The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-09-16
TEN YEARS OF ALABAMA

1865-1874

and there is the same certain disaster from any repudiation of either.'
 The most active and turbulent of the scalawags was Charles Hays of Greene county, He was educated and a large landholder. He began office holding bS taking, "a seat in the constitutional con vention of 1867. He was senator 1T the military legislature of 1885. He was member of Congress later.
 Hays prepared for the Eutaw riot oi October 23, 1865 with care. On Septem-
 Der 12, preceding. he delivered at Fork land rambling speech such as negroes like to hear. The peroation was this:
 "One word to the freedmen My col ored friends. do you know why the
 ballot, that thing called vote, was put into your hands? It was the White people of this state refused to re- construct the state. Congress gav' you the opportunity of restoring Aia- bama to the government. You went for
 ward with your votes and did so Tc you are indebted, in great manner, fol Alabama being in the union today. You
 have done well. It Is your duty to keer her there by sustaining the union by your votes Remember when the day oi election comes and you go to cast youi votes, cast them for that name that who led the armies of the union success lfully-who freed you and gave you the right to vote. But above all things to your ownselves, be true. and 1t must follow as the day the night, you cannot then be false to any man.
 None but a man born and reared on 2 cotton plantation could have made 8 speech like that It was exactly what was needed. The quotation from Shake speare abounds in pathos which went tc credit of the orator without suspicion oi
 the origin. Hays knew how effective words from scripture and Shakespeare were upon the negro mind.
 A case of universal interest through
 out the south came up in Mississippi known as the McArdle case McArdle published newspaper at vcSsburg. Po- litical conditions in Mississippi were in
 great confusion. Among other incidents Brigadier General Armes sent a squad of soldiers to the capital, custer Governor Humphreys and took possession, while the valiant governor fitted up another room for the executive office. On July Gen. eral Ames. U. s. A., notified the governor to vacate the governors mansion, public property, in order that he as provisional governor might occupy it. Humphreys re- fused until a legally qualified governor | tiN-NNtN' state"
 Thereupon the commander of the post ordered a lieutenant with a guard to clear one-half of the house and hold it. Yet an other serious disturbance arose. General John D. Freeman, chairman of the demo- cratic state committee, appealed to Gen eral Gilen of the United States army to order the sheriffs to give notice and pre- pare for the presidential election, rapidly approaching. Freeman said the state had no governor. thus ignoring General Ames, occupying half the mansion Gillem re- fused to order an election.
 These were conditions that profoundly
 ncensed Editor McArdie. He denounced the high military officials in his news paper. He denominated them 'satraps," {" 'sautocrats, infamous, cowardly and abandoned villains, etc. The military put the fiery young editor under arrest. He appealed to the circuit court of the United States in Mississippi for the writ of habeas corpus The writ issued. The court, upon information, however, re- manded the prisoner to the military au- thority. The prisoner appealed to the supreme court of the United States.
 Congress being resolved to support the military and in knowledge that the court had established precedent in similar cases favorable to McArdle now, precipitatey
 passed a bill to cut off such cases from rlRnI or appeal tO lDe supreme tOuTl.
 President Johnson vetoed the bill Both houses repassed it over the veto. The veto message said: The legislation pro- posed cannot fail to affect most injurious ly the just equipoise of our system of government: for it establishes a precedent
 which, if followed, may eventually sweep away every check on arbitrary and un- constitutional legislation"
 Senator Hendricks, democrat, from Ohio, n caStinp his pgt ba htI
 pealed to senators to tell him ''when in the history of the government or of any state had the appellate jurisdiction of q 1 court been taken away.' Here was 8 case already brought into court under an cient laws and when a hearing was abou to be had and when long line of prece. dents stood out for the plaintiff, Con gress intrudes to cut him off from his rights
 This is only one of the examples where fraud and despotic power in the United States carries back to the darkest picture, Of human experience. Ii is not to bs inquired here whether the hope that the world Is moving forward to greater en- lighteninent of mind and heart is well bfounded. The reasoning by which the southern states lifted their burden was aot last not so much reason in them Natural acuteness in one occupant race natural servllity in the other, reduced commerce with the north following short cned cotton crops in the south.
 Looking back we see that the vicious
 mind of the dismembered Congress agi.
 tated to devise extremists measures of degredation for the south, really entailed deeper penalty upon the north. The negro vote is nought in the former. In the latter it controls as to national af- fairs. The disastrous effects upon gov ernment entailed by section of the four teenth article are felt where the public doebt is owned intensely. Here where little of it comparatively is owned the injury must be correspOndingly small. JOHN WITHERSPOON DUBOSE.