olden time. There was a clear intention not to allow him to control his own labor. This intention did not always take the form of municipal regulations, but it was the private thought of most of the white people.

Louisiana, in its constitution of 1864, had provided for a system of public schools, open to all the children of the State; but no idea was more odious to most of the whites than that of the education of the negro. "The quickest way to spoil a negro for work is to educate him," was a phrase of the day. Colored schools had already been started under the fostering care of the Freedmen's Bureau and the missionary zeal of venturesome men and women from the North, but they were a target for general attack. If the school house and church escaped burning, it was providential.2 "If the freedmen are to be educated at public expense, let it be done from the treasury of the United States." The freedmen themselves were in a position so strange and so completely beyond their own. comprehension, that they were like men not in their full senses, or awakening from a dream; and it is well to remember that there are good negroes and bad ones. Ages of slavery, and all that it had wrought in the character of the slave, were suddenly abbreviated in these early, tragical days of freedom. The race seemed possessed of the spirit of vagrancy, and terrible consequences followed. The whites complained of the insolence and insubordination of the freedmen and of their wild notions of property and equality. It seemed as if civilization, at

↑ See a summary of municipal regulations, in report cited above, pp. 23-24.

2 See the report of Lieutenant W. B. Stickney, Shreveport, La., August 26, 1865, and report of Joseph Warren, Id. p. 100.

3 See letter of Joseph Warren, Chaplain and State Superintendent of Education, to Major-General Carl Schurz, Vicksburg, Miss., September 28, 1865. Messages and Documents above, p. 99.

170

THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION.

the South, was to be engulfed in savagery. It was no solution of the civil problem to say to the South at this time, that the ignorance of the negro was not surprising when it had ever been a penal offense to teach him to read. The sense of ownership in the white race is strong, and the idea of property in man, inherited for generations, could not be at once eradicated even by the sword and bayonet.

The race long dominant must itself be educated into a new set of ideas; therefore, in forming an opinion of the work of the reconstruction conventions of 1865, it is necessary and just to weigh fully the civil and industrial ideas, which by inheritance characterized the Southern people at this time. The emancipation of the slaves by the General Government started a great social revolution in the South which time would complete. A counter revolution soon began which is still going on. As yet few men, North or South, could calmly legislate on behalf of the negro. The question for the South was, how to regain its late position in the Union. This, too, was a national question but it involved another: To whom should the work be committed? President Johnson, proceeding, as he believed, in a civil not a military way, would leave the matter of reorganization to the people of each State, requiring only their oath of loyalty to the national government. The first requisite was for the States, in convention, to amend their constitutions, so as to harmonize them with all the acts of the General Government affecting slavery. It would seem, then, that if Mississippi and the other States abolished slavery, they would thereby re-establish the old federal relations. There was no hint at negro suffrage in the President's amnesty proclamation of the twenty-ninth of May; nor was anything said of any particular policy which a State should pursue in seeking to

rebuild its broken fortunes. As far as these States knew, domestic matters were to be henceforth, as formerly, within their own control. Of negro suffrage few men in the South thought, and no man freely spoke. Yet, as Representative Holman of Indiana had said, when opposing the Thirteenth Amendment, it was a principle in the general policy of the Republican party. The possible extension of the suffrage to the negro was becoming alike clear and more ominous.

The condition of affairs, then, in Mississippi at the time of this convention was like that in other States lately in rebellion. The masses of the people were, of necessity, submitting to the conditions imposed on them, but their spirit was unchanged. The negro was no longer slave property, as under the old code, but belonged to all the whites now, as much as formerly he had belonged to his master. The confederate spirit was strong, the national spirit weak, indeed, almost wholly lacking. The only hope, if the South was to become an integral part of the United States in spirit as it was geographically, was to allow loyal and free labor there to express its will in legislation; therefore, the conclusion of the whole matter was to admit the freed-man into an exercise of political power sufficient to protect himself against oppression, class legislation and private persecution.1 This was clearly the true policy of the National Government. Would the Southern people co-operate, or would they concentrate their energies upon excluding the negro from political power as well as from industrial freedom?

Though the President had not hinted at negro suffrage in his instructions to the provisional governors, he earnestly desired that it might be adopted. On the second day of the Mississippi convention, he sent a telegram to Gov1 Schurz report, supra, pp. 45-46.

172 ernor Sharkey,-which recalls President Lincoln's letter to Governor Hahn of Louisiana, on the extension of suffrage to the negro.1 He hoped that without delay the convention would amend the State constitution by abolishing slavery, and deny to all future legislatures the power to legislate on the assumption that there can be property in man; also that it would adopt the amendment to the national Constitution now before the States. If it could extend the elective franchise to all persons of color who could read the Constitution of the United States, in English, and write their names, and to all persons of color who owned real estate valued at not less than two hundred and fifty dollars, and paid taxes it would completely disarm the disloyal faction and set an example that other States would follow. This it could do with perfect safety and thus place the southern States in reference to free persons of color upon the same basis as the free States. He hoped and trusted that the convention would do this, and as a consequence the radicals, who were solid for negro franchise, would be completely foiled in their attempt, by not accepting their Senators and representatives,2 to keep the southern States from renewing their relations to the Union.

JOHNSON PROPOSES NEGRO SUFFRAGE.

At this time, free persons of color in the State of New York, three years a citizen and paying taxes on land of the value of two hundred and fifty dollars, clear of encumbrance, were entitled to vote. But New York had twice

1 See page 86.

2 Andrew Johnson to Governor Sharkey, August 15, 1865. Senate Executive Document No. 26, Thirty-Ninth Congress, first session, p. 229; compare with Lincoln's letter to Governor Hahn, supra, p. 86.

3 New York Constitution of 1846; Article 2, Section 1. The question of equal suffrage to colored persons was submitted to vote in 1846 in New York, and was rejected by a vote of 223,834

refused to give equal suffrage to the negro. Was the President justified in hoping that Mississippi would extend the suffrage to him, unless under compulsion?

An amendment was soon reported, abolishing slavery and instructing the legislature to protect the persons and property of freedmen, and to guard them and the State against any evils which might arise from their sudden emancipation.1 The ordinance of secession should be declared null and void, as also all other acts identifying the State with the Southern Confederacy.2 But all laws, judicial decisions and administrative acts since the ninth of January, 1861, not violative of the Constitution of the United States or of Mississippi, should be binding to all intents and purposes.3 The phrase "null and void" in the ordinance repudiating secession, displeased many who preferred the term "abrogated," and the difference precipitated a long discussion. An amendment abolishing slavery, in the language of the ordinance of 1787, or of the Thirteenth Amendment now before the States, did not please many members. Ought not the amendment to have a preamble saying that slavery, having been abolished in Mississippi by the action of the Government of the United States, was therefore abolished; and then use the language of the great ordinance? But did a preamble, in this form, state the truth? Had not the Southern States, by seceding, caused the abolition of slavery? Was it right to attribute it solely to the General Government ?5

to 85,306; again submitted in 1860, and rejected by a vote of 337,984 to 197,503, and again submitted in 1868, and rejected by a vote of 282,403 to 249,802. Hough's American Constitution, Vol. II, 66-67.

1 Journal, August 17, 30.

2 Journal, 34-36.

3 Id. pp. 36-37.

4 Id., 38

5 Journal, 45.