The 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.
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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 denied their seats 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.

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.

In Road to Redemption 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 the Radical one. 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.

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. 

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.  

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 okay, 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. 

The conservative (Bourbon) faction of  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 Whig. I think his epiphany occurred back with the secession.

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].

Back on point: In the newly formulated credo of the Southern 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. 

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 Road to Redemption. The Ku Klux Klan 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 on 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.  

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, 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.

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.

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.

Thanks for reading,

Charlsie

 

Detailing the “Black and Tan” Convention of 1868 Part 1—Republican Interlopers and Mississippi’s Taxpayers’ Money

This post is number nineteen in a historical series dealing with Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn, following the War Between the States and is the first in a subset discussing the Mississippi Constitutional Convention of 1868, known derisively as the “Black and Tan” Convention.
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As of my last post, the Mississippi taxpayer had defeated not only the “progressive” state constitution resulting from the “Black and Tan” Convention but also the Republican ticket, which would have seized control of the civil government. In the wake of their stunning defeat, the Radicals counterattacked by sending a “committee of sixteen” to Washington to compel Congress to vacate the Democratic victory and declare the Republican agenda approved. Alcorn was a member of this “committee of sixteen”. 

I skimmed over the convention that created the detested progressive constitution because James L. Alcorn did not participate in it. In retrospect, I made a mistake. The actions of the majority of delegates comprising the Mississippi Constitutional Convention of 1868 speak volumes about the dubious quality of men determined to gain control of Mississippi and in so doing clarify not only the gamble Alcorn took in aligning himself with them but also how egregious was Alcorn’s betrayal of Mississippi’s taxpayer. Before the “committee of sixteen”, there was the “committee of five”. This “committee of five” derives directly from the Constitutional Convention of 1868. Over the next several posts, I will discuss in some detail this convention’s antics and abuses in conjunction with framing Mississippi’s “new” constitution.  

To quickly rehash: The reconstruction/constitutional convention demanded under Congress’s Reconstruction Acts of 1867 was approved by a majority of registered voters in a November 1867 referendum. In the Reconstruction Acts, Congress stipulated that a “majority” of the registered voters had to agree to the convention. Failure of the measure would leave Mississippi under martial law. White Democrats strove to defeat the measure by ensuring a majority of registered voters not take part. The risk in boycotting the election lay in the winners’ determining representation at the convention. The Democrats lost their initiative by 151 votes, which assured a new constitution would be drafted primarily by Republican Radicals. (See my 9 March 2015 post below). 

The convention convened 9 January 1868 by authority of General Ord, who was, per his request, in receipt of orders to the command of the Department of California. Nevertheless, it was Ord who apportioned the convention’s 100 seats among the delegates to give the “reconstructionists” a large majority. Thirty-two of the state’s sixty one counties had Negro majorities. That’s a majority of 52 percent. However, delegates representing the Republican Party received 70 percent of the seats. I offer as evidence: At the time the apportionment was made, the state had 106,000 registered voters, which computes to one delegate for every 1100 voters. General Ord apportioned two delegates to Tippah County with 901 voters; Panola County two delegates for 1233 voters; Holmes County two delegates for 877 voters; Washington County three delegates for 2231 voters. These counties had Negro majorities. Tishomingo County (primarily white) had only two delegates for 3273 voters. 

This is the first political body in Mississippi in which the Negro participated. There were 17 black delegates (Representative James Beck from Kentucky, a token Democrat on the Congressional Reconstruction Committee and a crusader for the Southern states, later stated there were 25 Negroes at the convention), eight of whom were educated ministers, the most prominent being J. Aaron Moore of Meridian, Lauderdale County; C. W. Fitzhugh representing Wilkinson County; and T. W. Stringer, a Northerner who had come south with the Freedman’s Bureau and represented Warren County. The other black delegates were uneducated. None had held public office. 

The remaining 83 delegates were, of course, white. Roughly 20 of these delegates composed the “carpetbag” element of whom nearly all had served in the Union army during the war. Twenty-nine native Republicans composed the “scalawag” element, and there were four Northern-born Republicans who had lived in the South before the war, two of whom had served in the Confederate army. That left thirty Democrats. 

Among the more prominent ex-Union soldiers were General Beroth B. Eggleston (Ohio); Colonel A. T. Morgan (Second Wisconsin Volunteers); General H. W. Barry (Commanded a Negro regiment raised in Kentucky); General George C. McKee (an attorney from Centralia, Illinois); Major W. H. Gibbs (15th Illinois Infantry); Judge W. B. Cunningham (Pennsylvania); Captain E. J. Castello (Seventh Missouri Infantry); and Thad P. Sears. For regular readers of my blog, you will recognize the most prominent names of white Republican delegates from the Republican ticket for the summer 1868 election (see my 31 March post below). These men would remain prominent in state politics until the election of 1875 sent them scrambling back to their Northern dens. 

An individual’s never having held public office might not be considered the end of the world, but individuals partaking in a matter as important as drafting a state constitution should bring some civil experience/historical and legal knowledge to the table, and one must consider (and the agenda followed by the convention would validate) the illiterate lacked such qualifications. In regards to the ex-Union soldiers, they were not, for the most part, career army. These men had been part of militia units formed in their locales to support the war effort. They had lives before the war—some were lawyers, and we know Cunningham had been a judge. Those men would have been familiar with law, which certainly would qualify them to broach the creation of written constitutions—preferably back wherever it was they came from. And as regards the framing of constitutions, this aside should interest some: 

In anticipation of Mississippi’s drafting a new “progressive” constitution, thereby making the state “fit” for re-incorporation in the Union, the Executive Committee of the Union Republican Party (think of them as “establishment” Republicans) presented the convention with a copy of the New York Constitutional Manual, containing the constitutions of the 37 states of the Union then “constituted.” In 31 of those states, the word “white” appeared as a qualification as an elector, and of the remaining six, three had educational and property qualifications for the franchise. So let’s do a little math here. Thirty-seven states in the Union—that includes the thirteen (I’m counting Kentucky and Missouri here) that briefly made it out and were, in 1868, perceived by the North as determined to deny the Negro his vote. Shoot let’s even throw in Maryland, which didn’t make it out, but truly is a Southern state, and say the number is 14 recalcitrant “disloyal” states incapable of percieving what this nation stands for. From that, subtract the three totally democratic states with no voting restrictions at all and that leaves 20 self-righteous “loyalists” constitutions disfranchising the Negro, the poor, and the uneducated compared to 14 of the bad guys.

Upon review of the manual, the Mississippi convention resolved to set an example for the other 34 states restricting the franchise. Well, folks, as you will see, this group of dogs wrote the proverbial book on disfranchisment, but of course, what they were referring to here was the liberal enfranchising of the Negro, whose vote would keep them in power. So I ask, if they really wanted  “enlightened” constitutions in a brave, new Union, why didn’t they haul their butts back  “to wherever it was they came from” and amend their own states’ constitutions? Let me take a stab at that—how about those slots for malfeasance were already taken and the Negro vote wasn’t significant enough in those places to dislodge the incumbents. In other words, they didn’t have a prayer of grasping power back home, but with a corrupt Congress hell bent on centralization, backed by a military drunk on victory, they could have their way with Mississippi. 

In addition to the dearth of qualifications residing in the group, the majority of delegates did not own property in Mississippi and did not pay taxes, and for those of you not already aware—and the present state of the United States is all the evidence one really needs—upcoming posts will show why the fate of any city, state, or nation should not be placed in the hands of people determined to live off a system they do not pay in to.

 

Finally, the vast majority of delegates were ignorant of history—and my focus here is federalism, once the soul of our Republic. The latter alone would disqualify not only the illiterate black delegates, but the majority of white Republicans making up that “august” body, who were less ignorant of the federal system than they were opposed to it—if they considered it at all beyond their quest for power and remuneration. 

Subsequent actions indicate this group of delegates considered itself the ruling legislature of Mississippi then constituted, despite General Gillem’s repeated cautioning them that they were not. Remember, Mississippi was technically under martial law, though civil government did continue to function under General Ord’s heavy hand and later under General Gillem. This misconstrued self-perception of it’s authority under the Reconstruction Acts probably explains, in part, the convention’s abuse of its charter. Over the next 115 days, these delegates far exceeded the bounds of legislative frugality and good taste—even by that of the legislatures back in the dark lands from which they hailed. The price of their ignorance and excess was paid by an unrepresented taxpayer, already struggling to survive, much less recover, in a land laid waste by some of the very men now demanding tribute.  

Lots more coming on the “Black and Tan” Convention, thanks for reading.

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For earlier posts on Alcorn, (best read in sequence from oldest to most recent), start with  17 February 2014, 24 March, 16 April, 17 July, 24 July, 18 September, 9 October, 18 October, 5 November, 22 November, 15 December, 29 December 2014, 13 January, 24 January, 9 February, 24 February, 9 March, and 31 March 2015, all below.

 

Defying Tyranny: Mississippi Stands up to the Reconstruction Acts

This post is number seventeen in a historical series dealing with Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Lusk Alcorn, following the War Between the States and is a continuation of my 24 February post immediately below discussing the evolution of Alcorn’s activities under the Reconstruction Acts of 1867
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“I propose to vote with him; to discuss political affairs with him; to sit, if need be, in political counsel with him, and from a platform acceptable alike to him, to me, and to you, to pluck our common liberty and our common prosperity out of the jaws of inevitable ruin.” 

The reference is to the black man and is Alcorn’s most famous quote—or infamous depending on your viewpoint. At the time, among the majority of his fellow white Mississippians, it was considered “infamous”, but not necessarily for the racial extremism, which many immediately assume. Alcorn was advocating the creation of a massive voting block composed of constituents who would  support a known enemy, and what was worse, he was doing it by capitulating to a hated Congress and the patently unconstitutional Reconstruction Acts. But Alcorn maintained that the only practical course for Mississippi was to return to the Union and regain its representation in Congress. To do that meant playing the enemy’s game, and that dictated working with the Negro vice driving him into the enemy camp. 

The Republican Party held its first convention in the state of Mississippi on 10 September 1867. The body was one-third Negro and included the registrars the military government under General Ord had appointed to register the electorate and Northerners who had moved into the state, and doubtless some “progressive” white Southerners. Members endorsed the platform of the national party in supporting all the progressive political reforms of the age. All you conservatives out there who think “progressive” is a dirty word in the context of the present day—it was then, too. Progressive programs have to be managed by governmental interference and paid for with taxpayers’ dollars. Southerners had always preferred small government and low taxes. There are tradeoffs in all things. This is what the taxpayers in Mississippi (and across the South) had preferred since before statehood. If those paying into the system didn’t like it, they could campaign to change it within their state or move to a state composed of taxpayers/citizens of like minds. That is what federalism is all about. Now the state was about to be overwhelmed by a constituency, the majority of whom did not pay taxes and never had, essentially nullifying the vote of those who did, that number further weakened by the disfranchisement of those who had defended federalism. The Democratic Clarion summed up the picture succinctly—the Negro vote is in the majority and it will be controlled by a few white men. [And those white men would not, as a rule, be Mississippians or even Southerners]. 

Alcorn, of course, wanted to be one of those “few white men,” but at the time of the Republican Convention he was still holding out for “Southern” white men and his hybrid Douglas Democrat/old-Whig party. “A mixed party of unionists,” he said, can obtain for us that great remedy of all our troubles—representation.” Isn’t it funny how he’s thinking? To paraphrase: “All our problems will be solved if we can just get our representation in Congress.” He envisioned his party as autonomous, representing the interests of the state—in true Whig fashion and we would be willing to support the Radical agenda in return for concessions (removal of the cotton tax, rebuilding the levees Grant destroyed, general amnesty). Alcorn envisioned getting the South some of that taxpayer’s money those proponents of “internal improvements” in Washington were throwing around. And if any section of the country at the time needed economic support, given the devastation heaped upon it, it was the South. Even worse, the South was paying into the kitty—big time and always had. Ah, but that money had long-ago been earmarked for the Republicans’ Northern mercantilist/railroad building constituents. The South’s only role in the scheme was to pay for it. This folks is one of the South’s primary reasons for its failed secession and independence from Yankee greed, and there was enough evidence on the record that Alcorn should have been aware of this reality. Now, in his defense, he could have been thinking the South’s never getting its fair share was because those stupid, fire breathing Democrats had always stood in the way—and now he, with his “new” party, would manage to manipulate the monster in power and get “our fair share” that the Democrats had been spurning since...well, since they were Democrats. But there had been a reason for that—the South didn’t want to be like the overtaxed, government/industrialist-controlled, “progressive” North.  

Alcorn received little public support from Douglas Democrats (Hmmm...wonder how many such creatures existed in Mississippi at the time?) or even his old-Whig compatriots. Judge William Sharkey, the man elected with him in 1865 to represent Mississippi in the Senate was, in fact, shocked by Alcorn’s avowed capitulation to the Reconstruction Acts, which Sharkey considered unconstitutional and fought throughout Reconstruction—recall he led the charge in the attempt to force the Supreme Court to rule on their constitutionality (see my 9 February post below). And I won’t even have to make guesses as to the reaction of those fire-breathing Democrats on the acceptance of Negro suffrage. They opposed it. 

Alcorn had yet to take that last step—joining the Republican Party. That would mean sleeping with the enemy and proved his path of last resort. In defense of him and his hybrid “unionist” party, the forces of tyranny were working fast and he was running out of time to convince his fellow Mississippians as to the need to throw federalism under the “stagecoach” shall we say.  

With General Ord’s completion of registering the electorate in September, he announced an election to the people of the state as to whether they wished to form a civil government (that would be to replace the perfectly good one he had removed) or to remain under military authority without representation in Congress. A new civil government meant the people were voting for a new constitution and, by default, representatives to the constitutional convention. Ord scheduled the election for the second Tuesday in November 1867. Passage of the initiative required the approval of a majority of registered voters. On 15 October a group calling itself the Constitutional Union Men met in Jackson and asked their fellow Mississippians who opposed the Reconstruction Acts to sit out this election, thereby defeating a call for a new constitution under the guidelines of the Reconstruction Acts. It would also leave Mississippi under martial law. This Alcorn diametrically opposed, being he was confident representation in Congress would alleviate “all our woes.” The majority of white Southerners did indeed sit out this election, but a majority of registered voters (by a slim margin of 151 voters casting ballots) did vote for a new civil government, deciding yes, there would be a new constitution and choosing the delegates who would write it. 

According to Alcorn’s biographer Lillian Pereyra it was a good constitution, but then she wasn’t a taxpaying Mississippian confronted with a document that represented the kind of government he despised—tax-draining and rife with the potential of malfeasance and graft and all under the guise of general welfare. Y’all do know the Confederate government removed the “general-welfare” clause from its constitution, don’t you? And for the very reason that the federal government, from which it tried to extricate itself, applied “general welfare” loosely to waste taxpayers dollars on issues requiring powers not delegated to it—its own expansion, in other words—all under the euphemism of “public good.”  

The constitutional convention met in early December 1867. In Reconstruction in Mississippi James Garner states that the native whites’ decision to sit out the election proved bad in that members of the newly established Republican Party formed the bulk of the delegates to the convention. I’m not convinced, however, that the Constitutional Union men did not realize that potential from the start, but may have regarded their non-participation as the only possible chance they had for averting a progressive constitution. Under the Reconstruction Acts, the new constitution had to be a “republican” one. Well, Mississippi had a republican constitution at the time Ord showed up. Had had one, in fact, since 1817 when it entered the Union. What the term meant under the Reconstruction Acts was that the new constitution would be “republican” as Congress determined “republican” to be—spell it with a capital “R” and you’ve got the picture—a progressive “Republican” constitution, which Congress, per the Reconstruction Acts, would approve.  

-The new constitution eliminated all distinctions of color, property, and education as requirements of citizenship

 

-It forbade the legislature from pledging the state’s credit

 

-It extended the powers of the governor

 

-It increased salaries

-It made additions to the roster of state officials (this is progress in action, folks): a lieutenant governor, a superintendent of education, commissioners of agriculture and immigration, a board of equalization, state and district printers, special treasury agents (I’m assuming state), and triple the number of judges 

The new constitution “governed” more in contrast to the state’s historical preference for Jacksonian politics, and here’s the real crux—it cost more, much more, and we are talking about a state whose economy had been and remained devastated—and did not and would not, even after that “manna” of representation was realized—receive federal dollars to offset the obscene costs this piece of legislation forced upon it. People who are struggling to get back to a point where they know some degree of comfort and freedom from worry do not want their taxes raised to pay for unneeded civil servants—“loyal,” no less, to an enemy who has rendered them to their present impoverished condition. And let me add this for those of you unfamiliar with the history of Reconstruction—the books and desks and paper, pencils, and blackboards, etc. etc. required for public education and all those printing presses and ink and paper the anticipated Republican legislature granted to itself would be purchased from the North at top dollar. Add to that the increase in public jobs, in tandem with salaries and Mississippi would sink deeper and deeper into the red hole she was already struggling to get out of, and all this would be carried out without the input of those who had to pay for it. Yes, one must take into account that perhaps these people did prefer martial law to that kind of usurpation. 

So I would argue that participation in the election would have made no difference. The taxpaying Mississippian may have been represented at the constitutional convention, but if his input were even reflected in the document, it would not have passed Congress. Nevertheless, the tactic had failed. The Democratic Union Men’s next attempt would be, despite the seemingly insurmountable impediments placed upon them, to defeat ratification of the new constitution as well as the Republican ticket when they were placed before the people of the state the following summer.   

And on the 10th of July 1868 they did. 

It was a shock for both parties, and I imagine that in the once hallowed halls of the nation’s Capitol, now permeated with the foul stench of tyranny, one could have heard a pin drop. But the Republican Party in Mississippi would not be deterred for long. What happened next is classic in the annals of human tyranny, its finesse pathetic—probably because the petty dictators didn’t realize beforehand they would need a back-up plan.  

And, sad to say, Alcorn was part of it. 

Next time and thanks for reading. 

Charlsie

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In addition to this post on Alcorn and the one sighted in my introduction above, see 17 February, 24 March, 16 April, 17 July, 24 July, 18 September, 9 October, 18 October, 5 November, 22 November, 15 December, 29 December 2014 and  13 January, 24 January, and 9 February 2015 posts below, best read in sequence from oldest to most recent.

 

 

 

 

Alcorn and the Reconstruction Acts, Pragmatism over Principle

This post is number sixteen in a historical series dealing with Mississippi’s Whig/Reconstruction senator and governor, James Lusk Alcorn. In the three posts prior to this one (see my 13 and 24 January and 9 February 2015 posts below), I described to the reader the situation in Mississippi (and the South in general) immediately following its surrender to Federal forces and the growing battle between President Johnson and Congress over the course Reconstruction would take.  Johnson’s defeat led to enactment of the Reconstruction Acts across the South. In this post I return to the subject of Alcorn proper, picking up the thread from the fall of 1866 after the unrepresented South had rejected ratification of the egregious Fourteenth Amendment. Congress reacted by sweeping away civil government and imposing martial law.

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From the time he got wind of the Fourteenth Amendment (probably December 1865 when he was in Washington), Alcorn linked Mississippi’s readmission to the Union to its ratification. Indeed, there was a bill in Congress that spring (1866) that would have assured the South’s reentering the Union in return for ratification. The bill died in Congress that summer (but the requirement did not). Alcorn believed that readmission and representation (the two were actually one) were prerequisites for peace, order, and prosperity, and he was willing to sacrifice principle to do business with the devil himself to obtain them. By the devil himself, I refer to the Radical Congress, not the Negro, but by virtue of the voting booth, the black man provided the potential for advancing the Radical cause. White Southerners considered that power illegitimate (which it was), but Alcorn warned in November of 1866 the Negro would get the vote anyway, and it would be better “to align him with us than against us” (I’m paraphrasing here). 

Under the Reconstruction Acts (which were also unconstitutional), Congress imposed martial law across the South. General E. O. C. Ord assumed command of the Fourth Military District (Mississippi and Arkansas with headquarters in Vicksburg) on 26 March 1867. In reporting the general’s initial inspection of the state in company with Governor Humphreys, the editor of the Jackson Clarion made reference to the general’s wartime record as that of a soldier doing his duty, and the man indicated no “spirit of revenge” in his present position.  

General Ord was a native of Maryland and a West Point graduate. He was familiar with Mississippi. He’d been Sherman’s right wing at Corinth and his left at Jackson. He’d been present at the surrender of Vicksburg. If you want my opinion, Ord should have been concerned with thoughts of revenge, but not his own. Truth was though the people of Mississippi were apprehensive about the introduction of martial law, as any people should be; civil servants were concerned with their jobs, and Mississippi wanted no problems with the unwarranted military presence. 

Ord initially dispelled concerns over civil positions—as long as everything was in keeping with the Reconstruction Acts—so give him a little time, in the meanwhile everyone “continue to come to work” (again I’m paraphrasing). What it boiled down to (initially) was that vacancies would be filled by “loyal” citizens. In time “disloyal” citizens would be removed from positions of public trust for “failure to do impartial justice to persons accused of crime”. Such vacancies would eventually be filled with “loyal” citizens. General Ord was the arbiter of what constituted a “disloyal” citizen—or what was considered “impartial justice”—which when expanded, translated to saying anything against the Reconstruction Acts.  

To ensure change of personnel was in keeping with said Acts, no incumbencies were to be filled until the electorate was registered—but Ord did made appointments before elections were held. I’m guessing these were “temporary” to keep the wheels of civil government turning, and numbered 71, which was more than there were vacancies, so he expanded the number of “loyal” civil servants. In his defense he removed only eight “disloyal” incumbents, but that number included all the municipal officers in Vicksburg in the summer of 1867. (The removal of all civil servants did not occur until the one-month “reign” of General McDowell in the summer of 1868, which I will address in a later post).

Other than the dubious role of “establishing order” in Mississippi (see my 24 January post below on how ludicrous that argument was), General Ord’s objective was to register the electorate—that meant registering the “loyal” citizens and ensuring “disloyal” citizens were denied the franchise. The focus, of course, was ensuring the Freedman’s voice was heard at the ballot box and the ex-Confederate’s was not. Apparently “loyalty” was defined in the negative as “not having taken up arms against the United States government” (unless you were a slave under duress, of course). It had nothing to do with “professed” loyalty to the United States, but rather “never having been disloyal.”  

The oath was restrictive by design to ensure a significant number of Southern white males could not take it without perjuring themselves. Ord vacillated between allowing these men to commit perjury and having the registrar report them for subsequent prosecution or having the registrar determine whether they would or would not be registered on the spot (the registrars were all “loyal” citizens, of course). General of the Army, Ulysses S. Grant, resolved the issue by “suggesting” the registrar make the determination. And just for the record—a presidential pardon did not remove the encumbrance of having raised arms against the United States.  

Reality struck home in September of 1867 when registration was complete. Thirty-three of Mississippi’s sixty-one counties had Negro majorities, meaning 60,167 Negro voters had been registered against 46,636 whites. My brief research indicates that ten to twenty percent of the white male population was disfranchised due to their service to the Confederacy, but there’s a big difference between ten and twenty percent—like doubled, duh, but even if the high figure is taken and an additional 9328 voters added to the rolls, the Negro was still in the majority. The fact had to be faced that Congress would take Mississippi’s political affairs from her taxpayers and hand them to ex-slaves and Northern strangers who’d invaded the state and knew nothing of its values and history nor cared for its welfare—oh, but they would prove so adept at spending other people’s hard-earned and pathetically sparse money. 

While Ord busied himself with restoring order and registering the electorate that summer of 1867, Alcorn was busy devising a plan for survival in the face of this new reality. In Memphis he spoke to a group of mostly Old Whigs and the unaffiliated and emphasized the need for Southern political parties and their sharing the Negro vote. This he said would preclude a white party and a separate black party controlled by white Northerners. He envisioned his old Democratic nemesis vying for power with a new party made up of Douglas Democrats and Whigs—or what once were Whigs—but something other than Republicans. They would divide the Negro vote between them (probably much like they once vied for the votes of “lesser” whites in ante-bellum days). [You know, in a way that’s what happened in the first two decades after Reconstruction ended and we’d rid ourselves of the Yankee contagion: Democratic candidates courted the Negro vote across the South. Then right before the turn of the century they figured it was easier to exclude the black vote altogether.] 

On the eighth of August (before the count of registrants was completed), Alcorn published a pamphlet titled the Views of the Honorable J. L. Alcorn on the Political Situation of Mississippi. In it, he addressed the Negro majorities shown from the registrations in Tennessee, Alabama, and Louisiana and emphasized the situation was going to be the same in Mississippi. The electorate formed under the Reconstruction Acts would determine the governor, the legislature, and the courts, and this situation would be sustained by military force for who knew how long. The only way to fight it he said was by “using our brains.” He denigrated the wide-spread belief that the Negro would be influenced by his former master as “bullshit” (that’s my word, not Alcorn’s) and used the example of Governor Brownlow’s election in Tennessee to refute that delusion. The Negro majority, he warned, would fall under the influence of the Republican Radicals.  

In Views of the Honorable..., Alcorn pointed out Congress’ partisanship. Still stumping his hybrid Douglas Democrat-Whig Party, he argued that more moderate/non-Radical Republicans feared too close an association with those men who professed advancement of the colored race, that they feared Negro suffrage would adversely affect them with their constituents.  

I am toying with the thought that maybe Alcorn himself is a bit delusional here. Granted he was a lot closer to the problem than I am, but I’m not sure if northern Republicans were worried about Negro suffrage damaging them or if he was thinking they should be, because he had to be thinking the same thing in regards to his own stance on that subject. Yes, vocal demands in their own districts might hurt them, but it’s the summer of 1867 and the elections of 1866 are over—and the Northern electorate has told its bulldogs to sic ’em (that meaning the South) by packing Congress with anti-Johnson Radicals. Of course, Alcorn might have simply been trying to convince the people of Mississippi his plan (his new party) still had a chance, and he wanted the opportunity to try no matter how bleak its chances. 

He goes on to say that the Republicans could not afford two parties in the South and would welcome white support in politics, since to his way of thinking, the Radicals in the North were a loose cannon which would all too soon have to be bolted down (or pushed overboard). Personally, I think he was betting too much, too soon on moderate Republicans. He was, in fact, prescient—that is exactly what happened to the Republican Party in the South—it split between the Radicals and moderates (torn asunder by the weight of its own corruption is how I like to think of it). In the meantime he stated for all Mississippians to hear—and the majority didn’t like what they heard—that he was prepared to ask terms from the Radicals. 

Alcorn wasn’t the only Mississippian who was, at least, considering pragmatism over principle. Representation in Congress was a siren’s call, and other respected men such as A.G. Brown (Democratic governor and U.S. Senator who served in the Confederate Senate); Ethelbert Barksdale (Democratic leader and editor of the Jackson Clarion); Judges J.W. Watson (Confederate senator from Mississippi) and J.A.P. Campbell (Chief-Justice of Mississippi, member of the original Confederate Congress, and signer of the Confederate Constitution. He fought for the Confederacy and was severely wounded in battle, and after the war, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the United States); Alcorn’s old Whig lawyer friends William Yerger and Wiley P. Harris; John J. McRae (ex-Democratic governor); and Fulton Anderson (Whig and member of the Confederate Congress)—an odd mix of Whigs and Democrats, secessionists and non-secessionists, those who openly served the Confederacy and those who did not—all supported getting control of the Negro vote before the Republicans did. So, this was not a bunch of scalawags looking to exploit the conditions for personal gain and power. They were weighing options to offset the evil permeating the North. Reading between the lines, and given the records of the handful of men cited above, they were no doubt buying time, believing that representation in Congress would give them the leverage to later right their world. But how do you right the world as they knew it by destroying federalism, which is what the Fourteenth Amendment ultimately did? Still, given all the illegalities and unconstitutional gymnastics Congress was forced to employ thanks to the intransigence of the Southern states in resisting ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, believers in state rights today can hold out hope that a great statesman will reappear and wage a successful battle to nullify the damn thing—the legal grounds are there.  

To conclude this post, note that some of the men cited above became members of the state “reconstruction club” which supported quiet acquiescence to, not advocacy of, reconstruction. Like Alcorn, this “reconstruction club” also referenced securing “terms” from the Radicals. 

I’m sorry, but to “secure terms from” or “offer terms to” anyone—don’t you need to possess something the other party wants and be in a position to withhold it? The South had nothing to offer the Radicals they weren’t already taking for themselves, and there was no legal way to stop them—the Northern electorate had ensured that.  

Men such as those who made up the Radical Republicans during those dark days provide some modicum of consolation when one considers there might really be a hell, but I’d be content just to hear them excoriated as the traitors that they are.  

Things will get lots worse before they get better. Thanks for reading and more to come. 

Charlsie

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In addition to this post on Alcorn and the two sighted in my prologue above, see 17 February, 24 March, 16 April, 17 July, 24 July, 18 September, 9 October, 18 October, 5 November, 22 November, 15 December, 29 December 2014 and  13 January 2015 below, best read in sequence from oldest to most recent..

 

 

  

 

Congress and Judicial Review of the Reconstruction Acts in Mississippi

This short post is number fifteen in a historical review of Mississippi’s Whig/Reconstruction senator and governor J. L. Alcorn and my third overview of the enactment of the Reconstruction Acts in Mississippi (see my 13 and 24 January 2015 posts below). I will pick up with Alcorn proper and his actions within this federally-mandated setting (1866-1867) in my next post.

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The Southern states’ rejection of the unconstitutional Fourteenth Amendment in the summer of 1866, in tandem with the North’s validation of the Radical Republican agenda in Congressional elections that fall, provided the Radicals the leverage they needed to assume their coveted desire to dictate Reconstruction. The Southern civil governments which had been operating effectively for more than a year were swept away and martial law established across the South. Private law remained fundamentally unchanged, but the military commanders were vested to modify or supersede it at their discretion. But the main role of the district commanders—and this is oh so telling—was to maintain order, register a new electorate (which for the most part enfranchised the non-taxpayer and disfranchised the taxpayer), and direct the movement for the reestablishment of “republican” government. Make that “Republican” government and you’ve got the true picture. Mississippi and the other Southern states had had republican governments since statehood. They’d never been constitutionally challenged nor should they have been.  

Under martial law, the district military commanders had absolute authority over life, liberty, and property, except that death sentences had to be approved by the president. 

The Radicals now argued that with the Southern states’ attempt to withdraw from the Union and in waging war against the United States (read that “in defending itself against Northern aggression”) it had forfeited its status as states. This despite the fact they’d nullified their ordinances of secession a year earlier. James Garner in his 1901 Reconstruction in Mississippi stated the Boutwell committee (creator of the Reconstruction Acts, see my 24 January post below) might have hit closer to the mark by claiming the Southern states had forfeited their right to be viewed as states if there was anything in the Constitution about a class of states not being equal to the original states. And what pray tell would give Congress the right to define such status? So after one post-war year operating as states, Congress decided the Southern states were not states—and used as its primary arbiter the fact that Congress had yet to guarantee the states that “Republican” form of government.  

Now, the only recourse the South had was through the courts. The state of Mississippi applied to the Supreme Court for an injunction against President Johnson and the district commander arguing that the state had nullified the articles of secession approved by a portion of the population; that the state had always been a member of the Federal Union (wasn’t that the administration’s argument all the time?) and there was nothing in the Constitution that gave Congress the authority to expel a state from the Union.  

I feel compelled to share this with my readers: Upon learning of the above cited injunction put forth by Judge Sharkey and Robert J. Walker, The Jackson Clarion expressed its offense thusly calling the argument “...a plea of not guilty to an act which is unjustly alleged to be a crime, and which all the world knows the state did deliberately commit....” I can just see Judge Sharkey pulling his hair out by this time, but The Clarion’s concern primarily seemed to be for Jefferson Davis who was still in prison for the “crime” of treason.  

In the injunction, Sharkey and Walker further maintained that President Johnson was being coerced to institute martial law by Congress and the decision belonged in the court not with the executive. The Supreme Court refused to file the bill on the grounds that for reasons of expediency and policy, the president should not be interfered with by the courts in performance of his duties. No opinion was expressed as to the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts. 

Now the South decided to shoot a little lower on the totem pole. Mississippi filed an injunction in conjunction with a joint bill (Georgia vs Stanton), against the Secretary of War (Stanton), the General of the Army (Grant), and in Mississippi’s case, the Commander of the Fourth District (General Ord). In this case the Supreme Court said it held no jurisdiction over the subject matter in the bill and deemed it unimportant to examine the question as it respected jurisdiction over the parties defendant. The matter was deemed political vice dealing with persons or property. I beg your pardon? Political? This was a “political” issue? Yeah, it was a political issue all right, on the part of Congress and the Supreme Court, but not for the South. Like I’ve said in my earlier posts, tyranny reigned. So, this whole matter—the question really being the constitutionality of the actions taken by Congress as a result of the Reconstruction Acts—was not reviewed by the Supreme Court of the United States. 

But soon after, the district commander arrested one William McCardle, a Vicksburg newspaper publisher, for circulating “incendiary” articles regarding Reconstruction. After the Circuit Court of the Southern District of Mississippi sent him back into custody under the Reconstruction Acts, he invoked habeas corpus, and it looked like the Supreme Court was actually gonna have to look at it. It would have been a great win for the Radicals, but truth is, they were afraid the Court’s looking at McCardle’s case would undo the Reconstruction Acts in their entirety, so they withdrew McCardle’s case from appellate review, exercising the powers granted to Congress under Article III Section 2 of the Constitution. Needless to say, the South challenged the move which had appeared so promising in forcing the Supreme Court to actually look at the Reconstruction Acts, which anyone with half a brain knew to be unconstitutional. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court upheld Congress’ right to pull the case under the “exceptions clause”. Here it is y’all, the exceptions clause: 

“In all other cases before mentioned the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. 

So Congress made the “exception”. You all realize that Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln’s erstwhile, rabid abolitionist and egomaniacal Secretary of the Treasury was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court when all these nonsensical rulings in favor of Radical tyranny were being made, don’t you? Anyone other than me wonder who directed Congress how to get out of the mess it had gotten itself into with McCardle—and got himself off the hook? 

The way was now clear for the coup de grace—passage of the Fourteenth Amendment.

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For earlier posts on Alcorn, best read in sequence from oldest to most recent, see 17 February, 24 March, 16 April, 17 July, 24 July, 18 September, 9 October, 18 October, 5 November, 22 November, 15 December, and 29 December 2014.

Congress Lays the Groundwork for the Reconstruction Acts

This post is number fourteen in a historical review of Mississippi’s J. L. Alcorn, Union Whig/Republican governor and senator during Reconstruction. For earlier posts on Alcorn, best read in sequence from oldest to most recent, see 17 February, 24 March, 16 April, 17 July, 24 July, 18 September, 9 October, 18 October, 5 November, 22 November, 15 December, 29 December 2014 and  13 January 2015 below.

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This post continues to detail the measures the Republican Congress took, starting in 1866, to mold the recalcitrant Southern states into ones supportive of an agenda that was upside down and backwards to everything their taxpayers believed in—state rights and free market. The course was in violation of the Constitution, for the transformation of our Founders’ Federal Republic into that of a democratic republic was absolutely imperative for the triumph of The American System. Not only were the changes proposed to the Constitution unconstitutional, so ultimately was the legislative process by which the egregious Fourteenth Amendment was “declared” part of the Constitution. Being a life-long Whig, Alcorn accepted this perversion of the Founders Republic as the result of military defeat not that of treason enacted by a military supported congressional coup. The result of said defeat would be more palatable to this Southerner if the victors had acknowledged it for what it was, but even today—or even more so today—one has to listen to the glorification of the poetic lines of the Gettysburg address  

...that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. 

as gospel, knowing full well that they did die in vain, at least when it came to that part about government of the people, by the people, for the people. Indeed, the glorified dead Lincoln honored played the most significant role in enabling its demise. Lincoln’s words were more appropriate for the other side. 

Let me now jump off my soapbox and return to the fall of 1866 following the South’s rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment and look at some of the measures Congress took to “correct” Southern obstinacy. 

Before approving the civil governments set up by the rebellious states, President Johnson asked for the input of three individuals who crisscrossed the entire South to ascertain conditions within the occupied states and recommend to him whether the war-torn states were ready to govern themselves. 

General U. S. Grant advised that the people were ready to return to loyalty within the Union and get on with restructuring their daily lives. He advised that white troops needed to be moved into the area since the black troops there encouraged vagrancy by advising the freedman not to go back to the plantation to find work. He further stated that if the North truly desired reconciliation, the Southerner should not be humiliated. 

German-born Brigadier General Carl Schurz reported that the Southern people had reorganized their governments and were yielding to the laws and the Constitution. [The South never...oh, never mind.] They were repairing the devastation from the war, and they were trying to move on with their lives. There was some disorder, but this disappeared with the spread of civil law. 

Mr. Charles Truman, a civilian, presented the most positive picture stating he believed the disbanded Confederate regiments would prove the South’s primary base for recovery and reconstruction. I’m not sure if I should read between the lines here and assume Mr. Truman is implying the South should just write the freedman off, or what. He did say that the freedman was well treated—and I’d maintain that on the whole he not only was, but always had been. Mr. Truman also stated that, contrary to reports, Northerners were not being abused. 

So there was not much ground in President Johnson’s committee report for overturning those civil governments that had been operating effectively for a year or more. But from that point on, Congress no longer needed grounds to interfere in the workings of a state, but it did feel compelled to legitimize its destruction of federalism in the United States. Legitimization lay in the Fourteenth Amendment.  

The South had already provided the likes of Massachusetts representative George S. Boutwell with the Black Code—a vagrancy law intended to gain some kind of control over a vagrant population in excess of 100,000 men, women, and children (see my 29 December post). The Black Code looked too much like the old slave code to satisfy the abolitionists. Actually, I think Mississippi probably copied that Black Code from Illinois, or another of several Northern state codes. [Okay, perhaps I’m being unfair. Those Northern states had probably based their Black Codes on the old slave codes, too, so the source is all the same, and in defense of those Northern states they did repeal theirs when forced to by ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment. Still again, the South had a legitimate vagrancy problem, the North’s double standard resulted from a determination it never would.]  

But back to Congress. To get the Fourteenth Amendment passed, it didn’t need Illinois, Indiana, or Michigan per se. It had all it needed right there in the South. All it had to do was replace the recalcitrant legislatures with more amenable ones—much easier there than in the victorious North. That would be accomplished by the Reconstruction Acts spearheaded by the Honorable Mr. Boutwell. Actually, he spearheaded more that that, but that’s for later posts. 

Criticizing the reports provided by President Johnson’s commissioners [He found particular fault with the findings of General Grant—the same man who would shortly make Boutwell his Secretary of the Treasury.], Boutwell set up a national inquest under authority of investigating violations of the Thirteenth Amendment. Boutwell did not give any reasons for rejecting the President’s report, except that he didn’t like it. 

The Congressional committee was composed of five men, only one of whom was a democrat. Boutwell summoned the witnesses he wanted to Washington. No member of the committee visited Mississippi and no member of the Southern party (that would be Democratic, I assume—but not necessarily a Southern democrat) was allowed to cross examine the chosen witnesses. Additionally, no democrats were questioned, and only two citizens of Mississippi were interviewed, ex-provisional governor Sharkey and Judge R. A. Hill from Tishomingo County, a respected jurist and pre-war Whig much on the order of governor Sharkey. Other witnesses included three major generals of the United States army, one brigadier, one captain of colored troops, one Treasury agent, one revenue agent, and one representative of a New England cotton manufacturing company, a Mr. Warren Kelsey. 

The committee stated to the “interviewees” that it was looking for signs of returning loyalty on the part of the people of Mississippi—after all, their rejection of the unconstitutional Fourteenth Amendment certainly was not indicative of what the Radicals, waiting to welcome the South back with open arms, had been expecting. [And please tell me what loyalty had to do with violations of the Thirteenth Amendment?] General Edward Hatch told the committee that except for the northeast part of the state [For all y’all who do not know, that’s where Tishomingo County is.], there was little loyalty to be found and few manifestations of good feeling toward the government. General B.H. Grierson, famous for his raid through Mississippi during the Vicksburg campaign, thought there was an organization in the South planning to renew the rebellion. He based this on the formation of historical societies designed to consolidate everything that could be found documenting the rise and fall of the Confederacy and the service of its soldiers. Grierson's and the committee’s real fault with such societies was that the recording (and remembering) of Yankee depredations in the state was not conducive to “loyalty.” Another of these individuals expressed the belief that “Mississippi was the least loyal of any state in the South.” [Are we to assume he’d visited all the states and was, therefore, qualified to discuss them all?]  

J. H. Matthews and Warren Kelsey stated the freedman was worse off than in the days of slavery. No kidding, Sherlock, and who, given that the South was occupied by the United States army, the vast majority of whom were black, and the freedman refused to find work despite the effort being supervised by the “benevolent” Federal Freedman’s Bureau, was to blame for that? This group also said that Northern men were not well received in the South and surmised if not for the presence of Federal troops they could possibly meet with violence. Well, I could surmise that might be deservedly true, but there’s not much a legislature can do to force a ravaged people to like self-righteous, plunder-seeking interlopers who should have kept their butts at home, nor is that reasonable dislike a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment. 

General Fisk expressed “shock” that the only regrets he’d heard the defeated Confederates confess was that they had, indeed, been defeated, and A. P. Dillingham reported speaking to a rebel general who preferred Jeff Davis to Lincoln. Now that’s  pretty strong dislike of Lincoln, because Davis wasn’t popular at the time—yes, I’m poking fun, but Davis really wasn’t popular at the time, but he hadn’t made a mockery of our Founders’ Constitution to destroy anyone—remember, he just wanted to be left alone.  

The people of the state of Mississippi, who these individuals maligned, had taken the oath to uphold the Constitution which they had, in truth, never violated. That was the real problem—by their rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment, they continued to uphold the Constitution, which the Radicals wished put asunder. But that wasn’t enough. On top of that, they were expected to spit on their flag and the graves of their sons, fathers, and their innocents, dead as a direct result of unwarranted aggression. This was shown in the disdain that Boutwell’s committee displayed for Mississippi’s voters electing Confederate General Humphreys to the governorship. A man who had fought a hateful enemy as opposed to one who had turned his head as the enemy ravaged the state. 

Boutwell’s committee reported that the states lately in secession were in a state of anarchy without government or constitution. In fact, they had both. Even when the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered more than a year earlier, they had a civil government. On top of that, both the new civil governments and their validating constitutions had been blessed by President Johnson just that past December.  

The committee further reported that Congress could not recognize as valid the elections which took place under those conditions. Funny they were recognized well enough when that hot bed of tyranny forwarded the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to them for ratification. [In both cases, passage by the Senate was in clear violation of Article V of the Constitution.] Bet there wouldn’t have been a peep made had the states done what Congress “directed.” 

And lastly, Congress couldn’t recognize the representatives of communities without said communities providing constitutional guarantees of the civil rights of all citizens of the Republic. Really? There was no legislation then in existence defining what a citizen was. The black man was free, but he wasn’t a citizen in the South and most other places. And, in my opinion that is not a determination Congress should ever constitutionally be allowed to make. That right belongs with the states, but even though today Congress has been allowed to get away with that usurpation via the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment had not been ratified in the summer of 1866, nor could Mississippi and the rest of the South be held punitively liable for it had they passed it that summer in conflict with the new constitutions they’d passed in the fall of 1865—it would have been an ex post facto law—another unconstitutional fact shadowing Boutwell’s “kangaroo” proceedings. 

There was, according to the committee, no protection from claims founded in the rebellion (the Confederate debts had been repudiated) nor had those who’d participated in the rebellion been excluded from positions of public trust—another article in the Fourteenth Amendment, which the Southern legislatures had not ratified and would have been an ex post facto requirement even if they had. 

I will break this post here before delving into the Southern states’ attempts to force a judicial review of what Boutwell’s committee would shortly thereafter instigate as the Reconstruction Acts. This post is getting too long, and I don’t want to lose you. Suffice it to say that Boutwell’s report was accepted by Congress as “an absolutely truthful picture of the Southern states” at the time and proved the basis for Congressional Reconstruction.  

Thanks once again for reading,

Charlsie