Published by Charleston Voice
The Tragic Era by Claude Bowers, 1929
Continuation from Louisiana I: Land and Year of Jubilee - The Real Horrors of Republican Reconstruction
Continuation from Louisiana I: Land and Year of Jubilee - The Real Horrors of Republican Reconstruction
CHAPTER XXI
MILITARY SATRAPS AND REVOLUTION
The conditions in Louisiana growing out of the
election of 1872 had directed national attention to Cromwellian methods, and a
revolution. The conservatives had elected John McEnery Governor over William
Pitt Kellogg, the Republican nominee, but an illegal returning board had' given
the victory to the defeated without the formality of canvassing the votes. The
contest involved not only State officers and a Senator, but the Legislature.
The legal De Feriet Board found. the conservatives triumphant; whereupon
Kellogg had wired Williams, the Attorney-General who prostituted his position
to partisan ends, that the fate of the Republican Party was involved; and the
drunken Federal Judge Durell, with the trembling finger; of inebriety, had
written his midnight injunction against the legal returning board, and
instructed United States Marshal Packard, Republican chairman and manager, to
take possession of the State House and prevent any 'unlawful' assemblage there
of the McEnery legislators. The next morning, the city vibrant in protest, the
besotted judge declared the lawful board illegal and restrained it from
canvassing the returns.
Even so, the action of Durell, countenanced by the
Attorney-General, resulted in a dual government, with one legislature electing
a conservative to the Senate, and the Kellogg body choosing P. B. S. Pinchback,
the mulatto. Thus the determination of the issue had been transferred to Washington, where a series of major
battles had been fought for more than two years. When Senator Carpenter,
Republican, a brilliant lawyer, cut the ground from beneath Kellogg and his
followers in a remarkable report, it seemed for a moment that the travesty in
Louisiana would end. Thoughtful Republicans, nauseated by the action of the
drunken Durell, were prone to hold for McEnery, or, with Carpenter, for a new
election.
It was at this juncture that Senator Morton,
resembling Stevens in his methods, established his claim to the absolute
leadership of his party. Ignoring Carpenter's report and his unanswerable
argument, Morton applied the whip to wavering partisans as remorselessly as had
Stevens. Autocratic, dictatorial, direct, and almost brutal in his methods of
management, he scrupled not to employ any weapon in a fight.
Thus nothing was done, and Louisiana was left to the mercy of
the President. With a division of sentiment among his counselors, Grant
hesitated, preferring to pass the responsibility to others. It was charged, on
the responsibility of a reputable man, that he had prepared a message
recognizing McEnery, when Morton, in glowering mood, forbade its transmission
on the ground that it would cost the party eighty thousand votes. This is given
color by the assertion of Morton's biographer that Carpenter had influenced
Grant until Morton drove to the White House in fighting trim and Grant had
wilted before his fury. The story is plausible enough, since Morton was by odds
the stronger man. The result had been the presidential recognition of Kellogg,
but the fight in the Senate over the seating of Pinchback had gone on.
II
Meanwhile, in Louisiana the domination of the
Custom-House clique had become intolerable. With the people driven to distraction
by taxation, the levying of taxes was in the hands of scamps and illiterates
without property. Nordhoff, an old Abolitionist, visiting the Legislature, was
startled - 'not because they were black, but because they were transparently
ignorant and unfit.'
The most vicious of the ruling element were
prospering while the taxpayers suffered. Pass Christian, once the center of
elegance and culture, with its fine residences along a beach of five miles'
length, had been taken over by the negro politicians, and its social arbiter
was now Caius Caesar Antoine, Lieutenant-Governor by the grace of Grant's
decree. Flamboyant, and abysmally ignorant, diminutive, with' a head like a cocoanut. . . pure type of the Congo,' he was the leader of
the Black League bent on the political
ostracism of the carpetbaggers. Under the rule of such men, the propertied class
was being rapidly impoverished. Scarcely five in a hundred men were not on the
verge of ruin. Houses had declined eighty per cent in value in four years. The
distinguished citizen who wrote that 'we are all ruined here and to hold property is to be taxed to death by our
African communists' painted the picture with fidelity. The auctioneers and pawnbrokers of
New Orleans were overworked, since elegant homes were being stripped piece by
piece to buy necessities; families once comfortable were selling their beds to sleep on
pallets on the floor, and bedsteads of rosewood and mahogany were going for
from five to seven dollars. In the spring of 1874, planters were being denied
the customary spring advances. One overwrought man, who had seen piece after
piece of the family property sold for taxation until only one remained, wrote the
sheriff that this was the sole possession of his mother and sister and the day
it was put on sale he would attend with his shotgun. 'Now I know the man,'
wrote Nordhoff, 'and know him to be a peaceable, law-abiding citizen, one of
the most important and most useful members of the community.' In the parish of St. Landry alone within two
years 821 plantations had gone for taxes, and there had been 47,491 tax
seizures by the sheriff in New Orleans. Parish papers were
giving three and four pages to
advertisements of tax sales.
To divert attention in
the North from these monstrous conditions, the press was fed on fabrications
of 'outrages' on 'innocent blacks' and' loyal men.' Every murder was given a
political motive and the victims were
usually-the negroes, slaughtered by the whites with
impunity. Nordhoff investigated the criminal
record of a parish controlled absolutely for five years by the Kellogg crowd, where
there had been thirty-three murders, and found that thirty-one were of blacks
by blacks; one of a white by a white, and one of a white by a negro because of
the seduction of the black man's sister. Not one murderer had been hanged.
Overtaxed and underprotected, the whites in the black belt, imperiled by the
incendiary talk of carpetbaggers, lived in a state of terror, and women were not safe on the highway.
III
Under these conditions the carpetbag regime
determined to disarm the whites. Hunters returning from the hunt were dispossessed
of their guns. Negro policemen arrested without cause, beating the victim
without provocation, and there was no redress. Women were insulted and assaulted in all parts of New Orleans, and there was no protection. The black militia vied with
the police, and the Black League, darling of Antoine, was never so insolent or
defiant. In June, nearly every steamboat brought heavy shipments of arms for
distribution among the negroes.
Determined to capture the Legislature in the fall
of 1874, the whites early began to enroll in the White League, and preparations
were made for armed conflict in case
of necessity. The color line was drawn by the negroes in the
plan to subordinate their white leaders, and Antoine's Black League was busy.
The Democrats entered the campaign with an unequivocal declaration for white supremacy. Inevitable clashes occurred -- all grist for the 'outrage' mill- and Grant,
ordering troops to convenient points, made the customary gesture that had
served political purposes well. The climax came when Federal officials began
seizing guns consigned to citizens, and denying the native whites their constitutional
right to bear arms. Indignation reached white heat and the rising of the
people came.
One September night, in expectation of, another
seizure, posters flamed, summoning the people to a
meeting at Canal Street the next morning.
Appealing to merchants to close their stores, 'The Bulletin' asked citizens to
speak ‘in tones loud enough to be heard the length and breadth of this land'
and' declare. . . that you are, and of
right ought to be, and mean to be, free.'
The morning found three thousand armed citizens at
the Clay Monument. They were not a faction
- they were the major part of the people in revolutionary mood. Nordhoff had
found universal detestation of the rulers of the State, and the business men
of New Orleans equal to the same class' in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.'
It was these who had assembled in the open, with guns in their hands. These
revolutionists moved with precision and formality. A committee was dispatched
to Kellogg to demand his abdication, and, was refused admission. The Lieutenant
Governor under McEnery immediately called upon all men between the ages of
eighteen and forty-five to arm, assemble as a militia, and expel the usurper.
There was a dramatic pause, with negro officials
swarming to the State House and Custom-House for protection. Kellogg, in deadly
fear, cringed in his office, heavily guarded by metropolitan police.
Thus passed the morning
and early afternoon. At three
o'clock a large body of armed men, marching in perfect order,
began the erection of barricades of paving stones, horse-cars, and boxes. This
was revolution. An hour later, General Longstreet with metropolitan police and
artillery marched forth to battle, and, greeted by the familiar rebel yell as
the revolutionists opened fire, he blanched. Ten minutes was enough -
Longstreet's men broke ranks and fled to the protection of the Custom-House.
Here, more barricades, another exchange of shots, and the captain of the
metropolitan police fell wounded. Papers, still wet from the press, circulated
through the excited crowd with a proclamation from Penn, the
Lieutenant-Governor, assuring the negroes they had no
cause for fear. The cars no longer ran. Night came, with pickets posted along Canal Street, and with the citizen's
militia bivouacked in the streets. Thus passed the night.
The next morning, early, there was an unconditional
surrender, with the revolutionists in possession of public buildings. Penn was
formally inducted into office, and, in due form, all 'legally elected in 1872'
were sworn in. The barricades were speedily removed, business houses opened
again, the citizen's militia marched triumphantly through the streets, the
McEnery Legislature was summoned to assemble, perfect order was maintained, and
Ogden, general of the victors, issued a statement:
'To
that God who gave us the victory we commit with confidence and hope the spirits of our heroic dead; and, strong in
the consciousness of right, record anew our holy purpose that Louisiana shall be free.'
Mass meetings applauded throughout the country, and
it was generally agreed, by all but the radical press, that there had never
been a better justification for evoking the right of revolution.
But the people had not won - not until Washington had spoken. The
white-faced Kellogg appealed to Grant, who ordered the 'turbulent' people to
'disperse within five days.' They had dispersed within five hours after the
victory. But that was not all- they were ordered to accept again the yoke of
Kellogg, Packard, and Casey; and, to enforce the order, three men-of-war and
Federal troops were hurried to New Orleans. Governor McEnery
thereupon surrendered the public buildings under protest, and Kellogg emerged
from his hiding to resume his station at the State House.
Grant had crushed the rising of the people.
IV
These incidents only intensified the. determination of the people to win the election. The
Democrats proclaimed their policy – to employ no negroes
who voted against them, to boycott merchants voting with the Opposition, to
refuse advances to planters renting land to the Radicals, to publish the names
of whites voting the negro ticket and to challenge the Radical speakers in
their meetings. The Kellogg party, however, was not disturbed - not with the
Federal Army and Government to lean upon. Packard, the Marshal and boss, began
arresting citizens without cause, dragging Democratic leaders to New Orleans from distant parishes.
Negroes were ordered from the fields to political meetings 'by order of
General Butler,' and blacks were threatened with arrest and punishment if they
voted the Democratic ticket. The Custom House clique set up the cry of
coercion early, and put in their plea for
troops.
That year even Packard' admitted that no more than
five thousand whites voted the Republican ticket and that as many as five
thousand negroes voted with the Democrats in a State where the whites had a
majority. Packard was in the saddle, in shining armor - the man for the crisis.
He was a leader of courage and iron will, despotic in his sway, utterly without
scruples. He was a master of organization - better still, he knew how to organize victory without
majorities. These, however, were sought, and soon great numbers of negroes from Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama were pouring into the
upper parishes and being registered. One parish proudly reported to Kellogg
that the previous parity of the races had been overcome, the registration
showing two hundred whites to twenty-three hundred negroes
- mostly imported from Tennessee. The correspondent of
the 'New York Herald' estimated that as many as fifteen thousand had been brought in within the year.
Efforts were made to bring on racial clashes, and
when one occurred, Morton, in Washington, was delighted. The army
was ready - always ready. But the
manipulation of election machinery was the stoutest reed on which to lean.
After the election, an investigation disclosed fifty-two hundred false
registrations in New Orleans alone, and a little later
Nordhoff attended a court in an upper parish which adjourned for want of a jury
because three fourths of the names drawn from the registration lists for jury
duty were found to be fictitious.
Election day found the
Kellogg party amply protected, eleven companies of Federal soldiers in New Orleans and on the Red River, and a fleet of gunboats
frowning from the stream upon a sovereign people. The ballots cast, the. determination of the result passed to a board packed for
corruption, which did its dirty work in secret session, but it required two
months of manipulation to count a Republican majority in the Legislature. The
delay was due to the hesitation at Washington to give assurances of
support for the conspiracy. The pledge made, the crime followed. Even in the
North the press protested against the manifest dishonesty of the count.
Bitterness was at white heat; the head of the canvassing board narrowly
escaped assassination; and Warmoth, former governor, knocked down in the
street, defended himself with a knife and killed his man. It was a clear case
of self-defense.
With two results announced, with two legislatures
in prospect, and a conflict approaching, Grant sent General Sheridan on a
secret mission to Louisiana. He carried authority to
assume command in the South and act as he saw fit. A microscopic search of the
army could not have discovered a single officer less fitted for the task or
more provocative of the people of New Orleans.
V
The special political functions of Sheridan are clearly indicated in
the ignoring of Sherman, head of the army.
'Neither the President nor Secretary of War ever consulted me about Louisiana affairs,' wrote Sherman,
who knew Louisiana well. 'Sheridan received his orders
directly from the Secretary of War [Belknap]. . . I have. . . tried to save our
army and officers from dirty work imposed upon them... . and
may thereby have incurred the suspicion of the President. Washington knew of Sheridan's hate of the South and
his relations with Radical politicians; knew, too, that he was anathema in New Orleans. Entering the breakfast
room of the hotel there, he was 'greeted by hisses and groans.' Pleased, rather
than ruffled, he had astonished Hoar of Massachusetts with his idea of
restoring peace. 'What you want to do, Mr. Hoar, is to suspend the
what-do-you-call-it' - meaning the writ of habeas corpus.
When it was learned that Sheridan was ordered to New Orleans, 'The Picayune'
commented that 'if there is one man more responsible than another for the
misfortunes of Louisiana, that man is General
Phil Sheridan,' and the 'New Orleans Times' saltily observed that 'as a soother
of political difficulties and corrector of political abuses.
. . he is anything but a success.'
Events thereafter moved with the rapidity of a
screen drama. The Democrats in the Legislature, catching their enemy napping,
elected Wiltz, a strong man, Speaker, and organized the House. Within the
chamber there was no confusion; in the corridors milled a tumultuous crowd. To
clear the corridors, the Speaker summoned General De Trobriand, who appeared
with soldiers and fixed bayonets, to announce his purpose to eject five members
who had been seated. Thus did Charles I come to America. Wiltz declared he would
yield to nothing but force. Clearly embarrassed, by the' dirty work' he was
called upon to do, the General hoped this would not be required.
'I am thankful to you, General, for that,' said the
Speaker. 'I recognize in you a gentleman and an officer, and while we submit to
the United States Government, it is my duty to ask you to use force. Until then
the five men refuse to leave the room.'
Thereupon the General ordered his soldiers to put
the Radical Secretary in the chair - escorted there by Federal soldiers with
bayonets. Wiltz rose to the occasion with the dignity of a Hampden, protesting
against 'the invasion of our halls by soldiers of the United States with drawn
bayonets and loaded muskets'; and concluded: 'I solemnly declare that Louisiana
has ceased to be a sovereign State; that it is no longer a republican
government; and I call on the representatives of the people to retire with me
before this show of arms.'
The Democrats withdrew, to organize a legislature
elsewhere; soldiers guarded the State House with cannon; and Sheridan spurred himself into the
picture with the clatter of a cavalryman. He sent his notorious telegram to Washington, reeking with partisanship,
packed with misrepresentations of conditions, with the suggestion that, if
Grant would proclaim the protesting people 'banditti,' 'no further action need
be taken except that which would devolve upon me.'
No such shocking proposal, made with the rattle of
a saber, and aimed at the liberties of a people, had ever been made by a responsible American official, civil or military.'
VI
With the Nation stunned, the reaction quickly came
in passionate protests and unmeasured denunciation. Here was a propaganda
telegram charging that "twenty-five hundred people had been murdered in
the State since 1868, and a plan to declare the most substantial people of two
States bandits, to be dealt with by military commissions. 'Since
blood must flow in defense of their liberties,' said a Southern paper, 'then
let the streets of the Crescent City again be the scene of
the conflict of patriots against the
most infamous usurpation.' The 'New Orleans Bulletin' pictured Grant 'grasping
his sword to play the part of Caesar.' Business men from the
North, East, West met at the St. Charles Hotel and
wired Belknap a denunciation of the charges. Clergymen of all sects and
denominations signed a protest against the slander. The Board of Underwriters
in resolutions denounced it as a lie. The Cotton Exchange, the Merchants' Exchange
Association, the Chamber of Commerce joined in the protest.
The twenty-five hundred murders were figments of
the fancy. Practically all political murders had antedated 1868, most murders
had been of blacks by blacks 'instigated by whiskey and jealousy,' and in the forty-one murders in the most
unruly parish
in seven years but three negroes had been killed by white men.
The North, too, rose in protest, and conservative
Republicans were dismayed. 'This is the darkest day for the Republican Party
and its hopes I have seen since the war,' wrote Garfield in his diary. 'To march
a file of soldiers into the Representative Hall of a State.
. . will not be tolerated by the American people,' he wrote a correspondent.
'The most outrageous subversion of parliamentary government by military force
ever attempted in this country,' said 'The Nation,' savagely attacking the 'banditti'
message. Comparing Sheridan's act to that of Claverhouse's dragoons, it declared that 'at no time in
the present century would a general in any country in Europe, except Russia, have dared to send such a dispatch to his
government.' Bowles,
of the'
Springfield Republican,' excoriated Grant for sending soldiers 'on a revolutionary, treasonable errand.' Mass
meetings were
hastily called at Faneuil Hall, Boston, and Pike's Opera House,
Cincinnati; where resolutions
denouncing government by bayonets were adopted.
But the climax of protest was the meeting at Cooper
Union, New York. Ten thousand outraged people clamored for admission before the
doors were opened, and crowded in to the peril of life and limb. William Cullen
Bryant, presiding, shaming Sheridan, thought he should have
replied to the order so to act by saying that he would' tear off his epaulets
and break his sword and fling the fragments into the Potomac, sooner than go upon so
impious an errand.' More
tremendous was the philippic of William M. Evarts, leader of the American Bar, and a foremost
Republican, merciless in placing the responsibility directly upon Grant. 'I
have observed,' he said, a growing disposition on the part of the depositories
of political power to separate themselves more and more from the popular
support of the party that gave them their ,authority.'
Never had the public turned so ferociously upon
Grant.
VII
Meanwhile, a mighty struggle was on in the Senate.
The fight was led brilliantly by Thurman, with Morton, more savage than usual,
directing the defense, and forced to fight his fellow partisans. The galleries
were tense when Thurman, in fighting mood, rose to offer a resolution calling
upon Grant for a report on the strange proceedings. To Thurman it was an
opportunity to impress the public with the threat to civil liberty; to Morton,
a chance to revive war hates; to Conkling, assisting Morton, an occasion to
display his cleverness in a desperate cause. No sooner, had Thurman's
resolution been read than Conkling suavely suggested adding to the call- 'if
not incompatible with the public interest.' Thurman was thunderstruck. 'It is
simply impossible to conceive of any injury to the public interest that can
result from the President informing us what took place in New Orleans yesterday.' Then Morton
offered his amendment, asking Grant for information 'in regard to the existence
of armed organizations in. . . Louisiana
hostile to the government of the State and intent on overcoming such government
by force.
Utterly reckless in his statements, bent on diverting attention from the issue,
Morton surpassed himself in the absurdity of his assertions. 'As many men
murdered in Louisiana for political causes in
the last six years as fall in many modern wars,' he said.
When, a few days later, Grant's Message appeared,
it was evident that Morton had inspired it. Utterly ignoring the solemn issue
of the military outrage, the President plunged into charges as reckless as
Morton's. Again Sheridan's twenty-five hundred
murdered negroes marched in procession. 'The Nation'
voiced the popular reaction in its demand for proof, and claimed the privilege
of being 'somewhat incredulous about these appalling murders just before election.' The
debate dragged along, some, like Conkling, reasoning that Sheridan was really upholding the
civil power; some, like Sherman, defending Sheridan's monstrous proposal on
the ground that he was not a lawyer; while Morton was constantly interjecting
charges of murder against Democrats. The feature of the debate was the
masterful constitutional argument and philippic of Thurman, who denounced the
Message. 'Nothing so full of errors of statement and of law, nothing so remarkable
for omissions of material facts ever emanated from the Executive of the
Republic,' he said.
In the end, Morton, standing lash in hand, held his
restless majority to its party duty and Grant was voted an endorsement of his
action. It was an historic day for the Senate, which formally went on record as
finding nothing in the military invasion' contrary to the spirit of Republican
institutions,' and voted down Thurman's amendment to the effect that the
Senate's action did not mean 'to approve the military interference of the
United States troops in the organization of the Legislature of Louisiana.' By a
vote of 32'to 24 it declared that it meant just that - nothing less.
 |
| In this 1871 illustration, President Ulysses S. Grant and Congress turn a blind eye to the controversial election of William P. Kellogg as governor of Louisiana. Kellogg holds up a heart he has just extracted from the body of the female figure of Louisiana. Two freedmen stretch the body of Louisiana across the sacrificial altar. Enthroned behind the altar sits Grant, holding a sword. His attorney general, George H. Williams, the winged demon perched behind him, directs his hand. At left, three other leering officials watch the operation, while at right women, representing various Confederate states, look on in obvious distress. South Carolina, kneeling closest to the altar, is in chains. |
But
it really meant nothing of the sort. Pinchback; despite Morton's efforts, never
was to be seated, and...the Wheeler Compromise was to
restore the Democrats expelled from the Louisiana House by bayonets, and thus
give that body to their party, while continuing Kellogg in office until
January, 1877, immune from impeachment. This, together with the defeat of the
Force Bill, was something of a triumph.
But to Louisianans it meant little. The taxes
continued to drive once prosperous business men to the verge of beggary, and
women, even in towns, could not venture on the streets without a pistol. And
Nordhoff still saw negro legislators 'driving magnificent
horses, seated in stylish equipages, and wearing diamond breastpins.'
Louisiana was still in bondage, under
the shadow of the sword.
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