The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920. Various
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as I was from the start, I was treated by the convention with the utmost courtesy, and when I occasionally rose to speak, I received the
of the members, and the rather obtrusive attention of the ladies who filled the galleries. Such remarks could be heard as: "There, that Yankee is going to speak."
Another point that agitated the convention was, what laws should be passed to fix the status of the Negro, and, after a long discussion, a committee was appointed to frame a code of laws to be submitted to the legislature, which should assemble under the constitution adopted by this convention. The product of that commission was "The Black Code." Its intentions and provisions were foreshadowed in the debates of the convention. At the close of the debate I spoke for five minutes, closing with the prediction that if the convention thought that its work would be of any value to the state, they were mistaken. If the convention thought it possible to provide a different code of laws for the government of the loyal black citizens of the United States, from that which governed the disloyal white citizens of South Carolina, they did not understand what the war had accomplished. I said that I knew more of the
than it was possible for any man in that convention or all of them to know. While I spoke with modesty before men who had occupied high political positions in the past, I spoke with confidence as to the opinion of the people of the North who had waged a successful war against secession and slavery. Speaking for them I predicted that their laws would be made by major-generals and executed by provost-marshals until the last man present would fall into his grave before the North would admit the state into the Union under a constitution which did not recognize that all men were equal before the law. When I sat down there was a dead silence and solemn faces.
To show the opposition I excited, let me give another anecdote.
James L. Orr came to my room one evening and asked me not to be offended if he requested that upon a certain question he proposed to bring before the convention the next day I would not speak in its favor. He said: "There are fools enough in this convention that do not want anything that you do want, and every time you speak on a measure you hinder its adoption." The proposition he had at hand was to
requisite to obtain citizenship in the state from three years to one, and after much difficulty he persuaded the convention to make the change. He also wished to abolish the property qualification for state senators. Tillman appealed to him in an eloquent speech to spare this last relic of South Carolina conservatism. Orr, in reply, asked what in God's name had South Carolina conservatism done for South Carolina. He pointed to what its condition was once and what it now was, and charged South Carolina conservatism with the result. His speech was a powerful one, and brought the convention to his views, and no property qualification was thereafter imposed upon any officer.
Near the close of the convention I asked leave to present a petition from 250 colored property owners of the city of Charleston, who asked that the right of suffrage be extended to them. This, I suppose, was the first petition of the kind ever offered in the slave states. A member of the convention immediately moved that the petition be returned to me and not received by the convention. Mr. Orr said that the petition was respectful in form and ought to be received. He moved that it be laid on the table. Another delegate moved that
of the reception of the petition be made in the journal. I then rose to speak upon the last of these motions, but the president of the convention entertained a motion to adjourn, and the convention did so.
The convention made a constitution which was not, however, submitted to the people for their approval. Under it a governor and legislature were elected.
was ratified by the legislature, and many preposterous laws relating to the Negroes were passed. It was evident that the freedman was to be reduced to a condition worse than slavery—he was to be made a serf, attached to the land, and to be under all the disabilities of slavery without having the protection of the property interest of the owner. Congress took charge of the reconstruction, and the new government of South Carolina fell to pieces, after a brief and inglorious existence.
Although I was the first "carpet bagger," I did not pursue the occupation. I never held office again in the state, although I continued to live there for sixteen years, and taking part in politics as the editor of the Beaufort Republican and the Columbia Union-Herald.
BOOK REVIEWS
The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1865-1902. By Richard L. Morton, Ph.D., Phelps Stokes Fellow in the University of Virginia, 1917-1918. Charlottesville, Virginia, 1919. Pp. 199. Price, $1.50.
This is the fourth number of a series of studies in the race problem promoted by the Phelps Stokes Fund with a view to interesting a larger number of southern white scholars in this field. The seriousness of the problem during recent years has driven home the thought that without scientific investigation it will be extremely difficult to find a rational basis upon which the two races may cooperate for the greatest good of the greatest number. These monographs are very much like the addresses and studies of the University Commission making an effort to meet this need. Judged from the value of the monographs hitherto produced, however, one must express the regret that these works do not measure up to the desired standard. The chief difficulty lies in the misconception that the whole matter of readjustment may be effected by using the white man only. He is to do the thinking, outline the method of attack, and direct the movement. The Negro, the other half of the equation, has not been invited to share this work and the writers making these investigations are unfortunately biased rather than scientific.
The purpose of this monograph is to show the bad effects of Negro suffrage which had no place in Lincoln's plan of Reconstruction or in the early Congressional plan, but was forced upon the South by a group of aggressive radicals led by Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner as a means of their personal aggrandizement and of executing punishment and revenge upon the Southern States. It is not true that these two statesmen desired to force Negro rule upon the South. They tried to give that section a democratic government. At first they advised the Negroes to choose for their leaders the intelligent southern whites and the Negroes entreated their former masters to serve them in this capacity. When the whites refused to coöperate, therefore, Congress could do nothing else but make the Negroes the basis of the reconstructed governments. From this partisan point of view only then the monograph is very much of a success. The writer suffered from a preoccupation of mind and in his researches was governed accordingly. He knew what he wanted to write and found facts to assist him toward this end.
The book covers in detail form the beginnings of Negro suffrage in Virginia, the campaign of 1867 in which radicals and Negroes drew the color line, the constitutional convention of 1867-68, the committee of nine, the campaign of 1869, the restoration of Virginia, the elimination of the Carpetbaggers from 1869 to 1879, the Readjuster movement in Virginia from 1879 to 1883, politics and race friction from 1885 to 1900, the constitutional convention of 1901-1902, and the new constitution. He, therefore, discusses certain topics already treated in J.A.C. Chandler's Representation in Virginia, and The History of Suffrage in Virginia; J.P. McConnell's Negroes and their Treatment in Virginia from 1865-1867; H.J. Eckenrode's The Political History of Virginia during Reconstruction; and C.C. Pearson's The Readjuster Movement in Virginia.
The author makes a survey of the situation prior to the Civil War, explaining why the aristocratic Virginians long since accustomed to rule even by excluding the poor whites from the electorate could not tolerate the enfranchisement of the Negroes. An effort is made also to show that inasmuch as most of the Northern States prior to the Civil War had not accepted Negro suffrage, it was natural for the southern people to be opposed to such a policy. To strengthen this point he refers to such authorities as Oliver P. Morton, Governor Andrew and Abraham Lincoln.
The author considers the Negro a failure in politics and supports his contention by a quotation from George W. Murray, who felt that it was the mistake of the nineteenth century to attempt to make the ex-slave a governor before he had learned to be governed and of Booker T. Washington who said, "There is no doubt but that we made a mistake at the beginning of our freedom of putting the emphasis on the wrong