USA > Alabama > The formative period in Alabama, 1815-1828 > Part 13
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21 Birney's Birney. 42, 47-48.
22 Riley, Baptists in Alabama, 61.
23 Saunders, Early Settlers in Alabama, 45.
2+ Basil Hall, Travels in North America, 230-239.
25 Southern Agriculturist, II, 575-576.
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THE FORMATIVE PERIOD IN ALABAMA
to prevent this and secure effective organization, regularity, kindness, and firmness were essential.
When the system was transplanted to the new soil of Ala- bama, differences in spirit, if not in form, would necessarily arise; but the available information is too scant to allow a thorough study of the changes. The provisions for slavery which were incorporated in the constitution of 1819 were of a liberal spirit. The legislature might not forbid the importa- tion of slaves who were the bona fide property of their owners, but it was empowered to prohibit the introduction of negroes for sale. Slaves might be freed by their owners with the con- sent of the legislature, or the legislature might take the initi- ative in liberating negroes provided the consent of their own- ers had been obtained, or remuneration made. In addition, slaves were not to be deprived of trial by petit jury when ar- raigned for crimes more serious than petty larceny ; and in the case one were murdered or dismembered, the punishment for the crime was to be the same as though a white man had been the victim. The provisions show a desire to treat the unfor- tunate race with consideration, but the problem of managing slaves was a delicate one, and difficulties developed. The negroes were irresponsible and often faithless. When they were displeased, they frequently ran away and lodged in swamps to prey upon the surrounding country; when they were allowed to go at large on Sundays, they congregated in the towns and became a public nuisance; when they were al- lowed to hire out their own time, they often became idlers in the streets ; when they were allowed to sell the produce of their leisure hours, they often stole and sold the property of their masters.26 In order to meet this situation, acts were passed forbidding slaves to sell any articles except such simple things as they could make with their own hands.27 Passes were re- quired of negroes who wished to visit premises belonging to others than their masters,2s and in order to prevent slaves from wandering around the country or holding unauthorized meetings where dangerous doctrines might be inculcated, a patrol system was kept up. Military districts were establish- ed, all able-bodied men were required to serve in the militia,
26 Alabama Republican, Sept. 13, 1822; Ibid., Aug. 29, 1823; Alabama Journal. Jan. 6, 1826; Ibid., May 19, 1826; Ibid .. Sept. 15, 1826; Tuscum- bian, June 28. 1826; Southern Advocate, June 22, 1827.
27 Act of January 2, 1826.
28 Act of March 6, 1805.
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SOCIAL CONDITIONS AND SLAVERY
and the captain of each company was required to detail pa- trols whose duty it was to enforce the law.29 But the admin- istration of the system was frequently lax, and it, therefore, lacked effectiveness.
Slavery was, at this period, looked upon by Southerners as a necessary evil, and the slave-trader was heartily detested by the planters in general.30 This spirit found its expression in Alabama through the act of the legislature in 1826 which for- · bade the introduction of slaves for purposes of sale.31 It is apparent, too, that this move was assisted by the depressed state of the cotton market which accompanied the panic of 1825, and which caused many to feel that over-production of the staple would result from an increase in the number of la- borers.32 But in this matter, Alabama was merely following the lead of most of the other cotton-producing states.
The question of slavery was open to debate in the South until the activity of the Abolitionists and the Nat Turner in- surrection in Virginia convinced the planters that agitation was dangerous to their system and their safety.33 James G. Birney, who was a resident of Huntsville during these years, was instrumental in the enactment of the lenient provisions in regard to slavery which have been mentioned, and his biog- rapher states that his ideas were not in advance of the senti- ment of the planters of that day.3+ Opinions deprecating the existence of slavery were printed by some of the editors who published papers in Alabama,33 and in 1824 the Tuscaloosa Mirror advertised that subscriptions to Benjamin Lundy's pi- oneer abolitionist paper, the Genius of Universal Emancipa- tion, would be received at the office of the local publication.36 In discussing a memorial from the legislature of Ohio, which advocated general emancipation, the Governor of Alabama spoke mildly and said that an offer of remuneration by the Government might some day be opportune.37
29 Act of Dec. 18, 1812.
30 Southern Advocate, Oct. 21, 1826; Ibid., June 23, 1826; Birney's Birney, 56; Alabama, Senate Journal, 1823, 15.
31 Act of Jan. 13, 1827.
32 Huntsville Democrat, Dec. 22, 1826.
33 Birney's Birney, 72.
3+ Ibid., 72.
35 Southern Advocate, Dec. 30, 1825. Speaking of the slave trade, the editor of this paper says: "On one vessel the slaves happily revolted and killed the crew."
36 Tuscaloosa, Mirror, Aug. 7, 1825.
37 Alabama, Senate Journal, 1825, 13-14.
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THE FORMATIVE PERIOD IN ALABAMA
The first step toward the defensive attitude was taken when the legislature attempted in 1827 to pass an act forbidding the teaching of slaves by free persons. Though receiving the sup- port of a good part of the southern portion of the State, the measure was defeated by the opposition which it encountered in the Tennessee Valley.38
This is the only instance where any degree of sectionalism is betrayed in the treatment of a question related to slavery in Alabama during the 'twenties. Even in the vote on the bill to prohibit the further introduction of slaves for sale, there is no alignment of slave-holding against non-slave-holding counties. The Tennessee Valley and the Alabama-Tombigbee Valleys were the principal cotton-producing areas, but this fact would never be discovered by a study of the votes. There were some planters who thought that enough slaves had al- ready been introduced, while there were farmers who expect- ed some day to purchase slaves and become planters them- selves. Such a situation emphasizes the point previously brought out that there was no class antagonism between the cotton planter and the small farmer.
In the Tennessee Valley there were a few estates numbering several hundred slaves, but the majority of men who come out to Alabama were in moderate circumstances. It was not those who had made their fortunes, but those who sought to make them, who were willing to sever the old ties and move in- to the new country. Twenty or thirty negroes seem to have been a normal force for the average estate, but the majority of men who emigrated to Alabama had, it would seem, not so many as this.
The early history of Alabama appears to have been deeply influenced by the relatively close contact between the planters and the farmers. The frontier conditions which threw men upon their own resources and promoted rapid changes in sta- tion; the relatively narrow extent of the cotton-producing areas and the consequent proximity of planting and farming districts; the moderate estates of the planters and the lack of exclusive society outside the largest towns ; the relatively small number of planters as compared with the farmers,-all these conditions made Alabama a state where democracy was the rule in spite of slavery.
35 Alabama, House Journal, 1827, 209.
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CHAPTER XV.
CONCLUSION
Having attempted to trace the economic and political de- velopment of Alabama during the formative period, it remains to point out those factors which appear to have had special significance. We begin with a country which contained but one white settlement isolated in the midst of Indian tribes. The native had long dreaded the continued intrusion of the white man, and the effects of the unwelcome contact were tell- ing upon him in several important ways. The sturdy self-re- liance which the wilderness had instilled in him was being un- dermined by a state of semi-dependence, while whisky and the sharpers who sold it to him were combining to degrade his natural honesty. But the white man was striking at the roots of his existence in another way. As his land was taken from him bit by bit, the problem of living by the chase became ever more difficult. It was already impossible to rely altogether upon game for subsistence, and all the southern Indians en- gaged in primitive agriculture, the agents sent among them by the Government doing all they could to promote the indus- try by the introduction of new crops and improved methods. But the Red Man looked ahead and adopted one or the other of two policies against the future. He either strove to adapt him- self to the conditions of civilization, or he assumed an atti- tude of hostile resistance to the invasion of the whites.
The white men who pushed ahead of civilization into the Alabama region came partly as traders and partly as settlers. Some of the traders took up their abode among the Indians and chose native wives from among them. Those who came for agricultural purposes gathered upon the lower Tombigbee, where the land had been cleared of the Indian title. Some of them used large numbers of slaves in the culture of indigo and cotton, while others raised great herds of cattle which roamed throughout the year in the cane-brakes. English, Scottish, and American blood was mixed with that of the natives in this crude frontier society.
When the War of 1812 was over; when the Creeks had been defeated by Jackson and new lands thrown open to settlement,
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THE FORMATIVE PERIOD IN ALABAMA
squatters rushed in ahead of the Government sales. The best lands were first put on the market, and by the time they were offered at public auction, the high price of cotton had cre- ated a feverish demand for these tracts. Currency disorders added to the excitement of speculation, and the result was that the actual settlers, who were men without means, could not compete for possession. It was in the years 1817, 1818, and 1819, during which time the boom rose and fell, that the cot- ton kingdom was planted in Alabama. The planters from the very first took the river valleys for their own, but the prairie region, passing just south of Montgomery and Tuscaloosa and joining the upper Alabama basin with that of the Black War- rior, was not extensively settled until the period of the 'thir- ties. With this exception, the cotton producing areas were marked out during the period of first settlement. The men who were not wealthy enough to own slaves or to purchase the most desirable cotton lands took up their abode in the back country, which offered fertile though isolated fields; and here they were usually able to purchase their farms at the minimum price of a dollar and a quarter an acre which prevailed after the speculative period was over. Thus there was not a great deal of active competition between the two agricultural class- es in the purchase of lands, and circumstances effected such a distribution of the territory between them that no general re- adjustment was afterward necessary. It is true that the per- centage of slaves in Alabama gradually increased, but the only counties in which the change was marked were those of the prairie region, which had not been extensively settled by men of the farming class.
The outstanding economic factor during the period of set- tlement was the condition of indebtedness which applied to the community as a whole. Money was in great demand for investment in lands and slaves, and though the production of cotton brought in considerable funds, much was reinvested in agricultural equipment, while a large part went for supplies of flour, corn, and pork. So great was the interest in cotton planting that it was quite difficult to secure capital for other business. The result was that merchandising was left large- ly to men from the Northern States, while banking had to be carried on either by those who were able to secure special priv- ileges through their operations, or by the State.
While the planter who operated on a large scale could deal directly with Mobile or New Orleans and thereby render him-
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CONCLUSION
self largely independent of country merchants and bankers, the small farmer, dependent upon a local market and a disord- ered currency, was at a disadvantage in financial transactions. The remoteness of the Tennessee Valley region from New Or- leans, and the questionable transactions of the Merchants' and Planters' Bank of Huntsville rendered this situation particu- larly acute, and promoted a class antagonism between the small farmers, predominantly of Tennessee origin, and the Georgia financiers and their associates. It was out of this · antagonism that partisan differences first arose among the people in Alabama; and, though spreading to the rest of the State, the storm-center was always in the north.
Of course there had been political differences from the very first, but these agitated the office-seekers rather than the set- tlers. It is of much significance for later developments that William H. Crawford, then Secretary of the Treasury under Monroe, controlled the Federal patronage of Alabama during the first years of her existence. Tait, Walker, and the Bibbs were his principal adherents within the State. The jealousy created by this situation cemented the anti-Crawford leaders. into a union against the Georgia men. It was probably be- cause North Carolina had sent a number of her prominent cit- izens to Alabama that she furnished the leading antagonists of the Crawford faction.
Israel Pickens stands out as the first to see the possibilities of the situation and to bring forward an issue which would transform personal differences into real party issues. Pro- vision had been made in the constitution for the establishment of a State Bank and an attempt had been made to found such an institution by private subscription, but the necessary capi- tal was not forthcoming and the plan failed. When Pickens came into office, there was pending a scheme for entrusting the fate of the State corporation to the care of the existing private banks, but Pickens vetoed the bill and proposed a. bank the capital of which should consist entirely of the funds of the State. The people needed money, and this was to be a people's bank. Though it was not until the beginning of his second term of office that he was able to put the scheme through, the Bank, which was founded upon democratic rath- er than upon financial principles, finally went into operation in 1824, to the great delight of all those who had everything to gain and nothing to lose by the experiment.
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THE FORMATIVE PERIOD IN ALABAMA
By this stroke, Pickens had united the anti-Crawford lead- ers with the men of the small-farmer class, as opposed to the, Crawford men from Georgia and the conservative class among the planters and merchants.
In the face of such a combination, the Crawford men had no chance at all and, William Wyatt Bibb and John W. Walker having died, practically all the more desirable offices were wrested from them. The Georgia men had never been strong at general elections, but in the legislature their power had been great, and even now their partisans were able to make a strong fight in that body.
This situation brings out an important point in Alabama politics. The constitution of 1819 is one of the few original frames of State government which lasted without substantial changes until the Civil War. This stability was due, in part at least, to the combination of conservatism with progressive- ness in the charter and this character was due to conditions surrounding its origin. In 1819, Alabama had a large number of poor settlers and a small number of wealthy planters and speculators. The former class had little interest in poli- tics, as such, while the latter had many reasons for such an interest. As a matter of course, the men who had the time, the ambition, the ability, and the means to engage in politics were chosen to the convention. Thus the unsuspecting set- tler sent to represent him a man whose point of view was en- tirely different from his own. Knowing that they could not afford to antagonize the poorer men who greatly outnumbered them, yet wishing to keep the management of the government in their own hands, the framers of the constitution drew up an instrument which was admirably suited to their purposes. While granting manhood suffrage and apportioning repre- sentation according to white population, it gave almost su- preme authority to the legislature, which, in the natural course of events, would be made up largely of men of some property.
This arrangement would not have worked as intended had the poorer men ever united to support candidates from among themselves, but this they never did. They accepted their wealthier neighbors as leaders and secured legislation in their favor only when an ambitious politician, such as Pickens, sought popular favor through popular measures.
The lack of consistency in the votes of the legislature pro- claims an absence of fixed partisan principles and a prepond-
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CONCLUSION
erance of personal vagaries, but when the people voted, they spoke clearly, and two convictions stand out to show the bent of their minds: there was a strong antagonism between the north and south of the State, and there was a decided prefer- ence for Jackson on the part of the plain men. The conserva- tive class showed a strong prejudice against Jackson, but in 1824 they were outvoted in almost every county in Alabama.
It is significant that both sections of the State were carried for Jackson in 1824. It is also significant that the strongest opposition to him was made in the southern cotton-producing area. The percentage of slaves, and hence the strength of the planting interest, was practically the same in the Ten- nessee Valley as in the Alabama-Tombigbee region. The stronger vote which Jackson received in the former section was due, it would seen, to the greater contrast which existed there between wealth and poverty, and to the class antagon- ism which the situation engendered. This was aggravated by the fact that, though Tennesseeans greatly predominated in the population of the Valley, the planters were largely from other states.
Before the election of 1824, it was generally expected that Adams would carry the southern cotton section of Alabama. The press was strongly in his favor, and the Warrior-Tombig- bee section showed a consistent opposition to Jackson in the legislature. The General's unexpected strength in this region may reasonably be taken to indicate the predominance, even in the heart of the cotton belt, of the men whose votes spoke more powerfully than their arguments-the small farmers.
As has been mentioned, the prairie country was the only ex- tensive region where a large proportion of the soil was suitable for cotton culture, and it was only here that the percentage of slaves increased markedly after the first period of settlement was over. Farmers mingled with the planters in all sections of the State, and it is doubtful whether the planters, as a class, could ever have carried more than a few counties of the Black Belt, if even they could have done so much. Their success de- pended upon their ability to draw support from among their neighbors, and the alliance of the anti-Crawford leaders with the farmers on the bank question shows that there was no aversion to such co-operation.
In the matter of the Presidency, it seems that the farmers and the planters were very clearly divided on the question of Jacksonism, but in 1828 the desire to defeat Adams was strong
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THE FORMATIVE PERIOD IN ALABAMA
enough to unite both classes in support of the General. His old enemies went over with reservations, and their support . was but temporary.
Though the Crawford faction had been discredited, and the opposition to Jackson had completely lost its hold by 1828, a movement was already on foot which was fraught with signifi- cance for the future, and which was to put a new face upon the political situation.
The belief in a strict construction of the Constitution is as old as the Government, but when Jefferson and his party ob- tained control, agitation of the point no longer seemed neces- sary. Posession of power, however, soon changed the point of view of the Republicans, and when the South and the West combined to bring on the War of 1812, the old views seemed to have lost much of their weight with Madison and the slave states. It was at this period of Republican supremacy that John Randolph came forward as the champion of state rights, declaring that his party had forsaken its original principles. Henry Adams says that it was Randolph who forecast the pol- icy of Calhoun by uniting the slave interest with the advo- cacy of strict construction.1
It was not until the free states outstripped the slave states in growth and political power that the South as a whole came to realize that its only hope lay in decentralization. But Ran- dolph looked before him and shaped his policy to the future. There were others who shared his views, however. Among these Nathaniel Macon and John Taylor were prominent. The connection between these men and the Crawford party of Georgia was close, and in a letter to Bolling Hall, Macon urg- ed the point that to give Congress the right to make internal improvements would be to give it the right to free every slave in the United States.2
Under these circumstances, it was not strange that Dixon H. Lewis, the nephew of Bolling Hall, was the first advocate of state rights in Alabama, but the movement was not isolat- ed. The election of John Quincy Adams and the enactment of the tariff of 1824 gave the signal for the revival of anti- nationalistic propaganda in the South. South Carolina, under the influence of William Smith and Thomas Cooper, took the
1 Adams, John Randolph, 288-289.
^ Hall Papers, Nathaniel Macon to Bolling Hall, Feb. 13, 1820, and Jan. 6, 1825
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CONCLUSION
lead in this movement, while in Congress, Giles and Randolph attacked the Administration from the strict constructionist point of view. But Calhoun did not come out as leader of the state rights movement until after 1828.3
Though the Alabama papers took sides with Giles and Ran- dolph or with Adams, according as they were Administration or anti-Administration publications, no state excepting Geor- gia seems to have influenced Alabama politics directly. Lead- ers from the Carolinas and Virginia did not form individual groups, but worked in combinations, while those from Georgia formed a distinct faction and thus gave their State a political status in Alabama. Yet, after the fall of the Crawford fac- tion, there was not much sympathy between the two common- wealths. The quarrel between Governor Troup and Presi- dent Adams over the question of the removal of the Creek In- dians from Georgia excited little friendly interest, most of the local editors taking a critical attitude toward the fiery Gov- ernor. But in Montgomery County a meeting was held in November, 1826, and here Troup's policy was upheld by some of the leading men of the community.+ It is natural that such a feeling should have been manifest in this locality, for it was here that the influence of planters from Georgia was strong- est. It is also natural that it should have been this County which sent Dixon Hall Lewis to the legislature.
The political ideas of this young man had been shaped by his uncle, Bolling Hall, who was so closely connected with the Crawford faction. Lewis had worked for Crawford in the election of 1824, and now in 1826 he went to Cahawba as a representative in the legislature. His course in opposition to internal improvements and a liberal interpretation of the Con- stitution was a reflection of a general movement throughout the South. His attitude toward the Troup controversy, and his advocacy of a policy extending the jurisdiction of the State over the Creeks. show his sympathy with the position of the Georgia Governor; while his attack upon the State Bank ex- hibits his connection with the old Crawford faction.
The majority of men in Alabama at this time were strongly opposed to the Crawford group, strongly in favor of the State Bank, and strongly Nationalistic in their feelings. Yet, by good political management, Lewis succeeded in gaining some
3 Houston, A Study of Nullification in South Carolina, Chap. IX; Boucher, The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, Chap. I.
* Mobile Register. Nov. 28. 1826.
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THE FORMATIVE PERIOD IN ALABAMA
ground for his ideas. The important point is, however, that this scion of the Crawford party was the first leader in Ala bama to advocate state rights, and thus he revived a faction which seemed politically dead by making it the bulwark of the slave power through the policy of strict construction.
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