worked out by the convention was adopted without a dissenting vote.1 The appeal of Governor Orr that the convention should be magnanimous had not been made in vain. It did not add to the rigor of the disqualifying clause in the reconstruction acts and the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, but left the subject of disqualification wholly with Congress. This relatively generous treatment of the white population of the State, and almost without exception it had been identified with the Confederacy, goes far to explain the long lease of life to which this constitution was destined.

Before the convention adjourned it transformed itself into a political body and nominated candidates, on the Republican ticket, for all the State offices. With one exception these were all taken from its own body. On the third of April, the Democratic Convention at Columbia nominated a ticket. On the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth, the election was held; the constitution was ratified by a majority of over forty thousand votes, and the Republican candidates were elected.

In Florida, the registration was completed by October and showed a majority of over four thousand colored votes, and the question of a convention was carried almost unanimously in the three days' election ending on the sixteenth of November. Among the delegates were seventeen negroes. The convention assembled at Tallahassee on the twentieth of January." The reconstruction 1 Proceedings, 923.

2 For the constitution, 70,758; against it, 27,288. The total registration was 133,597.

3 11,148 whites; 15,434 colored. The white vote, in 1860, was 13,980.

4 For a convention, 14,300; against it, 203.

5 See Journal of the Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Florida; begun and held at the capitol at Tallahassee: Edmund M. Cheney, Printer, 1868; 134 pages.

party in the State was hopelessly split into factions, and the struggle between them for the control of the convention nearly caused its dissolution several times. The minority claimed that they were the victims of gross frauds in the apportionment, and of notorious iniquities at the polls. The issue between the factions came to a point at last on the question of the eligibility of four of the members. The contest exhibited the somewhat uncommon spectacle of a majority constitutionally outwitted and outmaneuvered by the minority. In consequence, when the convention adjourned on the first of February, for three days, fifteen of the majority withdrew, in a body, from further attendance.

Though no quorum was present, the minority continued the session to the eighteenth, meanwhile requesting the Federal commander at Tallahassee, Colonel F. F. Flint, to arrest the absentees and to compel their attendance. There were now only twenty-two delegates present and their meeting had become a mere rump convention; but they declared a legal quorum present, continued their work and made a constitution for the State. One of the clauses suggested resembled that one offered in the Louisiana convention, to secure equal rights and privileges to all persons, irrespective of color, while traveling in the State in public conveyances, or in attending places of amusement or instruction.1 To the negroes these rights were almost as much to be desired as those of voting and holding office. But it was concluded that the subject could come more properly before the legislature. On the eighth of February the twenty-one delegates completed their work, put their names to the new constitution and sent an authenticated copy to General Meade. They then adjourned until the fifteenth.

1 Journal, 23.

The fifteen delegates who had withdrawn and all along had kept themselves fully informed of the proceedings, now, joined by nine others, returned to the capitol, during the night of the sixteenth, took possession of the hall of the House of Representatives, drew up formal charges against Daniel Richards, the president of the convention, accused him of many misdemeanors, deposed him from his office and elected Horatio Jenkins in his place. With the exception of the secretary and the chaplain, a new set of officers was chosen, new committees were appointed and the reorganized convention began its work. This proceeding intensified the animosities between the factions, and to prevent an outbreak, General Meade came to Tallahassee on the seventeenth.' He urged a compromise and his advice, happily, was followed. Both presidents resigned, though Richards filed a formal protest.2 The convention then elected Jenkins.3

Though a parliamentary reconciliation had been effected, the animosities between the factions constantly broke out in debate. However, in spite of the threatening language which filled the air, a constitution was worked out and adopted, on the twenty-fifth, by nearly a two-thirds vote, though eight members signed under protest, asserting that they had already signed one instrument. Nine refused to sign. The constitution adopted three weeks before was ignored; this second one was less objectionable to the white population. It was probably prepared by the fifteen delegates in private session at Monticello just before they returned to reorganize

1 See General Meade's report, Senate Executive Document, No. 13, 41st Congress, Second Session, p. 25.

the convention; it is altogether too elaborate to have been worked out in three days-the time given to its discussion. It gave the suffrage to every male person of age "of whatever race, color, nationality or previous condition, otherwise qualified as citizens of the State and of the United States," but it entirely omitted the disqualifying provisions common to the other reconstruction constitutions of the period. It forbade civil or political disqualifications, on account of race, to hold office;2 but required the legislature to prescribe educational qualifications for the voters after the year 1880, the only clause of the kind in a reconstruction constitution.3 As completely as could be expressed by a State constitution, this one put the two races on the plane of equal political rights and recognized them as having a common social life.

Before adjourning, the convention, like that of South Carolina, transformed itself into a political body and nominated candidates for State offices, though these were relatively fewer than in other States, because most of them, by the new constitution, were to be appointees of the governor. The constitution was ratified at the three days' election beginning the fourth of May.*

Political affairs in Texas at this time were more unsettled than elsewhere in the South, and the reconstruction acts were carried out there with greater difficulty. By the middle of December, 1867, the registration of voters was completed, and showed a majority of about nine thousand whites in an aggregate registry of one hundred and four thousand. The election of delegates to a

1 Article XV, Section 1.

2 Article XVII, Section 28.

3 Article XV, Section 7.

5

4 The vote for the constitution was 14,511; against it, 9,371. Congressional Globe, June 5, 1868, p. 2858.

5 104,259; 56,678 whites and 47,581 negroes.

constitutional convention was fixed for four days, beginning with the tenth of February, and ninety members were to be chosen. The Conservative party in the State vigorously opposed negro suffrage and the whole congressional plan of reconstruction; it therefore advised its members to so vote on the question of a convention as to secure delegates who would oppose negro suffrage, yet who would form a constitution that would be acceptable to Congress. At the election at which a majority of more than thirty thousand voted in favor of a convention, nine of the delegates chosen were negroes.1

1

The convention assembled at Austin on the first of June.2 Its members were nearly equally divided as Radicals and Conservatives and were led by Andrew J. Hamilton, lately provisional governor of the State, and Morgan Hamilton, his brother. The provisional governor, E. M. Pease, sent the convention a message, outlining the measures which he thought it should adopt. He lamented that, though three years had passed since the conclusion of the war, the great majority of the population of the State had profited little from past experience and still scornfully rejected the mild terms of reconciliation offered by the United States. Though complaining of disfranchisement because of their participation in the rebellion, the whites still insisted that loyal citizens should not be enfranchised because they were of a different race. Though political disabilities would undoubtedly be removed as the safety of the general government would permit, yet the disloyal whites persisted in demanding the

1 The returns of the vote are imperfect. It appears that the vote for the convention was 43,142; against it, 11,246.

2 Journal of the Reconstruction Convention which met at Austin, Texas, June 1, A. D. 1868. Austin, Texas: Tracy, Siemering & Co., Printers, 1870; 1,089 pages. This is the Journal of the first convention.