Tom Rubillo: Confederacy Lost
BY TOM RUBILLO
Part of a series
War was over. The Confederacy had lost. Human slavery was to end. The future was uncertain.
Abraham Lincoln wanted an orderly emancipation of slaves and a peaceful, if tearful, reunion of the nation.
If Lincoln had his way, the people of the South would be welcomed back like family members returning from a trip abroad, with open arms and any necessary assistance.
He said as much when speaking from the balcony of the White House a few days before he was slain.
This generous approach would leave both (1) political control of the South and (2) ownership of all land and money there in the hands of those who held them prior to the war.
Under Lincoln's plan, all ordinary white residents of the South had to do was pledge allegiance to the United States of America, thereby reaffirming their continuing citizenship.
That, and remain peaceful. Even those in leadership positions in the Confederacy could get pardons rather easily.
The worst that ever happened to Confederate President Jefferson Davis was to be snubbed by those against whom he had waged war.
Robert E. Lee was always greeted and treated respectfully.
Lincoln's successor in office, Andrew Johnson, wanted to follow a slightly different path to national reconciliation.
Southern born, Johnson was sympathetic to financial concerns of Southern whites.
An entire economy in the South had to be rebuilt, this time without slave labor.
Johnson wanted that recovery to proceed swiftly.
What Johnson lacked was Lincoln's concern for the fate of those being freed.
This last part --Johnson's insensitity to human rights-- quickly brought him into conflict with politicians riding moral high horses, a difficult lot in the best of times.
None knew how to ride very well. None possessed the wherewithal to bind the nation's wounds. Lincoln never got to try.
Political turmoil creates uncertainty. Uncertainty breeds apprehension. That, in turn, generates fear.
Motivated in this way, Southern governors called their legislatures back into session.
Those who had advocated secession and war were in attendance. They were in no mood to be anything but emotional. They acted on their fears.
As a result, very repressive "Black Codes" were enacted.
They imposed rigid controls over the lives of all persons of color (those 1/8th or more of African descent).
Slavery may have been abolished, but there would be no real social, economic or political freedom for the newly emancipated if the old white political establishment had anything to say about it.
The Black Codes were recognized by Congress immediately for what they were: attempts to nullify emancipation by strictly limiting what the word "freedom" meant. (The devil is always to be found in the definitions.)
Infuriated by this Southern defiance, Northern Congressmen seized control of events from President Johnson.
Congress declared marital law and divided the South into five military districts. President Johnson vetoed the measure. Congress overrode the veto.
Old guard Southern governors and legislators were ousted.
Provisional governments were established, all in much the same pattern as would be followed by the U.S. Army in Iraq nearly a century and a half later.
New state constitutions were written. Those extended the right to vote to all men (but not women) without regard to color.
Elections were held and positions filled. In places like Georgetown where slaves had outnumbered owners by 9 to 1, whites did not dare resort to violence.
In places where whites outnumbered and outgunned blacks, these was widespread bloodshed. In a book written at the turn-of-the-19th-into-20th century entitled "The Aftermath of Slavery," Georgetown's own William A. Sinclair reported that "from forty to fifty thousand colored people, white loyalists, and Northern men were murdered in cold blood in the first few years following the war."
(Born a slave, Sinclair rose to become a well-respected physician, man of letters and lecturer. A copy of his book is held on reserve in the local history room of the Georgetown Public Library. It is well worth reading.)
Threats, whippings, lynchings, burnings, ride-by shootings, bombings and other acts of terror against black people became commonplace throughout the South.
South Carolina's pre-eminent historian, Dr. Walter Edgar of the University of South Carolina, characterizes this period in history as one of white "insurgency" in his book outstanding treatise, "South Carolina: A History."
The tactics of these insurgents have since been duplicated many times over in many parts of the world, most recently in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In his post-war history, Dr. William Sinclair tells of a group of whites arraigned before the United States District Court in South Carolina in connection with election violence.
A leading lawyer of the day, Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, was retained to represent them.
After listening to their stories, Johnson "left them to the mercy of the court, saying: 'I have listened with unmixed horror to some of the testimony which has been brought before you.
The outrages proved are shocking to humanity; they admit of neither excuse nor justification; they violate every obligation which law and nature impose upon man; they show that the parties engaged were brutes, insensitive to the obligations of humanity and religion.
"The day will come, however, if it has not already arrived, when they will deeply lament it.
"Even if justice shall not overtake them, there is one tribunal from which there is no hope.
"It is their own judgment; that tribunal which sits in the breast of every living man; that small still voice that thrills through the heart, the soul, and the mind, and as it speaks gives happiness or torture; the voice of the conscience, the voice of God.
"If it has not already spoken to them in tones which have startled them to the enormity of their conduct, I trust, in the mercy of Heaven, that that voice will speak before they shall be called above to account for the transactions of this world; that it will so speak as to make them penitent, and that trusting in the dispensations of Heaven, whose justice is dispensed with mercy... , there will be found in the fact of their penitence or their previous lives some grounds upon which God may say 'Pardon.'"
Good plea to the Almighty by a father-confessor on behalf of a penitent perhaps.
A surprising one by a defense attorney to a sentencing judge. Violates a lawyer's duty of undivided loyalty to the client. But then again, even lawyers can have a conscience.
Next week: How Joseph Rainey saved Georgetown from itself.