support for my family, which I can do if we all had good laws and low taxes. My wife, Flora, is still living, and we have but one child, whom we wish to educate. Please write me, in care of Dr. T. C. Robertson, Rock Hill, S. C. Your Friend, and former slave, Rev. FRANCIS DAVIE. Democratic Working Men Charleston Journal of Commerce, October 2, 3, and 5, 1876, in Senate [1876] HOUSEKEEPERS can get their meats from "Democratic Headquarters," stalls Nos. 49, 50, 57, and 58, Lower Market. Also, Nos. 9 and 10, Upper Market. . . It is not democratic money alone we want, but Wade Hampton and reform. DANIEL COOPER. DEDERICK STOKIEN. To our merchants, wharf-owners, and tradesmen generally: The Workingmen's Democratic Association are now prepared to furnish from 100 to 200 able bodied men for any kind of work. Apply at their hall, Queen street, near Meeting, from 9 to 12 m., 2 to 6, and 7 to 9 p. m. A CARD Until further notice I will receive applications from those seeking employment, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; and orders from employes for straight-out democratic workingmen, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. I am prepared to furnish democrats with democratic labor at reasonable wages, to any extent at a moment's notice. To employ republicans and starve democrats no longer pays. It is a crime, and will be held to strict accountability. R. S. THARIN, 75 Broad Street. "A White Man's Government or Military Rule" Senate Misc. Doc. no. 45, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 318. Newspaper Editorial. [1876] THE greatest excitement and enthusiasm pervade the ranks of the whites, and they are determined to redeem the State from her ignoble thrall at any cost and at any sacrifice. Troops have no terrors for them. They want troops; they want all the troops that can be sent to the State, for the true soldier deeply sympathizes with the cause of the oppressed white man everywhere, and they are determined to have either a white man's government or military rule. THE DOWNFALL OF THE RECON STRUCTION REGIME End of Carpetbag Rule in Florida Wallace, Carpet Bag Rule in Florida, p. 342. Wallace supported Stearns and Hayes. Drew was Democratic candidate for governor. The "deal" here was for the returning board to give the electoral votes to Hayes and the state government to the Democrats. [1876] THE visiting statesmen returned to the North and the Florida lawyers now began to set up for themselves. .. Filed in the Supreme Court a petition for a writ of mandamus, asked that the Board of State Canvassers be compelled to reassemble and canvass the returns as sent up by the County Boards of Canvassers. The board, in their first answer, raised the question of jurisdiction of the court. . . A peremptory writ was issued, commanding the board to count the votes from the face of the returns. Of course there was no answer to any such writ, but the conspirators undertook to trifle with the court and filed a protest instead of executing its mandate. The court then intimated clearly to the conspirators what they might expect if its mandate was not immediately obeyed. The conspirators, viewing the iron bars of the prison house in fear and trembling, with weeping eyes returned and made the canvass. The second canvass gave Drew 195 majority over Stearns, and the Hayes electors 214 over Tilden. The board in this canvass threw out the returns from Clay county so as to save the Hayes electors. [Governor] Stearns, looking back over the hard labor of his plundering career, and seeing that the packing of juries, the prostitution of the public schools, the disfranchising of whole counties, mob conventions, planned irregularities in elections, the public money expended to get possession of railroads, and the wholesale stuffing of ballot boxes had availed nothing, still was loath to give up the Government when he was actually in sight of the promised land. He called a consultation of the Ring chiefs at the City Hotel and required to know from them whether they would support him should he maintain that he was Gov ernor, the decision of the Supreme Court to the contrary notwithstanding. With one voice they all answered yea! The understanding was that all the colored people in the surrounding country should be notified that Stearns would be inaugurated on the day set apart by the constitution, and they were notified accordingly. Some of the carpetbaggers doubted the propriety of defying a Republican Supreme Court, but the "Little Giant" [L. G. Dennis] declared if Stearns did not hold on to the Government he would kill him. The day before Drew was to be inaugurated Stearns saw many strange faces in Tallahassee among the whites, and he began to grow pale and talk weak. The "Little Giant" now seeing that Stearns was about to yield up the ghost, went out and filled himself with the red beverage of hell and came to the hotel to murder him, and he would have attempted to do so, if he had not been locked in a room and detained until he fell asleep. In the meantime the whites had made great preparations for the inauguration of Drew. Early the next morning Drew and Stearns were seen coming out of a house together, as though they had been holding a long consultation. The whites were on hand from Georgia and from all parts of the State in large numbers, and the confiding freedmen came also to see the inauguration of Stearns. Drew seems to have made it all right with Stearns or Stearns with Drew; and Stearns procured a team and drove into the country while Drew was inaugurated. The whites had stationed in an old cotton storehouse close by the capitol, between three and five hundred men, armed with repeating rifles, with the intention of slaughtering the men who might attempt to inaugurate the defeated candidate. Everything, however, passed off quietly, and the new Governor was inaugurated amidst the shouts of thousands of glad hearted people, both white and black, who now boasted that their votes had done the work. Thus ended the eight years of carpetbag famine and pestilence. Troops Withdrawn from Louisiana Annual Cyclopedia 1877, p. 455, et seq. The whites refused to submit to the decision of the returning board that gave the electoral votes of Louisiana to Hayes and the state offices to the Radicals. The White League rose in arms and held the state for the Conservative administration. The friends of Hayes promised that the troops would be withdrawn from the South. Meanwhile President Grant refused to recognize either claimant. After the troops were withdrawn the Packard government disappeared. [1877] DURING the first three months of the year [1877], the two governments,1 claiming to have a legal basis in Louisiana, continued nominally to exist. Direct conflict was avoided, owing to the presence of United States military forces, with orders to preserve the peace, and a disposition to await the action of the national authorities regarding disputed questions affecting the State. But it soon became evident that the government headed by Mr. Nicholls alone had support from the people. A large number of the leading business men and clergymen of New Orleans joined in declarations of sympathy and support, and numerous popular gatherings, in various parts of the State, gave voice of the general sentiment. On the 9th of January, the courts, police-stations, and arsenals in New Orleans were peaceably surrendered to the Nicholls authorities. . . EXECUTIVE MANSION, Governor S. B. PACKARD, New Orleans, La.: In answer to your dispatch of this date, the President directs me to say that he feels it his duty to state frankly that he does not believe public opinion will longer support the maintenance of State Government in Louisiana by the use of military, and that he must concur in this manifest feeling. The troops will hereafter, as in the past, protect life and property from mob violence when the State authorities fail; but under the remaining days of his official life they will not be used to establish or pull down either claimant for control of the State. It is not his purpose to recognize either claimant. C. C. SNIFFIN, Secretary. 1. The Nicholls government, Conservative, and the Packard government, Radical. |