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THE HISTORY
OF
NEGRO SUFFRAGE
IN THE SOUTH
BY
STEPHEN B. WEEKS
Reprinted from POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, Vol. IX., No. 4
BOSTON
GINN & COMPANY
1894
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THE HISTORY
5777-
OF --mº
NEGRO SUFFRAGE
IN THE SOUTH
BY
STEPHEN B. WEEKS
Reprinted from POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, Vol. DK., No. 4
BOSTON
GINN & COMPANY
1894
* { { Nº R
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\,
THE HISTORY OF NEGRO SUFFRAGE IN THE
SOUTH.1
I. Before the Revolution.
S to race requirements for suffrage in colonial times, Dr.
Cortlandt F. Bishop, in his History of Elections in the
American Colonies, says that he knows of “no law that would
prevent an Indian or a negro, if otherwise qualified, from voting
in the northern colonies.” So far as I have been able to learn,
there were at first no laws disfranchising colored freemen in
the South. Dr. Bishop even goes further and says that such
laws were “of a comparatively late date.”
North Carolina seems to have been the first to disfranchise
the negro. In the Manuscript Revisal of the Laws, made in
1715, we find it declared that “no negro, mullatto or Indians
shall be capable of voting for members of Assembly.”” We
can only approximate the date of the passage of this law.
Burrington,” in his comments on the Revisal, says that this
was “an old law taken from one of the Lords Proprietors'
original constitutions and hath undergone little alteration.”
He recommends that the act be repealed, as the people
“assemble and chuse Burgesses on the day by the act
appointed without any writ for it.” The law was repealed by
the king's order in 1734, probably in response to this recom-
mendation. It was contrary, moreover, to the spirit of the
colonial government; for the proprietors, in their instructions
to the governor of Albemarle in 1667, had granted the ballot
to all freemen.” An act of the year 1743 carried out the spirit
1 This paper was presented to the World's Congress Auxiliary on Government,
at Chicago, in August, 1893. The writer wishes to express his thanks to Dr. C.
Meriwether for valued criticisms and suggestions on the subject.
* Law printed in North Carolina Colonial Records, II, 213, and quoted by Dr.
Bishop, who calls attention to the fact that “Mustee,” which is to be found in
the original, is omitted in this reprint, The act stands Io in the revisal of I752.
8 Col. Rec., III, 180, * Ibid., I, 165.
672 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [Vol. IX.
of this instruction and gave the suffrage to all freemen, but
this was repealed before 1760. An election law of this latter
year provided that all freeholders should vote, and defined a
freeholder as a
person who, bona ſide, hath an estate real for his own life time, or
the life of another, or any estate of greater dignity or of a sufficient
number of acres in the county which by the law enables him to vote
or be a candidate for such county.
No other election law was passed by the colony. In theory,
whatever may have been the practice, the free negro had after
this the right to the ballot.
South Carolina was the next to forbid the negro the ballot.
As early as I 701 and 1703, complaints had been made from
Berkeley County, that “free negroes were received and taken
for as good electors as the best freeholders in the province,” "
but the law of 1704 prescribed no qualifications save a freehold
and a certain amount of property.” The law of 1716 was the
first to insert the word white.” This was retained in the laws
of 1721, 1745 and 1759,” and was unchanged in the constitu-
tion of 1776. Though these earlier laws required that electors
must be white, it was not till 1759 that the same qualification
was expressly applied to the elected.
In Virginia an act of 1705 had forbidden negroes, mulattoes
and Indians to hold office. They were disfranchised for the
first time in 1723.” When this law was referred by the Board
of Trade to Richard West for the consideration of its legal
aspects, he replied: “I cannot see why one freeman should be
used worse than another merely upon account of his com-
plexion.”" This law was probably repealed by proclamation
after being in force ten years or more ; for it is found in the
revisal of 1733, but not in that of 1766.7 Another act dis-
* See the petition of Jos. Boone in N. C. Col. Rec., I, 639.
* Cooper, Statutes at Large of S.C., II, 249.
8 Zbid., III, 3.
*Ibid., III, 136,657; IV, 99.
* Hening, Statutes at Large of Va., III, 250; IV, 1 33, 134-
* Sumner's Works, X, 193.
* Hening quotes it from the ed. of 1733, p. 339.
No. 4.] AVEGA’O SUFFRAGE AAW THE SOUVTH. 673
franchising negroes, mulattoes and Indians, although free-
holders, was passed in Virginia in 1762."
Georgia disfranchised the negroes in 1761.”
II. From the Revolution to the Civil War.
Manhood suffrage was not the prerogative of white men in
the South where the slaveholding aristocracy predominated.
This aristocracy was to its own members a democracy of de-
mocracies; to the outsider it was an oligarchy. The struggle
against the limitations which it imposed went on steadily. The
evolution was the same in all the states. Virginia may be
taken as a type.
Under the earliest laws of Virginia, all freemen had a voice
in affairs. This concerned first the daily matters of the hun-
dreds, afterward the election of Burgesses. But in 1655 the
law was changed by the Commonwealth men, and suffrage was
confined to “housekeepers, whether freeholders, leaseholders
or otherwise tenants.” This law was repealed in 1656, but in
1670 the king, by letter to the royal governor, and without
consent of the Virginia Assembly, went back to the principle
first applied by the liberal party in 1655. None but “freehold-
ers and housekeepers ” now had the suffrage, and the reason
is plain : the persons who had served their time as indentured
servants had little interest in the country and made disturb-
ances at the elections.” The act of Charles II gave the colony
an aristocratic character.” The principles thus embodied in
the organic laws of the colony were not changed in 1776.
The landholding aristocracy prided themselves on their supe-
rior power and privileges.” But exclusion from a voice in the
elections was not pleasant to the landless class of citizens,
1 Hening, VII, 517. * Bishop, op. cit., 52.
* Hening, I, 403, 411, 475; Cooke's Virginia, 222-224.
* It is worthy of note, as an indication of the democratic character of Bacon
and his followers, that the right of suffrage was restored to all freemen by them
in 1676, but their laws were repealed the next year. Hening, II, 356, 380.
* Debates in Va. Convention of 1829–30, p. 57.
674 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [Vol. IX.
who were growing in numbers, wealth and influence. The con-
vention of 1830 yielded to the pressure, and the new consti-
tution extended the right of suffrage, though still with a
property or tax qualification, to “white male citizens of the
commonwealth.” All the discussions of this clause of the
constitution deal with “free white men.” There is no reference
to the right of free colored men to the franchise; they seem
not to have been considered at all in this connection.” The
constitution of 1850 cut out the tax qualification and thus
established, with certain requirements for residence, white
manhood suffrage. In 1864 a convention of representatives
from those parts of Virginia which were then within the Union
lines framed a constitution which gave the franchise to white
male citizens only. Negroes never voted in Virginia in the
period from the Revolution to the Civil War.
This is not essentially different from the course of develop-
ment in most of the other Southern states. Seven states
besides Virginia — South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Missis-
sippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas — limited the ballot to white
men clearly and distinctly. The same was true of Georgia,
under the constitution of 1777. The constitution of 1789,
however, gave the franchise to “citizens and inhabitants,” and
this remained the law until 1865; but it is clear that the
expression was never intended to include the free negro. The
Georgia Code of 1851 forbade emancipation ; forbade free
negroes to come into the state; required those who were
already there to be registered annually; and gave the clerk
power to refuse certificates of registration.”
North Carolina, by the constitution of 1776, provided that
every freeman with a freehold of fifty acres should vote for
members of the state Senate, and that every freeman who
had paid public taxes should vote for members of the House
of Commons. The Tennessee constitution of 1796, probably
under the influence of the North Carolina provision, gave the
isee Poore, Charters and Constitutions of the U. S.
* Debates, 42 et seq.
* A law which sold as slaves those who did not take out such certificates
was repealed in 1824.
No. 4.] AVEG/&O SUFFRAGE //V THAE SOUTH. 675
ballot to all freeholders, but the constitution of 1834 restricted
suffrage to white men.” This restriction no doubt had a reflex
influence on North Carolina. We have seen that North Caro-
lina had no law in 1776 establishing a color qualification for the
ballot. But there is doubt as to whether or not the framers of
the constitution of 1776 intended to include free negroes as a
part of the freemen of the state. Mr. Daniel said in the conven-
tion of 1835 that the bill of rights was understood to apply only
to free white men.” Mr. Macon said that free negroes were
never known to vote before the Revolution, that they were
never considered citizens, and did not exercise the privilege
until many years after.” Mr. Gaston explained this as due to
the fact that at the time of the Revolution there were very few
free negroes, for there had been little emancipation. But,
however this may have been, it is perfectly clear that they were
considered citizens as early as 1778,” and that they enjoyed the
suffrage up to 1835, when the constitution was changed.
Before 1835 the supreme court had declared them citizens.”
And later, in the case of the State vs. Manuel,” which came
up in 1838, Judge Gaston said:
Slaves manumitted here become freemen, and therefore, if born
within North Carolina, are citizens of North Carolina, and all free
persons born within the state are born citizens of the state. . . .
The constitution extended the elective franchise to every freeman
who had arrived at the age of twenty-one and paid a public tax;
and it is a matter of universal notoriety that under it free persons,
without regard to color, claimed and exercised the franchise, until it
was taken away from free men of color a few years since by our
amended constitution.”
* No man was excluded from the ballot for color if he was a competent witness
against a white man. Unfortunately for us, the debates in this convention were
never published. The arguments on this question would have been of great in-
terest. There is nothing of service in the journal of the convention.
* Debates in Convention of 1835, p. 61. 8 Zbid., 65–69.
* Ibid., 352. * Zbid., 357. ° 4 Dev. & Bat., 25.
* The same court said in 1844, in the case of The State vs. Newsom, that this
important case in 1838 was considered “with an anxiety and care worthy of
the principle involved.” See use made of this in Sumner's Works, VIII,
461, 462.
676 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLP, [Vol. IX.
So clearly established had the negro's right to vote become
that many of the county clerks, in making their returns in 1833,
failed to distinguish between black and white polls.” But the
right was not uniformly exercised. In a number of counties
negroes had never voted. In general, however, they had been
allowed the franchise, and their numbers were considerable.
In Halifax County there were three hundred colored voters, in
Hertford one hundred and fifty, in Chowan fifty, in Pasquo-
tank seventy-five. In some counties they held the balance of
power, and Mr. Daniel remarks that he found, after thirty
years' observation, that they uniformly voted for men of char-
acter and talent.” Their votes were eagerly sought for. “The
opposing candidates, for the nonce oblivious of social distinc-
tion and intent only on catching votes, hobnobbed with the
men and swung corners all with dusky damsels at election
balls.” 8
The project to deprive the free negroes of the suffrage met
with much opposition. This project was not the offspring of
momentary caprice, but of a long pent-up feeling. In 1826
Bartlett Yancey had written Willie P. Mangum that there was
hostility to free-negro suffrage in all the counties and in almost
all the towns, and that this feeling was due largely to the
work of colonization and abolition societies. But, on the other
hand, it was urged in the North Carolina convention that some
of those colored men, now to be disfranchised, had done service
in the war of the Revolution. Some had taken the oath of
allegiance. Some were freeholders, and these, with others,
were taxpayers.” They had been accustomed to exercise the
1 Debates in Convention of 1835, p. 30.
2 Zbid., 61, 69, 8o, 353, 355. In Tennessee, Cave Johnson and John Bell said
they were elected to Congress by the votes of colored persons (Sumner's Works,
X, 192). In 1830 the free negro population of North Carolina was 19,543; of
Tennessee, 4555. The North Carolina counties with a free negro population
of more than 4oo were: Beaufort, with 487; Brunswick, 408; Craven, Ioog; Cum-
berland, 686; Granville, 759; Halifax, 2079; Hertford, 953; Northampton, 936;
Orange, 619; Pasquotank, Io98; Robeson, 605; Wake, 833. Davidson, with 471,
had the largest free negro population in Tennessee. Hawkins came next, with 386.
8 Buxton, Reminiscences of the Bench and Fayetteville Bar.
* Debates, 61.
No. 4.] NEGRO SUFFRAGE IN THE SOUTH. 677
right, and deprivation would now be a hardship. They would
be useful as a counterpoise to the slaves, should the latter plot
rebellion : for when the authorities of San Domingo in 1791
put free negroes for meritorious services, on the same footing
as white men, it produced the happiest effect; but when the
French government deprived them of this equality a few years
later, it had the effect of throwing them into the ranks of the
slaves." The convention was quite evenly divided on the ques-
tion, and the debates were very earnest. Various property
limitations were suggested by way of compromise, but the out-
come was the adoption of the provision excluding all negroes
from the suffrage, by a vote of 66 to 61.
This was the end of negro suffrage in North Carolina and
in the South until the days of Reconstruction.
It will be of interest to compare the conditions of suffrage
in the North and West to see if these states were any more
liberal than those in the South. Omitting the eleven Southern
states under consideration, we can divide all the remaining
states into three groups: (1) Those that never established a
color qualification for the suffrage; (2) those that established
such a qualification, but only at a relatively late date ; (3) those
which limited the suffrage to white men from the beginning.
I. Maine, in 1820, and Rhode Island, in 1842, granted the
suffrage to male citizens of the United States. There is no
mention of color, but negroes might have been excluded, on the
ground that they were not citizens ; for in 1833 Chief Justice
Daggett, of Connecticut, charged that “slaves, free blacks
and Indians” were not citizens within the meaning of section 2,
article 4, of the federal constitution. This anticipated the Dred
Scott decision.” There is no mention of color in the laws of
Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. But New
* Debates, 354.
* Hurd, Law of Freedom and Bondage, II, 46. John F. Denny, of Pennsyl-
vania, in his Inquiry into the Political Grade of the Free Colored Population
under the Constitution of the United States, elaborately sustains the same view.
The supreme court of Tennessee decided in 1838 that negroes were not citizens
under the United States constitution (Kent, II, 301). On the other hand, see
decision of the North Carolina supreme court, ante.
678 POLITICAL SCIEWCE QUARTERLY. [Vol. IX.
Hampshire found it necessary in 1857, and Vermont in
1858, to enact that. negroes should not be excluded from
the ballot.
2. Of the second group Delaware introduced the color quali-
fication in 1792 ; Kentucky, in 1799; Maryland, in 1809 and
1810; Connecticut, in 1818; New Jersey, in 1820; and Penn-
sylvania, in 1838.
The right of the negro to vote was disputed under the old
constitution of Pennsylvania prior to 1838. It was held that
“freeman '' was used in a political sense, that it did not mean
one who was free of condition merely, and that a negro could
not be in Pennsylvania a freeman in this sense. The supreme
court, in Hobbs vs. Fogg, in 1837, declared that a negro or a
mulatto was not entitled to vote.”
It is certain that negroes voted in the early years of Mary-
land. Evidence was given in the Baltimore county court about
1810, that a certain free black of that county had voted and
had been allowed to give evidence in a case in which white
persons were concerned. We hear of a free black who was
accustomed to vote in Baltimore and did not know of the
amendment of 18 IO until his vote was challenged. It is said
that he thereupon addressed the crowd about the polls “in a
strain of true and passionate eloquence.”?
New York made an honest effort to help the negro to the
ballot. There was no color line in the constitution of 1777;
but by a law enacted first in 1811 and reënacted in 1814, a
negro, on offering to vote, had first to produce a certificate of
freedom. The constitution of 1821 further differentiated
between black and white electors, and enacted that no negro
should vote unless he had been a citizen for three years, and
had for a year possessed a freehold worth $250 above all
encumbrances and had actually paid a tax on the same. In
1846, the question of equal suffrage for the two races was sub-
1. It was provided in 1783 in Maryland that no colored person freed after that
date, nor the issue of such, should vote.
* Kent, II, 301. Chief Justice Gibson, in delivering the opinion, credits the
report of a decision in 1795, that negroes could not vote. Hurd, II, 70, 72.
* Brackett, The Negro in Maryland, 186.
•
No. 4.] AVEGRO SUFFRA GE //V THAE SOU 7 H. 679
mitted to the people separately, in the shape of a constitutional
amendment, and was rejected by 223,834 to 85,306. It met
the same fate in 1860, by 337,984 to 197,503, and again in
I868, by 282,403 to 249,802."
3. None of the other states and territories that had organ-
ized governments in 1861 had ever granted the ballot to the
negro. This includes California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana,”
Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota (which declares that “no
member of this state shall be disfranchised ” and then limits
the ballot to “whites and persons of Indian or mixed white and
Indian blood”), Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio,” Oregon,
Utah and Wisconsin.*
From this survey of the North and West, it is evident that
few of the states that fought for the Union were then willing
to grant suffrage to the negro on equal terms with the whites.
Five of the New England states had granted him the privilege
in form. It was not perfect even here, for Chanceller Kent
says in the sixth edition of his commentaries, published in
1848, - and this statement is quoted with approval by Chief
Justice Taney in the Dred Scott case, – that in no part of the
country except Maine did the negro, in point of fact, participate
equally with the whites in the exercise of civil and political
rights.” The middle states had all ultimately withdrawn or
restricted the right to vote. All the new Western states,
including those where slavery was forbidden by the Ordinance
of 1787, had refused the negro the suffrage. Some required
negroes to be registered ; one (Ohio) to give bond that they
* Poore, I334, 1343, 1350, 1353; Hurd, II, 54, 55.
* Illinois by the constitution of 1848, and Indiana by that of 1851, forbade free
negroes to migrate to the state and forbade masters to carry slaves into the state
for the purpose of freeing them. These sections had previously formed part of
the statute law.
* The privilege was not denied to those that were more than half white. In
1859 a law was passed requiring judges to reject the offered vote of a person
“who has a distinct and visible admixture of African blood.”
* Hurd, II, 122. A decision of the supreme court of Wisconsin made in 1866,
in the case of Gillespie z's. Palmer, held that the right of suffrage had been
extended to negroes in that state by the vote of the people at the Ceneral election
held Nov. 6, 1849. Poore, 2022, 2030.
* Dred Scott decision, 22; so in Kent, 1oth ed. (1860), II, 298.
68O POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLP, [Vol. IX.
would not become a public charge ; two (Indiana and Illinois)
even forbade them to enter their borders and forbade masters
to bring slaves there for the purpose of giving them freedom.
Nor was this feeling of repugnance overcome by the war.
In 1865 Connecticut gave a majority of 6272 against negro
suffrage; in 1867 Ohio voted it down by 50,620, Kansas by
8923 and Minnesota by 1298.
III. The Evolution of Negro Suffrage.
White manhood suffrage was recognized in none of the
original thirteen states in 1776. After the adoption of the
Federal Constitution the tendency was steadily toward the
extension of the franchise. But the South had not arrived at
universal suffrage for white men in 1860. North Carolina
(from 1854) and Georgia (from 1789) required the payment of
taxes and Florida (from 1838) required military service, as
prerequisites for voting. There was little thought of uniform
suffrage for black and white in any part of the Union. Negro
suffrage was one of the results of the war. The constitutional
history of the Civil War is summarized in the thirteenth, four-
teenth and fifteenth amendments, in which may be traced the
gradual growth of the sentiment of the nation concerning
slavery and the political rights of the negro. The victory of
the federal armies sealed the fate of slavery, and this was ex-
pressed in the thirteenth amendment. The Republican victory
in the elections of 1866 led to the incorporation of impartial or
negro suffrage in the Reconstruction Acts; and the victory of
the same party in 1868 led to the incorporation of impartial
suffrage in the constitution. The fourteenth amendment
advanced the negro to the status of a citizen, but did nothing
affirmatively to confer the suffrage upon him ; it aided him
negatively by imposing a penalty on his exclusion. Nor did
the fifteenth amendment give him the right to vote; it merely
invested the citizen of the United States with the right to be
exempt from discrimination in the exercise of the elective
2-
No. 4.] AVEGRO JUFFRAGE IM THE SOUTH". 68 I
franchise, on account of his race, color or previous condition
of servitude."
Negro suffrage formed no part of the policy of the Republican
Party on the abolition of slavery in 1865. The leaders of the
party declared at that time that negro suffrage was unwise and
dangerous.” In a speech at Richmond, Indiana, on Septem-
ber 29, 1865, Hon. Oliver P. Morton, in discussing the ques-
tion, remarked that to say “men just emerged from slavery
are qualified for the exercise of political power, is to make the
strongest pro-slavery argument I ever heard. It is to pay the
highest compliment to the institution of slavery.”
There was no negro suffrage in President Lincoln's plan of
reconstruction. His theory was that the relations of the
insurrectionary states to the federal government were simply
suspended by the war; that the states were never out of the
Union and were always subject to the constitution. His busi-
ness was simply to restore civil authority in them as soon as
they ceased to fight. His theory left the question of suffrage
entirely in the hands of those who were entitled to vote at the
date of secession, and this was the view of his cabinet. To
this pºlicy President Johnson succeeded. President Lincoln a
short while before his death had caused a bill to be prepared
for the reconstruction of North Carolina. This identical bill
was read in the first cabinet meeting after his death and was
the basis of all of President Johnson’s work.”
There was no negro suffrage in the Davis-Wade plan of
reconstruction. It had always been a part of the Sumner and
Stevens plans; but these men were in advance of their party.
The sentiment of Congress, however, growing in opposition to
the presidential and the Davis-Wade plans, became steadily
stronger in its approval of “impartial suffrage" as a condition
of the reconstruction and reorganization of government in the
Southern states. In 1867 Stevens said:
1 So the Supreme Court. Cf. 92 U. S. 214.
* See Morth American Review, czziii, 267.
* For the identity of the views of Lincoln and Johnson on this subject, cf.
McCulloch, Men and Measures of Half a Century, 378 et seq.
682 POLITICAL SCIE/WCE QUARTERLY. [Vol. IX.
\
White union men are in a minority in each of those states. With
them the blacks would act in a body, form a majority, control the
states and protect themselves. It would insure the ascendency of
the Union Party.
Sumner favored negro suffrage not only in the South but in
other parts of the Union as well, and he avowed as frankly
as Stevens the motives actuating him. He writes from
the Senate chamber, April 20, 1867, to the editor of the
Independent:
You wish to have the North “reconstructed,” so at least that it
shall cease to deny the elective franchise on account of color. But
you postpone the day by insisting on the preliminary of a constitu-
tional amendment. I know your vows to the good cause ; but ask
you to make haste. We cannot wait. . . . This question must be
settled forthwith : in other words, it must be settled before the
presidential election, which is at hand. Our colored fellow-citizens
at the South are already electors. They will vote at the presidential
election. But why should they vote at the South, and not at the
North 2 The rule of justice is the same for both. Their votes are
needed at the North as well as at the South. There are Northern
states where their votes can make the good cause safe beyond
question. There are other states where their votes will be like the
last preponderant weight in the nicely balanced scales. Let our
colored fellow-citizens vote in Maryland, and that state, now so
severely tried, will be fixed for human rights forever. Let them
vote in Pennsylvania, and you will give more than 20,000 votes to
the Republican cause. Let them vote in New York, and the scales
which hang so doubtful will incline to the Republican cause. It will
be the same in Connecticut. . . . Enfranchisement, which is the
corollaxy and complement of emancipation, must be a national act,
also proceeding from the national government, and applicable to all
the states."
These views were clear-cut and to the point, but in 1865 the
party was not yet ready to accept them. At the meeting of
Congress in December of that year, Mr. Stevens introduced
and had passed by both House and Senate a resolution
1 Works, IX, 356. See also his letter in the same strain of October 29, 1865.
Ibid., IX, 500. The letter to Sumner from the negroes of Wilmington, N. C.,
April 29, 1865, is the first public expression of their interest in the suffrage.
No. 4.] AVEGRO SUFFRA GE ZAV 7THE SOU/7 H. 683
to provide for a joint committee of fifteen to report on the
condition of “the states which formed the so-called Con-
federate States of America,” and it was later agreed that no
members should be admitted to Congress from the late insur-
rectionary states until the report of this committee had been
finally acted on." This gave time for the growth of the senti-
ment favoring negro suffrage, and the fourteenth amendment
soon became an essential element in the plan of reconstruction
by Congress. The first section was to overturn the still
binding principle of the decision in the Dred Scott case, that
negroes, even though emancipated, could never become citizens
of the United States. Its other sections were intended to
make it to the interest of the Southern states to allow the
right of suffrage to the negro, and to encourage them to do so.
The negro was made a citizen and was guaranteed the same rights
as the white citizens, but the right to vote was not expressly
granted to him. This amendment was passed by the Senate
June 8, 1866, by a vote of 33 to II, and by the House, June
I3, by a vote of 138 to 36. It was rejected by Delaware,
Kentucky and Maryland, was not acted on by California, and
was rejected by Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Vir-
ginia, at their legislative sessions between November 9, 1866,
and February 6, 1867.
Had the Southern states acted more prudently here, it is
possible that many of the evils which followed might have been
avoided in part, and negro suffrage itself might have been
introduced not abruptly, but by degrees. But it was not
natural for them to act otherwise than as they did, and the
rejection of the amendment showed the utter impossibility of
getting the ratification of the necessary three-fourths of the
states so long as the Southern states remained in statu quo.
It forced Congress to choose between the presidential policy
and negro suffrage.
In February, 1867, an official effort, endorsed by the presi-
dent, was made to induce the Southern legislatures to propose
1 See Henry Wilson, History of Reconstruction.
684 POLITICAL SCIEAVCE QUARTERLP. [Vol. IX.
an amendment of their own. The plan included the amend-
ment of the constitution of each state by giving the suffrage
to all male citizens who could read and write and who
owned taxable property worth $250. The amendment was
offered in the legislatures of North Carolina and Alabama.
Their refusal to consider it put an end to the effort. Besides
this, the Vagrancy Laws and Black Codes had irritated many
honest Northern men, who did not understand the situation
and thought that an effort was making to reënslave the negro.
The rank and file of the party were now fast coming to the
position which Stevens and Sumner had long held.
Congress then went on with the work of reconstruction.
December 13, 1866, Stevens had introduced a bill to recon-
struct the government of North Carolina in which suffrage was
given to males able to read and write. This never became
law ; but instead a general Reconstruction Act was passed,
March 2, 1867. It declared the government of the Southern
states provisional only until, among other conditions, the four-
teenth amendment should be ratified, and new constitutions
should be adopted, framed by “delegates elected by the male
citizens of said state, twenty-one years old and upward, of
whatever race, color or previous condition.” Under this act
Alabama in 1867, and North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas in 1868,
held conventions chosen in accordance with the terms of the
Reconstruction Act. These conventions, where, for the first
time in the history of the Southern states, negroes sat in the
same legislative halls with white men, framed constitutions
providing for impartial suffrage and ratified the fourteenth
amendment. It was proclaimed July 28, 1868.
The fourteenth amendment had only sought to stimulate the
states to grant the suffrage to the negro. The fifteenth amend-
ment deprived the states of the power to deny him the suffrage.
It was proposed by Congress February 26, 1869 ; passed the
Senate by a vote of 39 to 13, and the House by 144 to 44;
was not acted on by Tennessee; was rejected by California,
Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, and
No. 4.] AVEGA’O SOA'FRA GAZ ZAV 7THE SOUTH". 685
by New York, which first ratified and then rescinded her
ratification; was finally ratified by twenty-nine states; and
was declared in force March 30, 1870.” Negro suffrage thus
became a part of the organic law of the nation. President
Grant, in announcing its ratification to Congress, spoke of
it as “a measure which makes at once four millions of
people voters.” This, however, was not the case; the negro
had been a voter in the South since 1867. His voting had
been made a prerequisite to the readmission of the late
insurrectionary states into the Union. His ballot had helped
to choose the legislators who voted to adopt the fourteenth
and fifteenth amendments. He was permitted (strangely
enough) to assist in making the very law under which he
was to exercise the right of suffrage
Justice Hunt, in the case of United States vs. Reese, has W.
given what may be termed the personal reasons for the
existence of the fifteenth amendment: (1) That the franchise
would benefit the colored race by giving them importance,
securing to them respect, protecting them against unfriendly
action or legislation ; and (2) that its exercise would be
to them an educational process of the highest importance,
not only inciting them to prepare themselves for the duties
of citizenship, but accustoming them to the practical per-
formance of such duties.” To these reasons Judge Cooley
adds what he calls public grounds: (1) That unless the
ballot had been given to the freedmen, the government of
the Southern states must for a considerable time have been
in the hands of those lately in rebellion, who might be expected
not to coöperate in government heartily with those from whom
they had tried to break away; and (2) that the existence
in a political community of a great body of citizens against
* It is by no means true to say that this amendment was repudiated by
the whole body of the Southern whites. In 1869 the white people of Mississippi
voted unanimously in favor of its ratification; for they believed that when the
negro was once made a free man, a property-holder and a taxpayer, he could not
be excluded from the remaining privilege and duty of a citizen, the right and
obligation to vote. L. Q. C. Lamar, in Morth American Review, czzviii, 23.I.
* 92 U. S. 214, 217.
686 POLITICAL SCIEAVCE QUARTERLP, [Vol. IX.
whom the laws discriminate in a particular which makes the
discrimination a stigma and a disgrace, must always be an
occasion of discontent, disorder and danger."
IV. Wegro Rule and its Results.
When the war ended and the negro and his quondam master
returned to their old homes, there was in most cases a quiet
acquiescence in the new order of things. The negro, thanks
to two hundred and fifty years of servitude, was docile, and was
not in many cases disposed to put himself forward beyond the
sphere in which he had been accustomed to move. His great-
est ambition was manifested in his new desire for churches and
schools. So natural and proper did this seem, that the old
planter, on reorganizing his estate, was willing to assume in the
contract the obligation to maintain these institutions. But
this fraternal relation was changed upon the acquisition of the
ballot by the negro. The national Congress might make these
freedmen voters, but it could not make them intelligent voters.
They became the prey of adventurers. Agents of the Freed-
man's Bureau, military officers, retired soldiers from negro
regiments, small traders in articles of negro luxury, - all that
class of adventurers who are summed up in the meaning word
“carpet-bagger,” began to swarm over the South. The Union
League and the Loyal League were organized, and the cry of
“forty acres and a mule" was abroad in the land. From
pulpit and platform, from press and teacher's desk the negro
was taught to hate his late master as the worst enemy of his
I a CC.
The natural and inevitable results were soon apparent. The
negroes hung together as one man and were completely sub-
servient to the will of the demagogue, “carpetbagger” or
“scallawag,” as the case might be. The Southern whites had
been disfranchised; the adventurers then got the big offices;
the negroes got the little ones. In November, 1874, there were
in South Carolina alone two hundred negro trial justices who
* Principles of Constitutional Law, 264, 265.
No. 4.] AVA2 GAZO SOVFAEAEA GAZ ZAV ZAZAF SOCWTHZ. 687
could neither read nor write. There were negro school com-
missioners equally ignorant at a thousand a year; while negro
juries, deciding delicate points of legal evidence, settled ques-
tions involving the lives and property of their late masters.
Property, which had to bear the burden of taxation, had no
voice; for the colored man had no property and the business of
the carpet-bagger was office-holding. Taxes were levied ruin-
ously; money was appropriated with a lavish hand. The
history of one state is the history of all.
The public debt of Alabama was increased between 1868 and
I874 from $8,356,083.5 I to $25,503,593.30. A large part of
this went for illegitimate expenses of the legislature ; much
more was in the form of help to railroads; much went into the
hands of legislators and officers; little was returned to the
people in any form. In 1871 the Louisiana legislature made
an over-issue of state warrants to the extent of $2OO,OOO ;
some of these were sold at two and a half cents on the
dollar and redeemed at par. In 1873 the tax levy in New
Orleans was three per cent, and four and a half years of
Republican rule cost Louisiana IO6 millions. Clark County,
Arkansas, was left with a debt of $300,000 and $500 worth of
improvements to show for it; Chicot County spent $400,000
with nothing in return ; and Pulaski County a million. County
and school scrip was worth ten to thirty cents on the dollar,
and state scrip with five per cent interest brought only twenty-
five cents. The debt of Tennessee for railroads and turnpikes
was increased by $16,000,000, and these bonds with six per
cent interest were sold at from seventeen to forty cents on
the dollar; state bonds were practically valueless. In Nash-
ville, when there was no currency in the treasury, checks
were drawn, often in the name of fictitious persons, made
payable to bearer, and sold by the ring to note-shavers for what
they would bring. Warrants on the Texas treasury brought
forty-five cents. In 1869 the state tax on real estate in Missis-
sippi was ten cents on the hundred ; in 1874 it was $1.40.
In 1860 the expenses of the Florida legislature were $17,000;
in 1869 they were $67,000. Bonds to the amount of $4,000,-
688 POLITICAL SCIEWCE QUARTERLY. [Vol. IX.
OOO, which this state issued to subsidize railroads, were mar-
keted at fifty cents. The debt of Georgia was increased
$13,000,000 during the two years of Governor Bullock. In
1868 the legislature of North Carolina in less than four months
authorized the issue of more than $25,000,000 in bonds, princi-
pally for railroads; $14,000,000 were issued, and sold at from
nine to forty-five cents on the dollar; but not a mile of road
was built. The counties began to exploit their credit in the
same way, and some of the wealthier had their scrip hawked
about at ten cents on the dollar.”
But it was in South Carolina that this flood of iniquity
reached its highest. Mr. James S. Pike, a Republican and an
original Abolitionist, writing the history of reconstruction in
South Carolina from what he saw and heard in the South Caro-
lina legislature in February and March, 1873, divides the frauds
committed, or in operation, into eight classes : (1) Those relat-
ing to the state debt ; (2) frauds in the purchase of lands for
the freedmen ; (3) railroad frauds; (4) election frauds; (5)
frauds practiced in the redemption of the notes of the Bank
of South Carolina ; (6) census fraud; (7) fraud in furnishing
the legislative chamber ; (8) general legislative corruption.
The seventh and eighth classes seem to have been among the
most fruitful sources of evil. The joint investigating com-
mittee appointed in 1877 found that almost everything used
by civilized man had been charged up to the state, under the
expansive term “supplies.” The vouchers for these supplies
include English tapestry, Brussels carpeting, English velvet
door mats, English oilcloths, French velvets, silk damask, Irish
linens, billiard-tablecloths, woolen blankets, ladies' hoods, rib-
bons, crêpe, Scissors, skirt braid and pins, toothbrushes, hooks
and eyes, boulevard skirts, bustles, chignons, palpitators,
garters, chemises, parasols, gold watches and chains, gold
jewelry, diamond rings, diamond pins, knives and forks, pocket
pistols, horses, mules, harness, buggies and carriages. Senator
Hampton says that this is hardly a tenth part of the list.”
1 Why the Solid South 2 passim.
* Wade Hampton in The Forum, June, 1888.
No. 4.] MEGRO SUFFRAGE IN THE SOUTH, 689
The negro did not inaugurate this régime. In the first place,
after he obtained the ballot, he was deserted in many cases by
his late master, who should have been his guide and friend.
He was thus left to learn the lesson of political life the best
he could. It was at this juncture that the adventurers came
in. They were in most cases unidentified with the community
in interest, habit or sympathy. They found the negro adrift,
captured him, used him for their own purposes and divided the
spoils with him. -->
In some cases the negro himself began to revolt from this
new slavery to men “who exercised power without right or
merit, and amassed wealth without labor,” who controlled his
vote in the interest of a single party, and taught him that to
scratch a name on that party's ticket was a sin little short of
damnation. Hon. H. R. Revels, who represented Mississippi
in the Senate of the United States, wrote President Grant :
Since reconstruction, the masses of my people have been, as it
were, enslaved in mind to unprincipled adventurers, who, caring
nothing for the country, were willing to stoop to anything, no matter
h w infamous, to secure power to themselves and perpetuate it. My
people are naturally Republicans, but, as they grow older in freedom,
so do they grow in wisdom. A great portion of them have learned
that they are being used as mere tools, and, as in the late elections
[in Mississippi], not being able to correct the existing evil among
themselves, they determined by casting their ballots against these
unprincipled adventurers to overthrow them."
It was largely because of the lack of education and political
experience that the negro thus became the tool and instru-
ment of all sorts of frauds. Then began in the South the era
of the theft of ballot-boxes, stuffing of ballot-boxes, certification,
exchanging, removing of polls to unknown or unfrequented
places, counting out, doctoring, repeating, erasing names from
registration books, illegal arrests before the day of election
and throwing out returns. Whatever lessons the Democrats
may have learned later in these matters, their teaching came
from the early reconstruction days. These things were unknown
1 See T. A. Hendricks in Morth American Review, cxxviii, 343.
690 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERZ P. [VOL. IX.
before the war. The reconstructionist was hoist by his own
petard.
The adventurers sowed the seeds of their own destruction in
another way. They fused the white elements into a single
body. The old antithesis of Whiggery and Democracy was
still strong in the South; the opposition between original
secessionist and unionist had not disappeared, and the lines of
division were clear until the pressure of reconstruction was
felt. Then old enmities were lost in the struggle against the
new enemy. White men have made the South “solid,” not for
Democracy, but against the negro. Southern men are Demo-
crats because an ethnic whip is continually cracked over their
shoulders. During the campaign of 1888 a negro paper of
Goldsboro, N. C., said that any negro who voted the Democratic
ticket should be struck thirty lashes. “In the name of high
heaven, how many lashes does the white man who votes the
Republican ticket deserve 2" was the Democratic answer.
V. The Present Status of Negro Suffrage.
The year 1876 marks the end of reconstruction. Virginia,
North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee were redeemed from
negro rule in 1870 ; Texas in 1873; Alabama and Arkansas in
1874; Mississippi in 1875; and the centennial year of Ameri-
can independence saw order restored in South Carolina, Florida
and Louisiana. Since then these states have been Demo-
cratic. We have now to see what action has been taken by
them in the matter of limiting the franchise.
There have been in most of the Southern states two consti-
tutions since the war. The first set were the work of the
reconstructionists; the latter were the work of the native
whites. The first gave the suffrage to all adult males except
such as were disfranchised for crime or because of mental
incapacity ; but many classes of Confederates were disfran-
chised by a stringent test oath, and the votes of those who
could take the oath were often thrown out in the unceremo-
nious fashion already referred to. The constitution of Georgia
No. 4.] AVEGRO SUFFRA GE //V THE SOUTH. 691
refused the suffrage to any one who had not paid his taxes,
and the constitution of Florida provided for an educational
qualification after 1880. On the other hand, the Mississippi
constitution of 1868 forbade that any property or educational
qualification for suffrage should be demanded of her citizens
prior to 1885. Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisi-
ana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina required
a registration of voters of some kind, but very lax, and of little
importance. No registration was required in Texas; nor did
Arkansas and Texas require it under their revised constitutions
of 1874 and 1876 respectively.
Various miscellaneous provisions which have been made
from time to time in different states regulating the ballot, but
which can in no wise be construed as a limitation on the right
of the negro, are omitted from consideration here. That a
practical limitation may be the result of legislation to which,
on the face of it, no possible odium can attach, may be
seen in the working of the rule by which all the Southern
states — probably most of the United States — disfranchise
persons guilty of infamous crimes. This term covers anything
from murder to petit larceny. In the North Carolina guberna-
torial election in 1888, the majority for Fowle, the Democratic
candidate, was only 14,450 over Dockery, his Republican
opponent. We have no exact figures of the numbers disfran-
chised as criminals in North Carolina, but we can approximate
it from a publication of the Democratic state executive com-
mittee in 1888. This publication contains lists of ex-convicts
from fifty-eight of the ninety-six counties. In nine of these
fifty-eight the color of the ex-convicts is not specified. In the
other forty-nine there are registered 2969 colored ex-convicts.
If we assume that this represents half of the convict popula-
tion of color, the number of colored voters is diminished
between five and six thousand. This is obviously an important
fact in a close state, where the white vote is slightly in the
majority, but which might, for temporary causes, be in danger
of falling under negro rule. The law in this case is doubtless
abused at times in the interest of the ruling race.
* a
692 - POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLP. [VOL. IX.
The methods through which it is sought legally to nullify and
restrict the negro vote may be classified under four principal
divisions: 1. By centralization ; 2. By the requirement that
taxes be paid before voting ; 3. By great complexity in the
election laws, which serves indirectly as an educational test;
4. By an express educational qualification.
I. In North Carolina negro majorities are overcome by cen-
tralization. The state as a whole is safely Democratic. Accord-
ingly the legislature elects the justices of the peace for all the
counties, and these justices in turn elect the boards of county
commissioners. The other county officers are chosen by the
electors. This system is anything but democratic, but it results
in keeping the county funds entirely in the hands of the more
conservative and better element of the population. It is dis-
pleasing to the western counties, where there is a large white
majority, but they bear it for the sake of preserving the eastern
part of the state from a return of reconstruction conditions.
There is a somewhat similar plan of local government in
Louisiana. (t
2. Six states have tried the requirement of taxes. In Vir-
ginia a constitutional amendment in 1876 required the payment
of a poll tax as a prerequisite to voting, but this was repealed
in 1881–82. It was found to stimulate wholesale bribery in
elections. That party which had the most money could pay the
most capitation taxes and secure the most votes. Through the
aid of rich Republicans in the North the taxes of the negroes
were more generally paid than those of the whites.
Arkansas adopted an amendment to her constitution in 1892
requiring a poll-tax receipt as a prerequisite to voting. This
has simplified the matter in that state. The law works well,
and the negro vote is said to be practically eliminated. How
it would be if the whites should be divided, as in South Caro-
lina, yet remains to be seen. A poll tax was also required in
Florida under the constitution of 1885, and in Mississippi
under that of 1890. Q.
The experience of Tennessee in the matter of negro suffrage
and the tax requirement has been varied. The strong minority
No. 4. *
AVEGRO SUFFRA GE WAV 7. HZ SOUTH". 693
which opposed negro suffrage in the convention of 1870,
though they failed in their main purpose, nevertheless suc-
ceeded in securing a requirement of poll tax. But this proved
unsatisfactory. In 1871 a law was passed under which no proof
of payment for the year 1872 was to be required. In 1873 the
tax requirement was repealed entirely. At the extra session
of 1890 the poll tax qualification was again enacted, and in
1891 this law was so amended that the original poll-tax receipt,
or a duly certified duplicate, or an affidavit that the voter had
paid his poll tax and the receipt “is lost or misplaced,” was
required as preliminary to voting. This law also bars out the
person who disposes of his receipt for any valuable consideration.
Georgia seems to have been more successful in the require-
ment of taxes than any other state. This was put into the
constitution in 1789, and has been uniformly maintained since
then. In 1887 Senator Colquitt said in The Forum that the
tax qualification had operated with important effect on the
colored voters, and that the number of defaulting colored tax-
payers was becoming larger each year. C.
3. The method most in favor in the South for limiting the
negro vote is through intricate registration and election laws.
These vary in different states, and have been changed from
time to time in the same state. They may be divided roughly
into two classes, as the so-called Australian system prevails
or not. Some form of this system obtains in Alabama, Arkan-
sas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Virginia. It does not obtain
in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Caro-
lina and Texas. The laws of these latter states represent the
older ideas, are less successful and less just than the others,
and little can be said in their defense. But, as we have already
seen, North Carolina partly escapes from the trouble by cen-
tralization; Georgia and Florida have a tax requirement; there
is hardly a negro problem in Texas, except in a few of the
eastern counties; and Louisiana is now striving for a new law
requiring both taxes and education. It is in South Carolina,
and to a less extent in Florida and Virginia, that registration
is depended on to solve the difficulty.
694 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLP, [Vol. IX.
Under the present law in Florida the books for registration
must be closed on the second Saturday in September. Each
elector, on being registered, is furnished with a certificate,
numbered in each district consecutively. This must “con-
tain a statement of the full name, age, color, height, occupation,
place of residence and date of registration as entered in the
registration books, which certificate shall be signed by the
registration officer.” No person is allowed to vote save in
the district in which he is registered,
nor shall any person whose name does not appear upon the registra-
tion books be allowed to vote unless he produces and exhibits his
certificate of registration to the managers of election; and he shall
not then be allowed to vote unless the certificate of registration
which he exhibits shall satisfactorily identify him to the managers
of the election.
Certificates can be renewed when defaced, by surrendering
the old, or when lost, by establishing proof of loss. To do
this the voter must state the “facts of his former registration
and of such loss, and that he has not sold, bartered or parted
with his certificate for any pecuniary or other valuable consid-
eration.” If an elector removes from one residence to another
in the same district, or from one district to another in the same
county, he is to notify the supervisor of registration, surrender
his certificate and receive a certificate of transfer of registration,
and without this certificate of transfer he cannot vote. If an
excess of votes is found, the excess over the registered number
of voters is to be taken out and destroyed.
In South Carolina, where the evil of negro numbers is
greatest, the laws are most complex. Under the statutes of
1882 there is for each office a special ballot, the size and char-
acter of which are minutely prescribed. There are eight ballot
boxes, and the office for which each is intended is written on
it; these names are to be read aloud to the elector, at his
request, by the managers; no one else can speak to him while
he is in the polling room; the ballot must be inserted by his
own hand, and no ballot is counted if found in the wrong box.
If more ballots are found in the box than there are names On:
No. 4.] MEGRO SUFFRA GE //V 7. HE SOUTH. 695
the poll list, the ballots are returned to the box, thoroughly
mixed together, and one of the managers or the clerk withdraws
from the box and immediately destroys the excess of the ballots
over the number of voters. Registration is required and is
confined to three days. The registration books are closed on
the first day of July. A certificate of registration is also
required, and the person can vote only when this certificate
is produced. If the elector removes from one residence to
another in the same precinct, he must surrender the old certifi-
cate and get a new one. This has to be done also when he
removes from one precinct to another, or from one county
to another. By a law passed in 1883, if a certificate is lost,
it may be replaced, provided it has not been disposed of for
any valuable consideration. In 1885, when a new law estab-
lished some new polling places, changed the locality of the
old ones, etc., the old certificates had to be surrendered and
new ones obtained.
It will be noticed that the complexities of these laws are
enough to confuse a mind better trained than that of the
average negro. To him they are, for the most part, beyond
comprehension. It is said that as soon as the ignorant voters
began to understand the arrangement of the boxes, the boxes
were shuffled, and many votes were lost before the order was
again unraveled. It will be seen, also, that the registration
books are closed on the first of July, while the voter has to
present his registration certificate on voting day. Now, a
negro is not used to preserving papers; it frequently happens,
therefore, that the certificates are lost or worn out, and they
can be renewed only under certain limitations. It is said that
in a certain section the negroes took their certificates to their
preacher for safe keeping; he promised to put them into a box
and preserve them until needed. He put them into the box,
but a few days before election the Democrats hired him to go
over to Georgia and take this box with him. Another story is
told, but I am unable to vouch for its truth. Some years ago
Barnum appeared in South Carolina with his circus. Under
instruction from the Democrats he advertised that the admission
696 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [vol. Ix.
fee was fifty cents or a registration certificate. The negroes,
acting on the theory that a circus to-day is better than a vote
next week, handed over their certificates and saw the show.
When election day came, the fact that they had registered was
disputed by no one, but they could not prove that the certifi-
cates had been lost, and hence they were legally disfranchised.
The laws of Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and,
in part, Virginia, embody the best elements of the reform
ballot law in the South. They all reproduce essential features
of the Australian system and these provisions act more or less
distinctly as an educational qualification. *
In 1893, Alabama enacted what is known as the Sayre Elec-
tion Law. It was framed in answer to a demand that some
method be devised by which the necessity of suppressing any part
of the vote might be obviated; it disfranchises no one, and it is
rather significant that the bitterest opposition to it has come
from the Populists. It is modeled largely on the election laws
which have been recently enacted in other Southern states. The
registration feature comes from Tennessee, while many parts
are taken from the new Arkansas law. In Alabama registra-
tion can be made only in May, and within the precinct or ward
where the vote is to be cast. There is one ticket for all can-
didates, and the names are arranged alphabetically, without
distinction of party, under the respective offices. The voter
enters the booth and marks his ballot without assistance ; if
unable to do this, he may call one of the managers of election
to his aid. No time longer than five minutes is allowed for
voting, and an ignorant voter can tell the assistant the way he
wishes to vote only when all others have withdrawn from the
polling place. In addition to this, the voter has in all cases
to show his certificate of registration. The provision in regard
to ignorant voters has been variously interpreted in different
localities. In some cases the assistant is allowed to mark the
ballot after the voter has expressed merely his party prefer-
ence ; in other cases the voter is required to name each person
for whom he wishes to vote. The possibilities of the latter
requirement as an intelligence test are obvious.
No. 4.] AVEGA’O SUFFRA GE //V THE SOUTH. 697
The Arkansas law of 1891 is very much like that of Alabama,
and was one of the originals on which the latter was based. It
requires no registration, but a poll-tax receipt instead. The
names of all candidates are printed on a general ticket without
regard to party or alphabetical order, and these tickets are
numbered as voted. They can be obtained only from the
judges of election within the polling place. The voter is then
required to retire to a booth, and is allowed five minutes to pre-
pare his vote by Scratching, erasing or crossing out all names
not wanted. No one can help him to do this except the judges
of election, who are of different political parties. If necessary,
the ignorant voter can call two of these to his assistance, and
they will prepare his ballot for him; but before he is allowed to
tell them how he wishes to vote it is necessary that all electors,
including those in the booths, retire from the polling room. In
precincts where there are more than one hundred voters the
races are required to vote alternately. It may happen that in
large negro precincts some are excluded for lack of time, but
in no other way can hardship come to the negro. Some ten or
twelve counties in the southern and eastern part of the state
gave considerable trouble because of their negro population.
But this has been settled by the new law. An Arkansas
official says that it “virtually lifts from us the black cloud of
negro domination.” And again he says: “The law works
smoothly, quietly, satisfactorily, beautifully, and I pray God
every Southern state may soon have one like it.”
Tennessee has made some advance toward the Australian
ballot, but the results are limited because the law of 1890 is
made applicable only to counties with 70,000 inhabitants, and
to cities with 90oo. The registration law of 1890 applies to
counties with 70,000 inhabitants and to “towns, cities and civil
districts” of 2500. The registration certificate must tell the
name and color of the elector, the ward or district in which he
resides and the election in which he is qualified to vote, and
must be presented at the ballot box. The law when put into
operation is not essentially different from those of Alabama and
Arkansas, except that there is less provision for the ignorantvoter.
698 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLP, [Vol. Ix.
The registrar shall upon the demand of any voter . . . give to such
voter a correct statement of the order in which the titles of the
various offices to be filled stand upon the particular ballot furnished
to such voter.
With only this provision for aid at the polls, and with stringent
tax and registration requirements, there is little chance for
the ignorant man.
To these three states we must add Virginia, which passed
a new ballot law in March, 1894. The former Virginia law
was bad, having come down from the reconstruction days of
1869–70. The Walton Law, which went into effect July 1,
1894, provides for a blanket ballot, containing the names of all
the candidates to be voted for, printed below the office they
seek. Booths are provided, but no person can occupy one
more than two and a half minutes if other voters are waiting.
This law deals more tenderly with the ignorant voter than the
Tennessee law. It provides that a special constable shall assist
the ignorant voter by “reading the names and offices on the
ballot, and pointing out to him the name or names he may
wish to strike out, or otherwise aid him in preparing his
ballot.” From the educational standpoint this law is a failure,
and the deficiency is only partly covered by the heavy require-
ments in the matter of registration when the voter changes his
residence, and when the limits of registration precincts are
changed or new ones made.
4. The educational qualification, eo nomine, has been tried
only to a limited extent. It was provided in the Florida consti-
tution of 1868 that there should be such a qualification after
1880, but the provision was not carried out, and there is no
mention of it in the constitution of 1885. The reason for the
general hesitation in making such a qualification is not far to
seek. It would exclude many white Democrats, and the fear
of the loss of votes has caused the party to hesitate. The only
state to appeal directly and successfully to the intelligence test
has been Mississippi. This state also makes use of the Aus-
tralian ballot, but this phase is less important than the educa-
tional requirement. The experience of Mississippi during the
No. 4.] AVEGA’O SUFFRA GE //V THAE SOUTH". 699
reconstruction period was probably the stormiest of all the
Southern states. This was because the negro population
was largely in excess of the white, the census of 1870 giving
444,2OI blacks against 382,896 whites, and because the legis-
lators were not as prudent as they might have been in the
period just following the war. The state was finally recon-
structed, and the constitution of 1868 provided that no property
or educational qualification should be required previous to 1885.
But notwithstanding these provisions, the white men of the
state, by various means which cannot be enumerated here, some-
times illegal and harsh, but necessary, as it was thought, to
preserve state life, obtained control of affairs, and the negro vote
was largely suppressed. As far as practicality was concerned
there was no need of any change in the situation thus pro-
duced. But the people felt an earnest and growing desire to
devise a legal and just system of eliminating the negro vote.
The constitutional convention of 1890, called to settle this
matter, labored under one disadvantage. By the terms of the
Congressional act under which Mississippi was restored to
normal relations with the Union it was provided that the
state's constitution should
never be so amended or changed as to deprive any citizen or class
of citizens of the United States of the right to vote who are entitled
to vote by the constitution herein recognized, except as a punishment
for such crimes as are felonies at common law, whereof they shall
have been duly convicted under laws equally applicable to all the
inhabitants of said state.
If this act was valid, if this condition remained binding,
there could be no action in the matter at all. But the judiciary
committee argued justly that no action of Congress can deprive
one state of the equality it enjoys with other states under the
Federal Constitution. They were then at liberty to act in the
matter of establishing limitations.
Many propositions were made, and very serious consideration
was given to one which bestowed the franchise on women,
subject to a property qualification in addition to the regular
7OO POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERZP. [Vol. IX.
qualifications of men. But this was ultimately abandoned and
an educational test was adopted in its place. The new con-
stitution requires a residence of two years in the state, and one
in the district, registration four months before the election, the
payment of all taxes for the last two years, and further, that
on and after the first day of January, A.D. 1892, every elector shall,
in addition to the foregoing 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 give a reasonable interpretation
thereof.
There was but one negro in the convention. This was Isaiah
Thornton Montgomery, of Bolivar County. He had expressed
himself in favor of such an amendment as this while canvassing
for election ; he was elected by a negro constituency and can
therefore be considered as representing their feelings on the
question. He was a member of the committee on franchise.
He favored the amendment while in committee ; when it came
before the house he delivered a remarkable speech in support of
it, embodying an eloquent plea for peace and harmony between
the races — a tender of the olive branch from the black man to
the white. The amendment was passed and all parties have
acquiesced in its enforcement. There is no longer a “negro
problem ’’ in Mississippi. The census of 1890 gives the state
a white population of 544,851, and a negro population of
744,749. On the usual proportion of one in five, we have
about 109,000 whites and 149,000 negroes of voting age.
Mr. Montgomery estimates that the law disfranchises two-
thirds of the blacks and only one-eleventh of the whites,
In practice the number of negroes disfranchised is much larger
than this.
The Mississippi law has proved itself, thus far, a success.
It remains to be seen what the influence of such a law will
be as a spur to the negro in the pursuit of an education. It is
usually claimed that such laws drive him to greater efforts,
while they do not have the same influence on the whites. But
it is possible that this may be the ultimate solution of the
No. 4.] AVZ GRO SUFFRA GE ZAV 7. HAZ SOUTH". 7OI
Southern problem. The Southern states are slowly but surely
forging ahead in matters of education. They are improving
both the quantity and the quality of their schools. If the
negro improves intellectually and becomes a better citizen, this
will in itself bring relief from most of the evils which the
Southern people have found in negro suffrage.
The experience of Mississippi is also beginning to make
itself felt in other states. Louisiana passed a single ballot
law in 1882, under which registration was required, and the
certificate of registration had to be produced before voting, as
in South Carolina. Within the present year a committee has
been appointed to revise the section of the state constitution
concerning the qualifications of electors. This committee has
adopted an amendment which, after stating the requirements
in respect to age, residence, registration, etc., provides that the
elector
shall have paid his poll tax for the year next preceding the
election; he shall be able to read the constitution of the state in his
mother tongue, or shall be the bona ſide owner of property, real or
personal, located in this state and assessed to him for the year next
preceding the election at a cash valuation of not less than $2 oo.
To summarize: the laws of Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi
and Tennessee embody the principle of education, and have
much to commend them. These, together with Virginia, have
adopted an Australian ballot, although the educational feature
has been left out of the Virginia law. Georgia, Florida, Ar-
kansas, Mississippi and Tennessee require taxes. There is little
in the laws of North and South Carolina, Louisiana and Texas to
commend them. Louisiana is moving for a reform. This will
probably come in North Carolina; for the present law is roundly
denounced by Republicans and Populists, particularly the regis-
tration feature. South Carolina will be driven to a revision ;
for, having completely eliminated the negro from the problem,
the whites are now trying the laws on each other. During
the last campaign Senator Butler is reported to have said that
if he should be defeated for reëlection by Governor Tillman,
702 POLITICAL SCIEAVCE QUARTERL P. [Vol. IX.
he would contest the matter before the United States Senate
on the ground that the registration laws of the state were
unconstitutional, and that if a full vote could have been
polled, his candidates would have been elected to the state
legislature. The law cannot live long in the present political
atmosphere of South Carolina. It is possible that revision and
reform may come in some of the other states. The Southern
people desire to relieve themselves from the necessity of using
either force or fraud. They recognize that both weaken the
moral sense and corrupt the body politic. They know that
when the negro has been eliminated, as in South Carolina, the
same machinery will be used by the party in power against the
the white opposition; that this is already being done, is alleged
in South Carolina by the “Straight” Democrats, and in North
Carolina and Alabama by the Populists.
In seeking to employ the poll tax in escaping from their
unpleasant situation, the Southern people have comfort in the
opinion of Judge Cooley, when he says: “To demand the
payment of a capitation tax is no denial of suffrage; it is
demanding only the preliminary performance of public duty.” "
The five Southern states are not alone in making such
a demand. Delaware, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, New
Hampshire, all require taxes. Nor is the requirement of an
educational qualification a denial of suffrage; for “ability to
read is something within the power of any man,” and only
makes him more able to fulfill his civic duties. On the other
hand, unrestricted suffrage “robs intelligence and virtue of a
natural right. Intelligence and virtue are disfranchised. Igno-
rance and intelligence, vice and virtue, are clothed with equal
power”; and Wendell Phillips himself, when advocating negro
suffrage in 1865, admitted the righteousness of property and
educational qualifications. Connecticut set the example in
this respect as long ago as 1855, when it required all voters
to be able to read the constitution and the statutes. This was
the first requirement of the kind incorporated into a state
constitution. Massachusetts made a similar requirement in
* Principles of Constitutional Law, 263, 264.
No. 4.] AVEGRO SUFFRA GE //V THE SOUTH. 7O3
1857. The Missouri constitution of 1865 said all voters should
be able to read and write after January 1, 1876. Maine adopted
a similar amendment in November, 1892. In his message to
Congress on December 7, 1875, President Grant urged the
promotion of schools, and proposed that all voters who could
not read and write after 1890 should be disfranchised. It is
no unheard-of principle that has been adopted by Mississippi
in 1890 and Louisiana in 1894.
It would seem that reform is already coming in Alabama
under the new law, although the cry of fraud is raised by the
opposition; for the returns of late elections show that the
Democratic majorities come no longer from the white but from
the black counties, and so well recognized has this been that the
counties of the black belt, while formerly all in one Congres-
sional district, have now been distributed among seven of the
nine districts of the state. This union of the negroes with
the more influential and intelligent whites, if permanent, will
profoundly modify the race question, and it gives the combina-
tion best able to solve this problem.
STEPHEN B. WEEKs.
BUREAU of EDUCATION,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
WM.
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