The council then sang "Hail, Columbia!" and "The Star Spangled Banner," after which an official lectured the candidates, saying that though the designs of traitors had been thwarted, there were yet to be secured legislative triumphs and the complete ascendancy of the true principles of popular government, equal liberty, education and elevation of the workmen, and the overthrow at the ballot box of the old oligarchy of political leaders.After prayer by the chaplain, the room was darkened, alcohol on salt flared up with a ghastly light as the "fire of liberty," and the members joined hands in a circle around the candidate, who was made to place one hand on the flag and, with the other raised, swear again to support the government and to elect true Union men to office.Then placing his hand on a Bible, for the third time he swore to keep his oath, and repeated after the president "the Freedmen's Pledge":
"To defend and perpetuate freedom and the Union, I pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor.So help me God!" "John Brown's Body" was then sung, the president charged the members in a long speech concerning the principles of the order, and the marshal instructed the neophyte in the signs.To pass one's self as a Leaguer, the "Four L's" had to be given: (1) with right hand raised to heaven, thumb and third finger touching ends over palm, pronounce "Liberty"; (2) bring the hand down over the shoulder and say "Lincoln"; (3)drop the hand open at the side and say "Loyal"; (4) catch the thumb in the vest or in the waistband and pronounce "League." This ceremony of initiation proved a most effective means of impressing and controlling the Negro through his love and fear of secret, mysterious, and midnight mummery.An oath taken in daylight might be forgotten before the next day; not so an oath taken in the dead of night under such impressive circumstances.After passing through the ordeal, the Negro usually remained faithful.
In each populous precinct there was at least one council of the League, and always one for blacks.In each town or city there were two councils, one for the whites, and another, with white officers, for the blacks.The council met once a week, sometimes oftener, nearly always at night, and in a Negro church or schoolhouse.Guards, armed with rifles and shotguns, were stationed about the place of meeting in order to keep away intruders.Members of some councils made it a practice to attend the meetings armed as if for battle.In these meetings the Negroes listened to inflammatory speeches by the would-be statesmen of the new regime; here they were drilled in a passionate conviction that their interests and those of the Southern whites were eternally at war.
White men who joined the order before the Negroes were admitted and who left when the latter became members asserted that the Negroes were taught in these meetings that the only way to have peace and plenty, to get "the forty acres and a mule," was to kill some of the leading whites in each community as a warning to others.In North Carolina twenty-eight barns were burned in one county by Negroes who believed that Governor Holden, the head of the State League, had ordered it.The council in Tuscumbia, Alabama, received advice from Memphis to use the torch because the blacks were at war with the white race.The advice was taken.Three men went in front of the council as an advance guard, three followed with coal oil and fire, and others guarded the rear.The plan was to burn the whole town, but first one Negro and then another insisted on having some white man's house spared because "he is a good man." In the end no residences were burned, and a happy compromise was effected by burning the Female Academy.Three of the leaders were afterwards lynched.
The general belief of the whites was that the ultimate object of the order was to secure political power and thus bring about on a large scale the confiscation of the property of Confederates, and meanwhile to appropriate and destroy the property of their political opponents wherever possible.Chicken houses, pigpens, vegetable gardens, and orchards were visited by members returning from the midnight conclaves.During the presidential campaign of 1868, the North Carolina League sent out circular instructions to the blacks advising them to drill regularly and to join the militia, for if Grant were not elected the Negroes would go back to slavery; if he were elected, the Negroes were to have farms, mules, and offices.
As soon as possible after the war the Negroes had supplied themselves with guns and dogs as badges of freedom.They carried their guns to the League meetings, often marching in military formation, went through the drill there, marched home again along the roads, shouting, firing, and indulging in boasts and threats against persons whom they disliked.Later, military parades in the daytime were much favored.Several hundred Negroes would march up and down the streets, abusing whites, and shoving them off the sidewalk or out of the road.
But on the whole, there was very little actual violence, though the whites were much alarmed at times.That outrages were comparatively few was due, not to any sensible teachings of the leaders, but to the fundamental good nature of the blacks, who were generally content with mere impudence.
The relations between the races, indeed, continued on the whole to be friendly until 1867-68.For a while, in some localities before the advent of the League, and in others where the Bureau was conducted by native magistrates, the Negroes looked to their old masters for guidance and advice; and the latter, for the good of both races, were most eager to retain a moral control over the blacks.They arranged barbecues and picnics for the Negroes, made speeches, gave good advice, and believed that everything promised well.
