Tuskaloosa, May 17, 1869.

Title

Source Type

Newspaper

Publisher

Alabama State Journal

Publication Place

Montgomery, AL

Publication Date

5/29/1869

Transcript

Then, again, in relation to the killing of a prisoner taken from the jail, the Journal Said:
“Some of the them held a conference with Randolph, and then the whole crowd left. Soon thereafter the prisoner was taken out of jail and murderously shot as stated above. Certainly there was no mob at any time, of any sort, or for any purpose, except for the mob composed of Randolph’s murderous sipseyites.”

And again:
“Messrs. Miller and Dalton met and conferred fully with all classes of citizens in Tuscaloosa; whites and blacks, democrats and republicans, county officers, merchants, lawyers, mechanics, hotel keepers, planters, and, in a word, men of every calling. They all tell the same story about Randolph. Not a human being was heard to speak of the man except in terms of the most unmeasured denunciation. If it had been the will of the infernal demon that held the high carnival of blood in Tuskloosa, that Ryland Randolph should be slain, it would have caused a shout of joy to ascend from nine-tenth of the community. This seems to be the publicly expressed sentiment of the Tusklaoosa people in regard to Randolph. We must confess that it is difficult to reconcile these professions with the support, negative and passive though it be, which keeps the Monitor afloat.

The above paragraphs do not contain a single syllable penned by the Editor of this paper. They were embraced in the “statement of facts” handed us by the commissioner of the Governor. We drew no deduction of our own, but simply published what was represented as facts. If they are not facts the journal has done Mr. Randolph great injustice, and we do not hesitate to say so. It is due to the people of Alabama that Messrs. Dalton and Miller should state how and where they obtained the above information.

Ed, Journal- In a recent number of your paper, (that of the 13th,) you present to the public what purports back by Messrs. Miller and Dalton, who had been dispatched hither by Gov. Smith, to enquire into certain lawless acts committed near this place. It is well known that I have acted for, now, two years with the Republican party, and that I established and edited a paper in the cause of reconstruction. Will this entitled my statement to be taken as free from any bias towards the Monitor and those whom it is represented as controlling? I am no little amazed at what you have published. Surely Messrs. Miller and Dalton have in some respects, been the victims of a senseless and spiteful hoax, for the statements, in great part, which you make, as “simple facts,” got from them, so far transcend the real facts as to be entirely beyond the bounds of even historical romance, and quite within the limits of pure fiction. It is a “simple fact,” that the outrages in question, had their origin in the aggressive and defiant acts of a bad and lawless negro who had challenged the whites around him, by bullying threats, and who, in company with his brother, pursued and drew upon the two half drunked white men, who, by the by, were not in earnest about carrying off the little boy. It is a “simple fact” that the whites were unarmed and the negroes were. In attempt made afterwards to chastise these negroes, Levi, and his brother, a white man was killed and two wounded. They were the kinsmen and friends of these men, living mostly about North Port, and not “Randolph’s Sipseyites,” who committed the subsequent outrages.
It is a “simple fact” that the editor of the monitor advised these men, when they came to his office, against any violation of the law, and especially against the killing of the negro then in jail, the brother of Levi. So far as all this is concerned you have merely colored freely; but when you inform us, here in Tuskaloosa, that the monitor has advised the murdering of several men and the burning of several houses, and that the advice has been promptly followed in every instance, you rise to that height of fiction which reminds us of the arabian nights. When you go further and state that Mr. Randolph is denounced by universal acclimation here, and that a shout of exaltation from nine-tenths of the community would hail his death, you take away our breath. There is not a shadow of truth in all this. On the contrary, while the extreme partisan bitterness of the monitor is condemned even by many democrats, its editor has an extended circle of warm personal friends. Its fierce editorials with pictures of hanging carpet-baggers, and all that , are not regarded as serious threats. These are dreadful “sipseyites,” I assure you, are simply the raw-head and bloody-bones of the monitor, whose editor, I venture to assert, is not acquainted with half-dozen of the population about Moore’s bridge, twenty-five miles distant, and the reported stronghold of the clan. You very pertinently suggest, that it is strange such a man as your “simple facts” represent the editor of the monitor to be, is permitted to live in this community. Is this an intimation, that, in your opinion, a little of the Ku-Klux code should be administered to him? Do you think there are some cases where an obnoxious person should be dealt with outside of the legal process?
Permit me to conclude with saying generally, that, in some respects, the whole matter has been greatly exaggerated, and in other entirely falsified to Messrs. Miller and Dalton.
Will those gentlemen have any objection to giving the names of a few of the great number of persons who communicated the facts to them?

Sources for

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