Aftermath: Despotism

A Common Agent Rather Than a King

Jefferson Davis mused in his magisterial Rise and Fall: “As time rolled on, the General Government gathering with both hands a mass of undelegated powers, reached that position which Mr. Jefferson had pointed out as an intolerable evil – the claim of a right to judge the extent of its own authority.”

A Common Agent Rather Than a King

“In July 1776, the Congress of the thirteen united colonies declared that “these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.” [England’s] denial of this asserted right and the attempted coercion made it manifest that a bond of union was necessary, for the common defense.

In November of the following year, 1777, the Articles of Confederation and perpetual union were entered into by the thirteen States under the style of “The United States of America.” Under the Articles, no amendment to them could be made except by unanimous consent, which hampered the efficient discharge of the functions entrusted to the Congress.

What is the Constitution of the United States?

The whole body of the instrument, the history of its formation and adoption, as well as the Tenth Amendment, added in an abundance of caution, clearly show it to be an instrument enumerating the powers delegated by the States to the Federal Government, their common agent. It is specifically declared that all which was not so delegated was reserved.

On this mass of reserved powers, those which the States declined to grant, the Federal Government was expressly forbidden to intrude. Of what value would this prohibition have been, if three-fourths of the States could, without the assent of a particular State, invade the domain which that State had reserved for its own exclusive use and control?

It [is, I hope], been satisfactorily demonstrated that the States were sovereigns before the formed the Union, and that they have never surrendered their sovereignty, but have only entrusted to their common agent certain functions of sovereignty to be used for their common welfare.”

(Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume I. Jefferson Davis. D. Appleton & Co., 1881, pp. 192; 195-196)

A Distinguishing Mark of Gentle Nurture

A Distinguishing Mark of Gentle Nurture

“Of course, what was to all true Confederates beyond a question a “holy cause,” “the holiest of causes,” this fight in defence of “the sacred soil” of our native land, was to the other side “a wicked rebellion” and “damnable treason,” and both parties to the quarrel were not sparing of epithets which, at the distance of time, may seem to our children unnecessarily undignified; and not doubt some of these epitheta orantia continue to flourish in remote regions, just a pictorial representations of Yankees and rebels in all their respective fiendishness are still cherished here and there.

At the Centennial Exposition of 1876, by way of conciliating the sections, the place of honor in the “Art Annex” was given to Rothermel’s painting of the battle of Gettysburg, in which the face of every dying Union soldier is lighted with a celestial smile, while guilt and despair are stamped on the wan countenances of the moribund rebels. At least such is my recollection of the painting; and I hope that I may be pardoned for the malicious pleasure I felt when informed of the high price the State of Pennsylvania paid for that work of art. The dominant feeling was amusement, not indignation.

But as I looked at it, I recalled another picture of a battle-scene, painted by a French artist, who had watched our life with an artist’s eye. One of the figures in the foreground was a dead Confederate boy, lying in the angle of a worm fence. His uniform was worn and ragged, mud-stained as well as blood-stained; the cap which had fallen from his head was a tatter, and the torn shoes were ready to drop from his stiffening feet; but in the buttonhole of his tunic was stuck the inevitable toothbrush, which continued even to the end of the war to be the distinguishing mark of gentle nurture – the souvenir that the Confederate soldier so often received from fair sympathizers in border towns.

I am not a realist, but I would not exchange that homely toothbrush for the most angelic smile that Rothermel’s brush could have conjured up.”

(The Creed of the Old South. Basil L. Gildersleeve. The Johns Hopkins Press, 1915, pp. 17-19)

State’s Rights and Civil Rights

“States’ Rights are easy enough to define. The Tenth Amendment does it succinctly: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people [of the States]”

Civil rights should be no harder. In fact, however – thanks to extravagant and shameless misuse by people who ought to know better – it is one of the most badly understood concepts in modern political usage. Civil rights [are] frequently used synonymously with “human rights” – or with “natural rights.”

As often as not, it is simply a name for describing an activity that someone deems politically or socially desirable. A sociologist writes a paper proposing to abolish some inequity, or a politician makes a speech about it – and, behold, a new “civil right” is born! The Supreme Court has displayed the same creative powers.

A civil right is a right that is asserted and is therefore protected by some valid law. It may be asserted by the common law, or by local or federal statutes, or by the Constitution; but unless a right is incorporated in the law, it is not a civil right and is not enforceable by the instruments of the civil law.

There may be some rights – “natural,” “human,” or otherwise – that should also by civil rights. But if we desire to give such rights the protection of the law, our recourse is to a legislature or to the amendment procedures of the Constitution. We must not look to politicians, or sociologists – or the courts – to correct the deficiency.

[The] federal Constitution does not require the States to maintain racially mixed schools. Despite the recent holding of the Supreme Court, I am firmly convinced – not only that integrated schools are not required – but that the Constitution does not permit any interference whatsoever by the federal government in the field of education.

It may be wise or expedient for Negro children to attend the same schools as white children, but they do not have a civil right to do so which is protected by the federal Constitution, or which is enforceable by the federal government. The intentions of the founding fathers in this matter are beyond any doubt: no powers regarding education were given to the federal government.”

(The Conscience of a Conservative, Barry Goldwater, Victor Publishing Company, 1960, pp. 31-34)

A New Swarm of Carpetbaggers

In the early 1940s the Republican party in Virginia, and nationally, was largely moribund. But due to the increasing communist-infiltration of FDR’s administration and organized labor, Republican power increased as did open fissures in the Democratic party. In the mid-1940s, FDR courted support from Sidney Hillman’s communist-dominated Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) which delivered Democratic votes.

A Virginia Democrat openly-hostile to organized labor and who denounced public employee unions was William Tuck, who served as governor 1946 -1950. When Virginia Electric & Power employees threatened a strike in early 1946, Tuck responded with a state of emergency, mobilized State militia and threatened to induct 1600 of the utility’s employees. The following year he secured passage of a law outlawing compulsory union membership and establishing Virginia as a “right to work” State. Tuck also voiced support for Virginia’s defiance of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board ruling of 1954, fearing that his State’s schools would become like the District of Columbia’s “blackboard jungles” of juvenile crime, drugs and pregnancies.

A New Swarm of Carpetbaggers

“Virginia’s Eight District Congressman Howard W. Smith, comprising Alexandria, Arlington and Falls Church, assailed the CIO’s Political Action Committee as a “new swarm of carpetbaggers who are invading the Southern States [and] are impregnated with communism.”

Like most of his Southern colleagues, Virginia Senator Robert Byrd initially greeted Truman’s ascension to the Presidency in 1945 with favor. After all, Truman was the son of a Confederate soldier, and his Missouri accent fueled the feeling among Southerners that one of their own finally was in charge. In fact, Truman owed his spot on the national ticket in 1944 to Southern Democrat leaders who had insisted that Roosevelt jettison liberal Vice President Henry Wallace as the price for continued support. Though Byrd and his colleagues expected Truman’s leadership to move their party back to center, they did not get it.

Instead, Truman presented Congress with “civil rights” initiatives and home rule for the District of Columbia, which received a sharp and swift denunciation from Virginia’s senior senator. “Taken in their entirety,” declared Byrd, “[the Truman civil rights proposals] constitute a mass invasion of State’s rights never before even suggested, much less recommended, by any previous President.”

At the Democratic National Convention, Truman was re-nominated, and Virginia’s votes went in protest to conservative Senator Richard Russell of Georgia. A few days later, Southern Democrats met in Birmingham, Alabama, and under a “State’s Rights Party” banner nominated their own ticket headed by then-Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Though Virginia’s Democratic leadership did not attend the event in Birmingham, Governor Tuck unmistakably signaled his preference for the South Carolina governor and introduced him at a Richmond rally.

The black-owned Norfolk Journal and Guide aired its distrust of Truman. “When and if it becomes expedient,” the newspaper commented, “Mr. Truman could just as ruthlessly trade away the interests of the Negro for the support of some other group which he felt more important.” Though Truman probably garnered a slim majority of the black vote in the State, many black Virginians backed Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey, whose moderate record as New York’s governor appealed to them.”

(The Dynamic Dominion: Realignment and Rise of Virginia’s Republican Party Since 1945. Frank B. Atkinson. George Mason University Press. 1992, pp. 20-22; 24-25)

The Bitterness of Surrender

Like other defeated American soldiers in the South mid-1865, Gen. Bryan Grimes dealt with illness and “grief of surrender” amid constant rumors of pending retribution at the hands of the Yankee governors. One was “a report that they would hang all officers above the rank of captain and all their property confiscated,” his wife Charlotte recalled. “We were living in a “Reign of Terror.”

The Bitterness of Surrender

“Grim scenes abounded as homeward-bound North Carolinians rode south for home [after Appomattox]. One event in particular must have made him wonder what was in store for him as a defeated soldier without the means to fight back. According to Grimes’ astute traveling companion, Thomas Devereux:

“[We came upon] an old man, Loftin Terrel, his house was on the roadside, and he was knee-deep in feathers where [Sherman’s bummers] had ripped open the beds in search of valuables. A yearling and a mule colt were lying dead in the lot, they had been wantonly shot. Old man Terrel was sitting on his doorstep, he said there was not a thing left in the house and every bundle of fodder and grain of corn had been carried off; that he had been stripped of everything he owned and had not a mouthful to eat. They had even killed his dog which was lying dead near the house.”

On Sunday, April 16, 1865, Grimes rode into Raleigh atop his trustful horse Warren. Charlotte was “delighted to see him under any conditions,” but recalled that, “he would reproach me for want of patriotism when I said so, he was so miserable over [General Joseph Johnston’s] the surrender.”

The Federals garrisoning [Raleigh] issued orders forbidding former Confederates from wearing their uniforms. For many this directive presented a dilemma, for they had no other clothes to wear and no money to purchase new one. Charlotte responded to the order by covering her husband’s brass uniform buttons with bootblack, a ruse Grimes described made him look as though he was “in mourning for the Confederacy.” The ever-resourceful Charlotte, despite Grimes’ protestations, sold several of her silk dresses for $100 and used the money to purchase his civilian clothes. “It seemed to hurt him to have to use this money,” she explained, “but I would take no denial.”

Raleigh was a very different town from the one Grimes left four years earlier. The victorious Yankees seemed everywhere . . . [and he] no money, no income . . . [and] not a cent in the world, explained Charlotte, “except for a few gold pieces he had carried all through the war.” Fortunately, Grimes’ brother William was in a position to assist the destitute couple [and] gave them “two hundred dollars in gold quilted in a belt under my corsets,” wrote Charlotte.”

(Lee’s Last Major General: Bryan Grimes of North Carolina. T. Harrell Allen. Savas Publishing, 1999, pp. 258; 260)

Republicans Appeal to War Hatred in 1868

Republicans Appeal to War Hatred in 1868

“While the financial issue [concerning wartime Greenbacks] was at its height previous to the 1868 State election in Maine, the New York Tribune of 10 September 1868 gave this warning:

“We can lose by allowing Republicans to believe this campaign is merely or mainly a question of finance, of dollars and cents, and that the taxpayers will be enriched by repudiation [of debts]. It is the cohorts of the Rebellion, forming again for the capture, not merely for the seat of the Government, but of the Government itself.”

The following paragraph was printed in the New York Tribune of 9 October 1868, reprinted from the New York World. It showed a Democratic newspaper’s view of the Republicans using the War for campaign purposes:

“The Republicans are making the late war the hinge of the presidential campaign, invoking all the bitter animosities and sectional hatred prevailing when we were conscripting soldiers to fight the South. To accuse the Democratic party of slackness in the war seems their best electioneering weapon. To denounce the Southern people as Rebels is thought the best justification of the Republican party, and the subjugation and humiliation of the South is as much their aim now as it was six years ago.

It is not a policy of peace, but of passion, revenge and domination. The symbol of the canvass on the Republican side is the sword. Their leader is a man who knows no trade except war, selected because the old feeling of hostility would more naturally rally around him than a civilian statesman.”

Reference after reference could be made concerning the Republican appeal to the war hatred of the masses of the North.”

(Political Campaign and Election of General Grant in 1868. George A. Olson. Thesis excerpt, pp. 66-67. University of Kansas, 1928)

Democrat Dilemma in 1868

The Republican party’s 1861-1865 war not only subjugated the American South, but the North as well. By virtue of this and contrary to the assertion below in 1868, the US Constitution had become a dead letter when a President ordered the invasion and overthrow of States in 1861, and Congress acquiesced.

For their 1868 presidential candidate, the Radicals selected Gen. Grant. Of the latter, the National Intelligencer of 9 June, 1868 wrote:

“General Grant is . . . nothing but a convenient instrument in the hands of Radical wirepullers. He knows nothing of civil affairs, the political history of the country, and cares nothing for either one or the other. He is a fortunate soldier, and no more, with limited capacity, and an absence of all training for the administration of government.”

“To support Grant, Radical leaders formed “Loyal Leagues” in the South who drilled members to vote Republican. They catered to the fancy of the Negro voter by promises of land and mules, elaborate initiation ceremonies, and the use of rituals and passwords in their secret meetings. Organizations of such a nature in the ranks of the white and Negro populace of the South were bound to result in riots and disorder in the campaign. This would be to the advantage of the Radical Republicans as they could say to Northern the voters that their plan f reconstruction was necessary in the South”.

Below is a letter from vice-presidential nominee General Francis Blair on June 30, 1868, to Col. James O. Brodhead of Missouri.

Democrat Dilemma in 1868

The reconstruction policy of the [Republican] Radicals will be complete before the next election; the [Southern] States so long excluded will have been admitted, Negro suffrage established, and the carpetbaggers installed in their seats in both branches of Congress.

There is no possibility of changing the political character of the Senate, even if the Democrats should elect their presidential candidate and hold a majority of the popular branch of Congress. We cannot, therefore, undo the Radical plan of reconstruction by congressional action; the Senate will continue to bar its repeal.

Must we submit to it? How can it be overthrown?

It can only be overthrown by the authority of the Executive, who is sworn to maintain the Constitution, and will fail to do his duty if he allows the Constitution to perish under a series of congressional enactments which are in palpable violation of its fundamental principles.

There is but one way to restore the government and the Constitution, and it is for the President-elect to declare these Reconstruction acts null and void, compel the US Army to undo its usurpations at the South, disperse the carpetbag State governments, allow the white people to re-organize their own governments, and elect Senators and Representatives. The House of Representative will contain a majority of Democrats from the North, and they will admit the Representatives elected by the white people of the South, and with the cooperation of the President, it will not be difficult to compel the Senate to submit once more to the obligations of the Constitution.

What can a Democratic president do if Congress is controlled by carpetbaggers and their allies? He will be powerless to stop the supplies by which the Negroes are organized into political clubs – by which an army is maintained to protect these vagabonds in their outrages upon the ballot. We must have a president who will execute the will of the people by trampling into dust the usurpations of Congress known as the reconstruction acts.

Your friend, Frank P. Blair.”

(Political Campaign and Election of General Grant in 1868. George A. Olson. Master’s Thesis excerpt, pp. 44-46; 56. University of Kansas, 1928)

Why Annihilate State Rights?

Marylander Montgomery Blair’s loyalty to the President and ambition for another post beyond Postmaster General remained undimmed. He unsuccessfully sought Mr. Lincoln’s nomination as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. On December 6, 1864, Blair wrote Lincoln his views on the progress of reconstruction and Radical Republican policies.

Why Annihilate State Rights?

“In compliance with your request I commit to writing the views to which I referred in a recent conversation. The gradual suppression of the rebellion renders necessary now a persistence in the policy announced in your amnesty proclamation, with such additional provisions as experiment may have suggested – or its repudiation and the adoption of some other policy. For my part I recognize the plan already initiated by you as consonant with the constitution – well calculated to accomplish the end proposed, and as tending to win over the affections of a portion of the disaffected citizens to unite with all the loyal to aid the work of the military power wielded by you. You have repeatedly driven out the rebel power, enabling the loyal people of the State to restore and reinvigorate their constitutional authority without the intervention of Congress.

The military force of the United States has expelled rebel armies and their allies within the South. Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana are embracing the amnesty proclamation, stepping into the Union under its provisions. They come recognizing the validity of your proclamation – slavery being discarded and so it is manifest, that just as soon as the military power of the Rebellion is driven out, the reign of the US Constitution will resume. The whole country hails your fundamental proclamation of freedom made universal by the vote of three-fourths of the States confirming it by constitutional amendment to secure forever the freedom of the slaves.

What then is the motive for annihilating State rights? It is certainly unnecessary to maintain Mr. Sumner’s “doctrine of State suicide” “State forfeiture State abdication” – the doctrine “that the whole rebel region is tabula rasa, or a clean slate, where Congress under the Constitution may write laws” in order to secure the extirpation of slavery.

Yet Mr. Sumner seems to confine his purpose of reducing States to territories to the object of bringing slavery within the grasp of Congress, and argues, “Slavery is impossible within the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Government.” For many years I’ve had this conviction and have constantly maintained it. I am glad to believe that it is implied in the Chicago platform. Mr. Chase is known to accept it sincerely. Then if slavery in the Territories is unconstitutional and under the exclusive jurisdiction of the national government, then slavery would be impossible there.

It follows that if slavery is no longer in question, why are the States to be disfranchised and denied their municipal right? What then is the purpose of Mr. Chase’s idea of disfranchising the States, turning them into territories and giving to Congress the power of making their local laws. This would be depriving States of their former unquestioned right of regulating suffrage. The States have heretofore made laws denying the suffrage to underage citizens, females, Negroes, Indians, unnaturalized aliens and others incapacitated by moral or physical defects.

If the States resume their places in the Union under your proclamation and the loyal votes of the people accepted, certainly they may assert the political sovereignty as it stood before the war.

The plan of throwing those States out of the Union grows out of the ambition of a class of usurpers to seize the occasion of depriving the States of their indubitable municipal rights . . . The object is undoubtedly to disfranchise the white race who had created the State governments of the South, and who contributed their full share in asserting national independence and creating the government of the United States. This is to be accomplished by the imposition of conditions by Congress on the readmission of those States into the Union which forfeits those municipal rights heretofore exerted by all States in their internal government.

An object now avowed is to enable Congress to constitute a State government by exacting conditions on admission which shall put blacks and whites on equality in the political control of a government originally created by the white race for themselves.

This is not merely manumission from masters, but it may turn out that those who have been held in servitude may become themselves the masters of the government created by another race. This revolutionary scheme looks to the establishment of a new control over the municipal rights of the State governments in the South, which has you well know been a favorite one of the late Secretary. You will remember that Mr. Chase suggested the modification of your amnesty and reconstruction proclamation, so as to allow all loyal citizens to vote, which included all the freedmen while excluding all the whites who had been engaged in the Rebellion. This would probably have thrown the governments of those states into the hands of the African race, as constituting the majority who had not borne arms against the government.”

(Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress. Transcribed and Annotated by the Lincoln Studies Center, Knox College. Galesburg, Illinois. (Letter from Montgomery Blair to Abraham Lincoln, December 6, 1864).

From Connecticut to Dred Scott

Well before the Dred Scott case of 1857 was the question brought before Connecticut Judge David Daggett, chief justice of the court of errors, in October 1833 raising the validity of a State law which “forbid any school, academy, or literary institution for the instruction of colored persons who are not inhabitants of this State.” The law was in place as the State’s colored schools tended to “greatly increase the colored population of the State and thereby to the injury of the people.” The defendant, a free Negro, insisted that the law was unconstitutional as it was in violation of the United States Constitution regarding the equal rights of citizens of all States.”

Regarding “citizens,” only the 1789 Constitution’s Article 4, sec. 2 states: “The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.” The Dred Scott case of 1857 rested upon this, and the question before the Court was simply whether Scott was a citizen of a State, as argued below.

To underscore the validity of the Constitution’s Article 4, sec. 2, the victorious Republican party was forced to follow the amendment route as it sought manipulation of the South’s black vote.

From Connecticut to Dred Scott

“Are slaves citizens? At the adoption of the Constitution of the United States [in 1789], every State was a slave State . . . We all know that slavery is recognized in that Constitution; it is the duty of this court to take that Constitution as it is, for we have sworn to support it . . . Then slaves were not considered citizens by the framers of the Constitution.

“Are free blacks citizens? . . . to my mind it would be a perversion of terms, and the well-known rules of construction, to say that slaves, free blacks or Indians were citizens, within the meaning of that term as used in the Constitution. God forbid that I should add to the degradation of this race of men; but I am bound, by my duty, to say that they are not citizens.”

In the case of Hobbs vs Fogg the State of Pennsylvania furnished another strong precedent for the decision of the [Dred] Scott case. At the election of 1835 a negro offered to vote. Solely on account of his color, the judges of election refused the privilege. The Negro insisted that “as a freeman and citizen of the State” the provisions contained in the State constitution and laws entitled him to the right of suffrage. The judges justified themselves on the ground “that a free Negro or mulatto is not a citizen within the meaning of the Constitution and law of the United States, and of the State of Pennsylvania, and, therefore, is not entitled to the right of suffrage . . .” The chief justice delivered the opinion, to which there was unanimous assent [to declare] “that no colored race was party to our social compact. Our ancestors settled the province as a community of white men; that the blacks were introduced into it as a race of slaves; whence an unconquerable prejudice of caste, which has come down to our day . . .” This is followed by “Yet it is proper to say that [Article 2, section 4] of the Federal Constitution, presents an obstacle to the political freedom of the Negro, which seems to be insuperable.”

Now then, in addition to the presumption that [those] of pure African blood whose ancestors had been American slaves, was presumed to have been born and to have continued a slave, these laws show that all the States had given to the Federal Constitution, from the days of its ratification down to the Dred Scott decision, a practical interpretation agreeing unanimously that a Negro, though free and a native of a State, was not a person as the word ‘citizen’ defines as that word was used by the framers of the Constitution.”

(The Legal and Historical Status of the Dred Scott Decision. Elbert William R. Ewing. Cobden Publishing Company, 1909, pp. 67-69)

Correcting the Record

Correcting the Record

“The Jackson (Mississippi) Clarion prints the following letter:

Beauvoir, Mississippi

June 20, 1885

Dear Sir, – Among the less-informed persons at the North there exists an opinion that the negro slave at the South was a mere chattel, having neither rights nor immunities protected by law or public opinion. Southern men knew such was not the case, and others desiring to know could readily learn the fact.

On that error the lauded story of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was founded, but it is strange that a utilitarian and shrewd people did not ask why a slave, especially valuable, was the object of privation and abuse? Had it been a horse they would have been better able to judge and would most probably have rejected the story for its improbability. Many attempts have been made to evade and misrepresent the exhaustive opinion of Chief Justice Taney in the ‘Dred Scott’ case, but it remains unanswered.

From the statement in regard to Fort Sumter, a child might suppose that a foreign army had attacked the United States – [and] certainly could not learn that the State of South Carolina was merely seeking possession of a fort on her own soil and claiming that her grant of the site had become void.

The tyrant’s plea of necessity to excuse despotic usurpation is offered for the unconstitutional act of emancipation, and the poor resort to prejudice is invoked in the use of the epithet ’rebellion,’ a word inapplicable to the States generally, and most especially so to the sovereign members of a voluntary union. But alas for their former ancient prestige, the States have even lost the plural reference they had in the Constitution . . . such language would be appropriate to an imperial government, which in absorbing territories required the subject inhabitants to swear allegiance to it.”

(Letter from President Davis on States’ Rights. Southern Historical Society Papers. Vol. XIV, January – December 1886, Rev. J. William Jones, D.D., pp. 408-409)