So, what was that effort in July 1868 really for?

This post is number thirty-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 victory over the Republican “reconstruction” constitution framed during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868. For earlier posts in this Alcorn-driven series, (best read in sequence from oldest to most recent), start with 17 February, 24 March, 16 April, 17 July, 24 July, 18 September, 9 October, 23 October, 5 November, 22 November, 15 December, 29 December 2014, 13 January, 24 January, 9 February, 24 February, 9 March, 31 March, 8 May, 10 June, 30 June, 3 August, 30 August , 13 September, 27 September, 11 October, 25 October 2015, 8 November, 25 November, 14 December, 27 December 2015, 18 January, 1 February, and 20 February 2016.
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Here I wrap up the known workings, with some opinions regarding the “unknown” workings, in Washington that would lead to the subsequent ratification of the progressive, Republican Constitution already rejected by the Mississippi taxpayer in tandem with the relatively brief, but calamitous period of Radical Republican rule in Mississippi.

Justification for the Butler Bill having been effectively rebuked by James Beck of Kentucky (see my 20 February post), John F. Farnsworth, a representative from Illinois and member of the Reconstruction Committee, offered that the commanding general should resubmit the constitution to a vote with the objectionable clauses (proscription of Confederates) separate and if said clauses were defeated, then remove them from the constitution. Halbert Paine of Wisconsin offered another change to the bill—that being to first offer the constitution as a whole, then with the obnoxious clauses removed. This revised version passed 125-25 and Butler’s bill was sent to the Senate.

 

Mr. Farnsworth’s version also suggested that judges and chancellors at the voting booths should be elected by the people. (Though I do appreciate the sentiment, wouldn’t that mean another election before the election—neither of which the state could afford?) And a bigger question is why? The people of Mississippi had already rejected the constitution and everyone knew the proscription clauses were one of the primary reasons. This was not a secret.  

[Want my very opinionated opinion? Regardless, I’ll share it. The Radicals had to have another election to get the lion’s share of that awful progressive constitution passed and in force and the state back in the Union under Republican control. This took priority over their minions’ extreme proscription clauses, which were more important to the minions at the state level than the Radicals at the national level, the latter satisfied with the tyranny inherent in the Fourteenth Amendment. Mississippi under martial law, which the people had already said they preferred to that progressive constitution, was not an option for the Radicals—nor apparently for the Democratic leadership/conservative Republicans, who perceived some value in being back in the Union and under the “protection of the Constitution.” Yeah, I don’t know what the Democrats were basing that on, because most everything worth protecting had already been lost, and what wasn’t they were willing to sacrifice in return for the elimination of those proscriptive clauses and—this is a very important and—bringing Mississippi back into the Union—hence, agreeing to another election.

Let me emphasize, these Democrats were the men who had seized the reigns of the Democratic Party in the wake of defeat—the bulk of the old leadership impotent. Though many names were not new, those now in power were those who were willing to make some effort to adjust to the new order. They did not necessarily appreciate the stubborn will of the people they thought they represented and, as time progressed, proved a little too accepting of the “new order” for their constituents’ tastes. But as of the spring of 1869, the impact of their acquiescence has yet to be recognized by the majority outside the old leadership. On the other side, the Radicals in Washington, eager for a second go at ratification and a Republican victory in Mississippi, cast their minions in theater under the carriage wheels on the proscription issue. But here are two important points worth noting. Though the powers that be appear to have sold out the Radicals in Mississippi on the proscription clauses and refused to support them in their November 1868 goon-like declaration that the progressive constitution had been ratified and the Republican ticket elected, the national Republican leadership was hard at work securing both. They got rid of the old commander of the Fourth Military District, General Gillem, who repeatedly thwarted the schemes proposed by the Radicals in Mississippi under the Reconstruction Acts, and replaced him with Ben Butler's son-in-law, Adelbert Ames. Then Congress called for the vacating of all civil positions in the state (recall this was one of the Mississippi Republican’s biggest demands—they wanted those govenment jobs and all the blessings of malfeasance that came with them).

As the district military commander (not to mention he was still the provisional governor at that time), Ames had full authority to choose the registrars for the upcoming election, which would once again decide the fate of the Republican ticket and the already rejected constitution. In other words, Mississippi’s taxpayers (many of whom subsequently would not be allowed to vote) would be forced to hold election after election until the Radical Congress in Washington got the results it wanted, and James Lusk Alcorn was part of the committee of sixteen orchestrating all this with Congress behind the scenes. The objective was to nullify the Democratic victory in July 1868—under seemingly legal conditions.  The failure of the national Repubican leadership to honor the Mississippi Radicals in their November 1868 delaration of victory was mere lip service. Such tyranny needed to be handled with a bit more finesse (covertly)—especially in the face of so much wrong doing exposed by James Beck. As will be seen, the Radicals achieved it.] 

In the Senate, Oliver Hazard Perry Throck Morton, tyrannical ex-war governor from Indiana who emulated Lincoln in his abuse of executive authority—in his case against Indiana’s Democratic legislature—and blessed Indiana with a war it should have never fought—tied the readmission of the then three remaining, unreconstructed states (Texas, Virginia, and Mississippi) to their ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. Lyman Trumbull, senator from Illinois and chairman of the senate judiciary committee, argued the requirement was a breech of faith at this point. Trumbull was, in my opinion, a breech of faith in and of himself, but I really don’t see what difference it would have made. Perhaps there was a fear at this time that the moderate Republicans (nominally supported by the Democrats), vice the “regular” Republicans (Radicals) would win the day. Did Morton think the nation might fail to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment as suggested by Butler’s earlier warning about failure to pass the Fifteenth Amendment in conjunction with the loss of six Northern states? Maybe so. The Democrats might be leaning toward the more conservative candidates as a place to cast their ballots, but the only way for the Democrats to thwart the state’s ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment would be to win the election, which, of course, they’d already done, effectively torpedoing the Radicals’ hopes for the Fifteenth Amendment, but leaving Mississippi outside the Union, problematic for the conservative Republicans and Democratic leadership in Mississippi (and the South). But this “spirit of capitulation/acceptance” will raise its ugly head again in future posts. No matter, the requirement regarding ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment passed the Senate 30-20.  

Eventually, the revised Butler bill, modeled on the amended Farnsworth substitute, with the Fifteenth Amendment tacked on, authorized President Grant to submit the proposed reconstruction constitutions for Mississippi, Virginia, and Texas to their people and at the same time submit for separate vote such provisions as he might choose (again, that refers to the proscription clauses in Mississippi and Virginia). An adjunct to the revised Butler bill was that the commanding general was empowered to suspend all laws that he might deem unjust and oppressive—with the President’s concurrence. In the case of Mississippi, that is a reference to the poll tax established in support of the indigent and other debt collection laws, which the Republicans deemed unjust. Hmmm, wonder if Ames gave any thought to reviewing the convention’s taxation scheme promulgated to pay for the Black and Tan Convention?

Whatever. Mississippi’s fate was now, nominally, in the hands of her people and the President, and the Fourth Military District in the hands of Adelbert Ames. I’ll begin my next post with an overview of Ames’ military rule, much of which—again I’m forcing my unsolicited opinion on you to accept or reject as you will—was carried out to ensure a Republican victory in Mississippi the second time around, a victory which the Radicals further believed would prove more palatable to the people by having Mississippi’s own James Lusk Alcorn on the ticket for governor.

Thanks for reading,

Charlsie

James Burnie Beck: Prelude to Countering the Butler Bill

This post is number thirty-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 “reconstruction” constitution framed during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868. For earlier posts in this Alcorn-driven series, (best read in sequence from oldest to most recent), start with 17 February, 24 March, 16 April, 17 July, 24 July, 18 September, 9 October, 23 October, 5 November, 22 November, 15 December, 29 December 2014, 13 January, 24 January, 9 February, 24 February, 9 March, 31 March, 8 May, 10 June, 30 June, 3 August, 30 August , 13 September, 27 September, 11 October, 25 October 2015, 8 November, 25 November 2015, 14 December, 27 December 2015, and 18 January 2016.
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The Honorable James Burnie Beck was a native of Scotland who came to the United States when he was sixteen. As of age twenty-one (1843), he had made Lexington, Kentucky his home. He studied law and was a law partner of John C. Breckenridge, future U.S. vice president and Confederate General. In the fall of 1866 his neighbors in Kentucky chose Beck to represent them in the 40th Congress (March 1867-March 1869). He was immediately chosen to serve as one of two token Democrats on the House’s reconstruction committee. It is suspected the Radicals considered the junior congressman would give them little opposition on the committee.  

Here, recall my imaginary musing on what Senator Conkling of New York thought of the Radicals in the House? This whole thing with Beck may support that thought. Why would they assume Beck wouldn’t be a problem? Even today the two houses look at the background of who they allow to take their seats—I mean, really, they’d made a premium of such perusal since 1866, so House Republicans had to have been aware of who Beck had partnered law with? Of course, the other possibility is Beck ended up on the committee in return for a democratic favor—they still do things like that today, too. That would imply, of course, that the Democrats knew what the man was capable of. For whatever reason he ended up where he did, James Burnie Beck was one of the few bright stars that lit up the Southern sky during this darkest of nights. He served Kentucky well, too, through four successive Congresses. In 1876, the Kentucky legislature elected him to the Senate and then it elected him again—he died in office in 1890. James Beck’s speech on the floor of the U.S. House rebutting the Butler Bill provides an excellent understanding of what the Radicals in Mississippi were perpetrating and is the primary source for James Garner’s presentation of these events in Reconstruction in Mississippi. I’ll hit the highpoints here. Gee, I love Google, and I love James Burnie Beck. 

Now we know there had to be some debate of Butler’s Bill at the committee level, so Beck’s speech is for the benefit of the entire House, not Butler, who had already heard Beck’s arguments. 

On the House floor, James Beck stated he was resigned Mississippi’s constitutional convention would be reassembled, though he was against it. He believed, simply, that the obnoxious clauses should be removed and the commanding general should resubmit the constitution to the people for ratification.* Beck then drew Benjamin Butler in with two simple, proposed amendments to the latter’s bill. Those were that the President of the United States, that being Grant, be the person responsible for appointing the provisional governor for the state of Mississippi as well as the registrars and judges for the election. That was no more than what the other Southern states readmitted to the Union under the Reconstruction Acts had received, he said, and Grant, who was a Republican and, therefore, their man, was certainly as capable of appointing a governor as President Andrew Johnson, who the Radicals opposed, had been.   

Beck went into all the reasons why the Mississippi Constitutional Convention could not be trusted for the appointment. I have already elaborated on the convention’s abuses and attempted usurpations of the commanding general’s authority—Beck’s speech was, in fact, the primary source, so I’m not going to rehash them here. For a refresher, see my posts of 8 May 2015, 10 June 2015, and 30 June 2015. My primary reason for this particular post is to counter the accusations of white Southern intimidation and fraud against the freedmen being the reason the Republicans lost the July 1868 election. Ku Klux Klan terror and intimidation today are as quickly cited (by rote) as the reason for the failure of the noble struggle for civil rights during Reconstruction as slavery is cited as the cause of the war. Reconstruction, in the form of civil rights, failed because there wasn’t the first damn thing noble about it or the men perpetrating it. Reconstruction as the bane of our Founder’s Republic, the destroyer of that concept of limited government and sovereign states, did not fail. It accomplished exactly what it’s perpetrators wanted it to—the Reconstruction of the Republic, the skewing of the relationship between the states and the federal government, and you can bet the men perpetrating that metamorphosis didn’t care a bit more about civil rights than the Klan did, if for different reasons.

In response to Butler’s support of the bill, which if you recall, granted omnipotent authority to the president of the Reconstruction Convention in the state, Beck pointed out that in July of 1868 there was scarce doubt on the part of any member of the House Reconstruction Committee that the proposed constitution and the Republican ticket had been fairly defeated by the people of Mississippi. What doubts there were (or hopes I should say in speaking of the Radicals) of fraud and intimidation, General Gillem’s report quickly dispelled. What Butler was proposing was basically the Bingham Bill of the past summer, and Beck told the House, as he’d told it eight months earlier, the Bingham Bill puts the people of Mississippi and her property in the hands of men who had perpetrated a fraud and a lie, not only at the state level, but in Congress—before the Reconstruction Committee, no less, because in December of 1868, when this group first showed up, everyone on the committee knew they were lying. Beck points out that if Butler had been on the committee in December, he wouldn’t be standing on the floor, pushing this bill. I think Beck was being gracious. Butler was in the House when Bingham’s Bill was submitted; he spoke in favor of it—he didn’t vote one way or the other. Now, here they are, eight months later, and Butler is pushing a bill which, at least as regards Mississippi, duplicates the Bingham Bill. 

Beck elaborated on the abuses of the progressive constitution—primarily the proscription clauses, and he emphasized my pet peeve regarding the proscription. The bulk of the people disfranchised were the state’s taxpayers. And in regards to proscription, that constitution went over and beyond the requirements set forth in the 14th amendment, denying ex-Confederates not only the right to hold office, but also the vote into perpetuity. It further denied the right of the U.S. Congress to ever remove the disability (unless of course the Mississippi Radicals requested they do it, but I would think once the Radicals had control and their constitution in force, they wouldn’t need Congress to “bless” anyone. Of course, if you had a democratic administration in ten years, and a democrat wanting his encumbrances removed, and a Republican legislature/governor in Mississippi, they could just say “no” and Congress would have no say. This, of course, is all oxymoronic supposition because that Republican Congress was striving for complete subordination of the states and wasn’t about to cede that power to anyone, including its minions in Mississippi. This brings us back around to Mississippi’s Republican Party being in the hands of “idiots.”  Beck’s purpose in all this was pointing out the fallacy of putting the fate of Mississippi in the hands of such men by exposing their true character. This he did in tearing apart their allegations of fraud and intimidation against the Freedmen. Next time. 

Thanks for reading,

Charlsie

*I footnoted that point on proscription, because it highlights an observation that is becoming more and more obvious as we move through Reconstruction, that being the compromises being made by the Democratic leadership at the expense of principle. There was a lot more wrong with Mississippi’s Constitution than the proscription clauses (i.e. increase in civil offices, increase in executive powers, progressive programs to be funded at taxpayer expense, taxpayer funding of private initiatives, just to highlight a few). The rank and file that busted a gut to defeat that constitution in the summer of 1868 knew that, and they knew a vote against it meant continuation of martial law, which was, I must assume in their mind, preferable to representation in an unconstitutional Union. But now it begins to appear that the Democratic “leadership” across the South (not just Mississippi), desperate to return to the Union in hopes of votes in Congress and the end of military rule, is now willing to cast principle to the wind (along with the Cause its people sacrificed so much for). I will return to this thought later, because such concessions by the Democratic Party leadership will come back to bite them in the butt in a couple of years.

 

Smoke and Mirrors and Civil Rights During Reconstruction

This post is number thirty-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. For earlier posts in this Alcorn-driven series, (best read in sequence from oldest to most recent), start with 17 February, 24 March, 16 April, 17 July, 24 July, 18 September, 9 October, 23 October, 5 November, 22 November, 15 December, 29 December 2014, 13 January, 24 January, 9 February, 24 February, 9 March, 31 March, 8 May, 10 June, 30 June, 3 August, 30 August , 13 September, 27 September, 11 October, 25 October 2015, 8 November, 25 November 2015, 14 December, and 27 December 2015.
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When last we looked at the 41st Congress and the “Mississippi question” before it, Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts and James Burnie Beck of Kentucky were in debate on the House floor over the “Butler Bill” and its proposed methodology for returning Mississippi to the new, revised United States.  

Beck’s argument kept the issue churning for days. The stated reason for Congress’ creation of first the Joint Committee on Reconstruction back in 1865 with the 39th Congress and the House Select Committee on Reconstruction during the next two Congresses was to ascertain the conditions in the former insurrectionary states and to ensure the protection of life and property within them. That was all smoke and mirrors designed to allow a Republican Congress to get control of Reconstruction and leave itself in a position to dictate to the Southern states, to ensure loyal “Republican” administrations within those states, and guarantee the presence of “loyal” representatives in both the U.S. House and Senate which they would use to mold the entire United States into their vision of what it, in their opinion, should be. Certainly the election of such loyal individuals would not happen if the Confederate taxpayer had control of his state, and the easiest, perhaps the only way, to wrest control from those people was to manifest the aforementioned threat to life and property in the region, thereby justifying Federal interference (martial law). 

I will not rehash Southern resistance to using government funds for internal improvements and the high tariffs required to generate those funds (Henry Clay’s American System). I’ve covered them extensively throughout this series. I also won’t elaborate more at this time on the Republican and/or New England Utopian plan to make the conquered South the proving ground for a new, enlightened, United States. That again would be beating a dead horse. Suffice it to say, Southerners resisted both. Social experimentation has never been a Southern thing and when it came to taxpayer funding internal improvements, the South still had a war to recover from and bigger priorities than progressive programs. Yet the Republican interlopers poised to take control of the Southern states were determined both would happen and the Southern taxpayer would fund them. To get control, the Republicans needed the freedman’s vote.  

The elephant in the room was civil rights, which tied directly to Republican votes. Civil rights is not one of the responsibilities the Founders gave to the central government. The former colonies did, however, insist on state rights. Civil rights, in fact, wasn’t even a big issue at the time of the founding, and what issues there were fell under the purview of the states. The states wouldn’t have had it any other way and would not have ratified the Constitution.

 

Moving forward through the decades, one sees the developing misuse/abuse of the general welfare clause in the Constitution’s preamble—and the oblique attack on those resisting that abuse—that being on the South through its slave-based economy. By the eighty year mark, Utopians, who by their own admission believed the Constitution unfit to govern the nation, assumed all citizens should have access to all services and rights including the vote, and those rights (to include the definition of a citizen) should be dictated by the central government over the will of all the states. Teaming up with the zealots were the more pragmatic and greedy who recognized the potential of Republican hegemony in the South (or all over for that matter)—think of Ben Butler as an example. Also, and probably most ruthless of all, were those shady industialists (beneficiaries to the American System) pulling the strings of their political puppets in Washington.

For the Republicans in the South, the right to vote loomed greatest of all, because they planned for the Negro vote to keep them in power. The Radicals had no qualms in denying the Confederate taxpayer his “civil rights,” however, so ask someone like me what she thinks of those expounding on “civil rights” during that period. Those who supported the Confederacy and believed small, local government best identified the needs of those footing the bill had again become ex post facto traitors, continuing their treachery by not embracing this post-Constitutional concept of “civil rights.”  

Southerners knew how things were in the pre-war South and they knew how matters stood in 1868. They’d never had a reason to concern themselves much with “civil rights” because they hadn’t created an environment requiring a need. Now they were faced with not only the excesses of funding internal improvements, but also with managing the baggage that accompanied the unwanted expenditures, and a few white interlopers intended to enforce it—by ensuring heretofore unneeded “civil rights” for a voting block they have just defined as citizens in need of civil rights—all in overt violation of the Constitution.  

One day soon I’m going to start a study on the effects of all this anti-Constitutional civil rights legislation in the Northern legislatures, because it was a problem. But those states were in a better position to fight back—their electors hadn’t been mucked with for one thing—they could still vote the dogs out—hence Butler’s reference to losing six Northern states.

Ah, but let’s not forget that with the Southern legislatures in the hands of puppets, and their illegal Congressional delegations “loyal,” the traitors fomenting this skewed concept of the United States were permanently altering the Constitution, and the Northern states might not have had the numbers to stop it, even if they’d wanted. 

A non-issue for individual states had been made an issue and, as the Radicals tried to sell it, it was an issue to be resolved by a benign [sarcasm intended], yet all-powerful central government, which had proven, by force of arms that the Union was inviolable. That same government would from this point enforce the principles of...what? Oh, yeah, The Declaration of Independence while ignoring the charter that had brought it into existence. It was a government composed of a cabal of men, who cared nothing for the Constitution, who were, in fact, hostile to it, but were willing to twist, manipulate, pervert, and subsequently permanently alter it in order to do lip service to it and keep themselves in power.

The role of the House’s Select Committee on Reconstruction was to justify congressional interference in those recalcitrant states refusing to “move toward the light.” Interference required justification. Fair elections did not justify interference, so, in the wake of the Senate’s tabling the Bingham Bill on 27 July 1868, the committee of five, back home in Mississippi, decided to make that 10 July 1868 conservative victory one which had been achieved by fraud and intimidation of the freedmen.

Now, let’s go back to the summer of 1868 and expound on the voter numbers again. Then I’ll weigh those numbers against charges of fraud and intimidation that no longer just echo through the past century and a half, but for all intents and purposes shout the truth down.

The “progressive” Republican state constitution was rejected, 63,860 votes against, 56,231 votes for. Four of the five members elected to Congress were Democrats. All the Republican nominees had been Northern, and George C. McKee was the only Republican winner. Humphreys defeated Eggleston by 8000 votes and in the state legislature, 66 of the 138 chosen were democrats, and there were 12 Negroes elected, one was a state senator, the Reverend Stringer of Vicksburg.

From the figures given, one surmises that 120,091 votes were cast. As of September 1867, General Ord had registered 106, 803 voters of which the majority, 60,167 were Negro, leaving 46,636 whites. As of November, when the decision for a new constitutional convention was required of the citizens, there were 139, 327 registered voters of which 76,016 actually cast a vote. Of those, 69,739 voted for a convention (and thereby a new constitution). Recall that the democrats sat out that election hoping that the requirement set by the U.S. Congress that the majority of “registered” voters must opt for a convention. This accounts for the large number of votes not cast.

Now in the summer of 1868, 120,091 votes were cast (meaning the Democrats were back in the game) and roughly 17,000 more votes than there were white voters registered as of the past November had voted down the new Constitution (and the Republican ticket). Well, of course it must have been fraud and intimidation—except that the 56,000+ votes for the Constitution would account for all but roughly 4,000 votes from the Negro population. So the brutal Democrats were only able to intimidate seven percent of the registered Negroes. Of course, this is all absurd. Truth is, many of those 56,000 votes were other white voters—many of whom were interlopers who didn’t have a vested interest in Mississippi, but others who did. And many of those near 64,000 votes who rejected the new Constitution were black, they had to have been.

That fraud and intimidation occurred, I would not argue, but fraud and intimidation went both ways. Threats allegedly attributed to the Democrats were: Threats of job loss (Hmmm—labor was in pretty big demand, so even if a man lost his job, a new one would have been available the next county over. Now, if he were working for his old master on the plantation he was born and raised on, he might not want to be put off, but for that very reason—he liked his home and people—he voluntarily voted along with the old master, anyway); visits by the “Klan” (there was the “Klan” and then there was the “Klan” and then there were “threats” made by, and more likely “on behalf” of the Klan by those not Klan); ostracism by the “white” community (that would have worried only those who had a vested interest in the “white” community I would think, and those whites would have been Republican or, again, the old folks with whom they would have voted freely). But, tongue now out-of-cheek, those threats may have swayed a few votes, but the Negro was in the majority and the U.S. army was all over the state in force and under the thumbs of Republican interlopers who were themselves active in every black community. To say that threats of the Klan, job loss, or rejection by whites accounted for the sway of the circumspect 17,000 votes is bullshit. Besides, ostracism and threats of job loss are “boilerplate” when it comes to crying “fraud” in elections.

Additionally, there were threats made by the other side to those considering voting against the proposed “progressive” constitution: For example, if the Negro didn’t vote Republican, the Northern populace would allow the white Southerners to oppress them or even return them to slavery; and the following threat was reported to have come out of the Fourth Military District: The offender would be led to Vicksburg in chains and sold back into slavery in Cuba. Such threats coming out of the Republicans or their Grand Army of the Republic phalanx is evidence that they did not have control over every Negro in Mississippi, some of whom were quite capable of thinking for themselves and others who were still under the influence of former masters—and you know that had to have frosted their Republican “saviors” and colored their approach to the Negro voter. But I maintain that was a lot of folk to be bullied into voting the way either party wished. More than likely, many of those votes were simply bought [quite probably on both sides].

Stage now set for the civil rights boogieman and its application to the House Select Committee on Reconstruction and the Butler Bill, I will, with my next post, return to the House floor in the spring of 1869.

Thanks for reading,

Charlsie

 

 

 

Behind the Scenes and Butler’s Bill

This post is number thirty-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 Democrats’ victory over the Republican “reconstruction” constitution framed during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868. For earlier posts in this Alcorn-driven series, (best read in sequence from oldest to most recent), start with 17 February, 24 March, 16 April, 17 July, 24 July, 18 September, 9 October, 23 October, 5 November, 22 November, 15 December, 29 December 2014, 13 January, 24 January, 9 February, 24 February, 9 March, 31 March, 8 May, 10 June, 30 June, 3 August, 30 August , 13 September, 27 September, 11 October, 25 October 2015, 8 November, 25 November 2015, and 14 December 1015.

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This post continues discussion on the bill Benjamin Butler, chairman of the House Committee on Reconstruction, introduced in the spring of 1869 to bring Mississippi back into the loving arms of the Union (yes, that is sarcasm you hear in my words). Butler’s bill authorized the Mississippi constitutional convention to be reassembled upon the call of the president of the convention. If the president hadn’t called the convention back into session within thirty days, the commanding general (that would be Adelbert Ames, Butler’s son-in-law) would do so. At the time this bill was sent to the House, the president of Mississippi’s constitutional convention (Alston Maggot—oh, I do apologize, I’m letting my true feelings show again—that should read Alston Mygatt) was in town lobbying to have the rejected constitution declared in force and would have been only too happy to reconvene the convention. Under the Butler Bill, the reassembled convention was to have the power to appoint a provisional governor and remove and appoint registrars and judges of the election.

 

Excuse me? Where did those powers—once exclusive to the commanding general—come from? Mine is a rhetorical question, and I will here share my educated guess. On the surface it would appear they originated the previous summer with Bingham’s bill, but these are the very powers the constitutional convention presumed to usurp from General Gillem during the winter/spring of 1868 while framing the constitution. The change wouldn’t have made much difference with Ames, the Radical’s man, now the commanding general, as well as the provisional governor, but it is telling. 

And why the devil did Grant give Ames command of the Fourth Military District to begin with? You are not going to convince me it was an independent decision on his part. This takes us back to Ames’ appointment as provisional governor by General McDowell during the latter’s one-month tenure as commander of the Fourth District.  

Succinctly put, Butler’s Bill meant turning over control of Mississippi to the Black and Tan Convention, and that’s where control would remain, even if the people of Mississippi defeated the constitution again and again and again. And if they ratified the constitution—power would still be with that same group. Passage of the Butler Bill meant no way out. Butler’s heavy-handed prejudice in deferring to the convention hierarchy is indicative of overt tyranny that, it would seem, the man didn’t believe he needed to disguise. The other thing that’s interesting to note here is that when the 40th Congress closed on 4 March 1869, Ben Butler was not on the House Committee for Reconstruction. Two weeks later, he’s not only on the committee, he’s chairing it. The Massachusetts contingent had been switched out. The proof is in the pudding, folks. Butler had been part of that wheeling and dealing that winter meant to resolve the reentry of Mississippi, Virginia, and Texas on terms favorable to the Radicals. 

Henry L. Dawes, Butler’s colleague in the House and also from Massachusetts, is on record for saying he’d as soon leave the choice of the warden of the state prison at Charlestown to the convicts as to leave the choice of provisional governor of Mississippi to the Mississippi Reconstruction Convention. (It was the constitutional convention, but players were pretty much one and the same, so why split hairs?) Dawes was a conservative Republican, not a Radical. Not only that, but in Butler’s bill, the same constitution—irrespective of the proscriptive clauses—was to be presented to the people. This meant that the Mississippi constitutional convention of 1868 would have full control of all registrars—no other input required—and Butler’s son-in-law would be the commanding general should military support be required (or desired) during the election. As said earlier, the election was to be repeated exactly as before, only this time the scenario would be “orchestrated” to ensure the constitutional convention achieved the results it desired. 

James B. Beck, the Democratic Representative from Kentucky referenced above, took the floor and argued that President Grant appoint the provisional governor for Mississippi. It is at this juncture that Butler takes the time, apparently for the benefit of his fellow Republicans, like the skeptical Dawes, because the Democrats surely already had it figured out, to explain his rational for bestowing so much power in the constitutional convention: He said, and I paraphrase, that the president of the Mississippi Reconstruction convention (Eggleston), who had been the Republican candidate for governor in Mississippi, would now appoint himself governor. As he’d taken the surrender of Atlanta, so he’d accept the surrender of Mississippi. Butler called the act merely good politics to accept the radical schemes. If you don’t reconstruct Mississippi, he continued, you can’t get the loyal legislature and consequently two “loyal” senators. Without those two “loyal” senators you can’t pass the Fifteenth Amendment and you lose six Northern states. Okay, Dawes probably had it figured out, too, but he wouldn’t have been particularly in favor of radical schemes. 

This is all so telling and dovetails nicely with my thoughts on the Radicals being in trouble in the North and determined to maintain control in the South (and hence overall). The other thing is Butler—what the devil was his motivation? Greed would be my guess. He’d been a Democrat during the course of his political life. Now he was a Republican working hand in hand with the Radicals, but from his reference to the Radicals in the paragraph above, he clearly didn’t consider himself a Radical. There were rumors at the time discussed in my narrative he would return to the Democratic Party, so one must surmise it wasn’t ideology driving the man. I have little doubt that his son-in-law’s being the commanding general of the Fourth Military District as well as the provisional governor of Mississippi piqued his interest regarding events in Mississippi—or maybe the reverse is true, and he got Adelbert the job in order to further a preexisting interest. His subsequently finagling his way into the chair of the reconstruction committee testifies to his power, influence, and the corruption of all. 

Representative Beck countered that the President in his appointment of the provisional governor would ensure a free and fair election, and that the Mississippi constitutional convention would permit neither.

I’d like to elaborate further on the Butler Bill and James Beck’s rebuttal on the House floor next time. In lieu of Butler’s frank reasoning (or arrogant dearth of discretion, if you’d rather), the debate is particularly enlightening and does much to explain the insurmountable (and unsubstantiated) allegations of fraud, persecution, and sundry atrocities that continue to be attributed to the white Southerner over the past century and a half regarding electioneering in the post-war South. 

Thanks for reading, 

Charlsie