Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/323

Rh Ohio, for lieutenant-governor; Miller, of Maine, for secretary of state; Reynolds, of Maine, for auditor; Keifer, of Ohio, for commissioner of internal revenue. For legislators, from Montgomery county, Albert Warner of Ohio; Shoeback of Austria. For probate judge, Early of New York. The same rule was followed in the county and local offices in every State and municipality. Illiterate negroes, also, were elected or appointed to highly responsible positions.

The State militia, as organized, was composed mainly of negroes to enforce the odious State laws enacted by a legislature even more radical in legislation than the examples given by Congress. To illustrate : In the election in Alabama, in November, 1869, for governor and members of the legislature, the Republicans asked Governor Smith to call out the negro militia to protect the courts. For political purposes, complaint was made, in 1870, that there were violent measures used by Democrats in courts and at the polls. Governor Smith, the Republican governor, denounced Sibley and others as agitators "who would like to have a Ku Klux outrage every week to assist in keeping up strife between the whites and the blacks, that they might be more certain of the votes of the latter. He would like to have a few colored men killed every week, to furnish semblance of truth to Spencer's libels upon the people of the State generally." (Noted Men of the Solid South.)

The legislature of Alabama, put in by Congress, contrary to law, "sat nearly the entire year. As soon as it got fairly down to business, it increased the former State aid to railroads by authorizing endorsements to the extent of $16,000 per mile. Bribery and corruption became common to pass these pernicious grants of the State's credit. Only one road was completed. Five were built a few miles and abandoned. Fraudulent bonds were demanded and issued. The bond brokers and railroad schemers conspired to rob the State of many millions of