The Prostrate State

James Shepherd Pike was a journalist and Republican from Maine who had served Lincoln as ambassador to the Netherlands during the Civil War. He was initially a member of the radical wing of his party, and …

James Shepherd Pike was a journalist and Republican from Maine who had served Lincoln as ambassador to the Netherlands during the Civil War. He was initially a member of the radical wing of his party, and advocated punitive measures against the defeated South, treason trials for Confederate leaders, and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson for his conciliatory attitude towards the South. Pike wrote in support of the immediate enfranchisement of the freedmen and the forced emigration of the ex-Confederates.

Pike became disenchanted with the disorders of Reconstruction during the first Grant administration: especially the subjection of the South under military government and the increasing reports of vigilantism and gross corruption. Pike joined the faction of the "Liberal Republicans" in 1872 to nominate Horace Greeley to contend with Grant. Previously known for his enthusiastic support for the rising Republican Party and for Lincoln, Greeley was charitable in peace and controversially advocated for universal pardons and the immediate re-enfranchisement of white Southerners. Greeley also signed a bond for the release of the captive Jefferson Davis from military prison where the former president had been waiting for a treason trial that never came. Greeley lost spectacularly to Grant, and the unprecedented policies of martial law and political exclusion of white Southerners continued.

Pike was energized by the social and political catastrophes of Reconstruction, and so made a visit to South Carolina in 1873 to witness what his former policies had wrought. He produced a series of articles reprinted in several Northern newspapers, and later assembled them into The Prostrate State in 1874.

This book has been re-published from the original text by Tall Men Press. It is not a facsimile reprint.