THE PARTIAL DISFRANCHISEMENT OF THE NEGRO
Among the various factors that have contributed to bring about
the recrudescence of the Negro question in the last year or two
a prominent one is the movement in the South to disfranchise the
ignorant element of the Negro race. This is usually termed the
“Disfranchisement of the Negro.” But although the object of the
movement is frankly to disfranchise the large ignorant element among
that race, while an ignorant element among the whites is left the
ballot, the term is by no means exact.
Few things are rarer yet nothing is more important than accuracy in
definitions. In the matter under consideration much misapprehension
exists as to the extent of the disfranchisement, and possibly more as
to its effect.
Reams of paper have been covered with frantic denunciation; courts
have been appealed to; threats have been made against the Southern
States of reducing their representation in Congress, and still the
movement has gone on under the direction of the most enlightened and
conservative men in the South. And so far as has yet been tested, it
has proceeded by legal methods.
The disfranchisement clauses have not only caused an outcry on the
part of the politicians, white and colored, and the doctrinaires who
were brought up on hostility to the South, but they have excited
unfavorable comment even among some friendly enough to the South,
who, while conceding that the former “experiment” has proved a
disastrous failure so far as the South is concerned, yet believe
that a manifest injustice is done to the rest of the country by one
section holding a representation in Congress which, according to the
votes cast there, appears to be in excess of that held by the rest of
the country.
A singular feature of the case is that the division-line of opinion
for or against the measure is not so much that of party affiliation
as that of familiarity with the conditions that have brought about
the changes in the constitutions of the Southern States.
Within the last year, a man of national reputation, a gentleman of
high standing, of broad sympathies and much learning,[48] whose
affiliations are with the party that is dominant in the South, in an
address before the New England Suffrage Conference, warmly approved
the reconstruction measures of Thaddeus Stevens setting aside the
civil governments in the South, putting the Southern States under
military control, and providing for the Congressional system of
reconstruction based on Negro suffrage. “The measure finally adopted
was,” he says, “of proved necessity. Thus, and thus only, could the
lives of the colored men and white Union men be protected. They
needed every weapon that we could place in their hands, and this
weapon was among them.”
This statement presents clearly the basic error which underlies all
others. It is that the Negro needs “weapons” with which to oppose the
white, and that “we” must place them in his hands.
Yet another gentleman of varied experience and extensive general
knowledge,[49] whose affiliations have at times been with the
same party, has recently published a paper written with all his
well-known ability, based, however, mainly on a study which he made
of conditions at the South during a rapid tour in 1865. Neither
of these gentlemen has added much to his knowledge of the Negro
question since that time. That men of these gentlemen’s standing can
really believe at this day the facts stated by them demonstrates the
hopelessness of ever having the matter clearly viewed by a large body
of well-meaning people.
The weapon which the advocate of universal suffrage applauds
himself for having helped to place in the Negro’s hands has been
his destruction. It was a torch placed in the hands of a child,
with which he has ravaged all about him and involved himself in the
general conflagration.
Happily, this somewhat outworn view of conditions at the South is not
the view of the body of the American people who have any familiarity
with the subject, or of any portion of them who have had experience
of the conditions which existed under the Negro _régime_.
A respectable element among the white Republicans of the South have
given it up. One of the most distinguished and thoughtful Northern
men in the country, a life-long Republican, a man of approved
Republicanism, declared before the leading Republican club of the
country not long ago, that the “experiment entered on with so much
enthusiasm” had undoubtedly proved a failure.
Looking back on this period, it is impossible for the open-minded
student not to see that whatever the motive, the result was, as Mr.
Root declared before the Union League Club, a miserable failure,
disastrous to both races. The South was devastated and humiliated
beyond belief; the Negroes were hopelessly misled in matters where
right direction was vitally necessary to their permanent progress.
And the consequence was a riot of civic debauchery which must bring
shame to every honest man of the African race and will always prove a
bar to the possibility of Negro domination hereafter.[50]
Whether it be recognized as yet or not, the whole country owes a
debt to the Southern people who withstood to the end the policy
of the misguided fanatics and politicians who would have put the
South permanently under Negro domination. But for the resolution
and constancy of the Southern whites, one-sixth of the then
existing States of the Union would have become Negroized and we
should possibly have had by this time several States of the Union
substantially what Santo Domingo is to-day.
As the realization is becoming more common that the “experiment”
which was entered on with so much enthusiasm a generation ago, of
arming the Negro with “the weapon” of the ballot, has proved a
disastrous failure, it is also gradually being recognized that the
kind of education on which so much money, both from public taxation
and from private philanthropy, has been lavished, and so much care
has been expended, has not only failed to bring about the results
which had been expected, but has, so far as the great body of the
race is concerned, proved an absolute failure. The Negroes at large
and the doctrinaires will not accept this, but nevertheless it is
recognized by those who know the Negro best and have sufficient
breadth of knowledge to look at things as they are. The sanest and
most broad-minded among the Negro leaders of to-day has recognized
it, and the foundation of his success is his recognition of it—the
recognition of it by him and the recognition of it by the whites of
the South, who have, because of it, sustained him by their sympathy
and their aid. It is because of this that Booker T. Washington has
become the best proof of what the Negro race at its best may produce,
and is the most unanswerable argument adduced since the war of the
value of Negro education.
He believes that the Negroes at large should be taught, first of all,
to work; that they should begin by being made trained laborers and
skilled artisans, and that then they will develop themselves. This
principle, though sound, is strongly repudiated by a considerable
element among the more advanced Negroes. And the riot in the
Boston church in July, 1903, when the Principal of Tuskegee spoke
on the industrial training of the Negro, was precipitated by an
educated element who believe in agitation rather than in Principal
Washington’s pacific and rational methods. The latter acts on the
theory that, in the main, the education of the Negroes as hitherto
conducted has not been generally a success. Those who espouse the
other view assert, on the contrary, that the education has been a
marked success and that the Negro is in every way the equal of the
white. And to prove their case they use red pepper and razors.
The limits of this paper do not admit of even the most cursory
discussion of the comparative equality of the two races. It may
be stated, however, that, notwithstanding exceptional instances,
the case of the South rests frankly on the present demonstrable
inferiority of the Negro race to the White race. Its superiority is a
dogma of the White race wherever it may have established itself, and
without doubt, as Mr. Chamberlain recently pointed out in his address
at Birmingham, this profound conviction has been one of the sources
of its strength.
Much injury has been done the Negro race by the misdirected zeal of
those who continually prate about their right to equality with the
whites.
In 1865, when the Negro was set free, he held without a rival the
entire field of industrial labor throughout the South. Ninety-five
per cent. of all the industrial work of the Southern States was in
his hands. And he was fully competent to do it. Every adult was
either a skilled laborer or a trained mechanic. It was the fallacious
teaching of equality which deluded him into dropping the substance
for the shadow. To-day their wisest leader is trying to emulate his
great teacher, Armstrong, and lead them back to the field which they
so carelessly abandoned. Men who are the equals of others do not
go about continually asserting it. They show their equality by the
fruits of their intellect and character. Among the whites, the poor
class are not always haranguing and adopting resolutions as to their
equality with the other classes, any more than are the well-to-do
class always insisting upon their equality with the wealthy class.
They know that they are equal, if not superior, and do not feel
continually called on to assert it offensively. The same may be said
about the best educated, best behaved, and most worthy among the
Negroes. It is the blatant demagogue and “mouthy” Negro—a term that
was well known during the period of slavery—who is mainly heard on
this subject. Happily for the Negroes, the major portion of them
have retired from the struggle for political power, and, except when
excited by agitators, live harmoniously enough with the whites; and
the industrious element are saving, and are building themselves homes.
While, however, the body of the Negro race are going about their
business in good-humored content, generally in good fellowship with
the people on whose friendship they are most dependent, the so-called
“leaders” and their so-called “friends” are spending their time
in stirring them up, adopting lurid resolutions, asserting their
equality and calling on everybody outside of the South to help them
establish it.
The phrase usually employed is that the Negro is “robbed of his
vote,” this formula being equally applied whether he is restrained
from voting by the unlawful act of one or more individuals or by the
most solemn act that a people can perform—the provision of a duly
ordained constitution.
It may be well, at the outset of the discussion of this matter, to
call attention to a fact somewhat generally overlooked: that the
right to vote is not an inherent right. It is a privilege conferred
by positive enactment on those citizens possessed of certain
specified qualifications.
Further, the right to determine the qualification for the
suffrage—that is, to declare on what condition a citizen shall
exercise the suffrage—rests with the several States; the only
limitation to this being the express restrictions contained in the
Constitution of the United States bearing on the subject. Where a
State duly enacts a law it stands until it is changed by law or is
declared invalid by the proper court of competent jurisdiction. Its
provisions are until then the law.
It is not necessary to go largely into the history of the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Amendments. They were the offspring of ignorance and
passion. They were adopted partly to punish the South, partly to arm
the Negroes with a weapon which would enable them to hold their own
against the whites, and partly to perpetuate the ascendancy of the
radical wing of the Republican Party.
Prior to, and even for some time subsequent to the war, the idea
of endowing the Negro race generally with the ballot had not been
seriously entertained by any considerable portion of the American
people.
Mr. Lincoln again and again, during his debates with Douglas,
declared his opposition to the idea. He said in one of his speeches:
“I am not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way
the social and political equality of the white and black races; I
am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of
Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office or intermarry with the
white people; and I will say in addition, that there is a physical
difference between the white and black races which, I believe, will
ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and
political equality.”
This declaration he reiterated in a speech delivered at Columbus.
The furthest he ever went in favor of admitting any Negroes to the
privilege of the ballot was when, on March 13, 1864, in his letter
to his provisional governor in Louisiana, Governor Hahn, he said:
“I barely suggest, for your private consideration, whether some of
the colored people may not be let in: as, for instance, the very
intelligent and especially those who have fought so gallantly in our
ranks.”
Of the thirty-four States which formed the Union in January, 1861,
thirty excluded Negroes from the franchise by constitutional
provision; while in the four States whose constitutions contained
no such provision—New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, and New
Hampshire—owing to the small number of Negroes among their
population, and the property and educational qualifications, the
Negro vote was so small as to be a negligible quantity.[51]
The opposition to universal Negro suffrage was so great throughout
the North during the agitation of the question which was subsequently
embodied in the Fifteenth Amendment, that, excluding the enforced
acquiescence of the Southern States, it was when submitted to the
people defeated in every State except Iowa and Minnesota.[52] After
the adoption of the Amendment other States voted for it.
It is probable that, had the South not been so intractable in
matters relating to the Negroes, the admission of the Negroes to
the suffrage would have been along the line suggested by Mr. Lincoln
to Governor Hahn. But at that time it was deemed necessary to quell
the South though the heavens fell. Moreover, there was grave danger
that the South might again hold the balance of power in the National
Assembly. With stern and reckless determination the implacable
leaders of the radical wing of the dominant party created what one of
them termed a force of “perpetual allies.”
Having been drilled by years of slavery to follow the lead of
their masters, and being reasonably apt at imitation, these allies
followed slavishly the direction of their new leaders. It was
perfectly natural that they should at that time have given themselves
unreservedly to the representatives of the agencies which had
emancipated them, which stood for them, and which held out to them
such glittering rewards as complete equality with, and finally
domination over, their former masters. Possibly, it was not unnatural
that they should have followed with unexampled credulity the most
unprincipled among those representatives who steadily held out to
them greater and greater rewards.
However it was, this was the history of the exercise of the
suffrage. With the weapon of the ballot, the Negro soon exceeded the
expectation of the most sanguine advocate of Negro suffrage. Only the
supreme constancy of the Southern whites saved the Southern States.
From this beginning, every question became a race question, until
to-day no question can arise which is not regarded by the Negroes
generally from a racial standpoint. It may be asserted that this was
quite natural. But the fact that it is so is the best argument for
the Southern view.
It is a somewhat curious if not pertinent fact that in the place
where Negro suffrage was first established by Act of Congress, the
District of Columbia (where it was established by the Act of January
8, 1867), which has always been under the direct control of National
Government, subsequent conditions became so insupportable that it
was deemed necessary to do away with the ballot altogether.
In all the years that have passed the same unhappy condition has
continued. The Negroes remained solidly banded against the whites.
This solidarity effectually prevented the whites from dividing
on any of the great economic questions of the time. To meet this
condition, one method after another was essayed. At times force was
openly resorted to to prevent the recurrence of conditions that
rendered life unbearable; at times shifts came into vogue that no
one pretended to excuse except by the argument of necessity—such,
for example, as the system of having separate ballot-boxes for
each candidate, with a view to shifting them about; the system of
“understanding-clauses” unequally applied; the system of ballot-box
stuffing; the system of bribery, whether of leaders or of individuals.
In some places the question was seriously debated whether it was
worse to use force or fraud, the necessity for one or the other being
simply assumed. In others, some Negroes substantially auctioned off
their votes.[53]
The result of such conditions was the retirement of many of the best
men in the South from all part in public affairs, the withdrawal
of the South from due participation in all other questions of the
national life, the menace of the debauchery of public morals.
In this wretched state of affairs the Southern people resolved to
eliminate by law, as far as possible, the ignorant Negro vote. How
universal the conviction was of its necessity may be judged from the
fact that it has been attempted in nearly every State in the South.
How legal it may be is a question for the Supreme Court of the United
States.
The new movement is being followed by stringent laws striking at all
debauchery of the ballot.
As absolutely necessary, however, as the South has deemed this
movement, perhaps nothing of late has done more to arouse feeling
in the North, than the small vote cast in the latter section. It
would appear as though the North deemed itself discriminated against
and consequently injured by this action. The charge is constantly
made that owing to this disfranchisement, the South has a larger
representation than the North.
This idea has recently been set forth in a paper in one of the
leading magazines, which, admitting that the law has not been
contravened, has yet gone so far as to suggest that a sixteenth
amendment to the Constitution of the United States should be adopted
to rectify this inequality. This suggestion would appear to be based
on a false conception of the fundamental law. Representation is
apportioned by law according to the number of the population, not of
the voting population, and each State has the absolute right to make
its qualification for the suffrage high or otherwise, subject only to
the restrictions contained in the amendments to the Constitution.
The feeling seems to be that in some way the South without violating
the amendments, has, by proving that they do not cover the case,
secured an undue advantage over the North. It is, however, difficult
to understand how it should be an advantage when a State, by acting
within the law, simply cuts down its suffrage list. How was North
Carolina, which in 1880 cast a vote equal to 81 per cent. of its
voting population injured by the fact that Massachusetts in that
election cast only 56 per cent. of its voting population; or how was
South Carolina, which, that year, cast 82 per cent. of its entire
vote, injured by Rhode Island’s casting only 37 per cent.? How would
Delaware, which requires no qualification for the suffrage, except
that a resident voter shall have paid a registration fee of $1, be
discriminated against by the fact that California provides that only
those may vote who can read the Constitution in English and can write
his name; or, how are the people of Colorado, where women, as well as
men vote, injured by the fact that only men vote in Massachusetts and
Virginia?
Yet, as plain as this would have seemed, the action of the Southern
States has undoubtedly aroused a feeling in the North that the
Northern people have, in some way, been injured thereby.
It has been proposed to cut down the representation of the Southern
States in Congress, and resolutions have been introduced in Congress
to carry out this idea. Possibly the movement has not been as serious
as it has appeared. However, it has been already serious enough
in its consequences to excite the Negroes into a state of renewed
aggressiveness.
This proposition, which is intended to be partly monitory and partly
punitive, is warmly advocated by most if not all of the Negro
leaders and their doctrinaire friends.
It would undoubtedly be strongly opposed by the majority of the white
people of the South, and possibly by some of the more far-sighted
friends of the Negro race outside of the South, who, looking a little
beyond the immediate disfranchisement of ignorant Negroes, see that
the ultimate effect will be to establish a general and impartial
electoral system, based on the disfranchisement of ignorance and vice.
Before the proposal is carried into effect, it might be well for its
advocates to consider certain facts.
In the first place, it is a grave question whether the section of
the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution on which such
action must be based is now valid or whether it was not repealed
by the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits
disfranchisement on account of race, color, etc. The latter view was
taken and was ably argued in the recent notable address delivered
in Albany in June, 1903, by Charles A. Gardiner, Esq., of New York,
before the Forty-first Annual Convocation of the University of the
State of New York. He maintains that “a State can discriminate
against Negro suffrage only by an organic or statutory law,” and that
before Congress can penalize a State such a law must be adopted and
it must be a valid law. But (he argues) since the adoption of the
Fifteenth Amendment, no law which violated its provision could be
valid. It would not merely be voidable, but void _ab initio_. “And a
void law is no law.”[54]
But even assuming that the Congress might have the authority to cut
down the representation under the present law, it is a question
whether the disfranchising clauses of the New Constitution in the
Southern States afford any basis for such an attempt at reduction in
their representation.
The qualifications for voting in the various States of the South
would not seem to be in any way improper on the face of their
constitutions. The impropriety charged against them is based wholly
on the fact that they disfranchise more of one class of citizens than
of others.
According to the tabulation of the “Qualifications for Voting in each
State in the Union,” published in the _World_ Almanac for 1904, and
“communicated to it” and corrected to date “by the Attorneys-General
of the respective States,” all the States except the two Carolinas
have the “Australian Ballot Law,” or a modification of it, in force,
and all the States require that the “Voters shall be citizens of
the State or of the United States, or an alien who has declared
intention to become naturalized”; and all the States except Maine,
Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Vermont exclude from the
right of suffrage those convicted of felony or infamous crime, unless
pardoned.
Besides these, paupers and persons _non compos mentis_ are generally
excluded. These provisions are general.
Arkansas, however, excludes from the right to the suffrage those
who have failed to pay the poll-tax. California excludes everyone
unable to read the Constitution in English and to write his name.
Connecticut requires for citizenship that a man shall be a citizen
of the United States who can read the English language. Delaware
requires the payment of a registration fee of $1; Georgia requires
the payment of all taxes since 1877. Louisiana admits only those
able to read and write, or who own $300 worth of property assessed
in their names, or whose father or grandfather was entitled to vote
on January 1, 1867. (This last is the celebrated “Squaw Clause.”)
Massachusetts admits only those who can read and write. Mississippi
admits only those who can read or understand the Constitution when
read to them. Missouri requires voters to have paid their poll-taxes
for the current year. Pennsylvania requires a voter, if twenty-two
years of age or more, to have paid taxes within two years. South
Carolina requires that a voter shall have paid six months prior to
the election any poll-taxes then due, and shall be able to read and
write any section of the State Constitution, or to show that he owns
and has paid the previous year all taxes on property in the State
assessed at $300 or more.
Tennessee requires that a voter shall have paid his poll-tax for the
preceding year. Vermont excludes from the suffrage “those who have
not obtained the approbation of the local board of civil authority.”
Virginia’s qualification for registration is as follows, until 1904:
“First, a person who, prior to the adoption of the Constitution,
served in time of war in the army or navy of the United States or
the Confederate States, or of any State of the United States or
of the Confederate States; or, second, a son of any such person;
or, third, a person who owns property upon which, in the year
next preceding that in which he offers to register, State taxes
aggregating at least $1 have been paid; or, fourth, a person able to
read any section of the Constitution submitted to him by the officers
of registration, and to give a reasonable explanation of the same,
or if unable to read such section, able to understand and give a
reasonable explanation thereof when read to him by the officers.”
Those registering prior to 1904 form a permanent roll. After 1904 the
soldier’s-son clause and the understanding clause are done away with,
and a poll-tax must be paid.
Thus, it will be seen that Arkansas, Missouri, South Carolina, and
Tennessee require the prepayment of a poll-tax, while Delaware
requires the payment of a registration fee of $1; that Georgia and
Pennsylvania require the prepayment of taxes, while South Carolina,
Louisiana, and Virginia require the payment of taxes in the
alternative, another alternative being that the voter must, in South
Carolina and Louisiana, as in California, be able to read and write,
while in Virginia, as in Mississippi, he is required only to be able
to read or understand the Constitution when read to him, though in
Virginia this last requirement was only for two years; and after two
years the voter must be able to read and write.
Louisiana excepts those whose father or grandfather was entitled to
vote on January 1, 1867, and Virginia excepts until 1904 those who
were soldiers or seamen or whose fathers served as soldiers or seamen
in time of war.
Vermont, on the other hand, has the singular requirement that the
voter must “obtain the approbation of the local board of civil
authority”—a requirement which would seem to place the qualification
wholly at the mercy of the party in power.
Though the representation in Congress of the Southern States would
appear at present to be greater than the recorded vote of those
States would entitle them to, the inequality is by no means so real
as it appears, and is not greater than that which exists between some
of the Eastern and Western States.[55]
It has been well shown by the same distinguished member of the New
York Bar already quoted that “the disparity between the Southern
States where the ignorant Negro vote has been practically eliminated
and the Eastern States, though glaring, is less than that between
the Eastern States and some of the Western States. For example,
“Rhode Island’s vote is 1.59 times as great as Alabama’s, but South
Dakota’s is 3.39 as great as that of Rhode Island. Vermont’s is
2.22 times as great as Florida’s, but Utah’s is 3.01 as great as
Vermont’s. Maine’s is 2.36 as great as Georgia’s, but Colorado’s is
3.48 times as great as Maine’s.”[56]
The figures cited fail to give the strength of the Southern vote. The
small vote in the Southern States is due partly to the fact that the
ascendancy of one political party is so great that voters do not feel
it necessary to attend the polls.
In the next place, though it was frankly admitted that the motive
of the disfranchisement clauses was to disfranchise the ignorant
colored vote, while the ignorant white vote was admitted for a time,
provided the voters or their fathers had been soldiers, this is but
a temporary inequality; and that the ignorant colored vote does not
come within the grandfather clause or other saving clauses is an
incident of the time. In a comparatively short time the effect of
these saving clauses will have passed away and the suffrage will be
based on a purely educational or property qualification.
A writer in _The Outlook_ of June 13, 1903, in an article entitled,
“Negro Suffrage in the South,” says: “How far do they exclude him
(the Negro) in point of fact? In answering this question the reader
must note that in three of the States, Alabama, South Carolina, and
Virginia, a Negro who possesses property amounting in value to $300
and has paid his taxes may vote. He may not be able to read and
write, he may not be able to understand the Constitution when it
is read to him. But if he has had the industry, the sobriety, the
thrift which have enabled him to accumulate taxable property to the
amount of $300, he has the ballot. How many Negroes there are in the
South who under this provision are admitted to the ballot we have
no means of knowing. It has been estimated that the total ownings
of Negroes in the Southern States mount up to $300,000,000 worth of
personal and real estate. It is officially reported that in Virginia
they own one-twenty-sixth of all the land in the State. These facts
would seem to indicate that a not inconsiderable number of Negroes
are admitted to the ballot in the Southern States under the property
qualification. On the other hand, a considerable white population has
been disfranchised under this property-qualification clause. We are
informed by a Southern correspondent, whose means of acquaintance
justify our placing some confidence in his statement, that in Alabama
fully fifty thousand white men, under the practical operation of the
Constitution, by non-payment of poll-taxes or other clauses, have
been disfranchised.”
It may also be well to consider the effect of such a penalizing
measure on the future of the Negro himself. To adopt it would be
to violate the one principle on which the permanent advance of the
Negro race must be founded. That is, the recognition, even at this
late hour, by the Negro that he must stand on his own merits and is
to be left to work out politically, as well as economically, his own
future. To adopt it would mislead him into thinking he is still the
ward of the nation and is to be supported by it, irrespective of
his conduct—an idea to which may be traced a considerable portion
of all that has retarded the Negro’s advance in the past. It will
tend to divert once more his aim from the paths of industry to which
it is being turned by the wisest of his friends. It will engender
a new hostility to him on the part of the stronger race, on whose
friendship his future welfare must depend.
Finally, should such a measure be adopted, it might lead the
whites of the South to do what they have hitherto steadfastly
refused to do—apply the money derived by taxation on the property
of each race exclusively to the education of that race. It has
been publicly alleged and appears to be generally assumed that the
recent election in Mississippi was in a measure reactionary. The
ground for this assumption seems to be that the successful candidate
for the Governorship had declared himself to a certain extent
opposed to a continuance of the prevailing system. The writer,
while recognizing the disappointing results that have followed the
large expenditure for the education of the Negroes, would deplore
immeasurably any backward step in the matter of education in the
South. Light, however glimmering, is far better than darkness. The
present system of education may be a poor one, but it is infinitely
better than none. Every consideration of public policy would seem
to urge its continuance until a better system can be devised. And
one consideration would appear unanswerable. The Negroes will always
have their own leaders, and it is better that these leaders should be
enlightened rather than ignorant. No more deplorable disaster could
befall the South than in this age of advancing enlightenment to have
a great pariah class hopelessly and irrevocably ignorant established
within her borders.
In this view he believes the great body of thoughtful Southerners
will unite. But no one can foretell what effect on public sentiment a
crusade against the South, based on her attitude toward the Negroes,
might produce. It might sweep away the last remnant of good feeling
that remains, and with it every dollar raised by taxation on the
property of the whites to educate the blacks. The South is now
spending on the education of the Negro race, by voluntary taxation
of the property of the white race, over five and one-half millions
of dollars annually. It would be a poor bargain to exchange for
the figment of a right which ignorance should never have had, the
remaining good-will of the Whites of the South and the sum they
annually expend from their own pockets in trying to uplift the Negro
and fit him for the exercise of that right.
It is the conviction of the writer, and he gives it for what it is
worth, that the disfranchisement of the main body of the Negro race
in the Southern States was a measure of high necessity. He further
believes that this disfranchisement is for the permanent welfare of
both races. It removes for the time being what is the chief cause of
bitterness—a bitterness from which the Negro is a greater sufferer
than the white. It will turn the Negro generally from the field
where, in his present condition, he has proved a failure, and leave
him to develop himself in a field where he may be the equal of any
other man.
One who has been a serious and, as is generally agreed, a profound
student of our Government and our people has recently given his
conclusions after study of conditions in the South, and they agree
substantially with the views of the more conservative element of
the Southern whites.[57] Mr. James Bryce declares, “that those who
rule subject Races on despotic methods ... do not realize all the
difficulties that arise in a Democracy. The capital instance is
afforded by the history of the Southern States since the Civil War....
“The moral to be drawn from the case of the Southern States seems to
be that you must not, however excellent your intentions and however
admirable your sentiments, legislate in the teeth of facts. The
great bulk of the Negroes were not fit for the suffrage; nor under
the American Federal system was it possible (without incurring other
grave evils) to give them effective protection in the exercise of
the suffrage. It would, therefore, have been better to postpone the
bestowal of this dangerous boon. True it is that rocks and shoals
were set thick around every course; true that it is easier to
perceive the evils of a course actually taken than to realize other
evils that might have followed some other course. Nevertheless, the
general opinion of dispassionate men has come to deem the action
taken in A.D., 1870, a mistake.
“The social relations of two Races which cannot be fused raise
problems even more difficult, because incapable of being regulated by
law....
“The tremendous problem presented by the Southern States of America,
and the likelihood that similar problems will have to be solved
elsewhere, as, for instance, in South Africa and the Philippine
Isles, bid us ask, What should be the duty and the policy of a
dominant Race where it cannot fuse with a backward Race? Duty and
policy are one, for it is equally to the interest of both Races that
their relations should be friendly.
“The answer seems to be that as regards political rights, Race and
blood should not be made the ground of discrimination. Where the
bulk of the colored Race are obviously unfit for political power, a
qualification based on property and education might be established
which should permit the upper section of that Race to enjoy the
suffrage. Such a qualification would doubtless exclude some of
the poorest and most ignorant whites, and might on that ground be
resisted. But it is better to face this difficulty than to wound and
alienate the whole of the colored Race by placing them without the
pale of civic functions and duties.”
One of the fundamental errors has been in considering the Negroes
as a special class, to be regarded, discussed, legislated for,
aided, and sustained as such, instead of as plain human beings who,
judged according to certain universal standards, belong to various
classes in which those standards would place other members of the
human family. This was the fundamental error of the doctrinaire in
the first instance, and, unfortunately, the Negroes themselves have
gotten the idea so firmly fixed in their minds that they have long
regarded their race as a special species, to be considered from quite
a special standpoint, judged by different standards, and dealt with
in a different manner from the rest of the world.
Nothing could be more unwise, because nothing tends more to mislead
the Negro as to the future and keep up the misunderstanding which
blocks the way to a proper solution of the question. The Negroes must
learn that before they can claim to be accorded the treatment that
the Whites receive they must themselves act along lines which govern
the conduct of the whites.
If a white man is a brute or a blackguard, all whites do not feel it
necessary to defend him. If a white man commits a crime, all whites
do not conspire to shield him and aid him in escaping the penalties
of the law. If a white man is arrested, all whites do not assail the
arresting officers; he is left to his remedy at law. If a white man
has committed rape and murder and a mob catches and lynches him, all
white men, however they deplore and denounce lawlessness, do not feel
it necessary to declare the miscreant innocent and a martyr.
A great step will be taken toward the correct solution of the problem
when the Negroes shall be considered and shall consider themselves
not “in the lump,” but as individuals, just as any other members of
the community are considered; not as a separate class, but as part
of various classes to which their standing morally, mentally, and
personally would assign them—when they shall be judged by the same
standards and governed by the same rules; when the malefactor shall
be dealt with as a malefactor; the reputable man shall be esteemed
for his good character: in other words, when every man shall be
judged on his own merits and shall stand or fall on his own showing.
This must be the work of both races. It is what the more enlightened
Negroes say they desire; but, unfortunately, not a great many of them
appear to act upon this. Their acts, their addresses delivered at
Afro-American meetings, their newspapers, their writings, all tend to
show that those who claim and would appear to be the leaders among
them regard all matters wholly from a racial standpoint. They clamor
for recognition and for assistance as Negroes; make inflammatory
speeches; call on Congress to intervene in their behalf as such, and
at times even suggest, in case Congress does not interpose, that an
appeal be made to foreign nations.
It is worth while to note that most of the appeals, addresses,
resolutions, and other clamors that tend to stir up the Negroes
in the South come from those who are outside of her borders, and
consequently are beyond any direct suffering from the oppression
and other outrages against which they protest. This feeling is,
therefore, entirely racial. In the main, the Negroes in the South
appear to get on fairly well with their other fellow-citizens; and
the resolutions and addresses that emanate from these are much more
temperate and reasonable than those which come from the outside.
Compare, for example, the addresses and resolutions of the Negro
Convention held two years ago at Louisville with those in some of the
Northern cities.
A sentiment has developed in parts of the South since the recent
agitation to repeal the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of
the United States, but this has not been strong enough to lead to any
overt, much less concerted attempt to promote such a movement. On the
contrary, the leaders among the Southern people have hitherto firmly
opposed the suggestion of such a measure. One reason undoubtedly has
been the practical difficulties in the way of carrying it through;
but another has been that they have generally not wished to exclude
from the suffrage the best element among the Negroes.
Personally the writer does not, under existing conditions, believe in
repealing the amendment. He would, indeed, rather have it repealed
than have a perpetual continuance of the evils that have resulted
from unrestricted suffrage. But he believes that these evils will to
a large extent be done away with by the new constitutions, and he
believes that, proper restrictions being provided, the rule should be
applied impartially to all; and those individuals, whether white or
black, should be admitted to the rights of citizenship who measure up
to the full standard of citizenship.
A certain element among the Negroes are good citizens, and are
becoming better citizens all the time. When this element shall have
broken away from the false teaching which has been their bane, they
will have no need to ask for outside aid. The South will recognize
their value, and their reward will be the clear distinction between
them and the ignorant element which now weighs them down.
It has long appeared to the writer that the prime necessity of the
Negroes is to learn to distinguish between Negroes and Negroes;
between the law-abiding and self-respecting Negro and the lawbreaker
and blackguard; between the honest man and the thief; the decent
man and the dive-frequenter; the good citizen and the “tough”—in
other words, to create for themselves some standard of virtue and
right living for both men and women according to which they shall
be classified. Not the least evil of the solidifying of the Negro
race during the period of reconstruction was the destruction of all
distinctions between virtue and vice, as a qualification for civic
promotion. After thirty years the upright, law-abiding, conservative
Negro is bound by that manacle to the thief and the evil-liver,
and strangely enough he mainly appears unwilling to help break the
shackles which hold him down.
These laws give him a chance to break away from his burden, if he
but has the sense to see it. It will tend to break up the dense
solidarity of the Negroes, and will give the best among them—that
is, the conservative, the industrious, the thrifty, and the
enlightened—an opportunity to rise and range themselves in a class
where they will be freed from the burden of the ignorant mass which
weighs them down, and may form a better class to which the others may
aspire. And this the writer esteems a supreme necessity. It leaves
open the avenue by which all who are capable may reënter the former
field, not as Negroes who are admitted simply as such, however feeble
and dull they may be, but as men who are admitted because they are
strong and intelligent.
The Negro as a race, considered and acting solidly, may be a burden
and a menace; but many Negroes are good men and good citizens. They
contribute their part to the public wealth and are on every ground of
justice and sound policy entitled to consideration.
This upper fraction of the race, relieved from the incubus of the
great body which they have been forced to carry as it were on their
backs, would inevitably secure political representation in the South
precisely as they have secured it in the North. They would before
long probably have the intelligence to divide upon all economic
questions just as any other race divides, and the whites, released
from the necessity of maintaining a solidarity, would likewise be
free to divide, in which case there would always be an inducement to
secure rather than to repress the Negro vote.
A possible step in reaching the solution of the question might be
for a reasonably limited number of representative Southern men to
meet in conference a reasonable number of those colored men of the
South who are more familiar with actual conditions there, and thus
are representative of the most enlightened and experienced portion
of that race. These, in a spirit of kindness and of justice, might
confer together and try to find some common ground on which both
shall stand, and formulate some common measures as to which both
sides shall agree and which both shall advocate.
One guiding principle should be, that having established a law to
eliminate forthwith the ignorant Negro and henceforth all ignorance,
this law should be administered honestly, bravely, and impartially.
It is not imagined that such a conference could settle the question,
but at least it would throw some light on it, and it would serve
two good purposes. It would be a starting point for securing
information which would command respect, and it would show what the
most conservative and broad-minded element at the South, both of the
whites and of the blacks, who know the subject thoroughly and have no
personal interest to subserve except that arising from the just and
reasonable settlement of this vital problem, think of it, after they
have had the fullest means of securing information.
Meantime, let the politician and the doctrinaire, if they are truly
the Negro’s friends, hold hands off. The best service the Negro’s
best friend can render him is to tell him the truth. The direst
injury the Negro’s worst enemy can do him is to perpetuate hostility
between him and the Southern White. Left to themselves they would
settle the question along economic lines, and this it must come to at
last.
However one side or the other may dogmatize, it is safe to assume
that any final settlement of the problem must be one that will
commend itself to the body of the intelligent whites at the South. No
other settlement will ever be final.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] Mr. Moorfield Storey.
[49] Mr. Carl Schurz.
[50] For conditions in the South during that period, see _post_,
chapter on The Race Problem.
[51] In 1860 there were, of Negro men of voting age in New
Hampshire, 149; in Vermont, 194; in Massachusetts, 2,512, and in
New York, 12,989. In New York alone, prior to 1868, was a Negro
allowed by express provision to vote; but a Negro voter was subject
to a property qualification of $250 not applicable to the white
voter.—Thorp’s Const. Hist, of the U. S., pp. 226-7.
[52] See “The Fifteenth Amendment. An Account of its Enactment,” p.
5. A. Caperton Braxton. Everett-Waddey Co., Richmond, Va.
The Reconstruction Act forced through Congress in August, 1864, by
the radical wing of the Republican Party, and vetoed by Mr. Lincoln
by a pocket veto, expressly limited the franchise to adult whites.
The platform of the Republican Party on which Lincoln was renominated
and reëlected in November, 1864, made no reference to Negro suffrage.
During this year (1864) the Union people adopted new or amended old
constitutions in Arkansas, Connecticut, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland,
Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Virginia, but no
mention was made of Negro suffrage except to exclude it. _Id._
In December, 1865, when the question of the establishment of Negro
suffrage in the District of Columbia was submitted to the voters
there, the vote stood, in Georgetown, 1 vote for and 812 votes
against the measure, and in Washington, 35 votes for and 6,521 votes
against the measure. _Id._, p. 27.
In September, 1865, the question was submitted to the voters of the
Territory of Colorado. The vote stood 476 for and 4,192 against it.
_Ib._
In June, 1866, the people of Nebraska adopted a constitution which
limited suffrage to whites. In October, 1867, the proposition for
Negro suffrage in Ohio was voted down by over 50,000 majority. In
November of that year the people of Kansas and Minnesota “voted it
down by large majorities.” _Id._, p. 29.
In November, 1868, the people of Iowa voted to strike out the word
“white” from the Constitution. In this State by the census of 1870
there were 289,162 whites and 1,542 blacks. The vote, however, on
this measure was 22,000 less than that for the Republican ticket.
_Id._, p. 39, citing _Tribune_ Almanac for 1869, p. 75.
In November, 1868, the people of Minnesota once more voted on
the measure, and this time it was carried through by only about
three-fifths of the majority given the Republican ticket. By the
census of 1870 there were in that State 114,344 adult white men and
246 adult Negro men. _Id._, p. 40.
In 1868, in Missouri, the measure was voted down by 18,000 majority.
_Ib._
In Michigan, in 1868, when the Republican Party carried the State by
nearly 32,000 majority, the question of Negro suffrage was voted down
by nearly 39,000 majority. _Ib._
In 1869 the people of New York defeated the proposed measure by over
32,000 majority, and the Legislature of that State rescinded a former
act of the previous Legislature, which had, by a majority of two,
ratified the Fifteenth Amendment. _Id._, p. 65.
On the 4th of March, 1869, in Indiana, seventeen Senators and
thirty-six Representatives resigned from the Legislature to break a
quorum and prevent the ratification of the amendment. Every one of
these, with a single exception, was subsequently reëlected by the
people. _Id._, p. 66-7.
Meantime, under the “Reconstruction Acts,” the amendment was forced
on the South. Seven of the Southern States ratified it by the Negro
vote, the whites being generally disfranchised, while in three of
them—Virginia, Mississippi and Texas—ratification was assented to as
a condition of readmission to the Union. _Ib._
See also Eckenrode’s “Reconstruction in Virginia,” Johns Hopkins
Press, 1904.
[53] For such an instance, see Dr. H. M. Field’s “Sunny Skies and
Dark Shadows.”
[54] 1 Cr. 137; 118 U. S. Rep. 142.
[55] For example, in 1880 the vote of
North Carolina was 81 per cent. of its voting population.
Massachusetts ” 56 ” ” ” ” South Carolina ” 82 ” ” ” ” Rhode Island ”
37 ” ” ” ”
Mississippi was 49 per cent. of its voting population. Vermont ” 66 ”
” ” ” Alabama ” 58 ” ” ” ” Florida ” 83 ” ” ” ”
Maryland’s vote for each Congressman at the last Congressional
election (1902) averaged:
Maryland 44,085 Illinois 45,275 New York 41,826 Pennsylvania 36,662
North Carolina 29,267 Virginia 26,409 Massachusetts 29,628 Rhode
Island 28,284 Vermont 28,108 Maine 26,430 South Dakota 96,131
Colorado 92,167 Alabama 17,731 Florida 12,677 Georgia 11,155
Louisiana 9,770 Mississippi 7,388 South Carolina 7,259
[56] Address of Mr. Charles A. Gardiner, cited ante.
[57] See the Romanes Lectures, 1902: The Relations of the Advanced
and the Backward Races of Mankind. By James Bryce, D.C.L.