Capitol Men

by Philip Dray

  "If the Democrats are such staunch friends": New National Era, Mar. 14, 1872.

  [>] "In regard to the rights that belong to the individual": Ibid., p. 901.

  '"Equal rights in what and for what?'": Independent, May 2, 1872.

  "'I ask the Senator'": Congressional Globe, 42nd Cong., 2nd sess., p. 3264.

  [>] "Equality ... was a far more revolutionary aim than freedom": Woodward, Burden of Southern History, p. 64.

  "A hotel is a legal institution": Congressional Globe, 42nd Cong., 1st sess., p. 280.

  [>] "We are like whalers who have been long on chase": Korngold, Two Friends, p. 338.

  Lincoln recognized the critical contribution the abolitionists had made, as suggested by a reminiscence of Daniel Chamberlain's: "It was my privilege once, and only once, to talk with Abraham Lincoln [in] Virginia, Apr. 6, 1865. I spoke to him of the country's gratitude for his great deliverance of the slaves. His sad face beamed for a moment with happiness as he answered...'I have been only an instrument. The logic and moral power of Garrison, and the anti-slavery people of the country and the army, have done all.'" New York Tribune, Nov. 4, 1883.

  "While a colored gentleman is ... unable to obtain admission": National Standard, May 1870. Like Charles Sumner, Douglass and others were convinced the battle for civil rights must be national in scope. That principle was underscored by the efforts of veteran Quaker abolitionist Aaron M. Powell, who in 1870 established the National Reform League to crusade for equal rights. While Powell's campaign had some success in New York, where the desegregation of restaurants and places of lodging led to a state public accommodations law in 1873, it soon became evident that localized efforts to end certain forms of segregation would be scattershot and ineffective.

  "I only long for the hour": Susan B. Anthony to Charles Sumner, Feb. 19, 1872, Charles Sumner Papers.

  "As grandly for Equal Rights to all women as you have to all men": Susan B. Anthony to Charles Sumner, Dec. 9, 1872, Charles Sumner Papers.

  "Women are absolutely nothing in Republican minds": Susan B. Anthony to Charles Sumner, Apr. 23, 1872, Charles Sumner Papers.

  [>] "One of the saddest divorces in American history": McFeely, Frederick Douglass, p. 266. Women had been active in the movement to end slavery as early as the 1830s, when the sisters Angelina and Sarah Grimke, Charleston-born daughters of an elite slaveholding family, rebelled against their surroundings and came north, publishing antislavery tracts and holding parlor meetings to abet the cause. As white women of a slaveholding family, their condemnation of "the peculiar institution" was imbued with unique legitimacy, and they did not stop at criticizing slavery's cruelty but described it as a system destructive to the South as a whole.

  "Garrison and Sumner, Douglass and Phillips": In 1848, Frederick Douglass attended the founding meeting of American feminism in Seneca Falls, New York, where a broad agenda of women's rights were discussed. At the time, women's claim to suffrage was considered a bold demand even among many of the women present—"Why, Lizzie, thee will make us ridiculous," the Quaker Lucretia Mott famously told Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who put forward the idea—but Douglass concurred with Stanton's resolution.

  "We have fairly boosted the Negro": Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Martha Coffin Wright, Dec. 20, 1865, quoted in Goldsmith, p. 102.

  [>] Douglass, flinching at her use of a racial slur: New York Tribune, Nov. 21, 1866.

  "I would rather cut off my right hand": Stanton et al., p. 193.

  "Incoming tide of ignorance": Painter, p. 228.

  "According to the historian Benjamin Quarles": Quarles, "Frederick Douglass and the Women's Rights Movement," Journal of Negro History.

  Two years later, Republicans there: William Whipper's was perhaps South Carolina's most passionate black voice for the female vote. His wife, Frances Rollin, and her sisters—known collectively as "the Misses Rollin"—were noted characters in Reconstruction South Carolina. In 1867 Frances had been one of the first people of color to file a civil rights complaint in the state. Her case was handled by the Freedmen's Bureau agent Martin Delany, who encouraged her literary aspirations and eventually arranged for her to write his biography. The book was published in 1868 under the name Frank A. Rollin, as the publisher feared the public would not deem a female author credible. Returning to South Carolina, she began work as a secretary in Whipper's office in Columbia; Whipper's wife had died recently, and she and Whipper were married in 1868 over the objections of her father, who considered Whipper a rough-and-tumble "Negro politician" and not suitable for his aristocratic daughter. In Columbia "the Whippers"—husband and wife—were an acknowledged political team, he the legislator, she the knowing insider. See Gatewood, "The Remarkable Misses Rollin," South Carolina Historical Magazine; see also New York Sun, Mar. 29, 1871.

  [>] "Establishing an aristocracy of sex": Stanton et al., pp. 348–56, 382–83; quoted in Goldsmith, pp. 180–82; also in Lutz, pp. 162–65.

  In May 1872 Charles Sumner adopted: Not until 1896 would restrictions on all former Confederates be abolished.

  [>] "We have open and frank hearts": Quoted in Russ, "The Negro and White Disenfranchisement During Radical Reconstruction," Journal of Negro History.

  [>] '"I sound the cry!'": Congressional Globe, 42nd Cong., 2nd sess., pp. 3739–40.

  "You must take care of the civil rights bill": Pierce, vol. 4, p. 598; also see McPherson, "Abolitionists and the Civil Rights Act of 1875," Journal of American History. To his old Senate colleague, who was now Vice President Henry Wilson, Sumner vowed, "If my Works were completed and my Civil Rights bill passed, no visitor could enter that door that would be more welcome than death." See Henry Wilson's letter read at Faneuil Hall, Boston, Mar. 13, 1874.

  "His skin is very black": Chicago Tribune, quoted in New National Era, Jan. 22, 1874.

  [>] Broad presumptions about race: Some of the most half-baked theories of racial determinism emanated not from the lips of the coarse and uneducated, but from the lecture halls of Ivy League colleges (the Harvard professor Nathaniel Southgate Shaler was a leading offender) and the pens of prominent editorialists, such as The Nations E. L. Godkin. See Gossett.

  Elliott's colleague Alonzo Ransier tangled: Congressional Record, 43rd Cong., 1st sess, Jan. 5, 1874.

  [>] "The prevailing ideas entertained": For Stephens's "The Cornerstone Speech," see Cleveland, pp. 717–29.

  "With a shrunken, consumptive chest": Hendrick, p. 59.

  "There is a vast difference": Congressional Record, 43rd Cong., 1st sess., Jan. 5, 1874.

  [>] The Slaughterhouse Cases arose: Ross, "Justice Miller's Reconstruction," Journal of Southern History. Campbell, assistant secretary of war in the Confederate cabinet, was said to have been the first person to use the term reconstruction in reference to the war's aftermath during a peace conference with President Lincoln in winter 1865.

  [>] "A few extreme Democrats pretended": Chicago Tribune, quoted in New National Era, Jan. 22, 1874.

  Elliott began by calling attention: Congressional Record, 43rd Cong, 1st sess, Jan. 6, 1874.

  [>] Elliott had replied "by calm, convincing arguments": New National Era, Jan. 8, 1874; Lamson, Peggy, p. 182.

  "No more dignified, skillful": National Republican, quoted in New National Era, Jan. 8, 1874; Lamson, Peggy, p. 182.

  "Mr. Elliott is of the blackest of his race": New York Times, Jan. 7, 1874.

  "The blade of sarcasm with which he annihilated": Louisianian, May 2, 1874.

  Elliott, of South Carolina, delivered a speech: Charleston News & Courier, Jan. 7, 1874.

  [>] "In the recent debate on the civil rights bill": New National Era, Mar. 19, 1874.

  [>] The national recognition of Elliott: Among other things, Robert Brown Elliott's bravura performance on January 6 hushed once and for all the rumors that Charles Sumner, Daniel Chamberlain, or some other white man wrote Elliott's speeches. The rumor had proven intractable, even though Elliott himself cited to his critics the many times he had spoken effe
ctively in impromptu, unscripted circumstances.

  "The victory for the colored boy was complete": New York Times, Feb. 5, 1874.

  [>] "In the ratio of their numbers": Ibid., Jan. 25, 1874.

  [>] As William Gillette points out: The editor Henry Watterson, quoted in National Republican, Sept. 2, 1874; see also Gillette, p. 217, and New York Herald Tribune, Aug. 10, 1874.

  A view seconded by journalist Charles Nordhoff: Vaughn, p. 133.

  "The measure pending here today is confronted": Congressional Record, 43rd Cong., 2nd sess., 1875, pp. 1004–5.

  9. Divided Time

  [>] "I wanted to know the whys and wherefore": William Sturges, letter to New York Tribune, Mar. 15, 1871, reproduced in Congressional Globe, 42nd Cong., 1st sess., Mar. 28, 1871; for Meridian events, see also Harris, pp. 396–99, and Horn, pp. 156–62.

  [>] "The South cares for no other question": New York Times, May 2, 1876.

  [>] "Every one who rode with him": Colonel Henry C. Lockwood, quoted in frontispiece of Ames, Adelbert Ames..

  [>] "Angry words": Jackson Tri-Weekly Clarion, June 10, 1869.

  At court-martial Yerger's relatives: Current, Those Terrible Carpetbaggers, p. 173; Harris, pp. 59–61. Yerger moved to Maryland, edited a newspaper, and ran unsuccessfully for Congress.

  Transforming him gradually from a bureaucrat: Lemman, p. 37.

  "Harnessed revolution": Foner, Forever Free, p. 139.

  [>] "The contest [here] is not between two established parties": Adelbert Ames to John Sherman, Aug. 17, 1869, John Sherman Papers, Library of Congress; Adelbert Ames to William T. Sherman, Aug. 17, 1869, William T. Sherman Papers, Library of Congress; quoted in Current, Those Terrible Carpetbaggers, pp. 174–75.

  Photographs taken by the famous Matthew Brady: Lemman, p. 41.

  [>] "These she-adders of New Orleans": Capers, p. 68.

  "This representative of Hell in garb of man": La Crosse Weekly, Jan. 1865, undated news clipping in Clippings Scrapbook, Benjamin Butler Papers, Library of Congress.

  [>] "Multitudinous disadvantages": Ames, Chronicles from the Nineteenth Century, vol. 1, p. 202; vol 2, p. 667. See also Current, Those Terrible Carpetbaggers, p. 195.

  [>] By late 1874, agitated by the national debate: Wharton, "The Race Issue in the Overthrow of Reconstruction in Mississippi," Phylon.

  '"Vote the Negro Down or Knock Him Down'": Westville News, undated clipping appears in Appendix to "Mississippi in 1875: Report of the Select Committee to Inquire into the Mississippi Election of 1875," GPO, Washington, 1876.

  Governor Ames would point out in congressional hearings: Testimony of Adelbert Ames, "Mississippi in 1875."

  [>] "A fugitive from justice": Jackson Weekly Clarion, Sept. 4, 1873, and Oct. 9 and 16, 1873; see also Brock, "Thomas W. Cardozo," Journal of Negro History.

  "Shingled all over with indictments": Nordhoff, p. 74; see also Foner, Freedom's Lawmakers, p. 40.

  "Leading Cardozo to express frustration": Wharton, "The Race Issue in the Overthrow of Reconstruction in Mississippi"; see also Lynch, Reminiscences of an Active Life, pp. 131–36, and Brock, "Thomas W. Cardozo."

  [>] "A receptacle of the colored men": Testimony of Adelbert Ames, "Mississippi in 1875."

  [>] "I and other white men have faced the bullets": Ames, Chronicles, p. 336.

  "Let us, with united strength": New York Times, Dec. 17, 1874.

  "Can raise good crowd": "Vicksburg Troubles," U.S. House Report No. 265, p. xi.

  [>] "Unresisting and retreating men": Ibid., p. viii.

  "The whites who came in from the plantations": New York Times, Dec. 18, 1874.

  The blacks "were met at the city limits": New York Times, Dec. 14, 1874.

  "Not less than 200 were shot": New York Times, Dec. 23, 1874.

  [>] "Impossible to ascertain": "Vicksburg Troubles," p. xi.

  "Here surrendered the Confederate chieftain": Rable, pp. 149–50.

  "Reinstalled Peter Crosby as sheriff": Harris, pp. 646–48; Garner, pp. 335–36; Rable, pp. 147–49. Peter Crosby, having survived the Democrats' rebellion and the "second battle of Vicksburg," was wounded in early 1875 when a disgruntled employee shot him in the head. Unable to fully recover, Crosby resigned his post in October 1875. See Rable, p. 149. Vicksburg itself remained a hotbed of anti-Republican sentiment. As the town had fallen to General Grant on July 3–4, 1863, Independence Day had not been observed there since the war. When, on July 4, 1875, a black Republican rally was called to commemorate the holiday, whites were duly provoked. One of the scheduled speakers, the much-disliked Thomas Cardozo, was struck on the head with a revolver as he arrived at the train depot. Hours later a fight broke out when he and Secretary of State James Hill tried to address the gathering; shots were fired and a black deputy fell dead. White men and boys then invaded the rally, howling the rebel yell and scattering terrified black celebrants. Cardozo and Hill took refuge in the courthouse cupola. Vicksburg Herald, July 7, 1875.

  [>] "Mount and ride for your lives": Twitchell, Carpetbagger from Vermont, pp. 146–47.

  [>] "If the soldiers choose to get mixed up in broils": New Orleans Bulletin, Aug. 28, 1874, quoted in Dawson, pp. 162–63.

  By the evening of September 15: New Orleans Times, Sept. 16, 1874; see also Gillette, pp. 117–19.

  [>] "The happiest city in the universe": New Orleans Bulletin, Sept. 16, 1874.

  "Turbulent and disorderly persons to disperse": New Orleans Times, Sept. 16, 1874.

  [>] "I think that the terrorism now existing": Sheridan's telegrams and Belknap's replies appear in "Affairs in Louisiana," U.S. Senate Executive Documents, 43rd Cong., 2nd sess., Mar. 1875, serial 1629.

  "It is surprising that a very able graduate": New York Times, Jan. 6, 1875.

  [>] The Sheridan-Belknap 'banditti' telegrams were reprinted: Gillette, p. 124.

  "Manufacturing sensational protests": Philip Sheridan to William Belknap, Jan. 7, 1875, quoted in Gillette, p. 124.

  "It was no riot; it was an absolute massacre": Philip Sheridan to Ulysses'S. Grant, Aug. 2, 1866; see also Hollandsworth, frontispiece.

  More surprising were the sympathetic public meetings: At Faneuil Hall, where abolitionist oratory had shaken the rafters, where the Fugitive Slave Act and Dred Scott had been denounced, now resolutions of censure condemning Grant, Sheridan, and the government's actions in Louisiana were drawn up. On January 15, Wendell Phillips, the "Golden Trumpet" of the abolitionist movement, defended the legality of the federal government's acts in the South, warning that Southern blacks were the true victims of any Northern resolution against Grant and Sheridan. His words were greeted by boos and remarks such as "Sit down!" and "That's played out!" The meeting's resolutions were passed over Phillips's objections. See New York Times, Jan. 16, 1875; see also Korngold, Two Friends, pp. 328–29.

  The vehemence of the national reaction: See Tunnell, Edge of the Sword, pp. 184–231.

  "The men ofVicksburg would not submit": Nordhoff, pp. 74–75.

  [>] "Every true woman": Wharton, p. 183.

  "Returned to the fold of the Democracy in sackcloth and ashes": Lynch, Reminiscences of an Active Life, p. 148.

  [>] Moreover, Morgan's résumé: Lemman, p. 101.

  [>] "I did not believe that they intended": Testimony of A. T. Morgan, "Mississippi in 1875."

  "You can have no objection": An account of the Yazoo riot appears in the Yazoo City Democrat, Sept. 7, 1875.

  "My friend, I fought four years": Albert Morgan to Adelbert Ames, Sept. 9, 1875, quoted in Ames, Adelbert Ames, pp. 420–21.

  [>] "These white liners will do anything": Adelbert Ames to Blanche Butler Ames, Sept. 2, 1876, quoted in Ames, Chronicles, pp. 156–57.

  "This house does not seem a natural place": Adelbert Ames to Blanche Butler Ames, Aug. 7, 1874; Adelbert Ames to Blanche Butler Ames, Aug. 2, 1874; Adelbert Ames to Blanche Butler Ames, Aug. 12, 1874; quoted in Ames, Adelbert Ames, pp. 399, 396–97, 401.

  "Trimmed fantastically and patriotically":
Brough, "The Clinton Riot," Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society.

  "There is no doubt [the riot] had its origin": Undated clippings from Cincinnati Commercial, early to mid Sept. 1875, Blanche Kelso Bruce Papers, Library of Congress.

  [>] "The thing opened just like lightning": Testimony of E. B. Welbourne, "Mississippi in 1875."

  "[Whites] ... chased [the blacks] for miles and miles": Undated clippings from Cincinnati Commercial, early to mid Sept. 1875, Blanche Kelso Bruce Papers.

  "What can we do? ... It looks like Judgment": Testimony of D. C. Crawford, "Mississippi in 1875".

  The death toll included: Undated clippings from Cincinnati Commercial, early to mid Sept. 1875, Blanche Kelso Bruce Papers; see also Testimony of D. C. Crawford, "Mississippi in 1875".

  Two of the whites killed: Rable, pp. 155–56.

  [>] "Oh, we didn't do much": Undated clippings from Cincinnati Commercial, early to mid Sept. 1875, Blanche Kelso Bruce Papers.

  "They went to a house where there was an old black man": Margaret Ann Caldwell, quoted in New York Times, Aug. 7, 1876.

  "You all had a big dinner yesterday": Testimony of Margaret Ann Caldwell, "Mississippi in 1875."

  "I beg you most fulley [sic] to send": Senate Reports, 44th Cong., 1st sess., "Documentary Evidence," quoted in Wharton, "The Race Issue in the Overthrow of Reconstruction in Mississippi," Phylon.

  [>] "Domestic violence prevails in various parts of this State": Adelbert Ames to President Grant, Sept. 8, 1875, quoted in Harris, pp. 663–64.

  "As the Governor of a State, I made a demand": Quoted in St. Clair, p. 84.

  "Ames so admired Bruce": Ames wanted Bruce to serve as his lieutenant governor because he imagined that he himself might eventually return to the U.S. Senate. He sought a man with a reputation so solid that the legislature, when the time came, would be willing to accept him as successor, freeing Ames for duty in Washington. When Bruce informed Ames he was not interested, Ames chose Alexander K. Davis, a state legislator from Noxubee County. Installing Davis as lieutenant governor would satisfy the black contingent in the state legislature, but it meant that, in all likelihood, Ames would never get to return to the Senate in Washington. As Ames's wife wrote to her mother back north, "In Mississippi the Lieut. Gov. becomes Governor as soon as the Governor leaves the state and if he is inclined to be troublesome this gives a fine opportunity to do many objectionable things." Such a crisis did occur in spring 1874 when Davis, taking advantage of Ames's absence on business in New Orleans, began making appointments and issuing pardons that lacked the governor's approval. State officials had to telegraph Ames and beg his immediate return. See Blanche Butler Ames to Sarah Butler, May 9, 1874, quoted in Ames, Adelbert Ames, p. 395.