Unpunished Murder, page 13
Chief Justice Morrison Waite.
To those who had heard of him, Waite was unimpressive. Lincoln’s secretary of the navy, Gideon Welles, remarked of Waite that “it is a wonder that Grant did not pick up some old acquaintance, who was a stage driver or bartender, for the place.” The Nation added, “Mr. Waite stands in the front rank of second rank lawyers.” The Chicago Daily Tribune summed things up: “Although his practice has been extensive, he is not credited with the possession of more than a comfortable competence. His confirmation is conceded.”
As it was. Perhaps because Congress was now too fatigued to object, Waite was unanimously confirmed and took his seat on March 4, 1874.
Waite was not greeted warmly by his fellow justices. Not only had they been passed over for the seat Waite now held, but most of them regarded their new boss as an undeserving mediocrity. The only associate justice who extended Waite any courtesy was cold, unsociable Joseph Bradley, who invited the new chief justice and his wife to dinner their first night in the nation’s capital.
ON MARCH 11, 1874, exactly one week after Morrison Waite was sworn in as chief justice, Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner died. Sumner had been one of the giants of Radical Reconstruction, Thaddeus Stevens’s counterpart in the Senate. He left a long record fighting for equal rights—and in his case, fighting meant just that. In May 1856, after delivering a speech denouncing a South Carolina senator for forcing himself on female slaves, Sumner was nearly beaten to death with a cane on the floor of the Senate by South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks, the accused senator’s cousin.
Sumner was absent from the Senate for almost three years, but when he returned, his zeal to end slavery and establish equal rights for black people was undiminished. After the war, he let no one and nothing decrease his determination to force the United States to become the nation it had promised to be—for all its people.
Preston Brooks beating Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate. The caption is “Southern Chivalry.”
One of his main goals was for the United States to enact laws that guaranteed equal treatment in all aspects of daily life. On May 13, 1870, he introduced what he called a “supplementary” to the 1866 Civil Rights Act—the one “To Protect All Persons in the United States in Their Civil Rights and Liberties”—in which the federal government would specifically guarantee “equal rights in railroads, steamboats, public conveyances, hotels, licensed theaters, houses of public entertainment, common schools and institutions of learning authorized by law, church institutions, and cemetery associations incorporated by national or State authority; also in jury duties, national and state.” The notion of enforced integration in schools and churches—in the North as well as the South—gave even most Republicans pause. Sumner got nowhere. A number of prominent Republicans, such as Lyman Trumbull from Illinois, who had introduced the 1866 bill, even took the position that both the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment demanded only that facilities available to the races be equal. Freedom of association or, in the case of churches, free exercise of religion, would prevent the federal government from requiring that the races actually mix. “If the facilities for education are the same nobody has a right to complain,” Trumbull asserted. Undeterred, Sumner reintroduced his supplementary the following year with the same lack of results.
Even as the Republican Party quite publicly began to drift away from the Radical vision, Sumner refused to abandon his proposal; he hung on to the church provision until December 1873. A willingness to settle for a less sweeping guarantee of equal access to public facilities might have gained him support, but Sumner refused to compromise. He pushed on, expecting that, in the end, the Senate would give in and “crown and complete the great work of Reconstruction.”
But Sumner’s influence had all but disappeared. Finally, as 1874 dawned, Sumner, ill and dispirited, was finally willing to accept less, but the time had passed even for that. Most Republicans did not intend to revisit a subject that had already lost them so many voters. Twice, Sumner attempted to have a watered-down bill approved by the Republican-dominated judiciary committee, and twice he failed.
As a result, when Charles Sumner died in March 1874, it was with his most treasured ambition, full equality under the law, unfulfilled. But then, in a bizarre twist, the bill that Sumner had tried so hard to get passed began to gain momentum. Benjamin Butler, Sumner’s fellow senator from Massachusetts, was determined to enact some version of the supplement as a tribute to his fallen colleague. To everyone’s amazement, most of all to Butler’s, the tactic seemed to work. “Champions of equal rights seldom heard from before sprang up to defend the bill’s constitutionality and its reasonableness.” After a good deal of debate, the Senate passed the bill in May 1874, but then the House refused to follow along. The bill was set aside without being brought to a vote while the congressmen returned home to campaign for 1874 elections.
When Congress reconvened in December 1874 for its “lame-duck” session—that is, when many of those who lost their seats in the November elections still got to finish out their terms—the supplementary was still pending. But the just-completed elections had been a disaster for Republicans. When the new Congress was sworn in on March 4, 1875, the House of Representatives would shift from a 199 to 88 Republican majority to a 182 to 103 edge for the Democrats. Since only a third of the Senate had been up for reelection, Republicans would keep control, but a 54–19 majority would shrink to 47–28, and would surely shrink further in 1876. President Grant would also complete his second term in 1876, and a Democrat was favored to succeed to the presidency.
Butler renewed the fight. Despite reluctance among Republicans and a Democratic filibuster that reduced senators to “whiling away the hours by tearing newspapers to shreds [as] stale cigar smoke choked the air, and members sprawled on the unswept carpet,” Butler got the bill passed by both houses of Congress, although the schools and cemeteries provisions had to be dropped. Section 1 of the final bill read, “All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude.” President Grant signed the bill into law on March 1, three days before the new Congress would take office. The preamble of the new law, “An act to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights,” proclaimed it “the duty of the government in its dealings with the people to mete out equal and exact justice to all, of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political.” For the first time, it seemed, the promise of Thomas Jefferson’s famous passage in the Declaration of Independence asserting that “all men are created equal” would be kept. Jefferson, a slaveholder himself, almost certainly meant only white men.
For those freedoms guaranteed in Section 1 of the law, Section 2 listed penalties for those who would deny to any American fundamental rights of citizenship—up to $500 for each offense, payable to the victim; and, if convicted in criminal court, an additional fine for the offender of between $500 and $1,000 and up to one year in jail. Section 3 gave federal rather than state courts jurisdiction over suits arising from “offenses against, or violations of, this act.” Section 4 guaranteed that no citizen could be disqualified for service as a juror in either federal or state court “on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.”
The wording, which very much matched much of that of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, seemed to be a response—and a challenge—to Joseph Bradley’s Colfax opinion. Congress could easily be seen as telling the judiciary that it was only they who had the power to make law.
Speech in the House of Representatives by South Carolina congressman Robert B. Elliott, an African-American, in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
Passage of the Civil Rights Act elicited passionate responses. Black Americans rejoiced and moved immediately to exercise their new freedoms. Hotel owners, theater managers, restaurateurs, tavern owners, and railroad agents were suddenly overwhelmed with requests for first-class rooms, choice theater seats, front tables, or a beer at the bar. Most whites, however, were equally determined to continue to exclude African-Americans from just those privileges. The notion of black mixing with white was sufficiently unpleasant that most of the white population either ignored the law or broke it, with almost total support of police, politicians, and the courts. Across the Potomac from the nation’s capital, the owners of the two principal hotels in Alexandria, Virginia, elected to close rather than be forced to rent rooms to black Americans. Both quickly reopened when the owners realized that refusing black guests would not actually land them in any legal difficulty. In Memphis, four African-Americans demanded to be seated in the dress circle at a local theater. When the management grudgingly acceded, most of the white patrons walked out. In Richmond, Virginia, African-Americans demanded service in restaurants, a tavern, and a barbershop, but in each case were refused.
The New York Times, which had praised passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 as “settling the matter of suffrage in the Southern States beyond the power of the rebels to change it, even if they had control of the government,” denounced the law in an editorial. “It has put us back in the art of governing men more than two hundred years … startling proof how far and fast we are wandering from the principles of 1787, once so loudly extolled and so fondly cherished.”
A cartoon featuring an African-American telling Saint Peter that he can’t object to keeping the heavenly gates open after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
But the Times knew where to look for relief. “The Supreme Court, in instances such as this, is the last hope of all who attach any value to … the Constitution of the United States.”
The Chicago Daily Tribune predicted the law would have little practical impact. “At present, its effect will be mainly political. It will be used on the one side to retain the hold of the Republican Party on the negroes of the South; on the other, to excite new opposition to the Republican party among the whites.” The newspaper agreed that the constitutionality of the bill would be settled in the Supreme Court.
That test would begin just four weeks later when, on March 31, 1875, United States v. Cruikshank was heard by Morrison Waite’s Supreme Court.
THE YEAR 1876 PROMISED to be very special in the United States of America. It would be one hundred years since thirteen colonies declared their independence from Great Britain with a document that declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (The fact that “pursuit of happiness” was a substitute for “property” because no one quite knew how to deal with slaves had been long forgotten.) To commemorate the signing of that document, a grand celebration was required, and where better than in Philadelphia, the city where both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were born?
Planning started almost as soon as the Civil War ended. Credit for the idea of Philadelphia hosting America’s first world exposition generally goes to a college professor, John Campbell, who reportedly suggested it to the city’s mayor, Morton McMichael, in 1866. The notion percolated for five years, but nothing was done. In 1871, a group of businessmen, led by department store owner John Wanamaker, teamed up with Republican Party officials and the Franklin Institute to petition Congress to authorize a centennial exposition and appoint a commission to get the project in motion. Congress agreed but only under the condition that all the money come from private sources and not the government.
For a time, it seemed as if the exposition would never come together. There were disagreements on where the fairgrounds should be, what should be the event’s focus, and who should be in charge of seeing the project through to completion. When a panic hit the stock market in 1873, the economy crashed, and private money was nowhere to be found, the idea appeared to be dead. But the organizers were not going to be defeated that easily. For two years, they publicized the coming fair and went to everyone who might be able to contribute—church organizations, state governments, universities, major industries, and even foreign governments. Newspapers played up how important the centennial exposition was to national pride, and a women’s committee sent members door-to-door and raised $100,000. The money from all these sources was enough to start construction but not finish it. In the end, the federal government was forced to make up the difference, although only on the condition that it was a loan, not an investment. That meant the government had to be paid back before any funds were returned to any actual investors. (It would take a Supreme Court ruling to enforce that agreement, and so most investors lost a good deal of money on the deal.)
Officially named the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine, the fair was colossal. The grounds covered 285 acres along the Schuylkill River, and contained more than 200 pavilions, with seven miles of avenues and walkways between them. On opening day, May 10, 1876, a troop of cavalry escorted President and Mrs. Grant to their places in the grandstand, along with Emperor Dom Pedro II and Empress Teresa of Brazil. An orchestra played the national anthems of a dozen foreign nations and ended with the “Centennial Inauguration March,” written by the great German composer Richard Wagner. Almost 200,000 people witnessed the opening-day ceremonies, and more than ten million would visit before the fair closed in November. Most entered the grounds through the newly invented automatic turnstile after paying their fifty-cent admission fee.
View from a balloon of the Philadelphia Centennial fairgrounds.
Their money was not wasted. There were five main buildings. The Main Exhibition Building, made of wood, iron, and glass, was the largest in the world, almost five hundred feet wide and a third of a mile long. To cool the immense structure during the Philadelphia summer, a series of fountains had been placed inside. In Machinery Hall, only slightly smaller, the fifty-foot-tall Corliss steam engine, also the world’s largest, was connected to more than two miles of pipe and five miles of overhead belts, which powered hundreds of other smaller machines on the exhibition floor. There was a Horticultural Hall, almost entirely glass-enclosed, devoted to plants, flowers, and garden design. Memorial Hall was filled with fine art, sculpture, and photography, and Agricultural Hall demonstrated modern farm equipment, while just outside was an immense exhibit dedicated to farming and livestock. A Women’s Pavilion was also added when women protested that they had been ignored despite their enormous contribution to getting the fair off the ground.
President Grant and Emperor Dom Pedro starting the Corliss engine, which officially opened the fair.
Individual states, foreign nations, and businesses set up pavilions as well. Many Americans for the first time got to experience Heinz Ketchup, the Remington typewriter, the Singer sewing machine, and Hires Root Beer. Two other mechanical devices on display were to change the face of America and the world.
One was the bicycle. The model exhibited in Philadelphia was not the one we know today—the “safety bicycle,” with both wheels of equal size—but rather the high-front-wheeled “ordinary” bicycle that most Americans now associate with circus performers. At the time, not only were there almost no bicycles in the United States, but also almost no roads on which to ride them. But one of the fair’s visitors, Colonel Albert Augustus Pope, left Philadelphia with an idea. He not only redesigned the bicycle, making both wheels the same size, while changing the tires and the frame, but he also began a “Good Roads” movement to create places for people to ride.
It was a brilliant plan. During the next fifteen years, tens of millions of Pope’s Columbia Chainless bicycles (and other brands) were sold in the United States. Bicycling not only became an appealing new way for gentlemen and ladies to spend time together, but women saw the freedom of cycling as a symbol of political freedom. By the mid-1880s, a woman on a bicycle became a badge of liberation. Famed suffragette Susan B. Anthony said, “The bicycle has done more for the emancipation of women than anything in the world.”
Columbia Chainless.
The bicycle also inspired inventions of a more complex sort. Three of the men who used the device as a basis for other designs were Wilbur and Orville Wright, and Henry Ford. Almost every American inventor who was investigating the horseless carriage or controlled powered flight began on a bicycle.
The other device was called the Brayton Ready Motor. It featured a piston driven by a new fuel, kerosene, which was refined from petroleum. Soon, kerosene would give way to gasoline (at the time, used only as a stain remover), which became the source of power for both airplanes and automobiles. The Brayton motor was not used in either of these machines but became the basis decades later for jet engines.
During its six-month run, the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition showed the world that the United States, the land of democracy and freedom, had taken its place as a world power. The nation could justifiably brag of the great heights to which a free people could ascend.
In Louisiana, however, just as this great monument to American progress was being constructed on the banks of the Schuylkill, a different sort of America was taking shape.
When Joseph Bradley overturned the guilty verdicts of the three Colfax defendants, it did more than set three murderers free. It announced to white supremacists that they no longer need fear the federal court system, which meant they need not fear the courts at all.
