DYNAMITE.

477 against an oligarchy which trampled on the popular interests. France, almost to the present day, is gashing and slashing herself in wild despair, under the influence of similar secret clubs, the result of that reaction which, by immutable laws, follows the repression of a people. An oppressed people, as Curran said, will in some way strike down their oppressors, even with their own shackles.

All history shows that such societies grow by persecution, and that they are the bitter fruits of tyranny. Illustrations rush to the mind in throngs. The French power trembled from secret societies in Algeria, the result of harsh and unjust laws. The Fenian societies are the effect of long-continued English oppression. What is Nihilism but justice, wildly protesting with violence against hoary wrong and insupportable despotism? The experiments begun by Robert Fulton, in 1805, by blowing up a buoy in Deal Harbor, England, with two torpedoes filled with 180 pounds of gunpowder, and by means of clock-work, have not only commanded the attention of governments since for legitimate warlike uses, but with the invention of nitroglycerine and its adjuncts, nitro-gelatine, forcite, and giant powder, it has made dynasties tremble for their injustice toward the people. Secrecy and chemistry are not justifiable when used for violent and vain retaliations; but they are, nevertheless, the consequences of bad government. To uproot the evils of secrecy and violence, a wise statesman will eradicate their proximate and even remote causes.

The most conspicuous illustration, and the one most analogous to the KuKluxes, is that of the Italian Carbonari. Their name comes from carbonaro, — charcoal-burner. The remoteness of the charcoal-burning establishments, in forests and amid mountains, especially in the Abruzzi, was a protection to their secrecy. Their ritual was framed in a wild language. Their object was to wreak vengeance on their political oppressors; or, as they expressed it in their symbolic motto, "Revenge upon the wolves who devour the lambs." From those rude huts in Italy they swelled to seven hundred thousand under the oppressions of their rulers. People of education joined them. The growth of the order alarmed the governments of Europe, especially the Bourbons. After 1819, they joined the republicans of France. Men like Lafayette even joined the society. It was the prolific parent of insurrection everywhere. In France it numbered six hundred thousand. It was a dark and constant protest against despotism and in favor of liberty. The order struck wildly at both religion and society. Men sought a covert and a refuge for their wrongs, enthusiasm for their sentiments, and immunity for their political disaffection. Poland is now, and has been since her spoliation, full of secret associations. From the time of Ferdinand VII. to the death of Prim, and even now, under her limited monarchy, Spain is menaced with them.

There is a history and mystery of horror about these secret societies of Europe. Gun, infernal machine, dynamite and poniard are their terrible playthings. Their object has been and is to overthrow, not to substitute. They desire to be rid of evils without a thought of the worse ills that may come. They desire a new birth of state and society. They regard the old order as incapable of reformation. Therefore they would raze it and sow salt on its ruins. They work for its destruction with a generous self-sacrifice worthy of a better and more open mode and cause. The conclusion from these facts of history is that such societies are caused by oppression and despotism, and that they become more implacable and secret by the severity of the laws made against them. These Carbonari were to the south of Europe what the Illuminés were to France, the Tugend-Bund to Germany, the Fenians to Great Britain and the Ku-Kluxes to the South. They were at once signs of reckless discontent and evidences of bad government. But, heedless of the lessons, Congress went on, piling severity upon coercion, as if it designed to make the South one great protest, secret, armed, and dangerous, against all authority.

Hallam enumerates in his Constitutional History of England, five essential checks upon the royal authority. Should there be a lesser number in a republic? One of these was: no arrest without a warrant; another: trial by a fair jury of the vicinage, per judicium parum et per legem terræ; and a third that the violation of personal liberty could be excused by no warrant, not even the direct order of the king. In England it was Sheridan's boast that not a hair of the head could be plucked without legal guilt upon legal proof, but could he make his boast of the English government of his own Irish people. Our Constitution took its growth from these rudiments of liberty. They are the elements of Magna Charta: Nullus liber homo capiatur. England grew great by these elements. We observed them sacredly, and prospered, until these late unhappy times. Their infringement was the source of the disorders South. Their infraction by the force bill would have brought renewed disorders.

In concluding his remarks against the policy of force and in favor of that of freedom, the author then made this appeal to the better element of the party in power, during that struggle for the force bill in 1871. With this extract he closes this chapter:

"Shall there, then, be no attempt to crush these incendiaries? Aye, let us begin here in our midst. Are we so guiltless? Have we been moderate and just? Admitting our derelictions, the question returns, shall we allow these societies to continue? Do they not loosen the bonds of security and lead to crimes? Shall they not be eradicated? Yes; under the forms of law. Otherwise they will grow stronger. Will you forever postpone gentle ways of reaching them? Or why will you not leave them to the states?

PLEA FOR MODERATION.

479 Do you ask what is to be done where the state authorities have the power but not the wish to crush them?

"I answer that the states will be depopulated. The states will feel their own neglect in every interest, and should feel it till they act. Their credit will be impaired and their resources crippled. The greater the violence the sooner it will spend its force. Vengeance, like the Corsican Vendetta, will meet with death, though it track its victims like a sleuth-hound. The good band against it. Better have allowed the South to be overrun with it, than destroy the Constitution by illegal methods for its suppression.

"Gentlemen, I pray you to pause. You are on the brink. Your legislation will rebound. Save, oh! save us the possible, probable, nay, certain horrors to follow the execution of such laws by an irresponsible will! Save yourselves; aye, save your party! It has many ennobling memories; it has in its midst many gallant men; it has enrolled many splendid statesmen. Many of them have already deserted its flag, but still you number gentlemen, statesmen, and Christians. They ornament your ranks. But I beseech you to remember that there is no honor in pursuing with vengeance a discontented people. Cut yourselves not off entirely from one-half of our nation! You would then flourish no longer; for, as Brougham once said, 'the blossom dies when severed from the root and stem.' Save your country as an entirety, that you may continue to adorn it! Save the Constitution, without which the Union is not a band of states, but the emblem of a roving banditti !

you

"Has that instrument lost all its wholesome terror? Is it, like the battle-axe of Richard Cœur de Lion, referred to by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Butler), too great for our modern pigmies to wield? Is it a relic for the sanctuary? If, indeed, it be an object only of reverence for what it was, then pause before mutilate it further! Reverence its rust, if you cannot respect its edge! I make my humble prayer, first to you, who have the temporal power to stay your invasion of the Constitution and the flood-tide of blood, faction, and ruin to ensue from the execution of this forceful act. But if I fail in this appeal, I then appeal to the throne of God for that mercy, in its abundance, which we shall need when such vindictive legislation is the law of our land."

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE RECONSTRUCTION UNDER ACTS OF CONGRESS.

FIVE MILITARY DISTRICTS IN THE SOUTH – VIRGINIA THE FIRST DISTRICTPROVISIONS OF THE LEGISLATION-CALL ON THE President FOR INFORMATION - HIS REPLY-MILITARY COMMANDERS-GENERAL SCHOFIELD FOR VIRGINIA-HIS GENERAL ORDERS-SUB-DISTRICT COMMANDERS-DIVISION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY INTO MODERATES AND RADICALS – INDICTMENT OF HUNNICUTT FOR INCENDIARY LANGUAGE-THE BILL OF RIGHTS-THE VOTE ON TIIE NEW CONSTITUTION-GENERAL STONEMAN IN COMMAND OF DISTRICT GENERAL CANBY SUCCEEDS HIM-REMOVALS FROM CIVIL OFFICE ELECTION OF GOVERNOR WALKER - VIRGINIA RECONSTRUCTED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS.

T

HE Reconstruction acts provided for the division of the Southern States into five districts, as stated in a preceding chapter. Virginia constituted the First district, North and South Carolina the Second, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida the Third, Mississippi and Arkansas the Fourth, and Louisiana and Texas the Fifth district. The President was authorized and instructed to appoint an army officer, regular or volunteer, to the command of each district. When so appointed, their powers were absolute and unlimited. They were endowed with legislative, judicial, and executive authority. The President himself could give them no directions or instructions. He could only remove them and appoint their successors. The general commanding the armies had no authority to approve or disapprove any of their acts. They could abolish charters, extend franchises, stay the collection of debts, and prohibit the foreclosure of mortgages, levy taxes, impose fines, and inflict penalties, authorize the issue of bonds, and the contraction of state indebtedness, set aside the decisions of the courts, remove all officers, and fill all vacancies, without the form of an election. These district commanders could even try persons by commissions selected by themselves. Fortunately for the people of the South, the selection of these commanders was in the hands of that pure patriot and honest man,

METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION.

481

Andrew Johnson. Under these acts, and with these dictatorial powers, Gen. John M. Schofield was appointed to the command of the First District. His headquarters were at Richmond.

The act prescribing this method of reconstruction was passed over the President's veto, March 23, 1867. It provided that before the first day of September then ensuing, the commanding general in each district should cause a registration to be made of the male citizens of the United States, twenty-one years of age and upwards, residing in each county or parish of the state. This registration should include only those persons who were qualified to vote for delegates under the requirements of the act of March 2, 1867. Before registration the applicant must have taken and subscribed an oath that he had not been disfranchised for participation in any rebellion or civil war against the United States; that he had not held any executive or judicial office in any state and afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or given aid or comfort to its enemies; that he had never taken an oath as a member of Congress of the United States or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, and afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or given aid or comfort to its enemies; and that he would faithfully support the Constitution and obey the laws of the United States, and would, to the best of his ability, encourage others to do so. The act also provided that, after the completion of such registration, an' election should be held of delegates to a convention. This convention was for the purpose of establishing a constitution and civil government for the state. The convention in each state was to consist of the same number of members as the most numerous branch of the state legislature of such state in the year 1860. They were to be apportioned among the several districts, counties, or parishes in the ratio of registered voters, as nearly as might be. The convention in Virginia was to consist of the same number of delegates as had been in the most numerous branch of the legislature of that state in the year 1860. The counties, however, that constitute the State of West Virginia had been lopped off.

Provisions were also made for boards of registration, and for the usual machinery of an election. The vote was to be cast in the usual mode, by the registered voters: "For a convention" and "Against a convention." The act provided that if a majority of the votes given should be in favor of a convention, the delegates should assemble at a time and place to be mentioned in the notification. They should then proceed to frame a constitution and civil government. When this was done, the constitution should be submitted by the convention for ratification to the registered voters, at an election to be conducted by officers or persons to be appointed by the commanding general. It also provided that if the constitution should be ratified