Edwin C. Woolley

“ That Congress should pose as the defender of the people of Georgia against a usurping legislature, and at the same time by the guaranty of its approval encourage that legislature to double its constitutional term—this was a conception of political genius which, independently of its realization, should make Butler immortal. ”

“ For a legislature to unseat some of the elected members because on not untenable legal grounds it finds them ineligible, is not unusual. But the act of the Georgia legislature could not, under the circumstances, be regarded in the ordinary way. It showed strong racial prejudice. It was a startling breach of the system which reconstruction had been designed to institute, committed the very moment after the federal government withdrew its hand. It fixed on Georgia at once the earnest and unfavorable attention of northern public opinion. ”

“ We have seen that at the close of the war a spirit of gratitude and philanthropy prevailed among the most influential of the southern white people as regards the negroes. Instead of allowing this spirit to develop and in the course of time to produce its natural results, the North, believing that suffrage was essential to the negro’s welfare and progress, forced the South to enfranchise him, by reconstruction. ”

“ Now the rights of war do not end with military operations; one of these rights is the right of the victorious party, after an unconditional surrender, to occupy the territory of the defeated party, to govern or punish the people as it sees fit. If the United States government acquired the rights of war, this right was included. The close of a war is not simultaneous with the cessation of fighting. The surrender of the southern armies was an important incident in the civil war ”

“ After the swearing in of members had gone on in the house of representatives, as we have said, it was believed by the Radicals that some Conservatives were acting upon the judge’s interpretation and disregarding the attorney general’s, and that others had sworn or intended to swear falsely who were debarred even by the former. Ordinarily, if a man intends to swear falsely to a test oath there is no way of preventing him. In the existing state of public opinion, prosecution for perjury after the oath of office was taken was impossible. But Georgia had a military governor. ”

“ But the majority rejoined that there were very good reasons for not overlooking the irregularity. It was not a mere trifling departure from the letter of the act of Congress, it was a violation of the spirit of that act. “The obvious design” of the Omnibus Act “was to prevent the new organization from falling under the control of enemies of the United States.” The expulsion of the negroes showed that that design had been frustrated and that the government was under “rebel control;” it showed a “common purpose to ... resist the authority of the United States.” ”

“ Negroes were made citizens of equal rights with all other citizens by the new constitution. [164] Therefore they had the right to hold office. It was true that the constitution did not grant the right to hold office to the negroes expressly, as it granted the right to vote; but in view of the fact that the convention which made the constitution was elected by 25,000 white and 85,000 colored men, and that that constitution was adopted by 35,000 white and 70,000 colored men, it would be absurd to suppose that the intent of that instrument was to withhold office from the negroes. ”

“ Reviewing the events recorded from the beginning of this chapter, we observe that the period of reconstruction in Georgia was not a period when a swarm of harpies took possession of the state government and preyed at will upon a helpless people. The constitutional convention of 1867-68 forebodes such a period, but when the Conservatives rouse themselves, from that time on the stage presents an internecine war between two very well matched enemies. This struggle is usually represented as between a wicked assailant and a righteous assailed. ”

“ The indorsement of railroad bonds is not a reproach to the reconstruction government. The great policy of that government, when it was sufficiently free from partisan labors to have a policy, was to repair the prosperity of the state, and the construction of railroads was an important means to this end. ”

“ It will be remembered that in December, 1868, and January, 1869, the governor urged upon Congress, through his letter presented in the Senate and through his testimony before the Reconstruction Committee, the theory that Georgia had not yet been restored. On January 15, 1869, he urged the same view upon the legislature. He advised it to reorganize itself by summoning all men elected members in 1868, requiring each to take the Test Oath, excluding only those who should not take it, and thus constituted to repass the resolutions required by the Omnibus Act. ”

“ The authority for the performance of the first had been found in the power to suppress insurrection and to carry on war; for the performance of the second, authority was derived from the obligation of the United States to guarantee to every state a republican form of government. ”

“ The devastation of the war had fallen with especial severity upon Georgia. Worse still, the people seemed unable to repair the damage or to return to productive activity. Planters seemed unable to adapt themselves to the new economic conditions. Slavery, the system which they understood, was gone; they used the new system with little success, all the less because of the restlessness of the negroes. ”

“ For the Republican Politicians reconstruction did not produce in Georgia all that was to be desired. When the enterprise was first launched some of the white men, though offended, favored accepting the inevitable and endeavoring to elect good men to the constitutional convention and to the new state government. [129] Others, carried further by their anger, determined to take no part in elevating the negroes and debasing their heroes. Prominent among these, as we have said, was Governor Jenkins. ”

“ The question, what political disposition should be made of the Confederate States after the destruction of their military power, began to be prominent in public discussion in December, 1863. It was then that President Lincoln announced his policy upon the subject, which was to restore each state to its former position in the Union as soon as one-tenth of its population had taken the oath of allegiance prescribed in his amnesty proclamation and had organized a state government pledged to abolish slavery. ”

“ Outside the laws they would have found less encouragement. The kindness of the white people toward the negroes had been changed to apprehension by the events of 1865. When the advent of negro suffrage brought the carpet-baggers to the South to marshal the negro voters for their own benefit, and when these men began to disturb the negroes by organizing them into mysterious Union Leagues and giving them [Pg 47] indigestible ideas of their rights, apprehension became alarm. Negroes seized property of all kinds—including even plantations—by violence, supposing this to be one of their new rights. ”

“ Most of the official acts of Pope concerned either the enforcement of obedience and the suppression of disobedience to the letter and spirit of the Reconstruction Acts, or the protection and promotion of the present interests of the freedmen.
In assuming command he announced that in the absence of special orders all persons holding office under the state government would be permitted to retain their positions until the expiration of their terms. Their successors, however, were to be appointed by Pope alone; no elections should be held in the state except those required by Congress. ”

“ General Pope was inspired by the ideas and emotions from which reconstruction had sprung. He was an ardent friend of the reconstruction measures. He was convinced of the importance of suppressing the old political leaders in his district. He held with enthusiasm the optimistic views prevalent in the North regarding the negroes. Their recent progress in “education and knowledge,” he said, was “marvellous,” and if continued, in five years the intelligence of the community would shift to the colored portion. ”

“ In the Senate, on the day on which the President’s message was read, Sumner offered resolutions to the effect that before the southern states should be admitted to representation in Congress they must enfranchise “all citizens,” establish systems of education open to negroes equally [Pg 25] with white people, and choose loyal persons for state and national offices. ”

“ That the Johnson governments were only the machinery of military occupation, set up by the conquering general, was denied.
We know [said the minority report] that [the southern states] have governments completely organized, with legislative, executive, and judicial functions. We [Pg 28] know that they are now in successful operation; no one within their limits questions their legality, or is denied their protection. How they were formed, under what auspices they were formed, are inquiries with which Congress has no concern. ”

“ Another element of discord was furnished by a particular part of the white population, the so-called poor whites. These saw in the new protégés of the United States not only a rival laboring class, but a menace to their social position, and hence assumed an attitude of jealousy and hatred. Such were the conditions favorable to social disturbance which followed emancipation. In the latter part of 1865 they had already begun to produce their natural result. Violent encounters between negroes and white men (in which the latter were almost always the aggressors) were noticeably frequent. ”

“ The committee appealed less to this constitutional argument than to arguments of policy. It was willing to grant the “profitless abstraction” that the southern states still remained states. The people of those states had waged war on the United States. Though subdued, they were defiant, disloyal, and abusive. They showed no disposition to abate their hatred for the Union or their affection for the Confederacy. To accord to such a people entire independence, [Pg 27] taking no measures for security from future danger; to admit their representatives to Congress ”

“ Parrot, the permanent chairman, said:
Many of us come here from amongst a people who have spurned us and spit upon us ... the enemies of the convention are watching with envious eyes to see whether we shall be able to meet public expectation.... We should form a state government for an unwilling people based upon the soundest principles ... ”

“ The close of the war and the advent of emancipation produced a change in the conduct of the negroes, which in time produced a change in the attitude of the white people. The negroes, from the talk which they heard and did not understand, and from their ignorant imaginations, conceived strange ideas of emancipation. ”

“ It is often vaguely said that reconstruction resulted in government by carpet-baggers. John B. Gordon, the Conservative candidate for governor who was defeated by Bullock, expressed before a Congressional committee in 1870 the belief that there were not more than a dozen men holding offices in Georgia who had recently been non-residents. ”

“ A Confederate veteran recently remarked amid great applause at an assembly in Atlanta that there never was a conqueror so magnanimous as the North, for within six years from the surrender of the southern armies she had allowed the South to take part in her national councils. ”

“ On December 22, 1869, Governor Bullock issued his proclamation (which he signed “Rufus B. Bullock, Provisional Governor”) , summoning the men elected to the legislature in 1868 to meet in Atlanta on January 10 following. [215] This [Pg 75] duty, besides that of calling on the President for aid if he saw fit, was the only one expressly entrusted to Bullock by the Reorganization Act. Another one, however, was deduced by the following process of reasoning: The legislature can do nothing before its members are qualified according to the act. Since it can do nothing, it cannot even organize itself. ”

“ The worst stain on the reconstruction government is its management of the state railroad. The Western and Atlantic Railroad, owned and operated by the state until 1871, was placed under the superintendence of Foster Blodgett by the governor in January, 1870. [349] Thenceforth hundreds of employees were discharged to make room for Republican favorites; important positions were filled by strangers to the business; the receipts were stolen, [350] or squandered in purchases made from other Republicans at monstrous prices ”

“ It said; “The legislature shall ratify the Fifteenth Amendment ... before Senators and Representatives from Georgia are admitted to seats in Congress.” This might be construed as granting title to representation as a state as soon as the Fifteenth Amendment should be ratified, or as merely requiring the ratification and making no definite provision as to restoration but leaving that subject to be provided for by another act. The latter construction was adopted by the Georgia Radicals, since it prolonged the tenure of their military governor. ”