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in spite of the fact that the assessed property valuation was only $130,000,000 and that the value of the lands had fallen 50 per cent. in the decade from 1860 to 1870. The increase in taxation was fourfold.*

The Ku Klux in North Carolina had practically died out by 1870 but Governor Holden, in order to retain his hold on the State and make political capital for the next election to be held in August, 1870, on March 7 declared Alamance county, and on July 8 Caswell county, in a state of insurrection because of alleged Ku Klux outrages. Holden proceeded to raise a force of State troops under the Shaffner act. These troops, 350 strong, who in violation of the law were chiefly from the mountains of East Tennessee, began to terrorize the entire section, and about a hundred citizens, the majority of whom were in good standing, were arrested and thrown into jail. The State supreme court refused relief and a judge of the United States district court issued a writ of habeas corpus requiring the commander of the sol

* J. G. de R. Hamilton, Reconstruction in North Carolina. Myrta L. Avary, in Dixie After the War, p. 307, says: "In North Carolina, $420,000 in railroad stock belonging to the Educational Fund for the Benefit of Poor Children were sold for $158,000 to be applied in part payment of extended per diems of legislators. These legislators gave at the State expense lavish entertainments, and kept a bar and house of prostitution in the Capitol; took trips to New York and gambled away State funds by thousands. There was money enough for the governor to raise and equip two regiments, one of negroes, for intimidation of whites, but none for education." For the disposition of this fraudulent debt see Scott, Repudiation of State Debts, pp. 67-68.

*

diers to produce the prisoners in court.

Holden had in the meantime secured permission from President Grant to use the Federal troops already in the State and an additional regiment was sent. But the troops were of little avail, as the judge's action had made it possible to call upon these Federal troops to execute the order of the Federal court. As Holden wished to detain the prisoners he appealed to Grant, but the latter, through Attorney-General Akerman, upheld the action of the judge. Therefore when the prisoners were brought into court on August 23, the judge discharged them from "unlawful custody."

Meanwhile the election took place (August 4) and Holden's actions, instead of helping his cause, reacted on him and his party in startling fashion.† The Democrats, stirred to extra efforts carried the State by 4,000 majority and elected five of the seven Congressmen, 32 of the 50 members of the State Senate and 75 of the 120 members of the House. Holden was then impeached, was found guilty March 22, 1871, and removed from office.

Upon some rather meagre and unreliable information President Grant sent a message to Congress March 23, 1871, in which he stated that life and

553.

Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia, 1870, pp. 549

Robert Somers, The Southern States Since the War, p. 35.

‡ Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia, 1870, p. 553; Cox, Three Decades, pp. 455-463, 495-500.

property were insecure in some of the 'States,' and the carrying of the mails and the collection of the revenue dangerous."'* As the States did not possess power to correct these evils, and as it was also doubtful if the President had authority, Grant asked for legislation giving him power to adequately handle the situation. In answer to the appeal Congress on April 20, 1871, passed another enforcement act-the so called Ku Klux Act - which extended the powers and jurisdiction of the United States courts, and, declaring that a state of war existed in the South, empowered the President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and to use the army and navy to enforce the laws. The Federal judges were also empowered to exclude from juries all persons supposed to be in sympathy with the Ku Klux movement. There was much opposition to the passage of this act because it was thought by many to be unconstitutional, but despite the arguments of such powerful constitutional lawyers as Trumbull and Thurman it was enacted into law. In 1882, however, the opinions of the opponents of the act were up

Richardson, Messages and Papers, vol. vii., p. 127; Boutwell, Reminiscences, vol. ii., p. 252.

Burgess, Reconstruction, p. 258, says the first part of this act "was unquestionably an unconstitutional encroachment upon the powers of the 'States' in so far as it related to the protection of political rights against infraction or against conspiracy for the purpose of infraction, by private persons. The second part was probably within the powers of Congress, but it was a most extreme use of its powers." See Statutes-atLarge, vol. xvii., p. 13.

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Before Congress passed the Ku Klux Act, the President (March 24, 1871) by proclamation called attention to the turbulent state of affairs in South Carolina. A few days after the passage of the Ku Klux Act the President threatened to use the authority vested in him by that act to suppress the lawlessness. On October 12, 1871, he issued a proclamation declaring that combinations and conspiracies were obstructing the execution of the laws in nine counties and calling upon those persons concerned in these combinations to disperse. Five days passed and as the "insurgents" had not dispersed the President declared that they were in "rebellion" against the United. States. He therefore suspended the use of the writ of habeas corpus in those counties.† Many persons were arrested and some were convicted and punished, but the fact that the Ku Klux operations practically ceased soon afterward may probably be attributed more to the moral effect of Grant's prompt use of his power than to the number of arrests and convictions.‡

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On April 7, 1871, Congress had appointed a joint committee of the two Houses (seven Senators and fourteen Representatives) "to inquire into the condition of affairs in the late insurrectionary States." The reports of this committee were rendered to Congress February 19, 1872.* The majority report, submitted by Senator John Scott, of Pennsylvania, and signed by four Senators and eight Representatives, all Republicans, was a sharp indictment of the Ku Klux, charging the Klan with all manner of outrages murder, arson, intimidation, whippings, destruction of property, etc.- and with being " a political organization whose purpose is to put the Democratic party up and the radical party down.' The majority admitted corruption corruption and venality among the governments established by the Republicans, but said this was the fault of "a large portion of the wealthy and educated men "who neglected their duties as citizens."

66

Representative J. B. Beck, of Kentucky, submitted the minority report, which was signed by the eight Democratic members of the Committee. In determining the States to be covered. by the report, the Republicans of the Committee by a party vote decided that Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana should not be included. The Democrats in making their report, claimed that this was an admission by the Republicans "that there are no disorders, no outrages,

* House Report No. 22, 42d Congress, 2d session.

on the part of the people" in those States. With regard to Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and North and South Carolina, the Democrats claimed that there never was a disguised band in more than 40 out of the 420 counties in these States, and while they did not attempt to deny that crimes had been perpetrated or to excuse them, they did deny that there was any general organization for the purpose charged. They further said that "no people had ever been so mercilessly robbed and plundered, so wantonly and causelessly humiliated and degraded, so recklessly exposed to the rapacity and lust of the ignorant of their own community and of the other States," as the Southern people. They said that in Texas, Arkansas and South Carolina "the emancipated slave regiments parade in State or Federal uniform, armed cap-a-pie, with the most approved weapons

while the white men are denied the right to bear arms or to organize, even as militia, for the protection of their homes, their property, or the persons of their wives and their children." They also claimed that the conduct of the wrong-doers was not endorsed "6 by any respectable number of the white people in any State."

This minority report, while flavored with partisanship, is very near to the truth, as the Democrats could well afford to state plain, uncolored facts without attempting to offer excuses for violence. On the other hand the Republicans were thrown on the

defensive altogether, for having established these governments and supervised them while the party controlled Congress, they had no plausible excuses to offer for the rottenness and corruption that existed. The Republican policy of universal negro suffrage had resulted disastrously and most shamefully and the Republicans knew it; in their report, therefore, they laid great emphasis on the most inconsequential disorders, juggled facts to suit the necessity and wherever possible suppressed every bit of evidence damaging to their cause.

For some time Congress had been removing the disabilities imposed upon Southerners by the Fourteenth Amendment, but up to this time these removals had been chiefly in the interest of the Republican party. But the elections of 1870 had gone against the Republicans and they had lost the two-thirds majority in the House which they had had for a number of

years. Consequently they became they became more liberal and less discriminating regarding the amnesty extended, now excluding from the privileges of amnesty only the "principal authors of the rebellion, the chief criminals."* President Grant, in his message of December 4, 1871, recommended that Congress be more lenient and in this month the Senate began its discussion of a bill providing "almost universal amnesty which had passed the House at the previous session.†

*Blaine, vol ii., p. 512.

† April 10, 1871. See Blaine, vol. ii., p. 512.

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Charles Sumner prevented the speedy passage of the House bill by insisting that his supplementary Civil Rights bill be adopted as an amendment.

amendment. Pierce summarizes this

bill as "a measure securing equality of civil rights to the colored people and prohibiting discrimination against them by common carriers of passengers, by proprietors of theatres and inns, managers of schools, of cemeteries, and of churches or as to service as jurors in any courts, State or National." Though several of his colleagues urged him to withdraw his bill Sumner insisted upon coupling it with the Amnesty bill, even at the risk Sumner's of defeating them both. bill required only a majority to pass it, while the Amnesty bill required a two-thirds vote, but Sumner thought that the Democrats would vote for his measure for the sake of securing the amnesty. But he was wrong, for the vote on his amendment was a tie, Vice-President Colfax casting the vote necessary to its adoption, while the twin measure failed by a vote of 33 to 19. No further action was taken until May 8-9, 1872, when another amnesty bill, passed by the House, was taken up in the Senate. Again Sumner coupled his Civil Rights bill to the House bill and again the measure failed to secure the required vote. But the House once more passed an

* Sumner, vol. iv., p. 499 et seq.

Sumner's Works, vol. xiv.,: Foulke's Morton, vol. ii.; Storey, Sumner, pp. 402-405.

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amnesty bill which had been reported May 13 from the House Committee on the Judiciary by Benjamin F. Butler. On May 21 the Senate took the bill under consideration and on the 22d, after voting down Sumner's Civil Sumner's Civil Rights bill and several other amendments, passed the bill by a vote of 38 to 2. Sumner was one of the two who voted against the bill because "the time has not come for amnesty," further saying "You must be just to the colored race before you are generous to former rebels."*

This bill removed the political disabilities imposed by the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment from all persons excepting members of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses, and heads of departments, members of diplomatic corps, and officers of the army and navy who had engaged in the secession. The act relieved of political disabilities not less, it was estimated, than 150,000 persons of capacity and experience in public life, and left between 300 and 500 persons under the cloud of disfranchisement. The passage of the act caused the dismissal of a large number of cases by the courts. This also allowed the swearing in of some of the members of Congress from the Southern States who had not been seated because of their disabilities. Practically, for the first time since the opening of

the war, every seat in Congress was now filled and the representation of every State in the Union was complete.

The result of the radical Republican doctrines concerning the reconstruction is plainly seen in the political complexion of the membership of the House of the Forty-second Congress, which sat from March 4, 1871 to March 4, 1873. The Republicans had had a large majority in the previous Congress, but now they could only muster a majority of 35 and on questions concerning the South could not even secure a strictly party vote. This change is apparent in the vote on measures introduced in the House. By the provisions of the Ku Klux Act of April 20, 1871, the President was given authority to suspend the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus, but this authorization expired with the present session of Congress. An attempt was then made by the Republicans to extend this provision to March 4, 1873. A bill for that purpose passed the Senate, but in the House the two attempts to pass it were met with adverse votes of 108 to 94 and 89 to 56, on May 28 and June 7, 1872, respectively.

At this session also Congress passed an amendment (approved June 10, 1872) to the Federal Election Act of February 28, 1871, greatly "broadening the scope of Federal interference at elections, but on the other hand ex

* Globe, pp. 3931, 4323, 42d Congress, 2d session.