalist for whom the “Union,” not federalism, was
sacrosanct. Such creatures did exist, I guess. His adherence to the state-rights doctrine was “qualified” by (this
is me talking) how important the issue was to the Federal government, or in
his case, the man leading it. With such a leader, state rights becomes arbitrary—sorta like directing who of what
sex can use the other gender’s restrooms and school showers. See the problem? <br />
<blockquote>
[Granted, contemporary abuse has become ridiculous, but the point is, and as our current situation proves, one cannot “qualify”
such a doctrine, which is why strict constructionists are...well, “strict
constructionists” to prevent such foolishness.]</blockquote>
As far as South Carolina was concerned, the protective
tariff was unconstitutional, and in November of that year, she challenged
the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 by passing an <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ordnull.asp" target="_blank">Ordinance of Nullification</a>—the
same tactic Virginia and Kentucky had used in response to President John Adams’
unconstitutional <a href="http://www.ushistory.org/us/19e.asp" target="_blank">Alien and Sedition Acts</a> back in 1798. South Carolina
had put the Federal government (as well as the rest of the nation) on notice
that she would not allow collection of the Federal tariff within her boundaries after 1
February 1833. The state’s intermediary with the Jackson Administration was
her senator, John C. Calhoun. Man and state were
challenging what in less than fifty years into the new Republic had become standard
procedure: sovereign states subverting themselves to an overreaching Federal
government in support of “private interests.” Jackson
considered nullification tantamount to treason against the “Union.”<o:p> </o:p></div>
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Outside the Federal government, the primary benefactors of
the protective tariff were the Northeast and its spawn in the Midwest where the measure guarded America’s fledging industries. Well, they had been “fledging” twenty
years earlier, but were holding their own by 1832, and the self-serving
“protection of American labor” had displaced the euphemistic “protection of
fledgling industries.”<o:p> </o:p></div>
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Except for some pockets of protection, a good example being Louisiana’s
sugar industry, the protective tariff was unpopular across the South, but not enough
so to outweigh Jackson’s popularity. Though lip service was given in support of
Calhoun, the South outside of South Carolina wished he’d stand down. He didn’t.
Neither did Jackson, and on this matter, Jackson had plenty of support in the
Northeast. In December, Jackson issued his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_to_the_People_of_South_Carolina" target="_blank">Proclamation</a><strong>
</strong> to the people of South Carolina, menacing in tone and condescending in
manner. Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster, whose interests were centered in the protectionist
stronghold of New England, applauded the proclamation. His praise did not go unnoticed
by the White House. One month later in January 1833, when it became apparent
Jackson might require additional powers to subdue the recalcitrant Carolinians and
collect his revenues, the president requested Webster’s support in framing the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_Bill" target="_blank">Force Bill</a> which authorized the use of
military force against South Carolina. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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The Nullification Crisis was the iconic event that
ultimately gave birth to the Whig Party. South Carolina responded to Jackson’s threat of force by denouncing Jackson as King Andrew, and it
was the nullifiers and state righters of South Carolina who revived the term
Whig, not in reference to the English opposition party, but rather to the Southern
Patriots who had assumed the name during the American Revolution, highlighting
their opposition to King George and distinguishing themselves from their
Tory/Loyalist neighbors. Laying out the crisis’ play-by-play in tandem with the
values and principles that drove the state righters from the Jackson camp, one
ascertains that the basic principles of the Southern Whig did not falter
throughout the remainder of the Party’s twenty-some-odd-years existence as a
national entity. That is why during Reconstruction one reads statements by
old-line Southern Whigs (by then identified as independents, born-again
Democrats, and even treacherous Scalawags) referring to state rights and
“constitutionality” when denouncing the tyranny exercised by the Radical
Republicans in the North. Such comments, which keep popping up in my research
on Reconstruction, are what set me on this Whig junket. To a Southern Whig,
state rights and strict construction <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">were</i>
the principles that gave birth to the Party. Not so for their Northern
counterparts where the future “Whig-Party principles” would focus on the
protective tariff, the Bank, protection, and the allocation of the resulting Federal
largesse for internal improvements. Those people’s platform represented nothing more than
the original National Republican agenda warmed over. It was Clay, in sore need
of Southern support given his disastrous showing in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1832" target="_blank">election of 1832</a>, who (metaphorically speaking) rode
in on his white charger and saved the Republic from civil war. But the South
had more than electoral support to offer Henry Clay, something he desperately
needed: the core of a new party with Southern support already built in. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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Next time I will hit the highpoints driving the compromise that
ended the Nullification Crisis. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Thanks for reading,<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
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</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-31336604157417210142016-11-07T11:51:00.000-08:002017-02-06T12:13:28.034-08:00Jacksonian Democracy, the National Republicans, and the American SystemThis is my third in a sub-series
detailing Southern Whiggery. See the sidebar for earlier posts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
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In his singular study <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Whig
Party in the South (1913)</i>, historian Arthur Charles Cole outlined five
stages of development of the Party in the South from its birth in the 1830s to
its demise after its disappointing performance in the 1852 election. First and
foremost, Cole stated unequivocally that the Whigs evolved from a disaffected
group of Jacksonians turned anti-Jacksonians, the direct result of Andrew
Jackson’s reaction to John C. Calhoon’s Nullification of the Tariff of 1832.
Though not “nullifiers” per se—indeed, most of these men adamantly opposed the
concept as well as Calhoun’s tactic—these state-rights leaders abandoned the
Jackson camp in the wake of Jackson’s threatened military action against the state of
South Carolina. Their numbers reflected a fair proportion of the South’s
planting class. Briefly, for the sake of future reference, the other four
stages were the Southern Whigs’ acceptance of Clay’s American System, realized
by the year 1844; after 1844, a period of cautious interaction with their
Northern counterparts, the result of the slavery issue; a growing rift between
not only Southern and Northern Whigs, but increased distrust by the Party’s
Southern constituents given the Northern faction’s reaction to abolitionism,
making the Party an unfit champion for Southern interests; the demise of the
National Party following the disastrous election of 1852; and an attempt to
revive the Party on the part of the South until the War Between the States
swept all pretense aside. I argue that there is yet another stage, that being
during Reconstruction and Redemption. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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In my <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-primordial-soup-whence-sprang-whig.html" target="_blank">last post</a> I referenced Henry
Clay’s need for a cause strong enough to wrest the hearts and minds of the
American people from the popular Andrew Jackson. Two highly charged issues, one
the National Bank, the second the Nullification Crisis—the two intricately
linked by the American System—partially filled Clay’s need.<o:p> </o:p></div>
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The American System, so named by its chief partisan, Clay, and the very essence of the National Republican platform, was a
government-assisted economic program the roots of which go back to our first
Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. Nationalistic in concept, it is characterized by: <o:p></o:p></div>
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(1) a high protective tariff, initially put into effect to
protect burgeoning American industry... <o:p></o:p></div>
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Okay, belay that. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Initially</i> it was put into place, with Southern support, in 1816 to
protect and strengthen this young nation’s security against Britain following
the War of 1812. Lasting peace with mother England arrived in the short-term, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">then</i> came the argument to protect
America’s infant manufacturers. Try as those manufacturers could to deny it
[okay, this is me talking], their infant could remain an infant only so long, so
the pro-tariff argument again morphed, this time into the protection of
“American labor” [yeah, right, more like those who <em>employed</em> the labor]. The Tariff of 1816 didn’t go away; in fact, tariffs kept getting
more protective. <o:p></o:p></div>
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(2) A national bank supported by investments from the
Federal government and private investors, its purpose to stabilize the currency
and reign in risky state banks; and <o:p></o:p></div>
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(3) Federal subsidies for internal improvements, primarily
roads and canals meant to link the nation and foster industry as well as
security. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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They all sound great, don’t they? We have them today and
much, much more. One problem, though: such programs can’t be managed (then as
now) without centralization. Popular in New England and Pennsylvania and even
the Midwest where industry/manufacturing blossomed, The American System was out
of sync with the Founder’s federalism. Strict constructionists/state righters, residing
mostly in the South, knew it. State righters, astute victims of the protective
tariff, understood the reason the Founders went to the lengths they did in
framing the Constitution to prevent such shenanigans, and were aware of the
Anti-Federalists pre-ratification warnings as to why the Constitution wouldn’t.
This brings us back full circle to the Old-Jeffersonian <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-primordial-soup-whence-sprang-whig.html" target="_blank">concerns about the nation’s direction</a> in the
wake of the War of 1812. The American System opened the door to Federal interference in the
states as well as to political corruption. It was, as those old Jeffersonians
of the day repeatedly warned, a looming threat to our [now] long-lost Federal
Republic.<o:p> </o:p></div>
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The matter of the Second National Bank, key to the
American System, can be divided into two events, one being Jackson’s veto of
its re-charter in 1832 followed one year later by his removal of government
deposits from the Bank. Event one, I will relate here. Though an obvious attack on the American System, Jackson’s veto was within his purview and
constitutional; the removal of the deposits, far more egregious, I will detail
in a future post. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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Riding high on the wave of good feeling that accompanied
Jackson’s re-election in 1832 and very much aware that Andrew Jackson was no
friend of the National Bank, Nicholas Biddle, the Bank’s president, decided the
time was favorable to present the Bank’s re-charter to the president, despite the
charter’s not expiring for another two years. Considering the popularity of the
bank in the Northeast and among the rich planters in many Southern states,
Biddle was certain Jackson would not dare veto the measure whereas two years
down the road he might. Henry Clay, <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-primordial-soup-whence-sprang-whig.html" target="_blank">a bitter foe of Jackson</a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">,</b> and Daniel Webster
of Massachusetts encouraged Biddle’s decision for early re-charter because they
were certain Jackson <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">would</i> veto it,
and they were desperate for any conflict that might decrease Jackson’s
popularity with the people. Given Jackson’s antagonism to the banking elite, Clay
considered the man and his administration a threat to the American System. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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As Clay and Webster anticipated, Jackson declared the Bank outside
the scope of national authority and unconstitutional. He vetoed the bill,
foiling Biddle. In North Carolina, W. R. Hinton, a Jackson elector, ceased to
back Jackson after the veto, but despite protests such as that presented by
Hinton and others belonging to the wealthy banking elite, Jackson had foiled
Clay and Webster as well. The common folk, regarding the bank <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-primordial-soup-whence-sprang-whig.html" target="_blank">a corrupt engine of aristocratic privilege</a>, did not
protest the veto, and the National Republicans did not have the votes to override it. The National
Republicans had lost the National Bank, a serious blow to the “American System,”
and they had nothing to show for it. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
On the subject of the National Republicans’ economic agenda,
the American System was about to receive yet another challenge. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
An introduction to the Nullification Crisis next time and thanks
for reading,<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-8092656394437711842016-10-31T06:37:00.000-07:002017-02-06T11:52:32.932-08:00The Primordial Soup Whence Sprang the Whig PartyThis post is the second installment to a series focused on the evolution of Southern Whiggery.<br />
________________________________<o:p> </o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
To paraphrase Henry Clay, the purpose of the Whig Party was
to rescue liberty from an overreaching executive [that being Andrew Jackson]. Throughout
the party’s relatively short and tumultuous history, many Whigs cherished that
mission—I think in the end the bulk must have been in the South or else it
clearly indicates the Republicans didn’t spring from the Whig party, because if
there was ever an overreaching executive, Lincoln was one, but he was not the
first. Truth is the Whig party was an incongruous political entity from the
git-go and the Republicans most assuredly did spring from the Whig Party; in
fact, for what my two cents is worth, their trek from Federalist to Lincoln’s
Republicans is as clear as spring water. But that path the Federalists carved
through the National Republicans and later the Whigs represents only one Whig faction. If not for its enmity to Andrew Jackson, the Whigs probably would
have never come into being. Without a doubt, the National Republican and Old
Republican factions comprising the Jeffersonians as of the early 1830s would
have split, but I’m not qualified to guess what would have happened to the state-rights group within the
Old Republicans, those
strict-constructionists who split with Jackson during the nullification crisis and ultimately joined the Whigs. Tracing
this latter group is the purpose of this series. On that note, and for
the purpose of continuity, I want to rehash some history that many of you
probably already know. For that, I apologize, but I think it’s necessary in
order for the reader to follow my rationale. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Let’s go back to the beginning, to John Adams and the
Federalist Party, proponents of Alexander Hamilton’s diversified national
economy in which government played an important role in shaping and supporting
the private interests of those promoting a national direction. The fruits of that party's policies, nominally,
were to benefit all, but this was especially true for those who owned the
industries. This concept of a government-supported economy [or more cynically,
government manipulated by private interests] was opposed by Thomas Jefferson’s Old
Republicans who believed the only way individual liberty was to persevere was
through republican institutions that put the general good before private
interests. It was the responsibility of office holders to protect said liberty
from both public (government) and private interests (banks and industry). This
very basic argument was fundamental to what kind of nation the United States
would become.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
By the time Henry Clay, founder and guiding light of the
Whig Party, was a young man, those left of the Founding generation had faded
from the limelight. Enabled by Hamilton’s coup with his “implied powers”
argument, which secured the United States its First National Bank, the new
generation was toying with the founding wisdom—bending the Constitution’s words
to shape self-aggrandizing agendas. Arguments ensued as to what constituted the
common good and general welfare and how much could government interfere before
it was encroaching on the rights of the states and those of private citizens<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">.</b> Socially, there was a divide between
materialism and the speculative market of the economic nationalists, homed
primarily in the Northeast, and the simplistic agrarian/artisan economies of
the regular folks, more popular among people of the South and West. The
Federalists had pretty much done themselves in with their seditious activities
during the War of 1812 and many of their number forsook the floundering party
and found a home with the National Republican faction (recall, the kinder gentler
<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-whigs-introduction-to-series.html" target="_blank">Madisonian nationalists</a>) of the
Jeffersonians. John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts was one such “émigré.”<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Flush with the victory of the War of 1812, young
Jeffersonians such as James Monroe, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun evolved
into ardent nationalists who believed in a strong national government and the
prospects (albeit in some cases “qualified”) of a government-supported economy in
tandem with “necessary” internal improvements. Further, civic duty was by then
being equated favorably to economic self-interest—after all, if a public
policy, reputed to be favorable to all, happened to ease the promoter’s wants, what
did it hurt? This was “common good,” at its best. As of the boon times of 1817,
John Quincy Adams, James Monroe, John C. Calhoun, and, of course, Henry Clay and
the rest of the National Republicans dominated the party, and the Old
Jeffersonians chaffed over the direction nationalism and speculation in a boon
economy were leading the nation.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
In 1819, the speculation resulted in an economic downturn, which
the Midwest and the Southeast blamed on the Bank of the United States and the
eastern elite whom Clay served. For years after, this crisis flamed
Congressional debates over the tariff, internal improvements, and land policy.
From the yeoman’s point of view, the cause of the crisis was the banking
policies of the elite, who suspended species payments in response to the crisis
then continued merrily on their way, unaffected by an economy that forced many
a common man off his land and out of his home. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Then in 1824 came the Missouri Compromise, the culmination
of a two-year struggle within the Jeffersonian ranks to prevent Missouri’s
entering the Union as a slave state. The divide had been between the National
Republicans led by the New England mercantilists and the Old Republicans
comprised of strict constructionists and state righters. The Old Republicans
claimed the “party” had, to its shame, become involved in a nationalist program
of aggrandizing national power onto itself. If New England interests could
interfere in a state yet to enter the Union, then eventually it would acquire
the power to interfere in existing states. The time had come, they said, to
rededicate the party to state rights and strict construction. Thus the Panic of
1819, and the obvious sectional divide over economic interests,
empowered the Old Republicans and shifted the balance of power away from the
National Republicans.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
That same year (1824), five men vied for the presidency.
John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War under Monroe, dropped out of the competition,
opting instead for the Vice Presidency. This left four: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
John Quincy Adams, son of founder John Adams of
Massachusetts and the darling of the New England set and a strong proponent of
national legislation to promote economic development.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Henry Clay of Kentucky who, in the eyes of the North, was a
Southern slave-holder with interests vested in the South. Further, Northerners
believed he conceded too much to the South in the Missouri compromise. To the
South, he was an opponent of strict construction and to the West, an agent of
the hated national bank that had created the economic havoc that had ruined so
many good men. To both the West and the South he was an opponent to Jackson’s
Indian wars and removals. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
William H. Crawford of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury under
Madison and Monroe and the candidate of the Old Republicans’ state-rights wing.
But Crawford had been nominated by congressional caucus, a tool by then
regarded as anti–republican (his being chosen by politicians rather than the
people). Their principled choice tarnished by the circumstances of his
nomination, the state-rights constituency turned to the fourth contender, the
populist Andrew Jackson. As a new senator, Jackson had voted for the protective
tariff and internal improvements, but was nevertheless the foe of the haughty
Northeast and the corruption eating away at the Republic.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Jackson won the plurality of both the popular and electoral elections.
Adams came in second. Crawford’s popularity was confined primarily to parts of
the established South (Virginia and his native Georgia). Clay carried only his
home state of Kentucky and neighboring Ohio. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
With no one candidate getting a majority of the electoral vote, the
contest went to the House, where Clay, utilizing his formidable influence,
proved the difference in Adams’ victory over Jackson. This computed to a
victory for the New England elite. Once in the executive mansion, Adams made
Clay his Secretary of State, and the Jackson camp cried “foul.” To the common
man in the South and in the West, Jackson was a fundamental Republican. John
Quincy Adams was a snobbish New England elitist. The tariff and the sweeping
national agenda under the “general welfare” clause offended those who believed
in state rights and strict construction. Adams was openly hostile to slavery [or is that euphemistic for being hostile to slave owners?],
and in the West, he failed to take what voters there felt to be appropriate
action against the Indians. In Clay’s defense, he had always supported the
national-economy camp and opposed Jackson on Indian issues.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Nevertheless, the election of Adams was perceived to be a
rejection of the popular will and has been passed down through history as the Corrupt
Bargain. It haunted Clay for the rest of his career, ended Adams’ as soon as
his “misbegotten” term was up, and four years later sent the martyred Jackson
to the White House with enough popular support (reflected in the victories of
his constituents in the Congress and the state houses), to allow his subsequent abuse
of executive office to threaten the Republic. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
At this point, I want to reference Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, the heretofore
missing link to what would evolve into the Whig Party. Webster had been a young
Federalist at the time of that party’s demise. In 1824, he backed John Quincy
Adams’ administration. In the short term, he would flirt with the Jackson
administration, but in the end he settled on “Yankee Whiggery,” the Federalist
Party incognito.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
So, by the next election in 1828, the National Republicans of
Adams and Clay were the minority faction within the Jeffersonian Party. Clay
believed it was the persona of Andrew Jackson, hero of New Orleans, man of the
people and enemy of the Indians that got him elected, not the common man’s
aversion to the National Republican’s economic nationalism and its leadership by
political elites. Thus, the Old Republicans evolved into the Jacksonian
Democrats. Jackson had cemented his hold on the Old Republican Party of Thomas
Jefferson with, supposedly, adherence to state rights and strict construction.
In reality, what gave him purchase was his general opposition to the political
elite. But here’s the problem with Jackson—he’d won the South and the West,
they’d put him in the White House, but once there, he curried favor with the
Northeast and the Midwest by supporting the tariff and internal improvement
programs, just as he had back in his senatorial days. I don’t think it was
politics; he didn’t like those elitists anymore than his constituents did. I
think he was a nationalist, and he believed in internal improvements to
strengthen the nation and, by default, the tariff that funded them. But that
policy spat in the face of those adherents to the Old Republican principles. Certainly,
he believed in a strong, “unquestioned” executive, and sorry folks, strict
constructionist that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ain’t</i>.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
John C. Calhoun of South Carolina split with Jackson over
the tariff [yes, I know there were other things, but the tariff is what is
relevant here]. Despite his growing anti-Jackson stance, Calhoun did not end up
in the National Republican Party, the principles of which distanced him from it
as he evolved as a political theorist and a statesman. Even when Southerners
started to question Jackson on the nullification issue, the policies of the
monied elite generally discouraged Southerners from entering the National Republican Camp.
Similarly in the North, outside New England, the states showed little concern
for the national issues touted by the National Republicans and were offered
alternatives to the National Republican Party for venting their opposition to
Jackson. The National Republicans, focused as they were on national economic
issues [again, I interpret that to mean economic issues that affected them
personally], failed to recognize what mattered at the grass-roots level. This was
the era of the populist, pro-farmer Antimasons, who were against urban control
of rural areas and promoted the idea of political candidates coming from the
people, not professional politicians. They did not favor the National
Republicans who were well-grounded in the 18th century belief in a republicanism
practiced by the elite for the public good. The Antimason movement became very
large throughout the North. Whereas the National Republicans focused their
campaign on converting the “leadership” of the opposition to the National
Republican cause, believing the people would follow, the Jacksonian Democrats
and the Antimasons and other splinter groups, focused on converting the voters.
In time, the Jacksonian Democrats usurped the Antimason cause in the Northern
states.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0pt 0.5in;">
[That’s an interesting thought on
smaller, intrastate parties. We need more of those today. The
people of a state should have legislatures and governors focused on them and
not vested in a national party from whom they take marching orders.] <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0pt 0in;">
But I digress.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
In the early 1830’s the National Republicans were in sore need
of a “cause” large enough to counter the peoples’ grievances against a powerful
elite and its corruption—both inimical to republics. These are what caused the
voters to rally to and continue to stand behind Andrew Jackson. It would be Jackson
himself who filled the National Republican need. Calhoun’s interposition,
Biddle’s bank, and the birth of the Whig Party next time. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Thanks for reading,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-48993375337191432382016-10-06T03:46:00.000-07:002017-02-06T11:53:20.369-08:00The Whigs, An Introduction to the SeriesThis post introduces a series
dealing with the Southern Whigs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
___________________________<o:p></o:p></div>
At this juncture, I’m taking a detour from the main narrative on Alcorn to address an important aspect of
Reconstruction that is, I’ve come to believe, less a thread woven into the story’s fabric than it is
the material basic to the weave. I refer to the Southern Whigs. My objectives in
this brief series are to provide the reader with the evolution of the Whig Party and
its role in the South and to identify the Southern Whig’s role during
Reconstruction, which is my ultimate purpose for this adjunct. For a detailed history of the
Whig Party, I refer the reader to Michael Holt’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-American-Whig-Party/dp/0195055446/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475715875&sr=1-3&keywords=michael+holt" target="_blank">The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party</a> </i>and to Arthur Charles
Cole’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Whig-Party-South-Arthur-Charles/dp/B00DQ4Y2HE" target="_blank">The Whig Party in the South</a></i>.
Holt’s book is a monster, weighing
in at 985 pages in the paperback, and that does not include the notes, but the
work is an <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2014/05/dads-whig-book-michael-holts-rise-and.html" target="_blank">essential reference</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>for
those interested in the subject. Cole’s 1911 doctoral dissertation (it was
published in 1913 and is now in the public domain)
remains the definitive history of the Whig Party in the South. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
The American Whig Party emerged from a split between the Madisonian-leaning,
Federalist-infiltrated National Republicans and the Old Republicans, the latter
being the primary branch of the Jeffersonian Republican Party. The National
Republicans represented the monied, industrial, and banking interests of the
Northeast, adhering to government promotion of a national economic program,
more in line with the old Federalist doctrines, tempered by kinder/gentler
“Madisonism.” The Old Republicans, truer in spirit to our third president,
represented the populist, democratic ideals of the common man in the South and
West who believed less government computed to greater individual liberty. Jeffersonian
Republicans had despised Federalists back in the day of Alexander Hamilton and John Adams and were appalled by this growing faction
within the old party.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
During the eight years of Andrew Jackson’s presidency
(1829-1837), men from both factions of the Jeffersonian Republicans and from
all sections of the country embraced the Whig Party in opposition to an
overreaching executive, a factor that took primacy over the conflicting
interests of the participating allies. In the end, some twenty years later, these conflicting interests
proved a greater (negative) impact on the Whig Party than the
anti-Jacksonian cause that had given birth to it. These conflicts, which resulted in its demise, were inherent to the
Whig Party from its inception. As far as I’m concerned, these issues, which dealt, fundamentally, with the role of the national government and the role of the states in the
Federal system were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">major</i> disconnects.
I will delve deeper into the highpoints in upcoming posts, and I will do so more to focus on the
principles and evolution of the Southern Whig and his growing estrangement
from his Northern fellows than to narrate the history of the party. For now,
suffice it to say that Southern Whigs, like all things Southern, were a
different breed from their Northern counterparts. I’d go so far as to suggest the only true Whigs were the Southern ones and the Northern ones were really Federalists in drag, but as my faithful readers know, I am prejudiced in my opinions; furthermore, I’m a far cry from being an expert on Whigs. <br />
<br />
In reading histories of that
long-ago war, one often reads/hears the term “unionist” bandied about in
reference to some Southerners. More often than not, its antecedent is a
Southern Whig, but this allusion demands clarification. Southern Whigs, though they idolized Henry
Clay and espoused the “principles” of the Whig Party (or what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">they</i> perceived the principles of the
Whig Party to be), did indeed love the “Union”, but not as the inviolable
entity Daniel Webster claimed<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to have
predated the states—that is New England hogwash. Southern Whigs adhered to the
Union for the safety and stability it afforded them <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">under the Constitution</i> in the routine conduct of their business and
daily lives. If you’ll recall, one of Alcorn’s primary reasons for accepting the
Reconstruction Acts of 1867 was because kowtowing was the means by which
Mississippi could re-enter the nation, get her representation back in Congress,
receive the protection provided by the Constitution, and divest herself of the
Yankee contagion—okay, those last are my words. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Southern Whigs were the largest and wealthiest group of
slave-owners in the South. During the antebellum years, they often dominated
politics in North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana, and they had
healthy pluralities in a number of other Southern states. During the twenty-odd
years spanning the party’s existence, Whigs represented thirty percent (roughly one-third) of the voters and
members of the legislature in Mississippi. As a group, these men opposed
secession both in theory and in fact, but when the Democratic fire-eaters won
out and war came, the Whigs backed their states and their region with money,
with arms, and with their blood. For those who do not realize it, opposition to
secession and opposition to slavery are two different things, just
as being a unionist does not mean being “pro-North,” but rather expresses a preference for the status quo. Drawing such simplistic
parallels is worthy only of non-thinking adherents to the modern mainstream’s
revision of Civil War history. When the choice finally had to be made, the vast
majority of Southern Whigs never questioned where their loyalties lay. Oh, yes,
Whigs always questioned Democrats, and they questioned the wisdom of Jefferson
Davis, but not out of love for Lincoln or Union or a belief in freedom for the
black man. Those particular questions sprang from love for the South and the principles of
our Founders’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Republic</i> and the very
real danger now threatening their way of life. Perhaps Southern Whigs never
belonged in the Whig Party any more than their states belonged in a Federal union
perverted by Northern economic interests. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Next time a more detailed look at the embryonic Whig Party
and the rise of the Southern Whig. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Thanks for reading, <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-13190748244728989332016-09-12T04:01:00.000-07:002016-09-23T02:31:03.987-07:00Alcorn’s Gubernatorial Victory, November 1869 <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This post is number forty-eight </span>in a historical series discussing
Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn, following the
War Between the States and continues the “saga” resulting from the Democratic
victory over the Republican “reconstruction” constitution framed during the
Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868. That Republican defeat
meant a second election, the story of which culminates below. For earlier posts
in this Alcorn-driven series see the sidebar on the right. <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
_______________________________________<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
The election went off without a hitch or relatively close to
it. There were small riots in Sunflower, Newton, and Hinds counties, which the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Clarion</i> attributed to “Radical”
intimidation—but, of course, intimidation from that source wouldn’t have caused
<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/08/general-adelbert-ames-prepares-for.html" target="_blank">Ames to call for a new election</a>—especially
since the Radicals won—the self-righteous little autocrat wouldn’t have wasted his time. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
According to James Garner in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Reconstruction in Mississippi</i>, the Constitution was ratified
113,735 for<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Appleton’s figure was
105,223 for) to 955 against.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #ff6600;"> </span></b>The voter disfranchising clause, now separate
from the progressive constitution, was defeated, 2206 for to 87,874 against,
and the clause that proposed disqualifying ex-Confederates from everything into
perpetuity was defeated 2390 for to 87,253 against. The requirement for
administration of the “iron-clad” oath to state officers was rejected 2170 for
to 88,444 against, and the clause forbidding the loan of the state’s credit was
ratified.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
As for the state tickets, suffice it to say that for those
Democrats who had supported the Dent ticket, the results were embarrassing.
James Lusk Alcorn trounced Louis Dent 76,143 to 38,133 (based on that total, it
appears Appleton’s figure might be closer to the correct total for votes cast
on the state constitution). Louis Dent left the state. [I wonder if he went back
to D.C. I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i> wonder if he ever
spoke to his <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/07/ah-president-ulysses-simpson-grants.html" target="_blank">brother-in-law</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>again.]
The Negro vote went almost exclusively to Alcorn (and his ticket) and 28 of
Mississippi’s 60 counties had Negro majorities. Alcorn also carried 15 counties
with white majorities. All the congressional candidates for the 41st Congress
on the Dent ticket were defeated. A straight Republican (that would be Radical)
ticket made up of three Northerners and two Southern whites were sent to
Congress to represent the state:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
1st Congressional District: George
E. Harris from Hernando, native of Tennessee and a pre-war Whig; became a
Republican in 1867<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
2nd Congressional District: J. L.
Morphis, probably another pre-war Whig, who switched to the Republican Party in
1867. He was from Pontotoc<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
3rd Congressional District: H. W.
Barry, a New Yorker and ex-brevet general, United States Army<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
4th Congressional District: George
C. McKee from Illinois and ex-brevet general United States Army<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
5th Congressional District: Legrand
W. Perce, another New Yorker, ex of the United States Army<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
There you have it, folks: Mississippi’s long-anticipated and
desperately yearned for representation in Congress that made us once again a
respected member of a “union” we wanted only to leave in peace, all our fears now
having come to fruition. These are the representatives designated to look after
the interests of the Mississippi taxpayer, their families, and their proud
history. Oh wait, that’s not quite all of them. I forgot our glorious
senators—they’ll come up shortly—after the new Radical legislature meets in
January.<o:p> </o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
In announcing the results of this election, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Clarion</i> pointed out two things. First,
the commander of the fourth district and provisional governor, Adelbert Ames,
who controlled the election was heavily partisan in his support of the Radical
party headed by Alcorn, and second, 15,000 Conservative voters had been
disfranchised due to voting restrictions on ex-Confederates. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Clarion</i>, however, failed to put much
store in the voters who simply did not turn out. The majority of white
taxpayers—and to be sure, they were the ones paying for all this orchestrated
bull—twenty percent of their number killed and/or wounded in an unwarranted
war of aggression fighting for the Republic, which would survive or fail—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not </i>the “Union,” mind you, but the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Republic</i>—after having seen their women
violated, their families shattered, their property and infrastructure
decimated in the name of Union and patriotism, themselves branded with the
epithet of traitor while the greedy and malicious sit back in Washington with
the oblivious blessings of the constituents who put them there—those Mississippi taxpayers now watch as step
by step the victor desecrates the Constitution and dismantles the Founder’s
Republic. And their choices at the ballot box? Two wings of the same party, one
supported by an “enlightened” Democratic leadership telling these
downtrodden, overtaxed warriors, who a year before had given their all to
defeat the progressive agenda, that principle doesn’t matter any longer and the
past is dead. Oh, and history will record your deeds...well, however, history
records them. We stand at the threshold of a grand new nation, they said, a democracy,
and we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">must </i>comply and we will pay
for it even while history denigrates us as the traitors it will make us, but
that’s okay, because there is no other way. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
All right, that’s my interpretation—Charlsie a century and a
half later is making an attempt here to show the modern reader how the rank and
file of the Democrat Party/the defeated Confederate South was viewing the
political scene. The “official” Democratic leadership, the one that had joined
forces with the Conservative Scalawags in hopes of defeating Alcorn and the
Radicals—for both pragmatic and self-aggrandizing reasons—had lost touch with
its base, which was growing more frustrated by the moment. The Scalawags and
the official leadership of the new Democratic Party might have been eager to blame
secession, the war, and defeat on the old Democrats, but the men and their families
who’d suffered so greatly during the struggle believed during it all that the
South was right. What the “Democratic leadership” failed to grasp in 1869 was
that many of those honorable men still did believe they’d been right and telling them they weren’t, while at the same time offering
them a platform that reiterated how “wrong” they’d been, offered them nothing worth
voting for in 1869. Even those whose faith was shattered didn’t like what they were seeing and what they’d be getting. Many of those simply <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/05/so-what-about-those-mississippi.html" target="_blank">did not show</a> up at the polls <span style="color: red;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
The one silver glow around the gathering storm clouds was
that martial law would, supposedly, end (to be replaced by secret police and
tyrannical militias in support of the administration, not to mention the
continued presence of Federal bayonets to support the unpopular Radical
administrations when the people rose up against them); the state would get its
representation back in Congress—albeit none of the representatives were representative
of the people who paid the taxes in the state—oh, but that’s what democracy is
all about—the majority decides how to spend the money of the taxpayer, even
though way too many put nothing in the kitty themselves.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Elections would now be free of
military interference and self-government/home rule was in sight. No matter how
bad this “temporary” Radical hegemony would be in the minds of this Mississippi
leadership who’d supported the Conservative candidate, it had to be better than
Ames. Here’s a hint for those of you who don’t know the story, Ames <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ain’t</i> gone. Mississippi has a long hard
row stretching out before her.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Technically James Lusk Alcorn’s was a Radical victory, but Alcorn
was, in fact, a Conservative Scalawag in Radical clothing. The Radicals would soon
be using similar terms to describe him. At the time of his election, the
question was whether he would retain his office and prove a good governor [the
other option being the U.S. Senate] or would he abandon the state to the
Radical cabal he led to power? <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
Thanks for reading,<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-30561907442548475032016-08-29T02:46:00.002-07:002016-09-23T02:30:27.629-07:00General Adelbert Ames Prepares for Election Day, 1869This post is number forty-seven in a historical series
discussing Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn,
following the War for Southern Independence and continues the “saga” resulting from
the Democratic/Conservative victory over the Republican “reconstruction”
constitution framed during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring
of 1868. That Republican defeat meant a second election, the story of which
continues below. For earlier posts in this series, see the sidebar on the
right. <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
______________________________<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
On 14 October 1869, General Adelbert Ames, commander of the
Fourth Military District <em>and </em>provisional governor, in accordance with presidential directive, issued a general order declaring 30 November/1
December as the dates set aside for the new
election that would determine Mississippi’s reentry to the Union (which those of Ames’ ilk claimed she’d never left). In the
running were a civil government, a new constitution, and the fate of
proscription in the case of ex-Confederates as well as the state’s ability to
pledge funds for whatever the legislature deemed appropriate. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Of course, reentry into the Union required, by tacit
determination of an outlaw Congress, that a Republican ticket be elected. On
the surface, that was no problem, because Republicans were all there was to choose
from. I maintain, however, that Conservative Republicans would have created a
great deal of heartburn at the Washington level, but to what machinations the
Radicals at the National level would have resorted in order to nullify a second conservative victory we’ll never know. They’d done their scheming before hand this time around
(first putting Ames in control of the state, as well as the election;<span style="color: #ff6600;"> </span>reversing Grant’s support for the Conservative
candidate, <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/07/ah-president-ulysses-simpson-grants.html" target="_blank">Dent</a>; softening the Radical
stance on the <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2015/11/president-grant-says-mississippis.html" target="_blank">proscription clauses</a>; and
replacing the unpalatable Yankee Eggleston for governor with home-grown James
Lusk Alcorn). No more screwups like the summer of ’68, by George! [I refer to Massachusettes’ Boutwell,
of course, because George <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Washington</i>
would have never been party to such tyranny.]<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
That 14 October order contained detailed instructions for
the revision of the registration lists and general management of the election
and the counting of returns. On 5 November, Ames issued order #234 establishing
a requirement for more than a thousand registrars at $5.00 per day, to include the
two days required for the election and for an unspecified number of days after,
which these registrars would need to complete the returns. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
The registrars, two white and two black of different
political parties were to be selected by the board of registry, members
comprised of individuals hand-picked by Ames, assigned for each of the five
precincts to challenge the right of any person to be registered who, in the
“opinion” of the person challenging, was disqualified from voting (the
proscription clauses were still in effect as of this election). Ames enacted
many such elaborate precautions to ensure a “correct” registration and “fair”
election, but I’m not convinced the two terms, in this context, are mutually
compatible.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
In addition, he assigned five presidents for each registry
board in each county for three days extra at $5.00 per day plus expenses to
bring the returns to Jackson. These presidents received allowances for ballot
boxes, stationery, and room rent. Additionally, one deputy sheriff was assigned
duty, at $5.00 per day during the election. James Garner, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Reconstruction in Mississippi </i>does not
state what “constituted” the election timeframe in the case of these deputies,
but he did estimate the cost for this election in excess of $100,000.
Unfortunately, Garner was also remiss is indicating how Ames raised revenue to
pay for this election, but the people of Mississippi did pay for it. Ames
further declared if any fraud or intimidation were committed during the
election, another election would be held—at another cost, we must assume, of
$100,000. I’m sorry, y’all, but no matter which way you cut it, the man was an
arrogant horse’s butt.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
On 6 November, Ames issued another order assigning
forty-nine army officers to serve as election inspectors. These men, primarily
captains and lieutenants, were drawn from the 16th Infantry Regiment
headquartered at Grenada with companies posted at Natchez, Jackson, Vicksburg,
Grenada, Lauderdale (County), and Corinth. In fact, there appears to be some
reposting of these units within the state as of March 1869, possibly as
precautionary measures on the part of Ames in anticipation of the fall
elections, but also as a reorganization from the Fourth Military District into
the Department of the South [though Ames’ orders are still issued by him
from the “Fourth Military District” as of December 1869]. The officers from the
16th served primarily as roving inspectors for each county. They were
authorized to give orders in the name of the commanding general (Ames), and
their duties were to:<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--visit the registry boards<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--instruct them in regard to duties<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--generally exercise control of the “work” of registration<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--observe the actual holding of the elections (votes being
cast, I assume)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--report to headquarters <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--keep Ames advised in advance upon probable occurrences
likely to affect the “result” of the election <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
That latter duty is telling. I wonder what steps Ames would
have taken had he learned the election was going “South?” And yes, the pun was intended. I’m thinking
he had some course/remedial action in mind, else why would he have needed to know in advance?<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
The results of all this hard work on the part of Ames next
time. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Thanks for reading, </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-34347490008853680362016-08-15T07:31:00.001-07:002016-08-15T07:31:06.976-07:00The 1869 Gubernatorial Campaign in MississippiThis post is number forty-six in a historical series
discussing Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn,
following the War Between the States and continues the “saga” resulting from
the Democratic victory over the Republican “reconstruction” constitution framed
during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868. That
Republican defeat resulted in a second election, the story of which continues
below. For earlier posts in this Alcorn-driven series, I refer the reader to
the sidebar on the right.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
___________________________________<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
After his nomination by the Conservative Republicans
(National Union Republican Party) and his subsequent acceptance as its
gubernatorial candidate, Louis Dent returned to Mississippi in early September.
Recall that he had been living in the state prior to his brother-in-law’s (Ulysses
Simpson Grant’s) moving into the White House, at which point Dent was invited to<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/06/louis-dent-relevant-history_20.html" target="_blank"> join the president and Julia</a> (Dent’s sister). On the 14th of September, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Clarion</i> published the schedule of his speaking engagements, forty
odd, starting in Corinth on the 18th and ending on the 30th of September, after
which, Dent informed Alcorn, he would be available for “discussion,” this in response to an
invitation for debate extended by Alcorn.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Louis Dent and James Alcorn held their first such face-off at
Grenada in early October, and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Clarion</i>
declared Dent the winner. This assessment was supported by kudos published in
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aberdeen Examiner</i> who saw in Dent
an “eloquent debater and orator for the Conservative cause.” James Garner (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Reconstruction in Mississippi</i>), my
source for the newspaper analysis, however, maintained that Judge Dent, whose
main oratorical weapon was a subtle and deep sarcasm, was no match for the
experienced Alcorn, whose booming oratory had been finely honed in the
stump-style politicking of the South of that day. The topics for Dent’s biting
invective were Alcorn’s<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2014/03/james-lusk-alcorn-prelude-to-war.html" target="_blank"> role in the secession</a> crisis
back in ’61 and his subsequent war record—no battles, no wounds, and no taking
the enemy capitol. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;">
Well, we saw Alcorn’s war record in the
early part of this long series (follow the links for the fourth through seventh posts listed on the right under Alcorn Series for more information). No,
he never found martial glory, but not for want of asking for the opportunity,
and he was there for the Confederacy in a support role and <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2014/10/james-lusk-alcorn-out-of-delta-and-on.html" target="_blank">served in Mississippi’s Confederate legislature</a> despite his undermining criticisms of the war effort
(which was going badly). At the same time, of course, he was ensuring his own
survival to “fight” again another day by wheeling and dealing (selling) cotton
to Yankee entrepreneurs along the river in the dark of night (Okay, that’s my
synopsis, but it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i> done illegally
and in violation of Confederate law, and Alcorn did get quite wealthy off the
trade). Those “lucrative” investments at the time were now funding his present
day “fight” for control of the state. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Dent spent a good part of the debate trying to convince
people his “whole soul was enlisted in the great agricultural and commercial
interests of Mississippi, and their resuscitation and development” as a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bona fide </i>citizen of the state. George
Alcorn (James’ cousin) and clerk at the probate court in Coahoma County where
Dent<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/06/louis-dent-relevant-history_20.html" target="_blank"> leased “abandoned” property</a>, had circulated a letter that Dent was not on the tax rolls for that county.<span style="color: #ff6600;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Alcorn kept his focus on the <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-1869-radical-republican-convention.html" target="_blank">gloomy condition of the state</a>
under the last four years of Democratic leadership.<span style="color: #ff6600;"> </span>Now, any
reasonable person might argue that war and Reconstruction would account for
that. Of course, Alcorn blamed the war on the Democrats and its loss on Jeff
Davis’ policies/grand strategy. Understand that for the four years following
the end of the war, Mississippi and the entire South needed an infusion of
capital. Not only had the reconstruction contemporary Americans readily assume
to be part of U.S. policy after having pounded the stuffing out of a foreign
nation not occurred (and never would), the Southern states had been forced,
under Federal bayonets, to contend with costly constitutional conventions,
welfare for a huge vagrant population created by an invading army in an
unwarranted war, and other self-aggrandizing expenses a hate-filled occupier
imposed on a taxpayer it had managed to disfranchise. Their lands devastated,
their populations decimated, and their labor force disbursed and living off the
largesse of the American taxpayer, including Southern ones, Mississippi and her
sister states did not have a means of generating income, and they were being
raped by an unconstitutional Congress and an ancillary weak administration,
under the Radicals’ thumb, imbued with a self-serving zeal to make the South
Northern. A better analogy for the treatment of the South after the War Between
the States for those of you familiar with history would be Rome to Carthage
rather than the United States to Germany and Japan following World War II.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
These conditions Alcorn blamed on Democratic intransigence
in the face of Republican (Party) expectations for the South in the “new”
democracy the Radicals were creating. In the mind of the exigency-driven,
would-have-been-tyrant Alcorn, the Radicals and the North had a right to demand
these things and create a new nation under the rules of war and conquest. For
sure, unwarranted and unconstitutional as it may have been, there are not many
things more effective than beating the stew out of someone, then telling him
how things are gonna be from now on, especially after the Northern populace
sanctioned the changes. Alcorn was advocating acquiescence to the destruction
of the Founder’s Republic, and the principles of that Republic were critical to
the South’s survival and always had been; that’s why she seceded. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Personally, I think Alcorn viewed acquiescence to the party
in power as temporary. In
tandem with Alcorn’s detesting Democratic principles and stubbornness, he believed that once Mississippi
submitted to the Radical plan for Reconstruction, she would get her
representation back in Congress and from that source get her long-awaited share
of Federal money.<span style="color: #ff6600;"> </span>Alcorn, the Whig, had wanted
Mississippi to receive her share of that money for decades, a point he made when
<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-1869-mississippi-radical-republican.html" target="_blank">accepting the gubernatorial nomination </a>at the Radical convention.<span style="color: #ff6600;"> </span><br />
<br />
The campaign apparently was a colorful one. Supposedly there
was a threat from the Klan, but more in theory than actual fact. Keep in mind
that the Klan was composed of, and led by, Democrats and many nominal Democrats
were, by this time, leaning toward the <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-democratic-party-and-its-quest-for.html" target="_blank">“progressive” or New Departure</a> <span style="color: #ff6600;"> </span>persuasion and weren’t gonna muck with the
candidates—now, that’s just my opinion. There is some rumor that the Democratic leadership had lost control
of its military wing, but I think those uncontrolled elements are more the
result of Republican hype and propaganda. Truth was leadership of the political
and military wings was probably the same. What <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wouldn’t</i> have been under their control were independent groups
whose so-called atrocities were readily attributed to the Klan, whether Klan or
not. My point is that Alcorn did assume some risk by running on the Radical
ticket. One might consider that Dent, running on much <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-1869-mississippi-republican.html" target="_blank">the same platform</a>, would have shared those risks from those same
fringe groups. Perhaps he did. If history says, I haven’t found it. Amelia,
Alcorn’s wife, tried to dissuade her husband from running as did his friend
J.F.H. Claiborne. The opportunity Alcorn had waited a lifetime for—one he’d
spent time and money finagling into being—and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they’re asking him to sit it out? Not a
chance. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Alcorn proved up to the perceived challenge. During a
campaign address in Ripley, Mississippi, he nearly came to blows with a local
politician, who Alcorn dubbed a liar (them’s fightin’ words back in those days,
folks), and as the audience scrambled for the door and windows, Alcorn called
them back and told them there was nothing to fear because his opponent was a “drunken
cowardly vagabond.” Okay, that incident is recorded in a letter to Amelia, so one
might speculate “Dandy Jim” embellished it some. In Aberdeen, he allayed the
fears of his audience when, on hearing the cocking of pistols near the rostrum,
he pulled a six-shooter from his satchel and challenged the would-be assassins
to face him like men. Then, in an address to a mostly Negro audience at a
railroad platform in Winona, when what has been described as “several of the
more desperate whites” planned to kill Alcorn “with a rifle,” (implying distance from the platform, you think?), conservative
Democrats prevented their carrying out the plan. I don’t know if that “prevention”
occurred on scene or off or if it’s even valid or just another delicious rumor
embellished to add excitement to the campaign.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Dent, a non-Mississippian and <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/07/ah-president-ulysses-simpson-grants.html" target="_blank">abandoned by his brother-in-law, Grant</a>, whose endorsement the Conservatives hoped might sway the
people of Mississippi, left the state
after the joint debates, not even sticking around for the election results. Of course, his presence up to that point was probably nothing more than the fullfilment of a commitment—that’s based on my assumption his brother-in-law had informed him privately the fix was already in, and he was not to be elected. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;">
But here’s something regarding the undercurrents of this volatile period: Alcorn readily attributes the poor
economic condition of the state following Presidential Reconstruction to
“Democratic” intransigence following defeat, the direct result being the state’s
remaining outside the safety of the Union. But there’s more to the story of the Democrats not using the name
Democratic Party because they were in disgrace.
A more accurate reason for this fusion party using the sobriquet
Democratic-Conservative or simply Conservative Party was because the ascendant <em>leadership</em>
in the vast majority of all those Southern legislatures elected as far back as 1865 and 1866—the
same ones that wrote the new state constitutions under the provincial
governments set up by President Johnson, the ones who rightly resisted passage of the
unconstitutional 14th and 15th amendments, the ones who enacted the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">infamous</i> Black Codes—was not composed of Democrats.
The bulk of the leadership in those Conservative parties were Old-line Whigs.
They had been who the people had turned to with the defeat of the
Confederacy. In the case of Mississippi, these old Whigs, for the first time
ever, were at the top of the food chain. Alcorn was an Old-line Whig. Yes, they needed the Democratic polity, hence the annotated name, but <em>they</em> were the ones in charge. This would further account for the <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/05/so-what-about-those-mississippi.html" target="_blank">growing fissure</a> between the Democratic-Conservatives and Old-line Democrats (Bourbons) within the “Democratic-Conservative” Party. Just as important, Old-line Whigs dominated the leadership of
the Scalawags who were,
despite appearances, opposed to the Radicals. It had been 140 “local men of
affairs,” all reputedly Whigs, who wrote the address asking the people of the
state to vote for Louis Dent. Now, that particular group of solicitors was
probably composed of both Democratic-Conservative Whigs and National Union Republican Whigs
(Scalawags). The
Whigs, be they of the Democratic-Conservative or Scalawag persuasion, are a
whole different study and a very important one, and as soon as I’ve put Alcorn
in the state-house in this series, I’m gonna take a detour and attempt to sort them out. <br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Next time, military governor and commander of the Fourth
Military District Adelbert Ames’ extensive efforts to ensure a “fair” election.
Thanks for reading.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Charlsie <o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-86946672260221588182016-08-01T03:46:00.001-07:002016-08-01T03:46:29.497-07:00The 1869 Mississippi Radical Republican Convention, Part II, Alcorn’s Acceptance SpeechThis post is number forty-five in a historical series
discussing Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn,
following the War Between the States and continues the “saga” resulting from
the Democratic-Conservative victory over the Republican “reconstruction” constitution framed
during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868. That
Republican defeat resulted in a second election, the story of which continues
below. For earlier posts in this Alcorn-driven series, I refer the reader to
the sidebar on the right.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
______________________________________<o:p></o:p></div>
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In accepting the nomination for
governor on the Radical ticket, 30 September 1869, James Alcorn stated that for
twenty-five years he had been in opposition to the majority of people in the
state, but stressed a desire for the common good. He denounced the hypocrisy of
the Democrats who claimed it wanted cooperation with the Negro while wanting
null and void the [unconstitutional] Reconstruction Acts that gave them their
rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ah, nothing like mixing apples
and oranges and calling them bananas. There were a lot of reasons for all the
people of Mississippi (and the South—all true Americans actually) to oppose the
Reconstruction Acts, beginning with martial law. The civil law that had
been established across the South during Presidential Reconstruction had been
swept away, supposedly, to establish “law and order.” In truth, civil government had been
functioning well under the administration of Democratic Governor B. G. Humphreys
who had been elected by the tax-payer during Presidential Reconstruction. What <em>wasn’t</em>
working were Republican schemes to gain control of the state, one more linchpin to ensure the Radicals maintained control of Congress. This had to be fixed before the state’s representatives took
their seats in Washington. Clearly the tables had to be turned and that could
only be done with the Negro vote. Alcorn is spouting the party line here. He
stressed the fairness of Negro demands and blamed the Democrats for the
separation of the parties based on race and linked universal suffrage to
general amnesty—I’m not sure if he qualified that general amnesty to that
future time when the spirit of cooperation, and I paraphrase, only now
beginning to bud had reached full bloom<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>or if he meant the here and now. Recall that
Alcorn had opposed the proscription clauses, but said they could be “fixed
later.” Still, the <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-1869-mississippi-republican.html" target="_blank">Republican platform, his platform, supported proscription. </a><o:p> </o:p></div>
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Then, in the last section of his
speech, Alcorn turned to what really was driving him—that enormous sum of
money in the Federal Treasury. The South, he claimed, had a right to its share.
Indeed it did, but then it always had. One of the primary reasons Lincoln and whoever
was in the shadows pulling his chain (industry, big business, bankers—the
front-line benefactors of the internal improvements) chose war instead of
simply letting the South go was the loss of the huge amount of money the South contributed to the U. S. Treasury, and it was the South’s perceived misuse of its contribution that prompted its secession. But the opposition party (the Democrats) had
always rejected whoring the state to the central government, whereas, recall,
internal improvements were basic to the Whig, now Republican, platform.
Republican control of the state, Alcorn believed, would result in generous
cooperation from Congress. Alcorn foresaw funds for:<o:p> </o:p><br />
<o:p></o:p> </div>
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-the cotton industry (yeah, sorry
bud, but the New England mercantilists, conspiring both with/against their
counterparts in England during the war, coupled with the South’s defeat, now
had that industry fully under their control. Other than providing the raw
material, the South was out)<o:p> </o:p></div>
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-subsidies for railroads within the
state (those monies had already been earmarked for east-west railroads across
the North). I reiterate, such use of Federal money (paid in by all) to fund
private enterprise in the North is one of the reasons the South seceded<o:p> </o:p></div>
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-a harbor at Ship Island on the Gulf
(this all came to fruition half a century later with Mississippi money and the
generous input of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">private</i> money
belonging to Northern entrepreneurs, <a href="http://www.loblollywritershouse.com/llwhhistoricalnoteonEB.html" target="_blank">Spenser S. Bullis of New York and Joseph T. Jones of Philadelphia</a>,<span style="color: red;"> </span>names<span style="color: red;"> </span>revered on the
Mississippi Gulf Coast to this day <o:p></o:p></div>
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-building (rebuilding) of the Delta levees that Grant had destroyed in 1863<o:p> </o:p><br />
<o:p></o:p> </div>
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With this delusion at the forefront,
Alcorn appealed to old Whigs to join him in the Republican Party. To share in
the money, he said, we have to be part of the party in power:<o:p> </o:p></div>
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“Internal improvements,
by the general government, is as much as ever a subject of Democratic
hostility. Whigs of the South can find no reason for siding with the Democracy
on that question now.... Public improvements by the general government has
ceased, recollect you, to be simply a question of theory. It has become a
question of fact. The issue in that case is no longer one of logic, but of
money—of enormous sums of money!”<o:p> </o:p></div>
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He again chastised the Democrats for shattering the peace
and prosperity and for Mississippi’s now being under martial law, a reference
to war and defeat. Hmmm...I wonder how many of those old Whigs he’s now
appealing to had been at the<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2014/02/james-lusk-alcorns-role-in-secession.html" target="_blank"> secession convention</a> and heard Alcorn’s speech? [It’s
a rhetorical question; they were all very aware his speech sealed the deal.]<o:p></o:p></div>
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According to Lillian Pereyra, Alcorn’s primary biographer,
the meat of this acceptance speech is simple adherence to Alcorn’s Whig
principles. Further, he saw the old-line Whigs as the natural leaders of this
new “democracy” being forced upon the people of Mississippi. I see it more as
“achieving his Whig goals” by casting all principle aside. Alcorn believed many
of his old colleagues had been frightened into the Democratic (or Conservative)
party out of fear of Negro suffrage. Alcorn’s attitude was that Republican
hegemony in the state would provide control over the “mob” (in my opinion, the most
accurate description of a democratic polity regardless of race) and use their
voting power to keep friend and foe in line. This was his method of dealing
with the “lion of race-adjustment”. Keep the mob happy, and it will vote for
you. He should have heeded his own words better or listened to his
ex-colleagues. The Negro voter was to be neither assumed nor trusted, nor
should any voter. Adelbert Ames will eventually prove the truth of that simple
fact to Alcorn’s, and Mississippi’s, detriment. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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Be that as it may, in the early fall of 1869, many white Mississippians
of the more progressive persuasion were happy to see him in the race. He was a
“southern” Republican after all, and he held southern values. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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Tickets now framed, the campaign begins. Next time and
thanks for reading,<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 6.0in;">
Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-39298705555955671762016-07-18T03:51:00.000-07:002016-07-18T03:51:07.391-07:00The 1869 Radical Republican Convention in MississippiThis post is number forty-four in a historical series
discussing Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn,
following the War Between the States and continues the “saga” resulting from
the Democratic victory over the Republican “reconstruction” constitution framed
during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868. That
Republican defeat meant a second election, the story of which continues
below. For earlier posts in this Alcorn-driven series, see the sidebar at the
right.<br />
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______________________________________<o:p> </o:p></div>
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With Grant’s <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/07/ah-president-ulysses-simpson-grants.html" target="_blank">betrayal of Louis Dent</a>
(albeit under duress), things were shaping up nicely for James Lusk Alcorn and
the Radical Republicans in the state, and there is little doubt in my mind that
this is how the “Regular” party leadership in Washington planned it. Both Mississippi’s
<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-participants-gather-and-plot.html" target="_blank">Radical and Conservative groups were in Washington</a> the winter of 1868-1869, and during their stay, both
sides spent time strategizing with national leaders. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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A note here for the reader: In
Mississippi, the Southern Republicans/Scalawags
under Mississippian and Confederate hero J. L. Wofford latched on to the name
of the national party—The National Union Republican Party—immediately after the
war and before the Carpetbaggers established themselves in the state. At the
national level, the name applied to the self-styled “Regulars,” the dominate
wing, more “affectionately” known to history as the Radicals. The conservative
wing of the Party was the Conservatives. So, as confusing as it appears, the
“conservatives” (Scalawags) in Mississippi were, officially, the National Union
Republican Party of Mississippi. That left the Radicals in the state with the term
“Republicans,” just the opposite of what one would think. For the sake of
clarity I will use the term Radicals or Carpetbaggers and Conservatives or Scalawags
to identify these groups. (Further muddying the waters, as of this election in
1869, the term “Conservatives” refers to the fusion group created by the
Scalawags and <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-democratic-party-and-its-quest-for.html" target="_blank">“New Departure” Democrats</a>). So, you have, in 1869, the National
Union Republican Party of Mississippi (Dent) running against the Republican
Party of Mississippi (Alcorn). <o:p> </o:p></div>
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Following the Radical <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/04/alcorn-readies-his-campaign-to-run-for.html" target="_blank"><em>Weekly Delta’s</em> 2 June 1869 “hope”</a> that James Lusk Alcorn would be considered a
likely candidate on the Republican
(Radical) ticket, Robert Alcorn called to order a meeting of the local
Republican Party (Coahoma County/Friar’s Point, and beyond, so annotated <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>because Robert was from Yalobusha County). This
local group selected Alcorn as its gubernatorial nominee for the state Republican
Party convention in Jackson scheduled for 30 September and chose Robert Alcorn as
its representative. By early August, James Alcorn was campaigning for the Radical Party and indirectly for himself as governor. He was also busy
creating a faction loyal to the national party within the state as well as to
himself and not necessarily in that order. His creation of a faction loyal to
him would have met with fewer blessings from party leadership within Mississippi.
Certainly there was mistrust. Northern Carpetbaggers within the state did not,
as a rule, want leadership invested in a Southerner, hence the snubbing of
the indigenous party leader Wofford, which led to his rallying fellow
Southerners (primarily Democrats, without whom he could have never pulled it
off) to defeat the Radical agenda in the summer of ’68. My gut feeling is that
the national party leadership in Washington, thwarted in Mississippi as it had
been, risked championing Alcorn, who had, during the winter sojourn, convinced them of the ineffectiveness
of <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/01/smoke-and-mirrors-and-civil-rights.html" target="_blank">Eggleston</a><span style="color: #ff6600;"> </span>and the threat posed by
the Scalawag Wofford, who was now aligned with and would<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-1869-mississippi-republican.html" target="_blank"> betray the Republican agenda</a> to the Democrats. [Actually is was the <span style="color: #ff6600;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-democratic-party-and-its-quest-for.html" target="_blank">“enlightened” Democrats who betrayed principle</a></span></span>, not the other way around.] Republican
Party minions<span style="color: #ff6600;"> </span>in Mississippi had already
ostracized the presumptuous Wofford, and they were no doubt wary of Alcorn. But
they could only shout out a warning, then obey. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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On 30 August, Alcorn spoke in
Hernando, Mississippi, his focus on the “Democratic Party,” a clear indication of how he
viewed the makeup of the Conservative group. He accused his counterparts of
deceiving the Negroes and attacked the Democrats as not being law abiding. He
provided “statistics” to support these charges, and I can’t help but wonder if his
were as good as the ones <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/02/fraud-intimidation-and-skewed-views-on.html" target="_blank">James Burnie Beck</a>
had brought up the previous winter before Congress, exposing Republican charges
of fraud and violence as self-aggrandizing lies and fabrications. Wanna bet the
source data was similarly derived? One month later, on 30 September, convention
delegates nominated him for governor by an overwhelming majority. R. C. Powers,
ex-United States Army, was chosen to be his lieutenant governor. Adelbert Ames
had appointed Powers as sheriff of Noxubee County earlier in his
administration. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Powers would become
governor after Alcorn arranged his own sojourn to the Senate, and all
indications are that Powers was an honest, forthright man who served well under
difficult circumstances. His subsequent castigation of the state Radicals for
corruption could support the man’s being honest. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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This convention gave the Negro a
little more consideration than the<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2015/06/making-mississippi-real-american-state.html" target="_blank"> previous one (November 1867)</a>, nominating an Indiana mulatto, the Reverend
James Lynch, for secretary of state.<span style="color: red;"> </span>The man who
would run for auditor on the Alcorn ticket was Henry<span style="color: red;"> </span>Musgrove,
another ex of the United States Army. H. R. Pease of Connecticut, again ex-U.
S. Army, filled the slot for superintendent of education. These nominations were
made in the presence of the provisional governor <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and </i>Commander of the Fourth Military District, <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/03/adelbert-ames-and-preliminary_22.html" target="_blank">General Adelbert Ames</a>. General
Ames offered Alcorn and the Republican Party his full support, and he remained
to applaud Alcorn’s acceptance speech. So much for the non-partisanship by Grant’s
military that the president had promised for the election. Oh, well, maybe the
argument could be made Ames was there in his capacity as provisional governor—pretty
lame, huh? The truth was Ames’ reward for his support was to be one of
Mississippi’s U. S. Senate slots. Yes, at a time when good, informed leadership was desperately needed for an exhausted state, a pious New England prick was to
represent the interests of agrarian Mississippi in the U. S. Senate. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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I’ll continue with the state Radical
convention next time. Thanks for reading.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 6.0in;">
Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-39303159046609667602016-07-04T03:50:00.001-07:002016-08-15T05:37:58.079-07:00Ah, President Ulysses Simpson Grant’s Feet of ClayThis post is number forty-three in a historical series discussing Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn, following the War Between the States and continues the “saga” resulting from the Democratic victory over the Republican progressive constitution framed during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868, which resulted in a second election. For earlier posts in this Alcorn-driven series, (best read in sequence from oldest to most recent), see the sidebar at the right.<br />
_______________________________<o:p> </o:p><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
The National Union Republican Party of Mississippi
was banking on <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/06/louis-dent-relevant-history_20.html" target="_blank">Louis Dent’s</a> close personal relationship with his
brother-in-law, President Grant, to carry the election. Grant had been accommodating to the Scalawag/Democratic
contingent(s) during their sojourn to Washington the previous winter and spring, then had initially given tacit support to Dent's campaign. But
as had been the case with Virginia, where <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2015/10/ah-public-education-great-unifier-of.html" target="_blank">Grant also indicated sympathies for the moderate Republicans</a>, the Radicals were not going to allow it. Remember, readers, this nominally National Union Republican Party ticket in Mississippi was actually a fusion ticket between the Scalawags and “future” <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-democratic-party-and-its-quest-for.html" target="_blank">New Departure Democrats</a>, and by August 1869, Grant’s support for it had come into doubt.
On August 10, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Clarion</i>
(Democratic Paper) reported that the president unquestioningly desired the success of the proposed
Dent ticket, though “discretion” was required due to his position (meaning he needed to keep the
good-will of his Radical handlers). But a few days later, Grant’s letter to
Dent, penned August 1, 1869, made it clear the Radicals weren’t going to stand
for discretionary silence. Grant <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">had</i>
to publicly decide for the Radicals, and he did.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;">
Dear Judge, I am thoroughly satisfied
in my own mind that the success of the so-called Conservative Republican party
in Mississippi would result in the defeat of what I believe to be the best
interests of the state and country, that I have determined to say so to you (in
writing of course). [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Of course</i>. The
Radicals wanted this made perfectly clear. Since the thing was “published,” I’m
assuming copies had been forwarded to the newspapers—in Mississippi and
elsewhere, so there would be no doubt as to where Grant stood.] I would regret
to see you run for an office and be defeated by my act; but as matters look
now, I must throw the weight of my influence in favor of the party opposed to
you. I earnestly hope that before the election there will be such concessions
on either side in Mississippi as to unite all true supporters of the
administration in support of one ticket.... <o:p> </o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
In other words, those untrustworthy Scalawags were anathema to
the “regular” Republicans and I’m now sorry you have involved yourself with
them (despite my earlier discreet support that you should do so—okay, those are
my words, but reading between the lines is pretty easy here, especially when
you add what happened in Virginia).<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;">
Dent’s response, also public, asked the
president “if it was reasonable to suppose that people having the free choice
of their representatives would elect a class of politicians whose conduct had
made them peculiarly obnoxious.” This was the charge, he said, made against the
Radicals, not because they were Northerners and ex-Union soldiers (those, he
pointed out existed in the conservative party he was to lead), but because of
their policy of proscription. He emphasized that the conservative Republicans
had been first in the state to advocate equal rights for the freedmen. “To this
group of men [the Radicals],” he concluded in his response to Grant, “whom you foiled in their
attempt to force upon the people of Mississippi the odious constitution
rejected at the ballot box, you now give the hand of fellowship, and spurn the
other class, who, accepting the invitation of the Republican party in good
faith, came <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">en masse</i> to stand upon
its platform and advocate its principles.”<o:p> </o:p></div>
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These are the public communications, the ones meant for the newspapers and the people. Who knows what private correspondence was passing between Grant and Dent. Nevertheless, I find much of interest in Dent’s response to the president.
First, it all but confirms, at least for me, my argument that the seeds of Dent’s running for
governor in Mississippi had been planted by the conservative group, Dent, and
the president back in the winter-spring while the contenders were all in
Washington hassling over the fate of the ’68 election. (see my <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-participants-gather-and-plot.html" target="_blank">8 November</a> <span style="color: #666666;">and</span> <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2015/11/president-grant-says-mississippis.html" target="_blank">25 November</a> <span style="color: #666666;">2015 </span><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #666666;">posts).<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Dent also makes note of “the other class” who had come to the
conservative party in good faith “to stand upon its platform and advocate its
principles.” This is a reference to the coalition with the “enlightened” Democrats
who have sold out party principles to return the state to the Union and get out
from under martial law no matter the cost. His reference to Grant’s role in
protecting the people from the obnoxious “constitution” which they’d rejected
the summer before is also interesting, because ratification of that same
constitution is on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">his</i> platform,
albeit with the proscription clauses now separate. But as I’ve said before,
there was more wrong with that constitution than the proscription clauses.
Fourteen months later, the “enlightened” Democrats, in tandem with the
conservative Republicans are claiming the only thing wrong with it had been the
proscription clauses, which have now been separated from it. Well, lo and
behold, if the bulk of taxpayers, who’d be paying for its programs, turned out
not to buy that bull.<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Grant’s abandonment pretty much dashed the hopes of the
conservative Republicans and their Democratic allies in Mississippi, but the Dent coalition had come too
far. The decision had been made, and they stuck with Dent (who wasn’t officially
nominated until 8 September). So, there stood the conservatives, saddled with a
man whose politics were generally unknown to the people, running on a <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-1869-mississippi-republican.html" target="_blank">platform</a>
that deviated very little with that of the Radicals and not deviating at all on
points of principle (the Fifteenth Amendment and the progressive constitution)
with the exception of proscription, and that was on a separate ballot. The executive
steering committee now set out to frame a ticket designed to appeal to the
conservative Negro voter, but lets face it, it was pretty hard to identify such
a creature. The way to do it, of course, was to invite Negro leaders to the
convention, advice echoed in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Clarion,</i>
and the conservatives followed that advice to an extent. Three Negroes were
nominated for Secretary of State and the winner was Thomas Sinclair of Copiah
County. He had few qualifications, but he is on record as the first Negro nominated for office in Mississippi. In addition to Dent as governor and
Sinclair as secretary of state, the ticket was divided up between Democrats (of
the enlightened persuasion) and Republicans. The lieutenant governor slot,
auditor, and treasurer went to ex-Union soldiers. Attorney general and
secretary of education went to native democrats.<br />
</div>
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On September 11, 1869, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Clarion</i> reported that the ticket would receive its “warmest
support, inasmuch as the triumph of the party meant the triumph of peace,
justice, and liberty.”<o:p> </o:p></div>
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I’ll start with the Radical state convention next time.
Thanks for reading,<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-89798153397431509372016-06-20T05:46:00.001-07:002016-08-15T05:27:17.868-07:00Louis Dent, a Relevant HistoryThis post is number forty-two in a historical series discussing Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn, following the War Between the States and continues the “saga” resulting from the Democratic victory over the Republican progressive constitution framed during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868, which resulted in a second election. For earlier posts in this Alcorn-driven series, see the sidebar to the right. <br />
_______________________________<o:p></o:p><br />
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In my recent post concerning the Mississippi Democratic Party, led as of 1869 by the dominant <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-democratic-party-and-its-quest-for.html" target="_blank">New Departurist faction</a>, I discussed its coalition with the Scalawags (“Southern” Republican Party) to defeat the Radical ticket in November.<br />
<blockquote>
I think referring to the Scalawags in Mississippi at this point in history as members of a “Southern” Republican Party more accurately describes their affiliation than the term faction. There were <i>two</i> Republican parties in Mississippi in 1869 and probably as early as that Republican defeat in 1868, if not before.</blockquote>
As of May, these covert allies, New Departurists/Scalawags, supposedly independent of each other, were
whispering the name of <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/05/so-what-about-those-mississippi.html" target="_blank">Louis Dent, U. S. Grant’s brother-in-law, as nominee for governor in opposition to the Radical candidate</a>. <br />
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Louis Dent was not a stranger to Mississippi, nor
Mississippi to him, but he was not well-known to the masses and the bulk of
what was known would not necessarily be judged as favorable. He had been a
government lessee of abandoned land in Coahoma County since late in the war and
had been residing in the county at the time Grant was elected president in
November of 1868. After Grant and Dent’s sister Julia moved into the White
House, Dent was invited to join them in Washington. This was where he was
residing when the conservative political leaders in Mississippi approached him
regarding his possible acceptance of the nomination for governor on the
National Union Republican Party/Scalawag ticket. It’s my gut feeling, however,
that feelers for the position had been made prior to that. <br />
<br />
Back in the early
winter of 1868-1869, when the Wofford group had followed <a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-black-and-tans-committee-of-five.html" target="_blank">the committee of sixteen</a> to thwart the latter’s efforts to have Congress vacate the Republican
defeat that past summer, Louis Dent had actively supported the Wofford
contingent with the President. What exactly that meant, I can only surmise. We
already know that Grant was sympathetic to the conservative Republicans
involved in a similar situation in Virginia, and more than likely his feelings
were much the same, without anyone else’s influence, regarding Mississippi. I
have little doubt, though, that Dent’s relationship with Mississippi and that
of the President, gave the Wofford group greater access to the President either
directly or indirectly. I’m taking a leap in assuming, at this point, that the
committee of sixteen’s inroads had been greatest with the House Reconstruction Committee
and Congress, but I’m supported in my assumption by the subsequent record of
events. Yes, the proof here is to be found in the pudding. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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Be that as it may, by July 9, 1869, when Dent officially responded
to the conservative contingent that had come to Washington to obtain his
permission to nominate him for governor at the September 1869 National Union
Republican Party (conservative Republicans/Scalawag) convention in Jackson, he
was delighted [my word] to say, “...I beg to assure you that if I can in the
least be instrumental in restoring the state of my adoption to her normal place
in the Union and securing to her a good local administration, you have
permission to use my name for any position within the gift of the National
Union Republican Party of your state.” At this point, all indications were that
Dent had the President’s support.<o:p> </o:p></div>
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Louis Dent and his little sister and brother, Julia and John
respectively, as well as their older brother Frederick, had been born and
raised on White Haven Plantation, a large slave-owning farm in Missouri’s
Little Dixie south of St. Louis. Frederick was a West Point graduate, whose roommate
had been Ulysses S. Grant. After graduation, Grant was stationed at Jefferson
Barracks, Missouri on the river and not too far from White Haven. Frederick
often invited his old college friend home and it was on the third such visit
that Grant met Julia. Grant visited often afterwards and in 1844, after,
apparently, having been asked more than once, Julia agreed to marry him. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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The men all fought in the Mexican War. Louis (and possibly
John), who fought with General Kearny (1846), did not return to Missouri at that
war’s end, but opted to remain in California. Frederick, whose military career
appeared promising, remained in the army. Grant, whose career did not, eventually left the
army, wed Julia, and settled comfortably into management of her aging father’s
plantation.<o:p> </o:p></div>
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The Dent boys, Louis and John, prospered in California. As
of 1847, Louis was in San Diego, then Monterey. He became a judge of the
California Superior Tribunal from which he resigned before 1849. In
September and October of 1849 he served as one of forty-eight delegates to
write and subsequently adopt California’s first Constitution. On 13 November of
that same year, at age 26, he was elected to the California congress. <br />
<br />
By the
early fifties, he and John had become part owners of Knight’s Ferry on the Stanislaus River in the Sierras, Mr. Knight
having managed to get himself killed in an altercation. The ferry was a very lucrative
business during gold-rush days, drawing in $500.00 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">per day</i> (this sum is from Wikipedia, and it
computes to in excess of $14,000 in today’s money. Other sources limit that to “some” days. Either way, they were doing well).
They put up a boarding house and restaurant at the ferry, then built a grist
and sawmill around 1853. They sold the property (the ferry?), and the new owner built a bridge, which put the ferry out of business. John also served
as the Indian agent for the area, and Louis ran the adjunct trading post. In
1856 these two laid out the “town” of <a href="http://www.sierracollege.edu/ejournals/jsnhb/v2n2/CoveredBridges-KF.html" target="_blank">Knight’s Ferry</a>—since there was a
great deal of construction there already, that probably means they
purchased land, divvied it up into lots and sold those lots at a profit. In
California, Louis wed the daughter of Judge Baine, late of Grenada, Mississippi
and a Whig. Of additional note, while the Dent patriarch was building White
Haven Plantation up in Missouri, two of his brothers (at least, I’m assuming
they were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dents </i>and not relations
from the female side, but Louis’ uncles either way), Benjamin and George, were
establishing residence in the then Mississippi territory. Both had apparently
moved on by the time Mississippi achieved statehood. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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So yes, Louis Dent had a connection with Mississippi of
sorts, but he himself didn’t show up in the state until after his
brother-in-law had ravaged it. Then Louis had taken advantage of the ravaged.
Given the apparently close-knit relations between Grant and his wife’s
people, I can’t help but wonder how much of what Louis acquired was done so based
on the advice/with the assistence of his sister and brother-in-law, who were in the state at the
time imposing on the locals. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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Well, someone had to enjoy the spoils of war, why not family?<o:p> </o:p></div>
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Next time I’ll discuss Grant’s subsequent failure to look
out for good ole Louis. Hint: The Devil made him do it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thanks for reading,<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-36837157289110076912016-06-09T04:11:00.000-07:002016-07-03T03:32:58.915-07:00The Democratic Party and its Quest for Legitimacy during Congressional Reconstruction This post is number forty-one in a historical series
discussing Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn,
following the War Between the States. It constitutes another break in
the series in order to bring the reader up to date as to what was happening in
the Democratic Party across the South during the timeframe that would see
Alcorn and the Radicals come to power and helps explain the context in which
Democratic-Conservative policy was being applied in Mississippi. <o:p></o:p><br />
_____________________________<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
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As stated on numerous occasions throughout this series, the
old leaders of the Democratic Party and of the Confederacy comprised the
leadership of choice among the Southern taxpayer during Presidential
Reconstruction. This was the party whose representatives elected in 1865 were
<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2014/12/james-lusk-alcorn-eliminating-delusions_29.html" target="_blank">denied their seats</a> in the Republican-held
U. S. Congress and for that reason. Matters worsened with the election of 1866, when the Northern populace
gave the Radicals, armed with their agenda for altering the Founder’s Republic
into a more “democratic” nation, majority control of Congress. In order to carry out the agenda
(there were some “loyal” state legislators left who hadn’t completely lost
their minds), it was critical that the Radicals had control of the Southern
states to ensure passage of their unconstitutional measures. In other words,
the right men had to be sent to Washington, as well as compose the Southern
legislatures, and they sure as the Dickens couldn’t be Democrats. This accounts
for the 1867 Congressional Reconstruction Acts and enactment of martial law
across the Southern states, the registration of the Negro voters/disfranchisement
of the Southern taxpayer, the progressive constitutions patterned after those
in the North and, generally, the wholesale marginalization of both the
taxpaying citizens of the South and their party of choice. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 426.0pt;">
For the Democratic Party
(self-styled Democratic-Conservatives), achieving electoral success under the
restrictions of the Reconstruction Acts resulted first in its combining forces with the Scalawags to thwart the Radical Republicans who were
rallying the Negro vote under the protection of federal bayonets. In Mississippi, this policy is seen in the 1868 defeat of the Radical ticket and the progressive constitution. <br />
<br />
In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-road-to-redemption-southern.html" target="_blank">Road to Redemption</a></i><span style="color: red;"> </span>Michael Perman states
that initially the Democratic-Conservatives believed that by employing a fusion policy with the Scalawags they could split
the Negro vote with the Radicals, a perception prevelant across the South. I had trouble coming to grips with this, because in the 1868 Mississippi campaign to defeat the Radical agenda I saw a coalition of white Southerners (Democrats/Scalawags) united to defeat white Northerners, shored up by a Negro voter base. There was no effort then to garner the black vote, at least not a dedicated one. Yet by the spring of 1869, I see the Democratic Conservatives rallying to the Scalawag ticket, not as it turns out to replicate the 1868 victory, but to support a moderate Republican candidate and a Republican platform, little better than<a href="http://loblollylog.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-1869-mississippi-republican.html" target="_blank"> the Radical one</a>. The purpose of this coalition was to defeat the Radical ticket headed by J. L. Alcorn by championing Reconstruction and siphoning off a significant portion of the Radicals’ black voters. Between the summer of 1868 and the spring of 1869, during all those visits and consultations in Washington (which no doubt included pow-wows with other displaced Democrats from all over the South...and probably the North) something had gone haywire within the Southern Democratic Party indicative of a power struggle. The efforts of 1868 and that of 1869 in Mississippi were significantly different, the change being the missing white voter who had championed the conservative call in 1868 to defeat the Radical agenda. Looks like someone figured his support wasn’t enough. But another point Perman makes is that these “enlightened” Southern leaders now perceived the evolution of a two-party system in the South based on race and class, which would have been disruptive to the social order and they would have wished to nip it in the bud.<br />
<br />
Fusing with white Scalawags and hoping for black support from that source was not the same as taking the “competitive”
approach to electioneering and wooing the Negro voter to the Democratic Party.
That required autonomous acceptance of Reconstruction.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
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This change in direction for the black vote is known as the
“New Departure,” and by 1870 it had become Democratic policy across the South. It sprang as the
brainchild of the fusion politics of 1868-1869. The new policy included
supporting passage of the Fifteenth Amendment ensuring black suffrage. This
capitulation, the leadership spouted, had to occur if the party were to survive
and if the South were to salvage any part of its fortunes. The New Departure enabled the Democrats to vie for the black vote by assuring the
Freedmen their civil rights were safe in the hands of the Democratic Party, and it also served
to assure the “national authority” that Reconstruction had worked. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;">
Just my opinion, but I figure it more likely the Democrats would have
been trying to influence the Northern populace, which was itself getting fed up
with the Radicals. Nothing would have persuaded the so-called national
authority that the Democrats were now <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">okay</i>,
because they didn’t care one way or the other. The Radicals wanted to remain the “national authority”, and they needed control in the South to do that.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
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The conservative (Bourbon) faction of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Democratic Party never committed
to the New Departure and was, in fact, opposed to it, seeing it as a fruitless
betrayal of principle since the party would not get the black vote. Why would the
Negro, entrenched with the party in power—indeed he was the power base that
kept it in power—give up his leverage to join the Democrats? This tactic, the
Bourbons claimed, operated from a position of weakness and was both degrading
and ineffective. The Bourbons correctly maintained that the interests of the
black Republicans and white Democrats were different. Rally the white vote they
said, it’s there, and forget catering to the blacks. Worse yet, the New
Departure, in the minds of the Bourbons [and me] made the Democrats willing
participants in the Republicans’ new order and cast aside
the principles of the Democratic Party, heir to the antebellum Democrats who
believed in home rule, decentralization of the Federal government,
non-interference by government in folks’ personal behavior, free
trade, and restoring local and individual autonomy. Georgia’s Alexander
Stephens said, and I paraphrase, if the country were to be redeemed, it would
be done under old-line Democrats with Jeffersonian ideas and principles. Ha! Remember, back in the day of old-line Democrats, Alexander Stephens was a <em>Whig</em>. I think his epiphany occurred back with the secession.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Nevertheless, by 1870 New
Departurists were on the ascent across the entire South [and in the North,
too, though who they targeted for membership I’m not sure, because there
wasn’t much in the way of a Negro population up there, and they’d been bestowing
early citizenship on new immigrants for decades before the war, which might explain why so many Yankees didn’t understand the concept of federalism and followed Lincoln to war]. <br />
<br />
Back on point: In the newly formulated credo of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Southern</i> New Departurist,
state rights were as dead as the right to secede and life must go on. They
needed to get the damn Yankees out of the South, and they needed the Negro vote
to do it. Campaign policy was to influence the Negro and convert him to the
Democratic Party, but not to make promises. Canvassers/campaigners were to be
honest as to motives (i.e. “We couldn’t stop your suffrage, so now we’re trying
to win your vote.”) At the same time they were to point out that the Yankees
had not fulfilled their false promises and, therefore, Democrats weren’t going
to make them any. Um, for a competitive approach, it doesn’t sound too promising
does it? Nevertheless, the Democratic-Conservatives did well in 1870, winning
elections at the state level in Georgia, Alabama, and North Carolina (and in
Texas in 1873). Victories were even more numerous everywhere at the local and
county levels where whites were in the majority or where, for whatever reason,
Republicans were weak. Oh, duh? Were they delusional on top of everything else?
Of course those factors increased the odds for victory. Wishful thinking or not,
the New Departurists in Alabama attributed this success to the black vote. Reality
struck home in Alabama two years later when participating voters returned the state to
Radical rule, but that’s a tale for another post.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Here’s another tale for a future post, or several future posts, but I
wanted to touch on it here primarily because Perman did in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Road to Redemption. </i>The Ku
Klux Klan<strong> </strong>predated the New Departure, but its activity during this time
period, Professor Perman claims, is testimony to the discord within the Democratic
Party. I think my take on what was happening might deviate a little from his,
so here’s my opinion: I never bought into the Federal and state governments
bringing the Klan to “heel.” Subsidence of Klan activity in the early ’70s
coincides with the Democratic-Conservative embarkation on the New Departure
competitive policy to expand its voter base. Reading between the lines, one
could make a case for the leadership within the Democratic-Conservatives, some
perhaps active in the Klan, attempting to “call off the dogs” in order to woo
the Negro vote. This, of course, leaves the Bourbons as the bad
guys—theoretically, they’d have been the ones promoting continued threats and violence.
Perman also points out that it was New Departurist Democrats who were giving
testimony at the Congressional hearings on the Klan during these years—they’d
had a hand in, but now couldn’t quite get a handle <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">on</i> it—if anything, they couldn’t get a handle on the Bourbons. My
point is that the schism within the party could account for the lessening of
Klan activity during this time vice its ceasing altogether. Perman further
suggests the calling off came too late. Maybe. Maybe not. I’d as quickly put my
money on those glittering Radical promises made to the Negro as I would his
residual resentment to threats and violence instigated by the Klan; another
thing I don’t buy into is black folk being as scared and helpless as they were reported to be. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
So, the Democrats
were not idle, and the party was not united in its methodology
for ousting the Republicans, but for a brief period in the early 1870s, the New
Departurists comprised the party leadership and that resulted in the
capitulation to Reconstruction and the loss of its faithful voter base. The most obvious
conclusion one could draw from this mess is that the Southern politicians of
both parties wanted power (independent of each other), and they wanted the Yankees gone. It made for strange
bedfellows, discord, and sacrifice of principle. In the end it was
the most principled of the groups (as archaic and dead as some might perceive those
principles to be, then as well as now) that ended up in power and held it for
over eighty years. Ah, but in the end, its own abuse of power and lack of
vision left the Southern Democrats vulnerable to the dark forces of the long-unprincipled
Northern Democracy, by then embracing the concept of pure democracy, which purposefully destroyed it. It was the modern national Democrats, <o:p>again under the shadow of federal bayonets, who played the major role in putting the Republicans back in power across the South. Well, at least they aren’t Carpetbaggers this time around, but I bet we can find plenty of Scalawags among ’em.</o:p><br />
<o:p></o:p><br />
<o:p><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There’s more to the New
Departurists’ story, primarily the Democratic economic policies vis-à-vis the Republican. Those I will address during the course of my Alcorn series.</span></o:p></div>
<br />
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I’ll return to Alcorn and Louis Dent next time—one of the
best examples of New Departurists’ tactics in all of Reconstruction, I imagine.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thanks for reading,<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14177267684105105969noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641473647873767935.post-64732243396326853322016-05-31T06:18:00.000-07:002016-05-31T06:18:10.856-07:00The Road to Redemption, Southern Politics, 1869-1879, An Overview on Michael Perman’s Book<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
I am rereading Michael Perman’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Road-Redemption-Southern-Politics-1869-1879/dp/0807841412" target="_blank">The Road to Redemption</a></i> for the second time and taking notes more
copiously than when I read it the first time. After a bit, I might even read it
a third time to pick up more that I might have missed—or points I failed to
give enough thought to originally, and I’m sure I’ll always use it for
reference. <br />
<o:p></o:p> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
The book was published in 1984 so it’s over thirty years old
and probably familiar to many of you, so please feel free to add comments
below. Professor Perman has now been retired a number of years from Chair of
the History Department at the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC), a position
he had yet to attain when he wrote this book. He is British, having arrived in
the United States for his graduate studies back in the mid-sixties. He earned
his masters in history at UIC and his doctorate at the University of Chicago
(1969). His area of expertise is Reconstruction and Southern politics and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Road to Redemption</i> is a detailed breakdown
of both covering the years 1869-1879. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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What I especially like about the work is the emphasis
Professor Perman places on the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">politics </i>of
the Democratic Party, vice the popular narrative to recast the malfeasance and
tyranny of Republican rule in the South during this period as a noble failure.
(Professor Perman may be unprejudiced, but he’s a proper historian. I’m a
Southerner, sure of her roots and neither a proper historian nor unprejudiced).
And the book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> about politics, after
all, not an anachronistic judgment of right and wrong vis-à-vis the new-found
(since the 1960s), and patently faux and unfair mainstream depiction of the
South’s, having been brought to heel for its great sin of slavery, now giving
birth to a new evil, racism, held in place by white terror and the ideology of
white supremacy during a Reconstruction Period inserted into the long existing
pure democracy framed by our ancestors and practiced by the superior North from
the git-go. Yes, that is sarcasm you’re reading. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
The Republican Party, of course, is addressed in the book;
we couldn’t have had Reconstruction without it. In fact, we couldn’t have
had...oh, never mind. <br />
<br />
Political faction weighs heavy in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Road to Redemption</i>. I imagine one of the things that draws a
historian interested in political parties to the South during this period is
the clear-cut divisions within the parties themselves (Republican, Radical vs
Scalawag; Democrat, New Departurist vs Bourbon; and shoot, I guess you might
even say the old-line Whigs had loose factions, leaning either toward the unprincipled
Republican Party, spawn of Northern Whigs, or leaning to the Democrats who
still gave credence to the Constitution and the Republic [this is Charlsie’s
analysis of the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whigs, not Perman’s].<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Perman applies Austin Ranney’s terms of “competitive” (promise
voters anything, seducing as many as you can into supporting you) and
“expressive” (believe in something and “don’t you potential voters even think
of joining us if you don’t believe in it, too”) found in Ranney’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Curing the Mischiefs of Faction</i>. These
are clearly marked, in both Southern parties of the day, and Professor Perman
identifies the factions as such and explains the why of the schisms. His study
covers the entire South in general (each state had its own quirks) and makes
reference to parallel events in the North as they affected the parties in the
South (and vice versa).<o:p></o:p></div>
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More than anything, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Road...</i>
is a study of the Democratic Party and its struggle for legitimacy in an
altered nation where its own principles burdened its revival. This frustration led to its sometime
fusion with the Southern Republicans (Scalawags) in an effort to thwart the
Radicals’ quest for power (but not necessarily the Radical agenda) and its
dalliance with the New Departure which advocated acceptance of Reconstruction
and the amendments to the Constitution [that desecrated federalism and formally
ended the Founders’ Republic—the brackets being indicative of me, not Perman];
and the subsequent rise of the Bourbon faction that eschewed fusion and New
Departure politics and went on to “redeem” the South, or what was left of it.
The book has a rich bibliography and copious notes, which may or may not be
appreciated by us prejudiced history lovers. Me, I like them. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It is not my purpose here to complete a synopsis of the book;
those details I anticipate folding into the narrative of future posts on
Reconstruction. This particular post is a reference point, an anchor, so to
speak. Professor Perman’s being a Brit among the teachers
up in those Yankee educational institutions is an anchor of sorts, too. I’m
comfortable with him. His objective is to explain Southern politics, not to
judge them. Further, he appears untainted by the mainstream anti-Southern/drunk-on-democracy
agenda rewriting “who we are as a nation.” Nor does he come across as
pro-Southern. He comes across as a man with an interest in a period (Reconstruction)
and a subject (politics) to which he’s devoted a great deal of study and
acquired abundant knowledge. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Thanks for reading,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Charlsie<o:p></o:p></div>
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