It is said that they have changed, that they have reformed; and yet you learn here to-night, from the words of the leading traitor of the South, that he is not ashamed of the lost cause. There is great talk about reconciliation; it is said that we must forget and forgive. We have heard a great deal of religion preached lately about our Southern brethren and the Democratic Party. It is said to have been converted. [Laughter.] But I am a little incredulous—some would say sceptical—about this matter. Conversion is a great fact, even in the individual, but when 2,900,000 men are suddenly converted, a fact of that kind, it seems to me, requires a good deal of evidence to support it. The largest number I ever heard of being converted in a single day was three thousand, and that was on the day of Pentecost. [Applause and laughter.] For my part, I have learned this in the case of individuals: They usually remember the time when and the place where their dungeon shook; when their feet were taken out of the mire and clay and set upon a rock; but thus far the Democratic Party have been unable to tell me when, where, how, and under whose preaching this great conversion has taken place. Where I have been they were talking of the Prodigal Son, but here in New-York, perhaps, they don’t care much about the Prodigal Son. [Laughter.] Between the two—between the Democratic Party and the Prodigal Son—there are certainly some points of resemblance. For instance: He was hungry. [Loud laughter and applause.] He seems to have been from home for about twelve years, and to have had little or nothing to eat all the time, so that he would even fain have filled himself with the husks that the swine did eat. But when he saw his father he said: “Father, I have sinned before heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy servant.” Now, this was humility, and it is there that the parallel ceases. [Applause.] He did not come home to drive out the elder son, but only wanted to be made a servant in his father’s house. It is here, as I said, that the analogy ceases. The Democratic Party does not come home in that spirit, after having spent our substance, wasted our wealth, piled up a mountain of debt. Well, I did not come here to argue or to expound. I have doubts about the sincerity of this Democratic conversion. For one, I don’t think it will be safe to trust to that conversion just yet. I am willing to receive the Prodigal Son, but I would keep him in a subordinate position for a little time longer. Let us imitate the wisdom of our Methodist brethren and take the Democrats on probation. [Applause and laughter.] I have an appeal to make to you on behalf of my race. There are millions of them who are to-night like chickens under a fence when the scream of the hawk is heard in the air. In this anxious state they are afraid of the shadow—of the adumbration of a possibility of the reinstatement of the old master class to power in the Southern States, and I am here to-night to ask you for four years more of the beneficent rule of the Republican Party, and four years more of the steady, unimpassioned, eagle-eyed, clear, steady, firm-nerved little man—Ulysses S. Grant. [Enthusiastic applause.] When you felt the earth crumbling beneath your feet, when the fate of the Republic trembled in the balance, oh, then, in your extremity you called upon the black man to reach out his black, iron arm. [Applause.] Also they came 200,000 strong; and from that hour the tide of battle turned. We don’t say we put down the rebellion, but we helped to put it down, and so incurred the heavy displeasure of the master-class at the South. And that displeasure is not now passed. We are unable to meet it without your help. The only thing that stops the bloody arm of the Kuklux to-night is Ulysses S. Grant. [Loud applause.] Keep him there. [Voices—We will.] I am not here to abuse Horace Greeley. I have known him well and long, and have loved him much, but he is in very bad company. My friends say, Why, Mr. Douglass, are you going to desert Horace Greeley? I answer, No, but Horace Greeley has deserted us. It is like the story of Paddy when he landed in the United States and first resolved to ride a mule. He knew nothing of the use of a saddle and still less of that of the stirrups. Well, he mounted the mule, but disdained to use the stirrups. Using a stick, he made the mule begin to gallop, and as the animal dashed along the stirrups struck his sides and caused him to rush madly on, nearly unseating Paddy. By and by the mule got one of his hind legs in the stirrup, which being observed by Paddy, he shouted: “Be jabers, if yez is going to get on, it is time for me to get off.” [Laughter.] Now, as the Democratic Party has begun to mount Horace, it is time for me to get off Horace. [Loud applause.] It is a remarkable evidence of the intelligent instincts of the colored people of the South, and shows how wisely they have selected in this matter, when it is known that, notwithstanding all the blandishments, they can see that with Horace Greeley in power the old master is again brought back into power, while with Grant in power liberty and equality prevails throughout the land. [Loud applause.]
But I have spoken of the Democratic platform as in substance the same as the Republican platform. In this I have been too liberal to our adversaries, and less than just to our friends. The Democratic platform was doubtless intended to bear a Republican construction, and to seem like the genuine article, but it is, in fact and in effect, as opposed to it as freedom is to slavery. There are three or four little words in it, put in for a purpose which makes it a political document of the most dangerous and destructive kind. As on a railroad, you have only to move the switch a single inch, and the train is taken from the true track and hurled over the embankment, killing and maiming the passengers. So here we have one or two little words which change the whole direction of the country from safety to ruin, and from liberty to slavery. The Cincinnati Democratic platform declares itself opposed to reopening the questions settled by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. In another place it declares for “local self-government with impartial suffrage,” as against national protection and universal suffrage.
Now, first: I object to the word “settled.” It leaves room for certain men to deny, as Mr. Black, of Pennsylvania, does deny, that anything was settled by those amendments. Nothing is, or can be settled by fraud; and the Democratic party has again and again declared these amendments frauds and unconstitutional. But the most objectionable and most dangerous feature of this Democratic platform is its denial of the right of the National Government to protect the liberties of its citizens in the States, and its declaration in favor of impartial suffrage against universal suffrage. Under these two doctrines the whole body of liberty as contained in the several amendments of the Constitution may be undermined, subverted and destroyed. They point out the two ways in which those amendments may be evaded and made of non-effect. By the one they may limit suffrage, and by the other they may strip the freedmen and their friends of national protection.
But we are told by our friends of the Greeley persuasion that our fears are groundless; that the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments are now a part of the Constitution, and there is no power to take them out of the Constitution.
Alas! this assurance is little better than a mockery: constitutions do not execute themselves. We have had justice enough in our Constitution from the beginning to have made slavery impossible. The trouble never was in the Constitution, but in the administration of the Constitution. All experience shows that laws are of little value in the hands of those unfriendly to their objects.
Besides, the very essence of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments is in the grant of power to Congress to enforce them by “appropriate legislation.” Without legislation these provisions may be evaded and practically rendered null and void. Now, what hope have we that a Democratic Congress will enforce these provisions by appropriate legislation?
But let us look at the workings of the Constitution. Under that instrument it would appear that oppression of an American citizen would be impossible in any of the States; that the citizen of New-York would be as safe in South Carolina as in New-York; yet we well know that until within the last few years the free liberty of a Northern man was impossible in the South. I, therefore, as a black man first, as a man next, and as a newly-born citizen of the United States—a citizenship beyond all others on the g
lobe—as such a citizen I ask you, one and all, to exert every faculty to retain in power that party which has made the country glorious before the world, if you want the country prosperous. I now ask you, if you desire success, to give three hearty, rousing cheers for Ulysses S. Grant, and if you wish to do so, follow me. Hip, hip, hip. [As he thus spoke he waved his handkerchief three times, each wave eliciting a thundering cheer that made the walls ring. At the end of the last, three additional cheers were given for Douglass.]
The Chairman then announced that the meeting stood adjourned until next Wednesday, when other speakers would be present, and by which time Horace Greeley would furnish them plenty of new texts to speak upon.
September 25, 1872
“A DESCENT INTO BARBARISM”:
SOUTH CAROLINA, FEBRUARY 1873
James S. Pike:
South Carolina Prostrate
THE STATE UNDER A NEGRO GOVERNMENT.
A BLACK LEGISLATURE—HUMILIATION OF THE WHITES
—THEIR SUBJECTION COMPLETE AND HOPELESS.
[FROM AN OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENT OF THE TRIBUNE.]
COLUMBIA, S. C., Feb. 20.—This town, the capital of South Carolina, is charmingly situated in the heart of the upland country, near the geographical center of the State. It has broad, open streets, regularly laid out, and fine, shady residences, in and about the town. The opportunity for rides and drives can hardly be surpassed. There are good animals and good turnouts to be seen on the streets at all times, and now, in midwinter, the weather invites to such displays. It seems there was a little real Winter here at Christmas and New Year’s, when the whole country suffered such an excess of sudden cold. There was even skating and sleighing for a week. But now there is no frost, and the recollection of it is dispelled by the genial Spring weather that prevails.
Yesterday about 4 P. M. the assembled wisdom of the State, whose achievements are illustrated on that theater, issued forth from the State-house. About three-quarters of the crowd belonged to the African race. They were of every hue from the light octoroon to the deep black. They were such a looking body of men as might pour out of a market-house or a court-house at random in any Southern State. Every negro type and physiognomy were here to be seen, from the genteel serving man to the rough-hewn customer from the rice or cotton field. Their dress was as varied as their countenances. There was the second-hand black frock coat of infirm gentility, glossy and threadbare. There was the stove-pipe hat of many ironings and departed styles. There was also to be seen a total disregard of the proprieties of costume in the coarse and dirty garments of the field; the slub jackets and slouch hats of soiling labor. In some instances, rough woolen comforters embraced the neck and hid the absence of linen. Heavy brogans and short, torn trowsers it was impossible to hide. The dusky tide flowed out into the littered and barren grounds, and, issuing through the coarse wooden fence of the inclosure, melted away into the street beyond. These were the legislators of South Carolina.
A CULTURED SOCIETY OVERTURNED.
In conspicuous bas-relief over the door of exit, on the panels of the stately edifice, the marble visages of George McDuffie and Robert Y. Hayne overlooked the scene. Could they veritably witness it from their dread abode? What then? “I tremble,” said Jefferson, in the opening scenes of American Independence, “I tremble when I reflect that God is just.” But did any of that old band of Southern revolutionary patriots who wrestled in their souls with the curse of Slavery ever contemplate such a descent into barbarism as this spectacle implied and typified? “My God, look at this!” was the unbidden ejaculation of a low-country planter, clad in homespun, as he leaned over the rail inside the House, gazing excitedly upon the body in session. “This is the first time I have been here. I thought I knew what we were doing when we consented to emancipation. I knew the negro and I predicted much that has happened, but I never thought it would come to this. Let me go.”
Here then is the outcome, the ripe, perfected fruit of the boasted civilization of the South, after two hundred years of experience. A white community, that had gradually risen from small beginnings, till it grew into wealth, culture, and refinement, and became accomplished in all the arts of civilization; that successfully asserted its resistance to a foreign tyranny by deeds of conspicuous valor; which achieved liberty and independence through the fire and tempest of civil war, and illustrated itself in the councils of the nation by orators and statesmen worthy of any age or nation; such a community is then reduced to this. It lies prostrate in the dust, ruled over by this strange conglomerate, gathered from the ranks of its own servile population. It is the spectacle of a society suddenly turned bottom side up. The wealth, the intelligence, the culture, the wisdom of the State, have broken through the crust of that social volcano on which they were contentedly reposing, and have sunk out of sight, consumed by the subterranean fires they had with such temerity braved and defied.
THE BLACK HOUSE IN SESSION.
In the place of this old aristocratic society stands the rude form of the most ignorant democracy that mankind ever saw, invested with the functions of government. It is the dregs of the population habilitated in the robes of their intelligent predecessors, and asserting over them the rule of ignorance and corruption, through the inexorable machinery of a majority of numbers. It is barbarism overwhelming civilization by physical force. It is the slave rioting in the halls of his master, and putting that master under his feet. And though it is done without malice and without vengeance, it is nevertheless none the less completely and absolutely done. Let us approach nearer and take a closer view. We will enter the House of Representatives. Here sit 124 members. Of these, 23 are white men, representing the remains of the old civilization. These are good-looking, substantial citizens. They are men of weight and standing in the communities they represent. They are all from the hill country. The frosts of sixty and seventy Winters whiten the heads of some among them. There they sit, grim and silent. They feel themselves to be but loose stones, thrown in to partially obstruct a current they are powerless to resist. They say little and do little as the days go by. They simply watch the rising tide, and mark the progressive steps of the inundation. They hold their places reluctantly. They feel themselves to be in some sort martyrs, bound stoically to suffer in behalf of that still great element in the State whose prostrate fortunes are becoming the sport of an unpitying fate. Grouped in a corner of the commodious and well-furnished chamber, they stolidly survey the noisy riot that goes on in the great black Left and Center, where the business and debates of the House are conducted, and where sit the strange and extraordinary guides of the fortunes of a once proud and haughty State. In this crucial trial of his pride, his manhood, his prejudices, his spirit, it must be said of the Southern Bourbon of the Legislature that he comports himself with a dignity, a reserve, and a decorum that command admiration. He feels that the iron hand of destiny is upon him. He is gloomy, disconsolate, hopeless. The gray heads of this generation openly profess that they look for no relief. They see no way of escape. The recovery of influence, of position, of control in the State, is by them felt to be impossible. They accept their position with a stoicism that promises no reward here or hereafter. They are the types of a conquered race. They staked all and lost all. Their lives remain, their property and their children do not. War, emancipation, and grinding taxation have consumed them. Their struggle now is against complete confiscation. They endure and wait for the night.
This dense negro crowd they confront, do the debating, the squabbling, the law-making, and create all the clamor and disorder of the body. These 23 white men are but the observers, the enforced auditors of the dull and clumsy imitation of a deliberative body, whose appearance in their present capacity is at once a wonder and a shame to modern civilization.
THE LOOKS OF THE MEMBERS.
Deducting the 23 members referred to, who comprise the entire strength of the opposition, we find 101 remaining. Of this 101, 94 are colored, and seven are their white allies. Thus the blacks out
number the whole body of whites in the House more than three to one. On the mere basis of numbers in the State the injustice of this disproportion is manifest, since the black population in the State is relatively four to three of the whites. A just rectification of the disproportion, on the basis of population merely, would give 54 whites to 70 black members. And the line of race very nearly marks the line of hostile politics. As things stand, the body is almost literally a Black Parliament, and it is the only one on the face of the earth that is the representative of a white constituency and the professed exponent of an advanced type of modern civilization. But the reader will find almost any portraiture inadequate to give a vivid idea of the body and enable him to comprehend the complete metamorphosis of the South Carolina Legislature without observing its details. The Speaker is black, the Clerk is black, the doorkeepers are black, the little pages are black, the chairman of the Ways and Means is black, and the chaplain is coal black. At some of the desks sit colored men whose types it would be hard to find outside of Congo; whose costume, visages, attitudes, and expression only befit the forecastle of a buccaneer. It must be remembered also that this whole body of men, with not more than half a dozen exceptions, were themselves slaves, and their ancestors have been slaves for generations. Recollecting the report of the famous schooner Wanderer, fitted out by a Southern slaveholder twelve or fifteen years ago, in ostentatious defiance of the laws against the slave trade, and whose owner and master boasted of having brought a cargo of slaves from Africa and safely landed them in South Carolina and Georgia, one thinks it must be true, and that some of these representatives are the very men then stolen from their African homes. If this be so, we will not now quarrel over their presence. It would be one of those extraordinary coincidences that would of itself almost seem to justify the belief of the direct interference of the hand of Providence in the affairs of men.
Reconstruction Page 50
