THE JOHNSON GOVERNMENT

From the conduct of the state governments formed in Georgia and the other southern states under the direction of President Johnson, the public opinion of the North drew conclusions regarding three things; the disposition of the people represented by those governments toward the emancipated slaves, their attitude toward the cause for which they had fought, and their feeling toward the power which had subdued them. This chapter treats the Johnson government of Georgia from the same points of view.

Whatever may have been the prevailing disposition of the white people toward the slaves while slavery flourished, shortly before the close of the war that disposition was characterized by benevolence and gratitude. In spite of the opportunities of escape, and of plunder and other violence, offered by the times, the slaves had acted with singular faithfulness and devotion.[27] The gratitude of their masters even went so far as to propose plans for the general education of the negroes.[28]

The close of the war and the advent of emancipation produced a change in the conduct of the negroes, which in time produced a change in the attitude of the white people. The negroes, from the talk which they heard and did not understand, and from their ignorant imaginations, conceived strange ideas of emancipation. They supposed it meant governmental bounty, idleness, and wealth. They abandoned their work, wandered about the country, collected in towns—in short, manifested a general restlessness and demoralization. This caused alarm and apprehension among the white people. There were other causes of friction between the two races. Many negroes, on discovering that they were free, assumed what are known as “airs;” and then as now, among things intolerable to a southern white man a “sassy nigger” held a curious pre-eminence. The airs of the negro and the wrath of the white man were both augmented by officious members of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Moreover, because the negroes had gained by the humiliation of the South, they received a share of the venom of defeat. Another element of discord was furnished by a particular part of the white population, the so-called poor whites. These saw in the new protÉgÉs of the United States not only a rival laboring class, but a menace to their social position, and hence assumed an attitude of jealousy and hatred. Such were the conditions favorable to social disturbance which followed emancipation. In the latter part of 1865 they had already begun to produce their natural result. Violent encounters between negroes and white men (in which the latter were almost always the aggressors) were noticeably frequent.[29]

To this social demoralization was added economic distress and perplexity. The devastation of the war had fallen with especial severity upon Georgia. Worse still, the people seemed unable to repair the damage or to return to productive activity. Planters seemed unable to adapt themselves to the new economic conditions. Slavery, the system which they understood, was gone; they used the new system with little success, all the less because of the restlessness of the negroes.Such were the conditions and dangers with which the Johnson government had to deal as it best could. It was believed by northern statesmen that the situation would be mastered by enfranchising the negroes and investing them with a citizenship exactly equal to that of white persons.[30] The Georgia constitution of 1865 made it clear that the Georgia law-makers were not disciples of that school. That constitution confined the electoral franchise to “free white male citizens.”[31] It ordered the legislature at its first session “to provide by law for the government of free persons of color,” for “guarding them and the state against any evil that may arise from their sudden emancipation,” and “for the regulation of their transactions with citizens;” also “to create county courts with jurisdiction in criminal cases excepted from the exclusive jurisdiction of the Superior [county] Court, and in civil cases whereto free persons of color may be parties,” and to make rules “prescribing in what cases their testimony shall be admitted in the courts.”[32]

The legislation enacted in 1866 in the interest of the public peace and order consisted of—

1. An apprentice law. By this it was made the duty of the judges of the county courts to bind out minors whose parents were dead or unable to support them as apprentices until the age of twenty-one. A master receiving an apprentice under this law was to teach him a trade, furnish him food, clothes, and medicine, teach him habits of industry, honesty, and morality, teach him to read the English language, and govern him with humanity. On default of any of these requirements a master was to be fined. The judge having charge of this law might, on application from an apprentice or an apprentice’s friend, dissolve the contract on account of cruelty on the part of the master. An apprentice at the end of his term was entitled to an allowance from the master “with which to begin life.” The amount was left to the master’s generosity, but if he offered less than $100 the apprentice might complain to the court, which should then fix the amount.[33]

2. A vagrancy law. Vagrancy was defined in the usual language of our criminal codes. The penalty was heavier than these usually provide, because the need of suppressing the vice was more urgent than usual. A vagrant might be fined or imprisoned at the discretion of the court, or sentenced to labor on the public works for not more than one year; or he might, at the discretion of the court “be bound out to some person for a time not more than one year, upon such valuable consideration as the court may prescribe.”[34]

3. Alterations in the penal laws. These alterations were of two contrasting kinds. The penalty for burglary in the night, arson, horse stealing and rape was changed from long imprisonment[35] to death,[36] which, however, might be in every case commuted to life imprisonment.[37] On the other hand, several hundred crimes, including all the species of larceny except that mentioned above, were reduced from felonies to misdemeanors, and the penalties from imprisonment in the penitentiary to fine, imprisonment in the county jail, or whipping, at the discretion of the court.[38] This mitigation of punishment was made in consideration of the negroes’ ignorance of the nature of their offences, due to the fact that these had before been punished by their masters and not by the law. Probably the capacity of the penitentiary was also considered.

To facilitate the transition from the old labor system to the new by remedying in some degree the instability of the labor supply, the legislature made it a crime to employ any servant during the term for which he had contracted to work for another, or to induce a servant to quit the service of an employer before the close of the period contracted for.[39]

Regarding the civil rights and relations of the negroes the following legislation was passed:

1. A law in these words:

2. A provision, implied in the law above quoted, that negroes were to be held competent witnesses in all courts in cases, civil or criminal, whereto persons of color should be parties.[41]

3. Certain provisions for establishing among the negroes the regular relations between husband and wife, parent and child, in place of the irregular relations which had prevailed under slavery.[42]

4. The prohibition of marriage between negroes and white persons.[43]

This last provision, and also the exclusion of the testimony of negroes from cases whereto a colored person was not party, are of social rather than legal importance, since their effect was to separate the two races, but not to deprive the negroes of the equal protection and benefit of the law. They were like the school law, which provided that only “free white inhabitants of the state” were entitled to instruction in the public schools.[44]

The Johnson government thus assigned to the negroes a position of political incapacity, social inferiority, but equality of civil rights. This plan was very remote from that in favor in the North, but it is not thereby condemned. As to the measures of the Johnson government for remedying industrial distress and guarding against social dangers, we search them in vain for the inhuman harshness to the negroes which they were reputed to embody. This legislation of Georgia was more favorable to the negroes than that of the other Johnson governments. But the North looked at the conquered South as a whole, and if the difference of the laws of Georgia from those of other states was noticed, it was quickly forgotten. To northern public opinion the scheme for the treatment of the negroes embodied in the Georgia laws, even if its mildness had been recognized, would have been a cause of indignation. This was the consummate hour of a humanitarian enthusiasm sprung from forty years of anti-slavery agitation, and now intensified by the passions of the war. In such an hour a plan which frankly denied to the negroes political and social equality was looked upon as an offence against justice and humanity. The Georgia law-makers had sought for a plan to meet immediate necessities, not a plan for the elevation of the black race. To demand that Georgia, stricken and menaced as she was, should pass by the needs of the present and enter upon a vague scheme of philanthropy, was unreasonable. It was just as unreasonable to conclude from the course which Georgia took, that the black race in Georgia would be forever held down, or that positive encouragement would be withheld as time went on. Nevertheless the public opinion of the North made this demand and drew these conclusions.

Having stated the attitude of the Johnson government to the emancipated slave, we next come to its attitude toward the fallen Confederacy and toward the federal government. And with reference to this subject the following facts are to be noticed:

1. Almost the first act of the constitutional convention was to vote a memorial to the President in behalf of Jefferson Davis.[45]

2. The convention, instead of declaring that the ordinance of secession was an act of illegality and error, and was null and void, laconically declared it “repealed.”[46]

3. The convention anticipated the function of the legislature in order to provide pensions for the wounded Confederate soldiers and for widows of the dead.[47]

Through the legislature Georgia showed herself equally frank in expressing affection and regret for the lost cause, and equally wanting in an attitude of humility to the federal government—or at least to the dominant party in Congress. On the recommendation of the governor she rejected the Fourteenth Amendment by an almost unanimous vote, largely because of the disabilities it imposed on the leaders of the Confederacy.[48] Instead of remaining a humbly silent spectator of the controversy between the President and Congress, she boldly thanked the President for his “regard for the constitutional rights of states,” and for “the determined will that says to a still hostile faction of her recent foes, ‘Thus far shalt thou go and no farther. Peace, be still.’”[49] She continued to provide for the unfortunate champions of the Confederacy, characterizing this action as “a holy and patriotic duty.”[50] She extended expressions of “sincerest condolence and warmest sympathy” to the illustrious state prisoner, Jefferson Davis, declaring that her “warmest affections cluster[ed] around the fallen chief of a once dear but now abandoned cause.”[51]

These acts and resolutions expressed through the government the spirit which was found among the people by direct observers—a spirit of submission to irresistible force, in some cases sullen, in most cases unrepentant.[52] At that time the absence of that spirit would have been extraordinary. But the public opinion of the North regarded it not as the aftermath of war, which would soon pass, but as a spirit which, if left undisciplined, would break out in another war.

This belief, and the belief that the negroes were destined by the southern governments to suffer injustice and debasement, and that the ballot was their only salvation, gave rise to two corresponding purposes—to chasten the rebellious spirit of the South, and to invest the negroes with the voting franchise by force. To destroy the state governments of the South and rebuild them on a basis of negro suffrage would accomplish both these purposes. This plan was also supported for the sake of a third purpose, viz., to secure for the Republican party the votes of the negroes. There were thus three classes of men bent on abolishing the Johnson government. We may call them the Disciplinarians, the Humanitarians, and the Republican Politicians.