Confederate "Heritage" Month 2016, April 25: Slavery and the development of white racist "theory"

Earlier this month I quoted from Slavery and the Martial South Journal of Negro History 37:1 (Jan 1952) on the practical militarization that the slavery system produced in the slaveowning societies of the South.

Toward the end of the article, he also refers to the development of pseudo-scientific racism and its embrace and encouragement from the slaveowners:

The South's society, as described by its proponents, was to rest on the inequality of men in law and economics. Slavery was a positive good. South Carolina's James H. Hammond said that slavery was "the greatest of all blessings which a kind providence has bestowed upon the South." It gave to the white man the only basis on which he could do something for a group of hopelessly inferior human beings. The view of the inferiority of the Negro was organized into a body of systematic thought by the scientists and social scientists of the South and out of it emerged a doctrine of racial superiority that justified any kind of control that the owner established and maintained over the slave. The racial basis of slavery gave Southern leaders an effective means of solidifying the economically divergent elements among the whites. At the same time, it strengthened the ardor with which most white Southerners were willing to fight to preserve slavery. The sharp cleavage between slavery and freedom was made even sharper by the factor of race. All slaves belonged to a degraded, "inferior" race; and, by the same token, all whites, however wretched some of them might be, were superior. In a society where race was so important, the whites at the lowest rung could satisfy themselves because they could identify themselves with the most privileged of the community. "Color alone is here the badge of distinction, the true mark of aristocracy," said Thomas Dew, "and all who are white are equal in spite of the variety of occupation." [my emphasis]

In 1776, the supporters of the Declaration of Independence, including the slaveowner who wrote it, could live with the contradiction between the classical liberal political notion that "all men are created equal" and the reality of chattel slavery. As time advanced, the cotton gin boosted the profitability of the slave system and the slaveowning states spent decades organizing their societies around defense of the Peculiar Institution. And the leading defenders of slavery in the US no longer bothered with the polite pretense. Rather, they stated the real basis of their society, "the inequality of men in law and economics," as Franklin summarizes it.

In the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, Stephen Douglas, a "moderate" Democrat by the standards of 1858, declared in the first debate of 08/21/1858:

Mr. Lincoln, following the example and lead of all the little Abolition orators, who go around and lecture in the basements of schools and churches, reads from the Declaration of Independence, that all men were created equal, and then asks, how can you deprive a negro of that equality which God and the Declaration of Independence awards to him? He and they maintain that negro equality is guarantied by the laws of God, and that it is asserted in the Declaration of Independence. If they think so, of course they have a right to say so, and so vote. I do not question Mr. Lincoln's conscientious belief that the negro was made his equal, and hence is his brother, (laughter,) but for my own part, I do not regard the negro as my equal, and positively deny that he is my brother or any kin to me whatever. ("Never." "Hit him again," and cheers.) Lincoln has evidently learned by heart Parson Lovejoy's catechism. (Laughter and applause.) He can repeat it as well as Farnsworth, and he is worthy of a medal from Father Giddings and Fred Douglass for his Abolitionism. (Laughter.) He holds that the negro was born his equal and yours, and that he was endowed with equality by the Almighty, and that no human law can deprive him of these rights which were guarantied to him by the Supreme ruler of the Universe. Now, I do not believe that the Almighty ever intended the negro to be the equal of the white man. ("Never, never.") If he did, he has been a long time demonstrating the fact. (Cheers.) [my emphasis]

The texts here from the Lincoln-Douglas debates are taken from the National Park Service's site, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858.

Lincoln in his proportion of the debate denied that he advocated racial equality: "I had no thought in the world that I was doing anything to bring about a political and social equality of the black and white races." But Lincoln was still intensely aware of the contradiction, including that of his own position. And he was aware that the existence of slavery and the justifications the master class had developed for it were eroding the principle of human equality - or at least male equality - that was at the heart of the democratic convictions of the Declaration (italics in original; my emphasis in bold):

I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. [Loud cheers.] I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects - certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man. [Great applause.]

In the seventh debate of 10/15/1858, Lincoln said this of the Declaration (my emphasis):

At Galesburgh the other day, I said in answer to Judge Douglas, that three years ago there never had been a man, so far as I knew or believed, in the whole world, who had said that the Declaration of Independence did not include negroes in the term "all men." I reassert it to-day. I assert that Judge Douglas and all his friends may search the whole records of the country, and it will be a matter of great astonishment to me if they shall be able to find that one human being three years ago had ever uttered the astounding sentiment that the term "all men" in the Declaration did not include the negro. Do not let me be misunderstood. I know that more than three years ago there were men who, finding this assertion constantly in the way of their schemes to bring about the ascendancy and perpetuation of slavery, denied the truth of it. I know that Mr. Calhoun and all the politicians of his school denied the truth of the Declaration. I know that it ran along in the mouth of some Southern men for a period of years, ending at last in that shameful though rather forcible declaration of Pettit of Indiana, upon the floor of the United States Senate, that the Declaration of Independence was in that respect "a self-evident lie," rather than a self-evident truth. But I say, with a perfect knowledge of all this hawking at the Declaration without directly attacking it, that three years ago there never had lived a man who had ventured to assail it in the sneaking way of pretending to believe it and then asserting it did not include the negro. I believe the first man who ever said it was Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott case, and the next to him was our friend, Stephen A. Douglas. And now it has become the catch-word of the entire party. I would like to call upon his friends every where to consider how they have come in so short a time to view this matter in a way so entirely different from their former belief? to ask whether they are not being borne along by an irresistible current-whither, they know not? [Great applause.]

In an earlier speech not part of the in-person debates (Speech at Chicago, Illinois 07/10/1858) Lincoln explained:

Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with this idea of “don’t care if slavery is voted up or voted down,” for sustaining the Dred Scott decision [A voice—"Hit him again"], for holding that the Declaration of Independence did not mean anything at all, we have Judge Douglas giving his exposition of what the Declaration of Independence means, and we have him saying that the people of America are equal to the people of England. According to his construction, you Germans are not connected with it. Now I ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and endorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this Government into a government of some other form. Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent, and I hold if that course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop with the negro. I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it! [Voices—"me" "no one," &c.] If it is not true let us tear it out! [cries of "no, no,"] let us stick to it then, [cheers] let us stand firmly by it then. [Applause.]

The arguments of Lincoln and Douglas over the meaning of the Declaration of Independence are reminders of how seriously people of that time took that document as a statement of American principles.

As Franklin wrote in 1952, white racism was a major factor in winning allegiance to the Slave Power's rejection of the principles of the Declaration:

White Southerners were, thus, among the first people of the world to develop a militant race superiority. As in other parts of the world where such a notion evolved, these frontier aristocrats sought support for their position by developing a common bond with the less privileged. The obvious basis was race, and outside the white race there was to be found no favor from God, no honor or respect from man. By the time that Europeans were reading Gobineau's Inequality of Human Races Southerners were reading Cartwright's Slavery in the Light of Ethnology. In admitting all whites of the South into the pseudo-nobility of race, Cartwright won their enthusiastic support in the struggle to preserve the integrity and honor of the race. This was a concept of social organization worth fighting for, and the white people of the South entered upon the grim task of exterminating persons and ideas hostile to their way of life. [my emphasis in bold]

Confederate "Heritage" Month 2016, April 10: The martial South and the slave patrols

John Hope Franklin pointed out the effect of the everyday life of the slavery system in creating an authoritarian and martial atmosphere among planters and throughout white Southern society in Slavery and the Martial South Journal of Negro History 37:1 (Jan 1952):

The planter was forced to regard arms as a necessary adjunct to the machinery of control. The lash might be used generously or sparingly, depending on the temperament of the master and the tractability of the slave. There was always the possibility, moreover, of resorting to more deadly weapons. If the slave resisted the "mild" discipline of the lash or undertook to return blow for blow, how else could the master maintain his complete authority except through the use of, or the threat to use, the weapons whose possession was forever denied the slave?

Going about armed with knives and guns became the daily habit of many masters and overseers. And if the armed conquerors, in moments of anger, sometimes turned their weapons against each other, it was no more than was to be expected among an aggregation of armed men. The rule of tyranny by which they lived naturally fostered an independence and self-sufficiency-one is tempted to call it an individual sovereignty-that would, on occasion, burst out in all its fury in their quarrels with each other.

If the relationship between master and slave was that of a superior and a subordinate, a despot or tyrant and a powerless subject, or an armed victor and a vanquished foe, it can almost be described as a state of war. At least it is possible to recognize the martial spirit that pervaded the entire plantation atmosphere. The conduct of the master toward the slave was determined by rules and considerations not unlike those that characterized a military situation. [my emphasis]

Speculations about collective "character" are always dubious, at best.

But Franklin here is not making such an argument. He is pointing out specific patterns of behavior in Southern society that contributed to the practical consequences that ensued. And the periodic outbursts of panic over slave revolts interacted in a poisonous way with this martial state of mind:

The slave was never so completely subjugated as to allay all fears that he would make a desperate, bloody attempt to destroy the institution to which he was bound. Fear and apprehension were relative matters in the ante bellum South; but they were always present. If the slaves seemed satisfied and did not appear to be up to some deviltry, such as running away or revolting, the fears, while still present, were not easily discernible. But if there was even the slightest rumor of an uprising, the entire countryside was not only terrified, but the alarm was sounded. All whites - loyal Negroes, too - were expected to do their share to prevent death and destruction from stalking through the land and to restore the natural foe to his natural condition. [my enphasis]

Franklin connects this phenomenon directly to the formation of the slave patrols, which were a key tool for giving the nonslaveowning whites a psychological stake in the slave system:

Despite the fact that the plantation sought to be self-sufficient and succeeded in many respects, the maintenance of a stable institution of slavery was so important that owners early sought the cooperation of the entire community. This cooperation took the form of the patrol, which became an established institution in most areas of the South at an early date. There were many variations in the size and organization of the patrol. Rather typical was the South Carolina patrol that was established by law in 1690. The law set up patrol detachments of ten men under the captain of a militia company. All white men were eligible for patrol service. In 1819 all white males over eighteen were made liable for patrol duty, the non-slaveholders being excused from duty upon reaching the age of forty-five.

This kind of militarization of Southern civil government and social life meant in practice that at the start of the Civil War, the South had an initial advantage in military preparedness because more Southern men had current military training of some sort.

Bertram Wyatt-Brown gives a couple of examples of how this violent and authoritarian mentality played out in daily practice:

It was a matter of personal reputation to prove oneself a master of events to one's family and household, as well as to the world at large. For instance, when Robert E. Lee of Arlington, Virginia, discovered that two young slaves bad run away to Pennsylvania, he had them sought after and returned. An anonymous critic informed the Northern public, through the New York Tribune, that Lee had personally supervised their flogging. Lee was responsible for some sixty-three slaves, not all of whom could be usefully employed at the Arlington plantation. He sent some to eastern Virginia, particularly the rebellious ones, who would have less opportunity there to flee northward. Perhaps, as Douglas Southall Freeman claims, that was the extent of his reaction to the runaways' offense. Wesley Norris, one of the pair, gave a grim account of the whipping, however. He said that Lee bad watched the proceedings with eyes black with fury and had ordered brine poured into the wounds. Whether this and like reports are to be believed, it must be remembered that even the gentlest masters-and Lee was reputedly one of them-found occasion when there seemed to them very little choice about the use of coercion. It would not do for any slave to take flagrant advantage of a master's delicacy of conscience. To push too hard against the institution or against an owner's sense of self-esteem was to threaten the social order as it was then understood. Failure to react appropriately could be misinterpreted, not only by the compliant slaves but by the white community, too. The moral problem was itself built into the Southern ethic. One simply could not be made to look inept, powerless, or squeamish. For these reasons, in a case about which there can be no doubts, the Rev. Charles Colcock Jones of Liberty County, Georgia, had a slave girl flogged until she revealed the name of the individual who had fathered a mulatto child she had given birth to. The gentleman in question had been the elderly clergyman's secretary, a member, temporarily, of the household. Jones was incensed at this breach of the rules regarding hospitality, and his torture of the mother to confirm his suspicions was the consequence.

This shows an integral side of what the title of Wyatt-Brown's book from which that quote is taken, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (1982).

John Hope Franklin's Reconstruction after the Civil War

One serious lack in the way many people in the US learn about wars through various media is that they so often concentrate on the wars themselves, the battles and the immediate military concerns. While they often lack much historical context on what led up to the war and what followed.

I would guess that this is more true with the American Civil War than with any other.

And in many ways, getting a realistic understanding of the Civil War also involves getting a reality-based understanding of the postwar Reconstruction period. Because much of the subsequent narrative about the Civil War that became familiar to several generations of white Americans all over the country has its roots in Reconstruction and the "Redemption" movement that overthrew it by means fair and foul.

John Hope Franklin's popular history Reconstruction after the Civil War was first published in 1964 and reissued in an updated 2nd edition, on which this post is based. Franklin's book proves once again that "popular" history doesn't have to be superficial or shallow.

Franklin gives a good account of initial problem caused by President Andrew Johnson's relatively mild approach to Reconstruction. Johnson in some ways was a good Jacksonian Democrat. Franklin is relatively generous to Johnson:

Johnson's position was misunderstood, even in those early days. As a Unionist he was not anti-Southern. He subscribed to the honored Southern dogma of states' rights, but he hated the planter class whose reckless policies he believed to be responsible for secession and war. Before the war he had not been anti-slavery. He owned eight slaves and held no racial views that could be regarded as unorthodox in the South. Although a Democrat, he was more devoted to Lincoln and to what he believed were Lincoln's policies than many staunch Republicans. It was his hypersensitivity and obstinacy that caused him to miss entirely the great lessons of Lincoln's statesmanship - flexibility, adjustment, compassion.

But even an generous attitude toward that failed President doesn't make Franklin miss the effects of his 1865-1867 program on making it much more difficult to restore the Southern states as newly democratized entities, with African-American citizens enjoying the equal rights that were newly guaranteed to them by the Constitution.

As early as 1866, major anti-black riots in Memphis (April 30-May 2) and New Orleans (July 30) were sending out screaming warning signals of what lay in store, and heralded the failure of Johnson's policy of putting minimal political restrictions of former Confederate officers and civil office-holders. In the Memphis race riot, 46 blacks were killed and 80 wounded. One of the city newspapers, the Avalanche, proclaimed a new day for white people: "Soon we shall have no more black troops among us. Thank heaven the white race are once more rulers of Memphis."

The New Orleans race riot killed around 34 blacks and wounded over 200. One white man was injured in the Memphis incident. Four whites died in New Orleans and ten were injured.

After the Radical Republicans gained in the 1866 Congressional elections, they began taking more Congressional control of Reconstruction, beginning with the Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867. Under Congressional Reconstruction, as it has often been called, Congress required the reorganization of many Southern state governments and better protection for black citizens. There were also attempts to address the pressing problems of educating the former slaves and their children - a serious problem in that the Southern slavery laws strictly forbade teaching slaves to read.

Some basic mistakes were made on the Union side in managing the termination of hostilities and the aftermath. One of the most serious was allowing decommissioned Confederate soldiers to retain their weapons, many of which would later be used to attack blacks, Republicans and democratically-elected state governments.

Johnson's mild Reconstruction plan was another. As Franklin relates, the South had been devastated by the war and there was little spirit among white Southerners immediately after the conflict's end to mount resistance. Swiftly empowering former slaveowners and former Confederate officials restored their spirits as well as their practical ability to organize anti-democracy activities, which were essentially synonymous with anti-black and anti-Republican Party activities.

Not providing sufficient federal troops to maintain law and order in the South was also a serious error. Franklin makes an important point. It's true that in the mid-1870s, when violent Redeemer resistance came out into the open and reached its zenith, too few federal soldiers were available in the South to maintain the democratic state governments in office.

But the initial role of the occupying forces was also very limited, far more so than Lost Cause demonology would have us believe, as Franklin explains:

The strength and influence of the military forces in the South between 1867 and 1877 have frequently been exaggerated. Even during those years the opponents of congressional reconstruction in their bitter tirades sought to convey the impression that hordes of federal soldiers were stalking through the land on a permanent "Sherman's March." They made the most out of incidents in which persons seeking to obstruct the execution of the congressional program were tried before military tribunals. They were forced to admit, however, that not all the federal troops were reprehensible characters. Some local observers were inclined to think that some members of the army of occupation were too friendly. In South Carolina, for example, the troops were regular army men who got along well with the local population. If anything, they tended to favor the whites and oppress the blacks.

Federal troops were present in the former Confederate states to assist the commanding generals in the task of setting up the new governments. Once this was done, they retired to a less conspicuous role or were withdrawn altogether. As the reconstruction governments became established, the commanding generals relinquished their authority. This usually occurred shortly after the first general election following the ratification of the state constitution or shortly after the inauguration of the new government. Despite the claims of contemporary opponents of Radical Reconstruction or their modern followers, federal military activity in the former Confederacy during the period was negligible. (my emphasis)

Another myth of the Lost Cause dogma is that of the "Black and Tan" state governments, i.e., oppressive and massively corrupt state governments supposedly dominated by vindictive blacks and Radical Republicans. Franklin also debunks that claim:

No group has attracted more attention or has had its role more misrepresented by contemporaries and by posterity than Southern blacks during Radical Reconstruction. The period has been described as one of "Negro rule," as one of gross perfidy with blacks as the central figures, since the reins of misgovernment were supposedly held by black militiamen. Blacks were not in control of the state governments at any time anywhere in the South. They held public office and, at times, played important parts in the public life of their respective states. But it would be stretching a point to say that their roles were dominant, and it would be hopelessly distorting the picture to suggest that they ruled the South. It was in South Carolina that they had the greatest numerical strength. In the first legislature there were eighty-seven blacks and forty whites. From the outset, however, whites controlled the state senate and in 1874 the lower house as well. At all times the governor was white. There were two black lieutenant governors, Alonzo J. Ransier in 1870 and Richard H. Gleaves in 1872. There were other black leaders. Samuel J. Lee was speaker of the House in 1872 and Robert B. Elliot in 1874. From 1868 to 1872 Francis L. Cardozo was secretary of state, and from 1872 to 1876 he was state treasurer. Jonathan J. Wright, a member of the Pennsylvania bar before coming to South Carolina, sat on the state supreme court for seven years, but he was the only African American to achieve a judicial position of that level in any state. (my emphasis)

Franklin devotes considerable attention to the violence directed at black citizens by vigilante/terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

But he also stresses the important point that not all Reconstruction governments were overthrown by the massive violence employed by the Redeemers in Mississippi in 1875, and in Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina in the following year. Though violence against blacks and Republicans was a pervasive problem in the South, some of the Radical governments were expelled by relying primarily on peaceful means, albeit with a background of violent threat and intimidation from terrorist groups.

And, although the period of Radical Reconstruction is typically taken to be the decade of 1867-1877, Franklin writes:

Still another widely held misconception is that the reconstruction period was of long duration. It is usually regarded as having lasted for at least a decade, and most of the criticism of the "excesses" of Radical Reconstruction implies that these excesses were all the more unbearable because of this "long" period of time. The contention is that not until Hayes withdrew the troops in 1877 was Radical Reconstruction "overthrown" and the Southern states "redeemed." The fact is that few troops were left in the South in 1877 and only three states could be considered "unredeemed" by this time. When James M. Smith, Democrat, was inaugurated as governor of Georgia in 1871, he spoke of the "long and cheerless night of misrule" from which the people of Georgia were emerging. This "unhappy" period had lasted for less than two years, a portion of which time the legislature was controlled by Democrats and all of which time native whites, with strong Confederate sympathies, were dominant. (my emphasis)

This habit of white folks whining in exaggerated and often plain dishonest ways was regrettably to become as much as Southern specialty and fried chicken in subsequent decades.

The period from their admission as "reconstructed" states to the time of Democratic or Conservative victories may be regarded as the maximum extent of so-called Radical control of the former Confederate states. While these periods varied from state to state, they were less than a decade except in Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana. A recent historian of reconstruction observed that Virginia "escaped simon-pure Radical rule entirely." Indeed, the Radicals, feuding among themselves, were unable to win the first election after the readmission of Virginia, with the result that the Democrats became the controlling party in 1870, the very year of readmission. In North Carolina the Radicals lost their grip in 1870, after two years of difficult and uncertain rule. In the same year, Tennessee went Conservative, ending a four-year period as the first state of the former Confederacy to be reconstructed. The Democrats won Texas in 1873 and Alabama and Arkansas in the following year. Mississippi capitulated in 1875. Thus, within ten years after the surrender at Appomattox—including two years of native white rule - eight states had been "redeemed," and their redemption had been effected within a range of a few months to seven years after their readmission to the Union. (my emphasis)

The Presidential election of 1876 marks a convenient turning point to peg when the decisive turn occurred in which white Northerners and white Southerners reconciled among themselves at the expense of African-American rights.

Lost Cause advocates still make much of the racism of Northern whites during this period. In fact, its always been part of the Lost Cause schtick to claim that race relations were at least as contentious in non-Southern states as in the former Confederacy. Hail, boy, blacks and whites git along much better here in the South as they do in most parts of the country! Or so the story goes.

What is true is that whites as a group sold out their African-American fellow citizens:

Acceptance [of the only quasi-democratic "Redeemer" state governments] involved, most of all, Northern acquiescence in the Southern view of blacks. Southerners dominated all expressions of opinion regarding the qualities and characteristics of blacks. As Sterling Brown has observed, the "authoritative" white Southern writers described them in seven categories: the Contented Slave, the Wretched Freedman, the Comic Negro, the Brute Negro, the Tragic Mulatto, the Local Color Negro, and the Exotic Primitive. These writers aggressively advanced the concept of the inherent inferiority of blacks. And, as Rayford Logan has pointed out, Northerners seemed quite content with the white Southerners' contentions in this regard, thus giving the Lost Cause a notable victory in "the market place of free ideas" in the North. (my emphasis)

The result of the 1876 Presidential election was in dispute, with Republican Rutherford Hayes eventually gained 185 Electoral College to Democrat Samuel Tilden. Not for the last time, the uncertainty involved disputed electors in Florida; South Carolina and Lousiana also had disputed electors in 1876.

The resolution of the election involved a notorious deal called the Wormley House Bargain, in which the Democrats agreed to let the Republicans keep the Presidency if the Republicans agreed to withdraw all remaining federal troops from the South. But Franklin argues, following C. Vann Woodward, that the importance of that deal in ending Reconstruction have been exaggerated. The Reconstruction governments had all be "redeemed" (by whites) by that time. Tilden was also committed to withdrawing the federal troops, so there didn't need to be a Republican President to accomplish that.

The sweetener for the deal was an agreement by the Republicans to support federal subsidies for Southern railway routes. The Southerners also agreed to vote for James Garfield for Speaker of the House. Both pieces of the bargain fell through when it came time to deliver. In any case, "Radical Reconstruction was no more."

Tags: civil war, john hope franklin, reconstruction, us civil war

Confederate "Heritage" Month, April 21: The first Ku Klux Klan and white Christian terrorism

The Thomas Nast cartoon above, titled "The Union as it Was", first appeared in Harper's Weekly of 10/24/1874 as a comment on the white Christian terrorist groups that former Confederates had organized in the South to deprive newly-enfranched black men of the vote and both black men and women of their civil rights.

The most famous of those groups was the Ku Klux Klan, though it was only one among a number of such groups. The "White League" pictured in Nast's cartoon was another name used by these anti-democracy Christian terrorist groups. The generic name "Ku Klux Klan" became a common shorthand for such groups generally. The KKK as such was largely suppressed at the time, though other groups continued to use violence and coercion to overthrown the democratic Reconstruction governments by terrorizing Republican voters (both black and white) and by massive "voter fraud" (to use the current phrase, only then it was very real) and corruption. The Klan of this era is now referred to as the "first Klan", because the later groups that went by that name were not directly connected to the earlier versions. The 1920s were actually the peak of political influence for the KKK nationally.

Kenneth Stammp described the activities of the KKK and related Christian terrorist groups in The Era of Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (1966):

Organized terrorism was popularly associated with the Ku Klux Klan, formed in Tennessee in 1866, but the Klan was only one of many such organizations, which included the Knights of the White Camelia, the White Brotherhood, the Pale Faces, and the '76 Association. These societies drew their membership chiefly, but by no means exclusively, from the poor whites and yeoman farmers, who apparently found their rituals and organizational terminology, as well as their purposes, irresistible. The local Klan units were called dens; these were organized into provinces, the provinces into dominions, the dominions into realms, and the whole into an empire, "The Invisible Empire of the South." At the head was a grand wizard and ten genii; subordinate to them were grand dragons, furies, hydras, titans, and night-hawks. Members of the dens were called ghouls, and the den master was a Cyclops. "This is an institution of Chivalry, Humanity, Mercy, and Patriotism," declared the Klan's prescript, "embodying in its genius and its principles all that is chivalric in conduct, noble in sentiment, generous in manhood, and patriotic in purpose." Its purposes were, among others, to "protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless" and to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Presumably in pursuit of these goals candidates for membership had to affirm that they were "opposed to negro equality, both social and political," and "in favor of a white man's government." (my emphasis)

Nathan Bedford Forrest, early Ku Klux Klan leader and general whose troops massacred black Union prisoners of war at Fort Pillow

The Confederate cavalry General Nathan Bedford Forrest was one of the main leaders of the early Klan and is considered to be one of its founders, possibly also the first "grand dragon" who presided over the first convention of the Invisible Empire of the South held in Nashville in 1867. Forrest was notorious for what was known as the Fort Pillow Massacre, in which soldiers under his command murdered black Union prisoners of war.

The Lost Cause view romanticized the Klan terrorists of this period. In the Gone With the Wind movie, we see Scarlett O'Hara (Scarlett Kennedy at the time) attacked by men who tried to pull her out of her wagon as she rode near their encampment. She's saved by a former family slave. After that, her husband Frank Kennedy goes out with a group of white men to raze the black emcampment. Rhett Butler goes out and saves some of them from a Federal soldiers' ambush, though Frank doesn't make it back. Scarlett is far more concerned about her beloved Ashley Wilkes, who is wounded but Rhett cons the soldiers who show up at the mansion into thinking Ashley is just drunk. No particular organization is mentioned in connection with that incident in the movie.

In Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel, she is more explicit. Describing the scene of the women at the mansion waiting for the men to return, she writes:

"Where is Ashley? What has happened to him, Melly?" cried Scarlett.

"Where's your husband? Aren't you interested in him?" India's pale eyes blazed with insane malice as she crumpled and straightened the torn towel she had been mending.

"India, please!" Melanie had mastered her voice but her white, shaken face and tortured eyes showed the strain under which she was laboring. "Scarlett, perhaps we should have told you but—but—you had been through so much this afternoon that we — that Frank didn't think—and you were always so outspoken against the Klan—"

"The Klan—"

At first, Scarlett spoke the word as if she had never heard it before and had no comprehension of its meaning and then:

"The Klan!" she almost screamed it. "Ashley isn't in the Klan! Frank can't be! Oh, he promised me!"

"Of course, Mr. Kennedy is in the Klan and Ashley, too, and all the men we know," cried India. "They are men, aren't they? And white men and Southerners. You should have been proud of him instead of making him sneak out as though it were something shameful and -"

"You all have known all along and I didn't -"

"We were afraid it would upset you," said Melanie sorrowfully.

"Then that's where they go when they're supposed to be at the political meetings? Oh, he promised me! Now, the Yankees will come and take my mills and the store and put him in jail - oh, what did Rhett Butler mean?" (my emphasis)

This positive view of the Klan was very much part of the Lost Cause "heritage". I should point out here that Scarlett's opposition to Ashley's and Frank's being part of the Klan was due to her worry for Ashley's safety and her selfish desire to protect her property from being confiscated by the Yankees. It functions in the story as a sign of weakness of character, not as some kind of principled opposition to white Christian terrorism.

Stammp points out that Congress passed three "Force Acts" (1870 and two in 1871) and the Grant administration at that time did take steps to preserve democracy in face of its terrorist opponents:

Additional federal troops were sent into the South, adn President Grant suspended the write of habeas corpus in a number of South Carolina counties [where Christian terrorist violence was particular severe]. After scores of arrests, fines and imprisonments, the Klan's power was finally broken, and by 1872 it had almost disappeared.

As I mentioned, though, and as Stammp proceeds to describe, that didn't end the violence and attempts to suppress democratic government in the South, attempts that eventually succeeded. John Hope Franklin and Alfred Moos, Jr., describe the disgraceful process in From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (8th edition; 2003):

The overthrow of the Radicals [pro-democracy Republicans] was accomplished not only by [white] Southerners returning to political action and restoring Conservative governments but also by other circumstances favorable to white Southerners. Intimidation of blacks was effective. Even where there were no riots, whites kept blacks from the polls by terrorism and thus ensured victory for the Democratic party. After the official dissolution of the Ku Klux Klan in 1869, other methods of intimidation were employed to render blacks politically inconsequential. Indeed, intimidation was most effective after 1870, although the Ku Klux Klan disclaimed all responsibility because of the increasing violence. The crops of blacks were destroyed, their barns and houses burned, and they were whipped and lynched for voting Republican. Organized whites became bolder as they patrolled polling places to guarantee "fair, peaceful, and Democratic" elections.

Tags: christian terrorism, john hope franklin, kenneth stampp, ku klux klan, reconstruction