516 



MISSISSIPPI. 



ing with their interests. A few days later 

 General John D. Freeman, the chairman of 

 this committee, addressed a note to General 

 Gillem, stating that a general election for presi- 

 dential electors was to be held in November, 

 and that the laws of that State made it the 

 duty of the sheriffs to hold the election. It 

 was usual, he said, for the Governor to issue 

 a proclamation requiring the sheriffs to per- 

 form that duty, but the Governor, having been 

 removed by the military authorities, the peo- 

 ple now looked to the commanding general 

 " to require the law in this respect to be ex- 

 ecuted." The commanding general replied, 

 informing Mr. Freeman that "neither the act 

 of March 2, 1867, organizing this military dis- 

 trict, nor any of the acts supplementary there- 

 to, nor any existing orders, either require or 

 authorize him to cause the election referred 

 to by you to be held, and that, therefore, he 

 declines taking the action indicated in your 

 communication." To this Mr. Freeman re- 

 joined in an elaborate attempt to show that it 

 was made the duty of the commander, by the 

 laws under which he acted, to hold this elec- 

 tion, and appealed to the General of the Army 

 and the President of the United States for a 

 decision in this matter. In consequence of this 

 appeal, as is supposed, Army Order No. 82, 

 dated October 10th, was issued by direction of 

 the President, forbidding the military com- 

 manders to interfere in the presidential elec- 

 tion in their respective districts. Nevertheless 

 the necessary authority was not exercised in 

 Mississippi, though General Gillem was again 

 appealed to, and that State took no part in the 

 election of November. 



It was claimed by the Republicans of Missis- 

 sippi that, but for fraud and intimidation at the 

 June election, the result would have been quite 

 different ; and on the 25th of November a con- 

 vention was held at Jackson, for the purpose 

 of petitioning Congress to set aside the result 

 of that election as officially announced by the 

 district commander, by throwing out the vote 

 of several counties, and pronounce the consti- 

 tution adopted and the Republican candidates 

 duly elected to all the State offices. The ad- 

 dress adopted by the convention, and transmit- 

 ted to Congress, declared that there was a 

 large class of persons in the State arrogating 

 to themselves the title of "the ruling class," 

 which " in defiance of the authority, and re- 

 gardless of the wishes of Congress, has reject- 

 ed in contempt all terms of restoration, and 

 has itself assumed the right to dictate on what 

 conditions the State will condescend to be re- 

 admitted into the Union." With regard to 

 frauds and intimidations, the following is the 

 statement of the address : 



From the 15th day of May, 1868, the day on which 

 the constitution, framed by the Constitutional Con- 

 vention of Mississippi, in accordance with the recon- 

 struction acts of Congress, was submitted to the peo- 

 ple, to the 22d of June, the date on which the election 

 for its ratification or rejection was authorized to be 

 held, there existed throughout a greater part of the 



State a reign of terror. Loyal and peaceable citizens 

 were driven from their homes, threatened with vio- 

 lence and death. Public speakers, by threats and 

 intimidations, were prevented from meeting their 

 appointments, or were driven from the stand by 

 lawless mobs. An organization of armed and dis- 

 guised men, calling itself a Ku-Klux Klan, perambu- 

 lated the country by night, committing outrages and 

 murders, defying detection, or being aided and 

 abetted by officers of the law, who made no effort to 

 bring them to punishment. The poor, dependent 

 classes of our loyal fellow-citizens were threatened 

 with starvation, and discharge from service, with 

 violence and death, if they failed to vote in accord- 

 ance with the dictates of their disloyal employers, 

 said employers habitually denouncing the Congress 

 of the United States, as an unconstitutional and revo- 

 lutionary body of men, that ought be dispersed by 

 force or otherwise. 



By bribes, threats, misrepresentations, fraud, and 

 violence, thousands of our fellow-citizens were co- 

 erced into voting against their will, and against their 

 honest convictions of right and duty, or were forced 

 to withhold their votes altogether. Many have been 

 murdered. And disfranchised people, who had for- 

 feited all their just rights as citizens, by conspiring 

 by armed force to throw off their allegiance to the 

 Government of the United States, stood guard at 

 the polls, to overawe the timid, and mark for future 

 condemnation and persecution all those who defied 

 their tyranny. 



In many counties the state of affairs herein 

 enumerated prevailed to such an extent that there 

 existed not even the semblance of a free election. 

 This malignant and unscrupulous opposition to the 

 generous terms of reconciliation offered by Congress, 

 and against the upholders and supporters of the 

 same, has, in our opinion, no just excuse, and can be 

 founded only on a desire to harass the public mind, 

 by parading before it issues long since settled by the 

 sword, and which ought now to be forgotten. 



Among the resolutions adopted by the con- 

 vention were the following : 



1. That we, the loyal people of the State of Missis- 

 sippi, in convention assembled, do solemnly declare 

 that said constitution was ratified by a majority of 

 the legal votes cast at that election. 



2. That the Kepublican State ticket viz., Gov- 

 ernor, B. B. Eggleston ; Lieutenant-Governor, A. J. 



Superintendent of Public Education, Charles "W. 

 Clark were duly elected by a majority of the legal 

 votes cast at that election. 



3. That it is for the best interest of the people of 

 the State of Mississippi that civil government be 

 established at the earliest practicable moment. 



4. That we appeal to the Congress of the United 

 States, the law-making power of this nation, to re- 

 admit the State of Mississippi into the great national 

 family, and clothe her, under the new constitution 

 of the State, and under the Constitution of the United 

 States, with all the rights and powers of a sovereign 

 State in the Union. 



Such was the political state of things in 

 Mississippi at the close of the year 18(?8. 



Notwithstanding the political excitement of 

 the year, much was done toward reviving the 

 material interests of the State. A large con- 

 vention of land-owners, from the States of 

 Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Louisiana, 

 was held at Jackson, on the 31st of March, for 

 the purpose of organizing companies each to 

 be called " The Freehold Land and Coloniza- 

 tion Company of ," and of encouraging 



