MR. PRESIDENT: I have been asked whether I would speak on this
important matter. I replied that it all depended on circumstances
whether or not I would. The circumstances are such that I have made up
my mind to make a short speech on the general bill, and content myself
with the vote I will cast on the amendments and sections as they are
brought up; inasmuch as I have been perfectly pleased with the speeches
made last night, and the one just concluded by the representatives from
my county, as I feel that they echo the sentiments not only of the
county they represent, but the entire race in the State, and every one
I could claim to represent. I endorse their utterances in the language
of Mr. Cash when he said he endorsed “every syllable” and accepted it
as his own in this letter. I want to hear some of the speeches on the
other side, because I do not like this matter that is called Indian
file, as it seems now we are to form a Negro file in this Convention.
I will only say that this Convention has violated the principle laid
down in the Constitution under which we are now living, it giving the
right for any two members to call for an “aye” and “nay” vote, but the
skillful chairman of the committee on rules, from Edgefield, I mean
ex-governor No. 1, (laughter) has made a rule which requires 10, four
above the number we have, to call for the “aye” and “nay” vote, hence
we cannot put the members on record without the assistance of some of
the white members of the Convention. They formed a “dark corner” over
there by themselves.
I was born and raised in South Carolina and to-day I live on the very
spot on which I was born, and I expect to remain here as long as the
great God allows me to live, and I will ask no one else to let me
remain. I love this State as much as any member of this Convention,
because it is the garden spot of the South.
Mr. President, this Convention has been called for no other purpose
than the disfranchisement of the Negro. Be careful and bear in mind
that the elections which are to take place early next month in very
many of the States are watching the action of this Convention,
especially on the suffrage question. Remember that the Negro was not
brought here of his own accord. I found by reference to a history in
the Congressional Library in Washington, written by Neil, that he
says that in 1619, in the month of June a Dutch man-of-war landed
at Jamestown, Va., with 15 sons of Africa aboard, at the time Miles
Kendall was deputy Governor of Virginia. He refused to allow the vessel
to be anchored in any of her harbors. But he found out after his order
had been sent out that the vessel was without provisions, and the crew
was in a starving condition. He countermanded his order, and supplied
the vessel with the needed provisions in exchange for 14 Negroes. It
was then that the seed of slavery was planted in the land. So you see
we did not come here of our own accord; we were brought here in a Dutch
vessel, and we have been here ever since. The Dutch are here and are
controlling the business of Charleston to-day. They are not to blame,
and are not being blamed.
We served our masters faithfully, and willingly, and as we were made
to do for 244 years. In the last war you left them home. You went to
the war, fought, and came back home, shattered to pieces, worn out,
one-legged, and found your wife and family being properly cared for by
the Negroes you left behind. Why should you now seek to disfranchise a
race that has been so true to you?
This Convention has a good leader in the person of the distinguished
gentleman from Edgefield. Mr. President, when men go out shooting
and want to shoot straight, they are compelled to shut one eye, and
this leader uses only one eye in this Convention, hence he is always
striking the bull’s eye; let him beware lest he strikes it one time too
often. (Laughter.)
Since Reconstruction times 53,000 have been killed in the South, and
not more than three white men have been convicted and hung for these
crimes. I want you to be mindful of the fact that the good people of
the North are watching this Convention upon this subject. I hope you
will make a Constitution that will stand the test. I hope that we
may be able to say when our work is done that we have made as good a
Constitution as the one we are doing away with.
The Negroes are paying taxes in the South on $263,000,000 worth of
property. In South Carolina, according to the census, the Negroes pay
tax on $12,500,000 worth of property. That was in 1890. You voted down
without discussion merely to lay on the table, a proposition for a
simple property and educational qualification. What do you want? You
tried the infamous eight-box and registration laws until they were
worn to such a thinness that they could stand neither the test of the
law nor of public opinion. In behalf of the 600,000 Negroes in the
State and the 132,000 Negro voters all that I demand is that a fair
and honest election law be passed. We care not what the qualifications
imposed are: all that we ask is that they be fair and honest and
honorable, and with these provisos we will stand or fall by it. You
have 102,000 white men over 21 years of age; 13,000 of these cannot
read nor write. You dare not disfranchise them; and you know that the
man who proposes it will never be elected to another office in the
State of South Carolina. But whatever Mr. Tillman can do, he can make
nothing worse than the infamous eight-box law, and I have no praise
for the Conservatives, for they gave the people that law. Fifty-eight
thousand Negroes cannot read nor write. This leaves a majority of
14,000 white men who can read and write over the same class of Negroes
in this State. We are willing to accept a scheme that provides that no
man who cannot read nor write can vote, if you dare pass it. How can
you expect an ordinary man to “understand and explain” any section of
the Constitution, to correspond to the interpretation put upon it by
the manager of election, when by a very recent decision of the Supreme
Court, composed of the most learned men in the State, two of them put
one construction upon a section, and the other Justice put an entirely
different construction upon it. To embody such a provision in the
election law would be to mean that every white man would interpret
it aright and every Negro would interpret it wrong. I appeal to the
gentleman from Edgefield to realize that he is not making a law for
one set of men. Some morning you may wake up to find that the bone
and sinew of your country is gone. The Negro is needed in the cotton
fields and in the low country rice fields, and if you impose too
hard conditions upon the Negro in this State there will be nothing
else for him to do but to leave. What then will you do about your
phosphate works? No one but a Negro can work them: the mines that pay
the interest on your State debt. I tell you the Negro is the bone and
sinew of your country and you cannot do without him. I do not believe
you want to get rid of the Negro, else why did you impose a high tax on
immigration agents who might come here to get him to leave?
Now, Mr. President, we should not talk one thing and mean another. We
should not deceive ourselves. Let us make a Constitution that is fair,
honest and just. Let us make a Constitution for all the people, one
we will be proud of and our children will receive with delight. Don’t
let us act like a gentleman said he talked. The other day a gentleman
told me that a prominent lawyer, a member of this Convention, made
a very bitter speech against the Negro while he was a candidate for
election to this Convention. After the lawyer had concluded his speech
of bitterness against the Negro and in favor of white supremacy, some
colored men waited on him and asked him why he had made such a bitter
speech against them, saying they had regarded the gentleman as their
friend, as he had often acted as their lawyer. This gentleman replied
to them: “Don’t mind my speech. I am a friend to the Negro, but I have
got to make bitter speeches to fool the Crackers because I want their
votes.” Gentlemen, I warn you that you can fool the Crackers when you
talk to them, but if you pass this ordinance that has been proposed by
the committee on suffrage you will fool nobody, for every person in the
nation has been informed of your speeches on the stump and you will not
be able to explain it away as that lawyer did his words of bitterness
to the colored men who waited on him.
Mr. President, strange things have happened and I have been shocked
in my life, but the greatest surprise of my life was when the
distinguished lawyer from Barnwell, Mr. Aldrich, introduced a
Constitution in this Convention that was taken verbatim et literatim
from the Constitution of ’65 and the black code of ’66, which deprived
every Negro from holding an office in this State, notwithstanding
that Constitution and black code were rejected by Congress. That
Constitution caused the passage of the acts of reconstruction by
Congress and made it necessary for the Constitutional Convention
of 1868, which gave to you the best Constitution of any one of the
Southern States. Let us make a Constitution, Mr. President, that will
demand the respect of mankind everywhere, for we are not above public
opinion. While in Washington a committee of capitalists came over
from England hunting for timber land in which to invest. One of South
Carolina’s Representative in Congress called upon those gentlemen and
informed them that there were large tracts of land in Beaufort County,
in the Township of Blufton, for sale. They inquired for the name of
the State, and when they were informed that the timber lands were in
South Carolina they answered: “You need not go any further, as our
instructions were, before we left England, not to invest money in a
State where life and property was not secure under the law.” In God’s
name let us make a Constitution that will receive the approval of
everybody--the outside world as well as those at home.
Some time ago I heard the distinguished gentleman from Edgefield, I
mean Mr. George D. Tillman, say that the white man wanted elbow room,
and I suppose that this is what this suffrage plan is proposed to
give him. Again, the other day, in this Convention, I heard him make
a very eloquent speech on the township government bill, but before he
got through he had acted like the good Jersey cow, which gave her two
gallons of milk, and, though she did not put her foot in it before she
was through, she had shaken so much dirt from her tail into the pail
that we could not accept the milk. [Laughter.]
Now, Mr. President, I will not detain this Convention, as I had no
intention of making a speech upon this subject, as I said before; but
now, sir, in the language of Mr. E. B. Cash, in his letter received
from the distinguished “Bald Eagle,” of Edgefield, Gen. Mart Gary,
(holding up the letter) let me say that I endorse every letter,
syllable, verbatim et literatim, and accept as my own the speeches made
by my colleagues last night and this morning. And I would, therefore,
ask that the Convention will not vote down the substitute for the
suffrage bill introduced by my colleague, Mr. Whipper, as they did that
of Mr. Wigg, by a simple motion to lay on the table, but will allow
this matter to go over, as the attendance is very slim, until Monday. I
ask the Senator from Edgefield if he intends to press this matter to a
vote this afternoon.
Senator Tillman remarked that that was what he proposed to do.