THE BROOKS AND BAXTER CONTEST. 539 day, sent dispatches to President Grant. Brooks announced his installation. as governor by the judgment of a court. He asked that the commanding officer at the arsenal be instructed to deliver to him the arms in his custody belonging to the state, or to hold them subject to his, Brooks's, order. No allusion was made to the rugged road by which he had reached the executive chair. Baxter, in his dispatch to the President, briefly recounted the facts of the seizure of the office by his rival. He described them as revolutionary. He stated his purpose to take measures immediately to resume possession of the state property, and to maintain his authority. He expressed the hope that the matter might be settled without bloodshed. He requested the President to authorize the officer in command at the United States arsenal to sustain him. The application of Brooks to be put in possession of the state arms was rejected, on the ground that his claim of right to the office of governor had not been finally decided by the courts of the state. Baxter was informed by a telegram from Attorney-General Williams, and by authority of the President, that his call for aid was not made in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the United States, and that, as the controversy related to the right to hold a state office, its adjudication belonged to the state courts. Each party proceeded to raise military forces. War threatened. In this undertaking Mr. Baxter seems to have been the more successful. He was soon strong enough to besiege his rival in the state house, and several collisions occurred, not without bloodshed. After the interchange of several dispatches between the President or Attorney-General and the rival claimants of the governor's office, the President proposed a compromise. It was that the two should issue simultaneous proclamations for the assembling of the legislature, at the same place, on the same day. The President suggested to Brooks that in this way his friends whom he claimed to be elected to the legislature could be brought into that body. As the legislature had already been organized by the friends of Baxter, this proposition was manifestly favorable to his claims. But, strange to say, while Brooks promptly accepted it, Baxter declined it, on the ground that it would be an admission of Brooks's right of contest. Besides, Baxter had already issued a call for a special session of the assembly. As soon as that body met, it repeated its former decision, that Baxter was the duly-elected governor. This point having been decided, President Grant issued a proclamation, dated May 15, 1874. It recognized Baxter as governor. It characterized the Brooks movement as a combination on the part of "certain turbulent and disorderly persons" to resist with force and arms the authority of Elisha Baxter, the executive of Arkansas; and commanded them to disperse and retire peaceably to their several abodes, and to submit themselves to the lawfully constituted authorities of the state. This executive mandate, of course, put an end to the controversy. But, somehow, during its continuance Baxter had become reconciled with the white race, or the Democratic element, while the sympathy of the opposite party had been transferred to Brooks. The change was not without its influence upon the mind of President Grant, as will presently be shown. The same legislature which settled the gubernatorial controversy to the satisfaction of the President passed an act providing for the call of a constitutional convention. This convention assembled on the 14th of July ; — 80,259 votes having been cast in favor of it, and only 8,607 against it. It was composed of ninety-one delegates. Radical changes were made in the constitution of 1868. All the changes favored "a larger liberty." All the old proscriptive clauses were swept away. It was provided that the judicial and other state officers should be elected by the people instead of being appointed by the governor. That official is said to have had more official patronage than any other state governor. Many other changes were made, but no right of the colored race was abridged. The new constitution was ratified on the 13th of October, 1874, by a vote of 78,697 for it, to 24,807 against it. This immense majority in its favor shows that the people had no sympathy with the proscriptive policy of the Northern adventurers, nor with their scheme for prolonging their hold on power by conferring the appointments to office on the governor. The legislature and state officers were chosen on the same day. The nomination for the governorship was offered to Baxter by the Democratic convention. This shows that he had, with great good sense, gone to that party. But he declined; and Mr. Augustus H. Garland was nominated and elected governor. He lives to illustrate his fitness as the great friend of popular government and legal interpretations. At the nominating convention held by the Republicans on the 15th of September, they adopted a long address. They declared the acts of the constitutional convention null and void. Had it not been called by a man called Baxter, who was not governor? Had he not been ousted from that office by the decision of the Pulaski County court? They asserted that Brooks was governor, and that all Baxter's official acts were illegal. The singular turn of affairs in Arkansas by which the leaders of the two parties were found to have exchanged positions, and by which the parties themselves changed positions, had its effect on President Grant. It caused him also to change his course. In a message to the Senate, dated Feb. 8, 1875, - less than nine months from the date of his proclamation denouncing Brooks and his supporters as "turbulent and disorderly," he expressed the opinion that Brooks had been lawfully elected governor in 1872, and had been since that time unlawfully deprived of his office; that the constitution of 1868 had been overthrown, the new constitution adopted, and the new state government established by violence, intimidation, and revolutionary proceedings; and that, if these proceedings were allowed to stand, the rights of mi ARKANSAS EXILES AND GHOSTS. 541 norities in all the states would be practically ignored. He submitted whether such a dangerous precedent should be recognized by Congress. He asked that Congress should take definite action in the matter. Congress took its best step toward regeneration then and there. Judge Poland was its exponent. Let it be known that Baxter was the radical Republican candidate for governor in 1872, while Brooks was the Greeley-Republican candidate, with the Democrats as his chief supporters; that a Republican legislature counted the vote in January, 1873; that it declared their candidate, Baxter, elected by a majority of between three and four thousand votes; that the same assembly rejected, by a vote of sixty-three to nine, Brooks's petition for leave to contest the possession of the office; that the supreme court of the state refused to hear his case; and that President Grant had pronounced Baxter to be the lawfully elected governor. And yet President Grant sent this message to Congress in February, 1875,- Brooks having in the meantime joined the Republicans and Baxter having coalesced with the Democrats: "There can be no doubt that Brooks was defrauded of his right to the office of governor. But the Republican legislature which counted him out' had under the constitution the exclusive right to count the vote and declare the result. Redress can only come from the people at the next election." But Brooks in the meantime had drifted into the ranks of his enemies. Notwithstanding General Grant's potentiality then and there, his appeal to Congress to intervene in behalf of Brooks and of the old constitution was without effect. The House of Representatives had appointed a committee to investigate the affairs of Arkansas. That committee made majority and minority reports on the 6th of February. The majority report, made by the chairman, Mr. Poland, of Vermont, was to the effect that the government of Arkansas was proceeding peaceably and prosperously, and that there was nothing in the history of the adoption of the new constitution that called upon Congress or any department of the government to step in and wipe it out. Mr. Poland, a grand tribune of the states and of the people,-in a speech advocating the adoption of the majority report, reminded his political friends that Brooks, with the emphasis of honesty and the courage of an honest soul, that man who now so commended himself to them,-had been the candidate of the Democrats and of the Greeley Republicans. He reminded them that the fraud upon him had been carried out by the regular Republican organization, at whose head stood Senator Powell Clayton, with Chief Justice McClure, sometimes designated by the unprofessional name of "Poker Jack," next in command. Referring to a figure of speech used in the discussion by Mr. Coburn, of Indiana, who said that "the lawful and exiled governor of Arkansas had been stalking like a ghost in their midst for the whole winter," Judge Poland re marked that the "ghosts " who marched by his side were the very men who had defrauded him out of his election, who had cheated him in every possible way, who had stuffed ballot-boxes, had figured with the returns, and who had kept out the votes of three whole counties, and of forty or fifty townships in other counties. No further action was taken in the matter either by Congress or the national executive, and the government of Arkansas was left to itself, untroubled by Federal interference. The majority report of the "joint select committee on the condition of affairs in the late insurrectionary states," made the 19th of February, 1872, states that the debt of Arkansas was, in 1860, $4,036,952; in 1865, exclusive of the debt incurred in the rebellion, which was repudiated, $4,527,879; in 1868, $4,820,630; and on the 14th of November, 1871, $5,361,265, with "contingent liabilities" for railroads amounting to $6,512,694, and with "prospective contingent liabilities" amounting to $7,877,306. The minority report states the debt at the same date as follows: Bonded and funded debt, Floating debt, Due for interest, Amounts awarded to railroads, Levee bonds, Total, $5,051,265 190,000 120,000 II,400,000 3,000,000 $19,761,265 The enormous increase of the taxes, state and county, was not sufficient to satisfy the rapacity of the adventurers. There are so many ways of stating the amount of the public debt, as the debt proper and the debt contingent, that it is difficult to arrive at any clear notion of it, except that the debt of Arkansas was greatly increased. Besides, there was the expenditure of an immense revenue during the Republican or carpet-bag rule, and there was nothing in the way of public improvements left to show for the expenditure. CHAPTER XXXI. RECONSTRUCTION IN THE FIFTH MILITARY DISTRICT. LOUISIANA - GENERAL SHERIDAN'S REMOVAL OF STATE OFFICIALS - HIS QUARREL WITH, AND REMOVAL OF, GOVERNOR WELLS - - THE PRESIDENT'S ORDER AS TO REGISTRATION DISREGARDED-RESULTS OF REGISTRATION — FORTY THOUSAND WHITES EXCLUDED FROM SUFFRAGE-REMOVAL AND APPOINTMENT OF NEW ORLEANS ALDERMEN AND OTHER OFFICERS-GENERAL SHERIDAN SUCCEEDED BY GENERAL HANCOCK-HIS SPECIAL ORDER ON ASSUMING COMMAND-RE-INSTATEMENT OF STATE OFFICIALS-MEETING OF THE STATE CONVENTION-THE NEW CONSTITUTION RATIFIED BY THE PEOPLE-GENERAL HANCOCK'S REMOVAL OF OFFICIALS NOT SUSTAINED BY - GENERAL HANCOCK RELIEVED AT HIS OWN REQUEST — THE PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL GRANT THE DISFRANCHISING CLAUSE OF THE CONSTITUTION G ENERAL Philip Sheridan was appointed commander of the Fifth military district, composed of the states of Louisiana and Texas. In his order assuming command, he announced that the existing state and municipal governments of Louisiana and Texas were provisional only, but that no removals from office would be made unless the incumbents should fail to carry out the provisions of the reconstruction law, or impede "reorganization." |