It has become apparent that the effort to put the rank and file of the
coloured people into a position to exercise the right of franchise has
not been the success that was expected in those portions of our
country where the Negro is found in large numbers. Either the Negro
was not prepared for any such wholesale exercise of the ballot as our
recent amendments to the Constitution contemplated or the American
people were not prepared to assist and encourage him to use the
ballot. In either case the result has been the same.
On an important occasion in the life of the Master, when it fell to
him to pronounce judgment on two courses of action, these memorable
words fell from his lips: "And Mary hath chosen the better part." This
was the supreme test in the case of an individual. It is the highest
test in the case of a race or a nation. Let us apply this test to the
American Negro.
In the life of our Republic, when he has had the opportunity to
choose, has it been the better or worse part? When in the childhood of
this nation the Negro was asked to submit to slavery or choose death
and extinction, as did the aborigines, he chose the better part, that
which perpetuated the race.
When, in 1776, the Negro was asked to decide between British
oppression and American independence, we find him choosing the better
part; and Crispus Attucks, a Negro, was the first to shed his blood on
State Street, Boston, that the white American might enjoy liberty
forever, though his race remained in slavery. When, in 1814, at New
Orleans, the test of patriotism came again, we find the Negro choosing
the better part, General Andrew Jackson himself testifying that no
heart was more loyal and no arm was more strong and useful in defence
of righteousness.
When the long and memorable struggle came between union and
separation, when he knew that victory meant freedom, and defeat his
continued enslavement, although enlisting by the thousands, as
opportunity presented itself, to fight in honourable combat for the
cause of the Union and liberty, yet, when the suggestion and the
temptation came to burn the home and massacre wife and children during
the absence of the master in battle, and thus insure his liberty, we
find him choosing the better part, and for four long years protecting
and supporting the helpless, defenceless ones intrusted to his care.
When, during our war with Spain, the safety and honour of the Republic
were threatened by a foreign foe, when the wail and anguish of the
oppressed from a distant isle reached our ears, we find the Negro
forgetting his own wrongs, forgetting the laws and customs that
discriminate against him in his own country, and again choosing the
better part. And, if any one would know how he acquitted himself in
the field at Santiago, let him apply for answer to Shafter and
Roosevelt and Wheeler. Let them tell how the Negro faced death and
laid down his life in defence of honour and humanity. When the full
story of the heroic conduct of the Negro in the Spanish-American War
has been heard from the lips of Northern soldier and Southern soldier,
from ex-abolitionist and ex-master, then shall the country decide
whether a race that is thus willing to die for its country should not
be given the highest opportunity to live for its country.
In the midst of all the complaints of suffering in the camp and field
during the Spanish-American War, suffering from fever and hunger,
where is the official or citizen that has heard a word of complaint
from the lips of a black soldier? The only request that came from the
Negro soldier was that he might be permitted to replace the white
soldier when heat and malaria began to decimate the ranks of the white
regiments, and to occupy at the same time the post of greater danger.
But, when all this is said, it remains true that the efforts on the
part of his friends and the part of himself to share actively in the
control of State and local government in America have not been a
success in all sections. What are the causes of this partial failure,
and what lessons has it taught that we may use in regard to the future
treatment of the Negro in America?
In my mind there is no doubt but that we made a mistake at the
beginning of our freedom of putting the emphasis on the wrong end.
Politics and the holding of office were too largely emphasised,
almost to the exclusion of every other interest.
I believe the past and present teach but one lesson,--to the Negro's
friends and to the Negro himself,--that there is but one way out, that
there is but one hope of solution; and that is for the Negro in every
part of America to resolve from henceforth that he will throw aside
every non-essential and cling only to essential,--that his pillar of
fire by night and pillar of cloud by day shall be property, economy,
education, and Christian character. To us just now these are the
wheat, all else the chaff. The individual or race that owns the
property, pays the taxes, possesses the intelligence and substantial
character, is the one which is going to exercise the greatest control
in government, whether he lives in the North or whether he lives in
the South.
I have often been asked the cause of and the cure for the riots that
have taken place recently in North Carolina and South Carolina.[1] I
am not at all sure that what I shall say will answer these questions
in a satisfactory way, nor shall I attempt to narrow my expressions to
a mere recital of what has taken place in these two States. I prefer
to discuss the problem in a broader manner.
[1] November, 1898.
In the first place, in politics I am a Republican, but have always
refrained from activity in party politics, and expect to pursue this
policy in the future. So in this connection I shall refrain, as I
always have done, from entering upon any discussion of mere party
politics. What I shall say of politics will bear upon the race problem
and the civilisation of the South in the larger sense. In no case
would I permit my political relations to stand in the way of my
speaking and acting in the manner that I believe would be for the
permanent interest of my race and the whole South.
In 1873 the Negro in the South had reached the point of greatest
activity and influence in public life, so far as the mere holding of
elective office was concerned. From that date those who have kept up
with the history of the South have noticed that the Negro has steadily
lost in the number of elective offices held. In saying this, I do not
mean that the Negro has gone backward in the real and more fundamental
things of life. On the contrary, he has gone forward faster than has
been true of any other race in history, under anything like similar
circumstances.
If we can answer the question as to why the Negro has lost ground in
the matter of holding elective office in the South, perhaps we shall
find that our reply will prove to be our answer also as to the cause
of the recent riots in North Carolina and South Carolina. Before
beginning a discussion of the question I have asked, I wish to say
that this change in the political influence of the Negro has continued
from year to year, notwithstanding the fact that for a long time he
was protected, politically, by force of federal arms and the most
rigid federal laws, and still more effectively, perhaps, by the voice
and influence in the halls of legislation of such advocates of the
rights of the Negro race as Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, Benjamin
F. Butler, James M. Ashley, Oliver P. Morton, Carl Schurz, and Roscoe
Conkling, and on the stump and through the public press by those great
and powerful Negroes, Frederick Douglass, John M. Langston, Blanche K.
Bruce, John R. Lynch, P. B. S. Pinchback, Robert Browne Elliot, T.
Thomas Fortune, and many others; but the Negro has continued for
twenty years to have fewer representatives in the State and national
legislatures. The reduction has continued until now it is at the point
where, with few exceptions, he is without representatives in the
law-making bodies of the State and of the nation.
Now let us find, if we can, a cause for this. The Negro is fond of
saying that his present condition is due to the fact that the State
and federal courts have not sustained the laws passed for the
protection of the rights of his people; but I think we shall have to
go deeper than this, because I believe that all agree that court
decisions, as a rule, represent the public opinion of the community or
nation creating and sustaining the court.
At the beginning of his freedom it was unfortunate that those of the
white race who won the political confidence of the Negro were not,
with few exceptions, men of such high character as would lead them to
assist him in laying a firm foundation for his development. Their
main purpose appears to have been, for selfish ends in too many
instances, merely to control his vote. The history of the
reconstruction era will show that this was unfortunate for all the
parties in interest.
It would have been better, from any point of view, if the native
Southern white man had taken the Negro, at the beginning of his
freedom, into his political confidence, and exercised an influence and
control over him before his political affections were alienated.
The average Southern white man has an idea to-day that, if the Negro
were permitted to get any political power, all the mistakes of the
reconstruction period would be repeated. He forgets or ignores the
fact that thirty years of acquiring education and property and
character have produced a higher type of black man than existed thirty
years ago.
But, to be more specific, for all practical purposes, there are two
political parties in the South,--a black man's party and a white man's
party. In saying this, I do not mean that all white men are Democrats;
for there are some white men in the South of the highest character who
are Republicans, and there are a few Negroes in the South of the
highest character who are Democrats. It is the general understanding
that all white men are Democrats or the equivalent, and that all black
men are Republicans. So long as the colour line is the dividing line
in politics, so long will there be trouble.
The white man feels that he owns most of the property, furnishes the
Negro most of his employment, thinks he pays most of the taxes, and
has had years of experience in government. There is no mistaking the
fact that the feeling which has heretofore governed the Negro--that,
to be manly and stand by his race, he must oppose the Southern white
man with his vote--has had much to do with intensifying the opposition
of the Southern white man to him.
The Southern white man says that it is unreasonable for the Negro to
come to him, in a large measure, for his clothes, board, shelter, and
education, and for his politics to go to men a thousand miles away. He
very properly argues that, when the Negro votes, he should try to
consult the interests of his employer, just as the Pennsylvania
employee tries to vote for the interests of his employer. Further,
that much of the education which has been given the Negro has been
defective, in not preparing him to love labour and to earn his living
at some special industry, and has, in too many cases, resulted in
tempting him to live by his wits as a political creature or by
trusting to his "influence" as a political time-server.
Then, there is no mistaking the fact, that much opposition to the
Negro in politics is due to the circumstance that the Southern white
man has not become accustomed to seeing the Negro exercise political
power either as a voter or as an office-holder. Again, we want to bear
it in mind that the South has not yet reached the point where there is
that strict regard for the enforcement of the law against either black
or white men that there is in many of our Northern and Western States.
This laxity in the enforcement of the laws in general, and especially
of criminal laws, makes such outbreaks as those in North Carolina and
South Carolina of easy occurrence.
Then there is one other consideration which must not be overlooked. It
is the common opinion of almost every black man and almost every white
man that nearly everybody who has had anything to do with the making
of laws bearing upon the protection of the Negro's vote has proceeded
on the theory that all the black men for all time will vote the
Republican ticket and that all the white men in the South will vote
the Democratic ticket. In a word, all seem to have taken it for
granted that the two races are always going to oppose each other in
their voting.
In all the foregoing statements I have not attempted to define my own
views or position, but simply to describe conditions as I have
observed them, that might throw light upon the cause of our political
troubles. As to my own position, I do not favour the Negro's giving up
anything which is fundamental and which has been guaranteed to him by
the Constitution of the United States. It is not best for him to
relinquish any of his rights; nor would his doing so be best for the
Southern white man. Every law placed in the Constitution of the
United States was placed there to encourage and stimulate the highest
citizenship. If the Negro is not stimulated and encouraged by just
State and national laws to become the highest type of citizen, the
result will be worse for the Southern white man than for the Negro.
Take the State of South Carolina, for example, where nearly two-thirds
of the population are Negroes. Unless these Negroes are encouraged by
just election laws to become tax-payers and intelligent producers, the
white people of South Carolina will have an eternal millstone about
their necks.
In an open letter to the State Constitutional Convention of Louisiana,
I wrote:
"I am no politician. On the other hand, I have always advised my
race to give attention to acquiring property, intelligence, and
character, as the necessary bases of good citizenship, rather
than to mere political agitation. But the question upon which I
write is out of the region of ordinary politics. It affects the
civilisation of two races, not for to-day alone, but for a very
long time to come.
"Since the war, no State has had such an opportunity to settle,
for all time, the race question, so far as it concerns politics,
as is now given to Louisiana. Will your convention set an example
to the world in this respect? Will Louisiana take such high and
just grounds in respect to the Negro that no one can doubt that
the South is as good a friend to him as he possesses elsewhere?
In all this, gentlemen of the convention, I am not pleading for
the Negro alone, but for the morals, the higher life, of the
white man as well.
"The Negro agrees with you that it is necessary to the salvation
of the South that restrictions be put upon the ballot. I know
that you have two serious problems before you; ignorant and
corrupt government, on the one hand; and, on the other, a way to
restrict the ballot so that control will be in the hands of the
intelligent, without regard to race. With the sincerest sympathy
with you in your efforts to find a good way out of the
difficulty, I want to suggest that no State in the South can make
a law that will provide an opportunity or temptation for an
ignorant white man to vote, and withhold the opportunity or
temptation from an ignorant coloured man, without injuring both
men. No State can make a law that can thus be executed without
dwarfing, for all time, the morals of the white man in the South.
Any law controlling the ballot that is not absolutely just and
fair to both races will work more permanent injury to the whites
than to the blacks.
"The Negro does not object to an educational and property test,
but let the law be so clear that no one clothed with State
authority will be tempted to perjure and degrade himself by
putting one interpretation upon it for the white man and another
for the black man. Study the history of the South, and you will
find that, where there has been the most dishonesty in the matter
of voting, there you will find to-day the lowest moral condition
of both races. First, there was the temptation to act wrongly
with the Negro's ballot. From this it was an easy step to act
dishonestly with the white man's ballot, to the carrying of
concealed weapons, to the murder of a Negro, and then to the
murder of a white man, and then to lynching. I entreat you not to
pass a law that will prove an eternal millstone about the necks
of your children. No man can have respect for the government and
officers of the law when he knows, deep down in his heart, that
the exercise of the franchise is tainted with fraud.
"The road that the South has been compelled to travel during the
last thirty years has been strewn with thorns and thistles. It
has been as one groping through the long darkness into the light.
The time is not far distant when the world will begin to
appreciate the real character of the burden that was imposed upon
the South in giving the franchise to four millions of ignorant
and impoverished ex-slaves. No people was ever before given such
a problem to solve. History has blazed no path through the
wilderness that could be followed. For thirty years we have
wandered in the wilderness. We are now beginning to get out. But
there is only one road out; and all makeshifts, expedients,
profit and loss calculations, but lead into swamps, quicksands,
quagmires, and jungles. There is a highway that will lead both
races out into the pure, beautiful sunshine, where there will be
nothing to hide and nothing to explain, where both races can
grow strong and true and useful in every fibre of their being. I
believe that your convention will find this highway, that it will
enact a fundamental law that will be absolutely just and fair to
white and black alike.
"I beg of you, further, that in the degree that you close the
ballot-box against the ignorant you will open the school-house.
More than one-half of the population of your State are Negroes.
No State can long prosper when a large part of its citizenship is
in ignorance and poverty, and has no interest in the government.
I beg of you that you do not treat us as an alien people. We are
not aliens. You know us. You know that we have cleared your
forests, tilled your fields, nursed your children, and protected
your families. There is an attachment between us that few
understand. While I do not presume to be able to advise you, yet
it is in my heart to say that, if your convention would do
something that would prevent for all time strained relations
between the two races, and would permanently settle the matter of
political relations in one Southern State at least, let the very
best educational opportunities be provided for both races; and
add to this an election law that shall be incapable of unjust
discrimination, at the same time providing that, in proportion as
the ignorant secure education, property, and character, they will
be given the right of citizenship. Any other course will take
from one-half your citizens interest in the State, and hope and
ambition to become intelligent producers and tax-payers, and
useful and virtuous citizens. Any other course will tie the white
citizens of Louisiana to a body of death.
"The Negroes are not unmindful of the fact that the poverty of
the State prevents it from doing all that it desires for public
education; yet I believe that you will agree with me that
ignorance is more costly to the State than education, that it
will cost Louisiana more not to educate the Negroes than it will
to educate them. In connection with a generous provision for
public schools, I believe that nothing will so help my own people
in your State as provision at some institution for the highest
academic and normal training, in connection with thorough
training in agriculture, mechanics, and domestic economy.
First-class training in agriculture, horticulture, dairying,
stock-raising, the mechanical arts, and domestic economy, would
make us intelligent producers, and not only help us to contribute
our honest share as tax-payers, but would result in retaining
much money in the State that now goes outside for that which can
be as well produced at home. An institution which will give this
training of the hand, along with the highest mental culture,
would soon convince our people that their salvation is largely
in the ownership of property and in industrial and business
development, rather than in mere political agitation.
"The highest test of the civilisation of any race is in its
willingness to extend a helping hand to the less fortunate. A
race, like an individual, lifts itself up by lifting others up.
Surely, no people ever had a greater chance to exhibit the
highest Christian fortitude and magnanimity than is now presented
to the people of Louisiana. It requires little wisdom or
statesmanship to repress, to crush out, to retard the hopes and
aspirations of a people; but the highest and most profound
statesmanship is shown in guiding and stimulating a people, so
that every fibre in the body and soul shall be made to contribute
in the highest degree to the usefulness and ability of the State.
It is along this line that I pray God the thoughts and
activities of your convention may be guided."
As to such outbreaks as have recently occurred in North Carolina and
South Carolina, the remedy will not be reached by the Southern white
man merely depriving the Negro of his rights and privileges. This
method is but superficial, irritating, and must, in the nature of
things, be short-lived. The statesman, to cure an evil, resorts to
enlightenment, to stimulation; the politician, to repression. I have
just remarked that I favour the giving up of nothing that is
guaranteed to us by the Constitution of the United States, or that is
fundamental to our citizenship. While I hold to these views as
strongly as any one, I differ with some as to the method of securing
the permanent and peaceful enjoyment of all the privileges guaranteed
to us by our fundamental law.
In finding a remedy, we must recognise the world-wide fact that the
Negro must be led to see and feel that he must make every effort
possible, in every way possible, to secure the friendship, the
confidence, the co-operation of his white neighbour in the South. To
do this, it is not necessary for the Negro to become a truckler or a
trimmer. The Southern white man has no respect for a Negro who does
not act from principle. In some way the Southern white man must be led
to see that it is to his interest to turn his attention more and more
to the making of laws that will, in the truest sense, elevate the
Negro. At the present moment, in many cases, when one attempts to get
the Negro to co-operate with the Southern white man, he asks the
question, "Can the people who force me to ride in a Jim Crow car, and
pay first-class fare, be my best friends?" In answering such
questions, the Southern white man, as well as the Negro, has a duty to
perform. In the exercise of his political rights I should advise the
Negro to be temperate and modest, and more and more to do his own
thinking.
I believe the permanent cure for our present evils will come through a
property and educational test for voting that shall apply honestly and
fairly to both races. This will cut off the large mass of ignorant
voters of both races that is now proving so demoralising a factor in
the politics of the Southern States.
But, most of all, it will come through industrial development of the
Negro. Industrial education makes an intelligent producer of the
Negro, who becomes of immediate value to the community rather than
one who yields to the temptation to live merely by politics or
other parasitical employments. It will make him soon become a
property-holder; and, when a citizen becomes a holder of property, he
becomes a conservative and thoughtful voter. He will more carefully
consider the measures and individuals to be voted for. In proportion
as he increases his property interests, he becomes important as a
tax-payer.
There is little trouble between the Negro and the white man in matters
of education; and, when it comes to his business development, the
black man has implicit faith in the advice of the Southern white man.
When he gets into trouble in the courts, which requires a bond to be
given, in nine cases out of ten, he goes to a Southern white man for
advice and assistance. Every one who has lived in the South knows
that, in many of the church troubles among the coloured people, the
ministers and other church officers apply to the nearest white
minister for assistance and instruction. When by reason of mutual
concession we reach the point where we shall consult the Southern
white man about our politics as we now consult him about our
business, legal, and religious matters, there will be a change for the
better in the situation.
The object-lesson of a thousand Negroes in every county in the South
who own neat and comfortable homes, possessing skill, industry, and
thrift, with money in the bank, and are large tax-payers co-operating
with the white men in the South in every manly way for the development
of their own communities and counties, will go a long way, in a few
years, toward changing the present status of the Negro as a citizen,
as well as the attitude of the whites toward the blacks.
As the Negro grows in industrial and business directions, he will
divide in his politics on economic issues, just as the white man in
other parts of the country now divides his vote. As the South grows in
business prosperity it will divide its vote on economic issues, just
as other sections of the country divide their vote. When we can enact
laws that result in honestly cutting off the large ignorant and
non-tax-paying vote, and when we can bring both races to the point
where they will co-operate with each other in politics, as they do now
in matters of business, religion, and education, the problem will be
in a large measure solved, and political outbreaks will cease.