Capitol Men (67 page)

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 "
If this matter is permitted to pass over":
Philip Sheridan to Andrew Johnson, Aug. 6, 1866; quoted in Hollandsworth, p. 145.
A government investigation determined:
"New Orleans Riots 1866."

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 "
Although [he] died five years ago": North American Review,
Oct. 1866.
The absurdity of Johnson's homage: New York Times,
Sept. 2, 1866.
After he asked the crowd to tell him: New York Times,
Sept. 5, 1866.

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 "
President Johnson, in his speech at Cleveland": New York Times,
Sept. 7, 1866.
"
I have been slandered": New York Tribune,
Sept. 10, 1866.
"
We had thought the President had exhausted his power": New York Tribune,
Sept. 10, 1866.

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 "
Never in history had a President":
Bowers, p. 138.
"
It was a great blunder": North American Review,
Oct. 1866; also see coverage of Johnson's tour in
New York Tribune
and
New York World,
Aug. 28-Sept. 4, 1866; Bowers, pp. 135–39; Foner, A
Short History of Reconstruction,
pp. 118–19.
"
The unrepentant and still rebellious South":
Vandal, "The Origins of the New Orleans Riot of 1866, Revisited," in
Black Freedom/White Violence, 1865–1900,
Donald G. Nieman, ed.

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Begun in New York and Philadelphia during the war:
Holt, pp. 29–31.

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 "
Can you change a carrot into a melon?":
W. G. Bronlow to "Payne," Oct. 26, 1860, reprinted in
Charleston Daily Courier,
Oct. 1, 1868.

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 "
On account of the usurped and polluted source": Anderson Intelligencer,
Apr. 22, 1868, quoted in Bleser, p. 26; see also
New York Times,
Jan. 23, 1868.

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 "
Representing a constituency that previously had been ignored":
Underwood and Baker, p. 26.

3. Daddy Cain

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It was one of three former Confederate states:
Blacks constituted 60 percent of the population of South Carolina in 1870, and over 50 percent in Mississippi and Louisiana. In Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Virginia, blacks made up 40–50 percent
of the population; just over 33 percent in North Carolina; and between 25 percent and 33 percent in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Texas. See U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negro Population, 1790–1915, p. 51, cited in Foner,
Freedom's Lawmakers,
p. xiii.
Contemporary accounts suggest:
For Cain's background, see Mann, "Richard Harvey Cain,"
Negro History Bulletin.

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 "
A position of betwixity": Charleston Mercury,
Jan. 28, 1868.
The possession of lands and homesteads: Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina,
pp. 379, 382.

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The poignancy of the location was not lost: Beaufort Gazette,
Sept. 8, 1998.
At a rally in Citadel Square: Charleston Daily News,
Apr. 2, 1867.
A local white newspaper urged blacks to remember: Charleston Advocate,
Apr. 6, 1867.
Officers of the Freedmen's Bureau intervened: Charleston Daily News,
May 6, 1867.
"
Might have lived and died without having his name in print": Charleston Mercury,
Jan. 28, 1868.

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 "
A genuine negro, kinky-headed": Charleston Mercury,
Feb. 20, 1868.
He "has been gradually subsiding to his proper level":
Ibid.
"
The features of a very ugly white man": Charleston Mercury,
Jan. 28, 1868.
One of the "peripatetic buccaneers from Cape Cod": Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina,
Introduction.
So annoyed were some of the delegates:
Ibid., pp. 27–31.

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Most whites viewed him as gutless and self-glorifying:
Bowers, p. 350.
The emotions stirred by the demeaning press portraits: Charleston Mercury,
Jan. 29, 1868.

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As the delegates coolly defused the crisis: New York Times,
Jan. 20, 1868.
"
I thundered": New York Globe,
Aug. 16, 1884; see also Lamson, Peggy, p. 23.
"
The colored men in the Convention possess by long odds": New York Times,
Jan. 21, 1868.

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When a visiting correspondent of
The Nation
magazine: The Nation,
Mar. 30, 1871.

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Smalls suggested "a system of common schools": Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina,
p. 100.
"
Ignorance is the parent of vice and crime":
Ibid., pp. 691–92.
Other delegates suggested that parents:
Ibid., pp. 701–2; see also Knight, p. 67.

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 "
We only compel parents to send their children to some school": Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina,
p. 703; see also Knight, p. 66.
Education did ultimately prove:
Botsch, p. 73.
"
Bury the Democratic party so deep":
Robert Smalls to Whitfield McKinlay, Sept. 12, 1912; in Carter Woodson Papers, Library of Congress.
"
Can we afford to lose from the councils of state":
Quoted in Uya, p. 50.

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 "
Six deserted plantations":
Inventory prepared by Freedmen's Bureau agent H. G. Judd for General Rufus Saxton, Aug. 1, 1865;
Records for the Assistant Commissioner for the State of South Carolina,
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1870, National Archives Microfilm Publication M869 Roll 34.
In Beaufort, federal commissioners sold: Beaufort Gazette,
undated clipping in Reconstruction vertical file, Beaufort Township Library.

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 "
The way we can best take care of ourselves": New York Daily Tribune,
Feb. 13, 1865, quoted in Cox, "The Promise of Land for the Freedmen,"
Mississippi Valley Historical Review.

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 "Piloted our ships through these shallow waters":
Rufus Saxton to O. O. Howard, Aug. 22, 1865, Freedom Bureau Records for South Carolina, vol. 9, quoted in Abbott, p. 55.
As General Howard would later note:
Howard, p. 229.
"
Provide a small homestead or something equivalent":
Ibid., pp. 236, 238.

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 "
Their eyes flashed unpleasantly":
Ibid., pp. 238–39.
Of the almost forty thousand freedmen:
See Abbott, p. 63. In the 1870s Smalls won a legal case to retain the McKee house at 511 Prince Street, one of several properties that he had purchased at government auction immediately after the war. His was a test case for other blacks who owned confiscated property in the Sea Islands
(De Treville v. Smalls;
see
Beaufort Tribune,
Jan. 6 and Nov. 3, 1875; also
Beaufort Republican,
June 27, 1872).

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 "
Of what avail would be an act of Congress": Congressional Globe,
38th Cong., 1st sess., p. 2251.
"
A strange and unearthly apparition": New York Herald,
Mar. 14, 1868.

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 "
Native to the soil and loyal to the government":
Korngold,
Two Friends of Man,
p. 320.
"
This nation owes the Negro not merely freedom":
Ibid., pp. 321–22.
"
Believed that a free laborer, once accorded equality":
Foner, "Thaddeus Stevens, Confiscation, and Reconstruction,"
Hofstadter Aegis.

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 "
When the serfs of Russia were emancipated":
Korngold,
Two Friends of Man,
p. 335. See also Williamson, p. 144.
"
That this Convention do hereby declare": Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina,
p. 213.
Rainey, a native South Carolinian:
Bermuda, as a sanctuary for blockade runners, was a crossroads for news and intelligence about the war, and Rainey, cutting the community's hair each day, managed to hear a lot. Before the war's end, he was called upon to testify in the case of Confederate sympathizer Dr. Luke Blackburn, who was caught scheming to spark a yellow fever epidemic in New York and Philadelphia by shipping contaminated clothing, in the guise of charity, to the cities' poor. See Packwood.

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 "
To make an appropriation of one million dollars":
Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina, p. 196.
"
It is the fashion of bogus politicians":
Ibid., p. 376.

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 "
You would do perfectly right":
Ibid., p. 379; "Root, hog, or die!" was an old folk saying, referring to the practice of turning domestic hogs loose so they could forage for their own food. In Reconstruction it was applied to the ex-slaves, who were expected to make their own way in the postwar economy.
"
When I, in the simplicity of my heart":
Ibid., p. 423.
In his view, the infusion of $1 million:
Ibid., pp. 381, 418–19.

4. "The Whirligig of Time
"

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"
The time for compromise has passed":
Korngold,
Two Friends of Man,
p. 276.
"
The 'whirligig of time' has brought about its revenges":
Forten, "Life in the Sea Islands,"
Atlantic Monthly.
"
The Senator-elect ... has a benevolent expression": National Republican,
Jan. 31, 1870.
"
The distinguished darky made quite a sensation": New York Herald,
Feb. 3, 1870.
"
Happy Revels": Memphis Daily Avalanche,
Jan. 22, 1870.
Even other men of color considered Revels a curious figure:
In 1860, out of a statewide black population of 437, 303, there were only 775 free blacks residing in Mississippi. See Wharton, pp. 12–13.
"
For preaching the gospel to Negroes":
Borome, "The Autobiography of Hiram Rhoades Revels,"
Midwest Journal.

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 "
Adding 191 to the church [and] killing off two whiskey shops":
"Letter to the Editor" in unnamed news clipping, Hiram Revels Scrapbook, Hiram Revels Collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library.
Revels "had never voted, had never attended a political meeting":
Lynch,
Facts of Reconstruction,
p. 41.
A dutiful letter-writer when away on his frequent travels:
Hiram Revels Scrapbook, undated clipping, Hiram Revels Collection.

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 "
Breathe a new atmosphere":
Frederick Douglass's speech at Rochester, New York, Apr. 5, 1870, in the Collection on the American Negro, Columbia University Library, New York; Wendell Phillips's sentiments recorded in
National Anti-Slavery Standard,
Mar. 20, 1869; both quoted or described in Gillette, pp. 22–23.

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 "
Singularly placid [and] ... untouched":
Green,
The Secret City,
p. 120.

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 "
Tall ... portly ... swinging along like an athlete":
Bowers, p. 247.
"
The old repulsive sheds":
Frederick Douglass, "A Lecture on Our National Capitol," 1876, Frederick Douglass Papers, Library of Congress.

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 "
Rights that have cost a revolution":
Green,
The Secret City,
p. 109.

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 "
Unimproved class": Washington Bee,
Feb. 1, 1890, quoted in Gatewood, p. 50.
"
Tinsel shows [and] stragglingprocessions":
Ibid., p. 51.

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Praises of the completeness of all the details": New York Times,
Mar. 5, 1873.
"
One of the most beautiful and handsomely gowned women":
Lamson, Peggy, p. 173.
"
In the grand procession": New National Era,
Mar. 6, 1873.

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 "
Of the most recherché character": New York Herald,
Feb. 2, 1870.
"
Equal to a first rate original oil painting": New National Era,
Feb. 28, 1870.

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In May 1867, two years after his capture:
In 1878 the state of Mississippi offered to appoint Davis to the U.S. Senate, an honor he could not accept because his citizenship had been removed (it would not be formally restored until 1977).

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 "
So far inferior, that they had no rights": Dred Scott v. Sandford,
19 How. 60 US, 393 (1857).
"[Dred Scott]
has been repealed by the mightiest uprising":
Swisher, "Dred Scott One Hundred Years Alter,"
The Journal of Politics.
"
Giants!—great, intellectual, mighty giants": Congressional Globe,
41st Cong., 2nd sess., 2-24-70, appendix, p. 127.
"
The name of Taney is to be hooted down":
Swisher, p. 582.
"
Evidence that in your own judgment": Congressional Globe,
41st Cong., 2nd sess., 224–70, appendix, p. 127.
"
Addressingyou not as Republicans":
Ibid.

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 A
former nemesis from Kansas, J. H. Morris:
Hiram Revels Scrapbook, Hiram Revels Collection.
As for the issue ofRevels's eligibility: The Nation,
Feb. 3, 1870; see also Smith,
The Negro in Congress.
"
Born a putrid corpse": Congressional Globe,
41st Cong., 2nd sess., pp. 1566–67.
"
Revels, who had been sitting all day":
Undated news clipping from
Philadelphia Inquirer
in Hiram Revels Scrapbook, Hiram Revels Collection; see also
National Republican,
Feb. 26, 1870.

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 "
You will make us your foes":
Turner's speech was printed as a pamphlet and is often quoted. See Coulter, "Negro Legislators in Georgia During the Reconstruction Period,"
Georgia Historical Quarterly.

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 "
A wayward sister": New National Era,
Mar. 17, 1870.
"
They broke my door open, took me out of bed":
Colby's testimony appears in the Georgia section of
House Report 22,
42nd Cong., 2nd sess.; see also Sterling,
Trouble They Seen,
p. 374.
A
national outcry:
See Les Benedict, p. 55.
"
Never since the birth of the republic": Philadelphia Inquirer,
Mar. 17, 1870.