>I don't think the federal U.S. should be excused. As the discussion
>on this thread shows, there was a crime of omission on the part of
>the feds to allow fascist terror in this period. The largest
>sections of the KKK were in Indiana at some point in the 1920's.
>There was open terrorism against Native Americans in this period as
>well. So, the geographical spread is pretty wide.
>
>Americans should have to face the fact that their history has
>included fascism/open terrorist rule.
Herbert Shapiro's _White Violence and Black Response: From Reconstruction to Montgomery_ (Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1988) is quite good. Here's an excerpt:
<blockquote>Radical rule saw the establishment of local and state governments in which blacks participated as voters and officeholders, but as the limits of Radical Reconstruction became clear the counterrevolution of white supremacy unfolded. Confining the ex-slaves to a political and constitutional definition of equality, national Republicans refused to back up Radical rule in the South with a program of economic reform that would include distribution of land to blacks and poor whites. Retaining their lands, the former slave owners and their banker and merchant friends in the cities were economically stronger than the local black and white Radicals. They could draw upon the militant support of thousands of Confederate army veterans. Repeatedly, acts of terror in the South challenged the federal government to demonstrate its willingness to enforce constitutional rights, and the government's response was to show that it would not take the action necessary to suppress racist violence.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . The terrorists gave first priority to destroying the black militia, companies of black guardsmen formed to protect the Radical governments. Where offered the opportunity blacks readily volunteered to join the militia and fought back when attacked by racists, but white Radical leaders in the South and federal authorities in Washington were quick to acquiesce to the demand that the black troopers be disarmed.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A phenomenon that appears repeatedly in the race riots of this era is the support given local terrorists by whites from surrounding counties and adjoining states. Based on the political experience acquired during the slave regime and the common desire to restore white rule, racists relied upon an informal network that could be quickly mobilized in a crisis.17
As W. McKee Evans has suggested, regarding the ineffective response of Republican leaders, it was not a question of the sufficiency of power but rather the will or lack of will to use available power. In the main the Republican thrust against the Klan was palsied by hesitation, short-range expediency, and the failure to understand that conditions of war still prevailed in the South. Evans sees in Republican policy the embodiment of Marx's notion of "parliamentary cretinism," the hollowness of political leaders who give only lip service to their proclaimed ideals.18
The evidence certainly points to excessive leniency as characterizing Radical policy. In Arkansas Radical governor Powell Clayton in late 1868 did proclaim martial law in ten terrorized communities and sent a militia led by Colonel William Monk against the Klansmen. Under the rule of this militia a number of Klansmen were convicted of murder and hung. In defense of lawfully constituted Reconstruction authority, Clayton for a time was willing to answer terror with terror. The Ku Klux Klan as an organized entity ceased to exist in Arkansas, giving the state government a lease on life that lasted until 1874 when application of the "Mississippi Plan" for overthrowing Radical power toppled the state's Radical regime.19 But no other Radical state government matched Clayton's in stern resolution to act against the terrorists. Most importantly, the federal government did not manifest a continuing readiness to stamp out the counterrevolutionary violence practiced by the enemies of Reconstruction. Those enemies were committed to preserving a system of racial subordination and deference. The white Radical leadership was not committed to the destruction of that system. It was not that this leadership was always ineffectual. During the war when it saw fundamental questions of power at stake it acted sternly enough, finally grasping the weapon of Emancipation and waging civil war with appropriate resolution. But with Andrew Johnson's departure from the White House and growing confidence that the northern business class would continue to control national power, Republican zeal for revolutionizing the South drastically diminished, and what set in was a process leading toward appeasement of white supremacy.
At moments, as for example in 1871 when the Grant administration saw electoral prospects threatened by Klan activity, the national government took action effective enough to paralyze the infrastructure of Klan organization. This was most notably true in South Carolina where military rule was imposed upon thirteen up-country counties and hundreds of Klansmen were arrested by federal officers. But the federal government did not so act as to convey convincingly the message that it would not tolerate a renewal of terrorism. . . .
The weakness of federal policy manifested in the very limited maintenance of an army presence in the South. The historians of the long-influential Dunning school were fond of conjuring the horrors of "military occupation," but this occupation was more symbolic than substantial. During the period 1870-77, in the ten ex-Confederate states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, the 1,122 troops stationed in Louisiana in 1874 made up the largest contingent assigned to any one state. The 596 soldiers assigned to Mississippi in 1875 were the largest number placed in that state, a state facing protracted and widespread violence. The maximum number to be found in South Carolina was 1,007, and that only for 1871 when martial law had been proclaimed. The federal contingent in Arkansas reached a maximum strength of 124 in 1870.
If the army presence in the South was an equivocal statement of federal commitment, so were the legal proceedings instituted against Kluxers in district courts. In South Carolina, where federal prosecution was most extensive, even in 1871 with acute concern over Klan activity prevailing, the securing of fifty-four convictions was accompanied by thirty-eight acquittals and thirty cases nol-prossed. All in all, between 1871 and 1874 convictions totaled 154, acquittals 44, and 1,119 cases were nol-prossed. There was some ability at securing convictions, but it was more than matched by willingness to drop charges against hundreds of suspected Klansmen.20
"The Ku Klux trials were largely a matter of sweeping the dirt under the rug," Evans writes.21 The evidence indicates that of all those arrested for Klan involvement, no more than 10 percent were ever brought to trial.22 Evans raises the issue of what happened to those convicted. The evidence is clear enough to conclude that remarkable leniency was shown those criminals. Within several months of the South Carolina 1871 convictions, President Grant pardoned those Klansmen serving sentences. In Mississippi only a few of those convicted of violating the Enforcement Acts, enacted by Congress to protect citizenship rights, went to prison or paid more than a small fine.23 In Mississippi during 1872 the conviction of 262 accused Klansmen was facilitated by promising suspended sentences in exchange for guilty pleas.24
17. [Melinda Meek] Hennessey, "To Live and Die in Dixie[: Reconstruction Race Riots in the South]," [Dissertation, Kent State University, 1978,] pp. 356, 403-6 18. See W. McKee Evans, "The Ku Klux Klan and the Conservative Triumph" (Paper delivered at the Pacific Coast Branch meeting of the American Historical Association, 1971), p.14 19. Ibid., pp. 10, 11 20. See Everett Swinney, "Suppressing the Ku Klux Klan" (Dissertation, University of Texas, 1967), p. 235 21. Evans, "Ku Klux Klan," p. 17 22. Rembert W. Patrick, _The Reconstruction of the Nation_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 157. 23. Swinney, "Supressing the Klan," pp. 236, 238 24. [Allen W.] Trelease, _White Terror_, [New York: Harper & Row, 1971], p. 412 (pp. 8, 11, 13-15)</blockquote> -- Yoshie
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