The authority of this convention was not recognized by the State government, and this contest gave rise to a fresh conflict between the State officials and the military dictators who had been placed over them. The convention needed money to pay its expenses, and passed an ordinance directing the treasurer of the State to pay forty thousand dollars for this purpose to the disbursing officer of the convention. General Pope issued an order to the treasurer to pay this amount. The treasurer declined to pay out the money, for the simple reason that he was forbidden by law to pay out money except on an order or warrant drawn by the governor, and sanctioned by the comptroller general. About this time General Meade was appointed to rule in Georgia in place of General Pope, and he found this matter unsettled when he took charge. So he wrote to Governor Jenkins, and requested him to draw his warrant on the treasury for forty thousand dollars. The governor could find no authority in law for paying over this sum, and he therefore refused. But civil government was not of much importance to the military at that time; so, when he had received the governor's letter, General Meade drew a sheet of paper before him, called for pen and ink, and issued "General Order No. 8," in which the announcement is made that "the following-named officers are _detailed for duty_ in the district of Georgia: Brevet Brigadier General Thomas H. Ruger, Colonel 33d Infantry, _to be Governor of the State of Georgia_; Brevet Captain Charles F. Rockwell, Ordnance Corps U. S. Army, _to be Treasurer of the State of Georgia_." In this way the rag-tag-and-bobtail convention got its money, but it got also the hatred and contempt of the people; and the Republican party,--the party that had been molded and made by the wise policy of Lincoln,--by indorsing these foolish measures of reconstruction, and putting its influence behind the outrages that were committed in the name of "loyalty," aroused prejudices in the minds of the Southern people that have not died away to this day. Some of the more vicious of the politicians of that epoch organized what was known as "The Union League." It was a secret political society, and had branches in every county of the State. Through the medium of this secret organization, the basest deception was practiced on the ignorant negroes. They were solemnly told that their old masters were making arrangements to reenslave them, and all sorts of incendiary suggestions were made to them. It was by means of this secret society that the negroes were made to believe that they would be entitled to forty acres and a mule for voting for the candidates of the carpet-baggers.