oratory in the grandiloquent old charge. Not French or English soldiers, in leagued alliance of deathly war, on the farfamed heights of Balaklava, moved in more solemn tramp to martial step, huge blasts rippling their thrilling echoes up the long valley and precipitous ravines of that impregnable Russian fortress, than did those grand old judges in their terrific charges against the offenders of their day," etc., etc. Poor old Judge Corbin! Though he continued to vote and claim fellowship with his party, he could not keep step with them in all things; so they abolished his court and re-established it, all to put another in the judgeship. The learned ex-judge, a few days after this law was passed, said his party reminded him of "a parcel of pigs; as soon as one got an ear of corn the others took after him to get it away." Judge Corbin's successor was his former Clerk of the Court, the colored man Roderick Thomas. So it could not have been professional ignorance that lost the old judge his seat. He knew quite as much law and ten times more rhetoric than Thomas. But Thomas got the place of judge of the Court that had jurisdiction over capital cases; and another colored man became clerk, with no more qualifications than Thomas had. The year 1874, which was to mark another era in the history of Alabama, had now come. The government "born of the bayonet" had been in existence six years. A general election was to be held in November, and both parties began early to prepare for the conflict. The Republicans who represented the state in Congress had made their contributions at an early date. They had secured, in the Act of March 28th, 1874, authority for the President to issue army rations and clothing to the destitute along the Alabama, Tombigbee and Warrior Rivers, all in Alabama; and, to carry out this and a similar Act relating to the Mississippi, four hundred thousand dollars were appropriated by the Sundry Civil Act, approved June 23d, 1874. It may be as well here to give the history of this adventure, which was based on the pretense of a disastrous overflow. This There had really been no unusual overflows anywhere in the state. The money sent to Alabama was distributed as an electioneering fund; some of it at points like Opelika, which had not been under water since the days of Noah's flood. open prostitution of public funds, became a most effective weapon in the hands of the Democrats. To crown the misadventure, the Republican Governor, Lewis, probably to stamp with the seal of his condemnation the folly of the superserviceable politicians, who had secured this hapless appropriation, in his message to the Legislature, just after the election, took occasion to say, pointedly, that the state had during the year been "free from floods." The Republicans renominated Governor Lewis and the Democrats selected as their candidate George S. Houston. And now began the great struggle which was to redeem Alabama from Republican rule. The state was bankrupt-its credit gone. Governor Lewis had reported to the Legislature, November 17th, 1873, that he was "unable to sell for money any of the state bonds." The debt, which had been at the beginning of Republican administration in the state $8,356,083.51, was now, as appears by the official report, September 30th, 1874, including straight and endorsed railroad bonds, $25,503,593.30. City and county indebtedness had in many cases increased in like proportion, with no betterments to show for expendi tures. The administration of public affairs in the state for many years preceding the Civil War had been notably simple and economical. Taxes had been low, honestly collected and faithfully applied. To a people trained in such a school of government the extravagance and corruption now everywhere apparent, coupled with the higher rates of taxation and bankrupt condition of the treasury, were appalling. More intolerable still were the turmoil and strife between whites and blacks, created and kept alive by those who, as the Republican Governor Smith had said, "would like to have a few colored men killed every week to furnish a sem blance of truth to Spencer's libels upon the people of the state generally," as well as to make them more certain of the vote of the negroes." Not only was immigration repelled by these causes, but good citizens were driven out of the state. It is absolutely safe to say that Alabama during the six years of Republican rule gained practically nothing by immigration, and at the same time lost more inhabitants by emigration than by that terrible war, which destroyed fully one-fifth of her people able to bear arms. Thousands more were now resolved to leave the state if, after another and supreme effort, they should fail to rid themselves of a domination that was blighting all hope of the future. Few things are more difficult than to overcome political prejudices as bitter as those which had formerly divided the white people of Alabama, but six years of Republican_misrule had been, in most cases, sufficient for the purpose. In 1874 the people seemed to forget that they had ever been Whigs and Democrats, Secessionists and Union men; and when this came about the days of the black man's party in Alabama were num. bered. Although the whites had lost over twenty thousand men in the war who would now have been voting, they had in the state, by the census of 1870, a majority of 7,651 of those within the voting age. In 1880 this majority, as the census showed, was 23,038, and by the coming of age of boys too young to have been in the war, the white voters certainly outnumbered the blacks in 1874 by over ten thousand. The Republicans had forced the color line upon an unwilling people. The first resolution of the Democratic platform of July, 1874, was that "the radical and dominant faction of the Republican party in this state persistently and by false and fraudulent representations have inflamed the passions and prejudices of the negroes, as a race, against the white people, and have thereby made it necessary for white people to unite and act together in self-defense and for the preservation of white civilization." That the people of the state accepted this issue in this manner is the rock of offense against which partisan clamor in distant states has so often since that day lashed itself into fury. The campaign of 1874 was not unattended by the usual efforts to inflame the public mind of the North and to intimidate Democratic voters at home by the display of Federal power, both civil and military. Troops were, of course, loudly called for. Charles Hayes, a member of Congress from the Eutaw District, published a long list of Democratic outrages; and additional credence was given to his narrative by an endorsement of his character by Senator Hawley, of Connecticut. So promptly were these statements disproved, that Mr. Hawley was understood to have virtually recanted his endorsement. "L. M. J.," of Montgomery, who was, as it afterwards appeared, a certain J. M. Levy, wrote a letter to the Washington Chronicle, which the editor appropriately headed in flaming lines "ALABAMA-THE CONFLICT OF RACES. Horrible Assassination-The Southern Republicans Imitate Murder, Personal Indignities. Hell itself Broke Loose, and The United States Asked to Protect Her Citizens." The falsehoods of this article were proven by certificates from Probate Judge Geo. Eely, Deputy Marshal G. B. Randolph, Clerk of the City Council Hughes, and J. A. Minnis, United States Attorney-all Republicans. There were, during the year 1874, conflicts between whites and blacks, in which both parties received injuries and losses. These were incited, Democrats claimed, by Republican leaders to invoke the aid of Federal authorities, civil and military, in the pending election. It certainly was natural that those Republicans who were continually crying out that outrages were committed by the Democrats, should desire, for these complaints, some basis of fact to stand on. The Spencer wing of the Republican party were undoubtedly pursuing the same tactics now as in 1870, when Governor Smith condemned them in the letter from which extracts have been given. The Republican press, however, claimed that the acts which were to bring United States troops into the state to superintend the elections always resulted from the folly of the Democrats, who did not desire the presence of troops, and that the troubles were never instigated by the Republicans, who were anxious to have the troops. The political training of the colored man had been such that it was perfectly natural for him to look upon United States soldiers, when he saw them come into the state, as sent to see that he voted the Republican ticket. Another method resorted to in this campaign was to handcuff Democrats and carry them great distances and by devious routes through populous portions of the state, exhibiting them, by the way, in such manner as to encourage the blacks and intimidate the whites. The United States Marshal, having warrants against two citizens of Choctaw County, in order to make his act more impressive, descended with his deputies upon the County Democratic Convention while in session. Having marched his prisoners out, instead of bringing them before a committing officer nearer by, he carried them to Mobile, and instead of going by the usual route, the river, or by the next most usually traveled way, the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, he conveyed them down to Selma, across to Montgomery and then down the Mobile road-over three hundred miles-for a preliminary trial. The presence of troops and the exhibition of prisoners handcuffed, while it encouraged the negroes, served greatly to intensify the zeal of Democrats. Thousands of whites were inspired during that campaign with the feeling that their future homes depended upon the result of the election. The aliens among the Republican leaders also felt that their future habitations depended on the election, for they had no business in Alabama, except office-holding. The Democrats were successful. They carried by over ten thousand majority all the state offices and they elected large majorities in both branches of the Legislature. |