The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-08-11
TEN YEARS OF ALABAMA

1865-1874

women, mnlattoes and full blood negroes sat unabashed at the the contrast they challenged. The President must be im- peached, Congress, or the fragment mus. take charge. the south must be reduced to military province President Davis, Lee and their co-conspirators must be eX- ecuted.
 The President could not see in the oc- currences around him the presence of ac- tive revolution. He would set out on a tour of public instruction. No President until now had ever essayed that task. He called upon General Grant, Admiral Farragut Secretary of State Seward to accompany him. His swing around the circle begun.
 The universal hostility to the President in the north was not for moment grati fled by the appearance of the heroic as- soeiates of his expedition. His lucid con stitutional argument on the stump seemed to add intensity to the flame of hatred which preceded his coming. The re- doubled hostility of the politicians was explained in the universality of the resent ment of their constituencies. This man of the southern soil had masqueraded before them long enough. At the capital of Indiana the President appeared on the balcony of his hotel while dense throng stood below. He advanced to address it. iIooting hisslng. vulgar demonstration in extreme greeted him. A man of per- sonal courage, he insisted on telling of his efforts to rescue the government from the hands of a fragmentary congress. Pistol shots rang out Wounded men be- low fell in their tracks while the Presi- cent was pulled along by friends at either arm to his apartments. Passing on to St. Louis he spoke to the crowd again. He denounced in overwhelming invective the Congress that even then was preparing to depose him.
 November 12, 1866, the second session of the legislature under the new constitu- tion began. This new organic law pre- scribed annual sessions of the biennially chosen legislation. The governors term was two years. the judiciary had a six year term. the sheriff q three year term.
 Let us remember by recognition of ev cry department Of the federal govern ment, Alabama was a state. the equal of any state of the union. While this legis- iature sat, the equal of any state repre- sented in Congress, yer her Senators and Representatives had the doors of that body shut upon them.
 We shall see a little later that none of the northern states. at that time spe- officially protected the negro as the race was protected by the new constitution of Alabama. We shall see that only in a few northern states was the negro quail flied voter. In more than one of those states discriminatory laws prevented ne- gro immigration.
 The constitution of Indiana forbade ne- rroes to cross the border of the state and tie citizen who harbored a negro immi- grant or traveller was liable to severe punishment.
 The statehood of Alabama ir Novem. Der. 1866. rested upon the identical prin- ciples of compact and union that pre- jailed in 1879 when Congress received Ala bama as of the union.
 Revolution was rife. We shall see the reople of Alabama self-consecrated to maintenance of the form and spirit of the American government. They are about to be debased and punished to the limit by fragment of that government fin usurpation. The ardor of defiance arose among them. Endurance had been tried and had ceased to be a virtue Energies came to them. tact developed 1T. them. The valley campaign, where they followed Stonewal Jackson. the terrible rush with which they followed Forrest, discovered no higher test of manly instirct in them than the fast ripening events in which they were to follow citizen James II. Clanton.
 We shall keep close vigil in the dark