A Fool's Errand & Bricks without Straw

by Albion Winegar Tourgée

  "It is a shallow trick of the sciolist. The act of rebellion, when it is so far successful as to overturn the government of a State of this Union, and establish a hostile one in its stead, destroys that State. The fallacy lies in the application of the word 'State,' in its original or international sense, to one of the subordinate commonwealths of our nation. A 'State,' in that sense, is simply (1) a certain specific territory (2) occupied by an organized community (3), united under one government. If that could be applied to any of our States without modification, this conclusion might be true. But, in order to define our 'State' correctly, we must add one other element; to wit (4), sustaining certain specific and defined relations to other States, and to the National Government of the United States of America.

  "It is this last element which rebellion destroyed, and thereby annihilated the State. Every element of a State of the American Union remained, except this statal relation to the Union; and this is just the very element which is as necessary to statal existence as breath to life. It is what distinguishes a State of the Union from all other organized communities of earth called 'States.' You may have all but this, and there is no State in the sense we use it, but only a skeleton, a lifeless body. It is this element which reconstruction restored. It is this element which is under the control of the General Government, and must be so held and deemed, or reconstruction was a clear and flagrant usurpation.

  "You think this a startling doctrine; but, if it be not true, then both the nation and the loyal people of the South are in a most dangerous dilemma. It may not be permissible even to suppose that the plan of reconstruction adopted was not absolutely perfect; but for the argument, allowing it to be found impracticable and ineffective, then, according to the reasoning adduced by you, there is no remedy. As the tree fell when the State was admitted by congressional action, so it must lie to the end of time. It is like marriage, — a contract indissoluble by either or both of the parties, a relation which no antagonism can ever impair or destroy. If that is so, then you are right, and our appeal for aid is worse than futile.

  "But, if it be true, how great was the crime of those who thrust upon the poor, ignorant colored people of the South, upon the few inexperienced and usually humble Union men, and the still fewer Northern men who have pitched their tents in this section, the task — the herculean and impossible task — of building up self-regulating States which should assure and protect the rights of all, and submit quietly and cheerfully to the sway of lawful majorities!

  "It should be remembered that the pressure for reconstruction came from the North, — not from the people of the North, but from its politicians. It was reduced to practice, not because society here was ripe for its operation, but to secure political victory and party ascendancy. I do not object to this motive: it is the very thing that makes the government of parties generally safe. I allude to it only to show that we of the South, native or foreign-born, are not responsible for the perils which are now threatening the work that has once received the approbative fiat, 'It is finished!' When we prophesied failure, as so many of us did, we were pooh-poohed like silly children; and now, when we announce apparent failure, we are met with petulant impatience, and told to take care of ourselves.

  "It is all well for you, sitting safely and cosily in your easy-chair under the shadow of the dome of the Capitol, to talk about asserting ourselves, protecting ourselves, and retaliating upon our persecutors. Either you have not apprehended our condition, or you are inclined to 'mock at our calamity.'

  "Resistance, I mean such resistance as would be effective, is very nearly impossible. In the first place an overwhelming force is always concentrated on the single isolated individual. It is not a mob, except in the aggregation of strength and numbers. Every thing is planned and ordered beforehand. The game is stalked. He that resists does so at hopeless odds. He may desperately determine to throw away his life; but he can accomplish no other result than to take one with him as he goes, and the chances are against even that. You must remember that the attack is only made at night, is always a matter of surprise, and put in operation by a force whose numbers strike terror, always enhanced by their fantastic guise, which also greatly increases the chances of a misshot or false blow, should the unfortunate victim try to defend himself.

  "Resistance by way of retaliation is still more absurd. Suppose a party of men should whip you to-night, and you should find yourself unable to penetrate their disguise, or discover their identity in any manner, would you start out to-morrow, and run a-muck among your fellow-townsmen? Or would you guess at the aggressors, and destroy without proof? Evidently not. To organize such retaliation would not be difficult. Such is the exasperation of the colored people, that they would readily join to give a smoking house in exchange for every bleeding back: indeed, if they were not restrained by the counsel of cooler and wiser heads, we should soon have a servile insurrection here, which would make the horrors of Santo Domingo pale before its intensity. Should we put your advice into practice, the government would soon find a way to interfere, despite the constitutional provisions, or, more properly, constitutional scruples, of some. Leaving out of sight the fact that this is a contest of poverty, ignorance, and inexperience, against intelligence, wealth, and skill, — the struggle of a race yet servile in its characteristics with one which has always excelled in domination, — you will perceive that the idea of retaliation, even among equals in rank and intelligence, would be futile and absurd.

  "As to the State authorities: the courts, you have seen, are powerless. In a county in which there have been two hundred such outrages, there has never been a presentment by the grand jury for one of them. The impossibility of identification, the terror which prevents testimony being given, and the fact that the very perpetrators of these midnight assassinations are found on all juries, show this beyond a peradventure: so that is out of the question also. The Executive of the State is bound by constitutional limitations much less fanciful and airy than those which you have adduced in excuse for the national legislation. He can not interfere where the process of the courts is not resisted. The whole theory and policy of our government is to secure this right to the citizen. The denunciations of all our old Declarations of Rights were leveled expressly at such usurpations. The Executive who should dare to organize a military force to protect its citizens, or to aid in apprehending or punishing such men, would do so, not only in peril of his life from assassination, but also at the risk of impeachment, degradation, and ruin.

  "So we are remitted to our original petition to the National Government. If that can give us no aid, we have none to hope for. We can only repeat the Petrine cry, 'Save, Lord, or we perish!'

  "Respectfully,

  "COMFORT SERVOSSE."

  To this letter the Wise Man made no answer, but verbally stated to a mutual friend that he considered it very disrespectful to him. The Wise Men of that day looked upon the supporters of reconstruction at the South as mere instruments in their hands, — to be worked as puppets, but to be blamed as men, for the results of their acts. They had not yet arrived at that refinement of cruelty which also made them scapegoats for the results of others' ignorance and folly. That was to come afterward.

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  "LOVE ME, LOVE MY DOG"

  Table of Contents

  THE Fool's neighbors having read his letter to the Wise Man, as published in the great journal in which it appeared, were greatly incensed thereat, and immediately convened a public meeting for the purpose of taking action in regard to the same. At this meeting they passed resolutions affirming the quiet, peaceful, and orderly character of the county, and denouncing in unmeasured terms all reports or rumors to a contrary purport as false and slanderous, and especially affirming with peculiar earnestness that the recent act of violence which had startled and amazed this law-abiding community was not the work of any of its citizens, but an irruption from beyond its borders.

  It was noticeable that none of the colored people joined in t
his demonstration, nor any of those white people, who, on that night of horror, had stood with bated breath behind their barred doors, in the midst of weeping and terrified households momently expecting attack. There were not many of the latter, it is true, and what was termed "respectable society" had long ago shut its doors in their faces; and it was by no means to be expected that the respectable white people of any county would seek to have their declarations confirmed by the testimony of an inferior race, whose evidence, at best, would have to be taken with many grains of allowance. There were many eloquent and impressive speeches made on this occasion.

  The lawyers were, of course, in the lead, as the profession always is in all matters of public interest in our land. They descanted largely upon magna charta, and the law-abiding and liberty-loving spirit of the people of the grand old county, on which the sun of American liberty first arose, and had shone his very brightest ever since. They told how the people, after being overwhelmed in the holiest crusade for liberty that the world had ever known, by the hosts of foreign mercenaries which the North had hurled against them, after having their fields and homes ravaged and polluted by Yankee vandals, had surrendered in good faith, and had endured all the tyranny and oppression which Yankee cunning and malice could invent, without resistance, almost without murmuring. They painted the three years of unutterable oppression, when they were ground under the heel of "military despotism," deprived of the right of self-government, their laws subverted to the will of a "military satrap," and their judges debarred from enforcing them according to their oaths of office. They recalled the fact, that in that very county the sheriff had been prevented by a file of soldiers from carrying into effect the sentence of the court, given in strict conformity with the law of the State, and requiring the offender to be publicly whipped on his bare back. They called attention to the fact that the whipping-post, the stocks, and the branding-iron, — the significant emblems of their former civilization, — had been swept away by the influx of "Yankee ideas," which had culminated in the inexpressible infamy of military reconstruction, and "nigger supremacy."

  Then they turned the torrent of their denunciatory wrath upon the Fool, and gave free rein to their fancy as they invented for him a boyhood, youth, and early manhood, sufficiently degraded and infamous to fit him for the career of the carpet-bagger. With a magnificent disregard both of chronology and geography, he was represented as having been born "at Nantucket, Cape Cod, and all alongshore;" and by each successive speaker was credited with a new birth more infamous, if possible, in its surroundings and associations, than any theretofore conferred upon him. A life of corresponding depravity was also invented for each new birthplace, every one culminating in that last act of unparalleled infamy, — the utterance of slanderous reports against the ever-martyred and long-suffering South, which had laid aside the memory of its manifold wrongs, and received with open arms one of its oppressors, — a man whose hands were red with the blood of her sons slain in battle. Nay, more, he was denounced as one of those modern moss-troopers who raided and ravaged, and stole and burned, with the robber-chief, Sherman, on his torch-lit pathway to the sea, — Sherman, whose infamies were so unparalleled as to require the use of a new word to express their enormity, who had made the term "bummer" expressive of the quintessence of all ignominy.

  Then spoke the grave and reverend divine who had discoursed with unruffled serenity of "the peaceable fruits of righteousness" on that chill sabbath when the body of poor Jerry swung from the adjacent oak, turning here and there the unseeing orbs in unsyllabled prayer for the common charity of Christian burial. He deplored, as his calling required him to do, all violence and harshness. He even deprecated harsh words and violent language. But when he saw his people assailed with false and infamous aspersions by one who had come among them, and had for years been the recipient of their forbearing charity and long-suffering patience, he could not hold his peace. And, after that frank acknowledgment of his fallibility, the good man did not seem to make any further effort to do so, but followed the lead of the gentlemen of the bar with a zeal that showed a determination to excel, until he grew hoarse and sweaty, and red in the face, and had lost his eye-glasses, and shed half a mouthful of false teeth. Then he sat down for repairs, and the sheriff gave his testimony.

  He was a man of few words; but he avouched the peace and quiet of the county by telling how few warrants he had in his hands; how few presentments had been made by the grand jury; how certain he was that the acts of violence (which all regretted) had been almost entirely committed by lawless bands from other counties; and, in conclusion, he asserted that he had never had a paper which he could not serve without the aid of a posse. Indeed, so potent was the law-abiding spirit, that a boy of ten, armed with a lawful warrant, could arrest any man in the county charged with crime.

  To the same effect testified all his deputies, and many other most honorable men; and all expressed as much indignation as the imperfection of the language would allow, at the atrocity of the Fool's conduct in reporting any thing derogatory to the honor of the South, and especially of the law-abiding character of the people of that county.

  When all who were full enough for utterance had borne their testimony, and the laudatory resolutions had been adopted, one of the young hot-heads of the meeting thought to immortalize himself by offering a resolution denouncing the Fool by name, in the strongest terms he could command. Some of the older and cooler ones were somewhat doubtful about the policy of such a course; and, after some discussion, the resolution was withdrawn, and a committee appointed, with instructions to confer with the Fool, see if he still avowed the authorship of the letter in question, and affirmed its contents, and report the result of such conference to another meeting, to be called by them at such time as they might select. Thereupon the meeting adjourned, and on the next day the Fool received the following letter from the committee: —

  "COLONEL COMFORT SERVOSSE. Sir, — The people of Verdenton and vicinity have seen, with surprise and regret, a letter purporting to have been written by you, and published in the New York Age of the 10th inst., stating, among other things, that there had been 'one thousand outrages committed in this congressional district by armed men in disguise,' in other words, by the Ku-Klux as they are called. The good citizens of this county feel that they would be open to the most just censure, and dereliction of duty to themselves and the country, should they permit such communications to pass without their notice and condemnation. Not wishing to act in haste, or to do any injustice, the undersigned have been appointed a committee, on behalf of the law-abiding people of this vicinity, to inquire of you whether you wrote said letter, and, if so, whether you still affirm its contents.

  "An immediate answer is required.

  "Respectfully,

  "A. B — — , Committee

  "C. D — — , Committee

  "E. F — — . Committee."

  To this letter the Fool made answer: —

  "To A. B. AND OTHERS, COMMITTEE, — Your favor of this morning is at hand, informing me that you have been appointed a committee, by a meeting of the citizens of Verdenton and vicinity, who desire to ascertain whether I am the writer of a certain letter published in a Northern journal, which they wish to notice and condemn.

  "In reply, I would state that I have read the article to which you refer; that I did write the letter as published, and most unhesitatingly re-affirm its contents to the best of my knowledge and belief. I do not exactly understand the nature of the demand made upon me; but as I am always willing and anxious to gratify my neighbors with a declaration of faith, and such reasons as I may have, you will, I feel sure, pardon me if I see fit to give something more than a mere categorical answer to your inquiry.

  "I am not a little surprised that such a demand should be made, and in the formal manner which characterizes this. I find nothing in the letter which I have not repeated and affirmed over and over again in private conversation, and several times on public occasions. It would seem,
however, from the tenor of your letter, that the part of it which especially arouses the objurgation of my good neighbors, and the part which I am informed was especially inveighed against at the meeting last night, is my estimate of one thousand outrages in this congressional district. With regard to this, you will permit me to remark that I am clearly satisfied that it is altogether below the fact. Of course, as I have not access to the secret archives of the Klan, I have no means, at present, of verifying this estimate. You will recollect that this estimate embraces every unlawful act perpetrated by armed and organized bodies in disguise. The entry of the premises, and surrounding the dwelling with threats against the inmates; the seizure and destruction, or appropriation of arms; the dragging of men, women, and children from their homes, or compelling their flight; the binding, gagging, and beating of men and women; shooting at specific individuals, or indiscriminately at inhabited houses; the mutilation of men and women in methods too shocking and barbarous to be recounted here; burning houses; destroying stock; and making the night a terror to peaceful citizens by the ghastly horror of many and deliberate murders, — all these come within the fearful category of 'outrages.' I have reason to believe that the greater proportion of these acts are studiously concealed by the victims, unless of so serious a character as to render concealment impossible, because of the invariable threat of more serious punishment in case complaint is made. I know, in many instances, when parties have come to me from all parts of the district to seek legal redress, that, when advised that it could not be obtained, they have begged me to keep silence in regard to it, lest they should pay with their lives for having revealed it.

  "I am aware, gentlemen, that many of those who are classed as 'our best citizens' have heretofore insisted, and perhaps even yet do insist, that these things were unworthy of serious attention; and I will confess that I have always suspected such parties of a peculiar knowledge of these crimes which could only be obtained by privity in regard to their perpetrators. You yourselves, gentlemen, will bear me witness that I have omitted no proper opportunity to denounce these acts, and warn both the perpetrators, and the community at large, that such horrible barbarities, such disregard of human right and human life, must bear some sort of bitter fruit in the near future. That I was right, witness the horrid culmination of deliberate and cowardly barbarity of which your streets were recently the theater! Witness the Temple of Justice in a neighboring county besmeared with the blood of an officer assassinated with cowardly treachery and cold-blooded deliberateness!