By: Robert S. Davis (Blue and Gray Education Society)
A debate is raging in Washington over whether the federal government can refuse to pay its bills. In the landmark case United States v. Allred (1895), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment requires the government to honor those debts. This pivotal decision was rooted in a peculiar episode involving vigilante moonshiners in Pickens County, Georgia, in 1890.
John Marion Allred (1831–1915), son of Elias and Mary Harrison Allred, was a Democrat before the Civil War who remained loyal to the Union throughout the conflict. He later served as a Republican member of the Georgia legislature from 1871 to 1872.
Allred played a significant role in bringing the railroad to Pickens County and central North Georgia. In 1890, he helped establish the Piedmont Republican, Georgia's only white Republican newspaper at the time, in the county seat of Jasper. A young friend recalled Allred’s penchant for mild cursing and killing annoying cats with rocks. He married sisters Martha and Sarah M. Davis in succession, and many of his descendants still live in Pickens County.
As an attorney by profession, Allred served as a U.S. Justice Department commissioner, a role akin to a Justice of the Peace in Jasper, from 1883 to 1886 and again starting in 1889. By 1890, he owned a mill and was among the few federally licensed distillers in Pickens County. This dual role placed him in the unusual position of prosecuting his illegal competitors in the whiskey trade.
In response, a clandestine group of local moonshiners, known as the "Honest Man's Friend & Protector" (HMF&P), retaliated by burning down the homes of individuals who were being paid by the government (i.e., Allred) to testify against their moonshining cohorts. The cost of the head of a family being tried and going to prison could devastate a family, and the HMF&P, wearing bizarre disguises in their arson attacks, sought to prevent such outcomes. They were the first of many such “whitecap” organizations but remain the only such vigilantes brought to justice.
As a federal commissioner, Allred orchestrated the arrests that brought these men to justice, even testifying to their otherwise good character. In his official capacity, he was responsible for funding depositions and assembling posses—including his brother, Rev.Elias Walter Allred—to apprehend the alleged lawbreakers.
When the federal court in North Georgia ran out of money to pay its bills, Allred was not reimbursed the $329.70 he had spent. He sued the United States in the Court of Claims for monies due him. He won the case, and the federal government appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court’s decision. As a result, the United States has been compelled to honor its financial obligations ever since.
