of selling their votes. . . . What a travesty it is to see men filling the office of school-commissioner, . when they can barely write their own names. " 23 Examples of Financial Conditions in South Carolina (1870, = 55.00 284.39 7.00 .$861.52 Jan. 5. 1 pair corsets.. 1873. Jan. 30. 1 box cigars $10; 1 case wine $45 = .$1,326,589 609,000 Corruption (1872-1873).—“ When the legislature met the last time [1871] the new furniture was all in; the House was furnished superbly. When the bill came in it amounted to $95,000. . . And, although the highest prices were paid for this furniture, three or four or five times its value-for instance, $750 was paid for one mirror in the speaker's room; ; clocks, at $480 apiece; chandeliers, at $650—: Question. How many spittoons were there? Answer. There were 200 fine porcelain spittoons at eight dollars apiece. . . Taxation (in North Carolina and Mississippi). 99 24 North Carolina. The taxation for state purposes has been increased fivefold. . . . Our taxation for State purposes before the war used to be ten cents on each hundred dollars. pay this year for State purposes 52 cents on each hundred dollars of value." Mississippi. "In 1869, the State levy was 10 cents on the $100 of assessed value of lands. . . . For the year 1874 it was fourteen times as great." 25 23. Fleming, Documentary History, II, 58. b. White Supremacy restored: The Ku Klux Klan and other Secret Societies. ... 66 Origin and Purpose. . . . the prime moving cause of the existence of the Ku Klux, was the result of the Union Leagues. . . . Those Union Leagues were supposed . to have not only a political object, but to a certain extent an object of crime; And this band of Ku Klux was said to have been organized to punish crime where the laws failed to administer justice. The cause of the troubles in the whole southern country is bad government. . . . From the close of the war up to 1867 affairs were perfectly quiet in the South; . . . Our friends thought it proper to organize a secret society for the purpose of counteracting that influence. . . . First: To protect the weak, the innocent,and the defenseless, from the indignities, wrongs, and outrages of the lawless, the violent, and the brutal; Second: To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States; . . . Third: To aid and assist in the execution of all constitutional laws. . . . [Constitution, 1867] Knights of the White Camelia, [Constitution, 1869] CHARGE. As you have already gathered from the questions. ., and from the Oath . our main and fundamental object is the MAINTENANCE OF THE SUPREMACY OF THE WHITE RACE IN THIS REPUBLIC. 66 "26 The Plan of Work; Costume. The costume is a long gown with loose flowing sleeves, with a hood, in which the apertures for the eyes, nose and mouth are trimmed with some red material. The hood has three horns, Then there is a Then in the mouth [Statement of J. long tongue sticking out about six inches, made of red flannel also, and so fixed that it can be moved. are large teeth that are very frightful. W. Holden]. A night traveler called at the negro quarters, and asked for water. After he had drunk three buckets full of water, at which the negro was much astonished, he thanked the colored man and told him he was very thirsty, that he had traveled nearly a thousand miles in twenty-four hours, and that was the best drink he had had since he was killed at the battle of Shiloh. The negro . . . has not since been heard from. White men on white horses have lately been 26. Fleming, Documentary History, II, 332-334, 347, 351. seen sailing through the air at midnight, Planters Banner, Louisiana, 1868].” 2 27 The final struggle for White Supremacy. Statement of Miss. Examiner (Oct. 7, 1875). "The Republican journals of the North made a great mistake regarding the present campaign in Mississippi in the light of a political contest. It is something more earnest and holy than that-it is, so far as the white people and land-owners are concerned, a battle for the control of their own domestic affairs; a struggle to regain a mastery that has been ruthlessly torn from them by selfish white schemers and adventurers, through the instrumentality of an ignorant horde of another race which has been as putty in their hands, moulded to our detriment and ruin. . . Cited by Senator Sumner in Senate. "Call it what you please. Some call it the color-line. It looks to us like the whiteline. We are in favor of the color line as a principle, a necessity, and a policy. As a principle it means that property, intelligence, and integrity enjoy, of right, a superiority over poverty, ignorance, and duplicity; . . . Rally on the color-line, boys, beyond the platform, every man to his color and colors, and make these negro pretenders to govern this great country come down, else put 'em down. . . .” 29 " 28 Negro Senator Revel's Statement (1875). "I cannot recognize, nor do the masses of my people who read recognize, the majority of the officials who have been in power for the past two years as republicans. We do not believe that republicanism means corruption, theft, and embezzlement. These three offences have been prevalent among a great portion of our office-holders; to them must be attributed the defeat of the republican party in the State if defeat there was; . . Address of Charleston Business Men (1876). "For ten long weary years the white people of South Carolina have endured a condition of things which any Northern State would have been tempted to throw off . . . at the point of the bayonet if . . . in no other way. [Some misrepresentations] we desire to cor 27. Fleming, Documentary History, II, 364-365. rect: It is not true that the white people of South Carolina are disloyal . . . to the United States Government. . . . It is not true that South Carolina or any of its counties, is in a state of insurrection, . . It is not true that the white people are hostile to the colored people, It is not true that in the recent . race collisions the white people have been the aggressors. It is true that there is in the State a most active, earnest and excited canvass to overthrow corrupt rule and reestablish honest State Government. . . " 30 c. Troops Withdrawn from the South: President Grant to Gov. Packard of Louisiana (March, 1, 1877). "In answer to your dispatch . . The President [Grant] directs me to say that he feels it his duty to state frankly that he does not believe public opinion will longer sustain the maintenance of State Government in Louisiana by the military, and that he must concur in this manifest feeling. The troops will hereafter, as in the past, protect life and property ; but... they will not be used to establish or pull down either claimant for control of the State. It is not his purpose to recognize either claimant. C. C. Sniffin, Secretary." President Hayes to Secty of War G. W. McCreary (April 20, 1877). "Sir: Prior to my entering upon the duties of the Presidency, [troops] had been stationed, . . . in the immediate vicinity of the building used as the State-House, in New Orleans, La. . . . In my opinion there does not now exist in Louisiana such domestic violence as is contemplated by the Constitution as the ground upon which the military power of the National Government may be invoked for the defense of a State. The disputes which exist as to the right of certain claimants to the chief executive office of that State are to be settled and determined not by the Executive of the United States, but by such orderly . . . methods as may be provided by the Constitution and laws of the State. You are therefore directed to see that the proper orders are issued for the removal of said troops at an early date, 30. Fleming, Documentary History, II, 402, 408-410. Republican Governor Chamberlain of South Carolina on effects of above order and a similar one to him. "What is the President's Southern Policy? . . . In point of actual results, it consists in the abandonment of Southern Republicans, and especially the colored race, to the control and rule not only of the Democratic party, but of that class at the South which regarded slavery as a Divine Institution, . ., which steadily opposed citizenship and suffrage for the negro-in a word, a class whose traditions, principles, and history are opposed to every step and feature of what Republicans call our nationa! progress since 1860. . . "31 QUESTIONS I. (1) Where do you find the basis of Lincoln theory of reconstruction? (2) Outline his plan as set forth in 1863. (3) What was the attitude towards Lincoln of Wade and Davis, and what its significance? (4) Does Lincoln seem to have been satisfied with his own plan of restoration? (5) What seems to have been the state of mind of the South towards the Union in 1865? (6) Did Johnson attempt to follow Lincoln's plan? (7) What changes in State constitutions made by the seceded states in 1865? (8) Were the laws made by the Southern States for the freedmen justifiable? (9) What was the action of Congress in regard to the Johnson reconstructed state governments in 1865-1866? (10) How did the Democrats stand in regard to the effect of secession on the States? (11) What position taken by the Republicans in regard to the status of the Southern States at the close of the war? (12) What issue in the political campaign of 1866? (13) What states were placed under military reconstruction? (14) Who could vote in reconstructing these states? (15) How did the whites of the South receive military reconstruction? (16) How did President Johnson's friends regard it? (17) Who were the "carpet baggers"? (18) What the character of the governments in the Southern States after reconstruction? (19) How did the white people of the South regain power? (20) How did they justify their action? II. (1) Write a paper on "the Presidential theory of Reconstruction. (2) Give an outline of the Congressional plan of reconstruction. (3) Were the Southern people justified in overthrowing "carpet bag" and negro rule? (4) Write a pa 31. Allen, Chamberlain's Administration, 508. |