D. H. Bingham and J. H. Larcombe to Andrew Johnson

June 27, 1865 enter/return enter/return To the President and members of the Cabinet of the United States.

    GENTLEMEN: The undersigned beg leave respectfully to represent: That in the appointment of Lewis E. Parsons, Provisional Governor of Alabama, you have placed the executive administration of that State in the hands of a man of notoriously disloyal proclivities and rebellious antecedents, and whose record has been stained with treasonable opposition to the United States Government from the inauguration of the rebellion. 
    He has been a rebel judge of a district court of the so-called confederacy, sitting in judgment upon the lives and property of loyal Union citizens of Alabama. He has also been a member of the rebel legislature of that State, and has twice taken the oath of allegiance to the confederate government. From the inauguration of hostilities by the firing upon Sumpter, he has been a hearty sympathiser with treason, and an efficient and influential co-worker with traitors in their paricidal efforts to destroy this Government.  
    With recommending him for the position conferred upon him, the truly loyal and Union men of Alabama have had nothing to do. The delegation which accompanied him to this city, are all notorious throughout the State for their disloyalty. They were self constituted, or sent by rebel cliques and did not represent or reflect the sentiment of the Union people and loyal element of the State.  They have all been active instigators, aiders, and abettors of the rebellion from the beginning, have not breathed a loyal sentiment, nor entertained a loyal, friendly feeling for this Government, or for the administration of Mr. Lincoln, since April, 1861, notwithstanding two of them, to wit: Geo. S. Houston and Nicholas Davis, have resided more than half the period of the war within the federal lines and been protected by federal bayonets. 
    As this delegation has played a prominent part in the programme of deception practiced upon the Executive of the nation, in securing the federal offices in Alabama to the possession of disloyal men, identified in interest and feeling with the old slave dynasty of our State, we beg leave to present for your information the following concise history of the treasonable record of each, as it came under our observation during the first two years of the rebellion.  
    Joseph C. Bradley, of Huntsville, Alabama, has been the collector of the rebel war tax of that State and also Receiver General of the debts due from southern men to northern and western merchants under the sequestration act of the rebel congress; but finding no immediate pecuniary consideration in the office, he soon declined it.  
    He uniformed and otherwise equipped a company of men raised in and about Huntsville, at his own individual expense; baptised them by the name of "JOE BRADLEY REBELS" and sent them to the rebel army to fight against the Government, the Union, and perpetaity of these States, over the disruption of which, he is now here in the City of Washington shedding crocodile tears--not of repentance for his treason, but of hypocrisy and deception, to aid in securing the political control and patronage of the Government to the old slave dynasty and enable that class of men to control the reconstruction policy of the State of Alabama, and keep themselves in political power and authority.  He furnished many thousand dollars to a Mrs. Jordon and Mrs. Bradford, two rebel women of Huntsville, for the purchase of contraband medicines and clothing to be run through the federal lines at Nashville, Tennessee, who were detected, arrested, and imprisoned at Nashville, as his excellency the President will probably recollect.  Upon the advent of General Mitchel's army into Huntsville, (April 11th, 1862,) Bradley fled south of Tennessee river, within the rebel lines, where he remained consorting and fraternizing with rebels, employing al his energies, wealth, and influence in support of the rebel cause, till the armies of the rebellion were vanquished and overthrown when he concocted the plan of securing the offices of the state government and its patronage in the hands of his confederates intreason; comes up here to Washington, falsely representing himself and his associates as delegated by the truly loyal men of Alabama to represent and reflect their wishes and sentiments; engineers the appointment of rebels, who are his pliant tools, into office; procures the executive pardon, an upon his return home will no doubt be ready and prepared to crucify, at the first opportunity, the President with the whole republican party, if in his power, with more ferocity than Pontius Pilot did the Saviour.  
    Colonel Nicholas Davis went into the seccession convention of Alabama, pledged to the people to resist the mad heresy to the bitter end.  He voted against the ordinance in pursuance of his pledge, but asked and obtained leave to change his vote.  He has been a member of the rebel congress, was commissioned a colonel in the rebel army, went to Mobile to assume command, but owing to some difficulty about his regiment, returned to Huntsville, took an interest in a gun factory at Pulaski, Tennessee, for the manufacture of arms and munitions of war for the use of the confederacy, and like Bradley, employed all his wealth, energies, and influence in aid of the rebellion.  He has been about half the period of the war within the federal lines, enjoying federal protection, but instead of giving his hearty cooperation to the support and defence of the flag of his country, as a truly loyal man would, he has been quite the reverse, and while not openly defiant, still the spirit of resistance is plainly perceptible as lurking in his heart, and is only subdued by the presence of federal bayonets.  
    General George S. Houston left his seat in the U.S. Congress, returned to Alabama and was a Union man up to the attack upon Fort Sumter.  He soon after took the stump, beating up for volunteers for the rebel army, canvassed his congressional district, denounced in his speeches the proclamation of Mr. Lincoln calling for seventy-five thousand men as an unwarrantable attempt at coercion, declared it a usurpation of power, unauthorized by the Constitution, or authority of law, and branded him with the epithets of tyrant and despot, put his sons (one as a captain) into the rebel army, and was instrumental in levying a tax of one hundred and fifty per  cent (upon the State and county tax of the county) upon the people of Limestone, to clothe and otherwise fit out these county volunteers, (his own sons among the rest,) preparatory to sending them to the rebel army.  He was a member of the vigilance committee of Limestone county, a body of men who assumed the prerogative and authority to arrest, bring before them, try, condemn, and execute men suspected of disloyalty to the so-called confederacy.  This committee was the chief committee of the county, and held a supervisory control over the sub-vigilance committees, organized in the several precincts, or election districts of the county; and when the reign of terror was inaugurated, and the bloodhounds of slavery let loose with a savage ferocity, upon unoffending and defenceless Union men, when a free negro, and old defenceless preacher 

2 was taken up, tried before a sub-vigilance committee, condemned in secret, and forthwith executed by hanging, his heart afterwards cut out and carried upon the point of a bowie-knife through the streets of Mooresville--when an Italian pedlar of tablecloths, who could hardly speak the English language intelligibly, was reported to have been shot in cold blood by these minions of the slave power, under the pretence of being a northern emissary and abolitionist, George S. Houston was not the man to raise his voice, or use his efforts against the perpetration of these barbarous atrocities, notwithstanding, such was his wealth, influence, and prestige of character in that country, that he could have effectually suppressed such violence, had he had the moral or physical courage to have done so. At the meeting of the legislature in November, 1861, he was anxious to represent the State of Alabama in the senate of the rebel congress, and his friends at Montgomery canvassed his claims for the nominations, and as late as the winter of 1863, he refused to sell his crop of cotton to a respectable gentleman of Nashville, alleging that "the Confederate laws prohibited it," thus recognizing the supremacy of the rebel laws, and admitting their paramount authority to the laws of the United States, notwithstanding the federal forces had once had possession of his end of the State, and his intelligence should have admonished him that they would have possession again. Such has been the rebellious record of the Hon. George S. Houston, during these four years of bloody strife and internicine warfare, which he has fomented and encouraged by every means at his command. Yet he comes here now, with his garments stained with the blood of his countrymen, whom he has influenced to rush madly into this awful rebellion, and claims to have been a good loyal Union citizen of the United States, emphatically alleging, that neither "the State of Alabama or himself have ever yet been out of the Union." This is true as to his State, but his record shows that he himself has made most desperate efforts to get out of it.

    With the particular incidents connected with the rebel history of Messrs. Saffold and Bibb we are not familiar. It is known that they are slave-holders, belonging to that class who went into rebellion knowingly, voluntarily, and anxiously as a general thing; and from their association with the delegation, it is presumed they have established a record similar to that of the colleagues. Of Mr. Roberts, it is only necessary to say, that he is the editorof the "Montgomery Mail," in order to understand and appreciate the intensity of his hate and bitter opposition to the Federal Government.
    Such, Mr. President and gentlemen of the Cabinet, is the history in brief of the men (as it came under our personal observation for the first two years nearly of the rebellion) who have come here, and by falsely representing themselves as reflecting the sentiments of the loyal men of Alabama, have induced you to commit the administration of the governmant of the State of Alabama into the hands of disloyal men, and endorse them with the authority and patronage of the Federal Government, whereby they and their associates in treason may retain the political power and control of the State for the benefit and aggrandizement of the old slave dynasty under a reconstructed governmant of their own distroying.
    Information received from Alabama last night informs us that the truly loyal men of the State had no agency in sending thi selegation here; that they will shortly be heard from; and that the appointment of rebels to place and power will not only not be acquiesced in, but will be productive of much future strife, blood-she, and many evil consquences.  This class of men have been instruments of destroying the old government, and are therefore not the fit instruments to mend up the new government, put in motion, or to run the machine after is is repaired. 
    In their oppositiion to the reinstatement of rebels to control and administer the State government during the process of reconstruction, the truly loysl men of Alabama are contending for principle. Their record is unstained by treason. They have sacrificed everything but life and honor for the sake of the flag of their country. Many of them have been driven from the State; others left voluntarily; and escaping from under the despotic rule of the rebellous slave-holder, entered the Union army, and have been fighting to regain their homes, to which, pillaged and desolated, they hoped, though in poverty, once more to return; and, with the cankering curse of slavery destroyed, to spend the remainder of their lives in peace and quiet under a government which they had helped to save, make free, and in the administration of which the would fell safe both in  their persons and property. They have beenassured that when the rebellion was crushed out, and its cause destroyed, the political power of the slave-holder should likewise perish.  They have read in all the speeches of our worthy chief magistrate that the southern people engaged in this rebellion "must be taught that treason is a crime, and that traitors should be punished,"and they have been led to expect that none but the loyal men would again be permitted to enjoy power and place, and the confidence of the Government in the insurgent States. They have also been let to believe that to excuse or palliate crime, without thorough conversion of the criminal, is but to encourage crime still further; and the pardon and forgiveness of conscious, intelligend and influential traitors against the Government of the United States, without a long probationary repentance, (of which this class of rebels should give unmistakable evidence,) if the rankest kind of injustice. But he appointment of rebels to office in the State of Alabama will disappoint their expectations in this respect. Those of us, however, in this city can find an wxcuse to these appointments, in the belief that the Executive and his Cabinet have been deceived by wicked and designing men, whom we know to be such, and whom the truly loyal men of Alabama will declare to be such as soon as information can reach them. In making this opposition, we are not seeking the overthrow of any but rebels. There are but two parties in Alabama, nor have there been since the rebellion commenced, and these are Union men and secessionists-the former friendly to the Governmant and the latter opposed to it-and the strife for supremacy is not a strife between factions of the same party. The loyal men of Alabama can furnish ability enough to restore the government, and to administer it after so restored, without calling in the aid of slave-holding rebels who have done all in their power to break up and destroy it, and if permitted, will restore it upon a very different basis, and infuse into its organization and machinery a very different spirit of enthusiasm and enterprise from that which slave-holding rebels will adopt. We have lived under the dominion, and are quite familiar with the policy of slave-holdin legislation, the tendency of which has always been to make the rich richer and poor poorer, and the masses degraded and demoralized.
     Republican liberty and equality among the white race (slave-holders and non-slaveholders) has never existed in the Southern States only in name, since the organization of the Government, and it never will till the political prestige of the old slave-holding dynasty is destroyed-and the progress of the Staates will be retrogade till they become yankeeized by the introduction of free schools, free speech, and free labor, which will never be done till the non-slaveholding element of society is in full and free possession of all political power. We are informed that the rebels who have returned, except the conscripts, are a defiant and disloyal as ever; they have returned with their arms, if not in their hands, they have been deposited

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where they can readily get possession of them in any future emergency, and they swear vengeance against all Union men as soon as the federal armies are withdrawn, asserting that the fire of resistance is only "smothered, not extinguished," and that it shall burst forth again and will not be quenched till it culminates in the successful achievement of southern independence.

    These, we admit are idle threats, but they indicate the feeling that exists; abd with the government of the State in the hands of men who have done all in their power to resist the authority of the United States, these men may be made, very readily, the instruments of much future mischief and blood-shed.
    We are informed that the rebel General Roddy surrendered a few days ago two thousand of his men at Athens, and with them he turned over onl ninety stand in arms, alleging that the balance had been stollen, thrown away, and lost. Such however is not the fact. They no doubt have been deposited where they can be got again for future use in case of emergency.
    This is signiticant and shows that evil intent still lurks in the hearts of these rebels.
    In view of the foregoing staatements and facts, and in view also of the fact that, as we believe, loyal Union men, conscripts, and refugees will not longer consent to submit to the rule and domination of revel slave-holders to control and administer the government of Alabama, (without intending any officious interference,) in behal of our loyal fellow-citizens at home, with all due deference and respect, request the President and the several members of the Cabinet to suspend the official action of the appointees you have made to civil offices in the State of Alabama, except Dr. Monteque, Collector at Mobile, and James Q. Smith, Esq., (we having been informed that all other officers have been appointed upon the recommendation of the rebel delegation, who came prepared with a list,) until the true Union men of Alabama can be heard from.
    In doing this we are actuated by a desire to avert the calamity of further strife and blood-shed, which we believe will certanily ensue if the attempt be made to force upon the Union men of our State, rebel slave-holders to govern them sstill longer.
     We have the honor to be, very respectfully,
                                                 D.H. BINGHAM, Athens, Ala.,
                                                 J.H. LARCOMBE, Huntsville, Ala.

Washington, June 27,1865

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DH Bingham JH Larcombe Ala

      To

President Johnson _______________ Remostrate against the appointmend of Parsons as Governor of Alabama