THE NEGRO IN NEW YORK.

339

The arguments advanced excluding the negro from the right to vote in Michigan were the same as those heard North or South whenever the question had been raised, and with these arguments we are already familiar. But there was a perceptible change in public opinion at the North which was sufficiently indicated in the determination of this convention to make the question an issue at the polls rather than to decide it itself. The article on the elective franchise at last adopted did not discriminate against the negro.1 But the constitution failed to reflect public opinion and was rejected by a large majority at the April election,2 at which the question of negro suffrage, though not separately submitted, was recognized as a distinct political issue.3

The constitution of New York of 1846, provided explicitly that at the general election twenty years later, the question of calling a convention to revise and to amend the constitution should be decided at the polls. In conformity with this provision, the people of the State had decided for a convention by a large majority vote in 1866, and it assembled at Albany on the fourth of June, of the following year. Almost from the day of assem

1 Article III, Section 1; adopted by a vote of 67 to 15. See the Journal, pp. 767-768, and Debates, p. 899.

2 April 6, 1868; for the Constitution 71,733 votes; against it 110,582.

3 See the resolutions of the State Republican Convention at Detroit, March 16, 1868, advocating "the equality of all men before the law and an equal suffrage;" and the resolutions of the Democratic State Convention at Detroit, May 29, 1868, opposing negro suffrage.

See the Proceedings and Debates of the Constitutional Convention of the State of New York, held in 1867 and 1868, in the City of Albany, reported by Edward F. Underhill, Official Stenographer, Albany; Weed, Parson & Company, Printers to the Convention, 1868, 5 Volumes (octavo) 3,971 pages with index; ournal of the Convention of the State of New York, begun and

bling, the delegates discussed the question of extending the franchise by abolishing the property qualification required of negroes, a qualification which Francis Lieber, in an essay addressed to the delegates, characterized as a glaring inconsistency that ought not to be continued in the fundamental law. With scarcely an exception the Republican delegates agreed with Horace Greeley, the chairman of the Committee on the Right of Suffrage, that

held at the Capitol in the City of Albany on the 4th day of June, 1867, Albany, Weed, Parson & Company, 1867, 1,547 pages; Documents of the Convention, 5 volumes. The Convention adjourned February 28, 1868. Among its members were William M. Everts, George William Curtis, Horace Greeley, William A. Wheeler, Charles Andrew, Charles J. Folger, George F. Comstock, Elbridge T. Gerry, Samuel J. Tilden, Edwards Pierrepont, Samuel F. Miller, Elbridge G. Lapham and Charles Daly. William A. Wheeler, afterward Vice-President of the United States, was elected presiding officer.

1 The discussion is found chiefly in the First Volume of the Proceedings and Debates, pp. 100-411. It was during this discussion that George William Curtis made his great speech in favor of extending the right to vote, to women; pp. 364-372.

2 In response to a request of the Union League Club of New York, expressed through John Jay, its President, Dr. Lieber wrote his "Reflections on the Change Which May Seem Necessary in the Present Constitution of the State of New York, Elicited and Published by the New York Union League Club, New York, 1867," 50 pages. He urged the abolition of the discriminating qualifications, saying: "So glaring an inconsistency ought not to continue in our fundamental law. The psychologic principle of humanity is first adopted; it is modified by a physiologic reason; and this modification is modified again by economic reason. Arguments taken from wholly different spheres are here strung together for sound logic, and it was an appeal that no property qualification be adopted in general; it also ought to be omitted with reference to persons of color, who are here, who cannot be extinguished by law, whatever may be done in the course of time by the process of absorption; whose race was forcibly brought hither by our race, and who had not in our State constituted the least respectable portion of the population" (p. 27). Dr. Lieber vigorously opposed the extension of suffrage to women; pp. 28-34

NORTHERN HOSTILITY TO THE NEGRO.

341

the discrimination which had so long been made against the negroes in the State should be abolished. But so able and vigorous was the opposition, that the convention at last decided, though by a close vote, and as, shortly before, in Michigan, by shifting the responsibility, that the question should be submitted to the electors.1 Not until the November election of 1869 did the new constitution go to the people, who by a majority of forty thousand votes refused to abolish the property qualification for colored men.2

The denial of negro suffrage, at this time, by Maryland; the overwhelming vote in Michigan, which rejected a free suffrage constitution, and in New York, the abolition of the property qualification for negroes, were an indication of public sentiment on the question which must be accepted as strongly supporting the President's ideas, if not equally with them disapproving any plan of Congress to force negro suffrage upon the States. It must be remembered that at this time the constitutions and laws of nearly every State in the Union gave no support to the recent reconstruction measures of Congress. In vetoing these measures, the President had the law, technically, on his side; but this, it is well to remember, does not prove that the law was right.3 Written constitutions may be troublesome things in time of war. From the day when South Carolina declared its secession from the Union, some intelligent men had steadily claimed that secession, and all its consequences, were justifiable, and

1 Journal, p. 1210. It was carried by 64 yeas to 54 nays.

2 The vote, November 2, 1869, was 289,403 for the qualification, and 249,802 against it.

3 The decision in the Dred Scott case suggests a parallel. ChiefJustice Taney did no more, in this decision on the status of the negro, than to summarize the decisions in re of the Courts of the States, excepting the three that gave the negro political rights.

that the principles of the Confederacy were those on which the fathers had founded the government. But the terrible consequences of secession had convinced the popular mind that it did not embody the true principles of nationality. The recent vote in Michigan and New York might be considered as discouraging, if it was an indication of the final judgment of the people of these States on the great national issue, reconstruction. Shortly before their constitutional conventions assembled, their legislatures had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. The contradiction between the act of ratification and the recent vote at the polls was a proof that, when the question of equal negro suffrage was a local issue, the people of the northern States might discriminate against the black man as sharply as the people of any State at the South.

It was not until November that any of the southern. States met in convention, but before three months passed all had assembled under the reconstruction acts. On the last day of August, General Pope issued an order for a three days' election in Alabama, beginning the first day of October.1 Though there was a greater number of white than of black males in the State, the registration showed a majority of fifteen thousand negro votes.2 Most of the whites abstained from voting for delegates to the convention.3 Ninety-six of the delegates chosen enrolled themselves as radicals, and four, as conservatives; seventeen of the ninety-six were negroes and the greater part of the remainder were northern men and new-comers in the State, who identified themselves, politically, with the

1 For the official record of this convention, November 5 to December 6, 1867, see its Journal and ordinances, 291 pages, Montgomery, 1868.

2 The number of white males in 1866 was 261,004, and of black 214,253. The number of white voters, 72,748; of colored, 88,243. 8 Total vote for the convention, 90,238; against it, 5,628.

blacks. Conscious of the protection of the military authorities, the colored delegates spoke and acted with freedom. They labored to secure for the people of their race equal privileges with the whites. The disqualifying clause in the reconstruction acts of March was made the basis for the article on the elective franchise, but, as finally adopted, was made much more severe.1

The negro delegates, and their white colleagues, feared that unless the men, lately in rebellion, were disfranchised under a sweeping clause, they would soon regain control of the entire State. By declaring that persons qualified

1 3. It shall be the duty of the General Assembly to provide, from time to time, for the registration of all electors; but the following classes of persons shall not be permitted to register, vote or hold office. 1st. Those who, during the late rebellion, inflicted, or caused to be inflicted, any cruel or unusual punishment upon any soldier, sailor, marine, employee or citizen of the United States, or who, in any other way, violated the rules of civilized warfare. 2d. Those who may be disqualified from holding office by the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, known as "Article XIV," and those who have been disqualified from registering to vote for delegates to the Convention to frame a Constitution for the State of Alabama, under the act of Congress, "to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States," passed by Congress March 2, 1867, and the acts supplementary thereto, except such persons as aided in the reconstruction proposed by Congress, and accepted the political equality of all men before the law: Provided, That the General Assembly shall have power to remove the disabilities incurred under this clause. 3d. Those who shall have been convicted of treason, embezzlement of public funds, malfeasance in office, crime punishable by law with imprisonment in the penitentiary, or bribery. 4th. Those who are idiots or insane.

4. All persons, before registering, must take and subscribe the following oath: I,, do solemnly swear or (affirm) that I will support and maintain the Constitution and laws of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the State of Alabama; that I am not excluded from registering by any of the clauses in Section 3, Article 7, of the Constitution of the State of Alabama; that I will never countenance or aid in the secession of this State