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CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN HISTORY
1877-1913
by
CHARLES A. BEARD
Associate Professor Of Politics in Columbia University
New York
The Macmillan Company
1914
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1914,
By The Macmillan Company.
Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1914.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
PREFACE
In teaching American government and politics, I constantly meet large
numbers of students who have no knowledge of the most elementary facts
of American history since the Civil War. When they are taken to task for
their neglect, they reply that there is no textbook dealing with the
period, and that the smaller histories are sadly deficient in their
treatment of our age.
It is to supply the student and general reader with a handy guide to
contemporary history that I have undertaken this volume. I have made no
attempt to present an "artistically balanced" account of the last
thirty-five years, but have sought rather to furnish a background for
the leading issues of current politics and to enlist the interest of the
student in the history of the most wonderful period in American
development. The book is necessarily somewhat "impressionistic" and in
part it is based upon materials which have not been adequately sifted
and evaluated. Nevertheless, I have endeavored to be accurate and fair,
and at the same time to invite on the part of the student some of that
free play of the mind which Matthew Arnold has shown to be so helpful in
literary criticism.
Although the volume has been designed, in a way, as a textbook, I have
thrown aside the methods of the almanac and chronicle, and, at the risk
of displeasing the reader who expects a little about everything
(including the Sioux war and the San Francisco earthquake), I have
omitted with a light heart many of the staples of history in order to
treat more fully the matters which seem important from the modern point
of view. I have also refused to mar the pages with black type, paragraph
numbers, and other "apparatus" which tradition has prescribed for
"manuals." Detailed election statistics and the guide to additional
reading I have placed in an appendix.
In the preparation of the book, I have made extensive use of the volumes
by Professors Dunning, Sparks, Dewey, and Latane, in the American Nation
Series, and I wish to acknowledge once for all my deep debt to them. My
colleague, Mr. B. B. Kendrick, read all of the proofs and saved me from
many an error. Professor R. L. Schuyler gave me the benefit of his
criticisms on part of the proof. To Dr. Louis A. Mayers, of the College
of the City of New York, I am under special obligations for valuable
suggestions as to arrangement and for drafting a large portion of
Chapter III. The shortcomings of the book fall to me, but I shall be
recompensed for my indiscretions, if this volume is speedily followed by
a number of texts, large and small, dealing with American history since
the Civil War. It is showing no disrespect to our ancestors to be as
much interested in our age as they were in theirs; and the doctrine that
we can know more about Andrew Jackson whom we have not seen than about
Theodore Roosevelt whom we have seen is a pernicious psychological
error.
CHARLES A. BEARD.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY,
November, 1913.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE RESTORATION OF WHITE DOMINION IN THE SOUTH 1
II. THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION 27
III. THE REVOLUTION IN POLITICS AND LAW 50
IV. PARTIES AND PARTY ISSUES, 1877-1896 90
V. TWO DECADES OF FEDERAL LEGISLATION, 1877-1896 117
VI. THE GROWTH OF DISSENT 143
VII. THE CAMPAIGN OF 1896 164
VIII. IMPERIALISM 199
IX. THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM 229
X. THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT 254
XI. THE REVIVAL OF DISSENT 283
XII. MR. TAFT AND REPUBLICAN DISINTEGRATION 317
XIII. THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 344
APPENDIX 382
BIBLIOGRAPHY 383
INDEX 391
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN HISTORY
CHAPTER I
THE RESTORATION OF WHITE DOMINION IN THE SOUTH
When President Hayes was inaugurated on March 4, 1877, the southern
whites had almost shaken off the Republican rule which had been set up
under the protection of Federal soldiers at the close of the Civil War.
In only two states, Louisiana and South Carolina, were Republican
governors nominally in power, and these last "rulers of conquered
provinces" had only a weak grip upon their offices, which they could not
have maintained for a moment without the aid of Union troops stationed
at their capitals. By secret societies, like the Ku Klux Klan, and by
open intimidation, the conservative whites had practically recovered
from the negroes, whom the Republicans had enfranchised, the political
power which had been wrested from the old ruling class at the close of
the War. In this nullification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal
Constitution and other measures designed to secure the suffrage for the
former bondmen, President Grant had acquiesced, and it was openly
rumored that Hayes would put an end to the military regime in Louisiana
and South Carolina, leaving the southern people to fight out their own
battles.
Nevertheless, the Republicans in the North were apparently loath to
accept accomplished facts. In their platform of 1876, upon which Hayes
was elected, they recalled with pride their achievement in saving the
Union and purging the land of slavery; they pledged themselves to pacify
the South and protect the rights of all citizens there; they pronounced
it to be a solemn obligation upon the Federal government to enforce the
Civil War amendments and to secure "to every citizen complete liberty
and exact equality in the exercise of all civil, political, and public
rights." Moreover, they charged the Democratic party with being "the
same in character and spirit as when it sympathized with treason."
But this vehement declaration was only the death cry of the gladiators
of the radical Republican school. Stevens and Sumner, who championed the
claims of the negroes to full civil and political rights, were gone; and
the new leaders, like Conkling and Blaine, although they still waxed
eloquent over the wrongs of the freedmen, were more concerned about the
forward swing of railway and capitalist enterprises in the North and
West than they were about maintaining in the South the rule of a handful
of white Republicans supported by negro voters. Only a few of the
old-school Republicans who firmly believed in the doctrine of the
"natural rights" of the negro, and the officeholders and speculators who
were anxious to exploit the South really in their hearts supported a
continuance of the military rule in "the conquered provinces."
Moreover, there were special circumstances which made it improbable that
President Hayes would permit the further use of troops in Louisiana and
South Carolina. His election had been stoutly disputed and it was only a
stroke of good fortune that permitted his inauguration at all. It was
openly charged that his managers, during the contest over the results of
the election in 1876, had promised the abolition of the military regime
in the South in return for aid on the part of certain Democrats in
securing a settlement of the dispute in his favor. Hayes himself had,
however, maintained consistently that vague attitude so characteristic
of practical politicians. In his speech of acceptance, he promised to
help the southern states to obtain "the blessings of honest and capable
self-government." But he added also that the advancement of the
prosperity of those states could be made most effectually by "a hearty
and generous recognition of the rights of all by all." Moreover, he
approved a statement by one of his supporters to the effect that he
would restore all freemen to their rights as citizens and at the same
time obliterate sectional lines--a promise obviously impossible to
fulfill.
Whether there was any real "bargain" between Hayes and the Democratic
managers matters little, for the policy which he adopted was inevitable,
sooner or later, because there was no active political support even in
the North for a contrary policy. A few weeks after his inauguration
Hayes sent a commission of eminent men to Louisiana to investigate the
claims of the rival governments there--for there were two legislatures
and two governors in that commonwealth contending for power. The
commission found that the Republican administration, headed by Governor
Packard, was little more than a sham, and advised President Hayes of
the fact. Thereupon the President, on April 9, 1877, ordered the
withdrawal of the Federal troops from the public buildings, and
Louisiana began the restoration of her shattered fortunes under the
conservative white leadership. A day later, the President also withdrew
the troops from the capitol at Columbia, South Carolina, and the
Democratic administration under Governor Wade Hampton, a former
Confederate veteran, was duly recognized. Henceforward, the freedmen of
the South were to depend upon the generosity of the whites and upon
their own collective efforts, aided by their sympathizers, for whatever
civil and political rights they were permitted to enjoy.
_The Disfranchisement of the Negro_
Having secured the abolition of direct Federal military interference
with state administrations in the South, the Democrats turned to the
abrogation of the Federal election laws that had been passed in
1870-1871, as a part of the regular reconstruction policy for protecting
the negroes in the exercise of the suffrage. These election laws
prescribed penalties for intimidation at the polls, provided for the
appointment, by Federal circuit courts, of supervisors charged with the
duty of scrutinizing the entire election process, and authorized the
employment of United States marshals, deputies, and soldiers to support
and protect the supervisors in the discharge of their duties and to keep
the peace at the polls.
These laws, the Republican authors urged, were designed to safeguard
the purity of the ballot, not only in the South but also in the North,
and particularly in New York, where it was claimed that fraud was
regularly employed by the Democratic leaders. John Sherman declared that
the Democrats in Congress would be a "pitiful minority, if those elected
by fraud and bloodshed were debarred," adding that, "in the South one
million Republicans are disfranchised." Democrats, on the other hand,
replied that these laws were nothing more than a part of a gigantic
scheme originated by the Republicans to fasten their rule upon the
country forever by systematic interference with elections. Democratic
suspicions were strengthened by reports of many scandals--for instance,
that the supervisors in Louisiana under the Republican regime had
registered "eight thousand more colored voters than there were in the
state when the census was taken four years later." Undoubtedly, there
were plenty of frauds on both sides, and it is an open question whether
Federal interference reduced or increased the amount.
At all events, the Democrats, finding themselves in a majority in the
House of Representatives in 1877, determined to secure the repeal of the
"force laws," and in their desperation they resorted to the practice of
attaching their repeal measures to appropriation bills in the hope of
compelling President Hayes to sign them or tying up the wheels of
government by a stoppage in finances. Hayes was equal to the occasion,
and by a vigorous use of the veto power he defeated the direct assaults
of the Democrats on the election laws. At length, however, in June,
1878, he was compelled to accept a "rider" in the form of a proviso to
the annual appropriation bill for the army making it impossible for
United States marshals to employ federal troops in the execution of the
election laws. While this did not satisfy the Democrats by any means,
because it still left Federal supervision under the marshals, their
deputies and the election supervisors, it took away the main prop of the
Republicans in the South--the use of troops at elections.
The effect of this achievement on the part of the Democrats was apparent
in the succeeding congressional election, for they were able to carry
all of the southern districts except four. This cannot be attributed,
however, entirely to the suppression of the negro vote, for there was a
general landslide in 1878 which gave the Democrats a substantial
majority in both the House and the Senate. Inasmuch as a spirit of
toleration was growing up in Congress, the clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment excluding from Congress certain persons formerly connected
with the Confederacy, was not strictly enforced, and several of the most
prominent and active representatives of the old regime found their way
into both houses. Under their vigorous leadership a two years' political
war was waged between Congress and the President over the repeal of the
force bills, but Hayes won the day, because the Democrats could not
secure the requisite two-thirds vote to carry their measures against the
presidential veto.
However, the Supreme Court had been undermining the "force laws" by
nullifying separate sections, although it upheld the general principle
of the election laws against a contention that elections were wholly
within the control of state authorities. In the case of United States
_v._ Reese, the Court, in 1875, declared void two sections of the law of
1870 "because they did not strictly limit Federal jurisdiction for
protection of the right to vote to cases where the right was denied _by
a state_," but extended it to denials by private parties. In the same
year in the case of United States _v._ Cruikshank the Court gave another
blow to Federal control, in the South. A number of private citizens in
Louisiana had waged war on the blacks at an election riot, and one of
them, Cruikshank, was charged with conspiracy to deprive negroes of
rights which they enjoyed under the protection of the United States. The
Supreme Court, however, held that the Federal government had no
authority to protect the citizens of a state _against one another_, but
that such protection was, as always, a duty of the state itself. Seven
years later the Supreme Court, in the case of United States _v._ Harris,
declared null that part of the enforcement laws which penalized
conspiracies of two or more citizens to deprive another of his rights,
on the same ground as advanced in the Louisiana case.[1]
On the withdrawal of Federal troops and the open abandonment of the
policy of military coercion, the whites, seeing that the Federal courts
were not inclined to interfere, quickly completed the process of
obtaining control over the machinery of state government. That process
had been begun shortly after the War, taking the form of intimidation
at the polls. It was carried forward another step when the "carpet
baggers" and other politicians who had organized and used the negro vote
were deprived of Federal support and driven out. When this active
outside interference in southern politics was cut off, thousands of
negroes stayed away from the polls through sheer indifference, for their
interest in politics had been stimulated by artificial forces--bribery
and absurd promises. Intimidation and indifference worked a widespread
disfranchisement before the close of the seventies.
These early stages in the process of disfranchisement were described by
Senator Tillman in his famous speech of February 26, 1900. "You stood up
there and insisted that we give these people a 'free vote and a fair
count.' They had it for eight years, as long as the bayonets stood
there.... We preferred to have a United States army officer rather than
a government of carpet baggers and thieves and scallywags and scoundrels
who had stolen everything in sight and mortgaged posterity; who had run
their felonious paws into the pockets of posterity by issuing bonds.
When that happened we took the government away. We stuffed the ballot
boxes. We shot them. We are not ashamed of it. With that system--force,
tissue ballots, etc.--we got tired ourselves. So we had a constitutional
convention, and we eliminated, as I said, all of the colored people whom
we could under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments." The experience
of South Carolina was duplicated in Mississippi. "For a time," said the
Hon. Thomas Spight, of that state, in Congress, in 1904, "we were
compelled to employ methods that were extremely distasteful and very
demoralizing, but now we are accomplishing the same and even better
results by strictly constitutional and legal procedure." It should be
said, however, that in the states where the negro population was
relatively smaller, violence was not necessary to exclude the negroes
from the polls.
A peaceful method of disfranchising negroes and poor whites was the
imposition of a poll tax on voters. Negroes seldom paid their taxes
until the fight over prohibition commenced in the eighties and nineties.
Then the liquor interests began to pay the negroes' poll taxes and by a
generous distribution of their commodities were able to carry the day at
the polls. Thereupon the prohibitionists determined to find some
effective constitutional means of excluding the negroes from voting.
This last stage in the disfranchisement process--the disqualification of
negroes by ingenious constitutional and statutory provisions--was
hastened by the rise during the eighties and nineties of the radical or
Populist party in the South, which evenly balanced the Democratic party
in many places and threatened for a time to disintegrate the older
organization. In this contest between the white factions a small number
of active negroes secured an extraordinary influence in holding the
balance of power; and both white parties sought to secure predominance
by purchasing the venal negro vote which was as large as, or perhaps
larger than, the venal white vote in such northern states as
Connecticut, Rhode Island, or Indiana. The conservative wing of the
white population was happy to take advantage of the prevailing race
prejudice to secure the enactment of legislation disfranchising a
considerable number of the propertyless whites as well as the negroes;
and the radicals grew tired of buying negro voters.
Out of this condition of affairs came a series of constitutional
conventions which devised all sorts of restrictions to exclude the
negroes and large numbers of the "lower classes" from voting altogether,
without directly violating the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal
Constitution providing against disfranchisement on account of race,
color, or previous condition of servitude.
The series of conventions opened in Mississippi in 1890, where the
Populistic whites were perhaps numerically fewest. At that time
Mississippi was governed under the constitution of 1868, which provided
that no property or educational test should be required of voters, at
least not before 1885, and also stipulated that no amendment should be
made except by legislative proposal ratified by the voters.
Notwithstanding this provision, the legislature in February, 1890,
called a convention to amend the constitution "or enact a new
constitution." This convention proceeded to "ordain and establish" a new
frame of government, without referring it to the voters for
ratification; and the courts of the state set judicial sanction on the
procedure, saying that popular ratification was not necessary. This
constitution provides that every elector shall, in addition to
possessing other qualifications, "be able to read any section of the
constitution of this state; or he shall be able to understand the same
when read to him or to give a reasonable interpretation thereof." Under
such a general provision everything depends upon the attitude of the
election officials toward the applicants for registration, for it is
possible to disfranchise any person, no matter how well educated, by
requiring the "interpretation" of some obscure and technical legal
point.
Five years later South Carolina followed the example of Mississippi, and
by means of a state convention enacted a new constitution disfranchising
negroes; and put it into force without submitting it to popular
ratification.[2] The next year (1896) the legislature of Louisiana
called a convention empowered to frame a new constitution and to put it
into effect without popular approval. This movement was opposed by the
Populists, one of whom declared in the legislature that it was "a step
in the direction of taking the government of this state out of the hands
of the masses and putting it in the hands of the classes." In spite of
the opposition, which was rather formidable, the convention was
assembled, and ordained a new frame of government (1898) disfranchising
negroes and many whites. The Hon. T. J. Symmes, addressing the
convention at the close, frankly stated that their purpose was to
establish the supremacy of the Democratic party as the white man's
party.
Four principal devices are now employed in the several constitutional
provisions disfranchising negroes: (1) a small property qualification,
(2) a prerequisite that the voter must be able to read any section of
the state constitution or explain it, when read, to the satisfaction of
the registering officers, (3) the "grandfather clause," as in Louisiana
where any person, who voted on or before 1867 or the son or grandson of
such person, may vote, even if he does not possess the other
qualifications; and (4) the wide extension of disfranchisement for
crimes by including such offenses as obtaining money under false
pretenses, adultery, wife-beating, petit larceny, fraudulent breach of
trust, among those which work deprivation of the suffrage.
The effect of these limitations on the colored vote has been to reduce
it seriously in the far South. If the negro has the amount of taxable
property required by the constitution, he is caught by the provision
which requires him to explain a section of the state constitution to the
satisfaction of the white registering officers. The meanest white,
however, can usually get through the net with the aid of his
grandfather, or by showing his expertness in constitutional law. Mr. J.
C. Rose has published the election statistics for South Carolina and
Mississippi;[3] it appears that in those states there were, in 1900,
about 350,796 adult male negroes and that the total Republican vote in
both commonwealths in the national election of that year was only 5443.
At a rough guess perhaps 2000 votes of this number were cast by white
men, and the conclusion must be that about ninety-nine out of every
hundred negroes failed to vote for President in those states. It is
fair to state, however, that indifference on the part of the negroes was
to some extent responsible for the small vote.
The legal restrictions completed the work which had been begun by
intimidation. Under the new constitution of 1890 in Mississippi, only
8615 negroes out of 147,000 of a voting age were registered. In four
years, the number registered in Louisiana fell from 127,000 in 1896 to
5300 in 1900. This was the exact result which the advocates of white
supremacy desired to attain, and in this they were warmly supported by
eminent Democrats in the North. "The white man in the South," said Mr.
Bryan in a speech in New York, in 1908, "has disfranchised the negro in
self-protection; and there is not a Republican in the North who would
not have done the same thing under the same circumstances. The white men
of the South are determined that the negro will and shall be
disfranchised everywhere it is necessary to prevent the recurrence of
the horrors of carpet bag rule."
Several attempts have been made to test the constitutionality of these
laws in the Supreme Court of the United States, but that tribunal has
been able to avoid coming to a direct decision on the merits of the
particular measures--and with a convincing display of legal reasoning.
The Constitution of the United States simply states that no citizen
shall be deprived of the right to vote on account of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude, and that the representation of any
state in Congress shall be reduced in the proportion to which it
deprives adult male citizens of the franchise. The ingenious provisions
of the southern constitutions do not deprive the negro of the right to
vote on account of his color, but on account of his grandfather, or his
inability to expound the constitution, or his poverty. In one of the
cases before the Supreme Court, the plaintiff alleged that the Alabama
constitution was in fact designed to deprive the negro of the vote, but
the Court answered that it could not afford the remedy, that it could
not operate the election machinery of the state, and that relief would
have to come from the state itself, or from the legislative and
political departments of the Federal government.[4]
_Social Discrimination against the Negro_
The whites in the South were even less willing to submit to anything
approaching social equality with the negro than they were to accept
political equality. Discriminations against the negro in schools, inns,
theaters, churches, and other public places had been common in the North
both before and after the Civil War, and had received judicial sanction;
and it may well be imagined that the southern masters were in no mood,
after the War, to be put on the same social plane as their former
slaves, and the poor whites were naturally proud of their only
possession--a white skin. Knowing full well that this temper prevailed
in the South the radical Republicans in Congress had pushed through on
March 1, 1875, a second Civil Rights Act designed to establish a certain
social equality, so far as that could be done by law.
The spirit of this act was reflected in the preamble: "Whereas it is
essential to just government, we recognize the equality of all men
before the law, and hold that it is the duty of government in its
dealings with the people to mete out equal and exact justice to all, of
whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political;
and it being the appropriate object of legislation to enact great
fundamental principles into law." After this profession of faith, the
act proceeds to declare that all persons within the jurisdiction of the
United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the
accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public
conveyances on land or water, theaters and other places of amusement,
subject to limitations applied to all alike, regardless of race or
color. The act further provided that in the selection of jurors no
discrimination should be made on account of race, color, or previous
condition of servitude under a penalty of not more than $5,000.
Jurisdiction over offenses was conferred upon the district and circuit
courts of the United States, and heavy penalties were imposed upon those
who violated the law. This measure was, of course, hotly resisted, and,
in fact, nullified everywhere throughout the Union, north and
south--except in some of the simple rural regions.
The validity of the act came before the Supreme Court for adjudication
in the celebrated Civil Rights Cases in 1883 and a part of the law was
declared unconstitutional in an opinion of the Court rendered by Mr.
Justice Bradley. According to his view, the Fourteenth Amendment did not
authorize Congress to legislate upon subjects which were in the domain
of state legislation--that is to create a code of municipal law for the
regulation of private rights; but it merely authorized Congress to
provide modes of relief against state legislation and the action of
state officers, executive or judicial, which were subversive of the
fundamental rights specified in the amendment. "Until some state law has
been passed," he said, "or some state action through its officers or
agents has been taken, adverse to the rights of citizens sought to be
protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, no legislation of the United
States under said Amendment, nor any proceeding under such legislation
can be called into activity: for the prohibitions of the Amendment are
against state laws and acts done under state authority."
The question as to whether the equal enjoyment of the accommodations in
inns, conveyances, and places of amusement was an essential right of the
citizen which no state could abridge or interfere with, Justice Bradley
declined to examine on the ground that it was not necessary to the
decision of the case. He did, however, inquire into the proposition as
to whether Congress, in enforcing the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing
slavery and involuntary servitude, could secure the social equality
contemplated by the act, under the color of sweeping away all the badges
and incidents of slavery. And on this point he came to the conclusion
that mere discriminations on account of race or color could not be
regarded as badges of slavery. "There were," he added, "thousands of
free colored people in this country before the abolition of slavery,
enjoying all of the essential rights of life, liberty, and property the
same as white citizens; and yet no one at that time thought that it was
any invasion of his personal status as a freeman because he was not
admitted to all of the privileges enjoyed by white citizens, or because
he was subjected to discriminations in the enjoyment of accommodations
in inns, public conveyances, and places of amusement."
Clearly, there was no authority in either the Thirteenth or Fourteenth
Amendment for the section of the Civil Rights Act relative to inns,
conveyances, and places of amusement, at least so far as its operation
in the several states was concerned. If, however, any state should see
fit to make or authorize unlawful discriminations amenable to the
prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress had the power to
afford a remedy or the courts in enforcing the Amendment could give
judicial relief. Thus, while the Justice did not definitely say that the
elements of social equality provided in the Civil Rights Act were not
guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, his line of reasoning and his
language left little doubt as to what was the view of the Court.
Section four of the Civil Rights Act forbidding, under penalty,
discrimination against any person on account of race, color, or previous
condition of servitude in the selection of jurors had been passed upon
by the Supreme Court in the case of _Ex parte_ Virginia, decided in
1879, in which the section was held to be constitutional as providing
not a code of municipal law for the regulation of private rights, but a
mode of redress against the operation of state laws. The ground of
distinction between the two cases is clear. A section forbidding
discrimination in inns and conveyances is in the nature of a code of
private law, but a section forbidding discrimination in the selection of
jurors under penalty simply provides a mode of redress against
violations of the Fourteenth Amendment by state authorities.
Undoubtedly there is an admissible distinction between discrimination
against negroes in the selection of juries and the discrimination
against them in inns and public conveyances, for the former may have
definite connection with the security of those civil rights of person
and property--as distinct from social rights--which the Fourteenth
Amendment was clearly designed to enforce. This was the principle which
was brought out by the Court in the two decisions.[5] But if Justice
Bradley in the Civil Rights cases had frankly made the distinction
between _civil_ and _social_ rights, and declared the act
unconstitutional on the ground that it attempted to secure social rights
which the Fourteenth Amendment was not intended to establish, then the
decisions of the Court would have been far more definite in character.
Even if the Supreme Court had not declared the social equality provision
of the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional, it is questionable whether any
real attempt would have been made to enforce it. As it turned out, the
Court gave judicial sanction to a view undoubtedly entertained by the
major portion of the whites everywhere, and it encouraged the South to
proceed with further discriminatory legislation separating the races in
all public and quasi-public places. Railroads and common carriers were
compelled to provide separate accommodations for whites and blacks, "Jim
Crow Cars," as they are called in popular parlance, and to furnish
special seats in street railway cars. These laws have also been upheld
by the courts; but not without a great strain on their logical
faculties.
Undoubtedly there are mixed motives behind such legislation. It is in
some part a class feeling, for whites are allowed to take their colored
servants in the regular coaches and sleeping cars. Nevertheless, the
race feeling unquestionably predominates. As the author of the Louisiana
"Jim Crow Car" law put it: "It is not only the desire to separate the
whites and blacks on the railroads for the comfort it will provide, but
also for the moral effect. The separation of the races is one of the
benefits, but the demonstration of the superiority of the white man over
the negro is the greater thing. There is nothing that shows it more
conclusively than the compelling of negroes to ride in cars marked for
their especial use."
_The Attitude of the North_
Although all possibility of northern interference with the southern
states in the management of their domestic affairs seemed to have
disappeared by Cleveland's first administration, the negro question was
continuously agitated by Republican politicians, and at times with great
vigor. They were much distressed at losing their Federal patronage
after the election of Cleveland in 1884; and this first Democratic
presidential victory after the War led many of them to believe that they
could recover their lost ground only by securing to the negro the right
to vote. The Republicans were also deeply stirred by the
over-representation of the South in the House of Representatives under
the prevailing system of apportionment. They pointed out that the North
was, in this respect, at even a greater disadvantage than before the
Civil War and emancipation.
Under the original Constitution of the United States, only three fifths
of the slaves were counted in apportioning representatives among the
states; under the Fourteenth Amendment all the negroes were counted,
thus enlarging the representation of the southern states. And yet the
negroes were for practical purposes as disfranchised as they were when
they were in servitude. It was pointed out that "in the election of 1888
the average vote cast for a member of Congress in five southern states
was less than eight thousand; in five northern states, over thirty-six
thousand. Kansas, which cast three times the vote of South Carolina, had
only the same number of congressmen." The discrepancy tended to
increase, if anything. In 1906, a Mississippi district with a population
of 232,174 cast 1540 votes, while a New York district with 215,305 cast
29,119 votes.
The Republicans have several times threatened to alter this anomalous
condition of affairs. In 1890, Mr. Lodge introduced in the House of
Representatives a bill providing for the appointment of federal election
commissioners, on petition of local voters, endowed with powers to
register and count all votes, even in the face of the opposition of
local officers. This measure, which passed the House, was at length
killed in the Senate. In their platform of 1904, the Republicans
declared in favor of restoring the negro to his rights under the
Constitution, and for political purposes the party in the House later
coupled a registration and election law with the measure providing for
publicity of campaign contributions. It was not acted upon in the
Senate. In 1908, the Republicans in their platform declared "once more
and without reservation, for the enforcement in letter and spirit of the
Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution
which were designed for the protection and advancement of the negro,"
and condemned all devices designed to disfranchise him on grounds of
color alone. Although they have been in possession of all branches of
the Federal government several times, the Republicans have deemed it
inexpedient to carry out their campaign promises.
With the decline in the influence of the Civil War veterans in politics,
the possibility of Federal interference has steadily decreased. The
North had never been abolitionist in temper or political belief, as the
vote of the Free Soil party demonstrates. The Republican party was a
homestead, railway, and protectionist party opposed to slavery in the
territories, and its great leader, Lincoln, had long been on record as
opposed to political and social equality for the negro. Emancipation had
come as a stroke of fortune--not because a majority of the people had
deliberately come to the conclusion that it was a measure of justice. As
in the French Revolution at its height, the extreme radicals forged to
the front for a time, so during the Civil War and its aftermath,
"radical" Republicans held the center of the stage and gave to politics
a flavor of talk about "human rights" which was foreign to practical
statesmen like Clay and Webster. In a little while, practical men came
to the helm once more, and they were primarily interested in economic
matters--railways, finance, tariff, corporations, natural resources, and
western development. The cash nexus with the South was formed once more,
and made far stronger and subtler than in olden days. Agitation of the
negro question became bad form in the North, except for quadrennial
political purposes.
_The Negro Problem_
Thus the negro, suddenly elevated to a great height politically, was
almost as suddenly dropped by his new friends and thrown largely upon
his own ingenuity and resources for further advance. His emancipation
and enfranchisement had come almost without effort on his own part,
without that development of economic interest and of class consciousness
that had marked the rise of other social strata to political power. It
was fortuitous and had no solid foundation. It became evident,
therefore, that any permanent advance of the race must be built on
substantial elements of power in the race itself. The whites might help
with education and industrial training, but the hope of the race lay in
the development of intellectual and economic power on its own account.
In relative numerical strength the negro is not holding his own, because
of the large immigration from Europe. In 1790, the negro population
formed 19.3 per cent of the whole, and since that time it has almost
steadily declined, reaching at the last census 10.7 per cent of the
whole. Even in the southern states where the stream of foreign
immigration is the least, the negro population has fallen from 35.2 per
cent in 1790 to 29.8 per cent in 1910. In education, the negro has
undoubtedly made great progress since the War, but it must be remembered
that he was then at the bottom of the scale. The South, though poor as
compared with the North, has made large expenditures for negro
education, but it is authoritatively reported that "nearly half of the
negro children of school age in the South never get inside of the
schoolhouse."[6] The relative expenditures for the education of white
and colored children there are not ascertainable, but naturally the
balance is heavily in favor of the former. When we recall, however, the
total illiteracy of the race under slavery and then discover that in
1910 there was an average daily attendance of 1,105,629 colored children
in the southern schools, we cannot avoid the conclusion that decided
changes are destined to be made in the intellectual outlook of the race.
Reports also show that negroes are accumulating considerable property
and are becoming in large numbers the holders of small farms.
Nevertheless a very careful scholar, Dr. Walter Willcox, believes that
the figures "seem to show that the negro race at the South, in its
competition with the whites, lost ground between 1890 and 1900 in the
majority of skilled occupations which can be distinguished by the aid of
the census figures." Taking the economic status of the race as a whole,
the same authority adds: "The conclusion to which I am brought is that
relatively to the whites in the South, if not absolutely as measured by
any conceivable standard, the negro as a race is losing ground, is being
confined more and more to the inferior and less remunerative
occupations, and is not sharing proportionately to his numbers in the
prosperity of the country as a whole or of the section in which he
mainly lives."
The conclusions of the statistician are confirmed by the impressions of
such eminent champions of the negro as Dr. W. B. Dubois and Mr. Thomas
Fortune. The former declares that "in well-nigh the whole rural South
the black farmers are peons, bound by law and custom to an economic
slavery, from which the only escape is death or the penitentiary." The
latter holds that the negro has simply passed from chattel to industrial
slavery "with none of the legal and selfish restraints upon the employer
which surrounded and actuated the master." These writers attribute the
slow advance of the race to the bondage of law and prejudice to which it
is subjected in the South, and everywhere in the country, as a matter of
fact. Whatever the cause may be, there seems to be no doubt that the
colored race has not made that substantial economic advance and achieved
that standard of life which its friends hoped would follow from
emancipation. Those writers who emphasize heredity in social evolution
point to this as an evidence of the inherent disabilities of the race;
while those who emphasize environment point out the immense handicap
everywhere imposed on the race by law, custom, and prejudice.
Whatever may be the real truth about the economic status of the race,
and after all it is the relative progress of the mass that determines
the future of the race, there can be no doubt that there is an
increasing "race consciousness" which will have to be reckoned with. The
more conservative school, led by Booker T. Washington, is working to
secure for the negro an industrial training that will give him some kind
of an economic standing in the community, and if this is achieved for
large numbers, a radical change in social and political outlook will
follow, unless all signs of history fail. On the other hand, there is
growing up a radical party, under the inspiration of Dr. W. B. Dubois,
which pleads for unconditional political and social equality as a
measure of immediate justice. Dr. Dubois demands "the raising of the
negro in America to full rights and citizenship. And I mean by this no
halfway measures; I mean full and fair equality. That is, a chance to
work regardless of color, to aspire to position and preferment on the
basis of desert alone, to have the right to use public conveniences, to
enter public places of amusement on the same terms as other people, and
to be received socially by such persons as might wish to receive them."
With both of these influences at work and all the forces of modern life
playing upon the keener section of the colored population, nothing but
congenital disabilities can prevent a movement which ruling persons,
North and South, will have to take into account. How serious this
movement becomes depends, however, upon the innate capacity of colored
masses to throw off the shiftlessness and indifference to high standards
of life that, their best friends admit, stand in the way of their
gaining a substantial economic basis, without which any kind of a solid
political superstructure is impossible. The real negro question now is:
"Can the race demonstrate that capacity for sustained economic activity
and permanent organization which has lifted the white masses from
serfdom?"
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In 1894 the Democrats during Cleveland's administration completed
the demolition of the system by repealing the remaining provisions.
[2] Disfranchising provisions were adopted in other southern states as
follows: North Carolina, in 1900; Alabama and Virginia, in 1901;
Georgia, in 1908. See Lobingier, _The People's Law_, pp. 301 ff.; W. F.
Dodd, _Revision and Amendment of State Constitutions_.
[3] _The Political Science Review_, November, 1906, p. 20.
[4] Giles _v._ Harris, 189 U. S., 474.
[5] See a Massachusetts case decided before the Civil War upholding
similar discriminations against negroes. Thayer, _Cases on
Constitutional Law_, Vol. I, p. 576.
[6] This is partly due to the absence of compulsory attendance laws.