The Fool saw them resisting bravely every step leading to the adoption of this plan, protesting with indignation, denouncing with rage, and finally submitting almost with tears. No conquered foe ever passed under the yoke which they conceived to mean servitude and infamy to them, with more unwilling step, or with more deeply muttered curses. He saw men and women afflicted with the keenest sense of personal humiliation because of their enforced submission to the power of a people they had always deemed their inferiors, — the traditional foe of the South, the "groveling and greedy Yankee," — and then still further degraded by being placed on a level, in legal and political power and privilege, with a race despised beyond the power of language to express, whom they had always accounted too low and mean even for contempt, — mere ethnological ciphers, who had no power, except when acting in conjunction with some significant figure in the notation of human races.
Moreover, — and this is the vital point, — he saw them, while this bowing beneath the scourge of shame, early apprehending the weak point in their enemy's coat of mail, and steadily addressing themselves to planting therein a fatal stroke. They could not fight, and thus avenge the affront that had been put upon them; but by infinite patience, matchless organization, unremitting and universal zeal, they could surely foil the design of their foe. Nay, more, they could turn against that enemy the weapon by which he had sought to secure their degradation, and by means of it, perhaps, accomplish a like degradation of their oppressor. It was a daring conception for a conquered people. Only a race of warlike instincts and regal pride could have conceived or executed it.
To accomplish this end, the most unshrinking and universal courage, united with a sleepless caution, was required on the part of every individual member of this class, besides the most unswerving confidence in each and every one of his fellows. Men, women, and children must have and be worthy of implicit mutual trust. Having eyes, they must see not; and, having ears, they must hear not. They must be trusted with the secrets of life and death without reserve and without distrust. The whole South must be fused and welded into one homogeneous mass, having one common thought, one imperial purpose, one relentless will. It was a magnificent conception, and, in a sense, deserved success!
It differed from all other attempts at revolution — for revolution it was in effect — in the caution and skill with which it required to be conducted. It was a movement made in the face of the enemy, and an enemy, too, of overwhelming strength. It must be concealed and disguised from that enemy, or its success would not only be imperiled, but absolutely and irretrievably destroyed. If the North had seen and realized any thing of the true nature of this movement at the outset, the power of the nation would have crushed it in its incipiency. To overawe and suppress the Union, Federal, or Reconstructionary element of the South, was of itself an undertaking of no difficulty whatever to the trained leaders of that section, with an exasperated soldiery and an unconquerable people at their backs, whose confidence in their wisdom and loyal devotion to their rights was yet unshaken, and to whom they were all the dearer by reason of the misfortunes they had already endured; but to do this without awakening the suspicions and fears of the North until the result was an accomplished fact, was a task requiring infinite skill, patience, and courage for its accomplishment. Should it succeed, it would be the most brilliant revolution ever accomplished. Should it fail — well, those who engaged in it felt that they had nothing more to lose. When the war ended, they had proudly said, "All is lost but honor;" but, when the reconstruction measures came, they felt themselves covered with shame, degraded in the eyes of the world; not by their own acts, — of them, indeed, they were proud, — but by what had been done unto them. They felt like one who has been assaulted by a scavenger.
The Fool deemed it likely that actual violence was not at first intended. It was probably believed that mere intimidation, the appeal to superstitious fears and the threat of corporeal punishment, would have the effect thoroughly to demoralize and disintegrate the colored vote, and leave the white minority powerless. When, from the unexpected manhood of the recent slaves and the long-suffering "Unioners," it was found that this result would not follow a mere display of force and the assumption of ghostly habiliments, some degree of violence followed as an almost necessary consequence. The pride of a haughty people, the resentment of one that deemed itself bitterly wronged, and the ambition of those greedy for power, were all staked on the issue of the struggle. The battle had already been joined; and it would have been not only fatal, but ignominious, to have turned back.
After this review, the Fool could well see how slight a thing in comparison was the mere question of the political rights of those whom the Southerners considered as legally without political right, and morally and intellectually incapable of exercising such rights. He could see, too, that the maltreatment of these men over whom they had been accustomed to exercise the right of castigation, and, indirectly at least, of life and limb, at pleasure, should not produce in their minds the same feeling of repulsion and horror that it would evoke from the "exaggerated" humanitarianism of the North, as well as that which may still be considered genuine and wholesome. He could perceive, too, that an especial resentment very naturally existed in the minds of this people against all those persons of the white race who aided, abetted, encouraged, organized, and directed the colored voters in the assertion of political right and the exercise of political power.
The means which had been instituted and pursued for the protection of slavery, and which had approved themselves as effective for that purpose, had especially cultivated that spirit which countenances the forcible suppression of unpopular ideas, which at the North was called "intolerance," and at the South "self-preservation." So that he could well understand how it should be considered a very slight and venial offense to beat, wound, and ill-treat one of the recently servile race, and by no means a serious thing, from a moral stand-point, to kill them if necessary to attain their purpose. He could understand, too, how they should consider it only a "species of wild justice" to suppress or destroy those who were active in rendering this newly created political power effective as against its former owners. He began to see that the hostility against men of Northern birth was not entirely because of their nativity, but because they were regarded as, in a sense, public enemies; and he could understand why the hostility and antipathy against himself, and others of prominence and activity in organizing reconstruction, had greatly moderated, and acts of violence against all these classes almost entirely ceased, as soon as they became innocuous, or incapable of organizing a successful opposition to the will of a majority of the white race, in whom alone they most sincerely believed there resided the inherent right to rule, not only themselves, but also that lately servile population which dwelt among them.
He believed that this solution answered every condition of the problem, was a key which opened every mystery attending the existence of the Ku-Klux Order, both during the reign of terror which attended its establishment, and that peace (which otherwise "passeth all understanding") that followed its accession to unquestioned supremacy. The Policy of Suppression, in every form, he believed to be the fruit of these complex motives; and its completeness and success commanded his unbounded admiration. It then became apparent to him that the pride, resentment, and sense of ignominious oppression, in the hearts of the Southern people, had swallowed up all other thought, had rendered all other considerations trivial and unimportant to their minds, when compared with the one "great and holy aim" of redeeming the land to which they were attached with such unalterable devotion, from the oppression of foes whom they regarded with hereditary contempt and hate. All else was lost in this one thought. All else could be forgiven and forgotten; all other sins might be condoned, but the one sin against this all-pervading purpose. It gave tone and color to the whole intellectual and moral life of this people, and made that appear venial and insignificant which would otherwise have been counted horrible and atrocious.
Lest it be thought that the Fool judged harshly in this matter, an illustrative incident is given in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XL
PRO BONO PUBLICO
Table of Contents
THERE was turmoil in the county of Rockford. The repressive policy in all its various phases had been successfully made effective there. Though everybody knew that the county — when that policy was not applied, and every voter exercised the privilege of casting his ballot as he pleased — was opposed to the party of repression by several hundred majority, yet it had been so skillfully manipulated since the death of John Walters, that the majority upon the other side had been maintained at a steady and reliable figure, which, strangely enough, had been just about as large as the majority had formerly been against it.
Yet Rockford was entirely peaceful; in fact, a very paradise of harmonious unity. There were 1143 more colored men than white in the county, according to the census report; and, during the first years in which these colored voters exercised the prerogatives of citizenship, they had been accustomed — very foolishly, it is true, but perhaps naturally, and at all events very clamorously — to demand that a portion of the offices should be filled by men of their own race. After the policy of repression became fully established, and John Walters was so mysteriously but effectually disposed of, the hearts of these innocent and misguided Africans underwent a marvelous change. They still continued to vote, as appeared from the poll-books and returns of election, with the most persistent regularity; but they ceased to vote for those to whom they had once been so warmly attached, and ceased to demand and elect persons of their own color or formerly universal sentiment for places of trust and emolument. It was a very strange coincidence; and there were not wanting those who pointed to it as undeniable evidence of fraud, or, as it was sometimes termed, "intimidation." Some of the Wise Men who dwelt at a distance tried to raise a clamor over it; but they were easily put to rout by silver-tongued orators who painted wonderful pictures of the millennial life and Edenic peace which had prevailed in Rockford since the hour when the pestiferous Walters departed from its coasts.
It is strange what metamorphoses the unaccountable African has undergone. In the good old times before the war for the right of Southern States to secede, it was established by the concurrent testimony of all the most intelligent, wealthy, refined, honorable, and high-toned among the Southern people, — those who owned slaves, and worked and whipped, and bought and sold, and married and unmarried, as the exigencies of the race and the taste of the breeder demanded, — it was established beyond question by these (and certainly they must have known more about the negro than any one else, since they had better opportunity), that the colored man was not only divinely created and designed for a state of bondage, but that he had a keen and subtle appreciation of his own needs, requisites, and capabilities, and recognized with transcendent delight the prevision of Providence which had kindly left him not unprovided with a master. In short, it was established, beyond all doubt or controversy, that the African was not only created for a state of slavery, but so conscious of the object of his creation, and so anxious to fulfill the purpose thereof, that he was both contented with a lot of servitude, and actually clamorous for its delights, and unable to express his sympathy and commiseration for the few individuals of his race who were without the crowning blessing of a master. It is true, that, even in those days, there were a few insane individuals of this race (poor misguided creatures!) who were always running away from the peace, plenty, happiness, and divine beatitude of the plantation, and making towards poverty and want, and labor and disease, and frost and the north pole and — liberty! But they were erring creatures, who only served to disturb the peace of the Eden they were not wise enough nor good enough to enjoy.
There were some, too, who would not believe the testimony in regard to the unalloyed happiness of the slave, but persisted in maintaining that the sanest, bravest, wisest, and noblest of the African race, were those who ran away to freedom. But these people were not many, and they were also insane, — and not only insane, but envious, wicked, and bloody-minded. They were called "fanatics" and "abolitionists."
As soon as the war came on, and they were offered their liberty, the nature of the perverse African seemed at once to change. Every one of them accepted it, and that, too, with a readiness and an eagerness which went very far to induce the belief that they had wanted it all the time. Of course, we know this was not so, by the testimony of those who knew more about them than anybody else could; but it did seem so when they swarmed in the rear of the Federal armies, and forsook home, friends, relatives, and patriarchal masters, for privation, danger, and liberty.
And ever since, they have been manifesting a like contrariness and contradictoriness of character. Up to the very time when the Ku-Klux Klan became well established in the South, the negro manifested a most inveterate and invincible repugnance and disinclination towards allowing his former masters to define, regulate, and control his liberties, unless such person had formally renounced the ideas of slavery and rebellion, had openly and unmistakably declared himself in favor of the equal legal and political rights and power of the colored race, and had shown a disposition to concede them.
As soon as this beneficent institution, the Klan, and its more subtle and complete successors, under various and sundry names, "Rifle-Clubs," "Sabre-Clubs," "Bull-dozers," and so forth, had fully established themselves throughout the country, and it became apparent that the paternal and patriarchal spirit of the nominally defunct system of Chattelism was still alive, and was watching with assiduous care over the welfare and happiness of its former childlike subjects, their hearts turned again with the old-time affection to the former masters, who they now again saw were not only their best, but their sole friends, not only the chief and best guardians of their liberty, but absolutely its primal authors. So they despised and eschewed "nigger-politicians," and Radicals, and turned in scorn and contempt away from those whose teachings disagreed with the tenets of the Ku-Klux Klan, the Rifle-Clubs, and the Bull-dozers, and clung again to their first loves, — their natural and divinely-ordained friends and protectors!
At least that is what these natural friends and protectors said; and we must allow that they know more about the negroes than anybody else, just as a groom knows more about the horse he drives and controls than anybody else, and, of course, is best informed as to the horse's opinion of him, the said groom.
So there was peace in Rockford. But in an evil hour the serpent of Ambition entered this Eden, and left his trail among its flowers. Two of the party of peace, reform, and conservatism, cast a yearning eye upon the same office. The authority of a convention was set at defiance; and one reckless and ambitious man declared that he would appeal to Cæsar, and not only to Cæsar, but to Tony also, and, in fact, to all the children of Ham in said county resident, to decide betwixt him and his fellow. In the party of peace and order the thing seemed to be pretty evenly divided; and the recalcitrant bolter and his friends promised to the unaccountable Africans, that all who should vote for him should be protected in so doing, and that the regular organization of that party should not molest them, or make them afraid. And, in proof of that, they showed their revolvers and Winchesters, and used many "cuss-words," and imbibed courage by the quart.
And to them inclined the Africans.
This absurd perversity on the part of the dusky voters greatly disturbed the party of law and order. If one was allowed thus to appeal to this ebon vote, and ride into power thereby, what would become of the party of peace and law and order? Something must be done, — something which would destroy this presumptuous man's hold on his deluded followers. It would not do to apply the usual tactics of the party, because, it was doubtful how such application would result. So it was determined to destroy the hopes of the bolters, and detach from them their new supporters by means of their tender devotion to the memory of their quondam leader, the infamous Walters. It was believed, that, if
they could be convinced that this man who asked their support was one of the band who had dipped their hands in his blood, the silly Africans would at least refrain from voting for him, out of a foolish veneration for the memory of the dead leader. So the following card was published, and scattered broadcast throughout the county, as well as being given a prominent place in the columns of The Moccason Gap Rattler: —
"WHO IS COLONEL MARCUS THOMPSON?
"The colored voters of Rockford, who are so anxious to elevate this notorious desperado, infidel, and renegade, to the position of sheriff of that county, are probably not aware of all the infamy which surrounds his character. It is well known that he was for several years the chief of the Ku-Klux and head of the Bull-dozers of that county, and was of course responsible, as such, for the acts committed by them. It is not, however, so generally known that it was he who planned and executed the murder of JOHN WALTERS, being himself the leader of the band who first inveigled him to the place of his death, and afterwards not only killed him, but took from his person a considerable sum of money, which Colonel Marcus Thompson appropriated to his own use. Yet such is the fact. It is susceptible of abundant proof that he not only devised the killing, but was the very first one who imbrued his hands in the blood of Walters. He expected to be rewarded for this act, by his then political associates, with the office to which he now aspires. Failing in this, he now appeals to the followers of Walters for support. Whether they will indorse this red-handed murderer and robber of the widow and the fatherless remains to be seen."
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