We can recall no more brilliant moral victory of a parliamentary
minority than that gained on Thursday in the South Carolina
Constitutional Convention by the representatives of the race about to
be disfranchised for lack of intelligence wherewith to vote. In so
characterizing the attack of these black delegates we have in mind the
extraordinary ends accomplished with minorities by Mr. Randall, Mr.
Blaine and Mr. Reed, the chief parliamentarians of our generation.
In this case the white majority laid themselves open to the flank
movement, which Robert Smalls had evidently meditated throughout
the session, by introducing a quite supererogatory article for the
amendment of mixed marriages. The black leader instantly moved an
amendment providing that illicit as well as legal unions between the
races should be prohibited. He proposed to disqualify all men--and
this of course would mean only white men--who were parties to such
unions. He proposed that the offspring of such unions should take their
fathers’ names.
Senator Tillman, who seems, though the author of this new secession of
South Carolina, to be the only man in the Convention who appreciates
in the slightest degree the effect of its actions upon outside public
opinion, proceeded at once to save his record by espousing the Negro
cause. He cut himself loose promptly from the majority in the course
into which he knew its provincial ignorance would direct it. He went so
far as roundly to berate his own chairman for his attempt to choke off
the plea of the black men for the integrity of black women.
It was hardly a debate that followed. It was an arraignment which
culminated when Mr. Smalls, after approving the punishment which lynch
law has meted out to the worst offenders of his race, said:
“If the same rule were applied on the other side and white men were
treated likewise, I fear this Convention would have to be adjourned for
lack of a quorum.”
The “burst of laughter” which followed this threw an interesting light
on the morals and manners of South Carolina. It showed the state of
civilization depicted in “Tom Jones.” A Convention composed entirely
of Squire Westerns would have met such an impeachment in a precisely
similar way. Having satisfied their sense of humor the delegates killed
the amendment and passed the mixed marriages article.
This seizure of a parliamentary advantage in so sudden and effective a
manner as to cause the majority leader to abandon his forces and leave
them to expose their moral nakedness to the world was more than equal
to Mr. Blaine’s rout of the Rebel Brigadiers in the famous Amnesty
Debate. For those gentry managed to fan and sponge Ben Hill into the
ring again, and these remained “out of time.”
And in no one other way could the Negroes have so convincingly proved
to the world their right to the ballot than by this victory of black
mind over white matter. It is now made plain, as it was made plain by
the first laws passed by the unreconstructed Legislature of the same
State after the war, that the fear of Negro domination is not born so
much of a regard for the numbers as for the developed intellectual
ability of the blacks. It is not Negro ignorance, but Negro
intelligence, that is feared.
* * * * *
EDITORIAL FROM THE NEWS AND COURIER, THE LEADING DEMOCRATIC PAPER OF
CHARLESTON, S. C., Nov. 23, 1895.
The troublesome matter of miscegenation was settled finally by the
adoption of the provision that “the marriage of a white person with a
Negro or mulatto, or person who shall have one-eighth of Negro blood,
shall be unlawful and void” hereafter. The provision would have been
strengthened and improved by the adoption of Gen. Smalls’ proposed
addition to it that “any white person who lives and cohabits with
such persons should be disqualified from holding office of emolument
or trust in this State, and the offspring of such living or cohabiting
shall bear the name of the father,” but the Convention rejected the
addition by the largest vote recorded recently. Its action was a
mistake. The addition was a proper corollary to the section adopted,
and should have been extended to disqualify from voting, as well as
holding office, the class of offenders at which it was aimed. Of the
two offences--miscegenation within the marriage bond and miscegenation
without it--the latter is the greater social evil. It should have been
treated accordingly. The action of the Convention in this instance
and its action of the preceding day in reducing the age of consent to
the limits of childhood will inevitably be construed together to the
injury and reproach to the State. Both decisions should not stand.
Taken together they offer a premium for a condition of affairs which
is condemned alike by every dictate of sound morals and of the public
sentiment of the State. Miscegenation is contrary to the law of nature.