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this making war upon a State.1 "The Nation' was shocked at this 'specially levied body of men, mostly black,' under the command of 'a wandering adventurer, trained to command by bushwhacking in Tennessee,' and concluded that the enterprise was 'an electioneering dodge.' 2 But the 'New York Tribune' was standing by, defending the venture as called for by the outrages of the Klan, acting for the Democrats. 'Governor Holden has taken measures that will effectually prevent the success of the game,' it said. 'Hence the wrath he has aroused, and the storm of slander.' 93

XI

Then, in August, in righteous wrath, North Carolina went to the polls and the Democrats swept the Legislature, and, for the first time since reconstruction began, the Radicals were on the defensive. Holden realized, too late, what his action had done,1 and in his fury he turned on Turner. While riding near Hillsboro, where his family lived, he was taken by Holden's troopers, and at midnight he was ridden into camp at Yanceyville amidst the shouts of Kirk's men and the negroes. For three days he was confined in the court-house. The weather was hot; the windows tightly closed. The 'soldiers' amused themselves by pouring water upon him as he slept, and he was forbidden to speak unless to order food or water. Drunken sentries found entertainment in pointing loaded guns at prisoners. That was Turner's purgatory; he was soon transferred to hell-thrown into an iron cage with a negro, condemned to execution on the morrow. The cell was filthy, swarming with vermin, and he was given stale water to drink. When his wife went to see him, the 'soldiers' threw stones at her and he was forbidden to approach the window.5

Thus the terror died in a spasm of rage when the Federal Court intervened, and Holden's protest to Washington brought instructions to yield. The jig was up - Grant had weakened on his promise, if it had ever been given. Kirk, arrested, was permitted to escape by a Radical sheriff, and in Washington he found protection and surcease from sorrow on the Capitol police force. Less

1 July 29, 1870.

2 August 4, 1870.

The Nation, December 24, 1870.

* Holden Impeachment Trial, Turner, 1, 892–917.

3

August 3, 1870.

6 Hamilton, 533.

happy the fate of the pious preacher who had been his chaplain. The army disbanded near the scene of his desertion of wife and children to flee with another woman, and he was arrested for bigamy.1

And when the Legislature met, Holden was impeached.

XII

The trial was political, though rules of evidence were better observed than in the case of Johnson. Some doubted the wisdom of impeachment and Zeb Vance, Democratic leader, took no part and expressed no opinion.2 The evidence for the defense failed to connect politics with the outrages of masked men. Victims were paraded on the witness stand to tell their tales of terror and floggings, and a surprising number could conceive of no motive beyond their devotion to the Republican Party. But the cross-examination was devastating in uncovering other reasons. One victim had been insolent to the whites and had accumulated guns with which to kill Klansmen. A white man had been found in bed with a negro woman. Another had compromised a bastardy suit with a sister-in-law, and had abused an old man.5 A white woman, never married, had seven children, one colored, which she admitted, while stoutly denying she ran a brothel. Still another woman, unmarried and with children, denied she kept a loose house. 'I notice,' said the attorney for the managers, 'that you spit very much. Do you chew tobacco?' 'Yes, sir,' she replied, demurely.7 Thus most of the assaults were on men and women who were not ornaments to their communities, and were not concerned with politics.

And so, with courts open, with absolute peace in most places and reasonable quiet in communities on which Kirk's men worked, this outrage had been perpetrated to serve the purposes of party politics. Even Horace Greeley had been aroused by an 'outrage' story given his correspondent by Governor Holden in a letter from Tourgée to Senator Abbott. When the author of the letter wrote

1 New York World, October, 1, 1870.

2 New York Herald, December, 27, 1870.

'Holden Impeachment Trial, Donaldson Worth, 11, 1215.
Ibid., Leonard Rippey, п, 1334.
5 Ibid., John Shatterlt, I, 1341.

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Greeley that a cipher had been added to each figure he had given of the number of outrages, the editor demanded an explanation of the 'garbling.'1 A few days later, Senator Abbott gave his version. He had shown Tourgée's letter to Senator Pool in Holden's presence in Washington, and the latter had requested a copy, which was furnished by a clerk who was 'a most trustworthy and honest man.' And now, said Greeley, 'perhaps the Governor will tell us who garbled it before he gave it to our correspondent.' 2 But the Governor was silent. He merely had followed the common practice of the times, of which Greeley had made full use.

3

Poor Holden was impeached and went to Washington, where Grant received him sympathetically. Republican Presidents treated him kindly, but he soon passed from politics, to grow old gracefully and in grace; finding pleasure in his church, in acts of charity, and cherishing no resentments. He had wrecked his career on his ambition, but he had been no mercenary, and after all these years he is remembered kindly by the public, and his memory is cherished by the family to which he was tenderly devoted.

Thus the elections of 1870 had given a gleam of light to North Carolina and Georgia, with Democratic legislatures in each. Holden was impeached, and Bullock fled, but only a beginning had been made in the fight for redemption. Even so, the Radical politicians in Washington, ruminating the significance of these victories, determined that something more drastic still had to be done if the presidential election of 1872 was to be assured them. And the plans were instantly on foot.

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CHAPTER XVI

SUMNER'S BACK TO THE WALL

I

EFORE Congress again convened, the country was startled

BEFO

with the announcement that Secretary Cox had resigned from the Cabinet. Thoroughly honest, highly competent, and warmly devoted to reform, his unpopularity had been constantly deepening among the politicians and corruptionists. Petty explanations were on the tongues of the gossips. It was whispered about that Mrs. Cox had cut from a newspaper a letter attacking the assessment of clerks for party purposes, and sent it anonymously to Mrs. Grant, overlooking the monogram on the envelope, and that it had been returned 'with the compliments of Mrs. Grant.' But the rupture required no such fantastic explanation. Cox had been anathema to the bosses - always in the way. It was common knowledge that he had been painfully in the way in the case of the notorious McGarrahan claim.

This claim on three square leagues of California land, rich in minerals, had been advanced years before by a disreputable party who contended that there had been a Mexican grant more than a quarter of a century before. This dubious pretense was not susceptible of documentary proof - the papers had been burned! More than one Attorney-General had rendered opinions hostile to the claim and there had been a succession of adverse decisions in the Federal courts. With marvelous vitality, the thing survived to reappear under the name of McGarrahan, representing a stock company, and under the aggressive sponsorship of Ben Butler, in Congress and out.

To Cox the claim was a transparent fraud, and he said so emphatically in Cabinet. Grant astounded him with the assertion that Congress had the right to determine. This was the beginning of the open rupture. In an age of corruption, Cox had set his face against it, and his doom was sealed. There was nothing else to do 1 New York Herald, November 5, 1870.

- he resigned; and in his letter he made the reason clear. When the gossips began to make free with his reputation in undertones, he requested Grant to give the letters exchanged in the resignation to the press. Grant refused on the novel ground that they were confidential; and Cox forthwith summoned the press and gave them out. Thus the cat was out of the bag. "There is a strong feeling against Cox among all the Senators with whom I have talked,' wrote Senator Morton. "They say he has treated the President badly, and Chandler and others say very hard things.' It was commonly understood that Chandler and Simon Cameron had been saying hard things to the President a long while. 2 With Cox out of the way, Congress was free to act on the McGarrahan claim, but it had been forced into a blighting light. The majority of the Judiciary Committee of the House reported against it; but Bingham of Ohio brought in a minority report and the business was threshed out openly in bitter debate. Garfield was impressed by the disciplined army of supporters that McGarrahan had upon the floor, and had no doubt 'many ... were corrupt,' and observed that nearly all the worst class of carpetbaggers' voted with Bingham. The claim went through by a small majority.

3

4

If Grant was interested, it was a costly victory. In the debate Beck of Kentucky had savagely charged that Cox had been driven from the Cabinet because of his hostility to the steal. The 'New York World' said the claim had passed because of 'Presidential influence in abetting a notorious fraud.' The resignation of Cox was ascribed by Garfield to the 'surrender on the part of the President to the political vermin which infest the government.' 5 And, commenting on the rupture as due to Grant's refusal to support Cox in the prosecution of reforms, and denouncing 'the corruption and dishonesty of the great body of persons who carry on the government,' "The Nation' thought the incident ‘a pitiful story.' 'The wreck of General Grant's fame is a national misfortune,' it added. "That fame was a national possession.' 6

1 To W. P. Fishback, Foulkes, 11, 145, note.

2 New York Herald, November 11, 1870.

3 Garfield to Cox, Life of Garfield, 1, 463–65.

4 November 15, 1870.

October 20, November 17, 1870.

5 Garfield to Cox, Life of Garfield, 1, 462.

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