Aftermath: Despotism

Better to Emulate the Wise Romans

British stateman Benjamin Disraeli viewed the United States as a “territorial democracy,” divided into a personal democracy in the South, and a socialistic and humanitarian democracy in the North. The latter was represented mainly by the abolitionists who saw their cause as transcending all laws or constitutions of state and had its counterpart in European Jacobinism or red republicanism.

At the end of the Civil War, Brownson emphasized that the general government “cannot itself reorganize a State; it has no authority to purge the electoral people and to say who may or may not vote, for the whole question of suffrage and qualifications is left to each State and can be settled neither by an act of Congress nor executive proclamation.”

Better to Emulate the Wise Romans

“[Brownson] maintained that neither the [Lincoln] administration nor Congress ever took, distinctly and decisively, a ground on which the war was defensible . . . for neither party understood where, under our system, the sovereign power is lodged.

But whatever the inner superior merit of the American Constitution, its interpretation is quite another thing altogether. If the [Southern] States had not held the States to be severally sovereign and maintained that the United States are only an agreement or compact, they would not have seceded; and had not the [Northern] States confounded the Union with the general government and manifested a tendency to make it the whole national government, the South would have had no occasion or excuse for secession.

[Brownson] expressed deep regrets over President Andrew Johnson’s proclamation of May 29, 1865, disenfranchising the pars sanior of the whole white Southern society. Of that he wrote:

It exceeded anything ever issued in any age by the most barbarous chieftain. It virtually disenfranchised and outlawed nearly the whole Southern people, certainly every man who could render any efficient service in reorganizing Southern society, and in repairing the disasters of the war.”

This he proscribed as a wholly calamitous policy. What was most needed was to bring about a speedy restoration of the Southern people to citizenship and thus bring the North and South together in friendly and loyal cooperation in binding up the nation’s wounds. To inflict upon the Southern people unnecessary and ill-timed pains and penalties would only be to disgrace the whole American character . . .

“The wise Romans,” he reminded the Northern victors, “never allowed a triumph to a Roman general for victories, however brilliant, won over Romans.”

(Orestes A. Brownson: A Definitive Biography. Thomas R. Ryan. Our Sunday Visitor, 1976, p. 647; 649-650; 654; 659)

Reconstruction Days in Washington

On March 2, 1875, President Grant signed the Civil Rights Bill for which Charles Sumner had labored so many years, and which was a tribute to his memory. Southerners and Democrats in Congress had bitterly contested the Bill, which imposed a $500 fine, upon owners of restaurants, theaters and hotels which refused to accommodate all persons regardless of color. The Bill did not apply to churches nor to schools – and in the South, was held to be an unwarrantable interference with the rights of the individual States, and after a number of test cases in the lower courts, this opinion was sustained by the US Supreme Court.

Reconstruction Days in Washington

“During the Reconstruction period the colored people of Washington were able briefly to enjoy some of those advantages and privileges for which they and their Radical friends had so long struggled. The leaders of the Republican party, well-aware that only the solid support of the colored voters of the South had regained the two-thirds majority of their party in Congress and therefore anxious to preserve their loyalty, treated the colored representatives with a healthy respect.

The largest contingent of Negro congressmen had come from South Carolina, which had been under Republican control since the new state constitution of 1869. The white “Scalawag” members who had been returned to the 41^st Congress had reflected little credit on their state or their party. One of them, B.F. Whittemore, had resigned after his sale of West Point cadetships was revealed. Another, C.C. Bowen, the representative for the Charleston district, was jailed for bigamy after a long and sensational trial in the District courts. Convicted by a mixed jury, Bowen was freed after two weeks in prison; he was not, however, renominated for his congressional seat.

Joseph H. Rainey was a mulatto native of Georgetown, SC and a barber. His scanty formal education had been improved by travel in the West Indies. In an interview, Rainey stated it was hard to find rooms in Washington and that colored congressmen were charged more than white men. At Falf’s Bar, across from the Post Office, he had been obliged to pay fifty cents for a glass of beer, the water freely admitting that the extra charge was account of his color.”

(The Uncivil War: Washington During the Reconstruction: 1865-1878. James H. Whyte, Twayne Publishers, 1958, pp. 237-238; 242)

Florida’s Reconstruction

By order of the Sixth District’s Federal military occupation commander, Major-General John Pope, the election of Florida’s constitutional convention members was to be held on November 14, 15 and 16, 1867. Those chosen to register voter names were noted as “pronounced and bitter Republican partisans,” and holding positions as election officers and poll judges.

The struggles over Reconstruction issues in Florida noted below would revive the State’s prewar Democratic party, as conservative citizens became aware of the Republican scheme to form a “ring” to monopolize the State’s railways with New York funding.

Florida’s Reconstruction

“The native whites were not exhibiting interest in registering [under Reconstruction rule]. From Walton County, West Florida, came the report: “I fear this class (negroes, carpetbaggers and scalawags) will control the county unless a greater interest can be awakened.” What is true of Walton is true of most of the counties in the State,” announced the Floridian.

The mass of the whites had refrained from voting, with only 1,220 white votes cast, of which 203 were against assembling the convention. The Conservative party [of native whites] had succeeded neither in making Conservative voters of the negroes nor in preventing them from voting the Republican ticket.

Forty-six delegates were actually returned in this election: eighteen were negroes, and three of the latter were citizens of other States. Of the twenty-seven whites, one or two were Conservatives, fifteen or sixteen were Radical carpetbaggers from the North, and ten or twelve Southern loyalist or “scalawags.”

What were the obvious characteristics of these delegates chosen by the newly enfranchised? Several of the negro members were unlettered – unable to read or write. Two or three of the blacks had evil reputations and would have done better in jail than in legislative halls. Of the whites, the native Union or loyalist element was made up of men of no particular reputation – good or bad – and of mediocre enlightenment.

The carpetbag or Northern element – composing about one-third of the delegates – contained some men of considerable intelligence and passable education. The most cultured member of the convention, probably, was Jonathan Gibbs, a tall and slightly- built man of color indicating mulatto origin. Born in Philadelphia, educated at Dartmouth College and Princeton Theological Seminary, he was a fairly successful type of an intelligent black subjected to New England culture.

Sent into Florida for philanthropic work among the negroes. He soon entered politics and was ere long in rubbing shoulders with cantankerous and thieving ignorance. He died before the end of Republican rule, ostensibly from eating too heavy a dinner. It was rumored that he was poisoned by fellow Republicans.”

(The Civil War & Reconstruction in Florida, William Watson Davis, Columbia University, 1913, pp. 491-495)

The Great American Misfortune

The Northern States actually gained wealth, population and power between 1861 and 1865, during the concurrent destruction of the American Confederacy. The North’s industrial production exploded and made agriculture prosper, while the flood of European immigration more than replaced the men in blue lost by Grant, Sheridan and Sherman. The South was in shambles and soon the North would send its carpetbaggers and Union League organizers to loot anything of value that remained.

The Great American Misfortune

“On June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger of the Union army landed in Texas. At Galveston he proclaimed, in the name of President Johnson, that the authority of the United States over Texas was restored, that all acts of the Confederacy were null and void, and that the slaves were free. With him, thousands of bluecoats arrived in Texas; 52,000 were sent to the border areas alone. This force was meant to overawe the French in Mexico; the others congregating along the coast were sent as a show of force to keep order in the State. None of these troops proceeded to the old Indian forts; few marched to the interior and most camped in the centers of population in the east. There was no opposition. Thousands of Texans watched Union soldiers march through the State with fife and drum; men, women, and small children saw miles of bayonets go by.

Few Texans saw the fact that the big battalions had won as “right.” They had fought valiantly for the right as they saw it, for the Constitution as their people construed it, and for liberty as Texans felt it. The Texans were stubborn and prideful people. They had conquered Mexicans and driven out Indians. Few Texans then living saw things any other way; the Northern enthusiasm had been a war for democracy had no currency. In 1861, Texas had been an Anglo-Saxon democracy too.

The knowledge of defeat was bitter, but the coming humiliations were worse. The State was placed under military rule and army tribunals replaced the civil courts . . . Army officers were able to act as they saw fit. More galling than the actual atrocities [by Union soldiers], however, was the fact that most Northerners took an almost sadistic pleasure in demeaning or ridiculing the pretensions and folkways of the Southern race.

Thousands of the occupation troops in Texas were composed of Negro regiments. In every locality where Negroes were stationed, there was trouble, without exception. The public could not bar them, but it refused to accept them. Texans took the other side of the street to avoid passing them; women spat on the ground they trod. Men who made gestures of resistance, or who appeared in public in remnants of gray uniforms, were arrested.

Union officers were pariahs, and some reacted bitterly to this. At Victoria, the Negro garrison terrorized the town. Its white officers refused to let any professed Union man or Negro be jailed by local citizens for any offense. At Brenham, Negro troops burned down the town and no soldier or officer was ever brought to trial or admonished for this act. Other Union soldiers raided Brownsville.

This had not happened to Americans before, and few people in the North ever understood its full and lasting effect. The great American misfortune was not that it happened so much as that it was to go on so long. In Texas, outside rule was to last not a few months, but for nine long years. These years seeded for a century certain hatreds, fears, distrusts and suspicions along with psychic damage in the native Texas soul.”

(Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans. T.R. Fehrenbach. Collier Books, 1968, pp. 394-395)

The Radical Star Chamber

The Radical element of the Republican party emerged as a means to direct and control Lincoln’s war against the American South. West Point-graduate General George McClellan was an early casualty of Radical meddling as they strove to ensure that Radicalized military commanders- usually inept – were selected for high command.

The Radical Star Chamber

“It is a sordid story of how the people’s representatives, Sumner, Stevens, Wade, Chandler, Trumbull, Henry Wilson, Henry Winter Davis, and others, undertook to determine the conduct of the war for partisan purposes. They are shown as the representatives of the new “bourgeoisie” who ‘intended to do more than use their new-fledged political power to consolidate an already dominant economic position. They meant to extend the new industrial order to the South and make that section an economic adjunct of the North.’

The most certain way to accomplish this double purpose would be to destroy slavery, and with it the Old South. The Radicals ‘loved the Negro less for himself than as an instrument with which they might fasten Republican political and economic control upon the South.’ Lincoln saw the war as a way to preserve the Union while the Radicals saw it as a way to end slavery and the slave owners’ political power.

Victory must not come, therefore, through Democratic generals like McClellan, nor after a short war which would leave slavery untouched. This was a view which sometimes placed Radicals in the ‘position of regarding Union defeats on the battlefield as helpful to their cause.’ The Radicals would dominate the Republican party, Congress, and the Executive. They would form the President’s Cabinet, shape his policies, select his generals, and control the patronage.

The Committee for the Conduct of the War was hit upon as the Congressional agency over which the President would have no power. It was a Court of Star Chamber in every respect. It developed a refined technique for browbeating witnesses, suppressing testimony, damaging reputations, making oblique attacks upon Lincoln, and all under the guise of impartial investigations designed to mobilize efficiently the forces of victory.

With Washington full of amateur strategists, the army full of politicians, Lincoln indecisive and desperate for sound advice, and the Cabinet a hodge-podge, it is not surprising that the Radicals, with principles too high to let the Constitution stand in the way, soon got the smell of blood in their nostrils and were away in full pursuit. McClellan was fair game but difficult to corner, although some of his subordinates were the victims of pot-shots. Eventually, McClellan’s own weaknesses combined with the Radical sniping caused Lincoln to send him for cover.

The Radicals were adept at picking political generals who could not fight. These usually fell by the way, with never a tear shed by those who had urged them on Lincoln as saviors of the republic. When a general favored by the Radicals lost a battle, the blame was put on a Democratic or conservative subordinate; if a conservative won a battle, as in the case of Meade at Gettysburg, it was carefully explained that the credit should go elsewhere.

Even Grant was assailed as a Democrat until the Radicals decided they wanted to annex him, and Grant was politician enough to want to be annexed.”

(Lincoln and the Radicals, T. Harry Williams. University of Wisconsin Press, 1941. Review by R.H. Woody, Duke University. North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. XIX, No. 4, October 1942, pp. 410-411)

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)