A Just and Lasting Peace: A Documentary History of Reconstruction

by John David Smith

  One of the standing claims is that the people of the South are so much more ‘gentlemanlike, generous, magnanimous’ and what not than those ‘mean, sneaking, hypocritical Yankees.’ Mrs. Wilkinson once answered an officer, who had said to her—most impolitely—“We’ll soon put down all that aristocracy and make tinkers and tailors of you all,” “Then Sir, Southern gentlemen will make a profession of those trades.” And when another said, “Well, the Union flag is waving over you again,” she retorted, “Yes, the stars are there and those that love them may take the stripes with them (on their back).” Boasting of the good society, of the fine carriages, the many servants, the style they had, is the order of the day, and the chief complaint is that the Yankees have taken all that away.

  In regard of the sale of domestic slaves, Mrs. Wilkinson told me that most of them were quite indifferent about this as they ended up with good masters anyhow. Only those who had served a lifetime in the same family and had absorbed the family pride would have found it very hard. A Negro coachman, who drove me yesterday, claimed that the Negroes did appreciate their new freedom, and although he too maintained that most had been well treated, he said that some of them still bore the scars of beatings thick as hail on their backs.

  HENRY LATHAM, BLACK AND WHITE: A JOURNAL OF A THREE MONTHS’ TOUR IN THE UNITED STATES

  (1867)

  The conservative British barrister Henry Latham (1828?–1871) also traveled to the U.S. during Reconstruction, observing people and places from New York to New Orleans, with stops in Richmond, Petersburg, Norfolk, Charleston, Augusta, Atlanta, and Mobile. A detailed and insightful narrator, Latham toured the Southern states at the very moment that the Radical Republicans were about to assume control of Reconstruction. In addition to printing the journals of his American tour, Latham appended a separate chapter on “The Negro.” It was his opinion that before the Civil War, slavery proved more harmful to relations between white Southerners and Northerners than to blacks. He doubted whether blacks and whites could live together harmoniously, explaining: “It is difficult to find in history an instance of two distinct races with equal rights living peaceably together as one nation.”

  THE NEGRO.

  At the time the war broke out, it is estimated that there were, roughly speaking, 4,000,000 slaves in the Southern States. Their former masters state, and I believe with truth, that the slaves as a rule were neither over-worked nor treated with cruelty. It is absurd to suppose the contrary. That which is valuable and cannot be easily replaced is always taken care of. It is where there are no restrictions upon the importation, and the supply is abundant, as in the Chinese coolie trade, that you find the temptation to cruelty not over-ridden by self-interest. It is difficult also, I believe, to gainsay the position, that nowhere where the negro is left to himself in Africa has he reached any higher stage of civilization than he possessed as a Southern slave. His hours of labour were shorter and his diet more plentiful, than those of the English agricultural labourer. He had such clothing and shelter as the climate required. The slaves of the planter were in the same position as the cattle of the English farmer; and the interest that the farmer has in seeing his beasts well cared for operated in favour of the negro slave as strongly as it does in favour of all other chattels. It was the interest of the planter that, as long as his slaves were fit for work, they should be kept in working order; that as children they should be so reared as to make them strong and healthy; and when they were past work, that kindly feeling which a man always has towards everything which he calls his own, was sufficiently strong to ensure them a sustenance in old age. No doubt there were sometimes wicked cases of wanton cruelty, which were not common, and were exceptional as the cases are in this country which are brought into court by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I am willing to accept the Southerners’ statement that as regards health, happiness, education, and morality, the negro-slaves were as well off as any other 4,000,000 of their race. That the slaves were not greatly discontented with their lot seems clear from the fact that the traveller can with difficulty find in the South an able-bodied white man who did not bear arms in the Confederate army. When the masters went to the war, they in fact left their wives, their children, and their goods in the keeping of their slaves. The plantations were left in charge of the old men, the women and children; yet, during the war, the crops were sown and harvested as when the masters were at home; and there were no outrages or insurrections on the plantations, except when the Northern armies passed by.

  The position taken by the ablest apologists for the slave-owner would affirm that the treatment of the slaves was nearly as good as the fact of their slavery admitted; that the institution was not created by the present generation, but by their forefathers. ‘They had not originated, but inherited it, and had to make the best of it. It was in no way peculiar to the Southern States of America; it had existed over the whole world. It was a condition of society recognised by the Old Testament as the natural state of things, and when mentioned in the New Testament, not reprobated. It had been abolished by some nations, it was still retained by others. It was retained by the Southern States, because they had no other labour to substitute for it, and if the negro was emancipated it would not be possible to rely upon his labour. The civilization of the white race is the result of more than a thousand years of trial and training. The negro race was in the first stage of this probation; they had not yet completed their first century of slavery. Those among them who possessed industry and steadiness of character could earn enough to purchase their emancipation. None of them were fitted to receive the franchise.’

  It is hardly worthwhile to consider how far it is true that slavery is a probation for the first steps in civilization, an education for future self-government. It may, I think, be taken as a fact that, before the war, such speculations as to the future of the negro race did not occupy the minds of Southern planters more than the British stockbreeder is at present influenced by Dr. Darwin’s theories.

  Nor is it worth while to consider how far it was probable, if the North had never interfered with the strong hand, that a gradual emancipation would have taken place in time. The only existing safety-valve through which the slave could escape into freedom was by purchase, and on that safety-valve was this weight—the more industrious the man the more valuable the slave. The living surrounded by slave-labour had so affected the Southern character that it was not easy for them to appreciate the benefits which a gradual emancipation would have brought about. They laughed at the doctrine of the dignity of labour. Hard hands and the sweat of the brow were the portion of the slave, servile. With the lower class of white men who owned no slaves, emancipation was disliked because it would raise the servile race to an equality with themselves. The slave-owners saw clearly that, however gradually brought about, emancipation would result in loss to them; for free labour, however competitive, can never be as profitable to the master as slave-labour has been—capital would have to give up a larger share of profits to the workman. The hearts of the white race were hardened, and it may be doubted whether they would ever have seen that the time had come when the bondmen ought to be let go. They saw only that the slaves were not discontented with their lot, and that all things were prosperous.

  The institution of slavery broke down in the Southern States of America, not by reason of any injustice to the negroes, but in consequence of the effect produced by slavery upon the character and temper of the white race. It rendered them incapable of maintaining a friendly intercourse with the Northern States.

  The Northern half of the same nation were leading under a colder sky an entirely antagonistic life. They were successful in commerce, they toiled in factories, and reaped with their own hands great harvests of wheat. They were continually increased in numbers by emigrants whose chief fortune was the labour of their hands; while many of the families in the South traced their descent to emigrants who had landed with their retainers from ves
sels fitted out at their own cost. Except the great bond of the Federal Government, which was tied when neither were strong enough to stand alone, the Northern and Southern States had few ideas in common. When they met in council they disagreed upon the most indifferent matters. They did not so much quarrel about slavery, as because slavery had rendered them at heart hateful to one another. . . .

  If the negro dies out, there is an end of him and all the troubles he has caused, at least as far as America is concerned. If he survives, what is to be his future? At the present time there can be no doubt that the black race is inferior to the white. That it is inferior in mental vigour is proved by the fact of its former contented servitude; that it is inferior in bodily stamina is proved by the statistics of mortality in the Northern armies, according to which under the same conditions, the number of deaths in hospital among the black troops was double the mortality among the white men.

  Will he become blended with the white race, and be gradually absorbed by intermarriage, as the German and the Irish element do, losing their nationality in the next generation, and becoming fused into one homogeneous mass? There does not appear to be any probability of it. No white man ever marries a black woman, and the instances of a white woman marrying a black man are rare and exceptional. There has been at present no intercourse between the races except such as takes place between an inferior and a superior race. The mixed race is the result of the intercourse between the white man and the negress, and this will not effect the absorption of the whole black race.

  Suppose the half-breeds to increase largely in numbers, will they form a link between the black man and the white, and promote friendship between the two? In Mexico the greatest of the many causes of anarchy has been the existence of the large class of half-bloods, now more numerous than the Indians. They are so numerous as to possess practically a casting vote, and having neither principle nor stability, side first with the Spaniard and then with the Indian, according as their interest suggests.

  Will the negroes gather themselves together in communities, and occupy the low hot fertile rice lands in the South, where the white men cannot live; and so play a useful part, utilizing valuable lands which without them must henceforth lie waste? It is to be hoped that the Government will take measures to prevent it. The moment the pressure of the white race is removed from them they would relapse into savage life. To attain to better things and a higher cultivation, they must be mingled with the whites, and have industry and education forced on them. The more they are separated, the more debased and antagonistic will they become. The most serious symptoms of negro outbreaks which have occurred have been in the Sea Islands where the negroes have collected together in consequence of a proclamation of General Sherman’s. A black prophet and a religious revival might lead to any amount of bloodshed. The natural home of the negro in Africa is supposed to be on the alluvial plains near the great rivers; but it is a curious fact that in similar places in the Southern States they did not multiply. They were most prolific in Virginia. It was where the white man lived and cared for them and their offspring that the greatest number of slaves were reared. If they continue to exist in America, the negro must live as a distinct race among a people superior to himself. It is difficult to find in history an instance of two distinct races with equal rights living peaceably together as one nation.

  The Americans have done already things which other nations have found impossible. It may be that they will succeed in this also; and there is no race so pliant, so docile, and free from offence, as the negro. The danger will be from the unscrupulousness of politicians. When once the negro vote in the South has become organized, like the Irish vote in the North, it will be as great a nuisance to the nation. If the freedmen, as they increase in intelligence, become factious and impracticable, they will find themselves moving towards Liberia faster than the Mormons went to Utah. That which cannot be assimilated must be cast out.

  Their wisest advisers will be those who urge them to keep quiet and avail themselves of the means of education now open to them: not to separate from their white neighbours, but to make themselves first useful to them, and then indispensable: not to think too much of Freedmen’s Conventions at Washington, or negro candidates for the Vice-Presidency; but to be as little conspicuous in politics as possible, and to bear in mind that if education does not precede an extension of the suffrage, it must follow it.

  There are at the present moment two gentlemen of colour sitting as members of the State Legislature in the State of Massachusetts, and the story of their election is very curious as the largest wholesale practical joke since the English traveller wrote to the ‘Times’ to describe the series of murders perpetrated in an American railway train. The republican party, to gratify those among their supporters who were suffering from what is commonly called ‘Nigger on the brain,’ nominated two coloured candidates, not in the least intending them to get in, but merely with a view to make political capital out of their nomination. The democrats, their opponents, saw the mistake in a moment, the wires were pulled and the word passed, and the democrats plumped for the coloured gentlemen, who were elected by triumphant majorities, to the dismay and discomfiture of their proposers.

  A practical joke once in a way is all very well; but it is to be hoped that the white race in the South will before long accept the situation, and resume their political duties: for it would be a poor joke for them if possibilities were to be realized, and Congress were found after the next election to consist one half of Northern republicans and the other half of Southern negroes.

  “AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR MORE EFFICIENT GOVERNMENT OF THE REBEL STATES”

  (March 2, 1867)

  After the Southern states organized under Johnson’s Reconstruction program failed to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment (passed by Congress June 13, 1866), Congress put in place the first of four Reconstruction Acts, asserting control over the Southern states and instituting what historians term Congressional or Radical Reconstruction. Congress, having refused to seat the Southern states’ Senators and Representatives, declared that the governments organized by Johnson were still provisional. The first Reconstruction Act, passed over the president’s veto, placed the ten still unreconstructed states (Tennessee had been readmitted to the Union in July 1866) under military rule. The act required that each state conduct elections based on universal manhood suffrage (excluding those disfranchised for various reasons, including disloyalty, crimes, or by the Fourteenth Amendment) for constitutional conventions that would then frame basic laws, including universal suffrage, for each state. Upon adopting the new constitutions and ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment, the states could be readmitted to the Union. Passage of this act essentially took control of the Reconstruction process away from the president and ushered in a more radical second phase of Reconstruction.

  Whereas no legal State governments or adequate protection for life or property now exists in the rebel States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas; and whereas it is necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said States until loyal and republican State governments can be legally established: Therefore,

  Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That said rebel States shall be divided into military districts and made subject to the military authority of the United States as hereinafter prescribed, and for that purpose Virginia shall constitute the first district; North Carolina and South Carolina the second district; Georgia, Alabama, and Florida the third district; Mississippi and Arkansas the fourth district; and Louisiana and Texas the fifth district.

  SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the President to assign to the command of each of said districts an officer of the army, not below the rank of brigadier-general, and to detail a sufficient military force to enable such officer to perform his duties and enforc
e his authority within the district to which he is assigned.

  SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of each officer assigned as aforesaid, to protect all persons in their rights of person and property, to suppress insurrection, disorder, and violence, and to punish, or cause to be punished, all disturbers of the public peace and criminals; and to this end he may allow local civil tribunals to take jurisdiction of and to try offenders, or, when in his judgment it may be necessary for the trial of offenders, he shall have power to organize military commissions or tribunals for that purpose, and all interference under color of State authority with the exercise of military authority under this act, shall be null and void.

  SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That all persons put under military arrest by virtue of this act shall be tried without unnecessary delay, and no cruel or unusual punishment shall be inflicted, and no sentence of any military commission or tribunal hereby authorized, affecting the life or liberty of any person, shall be executed until it is approved by the officer in command of the district, and the laws and regulations for the government of the army shall not be affected by this act, except in so far as they conflict with its provisions: Provided, That no sentence of death under the provisions of this act shall be carried into effect without the approval of the President.

  SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That when the people of any one of said rebel States shall have formed a constitution of government in conformity with the Constitution of the United States in all respects, framed by a convention of delegates elected by the male citizens of said State, twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition, who have been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of such election, except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the rebellion or for felony at common law, and when such constitution shall provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all such persons as have the qualifications herein stated for electors of delegates, and when such constitution shall be ratified by a majority of the persons voting on the question of ratification who are qualified as electors for delegates, and when such constitution shall have been submitted to Congress for examination and approval, and Congress shall have approved the same, and when said State, by a vote of its legislature elected under said constitution, shall have adopted the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and known as article fourteen, and when said article shall have become a part of the Constitution of the United States, said State shall be declared entitled to representation in Congress, and senators and representatives shall be admitted there-from on their taking the oath prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this act shall be inoperative in said State: Provided, That no person excluded from the privilege of holding office by said proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, shall be eligible to election as a member of the convention to frame a constitution for any of said rebel States, nor shall any such person vote for members of such convention.