364

INFERIORITY OF THE NEGRO.

lina as a State in proper constitutional resolutions, when it ratified the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, and, recently again, when it proposed the Fourteenth? The present measures, then, could only be regarded as a punishment for rejecting the last amendment. Was not legislation of this kind ex post facto, tyrannical and unjust? North Carolina should not be degraded to a position inferior to that of her sister States, by thus expunging from her constitution clauses that excluded the negro from voting or holding office, while other States-and five at the North by recent vote-had indignantly refused to strike the exclusion from their own.1 The requirement would come with much better grace from Congress, if these and other States had altered their constitutions on behalf of the negro, or if it was proposed to so amend the Constitution of the United States as to make the application universal.

While willing to extend to the negro population every right that would legitimately result from the war, or was necessary to their security and happiness, yet, it was believed, that the welfare of both races would best be promoted by continuing the constitution of the State unchanged. Was not the whole scheme of reconstruction intended to advance party purposes, in expectation that the States of the South, by being Africanized and given over to the Radical party, might more than counterbalance its loss of electoral votes in other sections of the Union? Therefore the State should refuse to alter its constitution at the dictation of Congress, and if negro suffrage and negro equality were forced upon it, at least by refusing assent, preserve its honor and self respect.2

1 The reference was to New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

2 Journal, 235-238.

This expostulation was suffered at the time to go unanswered, but later the majority made a formal reply in the address to the people of the State, accompanying the constitution. In giving suffrage to the colored people, so ran this address, the constitution was consistent with the principles of republican government by not denying the suffrage to any portion of the whites. Was it not an indubitable monument to the wisdom, equity and magnanimity of the Union people of the State, that, in three years after the close of a bloody and devastating civil war, in which wrongs and outrages were committed that could never be forgotten, they had formed a constitution in which no trace of animosity or vindictiveness could be found? All who were now true to their country were invited to participate in its government. The charge that the constitution favored a social equality of the races was untrue. "With the social intercourse of life, government has nothing to do; it must be left to the taste and choice of each individual." The constitution left it to the legislature to arrange the enrollment in the militia companies, and to provide for the education of all white and colored children in free public schools. The two races in the State were destined to live on the same soil and "ought to live together in peace." The elective franchise was conferred upon the male persons of both races, duly qualified, and there was no attempt to make the disqualifying clauses of the new constitution more rigorous than those of the reconstruction acts. At the election in April, the work of the convention was approved by a majority of nearly twenty thousand votes.2

The registration in South Carolina, which was completed by the middle of October, showed nearly twice as

1 Journal, 484-485.

2 For the Constitution, 93,118; against it, 74,009.

many blacks as whites. On the nineteenth and twentieth of November, delegates were chosen to a constitutional convention, all the blacks voting for a convention and the few whites who voted, some two thousand in number, voting against it. Nearly two-thirds of the delegates were negroes. The spectacle was a curious one. In the State of South Carolina, which a little over eight years before, had launched the secession movement in a convention of slaveowners, there now assembled to form a supreme law, a body of men, nearly two-thirds of whom were negroes, and perhaps more than one-half of whom could testify that they were once held as slaves.1 It is not improbable that some of the delegates to the convention of 1868 were former slaves of some members of the convention of 1860.

Never before in the history of the world had men of the African race thus assembled to form a constitution of government. The anomaly was the more striking in this case because their handiwork would be supported by Congress, and would be forced upon the white people of South Carolina by the overwhelming vote of men who had just emerged from slavery. The convention met at Charleston on the fourteenth of January. Of the delegates, three had been members of the "restoration convention" of 1865.6

1 78,982 blacks; 46,346 whites.

2 For a convention, 68,876 blacks, 130 whites; against it, 2,081 whites.

3 63 negroes and 34 white men.

• Proceedings of Convention, 199.

See the Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina held at Charleston, South Carolina, beginning January 14 and ending March 17, 1868, including the Debates and Proceedings, 2 vols., 926 pages: Charleston, South Carolina; printed by Denny & Perry, 163 Meeting street, 1868.

• Alexander Boyce; Dr. L. B. Johnson, of Pickens; F. J. Moses, Jr., of Sumter.

But most of them had no experience whatever in public affairs. The complexion of the convention afforded an easy subject for caricature, which some of the conservative newspapers of the State did not delay to improve. The Charleston Mercury's repeated burlesque of the proceedings of the convention, which it persistently referred to as "the menagerie," for a time greatly disturbed many of the delegates, who, though earnestly expostulating against the indignity of their treatment, set an example of good temper, entered upon their work and ignored the abuse which was constantly heaped upon them.1 The negro members well knew that only the strong arm of Federal power prevented the white men of the State from breaking up the convention.

The real sentiments of the whites toward them was guardedly, but clearly enough, expressed in the address to the delegates by the provisional governor of the State, James L. Orr, on the opening day. The reconstruction acts of Congress, he said, had become a law of the land and discussion of their constitutionality or wisdom was of no further moment. The white population had almost unanimously abstained from voting at the late election and, therefore, the convention represented only the colored people of the State. "This being the case," said the governor, "it cannot be denied that the intelligence, refinement and wealth of the State is not represented by your body." Yet, true to the political traditions and practice of the South, he declared that he regarded the convention "as invested with sovereign power of the State;" and he prophesied truly that the constitution, which it might adopt, would be accepted by Congress, and be the supreme

1 Proceedings, pp. 30, 107. The representative of the Mercury was finally excluded from the convention; pp. 181-183, 642-643.

law of the State for many years to come.1 Little did he imagine, that, though made principally by negroes, it was destined to survive all the other reconstruction constitutions. He anticipated a counter-political revolution at the North by the force of which all the odious reconstruction acts of Congress would be repealed; therefore the delegates should consider the end, knowing that their work, if not soon revised by a more capable convention, would, at least, speedily be administered by white men. The negro, therefore, could well afford to be magnanimous, for the day of reckoning would come. He should not exclude the real intelligence and experience of the State from her counsels "by disfranchising the whites and thus attempt to inaugurate a retaliatory policy." The elective franchise should not be given to the illiterate or those absolutely without property. The negro, now in the day of his power, should not confuse his duty to his State with his prejudice in favor of any national party. The old relation between the two races had ceased, and there was no reason why any man, white or colored, should be excluded from the privilege of voting or holding office. "The doctrine of State rights," said the governor, "as taught in South Carolina, has been exploded by the war; the allegiance of the citizens, according to the results of that controversy, is due to the Government of the United States and not to the State." The unhappy condition of affairs in Georgia and Alabama should be a warning to the delegates. If they adopted an obnoxious and unjust constitution, such as no white man could live under, it would

1 It continued in force till supplanted by the constitution of 1895.

2 This extraordinary language from a Southern man, in 1868, was embodied, almost verbatim, in the constitution of South Carolina, 1868, Bill of Rights, Sec. 4, and that of Mississippi, 1890, Bill of Rights, Sec. 7.