RECONSTRUCTION AND THE STATE GOVERNMENT

In the preceding chapters we have mentioned the immediate effect of reconstruction upon social conditions. To its immediate effects upon political conditions, in other words to the character and conduct of the new state government, which have been mentioned only incidentally, we shall now give a more direct and consecutive consideration.

With reference to the political reforms of reconstruction the white men of Georgia formed three distinct parties. There were those who favored them, either on their ethical and political merits or (more often) as a means of attaining political power otherwise unattainable. They were called Scalawags, Carpet-baggers and Radicals, of which terms we shall adopt the last. There were those unalterably opposed to them, called Rebels by their critics and Conservatives by themselves. There were, thirdly, those who supported them not upon their merits, which they doubted, but because they saw the state at the mercy of a conqueror and believed that, bad as the measures were, it was better to accept them quickly than to make a vain resistance, which could only prolong the social and commercial disturbances in the state, and which might occasion the administration of a still worse dose. This group embraced many of the commercial class, which was especially large in Georgia, and one of the men prominent in former politics, namely Governor Brown. They were classed by the Conservatives with the basest of Radicals, but we shall call them the Moderate Republicans. The admixture of this group with the Radical party had important consequences. Differing from their party in principle and allying themselves with it to bring peace to the state, when the peace of the state seemed secure, they sometimes adhered to their principles rather than to their party. It is true, many of them became so interested in the great game of politics then going on that they played it for its own sake, but some party splits of importance occurred.

The first fruit of the policy of negro enfranchisement and rebel disenfranchisement was the constitutional convention of 1867-68. It was stated in the latter part of Chapter IV. that in the election for members of this convention many Conservatives declined to take part. For this reason the Radicals obtained a predominance in the convention which they did not retain in the state government after the Conservatives decided to fight. The convention, in fact, was extremely Radical. The constitution which it framed shows the thoroughness with which it entered into the Humanitarian reforms. The speeches and resolutions show that a close sympathy with the Republican party and a bitter antagonism to the Conservatives were entertained by most of the members. The temporary chairman, Foster Blodgett, in his opening speech, mentioned the suspicious, hostile and contemptuous attitude of the Conservatives toward the convention. He said:

Parrot, the permanent chairman, said:

On the other side, he said:

When Governor Jenkins brought suit against Stanton on behalf of the state, the convention declared the action unauthorized and in the name of the people of Georgia demanded that the suit be dismissed.[266] On December 17, 1867, a resolution was passed, asking Pope to appoint, in lieu of Governor Jenkins, a provisional governor, and asking that the person appointed be Rufus B. Bullock.[267] Unsuccessful here, the convention tried again on January 21. It requested Congress to allow it to vacate the governorship and all other offices now filled by men unfriendly to reconstruction and to fill them with new appointees.[268] These two last named resolutions suggest not only Radical sentiment, but also Radical organization in the convention.

The attitude of the convention toward the military authorities was most cordial. On December 20, a reception was given to Pope. The general made a speech and received an ovation.[269] Resolutions of friendship and gratitude were voted him on his departure.[270] Meade, on his arrival, received resolutions of welcome,[271] and resolutions of friendly import on various other occasions.[272] Meade did not entirely reciprocate this cordiality.

Toward Congress the convention was not only cordial; it was almost filial. Not only was the United States government eloquently thanked for its magnanimity,[273] but it was appealed to by the convention as a kind parent by a child confident of favor. It was petitioned to appropriate thirty million dollars to be loaned on mortgage to southern planters;[274] to loan a hundred thousand dollars to the South Georgia and Florida railroad,[275] and “to make a liberal appropriation” for building the proposed Air Line railroad.[276]

The constitutional convention of 1865 had met on October 25, and adjourned on November 8, thus completing its work in fourteen days. This dispatch, as well as the style of its resolutions and of the speeches of its members,[277] had marked it as a body where good taste, decorum and public spirit prevailed.

The reconstruction convention met on December 9, 1867, and continued in session (excepting a recess from December 24 to January 7), until March 11, 1868. The first article of the new constitution on which the convention took action was reported on January 9.[278] Before that time many resolutions and ordinances were introduced. Most of them related to “relief” (such as suspension of tax collections, homestead exemption, stay of execution for debt, etc.), or to the pay and mileage of delegates, and only rarely was anything said about the constitution. On December 16 the more conscientious members secured the appointment of a committee to inquire whether the convention had power to do any business besides frame a constitution.[279] This committee did not discuss the law of the question, but recommended on moral grounds a resolution to this effect:

This report met with vigorous opposition. It was saved from the table by two votes. But it was adopted.[280] The contemporary Conservative press describes the convention as very infamous and very disgusting.[281] It contained thirty-three negroes, and the transactions recorded in the official journal show that it was composed largely of men of low character.

Hence, to many of the delegates, framing the constitution was only a minor incident of the convention, and the main part of that work was left to a small number of men. Their work shows intelligence and ability. Moreover, in the records of the convention there are not wanting traces of that undoubted public spirit which animated many of the supporters of reconstruction—the honest desire to repair and develop the material welfare of the state. This spirit is evident in the speeches we have cited, and in some of the resolutions.

We have stated how the campaign of 1868 resulted in giving the governorship to the Republicans and a majority of twenty-nine in the legislature to the Conservatives; how Governor Bullock tried to reduce that majority through Meade, and how Meade refused his aid; and how the majority was more than doubled by the expulsion of the negroes and the seating of the minority candidates. From that time to the reorganization of the legislature in 1870, the most remarkable fact in the state politics was the hostility between the governor and the legislature.

After the expulsion of the negroes, the lower house asked the governor to send it the names of the candidates who at the election had received the next highest vote to the persons expelled. The governor sent the names and with them a long protest against the expulsion of the negroes.[282] The house, on hearing the message, adopted a tart resolution, reminding the governor that the members of each house were “the keepers of their own consciences, and not his Excellency.”[283] A similar message to the upper house in response to a similar request provoked a similar resolution, which was defeated by two votes.[284]

It will be remembered that in December, 1868, and January, 1869, the governor urged upon Congress, through his letter presented in the Senate and through his testimony before the Reconstruction Committee, the theory that Georgia had not yet been restored. On January 15, 1869, he urged the same view upon the legislature. He advised it to reorganize itself by summoning all men elected members in 1868, requiring each to take the Test Oath, excluding only those who should not take it, and thus constituted to repass the resolutions required by the Omnibus Act. If the legislature did not do this, it must submit to Congressional interference.[285] This message apparently caused the legislature some apprehension. It adopted a joint resolution to the effect that it desired the question of the eligibility of negroes to office to be determined by the supreme court of the state. The governor sent this resolution back with one of his admirably keen and powerful messages. He said that Congress had two grievances against the present legislature; that it had admitted members disqualified by the Fourteenth Amendment, contrary to the Omnibus Act, and that it had expelled twenty-eight negroes. The present resolution, intended to appease Congress, ignored the first grievance and proposed no remedy for the second; therefore it was meaningless and absurd.[286]

On January 21, 1869, the state treasurer, Angier, in response to an inquiry from the house of representatives regarding the affairs of his department, intimated that the governor had drawn money from the treasury under suspicious circumstances.[287] Thus began the feud between the governor and the treasurer which continued during the rest of Bullock’s term. Angier’s report was referred to the committee on finance. The majority of the committee reported that the governor’s acts had been irregular but in good faith. The minority reported that his acts were culpable and his explanations inadequate, and concluded: “The facts herein set forth develop the necessity for further legislation for the security of the treasury.”[288] This report the house adopted by a large majority.[289]

Another index of the relations between the governor and the legislature is furnished by the governor’s message submitting the proposed Fifteenth Amendment. It opened thus:

The radicals probably desired the rejection of the amendment, since it would furnish another strong argument to Congress in favor of reorganizing the legislature. Hence, the Radical governor, as his message shows, did not do his best to induce the legislature to ratify, and probably some Radical members for the same reason voted against the amendment or refrained from voting for it. It was defeated in the lower house on March 12,[291] and in the upper on March 18.[292]

In the last chapter we saw that Terry excluded five men from the legislature because the board of inquiry had found them ineligible, and excluded nineteen others because they had failed to take the required oath, and had applied to Congress for removal of disabilities. It is safe to assume that all of these twenty-four men were conservatives. Nineteen of them had been elected to the lower house, five to the senate.[293] Immediately after organization, on advice of Bullock and with the sanction of Terry, the senate gave the five vacated seats to the minority candidates,[294] and the house gave fourteen of its vacated seats to the minority candidates.[295] The result was that the Republicans secured a majority in each house.[296] The Republican control thus secured remained uninterrupted for the remainder of 1870. Perfect accord now existed between the governor and legislature, and in the quarrel between Bullock and Angier, which went on with increased acerbity in the press and before a congressional committee,[297] the legislature proceeded to transfer its support to the governor.[298]

But Republican supremacy was in danger. It was threatened by the Moderate Republicans. J. E. Bryant, a Republican, prominent in the state politics since the beginning of the new rÉgime, in testifying before the Reconstruction Committee in January, 1869, had advocated reorganization of the legislature, but had opposed any other interference, especially the restoration of military government.[299] He and other Republicans who shared his opinion were disgusted with the proceedings of Bullock and Terry. As early as January 12, 1870, there were reports that the Radicals were apprehensive of a combination between the Moderate Republicans and the Conservatives.[300] Probably the strenuous efforts of the Radicals to take and make every possible advantage for themselves in the reorganization is partly accounted for by this apprehension. On February 2, Bryant caused to be entered on the journal of the house of representatives a protest denouncing the reorganization proceedings as illegal.[301] Shortly afterwards he published a statement of his position. He said that he was a Republican, but was opposed to the corrupt ring which controlled the party in Georgia.[302] From this time on the papers frequently referred to the alliance between the followers of Bryant and the Conservatives as the salvation of the state.[303]

The Radical majority was not quite strong enough to pass a resolution declaring that there should be no election in 1870, as was attempted in August of that year.[304] But it was strong enough to pass an election law very favorable to the Radical party. It changed the date of the election from the regular time in November to December 22, and following the example set by General Pope in 1867, provided that it should continue three days. It established a board of five election managers for each county, three to be appointed by the governor and senate, and two by the county ordinary. It provided that the board should have “no power to refuse the ballot of any male person of apparent full age, a resident of the county, who [had] not previously voted at the said election.” Also it said: “They [the managers] shall not permit any person to challenge any vote.”[305] Another act was passed, calculated to prevent the loss of Republican votes through disqualification of negroes for non-payment of taxes. It declared the poll tax levied in 1868, 1869 and 1870 illegal.[306]

At the election thus provided for were to be chosen a new legislature (except half of the senators, who held four years) and Congressmen. To what extent the Republicans availed themselves of the advantages offered by the election law we do not know. At any rate, the Conservatives obtained two-thirds of the seats in the legislature, and five of the seven seats in Congress.[307]

This result meant trouble for the governor, whose term ran to November, 1872. His efforts to secure Congressional interference, his conduct in January, 1870, and the accusations of extravagance, corruption, and other crimes continually made by an intemperate press, had raised public indignation to a high point. It was certain that when the new legislature met it would investigate the charges, and it was hoped that the governor would be impeached.[308] The time of reckoning had been postponed, however, by the prudence of the outgoing legislature, which had provided that the next session of the legislature should begin, instead of in January, the regular time set by the constitution,[309] on the first Wednesday in November, 1871.[310]

The first Wednesday in November, 1871, was November 1. On October 23, the governor recorded in the executive minutes that he resigned his office, for “good and sufficient reasons,” the resignation to take effect on October 30.[311] He then quietly left the state. The fact that he had resigned was kept secret until October 30.[312]

In case of a vacancy in the office of governor, the constitution directed the president of the senate to fill the office.[313] On October 30, therefore, Conley, the president of the senate at its last session, hastened to be sworn in as governor.[314] By resigning just before the meeting of the incoming Conservative legislature, Bullock had thus cleverly prolonged Republican power, while at the same time resigning. The question whether under the constitution the governor’s office should not be filled by the president of the newly-organized senate, was raised by the papers.[315] But Conley was by common consent left in possession of the office. Though, as he said in his first message to the legislature,[316] “a staunch Republican,” he was not personally unpopular.[317] Moreover, the legislature intended to furnish a successor very soon.

On November 22, a bill was passed ordering a special election for governor for the remainder of the unexpired term, to be held on the third Tuesday in December.[318] The authority for this act was found in the following provision of the constitution: “The general assembly shall have power to provide by law for filling unexpired terms by a special election.”[319] Conley vetoed the bill, on the ground that the section of the constitution quoted empowered the legislature to make general provisions for filling unexpired terms, not to make special provision for single cases.[320] The bill was passed over his veto.

Although Republican power was now doomed in a few weeks, and although resistance to a legislature which could easily override his vetoes was futile, yet Conley stubbornly continued to offer obstructions to the legislature at every possible point up to the very day when his successor was inaugurated.[321] He exhibited a courage and a political efficiency worthy of his predecessor, but accomplished nothing. He was able, however, to help his friends by means of the pardoning power. Several prominent Republicans were indicted at this time for various acts of public malfeasance. On the ground that in the existing state of public excitement these men could not obtain a fair trial, Conley ordered proceedings against several of these to be discontinued.[322]

On January 11, 1872, the returns from the special election were sent to the legislature by Conley, under protest,[323] and James M. Smith was declared elected. On January 12, Smith was inaugurated. Conley assisted at this ceremony, thus yielding the last inch of Republican ground.[324]

Reviewing the events recorded from the beginning of this chapter, we observe that the period of reconstruction in Georgia was not a period when a swarm of harpies took possession of the state government and preyed at will upon a helpless people. The constitutional convention of 1867-68 forebodes such a period, but when the Conservatives rouse themselves, from that time on the stage presents an internecine war between two very well matched enemies. This struggle is usually represented as between a wicked assailant and a righteous assailed. That it was a struggle between Republicans and Democrats is much more characteristic. In such a contest mutual vilifying of course abounded, and it is not to be supposed a priori that the vilifying of one party was more truthful than that of the other.

It is often vaguely said that reconstruction resulted in government by carpet-baggers. John B. Gordon, the Conservative candidate for governor who was defeated by Bullock, expressed before a Congressional committee in 1870 the belief that there were not more than a dozen men holding offices in Georgia who had recently been non-residents. He further said that the judges appointed by the Republican governor were entirely satisfactory.[325]

The reconstruction government is charged with having imposed such heavy taxes that as a result the people were impoverished, industry was checked, and many plantations went to waste. During the decade before the war the law provided that a tax should be annually levied at such a rate as to produce $375,000, provided the rate should not exceed one-twelfth of one per cent.[326] The revenue law of 1866 provided that a tax should be levied at such a rate as to produce $350,000.[327] Owing to the vast destruction of property during the war, this necessitated a higher rate than that before the war. The law of 1867 ordered a levy at such a rate as to raise $500,000.[328] This law, made by the Johnson government, before reconstruction began, was continued by the legislature in the four following years.[329] In 1870 the rate of assessment was two-fifths of one per cent.[330] This rate was much higher than the one prevailing before the war, but this misfortune cannot be charged to reconstruction, since the reconstruction government merely followed the example of the Johnson government.

That the reconstruction rÉgime did not do the economic harm often attributed to it is shown by the fact that during that rÉgime the value of land and of all property in the state steadily increased, as appears from the following table:

				Assessed Valuation.
		Land.		Town and City Property.		Total Property.
1868[331]		$79,727,584		$40,315,621		$191,235,520
1869[332]		84,577,166		44,368,096		204,481,706
1870[333]		95,600,674		47,922,544		226,119,519
1871[334]		96,857,512		52,159,734		234,492,468

Nevertheless, the reconstruction government spent the public money extravagantly. This fact is shown by a comparison of the expenditures of the state under Bullock’s administration and under that of his predecessor. Such a comparison, it is true, has been employed to prove the contrary. Governor Bullock was wont to rebut charges of extravagance by showing that the state spent more under Jenkins’ administration than under his, in proportion to the time occupied by each.[335] This was true, as the following figures show:[336]

Gross expenditures in 1866 and 1867	$3,223,323.46
Average annual expenditure during these years	1,601,661.73
Gross expenditures from August 11, 1868, to Jan. 1, 1870	2,260,252.15
Gross expenditures in 1870	1,444,816.73
Gross expenditures in 1871	1,476,978.86
Average annual expenditure during this period	1,554,614.32

A comparison of gross expenditures, however, is of no significance unless the sums contrasted represent payments for the same purposes. Under the earlier administration the government undertook large expenditures for the relief of destitute persons, especially of wounded soldiers and the relicts of soldiers.[337] This accounts for the remarkable size of the amounts credited to “special appropriations” in the report for 1866 and 1867. Under Bullock’s administration the government spent nothing for these purposes. For a fair comparison of the economy of the Johnson government and the reconstruction government, it is necessary to compare the amounts which they spent respectively for the same objects. Their payments for the more important administrative purposes are shown in the following table:[338]

	1866.	1867.	1868.	1869.	1870.	1871.
Civil Establishment	$20,771.66	$75,222.44	$50,373.72	$85,666.41	$77,851.77	$78,365.21
Contingent Fund	6,128.62	15,430.74	10,059.06	19,968.16	38,284.44	20,296.95
Printing Fund	1,021.75	16,114.90	20,452.96	7,673.38	60,011.78	20,000.00
Special Appropriations	304,955.05	879,897.77	210,916.11	261,097.37	260,442.05	806,419.08

These figures show that almost all the annual expenditures of Bullock’s administration, aside from “special appropriations,” were well above those of the preceding administration, and that the payments from the printing fund, especially in 1870, and from the contingent fund in 1870, were so large as to convict the administration of great extravagance.

The reconstruction legislature was reproached because of its large per diem—nine dollars. This per diem was established by the Johnson government,[339] and is, therefore, not a charge against reconstruction. But the other expenses of the legislature fully corroborate the charges of extravagance made against it. This is shown by the following table:[340]

	Length of Session.	Total Expenditure.	Average Expenditure per month.
1865 and 1866.	Dec. 4 to Dec. 15. Jan. 15 to March 13. Nov. 1 to Dec. 14. ———————— 3? months.	$121,759.75	$33,207.18
1867.	No session.
1868 and 1869.	July 4 to Oct. 6. Jan. 13 to March 18. ———————— 53/10 months.	$446,055.00	$84,161.33
1870.	Jan. 10 to Feb. 17. Apr. 18 to May 4. July 6 to Oct. 25. ———————— 5½ months.	$526,891.00	$95,798.32

The state debt created by the reconstruction government was of two kinds; direct and contingent. When the reconstruction government went into operation the state debt was $6,544,500.[341] The reconstruction government incurred a bonded debt of $4,880,000.[342] This includes bonds to the amount of $1,880,000 which were issued to a railroad in exchange for its bonds to a greater amount and bearing interest at the same rate. This amount, therefore, was not a burden on the state, provided the railroad remained solvent; though in form a direct, it was virtually a contingent liability. Further, $300,000 of the money borrowed was used to pay the principal of the old debt. Deducting these two sums, we find that the burden of direct debt was increased by $2,700,000.

Contingent debt was incurred by the indorsement of railroad bonds. In 1868 the state offered aid of this kind to three railroad companies,[343] in 1869 to four,[344] and in 1870 to thirty.[345] The state offered to indorse the bonds of each of these companies to the amount, usually, of from $12,000 to $15,000 per mile, sometimes more and sometimes less. If all the roads had accepted the full amount of aid offered, the state would have become contingently liable for about $30,000,000.[346] But only six roads accepted, and the contingent liability thus created was $6,923,400.[347] The laws offering the aid involved little risk to the state; they made substantial progress in construction and substantial evidence of soundness conditions precedent to indorsement, and secured to the state a lien on all the property of each road in case it defaulted. The indorsement of railroad bonds is not a reproach to the reconstruction government. The great policy of that government, when it was sufficiently free from partisan labors to have a policy, was to repair the prosperity of the state, and the construction of railroads was an important means to this end.[348]

The worst stain on the reconstruction government is its management of the state railroad. The Western and Atlantic Railroad, owned and operated by the state until 1871, was placed under the superintendence of Foster Blodgett by the governor in January, 1870.[349] Thenceforth hundreds of employees were discharged to make room for Republican favorites; important positions were filled by strangers to the business; the receipts were stolen,[350] or squandered in purchases made from other Republicans at monstrous prices; and the road suffered great dilapidation.[351]

The preferred object of the Conservative abuse in the reconstruction government was Governor Bullock. We have seen that he was remarkably powerful as well as remarkably active in promoting the interests of his party. He was abused for that. For the extravagance of the state government the governor was held largely responsible. He was abused for that. But he was further accused of fraud in financial matters.

Although this charge has never been established, the public had some excuse for believing it at the time. As a result of the quarrel between the governor and the treasurer, the governor ordered the bankers who were the financial agents of the state to hold no further communication with the treasurer after June 3, 1869, but to communicate only with the governor.[352] The effect upon the public was an impression of great confusion and irregularity in the finances. The treasurer’s reports could not give a complete account of state moneys, and the governor was not careful to inform the public of the condition of that part of the finances over which he had assumed control. Moreover, the governor and the treasurer kept up a constant interchange of accusation and insinuation in the newspapers. In another way the governor put himself in an unfortunate light. In his letter to the Ku Klux Committee his statements regarding his bond transactions were so vague as to give the impression (rightly or wrongly) of a desire to conceal something.[353] The same laxity of statement appears in Conley’s statement of the use to which the bonds issued by Bullock had been put.[354] His sudden resignation and departure on the eve of a threatened investigation seemed to confirm the evidence of his guilt.

But though he did not keep the public informed, it has never been established that his accounts were wrong. He spent money freely, and in some cases without authority;[355] but none of his accusers has ever proved that he spent any without regular and correct record by the comptroller. And though he issued bonds perhaps in excess, he issued none without proper registration in the comptroller’s records.[356] His apparent efforts to conceal facts do not prove fraud; a sufficient motive would be furnished by desire to conceal the extravagance of his administration. Furthermore, he has been positively acquitted of the charge of fraud. In 1878 he returned to Georgia, and the courts proceeded to give him “a speedy and public trial.” Of his many alleged crimes, indictments were secured for three. One indictment was quashed.[357] Upon the other two the verdict was “not guilty.”[358] His resignation was explained in a letter to his “political friends,” published on October 31, 1871.[359] He said that he had obtained evidence of a concerted design among certain prominent members of the incoming legislature to impeach him (as they could easily do, with the immense Conservative majority), and instal as governor the Conservative who would be elected president of the senate. To resign and put the governorship in the hands of a Republican who could not be impeached was the only way to defeat this “nefarious scheme.” This explanation was of course ignored by Bullock’s enemies when it was made; but in view of the lack of evidence that he was guilty of any fraud, and in view of the positive evidence to the contrary, there is now no reason to doubt it.

The governor made extraordinary use of the pardoning power. According to a statement sanctioned by him, he pardoned four hundred and ninety-eight criminals, forty-one of whom were convicted or accused of murder, fifty-two of burglary, five of arson, and eight of robbery.[360] The leader of the Conservative party at that time, B. H. Hill, emphatically declared in a public statement that the governor had no worse motive than “kindness of heart.”[361]

To sum up the case against the reconstruction government, we have seen that it was extravagant, that it mismanaged the state railroad, and that it pardoned a great many criminals. It was not guilty of the enormities often associated with reconstruction; but it was a government composed of men who obtained political position only through the interference of an outside power—it was the product of a system conceived partly in vengeance, partly in folly, and partly in political strategy, and imposed by force. It was hated partly for what it did, but more for what it was.

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