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immediately joined in the hunt for plunder, and soon struck the trail of and came in contact with the preceding plunder hunters -Osborn and his Bureau agents, with the thousands of their Lincoln Brotherhood. How to circumvent this brotherhood, now so firmly established across their pathway, was a problem for grave consideration. Saunders, Richards and Liberty Billings, a former lieutenant-colonel of a colored regiment in the Union army and now located at Fernandina, held a consultation at Tallahassee, and with all the solemnity of a Methodist prayer meeting finally resolved to supplant the Lincoln Brotherhood by a new secret organization styled "The Loyal League of America." Here commenced the "tug of war" which subsequently culminated in two Republican factions in the State. Thus the "Union League," an institution formed and organized in November, 1862, in the city of Cleveland, Ohio, and which shortly after numbered its millions of membership, some of whom were in the rebel States and had the confidence of some of the warmest supporters of the Southern Confederacy, was prostituted to the forging of chains upon the souls of the confiding freedmen. Before they could be recognized as Republicans by Saunders, Richards and Billings, the freedmen were required to join the Loyal League of America. A new application had to

be made, another five dollars initiation fee paid, with a monthly due of not less than ten cents, or whatever the President should require. In the Grand Council at Tallahassee, or at the office of Richards and Saunders, whenever an influential freedman applied for initiation, and they thought he could raise the money, they would charge him fifteen or twenty dollars to become a member of the league. Charters for the organization of lodges cost five dollars, and whenever the deputies could succeed in wringing it out of the people, they would charge them a greater These fees were divided with the President of the League in Tallahassee, William M. Saunders, who constituted himself the Grand Council; and whenever he could make the deputies come up with the cash he would pocket the money. Grips, signs and passwords were given to the freedmen in these lodges, and they were told that they had received something beyond the reach and conception of their former masters, which led them to believe their late masters had no rights that they were bound to

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respect. This nefarious teaching made many of them very obnoxious and overbearing members of society. Thousands of dollars were wrung from the hands of our people by these devices. They were assured in these league meetings that the lands and all the property of their former masters would be equally divided among the former slaves, which led many to indolence. They were further instructed that the oath which they had taken in the League was of such a nature that they could not vote for any Southern white man for office; that to do so would cause their return into slavery. To rivet these teachings upon their consciences, violent speeches would be made in the lodge-rooms, and often in public, in denunciation of their former masters, who, in turn, had their hands full to explain and satisfy our misguided people, the best they could, that the men who were organizing them in secret lodges were mere demagogues for the sake of office and their worst enemies. This argument set some of our people to thinking, and but for this and the influence of the more sensible of the colored people, the property of the country would have in many instances been destroyed by the midnight torch. Although Saunders, Richards and Billings and their henchmen who organized the Loyal League were not altogether successful in putting to political death Osborn and his Bureau agents, yet their fight for the spoils had a great tendency to cripple them for life in many parts of the State. The whites at this time had become alarmed at these secret meetings and began to bestir themselves to find out the full secret of this league. Their first step was to get the negro into a good humor by delivering to him what he considered a fine present. If any whisky or brandy was about the white man would drop one or two drams into him, which would be the means of drawing him into conversation the more easily concerning the league. He would then start out by shaking hands with the freedman, telling him at the same time that this (placing his fingers into some curious form) is the secret grip of the league. This would please the freedman so well, to think that he knew something that the former master did not know, that he would undertake to instruct him as to the right grip, if he could recollect it. He felt grand at the idea that he was capable of teaching his former master something. Many of the grips,

passwords and signs were exposed in this way; but the whites were yet kept in the dark as to the real intentions of the league. So insecure did the whites consider their lives and property that some of them were constrained to make application to become members of the league; but this was refused. One gentleman, a wealthy planter in Leon County, to my personal knowledge made application to J. W. Toer, Esq., colored (who was a very good and polite old gentleman), and was admitted; but the freedmen were told to watch him—that he was only a spy, and old man Toer was after that time looked upon by them as a traitor. This gentleman lived in a settlement where ninetenths of the population were colored, and all of them were members of the league. He does not hesitate to declare that he was forced to join this league to save his property from destruction. There is no disputing the fact that the fears of the whites with reference to these leagues were well founded; for the men who controlled them had really nothing in view but public plunder. Notwithstanding the oath that had been taken by the freedmen as members of the Loyal League, and the violent speeches with promises made by its leaders to them, there was a sectional and natural feeling existing among most of them which was a resistless leaning toward those with whom they were better acquainted-their late masters. In 1867, some few months before the nomination of delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1868, the freedmen called a public meeting in the courthouse in Leon County, and invited M. D. Papy, one of the most prominent lawyers in the State, Judge McIntosh, and other Southerners, to address them and give them some information as to their newly acquired duties as citizens. Those gentlemen and others attended the meeting and addressed the colored people The meeting was largely attended and the addresses were well received; but Osborn and the rest of the plunderhunters kicked furiously against this revolutionary movement on the part of the freedmen, while most of the whites looked upon the action of Papy and McIntosh as giving countenance to Osborn, Saunders and other carpetbaggers. If this action on the part of the blacks and whites had not been interfered with the State would have saved thousands of dollars. The freedmen in other parts of the State would have heard with gladness of the action of their former mas

ters at the capital. They would have broken the chains of the league and looked up to those slaveholders of the State who had not in the days of slavery treated them cruelly. They felt confident that their rights would be absolutely secure in the hands of those men under the reconstruction acts of Congress. As a close observer of the times, and as one of the actors in the reconstruction theatre, I am certain, if the Southern whites could have taken in the situation, two-thirds of them would have been returned as delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1868. This result would have enlisted two-thirds of the best white citizens of Florida in the ranks of the Republican party. But "to err is human." From this time up to the election of delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1886 no further alliance was attempted between the whites and the freedmen. The whites, discouraged at the solidity of the freedmen against them, refused to take any part in the election of delegates to the convention. The two so-called Republican factions-one termed the Osborn Faction and the other The Mule Team (having acquired this name by the reason of Billings and Saunders using two mules to haul them around while perfecting their electioneering schemes), had everything their own way, with the military to back them.

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CHAPTER V.

The Election of Delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1868.
Address of D. Richards, the First President. The Loyal
League Overthrows the Lincoln Brotherhood. Notable Mem-
bers of the Convention. The Richards Constitution. Re-cap-
ture of Convention. Minority of Non-resident Delegates.
The Lincoln Brotherhood Ahead, and the Loyal Leaguers
Rampant. Ratification of the Constitution and Election of
Governor Reed.

Under militaty authority the State was divided into nineteen election districts, which were so arranged as to have the counties where the white population predominated attached to the counties having large colored majorities. There was but one polling place in each county, which necessitated the continuing the election for three days. The election was held on the 14th, 15th and 16th of November, 1867, under the formal supervison of the military. The question submitted was, For a Convention, or, Against a Convention; and for delagetes to the convention in case a majority of the votes cast were for the Constitution. Twenty-seven thousand one hundred and seventy-two registered voters were returned by the registering officers, of whom fourteen thousand five hundred and three were returned as having voted for a Constitution. All the districts returned delegates, and a full convention, forty-six in number, were elected. The following is a list of the delegates, as returned by military general orders No. 110:

First District-Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties-Geo. W. Walker, Geo. J. Alden, Lyman W. Rowley.

Second District-Walton, Washington and Holmes-John L. Campbell.

Third District-Jackson-W. J. Purman, L. C. Armistead, E. Fortune, H. Bryan.

Fourth District- Gadsen and Liberty-D. Richards, W. U. Sanders, Frederick Hill.

Fifth District-Franklin-J. W. Childs.

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