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The Southern States of America
Chapter III - Reconstruction in Alabama


Conditions in Alabama After the War.

When the War of Secession ended, organized society in Alabama scarcely existed. The social and economic results of the war were appalling. It was estimated that 35,000 men had died in the military service, and that as many more were wounded or in broken health from hard service. Five years after the war the census of 1870 showed that the number of whites in Alabama was then about 100,000 less than it would have been had the population increased as it did between 1850 and 1860, and the black population was about 80,000 less than it should have been.

Destruction of Property.

Half a billion dollars worth of property, including slaves worth $200,000,000, had been lost; public buildings,. railroads, steamboats, factories, banks and capital, money, farm implements and farm stock, mills and gins-all such accumulations of property had been partially or totally destroyed. North Alabama had been for three years the contending ground of both armies, and in twelve counties of that section property had almost disappeared. The raids of Rousseau in 1864, and of Wilson in 1865, carried destruction down from the northern part of the state to Central Alabama as far as Montgomery, and the invading armies coming up from Mobile in 1865 completed the wasting of the central and southern counties. Several towns, among them Selma, Decatur, Athens and Guntersville, were burned; other towns, among them Huntsville, Florence, Courtland, Mobile and Montgomery, were partially destroyed. Thousands of dwellings along the paths of the raids had been burned and hundreds had been deserted. In North Alabama and in the southeastern counties, constituting over a third of the state, tories and deserters roamed and looted almost at will from the early part of 1864 to the latter part of 1865. After the surrender, the negroes in the Black Belt frequently seized what teams and supplies they found at hand and set out to join the Federals, thus helping to complete the ruin.

Confiscation Laws.

To make matters worse the Washington administration began a general enforcement of the Federal confiscation laws. In this the most unscrupulous agents were engaged, and many persons pretending to be Federal agents perpetrated frauds upon the people. Legally, all war supplies and cotton owned by the Confederate government were subject to confiscation by the United States government. But the treasury agents and pretended agents made little distinction between Confederate property and private property, and stole impartially from individuals and from the government. The Federal grand jury at Mobile, which, in 1865, investigated the confiscation frauds, reported that the agents stole in Alabama 125,000 bales of cotton, worth then at least $50,000,000, and that most of this was private property. Two of these cotton agents-T. C. A. Dexter and T. J. Carver-were tried and fined $90,000 and $250,000 respectively; the others escaped capture. The loss of the cotton removed the only important source of revenue still existing in the lower South.

Another burden felt for the next three years was the Federal cotton tax. This tax was two and a half cents a pound in 1865, three cents in 1866, and two and a half cents in 1867. It was estimated that first and last the people of Alabama paid $15,000,000 of the cotton tax, of which $10,388,072.10 was paid before the cotton left the state.

Economic and Social Conditions.

The general economic collapse resulted in distressing destitution and suffering. Especially was this the case in the "white" counties where, during the war, there had been few negroes to raise supplies plies and whence had been recruited most of the state's quota of soldiers. Consequently the loss of life fell most heavily here, and here, also, the economic losses were most keenly felt, for in these districts there had been slenderer resources than in the Black Belt. Nowhere in the state was there a supply of money. The crops failed in 1865, and were poor for years after the war. Nowhere in the state was there plenty, and the bare necessities of life were lacking in many of the northern counties. There were several cases of starvation. In September, 1865, the state authorities reported that 139,000 whites were totally destitute and suffering. In December of that year the number had increased to 200,000, and in May, 1866, 80,000 widows and orphans alone were reported.

Society was in a disorganized state. Families were broken up; feuds and quarrels among neighbors had begun during the war, and still lasted; public opinion no longer had its proper influence in controlling and directing the social order. In North Alabama several thousand tories and deserters, persecuted and persecuting during the war, had now become practically outlaws, and over the entire state the lowest class of the population, recruited by the scum of both armies, threatened a reign of lawlessness. The negroes added another element of insecurity to the situation. To test their newfound freedom they left, in great numbers, their former masters and flocked to the towns where the army posts were located and where the Freedmen's Bureau distributed scanty rations twice a week. Here disease and death in their closely packed quarters soon thinned their numbers, and the removal of the protecting influence of their masters left the race exposed to imposition by the low whites, and race friction began and continued.

Under such conditions the temper of the white people was sorely tried. The great majority were feeling the bitterness of defeat, while a few thousand "unionists" wanted vengeance for the persecution they had endured during the war. The soldiers were willing to accept in good faith the results of the war, but were sensitive to every appearance of a desire to humiliate them. The women had bitter memories of suffering and suspense endured, and of relatives lost. A class of noisy people, mostly critics of the war period, were searching for scapegoats and directing, especially through the local press, irritating language at the "Yankees." The arrest of Davis and other Confederate leaders, among whom were the Alabama war governors Moore, Shorter and Watts, checked the desire for reconciliation, and the coming in of Northern people as business men, speculators and missionaries served to complicate the situation. The Northern churches generally announced towards the formerly separate Southern organizations a policy of "disintegration and absorption." The Episcopal churches were closed for several months by the army and Bishop Wilmer suspended from his duties because he refused to pray for the President of the United States.

No State Organization.

Politically the state had no organization for a period of six months in the middle of 1865. During the latter part of 1864 and the spring of 1865 the Confederate government had gradually weakened, and in many parts of the state had gone to pieces. The surrender of the armies left the state without civil government. After the Federal occupation the military posts were few in number and widely separated. Over the most of the people there was no government from March to September, 1865. A sort of lynch law, an early manifestation of the Ku Klux movement, served to check in some degree the disorderly negroes, the horse thieves and outlaws.

Under such conditions reconstruction in Alabama began, and these conditions seriously influenced the course of the restoration of the state to the Union.

The Attempt at Restoration by President Johnson, 1865-1867

As soon as the Confederate government fell, in several districts of Alabama-in the Tennessee valley even before the news of Lee's surrender came the people began to hold "reconstruction" meetings, at which they pledged to President Johnson their support of any plan of restoration that might be offered. Some wanted the President to appoint a governor; others wanted him to recognize Governor Watts and the legislature elected in 1863. A movement was started in central Alabama to have the legislature to convene and take steps to get the state back into the Union, but this was stopped by the military authorities.

Johnson, who had adopted in essentials the plan of reconstruction worked out by Lincoln, issued on May 29, 1865, a proclamation granting amnesty to all Confederates except the higher officials, civil and military. In May and June he appointed provisional governors over the late Confederate states. In Alabama there were several candidates for the provisional governorship among those who had at some time opposed the Confederacy. The best known were William H. Smith, D. C. Humphreys and D. H. Bingham, all tories or deserters and none of them fitted to be governor. Lewis E. Parsons, who was finally appointed provisional or military governor on June 21, was a New Yorker by birth who had submitted to but had given slight support to the Confederacy. He was directed by the President to call a constitutional convention which should reorganize the state government and amend the constitution of 1861 to suit the changed conditions of 1865. At this time the various Federal offices were again opened in Alabama. During the summer Parsons called a convention to meet on September 10, proclaimed in force the laws of 1861, with the exception of those relating to slavery, and directed the Confederate local officials to resume and continue in office until superseded.

Before the end of September Parsons had in fair working order the state and local administrations, and was using his efforts with the President to secure the pardon of those who were excepted from the Amnesty Proclamation of May 29. His administration would have been stronger and more respected had it not been for the frequent interference of the President and the military authorities with the civil officials of Alabama, and for the interference of the Freedmen's Bureau in all matters relating to the negroes. The Freedmen's Bureau removed a whole race from the jurisdiction of the state government ; the President and the army officers frequently reversed or disregarded the action of the state administration; consequently, the Parsons government was discredited and weakened.

Constitutional Convention.

The convention, which met in September, was a fairly respectable but not an able body. It was divided into violent Unionists and Confederate sympathizers, the latter being in the majority. During its short session of ten days it declared slavery abolished, repudiated the war debt and declared null and void the ordinance of secession. It admitted the negro to civil rights and ordered elections of state and county officers and members of Congress to be held during October and November.

The state gradually settled down, the elections were held, members of Congress chosen, and Robert M. Patton, a North Alabama man who had taken no part in the war or in the events leading to it, was elected governor. The legislature met on November 20 and proceeded at once to enact much needed legislation. On December 13 Patton was inaugurated; Governor Parsons and George S. Houston, a member of Congress before the war, were elected to the United States Senate. But neither the senators nor the congressmen-elect were admitted to seats by the radicals at Washington. Patton's administration from beginning to end, though recognized by the President, was constantly interfered with by the army officials, the Freedmen's Bureau and the President himself. It was merely a provisional government under the control of the President, just as Parson's administration had been. The legislature in 1865 and 1866, in addition to much other constructive work, endeavored to make a place in the social order for the emancipated blacks. It gave them civil, not political, rights - the right to hold property, to testify in court, to sue and be sued, to intermarry, etc. To check their alarming tendency to idleness and thieving and to prevent the enticing away of labor, strict laws were passed to prevent vagrancy and to regulate the relations of employer and employed. This was the so-called "Black Code," which furnished the Northern politicians with so much campaign material.

Meanwhile the struggle between President Johnson and Congress, begun in December, 1865, was going on, and until that was decided the fate of the seceding states would be in doubt. For political and other reasons the Bureau agents and the missionaries, religious and educational, had begun to cause irritation between the blacks and the whites by their methods of inculcating the new doctrines of freedom and equality; the labor system was already demoralized by the unwise meddling of the Freedmen's Bureau, and the blacks, by the closing months of 1866, were wild for political equality.

Soon it was seen that Congress would win against the President, and over his veto the Civil Rights Act and a new Freedmen's Bureau Act were passed in 1866, and the proposed Fourteenth amendment sent out to the states for ratification or rejection.

In Alabama, in anticipation of the victory of Congress, the people, in 1866 and early in 1867, ranged themselves in two parties. The great majority of the whites, regardless of former political affiliations, united into the Conservative (later called the Democratic) party and endorsed the policy of President Johnson. A small number of the leading whites were willing to accept a limited negro suffrage if it could be tried under proper conditions ; the majority were opposed to negro suffrage of any kind. About 15,000 whites, for various reasons, favored reconstruction by Congress, and for a few months most of them acted with the radical Republican party. The blacks were, in 1866-1867, organized by the carpet-baggers - white adventurers from the North -into a secret political society known as the Union or Loyal League, and this organization held them safely for the radical Republican party.

Meanwhile the state legislature considered and rejected the proposed Fourteenth amendment on the ground that to ratify it would be humiliating to the legislature and to the people of Alabama, and disgraceful conduct toward those who would be disfranchised by it. Two years had passed since the close of the war, and now it was clear that the great problems were still to be settled. The negro question in politics was the disturbing factor. The President's plan had failed and his experiment drew to a close. Had it not been for the unsettling influence of politics the state would now have been in a fair way towards recovering from the results of war. As it was, nothing could be settled until Congress tried its plan.

Reconstruction by Congress, 1867-1868.

By the Reconstruction Acts of March 2 and 23, and July 19, 1867, Alabama, along with the other Southern states, was placed under military rule until the negroes and the whites who were not disfranchised could be enrolled and a new government organized on the basis of this new citizenship. Alabama, with Georgia and Florida, formed the Third Military District, which was commanded by Gen. John Pope, who had headquarters at Atlanta. The state was under the immediate command of Gen. Wager Swayne, Assistant Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau in Alabama from 1865 to 1868. Governor Patton was directed by Pope to continue the civil administration, subject to control by the military authorities.

During the summer of 1867 the registrars appointed by Pope rapidly carried on the enrollment of voters. The disfranchisement of whites included practically all who had had experience in civil life, or held high office in the Confederate army-a total of 40,000 according to one estimate.

Constitutional Convention.

In October, 1867, elections were held under the direction of the military authorities for the election of delegates to a constitutional convention. The whites were in the minority, without organization and leaders, and made no show against the blacks closely organized in the Union League and led by able and unscrupulous adventurers. Ninety-eight radicals, of whom eighteen were negroes and two conservatives, were elected to the convention. The white radicals were carpet-baggers and native "scalawags" of little note or ability. The carpet-baggers, with their negro followers, controlled the convention. The constitution framed by it was copied from Northern models, and was not remarkable except for its disfranchising provisions. The proceedings of the convention showed, that the blacks had come under the control of the outsiders, and that, therefore, the native white radicals were much dissatisfied.

In February, 1868, the constitution was sent before the people for ratification; state and local officials were to be elected at the same time. About 75,000 whites and 93,000 blacks were registered; a majority of the registered voters, or about 84,000, must vote in the election or, according to the Reconstruction Act, the constitution would fail of adoption. Only 70,812 votes were cast, about 14,000 less than necessary. The whites had seemingly won by organizing their forces to stay away from the polls.

But in June, in spite of the fact that under its own law reconstruction in Alabama was defeated, Congress voted to include the state with six other states in an act of readmission. So in July General Meade, who had succeeded Pope, turned Patton out of office and put in his place William H. Smith, the radical governor-elect. The radical legislature met, senators and representatives-all new-comers to the state-were elected and admitted to Congress, and the state was again in the Union.

Carpet-Bag and Negro Rule, 1868-1874.

From June, 1868, to December, 1874, the state was in the hands of a ruling party composed mainly of negroes, with sufficient carpet-baggers and scalawags for leaders and office holders. The mass of whites representing intelligence and property had little influence in the government, which was inefficient and corrupt. The leaders of the blacks, in order to retain their control, kept alive the irritation between the races, and the whites secured protection by violent and revolutionary methods which, in time, caused a loss of respect for law.

During this period, in which the government was growing weaker and weaker, the general character of the state and local administration was, however, growing better. This was due partially to the fact that the officials chosen in 1868 were the poorest possible, and all changes could be only for the better. William H. Smith, the governor, was a Confederate deserter. He was weak, but though used by corrupt men was not himself corrupt; and although at the head of a negro party he wanted a white man's government, and did not favor the carpet-bag element. The other state officials and the members of Congress were, from 1868 to 1870, all carpet-baggers. In the first legislature, 1868-1870, the Senate had thirty-two radical members and one conservative; the House had ninety-seven radical and three conservative members. Since the local elections in 1868 had not been contested by the whites who planned, by abstaining from voting, to defeat the constitution, the radicals had gained nearly all offices, both county and state. No other reconstructed state was afflicted at the beginning with such a uniformly bad lot of office holders. But in this condition lay the hope : the worst came first. In other states the reverse was true. At every subsequent election, office after office and county after county came into the control of the whites until nothing was left the radicals except the Black Belt. It was the same with the members of Congress, for gradually native whites-first scalawags, then conservatives-replaced the adventurers. This change was hastened by the growing breach between the scalawags and the carpet-baggers, and by the hostility between the former and the negroes. Only the support of the Federal troops kept the reconstruction administration in control. Governor Smith disliked negroes and would organize no negro militia, and thus the state was saved that humiliation; on the other hand he would organize no white troops, fearing lest they might overthrow his administration.

In 1870 the division in the radical party enabled the conservatives to elect as governor Robert B. Lindsay, a Scotchman by birth, who was well-intentioned but rather inefficient, and in politics colorless. He was unable to accomplish any but negative reforms, being opposed by a radical Senate and administration. Two years later the radicals were united, and Davis P. Lewis, a scalawag of considerable ability and decency, was elected. He was hostile to the corrupt elements of his party, but had no control over it or over his administration. Before the end of his term the government practically went to pieces from weakness and lack of support.

The misrule of reconstruction was, as stated, worst at first, gradually getting better as the whites secured more and more control over the government. The worst abuses were in regard to the taxation, the finances, the endorsement of railroads and the schools. Under the first reconstruction administration the rate of taxation was increased from one-fifth of one per cent. on a portion of the wealth of the state in 1860 to three-fourths of one per cent. on all property in 1868, an increase which, considering the loss of property, was about eightfold. The state expenditures increased from $530,107 in 1860 to $2,081,649.39 in 1873. The bonded debt grew from $4,065,410 in 1866 to $30,037,563 in 1874, which, ,added to a city and county debt of about $12,000,000, amounted to about 65 per cent. of the value of the farm lands of the state. Property rapidly decreased in value and thousands of people emigrated to the West. Salaries of officials were doubled and the number of offices increased.

A great part of the public debt resulted from the fraudulent endorsement of new railroads. A law was passed in 1867 authorizing the endorsement by the state of the bonds of new railroads at the rate of $16,000 for each mile actually constructed. The roads secured the endorsement not only for what little they constructed but for hundreds of miles that were never built; one road alone-the Alabama and Chattanooga Railway-secured an endorsement of $5,300,000, of which $1,300,000 was fraudulent. The roads, with one exception, defaulted and left the state to pay interest on their bonds. The total liabilities due to the railroad frauds were never exactly known, because Governor Smith, under whom most of the endorsements were made, kept no records, but they were estimated at $14,000,000.

The school system begun in 1868 might, under different circumstances, have succeeded, but neither the administration nor the teaching force was competent, and the system, borrowed from Northern states, was too complicated for Alabama. Dr. N. B. Cloud, the state superintendent of education, was not a person of ability or of strong character, and his assistants in his own office and in the counties were neither honest nor efficient. In several counties the school fund was embezzled by officers. Many of the teachers secured for the schools were those who came from the North or were taken from the Freedmen's Bureau schools. The whites objected to the views of history and the doctrines of social equality taught by some of the teachers, especially in the negro schools. For a while there was decided hostility to the schools, and the white children frequently were not allowed by their parents to attend. Later the more objectionable teachers were replaced, but by that time the finances were exhausted. The public school system never equalled in results the ante-bellum schools. As a result of a difficulty caused by the endeavor to graft the negro schools of the American Missionary Association into the Mobile system, the latter, which had flourished for twenty years, was practically destroyed. To the State University a radical faculty was supplied, but the attendance of students ceased and it was given back to conservative control. In 1870 a Democrat, Joseph H. Hodgson, became superintendent. He reorganized the system, but the educational fund was now bankrupt, and the public schools were turned into tuition schools. The radical legislature from the first persistently diverted the funds that, by the constitution, belonged to the schools. Speed, a radical, was elected superintendent in 1872, but there was no money and he could do nothing. By 1873 the shortage from the school fund amounted to $1,260,511.92, all of which had been illegally diverted by the legislature to other purposes.

For the churches also there was a reconstruction period. Throughout the period of political reconstruction the missionaries of the Northern churches worked to get a foothold in Alabama. They did not succeed in disintegrating the Southern organizations, for the only whites who joined them were the few "unionists" in north Alabama, but they did succeed in organizing the negroes into separate churches removed from any control by Southern whites. The close of the period left the Northern and Southern churches still unfriendly to each other.

Industrially, during the reconstruction period, the state as a whole did not prosper. The white counties showed signs of progress from the conditions of 1865, and in time attained the dominant industrial position that was formerly held by the Black Belt. The latter, with uncontrolled and undirected negro labor, fell into economic decline. Cities, mines, factories and good crops after this time were found only in the white counties. Free negro labor was not as -efficient as slave labor had been. Freed from the competition of efficient slave labor on fertile soil, the whites began to make headway; they, rather than the blacks, were emancipated by the destruction of slavery.

The Overthrow of Reconstruction and the Readjustment.

As already stated, the control of local government in the white districts after the first elections in 1868 passed gradually into the hands of the whites, the state government and the Black Belt counties remaining under the control of the radicals. The whites used not only the legal means of ousting the latter, but also at times revolutionary and violent methods. The radicals, at every election under their control, had used fraudulent methods, and the white man's party, in turn, used similar methods; the Union League, which held the blacks in line, was opposed and broken up by the Ku Klux movement, a secret organized movement which succeeded by frightening and intimidating the negroes, who were thus made to stay away from the polls. After the solid ranks of the blacks were broken, the power of the radicals rapidly declined.

The final overthrow of the reconstruction party was accomplished in 1874. The state administration was weak; the radical party was seriously divided -carpet-bagger, scalawag and negro, each demanding more than the others could or would give. The Democrats or Conservatives, stimulated by victory in other states, were well organized and well led, and -were determined to endure no longer the rule of the radicals. The race issue now became an important one and united the whites, for most of the whites in the radical party deserted when race lines were drawn. The blacks, having lost confidence in their leaders, did not vote in full strength. George S. Houston, Democrat, was elected governor, and the state has since been controlled by the white man's party.

The radicals were soon driven out of the Black Belt counties, their last stronghold, the Republican party declined in power and the number of its white members decreased until it became merely an organization to secure Federal offices. The whites have remained solidly Democratic, all second party movements failing because of the fear of the potential negro vote. The races were left unfriendly by reconstruction, and the churches and schools still feel the injury of the policies then pursued. The whites have shown an increasing disposition to follow leaders who hold extreme views on the race question, but the negro, the unwilling cause of reconstruction, has suffered most from its results.

The radicals did not give up their control over Alabama in 1874 without a fight. A committee of Congress was sent to investigate conditions and to find out why the political change had been made. The report of this committee was in the usual radical spirit, but it was too late now to use the "outrage" issue, and the whites of Alabama were left to work out their own salvation. The first legislature under Governor Houston set about the readjustment; the number of officials was reduced, salaries scaled down, and retrenchment began in every place. It is said that one could not borrow a sheet of paper at the state house. As nearly as possible the carpetbag laws were repealed, a commission was appointed with authority to adjust the public debt, a memorial against the seating of George E. Spencer was sent to the United States Senate, and a convention ordered for the purpose of framing a new constitution.

The Convention of 1875 met at Montgomery in September and was in session less than a month. The strongest men of the state were members, and L. P. Walker, formerly Confederate secretary of war, was made president. The obnoxious features of the Constitution of 1868 were repealed, and a constitution adopted that the people regarded as legal and as their own. Biennial instead of annual legislatures were ordered, taxation was limited, and state and local aid to railroads, etc., was forbidden. The mingling of races in schools, etc., and by intermarriage, was prohibited by law.

The debt commission had a heavy task and took several years to complete it. The total amount of state obligations was about $32,000,000. Payment of fraudulent debts was refused; others more or less tainted were scaled, and the rate of interest was reduced. The creditors of the state were satisfied with what the commissioners offered. The debt, after all adjustments, amounted to $12,000,000. Soon the state securities were selling at par and the treasury was not embarrassed.

Education prospered with the return of home rule. The law ordered the separation of races, and the whites were no longer hostile to the school system. For the first time since the war the teachers were paid promptly. School funds came from three sources-state appropriation, local taxation and tuition fees. The State University was revived, and the Agricultural and Mechanical College at Auburn was developed.

For several years the Democrats devoted their efforts to rooting out the carpet-bag office holders who still had control of the Black Belt. By skilful gerrymandering, all of the congressional districts. except one, were made safely Democratic. The legislature reduced the salaries and curtailed the powers of the carpet-bag officials in the black counties. Official ballots were adopted and a residence of thirty days required before voting. In 1876 the Republicans polled only 55,582 votes to 99,235 for the Democrats. Tilden and Hendricks carried the state in that year. At this time the last partisan investigation of affairs was made by a committee of Congress. In 1878 the Republican Convention, consisting principally of negroes, made no nominations for state offices, but advised that the Greenback ticket be supported. In 1880 the situation was similar. The negroes were confused by the suspension of the Republican party, and in great numbers voted for Democrats in the local elections. When there was no radical candidate in the field several Democrats would run for the same office-a "scrub" race, it was called. The attitude of the people toward the central government and the North grew more friendly, though for several years there was complaint of the annoyances of the deputy marshals and the United States commissioners who were stationed in the state.

When it was certain that the whites were again in secure control of the state, political questions became less important and economic problems pressed forward for solution. A healthy development of the railroads followed the collapse of the Reconstruction era, and with development came questions of rates and regulations. The white county farmers, emancipated from competition with slave labor, now prospered. The mineral district was being developed in the late seventies, and in south Alabama the great forests of pine were being cut for lumber. Conditions were not prosperous in the Black Belt where the quality of labor had so deteriorated; the negro laborers were drawn off in such number to work on the railroads and to go to Texas that the legislature passed a law taxing immigration agents. "Sunset" laws were passed to prevent the theft of farm produce. The prohibition movement began in 1875, and never ceased to grow. Beginning with the seventies the farmers began to organize into "granges" or Patrons of Husbandry. Congress finally began work designed to open Mobile harbor, which had not been in good condition since 1864. In 1880 the state was in much worse condition than in 1860, but it was again in the hands of its best people, and progress, however slow, was certain.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. - Annual Cyclopedia (New York, 1865-1877), article "Alabama" in each volume; Cameron Report (Washington, 1877)Senate Report No. 704, 44 Cong. 2 sess.; Coburn Report (Washington, 1875), House Report No. 262, 43 Cong. 2 sess.; Fleming, Walter L.: Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama (New York, 1905), and authorities therein cited, and Documentary History o f Reconstruction, 2 vols. (Cleveland, 1906-1907); Ku Klux Report (13 vols., Washington, 1871), Senate Report, No. 41, 42 Cong. 2 sess; Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction (Washington, 1866), House Report No. 30,39 Cong. l sesa.

WALTER L. FLEMING,
Professor of History, Louisiana State University.


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