USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina since 1860, Volume III > Part 11
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him there, and at the same time ignoring a counter attack, gifted with a keen sense of humor, he saw the ridiculous side of everything and employed it as a means to an end, realizing clearly that in politics a dangerous enemy is often rendered harmless by laughter and ridicule. He had a nickname for nearly every carpetbagger and for a number of the native re- publicans and spoilsmen. The "hands," "Pilgrim" Ashley,
JOSIAH TURNER, JR. Editor of the Sentinel
"Windy Billy" Henderson "who stole Darr's mule" (or as he later phrased it, "who was tried and acquitted of stealing Darr's mule"), "Kildee" Lassiter, "Chicken" Stephens, "Greasy Sam" Watts, "Blow Your Horn Bill" Smith, "the Governor's Son Joseph," "Ipecac" Menninger, "Colonel Heck who teaches the Sunday School," "Parson" Sinclair "Sleepy" Downing, "Ku Klux" Ingram, "Grapevine" John Ragland, and "Captain" Thomas Settle, are terms that are familiar in North Carolina even today. No man in the state
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was so bitterly hated by the republicans and, as time went on, so intensely feared. He saw everything. Through sources of information never revealed, he learned of plans and policies that were studiously concealed from the public by their orig- inators. He never forgot or overlooked a vital point, never lost his temper, and never forgave, but cunning as a serpent, writing with a pen that seemed dipped in gall, he relentlessly pursued what now became the chief aim of his existence, the overthrow of the republican party in the state. No man was ever better adapted to such work, for his genius was destruc- tive always and he naturally belonged to the opposition. He was the inspiration of the conservative party in its deepest gloom, and to him more than to any other man belongs the credit for the speedy overthrow of Reconstruction in North Carolina.
The republicans were in no condition to stand attack, new lines of cleavage appearing steadily. Several factions op- posed Holden, some of them bitterly. Friction and ill-feeling developed between the natives and the carpet-baggers. There were marked beginnings of a conservative and radical divi- sion in the party which was to end finally in the loss of the former. By the summer of 1869 the party was on the de- fensive. The state debt and the methods by which it had been created excited feeling, and as it became more evident that small benefit was accruing to the public, hostility took the form of a demand for repudiation which was not at all con- fined to the conservative party.
Nor was the legislative record alone responsible for this. The administration was in a sense as unpopular as the legis- lature. It was extravagant, equally inefficient, and was not free from corruption. It was, as might have been expected, partisan to a degree. The governor seems never to have profited personally to the extent of a penny from the wide- spread stealing, but he was hand in glove with the thieves, many of whom, like Swepson, Sloan, Littlefield, and Jones, were given their best opportunities by him. He also extended to them all the protection in his power. In this sense he must be held partially responsible for their acts. A strong and
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good man could have held back the thieves, but with his eyes open he refused to do so.
The other state officers were incompetent or worse. Men- ninger, the secretary of state, was utterly corrupt. D. A. Jenkins, the treasurer, although the receipt of $600 from Swepson is a most suspicious fact, seems to have been honest in relation to the funds in his hands, but he did nothing to check the wholesale rascality. Adams, the auditor, was a nonentity. Harris, the superintendent of public works, was personally honest, but was bitterly partisan. When he pro- tested against fraud, the governor read him out of the party. Ashley, the superintendent of public instruction, was ineffi- cient and corrupt. On every side there was nepotism. For example, the governor made his son, already speaker of the House, through his influence, director in two railroads, his brother director in one, one son-in-law attorney-general, and another mayor of Raleigh. Josiah Turner, commenting on this in the Sentinel, said: "But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he had denied the faith and is worse than an infidel."
In the judiciary morals on the whole were better and abil- ity, if anything, worse. The Supreme Court was an exceed- ingly able body with the grave fault that it was actively in politics. The Superior bench was far worse off. Watts was corrupt and incompetent. Jones was an habitual drunkard, brazenly immoral, and hopelessly incompetent. Logan was honest in money matters, incompetent, ignorant, and very partisan. Tourgee was able but corrupt and otherwise devoid of character. Buxton was honest, able, and inclined to dab- ble in politics. Cannon and Cloud were honest, ignorant, and rather stupid country lawyers who belonged anywhere rather than on the bench. Pool and Thomas were of good character and average ability. Mitchell had been long on the bench and was a good judge. Almost all were careless and inclined to laxity in attendance, and the grand jury of Orange, at Tur- ner's instigation, presented Tourgee in his own court for leav- ing early. An interesting view of the legal knowledge of the Superior bench is to be found in the fact that the Supreme
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Chief Justice Richmond M. Pearson
Edwin G. Reade
Thomas Settle
William B. Rodman
Robert P. Dick
THE SUPREME COURT IN RECONSTRUCTION
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Court reversed 70 decisions out of 114 cases heard at January term, 1870.
Local conditions varied. In the black counties they were terrific; in many white counties in republican hands there seems to have been honest and capable government. Not all the conservative counties were well-governed, but there was in the republican counties generally a marked tendency to an extravagance out of place considering the condition of the people. Many of the more lucrative and important offices were held by carpet-baggers and nearly all were corrupt. Craven, Pitt, New Hanover, and Wake suffered particularly from carpet-bag rule. In the Federal service things were lit- tle if any better during this period and for many years to come. Such were the political conditions of the republican régime. Social and economic conditions contributed also to republican weakness.
In the meantime a movement was in operation which power- fully influenced the course of history in the state.
The Ku Klux movement, which appeared in almost every Southern state during the decade following the war, grew naturally out of the chaos in society which was caused by the ordinary results of the war and, more especially, by Re- construction. The old order with its security and stability had disappeared and the people of the South were confronted with problems which required immediate solution. Not the least pressing and important of these was that of the relation of the races, with its important bearing upon the labor ques- tion. The first attempt towards a settlement of this furnished one of the chief pretexts of the radicals in entering upon their policy and the adoption of the congressional plan apparently destroyed any possibility of the control of the lower race except by force. The force of law, the power of the govern- ment, were in the hands of aliens or their tools, and condi- tions grew rapidly more unsettled until the statement of the committee on reconstruction that the governments of the Southern states "afford no adequate protection for life or property, but countenance and encourage lawlessness and crime," false when it was made in 1866, became entirely true. Liberty with the negroes rapidly degenerated into license and,
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banded together in secret leagues which to radical officers served as a valid political cloak for all offenses, instigated to violence by unprincipled adventurers who had been lifted into political power by the negro vote, alienated from their former friends by slander, they unconsciously set about the destruc- tion of civilization in the South. Crime and violence of every sort ran unchecked until a large part of the South became a veritable hell through misrule which approximated to anar- chy. Called into existence by this state of affairs, the Ku Klux lifted the South from its slough of despond by the ap- plication of illegal force which overthrew Reconstruction and ultimately restored political power to the white race. In the process, it furnished protection to the oppressed, but, degen- erating from its high purpose and estate, as might have been expected from its nature and organization, it was often violent and sometimes oppressive, and in the end, fell into the control of reckless spirits who used it for private vengeance rather than public punishment. But when this evil day came, its purpose was in a fair way of accomplishment. The women of the South once more could leave their doors without the accompaniment of a deadly terror. Property became fairly safe again. Heart had been put into the despairing whites and a revolution had been wrought through its operations, or, to be more exact, the results of a revolution had been over- thrown and a form of government, wickedly, illegally, and un- constitutionally imposed upon the people, had come into the hands of the class best fitted to administer government, and the supremacy of the white race and of Anglo-Saxon institu- tions was secure.
The inherent evils of the movement are plain, but it is an old adage that desperate diseases require desperate remedies. Certain it is that no open revolt could ever have accomplished so much of good as did the secret operations of the so-called Klan, and few today would deny that there was necessity for some remedy for the conditions then existent. The justifica- tion for the movement even then sometimes seems difficult, but when all the elements are considered, the conclusion seems inevitable that if there be such a thing as the sacred right of revolution, then the Ku Klux movement as planned and car-
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ried out at first was justifiable. No free people ever labored under more galling oppression or more grievous misrule, and, in the absence of any effective legal remedy, the principle of salus populi would seem to apply. At any rate, it is clear that the movement was primarily designed for protection and its influence upon politics was purely incidental. The evidence is overwhelming in support of the theory that the chief pur- pose of the Ku Klux was to oppose the Union League and check its operations. The unfortunate thing is that such an extreme and, under ordinary circumstances, indefensible pol- icy should have been necessary. Like practically every other evil of reconstruction, its effects survive and are too often manifested in Southern life and thought. The responsibility for it must ultimately rest upon those who planned and put into effect for partisan purposes the congressional plan of reconstruction.
In North Carolina the movement was carried on by three separate but kindred societies whose methods were identical -the White Brotherhood, the Constitutional Union Guard, and the Invisible Empire. All were secret orders with ritu- als, all were organized for protective purposes, and all in time had political influence and significance. The White Brotherhood appeared in the state sometime in 1867 or 1868, and nothing is known of its origin; the Constitutional Union Guard was organized at the North, probably with a political purpose and reached North Carolina in 1868; and the Invisible Empire, the Ku Klux proper, organized in Tennessee in 1865 reached the state in 1867 or 1868. These orders were organ- ized locally into camps, klans, and dens, respectively. In North Carolina, they existed side by side, often with the same officers and almost the same membership and it is now almost impossible to distinguish them. At the head of the Invisible Empire was William L. Saunders, who, though not a member, directed its larger activities and through it those of the others as well. Their nominal heads are not known. Their members were widely scattered but no one knows or ever knew their number. Forty thousand was a very usual estimate. Nor is the geographical range of the orders any better known. It was essentially a movement of the Piedmont region of the state
A KU KLUX KLAN COSTUME From an original photograph in the Hall of History at Raleigh
BANNER USED BY THE KU-KLUX. Original now in North Carolina Room, Confederate Museum, Richmond
A KU KLUX KLAN BANNER USED IN NORTH CAROLINA
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and was never very successful in spreading in the eastern counties where there was a large negro population. The only counties with negro majorities in which the Ku Klux appeared were Caswell, Lenoir, Jones, Franklin, and Wayne, and only in Caswell were they active. The counties in which the orders displayed any activity fall into two groups, a central and a western one. In the former, were Alamance and Orange, where Daniel R. Goodloe said the movement was hereditary and closely akin to the Regulation, Caswell, Chatham, Cum- berland, Duplin, Harnett, Lenoir, Jones, Moore, Person, Franklin, Wayne, Guilford, Rockingham, and Stokes. In the latter were Burke, Catawba, Cleveland, Gaston, Lincoln, Meck- lenburg, Polk, McDowell, Rowan, and Rutherford. Orange and Alamance formed the storm centre of the central group and Cleveland and Rutherford of the western. So far as out- ward manifestation is proof, the movement was of compara- tively little importance elsewhere. But it is not to be doubted that it was in a quiet way very important, both protectively and politically, in many counties where it did not attract any public attention. In the latter respect it was an organi- zation which kept its members aroused. Its chief work in the state and in the South, in addition to the protection it fur- nished, was in restoring heart and courage to the white people who at first seemed overwhelmed by the immensity of their misfortunes. In this way it was the active agent which se- cured political redemption. The western group of counties was largely influenced by South Carolina and was practically unconnected with the central group. In fact the chief activi- ties in the West commenced only as the movement ceased further eastward. In the West the organization was far less complete and the discipline less effective. Its punitive meas- ures were far less productive of public benefit and, in its period of greatest activity, the movement had little to recom- mend it.
The important activities of the Ku Klux began in 1869 although without resorting to violence it had not been inactive before. In that year in Alamance, Orange, Caswell, Jones, Lenoir, and Chatham counties severe punishment was inflicted upon various evil-doers by the orders which constituted them-
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selves censors of public morals and manners. In Alamance where the order was popular with the people a large number of persons, most of them negroes, were whipped for various offenses. Politics so far as can be discovered did not enter into any of these cases. In Orange which was probably the best organized county in the state, a large number of per- sons were whipped, and five, all negroes, were put to death for offenses against women or for barn-burning. In Jones the Union League had a large number of outrages to its score and in retaliation, two carpet-baggers and a negro were shot and killed. Proof was lacking but it is likely that the Ku Klux were responsible. In Chatham whippings were frequent but no one was killed. Both the League and the Ku Klux were in constant operation. In Caswell the League was very active and, under the leadership of John W. Stephens, a man of bad reputation and notoriously evil political life, barn- burning was seemingly the purpose of its existence. During 1869 a large number of negroes were whipped.
The Ku Klux operations which were not very widely ex- tended and not nearly so lawless as those of the Union League, excited the anger, fear and hatred of the republican leaders. The sending. of militia to Alamance County, to be followed later by Federal troops, had a corresponding influence upon the conservatives. The governor planned to send troops to Hillsboro, but his friends warned him not to do so. Late in the same month, he warned the people of Orange, Chatham, Lenoir, and Jones to abstain from lawlessness and threatened to declare them in insurrection. About the same time, Chief Justice Pearson wrote a letter to George Little, in which he said the entire state was in as profound peace as it had ever been. The governor's action did not at all aid the republican party and was probably a cause of strength to the opposition. The mass of the people were fully aware of the fact that, if the governor had been more zealous in trying to prevent rad- ical lawlessness, he would not have had as much occasion to worry over Ku Klux outrages, many of which had been care- fully invented for the press with a full realization of their political value. At the same time, it seems beyond question that Governor Holden believed that the condition of affairs
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seriously menaced the safety and welfare of the state as well as of his party. In so far he was justified.
In spite of the hysterical press notices which would indi- cate the contrary, there was never a time when the Ku Klux were disturbers of general public peace and order. In fact, for a time, at least, after their appearance, there was improve- ment in this respect. The courts were undisturbed and the
CASWELL HOLT OF ALAMANCE COUNTY, WHO WAS WHIPPED AND SHOT BY THE KU KLUX This photograph was taken in 1912, while he was in the employ of the former county chief of the Ku Klux
officers of the law went unhindered about their duties. Wrong- doers and radical politicians, names then too often synony- mous, trembled, a small class of timid whites became alarmed. and panic, not soon allayed, spread among the negroes, but the mass of the white people remained undisturbed and un- afraid.
The legislature in 1869, it will be recalled, had made going
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on the highway masked, painted, or disguised, a felony, and Governor Holden had formally proclaimed his intention to enforce the law. The legislature at the same session author- ized him to employ a force of detectives to arrest fugitives from justice. The governor construed the law liberally and planned a secret campaign against the Ku Klux which failed in spite of the activities of some twenty detectives. In Le- noir and Greene, Judge Thomas ended the operations of the secret orders. The center of disturbance was Judge Tour- gee's district, and while he talked loudly and was not lacking in personal courage, he accomplished nothing. Militia was sent to various places with no success and finally the governor threatened to declare several counties in a state of insurrec- tion. Such was the situation in the state when the legisla- ture met for its third and final session.
The third and last session of the "mongrel" legislature differed greatly from its predecessors. The credit of the state was gone, all resources were taxed to their limit, and there remained nothing for the corrupt to exploit; nothing to steal. The haughty and proscriptive spirit displayed by the majority had disappeared, and the hitherto despised minority began to assume importance as the majority of a rapidly ap- proaching tomorrow which would bring a reckoning. In con- sequence, unity departed from the republicans, and, during most of the session, the conservative minority drove before them the badly-demoralized majority.
The governor's message was of little importance except in respect to three things. He recommended the payment of the interest on the debt, declaring that the state had received the money from the bonds, but advised against any further increase of the debt. He advised an appeal to Congress for a general amnesty bill, not because he thought amnesty was deserved, but because it would relieve friction. Most im- portant of all, was a request to the legislature to increase his power in the use of the militia. Governor Holden evi- dently desired to appear to his political opponents equipped with an olive branch and a sword.
Immediately after the session began, bills to carry out the governor's suggestions were introduced. A resolution favor-
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ing general amnesty passed both houses by good majorities. One introduced by Seymour endorsing the validity of the debt, opposing any increase, and condemning repudiation, failed to pass. The debate indicated clearly that most of the members did not expect the bonds to be paid.
The third recommendation of the governor resulted in a bill "for the better protection of life and property," intro- duced in December by Senator Shoffner, of Alamance, and thereafter known by his name. The author of it, however, was John Pool and rumor had it that Shoffner was paid a considerable sum of money for consenting to father it. The act empowered the governor, whenever, in his judgment, the civil authorities in any county were unable to protect its citi- zens, to declare the county in a state of insurrection and to call into active service the militia of the state for its suppres- sion. The judges and solicitors were given power to remove to another county the trial of any person indicted in any county for murder, conspiracy, or going masked, painted, or disguised. All expenses incident to either action were to be borne by the county concerned, the privilege being given to the county to tax the costs upon any persons convicted. The bill was vehemently opposed by the conservatives who de- clared it unnecessary and denounced it as unconstitutional and intended simply to give the governor unlimited military power to use for political purposes. Republican sentiment was not at all united on it. W. T. Gunter, of Chatham, an intense republican, led the fight on it in the House and even Deweese wrote many letters from Washington in opposition to its pass- age. Seymour, who was its chief defender, acknowledged that it was wrong in. principle but declared that the times de- manded it. In private conversation, he made no secret of the fact that it was passed as the only hope of holding the state republican. The chief defense of the republicans was that the bill did not authorize the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.
At least three-fourths of the session was spent in discus- sion of proposed investigations of the charges of fraud. The thieves, the Standard, the carpet-baggers, and some partisans fought every proposal, declaring them stabs at the republican
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party and urging the republican members to act with repub- licans and not with enemies and to disregard a "snarling minority." Littlefield ran away from Raleigh but finally ap- peared before the House in committee of the whole where, under the protection of Sinclair, Seymour, French, Downing and James H. Harris, he was not seriously embarrassed. Swepson was summoned but with the aid of the governor es- caped. Numerous minor investigations were made and finally a commission to investigate the whole question of fraud was authorized . Lieutenant-Governor Caldwell, a scrupulously honest, if partisan, man appointed on it Thomas Bragg, Sam- uel F. Phillips, and W. L. Scott, a group commanding general confidence. Not much time was allowed them but the testi- mony taken by them was damning. Littlefield saw the dan- ger and gave an oyster supper to the republican members with an unlimited supply of liquor. A large number got drunk, nineteen senators agreed to secure the abolition of the commission, and the law was repealed on the following day.
In the meantime something more than investigation had been accomplished. As an interesting indication of senti- ment, it is notable that the Senate passed a resolution for- bidding the treasurer to pay any interest on the special tax bonds until further action by the legislature. Finally, all appropriations of bonds to railroads were repealed and the companies were directed to return to the state all which were unsold.
The radical element sought to prolong the life of the legis- lature by taking advantage of an ambiguity in the constitution which Tourgee said had been inserted for that very purpose, but public opinion was too strong, and after providing for an election in August the Legislature on March 28, 1870, ad- journed sine die. During its term it had been in session 259 days and in per diem and mileage alone had cost the state $349,705.30. Printing had cost more than $50,000 and inci- dental expenses were probably more than $200,000. How great was the cost to the state of their activities, viewed from financial, economic, social, moral and political standpoints, is of course beyond human surmise.
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