The Broken Sword; Or, A Pictorial Page in Reconstruction Read online

  INTRODUCTION.

  "I have considered the oppressions that are done under the sun, and on the side of the oppressor there is power."

  In the enforcement of the policy of Reconstruction in the South, theevidences were from day to day becoming so cumulative and decisive, thatnothing but the discipline of an enraged party, coupled with the"spoils" principle, prevented the whole mass of the community from auniversal expression of its desire to have it abandoned. Reasoning meneverywhere felt that it must continue to multiply its mischiefs. "But,"said its authors, "treason must be made odious, and the lateinsurrectionary States must feel that there is a higher law than thatpromulgated by their ordinances of secession."

  The Spanish inquisition, now the abhorrence of all enlightened minds,was long sustained in many centuries by the tyrants' plea of necessity.In the burning of a thousand heretics the religious zealot saw the handof God; in the destruction of a thousand sorcerers, the fanaticdiscerned the commonweal of the people; so in the whipcords with whichthe people of the South were so mercilessly scourged, there was found anantiseptic for the gangrenous wounds inflicted by the civil war. Allthese cruelties were legalized, while bleeding humanity was sinkingunder the burden of oppression. In the collision of exasperatedpassions, it is the temper of aggression that always strikes the firstblow. The government of the South by carpet-baggers was essentiallyoppressive and inquisitorial. It was, in its practical operation, a pureand unadulterated despotism, superseding the protection guaranteed bythe Federal Constitution to each and every State. It was under thedominion of an organized anarchy, with legislatures and courts ofjustice, subordinated to a lawless assemblage of unprincipled mencalling themselves the representatives and judges of the people. Amongits necessarily implied powers was that of confiscation; and numbered inits enumeration of brutalities, was a nameless crime that shocked themoral sense of mankind. Reconstruction came upon the South with fearfulimpulse.

  Perhaps the "hour is on the wing," when a worthier hand will write thehistory of the institutional age that was sandwiched between the slaverycivilization ante-dating the sixties, and that which minimized thepernicious power of manhood suffrage at the close of the century; orperhaps when that remnant that still survives in the weakness of age to

  "Weep o'er their wounds, o'er tales of sorrow done. Shoulder their crutch and show how fields are won."

  shall have "passed over the river;" when the threnody of the "oldendays" which to us is like the music of Carrol along the hills ofSlimora, "pleasant, but mournful to the soul," shall be forgotten, someambitious youth will uplift the veil; will take a glance of the wholehorizon, and the south will unbosom her griefs that have been so longconcealed. It will not do for a hand that drew the sword to guide thepen. By a law of our nature all passive impressions impair our moralsensibilities. Contact with misery renders us callous to thoseexperiences; a constant view of vice lessens its deformity. If anyexpression in this humble narrative shall appear ill-tempered, let mesay in the language of Themistocles at the battle of Salamis, "Strike,but hear me." The whole country has long since repudiated the dogma that"all men are born free and equal" and endowed with certainimprescriptible and inalienable rights. This heresy of course found itshighest expression in the post-bellum amendments to the constitution,and the remedial statutes which made their efficiency complete. The warwas the logical fulfillment of prophecies that had their forecast in thepublic councils before the nullification doctrine was forced upon theSenate by Mr. Calhoun. It sprang without extraneous aid fromuninterpretable expressions in the organic law, which were finallyexplained away in the effusion of blood. Reconstruction, in theconception of men who provided the sinews of war, was the prolificaftermath; and in this harvest field, the gleaners plied their vocationwith merciless activity, reinforced in their villainies by the freedmen,who, in an experimental way, were publicly evincing their unfitness forcitizenship. The Civil war gendered this brood that filled the Southwith horror, and their disorders and tumults precipitated a crisis thatplunged the Southland into a paroxysm from the Potomac to the RioGrande. There was no refuge from an evil that was all-pervasive. Thegreat war with its pageants and sacrifices, its banners and generals,its storming soldiery and reservoirs of human blood was almost thrustout of the memory as the patriots of the sixties stood face to face tothe all-encompassing perils of reconstruction. They saw the flag of theUnion--the almost lifeless emblem of the genius of theirliberties--frown feebly at the promulgation of a law that disfranchised300,000 American citizens. The old banner seemed to turn her eye to theeagle at her staff-head and ask him to lend her his wide-spreadingpinions, that she might bend the wing and fly away from the pollutedspot--from the embodied forms of evil and ruin. Almost every utteranceof the complaining tongue that was syllabled into speech, was to thiseffect: "Will our country--our civilization--withstand the shock?" OurSouthern characters had been enriched by an assemblage of all thetreasures which refined intellect could accumulate; we had wisely builtupon foundations of public virtue; our institutions had the permanencyof age and respectability, and exhibited everywhere the fullest maturityof athletic vigor. The paroles of Southern soldiers amnestied them fromarrest for past military offences, but the clothing which their povertyobliged them to wear marked the target at which the lawless and viciousshot at their will. Personal and State rights were abridged untilnothing was left of the sovereignty of the barren commonwealths or theenthralled individual. There were no juries of the vicinage but negroes;and daily the broken-hearted people were unwittingly aggrandizingrapacious officials. To the most depraved of the negroes thecarpet-baggers were constantly appealing with arguments that stirredtheir blood. This narrative will not in an historical sense deal withthe subject of reconstruction; from its want of compactness andcontinuity it would prove inefficient as a lesson or a guide. Wepresent, however, imperfect portraits of a few men and women who wereunfortunately in the pathway of the storm that stripped the husbandmanof the fruits of his labor, the Southron of his liberty, stifled thecries of the distressed, and rendered the tenures of property unstableand insecure. In no conjuncture in which this paroxysm of politicsplaced the former masters of slaves, did they abate their care and zealfor their betterment. Monuments of brass and sculptured stone are notsufficiently enduring to memorialize the virtues of the negroes of theold plantations of the South, who watched and waited for the avengingarm of Providence to right the wrongs of old master. May God's mercyrest and abide upon this scattered remnant, that, like autumn's leavesin the forest, have been blown hither and thither by the wraith of thetempest.

  THE BROKEN SWORD.