A Just and Lasting Peace: A Documentary History of Reconstruction (28 page)

(December 1866)

Soon after Appomattox, Claude August Crommelin (1840–1874), an elite Dutchman, embarked on a tour of the U.S., visiting New England, the Middle Atlantic States, the Upper Mississippi Valley, and the war-ravaged South. Drawing upon family connections, Crommelin met important Americans and recorded keen insights into the mood and manners of those he observed. Crommelin noted in particular the social and economic conditions in late 1866 in Charleston, South Carolina, and the opinions of white Southerners toward freedpeople, Yankees generally, and Radical Republicans in particular.

Saturday 8 December
1866

Departed for Charleston on board the
Saratoga
. Rain and fog at the time of departure, and we were obliged to anchor in the Narrows until the fog lifted.

. . . Some of his figures may be noted here: wages of Negroes, field hands $10 to 15 per month, domestic servants $12 to 15, everything including board. Most owners—not planters, about planters he didn't say anything—are glad to be rid of their slaves and value today's system much higher than the old one. During the war the price of gold skyrocketed to 5000 percent, meaning $1 in gold for $50 currency. But he had also knowledge of a barrel of flour worth $10 in gold being sold for $1,200 currency. It is clear that this was the cause for much speculation, and the bribery to be declared officially unfit for army service must have been unbelievable. Later desertion grew to enormous proportions.

He claimed that the planters didn't want a return to the slave trade as they maintained that this would have depreciated the value of their old slaves, making the growing of cotton before the war already highly unprofitable. This could never have been a reason to go to war, as he said. He told me that field hands were worth only $500 before the war. He disregarded all stories about the punishing of those men who taught the Negroes, but he did say that for helping slaves to flee to the North the death penalty could still be imposed, although never really enforced. At the occasion of testamentary manumission the testator also had to provide funds to make the freed slave leave the state, this being the cause that there are hardly any freedmen in South Carolina. He also claims that the president against the Congress can count on the regular army and 300,000 men from the South. He calls all Northerners “the most vile, lying, cheating, hypocritical set of people on earth.”

One of the waiters amused me by ventilating the same opinion regarding the North, because his father, a shoemaker of about 60 years of age, was suspected there because of his age of not being able to make shoes anymore, something one would have gladly entrusted him with in the South. One other of his complaints was that in school the rich boys got preferential treatment over poor boys. But as this seemed to have happened in North or South Carolina as well, this statement against the North was not very convincing in my opinion.

Regarding Reconstruction, the ‘burden' of his argument was this: we don't care, let them do what they want to do in the North, we are just as happy outside the Union as in it again.

 

Wednesday
12
December
1866

At first sight Charleston made a very dismal impression. One still can see the craters, only just filled in, made by the bombs during the bombardment of eighteen months, day and night. Furthermore a whole section of the town burned down in the first year of the war, although this fire had nothing to do with the bombardment. The ruins have not yet been cleared away; everything is as it was the day after the fire. The multitude of Negroes, the colorful scarves that the women use as headgear, the market surrounded by tame turkey vultures, the many mules, the gentlemen on horseback, everything combines to provide a real Southern spectacle. But the almost complete absence of carriages, the ruinous exterior of the houses, and other particulars clearly show the sad situation of the inhabitants. Nowhere are houses being built, and the vacant lots in the ‘Burnt District' are evidence that everything is dead. Charleston's credit is so low that a plan to give away city bonds to the lot owners in exchange for a mortgage on their lots fell through. . . .

In the evening visited with Governor Aiken, who has suffered a lot during the war, just as all Lowndeses, Hugers, and others. All planters, whose wealth consisted almost uniquely in slaves, are ruined. They have given everything, and because of the emancipation they have lost the last they had. Only their land is left, but with the labor problem and the scarcity of capital, that land cannot be made profitable. Some have borrowed northern capital at outrageous rates of interest, and generally they have not been able to pay off their debt, partly because of the unfavorable season for almost all crops, and also because of the insufficient number of hands available and consequent lack of care. Of course, Governor Aiken claims that the Negroes are lazy and will never be willing to work. He estimates the cotton crop at 1,000,000 bales, while in New York the same crop is estimated at 2,300,000, but mostly from Texas. He asserts that the Mexican War and the annexation of Texas were not provoked by the South. He did concede that the position of the South in the slavery question in Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska had been an attempt to maintain the majority. In his opinion this was foolish, as slave labor was not suitable for Kansas or Nebraska. If they had kept quietly within the framework of the old slave laws and not sought any extension of the system, the question would never have come to a head. The slaveholders possibly would have emancipated their slaves of their own free will, partly because that kind of labor would become unprofitable in the long run, as had already happened in Virginia and Tennessee. But when he pointed out that under the old regime a crop of 10 million bales would have been possible, his solution of the problem became very doubtful in my opinion. He takes a gloomy view of the future and hopes that the importation of coolies will solve the labor problem. He maintains that 2,000,000 Negroes have run away, and the available labor decreased with that number.

Aiken, just as Mr. Wilkinson—whom I visited later and where Mrs. Wilkinson and Lou and Ella made me a hearty welcome as an old friend—expect that the Negro will fall back into barbarism instead of improve. Everyone is depressed and concedes that all are ruined completely, and that the wealth of the country in horses and mules has decreased. Reconstruction will take a long time, especially as long as northern capital will remain wary because of the political instability.

Naturally all are angry at Congress, and the general expectation is that the Radical party will carry everything before it. They see themselves reduced to the status of territories, which wouldn't even make much of a difference, as the state legislatures cannot do anything without the consent of the military commanders, who don't even hesitate to reverse arrests of the courts. Small wonder that deep despondency and indifference are widespread. Many are really devastated.

The usual Southern gaiety has not greatly suffered, however, which I witnessed at a party at two Misses Mackay's, where Lou and Ella Wilkinson took me. Dress was very simple, most so with the gentlemen who came in their sports coats, but the dancing wasn't less enthusiastic. I liked the girls, but they could not hide their hatred of the Yankees, that goes so far that they refuse to greet an U.S. officer, whom they had known before, on the street. . . .

In the evening visited with Mrs. Hayne, where Mr. Buvard Hayne, her son, whom I had met at the Cotonnets, had invited me. Mr. Hayne's brother was the well known ‘nullificator' of 1832. Eldest daughter was the lovely Mrs. Barnwell, Miss Hayne, Mr. Theodore Hayne. The most typical Southern family I have met until now. The mother is a most pleasant woman, with all the special characteristics. All were extremely well-bred, with a measure of French polish and lightheartedness, but without any real warmth and depth. For one evening most pleasant and charming, but in the long run by far not what those damned Yankees are.

Here I witnessed the real Yankee hatred to perfection. They are made out—but always half laughing—as the original, perfect villains. Most lamented seems to be the loss of all personal comforts: no servants, no carriages, no money is the continuing refrain, and this seems to weigh heavier than anything else. Real serious, deeply felt anger I haven't seen anywhere. Although half laughingly, I here heard the theory of the ‘divine institution' too, and I believe it was more seriously meant than it seemed at first sight. They did acknowledge the existence of a law against the education of Negroes, but keep telling me that it was a dead letter. They did concede that Negroes were maltreated sometimes, and admired their behavior at present. . . .

Saturday
15
December
1866

Bad weather, cold and rainy. A couple of visits; cotton gin and rice mill. In the afternoon a visit with Mrs. Wilkinson and Mrs. Gibbes. Mrs. Gibbes is an archetypical Southern woman, a bit like Mary St. Clair. ‘Lolling in her rocking chair,' she talked incessantly in an indifferent and nonchalant tone. Her stories all boil down to the same topic, but are not very consistent in regard of the Negroes. She said that if only the Yankees and the Freedmen's Bureau would be gone, everything would adjust itself, the Negroes would fall back into their old habits and go to work as usual, and everything would be fine again. Everybody keeps telling himself that only if one would leave us to ourselves, we would manage quite well. But will the North do that in view of the still prevailing atmosphere?

I have no doubts that the treatment of the Negroes has generally been good. Mrs. Wilkinson confirmed to me that whoever maltreated his slaves was ostracized from society, and others pointed out the interest masters had in good treatment of their slaves. Slaves cost between $1,200 and 1,500 for a field hand, $1,500–2,000 for a house servant, sometimes as high as $2,500. Undoubtedly of course, there were exceptions, especially in the backwoods and among the smaller slaveholders.

Fiercest against the Yankees are the ladies. Lou Wilkinson said to me this very evening, “I wish I could have a rope around all their necks and hang them all,” and when her mother objected—on my behalf—she said “Oh, but I wouldn't like to see all the corpses dangling in the air, but I do wish they were all hanged.” Later, when she talked about the possibility of being a Yankee herself, “Oh, I would put a rope round my own neck and hang myself first, and I would take it nobly, not like those mean Yankees.” The hatred against the flag is general: “that ugly gridiron flag,” said Mrs. Hayne. The men are indifferent and only think of recovering their material prosperity. In general this is a frivolous people, without any depth and seriousness, and it is mostly this that they cannot bear to see in the Yankees.

More and more people confirm that the reason behind the war has been the idea that the North intended to abolish slavery and by doing so infringe on their rights. After the election of Lincoln, an abolitionist in their opinion, the question came to a head, and the South felt constrained to dust off their favorite doctrine of ‘states' rights.' They were convinced that they had the right to leave the Union, and the responsibility to take this step rests squarely with their leaders, and especially with those under oath to maintain the Union. In my opinion they saw the near future as too dark. In itself the breaking up of such a Union, when a part of the people is clearly unhappy with it, does not seem to be such a crime, at least as far as I can see. One cannot bind people for eternity, and whenever one has really valid reasons, most insurrections are justifiable. On the other hand, it is undeniable that the other party had the right to maintain the existing government and Union. Both parties fought for opposite principles, both defensible in their own right.

One of the standing claims is that the people of the South are so much more ‘gentlemanlike, generous, magnanimous' and what not than those ‘mean, sneaking, hypocritical Yankees.' Mrs. Wilkinson once answered an officer, who had said to her—most impolitely—“We'll soon put down all that aristocracy and make tinkers and tailors of you all,” “Then Sir, Southern gentlemen will make a profession of those trades.” And when another said, “Well, the Union flag is waving over you again,” she retorted, “Yes, the stars are there and those that love them may take the stripes with them (on their back).” Boasting of the good society, of the fine carriages, the many servants, the style they had, is the order of the day, and the chief complaint is that the Yankees have taken all that away.

In regard of the sale of domestic slaves, Mrs. Wilkinson told me that most of them were quite indifferent about this as they ended up with good masters anyhow. Only those who had served a lifetime in the same family and had absorbed the family pride would have found it very hard. A Negro coachman, who drove me yesterday, claimed that the Negroes did appreciate their new freedom, and although he too maintained that most had been well treated, he said that some of them still bore the scars of beatings thick as hail on their backs.

(1867)

The conservative British barrister Henry Latham (1828?–1871) also traveled to the U.S. during Reconstruction, observing people and places from New York to New Orleans, with stops in Richmond, Petersburg, Norfolk, Charleston, Augusta, Atlanta, and Mobile. A detailed and insightful narrator, Latham toured the Southern states at the very moment that the Radical Republicans were about to assume control of Reconstruction. In addition to printing the journals of his American tour, Latham appended a separate chapter on “The Negro.” It was his opinion that before the Civil War, slavery proved more harmful to relations between white Southerners and Northerners than to blacks. He doubted whether blacks and whites could live together harmoniously, explaining: “It is difficult to find in history an instance of two distinct races with equal rights living peaceably together as one nation.”

 

 

THE NEGRO.

At the time the war broke out, it is estimated that there were, roughly speaking, 4,000,000 slaves in the Southern States. Their former masters state, and I believe with truth, that the slaves as a rule were neither over-worked nor treated with cruelty. It is absurd to suppose the contrary. That which is valuable and cannot be easily replaced is always taken care of. It is where there are no restrictions upon the importation, and the supply is abundant, as in the Chinese coolie trade, that you find the temptation to cruelty not over-ridden by self-interest. It is difficult also, I believe, to gainsay the position, that nowhere where the negro is left to himself in Africa has he reached any higher stage of civilization than he possessed as a Southern slave. His hours of labour were shorter and his diet more plentiful, than those of the English agricultural labourer. He had such clothing and shelter as the climate required. The slaves of the planter were in the same position as the cattle of the English farmer; and the interest that the farmer has in seeing his beasts well cared for operated in favour of the negro slave as strongly as it does in favour of all other chattels. It was the interest of the planter that, as long as his slaves were fit for work, they should be kept in working order; that as children they should be so reared as to make them strong and healthy; and when they were past work, that kindly feeling which a man always has towards everything which he calls his own, was sufficiently strong to ensure them a sustenance in old age. No doubt there were sometimes wicked cases of wanton cruelty, which were not common, and were exceptional as the cases are in this country which are brought into court by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I am willing to accept the Southerners' statement that as regards health, happiness, education, and morality, the negro-slaves were as well off as any other 4,000,000 of their race. That the slaves were not greatly discontented with their lot seems clear from the fact that the traveller can with difficulty find in the South an able-bodied white man who did not bear arms in the Confederate army. When the masters went to the war, they in fact left their wives, their children, and their goods in the keeping of their slaves. The plantations were left in charge of the old men, the women and children; yet, during the war, the crops were sown and harvested as when the masters were at home; and there were no outrages or insurrections on the plantations, except when the Northern armies passed by.

The position taken by the ablest apologists for the slave-owner would affirm that the treatment of the slaves was nearly as good as the fact of their slavery admitted; that the institution was not created by the present generation, but by their forefathers. ‘They had not originated, but inherited it, and had to make the best of it. It was in no way peculiar to the Southern States of America; it had existed over the whole world. It was a condition of society recognised by the Old Testament as the natural state of things, and when mentioned in the New Testament, not reprobated. It had been abolished by some nations, it was still retained by others. It was retained by the Southern States, because they had no other labour to substitute for it, and if the negro was emancipated it would not be possible to rely upon his labour. The civilization of the white race is the result of more than a thousand years of trial and training. The negro race was in the first stage of this probation; they had not yet completed their first century of slavery. Those among them who possessed industry and steadiness of character could earn enough to purchase their emancipation. None of them were fitted to receive the franchise.'

It is hardly worthwhile to consider how far it is true that slavery is a probation for the first steps in civilization, an education for future self-government. It may, I think, be taken as a fact that, before the war, such speculations as to the future of the negro race did not occupy the minds of Southern planters more than the British stockbreeder is at present influenced by Dr. Darwin's theories.

Nor is it worth while to consider how far it was probable, if the North had never interfered with the strong hand, that a gradual emancipation would have taken place in time. The only existing safety-valve through which the slave could escape into freedom was by purchase, and on that safety-valve was this weight—the more industrious the man the more valuable the slave. The living surrounded by slave-labour had so affected the Southern character that it was not easy for them to appreciate the benefits which a gradual emancipation would have brought about. They laughed at the doctrine of the dignity of labour. Hard hands and the sweat of the brow were the portion of the slave, servile. With the lower class of white men who owned no slaves, emancipation was disliked because it would raise the servile race to an equality with themselves. The slave-owners saw clearly that, however gradually brought about, emancipation would result in loss to them; for free labour, however competitive, can never be as profitable to the master as slave-labour has been—capital would have to give up a larger share of profits to the workman. The hearts of the white race were hardened, and it may be doubted whether they would ever have seen that the time had come when the bondmen ought to be let go. They saw only that the slaves were not discontented with their lot, and that all things were prosperous.

The institution of slavery broke down in the Southern States of America, not by reason of any injustice to the negroes, but in consequence of the effect produced by slavery upon the character and temper of the white race. It rendered them incapable of maintaining a friendly intercourse with the Northern States.

The Northern half of the same nation were leading under a colder sky an entirely antagonistic life. They were successful in commerce, they toiled in factories, and reaped with their own hands great harvests of wheat. They were continually increased in numbers by emigrants whose chief fortune was the labour of their hands; while many of the families in the South traced their descent to emigrants who had landed with their retainers from vessels fitted out at their own cost. Except the great bond of the Federal Government, which was tied when neither were strong enough to stand alone, the Northern and Southern States had few ideas in common. When they met in council they disagreed upon the most indifferent matters. They did not so much quarrel about slavery, as because slavery had rendered them at heart hateful to one another. . . .

If the negro dies out, there is an end of him and all the troubles he has caused, at least as far as America is concerned. If he survives, what is to be his future? At the present time there can be no doubt that the black race is inferior to the white. That it is inferior in mental vigour is proved by the fact of its former contented servitude; that it is inferior in bodily stamina is proved by the statistics of mortality in the Northern armies, according to which under the same conditions, the number of deaths in hospital among the black troops was double the mortality among the white men.

Will he become blended with the white race, and be gradually absorbed by intermarriage, as the German and the Irish element do, losing their nationality in the next generation, and becoming fused into one homogeneous mass? There does not appear to be any probability of it. No white man ever marries a black woman, and the instances of a white woman marrying a black man are rare and exceptional. There has been at present no intercourse between the races except such as takes place between an inferior and a superior race. The mixed race is the result of the intercourse between the white man and the negress, and this will not effect the absorption of the whole black race.

Suppose the half-breeds to increase largely in numbers, will they form a link between the black man and the white, and promote friendship between the two? In Mexico the greatest of the many causes of anarchy has been the existence of the large class of half-bloods, now more numerous than the Indians. They are so numerous as to possess practically a casting vote, and having neither principle nor stability, side first with the Spaniard and then with the Indian, according as their interest suggests.

Will the negroes gather themselves together in communities, and occupy the low hot fertile rice lands in the South, where the white men cannot live; and so play a useful part, utilizing valuable lands which without them must henceforth lie waste? It is to be hoped that the Government will take measures to prevent it. The moment the pressure of the white race is removed from them they would relapse into savage life. To attain to better things and a higher cultivation, they must be mingled with the whites, and have industry and education forced on them. The more they are separated, the more debased and antagonistic will they become. The most serious symptoms of negro outbreaks which have occurred have been in the Sea Islands where the negroes have collected together in consequence of a proclamation of General Sherman's. A black prophet and a religious revival might lead to any amount of bloodshed. The natural home of the negro in Africa is supposed to be on the alluvial plains near the great rivers; but it is a curious fact that in similar places in the Southern States they did not multiply. They were most prolific in Virginia. It was where the white man lived and cared for them and their offspring that the greatest number of slaves were reared. If they continue to exist in America, the negro must live as a distinct race among a people superior to himself. It is difficult to find in history an instance of two distinct races with equal rights living peaceably together as one nation.

The Americans have done already things which other nations have found impossible. It may be that they will succeed in this also; and there is no race so pliant, so docile, and free from offence, as the negro. The danger will be from the unscrupulousness of politicians. When once the negro vote in the South has become organized, like the Irish vote in the North, it will be as great a nuisance to the nation. If the freedmen, as they increase in intelligence, become factious and impracticable, they will find themselves moving towards Liberia faster than the Mormons went to Utah. That which cannot be assimilated must be cast out.

Their wisest advisers will be those who urge them to keep quiet and avail themselves of the means of education now open to them: not to separate from their white neighbours, but to make themselves first useful to them, and then indispensable: not to think too much of Freedmen's Conventions at Washington, or negro candidates for the Vice-Presidency; but to be as little conspicuous in politics as possible, and to bear in mind that if education does not precede an extension of the suffrage, it must follow it.

There are at the present moment two gentlemen of colour sitting as members of the State Legislature in the State of Massachusetts, and the story of their election is very curious as the largest wholesale practical joke since the English traveller wrote to the ‘Times' to describe the series of murders perpetrated in an American railway train. The republican party, to gratify those among their supporters who were suffering from what is commonly called ‘Nigger on the brain,' nominated two coloured candidates, not in the least intending them to get in, but merely with a view to make political capital out of their nomination. The democrats, their opponents, saw the mistake in a moment, the wires were pulled and the word passed, and the democrats plumped for the coloured gentlemen, who were elected by triumphant majorities, to the dismay and discomfiture of their proposers.

A practical joke once in a way is all very well; but it is to be hoped that the white race in the South will before long accept the situation, and resume their political duties: for it would be a poor joke for them if possibilities were to be realized, and Congress were found after the next election to consist one half of Northern republicans and the other half of Southern negroes.