"The judiciary," the expert a.s.serts, "was the best department of government under Reconstruction in Mississippi," and yet the Judges were all appointed by the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. It goes without saying that if the Governor's appointees were good, the appointing power was equally as good. The expert virtually admits that there was no justification for the declaration that "all lovers of good government must rejoice at the redemption of Mississippi," when he used the following language: "Mr.

Lynch confines his figures to state finances; while it was for local finances that the Reconstruction government of Mississippi is most severely condemned." In other words, there was nothing wrong with the State administration; it was the local county and munic.i.p.al governments that were bad. And yet, a fair and impartial investigation will reveal the fact that there is no more foundation for this allegation than for those about the State government. It is admitted that during the early part of Reconstruction the local tax rate was high, the reasons for which are fully explained in _The Facts of Reconstruction_. Such an investigation would show that the charges of extravagance, recklessness and maladministration so generally made about the administration of county and munic.i.p.al affairs were grossly exaggerated and nearly, if not all of them wholly untrue. In fact, the expert flatly contradicts himself on this point, because he admits that the evidence does not support the charge of dishonesty in the case of the Negro sheriffs, and yet the sheriff is the princ.i.p.al officer in the administration of the county government.

With reference to the financial affairs of the State the expert makes no effort to disprove a single statement I have made. He simply makes the broad statement that my conclusions do not agree with other statistics, and yet he fails to produce the statistics with which they do not agree. To ill.u.s.trate his point he calls attention to the different _rates_ of taxation covering a period of about ten years, which if true is of no importance in this connection because the same has no bearing upon the material point now under consideration. The tax _rate_ is always determined by the amount of money needed to meet the obligations of the State, predicated upon the a.s.sessed value of taxable property. Changes in the tax rate, therefore, are liable to be of frequent occurrence. The material point at issue is the volume of money paid into the treasury and the disposition made of it. In this connection a slight amplification of the figures already given will not be inappropriate. In 1875, the last year of Republican rule and the year the State was _redeemed_, the total receipts from all sources amounted to $1,801,129.12. The disburs.e.m.e.nts, same year, were $1,430,192.83, or $370,936.29 less than was received. In 1907 the receipts from all sources amounted to $3,391,127.15. The disburs.e.m.e.nts, same year, were $3,730,343.29 or $339,216.14 more than was received, and $2,300,150.46 more than was paid out in 1875. In fact, the financial condition of the State during several years was such that the Legislature was obliged to authorize the issuance of bonds upon which to borrow money to meet current demands, thus adding materially to the bonded debt of the State. Can any thing more inexcusable and indefensible than this be imagined? That any one of the Reconstructed governments could possibly have been guilty of such maladministration as this is inconceivable. And yet, this administration typifies what Mr. Rhodes is pleased to term the restoration of home rule at the South, for which all lovers of good government should rejoice.

The expert admits that I am right in what was said about Senators Alcorn and Bruce, but a.s.serts that Senator Pease, Mr. Brace's immediate predecessor, was opposed to Ames. This is another a.s.sertion that is not in harmony with the truth. Ames was a United States Senator when he was elected Governor. When he resigned the Senatorship to become Governor there remained about fourteen months of his term.

There devolved, therefore, upon the Legislature that was elected in 1873, the same time Senator Ames was elected Governor, the duty of electing a Senator for the full term and also for the unexpired term.

Bruce, an Ames man, was elected for the full term and Pease, also an Ames man, was elected for the unexpired term. If Pease had been opposed to Ames he could not have been elected to the Senate by that Legislature for that was unquestionably an Ames Legislature. It is true Pease was defeated for renomination for State Superintendent of Education by the Convention that nominated Ames, still he loyally supported the ticket and after the election he was looked upon as one of the friends and supporters of the Ames Administration. As such and for that reason he was elected as one of the administration Senators.

I was a member of Congress at that time and, therefore, had occasion frequently to confer with Senator Pease. If he were opposed to Ames, I am sure that both Mr. Rhodes and his expert will admit that I would have known it; and yet I do not hesitate to say that Senator Pease never did by word, act or deed cause me to entertain the slightest suspicion that he was not a loyal friend and supporter of the Ames Administration.

In regard to the decisions of the Supreme Court, the expert simply makes the declaration that the statement made by me that the failure of Reconstruction was due to unwise judicial interpretation need not be considered. In the first place, it is not true that I admitted that Reconstruction was a failure. On the contrary, those who will carefully read what I wrote will not fail to see that my contention is that in its important and essential particulars that policy was a grand and brilliant success and I instanced the ratification of the 14th and 15th Amendments, neither of which could have otherwise been ratified, as a vindication of the wisdom of that legislation even if nothing else had resulted from it. It is admitted that some of the friends and supporters of the Congressional plan of Reconstruction have been disappointed because those governments did not and could not stand the test of time. To this extent and for this reason some persons claim that the policy was a failure. I am not one of that number, the reasons for which the readers of the article referred to will see. But the inability of those governments to stand the test of time I accounted for under three heads, one of which was several unfortunate decisions rendered by the Supreme Court, the result, in my opinion, of two unwise appointments made by President Grant in the persons of Chief Justice Waite and a.s.sociate Justice Bradley. I do not a.s.sert that those two judges, or any others, for that matter, were appointed with reference to their att.i.tude upon any public question, still I am satisfied that they were believed to be in accord with the other leaders and const.i.tutional lawyers in the Republican party in their construction of the 14th Amendment. The const.i.tutional warrant for the Civil Rights Bill is the clause which declares that "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." It was therefore held that any law or ordinance which provided for, recognized or sanctioned separate facilities for the two races in the exercise and enjoyment of the rights and privileges that are supposed to be common to all cla.s.ses of persons, would be a violation of this provision of the 14th Amendment; and since Congress was authorized to enforce the Amendment, affirmative legislation for the enforcement of that provision was held to be thus warranted. This view was held by such able and brilliant const.i.tutional lawyers as Edmunds and Conkling in the Senate, and Butler, George F. and E. Rockwood h.o.a.r, Lyman Tremaine, Garfield and Wilson in the House. Senator Carpenter was the only Republican lawyer of any note that took a different view of the matter. While he believed the whole bill was unconst.i.tutional, the section prohibiting race discrimination in the selection of jurors in State courts he believed to be especially obnoxious to the const.i.tution. He declared that if that section could stand the test of a judicial decision all the others could and should. And yet the court, through a decision handed down by Mr. Justice Strong, affirmed the const.i.tutionality of that section, but in a decision delivered by Mr. Justice Bradley the section providing for equal accommodations in hotels, inns and places of amus.e.m.e.nt was declared unconst.i.tutional except in the District of Columbia and the territories. In several subsequent decisions, giving in the main the opinion of Chief Justice Waite, some of the most vital and important sections of the enforcement acts, especially those having for their object the protection of individual citizens, through federal machinery, when necessary, against domestic violence, were also declared to be unconst.i.tutional and void.

I am of the opinion, shared in by many others, that if men of the type of Edmunds and Conkling had been appointed Supreme Court Justices instead of Waite and Bradley, the rulings of the court in the important cases referred to might have been, and I think would have been, different. The unfortunate thing about those decisions is the wide scope of authority thus conceded to the States. In other words, they amount to a judicial recognition of the dangerous doctrine of States Rights--a doctrine which has been the source and the cause of most of our domestic troubles and misfortunes since those decisions were rendered. But for those unfortunate decisions our country would not be cursed and disgraced today by lynch law and other forms of lawlessness and racial proscription and discrimination. But for those unfortunate decisions lynchings could have been and I am sure would have been held to be an offense against the peace and dignity of the United States as well as the State in which the crime is committed.

Consequently, the criminals could be, and in most cases would be, prosecuted in the United States courts, as was done in the case of many of the leaders of that secret criminal organization called the Ku Klux Klan. But this took place before the decisions referred to were rendered. The court has also decided that a State law providing separate accommodations for white and colored people on railroad trains, at least for a pa.s.senger whose journey begins and ends in the same state, is not an abridgment in violation of the const.i.tution, provided the accommodations for the two races are exactly equal. This means that the validity even of those laws will not be affirmed whenever it can be shown that the accommodations are not equal, which can be very easily done. _Equal_ separate accommodations are both a physical and a financial impossibility. It is simply impossible for a railroad company to provide the same accommodations for one colored pa.s.senger that it provides for one hundred whites. If, then, a colored pa.s.senger cannot occupy a seat or a sleeping berth in a car in which white persons may be pa.s.sengers, this will not only be an abridgment, but in some cases, an absolute denial of such accommodations. The ultimate nullification of such unfair, unjust and unreasonable laws must necessarily follow.

In spite of the unfavorable rulings of the court, as above noted, that tribunal, as at present const.i.tuted, has rendered several very important decisions which have given the friends of national supremacy and equal rights much hope and encouragement, the most important of which is the one declaring unconst.i.tutional and void the ordinances providing for the segregation of the races in the purchase and occupation of property for residential purposes in several cities. The decision in this case was broad, comprehensive and far-reaching. This important, fair and equitable decision has given the colored American new hope and new inspiration. It has strengthened and intensified his loyalty and devotion to his country, his government, its flag and its inst.i.tutions. It makes him feel that with all of its faults and shortcomings, our _form_ of government is superior to, and better than that of any other, and that by a few more decisions along the line of this one, which I hope and believe may be safely antic.i.p.ated, every justifiable cause of complaint on the part of the Negro will have been removed, because the evils resulting from the unfavorable and unfortunate rulings above noted will have been remedied and cured. Our type of democracy will then be what it now purports to be, pure and genuine. It will then be in truth and in fact the land of the free and the home of the brave. It will then be a typical representative of that form of democracy under which there can be no slave, no va.s.sal and no peon, but every one will be an equal before the law in the exercise and enjoyment of life, liberty and property and in the exercise and enjoyment of such public rights and privileges as are, or should be, common to all citizens alike, without distinction or discrimination based upon differences of race, color, nationality or religion. These were the aims the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment had in view when that Amendment was drawn, and from present indications it seems to be clear that the highest court in the land will not allow the same to be defeated.

But the most significant point about the segregation decision grows out of the fact that the fair, reasonable, sound and equitable principles therein set forth and clearly enunciated received the approbation and endors.e.m.e.nt of a unanimous court consisting of nine Judges in which conflicting and antagonistic political views are presumed to be represented. This indicates that the day is not far off when the so-called race question will cease to be a political factor, and that all political parties will recognize merit and not race, fitness and not color, experience and not religion, ability and not nationality as the tests by which persons must be judged, not only in the administration of the government but in the industrial field as well. For the accomplishment of these desirable purposes, men of the type of James Ford Rhodes should give their support instead of allowing the same to be used in the interest of that small cla.s.s of unpatriotic Americans who seek political distinction and official recognition at the expense of racial harmony and brotherly love.

JOHN B. LYNCH 4352 FORESTVILLE AVENUE, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

FOOTNOTES:

[227] _Mag. of Am. History_, XVIII, 424.

[228] Boutwell, _Report_, 1446, 1470.

[229] _Ibid._, 608.

DOc.u.mENTS.

LETTERS OF GOVERNOR EDWARD COLES BEARING ON THE STRUGGLE OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY IN ILLINOIS[230]

Edward Coles was born of distinguished parentage in Albemarle County, Virginia, December 15, 1786. He was educated at Hampden-Sidney and William and Mary College, having as cla.s.smates Lieutenant-General Scott, President John Tyler, Senator William S. Archer and Mr. Justice Baldwin, of the Supreme Court of the United States. At the age of twenty-three his father had bequeathed him a large plantation with a number of slaves. "Of a polished education, fine personal appearance, good manners and irreproachable character,"[231] he so impressed President Madison that he made him his private secretary in 1809. In this position he became well informed in public affairs and useful to the President.

Early in Coles' college days he discussed with himself the question as to whether the declaration that "all men are born free and equal"

could be harmonized with slavery. He reached the conclusion that the inst.i.tution should not exist in a country claiming to be a democracy.

He, therefore, resolved that he would not hold slaves and would not live in a slave-holding State.

Enjoying the confidence of Jefferson, Coles took up with him the important question of emanc.i.p.ating his slaves in the year 1814. The letter follows:

EDWARD COLES TO THOMAS JEFFERSON

WASHINGTON, July 31, 1814.

_Dear Sir_:--I never took up my pen with more hesitation, or felt more embarra.s.sment than I now do in addressing you on the subject of this letter. The fear of appearing presumptuous distresses me, and would deter me from venturing thus to call your attention to a subject of such magnitude, and so beset with difficulties as that of a general emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves of Virginia, had I not the highest opinion of your goodness and liberality, in not only excusing me for the liberty I take, but in justly appreciating my motives in doing so.

I will not enter on the _right_ which man has to enslave his brother man, nor upon the moral and political effects of slavery on individuals or on society; because these things are better understood by you than by me. My object is to entreat and beseech you to exert your knowledge and influence in devising and getting into operation some plan for the gradual emanc.i.p.ation of slavery.

This difficult task could be less exceptionally and more successfully performed by the revered fathers of all our political and social blessings than by any succeeding statesmen; and would seem to come with peculiar propriety and force from those whose valor, wisdom and virtue have done so much in ameliorating the condition of mankind. And it is a duty, as I conceive, that devolves particularly on you, from your known philosophical and enlarged view of subjects, and from the principles you have professed and practiced through a long and useful life, pre-eminently distinguished as well by being foremost in establishing on the broadest basis the rights of man, and the liberty and independence of your country, as in being throughout honored with the most important trusts of your fellow citizens, whose confidence and love you have carried with you into the shades of old age and retirement. In the calm of this retirement you might, most beneficially to society, and with much addition to your own fame, avail yourself of that love and confidence to put into complete practice those hallowed principles contained in that renowned Declaration, of which you were the immortal author, and on which we founded our right to resist oppression and establish our freedom and independence.

I hope the fear of failing, at this time, will have no influence in preventing you from employing your pen to eradicate this most degrading feature of British Colonial policy, which is still permitted to exist, notwithstanding its repugnance as well to the principles of our revolution as to our free inst.i.tutions. For however prized and influential your opinions may now be, they will still be much more so when you shall have been taken from us by the course of nature. If, therefore, your attempt should now fail to rectify this unfortunate evil--an evil most injurious both to the oppressed and to the oppressor--at some future day when your memory will be consecrated by a grateful posterity, what influence, irresistible influence will the opinions and writings of Thomas Jefferson have in all questions connected with the rights of man, and of that policy which will be the creed of your disciples. Permit men then, my dear Sir, again to entreat your great powers of mind and influence, and to employ some of your present leisure, in devising a mode to liberate one-half of our fellow beings from an ignominious bondage to the other, either by making an immediate attempt to put in train a plan to commence this goodly work, or to leave human nature the invaluable Testament--which you are so capable of doing--how best to establish its rights; so that the weight of your opinion may be on the side of emanc.i.p.ation when that question shall be agitated, and that it will be sooner or later is most certain.

That it may be soon is my most ardent prayer--that it will be, rests with you.

I will only add as an excuse for the liberty I take in addressing you on this subject which is so particularly interesting to me, that from the time I was capable of reflecting on the nature of political society, and of the rights appertaining to man, I have not only been principled against slavery, but have had feelings so repugnant to it as to decide me not to hold them; which decision has forced me to leave my native State, and with it all my relations and friends. This, I hope, will be deemed by you some excuse for the liberty of this intrusion, of which I gladly avail myself to a.s.sure you of the very great respect and esteem with which I am, my dear Sir, your very sincere and devoted friend,[232]

EDWARD COLES.

He wrote Jefferson the following concerning the same question about two months later:

WASHINGTON, Sep. 26th, '14.

I must be permitted again to trouble you, my dear Sir, to return my grateful thanks for the respectful and friendly attention shown to my letter in your answer of the 25th ult. Your favorable reception of sentiments not generally avowed, if felt, by our countrymen, but which have ever been so inseparably interwoven with my opinions and feelings as to become, as it were, the rudder that shapes my course, even against a strong tide of interest and of local partialities, could not but be in the highest degree gratifying to me. And your interesting and highly prized letter conveying them to me in such flattering terms, would have called forth my acknowledgments before this but for its having been forwarded to me to the Springs, and from thence it was again returned here before I received it, which was only a few days since.

Your indulgent treatment encourages me to add that I feel very sensibly the force of your remarks on the impropriety of yielding to my repugnancies in abandoning my property in slaves and my native State. I certainly should never have been inclined to yield to them if I had supposed myself capable of being instrumental in bringing about a liberation, or that I could by my example ameliorate the condition of these oppressed people. If I could be convinced of being in the slightest degree useful in doing either, it would afford me very great happiness, and the more so as it would enable me to gratify many partialities by remaining in Virginia. But never having flattered myself with the hope of being able to contribute to either, I have long since determined, and should but for my bad health ere this, have removed, carrying along with me those who had been my slaves, to the country north-west of the river Ohio.

Your prayers I trust will not only be heard with indulgence in Heaven, but with influence on Earth. But I cannot agree with you that they are the only weapons of one at your age; nor that the difficult work of cleansing the escutcheon of Virginia of the foul stain of slavery can best be done by the young. To expect so great and difficult an object, great and extensive powers, both of mind and influence, are required, which can never be possessed in so great a degree by the young as by the old. And among the few of the former who might unite the disposition with the requisite capacity, they are too often led by ambitious views to go with the current of popular feeling rather than to mark out a course for themselves, where they might be buffeted by the waves of opposition; and indeed it is feared that these waves would in this case be too strong to be effectually resisted by any but those who had gained by a previous course of useful employment the firmest footing in the confidence and attachment of their country. It is with them, therefore, I am persuaded, that the subject of emanc.i.p.ation must originate; for they are the only persons who have it in their power effectually to arouse and enlighten the public sentiment, which in matters of this kind ought not to be expected to lead, but to be led; nor ought it to be wondered at that there should prevail a degree of apathy with the general ma.s.s of mankind, where a mere pa.s.sive principle of right has to contend against the weighty influence of habit and interest. On such a question there will always exist in society a kind of _vis inertia_, to arouse and overcome, which requires a strong impulse, which can only be given by those who have acquired a great weight of character, and on whom there devolves in this case a most solemn obligation. It was under these impressions that I looked to you, my dear Sir, as the first of our aged worthies to awaken our fellow-citizens from their infatuation to a proper sense of justice, and to the true interest of their country; and by proposing a system for the gradual emanc.i.p.ation of our slaves, at once to form a rallying point for its friends, who, enlightened by your wisdom and experience, and supported and encouraged by your sanction and patronage, might look forward to a propitious and happy result.

Your time of life I had not considered as an obstacle to the undertaking. Doctor Franklin, to whom, by the way, Pennsylvania owes her early riddance of the evils of slavery, was as actively and as usefully employed on as arduous duties after he had past your age as he had ever been at any period of his life.

With apologizing for having given you so much trouble on this subject, and again repeating my thanks for the respectful and flattering attention you have been pleased to pay to it, I renew the a.s.surances of the great respect and regard which makes me most sincerely yours

EDWARD COLES.

Coles went west to find a suitable location for settlement but was delayed in carrying out the enterprise by serving on a special mission to Russia in 1816. He then moved in 1819 to Edwardsville, Illinois, where he emanc.i.p.ated his slaves. Arriving in that State just at the time its citizens were trying to decide whether or not that commonwealth should be a slave or free State, this anti-slavery man turned the tide in favor of freedom. He had been in the State only three years when he was nominated by the anti-slavery party for governor. He received a minority of the votes cast at the election in 1822; but owing to a split in the pro-slavery party which divided its votes between two candidates, Coles was elected, although the friends of slavery elected their candidate for lieutenant-governor and a majority of the members of both branches of the legislature. There ensued then a struggle to have a convention called so to change the const.i.tution as to make Illinois a slave State.

Judge Gillespie, a contemporary, described the situation as follows:

It was conceded in those days that a State formed out of the "North West Territory" could not be _admitted_ into the Union contrary to the provisions of the ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery, but the slavery propagandists contended that you could, the next day after being admitted under an _anti-slavery_ const.i.tution, change the const.i.tution so as to admit slavery, and in that way, "whip the devil around the stump." It was likewise contended that slavery existed in Illinois beyond Congressional interference, by virtue of the treaty (of 1763) between France and England, and that between England and the United States at the close of the Revolutionary War, in both of which the rights of the French inhabitants were guaranteed. One of these rights was that of holding slaves, which, it was contended, was protected by treaty stipulation, and was equal in binding effect, to the Const.i.tution (of the United States) itself. Besides, it was maintained, that by the conquest of George Rogers Clark, this country became a part of Virginia, and that Congress had no more power to abolish slavery in Illinois, than it had in Virginia. The logic of the times was that the French inhabitants had the right to hold slaves, and that the other inhabitants had equal rights with the French--ergo: they all had the right to hold slaves. This was the argument of the celebrated const.i.tutional expounder--John Grammar, of Union county--in the Legislature in reply to an intimation questioning the validity of the t.i.tle of slaves in Illinois. The old gentleman instantly arose and remarked "that fittener men" than he was "mout hev been found to defend the masters agin the sneakin' ways of the infernal abolitioners; but havin' rights on my side, I don't fear, Sir. I will show that are proposition is unconst.i.tutionable, inlegal, and fornenst the compact. Don't every one know, or leastwise had ought to know, that the Congress that sot at _Post Vinsan_, garnisheed to the old French inhabitants the right to their n.i.g.g.e.rs, and haint I got as much rights as any Frenchman in this State? Answer me that, Sir." Notwithstanding this seeming confidence, these men were exceedingly desirous of reinforcing their rights. They resorted to the indenturing method, by which they got their servant to go before some officer and bind himself to serve the master, generally for ninety-nine years, for which he was to receive a slight equivalent at the end of each year.

As the "Yankees" increased in numbers, confidence (on the part of the pro-slavery men) in the t.i.tles to their negroes, diminished, and they finally concluded that there was no a.s.surance for them, except in changing the const.i.tution so as to sanction slaveholding and thus the contest commenced, which for fierceness and rancor excelled anything ever before witnessed. The people were at the point of going to war with each other. The pro-slavery men were, as they have always been ready to resort to violence wherever they dared, unwilling to listen to, or incapable of comprehending arguments. Their method of overcoming opposition was by "buldozing"; but on this occasion they had to encounter men of invincible courage, who were eager and willing to 'beard the lion in his den,' and defend their rights at all hazards. Many of these men had removed to Illinois to get rid of the curse of slavery.

This scheme, however, was with much difficulty defeated and the State was saved for freedom. The intensity of this struggle has been well described by Governor Reynolds in his _My Own Times_. He says:

The convention question gave rise to two years of the most furious and boisterous excitement and contest that ever was visited on Illinois. Men, women and children entered the arena of party warfare and strife, and the families and neighborhoods were so divided and furious and bitter against one another, that it seemed a regular civil war might be the result. Many personal combats were indulged in on the question, and the whole country seemed, at times, to be ready and willing to resort to physical force to decide the contest. All the means known to man to convey ideas to one another were resorted to, and practised with energy.

The press teemed with publications on the subject. The stump-orators were invoked, and the pulpit thundered anathemas against the introduction of slavery. The religious community coupled freedom and Christianity together, which was one of the most powerful levers used in the content. At one meeting of the friends of freedom in St. Clair county, more than thirty preachers of the gospel attended and opposed the introduction of slavery into the State.

This contest has been further described by W. H. Brown. He says:

The struggle which now commenced, and was continued through the succeeding eighteen months, was one of no ordinary character. Our previous elections had been conducted with warmth and zeal; but into this canva.s.s was infused a bitterness and malignity which the agitation of the Slavery question only engenders. Why it always produces this result, is worthy of the investigation of the moralist and philosopher. Other great evils, political or moral, are discussed with freedom, and measures for their amelioration or prevention meet with no outward opposition; but call in question the right of one man to enslave another, or even make an effort to confine this gigantic sin to the territory in which it exists, and the fiercest pa.s.sions are aroused in the hearts of its advocates, and the lack of power alone, saves their opponents from utter destruction.

In this spirit was the contest of 1823-4 waged. Old friendships were sundered, families divided and neighborhoods arrayed in opposition to each other. Threats of personal violence were frequent, and personal collisions a frequent occurrence. As in times of warfare, every man expected an attack, and was prepared to meet it. Pistols and dirks were in great demand, and formed a part of the personal habiliments of all those conspicuous for their opposition to the Convention measure. Even the gentler s.e.x came within the vortex of this whirlwind of pa.s.sion; and many were the angry disputations of those whose cares and interests were usually confined to their household duties.

It will doubtless be profitable, therefore, to study the following letters showing Governor Coles' connection with the anti-slavery movement during the early history of Illinois.