The Man Who Saved the Union (71 page)

T
he silver lining in the setback was the confusion it threw upon the matter of Cuba. Two Caribbean controversies were more than Congress and the country could handle, especially since the advocates of
intervention in Cuba typically opposed the annexation of Santo Domingo, while the annexationists opposed intervention. The Cuban insurgents did themselves no favor in America by committing atrocities that matched those of the
Spanish and the Cuban loyalists. One of the insurgent commanders, on a visit to Washington, casually mentioned having executed six hundred prisoners, shocking the American public and dismaying the interventionists.

Grant by now had lost all desire to involve America in Cuba’s troubles. In the summer of 1870 he dashed the hopes of the interventionists with his most definitive and negative statement so far. “
The condition of the insurgents has not improved,” he told Congress. “The insurrection itself, although not subdued, exhibits no signs of advance, but seems to be confined to an irregular system of hostilities, carried on by small and illy armed bands of men, roaming without concentration through the woods and the sparsely populated regions of the island, attacking from ambush convoys and small bands of troops, burning plantations and the estates of those not sympathizing with their cause.” Between the government and the insurgents there was little to choose. “The torch of Spaniard and of Cuban is alike busy in carrying devastation over fertile regions; murderous and revengeful decrees are issued and executed by both parties.”
Grant cited
George Washington’s parting counsel about holding aloof from other countries’ quarrels and said that it continued to furnish “a safe guide to those of us now charged with the direction and control of the public safety.” Nothing short of irresistible necessity should prompt American intervention. “Such necessity may yet hereafter arrive,” Grant concluded, “but it has not yet arrived, nor is its probability clearly to be seen.”

A
cannier politician than Grant would have accepted his
Dominican defeat and moved on. There were other battles to wage, of larger importance to the administration and America. But Grant had never known how to accept defeat, and the same stubbornness that had carried him to victory at Vicksburg and Richmond took hold of him again. He remarshaled his arguments for annexation after Congress recessed for the summer and autumn, and he made annexation the centerpiece of his December 1870 message. He reiterated that annexation would greatly benefit the United States and Santo Domingo both, and he again predicted that other countries would claim what the Senate wanted to throw away. “
The moment it is known that the United States have entirely abandoned the project of accepting as a part of its territory the island of San Domingo a free port will be negotiated for by European nations in the Bay of Samana. A large commercial city will spring up, to which we will be tributary.… Then will be seen the folly of our rejecting so great a prize.”

Tacitly conceding that the Senate would never ratify an annexation treaty, Grant suggested an alternative path. The Senate and House should jointly create a
commission to examine the Dominican question; if the commission reported favorably, the two houses could annex Santo Domingo by joint resolution, as
Texas had been annexed in 1845. Grant expressed confidence that the commission would agree with him. “So convinced am I of the advantages to flow from the acquisition of San Domingo, and of the great disadvantages—I might almost say calamities—to flow from nonacquisition, that I believe the subject has only to be investigated to be approved.”

C
harles Sumner was as stubborn as Grant. Sumner had obtained documents from the administration demonstrating that the
U.S. Navy
had sent warships to Santo Domingo to protect
Báez against aggression from
Haiti but also against his Dominican rivals; the commander of one of these vessels had raised the American flag over Dominican soil. Sumner condemned the orders and castigated the commander for not disobeying them. “
Rather than carry out such instructions, he ought to have thrown his sword into the sea,” Sumner declared. The ensuing occupation was an “act of war … war, sir, made by the executive without the consent of Congress.”
Andrew Johnson had acknowledged designs on Haiti as well as on Santo Domingo; Grant was simply less frank, Sumner said. “The president of the United States proceeds to menace the independence of Haiti.” Grant’s partner in dissimulation, Báez, was nothing but a “political jockey” with mercenary designs. “He is sustained in power by the government of the United States that he may betray his country.”

The proposed joint commission was a cloak for American aggression against Santo Domingo and Haiti, Sumner continued. “The resolution before the Senate commits Congress to a dance of blood.” He sneered at Grant’s arguments for annexation. “We are called to consider commercial, financial, material advantages, and not one word is lisped of justice or humanity.… What are these, if right and humanity are sacrificed?” Sumner had long been considered a defender in Congress of America’s blacks; he now appointed himself guardian of the African race generally. “The island of San Domingo, situated in tropical waters and occupied by another race, of another color, never can become a permanent possession of the United States. You may seize it by force of arms or by diplomacy, where a naval squadron does more than the minister, but the enforced jurisdiction cannot endure. Already by a higher statute is that island set apart to the colored race. It is theirs by right of possession, by their sweat and blood mingling with the soil, by tropical position, by its burning sun, and by unalterable laws of climate.” Annexation was horribly wrong and must be resisted. “I protest against this resolution as another stage in a drama of blood. I protest against it in the name of justice outraged by violence, in the name of humanity insulted, in the name of the weak trodden down, in the name of peace imperiled, and in the name of the African race, whose first effort at independence is rudely assailed.”

Sumner’s anti-annexation speech, which he grandly titled “Naboth’s Vineyard,” confirmed his reputation for self-righteousness even as it accomplished his purpose of stymieing Grant. The president’s allies in Congress won approval for the commission he sought, but such support
for annexation as had existed outside the White House was nearly spent. The commissioners went south; on their return to Washington they reported in favor of annexation. Grant hailed the finding. “
This report more than sustains all that I have heretofore said in regard to the productiveness and healthfulness of the Republic of San Domingo, of the unanimity of the people for annexation to the United States, and of their peaceable character,” he said. He took comfort in the support for annexation of no less an authority on the African race than
Frederick Douglass, the former slave and abolitionist. Douglass had accompanied the commission to the West Indies and he returned convinced that annexation suited the preference and interests of the Dominicans as well as of the United States. Douglass briefed Grant on his findings and told reporters he hoped Sumner would change his mind once he had pondered the commission’s report. “
If Mr. Sumner after that shall persevere in his present policy,” Douglass said, “I shall consider his opposition fractious, and regard him as the worst foe the colored race has on this continent.”

Neither the committee’s endorsement nor Douglass’s changed the minds of many lawmakers. Grant was compelled to conclude that he lacked the votes for annexation, and with belated pragmatism he let the subject drop.

62

I
N
J
ANUARY
1870 G
RANT RECEIVED A LETTER FROM
N
EDOM
A
NGIER
, the treasurer of the state of
Georgia.
Angier was a New Hampshire native who had moved to Atlanta before the war and become active in Republican politics afterward. He fell out with Governor
Rufus Bullock, another Republican, over the disposition of state funds. Unable to get a hearing among Georgia Republicans, he traveled to Washington hoping to see the president. But Grant was busy and Angier impatient, so Angier sent Grant a letter. “
Knowing your great desire and determination to have the laws fully executed,” he said, “and having full confidence that you will allow no infraction of the laws where it is in your power to prevent, I most respectfully ask to be allowed to make some quotations and deductions therefrom.” As Grant read Angier’s painfully detailed brief on Bullock’s flouting of state and federal law and his trampling of the rights of Georgians, he could imagine why the treasurer was having trouble with the governor—and probably with everyone else he encountered. But Grant couldn’t deny the man’s devotion to what he thought the welfare of his adopted state required. “To you we look, Most Worthy President, in the fullest confidence to curb any reckless disregard of law—to steady the restless passions and evil propensities that foment discord and mischief, and to give peace and prosperity to all portions of our beloved country.”

Similar pleas about Georgia filled Grant’s letter box that season, many indicting Bullock for egregiously violating the federal Reconstruction Act and the
Fourteenth Amendment. “
Governor Bullock has assumed the title of Provisional Governor, which is not authorized by the act of Congress, and intends to usurp authority over the legislature and
people, and expects to be supported in his illegal and tyrannical course by yourself as President and the military under your command,”
Nelson Tift, a former congressman from Albany, Georgia, wrote Grant. “The people of Georgia are at your mercy and expect your protection.”

Others besides Georgians felt themselves at Grant’s mercy and hoped for his protection. Upon the seizure of control of federal reconstruction policy by the
Radical Republicans, the white
Democrats who had governed the South since before the war were driven from power, replaced by white and black Republicans. Some of the ousted sulked in silence, some plotted politically, some turned to violence. The Ku Klux Klan was the most visible of the groups perpetrating violence, and its victims appealed to Grant for protection.
George Ashburn was a white Republican in Georgia who worked for greater rights for blacks. His activities brought him to the attention of the Klan, and in the spring of 1868 some three dozen hooded Klansmen broke into the Columbus rooming house where he was staying and shot him dead. In
South Carolina a black Republican legislator named
B. F. Randolph was murdered in broad daylight at a railway station in Cokesbury. In St. Helena Parish in Louisiana, Klansmen burned black churches and a schoolhouse and killed several African Americans. In the same parish Klan members dragged the coroner, a black Republican named
John Kemp, from his home and shot him dead. They beat his wife and at least two of the neighbors. In Huntsville,
Alabama, a Republican editor summarized the Klan violence in his vicinity: “
These bands are having a great effect, in inspiring a
nameless terror
among negroes, poor whites, and even others. The mischief is taking place daily and nightly—nobody is found out, or arrested, or punished. The civil authority is seemingly powerless. The military does not act. And the thing goes on, and is getting worse daily.”

The organized violence of the Klan tended to grow disorganized. The disruption of Southern society by the war, combined with the return of disillusioned young men familiar with arms but often without gainful employment, produced a general lawlessness that both contributed to the activities of the Klan and fed off it. At times it was hard to tell where political violence ended and ordinary criminality began. A visitor to Texas at the beginning of 1869 recounted events in the northeastern corner of the state. “
Armed bands of banditti, thieves, cut-throats and assassins infest the country,” he said. “They prowl around houses, they call men out and shoot or hang them, they attack travelers upon the road, they seem almost everywhere present, and are ever intent upon mischief.
You cannot pick up a paper without reading of murders, assassinations, and robbery.… And yet not the fourth part of the truth has been told; not one act in ten is reported. Go where you will, and you will hear of fresh murders and violence.”

G
rant had to decide whether the violence was his problem or the South’s. His campaign call for peace could be interpreted in opposite ways. It might mean that he considered the sectional conflict over and the South ready to resume control of its own affairs. Or it could indicate an insistence on domestic tranquility in the South along lines specified by the newly amended Constitution, with equal rights for blacks.

Southern Republicans, governing by virtue of black votes, hoped for the latter interpretation, and from the moment Grant took office they appealed to him for protection. When their appeals were trivially political, he turned them away. A group of Georgia state legislators wired for advice on a matter of Republican politics: “
Please answer quickly yes or no; should we vote for senators before repealing the
black code of Georgia?” Horace Porter responded for Grant: “
President has received your dispatch. He cannot advise you. Prefers that you use your own discretion.”

But often the appeals invoked fundamental principles of constitutionality and political equality. In such cases Grant took a more forward stance. Describing Georgia’s return to civil self-government, he told Congress: “
She ratified her constitution, republican in form, elected a governor, members of Congress, a state legislature, and all other officers required. The governor was duly installed, and the legislature met and performed all the acts then required of them by the reconstruction acts of Congress.” For this Georgia was to be commended. Unfortunately, however, the governor and legislature had subsequently reversed course. “They unseated the colored members of the legislature and admitted to seats some members who are disqualified by the third clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution”—the clause barring former Confederates. Grant urged Congress to pass special legislation requiring Georgia to ensure equal treatment of blacks and adherence to the principles of republican government.