by Philip Dray
Distinguished in appearance, possessing an innate gentlemanly reserve, Lynch had the advantage of speaking a very clear English, with no trace of "negroisms" or regional accent. In the late 1860s he volunteered on behalf of Natchez's black community to travel to Jackson to meet with Adelbert Ames, then military governor, to discuss the political situation in the Natchez area. Lynch hit it off with the governor, impressing Ames as the kind of person most needed in the state's postwar transition; the twenty-one-year-old Lynch returned home with an appointment as a justice of the peace. He soon rose to prominence in the state legislature, in 1872 becoming speaker of the house at age twenty-five; the next year the state sent him to Washington as the first black Mississippian in the House of Representatives.
JOHN ROY LYNCH
Once President Grant and Lynch had dealt with the issue of the postmaster's job, Lynch broached the subject he most wished to discuss; Grant, according to Lynch, appeared eager to unbur den himself on the matter. The president explained that upon receiving Ames's request for aid, he had alerted both the War Department and Attorney General Pierrepont to review the possibility of sending troops. But a short time later, a delegation of Republican Party leaders from Ohio visited him, pleading with him not to intervene in Mississippi. Ohio at the time was "an October state," meaning its election was held a month earlier than Mississippi's. His guests pressed upon him the point that the Democrats would most likely win the election in Mississippi. Why put the Ohio Republican ticket in jeopardy by granting Ames his request? If the federal government intervened there with troops or through the courts, voters in Ohio would be angered and might throw their support to the Democratic ticket, endangering the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. Grant was reminded that in recent elections in Maine, Republicans had fared poorly. Ohio could and must be saved, even though Mississippi would surely be lost. Grant told Lynch that this kind of sacrifice went against his own views as well as his sense of duty—indeed, he had acknowledged as much in his instructions to Pierrepont—but he also recognized the merit of the Ohioans' argument.
Lynch was bothered by what he heard; the president was saying that he had knowingly voided the Constitution in order to better his party's chances in a state election. It is unlikely Lynch expressed himself so forcefully in his interview with the president, but years later he recalled saying,
What surprises me ... Mr. President, is that you yielded and granted this remarkable request. That is not like you. It is the first time I have ever known you to show the white feather. Instead of granting the request of that committee, you should have rebuked them and told them that it is your duty as chief magistrate of the country to enforce the Constitution and laws of the land and to protect the American citizens in the exercise and enjoyment of their rights, let the consequences be what they may, and that if in doing this Ohio would be lost to the Republicans, it ought to be lost—in other words, no victory is worth having if it is to be brought about upon such conditions as those—if it is to be purchased at such a fearful cost as was paid in this case.
Grant recognized that his decision may have been technically wrong but said that he felt a powerful obligation to safeguard the party's future and that it was important to keep Ohio in the Republican column. "If a mistake was made, it was one of the head and not one of the heart," Grant acknowledged. "If I had believed that any effort on my part would have saved Mississippi I would have made it, even if I had been convinced that it would have resulted in the loss of Ohio to the Republicans. But ... Mississippi could not have been saved to the party in any event, and I wanted to avoid the responsibility of the loss of Ohio in addition. This was the turning point in that case."
In the difficult fall 1875 election in Mississippi, Lynch had himself only narrowly managed to retain his House seat. The congressional district that he represented in the Delta had been gerrymandered to include the large but slender Republican districts that hugged the east side of the Mississippi River for the entire length of the state; for this reason it was known as "the Shoestring District." Democrats had traditionally conceded it to the Republicans, but in the run-up to the 1875 election, Democratic appetites were so large that party members set their sights on taking "the Shoestring" away from Lynch. To oppose him, the Democrats nominated the former Confederate general James R. Chalmers, who had been present at the infamous Fort Pillow massacre of 1864. Lynch's diplomatic nature and his generally good standing among the state's political commentators spared him some of the worst baiting and harassment of the campaign, although he had to dodge a last-minute effort by the Chalmers forces to rig the election. Seeking to artificially increase the Democratic votes in Adams County, Chalmers's men asked a Natchez newspaper editor what the expected vote total for Lynch was there; the editor in turn asked Lynch himself, who said he anticipated 1,200 votes in the county. The Democrats then arranged to fix the county's returns by having their candidate receive 1,550, seemingly a safe margin of victory. But Lynch, to his own surprise, actually polled 1,800; and because the Democrats had already fixed the results at 1,550 votes for Chalmers, they could not then contest the election.
The Democrats would make no such amateurish missteps when the new Mississippi legislature convened in early 1876. They promptly impeached Alexander K. Davis, the black lieutenant governor, so that he could not succeed Ames, and then won the governor's resignation by threatening him with the same punishment. (The infamous Thomas Cardozo, Ames's superintendent of education, was impeached at the same time.) Among the trumped-up articles of impeachment against Ames was the accusation that he had intended to incite a riot by sending colored citizens, "whose Captain was one Charles Caldwell ... a notoriously dangerous and turbulent and obnoxious man of that race, to march, with guns and accoutrements of war," from Jackson to the town of Edwards Depot in 1875. They also cited him as the prime mover behind Sheriff Peter Crosby's attempt to "cause bloodshed" in Vicksburg in December 1874. Among the dubious statements attributed to Ames was the claim that he had callously informed Crosby that even if some blacks were killed in retaking Warren County, it would benefit the Republican Party: "What if it does cost blood. The blood of the martyr is the seed of the church."
Reporting to his wife on the legislature's actions, Ames explained that "their object is to restore the Confederacy and reduce the colored people to a state of serfdom ... I am in their way, consequently they impeach me." Yet remaining in office until the next scheduled gubernatorial election in 1878 was out of the question. It was Blanche Ames who came up with a workable solution: if the legislature would withdraw the impeachment charges, Ames would resign. On March 29,1876, the day his trial was to begin, Adelbert Ames stepped down as governor. With this act, the curtain fell on Reconstruction in Mississippi.
"He had given the state an excellent administration," Congressman Lynch said of Ames. "But these facts made no difference with those who were flushed and elated over a victory they had so easily won. They wanted the offices and were determined to have them."
Along with Lynch, Senator Blanche Bruce was active in demanding a U.S. Senate inquiry into the election and numerous instances of voter fraud, intimidation, and ballot fixing. Bruce was angered when the senators dragged their feet on the matter, and he warned that the events in Mississippi did not result from one political party's besting the other in a fair fight, but constituted a grossly undemocratic assault on the rights of black and white citizens. He cautioned (prophetically, as it turned out) that the tactics used in his home state would soon be emulated across the South.
Ames himself came to Washington to offer testimony. When asked his impression of the "true sentiments" of Mississippi whites toward the federal authority and the freedmen, he answered, "In one phrase, hostility to the negro as a citizen. Justice is what the Democratic leaders do not want. They want supremacy—absolute despotic control of the negro—to make him powerless in politics and in the courts of law, so that they can re-establish their old-time control of his labor as
far as it is possible after the abolishment of property in man." The Senate committee heard plenty to raise their suspicions, but as the House of Representatives was now Democratic and officials in both chambers were fed up with the seemingly endless inquiries into Southern elections, the Democratic victory in Mississippi was allowed to stand.
There remained, however, a very high profile election case for Congress to resolve, that of the popular black Louisianian P.B.S. Pinchback. Appointed to a seat in the U.S. Senate in January 1873 by the Republican administration of Louisiana's governor, William Pitt Kellogg, Pinchback had run into a competing claim for the seat from the Democratic rump government of John McEnery, and the Senate had long debated the matter and deferred it.
Pinchback spent part of the summer of 1873 traveling in Europe with his wife, Nina, and returned from the Continent "invigorated by the free air ... breathed even under monarchial governments" and "determined to devote his remaining years toward an effort to acquire for the colored people of America free and equal rights of citizenship." His optimism, however, failed to impress the Senate's owlish gatekeepers. On December 4, 1873, they passed along Pinchback's claim for his seat to the Committee on Privileges and Elections, which considered the case for eleven days before its members reported themselves hopelessly deadlocked. Pinchback was upset to learn that the reason the committee had stalled was because Charles Sumner had been absent from its deliberations. He had backed Sumner as a presidential candidate against Greeley at the Liberal Republican convention of 1872 (before ultimately switching to Grant), and even though Sumner was in fragile health, he was known to push himself physically when an important matter was at stake; his absence from the committee, where his eloquence might have swayed the opposition, was for Pinchback an inconvenient loss.
With Sumner unavailable, Oliver Morton of Indiana became Pinchback's advocate. The wartime governor of Indiana, credited with helping to keep the neighboring border state of Kentucky out of the Confederacy, Morton counseled his Senate peers that Pinchback should be seated at once because the Louisiana Supreme Court as well as the Grant administration had recognized the Kellogg state government, and Kellogg's legislature had chosen Pinchback. But Democrats on the committee continued to question that legislature's legitimacy, and Morton grew exasperated, accusing them of simply using Pinchback's case as a chisel to grind away at the president and his policies in the South. Of course, Pinchback was in fact being used by both sides. His insistence on claiming his seat was, by extension, the Kellogg administration's way of demanding Congress's respect and recognition; and, as Morton had cited, Congress's unwillingness to approve him reflected its own dissatisfaction with the endless political machinations in Louisiana and Grant's sometimes awkward way of handling them.
It also didn't help that Pinchback's personal history was well known. His past as a gambler and street fighter, his years as a protégé of the unpopular Henry Clay Warmoth, stories of his political maneuverings in Louisiana, and even his good looks and rumors about his romantic life—one linked him to the spiritualist and free-love advocate Victoria Woodhull—contributed to the image of Pinchback as a skilled operator and undermined his integrity. Like most state legislators of his era, he had indulged in the practice of buying and selling votes, although his most lucrative ploy was his participation in a scheme, as head of a committee on public parks, to purchase land chosen for a city park and then resell it at a profit to the city of New Orleans. Pinchback's cut of the booty was so generous, even his co-conspirators believed they'd been swindled. His name was also blemished by a congressional inquiry into Louisiana's 1872 election. Among the worrisome points were Pinchback's overnight elevation to lieutenant governor in the wake of Oscar Dunn's sudden (and to some minds, still suspicious) demise and the likelihood that a deciding vote in Pinchback's favor had been bought by Warmoth.
Pinchback never hid the fact that there were steamboat saloons and card games in his past—many of his contemporaries, after all, had worked the riverboats; the charge that stung him most was that he was selfish, a man on the make, not really dedicated to the interests of black Louisianians. He was justly proud of his advocacy for civil rights and his rapport with his constituents, and he bristled at the suggestion that the martyred Oscar Dunn had been the true people's champion and he, Pinchback, a mere pretender. "I desire to inform the members of the Senate and the members of the congressional committee in what my infamy consists," Pinchback said. "I am infamous because I cannot be frightened or coaxed into supporting the Democracy; I am infamous because from the very day the constitutional convention met in [New Orleans] I have championed the cause of the down-trodden colored people. From that day to this I have not failed ... to cast my vote and raise my voice in behalf of the class I represent."
In Washington he had his share of defenders. The New National Era disparaged those senators who might hold Pinchback's early life or character against him. "The period of slavery was itself so monstrous," noted the paper, "that the blackest charges and the most obstreperous rumor grow clean under its awful enormities. Some become great rowers in Harvard or Cambridge who would have been boatmen without the opportunities of an education, others gamble with cards because they are reduced by the laws to the level of a position where they cannot contend for the management of men." Senator Blanche Bruce, who had made a personal crusade of helping to place qualified black men in government, also spoke for Pinchback. The two were friends with somewhat similar backgrounds—successful businessmen, Tidewater roots, mixed parentage, a riverboat apprenticeship. "As a father, I know him to be affectionate; as a husband, the idol of a pleasant home and cheerful fireside; as a citizen, loyal, brave, and true," asserted Bruce.
When the Senate resumed its work after the Christmas holiday, Pinchback returned to Washington with news that the Kellogg administration had reaffirmed him as its choice for senator. He went personally to lobby the president, although he was disappointed to find Grant hesitant to take a strong position on the matter. The Era admonished the president and other leading Republicans, noting that their candidates would need the black vote in the upcoming elections and that blacks would not view favorably a well-liked party loyalist like Pinchback being kept "knocking at the door."
In late January 1874 a new complication arose. A man named George Sheridan, a Democrat who claimed election to a House seat from Louisiana, was staying in the capital with Henry Clay Warmoth, who was serving as Sheridan's adviser. On January 19 they received a visit from E. E. Norton, a Louisiana Republican, who told them a strange story. He claimed that he was Kellogg's original choice for U.S. senator, but when Kellogg informed Pinchback of this, Pinchback objected in strenuous terms that he had already spread $10,000 among Kellogg's legislators in order to secure the job. Kellogg then promised Pinchback that Norton would reimburse him for his outlay. Pinchback took Norton's $10,000 but then double-crossed both Norton and Kellogg by successfully winning the post for himself. Only with great difficulty had Norton retrieved his money from Pinchback. How much of this story was true is hard to fathom—it's unclear why Kellogg would certify Pinchback for the Senate if he was not his preferred choice—but its outline, even in vague form, was highly damaging because it seemed to confirm, as many already suspected, that Pinchback was an unscrupulous opportunist.
Warmoth sent Sheridan to relate the story to Senator Morton, who listened with interest but questioned its veracity. Sheridan, on a tip from Warmoth, then suggested that Morton simply ask Pinchback about it, predicting that Pinchback was so vain, he would likely admit to cleverly outmaneuvering Norton. Morton did so, and apparently heard enough to be upset, for he abruptly asked the Senate to remove Pinchback's resolution for admission until the Committee on Privileges and Elections could again review his credentials. "I will state to the Senate that since the adjournment of the Senate on last Friday evening I have received information which I think makes it important ... that an investigation touching the circumstances of this election be made." Morton specified
that his concern was not with the Kellogg government's legitimacy, but with Pinchback's personal conduct. According to Warmoth, "That was really, and in fact the end of Pinchback's ever being a Senator of the United States."
Pinchback was furious when he realized that someone within the Kellogg government had revealed the Norton story, and he lashed out, threatening to share some secrets of his own. "Let the investigation proceed," he declared. "Of one thing I am certain and that is that the result of a fair investigation will be to make me a minor figure in the grand cavalcade of damned scoundrels who will have to march in my van." Pinchback's outburst and his threat to tell all about his political confreres caused nervous Republicans in Washington to remonstrate with Morton; back in Louisiana, meanwhile, Pinchback's supporters cautioned the senator-elect to tread lightly; anyone familiar with the melodrama of Louisiana politics knew that an inquiry into members of the Kellogg government would lead nowhere good.
Pinchback did have another option: in the campaign of November 1872 he had been elected congressman at large; due to conflicting ballot results, both he and his rival, George Sheridan, claimed victory, although neither had been seated by Congress. With his Senate appointment now blocked, Pinchback renewed his interest in the congressional seat, again citing the fact that since the Republican faction had won the Louisiana statehouse and had been recognized by President Grant, his own election must be valid. If Kellogg had won in November 1872, so had Pinchback. As a result, Congress asked Sheridan and Pinchback to defend their claims before the House. Both addressed that body on June 8, 1874. Sheridan suggested that Republican fraud had brought about the appearance of two Louisianians claiming the same House seat and mocked Pinchback's interest in both Senate and House seats as unseemly, asserting that the ex-governor would be all too glad to pocket both salaries, if possible.