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“I
propose to vote with him; to discuss political affairs with him; to sit, if
need be, in political counsel with him, and from a platform acceptable alike to
him, to me, and to you, to pluck our common liberty and our common prosperity
out of the jaws of inevitable ruin.”
The reference is to the black man and is Alcorn’s most famous quote—or
infamous depending on your viewpoint. At the time, among the majority
of his fellow white Mississippians, it was considered “infamous”,
but not necessarily for the racial extremism, which many immediately assume. Alcorn was advocating the creation of a massive voting block composed of constituents who would support a known enemy, and what was worse, he was doing it by capitulating to a hated Congress and the patently unconstitutional Reconstruction Acts. But Alcorn maintained that the only practical course for Mississippi was to
return to the Union and regain its representation in Congress. To do that meant
playing the enemy’s game, and that dictated working with the Negro vice driving him into the enemy camp.
The Republican Party held its first
convention in the state of Mississippi on 10 September 1867. The body was
one-third Negro and included the registrars the military government under General Ord had appointed to register the
electorate and Northerners who had moved into the state, and doubtless some
“progressive” white Southerners. Members endorsed the platform of the national
party in supporting all the progressive political reforms of the age. All you
conservatives out there who think “progressive” is a dirty word in the context
of the present day—it was then, too. Progressive programs have to be managed by
governmental interference and paid for with taxpayers’ dollars. Southerners had
always preferred small government and low taxes. There are tradeoffs in all
things. This is what the taxpayers in Mississippi (and across the South) had
preferred since before statehood. If those paying into the system didn’t like
it, they could campaign to change it within their state or move to a state
composed of taxpayers/citizens of like minds. That is what federalism is all
about. Now the state was about to be overwhelmed by a constituency, the
majority of whom did not pay taxes and never had, essentially nullifying the
vote of those who did, that number further weakened by the disfranchisement of
those who had defended federalism. The Democratic Clarion summed up the picture succinctly—the Negro vote is in the
majority and it will be controlled by a few white men. [And those white men would not, as a rule, be Mississippians or even Southerners].
Alcorn, of course, wanted to be one
of those “few white men,” but at the time of the Republican Convention he was still
holding out for “Southern” white men and his hybrid Douglas Democrat/old-Whig
party. “A mixed party of unionists,” he said, can obtain for us that great
remedy of all our troubles—representation.” Isn’t it funny how he’s thinking?
To paraphrase: “All our problems will be solved if we can just get our
representation in Congress.” He envisioned his party as autonomous,
representing the interests of the state—in true Whig fashion and we would be
willing to support the Radical agenda in return for concessions (removal of the
cotton tax, rebuilding the levees Grant destroyed, general amnesty). Alcorn
envisioned getting the South some of that taxpayer’s money those proponents of “internal
improvements” in Washington were throwing around. And if any section of the
country at the time needed economic support, given the devastation heaped upon
it, it was the South. Even worse, the South was paying into the kitty—big time
and always had. Ah, but that money had long-ago been earmarked for the
Republicans’ Northern mercantilist/railroad building constituents. The South’s
only role in the scheme was to pay for it. This folks is one of the South’s
primary reasons for its failed secession and independence from Yankee greed,
and there was enough evidence on the record that Alcorn should have been aware
of this reality. Now, in his defense, he could have been thinking the South’s
never getting its fair share was because those stupid, fire breathing Democrats
had always stood in the way—and now he, with his “new” party, would manage to
manipulate the monster in power and get “our fair share” that the Democrats had
been spurning since...well, since they were Democrats. But there had been a
reason for that—the South didn’t want to be like the overtaxed,
government/industrialist-controlled, “progressive” North.
Alcorn received little public
support from Douglas Democrats (Hmmm...wonder how many such creatures existed
in Mississippi at the time?) or even his old-Whig compatriots. Judge William
Sharkey, the man elected with him in 1865 to represent Mississippi in the
Senate was, in fact, shocked by Alcorn’s avowed capitulation to the
Reconstruction Acts, which Sharkey considered unconstitutional and fought
throughout Reconstruction—recall he led the charge in the attempt to force the
Supreme Court to rule on their constitutionality (see my 9 February post
below). And I won’t even have to make guesses as to the reaction of those
fire-breathing Democrats on the acceptance of Negro suffrage. They opposed it.
Alcorn had yet to take that last
step—joining the Republican Party. That would mean sleeping with the enemy and proved
his path of last resort. In defense of him and his hybrid “unionist” party, the
forces of tyranny were working fast and he was running out of time to convince
his fellow Mississippians as to the need to throw federalism under the “stagecoach”
shall we say.
With General Ord’s completion of
registering the electorate in September, he announced an election to the people
of the state as to whether they wished to form a civil government (that would
be to replace the perfectly good one he had removed) or to remain under
military authority without representation in Congress. A new civil government
meant the people were voting for a new constitution and, by default,
representatives to the constitutional convention. Ord scheduled the election
for the second Tuesday in November 1867. Passage of the initiative required the
approval of a majority of registered
voters. On 15 October a group calling itself the Constitutional Union Men met in Jackson and asked their
fellow Mississippians who opposed the Reconstruction Acts to sit out this
election, thereby defeating a call for a new constitution under the guidelines
of the Reconstruction Acts. It would also leave Mississippi under martial law.
This Alcorn diametrically opposed, being he was confident representation in
Congress would alleviate “all our woes.” The majority of white Southerners did
indeed sit out this election, but a majority of registered voters (by a slim
margin of 151 voters casting ballots) did vote for a new civil government, deciding yes, there
would be a new constitution and choosing the delegates who would write it.
According to Alcorn’s biographer
Lillian Pereyra it was a good constitution, but then she wasn’t a taxpaying
Mississippian confronted with a document that represented the kind of
government he despised—tax-draining and rife with the potential of malfeasance
and graft and all under the guise of general welfare. Y’all do know the
Confederate government removed the “general-welfare” clause from its
constitution, don’t you? And for the very reason that the federal government, from
which it tried to extricate itself, applied “general welfare” loosely to waste
taxpayers dollars on issues requiring powers not delegated to it—its own expansion,
in other words—all under the euphemism of “public good.”
The constitutional convention met in
early December 1867. In Reconstruction in
Mississippi James Garner states that the native whites’ decision to sit out
the election proved bad in that members of the newly established Republican
Party formed the bulk of the delegates to the convention. I’m not convinced,
however, that the Constitutional Union men did not realize that potential from
the start, but may have regarded their non-participation as the only possible
chance they had for averting a progressive constitution. Under the
Reconstruction Acts, the new constitution had to be a “republican” one. Well,
Mississippi had a republican
constitution at the time Ord showed up. Had had one, in fact, since 1817 when
it entered the Union. What the term meant under the Reconstruction Acts was
that the new constitution would be “republican” as Congress determined “republican” to be—spell it with a capital
“R” and you’ve got the picture—a progressive “Republican” constitution, which Congress,
per the Reconstruction Acts, would approve.
-The new constitution eliminated all
distinctions of color, property, and education as requirements of citizenship
-It forbade the legislature from
pledging the state’s credit
-It extended the powers of the
governor
-It increased salaries
-It made additions to the roster of
state officials (this is progress in action, folks): a lieutenant governor, a
superintendent of education, commissioners of agriculture and immigration, a
board of equalization, state and district printers, special treasury agents
(I’m assuming state), and triple the number of judges
The new constitution “governed” more
in contrast to the state’s historical preference for Jacksonian politics, and
here’s the real crux—it cost more, much more, and we are talking about a
state whose economy had been and remained devastated—and did not and would not, even after that “manna”
of representation was realized—receive federal dollars to offset the obscene
costs this piece of legislation forced upon it. People who are struggling to
get back to a point where they know some degree of comfort and freedom from
worry do not want their taxes raised to pay for unneeded civil
servants—“loyal,” no less, to an enemy who has rendered them to their present
impoverished condition. And let me add this for those of you unfamiliar with
the history of Reconstruction—the books and desks and paper, pencils, and
blackboards, etc. etc. required for public education and all those printing
presses and ink and paper the anticipated Republican legislature granted to
itself would be purchased from the North at top dollar. Add to that the
increase in public jobs, in tandem with salaries and Mississippi would sink
deeper and deeper into the red hole she was already struggling to get out of,
and all this would be carried out without the input of those who had to pay for
it. Yes, one must take into account that perhaps these people did prefer
martial law to that kind of usurpation.
So I would argue that participation
in the election would have made no difference. The taxpaying Mississippian may
have been represented at the constitutional convention, but if his
input were even reflected in the document, it would not have passed Congress.
Nevertheless, the tactic had failed. The Democratic Union Men’s next attempt would
be, despite the seemingly insurmountable impediments placed upon them, to
defeat ratification of the new constitution as well as the Republican ticket when
they were placed before the people of the state the following summer.
And on the 10th of July 1868 they did.
It was a shock for both parties, and
I imagine that in the once hallowed halls of the nation’s Capitol, now
permeated with the foul stench of tyranny, one could have heard a pin drop. But
the Republican Party in Mississippi would not be deterred for long. What
happened next is classic in the annals of human tyranny, its finesse
pathetic—probably because the petty dictators didn’t realize beforehand they
would need a back-up plan.
And, sad to say, Alcorn was part of
it.
Next time and thanks for reading.
Charlsie
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In addition to this post on Alcorn and the one sighted in my introduction above, see 17 February, 24 March, 16 April, 17 July, 24 July, 18
September, 9 October, 18 October, 5 November, 22 November, 15 December, 29
December 2014 and 13 January, 24 January, and 9 February 2015 posts below,
best read in sequence from oldest to most recent.
