"Four years ago, as now, the nation stood at the threshold of a Presidential election, and the Repuban party, in soliciting a continuance of its asceudwy, founded its hope of success, not upon its proms, but upon its history. Its subsequent course as been such as to strengthen the claims which it ten made to the confidence and support of the untry. On the other hand, considerations more argent than have ever before existed forbid the accession of its opponents to power. Their success, if sucess attends them, must chiefly come from the united support of that section which sought the forcible disraption of the Union, and which, according to all the teachings of our past history, will demand ascendency n the councils of the party to whose triumph it will Lave made by far the largest contribution.” There is the gravest reason for apprehension that xorbitant claims upon the public Treasury, by no means limited to the hundreds of millions already covered by bills introduced in Congress within the past four years, would be successfully urged if the Democratic party should succeed in supplementing its present control of the national legislature by electing the Executive also. "There is danger in intrusting the control of the whole law-making power of the Government to a party which has in almost every Southern State repudiated obligations quite as sacred as those to which the faith of the nation now stands pledged. "I do not doubt that success awaits the Republican party, and that its triumph will assure a just, economical, and patriotic administration, "I am respectfully,your obedient servant, "To the Hon. GEORGE F. HOAR, CHAPTER XXIII. General W. S. Hancock. PART I. tion of voters, and prescribed the "iron-clad oath" to be taken by all applicants for registration. Brief review of events, etc., in the Under these laws General Sheridan, in Department of the Gulf prior March, 1867, was assigned to the command of to Hancock's assignment to it the Fifth Military District, comprehending the -The Reconstruction Acts States of Louisiana and Texas. But Sheridan New Orleans Mechanics' Institute Massacre of July 30, 1866 -Its atrocious character-Sheridan assumes command, March 19, 1867-General Order No. 1 -Disloyal Officials President Johnson's sympathy Sheridan's Loyal Code AttorneyGeneral Stanbery's opinion that the Reconstruction Laws are unconstitutional-Bad goes to called "the Department of the Gulf," embracfor a year previous had commanded what was ing the States of Louisiana, Florida and Texas, and had, amid a terrible experience, studied and ascertained the true character of their nathat the massacre at New Orleans of July 30, tive populations. It was during this command 1866, occurred. worse. The act of March 2, 1867, and the supplemental act of March 23, 1867, "to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States," passed over the vetoes of President Andrew Johnson, declare the civil governments of those States to be "provisional only," and "in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States at any time to abolish, modify, control, or supersede." They divide those States into five military districts, and make it the duty of their several commanders, who shall not be below the rank of brigadier-generals, "to protect all persons in their rights of person and property, to suppress insurrections, disorders, and violence, and punish, or cause to be punhed, all disturbers of the public peace and criminals." These laws also provide for the reconstruction of the rebel States through conventions elected by its loyal masses, and for their admission into the Union when thus rehabilitated. They placed the registration of voters in the hands of boards to be appointed by the military commanders, defined the qualifica The Mechanics' Institute massacre - Its atrocities - Sheridan's denunciation Fort Pillow over again!-Report of the military commission. The Louisiana Unionist Convention of 1864, which had adjourned subject to the order of its president, R. K. Howell, attempted, under his call, to reassemble at Mechanics' Institute, in New Orleans. It met July 30, 1866. It was promptly suppressed by Mayor Monroe and his police, aided by the rebel State authorities. General Sheridan, in a dispatch to General Grant, says: "The mayor suppressed the convention by the use of the police force, and in doing so attacked the members of the convention and a party of two hundred so unnecessary and atrocious as to compel me to say that it negroes with fire-arms, clubs, and knives, in a manner was murder. In a subsequent dispatch, the General says: "The more information I obtain of the affair of the 30th in this city [New Orleans], the more revolting it becomes. It was no riot; it was an absolute massacre by the police, which was not excelled in murderous cruelty by and police of this city perpetrated, without the shadow that of Fort Pillow. It was murder which the mayor of a necessity. Furthermore, I believe it was premeditated, and every indication points to this." The military commission, composed of four brevet major-generals-Mower, Quincy, Gregg, and Baldy-which investigated the massacre, report: "The work of massacre was pursued with a cowardly ferocity unsurpassed in the annals of crime. The escap: ing negroes were mercilessly pursued, shot, beaten, and stabbed to death by mob and police-wour led men on the ground begging for mercy were savagely dispatched by mob, police, firemen, and, incredible as it may appear, in two instances by women!" Even "ladies" advocated "the immediate killing of the leaders, Dostie and Henderson, in their houses." The report continues: " Finally, the assailants obtain full possession of the building; the negroes in hiding are brought out and dispatched; others perched for safety on cross-beams and rafters are picked off like game by well-aimed shots, the whites taken to the station houses with blows and abuse, and at last, just as the advancing bayonets are seen to glisten on the levee, the riot' is over for the lack of victims!" Three-fourths of them [the police] were ex-confederate soldiers, and at least one of their officers * * a notorious thug, assassin, and former leader of the very men of blood who might be expected to be foremost in the attack." * The commission add: * * They would also call attention to the evidence on the subject of the renewal of the attack on negroes and the shooting of them in their dwellings, by both citizens and police, late on the same night in Victory street. The board will state it as their firm conviction that but for the d claration of martial law and the presence of the troops, fire and blood-hed would have raged throu hout the night in all negro quarters of the city, and that the lives and property of Unionists and Northern men would have lain at the mercy of the mob. The conservators of the peace being, for the time, the ins igators of violence, nothing would have remained but an arming for self defence, nd a scene might have ensued nparalleled in the history of the age! The board would respectfully call attention to the small proportion of negro testimony taken, and to the fact that all important points regarded as established rest upon white testimony alone.' * ** * In his official report, dated November 21, 1867, Sheridan declares: I "I found, upon a close examination of the existing civil governments of those two States (Louisiana and Texas), that nearly every civil functionary, from the Governor down, had been soldiers or aiders and abettors in the rebellion; and that in nearly all cases they had been elected on Confederate grounds, and solely for services rendered in their attempt to destroy the General Government. In fact many, if not all, had advertised, when they were candidates, their services in this respect as a meritorious appeal for votes. found also, that they were nearly all disfranchised by the law, and were substantially aliens. It is scarcely necessary to state that from this condition of affairs nearly every civil officer within my command was either openly or secretly opposed to the law, and to myself as the authority held responsible by the order of the Executive of the nation for its faithful execution. It was a difficult situation in which to be placed, rendered still more so by the apparently open sympathy of the President with the functionaries above alluded to." Major-General Charles Griffin, commanding the Department of Texas under Sheridan, in a dispatch to the latter, dated March 28, 1867, urges: "I cannot find an officer holding position under the State laws whose antecedents will justify me in reposing trust in him in assisting in the registration." Again, June 10, 1867, General Griffin declares: "Many of the officers [of the State government] were nominated on their record of disloyalty to the General Government, and elected upon the merits of their services in the attempt to destroy it. Numbers are disfranchised, while the sympathies of others are with the lost cause.'"' Up-hill work-Sheridan's loyal code. In the Administration of the Fifth Military District, General Sheridan acted with characThe absolute impunity with which this teristic decision and vigor. With the apcauseless massacre was perpetrated, a fact as proval of General Grant and Secretary Stanrevolting as the massacre itself, and the shame-ton, he digested or formulated the provisions less character of the judiciary, and other authorities of New Orleans and Louisiana, are shown in a subsequent dispatch of General Sheridan, dated March 27, 1867, to General Grant. Sheridan says: Mayor Monroe controlled the element engaged in this riot, and when backed by an attorney-general [A. J. Herron] who would no prosecute the guilty, and a judge [E. Abell] who advised the grand jury to find the innocent guilty and let the murderers go free, feit secure in engaging his police force in this riot and massacre." declares: No general removal from office will be made unless the present incumbents fail to carry out the provisions of the law or impede the reorganization, or unless a delay in reorganizing should necessitate a change. Pending the reorganization, it is desirable and intended to create as little disturbance in the machinery of the various branches of the provisional governments as possible, consistent with the law of Congress and its successful execution; but this condition is dependent upon the disposition shown by the people, and upon the length of time required for reorganiza tion." the of the laws and oath into a brief code, defin- General Sheridan, in a dispatch to Grant, dated June 27, 1867, urges : The result of Stanbery's opinion is now beginning how itself by a defiant opposition to all acts of the litary commander by impeding and rendering helpthe civil officers acting under his appointment. * * * * * I fear the chaos which the opinion will make, if ried out, is but little understood. Every civil offiin the State will administer justice according to own views; many of them, denouncing the miliy bill as unconstitutional, will throw every impedint in the way of its execution, and bad will go to rse, unless this embarrassing condition of affairs is tled by permitting me to go on in my just course, ich was endorsed by all people except those disfran sed, many of whom are office-holders, or hope to be so.' ernors of Louisiana and Texas, and other officers of the State governments; to remove municipal officers like Mayor Monroe of New Orleans; to expel disloyal judges, clerks of courts, magistrates, sheriffs, and policemen ; to supply their places with Unionists, and to force the local courts to open the jury box to loyal men. Thus peace, law, and order were restored. e anticipation verified-Denunciation of Sheridan As Sheridan anticipated, bad went to worse, 66 PART II. to be Removed and Hancock to Replace him-The Command Baited with a Presidential Nomination-The Hancock Jerry Black-Walker Campbell - Conspiracy against Reconstruction. The President and Cabinet at Washington, seeing that loyal reconstruction was now a success, hastened to remove Sheridan from his command, and to assign General W. S. Hancock to it-the command being baited with the Democratic Presidential nomination. Hancock's assignment is dated August 27, 1867. He did not reach his command until November 29, 1867. In the interim at Washington, Hancock was closeted with Jeremiah S. Black, Robert J. Walker, and ex-Judge Campbell, of Louisiana, notoriously the ablest and bitterest enemies of reconstruction, and in conjunction with them concocted the plot against reconstruction, which he afterward attempted to carry out as commander of the Fifth Military District. * At a serenade in Washington, given to him by this disloyal Democracy elated over his appointment, Hancock, in a speech in response, declared: "As a soldier I am to administer the laws rather than to discuss them." At the same serenade Robert J. Walker argued: "His [Hancock's] duty is purely a ministerial duty. Not even the President, much less any subordinate officer, possesses any judicial power whatever. The judicial power, according to the Constitution, is vested exclusively in the courts of the country" that is, primarily, in the local State courts. But the President had exercised judicial powers: had, through the opinions of his Attorney-General, approved by his Cabinet and by Robert J. Walker et al., judicially declared the reconstruction laws unconstitutional; had placed upon them an interpretation hostile to their meaning and the purposes of Congress, and had instructed the commanders of the several military districts to enforce them in accordance with that interpretation. In newspapers of the day the whole hostile programme was boldly announced and applauded. Hancock was to explode all SheriThe Unionists were absolutely outlawed, dan's loyal work-to practically annul Sheriad their lives and property were wholly at dan's registration upon a loyal basis in conhe mercy of their confederate rulers. The formity with the laws of Congress; to reinilitary were compelled to interfere for their state the Confederate enemies of the nation rotection; to displace the confederate gov-removed by Sheridan, and to reassemble the rebel legislature; in a word, to revive the reign of terror and blood by which the Confederates hoped to defeat reconstruction. About a month previous to his recall, Sheridan telegraphed from New Orleans to General Grant: "Last night the largest political assembly which ever collected together in this city-mostly of colored people-paraded the streets without the slightest disturbance. I had made every preparation, should any disturbance occur, but did not show publicly a single soldier. I desired to make this case a test one, and the result was most satisfactory." PART III. Hancock Assumes Command The Immediate Effects-Chaos and Terror Return-General Order No. 40 Issued in the midst of it-He Pretends that “Peace and Quiet" still Reign --This Military Satrap Overrides the "Civil Power" of Congress under the Pretense of "Subordinating the Military to the Civil Power." In Louisiana and Texas the removal of Sheridan and the assignment of Hancock to the command, emboldened the Confederates in the State governments and courts, and among the people, to openly assume the aggressive. They no longer cloaked their hostility to reconstruction. In Texas the Ku Klux, and in Louisiana the Knights of the White Camelia, murdered and plundered, and by the terrorism which they created paralyzed all civil government. General Mower commanding in Hancock's absence, was compelled to remove the whole executive government of Louisiana-all but its loyal governor Flanders; in both States to displace judges and magistrates, the attachés of courts, police jurors, etc., and to command the military to be vigilant and vigorous in its pursuit of the gangs of organized murderers. Upon his arrival at New Orleans Hancock issued the following: GENERAL ORDERS NO. 40. I. Assumes command. II. The general commanding is gratified to learn that peace and quiet reign in his department. It will be his purpose to preserve this condition of things. As a means to this great end, he regards the mainteof the laws as the most efficient under existing cir nance of the civil authorities in the faithful execution cumstances. In war it is indispensable to repel force by force and overthrow and destroy opposition to lawful authority But when insurrectionary force has been overthrown and peace established, and the civil authorities are ready and willing to perform their duties, the military power should cease to lead, and the civil administration resume its natural and rightful dominion. emnly impressed with these views, the general announces that the great principles of American liberty still are the lawful inheritance of this people, and ever should be. The right of trial by jury, the habeas corpus, the liberty of the press, the freedom of speech, Sol and the natural rights of persons and the rights of property must be preserved. Free institutions, while they are essential to the prosperity and happiness of the people, always furnish the strongest inducements to peace and order. Crimes and offenses committed in this district must be referred to the consideration and judgment of the regular civil tribunals, and those tribunals will be supported in their lawful jurisdiction. Should there be violation of existing laws which are not inquired into by the civil magistrates, or should failures in the administration of justice by the courts be complained of, the cases will be reported to these headquarters, when such orders will be made as may be deemed necessary. While the general thus indicates his purpose to respect the liberties of the people, he wishes all to understand that armed insurrections or forcible resistance to the law will be instantly suppressed by arms. By command of Major-General W. S. Hancock. Hancock's work of restoration-The old disloyal crowd in power again—His animus-No power to remove disloyal officials, but full power to expel loyal ones— General Grant on general orders No. 40. The work of restoration began with Hancock's assumption of the command. Officials, State, municipal, and judicial, removed by Sheridan and Mower and Griffin, were reinstated in their former places. Many of them had been removed for malfeasance and fraudulent practices in office, as well as for disloyalty. Hancock restored them and announced that if any charges were preferred against them, the civil authorities, the local courts, or their official superiors were fully competent to investigate and decide upon them. In cases where, by the notorious character or guilt of the officials, he was forced to acquiesce in their removal, Hancock ousted their loyal successors and supplied their places with the openly disloyal or with covert sympathizers with treason. The Confederate officials engaged in a new rebellion against the laws of the nation. military, in Hancock's judgment-which he held to be superior to that of the people's Congress-had no lawful or just authority to remove, and he was equally clear that no legal or just impediment existed forbidding the summary expulsion by the military of Unionist officials. He proposed to guillotine them all. Again and again was General Grant obliged to restore and protect upright and efficient officers removed by Hancock without a shadow of cause except that they were loyal men favorable to reconstruction. B. F. Landers, the loyal Governor of Louisiana appointed by Sheridan, was recognized as an energetic and efficient officer. Sheridan remarks, after Flanders had been some time in office: "He [Flanders] is a man of integrity and ability, and I now feel as though I was relieved of half of my labors." But his integrity and ability, his loyalty, and his fealty to Congress and the laws, rendered him an impediment to the confederate plot-a sharp thorn in Hancock's side. Hancock did not venture to directly remove Flanders because Grant would have instantly reinstated him; but by a series of hostile and impudent acts, he forced the Governor to resign. The New Orleans Board of Aldermen was a loyal body, elected by the people. Shortly after Hancock's advent at New Orleans, the He therefore abrogated circular No. 13, and again, as predicted by Griffin, loyal men were excluded from the jury-box. Again the murder and outrage and robbery of Unionists multiplied over the State, and went unpunGeneral J. J. Reynolds, commanding in Texas, after the death of Griffin, in a dispatch to Hancock, declares that the rebels' construction of General Orders No. 40 "supersedes the laws of Congress," practically nullifies them, and "renders the military force powerless to execute the 3d section of the act of March 2, 1867"-powerless to protect loyal and peaceable men in their rights of person and property. office of Recorder of the second district of the General Grant now prohibited all further removals. PART IV. In an Governor Pease, of Texas, in one letter to Hancock, encloses a telegram from Judge Noonan, a loyal judge, with other evidence of the lawlessness of the rebels in Uvalde and other counties-of the impossibility of trying criminals in the civil courts, of even preventing their escape from the jails where they were confined, and prays Hancock's intervention for the protection of loyal men. other letter to Hancock, Governor Pease declares that, since the promulgation of General Orders No. 40, crimes and hostility to the United States Government had increased; that "it is a lamentable fact that over one hundred cases of homicides had occurred in Hancock Appoints New Registra- Texas in the past twelve months;" that tion Boards and Enforces Attor-"within the last few months United States ney General Stanbery's Opin-officers and soldiers have been killed in the ions—General Griffin and Gov-discharge of their duties," but that not "one tenth" of the perpetrators had been arrested, ernor Pease Denounce State and not "one twentieth" tried. None were Courts and Juries as the punished. Rebel grand juries refused to inProtectors of Rebel Assas- dict, rebel petit juries to convict, and the sins-Hancock Sustains the military were paralyzed by General Orders No. 40. Courts-General Reynolds on General Order No. 40-Hancock Annuls Griffin's celebrated Order No. 13. In further execution of the confederate plot gainst reconstruction, Hancock appointed new boards for the revision of the registration. He pompously announced his repudiation of Sheridan's loyal registration code, and intructed the boards to rely for their government upon "the laws alone," with Attorney General Stanbery's opinion placing upon them n interpretation hostile to their meaning and purpose. General Griffin, in a dispatch to Sheridan, ated May 29, 1867, in referring to the rebel denunciation of his famous circular No. 13, ompelling all jurors to take the "iron-clad ath," says it was simply "an attempt to open the courts of Texas to loyal jurors for the protection of all good citizens." He adds: "Their [the rebels' object is attained if they can gain fill the jury-boxes of Texas with men of secession tecedents, inimical to the General Government and Lostile toward Union citizens. Their motto seems to be: Rule or ruin!'" PART V. The loyal Lindseys petition Hancock for Redress Hancock consigns them to the Ku Klux and they are Murdered!-Hancock's reply to Pease—“‘Peace' Reigns in Warsaw!”—He slanders the judiciary General Grant forced to Remove him. The The cases of the Lindseys, father and son, may be cited in illustration of a multitude of others. They were native Texans, but Union men. At the opening of the rebellion the son was conscripted into the rebel army. Lindseys abandoned their homes, fled to the Union lines, and the son joined the national forces. At the close of the rebellion they returned to Texas, and actively opposed the execution of the peonage laws-the infamous 'Black Code" of Texas. They collected the proofs of numerous outrages perpetrated under color of the Code, put them in the form of a petition, and transmitted it to Hancock. Hancock referred it to the local authorities. His doing so he knew was equivalent to their |
