The disqualifying principle in the Negro race is not color, but character; and the qualifying principle in the white race is not color, but i character and mental superiority. . . . I am willing to treat the colored man, the Negro race, fairly, honestly and all right, and give him his rights; but I am one of those that believe he is incapable of self-government. I believe, sir, that the white race should rule. I believe, as truly as I believe that I am standing here, that God Almighty intended the Negro to be the servant of the white man. I believe that the Scripture will sustain my position on that question. I know he is inferior to the white man, and I believe that delegates of this convention believe him to be. He knows it himself. . . . I take the position that the exercise of the suffrage was an inherent right with the white man and a privilege with the Negro granted by the white man. It was said that universal suffrage can safely be given only to the white race; that not race prejudice but actual experience has shown that Negro suffrage leads to intolerable government and political corruption; that the Fifteenth Amendment was wrong in the theory that the races are equal, a theory which has been disproved since the dawn of history. And one delegate, speaking in favor of requiring the voter to understand the duties of the officer for whom he was voting, said: “A Negro could read and write like a white man, but he could not, to save his life, comprehend or explain, like a white man, the simplest form of civil government." Or, to sum it all up, "the white race must dominate because it is the superior race, and in that domination the negro will find the safest pledge and guarantee of just and impartial administration." Other speakers claimed that Negro disfranchisement was necessary in order to make permanent the supremacy of the whites. President Knox of the Alabama convention, in assuming the chair, said that the problem of the convention was, "within the limits imposed by the federal constitution, to establish white supremacy in this state." But this statement of the question. was not accepted by a large portion of the delegates in both conventions, who held that white supremacy was in no danger, and had not been in danger since the whites had gained control by force or fraud back in the seventies. Said one: In the confidence in our race we have not questioned that the white man would rule in Virginia whatever were the conditions of suffrage, and however few might be his numbers.1 And again: There will never come a time in the history of this state when the Anglo-Saxon will again submit to the domination of the black man. No matter what it costs, no matter what the method, this one fact stands out supremely true, that the Anglo-Saxon race is now and will be forever master wherever it exists.? - Admitting the inevitable domination of the Caucasian, the great majority of the two conventions demanded the exclusion of the Negro from political life, in order to raise the standard of state politics. For almost a quarter of a century the whites had controlled elections either by the purchase of Negro votes, by intimidation of the voters, or by refusing to count the Negro votes after they were cast. They were bound to dominate; peaceably and legally if possible, but otherwise by any necessary means, even unlawful and violent. The conventions were called, so it was said, to replace the old force-and-fraud methods by new legal and constitutional provisions for disfranchising the black man. It was again the old problem which our constitutional conventions from the first have faced, that of giving permanent legal form to existing facts. But in this case the difficulty was immensely increased by the Constitution of the United States, which stood in the way of the direct accomplishment of the end in view. The expressions of this general argument for Negro disfranchisement were so frequent and varied in the two conventions that it is difficult to make a choice of extracts. The white man must rule, said Senator Daniel, but "we want him to rule in the supremacy of decency and with the association of law and order which will command the respect not only of himself, but of the whole civilized world." 3 Under the Negro and carpet-bagger rule, said ex-Governor Oates of Alabama, the whites of the South were compelled either to leave their homes or to get control of the government. They chose the latter, 1 Richmond Dispatch, April 2, 1902, p. 9. 2 Ibid., April 3, 1902. since there was no place to which they could emigrate. There were two possible methods of assuming control: one was by force and shotguns, the other was to cheat the blacks. 2 I was an advocate of the latter because it didn't take life. Now, I never changed votes with my one hand,1 but. I upheld it and counselled it in those who did. I am just as guilty as those who did. Unfortunately, it was a necessity. We could not help ourselves. We had to do it or do worse. But we have gone on from bad to worse until it is a great evil. . . .? Another speaker said: "We are tired of frauds; we are tired of ballot-box stuffing; we are tired of buying Negro votes: but the fraud will never cease until this vote [Negro] is eliminated." In the Virginia convention we find the frankest admissions that "the grossest frauds are committed; " that "the elections in what is known as the black belt are carried by fraud." One member pointed ironically to the fact that the "black belt" counties were the ones which furnished the greatest majorities in favor of the convention and of Negro disfranchisement. -- In the Alabama convention the same arguments were heard: But if we would have white supremacy, we must establish it by law not by force or fraud. If you teach your boy that it is right to buy a vote, it is an easy step for him to learn to use money to bribe officials or trustees of any class. If you teach your boy that it is right to steal votes, it is an easy step for him to believe that it is right to steal whatever he may need or greatly desire. ... We have told the people of Alabama for years that we wanted to disfranchise the Negro. He has been about the ballot box like sheep in the market, for sale and traffic to the highest bidder. The white people who love the ballot. . . want to exercise that great weapon in the defence of things that are right and sacred. We want to take it out of the hands of men whom you can purchase for twenty-five cents and a drink of whiskey. We have pledged ourselves to the white people of Alabama, and here is our registered vow to disfranchise every Negro in the state and not a single white man.* . . . Can any man deny the fact that almost since the adoption of the 1 The speaker had lost an arm in the Civil War. 2 Montgomery Advertiser, July 25, 1901, p. 9. 8 Ibid., May 23, 1901, p. 1. 4 Ibid., July 26, 1901, p. 11. Fifteenth Amendment the very immunity which it sought to secure has been annulled by the unanimous voice of the white people of Alabama ? Now, that has been done by revolutionary methods, by force and fraud, and, as always happens when those methods are resorted to, other evils have been created. Fraud having become necessary, it has debauched the consciences of our people. It threatens the degeneracy of our descendants, and we feel that we cannot perpetuate our decree of annulment by those methods.1 And one more quotation from the Virginia convention is almost pathetic: The problem is this, to take this black man out of the suffrage of Virginia as a factor and remove him as a disturbing and demoralizing influence. We do not fear his numbers. We fear his presence. As long as he is in the suffrage with us in any numbers, our curse is still upon us, we will still be in the grasp of moral and intellectual servitude, servitude to the idea that we cannot think, that we cannot act, with independence on any of the great public questions that confront the citizens of this country, and he will still be a destroyer of the morality of our political standards, because there will always be a large faction among the white people of Virginia that will continue to justify anything that will keep the black man out and put the white man in political control. . . . I plead for a new emancipation, not now of the black man, but of the white man, whom the black man has enslaved in turn. I plead to you for an opportunity to assert our natural power and natural leadership among the states of this Union. . . 2 Turning from the reasons for disfranchisement to the methods for accomplishing it, one is confused by the number and variety of plans proposed. There were at least thirty distinct plans submitted to the Alabama convention and at least forty-nine in the Richmond body. Of these seventy-nine propositions, only one, so far as I am aware, openly expressed its purpose to disfranchise every "Negro, black man, or person of African descent," 3 1 Montgomery Advertiser, July 26, 1901, p. 12. 2 Mr. Thom's speech in Democratic conference, October 2, 3, 4, 1901, printed in Richmond Dispatch, April 2, 3, 1902. 3 Montgomery Advertiser, May 31, p. 11. Introduced by Mr. Pettus: "That no Negro, black man, or person of African descent shall be allowed to vote in any federal, state, county or municipal election in the State of Alabama." although other resolutions called for the repeal of the fifteenth amendment to the United States constitution.' The other resolutions recognized that amendment and aimed by indirect means to exclude the blacks, and let into the suffrage as many whites as possible. In each state, Democratic party conventions had solemnly proclaimed their intention to exclude no white man from the suffrage while disfranchising the blacks; 2 and between the Scylla of these pledges on the one hand, and the Charybdis of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments on the other, the members were forced to steer their suffrage clause. 3 The possibility of achieving the desired end lay obviously in the existence of other differences between the two races than the forbidden ones of "race, color or previous condition of servitude." Social and economic distinctions, fortunately for the Southern restrictionists, followed closely along the racial lines, and in this way served as the basis for disfranchising clauses which should not conflict with the letter of the national constitution. Thus almost all of the plans proposed, as one qualification for voting, a long term of residence, naturally bearing more heavily upon the Negroes, whose occupations are relatively less permanent, and habits more shiftless than those of the whites. Practically all the plans favored a poll-tax, although there were divergencies concerning the amount of the tax, and concerning the policy of making the tax cumulative. The lowest amount suggested was fifty cents, and from this the proposals ran up as high as four and five dollars. In many plans the tax was merely payable for the preceding year, but in others it was cumulative, sometimes for a stated term of years, and sometimes for all years 1 Richmond Times, June 21, 1901, p. 1; Montgomery Advertiser, June 22, 1901, p. 10. 2 Richmond Dispatch, September 17, 1901, p. 1; Montgomery Advertiser, July 24, 1001, p. 9. 3 Montgomery Advertiser, July 24, 1901, p. 9. As finally adopted, the Virginia constitution required two years residence in the state, one year in the county, city, or town, and thirty days in the precinct (Art. II, sec. 18); and the Alabama clause was identical except that it omitted the city and town from the second term (Art. VIII, sec. 178). |