The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-04-06

| tween two political parties. mob of
negroes, organized on the seels of a sub
siding revolution by an act of a frag-
ment of Congress, was mustered at the
polls under the form of a displaced cleo
tive government The mob was in no
sense a recognizable American instru-
mentality. The leaders were a few profit
gate whites, the factors of a vulgar ty-
ranny, alien to the soil. The redeeming
force of the time was the democratic
and conservative party" phrase con-
vertible with the white population.
A long neglected and deliberately OBJ
scured story of political energies that
dominated the state in 1874 should COM
mand the veneration and awaken the
sympathies of the generation which has
restored through deeds then done and
amidst humiliations then endured.
The redeemers of Alabama in 1874
trained aforetime in patience, confirmed
in revolution by four years of the biv-
ouac and the line of battle, entered upon
their labors with an intelligent, God-fear-
ing estimate of the probabilities ahead.
The predicate of their reckoning was
this, to-wit. Reconstruction was not
an accident There was no logical con-
nection between the terms of Lees sur
render, which required Confederate SOL
diers TO return to their states, and later
acts of the fragment of Congress which
consolidated those states in military dis
tricts, under the arbitrary and vindietive
dominion of the Major General Recon-
struction was not a sudden exigency
that arose from turbulence in the south.
The redeemers of Alabama in 1874, real
lied that reconstruction, in the despera-
tion of its inventions and the diaholism
of its Preparations, was not new but
time-worn. not of their generation, but
of that of their fathers. The scheme
did not come as the aftermath of the
conquest of states lately in rebellion"
but arrived in the era of unbrolSen and
unsupported loyalty"
Thirty years prior to Appomattox the
political party that controlled the gov
ernment at Washington in 1874 entered
upon its scheme of reconstruction in the
SOUTH The carpet bagger was discovered
in that early time and was even then
put to his uses A political party pub
fishing house in New York prepared il
lustrated literature in great volume ex-
posing fancied degradation of the slave
at the south in contrast with the felicity
of the white farmer of the north Tens
of thousands of copies received gratui-
tous distribution in the SOUTH The dis
tributors were northern born, coming
hither as school teachers, tutors and gov
ernesses of northern BIRTH taken by plant
ers into their isolated homes, teachers of
church choirs, agents selling cheap Bibles
wrapped in incendiary prints.
BY the arrival of summer of 1885 1t was
supposed preparations were sufficiently
advanced to justify the original scheme
of 'reconstruction"-a servile insurrec-
ton to cover the entire south up into
Maryland. Arms had been deposited at
convenient points and leaders instructed
The movement was to begin at the viii
lage, Vernon, in the valley of the Mis-
sissippi, on. July Fourth. \ A slave at
Beattie's Bluff, Mississippi, revealed the
plot to his master. Ruel Blake, white
leader, on this information OF the faith
full slave, was arrested at Vicksburg
and hung. Hunter, another white lead
er was overtaken in the Yazoo valley
and hung. The slaves inveigled into
the conspiracy were considerably treat
ed. only a few having been punished
AS support of this first attempt at re-
NOAAStA oNtioii III Tic SOulu ny the party
that finally succeeded, the plantation
negro proved unavailable. The failure
| of 1885 awaited Appomatox of 1866. The
| preliminary of sectional war and sec
| tional conquest, the result of war; that
was absent in the earlier period had
been adopted in the later. The negro
| of the plantation. on his own initiative
had no part in the scheme, from the first
| to last.
!
pices of the same political party or its
accepted leaders, to reconstruct the in
dustrial social and political life of the
south, Is known to history as the John
| Brown raid. Brown was a representa-
| tive leader of that party His deeds
formed its premises. His murders and
| unparalleled outrages. on private rights
perpetrated in Kansas as the prophet
of his party preceded his coming to
the east to secure the sympathy and CO.
| operation of such great men there as
| DR.. Howe, with whom was Mrs Howe,
| Ralph Waldo Emerson, Garrison, Gerritt
Smith and others. purse of money
supposed to be ample for his uses was
| raised. In the spring and summer Of
| 1859 he established camp in the mid
die west for recruits for his army. In
the fall he was ready to usher in his
expedition. His plan was the same as
tion of slaves, pillage and massacre of
their owners
Brown failed because the negro popu-
lation was not the degraded or op-
pressed people of his predicate for ac-
ticn; because the negro character had
matured unGer the benign guidance of
the masters and mistresses, into a status
of humanity too high to be deceived by
a charlatan or beguiled by false teach
ing.
The south apepals to impartial history
to teach the, lesson so industriously con-
ceaied from view-by ignorance in part,
and the calculating policy in yet greater
part of authors and the manufacturers
of books-that the fall of the Confed-
eracy was the responsible incident in
the invention of the scheme of recon-
struction in the south perpetrated by
the republican party. The reconstruc-
ton measures of the Washington gov
ernment whether legislative, executive
or judicial acts of that government fol-
lowing Appomattox. make the record of
success in the same scheme that failed
in 1885 and again failed In the John
Brown demonstration of 1859.
The republican party demanded the
war of conquest to make sure the sue
cess of the scheme, that had failed In
1895 and 1859 which had relied upon the
insurrection of slaves that could not be
melted by the Vaccinations of It's agents
and emissaries.
The de faeto reconstruction of 1S65-1901
failed ultimately after So years. expert