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192 West Virginia’s Civil War–Era Constitution C h a p t e r 9 The Counter-Revolution’s Black Path to Electoral Success DespiteDemocraticExecutiveCommitteechairmanLewisBaker’sacquiescenteditorial that advised Democrats not to fight the fixed facts of ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment and the Flick Amendment proposal enfranchising African Americans, many Democratic leaders and Baker soon abandoned their temperate stance. They knew an emotional issue that resonated with white West Virginia voters when they saw it. The emotional centerpiece of the campaign to attract and motivate was the coming onslaught of black voters. This issue penetrated the feelings of many West Virginians quite deeply because white former Confederates could not vote. Connected with the rise of race baiting was the removal of the West Virginia capital from more cosmopolitan Wheeling to Charleston, a locality where the Ku Klux Klan and Gideon’s Band had done its work intimidating African American and white residents of the Great Kanawha Valley. The Democratic Wheeling Daily Registerspeedilymovedanassistanteditor,HenryS.Walker,toestablishanewcapital newspaper, the Charleston Courier, to espouse the party viewpoint. Editor Walker was a virulent white supremacist. The editorial center of the state, the manufacturer of Democratic opinion, moved with the capital. The new paper displaced the established Democratic Kanawha Republican. The same movement did not occur with the premier Republican organ, as the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer remained without a Southern West Virginia affiliate. The Charleston West Virginia Journal lacked the Republican statewide influence of the Intelligencer, and the Republicans suffered because of their inability to espouse an informed capital outlook. John W. Sentz, sheriff of Kanawha County, forwarded eloquent testimony about racial conditions and law and order in his locality when he addressed Governor William E. Stevenson for law enforcement assistance. In December 1869, a violent clashhadoccurredinMalden,afewmilesupriverfromCharleston,betweenAfrican Americans and the Ku Klux Klan or Gideon’s Band. A special grand jury quickly indicted several white participants, but Sheriff Sentz found it impossible to arrest all 192 The Counter-Revolution’s Black Path to Electoral Success 193 indicted. He could not trust 90 percent of the citizens to help him execute his duty because of fear. The white community protected those indicted and reported the sheriff’s movements to them. When he found people to assist him, they were timid, as “they are fully aware of the intent and strength of the secret Clan, and are afraid to Act, Cheep, or Chirp, for fear of after consequences Well knowing the Sworn Vengence [sic] upon all who either by word deed or action are favorable to what they choose to Term Radical Rule, full justifying themselves that they are under a new dispensation and all that ever was enacted by a Radical Legislature should be put down.” Sentz added, “They have become so worked up on this and the Question of Negro sufferage [sic] that it is really dangerous to attempt to make an arrest unless it is done very secretly, And can only then be done through some sort of Strategy.”1 Sheriff Sentz had arrested at least two of those indicted, but he could not hold them. He despaired of being able to lodge anybody in jail in Charleston. In broad daylight, on the afternoon of 2 March 1870, “an armed force of men” appeared at the jail while the jailor was thirty yards away at the courthouse. Threatening prisoners and others with cocked pistols, the gang freed with keys the two inmates. They even relockedthecelldoorsandpluggedothercellkeyholeswithwood.Thesheriff,learning of the incident, went to the wharf to recruit men to recapture the escapees, but it required over an hour to secure a force. The escape was ultimately successful. Mr. Sentz feared the same thing would occur if another Klan or Band member were arrested and held. People had warned him on several occasions about the danger of jailing any Klan members. Asking for help, he requested the governor to keep his communication as private as possible because of prejudice and “not Knowing into whose hands I may fall.” Prosecuting Attorney Henry C. McWhorter and County Clerk John Slack endorsed the sheriff’s statement. McWhorter added, “The Klu Klux have gone as far in this county as the Govt. Should allow them to go, the color[ed] people in Malden are Shot at, and pelted with Stones whenever they venture on the Streets at Malden. Something must be done.”2 Black voter participation was destined to be very low or insignificant, far below Republican hopes in West Virginia. The intimidating activities of the Klan...

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