Capitol Men

by Philip Dray

  "Bury the Democratic party so deep": Robert Smalls to Whitfield McKinlay, Sept. 12, 1912; in Carter Woodson Papers, Library of Congress.

  "Can we afford to lose from the councils of state": Quoted in Uya, p. 50.

  [>] "Six deserted plantations": Inventory prepared by Freedmen's Bureau agent H. G. Judd for General Rufus Saxton, Aug. 1, 1865; Records for the Assistant Commissioner for the State of South Carolina, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1870, National Archives Microfilm Publication M869 Roll 34.

  In Beaufort, federal commissioners sold: Beaufort Gazette, undated clipping in Reconstruction vertical file, Beaufort Township Library.

  [>] "The way we can best take care of ourselves": New York Daily Tribune, Feb. 13, 1865, quoted in Cox, "The Promise of Land for the Freedmen," Mississippi Valley Historical Review.

  [>] "Piloted our ships through these shallow waters": Rufus Saxton to O. O. Howard, Aug. 22, 1865, Freedom Bureau Records for South Carolina, vol. 9, quoted in Abbott, p. 55.

  As General Howard would later note: Howard, p. 229.

  "Provide a small homestead or something equivalent": Ibid., pp. 236, 238.

  [>] "Their eyes flashed unpleasantly": Ibid., pp. 238–39.

  Of the almost forty thousand freedmen: See Abbott, p. 63. In the 1870s Smalls won a legal case to retain the McKee house at 511 Prince Street, one of several properties that he had purchased at government auction immediately after the war. His was a test case for other blacks who owned confiscated property in the Sea Islands (De Treville v. Smalls; see Beaufort Tribune, Jan. 6 and Nov. 3, 1875; also Beaufort Republican, June 27, 1872).

  [>] "Of what avail would be an act of Congress": Congressional Globe, 38th Cong., 1st sess., p. 2251.

  "A strange and unearthly apparition": New York Herald, Mar. 14, 1868.

  [>] "Native to the soil and loyal to the government": Korngold, Two Friends of Man, p. 320.

  "This nation owes the Negro not merely freedom": Ibid., pp. 321–22.

  "Believed that a free laborer, once accorded equality": Foner, "Thaddeus Stevens, Confiscation, and Reconstruction," Hofstadter Aegis.

  [>] "When the serfs of Russia were emancipated": Korngold, Two Friends of Man, p. 335. See also Williamson, p. 144.

  "That this Convention do hereby declare": Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina, p. 213.

  Rainey, a native South Carolinian: Bermuda, as a sanctuary for blockade runners, was a crossroads for news and intelligence about the war, and Rainey, cutting the community's hair each day, managed to hear a lot. Before the war's end, he was called upon to testify in the case of Confederate sympathizer Dr. Luke Blackburn, who was caught scheming to spark a yellow fever epidemic in New York and Philadelphia by shipping contaminated clothing, in the guise of charity, to the cities' poor. See Packwood.

  [>] "To make an appropriation of one million dollars": Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina, p. 196.

  "It is the fashion of bogus politicians": Ibid., p. 376.

  [>] "You would do perfectly right": Ibid., p. 379; "Root, hog, or die!" was an old folk saying, referring to the practice of turning domestic hogs loose so they could forage for their own food. In Reconstruction it was applied to the ex-slaves, who were expected to make their own way in the postwar economy.

  "When I, in the simplicity of my heart": Ibid., p. 423.

  In his view, the infusion of $1 million: Ibid., pp. 381, 418–19.

  4. "The Whirligig of Time"

  [>] "The time for compromise has passed": Korngold, Two Friends of Man, p. 276.

  "The 'whirligig of time' has brought about its revenges": Forten, "Life in the Sea Islands," Atlantic Monthly.

  "The Senator-elect ... has a benevolent expression": National Republican, Jan. 31, 1870.

  "The distinguished darky made quite a sensation": New York Herald, Feb. 3, 1870.

  "Happy Revels": Memphis Daily Avalanche, Jan. 22, 1870.

  Even other men of color considered Revels a curious figure: In 1860, out of a statewide black population of 437, 303, there were only 775 free blacks residing in Mississippi. See Wharton, pp. 12–13.

  "For preaching the gospel to Negroes": Borome, "The Autobiography of Hiram Rhoades Revels," Midwest Journal.

  [>] "Adding 191 to the church [and] killing off two whiskey shops": "Letter to the Editor" in unnamed news clipping, Hiram Revels Scrapbook, Hiram Revels Collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library.

  Revels "had never voted, had never attended a political meeting": Lynch, Facts of Reconstruction, p. 41.

  A dutiful letter-writer when away on his frequent travels: Hiram Revels Scrapbook, undated clipping, Hiram Revels Collection.

  [>] "Breathe a new atmosphere": Frederick Douglass's speech at Rochester, New York, Apr. 5, 1870, in the Collection on the American Negro, Columbia University Library, New York; Wendell Phillips's sentiments recorded in National Anti-Slavery Standard, Mar. 20, 1869; both quoted or described in Gillette, pp. 22–23.

  [>] "Singularly placid [and] ... untouched": Green, The Secret City, p. 120.

  [>] "Tall ... portly ... swinging along like an athlete": Bowers, p. 247.

  "The old repulsive sheds": Frederick Douglass, "A Lecture on Our National Capitol," 1876, Frederick Douglass Papers, Library of Congress.

  [>] "Rights that have cost a revolution": Green, The Secret City, p. 109.

  [>] "Unimproved class": Washington Bee, Feb. 1, 1890, quoted in Gatewood, p. 50.

  "Tinsel shows [and] stragglingprocessions": Ibid., p. 51.

  [>] "Praises of the completeness of all the details": New York Times, Mar. 5, 1873.

  "One of the most beautiful and handsomely gowned women": Lamson, Peggy, p. 173.

  "In the grand procession": New National Era, Mar. 6, 1873.

  [>] "Of the most recherché character": New York Herald, Feb. 2, 1870.

  "Equal to a first rate original oil painting": New National Era, Feb. 28, 1870.

  [>] In May 1867, two years after his capture: In 1878 the state of Mississippi offered to appoint Davis to the U.S. Senate, an honor he could not accept because his citizenship had been removed (it would not be formally restored until 1977).

  [>] "So far inferior, that they had no rights": Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 60 US, 393 (1857).

  "[Dred Scott] has been repealed by the mightiest uprising": Swisher, "Dred Scott One Hundred Years Alter," The Journal of Politics.

  "Giants!—great, intellectual, mighty giants": Congressional Globe, 41st Cong., 2nd sess., 2-24-70, appendix, p. 127.

  "The name of Taney is to be hooted down": Swisher, p. 582.

  "Evidence that in your own judgment": Congressional Globe, 41st Cong., 2nd sess., 224–70, appendix, p. 127.

  "Addressingyou not as Republicans": Ibid.

  [>] A former nemesis from Kansas, J. H. Morris: Hiram Revels Scrapbook, Hiram Revels Collection.

  As for the issue ofRevels's eligibility: The Nation, Feb. 3, 1870; see also Smith, The Negro in Congress.

  "Born a putrid corpse": Congressional Globe, 41st Cong., 2nd sess., pp. 1566–67.

  "Revels, who had been sitting all day": Undated news clipping from Philadelphia Inquirer in Hiram Revels Scrapbook, Hiram Revels Collection; see also National Republican, Feb. 26, 1870.

  [>] "You will make us your foes": Turner's speech was printed as a pamphlet and is often quoted. See Coulter, "Negro Legislators in Georgia During the Reconstruction Period," Georgia Historical Quarterly.

  [>] "A wayward sister": New National Era, Mar. 17, 1870.

  "They broke my door open, took me out of bed": Colby's testimony appears in the Georgia section of House Report 22, 42nd Cong., 2nd sess.; see also Sterling, Trouble They Seen, p. 374.

  A national outcry: See Les Benedict, p. 55.

  "Never since the birth of the republic": Philadelphia Inquirer, Mar. 17, 1870.

  [>] "As the recognized representative": Congressional Globe, 41st Cong
., 2nd sess., Mar. 16, 1870, pp. 1986–88.

  "In receiving him in exchange for Jefferson Davis": New York Tribune, Mar. 17, 1870. An unsubstantiated rumor circulated among Democrats, stating that Charles Sumner had ghost-written Revels's speech. Revels was apparently in the habit of receiving some coaching from Sumner. Later that spring, before giving a speech in Philadelphia, he wrote to the veteran senator, "I will call at your office on next Wednesday night, for the purpose of reading in your hearing." Hiram Revels to Charles Sumner, Apr. 9, 1870, Charles Sumner Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University. "I do not know of one state that is altogether": Congressional Globe, 41st Cong., 2nd sess., p. 3520.

  [>] When he was denied a podium: Undated letter to the editor in the Philadelphia Post, Hiram Revels Scrapbook, Hiram Revels Collection.

  5. KuKluxery

  [>] "The enslaved have not been merely emancipated": Marion Star (undated), quoted in Charleston News & Courier, Nov. 10, 1870.

  "Heavens were rent with the sounds": Charleston Daily News, Aug. 17, 1868; also Charleston Daily Courier, Sept. 12, 1868.

  "This vile, rotten, wicked, corrupt and degrading regime": Winnsboro News (undated), quoted in Charleston News & Courier, Apr. 1, 1871.

  [>] "The passing of high words and blows": Anonymous, "South Carolina Morals," Atlantic Monthly.

  "Honor is the sentiment": Tindall, p. 235.

  [>] "Region where Liberty finds her constant home": Charleston News & Courier, Sept. 19, 1876.

  [>] "Down in a deeper grave than this": Korngold, Two Friends of Man, pp. 333–34; Walt Whitman, tending to the Union wounded in the nation's capital, overheard two young soldiers who had visited Charleston, one of whom boasted of having seen Calhoun's monument. "That you saw is not the real monument," replied the other, "but I have seen it. It is the desolated, ruined South; nearly the whole generation of young men between seventeen and thirty destroyed or maimed; all the old families used up; the rich impoverished; the plantations covered with weeds; the slaves unloosed and become the masters; and the name of Southerner blackened with every shame—all that is Calhoun's real monument." See Whitman, p. 242.

  "These vile retches": Hardy D. Edwards to N. E. Edwards, Sept. 10, 1868, quoted in Charleston Daily News, Oct. 2, 1868; see also New National Era, May 25, 1871.

  [>] Hill was so rattled by the incident: With the help of the American Colonization Society, Hill arranged to immigrate to Liberia along with 136 men, women, and children.

  "The effect of these numerous threats": Quoted in New National Era, Sept. 21, 1871.

  [>] "I told him to stay at home": South Carolina congressmen Warren Wilkes and Samuel Nuckles to President Grant, Mar. 2, 1871; Grant, p. 260.

  "In silence and secrecy": Post, "A 'Carpetbagger' in South Carolina," Journal of Ne gro History; Nelson, p. 128; also see New National Era, Apr. 20, 1871.

  "We are laying the foundation": Benjamin Randolph, quoted in Botsch, p. 81.

  [>] "Acting the Big Man": R. N. Hemphill to W. R. Hemphill, Apr. 20, 1871, Hemphill Papers, Duke University Library; quoted in Williamson, p. 264.

  "Put six balls through your boy": Nelson, pp. 132–33.

  [>] "They cut my back all to pieces": Thomas, "Spartanburg's Civil War,"

  Carologue. "As a whole nigger should be treated": Burton, "Race and Reconstruction," Journal of Social History.

  [>] "The worst frightened men": Albion Tourgee to Thomas Settle, June 24, 1869, Thomas Settle Papers, University of North Carolina Library, quoted in Gillette, p. 182.

  "The Northern mind, being full": Amos Akerman to Benjamin Conley, Dec. 28, 1871, Akerman Letterbooks, University of Virginia Library; quoted in McFeely, "Amos T. Akerman: The Lawyer and Racial Justice," in Region, Race, and Reconstruction.

  "The principle for which we contended": Jefferson Davis, quoted in Washburne, p. 32.

  Also offensive were the militiamen's: Charleston Daily News, Mar. 28 and 29, 1871.

  For more background on militias, see Zuczek, Encyclopedia of the Reconstruction Era, vol. 1, pp. 410–14.

  [>] "The long habit of command": Daniel Chamberlain to President Grant, July 22, 1876, quoted in Allen, p. 322; Louisiana's P.B.S. Pinchback concurred with Chamberlain's view: "The whites...[are] possessed of every avenue of communication and transportation, the telegraph wires, railroads and steamboats all being at their disposal, [so that] in a few hours they can concentrate a large armed force. On the other hand, the colored as a class are poor, without experience, unarmed, no channels of communication or transportation open to them, naturally docile and peaceable, utterly without organization, they scatter at the first appearance of danger." Draft of speech on upcoming Hayes-Tilden election, summer 1877, P.B.S. Pinchback Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Collection, Howard University Library.

  "The fighting men of the South": The Nation, Mar. 23, 1871. This professional élan no doubt helped the Klan build and maintain its hierarchical structure of klaverns and dens. "A county was divided into a certain number of districts, and each district composed a camp, which was under the command of a captain," a North Carolina Klansman reported. Recounted another, "The meetings were to be held in secret places—in the woods, or some other place distant from any habitation, in order to avoid detection. The disguise prescribed was a long white gown, and a mask for the face ... The sign of recognition of the [Klansmen] was by sliding the right hand down along the opposite lapel of the coat. If the party to whom the sign was made was a member of the organization, he returned it by sliding the left hand in the same manner down along the opposite lapel of the coat. The word of distress was 'Shiloh.'" Congressional Globe, 42nd Cong., 1st sess., Mar. 28, 1871.

  [>] "It is not law that is wanted in the South": Congressional Globe, 42nd Cong., 1st sess., appendix, p. 71.

  "If the federal government cannot pass laws": Butler, "Ku Klux Klan Outrages in the South," speech to House of Representatives, Apr. 4, 1871, pamphlet in Benjamin Butler Papers, Library of Congress.

  "Waving the bloody shirt": Trelease, p. 294; see also Zuczek, Encyclopedia of the Reconstruction Era, vol. 1.

  [>] "K.K.K. Beware! Beware! Beware!": New National Era, May 25, 1871.

  "When myself and colleagues shall leave": Congressional Globe, 42nd Cong., 1st sess., quoted in Sterling, Trouble They Seen, p. 371.

  "We have reconstructed, and reconstructed": Congressional Globe, 42nd Cong., 1st sess., appendix, pp. 116–17; for discussion of resistance to the Klan bill, see also Gillette, p. 52–53.

  "Restoration of peace and order": The Nation, Apr. 6, 1871.

  [>] "The rule of [the community's] most ignorant members": The Nation, Mar. 9, 1871.

  "We must ... hand the Government over to the people": The Nation, Mar. 30, 1871.

  "Sir, we are in terror from Ku-Klux threats": S. E. Lane to President Grant, Apr. 19, 1871; Grant, pp. 263–64.

  "I am a clergyman, superannuated": C. F. Jones to President Grant, May 12 1871; Grant, p. 264.

  [>] "To let Confederate ideas rule us no longer": Amos Akerman to George W. Heidy, Aug. 22, 1876, Akerman Letterbooks, University of Virginia Library; quoted in McFeely, "Amos T. Akerman: The Lawyer and Racial Justice."

  "An alarming imposition": Amos Akerman to George W. Heidy, Aug. 22, 1876, Akerman Letterbooks; ibid.

  Congressman Butler helped persuade: Ibid.

  [>] Akerman identified thoroughly with his mission: Amos Akerman to Charles Sumner, Apr. 6, 1869, Charles Sumner Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  "One cause of [the] readiness to secede": Amos Akerman to E. P. Jackson, Aug. 18, 1871, Akerman Papers, University of Virginia Library; see McFeely, Grant, p. 371.

  [>] "Black as a highly polished boot": Morgan, James M., p. 331.

  "Distinguished and agreeable figure": The Louisianian, May 2, 1874.

  More intriguing was the fact: Lamson, Peggy, pp. 22–33, offers an in-depth discussion of Elliott's mysterious past.

  [>] "A Negro from Massachusetts Cowhides a White Carpetbagger": The story is covered
in Charleston Daily News, Oct. 23–26, 1869.

  In defense of the Ku Klux Klan bill, he tangled: Congressional Globe, 42nd Cong., 1st sess., Apr. 1, 1871.

  [>] "Possibly, Mr. Editor": Greeley-Elliott exchange in New National Era, Mar. 16, 1871.

  "A condition of affairs exists in some of the states": Grant's message to Congress, Mar. 23, 1871, quoted in Charleston Daily News, Mar. 24, 1871.

  [>] "Very indignant at wrong, and yet master of his indignation": Amos Akerman to General Alfred H. Terry, Nov. 18, 1871, Akerman Letterbooks; quoted in Trelease, pp. 402–3.

  "Under the domination of systematic and organized depravity": Quoted in Williams, Lou Falkner, p. 44.

  When Akerman returned to York County on October 10: New York Times, Oct. 31, 1871.

  [>] "These lawless disturbers of the South": Cresswell, "Enforcing the Enforcement Acts," Journal of Southern History; see also Harper's Weekly, Jan. 27, 1872, and Oct. 19, 1872.

  "The general disposition ... was to assign": Post, "A Carpetbagger in South Carolina," Journal of Negro History.

  One New York newspaper was convinced: New York Herald, Dec. 1, 1871.

  "These outlaws will speedily be taught": Cresswell, "Enforcing the Enforcement Acts"; see also Harper's Weekly, Jan. 27 and Oct. 19, 1872.

  [>] In spite of the successful prosecutions: Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction, p. 197.

  He had been particularly irritated by: Hamilton Fish Diary entry, Nov. 24, 1871, quoted in McFeely, "Amos T. Akerman: The Lawyer and Racial Justice." Shortly before Christmas 1871: See McFeely, Grant, pp. 373–74, for a discussion of Akerman's forced departure.

  "As a body designed to destroy Reconstruction": Rable, p. 189.

  6. Pinch

  [>] "Only colored enough": Louisianian, May 11, 1872.

  "A bronze Mephistopheles": New York Commercial Advertiser, Feb. 25, 1875; Haskins, p. 216.

  [>] "To the unwritten law that the cleverest colored man": Ibid., p. 18.

  "A white woman, of English-French stock": Toomer, p. 23.

  "I ate cakes to fill my stomach": Ibid.

  "When it was announced I nearly fainted": New Orleans Times, Mar. 11, 1872.

  "Nearly all the officers inimical to me": P.B.S. Pinchback to Benjamin Butler, Sept. 10, 1863; in Grosz, "The Political Career of P.B.S. Pinchback," Louisiana Historical Quarterly. He tried joining the Union's fight again the following year, using $1,000 of his own money to recruit a company of black cavalry. General Nathaniel Banks, however, who had replaced Butler, denied Pinchback's request for a commission.