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Overview
Who was this scalawag? Simply a native, white, Alabama Republican! Scorned by his fellow white Southerners, he suffered, in his desire for socioeconomic reform and political power, more than mere verbal abuse and social ostracism; he lived constantly under the threat of physical violence. When first published in 1977, Wiggin’s treatment of the scalawag was the first book-length study of scalawags in any state, and it remains the most thorough treatment. According to The Journal of American History, this is the “most effective challenge to the scalawag stereotype yet to appear.”
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780817389284 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Alabama Press |
| Publication date: | 03/02/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 248 |
| Lexile: | 1610L (what's this?) |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Sarah Woolfolk Wiggins is Professor of History at The University of Alabama and Editor of The Alabama Review.
Read an Excerpt
The Scalawag in Alabama Politics, 1865â"1881
By Sarah Woolfolk Wiggins
The University of Alabama Press
Copyright © 1991 The University of Alabama PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8173-8928-4
CHAPTER 1
UNIONISTS HAVE THEIR DAY
Geography set the stage for nineteenth-century Alabama politics. A Black Belt of rich soil bisects the state; to the south lies the coastal plain, particularly fertile in southwest Alabama. Directly north of the Black Belt rise the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and behind this hilly plateau is the fertile Tennessee Valley. A plantation economy developed in the Black Belt, Tennessee Valley, and southwestern Alabama, and most of the slave population was concentrated in these areas. A white population predominated in southeastern Alabama and the mountain counties, where a small-farm economy developed.
In the antebellum period little intercourse existed between north and south Alabama, although Montgomery was the state capital after 1846. No railroads linked the country north of the mountains with the rest of the state. Commercially, the Tennessee Valley was closer to Charleston and New Orleans than to Mobile, and geographically it belonged to Tennessee. Politicians in antebellum Alabama were cognizant of this transportation deficiency and regularly proposed construction of internal improvements to connect north Alabama with the port of Mobile.
Geographic and economic differences within antebellum Alabama led to resentful sectionalism. With mounting frustration north Alabama watched the Black Belt rule the state, grasp the "lion's share of state honors, offices and benefits," and impose an "undue portion of the public burdens upon the weaker and less wealthy section, North Alabama." This domination peaked in 1860–61, when south and central Alabama urged secession, while north Alabama was a Unionist stronghold. North Alabamians were unenthusiastic about slavery and feared economic strangulation should Alabama secede and Tennessee remain in the Union. The loyal whites narrowly lost Alabama to the secessionists when a state convention approved an ordinance of secession in January, 1861.
In the months between Alabama's secession and the bombardment of Fort Sumter, Alabama Unionists refused to believe that a reconciliation with the Union could not still take place. Their opinions on how to accomplish this adjustment ranged from one recommendation that the ringleaders of the rebels be hanged as pirates to another that counseled caution and patience on the part of the federal government. Joseph C. Bradley, a prominent Huntsville lawyer who made the latter suggestion, saw nothing warlike in President Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address although the Southern press teemed with denunciations of it as especially coercive. Bradley viewed these newspaper attacks as efforts to thwart any reorganization of the Union. The "precipitators" hoped that Lincoln would provoke a confrontation with the South. Southerners would then react with "warlike feeling," and civil war would follow. If such a clash could be avoided, north Alabama cooperators planned to support a gubernatorial candidate in December, 1861, to try to wrest the state from the secessionists. But Fort Sumter and war intervened.
Under the Confederacy, south and central Alabama continued to control the state government. John Gill Shorter, Eufaula lawyer and ardent secessionist elected governor in 1861, supported the war effort. However, the popularity of the war quickly waned as Union troops occupied north Alabama, Mobile was blockaded, shortages and hardships increased, tax burdens and impressment of goods grew heavy, and conscription became onerous. By 1863 this disillusionment with the war caused Shorter to lose the gubernatorial election to Thomas Hill Watts, a former Whig who had opposed secession until after Lincoln's election.
In the same year, war disillusionment brought changes in the state legislature and in the representatives to the Confederate Congress. Many former cooperators went to the Alabama General Assembly; in the Confederate Senate moderate Richard W. Walker replaced fire-eater Clement C. Clay, and cooperator Robert Jemison succeeded William L. Yancey on his death. Six pacifists and enemies of Jefferson Davis' administration were sent to the Confederate House, and one of these replaced secessionist J. L. M. Curry, who had been speaker pro tempore.
Opposition to the war effort blossomed in the white counties of north Alabama. The war was hardly under way before the small farmers of white Winston County convened a public meeting on July 4, 1861. There Charles Christopher Sheats, an opponent of secession who had voiced Winston County's opposition to secession at the 1861 constitutional convention, advocated the secession of Winston County from Alabama and the Confederacy. That same day Winston citizens created the "Free State of Winston," thus withdrawing from Alabama, but they did not secede from the United States.
By spring, 1862, when Federal troops occupied portions of the Tennessee Valley and the Confederate government resorted to conscription to bolster the Confederate army, north Alabamians began to join the Union army. Between 1862 and 1865, 2,678 white Alabamians enlisted in the First Alabama Cavalry, U.S.A. Beginning in 1862, also, the old cooperator leaders organized a secret peace group known as the "Peace Society." Leaders of this movement in the white counties of the northern one-third of the state were former U.S. Senator Jeremiah Clemens, future Republican congressman C. C. Sheats, and two future Republican governors of Alabama, William H. Smith and David P. Lewis. Little concrete information exists on the "Peace Society." However, it is known that they desired peace on terms favorable to the South and communicated with federal authorities about Alabama's future. They exercised a strong voice in elections: being at home, they could and did vote, and the 1863 Alabama elections reflected their views and strength.
Both Federals and Confederates attempted to control the Tennessee Valley, and their incursions devastated the more accessible areas of the Valley. Confederate raids into areas of known Union sympathy inflicted hardship and bitterness and caused many to flee through the Union lines. Many others who opposed the war and desired to evade conscription into the Confederate army took local civil and judicial positions. Thereby, they were able to stay at home and to secure some degree of safety for themselves, their families, and property.
In the spring of 1865 Alabama was quiet as the state awaited news of her future. The physical scars of war were minor compared to the condition of such neighbors as Georgia and Tennessee, but everywhere the effects of the war were evident: collapsed transportation, disrupted economic life, bewildered citizens. Alabamians were relieved that the war was finally over and were ready to accept whatever peace was forthcoming from the North. Former slaves were reported as resembling "lost sheep, straying from place to place, believing no one's voice." Those whites who had heretofore "dealt humanely and truthfully" with blacks were yet able to exercise some authority with them. A slight air of impatience lingered, as if Alabama had closed the door on a painful period and now was eager to get on with her future. There was no arrogance or pride in an unpopular and lost cause, and Alabamians expressed a mood of decided cooperation, if they could just be told what they were expected to do to get life functioning around them once again. By this time Alabamians, like other Southerners, had accepted the abolition of slavery, an acceptance variously described as "more or less sullen" acquiescence and as submission "with the best grace" they could muster. One Unionist admonished his contemporaries, "We must accommodate ourselves to surrounding circumstances."
But although slavery was gone, prejudice was not. Unionists and ex-Confederates alike frankly regarded the blacks as "socially and intellectually inferior," and some expected the sense of inferiority to embitter the blacks and kindle resentment against the whites. One pessimist predicted that no sort of legislation would make a "good servant or citizen" out of the freedman because of his weak character and suggested that colonization offered the only solution. Despite this fundamental belief in the inferiority of the black race, white Alabamians generally faced the fact that life ahead was to be full of readjustments in race relations, and they professed willingness to assist the freedmen in fitting themselves "for their changed relations and responsibilities." However, reservations were voiced about whether whites were sufficiently flexible to cope immediately with the race question with much success. One Unionist feared that a lifetime of white rule over black slaves rendered white Southerners "incompetent" suddenly to acknowledge the rights of the former slave. He pleaded for time during which Southerners could accustom themselves to the change and to transfer the rights of the master to the individual black.
The idea of black suffrage at this time was generally abhorrent in the state. The Huntsville Advocate observed that the black was free, and as a freedman the government would protect him in his legal rights. The Advocate urged its readers to accord the black man what the war had secured for him. But "legal rights and political privileges are essentially different. He has been granted the former—not the latter."
One Unionist put the matter more bluntly than did the Advocate: "This is a white man's government, made by white men, for the benefit of white men, to be administered by white men, and nobody else, forever." Another Unionist was equally firm: "I want the negro to have his legal or civil rights and nothing more. He is not now fit for enfranchisement—as a race the Blacks are not capable of appreciating the ballot box or a free government. If they were qualified and could understandably appreciate the right of suffrage," he concluded, he would feel differently. Former non-slaveholders were reputed to be more bitterly opposed to black suffrage than even ex-secessionists. This attitude resulted from the fact that the blacks had had a "great contempt which they have not concealed for what they called poor white people of the South." However, one Northerner in Alabama speculated that Alabamians might submit even to black suffrage in exchange for a "return to the prosperity of old." But even this observer who found no fault with black suffrage drew the line at putting blacks into office, saying that those who advocated such had better join those who favored female suffrage.
In 1865 Unionists expected to direct the reorganization of postwar Alabama. They believed the Confederacy's collapse vindicated their earlier opposition to secession, and they considered themselves to be a better element to return the state to the civil authority of the United States than existed in any other former Confederate state. In May they acted to assume leadership in the reconstruction of Alabama. "Original and unswerving Union people" met throughout north Alabama and reported that local ex-Confederates had "suddenly faced about" and made up in "activity and shrewdness what they want in loyalty." One Unionist speculated that the ex-rebels expected "to regain by the ballot box what they have lost by the cartridge box." Unionists emerged from these meetings full of plans to counter those of the ex-rebels. Assuming that a provisional governor would be selected from their ranks, they were ready with nominations. Among those suggested were Michael J. Bulger of Tallapoosa County, David C. Humphries of Madison, Daniel H. Bingham of Limestone, William H. Smith of Randolph, Lewis E. Parsons of Talladega, and Thomas M. Peters of Lawrence—all opponents of secession. One Unionist succinctly expressed the views of many of his class when he asked for a governor who would "not traffic with treason in any of its ramifications" and who would accept terms based simply on the "Constitution as it is and the Union as it was."
The loyal native whites also expected to elect a large majority of the future legislature to assist the governor. This legislature could redistrict the state according to the latest census, elect representatives to Congress, and proceed as if only a brief lapse had occurred during the Civil War. Or a convention might be called to undo the work of the secessionists. Still another possibility was the appointment of a military governor to supervise the reorganization of the state. Above all, time was precious—they "should not wait a day" to seize the initiative in the reconstruction of their native state, Alabama.
Management of Alabama affairs remained until late June, 1865, under the direction of George H. Thomas, general of the occupation troops. The Mobile Advertiser and Register commended the military officers in Alabama in 1865, saying that the state was "particularly fortunate" in the character of those assigned to the state. To administer civil affairs General Thomas ordered that incumbent county civil officials continue their duties with the support of Federal troops. This order outraged the loyalists who denounced these officials for having aided the rebellion. Such men, declared the Unionists, "ruled and oppressed us when treason was in the ascendant, for god's sake do not let them lord it over us now when the Union cause is triumphant. Give their offices to Union men—they had had their day—let us have ours."
On May 29, 1865, President Andrew Johnson announced his program for Reconstruction, which became a reality for Alabamians on June 21 when he appointed Lewis E. Parsons as provisional governor. This appointment pleased the Unionists except the more violent Tory element who preferred Bingham. Contemporaries described Parsons as portly, with a double chin but "well preserved" for a man of about fifty whose black hair and eyes contrasted with a ruddy complexion. A grandson of Jonathan Edwards, Parsons was well educated in New York before he moved to Alabama and opened a law practice in 1840. He was active in Alabama politics first as a Whig and then as a Douglas Democrat in 1860. Parsons was highly regarded as an effective public speaker. Known as a man of full and sonorous voice with clear and distinct enunciation, Parsons was termed by William L. Yancey as the ablest and most resourceful Union debater he ever encountered. During the Civil War Parsons quietly practiced law in Talladega while his sons served in the Confederate army. His appointment was a very wise choice, for as one government inspector in Alabama reported to President Johnson in September, Governor Parsons was widely esteemed as a "man of sense" who was "just and kind to all."
Following Johnson's instructions from Washington, Parsons first declared in force all Alabama laws enacted before January 11, 1861, except those regarding slavery, and thus he anchored the foundations of the new civil government on what remained of antebellum local government. Those eligible were to take the amnesty oath to regain their citizenship under President Johnson's proclamation of May 29, 1865, and persons excluded were to apply for a presidential pardon. To register to vote, the restored citizen was to appear before a registration official appointed by the Provisional Governor, register, and take the amnesty oath again. Governor Parsons also ordered those men in office at the war's end to continue in their positions.
Unionists quickly condemned the Governor saying that most of the officeholders were ex-rebels. They interpreted Parsons' actions as an effort to deny them their rightful opportunities of office. One disgusted loyalist wanted every secessionist removed from office in the state, and another advised that "if there are only half a dozen true men in a county, they should be appointed to office in preference to the secessionists."
Governor Parsons defended his actions, saying that he did give preference to Union men in filling vacancies, trying to find one "reasonably qualified" and where necessary the "least objectionable." In no case, he insisted, had a "union man been neglected or set aside for secessionists." Although his proclamation reappointed all officers from justice of the peace down, higher county officers were specially appointed, and the Governor reserved the right to remove any appointee for disloyalty or other good cause.
The reorganization of the Alabama judiciary resulted from the combined efforts of Governor Parsons and Brigadier General Wager T. Swayne, assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands for Alabama. A native of Ohio educated at Yale, Swayne was the son of a U.S. Supreme Court justice and was practicing law in Columbus, Ohio, when the war erupted in 1861. He patriotically volunteered for the army and served for the duration despite the loss of his right leg in February, 1865. When this thirty-year-old veteran arrived in Alabama on August 1, 1865, he found the Provisional Governor "honestly endeavoring" to carry out the views of the President and acting carefully so that his actions might not provoke the election of "bad men" to the coming constitutional convention who would cast the constitution in an "impracticable mould." Swayne determined to cooperate with the Governor's efforts to restore order and decided to see if a fair administration of justice to the freedmen could be obtained through the judicial machinery Parsons was reorganizing, rather than establish separate courts conducted by newcomers unfamiliar with state law. Too, use of existing Alabama courts would forestall criticism, as Alabamians could not impugn a judiciary that was their own. Accordingly, General Swayne designated judicial officials appointed by the Provisional Governor as agents of the bureau to administer justice to the freedmen. These officials were instructed to enforce the existing laws of the state except those which made distinctions of color, and Governor Parsons endorsed these steps of General Swayne. Subsequently, Swayne had misgivings about the functioning of the civil courts. Although there was no denial of justice, he felt blacks encountered too many opportunities to be oppressed without means or knowledge for redress of their complaints. Still, he maintained, he could see no other alternative, so the courts continued to operate as they had in the past. Overall, the commissioner's conduct won respect in Alabama, and he was known as a "gentleman ... eminently qualified for his position," a man of "integrity and brains," and a "thorough Puritan in looks and principles."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Scalawag in Alabama Politics, 1865â"1881 by Sarah Woolfolk Wiggins. Copyright © 1991 The University of Alabama Press. Excerpted by permission of The University of Alabama Press.
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Table of Contents
ContentsPreface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Unionists Have Their Day
2. Revolutionary Times
3. Crossing the Rubicon
4. The Horns of a Dilemma
5. Economic and Political Labyrinth
6. Total Shipwreck
7. At Sea Without a Rudder
8. Conclusion
Appendix: Republican Nominations and Appointments, Alabama, 1868-1881
Notes
Bibliography
Index