THE GREELEY CAMPAIGN -1872 175 



The following winter I had my first experience of * Re 

 construction &quot; in the South. Being somewhat worn with 

 work, I made a visit to Florida, passing leisurely through 

 the southern seaboard States, and finding at Columbia 

 an old Yale friend, Governor Chamberlain, from whom I 

 learned much. But the simple use of my eyes and ears 

 during the journey gave me more than all else. A visit 

 to the State legislature of South Carolina revealed vividly 

 the new order of things. The State Capitol was a beau 

 tiful marble building, but unfinished without and dirty 

 within. Approaching the hall of the House of Representa 

 tives, I found the door guarded by a negro, squalid and 

 filthy. He evidently reveled in his new citizenship; his 

 chair was tilted back against the wall, his feet were high 

 in the air, and he was making everything nauseous about 

 him with tobacco ; but he soon became obsequious and ad 

 mitted us to one of the most singular deliberative bodies 

 ever known a body composed of former landed propri 

 etors and slave-owners mixed up pell-mell with their 

 former slaves and with Northern adventurers then known 

 as carpet-baggers. The Southern gentlemen of the As 

 sembly were gentlemen still, and one of them, Mr. Mem- 

 minger, formerly Secretary of the Treasury of the Con 

 federate States, was especially courteous to us. But soon 

 all other things were lost in contemplation of &quot;Mr. 

 Speaker. &quot; He was a bright, nimble, voluble mulatto who, 

 as one of the Southern gentlemen informed me, was &quot;the 

 smartest nigger God ever made.&quot; Having been elevated 

 to the speakership, he magnified his office. While we were 

 observing him, a gentleman of one of the most historic 

 families of South Carolina, a family which had given to 

 the State a long line of military commanders, governors, 

 senators, and ambassadors, rose to make a motion. The 

 speaker, a former slave, at once declared him out of order. 

 On the member persisting in his effort, the speaker called 

 out, &quot;De genlemun frum Bufert has no right to de floh; 

 de genlemun from Bufert will take his seat,&quot; and the 

 former aristocrat obeyed. To this it had come at last. 



