Capitol Men (25 page)

Pike's publishers made much of the fact that the writer had once been aligned with the antislavery cause and had served President Lincoln as minister to the Netherlands. Here was a credentialed Republican whose eyes had at last opened to reality. "Years ago, when abolition was a forlorn hope and its open advocates under the ban, Mr. Pike was one of their leaders," ran a typical comment in the
Savannah Republican
. "He shared in their struggles, he enjoyed their triumphs, and has had no cause, either of interest or ambition, to feel sympathetic toward the Southern people. But he is a man of convictions, and an outspoken one, and the unutterable horror and loathing, surprise and indignation, with which the actual condition of misgovernment and oppression at the South have inspired him, cannot be silenced."

Pike's book, widely lauded as a clear-eyed appraisal, was, however, not all it seemed; both political and personal motives lay behind the author's much-noted change of heart. As a Liberal Republican of the Greeley camp, his criticism of South Carolina was, in a sense, a colorfully written indictment of the Reconstruction policies associated with President Grant; and one of his key sources for information about the
state was Senator William Sprague, a Rhode Island millionaire who had been severely disappointed by some financial investments in South Carolina and blamed the state's political culture for his losses. Sprague's financial reversals became, in the author's hands, a larger story of disillusionment about Southern whites trapped in the North's Reconstruction dream-gone-bad, making the "inept" black and white Republicans the easy scapegoats. The book's journalistic credibility was even further compromised by its repetition of many of the points the author had published in the
Tribune
before he had even visited the South, and his sources appear to be almost exclusively people with conservative views of the situation.

That a book so lacking in objectivity could become popular and even well regarded probably had less to do with Pike's gifts as a writer than with the country's shifting mood. The
Literary World
hailed the author's lack of racial prejudice, while
The Nation,
in citing the book's importance, echoed Pike's conclusion that the intelligence of most blacks was "slightly above the level of animals." (When Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the New Englander who had led black South Carolina troops, wrote a letter of protest to
The Nation,
the editor, E. L. Godkin, admitted that his "animals" characterization had been too broad but insisted it still applied to the blacks of the Sea Islands.) Even the judicious
Atlantic Monthly
leapt eagerly into Pike's corner, praising the book and lamenting the fact that its publication had been made necessary by "the ignorant negro rulers" of South Carolina's "sable despotism," who had "carried into their legislation and administration the spirit of the servile raid on the plantation hen-roost and smoke house." Henry Ward Beecher, who knew better, nonetheless accepted at face value Pike's claims that criminals ran South Carolina and that "the ignorant and unprincipled classes," meaning black people, kept them in office. Beecher went so far as to suggest that South Carolina's mulatto population was alarmed because "unmixed Africans" were gaining too much authority—perhaps a dig at Congressman Robert Brown Elliott, but in any case a disappointing loss of perspective by an antislavery man of Beecher's experience.

Pike's success at crystallizing the feelings and fears of so many in the postwar era has led one commentator to term his book "the 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' of the Southern Redemption." Perhaps the real tragedy was that
The Prostrate State
not only was influential during its own time but also became a respected source for many early historians of Reconstruction, helping perpetuate Americans' misunderstanding of the period.
Other writers laboring under Pike's sway would offer similar deprecatory views of Southern state governments, hearing "chuckles, guffaws, [and] the noisy crackling of peanuts" among South Carolina's state representatives while noting that sheer bedlam reigned in the "monkey house" that passed for the Republican-dominated legislature of Louisiana, where "amendments [are] offered that are too obscene to print, followed by shouts of glee." Black legislators were accused of buying expensive cuspidors and chandeliers, abusing their railroad passes, even of stealing office furniture. At restaurants near Southern statehouses, it was alleged, they supped and drank at the people's expense, then departed, their pockets loaded with mints.

Did black politicians really behave this way, or was something else disturbing their white observers? Perhaps it was simple resentment of the changes Reconstruction had imposed, an inchoate rage at the spectacle of Governor Moses of South Carolina, for example, besmirching the glory of his antebellum mansion by opening the doors to "a ring-streaked, striped and speckled" crowd that "rolled up gaily to [the] ancient gateways," wherein the governor deigned to mix with "negroes and low whites puffing cigarettes." Perhaps it was indignation at the fact that Robert Brown Elliott dared reside in a fashionable cottage with "a pretty, rose-tinted light mulatto" (who happened to be his wife) and that black legislators dined in once-exclusive clubs or stood in groups, chatting and bantering on public sidewalks. To many whites such scenes were not just intimidating but also profoundly disturbing; certainly they looked so to the
New York Herald
correspondent who described South Carolina's capital city of Columbia, with its gatherings of black politicians, as "an out-of-door penitentiary ... where the members browse voluntarily, like the animals in the Zoological Garden."

A particular source of irritation were scenes, no doubt generously enlarged by the imagination, of black women—former "serving-maids"—sitting and taking tea "under the venerable trees" of fine Southern estates, putting on airs, seemingly rubbing their former white mistresses' noses in their new status. In Columbia, the aristocratic sisters of the Rollin family—the eldest, Frances, was married to the politician William Whipper—were so obvious in their enjoyment of the good life that they attracted attention and raised concern. These "colored courtesans swept into furniture emporiums, silk trains rustling in their wake, and gave orders for 'committee rooms.'" They "rode in fine carriages through the streets" and maintained a stylish salon, which its detractors dubbed "Republican Headquarters." There, it was alleged, "mingling
white and dusky statesmen wove the destinies of the old Commonwealth."

Gilbert Haven, writing in the
Independent,
was one of the few who took issue with Pike's impressions of South Carolina. He acknowledged that political corruption existed but pointed to several optimistic results of Republican governance—new schools and new road construction (of major significance in a rural state), while noting that whites had worked to suppress the black vote in an effort "to win at the ballot box what was lost with the cannon." Haven advised that Northerners continue to support the South Carolina experiment, warning that "if she is assailed and deserted by her friends, and left to the mercy of her malignant and steadfast foes, she may succumb, and then comes chaos and black night again to all this Southern land." He conceded, however, that "we have only half swallowed this pill of Reconstruction, and we shall spit it up as soon as possible."

According to Oken Edet Uya, a biographer of Robert Smalls, "the charge of corruption and extravagance" in South Carolina was "just a cloak" for whites' real agenda—the restoration of white rule. Smalls himself noted, with irony, that often the very blacks who rose above power's easy temptations were most likely to be targeted by resentful whites. And whatever corruption existed in the Republican leadership, it surely paled in comparison to the far more gross illegalities—voter fraud, intimidation, and violence—practiced by those opposing Reconstruction's reforms.

General Rufus Saxton, recalling the optimism that had attended the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Port Royal, wrote a warm letter to Smalls in December 1871 to say that while he believed that the often-heard charges of Republican corruption in South Carolina were overstated, he knew that "where there is so much smoke there must be some fire." He warned his old friend that "the Republicans of South Carolina must see to it that the state is redeemed by the election of only true and honest men to office in the future." Alluding to Smalls's wartime heroism, Saxton wrote,

When you brought the
Planter
out from Charleston ... you knew where lay the torpedo on the right, and the shoals and rocks on the left, you knew where the channel was deep and sailed in it; you did not tarry long before the guns of Fort Moultrie or Sumter, but straight to your purpose, to the beacon of liberty ahead...

The ship of state of South Carolina is now in stormy waters. The
rocks and shoals, torpedoes and hostile guns are ignorance, immorality, dishonesty, and corruption in high places. The beacon lights ahead are honesty, intelligence, the school house and the church.

Keep the helm of the ship of state "steady toward these," Saxton suggested, "and soon the ship shall glide gently by the breakers into the peaceful waters of freedom."

Smalls, much moved by Saxton's words, had the letter published and read it himself before a gathering in Beaufort. He also read to the audience his reply to Saxton, which echoed the general's imagery. "As well as I knew the beacon lights in the time of the
Planter,
I know the beacon lights now, and the channel that leads to honesty, virtue, purity and intelligence, and I trust that I may ever be found working with those who are anxious to guide the ship of state [from] dark and troubled waters." He then asked for and received three cheers for General Saxton, and he vowed before his listeners to safeguard honest government in South Carolina.

In part, Smalls did this by campaigning vigorously in 1874 for the election of Daniel Chamberlain as governor. If one of the early ideals of Reconstruction had ever gained traction—that Northerners would help the postwar South develop a "New England model" of town-meeting democracy—Dan Chamberlain, a native New Englander, Yale man, classics scholar, and onetime follower of Wendell Phillips, would have been the person to implement it. Once in office he impressed even the state's conservatives with his sincerity and dedication to reform. When Smalls challenged the views of James'S. Pike and his brethren, he could cite the good example of Chamberlain, mentioning that even the conservative
Charleston News & Courier
consistently praised the governor's performance.

It was perhaps inevitable, however, given his prominence and the lingering contempt for his wartime accomplishments, that Smalls himself would face charges of wrongdoing. Sent to Congress in December 1874 (with his seventeen-year-old daughter Elizabeth, a recent graduate of a New England finishing school, as his secretary), "the Boat Thief" lost no time in becoming an outspoken advocate for his constituency in the Sea Islands, obtaining funds to develop the harbor and waterfront at Port Royal. His celebrity as a war hero, his efforts in the state's constitutional convention, his much-publicized work to enhance life in his beloved Beaufort, and his control of patronage had won him a devoted following in the low country. But the popularity among black Sea Islanders of
a man whom many whites still vehemently resented fueled the effort to destroy him. In 1877, after the Democrats seized control of the South Carolina statehouse, he was accused of having received, earlier in the decade, $5,000 as a beneficiary of a bogus printing-expense claim filed with the state legislature. The charges relied on the testimony of Josephus Woodruff, who as public printer of the state had allegedly robbed South Carolina of $250,000, fled to Pennsylvania, then been extradited and offered leniency in exchange for "information" against Smalls and other officials. The question of Woodruff's credibility hardly troubled the Democrats as they savored what one Northern headline termed "The Downfall of Smalls." There was some hand-wringing among Northern papers, which lamented that a man so recently cheered for nobly throwing off the bonds of slavery had fallen into corrupt ways; the
Hartford Times
speculated that the federal government had erred in praising and rewarding Smalls for stealing the
Planter,
since it had clearly given him the idea that crime paid.

The real objective of the prosecution became clear, however, when a man named Cochrane, the head of an investigating committee appointed by the legislature, visited the black congressman. "Smalls, you had better resign," Cochrane warned, according to an account Smalls later provided.

"Resign what?" Smalls demanded.

"Resign your seat in Congress."

"What," Smalls asked, "the seat the people elected me to?"

"Yes, you had better resign, because if you don't they are going to convict you."

"I don't believe that, sir," Smalls insisted. "I am innocent and they cannot do it."

"Well," said Cochrane, "bear in mind that these men have got the Court, they have got the jury, and an indictment is a conviction."

A prominent newspaper editor from Aiken County, a Mr. Drayton, also urged Smalls to comply. "Smalls, we don't want to harm you. We know you were kind to our people just after the surrender ... We want this government, and we must have it. If you will vacate your office we will pay you $10,000 for your two years' salary."

Smalls, always at his best when pinned down by enemy fire, told Drayton defiantly, "Sir, if you want me to resign my position, you must call meetings all over the Congressional District and get the people who elected me to pass resolutions requiring me to resign, and then you can have the office without a penny. Otherwise I would suffer myself to go to
the penitentiary and rot before I resign an office that I was elected to on a trumped-up charge against me for the purpose of making me resign."

As Cochrane had threatened, Smalls was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison, but he spent only three days in jail because, on the advice of some fellow congressmen, he had appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the meantime, the Democrats, unable to win Smalls's resignation, found a way to make something of his predicament. A deal was struck between the state of South Carolina and Washington: the case against Smalls would be dropped in return for the federal government's abandonment of several cases pending against whites for election fraud and Ku Kluxing. Smalls was furious when he learned of the arrangement but was pardoned in full.