the flag. Nor is this confined to the military, but extends to all classes who, representing northern interests, seek advancement in trade, commerce, and the liberal professions, or who, coming from the North, propose to locate in the South.
The men who compose the convention do, in my opinion, not represent the people of Alabama, because the people had no voice in their election. I speak with assurance on this subject, because I have witnessed the proceedings in my district. I do not desire to reflect upon the personnel of the delegation from Mobile, which is composed of clever and honorable men, but whatever may be their political course, they will not act as the true representatives of the sentiments and feelings of the people.
I desire in this connexion to refer to the statements of Captain Poillon, which you have submitted to me, and to indorse the entire truthfulness thereof. I have known Captain Poillon intimately, and have been intimately acquainted with the proceedings of the Freedmen's Bureau. Many of the facts stated by Captain Poillon I know of my own personal knowledge, and all I have examined into and believe.
On the 4th of July I permitted in Mobile a procession of the freedmen, the only class of people in Mobile who craved of me the privilege of celebrating the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Six thousand well-dressed and orderly colored people, escorted by two regiments of colored troops, paraded the streets, assembled in the public squares, and were addressed in patriotic speeches by orators of their own race and color. These orators counselled them to labor and to wait. This procession and these orations were the signal for a storm of abuse upon the military and the freedmen and their friends, fulminated from the street corners by the then mayor of the city and his common council and in the daily newspapers, and was the signal for the hirelings of the former slave power to hound down, persecute, and destroy the industrious and inoffensive negro. These men were found for the most part in the police of the city, acting under the direction of the mayor, R. H. Hough, since removed. The enormities committed by these policemen were fearful. Within my own knowledge colored girls seized upon the streets had to take their choice between submitting to outrage on the part of the policemen or incarceration in the guard-house. These men, having mostly been negro drivers and professional negro whippers, were fitting tools for the work in hand. Threats of and attempts at assassination were made against myself. Threats were made to destroy all school-houses in which colored children were taught, and in two instances they were fired. The same threats were made against all churches in which colored people assembled to worship, and one of them burned. Continued threats of assassination were made against the colored preachers, and one of them is now under special guard by order of Major General Wood. When Mayor Hough was appealed to by this man for protection, he was heard to say that no one connected with the procession of the 4th of July need to come into his court, and that their complaints would not be considered. Although Mayor Hough has been removed, a large majority of these policemen are still in office. Mayor Forsyth has promised to reform this matter. It is proper to state that he was put in office by order of Governor Parsons, having twice been beaten at popular elections for the mayoralty by Mr. Hough. This gives an indication of what will result when the office will again be filled by a popular election.
The freedmen and colored people of Mobile are, as a general thing, orderly, quiet, industrious, and well dressed, with an earnest desire to learn and to fit themselves for their new status. My last report from the school commissioners of the colored schools of Mobile, made on the 28th of July, showed 986 pupils in daily attendance. They give no cause for the wholesale charges made against them of insurrection, lawlessness, and hostility against their former masters or the whites generally. On the contrary, they are perfectly docile and amenable to the laws, and their leaders and popular teachers of their own color continually counsel them to industry and effort to secure their living in an honorable way. They had collected from themselves up to the 1st of August upwards of $5,000 for their own eleemosynary institutions, and I know of many noble instances where the former slave has devoted the proceeds of his own industry to the maintenance of his former master or mistress in distress. Yet, in the face of these facts, one of the most intelligent and high-bred ladies of Mobile, having had silver plate stolen from her more than two years ago, and having, upon affidavit, secured the incarceration of two of her former slaves whom she suspected of the theft, came to me in my official capacity, and asked my order to have them whipped and tortured into a confession of the crime charged and the participants in it. This lady was surprised when I informed her that the days of the rack and the thumbscrew were passed, and, though pious, well bred, and a member of the church, thought it a hardship that a negro might not be whipped or tortured till he would confess what he might know about a robbery, although not even a prima facie case existed against him, or that sort of evidence that would induce a grand jury to indict. I offer this as an instance of the feeling that exists in all classes against the negro, and their inability to realize that he is a free man and entitled to the rights of citizenship.
With regard to municipal law in the State of Alabama, its administration is a farce. The ministers of the law themselves are too often desperadoes and engaged in the perpetration of the very crime they are sent forth to prohibit or to punish. Without the aid of the bayonets of the United States Alabama is an anarchy. The best men of Alabama have either shed their blood in the late war, emigrated, or become wholly incapacitated by their former action from now taking part in the government of the State. The more sensible portion of the people
