Ilario Pantano’s Grand Theft History and Skewing the South’s Role

I have a friend, a fellow indie writer, who within the last couple of years has written an award-winning contemporary romance set in Mississippi. The heroine of the story is a history teacher at a local high school who can trace her Southern roots back through a Confederate ancestor, a Revolutionary War hero, and farther still—all the way back to the Mayflower.  

It is such innocuous slights to the South that fueled my resolve a number of years ago to concentrate my reading on Southern history. I don’t mean writings produced over the last fifty years, a proliferation of anti-Southern bias designed, at its most benign, to marginalize the South’s role in this nation to the malicious portrayal of Southerners as violent, murderous opponents to liberty, freedom, and civil rights, supposedly making the South upside down and backwards to what this nation is supposed to stand for. Such portrayal serves a liberal agenda that does, in fact, reject the Founder’s Republic.  

A child of the sixties, during which I witnessed the purposeful destruction of the Southern wing of the Democratic Party, I understand the agenda driving revisionist history. What is inexplicable to me is why so many tax-paying Americans, who more and more find themselves under the thumb of government, fail to make the correlation between the skewing of that history and what is happening to this nation.  

Let’s return to the ancestry of my friend’s Southern heroine that introduced this post. Though not impossible, the ancestral migration cited is improbable. More significantly, when one has the founding of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, or more convincingly, the great migration to Jamestown in 1609-1610 to draw from, why establish the woman’s historical bona fides via New England? Jamestown predates the Pilgrims by a decade. 

I do not believe the author’s oversight was intentional, rather an honest belief that the Pilgrim’s landing at Plymouth was the iconic moment in colonizing what would become the United States. Maybe it’s the Thanksgiving thing—the turkeys and pumpkin pies and the brief “kumbaya” interlude with the friendly natives. I’ll give the Pilgrims that—I like Thanksgiving, too—but as for being the forefathers of fine Southern lineage, no.  

Imagine my pleasure, then, when on one of my visits to Barnes and Noble, a book bearing the uniformed chest and strong hands of a Revolutionary War soldier cradling his long rifle jumped off the shelf at me: Ilario Pantano’s Grand Theft History. Admittedly, it’s the kind of cover that catches my eye and a quick perusal of the subtitle told me the volume was one after my own heart. Pantano is himself a transplanted Southerner and former U.S. Marine with an understanding of military history, an interest in research, and a talent for writing.  

Grand Theft’s theme deals with the steady disappearance of the South’s role in the history of this nation. He supports his argument by taking a slice of that history, the Revolutionary War, in which the South’s role proved crucial, and shows how that participation has been buried. He presents his argument in the form of a criminal trial in which evidence is presented to a jury to support a case of dereliction on the part of modern historians to give the South its due for the victories in the Carolinas in 1780 and 1781, which led to Cornwallis’ retreat to and subsequent surrender at Yorktown. In school, I learned about Lexington and Concord, the Declaration, Trenton, Saratoga, and Benedict Arnold, and, of course, I knew Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown bringing it all to an end. I knew there was fighting in the South, but nothing I learned emphasized the strategic importance of the Southern theatre. As I grew into an adult, I learned that the war was particularly vicious in the South, while ancillary reading about events to the north left me with the feeling that there was too much pragmatic intercourse going on between the antagonists. Today, I wonder if the British wouldn’t have been better off if they’d dealt with their Southern colonists with equally kid gloves. But then, perhaps, their Southern colonists simply wouldn’t have it. 

Have you ever asked yourself how Cornwallis managed to get himself surrounded in Yorktown, Virginia or what he was doing there to begin with? Personally, I can’t recall ever studying that in school, but I’m no spring chicken and “school” was a long time ago. To make a long story short, for those who don’t know, he was there because he’d hauled his ass out of the Carolinas before he’d lost his entire army. The British had, since his victorious landing at Charleston in the late spring of 1780, met with several resounding defeats at the hands of some very pissed off frontiersman—those being, to hit some of the  highpoints, Huck’s Crossing, King’s Mountain, Cowpens, but there were more—all crowned by Cornwallis’ Pyrrhic victory at Guilford Courthouse. Not only was Guilford costly, the Patriots got away to boot. That’s when Cornwallis decided it was time to get out of the Carolinas. Things were a little more stable in Virginia, so that’s where he headed. He holed up in Yorktown on the coast and waited for General Clinton, cozy in New York, to come move him to safety. Clinton promised to come, but dawdled, and the Americans and French beat him to Cornwallis. Pacification of the South had failed and renewed hope swelled the Patriot ranks stalemated to the north. In a blink it was over (at least according to the history books) and the final decisive victories had been won by hard fighting Southerners who were fed up being violated by British regulars, irregulars, and colonial loyalists recruited not only amongst their neighbors in the South, but in New England.  

But you know something I learned specifically from Pantano’s book? On February 27, 1776, Carolina patriots defeated a much larger force of Carolina loyalists at a place called Moores Creek Bridge in North Carolina. The loyalists were on their way to augment British naval forces for the planned assault on Charleston in June of that same year. Turns out they really needed those ground forces, because a few months later the British naval bombardment of Sullivan’s Island, defending Charleston Harbor, failed. The British ships took a licking and sailed away, delaying the main offensive against the Southern colonies four years. That failure to bring the Southern colonies to heel would ultimately cost Britain the war. 

In 1781 Mother England knew where the final gambit had been played...and lost. As cited above, she’d already prudently postponed a second invasion of an area (South Carolina) where she’d already been thwarted once. In addition to unfriendly colonists, there was the environment which was hostile to conventional armies. Okay, it was hostile to just about everybody, but the patriots there had struggled long and hard to build what they had. They had adjusted to not only the environment but the native inhabitants born and bred in that briar patch; they had, themselves, become indigenous. Now, with the north at a stalemate and the promise of Southern loyalists (also indigenous, which is what made the war there so nasty) who would rally to the British cause, she decided the time was ripe to subdue what remained of the rebels. At the time, a great deal was made by Mother England’s intent to invade the South. Immediately after, a great deal was made of her decision to have done so and who was to blame for the failure. Today that has fallen out of the mainstream histories. Oh, books are written by Southerners, but the television documentaries and the academic histories, and the curriculum taught in the prestigious, left-leaning universities, which for some reason I am unable to fathom, have been dubbed the torch-bearers of American history, gloss over the Southern role. These people have the market, leaving no room for the Southern presentation, something Pantano points out along with a detailed list and description of the miscreants. It’s not that the South’s role was more important, but certainly it was as important and the strategic picture for ultimate victory needs to be studied overall, from start to finish. There is plenty of room for the recognition of all. Two-hundred and thirty-six plus years ago we all worked together..., but we were a different nation then. 

I am a Southerner. This theme of promoting the South’s role in this nation is dear to me. I’ll never be an academic and I’m never going to make a movie or a television documentary, but I do intend to fight back against the forces undermining not only the South, but our Founders as well.

 

More next time and thanks for reading. 

Charlsie

Getting Your Book Covers to Look Right on Your Facebook Business Page

This post is primarily for those do-it-yourself authors out there, who, are stymied when trying to display your book covers on Facebook. I was, too. Facebook Help offered no guidance that I could find, nor did my efforts to “google”  the problem prove useful. Maybe after visits to a score of forums or so, I’d have come up with something on Google, but I fear the search would have proved daunting. I have figured out a way though and thought I’d share it with those of you who haven’t yet.  For those of you who have figured out a way to fix the problem, this post probably won’t interest you much. However, if you know a still better/simpler way, or if you’ve conquered the problem using a different graphic design software other than Paint Shop Pro, which I use, and you’d like to share your know-how, feel free to post in the comments section below. 

Now, for Charlsie’s method: 

The graphic box for uploading pictures to Facebook is a 180 pixel square. That means only the top portion of a book cover displays when the graphic is uploaded. To solve the problem, a book cover needs to display at 180X180. Since most covers are rectangular, mere resizing results in a distorted graphic. 

As stated above, the graphic design software I use is PaintShop Pro 8, but in theory, this method should work for any graphic design program. 

First, I created a graphic box 180X180. Then I colored that box with a background that blends nicely with my cover. Next I resized my front cover graphic to 180 pixels high, locked aspect ratio, which keeps the width in the same ratio as the height. My books are 6X9, so my finished graphic was 180X119 (or 120 to round it off nicely with no obvious distortion). I then selected the new little graphic, copied it, then selected my colored box, and pasted the image. The entire cover appears inside the box, framed on either side by a color complimentary to the cover. I saved the image, then uploaded it to my Facebook business page. 

Hope this helps some of you, 

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

 

 

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

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.

 

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