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قراءة كتاب The Reconstruction of Georgia Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1901

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‏اللغة: English
The Reconstruction of Georgia
Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1901

The Reconstruction of Georgia Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1901

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 4

sent a courteous message of recognition to the latter.[26]

Thus the President, having reconstructed the state government, had restored Georgia to statehood so far as its internal government was concerned. There remained only the admission of its representatives to Congress to complete the restoration.

 

 


CHAPTER II

THE JOHNSON GOVERNMENT

From the conduct of the state governments formed in Georgia and the other southern states under the direction of President Johnson, the public opinion of the North drew conclusions regarding three things; the disposition of the people represented by those governments toward the emancipated slaves, their attitude toward the cause for which they had fought, and their feeling toward the power which had subdued them. This chapter treats the Johnson government of Georgia from the same points of view.

Whatever may have been the prevailing disposition of the white people toward the slaves while slavery flourished, shortly before the close of the war that disposition was characterized by benevolence and gratitude. In spite of the opportunities of escape, and of plunder and other violence, offered by the times, the slaves had acted with singular faithfulness and devotion.[27] The gratitude of their masters even went so far as to propose plans for the general education of the negroes.[28]

The close of the war and the advent of emancipation produced a change in the conduct of the negroes, which in time produced a change in the attitude of the white people. The negroes, from the talk which they heard and did not understand, and from their ignorant imaginations, conceived strange ideas of emancipation. They supposed it meant governmental bounty, idleness, and wealth. They abandoned their work, wandered about the country, collected in towns—in short, manifested a general restlessness and demoralization. This caused alarm and apprehension among the white people. There were other causes of friction between the two races. Many negroes, on discovering that they were free, assumed what are known as “airs;” and then as now, among things intolerable to a southern white man a “sassy nigger” held a curious pre-eminence. The airs of the negro and the wrath of the white man were both augmented by officious members of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Moreover, because the negroes had gained by the humiliation of the South, they received a share of the venom of defeat. Another element of discord was furnished by a particular part of the white population, the so-called poor whites. These saw in the new protégés of the United States not only a rival laboring class, but a menace to their social position, and hence assumed an attitude of jealousy and hatred. Such were the conditions favorable to social disturbance which followed emancipation. In the latter part of 1865 they had already begun to produce their natural result. Violent encounters between negroes and white men (in which the latter were almost always the aggressors) were noticeably frequent.[29]

To this social demoralization was added economic distress and perplexity. The devastation of the war had fallen with especial severity upon Georgia. Worse still, the people seemed unable to repair the damage or to return to productive activity. Planters seemed unable to adapt themselves to the new economic conditions. Slavery, the system which they understood, was gone; they used the new system with little success, all the less because of the restlessness of the negroes.

Such were the conditions and dangers with which the Johnson government had to deal as it best could. It was believed by northern statesmen that the situation would be mastered by enfranchising the negroes and investing them with a citizenship exactly equal to that of white persons.[30] The Georgia constitution of 1865 made it clear that the Georgia law-makers were not disciples of that school. That constitution confined the electoral franchise to “free white male citizens.”[31] It ordered the legislature at its first session “to provide by law for the government of free persons of color,” for “guarding them and the state against any evil that may arise from their sudden emancipation,” and “for the regulation of their transactions with citizens;” also “to create county courts with jurisdiction in criminal cases excepted from the exclusive jurisdiction of the Superior [county] Court, and in civil cases whereto free persons of color may be parties,” and to make rules “prescribing in what cases their testimony shall be admitted in the courts.”[32]

The legislation enacted in 1866 in the interest of the public peace and order consisted of—

1. An apprentice law. By this it was made the duty of the judges of the county courts to bind out minors whose parents were dead or unable to support them as apprentices until the age of twenty-one. A master receiving an apprentice under this law was to teach him a trade, furnish him food, clothes, and medicine, teach him habits of industry, honesty, and morality, teach him to read the English language, and govern him with humanity. On default of any of these requirements a master was to be fined. The judge having charge of this law might, on application from an apprentice or an apprentice’s friend, dissolve the contract on account of cruelty on the part of the master. An apprentice at the end of his term was entitled to an allowance from the master “with which to begin life.” The amount was left to the master’s generosity, but if he offered less than $100 the apprentice might complain to the court, which should then fix the amount.[33]

2. A vagrancy law. Vagrancy was defined in the usual language of our criminal codes. The penalty was heavier than these usually provide, because the need of suppressing the vice was more urgent than usual. A vagrant might be fined or imprisoned at the discretion of the court, or sentenced to labor on the public works for not more than one year; or he might, at the discretion of the court “be bound out to some person for a time not more than one year, upon such valuable consideration as the court may prescribe.”[34]

3.

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