Capitol Men

by Philip Dray

  On November 28, Wade Hampton led Democrats in an orderly march on the statehouse. Blocked by U.S. soldiers, they retreated to Carolina Hall, a public lecture space, and declared themselves the legal house of representatives of the state of South Carolina. The state constitution, the Democrats pointed out, stipulated only that the legislature convene in the city of Columbia, not necessarily in the statehouse; therefore, said the Hampton forces, their representatives could legitimately claim to be in charge. The Republicans, of course, issued similar declarations of sovereignty.

  On November 30, the Democrats again besieged the statehouse. Because the press, both north and south, had strongly criticized the use of federal troops to safeguard Chamberlain's government—some had dubbed the Republicans' Columbia bastion "the Bayonet House"—this time the Democrats were allowed to enter and fill in the available seats on one side of the chamber across from the Republicans. Democratic Speaker W. H. Wallace immediately went to the podium and gaveled for order; the Republican speaker, E.W.M. Mackey, "trembling with excitement and gasping for breath," challenged the interloper.

  "You will please vacate this seat."

  "I have been elected by a majority of the House of Representatives of the State of South Carolina," Wallace replied. "We are here in pursuance of our rights ... we desire to oppress no one ... we desire to claim only the rights that belong to us, and those rights we intend to have."

  Mackey insisted that he had been elected speaker "by a legal quorum" and that "these men who are visiting this hall without our consent must keep order. I must again demand that you, General Wallace, leave this chair."

  "I have already declared that I am the legally elected Speaker of this House," Wallace insisted, "and I must request you to retire."

  Mackey announced that he had sent a message to Governor Chamberlain that the "house was disturbed by men not members" and had asked him to order soldiers to enter and eject the intruders; but no uniformed protectors appeared. "Mackey gazed with longing eyes toward the door of the House for the troops that should enable him to usurp the control of the House," noted the Charleston News & Courier, "but none came, and Dennis [John B. Dennis, a partisan of Governor Chamberlain] came in, after a long absence, looking sad. He had a conference with Mackey, and he looked sad also."

  Seeing that Wallace would not budge, Mackey directed the sergeant at arms to "please step forward and enforce my order." Wallace then called upon the Democrats' sergeant at arms to eject Mackey. The sergeants at arms for both sides approached, each followed by a crowd of supporters. A confrontation appeared imminent as each group glared at the other; then someone pushed forward a chair for Mackey to sit on alongside Wallace, and suddenly the solution had presented itself: a "dual house," operating with two speakers.

  After federal troops failed to materialize, another omen of the shifting political mood appeared. Thomas Hamilton, a black Republican from Beaufort, stood to announce his acquiescence to a Democratic victory. While acknowledging his loyalty to his own party, he said, "In my opinion the verdict of the people at the ballot-box has been in favor of home rule, and against a stranger [Chamberlain] holding the reins of government in South Carolina any longer. I do not say that strangers cannot come among us and live amongst us as friends, but I do say that it has been the popular verdict that they must keep their hands off of politics." Hamilton became so moved during his remarks that he began crying—tears he attributed to his remorse "in describing the pass to which his own race had brought South Carolina."

  As Republicans scoffed and rolled their eyes over Hamilton's histrionics, a Democrat, Robert Aldrich, rose to praise him. "We have just seen a brave, honest, patriotic man weeping in the halls of the South Carolina legislature over a spectacle which is calculated to bring tears from any depths." Invoking the by now well known image of the "prostrate state," Aldrich stated, "If [Hamilton's] wife or children were lying dead before him, he could not feel more keenly than he does today." Other Democrats seconded Aldrich's words, demanding that the supporters of Chamberlain walk away in shame for persisting with "a defeated administration that has to be upheld by United States bayonets."

  With neither side daring to leave the room even for a recess, the "dual house" remained in session for four days and nights without pause; friends and supporters supplied the legislators with food and other necessities. "The scene in the House ... is picturesque in the extreme," it was reported. "The members, wrapped in blankets, are lying asleep on the desks or sofas. The aisles are strewn with coffee pots and trays of provisions. Those of the members who are awake are smoking and discussing the situation, while the negroes are singing 'Hold the Fort for Hayes and Wheeler.'" When either side attempted to conduct business, the two speakers talked simultaneously, as did everyone else, so that nothing could be accomplished. At one point a former black representative named Abraham Smith, identified by the local press as "a Charleston coon," became intoxicated and started yelling to drown out the Democrats' speeches and had to be restrained. Otherwise, the tense standoff eventually gave way to a sense of camaraderie, even laughter and singing. "The Mackey house members, mostly negroes, who are born songsters, enlivened us with loud songs," the Democrat John G. Guignard recalled. Mackey himself quipped, "I perceive that the state of South Carolina has brought forth twins, but the chastity of the good mother is under suspicion because they are of different colors." The Charleston News & Courier depicted the blacks of the Mackey House as more good natured about the situation than the Democrats, although some blacks became upset at the newspaper's caricatures. One representative had been described as a "ringtail roarer," while another read with displeasure that "he would be more in his place if he were in his native jungles munching the shin bone of a Wesleyan missionary."

  The threat of physical confrontation lingered just beneath the surface. On December 4 rumors reached the hall that the Republicans had called for a gang of black toughs from Charleston, known as the Hunkidories, to come and remove the Democrats. Wade Hampton warned General Ruger, the federal officer in charge, "If such a thing is carried out, I cannot insure the safety of your command, nor the life of a Negro in the state." The Hunkidories and another black Charleston gang, the Live Oaks, were thought to be responsible for street disturbances there in early September, when blacks rioted after a Democratic turncoat of their own race stated publicly that the wives of Republican men took jobs as domestics in order to steal food for their husbands. Whether the gang members ever truly embarked for Columbia to brawl anew with the Democrats is unclear, but certainly the anticipation was real, and Hampton's warning to Ruger was backed up by fresh legions of Red Shirts arriving in Columbia. Confident they had made their point by occupying one side of the house for several days, the Democrats eventually retreated to Carolina Hall.

  With the federal troops on hand outnumbered and, in any case, largely indifferent to the outcome, Hampton's forces could have easily chased the members of Chamberlain's government all the way to the hills, if Hampton had so ordered. The Republicans knew this, and knew also that the stalemate was playing poorly in the North. Most people there had heard enough about the state's fractious situation to allow that it probably deserved an attempt at "self-government," whether or not it was obtained by proper means. Public feelings about the crisis were probably best glimpsed in reports of a New York pageant where the shabbily costumed, ever-prostrate "State of South Carolina" was "made" to crawl down Broadway in chains.

  While the situation in South Carolina remained at a standstill—in December both Chamberlain and Hampton had themselves inaugurated—the presidential election was being decided in favor of Hayes, who received all 19 of the contested electoral votes, allowing him to inch past Tilden by a tally of 185 to 184. Although the nation's Democratic editorial pages were incensed, the party's spokesmen had agreed, during the bipartisan electoral commission's drawn-out negotiations, which included a pivotal gathering at Wormley's Hotel in Washington, to strike a deal and drop their challenges to the three co
ntested elections in the South. The Democrats offered not to filibuster or otherwise block Hayes's election under the condition that the federal government cease intruding in Southern politics and appoint Southerners to more federal offices; also, they stipulated that more federal funds and private Northern money be allotted to the region's infrastructure, especially the building of a Southern transcontinental railroad. While vowing to honor the laws protecting the right to vote and other rights for blacks, the Democrats secured a promise that the Southern states would henceforth be allowed primacy in dealing with race relations. At 4:10 in the morning of March 2, 1877, Hayes was declared the winner of the presidential election and was sworn in, a few hours later, at the White House.

  This then was the price of a Republican victory in the presidential election—an arrangement that formally suspended what remained of the vast egalitarian experiment known as Reconstruction. The far-reaching efforts of the Freedmen's Bureau, Northern missionaries, black congressmen, the Union League, the rebuilt Southern state governments, the hard-won constitutional amendments and Enforcement Acts, were to be set aside or wiped away entirely. Had all the "reconstructing" been a monstrous error, a crime (as most Southerners believed), or an accomplishment? History would have to judge. For the moment, the Republican Party was set free from its political obligations to the former slaves and their children while, for the Democrats, the compromise was made easier by the fact that the Southern wing of the party had never been particularly loyal to Tilden. Like Horace Greeley before him, the candidate had agreeable political ideas, but Southern whites professed little affection for the man; sacrificing him to attain broader goals was not difficult, and caused no remorse.

  It was assumed that Tilden, if elected, would act on the long-simmering dissatisfaction with Reconstruction by drastically reducing federal forces in South Carolina, thus dooming the Chamberlain government, but it was not widely expected that Hayes would act similarly. Immediately after the election in early November, when it appeared that he had lost, Hayes confided to his aides and reporters, "I don't care for myself ... but I do care for the poor colored men of the South. The result [of a Tilden win] will be that the Southern people will practically treat the constitutional amendments as nullities, and then the colored man's fate will be worse than when he was in slavery, with a humane master to look after his interests." But he also allowed that the South deserved "the blessings of honest and capable local self-government." Blacks deserved "absolute justice and fair play," he insisted, although that might best be achieved by empowering "the honorable and influential Southern whites."

  Only two days after Hayes was sworn in, Judge Stanley Matthews, a close ally of the new president, wrote to Chamberlain to ask if "an arrangement could not be arrived at which would obviate the necessity for the use of federal arms to support either government [in South Carolina], and leave that to stand which is able to stand of itself. Such a course," Matthews explained, "would relieve the [Hayes] administration ... of making any decision between the conflicting governments, and would place you in a position of making the sacrifice of what you deemed your abstract rights for the sake of the peace of the community, which would entitle you to the gratitude not only of your own party, but the respect and esteem of the entire country." With the letter came a friendly note from William M. Evarts, who was in line to be Hayes's secretary of state, so Chamberlain could only conclude that the request that he step aside originated with the president himself. Hayes was a careful, deliberate man. ("His tongue, unlike his mind, is not active," the New York Times had observed, "and is under the most perfect government.") The White House was asking Chamberlain to vacate his office on the grounds that his administration would not be able to sustain itself without federal troops, and thus could no longer make a legitimate claim to represent the people of South Carolina. This was a far different standard than that previously applied, but it suited Washington's outlook at this precarious moment.

  "I desire to aid and relieve President Hayes," Chamberlain wrote in reply to Matthews, as he reminded him of the moral responsibility the Republican Party had to the people of South Carolina.

  This is a life or death struggle, and I know that I should consign myself to infamy in the eyes of all Republicans here, who know the situation by fearful experience, if I were to accept any terms or do any act which could result in the success of the monstrous conspiracy against law and humanity which the Democracy of this state embody and represent ... Of one thing I am sure, neither you nor any man moved by a sense of justice can understand the situation here and be willing, for any political advantage or freedom from embarrassment, to abandon the Republicans to the fate that awaits them whenever Hampton becomes the undisputed governor of this state.

  Since Matthews's attempt to gently nudge Chamberlain aside did not succeed, the South Carolina governor was summoned to Washington by W. K. Rogers, Hayes's personal secretary, who assured Chamberlain of the president's strong desire "to be able to put an end as speedily as possible to all appearances of intervention of the military authority ... In this desire the president cannot doubt he truly represents the patriotic feeling of the great body of the people of the United States." Wade Hampton had received a copy of the same letter and had likewise been asked to come immediately to Washington.

  In the capital, Chamberlain argued with Hayes, noting that the president's predecessor, Ulysses'S. Grant, had personally authorized federal protection for the duly elected government of South Carolina, and that he as governor and the people of the state were entitled under the Constitution to be safeguarded from violence. If troops were withdrawn from Columbia before the issue of the "dual house" governments was formally resolved, Chamberlain said, Democrats would seize the statehouse by force. To demonstrate that the Republicans of the state were willing to move expeditiously to settle the matter, Chamberlain, along with Senator John Patterson and Senator-elect David L. Corbin, presented Hayes with a plan by which the South Carolina election results would be submitted to a bipartisan commission, including the Chief Justice of the United States, to be appointed by Hayes. But after this offer was discussed at a cabinet meeting on April 2, Chamberlain received word that since an actual civil disturbance was not then occurring in South Carolina, the federal government was not bound by the Constitution to supply troops, and they would be withdrawn from the statehouse on April 10. Wade Hampton stated that after the exit of federal soldiers, he would attempt to oversee a fair adjudication of the electoral dispute, but Chamberlain waved the offer away, anticipating that any such inquiry would be a sham.

  Chamberlain, who had now run out of options, immediately began drafting a letter "to the Republicans of South Carolina." He applauded them for winning the state for Hayes but regretted that in the process "you became the victims of every form of persecution and injury ... You were denied employment, driven from your homes, robbed of the earnings of years of honest industry, hunted for your lives like wild beasts, your families outraged and scattered, for no offense except your peaceful and firm determination to exercise your political rights." Ultimately, he explained,

  by the recent decision and action of the President of the United States, I find myself unable longer to maintain my official rights, and I hereby announce to you that I am unwilling to prolong a struggle which can only bring further suffering upon those who engage in it ... I have hitherto been willing to ask you, Republicans, to risk all dangers and endure all hardships until relief should come from the government of the United States. That relief will never come. I cannot ask you to follow me further. In my best judgment I can no longer serve you by further resistance to the impending calamity.

  The governor's words, though well meant, could hardly soothe those black South Carolina voters who had risked their lives to cast ballots in the recent election. "To think that Hayes could go back on us now," complained a man from Edgefield, "when we had to wade through blood to help place him where he is." Robert Brown Elliott and other leading South Carolina Republ
icans, however, wrote to Chamberlain to encourage his decision. They described themselves as "unanimous in the belief that to prolong the contest ... will be to incur the responsibility of keeping alive partisan prejudices which are ... detrimental to the best interests of the people of the state, and perhaps of precipitating a physical conflict that could have but one result to our defenseless constituency. We cannot afford to contribute, however indirectly, to such a catastrophe, even in the advocacy of what we know to be our rights."

  April 10 was the day chosen for the formal transfer of power from Chamberlain to Hampton. At Columbia, the federal officer in charge at the statehouse, having calibrated his watch with that of the city hall clock, which was in turn calibrated with a telegraph office in Washington, marked the final minutes of Reconstruction in South Carolina. A reporter, who headlined his account "The Day of Deliverance," saw "a score of the colored special constables ... hanging about the entrance watching our movements with sullen, unfriendly glances," and "a confused crowd of perhaps 150 persons, mostly negroes ... moving about aimlessly, or ... engaged in low and dispirited conversation. Here and there were to be seen one or two smaller groups of white Republicans of the better sort similarly occupied, and all looking badly demoralized." As a nearby church tower began to toll the hour of twelve o'clock, the soldiers barked out the commands—"Attention, guard! Carry arms! Right shoulder arms! Two's right, march!" Before the bell had reached its fifth stroke the troops' heavy boots had tramped all the way down the statehouse corridor and reached the door. "Twelve strokes sounded, and the twelve long, weary wretched years of carpetbag misrule were tolled off one by one." When the last of the troops had gone, a huge bar was dropped into the brackets of the door.