Myths: The Union, The War, and The Lost Cause

This is my second post prompted by the application of the Lost Cause myth to the Newt Knight/Free State of Jones legend recently claimed by some with a political agenda and represents my counter thoughts to those presented  in Victoria Bynam’s The Free State of Jones and Sally Jenkins and Paul Stauffers’ State of Jones. I address the issue in support of my conviction that we Southerners should be reading, writing, and teaching Southern history, not to mention making movies of our own. 

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One who gives credence to Daniel Webster believes the Union predated the states. What, you might ask? Yes, well, that’s what our Southern ancestors thought, too, when they heard that foolishness. But Webster had to do something to debunk the validity of state rights, and that was less violent than what Lincoln did. [Don’t forget, however, that Webster wrote the Force Bill promulgating a federal military attack on South Carolina in 1833. I figure Webster would have approved of Lincoln.]

Now take Webster’s imaginative recast of history in tandem with William T. Sherman’s words in an 1864 missive to a subordinate in Huntsville, Alabama on dealing with Southern “treason” and intransigence against the United States government at whose pleasure the South even existed:

For my part, I believe that this war is the result of false political doctrine, for which we are all as a people responsible, viz: That any and every people has a right to self-government...In this belief, while I assert for our Government the highest military prerogatives, I am willing to bear in patience that political nonsense of...State Rights, freedom of conscience, freedom of press, and other such trash as have deluded the Southern people into war, anarchy, bloodshed, and the foulest crimes that have disgraced any time or any people.

Yeah, old war-is-hell Billy was a true patriot all right—a real supporter and defender of the Constitution. Then there was Charles Sumner’s stated belief “promulgated” during Congressional Reconstruction that the only rights the states had were those Congress blessed them with. Excuse me? Yes, it was Southern intransigence that provoked his revealing himself, but that arrogant, self-righteous traitor to the very concept of the republic was referring to all the states. Then there was Thaddeus Stevens (Pennsylvania), speaking, also during Reconstruction, to defeated Confederate general Richard Taylor (Louisiana), stating that the Constitution needed to be discarded; it was not a fit document to govern the nation. Well, the Radicals didn’t discard the Constitution, they desecrated it instead.

And we in the South didn’t know what we were fighting for against thugs such as those?

Just as a writer of historical fiction justifies her use of an anachronistic word using the yard-stick of a its having been in general usage for twenty years prior to its first appearance in the dictionary, the layman or woman should be forthright enough to consider the political opinions of such men had been floating around for some time before the South threw in the towel and said she’d had enough working with those undermining the basic tenants of our federal system (state sovereignty/limited federal supremacy). Extrapolating, anti-Southern encroachments harkened back to the 1830s—and that’s provable—all a forthright layperson has to do is pick up a history book. Alas, fewer and fewer indulge in such informed opinion now, but I would be willing to bet my Southern ancestors were very aware of this perfidious attitude spawned by self-aggrandizing economics, which required centralization to accomplish and maintain. This is the crop sown by Hamilton, tilled by Henry Clay, and fertilized with American blood by Lincoln’s Republicans. We’re reaping the results now. Next comes plowing under the fallow fields, a wasteland of lost liberty—eclipsing a Lost Cause.

Both Bynum’s work and the Jenkins-Stauffer book on the Newt Knight legend make much ado about the Jones County unionists, particularly Jesse Collins, who I would agree was a unionist—such as he thought a “unionist” was. It’s just my opinion, but what Jesse Collins wanted was the status quo that existed before the South seceded, which he didn’t have once Northern aggression forced an oft-resisted centralization of the Confederate government in its effort to survive invasion.  

Davis had problems with his governors, not just Piney Woods farmers, the latter being a more direct problem for the governors than they were to Richmond. Anyone who has studied the history of this period—or history period—knows this. People at war often balk at the demands of their beleaguered government. The people of the Confederacy sure weren’t the first, and before it was all over, their government was under extreme duress, so, therefore, were its citizens. As a people they remained loyal to their government, particularly when faced with the hated alternative. And rest assured that alternative was hated and rightly so. Those comprising the alternative had just proven how evil they really were and things weren't going to improve for a long, long time. Given the nature of how Southern history is taught these days (or rather not taught), the Bynums, the Jenkinses, the Stauffers, and the Gary Rosses now making up the bulk of mainstream historians/media are taking the opportunity to try and persuade a Southern populace, who they assume to be ignorant until enlightened by them, to piss on their ancestors’ graves. All assumption aside, why would anyone worthy of respect—or whose respect we would aspire to gain—do such a thing? The only people more reprehensible are Southerners who buy off on these pied pipers and actually do it. That’s not to say the acceptance of facts when confronted with incontrovertible evidence should be considered sacrilege. We did lose the war after all, and there are a number of valid reasons for it—but Southern treachery falls too far down the list to be relevant. These subversives, however, would have Southerners believe otherwise. Worse, they portray men, whose feet of clay have long been regarded by Southerners with contempt, as American patriots. Historical studies identifying mistakes and even suggesting blame, where possible, should not be considered disloyalty to the Southern Cause, but critical self-analysis and the study of lessons learned are a good light-year away from sleeping with the enemy. That’s what the mainstream today is demanding Southerners do in order to become true Americans. Count among today’s mainstream many of our own Southern leaders; that is, after all, what they are doing.

In my opinion, Jessie Collins couldn’t see the forest for the trees. On page 49 of their book, Jenkins and Stauffer inserted a ditty:

I’m de po’ folks’ lan’ with my miles of sand,

and my cottonwoods moan and groan,

An’ I’m gonna stay free from hills to the sea and

my forest are all my own.

The authors maintain the ballad supports the regional pride and independence of the poor whites in the region of Jones County and surrounds. I agree. Now tell me how in Hades anyone can deduce loyalty to Lincoln’s Union out of that? What we have today is the absolute last thing those folks would have wanted. If they were here, vice their great-greats...they’d still be in the swamps. What the “federal union” resulting from ratification of the Constitution gave Collins and his neighbors was freedom from government and for seven decades state government stood as a bulwark against federal overreach. Secession—in tandem with all-out war waged against the state(s)—changed that. The interference on the part of the Confederate government, the government Collins forsook, was the direct result of unwarranted war waged against the South. His hatred of the Confederacy [which I suspect had more to do with partisan alignments within his county itself, divided along the lines of those actually working for the government (collecting taxes) and those who were not] probably translated more along the lines of “this wouldn’t have happened if you people hadn’t seceded. Everything would have been fine.” No, it wouldn’t have, but the Jesse Collinses couldn’t see that. Independent, primarily subsistence farmers/grazers, they had been isolated from the conflicting economic interests dividing North and South and the North’s ever-increasing push to marginalize the South’s political power in the central government. The Confederacy, through necessity, had dared to “bother” Jesse Collins, disrupt his life, and interfere with his well-ordered existence, which had been relatively free of governmental presence. The war was the Confederacy’s fault, not Yankee aggression—they’d always left him alone. Bynum, Jenkins, and Stauffer’s implication that those so-called Jones-county unionists would be pleased with Hobbs’ Leviathan of today is misleading and in my personal opinion, false.

Two other implications which run through both books—and this goes hand in hand with the authors’ attempt to marginalize the “Lost Cause”—are that secession equals war and the South opted for war to protect slavery. No, the South risked a war to protect her posterity by that time already threatened economically (the tariff), politically (denial of the formation of slave-holding states in the new territories, exacerbating a situation that was already pivotal and in only a few years would leave the South totally outvoted in the general government, something both sides knew and which the North promoted and the South, for obvious reasons, resisted) and physically (the threat to Southern property, i.e. the underground railroad encouraging theft and the much more ominous threat of terrorism and anarchy which manifested itself in the raid of  John Brown on Harper’s Ferry. That attack was financed by Northern industrialists, philanthropists, and abolitionists who created a martyr of a psychopath while the Northern populace exalted his life and mourned his death. The financiers were never brought to trial, leaving them and those of their ilk free to continue their madness.)

I feel no embarrassment in conceding the South’s agrarian economy was based on slave labor, especially when challenged by those supporting a regime sustained by a seemingly unlimited labor force of hapless immigrants ushered into poverty in filthy Northern cities to serve the masters of industry for a pittance. Really, who has the right to be judging anyone here on the basis of “humanitarianism”? But both perceived wrongs are irrelevant, because secession, no matter the reason, did not cause the war. Lincoln’s aggression did. And here’s the real crux of that second implication—Lincoln waged the war to free the slaves. What hogwash. Lincoln’s war to “free the slaves” is the greatest spin of all. I’d go so far as to call it an out-’n-out cyclone. The refusal of the North, again for self-aggrandizing economic reasons, to accept an independent South with free-market ports, and the more immediate loss of tariff revenue, is what prompted Lincoln’s aggression. It was the North that opted for war, and it did so for economic reasons.

But let’s just suppose those Southerners so long ago really did not know what they were fighting for or believed after times got tough they were fighting for the rich man’s slaves, that the state-rights issue and home rule and curbing the growing tyranny of a central government in the hands of industry never even crossed their poor “stupid” minds—it certainly should be crossing our minds now, because those were the issues that mattered and that’s what the mainstream is trying to deflect. If we don’t do something to reclaim our history, in fifty years all our Southern ancestors will have been opposed to the Confederacy—there will be nothing left spearheading those old battles, but evil slave owners, and the federal republic created by our founders will be a forgotten political theory swallowed up by a fabricated democracy embracing the concept of a worldwide, “elitist-supervised,” mediocre humanity. (The lowest common denominator is the only way to make egalitarianism work). 

Next time, a documented history of Jones County from another point of view.

Thanks for reading,

Charlsie

Excuse Me? Who Doesn’t Know the History?

A post in the “Skewing Southern History Series”

I recently published my sixth fiction novel, Honor’s Banner, a sequel to my post-Civil War Gothic, Camellia Creek, and was dismayed to see that my first Amazon review was a one-star. “[B]ut if she did research, she translated it to her own version and trying to rewrite history,” the reviewer says of my Historical Note at the end of Honor’s Banner.  

If the review had been a critique of my writing, I would have simply let the matter drop. I’ve learned there’s no way to defend oneself against a critique on craft without appearing gaseous on sour grapes. This reviewer, however, chose to attack the historical accuracy of my work affording me not only an excellent example supporting the theme of my recent posts on the subject of skewing Southern history but also providing me the opportunity to rebut the reviewer’s negative critique. Hereupon, I risk public censure: 

This challenge was put forth by someone who believes it was, and I quote, “Johnson (Lincoln’s Vice President) who made the south a mess after the war because he was a Southerner and he tried to make it so the Plantation owners could use Blacks to rebuild the south even though they were free, by paying little o[r] nothing for wages and generally keep them slaves even though they were free. Blacks were murdered by the thousands in the south after the war, but she [she being me] doesn’t mention that at all.”  

This reviewer’s understanding of Reconstruction is based on revisionist history promoted over the past fifty years. Johnson, a mule-headed man from east Tennessee hated the plantation elite. His falling out with Congress was actually due to his attempt to carryout Lincoln’s plan for Reconstruction (not rebuild the plantation economy, but one of reconciliation), which stumbled in the face of the Radical’s plan of centralization, nullification of state rights, and the demise of Federalism as the Founders meant for it to be. A strong argument can and has been made that Lincoln’s plan cost him his life. I don’t place a lot of stock in Lincoln, but he was not a Radical. Johnson, who the Radicals believed was in their camp, primarily because of his overt enmity to the plantation system, proved a ringer to the Radical cause. He was easier to turn public opinion against than Lincoln would have been, though, so they let him slide (or missed him if one buys into the conspiracy theory of Atzerodt being part of Booth’s team the night Lincoln was murdered and the ancillary belief the Radicals were behind the assassination. I have no opinion either way regarding that particular conspiracy theory.). Nevertheless, the Radicals neutralized Johnson in the fall 1866 elections when the Radicals gained control of Congress.  

As for paying the freed slaves, the Southern economy was in shambles. England, the South’s primary foreign cotton market, had, with the encouragement of Washington and New England mercantilists, cultivated new sources of raw cotton. There was no significant amount of capital to pay anyone until a cotton crop came in—that meant labor with a promise to pay—and the laborers weren’t interested in working and no one made them work. Johnson couldn’t have replicated the plantation economy even if he’d wanted to.  

And those thousands of murdered blacks? I don’t know if a body count was ever made covering twelve years of Reconstruction, and I would be suspect of any number thrown  out there—including the reviewer’s “thousands,” but yes, many were killed: by white Democrats, by white Republicans, and Freedmen killed one another. They killed white folks, too, and white folks killed one another. Some were killed for political reasons, some in self defense. Some murders were real, some were fabricated for fodder in Northern newspapers. At the time of my story, the great majority of Federal troops in the South were Negro and when those troops were disbanded in the spring and summer of 1866 they were trained soldiers. In the years going into Congressional Reconstruction these men (who were all born and raised in the South) made up the bulk of the armed militias supporting the puppet Republican administrations, themselves backed with Federal bayonets. What was happening in the South during these years were pockets of armed warfare. The Negro was not innocent and he was not helpless, no more so than his white counterpart anyway, who, I should add, he outnumbered in Mississippi and South Carolina and made up a significant plurality in the rest of the South. All in all, most of both races survived, actually managing to remain halfway decent to each other despite the aggravation of Northern interlopers.  

But whatever the overall body count, the time period covered by my two novels combined is six months, October 1865-March 1866. Presidential Reconstruction in Mississippi ended in December 1865. At that time, things had begun to unravel between Congress and the man they thought was on the Radical side (Johnson), the fall elections of 1866 are a half year away and the Reconstruction Acts, officially issuing-in Congressional Reconstruction are a year down the road. The murders and alleged fraud and intimidation which are today the lore upon which the righteousness of Reconstruction is woven (and which are, I believe, what the reviewer is basing her critique on) are in the future. The white South is trying to find its footing, the Freedmen either remain on the plantations where they lived prior to and during the war for the reason that it was home, it was relatively safe, and they cared for their white folks and their white folks cared for them. Those who left did so because the plantation was either abandoned by its demoralized and defeated owners (assuming they were still alive) or they believed freedom included the freedom to do as they pleased, and that included doing nothing. These indigents numbered in the hundreds of thousands and they found succor in the larger communities secured by Union troops (who, I reiterate, were mostly black), living off the taxpayer—including the Northern one. I know the history, sans slant, which on close inspection of modern works doesn’t add up.  

Likewise, I’m not sure what to make of the reviewer’s take on my characters:  “...she has taken history and twisted it to make it sound like all who supported the north, anti-slavery, President Lincoln (in other words all things Northern) evil and the Southerners were all wonderful people who treat their slaves so wonderful that they continued to serve them after the War.” 

Did she expect me to make my hero a slave-beating, murdering bigot? Hardly sympathetic, and her implication is not true. The hero of Honor’s Banner is a United States Marine, who honored his oath primarily in support of his Blue-grass Kentucky family. The primary antagonists in both stories are Southerners. Yes, my story is prejudiced in favor of the South, but no more so than most works of escape fiction that happen to portray the hero as the “good” guy. Oh duh. I am a Southerner; my ancestors were Southerners. My pro-Southern stance on history is my brand; other than a love of storytelling, it is the reason I write.  

No, what the reviewer finds fault with is that I have dared to challenge the current liberal orthodoxy of Southern treason and intransigence by making heroes of unrepentant Southerners, who refuse to acknowledge the South’s sins against the faux idolatry of Union and democracy both symbolized by that boogeyman, slavery. Or, perhaps it’s simply that I’ve made the South and Southerners—repentant or not—heroic at all. Guess that makes me guilty, too. 

Well, I can handle it.

 

Thanks for reading,

Charlsie

 

 

 

Alcorn Readies His Campaign to Run for Governor on the Radical Ticket

This post is number thirty-seven in a historical series discussing Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn, following the War Between the States and continues the “saga” resulting from the Democratic victory over the Republican progressive constitution framed during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868. As of my last post the issue of Mississippi’s returning to the Union had been returned, euphemistically speaking, to the people of Mississippi. 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, 20 February,  7 March  and 22 March 2016.

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Despite Congress’ refusal to void Mississippi’s July 1868 election results and declare the Republican ticket elected, its members were hard at work behind the scenes, setting the stage for a Republican victory in the state. There was, at the national level, as well as within the state, the same power struggle on-going between the regular Republicans (Radicals) and the more conservative members of the party. This struggle, as I’ve previously noted, is important for understanding what happened in Mississippi and Virginia during this time and what happened with/to the in-coming president. Ulysses S. Grant had appeared, at the outset, sympathetic to the conservatives in both states. His Radical handlers had yet to “get a handle on him.” They would tighten the leash shortly. 

Just as important to understanding the internal politics of the era is an appreciation for what was at stake. The Radicals needed control of the South in order to counter any threat to its agenda that might emerge from those Northern states paying attention to what was going on. The Radicals were altering the Founders’ Republic into a pure democracy, and in 1869 the next item on their agenda was the suffrage, a right belonging to sovereign states, and one ultimately usurped by the Federal government with the then un-ratified Fifteenth Amendment. The Radicals also looked at the Fifteenth Amendment as a means of maintaining their power into perpetuity. Controlling the South was key. 

So, whatever wheeling and dealing went on between the national leaders of the Republican Party and the “committee of sixteen” during the latter’s stay in Washington in the winter of 1868-1869, it was all framed to ensure a Republican victory in Mississippi. The linchpin for the Radical plan proved to be James Lusk Alcorn. He had, no doubt, been blessed to carry the torch. Eggleston, the carpetbag nominee who had led the ticket to defeat in the summer of 1868, was out. This, of course, was all going on before “Grant’s” decision to resubmit the new progressive constitution to the people separate from the obnoxious proscription clauses. Shoot, this was underway before Grant was even inaugurated, but things were jelling. 

Back at Friar’s Point, Mississippi (Alcorn’s home), the presses of a new paper, The Weekly Delta, started to roll on 9 February 1869. The editor was Robert J. Alcorn, James’ cousin who represented Yalobusha County at the Reconstruction constitutional convention during the winter of 1868. The paper’s original publisher was F. S. Belcher. In March, Belcher sold his interest to a chancery clerk of Coahoma County, George R. Alcorn, another of James’ cousins. That same month, James resigned from his law firm, Alcorn, Stricklin, and Harmon. The Weekly Delta claimed to be independent, but supported both the national Republican Party and Alcorn. It defended both and was unequivocally a Republican paper. 

Alcorn had always been an impressive man in Mississippi and his tossing his hat in with the Radicals was a matter of no small concern to the state’s Democrats. Being a “native son,” so to speak, he posed a subtle threat unlike that of the overtly distasteful Yankee interloper Eggleston, who had been adamantly in favor of the proscription clauses as opposed to Alcorn who had opposed them, but still campaigned for the constitution in the summer of 1868, stating those clauses could be removed later.  

On 2 June 1869, The Weekly Delta expressed hope that James Lusk Alcorn would run for governor on the Republican ticket. Ah, from die-hard Unionist to reluctant secessionist, who at the secession convention in 1861 brought the house down with, “Mr. President, the die is cast; the Rubicon is crossed; I follow the army that goes to Rome; I vote for the ordinance”, now to leadership of the state’s contingent of the foulest group of men who have ever sank their talons into the flesh of this nation. Such are the misfortunes of war and the expedient nature of political principle. 

There were four political entities that played a role in the upcoming events in Mississippi:  

The Radical Republicans or carpetbaggers, which I maintain Alcorn was not, either by place of origin or in principle, but with whom he’d made his bed;  

the conservative Republicans, the scalawags or native Mississippians, where Alcorn properly belonged;  

the more progressive Democrats, the official party, who were trying to figure out where they belonged—turns out they didn’t;  

and the old-line Democrats, known to history as the Bourbons, who at the time didn’t have a place, but waited in the wings and remained true to the basic principles of the old Democratic Party in the South.  

I will elaborate on each during the course of this series. Thanks for reading,

Charlsie

Adelbert Ames and Preliminary Preparation for Choosing a New Constitution and a New Government for Mississippi, Sans Mistakes

This post is number thirty-six in a historical series discussing Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn, following the War Between the States and continues the “saga” resulting from the Democratic victory over the Republican progressive constitution framed during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868. As of my last post the issue of Mississippi’s returning to the Union had been returned, euphemistically speaking, to the people of Mississippi. 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, 20 February,  and 7 March 2016.
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The title of this post begs the question what mistakes? 

It wasn’t what the Republicans had done since the late fall of 1867, but what they’d failed to do. Obviously, too many Mississippi taxpayers, (those would be the one’s still believing in their Founders and the Republic those men forged), had managed to vote. As a result, they’d defeated the progressive constitution in which they’d played no part in framing, indeed had wanted no part in framing, as well as the Republican ticket made up of interlopers who did not represent them. They’d voted to keep what they had on all fronts and if that meant continued martial law, so be it. Much has rightfully been made of the Radical’s proscription clauses, denying the vote of the Confederates into perpetuity. In return for a separate vote on those obnoxious clauses, the democratic leadership apparently agreed to a second vote on the equally obnoxious constitution—a risky proposition because it would be a truly rigged vote next time around—tilted in favor of the Radicals, and there is no way they couldn’t have known it.  

President Ulysses S. Grant assumed the presidency on 4 March 1869. Andrew Johnson, who had supported General Gillem’s efforts to keep the Radical Republicans in Mississippi functioning within the framework of the Reconstruction Acts (notorious in their own right), was out. So, therefore, was Gillem, who—and we might should consider he was happy to go—was reportedly relieved because he refused to serve the political ends of the Republican party. Gillem was reassigned to California and the reigns of the Fourth Military District passed to the man General McDowell, during his interim assignment  as District Commander in the June 1868, had made provisional governor upon removing the duly-elected Humphreys from office. A native of Maine, Ames was 33 years old when McDowell made him provisional governor in the summer of 1868. An 1861 graduate of West Point, he won the Congressional Medal of Honor during the war and earned the rank of brevet-general in the United States Army. He had never held a civil office. He was Benjamin Butler’s son-in-law and a prudish New Englander who kept the Sabbath and deemed himself a champion of Freedmen’s rights—and apparently it didn’t matter who else’s rights got in the way. There’s only one explanation, in my opinion, for that kind of noble attitude and it’s not self-sacrificing. Ames quickly conformed to the realization of what the Freedmen (or the Freedmen’s votes) could do for him. But that is yet to be.

Ames assumed command of the Fourth Military District in March 1869. Though dismayed by the rolling of General Gillem, the people of Mississippi weren’t overly concerned with the assignment of Ames as district commander. The removal of Humphreys and his family from the governor’s mansion early in the summer aside, Ames’ governorship hadn’t given cause for alarm (but Gillem was there). Still the provisional governor when he assumed command of the Fourth Military District, Ames moved the district headquarters from Vicksburg to Jackson, affording him easy access to both offices. Given he was both district commander and provisional governor, there were few limitations on his power, and years later, following the revolt that sent him scampering out of the state, Ames admitted such to George Boutwell during the Boutwell hearings in 1876. He stated in the hearings that his power as military governor gave him supremacy in Mississippi and he allowed no law (including a Federal one) to stand in his way when he felt that it was a hindrance to the execution of his policy. He said it, which tells me he believed it, and perceived no wrong. The man was, in my humble opinion, a self-righteous ass. His civil control included rights of persons and property; tax assessment, collection, and disbursement; and he apportioned representation in the legislature. Keep in mind that during the interim he was provisional governor and commander of the Fourth Military District Mississippi had no legislature, and he alone decided how the state’s treasury was spent.

Most importantly for the purposes of this post, he controlled the elections through the appointment of registrars, judges, and inspectors and by prescribing the time, place, and manner of holding the elections—all the things the Committee of Five had granted themselves during the Black and Tan Constitutional Convention and which General Gillem had repeatedly thwarted. With Gillem gone and Ames in, the Committee of Five had gotten what it wanted—so, you see, the Committee of Sixteen had been quite successful, behind the scenes, during its sojourn to Washington that past winter. Not only that, but on February 16, 1869, just a few weeks before Grant’s inauguration, Congress had issued a joint resolution declaring all persons who couldn’t take the oath of 2 July 1862 (Iron-clad oath) were to be removed from civil office in Mississippi and the vacancies filled by loyal citizens chosen by the district commander. Now, long before this (the 16 February mandate was just a reiteration of an earlier requirement in the first Reconstruction Act of 1867), Gillem had gone on record stating there were not enough qualified men in the state to fill those positions, and he’d left the incumbents in. As of March 26, 1869, Ames started making assignments to civil positions throughout the state. He had the same problem Gillem had finding qualified people to assume the positions, but unlike Gillem, he didn’t let that slow him down. He removed nearly all the state officers and hundreds of county and local officers. Ames appointed 60 new sheriffs, 172 circuit and probate judges, 3 criminal judges, 16 prosecuting attorneys, 70 county treasurers, 120 circuit and probate clerks, 60 county assessors, 50 mayors, 220 aldermen, 385 justices of the peace, 165 constables, 370 members to various boards of police (that’s the county supervisors, y’all)...and on and on. You get my drift. And here’s a biggy—more than 300 election registrars.

As regards the individuals who Ames put into the civil positions, James Garner in Reconstruction in Mississippi gives him the benefit of the doubt, quoting Ames as admitting he probably did take some “bad advice.” Garner actually met Ames in the course of writing his book on Reconstruction. Ames told Garner he did the best he could and filled the positions with freedmen (most illiterate) and strangers from the North. Of the few competent men put in county positions, some had never even stepped foot in the county prior and none were accepted by the locals. This had everything to do with a firm belief in “home rule.” He could have always done what Gillem had done—ignored Congress and left qualified men in their positions—after all, Mr. Arrogance wasn’t going to let anything hinder the execution of his policy.

Of the 25 appointees who became the most prominent Republican politicians in the state, not one had ever held prior public office. Eight were Negro and all but four of the whites were Northerners. One Northerner would become governor, one a U.S. Senator, one lieutenant governor, two justices of the supreme court, and two representatives to Congress. No, what Ames did and what Congress did was in pursuit of their own goals. The good of Mississippi, her taxpayers, or even her non-taxpayers didn’t matter. Ames’ actions increased animosity within the state, laid a corrupt and extravagant government on an already downtrodden people, participated in and fomented fraudulent elections, and ultimately instigated violence and revolution.  

The Republican Pilot admitted that Ames had probably erred in a number of his assignments, but he’d rectify them in time; however, this conflicted with Ames’ readiness to interfere in civil matters and protect the criminal activities of those he put in office. Case in point being that of the probate judge and sheriff in Rankin County who were convicted of official crimes and sent to jail. The governor sent troops to forcibly open the jail, remove the prisoners, escort them under guard to the courthouse, open court, then gave them the opportunity to depart the state, which they did in short order. My assessment of Ames’ reasoning: 

Oh, my Northern friends, I set you up and you blew it. Well, now, let me get you out of here before things get worse.  

I do wonder if what they stole was ever recovered or they managed to get out with it. This particular case had the added feature of the case of Professor Highgate, a Negro teacher in Madison County and an ex-Union soldier who dared fault the governor in his actions down in Rankin County. This caused him to be arrested and made to stand on a barrel, gagged, with hands tied behind his back from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (There were no New England stocks in Mississippi). There’s lots more on the petty and arbitrary actions Ames took against the citizens of Mississippi—or wherever they came from—who dared to criticize him or the Republican Party. The military commanders of the posts at Jackson, Vicksburg, Corinth, Natchez, Lauderdale (County), and Grenada were forbidden by Ames to obey any writ of habeas corpus issued by a “Federal” court for release of prisoners in their custody [Ha, he could appoint the state and local judges, but he couldn’t get his own men in those Federal positions. That must have been particularly galling for the petty autocrat.] The Jackson Clarion stated the reason for this order was to prevent testing legality of arbitrary arrests by military authorities. The Clarion was a Democratic paper, but let’s face it, there had to be a reason, and I can’t see it being a good one, for such an order being given to his commanders protecting Ames’ sole right to suspend habeas corpus.  

He apparently did stay out of criminal court unless Freedmen/Northerners were involved, as victim or accused. Here I’d like to share a case put forward by Judge Simrall regarding these military tribunals under the Reconstruction Acts and the issuing of arbitrary punishments not in accordance with state law. The incident dealt with the beating up of a school teacher at a Negro school. It’s not clear if the teacher was black or white. He was definitely male. The bullies apparently wanted the password to the local Loyal League and roughed up the individual pretty good. Under state law, this was a misdemeanor, but under the military tribunal, they were tried for a “conspiracy to commit murder” and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment. Judge Simrall took it to the U.S. district judge arguing that the Reconstruction Acts did not suspend state law and the military tribunals were constituted for those cases involving Freedmen and Northerners where it was perceived they would not receive a fair trial. This arbitrarily accusing the criminals of conspiracy to commit murder with an equally arbitrary punishment was in violation of the Reconstruction Acts. The Federal judge agreed and from that point on the military tribunals ensured justice in accordance with Mississippi law. 

Hmmm...well, the folks were learning how bad martial law really could be.

Now, the deck stacked in his favor, Alcorn prepares to run for governor. Next time and thanks for reading,

 

Charlsie

 

 

Fraud, Intimidation, and Skewed Views on Southern History That Liberal Historians Tell

This post is number thirty-four in a historical series discussing Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn, following the War Between the States and continues the “saga” resulting from the Democratic victory over the Republican “reconstruction” constitution framed during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868. 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, 18 January, and 1 February 2016.

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Here, we pick up where we left off—the Honorable James Beck from Kentucky (the man in the white hat) on the House floor countering the machinations of Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts, not only black hatted, but like the majority of his Republican colleagues, black hearted. 

Having failed back in July 1868 with the election schemes to get its progressive constitution ratified and Republican ticket elected; having failed to get General Gillem, Commander of the Fourth Military District, to launch an investigation into what he’d already investigated; having failed to get Bingham’s Bill through the Senate the previous summer; having failed to circumvent General Gillem’s report to the Reconstruction Committee; and having failed to sell the House Select Reconstruction Committee at the beginning of the 40th Congress’ third session on charges of fraud, the representatives of the Mississippi constitutional convention of 1868, trudged on, harping through that congressional session and into the 41st Congress, where we just happen to find Massachusetts’ Benjamin Butler chairing the ever-growing House Select Committee on Reconstruction. Butler had in hand a “new” bill to resolve the reentry problem for Mississippi. The Butler Bill, which by its very design was meant to take martial law out of the hands of the commanding general (remember the state has been under military rule since the spring of 1867) and invest it in the Mississippi constitutional convention along with giving that body full authority over the new election to be held on the civil administration and the constitution, its registrars and its judges, and relegating the commanding general to supporting the convention’s whims. James Beck regarded the individuals comprising the constitutional convention to be “the last body of men upon earth in whose hands the protection of either the lives, the liberty, or the property of that people ought to be intrusted, especially with such arbitrary and despotic powers as this bill proposes to invest them.” 

It’s my opinion that the constitutional convention’s committee of sixteen worked with Benjamin Butler on that bill, just as convention members had agents in place to work with Bingham the summer before in drafting his similar one. Butler’s Bill gave the committee of five of the Mississippi constitutional convention everything it wanted/needed to ensure full tyrannical control over the state of Mississippi, its property, and its taxpayer. 

The charges of fraud and intimidation presented to the House Select Committee on Reconstruction during the 40th Congress’ 3rd Session (December 1868) had been discounted by the committee (this according to Beck, who knew it as fact because he was a member of the committee). 

The biggest lie and the one James Beck fed upon and pounded into the members of the House was the November 1868 declaration from the meeting rooms of the committee of five in Jackson, Mississippi that the people of Mississippi had ratified the proposed constitution and the Republican Party ticket had been elected. Those members announced that in Jackson, then sent the committee of sixteen  to Washington, D.C. and announced it to the House reconstruction committee—and presented their “memorial” testifying to fraud, discrimination, and intimidation (and any other catch-word they could think of) to show their statement was true.  

The committee of five got their numbers, giving themselves the victory, by throwing out the results from the counties of Carroll, Desoto, Chickasaw, Lafayette, Rankin, Copiah, and Yalobusha; however, during that third session of Congress, not only was the committee of sixteen busy working with the likes of Benjamin Butler to concoct that full-proof contract to ensure Radical tyranny of the people of Mississippi, but the more conservative political elements active in the state (the liberal Republicans, also known as scalawags, and the democrats) were conducting some investigating on their own—and apparently did a much more thorough job than did the “Eggleston clique.” Keep in mind as you read this, the officers at the polling booths had been hand-picked/vetted by both General Gillem and the Mississippi constitutional convention—remember that was a power convention members granted themselves during the convention. The judges, registrars, and clerks were at worse neutral (Gillem’s picks) and at best the committee’s own.  

The finding’s of the conservatives showed that when questioned regarding the results of Chickasaw County, every judge, registrar, and clerk testified that the election had been fair—not one person they knew of had hinted at unfairness. In Rankin County only one man swore to any fraud or unfairness, while every judge and registrar swore that the election was fairly conducted. Turns out that the man swearing to fraud was one D.S. Harriman. Beck himself had a military commission report, signed by Brevet Major General Pennypacker [I suspect that’s a misprint for Pennybacker], an honest and respected officer, stating that Harriman, a former officer with the Freedmen’s Bureau, had been removed from office and charged with six counts of dereliction of duty and fraud. He was convicted of five and sentenced to a $50.00 fine and one year in prison. He’d recently disappeared while out on bail.  

In Desoto County, the only white man who swore to anything being unfair was one Theodore Wiseman, who provided long and able affidavits of fraud and intimidation in Desoto County: The Klan had the roads blocked, he said, and he told of violence, intimidation, and murder. Beck focuses his rebuttal on the man’s character and the comments made of him. Also one might glean something from Beck’s reference to “the only white man” indicating there may have been affidavits made by Negroes attesting to fraud. Recall that subsequent to the election, the “committee of five” was overwhelmed by Negroes coming to Jackson [the committee of five had sent for them] and conferring behind closed doors to fraud and intimidation—then signing their prepared statements with an “x.” I do admit to have an interest in seeing those affidavits—did they all read similarly, for instance? Beck, as a member of the reconstruction committee no doubt read them. His point of following up with the case of Harriman and Wiseman and their likes was to ascertain what kind of white men made these statements in contradiction to hand-chosen registrars and judges? I assume members of the committee automatically determined the bulk of the Negro testimony fabricated or indeterminate, and therefore the white testimony the more compelling of the two. On the subject of Wiseman, the sheriff of Desoto County, Joseph Rogers, reported to James Beck that Wiseman was another of those “ex” Freedmen’s Bureau fellas. He’d been cashiered by General Gillem himself for abuse of authority in office—he apparently had been charging fines and pocketing the money. He was working as a commissioner (yeah, you guessed it—one of the “committee of five’s” hand-picked commissioners) at the Desoto County poll, when an individual he’d illegally fined spied him and challenged him with the wrong [and I can’t help but believe the individual pointed out to everyone present this thief was acting as a “commissioner” at a Mississippi polling booth in support, obviously, of Republican interests]. The sheriff stated that the altercation in no way hindered/prevented anyone from voting. Other than that one instance, voting went off without a hitch.

There’s more to the story of Theodore Wiseman. He was, in fact, a card-carrying Radical, who along with the rest of the Republican team in Desoto County was responsible for organizing the “Loyal Leagues” (Negro voters). He ran for office in Desoto County on the Republican ticket in the 1868 election. So what was he doing serving as a voting commissioner? Later in the Reconstruction drama of Desoto County, his life in danger, he billed the Republican hierarchy for services rendered and left town in the dark of night to evade monetary obligations. It was subsequently made known that a week before he requested monetary support from his party, he’d approached the Democracy in that county and offered to burn all the Radical tickets for $500.00. The democrats regarded the price as too steep and declined the offer—guess that’s why he felt the need to tap his “beloved” party, after failing to sabotage it. 

There’s more on the story of Joseph Rogers, too, the sheriff of Desoto County who gave the less than flattering report on Mr. Wiseman. He was a General Ord appointee back in November of 1867, after the enactment of the Reconstruction Acts. Rogers had been a citizen of Iroquois, Illinois when the war broke out. He’d formed up and commanded a company in the 113th Illinois Infantry Volunteers for the duration, serving with Grant from the time the latter was promoted to brigadier-general until he became General of the Army at war’s end (that included the Vicksburg campaign and stomping all over Mississippi). Anyway, with the end of the war, Rogers bought a plantation in Desoto County and subsequently served as one of General Ord’s registrars in compiling the voter rolls under the Reconstruction Acts and during the election for a constitutional convention. According to Rogers, he supported Congressional Reconstruction (his service supports that) and continued to do so. As sheriff, he served under Ord, then Gillem, McDowell, and Gillem again. He voted for Grant, his old commander. He was a good sheriff, the people of Desoto County were content with him, at least. Then, guess what? One month after James Beck referred to his denunciation of Wiseman’s testimony on abuse and intimidation in Desoto County, General Ames removed him from office for, according to Rogers, not working for the interests of the extreme Radical faction. Anyone want to wager Ames’ father-in-law influenced that move? My other thought is how many more honest Northern carpetbaggers, not to mention Southerners, did Ames manage to remove between the time he relieved Gillem and Alcorn went in as governor, and how big a role did those removals make in shaping the outcome of the subsequent election?
 

There was something else I found interesting in Desoto County’s testimony presented before the reconstruction committee—and that was the sworn testimony of a Negro Radical by the name of Jessie Paine, and Negro democrats, Edmund Cox, Thomas W. White, Richard Cobb, Henry Alexander, and William Robertson, who swore that the county’s election was, from what they saw and from their participation, peacefully conducted and the constitution fairly defeated.

 

Beck didn’t elaborate on the other counties cited in the Radical memorial, but he did finish this assessment of claims of abuse and intimidation with a great big smoking gun, sent, no less, to George S. Boutwell back in December 1868 when he was chairman of the reconstruction committee. It was Boutwell himself who laid it before the committee. Lester Williams, Jr., chaplain of the Mississippi constitutional convention, who was himself a native of West Springfield, Massachusetts and had returned home at some point between losing the election and the opening of the 40th Congress’ third session in December 1868. He was intimately involved in the convention, he said (and those dregs did say a prayer every day—I’ve seen the journal). Williams campaigned for the constitution and made a study of all the people of Mississippi and believed he knew the people and the politics—wonder if this self-possessed knowledge included the interlopers, too? (Isn’t it funny, looking back, how the people of Massachusetts felt they were uniquely qualified to assess others? Guess that kept them from having to take a good, long look at themselves.) Williams said, in retrospect, (and probably taking the people’s rejection of the constitution for what it was—a rejection), that to force Mississippi’s restoration in the Union under [that constitution] would be a calamity. He understood the Republicans wanted the state back in the Union—but their project (that constitution) was hollow and visionary, but the past warned against it.

So, the man did understand some things, now if he’d only understood that the vision of the men framing that constitution was not for the good of the people of Mississippi, he might have understood how others manipulate the self-righteousness of New England Yankees. But, my bitter opinions aside, here’s the really good part of the Reverend William’s letter:

“I understood this whole plan, of declaring the constitution carried on the charge of fraud in seven counties, so throwing out the count, as long ago as in July last. But there was the same kind of fraud and intimidation practiced in every county in the State, so that the whole, if investigated, might be pronounced a nullity with equal force as the part. If you will observe the location of these counties thrown out you may perhaps note that they are culled, here and there, with a special purpose in view. There the result of the election was acquiesced in by the great body of the Republicans all over the state, without a loud press, for the space of three or four months. [In other words, fraud and intimidation were endemic throughout the state (by both parties, though the good reverend does not explicitly say so), but to challenge every county would nullify the entire election. I further interpret the reverend to mean the Republicans never had created a sound foothold in those counties, so they could throw out the results and better their numbers. Further—and this jumps right out at me—having  written those counties off/having never made a strong effort, they conducted no fraud of their own during the election, and therefore were safe to challenge, their own dirty laundry buried in those where they concentrated their canvass.]   

This is growing into a long post, and here is as good a place to break as any. My main point with this  post is to put the accusations of “fraud, intimidation, and violence” long attributed to the racist white Southerner during this era (or any era for that matter) in proper perspective and emphasize how much of the truth has been lost to intentional historical deception.

I’ll finish up the Butler Bill next time. 

Thanks for reading,

 

Charlsie

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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.

 

The Black and Tan’s Committee of Five Comes Alive--Like Dr. Frankenstein’s Monster

This post is number twenty-four in a historical series discussing Mississippi’s Whig/Republican governor and senator, James Alcorn, following the War Between the States and continues the “saga” resulting from the Democratic victory over the Republican reconstruction constitution framed during the Black & Tan Convention in the winter/spring of 1868. For earlier posts in this long series based on Alcorn, (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, and 30 August 2015.

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The investigation promulgated by the committee of five to prove fraud in the June/July 1868 election (see my 30 August post) continued its work for four months. On 3 November its chairman, W. H. Gibbs, ex-major, 15th Illinois Infantry, issued a proclamation from “the rooms of the committee of five, of the Mississippi constitutional convention” reiterating the convention’s processes in framing the rejected constitution under the Reconstruction Acts and concluding that the constitution submitted to a vote of the people that past summer had been duly ratified and the Republican ticket elected. Gibbs and cohorts came up with his “legal” votes cast by throwing out the results of Copiah, Carroll, Chickasaw, De Soto, Lafayette, Rankin, and Yallobusha Counties on account of threats, intimidation, fraud, and violence. He even went so far as to declare five Republican representatives had been elected to the 41st Congress even though elections for that Congress had not been held. Shoot, if you’re writing up your own election results, why not go for broke? The report also declared that a large number of the Democrats elected to the legislature won their seats through fraud.

The provocative statements were modus operandi of the Radicals across the South. Today they are accepted as gospel. Fraud and intimidation occurred on both sides, but given the skewed population at the time and the overwhelming presence of Federal troops and registrars at the polls (and the countryside where trouble was reported), I believe that much of what the Democrats/Conservatives were accused was fabricated, a prevailing thought often alluded to in the Democratic papers at the time. But no matter what the committee of five attempted to hatch, the rejected constitution left Mississippi under military rule. At home, General Gillem was in charge and the case of the rejected constitution, along with allegations of tyranny and fraud against it, were in the hands of a Radical Congress. 

Emboldened by that partisan Congress, Mississippi’s Radicals called for a convention in Jackson on 25 November 1868 and drew up a memorial requesting Congress declare the new constitution ratified, presented causes for the present “embarrassment” of Republicans within the state, and requested permanent relief from Congress—that translated to “remove the disloyal citizens from civil positions and put us in their place.” To justify this takeover of state government, members asserted that a large class of Mississippians was in defiance of authority and the wishes of Congress and that class had rejected all terms for restoration to the Union and assumed the right to dictate the terms under which its members would agree to reenter the Union—the one we supposedly never left.  

In tandem with framing this memorial, the committee of five appointed a committee of six persons from the state at large and two from each of the five congressional districts to proceed to Washington and lay the memorial before Congress and urge readmission of the state. This was the committee of sixteen:

1. State at large:  

R.W. Flourney*

Jonathan Tarbell

Abel Alderson

Alston Mygatt

E. Stafford

F. Hodges 

2. Congressional district representatives: 

First: U. Ozanne, J. L. Alcorn**

Second: W. W. Bell, J. G. Lyons

Third:  George F. Brown, G. W. Van Hook

Fourth:  T. W. Stringer, H. W. Barry

Fifth: E. J. Castello, W. H. Gibbs 

*Flourney was a Southern secessionist who was, by 1867, reputed to be the most Radical Republican in the state.
**Yes, the man who started this series long ago is now a “card-carrying” Radical Republican, at least, in the official sense.

In the meantime, the Republican Party offices in almost every county in the state held mass meetings/conventions and drew up resolutions for the committee of sixteen to set before the Reconstruction Committee in Washington to support Congressional interdiction. In lieu of declaring an all-around Republic victory that past July, options offered were setting up a provisional government in Mississippi (Republicans in charge, of course) or reconstituting the constitutional convention. All these resolutions were printed in the state’s (Republican) newspapers and transmitted to the committee of sixteen in Washington for inclusion with the other material set before the Reconstruction Committee. Doubtless the Democratic newspapers put the word out, too, with fiesty comments, but doubt they sent them to the Reconstruction Committee—to Democratic Representatives in the “loyal states”, perhaps, who did have their seats? 

And with that last comment, it is important to note that events in Mississippi were not occurring in a vacuum. The tyranny wrought by Congressional Reconstruction was no longer meeting simple resistance across the late “insurrectionary states”. Legal recourse for justice to the Southern taxpayer had been routinely thwarted by the powers now residing in Washington, and the result was evolving into a backlash. Events in Georgia and Tennessee had taken such turns that the Radicals in Congress were forced to re-evaluate the terms for readmitting the last three “unreconstructed” states of Virginia, Texas, and Mississippi back into the Union and are important for understanding what happened in Mississippi. Oh what a tangled web casting aside the Constitution had wrought, and the Radicals had no intention of returning to “the law of the land” to sort it all out and repair the situation. To them, the Constitution was a worthless piece of paper to be circumvented and altered (so they could give public homage to it without allowing it to affect their agenda). I will continue with this adjunct in my next post.  

Thanks for reading,
 

Charlsie