policy. When the military order for the convention issued, General Clanton called into council with the executive committee one hundred of the leading men of the state. After deliberation, they concluded that the wisest course for the party to pursue would be to go to the polls and endeavor to defeat the constitution, but, in view of the possibility of failure in this, to place candidates in the field, to be voted for under it. Having agreed on this policy, the council was about to adjourn, when the chairman received from ex-Governor Parsons, who was the accredited agent in Washington of the Democratic party, a dispatch, saying:

“I am on my way to Montgomery; will be there to-night. Don’t adjourn your convention; don’t act till I get there.”

The council waited, and the former governor arrived and delivered a speech, in which he uttered the memorable sentence:

“So far as the reconstruction measures are concerned, and this constitution, touch not, taste not, handle not the unclean thing.”

He said that this was in accordance with the advice of President Johnson. Messrs. Samuel Rice and Alexander White supported the ex-governor, and the council was persuaded to reverse its decision and advise the voters to refrain from taking any part in the election. Mr. White prepared the address to the voters.

Accordingly, the Democratic voters abstained from voting, and only one Democratic state senator was elected, and he was not endorsed. Negroes in battalions, armed with muskets and stepping to the beat of drums, marched to the polls, stacked arms, placed guards about them, and cast their ballots for the constitution and their candidates.

The registration of voters for the election of 1868 was under military supervision and regulation. Registration was kept open at polling places up to and including time of election. The registers of voters and election officers were appointed by military officers, and nearly every register was a candidate for office. He was given power to reject any applicant for registration. Soldiers were present at all polling places to enforce the regulations, which forbade the challenging of illegal voters: citizens were forbidden under severe penalties to warn election judges or expose the fact even if they should see a non-resident or minor or repeater offer to deposit a ballot. Voters were permitted to cast their ballots at any precinct in the county. Negroes were eligible to all offices.

The returns of the election disclosed the fact that the majority of the registered voters had abstained from participation in the election, and hence the constitution was not adopted by the people—according to the declaration of the military authorities, lacking 8,000 of the requisite number of votes. In view of this authoritative declaration, the radical candidates did not claim the offices to which they had aspired, and the incumbents for the time being were not disturbed. But, to the amazement of the people and its own dishonor, Congress in June, 1868, accepted the constitution as ratified by the people, and recognized the candidates as elected officers, and in July they were installed by military power, the former officers retiring under protest.

In order that the reader may understand the situation and how poorly prepared were the people for such a reign, we must go back to the beginning and note other occurrences which had a direct bearing on that situation.

CHAPTER FOUR

A Grave Problem

At the termination of the war between the sections, the southern people had thrust upon them for solution the gravest and most difficult problem with which the white race on this continent was ever perplexed,—how to preserve their civilization with the government operating in opposition to their efforts.

After four years of warfare, the south was prostrate before the victorious people of the north, whose armies were quartered in garrisons everywhere in the surrendered territory, to enforce with arms, if necessary, whatever oppressive and humiliating measures might be conceived in hatred and vengeance by fanatics whose intolerance had made the bloody conflict irrepressible, and who were determined to extend and perpetuate the political power gained by conquest. The means adopted were enfranchisement of the emancipated slaves and disfranchisement of all white men who had at all distinguished themselves as leaders, while extending favors to those who would ally themselves with the oppressors and betray their countrymen.

The difficulties of the situation in which the defeated southerners were placed were appalling. Naught of the former wealth of the country was left save the land—which in the disorganized state of labor was almost a burden to the possessors—and some cotton which had accumulated because exportation was prevented by the blockade of the ports; and upon this the federal government imposed an unconstitutional tax of three cents a pound. Farm implements were crude and scarce; the necessities of the Confederate government in its expiring struggles had stripped the country of the best of the draft and food animals; in the Black Belt there were no factories; development of transportation had been checked in its incipiency; education was almost abandoned, and the civil laws suspended. Everything had to be organized or reorganized.

Cotton was one of the principal resources left to the people at the close of the war. In great demand and readily convertible into money at prices ranging from fifty cents a pound upward, and in considerable quantities, it would have furnished means for a “fresh start” had the people been permitted to hold it in undisputed possession; but the government begrudged even this remnant of lost fortunes. Unfortunately, during the war agents of the Confederacy from time to time contracted for quantities of cotton, to be paid for in bonds, but in most cases there had been no actual transfer of either bonds or cotton, and the latter remained on the plantations. After the surrender of General Taylor to General Canby, the federal commander promulgated an order requiring all persons who held such cotton to surrender it to the United States agents, under penalty of confiscation of their property. The military authorities claimed this cotton as a prize of war, and treasury agents—some of them fictitious, as afterward proven—were soon ranging the country in search for it. The holders believed that the question of ownership was at least debatable. Prior to the surrender, the Confederate government, fearing that federal raiders would seize the cotton, ordered that it be destroyed by the holders; but the authority of that government was not then potent, and the planters, instead of obeying the order, conveyed the bales to places of concealment in swamps and elsewhere, and believed that this act confirmed their claim to ownership. Some of the cotton was thus concealed when the agents began their search. The order of seizure was subsequently so modified as to permit the original holders to claim one-fourth of the cotton as compensation for caretaking. Very few took advantage of this concession; and, indeed, the greedy agents actually suppressed the order for months while the seizures were in progress. Attorneys who contested before military tribunals the right of seizure argued that, by reason of non-delivery, sales to the Confederate government had not been completed, and that the federal government had no right to capture the cotton after final surrender of the