The Eutaw riot occurred squarely in the middle of Reconstruction—when the extent of laws protecting recently freed Black people and the political power they were amassing in the South was tested. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, ratified in 1865, 1868, and 1870, respectively, gave America a second chance to live up to its founding ideals by granting Black people equal rights of citizenship. The Enforcement Act of 1870, which protected Black citizens against attacks by state officials and groups like the Klan, added weight to the government’s promise. When I think about Eutaw, I remember how America rejected the opportunity it had.
Eight days after the riot, the government filed federal charges against several white Democrats, including a man named John J. Jolly, for violating the free-speech rights of the speakers at the Eutaw rally, and the assembly rights of those gathered there. The Democrats were indicted for four separate crimes.
In elucidating the charges, John P. Southworth, the district attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, posited that where state officials failed to protect the rights of men—even when those rights were violated by private actors—the federal government had the responsibility to step in under the Enforcement Act to prosecute the offenders. Southworth’s path was novel, but he believed he could secure a conviction.
The case, which would become known as U.S. v. Hall, seemed doomed from the beginning. Finding people to sit for the jury was difficult: Some citizens said their summons never arrived; at least two would-be jurors were threatened. Meanwhile, witnesses were not offered any protection, and many refused to testify. One, Arthur Smith, was forced into hiding. William Cockrell and his son, both witnesses to the carnage at Eutaw, testified, but on their way home, a band of Democrats clubbed the elder Cockrell in the back of the head with a pistol.
The defendants’ lawyers tried to get the case thrown out. They argued that the Fourteenth Amendment, despite offering “equal protection” to all people, did not guarantee Black people the protections laid out in the Bill of Rights. But the judge pushed back on the objection. “All rights which are protected against either a national or state legislation may fairly be said to be secured rights,” William Woods, the circuit judge, wrote.
Woods’s declaration was remarkable for its simplicity. As the historian Eric Foner writes in The Second Founding, the Reconstruction amendments were dynamic; they were picked apart after passage and subject to divergent interpretations. Woods’s response to the Democrats’ objection hinted at progressive hopes for how far the amendments could go. He was acknowledging what the government owed its citizens—the full right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—and reaffirming the government’s role in protecting those rights.
But ultimately the trial was fruitless. The jury found the defendants not guilty, and the rioters celebrated. “We congratulate the gentlemen from Eutaw on their full and complete and honorable triumph,” the editors of the Montgomery Advertiser wrote. Impunity reigned.