Eyre Damer

“ At the termination of the war between the sections, the southern people had thrust upon them for solution the gravest and most difficult problem with which the white race on this continent was ever perplexed,—how to preserve their civilization with the government operating in opposition to their efforts. ”

“ By request of President Johnson, General Grant in 1865 made a tour of the southern states, to learn the feelings and intentions of the people and to ascertain to what extent, in the interest of economy, the military forces there could be reduced. He reported that white troops excited no opposition: thinking men would offer no violence to them. But black troops demoralized labor, “and the late slaves seem to be infused with the idea that the property of their late masters should by right belong to them, or at least should have no protection from the colored soldiers. ”

“ After four years of warfare, the south was prostrate before the victorious people of the north, whose armies were quartered in garrisons everywhere in the surrendered territory, to enforce with arms, if necessary, whatever oppressive and humiliating measures might be conceived in hatred and vengeance by fanatics whose intolerance had made the bloody conflict irrepressible, and who were determined to extend and perpetuate the political power gained by conquest. ”

“ The story of Randolph’s career is an interesting part of the history of Tuscaloosa. As an editor, he was belligerent, and relentless in his denunciation of radical maladministration of public affairs. So effective was his hostility that publication of his paper (official organ of the Ku Klux) was suppressed by military order. He accepted a challenge to a duel provoked by attacks upon the chief justice of the state supreme court, addressed to him by the judge’s son-in-law; but on the field mutual friends effected an amicable and honorable settlement. ”

“ A comment of the time was, that a proscribed white man could not have been bailiff to his former slave if that former slave was a justice of the peace, as he might well have been, if he was not in fact. ”

“ While the speaking at the court-house was in progress, fugitive negroes from the posses, which had suddenly dissolved at the approach of danger, rushed to the court-house and announced that Ku Klux were marching on the town. The meeting broke up in confusion and the people hurried into the yard. All the near-by streets and the sidewalks surrounding the square were thronged with people, white and black. ”

“ Confederate general took him to his quarters in a hotel and promised him protection temporarily. One evening, in general conversation, the subject of the Ku Klux was broached, and the host imparted to his very receptive guest much information thereon. The klans pervaded the country, and were better organized than the Confederate army had ever been. There was no escape for a proscribed man if he should tarry when ordered to be on the move; when they dealt with a man, a klan from some other county or state did the work, and all residents could be seen pursuing their accustomed walks. ”

“ Daniel Price, a typical scalawag, with the reputation of a jailbird and desperado, made flight from Wetumpka to Sumter, and was endowed with a bunch of federal and county jobs,—register of voters, superintendent of education, postmaster and census taker. Insatiable, like Oliver Twist he wanted more, and as a side line to his multifarious activities, employed his scholarly attainments in the conduct of a negro school, meanwhile boarding and associating with negroes. ”

“ The orator paused, dramatically removed from his pockets his watch and purse, and from its fastening a diamond pin, handed them to the sheriff, with the request that he convey them to the candidate’s wife, in the event of a fatality, drew a pistol, and, remarking that he had been mistreated and would “fight it out,” descended from the platform. Negroes with guns sprang into double ranks, enclosing him on two sides. The group of whites promptly seized and disarmed him, and meanwhile white men with arms were rushing to the scene from all quarters. ”

“ Then, there were thousands of men in northern Alabama not subject to the proscription, who were nursing the grievance that Democrats had precipitated secession without permitting the people to vote on the ordinance. They believed that, had it been submitted, it would have been defeated. Northern Alabama was so loyal to the Union that leaders there proposed separation of that section at the line of the mountains, and that its people organize and “fight it out” in the foothills. But the promptness with which the Confederate authorities organized the military forces discouraged such a project. ”

“ They were acquainted with the character of the Union League; aware of its horrible objects and aims; the almost daily crimes of lustful fiends, assassins and incendiaries were regarded as the fruits of its teachings; its responsibility for the existence of courts of law void of decency and recognized authority, and for officials incapable of [Pg 88] enforcing law and order, for injury to public credit by prodigal pledges, and waste of public money, was fixed by its foolish and persistent allegiance to false leaders. This league was the institution marked for destruction. ”

“ During the transition from master and slave to the new relations between them there was a strong disposition in both races to live in peace and harmony and make the best of their altered relations; the negroes were civil and confiding, scarcely realizing the change in their status, while the whites appreciated their good behavior during the war, when families of men in the army were unprotected, and were disposed to gratitude for it. But since the establishment of the league friendly intercourse between the races had been growing rarer, and now ceased altogether ”

“ The state was represented in the federal Senate by Willard Warner and George E. Spencer, the first named a northern general, the other, an army contractor. Judge Busteed, under oath, said that when elected Warner was not a citizen of Alabama; that when summoned a short while before as a juror in his court, Warner claimed exemption on the plea that he was a senator of the state of Ohio. Governor William H. Smith, in a letter published in the Huntsville Advocate, said: “Spencer lives upon the passions and prejudices of the races. ”

“ General James H. Clanton, under oath, spoke thus of Harrington, speaker of the house of representatives:
“Mr. Harrington came to Mobile very poor, from the northeast somewhere. He was never a soldier that we knew of. He is now very rich. Just after the war he was charged with running free negroes into Cuba. I do not know whether it is true or not. The present sheriff of Montgomery county showed me a reward offered for him, from what purported to be a northwestern paper, on a charge of bank robbery. He requested me to say nothing about it lest Harrington should get away. ”

“ The night preceding the day set for the meeting the negroes camped outside of town. Next day, when they entered Livingston, they were confronted by a body of white men, who told them they would not be permitted to retain their guns while in town and must take them back to the camp. The negroes, after some disputation, on learning that the congressman would not be present, retired. Burke, the negro legislator and president of the league, went to the camp and harangued them. He urged them to return to town with their guns and resist any interference that might be offered. ”

“ The white men remembered the nights of anxiety for the safety of the women and children and property of the town, and realized the danger of the situation in which they were placed by the group of official Republicans who heedlessly and recklessly assembled thousands of negroes who had so recently been frustrated in a design to obtain revenge for punishment administered to evildoers of their race. ”

“ When not engaged as deputy postmaster and county superintendent of education, he conducted a weekly newspaper, and made it and himself odious. In his paper he bitterly denounced the Ku Klux as “midnight prowlers and assassins,” and responsible for the suppression of public schools. He insisted that in the schools there should be no separation of races, and engaged in a prolonged and heated controversy with the governor over the question of admitting negroes to the State University. ”

“ The unconquered and unconquerable veterans of the vanquished southern armies, in many instances impoverished, were ripe for any enterprise which promised congenial adventure and spoils which they regarded as legitimate. The agents went about supported by federal troops, and many were the clashes between the latter and so-called guerrilla bands composed of their late antagonists on other and more glorious fields. These bands were actuated by the conviction that the Confederate government having had no clear title to ownership of the cotton, the conquerors succeeded to none ”

“ Immediately following the surrender of the Confederate armies and the declaration of peace, President Johnson formally stated his view of the situation to be that the war had neither destroyed nor impaired the Union; that the southern states had no right to withdraw from the compact, and having failed by resort to arms to accomplish separation, they emerged from the strife as they entered it, states and members of the Union, still possessing their constitutions, laws and territorial boundaries as they had been prior to the adoption of the ordinance of secession ”

“ That it shall be the duty of the probate judge in each county of this state to designate a newspaper in which all local advertisements, notices, or publications of any and every character required by law to be made in his county shall be published. Provided, that no newspaper shall be designated as such official organ which does not in its columns sustain and advocate the maintenance of the government of the United States and of the government of the state of Alabama, which is recognized by the Congress of the United States as the legal government of this state ”

“ As an illustration of the character of the men sent to the convention, Samuel Hale, a brother of United States Senator Hale, one of the few Union men and later Republicans resident in Sumter county, wrote Senator Wilson in January, 1868, a letter protesting against recognition by Congress of radicals in the south, in which he said that the men who sat in the convention and framed the constitution were, “so far as I am acquainted with them, [Pg 21] worthless vagabonds, homeless, houseless, drunken knaves”; that the Sumter delegates were a negro and two whites—Yordy and Rolfe. ”

“ Next day the sheriff rode into the midst of the mob and again demanded the body, and got it. A few hours later [Pg 131] the white forces made a quick and determined forward movement to dislodge the negroes from their almost impregnable position, and found it abandoned,—the negroes had disbanded and fled in terror. This terminated “the Belmont riot”; but it had a sequel in the retributive death of the negro leader, Zeke High, who boasted that his shot killed Collins. On his own boastful confession High was arrested and lodged in the Sumter county jail at Livingston. ”

“ The legislature passed an act restricting suffrage which disfranchised three-fourths of the native population of the middle and western parts of the state. This obsequious legislature also passed acts ratifying the illegal edicts of the autocratic and tyrannical Governor Brownlow [Pg 91] (“The Parson”) ; the sedition law was revived and amplified; freedom of speech and press was overthrown, and a large militia force composed of negroes was created and made responsible to the governor alone. At an election enough men had been permitted to register to thwart Brownlow’s plans. ”