THE AFTERMATH
OF SLAVERY
THE AFTERMATH
OF SLAVERY
A STUDY OF
THE CONDITION AND ENVIRONMENT
OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO
BY
WILLIAM A. SINCLAIR, A.M., M.D.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON, LL.D.
BOSTON
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
MCMV
Copyright, 1905, by
Small, Maynard <^ Company
(Incorporated)
All rights reserved
Published April, 1905
Second edition July, 1905
The University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A.
TO ALL AMERICANS
WHO BELIEVE THAT THE FLAG SHALL BE
THE SYMBOL OF LIBERTY UNDER LAW
AND OF EQUAL RIGHTS BEFORE THE LAW
FOR ALL AMERICANS
500245
CONTENTS
Page
A Biographical Note ix
Introduction (by Thomas Wentworth Higginson) ... xi
I The Institution of Slavery and its Abolition . . 3
II Reconstruction and the Southern "Black Code" . 37
III Southern Opposition to Reconstruction .... 74
IV The War on Negro Suffrage 104
V The False Alarm of Negro Domination . . . . 153
VI The Negro in Politics 183
VII The Negro and the Law 215
VIII The Rise and Achievements of the Colored Race 259
IX The National Duty to the Negro 291
C
X Public Opinion Omnipotent 330
A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
WILLIAM A. SINCLAIR, the author of this book,
was born in slavery at Georgetown, South Carolina.
When about four years of age, in the early part of
the Civil War, he was sold with his mother, from his home ;
but about a year after the close of the war, after many trying
experiences, they returned to his native place, where a partial
reuniting of the family was effected. William's father died
shortly after this, and the widowed mother became responsible
for the boy's maintenance and education. He attended the
local schools and prepared himself to enter upon a higher course
of study at Clafiin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina.
Thence he went to the well-known South Carolina College at
Columbia, that venerable institution of learning, which, in the
days of slavery, had been patronized by the aristocracy of the
state including Haynes, Rhett, McDuffee, Bamwell, and Cal-
houn, and which, under Republican administration of the state
after the close of the war, had been thrown open to colored as
well as white students. Colored students were debarred from
this college in 1877, and Mr. Sinclair entered Howard Uni
versity, Washington, D. C., where he graduated from the
college and tfieological departments and where he later received
the degree of Master of Arts. The next step in his educational
development was post-graduate study at Andover Theological
Seminary, where he won a prize for a dissertation and delivered
an address at the commencement exercises.
For six years he devoted himself to missionary work, under
the auspices of the American Missionary Association, at Nash
ville, Tennessee, and here he improved the opportunity to study
medicine at the MeHarry Medical College of Central Tennessee
University (now W olden University of Nashville), where he
took his medical degree, being also the salutatorian of his
class.
ix
A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
During his college vacations Mr. Sinclair taught school,
and he has Jilled, with credit and success, the positions of
principal of the graded school at Georgetown, South Car
olina, and professor of natural sciences in Livingstone College,
Salisbury, North Carolina ; and for the past sixteen years he
has been Jinancial secretary of Howard University, Washing
ton, D. C.
Throughout the period of his education he displayed unusual
powers of oratory, and in his labors for Howard University he
has been heard in the pulpit and on the platform throughout
the United States, and in the United Kingdom as well. In this
Jield his natural abilities and his evident learning have every
where procured him distinctive recognition among thinking
people.
Throughout his travels Dr. Sinclair has discussed the race
question, publicly and at the Jireside, with persons of every
degree and station in life, and in the following pages he gives
to a wider circle than he can reach by personal discourse the
information that has been required of him concerning the con
dition and environment of the American negro.
INTRODUCTION
NO W that so many authors, Southern and Northern, have
suddenly broken out into the discussion of the so-called
negro problem, it is nothing more than fair that an
other negro author should have his word to say. The very
fact that these Southern contributions cover a very wide range
in quality, from, the really high-toned and enlightened work
entitled Problems of the Present South, by Edgar Gardner
Murphy, down to the demagogic glorification of the Ku Klux
Klan by the Reverend Thomas Dixon, Jr. — this range of
thought makes it only right to recognize the effort of a colored
man to be fair and plain-spoken in doing justice to his side of
the house.
The attempt to do this, at least, is visible in every page of
the book to which this is a preface. One who like myself
has visited within nine months the heart of the former slave
states, who has seen the strong effort made by so many of
the Southern whites to do justice to the negro and who has
talked freely with Southern public men — in my own case, for
instance, with the governors of three different states — must
needs feel an impulse to take a hand when a colored writer
enters on a manly and courageous argument for his own side,
such as may be found in the volume which follows ; and I
cannot' decline his request to write a preface for him.
Reading the book with some care, I could point out a few
passages with which I disagree, .but surprisingly few ; and
in some of these cases the disagreement proceeds from the fact
that I am a man old enough to recall a time when there existed
all around us at the North instances of the same kinds of in
justice of which we now properly complain when we see it at
the South. It seems like a bit of Egyptian darkness to Dr.
Sinclair for those states to have entirely separate schools for
the two races, but that does not seem so hopeless an evil to me,
who more than fifty years ago in two different cities in New
xi
INTRODUCTION
England took a hand in abolishing just such schools. The
first great step is to have public schools at all, either for white
or black. In the same way men justly complain of the " Jim
Crow" cars, as they call them ; but I, who can remember the time
in my childhood when a colored woman was taken out of a
stage-coach opposite what is now Cambridge Common, because
other passengers objected to her color, cannot feel the evil to be
so hopeless as he does. The South is merely passing through
a period such as Massachusetts passed through long ago, and
the great fact of importance is that it is being passed through
and men will get beyond it sooner or later.
I can remember, in the same way, when every Boston Di
rectory separated the two races, putting the colored families at
the end of the book ; and I can remember when the very editor
whojirst made the change told me of it beforehand, begging me
to keep it secret that the newspapers might not get hold of it.
" When the people once see it done," he said, " they will soon
forget that it ever was otherwise." Thus much I say of the
execution of the book, which is in almost all respects admirable
and shows much more thoroughness in dealing with both sides
than any book recently produced by a Southern white man,
except that of Mr. Murphy, which is a model to all in its tone,
though even that, I think, does here and there a little less than
justice to the negro.
Even this book does not fully bring out the utter injustice
done by Mr. Thomas Nelson Page when he ignores plain
facts in the following charge against the Southern negro :
" In 1865, when the Negro was set free, he held without a
rival the entire Jield of industrial labor throughout the South.
Ninety -five per cent of all the industrial work of the Southern
States was in his hands. And he was fully competent to do it.
Every adult was either a skilled laborer or a trained mechanic.
It was the fallacious teaching of equality which deluded him
into dropping the substance for the shadow." (Pagers The
Negro : The Southerner's Problem, p. 127.) Mr. Murphy
xii
INTRODUCTION
himself incautiously says : " TJie South has sometimes abridged
the negroes right to vote, but the South has not yet abridged
his right) in any direction of human interest or of honest effort ,
to earn his bread" (Murphy's The Present South, p. 187.)
Yet if the reader of the present volume will turn to Chapter II
he will find many pages showing, on the authority of Mr. Elaine
and of Vice-President Henry Wilson, that there was a long period
of years when the legislation of state after state prohibited
every black citizen from earning his living by these higher
forms of labor which Mr. Page now blames a generation of
negroes for having lost from their grasp. Were it for these
pages only^ the perusal of the present work may be urged
upon every fair-minded man. It is nothing less than ludi
crous to complain of a generation of negroes for not bringing
up their boys to be mechanics when, as in South Carolina, the
legislature enacted that no person of color should pursue any
work other than husbandry without a special license from the
judge of the district court, this license being good for one year
only, and the boy aiming at it having to pay a license fee of ten
dollars. No such fees had ever been exacted from white men,
nor even from the free black man during the days of slavery.
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIQOINSON.
Cambridffe, Mass., Jan. 11, 1905.
Xlll
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
CHAPTER I
THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY
AND ITS ABOLITION
THERE is to-day a New South, and the colored people
are a material part of it. The Old South, with its
gruesome and unholy institution of human slavery, has
passed out of existence, never to return. It has, however,
left a heritage of complicated and vexatious problems, the
just and righteous solution of which will tax to the utter
most the resources of the statesman, the fidelity of the church,
and the patience and firmness of the nation. It is of prime
importance to note that the existing blighting evils which
are an infliction to both the white and the colored people are
not inherent in either people, but have their roots in the
essential barbarism of the slave system.
The Proclamation of Emancipation issued by the immortal
Abraham Lincoln was intended to break the fetters of the
slave ; but now it can be seen that it was also an emancipa
tion of the white people of the South. For slavery manacled
the conscience of the master as completely as it did the body of
the slave. Unhappily, neither the white nor the colored people
are yet fully set free from the brutalizing evils of the system.
It would seem that emancipation of the body can be more
readily accomplished than the emancipation of the conscience.
In the spirit of liberty, however, the colored people are
farther removed than the whites from the old regime. To
the colored people freedom came as a boon from heaven, a
special gift of God, an answer to the agonizing prayers of
centuries. It was a treasure above all price. But the white
people of the South took a different view of it. They loved
freedom for themselves and would die in defence of it ; un
fortunately, however, they regarded the freeing of the colored
man as a wrong to the white man. The virus of slavery was
3
OF SLAVERY
present in the brain ! And so the chief efforts of Southei A
leadership have been to curtail the freedom of the colorfed
people, to minimize their liberty and reduce them as nearly
as possible to the conditions of chattel slaves. These efforts,
unremitting and sometimes violent, tremendously affect every
phase of Southern life.
In general, a spirit of cruel intolerance dominates the
*• white population of the whole Southland. Its church life,
despite the many excellent and truly Christian members, both
men and women, betrays strange deformities and inconsist
encies ; in large measure ignoring alike the golden rule,
the Sermon on the Mount, the divinely beautiful lesson of
the Good Samaritan, and, in short, the more vital and cen
tral truth of the entire teaching of Jesus himself — the
fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Christ's
saying, " All ye are brethren," is not interpreted with suffi
cient breadth to include the negro.
f " Free government " in the South means, in the attitude of
the whites toward the negro, disregard of the law, the repudi
ation of the orderly processes of the Courts of Justice, the
rule of the mob, and cruel proscription.^/ President Lincoln
declared that " those who would deny liberty to others are
not worthy of it themselves/'' The white people of the
South, still clinging to the traditions of the slave system, have
continued to deny liberty to the colored man ; and to this
attitude is due the existence in that section of a state of law
lessness with its long train of evils.
It has thus come to pass that mobs torture human beings and
roast them alive without trial and in defiance of law and order ;
mobs shoot down women and children who have never been
charged with crime, and against whom there is no suspicion,
— it is enough that they are negroes. Mobs take possession
of the streets of great cities and assault and shoot down inno
cent colored people, driving them from their homes and burn
ing their property, — in one instance more than a thousand
4
SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION
colored people, men, women and children, being driven from
their homes in a single day. Mobs intercept and hold up
the regularly constituted officers of the law, take prisoners
from their possession and shoot them to death. Mobs break
into jails and take out prisoners and hang them, sometimes
in the jail yard, and riddle their bodies with bullets. Mobs
even invade the sacred precincts of the court-room, and
during the actual process of the trial, take prisoners from the
custody of the lawful authorities and shoot them in the very
temple of justice, or hang them in the court-yard in the pres
ence of judge, jury, and court officers, amid the shouts and
cheers of hundreds, and, at times, thousands of people. In
one instance sixteen colored men were shot to death on the
floor of the court-room in Mississippi, during the actual proc
ess of the trial of two colored men charged with a minor
offence. And these things are done, not in a corner, but
under the full glare of the noonday sun.
The white people of the South have taken pains to declare
through their public press and public men — as if to mitigate
national indignation and forestall condemnation — that all
these things were committed by their " best citizens." This
is a most startling indictment of the South, and by the South
itself, and is an apt illustration of the saying, " Who excuses,
accuses." It is not contended in these pages, however, that
all the white people of the South, or the most of them, or even
the " best " of them, are given over to unrighteous or riotous
proceedings. For the whole, or even the majority of a people
are not bad. There are always men and women, true and
good, as honest as the day is long, who " love mercy, do jus
tice, and walk humbly" as in the sight of God.
But that there is a prevalence of inconsistencies and barbari
ties and a reign of terror and blood which darken the sky of
the Sunny South, the land where
** Everlasting spring abides
And never withering flowers,"
5
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
is as clear as the light of the sun. The white people of the
South, however, are descended from noble and honored ances
tors, who were imbued with the highest ideals of liberty,
humanity, righteousness, and orderly government. Many of
these were originally opposed to the introduction of the insti
tution of human slavery, while others were sceptical or indif
ferent about it, and still others accepted it in the spirit of
liberal toleration. It is a generally acknowledged fact that
slavery at first existed in a mild and not very offensive form,
practically devoid of the barbarities and brutalities which
later characterized it, — the slave owner being somewhat like a
feudal lord of more or less power and dignity, and the slave
holding a relation not far removed from that of a liege. It
is indisputable that the white people of the South carried on
among themselves for years an agitation for the abolition of sla
very, and that they probably would have abolished slavery, or
eliminated it by colonization or some other means, but for the
determined minor element composed of slaveholders, whose
influence was greatly reinforced by the invention, in 1793, of
the cotton gin, which while a most useful invention yet has
proved a curse and scourge as well as a profit and blessing
to mankind. This invention gave a tremendous impetus to
the demand for slave labor by vastly increasing its commercial
value : it put new life and vigor into the slave trade, creating
a limitless demand for slaves, and making the abolition of
slavery practically impossible save by a national upheaval.
Through the extension of the interests in the slave trade
and slave labor, and the realization of the enormous profits
resulting from these sources, came the Southerner's dream of
wealth, power, and dominion, which turned any general senti
ment for the abolition of slavery in the South into a demand
for more slaves. Thenceforth the white people of the South
dedicated themselves, not to the development of their free
institutions, but to the building up of a slaveholding oli
garchy, overbearing and cruel, which was yet to challenge
6
SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION
the nation itself to mortal combat, to cover the land with
mourning, and to redden a continent with blood.
This invention of the cotton gin raised the Cotton Indus
try to such supreme importance that cotton became king of
the products in the world's market. And King Cotton, like
Satan in the temptation of the Christ on the Mount, said to
the Southern whites : " All these things will I give thee, if
thou wilt fall down and worship me, — the kingdoms of the
world and the glory of them." The white people of the
South did not resist this appeal to their greed and love for
gilded luxury ; this promise of untold wealth, power, and
dominion that was held forth to them. They betook them
selves to the worship of King Cotton.
Truly COTTON was KING. It became their worshiping
fetich. They were lured from their high ideals, and even
threw to the winds those basic principles, those very funda
mental truths of Christianity, the fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man.
"Am I my brother's keeper?" asked one of old. The
white people of the South were no longer their " brother's
keeper,"" certainly not the keeper of their " brother in black."
The institution of slavery increased and expanded by leaps
and bounds, and became more and more debasing to the
whites and blacks alike. The slave trade was stimulated as
never before, and those engaged in it became brutal beyond
description. The appalling sacrifice of human life, and the
wide-spread desolation incident to its operation were matters
of public knowledge. Scores of African villages might be
laid waste, fire and sword work havoc, and thousands of old
and young people killed in order to secure one cargo of slaves ;
but what of that ? It was not worthy of a moment's consider
ation that to deliver a single slave on a plantation might cost
the lives of half a hundred of Africans. What concern was
it to them if a thousand lives were sacrificed, since they ob
tained that one slave ?
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
The ghastly horrors of " the middle passage " ; the clanking
of chains ; the wild and deep groans of men ; the heart
rending weeping and wailing of women and children ; the
cruel floggings ; the agonizing cries of despair from the dying,
to whom the visit of death was as the visit of an angel ; the
dumping of the dead into the sea by hands dyed with human
blood ; the crowding of these ill-fated and hapless creatures
of all ages and both sexes into the dark and filthy pest holes
of slave ships, and all the terrible, unspeakable agonies of body
and anguish of spirit which they endured — all this and more
caused the slaveholder no worry, no loss of sleep. The con
science was seared. Remorse was dead.
They had no time for maudlin sympathy. Slaves they
wanted. Slaves they must have. The cost in horror and
blood ; life, pain, and devastation ; ruin and desolation were
as nothing. The cotton fields must be developed, extended,
and expanded ; the malarial swamps and marshes must be
redeemed and made to yield their harvest of golden sheaves
laden with the pearly grains of rice ; all the land, the field
and forest, and even the earth beneath must be made to yield
their increase, and the labor of slaves must accomplish this.
So the white people of the South cried out for slaves — and
more slaves — AND STILL MORE SLAVES.
It was impossible that these things could have other than
a disastrous effect on public morality. The white South had
indeed fallen from its high estate. Its great ideals had
gradually faded away.
In an article in the Atlantic Monthly for September, 1901,
Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, speaking of the condition of the
South at the time of the War of the Rebellion, says that
the South was " without ships, without money, without
machinery that could produce a knife, a blanket, or a tin
cup ; without an ally, without even the sympathy of a single
nation, without knowledge of the outside world, or indeed of
her able and determined opponent."
8
SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION
Does he realize the cutting irony, the bald satire of his
own statement ? For he is pleading, as he always does, in
season and out of season, for the white people of the South ;
apologizing for, or justifying, the many hardships imposed
on the negro, and seeking always to discredit and prejudice
him in the eyes of the nation. His is indeed a pitiful de
scription of a pitiful civilization ; and the pity of the pity is,
that it is pitifully true.
The worse than ghoulish horrors commonly practised by
the brutal kidnappers, or African slave traders ; the ghastly
spectacle of the slave auction-block, where slaves, men, women,
and children were examined and sold as though they were
cattle, and the heartrending, inhuman, and disgusting scenes
attendant thereon, — these things had caused throughout the
civilized world such a revulsion of public sentiment against
the institution of human slavery that the South in the mo
ment of its great extremity was indeed absolutely " without
an ally, without even the sympathy of a single nation." It
was these ghastly abominations of the slave auction-block,
which on one occasion Abraham Lincoln witnessed as a
young man when on a visit to New Orleans in 1831, that
moved him to declare eternal war against the system of
slavery.
The incident as reported is this : " He saw a slave, a
beautiful mulatto girl, sold at auction. She was felt over,
pinched, trotted around to show to bidders that said article
was sound. Lincoln walked away from the sad, inhuman
scene with deep feelings of unsmotherable hatred. He said
to John Hank, who was with him : ' If I ever get a chance
to hit that institution, 1 11 hit it — hard, John.1 " He got the
chance, and did " hit it " ; how hard, the world knows.
It is worth while to point out the cause of the backward
and pitiable condition of the South in 1861, which Mr.
Page, with lamentations, so accurately and pithily depicts.
'The institution of slavery laid tribute on the talent, the
9
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
statesmanship, the loyalty, and all the vital forces — moral,
spiritual, and material — of the South.J It was the all-
absorbing topic ; it monopolized the brain and heart of the
South. All other subjects converged into it.
The South had for years devoted, even dedicated its genius,
its strength, its energies, to the institution of human slavery,
and to the development, protection, expansion, and perpetu
ation of the system. Its genius and talent for other things
simply shrivelled up. It devoted itself so completely to the
institution of slavery that the South made, what William
Lloyd Garrison declared slavery to be, " an agreement with
death and a covenant with hell." It was death to the public
morals and conscience of the South ; and it was hell to the
ill-fated, helpless, down-trodden slave.
The institution of slavery, as bad and debasing as it was
for the negro in one way, was probably even worse for
the whites in another. It so stupefied the conscience of the
whites that even now, forty years after the destruction of the
system, they show but few signs of recovery from its baneful
effects. It so twisted and perverted their moral conceptions
that they cannot view rationally or with justice the simplest
question affecting the manhood rights of the negro.
This fact was demonstrated when President Roosevelt
simply recognized the eminence and worth of a colored
American citizen, in the person of Principal Booker T. Wash
ington, by inviting him to dinner. What was all the con
sequent furor, denunciation, and display of bad temper and
worse judgment but the manifestation of the entailed, un-
pitying consequences of the barbarism of slavery ? France
honors a member of the colored race as a general in her
army ; another has been vice-president of her Chamber of
Deputies ; others occupy high stations in the life of the
nation ; a number are in her leading schools. England's
gracious sovereign, the late Queen Victoria, repeatedly enter
tained colored persons at breakfast or luncheon, extending, for
10
SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION
instance, such courtesy to the whole company of the famous
Fisk University Jubilee Singers ; but there was not a person
in the whole British Empire who protested against it.
The most powerful emperors, kings, and rulers of Europe
have extended such courtesies without having public decency
shocked or violated by ribald protestations. Prince Henry,
the brother of the German Emperor, while on a visit to the
United States, and when every minute of his time was at
a premium, denying himself to many prominent people,
especially commanded that the Hampton Jubilee Singers,
colored, be presented to him at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
Such instances render the more pitiable, if not ridiculous, the
spectacle that the South made of itself in regard to the Roose
velt-Washington dining incident. But this " may be set down
to the not yet closed account of " the barbarism of slavery.
This system of slavery, as it existed in the South, was as
black as moral turpitude could make it. The fond words
mother •, home, and family were devoid of their high and real
meaning to the slave. For he lived, moved, and had his
being in the ever-present, dismal, and benumbing shadow of
the auction-block. His was a life approaching moral deso
lation ; a life in which the great moral incentives begotten
of the ties, honor, and blessedness of the family life, blood,
and name, were absent. There was next to nothing in the
family life of the slave to inspire him to noble purpose and
endeavor. There could be no legal marriage ; the constant
separation of those who had entered into the marriage rela
tion, by the sale of either husband or wife, made this impos
sible. For the wife or husband, if sold every day in a week,
could marry anew after each sale.
Uncle Tom's Cabin, that wonderful work of Mrs. Harriet
Beecher Stowe, did not depict, nor even scarcely hint at,
some of the grosser evils and barbarities of the system ; and
yet the white South winces over it. These people should not
be blamed for being so sensitive over Mrs. Stowed incisive
11
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
and luminous protrayal of the life and civilization of the
South, although the worst was not told. Much in connection
with the treatment of slaves and the raising of them for the
home market was really unprintable.
The buying and selling, the separation and breaking up of
negro families were common all over the South. Neither age
nor sex were regarded. The infant was snatched from the
mothers arms ; the father and mother of a family were torn
from each other ; they were sold, each in a different direction,
never more to meet on earth. Strange, passing strange, that
it never dawned on the white people of the South that
*' The black mother who rocks her boy
Feels in her heart all a mother's joy. "
It is unquestionably true that there were good and humane
masters. There were some, indeed, who were most consider
ate to their slaves ; and others who never even became recon
ciled to the system of slavery, but rather hated it to the end,
and rejoiced at its destruction. But this was the exception,
and did little to change the general conditions and lessen
the evils inherent in the system. Neither Washington, the
father of his country, nor Thomas Jefferson, the author of
the Declaration of Independence, believed in human slavery ;
Madison is credited with keeping the word slavery out of the
Constitution ; while Mason, Tucker, Randolph, and others
opposed the institution.
Thomas Jefferson, the father of Democracy, both spoke
and wrote against slavery. He foresaw that there would be
a great national convulsion over it, and counselled its elimina
tion. He left on record these prophetic words, " Nothing is
more certainly written in the book of fate than that these
people shall be free." The South did not take heed. If
Thomas Jefferson were living to-day in the dawn of the twen
tieth century, with the immense strides of mankind taken
since his time, he would tell the white people of the South
12
SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION
that " nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate
than that these people shall enjoy equal rights and privileges
before the law.11 The white people may disregard the warn
ing now as they did under the slave regime, but infidelity to
truth, justice, and good order, and the dragon teeth of un
righteousness and oppressive laws will bring a bitter harvest
to their children, and may long plague the land.
There were other Southerners, some notable ones, who from
time to time, because of their conscientious scruples against
human slavery, set their slaves free. Like Abraham Lincoln,
their souls burned within them with righteous indignation
against the unspeakable iniquities of the system ; and they
sincerely felt that " no man was good enough to own another
man.11 Some even left the South to avoid identification with
the abominations of slavery, and took up their residence in
the free North. Some sent their children by colored mothers
North to be educated and to live, and also set the mothers
free and removed them to the North as well. There were,
and still exist, instances of tender and even affectionate regard
between the master class and the slave class. Since emanci
pation there have been some of the master class who have
been devotedly interested in the welfare of their former slaves,
and have been both a help and a protection to them ; in
some instances rescuing them from unjust treatment and the
fury of lawless mobs. Nevertheless, the plain, unvarnished
truth remains, that the great body of slave owners were either
inconsiderate or cruel themselves, or put their slaves into the
hands of heartless slave-drivers, overseers, and hard task
masters. And these made the life of the slaves a burden,
grievous and hard to bear.
Some apologists seek to gloss over the iniquities of this
system and even give it a patriarchal tinge with divine virtues ;
they would make it appear as though American slavery was
established for the " benevolent assimilation " of the African
negro. It is true that the white men of the South did ac-
13
THE IAFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
complish a large measure of "assimilation,*" the manifold evi
dences of which are to be seen in every city, town, village,
and country district throughout the South ; but there are
grave, very grave reasons for doubt as to the " benevolent "
character of this "assimilation."" What good the milder
slavery actually did for the negro was in spite of its barbarity
and was due to his great powers for absorbing civilization.
Slavery was in no sense whatever a philanthropic or humani
tarian enterprise, but was developed and conducted on the
low plane of avarice, greed, and bestiality. There seem to be
no grounds on which it can be claimed that it was intended
for the good of the negroes, who in their low estate were but
chattels to be marketed and sold, and at their best were but
as beasts of burden to toil and moil in order that the master
class might live in comfortable ease and luxury.
The wide-spread and brutal floggings on the bare body
continued in some cases until the blood flowed ; the bathing
in salt water to increase the agony ; the general use of blood
hounds, in some instances making them lacerate the flesh of
the slaves to give them a taste for human blood and make
them more ferocious and thus a greater terror to the slaves ;
the devices for torture such as the stocks, the thumbscrew,
the pillory ; and the varied methods of stringing up, — are
some of the " fascinations " and " beauties " of the slave's life
which the apologists of the system ignore. There are well
authenticated cases of slaves being whipped to death, and of
others dying from the effects of the floggings. But notwith
standing, to borrow the title of one of the beautiful planta
tion melodies, their " Hard Trials and Great Tribulations,"
the slaves continued to increase in numbers.
They learned how to use the title of another of their sweet
melodies, — to " Steal Away, Steal Away, Steal Away to
Jesus," and find strength, comfort, and sustaining help in
every time of need. They seem also to have demonstrated
that liberty is an instinct of the human heart; for in the
14
SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION
blackest hour of the long night of their gloomy bondage,
they sang most gleefully and with joyous, hopeful hearts,
another of their soul-inspiring melodies :
" One of these days I shall be free,
When Christ the Lord shall set me free. "
This song was forbidden by the slave owners, because its
spirit would tend to keep alive the thirst for liberty. It is
but another illustration of the wisdom of the man who said :
" Let me write the songs of a people, and I care not who
may write their laws/1
The negroes hoodwinked the master class by humming the
music of this particular song, while the words echoed and re
echoed deep down in their hearts with perhaps greater effect
than if they had been spoken. These melodies were to them
the Incarnation — God with them ; and to their keen and
simple faith He seemed to be visible and tangible, ever
present and ever blessed. These songs had a meaning and
power which all men may appreciate, but which the negro
alone could fully comprehend. Songs are the heart-language
of a people ; and as the negro heart-language it is not sur
prising that these melodies should touch and melt human
hearts the world over. Queens, emperors, and potentates
of the Old World; the President in the White House;
the most cultured and fashionable audiences everywhere
have been moved and melted to tears by their rendition.
Of a truth as a heart-language they are at once the in
terpretation and exemplification of that wondrous touch
of nature " which makes the whole world kin." In them
was the secret of the sustaining power which enabled the
negroes to weather the storms of their bitter afflictions and
sing : —
" Nobody knows the trouble I see,
Nobody knows but Jesus ;
Nobody knows the trouble I see,
Glory in my soul.
15
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
" I'm sometimes up, and sometimes down,
O ! yes, Lord !
Sometimes almost to the ground,
O ! yes, Lord !
" Nobody knows the trouble I see,
Nobody knows but Jesus ;
Nobody knows the trouble I see,
Glory in my soul ! "
It was this " glory in the soul " that enabled them not only
to withstand all the grinding experiences, tribulations, and
bestialities of the slave system, but even to flourish and mul
tiply. Only the strongest of races could have survived this
wasting and agonizing strain of centuries.
The following table shows the increase in slaves by
decades :
YEAR. NUMBER or SLAVES.
1800 1,002,037
1810 1,377,808
1820 1,771,658
1830 2,328,642
1840 2,873,648
1850 3,638,808
1860 4,441,830
A factor of great yet weird significance in Southern life
may be referred to here. During all the years of slavery,
the amalgamation of the races, though practically one-sided,
was going on with ever-increasing pace. The overwhelming
evidence of this widely diffused amalgamation which can
never be blotted out was written and bleached indelibly in
the faces and features of the servants in the dining-room,
in the chambers, in the nurseries, in the sewing-rooms, in the
laundries, in the kitchens, in care of horse and stables, of
servant gardeners, messengers, and plantation hands ; it
was to be seen in servants in every sphere and vocation in
Southern life.
The white men of the South had endowed and were still
endowing the negro slave with their best blood and greatest
16
SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION
names. Some of these slave owners, be it said to their
credit, did treat their own offspring of a negro mother with
consideration. But the great body of these slave owners
would sell their own offspring and their mothers, together or
separately, without the least show of compunction of con
science. For a man to sell his own children and the mother
of his children, even though they were not legitimate heirs
at law, into a bondage where hope hardly abideth, is a mon
strous act of hard-heartedness. But such monstrous acts
were common.
These slave owners well knew to what a horrible life their
own daughters of negro mothers would be subjected, a life
worse than death ; but this, too, was of little or no concern
to them. The touching lines of Longfellow's " The Quad
roon Girl" are painfully illuminating on this point.
In this connection, it may be remarked that an exceedingly
strange phenomenon, and one that will require the utmost
resources of the sociologists for a rational explanation, is
that the white people of the South, who under the degrad
ing influences of the slave regime sold their own children
and the negro mothers of their children into a bondage black,
bitter, and brutalizing, are to-day, forty years after the de
struction of slavery, and under the benign light of a more
advanced civilization, ostracizing and outlawing by legisla-
lative acts and otherwise disfranchizing, lynching, and burn
ing at the stake their own children of negro mothers, and
the children of their fathers and grandfathers and more
remote ancestors.
It is interesting to note, in connection with this thought,
that the three colored persons — Principal Booker T. Wash
ington, who was invited to dine at the White House by the
President ; Dr. William D. Crum, who was appointed col
lector of the port of Charleston, South Carolina ; and Mrs.
Cox, the capable and accomplished postmistress at Indian-
ola, Mississippi, who was driven from her position and vir-
2 17
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
tually expelled from the town by a brutal and lawless mob
of the much-vaunted superior whites — these three colored
persons, bearing the very best character, educated, cultured,
property-owners, and in all the essentials of life superior
to many white people of the South, — have actually more
Caucasian than African blood in their veins. And not
withstanding which, their recognition by the President as
American citizens fit to hold office threw the people of the
South into hysterics, and brought about the most bitter
denunciation of them and the President ; and some South
ern whites have even publicly demanded their assassination.
For lack of a more intelligent and plausible reason, this,
too, " may be set down to the not yet closed account of" the
barbarism of slavery.
As slavery became more intrenched in the South, the op
position to it became more pronounced and determined in
the North. The people of the North, having voluntarily set
free their own slaves, were practically united against the
institution of slavery, or at least were uncompromisingly
opposed to its further extension. Thus, the North and
the South faced each other on the slavery question ; the
South demanding an extension of the system, and the
North its limitation, if not destruction. Robert Toombs
of Georgia, a leading slave owner and statesman of the
South, declared that he would never be contented "until
he could call the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker
Hill monument in Massachusetts." Slavery became the para
mount issue in national politics, in great religious bodies,
social circles, at the fireside, everywhere. It was the all-
absorbing subject.
While many of the antislavery leaders stood firmly and
unequivocally upon a broad foundation of liberty, humani-
tarianism, or the ethics of the gospel of Christ, yet it
should not be overlooked that they were strongly urged by
the fact that the slave labor at the South had already ex-
18
SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION
erted a degrading influence on the white free labor at the
North and was an ever-increasing menace to it. The white
free labor of the North, in order to maintain its own dignity,
and preserve its rewards, must perforce join in the crusade
against slave labor at the South. This positive peril of the
great masses of white toilers in the North being reduced to
conditions approaching those of the slave in the South
became a factor of great importance. Moreover, the aggres
sions and intolerance of Southern leaders and their plainly
expressed contempt for the laborer greatly increased sectional
animosities and augmented the ranks of the abolitionists.
In the fierce and bitter conflict of words that arose, the
South scored signal victories.
It obtained the Missouri Compromise, but repudiated the
compact when it served its interest to do so.
It obtained the Fugitive Slave Law, which imposed on
Northern white men, under heavy penalties, the duty of
hounding down the fugitive slave, a fellow-man who was
guilty of no crime save that of fleeing a bondage which was
as black as midnight and more cruel than the grave.
It obtained the Dred Scott decision from the Supreme
Court of the United States. Chief Justice Taney, speaking
for the Court, declared that negroes " had no rights which
the white man was bound to respect."
It obtained, through Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina,
the silencing of slavery's greatest foe, and humanity's greatest
advocate, Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, — not by argu-.
ment, but by blows of a loaded cane stealthily given on the
floor of the United States Senate.
Various counties in the State of South Carolina presented
Brooks with gold-headed canes for his chivalrous and gallant
act of thus assaulting, in behalf of his State and people, a
man who was unsuspectingly writing at his desk.
It brought John Brown to the gallows, but " his soul goes
marching on.""
19
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
The slaveholders were aggressively domineering. They
seemed to be " spoiling for a fight," and yet they felt sure
that there would be no fight. Was cotton not king ? Be
sides, the South controlled other great staples of the world's
commerce, and millions of hardy and faithful slave laborers.
This was the source of their confidence and the strength of
their intolerance.
Mr. Hammond of South Carolina, in the United States
Senate on March 4, 1858, said : " Without firing a gun,
without drawing a sword, should the North make war on us,
we could bring the whole world to our feet. What would
happen if no cotton was furnished for three years ? I will
not stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this is
certain, England would topple headlong and carry the whole
civilized world with her. No, you dare not make war on
cotton. No power on earth dares to make war on cotton.
Cotton is King." War did, however, go on for four years,
but England did not topple.
These and other events of more or less national import
crowding thick and fast on each other fired into a white-heat
the two great sections of the country, the North and the
South. When the memorable year of 1860 came, it found
the nation a seething caldron of political, social, and relig
ious excitement. The time for the election of a President
was at hand. u The irrepressible conflict " was on : it was
to be a duel to the death between the pro-slavery and the
an ti slavery forces.
The forces of liberty and righteousness were triumphant.
Is it too much to say that God sent confusion into the
councils of the slaveholding oligarchy, which, instead of nomi
nating one candidate who might easily have been elected,
nominated four candidates and was defeated?
" Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."
The course of events solidified the antislavery forces, and
served to crystallize the antislavery sentiment. These forces
20
SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION
and sentiment found expression through the Union Repub
lican party, — a new organization with potentialities for
achievements far beyond the ken of the men who stood spon
sors at its birth : a party born unto grand moral ideas, and
reviving and holding fast to the fundamental principles of
liberty, equality, fraternity, to which the republic was dedi
cated. This was a party whose supreme services to the
nation and whose beneficent and lasting work for humanity
and the cause of liberty, could hardly have been conceived by
its founders. It was a party ordained of God not only to
break the galling fetters of the slave, crowning him with
manhood, and emancipating the conscience of the master,
freeing him from blood-guiltiness, but also destined to lift
the nation itself out of its circumscribed provincialism into
the sphere of the broadest nationality, giving the republic a
foremost place among the great nations of the earth. It
was destined even to carry the blessings of liberty to other
peoples and climes. Cuba and Porto Rico now rejoice, as
the Philippines certainly will later on.
The standard bearer of this party in this historic campaign,
Abraham Lincoln, was raised up, equipped, and called to the
Presidency of the republic, as providentially as Moses was
called to lead Israel out of Egypt. He was the ideal man
for the hour.
The slaveholding oligarchy interpreted Lincoln's election
to mean that their power was broken, their dominion over
thrown, and that the institution of slavery was no longer safe,
within the Union. The reasoning was swift and direct. But
slavery must be saved at any price ; if not in the Union, then
out of it ; peacefully if possible, by war if necessary. It was
but a step to the plunge into the dark abyss of secession.
Secession and the founding of a great slaveholding empire,
which had been an open threat for decades, now seemed im
minent. The clouds of war were gathering. The murmurs,
rumblings, and heated utterances were so foreboding that it
21
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
was deemed wise and prudent for President-elect Lincoln to
go secretly a portion of the way from his State of Illinois to
the seat of government at Washington, because of well-
grounded fears of assassination.
Lincoln's inaugural address was pacific, but firm. He de
clared that his most solemn obligation and paramount duty
was to enforce the Constitution and preserve the Union.
Whether the leaders of the South did, or did not commit
treason when they took up arms and sought to overthrow the
government of their country is not a part of this discussion.
There seems to be no ground for doubt, however, that many
who had taken the oath of office to uphold and defend the
Constitution and government of the United States were
actively engaged in planning and plotting to overthrow the
Constitution and to destroy the government to which they
had plighted their word and honor. It is enough to say that
the secession of Southern States followed the inauguration of
Lincoln. These leaders plunged the nation into the bloodi
est internecine conflict that history records. Amid the loud
diapason of the cannonade the institution of human slavery
went down forever, "and the government at Washington
still lives.1'
The storm and stress of the antislavery agitation devel
oped many magnificent characters who lend lustre and renown
to the American name. Men and women of never dying fame,
— Charles Sumner, John Brown, William Lloyd Garrison,
Wendell Phillips, Dr. Gamaliel Bailey, Fred Douglass, Henry
Highland Garnet, Lucretia Mott, Owen Lovejoy, Robert
Morris, Ben Wade, Peter S. Porter, Henry Ward Beecher,
John Greenleaf Whittier, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William
Henry Furness, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and others —
gave intellectual and moral splendor and grandeur to the
cause, and quickened and lightened up the smoldering con
science of the people. They shared the feelings and were
inspired by the brave words of William Lloyd Garrison, who
SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION
said : " I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not
excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard.
I solicit no man's praise, I fear no man's censure. The
liberty of a people is the gift of God and Nature. Neither
God nor the world will judge us by our profession, but by
our practices."
In the great transformation which such persons wrought in
public sentiment, they approach unto those, " who through
faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained
promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence
of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were
made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the
armies of the aliens."
Purely as a matter of history and not in a censorious spirit,
it may be said that in the discussion of the prosecution of the
war, the South can hardly escape free from blame for much
that was rash, and some things that were needlessly cruel and
inhuman. Its treatment of Union prisoners was often cruel,
and sometimes deliberately and purposely so. The account of
Andersonville, Libby, and other prison pens, where captured
Union soldiers were held, disclosed an awful and most shock
ing story of their experiences and treatment. Mr. Elaine, in
an address in Congress on this point, said : " I have read over
the details of those atrocious murders of the Duke of Alva in
the Low Countries, which are always mentioned with a thrill
of horror throughout Christendom. I have read the details of
the massacre of St. Bartholomew, that stand out in history as
one of the atrocities beyond imagination. I have read anew
the horrors untold and unimaginable of the Spanish Inquisi
tion. And I here before God, measuring my words, knowing
their extent and import, declare that neither the deeds of
the Duke of Alva in the Low Countries, nor the massacre of
St. Bartholomew, nor the thumb-screws and engines of tor
ture of the Spanish Inquisition begin to compare in atrocity
with the hideous crime of Andersonville."
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
The South's attitude towards colored soldiers and the white
officers commanding them was indefensible. When a nation
clothes a man with the uniform of its soldiers and puts a rifle
into his hand, and sends him to the firing line, it is bound to
protect him in all the rights of a soldier. To put a money
reward on the head of white officers of colored troops, or
to threaten to shoot or hang such soldiers, and shoot or
punish their officers if captured is scarcely justifiable. The
Confederate Congress enacted this extreme law : " That every
white person, being a commissioned officer or acting as such,
who, during the present war shall command negroes or mulat-
toes in arms against the Confederate States, or who shall arm,
train, organize, or prepare negroes or mulattoes for military
service against the Confederate States, or who shall volun
tarily aid negroes or mulattoes in any military enterprise,
attack, or' conflict^n such service, shall be deemed as inciting
servile insurrection, and shall, if captured, be put to death or
otherwise punished at the discretion of the Court." The law
also provided for hanging or shooting colored soldiers cap
tured, or for selling them into slavery.
But neither the colored soldiers nor white officers were
daunted or terrified. The best exemplification of this is the
favorite camp song of the Black Regiments, which ran in
part as follows : —
" Fremont he told us, when the cruel war begun,
How to save the Union, and how it must be done ;
But ' Old Kentuck' swore so hard, father ' Abe ' had his fears,
And wondered what to do with the colored volunteers.
" Jeff Davis said he 'd hang 'em if he should catch 'em armed.
That 's a mighty bad thing, but they ain't at all alarmed ;
First he 's got to catch 'em 'live, 'fore to hang is clear,
And that 's what will save the colored volunteers.
" Then give us the flag all free without a slave,
We '11 fight and defend it, as the fathers did so brave ;
So, forward, boys, forward ! 't is the year of Jubilee '.
God bless America, we '11 help to make her free. "
SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION
The desecration of the body of Colonel Robert Gould
Shaw was a dreadful mistake. This gallant young hero fell
at the head of his black troops, the immortal 54th Massa
chusetts Regiment, on the parapet of Fort Wagner, near
Charleston. When information was sought as to his body,
the curt reply was : " He is buried with his niggers."
Colonel Norwood P. Hallowell of the 55th Massachusetts
Regiment, in an address before the Military Historical
Society of Massachusetts, says : " The manner of Colonel
Shaw's burial has been circumstantially related by two
Confederate officers, — Major McDonald, Fifty-first North
Carolina, and Captain H. W. Hendricks, — both of whom were
present at the time. Colonel Shaw's body was stripped of
all his clothing save his undershirt and drawers. This dese
cration of the dead was done by one Charles Blake and
others. The body was earned within the fort and there
exposed for a time. It was then carried without the fort
and buried in a trench with the negroes."
Colonel Shaw fell on July 18, 1863, and of him Colonel
Hallowell further says : " Colonel Shaw was in the twenty-
sixth year of his age, — how young it seems now ! — and had
seen two years of hard service in the Army of the Potomac.
His clean-cut face, quick, decided step, and singular charm
of manner, full of grace and virtue, bespoke the hero. The
immortal charge of his black regiment reads like a page of
the Iliad or a story from Plutarch. I have always thought
that in the great war with the slave power the figure that
stands out in boldest relief is that of Colonel Shaw. There
were many others as brave and devoted as he, — the humblest
private who sleeps in yonder cemetery or fills an unknown
grave in the South is as much entitled to our gratitude, —
but to no others was given an equal opportunity. By the
earnestness of his convictions, the unselfishness of his charac
ter, his championship of an enslaved race, and the manner of
his death, all the conditions are given to make Shaw the best
25
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
historical exponent of the underlying cause, the real meaning
of the war. He was the fair type of all that was brave,
generous, beautiful, and of all that was best worth fighting
for in the war of the slave-holders1 Rebellion.1"1
This recently made estimate of Colonel Shaw's character
and place in history was shared by many notable Americans
who were in the heat of the fray, some of whom have been
gathered unto their fathers.
Charles Sumner said : " I know no soldier's death finer
than that of a young commander, at the head of his men, on
the parapet of an enemy's fort, which he had entered by
storm."
Thomas Hughes declared : " It was the grandest sepulchre
earned by any soldier in this century."
The New York Times said : " He was one of the young
gentlemen whom this war has developed as a soldier and
immortalized as a patriot and martyr. Of high social posi
tion, surrounded by everything to make life dear to him, he
accepted the position of colonel of a colored regiment to help
set at rest the question of respectability of that arm of the
service."
Charles A. Dana wrote to Colonel Shaw's parents : " From
the first I have watched his career as a soldier with a tender
presentiment that he was to fill a bright place among the
martyrs of liberty. With the grief of my love for him and
for you, there is mingled a noble consolation, a thrill of
almost joy, especially when I remember that he died a leader
of the outcast and the oppressed. Such a death of such a
man would renew my faith if I had doubted concerning the
end. God governs, and the lives of so many among the best
of his children are not offered up in vain."
Governor Andrew spoke of him in a message to the
Massachusetts Legislature as " that gallant young American
whose spotless life, whose chivalrous character, whose noble
death there is no marble white enough to commemorate."
26
SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION
Henry Ward Beecher wrote from Europe, where he was
upholding the cause of the Union : "I bear your burden
with you and yours, and I cease not to bear all your pierced
and sorrowing hearts to that wounded heart who consoles
evermore with wonderful love and tenderness.""
John Lothrop Motley wrote : " When we all of us have
been long gathered into the common granary, sculptors,
painters, and poets will delight to reproduce that beautiful
vision of undying and heroic youth, and eyes not yet created
will dwell upon it with affection and pride."
The New York World said : " The brutality which sought
to wreak its vengeance upon the senseless clay of what had
been a fearless foe, could not be more nobly chastised than it
is by this lofty and living pride."
This had reference to Colonel Shaw's father's statement :
" Our darling son, our hero, has received at the hands of the
rebels the most fitting burial possible. They buried him
with his brave, devoted followers, who fell dead over him and
arc Mid him. The poor, benighted wretches thought they
were heaping indignities upon his dead body, but the act
recoils on themselves, and proves them absolutely incapable
of appreciating noble qualities. They thought to give addi
tional pang to the bruised hearts of his friends ; but we
would not have him buried elsewhere if we could. If a wish
of ours would do it, we would not have his body taken away
from those who loved him so devotedly, with whom and for
whom he gave his life."
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote tenderly of him, and dedicated
a poem to him, closing : —
** So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When duty whispers low, ' Thou must,'
The youth replies, « I can.' "
James Russell Lowell said : " I would rather have my
name known and blessed as his will be through all the hovels
27
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
of an outcast race than blazing from all the trumpets of re
pute." And in a poem on the heroism of Colonel Shaw,
Mr. Lowell also wrote : —
" Brave, good, and true,
I see him stand before me now,
And read again on that young brow,
Where every hope was new,
How sweet were life! Yet, by the mouth firm set,
And look made up for Duty's utmost debt,
I could divine he knew
That death within the sulphurous hostile lines
In the mere wreck of nobly pitched designs
Plucks heart's-ease, and not rue.
*' Happy their end
Who vanish down life's evening stream
Placid as swans that drift in dream
Round the next river bend !
Happy long life, with honor at the close,
Friends' painless tears, the softened thought of foes !
And yet, like him, to spend
All at a gush, keeping our first faith sure
From mid-life's doubt and eld's contentment poor,
What more could Fortune send ?
" Right in the van,
On the red rampart's slippery swell,
With heart that beat a charge, he fell
Foe ward, as befits a man ;
But the high soul burns on to light men's feet
Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet."
Why these splendid tributes to a young man not twenty-
six years of age ? It was recognized that he was " the
best historical exponent of the underlying cause, the real
meaning of the war"; "the figure that stands out in bold
relief," and dared all for liberty and country, justice and
humanity.
Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, waving his sword on the par
apet of Wagner at the head of the 54th Massachusetts Regi
ment, thrust an idea and a force into the mighty conflict
28
SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION
which neither side had reckoned on at the opening of hos
tilities, and which many competent to judge declared turned
the balance of the scales. It brought to the Union arms
about two hundred thousand colored soldiers, and as many
more colored men employed in various lines of labor and
service.
When the war began, the South regarded the slaves as the
strongest pillar of support in the Confederacy. These were
to raise crops for feeding the armies, to build fortifications,
to do other service in camp, and to care for the women and
children. But as the war progressed, it developed that the
negroes in the cotton fields, the rice swamps, the corn fields
were quite a different factor from the negroes in uniform,
with musket in hand and in battle array. What the South
counted its greatest strength was in fact its greatest weakness.
The North was quick to seize the advantage. The negroes
were equal to the emergency. " The grand historic moment
which comes to a race only once in many centuries came to
them, and they recognized it." The slaves were used most
effectively against the masters. So that Colonel Shaw's
larger service to his country and humanity was in demon
strating at a critical moment the availability and heroism of
the negro as a soldier. It was at a time when the cause of
the Union was wavering, and, as Colonel Hallowell says,
" when volunteering had ceased, when the draft was a partial
failure, and the bounty system a senseless extravagance.11
While it is true that the negro had rendered invaluable ser
vices in the Revolutionary War, and later in the war of
1812, yet practically, for three quarters of a century he had
been under the lash of the heartless slave-driver, and had
ceased to be an object of consideration except to a remnant
of God-fearing philanthropists and courageous humanitarians.
The organized government was his oppressor.
It is just to say that Colonel Shaw gave to the colored
race a new status. He brought to the race the habiliments
29
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
of manhood, and the race crowned him with immortal fame.
He was the first to lead the negroes in large numbers into the
baptism of fire and to prove their mettle. Thenceforth
neither the North nor the South doubted. Colonel Shaw
himself was not without some realization of the magnitude
and glory of his mission, for in a letter to the lady he was to
wed, he wrote : " I shall feel that what I have to do is to
prove that a negro can be made a good soldier. . . . There
is great prejudice against it, but now that it has become a
government matter, that will probably wear away. At any
rate I shaVt be frightened out of it by its unpopularity.
I feel convinced that I shall never regret having taken this
step."
That he took great pride in his black troops and had full
faith in their soldierly qualities may be evidenced by a letter
he wrote of the first battle in which he led them against the
Confederates on James Island, Charleston Harbor, July 16,
1863. He said: "You don't know what a fortunate day
this has been for me and for all of us, excepting some poor
fellows who were killed and wounded. General Terry sent
me word he was highly gratified with the behavior of my
men, and the officers and privates of other regiments praise
us very much." He also wrote : " We hear nothing but
praise of the 54th on all hands."
Two days after this he led the charge on Fort Wagner,
saying to his friends these brave words : " We shall take the
fort, or die there. Good-by."
His life blood was poured out on the soil of South Carolina
and enriched it. His memory is a heritage to the nation.
The Shaw School at Charleston for colored youths was
named in honor of him. The Shaw University at Raleigh,
North Carolina, a flourishing institution for colored pupils,
also commemorates his memory.
Harvard College has a bust of him in marble, carved by
the colored artist Edmonia Lewis, once a slave, but now a
30
SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION
sculptor in Italy ; and in Memorial Hall at Harvard there
is also a life-size portrait of the hero of Fort Wagner.
Massachusetts has erected a monument in bronze and
marble, on the Boston Common, directly in front of her State
Capitol to perpetuate his memory, and that of " his brave
and devoted followers." The inscription, composed by Presi
dent Eliot of Harvard University, is as follows : —
TO THE FIFTY-FOURTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
REGIMENT INFANTRY
THE WHITE OFFICERS
TAKING LIFE AND HONOR IN THEIR HANDS CAST IN THEIR LOT WITH
MEN OF A DESPISED RACE UNPROVED IN WAR AND RISKED DEATH
AS INCITERS OF SERVILE INSURRECTION IF TAKEN PRISONERS. BESIDES
ENCOUNTERING ALL THE COMMON PERILS OF CAMP MARCH AND BATTLE.
THE BLACK RANK AND FILE
VOLUNTEERED WHEN DISASTER CLOUDED THE UNION CAUSE. SERVED
WITHOUT PAY FOR EIGHTEEN MONTHS TILL GIVEN THAT OF
WHITE TROOPS. FACED THREATENED ENSLAVEMENT IF CAPTURED.
WERE BRAVE IN ACTION. PATIENT UNDER HEAVY AND DANGER
OUS LABORS. AND CHEERFUL AMID HARDSHIPS AND PRIVATIONS.
TOGETHER
THEY GAVE TO THE NATION AND THE WORLD UNDYING PROOF THAT
AMERICANS OF AFRICAN DESCENT POSSESS THE PRIDE COURAGE AND
DEVOTION OF THE PATRIOT SOLDIER. ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY
THOUSAND SUCH AMERICANS ENLISTED UNDER THE UNION FLAG IN
(M.D.C.C.C.LXIII-M.D.C.C.C.LXV)
But above all Colonel Shaw will live in the hearts of all his
countrymen who appreciate noble manhood and the virtues
of heroism, and especially in the hearts of the multiplying
millions of colored people whose value and power as citizens
and as soldiers he first conspicuously and convincingly im
pressed on the nation.
31
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Of Fort Wagner, Colonel N. P. Hallowell says: "It
was armed with eighteen guns of various calibres, of which
number fifteen covered the only approach by land, which was
along the beach and was the width of scarcely half a company
front in one place. This approach was swept not only by the
guns of Wagner, but also by those of Battery Gregg on Cum-
ming's Point, the very northern extremity of the Island, and
by those of Sumter, and it was enfiladed by several heavily
armed batteries on James and Sullivan Islands. Our Fifty-
fourth Massachusetts (Colonel Shaw at the head) led the
column. In quick time that devoted column went on to its
destiny, heedless of the gaps made in its ranks by the relent
less fire of the guns of Wagner, of Gregg, of Sumter, of
James and Sullivan Islands. When within two hundred
yards of the fort, the rebel garrison swarmed from the
bomb-proof to the parapet, and to the artillery was added
the compact and destructive fire of fourteen hundred rifles at
two hundred yards'* range, a storm of solid shot, shells, grape,
canister, and bullets, the two hundred yards were passed, the
ditch was crossed, the parapet was gained, and the State and
National Colors planted thereon."
The bearer of the State flag was killed and it fell into the
fort, and its possession brought about one of the fiercest hand
to hand struggles witnessed during the war. As the bearer
of the national flag was killed, Sergeant William H. Carney
sprang forward and grasped the flag. His valor was attested
by wounds in both legs, in the breast, and the right arm. He
won cheers from his comrades by shouting : " The old flag
never touched the ground."
Lewis H. Douglass, the son of Fred Douglass, was praised
by both white and colored for great heroism. He was among
the first to mount the parapet, and shouted : " Come on, boys,
and fight for God and Governor Andrew." Captain C. J.
Russell and W. H. Simkins were especially mentioned among
the brave officers killed. Among the officers wounded were
SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION
Lieutenant-Colonel E. N. Hallowell ; Captains Appleton,
Jones, Willard, and Tope ; Adjutant James ; Lieutenants
Homans, Smith, Pratt, Tucker, and Emerson. Lieutenant
Emerson sheathed his sword, picked up a musket of a fallen
comrade, and used it effectively.
Private George Wilson was shot through both shoulders
and yet refused to go to the rear.
Captain Emilio, and Lieutenant-Colonel E. N. Hallowell,
in turn, succeeded Colonel Shaw in command.
Colonel N. P. Hallowell also says : " The regiment went
into action with twenty-two officers and six hundred and fifty
enlisted men. Fourteen officers were killed or wounded.
Two hundred and fifty-five enlisted men were killed or
wounded. Prisoners, not wounded, twenty. Total casual-
ities, officers and men, two hundred and sixty-nine, or forty
per cent. The character of the wounds attests the nature of
the contest. There were wounds from bayonet thrusts, sword
cuts, pike thrusts, and hand grenades ; and there were heads
and arms broken and smashed by the butt-ends of muskets."
General Hagood, the Confederate commander of the fort
said : " It was a dearly purchased compliment to let them
lead the assault. Their Colonel Shaw was killed upon the
parapet, and the regiment almost annihilated." Lieutenant
Iredel Jones, another Confederate officer, said: "The
negroes fought gallantly and were headed by as brave a
colonel as ever lived. He mounted the breastworks waving
his sword, and at the head of his regiment, and he and a
negro orderly sergeant fell dead over the inner crest of the
works. The negroes were as fine looking a set as I ever
saw — large, strong, muscular fellows."
General Strong — who, with the approval of General Sey
mour, offered the place of honor to Colonel Shaw and his
men in leading the attack on Wagner — rode up to the
regiment just before the assault and encouraged them, say
ing : " Boys, I am a Massachusetts man, and I know you
3 33
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
will fight for the honor of the State. I am sorry you must
go into the fight tired and hungry.'11 They had marched all
night previously in a thunder-storm and had covered six
miles that afternoon, subsisting scantily on the hard tack and
coffee carried in their haversacks.
As a matter of history it must be stated that colored
regiments had already been formed in South Carolina, in
Louisiana, and in Kansas, and had been under fire, but on a
comparatively small scale as yet, and had attracted little
attention in the Northern mind. The First South Carolina
Volunteers, under Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson,
was the first colored regiment in the field.
The enlistment of Colonel Shaw's regiment was accom
panied with grave apprehension, and John A. Andrew, the
great war Governor of Massachusetts, voiced his deep concern
in presenting the colors. Many prominent people were pres
ent. Governor Andrew said : " My own personal honor,
if I have any, is identified with yours. I stand or fall as a
man and a magistrate with the rise and the fall in the history
of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. I know not, sir, when
in all human history to any given one thousand men in arms
there has been permitted a work at once so proud, so pre
cious, and so full of hope and glory as the work committed
to you. And may the infinite mercy of the Almighty God
attend you every hour of every day through all the experi
ences and vicissitudes of that dangerous life in which you
have embarked.
" May the God of our fathers cover your head in the day
of battle. This flag, sir, has connected with its history the
most touching and sacred memory. It comes to your regi
ment from the mother, sister, and family relations of one of
the dearest and noblest soldier boys of Massachusetts. I need
but utter the name of Lieutenant Putnam in order to excite
in every heart the tenderest emotions of fond regard or the
strongest feelings of patriotic fire."
34
SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION
Happily indeed for the colored race, and for the republic,
the soldier boys of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment not
only met, but surpassed the highest expectations of friends,
and put to confusion doubters, critics, and detractors.
Mr. Ezra A. Cook, now a publisher at Chicago, but then
on the firing line says : " The bravery of this colored regi
ment was so conspicuous as to revolutionize the sentiment of
the Federal soldiers, a majority of whom had been opposed
to the colored soldiery up to that time. Those who had the
most fiercely denounced their employment previously, after
this assault expressed pleasure at being put into the same
brigade with the colored troops.1''
Fort Wagner opened a new epoch in American history.
It changed the thought and current of national life. It
showed and sanctified the chattel slave — a MAN.
It only remains to be said that the broad mantle of charity
now covers all these harrowing events. The experience was
bitter, terrible ; the cost, staggering. But they are thought
of now only as matters of history. The lessons they teach,
however, are not to be minimized or forgotten by either the
North or the South. But the Civil War is a thing of the past.
It should be and is regarded as a by -gone event. No South
erner is judged to-day by the part he took in it. So is slav
ery a by-gone condition. There is and can be no place in
the life and government of this great republic for the retain-
ment of its barbarous traditions and brutal ideals. It would
make for the peace and well-being of the nation for the white
people of the South to come to this realization. The God of
the universe made the negro a man. The nation clothed
him with citizenship. His services in peace and in war con
firm unto him every right of an American.
Let the white people of the South cease to live in the past,
and rather let them profit by the awful lesson with all its
solemn and bitter warnings, that —
35
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
" Long trains of ills may pass unheeded, dumb,
But vengeance is behind and justice is to come. "
Let them with conscience void of offence toward God and
man face the future, and, " forgetting the things which are
behind, and looking forward to the things which are before,"
let them establish law and order and demonstrate their
capacity for self-government by working out a government
which shall bestow no special favors or privileges on men
because God made them white ; and which shall do no injus
tice to men because God made them black.
Then indeed shall righteousness set up her habitations ;
truth and justice shall be enthroned ; and civilization, Chris
tianity, and government in the Southland shall stand redeemed,
regenerated, and disenthralled — a glory forever.
86
CHAPTER II
RECONSTRUCTION AND THE
SOUTHERN " BLACK CODE "
THE close of the war was followed by the era of
Reconstruction. The war suppressed the rebellion;
reconstruction brought forth order out of the result
ing chaos.
This era of Reconstruction witnessed the issue of the
Proclamation of Amnesty by President Johnson, which
pardoned all who took part in the rebellion, except a few
thousands who held high civil or military or diplomatic
positions before and during the war, and made provision that
even these could obtain pardon by the mere asking for it and
swearing allegiance to the Constitution and Government of
the United States. This period also witnessed the enactment
of the " Black Code " by the legislatures of the seceding
states ; the enactment by the Congress of the United States
of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to
the Constitution ; the overthrow of the " Black Code ; " the
final annihilation of the institution of human slavery in the
South ; the fixing forever the status of American citizenship ;
the rehabilitation of the seceding states, and the resumption
of their autonomy in the Union ; the mustering out and re
turn to their homes and the marts of trade of more than
a million " citizen soldiers," 200,000 of them colored, crowned
with glory and honor, who counted it not dear unto them
selves to offer their lives a willing sacrifice on the altar of
their country, and who, by their deeds of valor and heroic
sacrifices, smothered the rebellion, preserved the republic from
dismemberment, and vindicated the sovereignty of the nation.
The era of Reconstruction was fraught with gravest solici
tude and crowded with vital, complicated, vexatious, and
far-reaching issues : issues that not only affected the status,
37
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
liberty, and rights of the colored people, but were of equally
supreme importance to the republic and to constitutional
government, and in fact of greatest concern to the whole
human family, since it seemingly involved the matter of the
life or death of the experiment of self-government by the
people.
It was an era which tried men^s souls. Fortunately for
the republic and the vast and far-reaching interests at stake, or
hanging in the balance, there were at the helm and standing
guard on the deck of the " Old Ship of State " men trained
in self-mastery and self-restraint ; men rooted and grounded
in the principles of liberty and republican government ; men
responsive to the dictates of humanity and Christianity,
sympathetic and charitable ; men who faced with calmness
and composure the passions within their own councils and the
defiance hurled at them from the South ; men broad in
learning and culture ; men with a genius for statecraft and
masters in statesmanship ; men who saw and knew the right
and dared to do it.
In the foundation of the republic, as laid by the fathers,
there was one radical, vital defect, which has ever remained a
peril to the majestic structure of liberty and self-government
which they built so well. It was the rotten stone of human
slavery, — an ever present challenge and reproach to the
Declaration of Independence, and always a menace to the
peace and perpetuity of American institutions.
The leaders of the Reconstruction era dug out this rotten
stone, and replaced it with indestructible foundation-stone :
Equality of rights for all men before the law — the only safe
and enduring foundation for the Temple of Liberty. Thus
they crystallized into law the most glorious sentiment of the
ages: "A government conceived in liberty and dedicated to
the principle that all men are created equal." In placing
the republic squarely, solidly, and for all time on this broad
foundation, " which time cannot wither, nor age decay," they
38
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE"
conserved the liberties won and progress achieved in centuries
of struggles, and revived the drooping hopes of mankind by
making it positive that " this nation, under God, shall have
a new birth of freedom." Unholy is the hand that would
J
remove this foundation-stone, hewn of Heaven, making all men
equal under the law of the land, as they are equal under the
law of nature and nature's God ! Vile is the tongue that
would assault the temple of the nation's liberty and the
world's hope built thereon !
The white people of the South, wherever dominated in the
main by unbalanced, superheated leadership, have been
wrought into a frenzy, — a frenzy dangerous to themselves
and to the best interests of their fair land ; dangerous to
civilization and to the peace and prosperity of the nation.
Reason, common-sense, and the nobler instincts of humanity
seem to have left them for the time. Primarily, this is
due to the influences begotten of the barbarism incident to
the institution of human slavery ; for the barbarism of slavery
has not even yet exacted its last penalty.
The nation accepted and nurtured slavery, and it is still
suffering the consequences of its noxious poisons. Let the
nation be warned of the more serious consequences which
would follow the obliteration of the liberty and hope of the
colored people, and the consignment of them to practical
serfdom. It is an adage hoary with age that " the dancers
must pay the fiddlers." Great wrongs are sure to bring great
retributions. But it ought to be plain to every one, includ
ing the white people of the South, that the ideals and
standards of the defunct slaveholding oligarchy can never
again prevail in this land over the holy principles of liberty
and free institutions.
The violent Southern leaders trace their grievances back
to the events of the Reconstruction era. They make many
misleading and mischievous declarations about the " damn
able crime " committed on the white people of the South by
39
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
giving the negro the ballot, and restoring to him the rights
of " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," the heritage
of every human being. They exercise extraordinary care,
however, to omit absolutely all reference to the causes and
conditions which made negro suffrage a possibility, namely :
First, the war which the South waged against the nation
in its desperate struggles for four years to rend and destroy
it.
Second, the enactment by Southern legislatures — com
posed entirely of ex-Confederates, after the war had closed,
and the white people of the South were given an absolutely
free hand under the proclamation of President Johnson to
reconstruct their respective States — of the " Black Code,"
the most barbarous series of laws ever written by a civilized
people.
Third, the flat, defiant refusal of the white people of many
Southern states to reconstruct their state governments in
harmony with the changed conditions produced by the war,
as embodied in the Proclamation of Emancipation and the
Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States, which abolished slavery.
Fourth, the curt and indignant refusal of the white people
of some Southern states even to participate in such recon
struction unless they were permitted to have their own way
in re-establishing a new form of slavery, — to be in some
respects even worse than the system which the war had
overthrown.
But if a crime was committed on the white people of the
South, there must have been criminals who committed the
crime. Who were these criminals? Among the great
leaders of this era who had more or less to do in formulating
and completing the measures of reconstruction, there may be
mentioned, without any attempt at invidious distinction,
Charles Sumner, Henry Winter Davis, William Pitt Fessen-
den, Benjamin F. Wade, Henry Wilson, Lyman Trumbull,
40
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE"
James G. Elaine, George S. Boutwell, Zachary Chandler,
James A. Garfield, N. P. Banks, Lot M. Merrill, Roscoe
Conkling, John Sherman, James W. Grimes, Ira P. Harris,
Jacob M. Howard, Thaddeus Stevens, Elihu B. Washburn,
Justin S. Morrill, John A. Bingham, Henry T. Blow,
George F. Edmunds, Oliver P. Morton, Schuyler Colfax,
Benjamin F. Butler, H. L. Dawes, W. B. Washburn, W. D.
Kelley, Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Shellabarger, James
M. Ashley, S. M. Cullom, John A. Logan, Thomas W.
Ferry, W. B. Allison, Ignatius Donnelly, Philetus Sawyer,
William Windom, G. M. Dodge, William Lawrence, C. C.
Washburn, John A. Kasson, Russell Thayer, George F.
Hoar, James Harlan, Matt. H. Carpenter, Hannibal Hamlin,
Carl Schurz, Eugene Hale, O. D. Conger, Timothy O. Howe,
and Noah Davis. Here is a roster of American statesmen
the equal of any that ever faced a great crisis in the history
of the nation. Shall the memory of these men and their
compeers rest under the black imputation of criminality?
What serious citizen would think of mentioning in the same
breath these devoted patriots, well-poised and self-contained,
with the leaders like Tillman, Money, McHenery, Vardaman,
not to mention " Tray, Blanche, and Sweet-heart," et al.,
who to-day seek to dominate the fair Southland?
The Northern leaders of this era were supported in every
step taken by the great commanders who suppressed the
rebellion : Generals Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Hooker,
Howard, Hartranft, Chamberlain, Cox, Burnside, Meade,
Miles, Hawley, Gresham, Anderson, Thomas, Birney, and
their comrades of the land forces, and Admirals Farragut
and Porter and others of the naval forces. The movement
was also supported by the great leaders of public sentiment
in the nation, headed by Henry Ward Beecher ; the whole
being reinforced by the twenty millions of loyal Americans
who willingly contributed the treasure and blood which
saved the Union and emancipated the slave.
41
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
If the Northern civil leaders of this era were criminals, or com
mitted a crime against the South, then the great commanders
of the army and navy and the vast majority of the people of
the loyal States were sharers in the crime. In such a case
virtue and patriotism resided only with the men who used
their might and main to destroy the republic, and after
wards to re-establish slavery. To lay the taint of criminality,
directly or indirectly, by inference or otherwise, on the
leaders of reconstruction, the saviors of the republic, the
master builders who launched it on its " new birth of free
dom " — is in itself a shocking offence to the patriotic citizen.
Within a brief period General Sherman has been referred to
by Southern leaders as the " brute who burned Columbia,11
and General Canby as the 4< scoundrel who fastened carpet
bag government on the Carolinas ; " John Brown as " an old
fanatic and murderer," and General Sherman's army as
composed of " chicken thieves, robbers, bums, and the scum
and filth of Northern cities," who preyed on the people of
the South.
These charges are false. The memory of the great states
men and leaders of the Reconstruction era, and as well the
brave men who risked all on land and sea to save the
nation's life, lies embalmed in the hearts of a grateful and
loyal people, and should be held as a sacred legacy, free from
detraction and defamation. They not only did not commit
a crime against the white people of the South, but on the con
trary displayed a gracious magnanimity and generosity in
dealing with the people of that section ; and in handling the
delicate, perplexing issues of their day, they showed a con
servatism that is unmatched in recorded history. Gen
erously they offered the olive branch of peace and good- will ;
but the South rejected it with scorn and contempt.
Says Mr. Elaine, in his " Twenty Years of Congress " : "A
great opportunity was now given to the South. Only a few
weeks before, they had all been expecting harsh treatment,
42
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE"
many, indeed, anticipated punishment, not a few were de
jectedly looking forward to a life of exile and want. The
President's policy, which had been framed for him by Mr.
Seward, changed all this. Confidence took the place of
apprehension, the fear of punishment was removed, those
who, conscious of guilt, had been dreading expatriation
were bidden by the supreme authority of the nation to stay
in their own homes and to assist in building up the waste
and desolate places. Never in the history of the world had
so mighty a rebellion been subdued ; never had any rebel
lion been followed by treatment so lenient, forgiving, and
generous on the part of the triumphant government. The
great mass of those who had resisted the national authority
were restored to all their rights of citizenship by the simple
taking of an oath of future loyalty, and those excepted from
immediate reinstatement were promised full forgiveness on
the slightest exhibition of repentance and good works." And
this before the ballot was given to the colored people and
before the nation was ripe for its bestowal.
For a clearer understanding of this matter it may be well
to explain here that there were three distinct efforts at
reconstruction :
First : the effort at reconstruction during the war, directed
by President Lincoln.
Second : the attempt at reconstruction immediately after
the close of the war, directed by President Johnson, who suc
ceeded Lincoln after the latter's assassination.
Third : reconstruction proper, when the Congress took
the whole matter in hand, and not rashly or hastily, but
after serious and extended deliberations, full and free debates
in both Houses, and repeated endorsements by the people at'
elections, covering a period of over five years from the
adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution
to the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, brought to a
righteous and irrevocable settlement all of the pressing, com-
43
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
plex, and absorbing questions involved in the war, in slavery,
and in our constitutional government.
As indicating the easy stages and progression of recon
struction legislation, it may be stated that the Thirteenth
Amendment was passed by the Congress January 30.
l86sL: the enlargement of the powers of the Freedmen's
Bureau, July, 1865 ; the Act protecting the civil rights of the
colored people, April 9, 1866 ; the Fourteenth Amendment,
June 13, 1866 ; the famous Reconstruction Act, March
2, 1867 ; and the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified March
30, 1870.
We will now consider these three attempts at reconstruc
tion, in the order named.
At the very opening of hostilities President Lincoln
adopted the eminently sagacious and statesmanlike policy of
cultivating, by every possible means and concessions, the
friendship and loyalty of those slave states and parts of
slave states bordering on the free states, including Mary
land, West Virginia, East Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri.
By his wonderful tact and strategy he succeeded in hold
ing them from open revolt against the Union, although
the great body of their citizens sympathized with the Con
federacy. This policy was invaluable, in that it nerved the
loyalists in the South, kept many hesitating ones in line,
brought valuable support to the Union arms, kept up
representation from some of the slave states in Congress, and
thus maimed the Confederacy. In furtherance of his policy
to reconstruct the seceding states so far as possible and
encourage the loyalists and hamper the Confederacy, he
issued a proclamation to the effect that, in any state where
ten righteous men out of a hundred could be found, — where
" one tenth of the legal voters " were loyal to the Union, —
they might reconstruct and reorganize the state government,
and that such government would be recognized. Military
commanders were instructed, wherever feasible, to assist
44
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE1'
and even to take the initiative in reconstructing such
governments.
The state of Virginia adopted its ordinance of secession on
the 17th of April, 1861. And in less than a month after
wards, on the 13th of May, the loyalists of the Old Domin
ion, residents largely of the western part of the state, met at
Wheeling, and " denounced the ordinance of secession and
pledged their loyalty to the national government and their
obedience to its laws.11 It was but a little more than a month
later that a delegated convention met, reconstructed the
state government by the election of the usual officers, and
senators and representatives were sent to Congress and were
admitted ; and the reconstructed government of Virginia was
recognized as the legal government of the state. But as the
loyalists were domiciled almost entirely in the western section
of the state and had no control or power outside of that sec
tion — the remainder of the state, and the great body of the
people being hopelessly in the Confederacy, — the claim that
they really represented the state of Virginia did not seem, as
time went on, to be wholly tenable or satisfactory. So the
loyalists went through the usual form and organized a new
state, and there rose phoenix-like the progressive, prosperous,
and rapidly developing commonwealth of West Virginia —
which thus owes her existence as a sovereign state to the
loyalty of her sons to the republic in this great crisis.
And so it came to pass that Virginia, the historic Old
Dominion, in her gigantic efforts through her masterful Lee,
her chivalric " Stonewall " Jackson, her redoubtable Johnson
and Johnston, and her fighting legions, ever ready for the
fray, was the most important factor in the attempt to dis
member the Union ; but she alone, of all the states of the
Confederacy, was dismembered. Much of the hardest fight
ing and wear and waste of war was on her soil ; she probably
lost a larger proportion of her sons ; and the loss by the
" partition " which carved out of her territory the great state
45
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
of West Virginia probably represents a greater money value
to-day than was placed on all the slaves in the South at the
outbreak of the war. Is not this an impressive retribution ?
The policy of reconstruction under Lincoln was also ap
plied to Tennessee with such good recompense that one of
her loyal sons, Andrew Johnson, was nominated for Vice-
President by the Republican convention in 1864. Efforts at
reconstruction were also made under his direction in Louisi
ana, with promising results, and in Arkansas and Florida
with tentative though not very substantial results. To
Governor Hahn of the reconstructed government of Louisiana,
Lincoln wrote in March, 1864, advising that the ballot should
be given to the colored men : " Let in, as for instance, the
very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gal
lantly in our ranks. They would probably help in some try
ing time in the future to keep the jewel of liberty in the
family of freedom."
This was probably the first utterance from a responsible
source in favor of bestowing the ballot on the colored people
of the South. It shows to splendid advantage Lincoln's great
and noble heart. For the war was still in progress and des
tined to last, no one knew how long. It did continue for
over a year longer. Lincoln's renomination and re-election
were hanging in the balance. Serious reverses in the field
might have defeated either or both. He was far in advance
of the public opinion of the nation. For at this time it was
not at all likely that a single Northern state could have been
carried on the simple question of negro suffrage. Yet he
plainly, positively, unmistakably indicated suffrage for the
colored man as a part of his policy in reconstructing the
Southern states. His generous nature, his great and noble
heart, would have it known that the colored men " who have
fought gallantly in our ranks " can be trusted to " help in
some trying time in the future to keep the jewel of liberty in
the family of freedom.11
46
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE"
These words of Lincoln are dwelt upon because they are of
deep significance and add to our opinion of his greatness, his
fame, when it is considered that the validity of the Emanci
pation Proclamation was at that time a much debated ques
tion. Many strong and learned loyal men in the North
doubted the legal right or power of the President alone, even
as a war measure, to destroy or confiscate property by pro
clamation, especially when that property was beyond the
control of the government. The slaves were at that time
property ; they were also, with unimportant exceptions, with
in the bounds of the Confederacy and beyond the control of
the government. Could the President alone, by mere proc
lamation, legally destroy and confiscate property which his
government did not possess ? Would Congress, the people,
and the Supreme Court finally sustain him ?
This question, pressed by influential sources in the North,
weighed heavily on Lincoln. But he was equal to this, as
he was to every emergency in the greatest conflict in history.
He found strength and comfort in the "higher law" that
" the negro was a man, and that no man was good enough to
own another man and appropriate the fruits of his labor."
And there was the feeling "that slavery drew the sword
against the nation and that it should perish by the sword."
To the realization of this " higher law " he hoped to bring
the nation.
So important and pressing was this question that Lincoln
dealt with it in his message to the Congress in December,
1864. In this message the President said : " While I remain
in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or
modify the Emancipation Proclamation. Nor shall I return
to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that Proc
lamation or by any of the Acts of Congress. If the people
should, by whatever mode or means, make it an executive
duty to re-enslave such persons, another, and not I, must be
their instrument to perform it."
47
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Here is more than a veiled threat, it is an open defiance.
Lincoln had just been re-elected to the presidency in No
vember, a month before the message was sent to Congress;
and he distinctly tells Congress and the people that he would
give up the presidency rather than relinquish the principles
of his Emancipation Proclamation ; that he would resign his
office rather than " return to slavery any person who is free
by the terms of that proclamation or by any of the Acts of
Congress.1'1
Up to this date the Emancipation Proclamation was the only
charter of liberty for the colored people in the South ; and
the all-important point is, that Lincoln regarded this as suffi
cient to enable the negroes to wear the uniform of a United
States soldier, to be commissioned as officers, to be treated
the same as white soldiers, to be protected as prisoners of
war, to have common rights, and to vote at the ballot-box.
President Lincoln's deep solicitude for the colored soldiers,
his profound interest in them, his unqualified respect for and
appreciation of their invaluable services, and his determina
tion that they should receive their full mete of justice, are
made manifest in his state papers, public addresses and letters.
In his message to Congress in December, 1863, less than a
year after the first enlistment of colored soldiers, he said :
" Full one hundred thousand of them are now in the United
States military service, about one half of which number actu
ally bear arms in the ranks, thus giving the double advantage
— of taking so much labor from the insurgents1 cause and
supplying the places which otherwise might be filled with
so many white men." In a speech at Baltimore, April 18,
1864, he said : " Upon a clear conviction of duty, I resolved
to turn that element of strength to account ; and I am re
sponsible for it to the American people, to the Christian
world, to history, and on my final account to God. Having
determined to use the negro as a soldier, there is no way but
to give him all the protection given to any other soldier."
48
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE"
In a letter of April 4, 1864, he says : " More than a year
of trial now shows no loss by it in our foreign relations, none
in our home popular sentiment, none in our white military
force, — no loss by it anyhow or anywhere. On the contrary,
it shows a gain of quite a hundred and thirty thousand sol
diers, seamen, and laborers. These are palpable facts, about
which, as facts, there can be no cavilling. We have the men,
and we could not have them without the measure,'1 — meaning
the Emancipation Proclamation. At a public meeting in
Baltimore he said : " The black soldier shall have the same
protection as the white soldier.1''
He threatened retaliation, should the Confederates shoot
black soldiers when captured, instead of treating them as
prisoners of war. He refused to exchange a single Confed
erate soldier until colored soldiers were recognized by the
Confederate government. Again, in a public address he de
clared : " Negroes, like other people, act from motives. Why
should they do anything for us, if we do nothing for them ?
If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by
the strongest of motives, even the promise of freedom. And
the promise, being made, must be kept.11
In a general order, issued July 30, 1863, Lincoln said:
"It is the duty of every government to give protection to its
citizens, of whatever class or color or condition, and especially
to those who are duly organized as soldiers in the public ser
vice. . . . The government of the United States will give the
same protection to all its soldiers ; and if the enemy shall sell
or enslave any one because of his color, the offence shall be
punished by retaliation upon the enemy^ prisoners in our pos
session. It is therefore ordered that for every soldier of the
United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel
soldier shall be executed ; and for every one enslaved by the
enemy, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the
public works.11
In defence of the Emancipation Proclamation in a letter,
4 49
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
August 26, 1863, he said : " You are dissatisfied with me
about the negro. Quite likely there is a difference of opin
ion between you and myself upon that subject. I certainly
wish that all men could be free. . . . You dislike the Eman
cipation Proclamation. . . . You say it is unconstitutional.
I think differently ; I think the Constitution invests its Com-
mander-in-Chief with law of war in time of war. . . . The
slaves are property ; ... by the law of war property, both
of the enemies and friends, may be taken when needed.
Armies, the world over, destroy enemies1 property when they
cannot use it, and even destroy their own to keep it from the
enemy. . . . But the Proclamation, as law, either is valid or
is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it
is valid, it cannot be retracted, any more than the dead can
be brought to life. . . . The Emancipation policy and the
use of colored troops constitute the heaviest blows yet dealt
to the Rebellion." /
Replying to an address from the workingmen of Man
chester and London, England, who wished him success in
conquering the rebellion, as by it slavery would be destroyed,
and indicated their willingness to bear with patience all pri
vations and sufferings, — for not only great hardships but even
starvation faced many in England, owing to the fact that the
blockade of Southern ports prevented the shipment of cot
ton, — Lincoln said : " It has been often ostentatiously rep
resented that the attempt to overthrow this government,
which was built upon the foundation of human rights, and to
substitute for it one which should rest exclusively on the
basis of human slavery, was likely to obtain favor in Europe.
I cannot but regard your decisive utterance upon the ques
tion as an instance of sublime Christian heroism, which has
not been surpassed in any age or country. It is indeed an
energetic and reinspiring assurance of the inherent power of
truth and the universal triumph of justice, humanity, and
freedom."
50
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE11
To a Western delegation he said : " There are now in the
service of the United States nearly 200,000 able-bodied colored
men, most of them under arms defending and acquiring Union
territory. The Democratic strategy demands that those forces
be disbanded, and that the masters be conciliated by restor
ing them to slavery. The black men who now assist Union
prisoners to escape are to be converted into our enemies in
the vain hope of gaining the good-will of their masters. . . .
Abandon all the forts now garrisoned by black men ; take
200,000 from our side and put them in the battle-field or
corn-field against us, and we would be compelled to abandon
the war in three weeks. We have to hold territory in sickly
places. . . . There have been men base enough to propose
to me to return to slavery our black warriors of Port Hudson
and Olustee, and thus win the respect of the masters they
fought. . . . Come what will, I will keep faith with friend
and enemy. . . . Freedom has given us 200,000 men raised
on Southern soil. It will give us more yet. Just so much it
has abstracted from the enemy."
To a colored delegation at Baltimore, presenting him with
a handsomely bound copy of the Bible, he said : " I can only
say now, as I have often said before, it has always been a
sentiment with me that all mankind should be free. ... I
have always acted as I believed was just and right, and done
all I could for the good of mankind. ... In regard to the
great Book, I have only to say, it is the best gift which God
has ever given to man. All the good of the Saviour of the
world is communicated to us through this Book. . . . All
those things desirable to men are contained in it."
In his inaugural address, March, 1865, President Lincoln
said : " These slaves constitute a peculiar and powerful inter
est. ... To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest
was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union
by war. ... It may seem strange that any men should dare
to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from
51
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
the sweat of other men's faces. . . . Fondly do we hope, fer
vently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may
speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue
until . . . every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be
paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three
thousand years ago, so, still, it must be said that ' the judg
ments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.1 n
A fact of considerable interest is that the Confederate
leaders, who dragged the South into secession with the al
leged purpose of establishing a government whose very foun
dation-stone should be human slavery, should themselves
have turned their eyes to these very enslaved negroes to save
their cause. They were ever ready to use the negro for their
selfish ends.
The Honorable Judah P. Benjamin, Secretary of State for
the Confederacy, in a public speech at Richmond, advocating
the arming of the negroes, said : " There are 700,000 males
among the slave population capable of bearing arms — set
them free and arm them and let them fight the Yankees."
On the recommendation of General Lee and President Davis
of the Confederacy, a bill to arm the slaves passed one House
of the Confederate Congress, and lacked only one vote of
passing the other House. Nevertheless, this same Confed
erate Congress actually passed a law to shoot white union
officers commanding colored soldiers, and shoot colored
soldiers when captured.
President Lincoln, in a public address in Washington,
true to that humor and irony characteristic of him, said :
" As they need only one vote, I would be glad to send my
vote through the lines to help them out.11 He felt that
they would certainly have so many more soldiers shooting
at them. The well-grounded fear that the armed negroes
would desert to the Union side defeated the measure. But
if these 700,000 slaves had been thrown into the breach on
the Confederate side, and had fought loyally, under promise
52
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE11
of freedom, it does not seem possible that the Union could
have been saved. But it was not to be so. God was
leading on !
The feeling of love, gratitude, and reverence engendered
towards President Lincoln by his championing of the negro
cause is shown by the following incident. The Confederate
government had scarcely evacuated Richmond before Lincoln,
unheralded and unannounced, and accompanied by his young
son and Admiral Porter, besides a few sailors from a man-of-
war, entered the city and " like any other citizen, walked up the
streets towards General WeitzePs headquarters, in the house
occupied two days before by Jefferson Davis.11 The Atlantic
Monthly thus describes the scene of the colored people coming
from all sides to see their deliverer : " They gathered round
the President, ran ahead, hovered upon the flanks of the little
company, and hung like a dark cloud upon the rear. Men,
women, and children, joined the constantly increasing throng.
They came from all the by-streets, running in breathless
haste, shouting and hallooing and dancing with delight.
The men threw up their hats, the women waved their
bonnets and handkerchiefs, clapped their hands and sang
4 Glory to God ! Glory ! Glory ! 1 rendering all the praise
to God, who had heard their wailings in the past, their
moanings for wives, husbands, children, and friends, sold
out of their sight ; had given them freedom, and after long
years of waiting, had permitted them thus unexpectedly
to behold the face of their great benefactor. ' I thank
yon, dear Jesus, that I behold President Linkum ! ' was
the exclamation of a woman who stood upon the thresh
old of her humble home, and with streaming eyes and
clasped hands gave thanks aloud to the Saviour of men.
Another, more demonstrative in her joy, was jumping and
striking her hands with all her might, crying ' Bless de
Lord ! Bless de Lord ! " as if there could be no end to the
thanksgiving.
53
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
" The air rang with a tumultuous chorus of voices. The
street became almost impassable on account of the increasing
multitude, till soldiers were summoned to clear the way. . . .
The walk was long, and the President halted a moment to
rest. ' May de good Lord bless you, President Linkum ! '
said an old negro, removing his hat and bowing, with tears
of joy rolling down his cheeks. The President removed his
own hat and bowed in silence ; but it was a bow which upset
the forms, laws, customs, and ceremonies of centuries. It
was a death-shock to chivalry, and a mortal wound to caste.
' Recognize a nigger ! Faugh ! ' A woman in an adjoining
house beheld it, and turned from the scene in unspeakable
digust."
From this scene Lincoln returned to Washington, and on
the llth of April, 1865, just four days before his death, and
two days after General Lee^s surrender, he made his last
public address, favoring, as a start in the right direction,
the reconstructed government which the loyalists had organ-
i/ed in Louisiana, abolishing slavery, adopting the Thirteenth
Amendment, providing schools for black and white alike,
and providing for the franchise for the colored people.
In a letter April 4 he said : " I am naturally anti-
slavery. If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong. . . .
I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of
either surrendering the Union and with it the Constitution,
or of laying strong hands upon the colored element. I
chose the latter." And the colored element did respond
with great heartiness, and answering President Lincoln's
call, they joyfully sang: —
" We are coming, Father Abraham,
Two hundred thousand strong."
If Lincoln was willing, as he proved to be, to use the
great power of the United States government to guarantee
that " the black soldier should have the same protection as
54
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE"
the white soldier,*" then it defames his hallowed memory,
and libels his nobility of heart to insinuate that he would
not use the same powers to guarantee to the black citizen
the same protection under the law as the white citizen. To
him the Emancipation Proclamation meant freedom for the
colored people ; and freedom meant citizenship ; and citizen
ship the ballot.
In his general order issued July 30, 1863, President Lin
coln said : " It is the duty of every government to give
protection to its citizens, of whatever class or color or
condition.'"
In this general order, officially promulgated, he made
direct intervention in behalf of colored men, and secured
their protection by the exercise of governmental sovereignty
in obliterating class distinctions. On this question his record
is unmistakably clear. Sad, sudden, unexpected, and over
whelming as was the death of Lincoln, there were two events
which immediately preceded it that must have been of
supreme satisfaction and happiness to him.. There were two
overmastering emotions in his heart : one was to see the
Union saved, and its supremacy made sure forevermore ; the
other was to see slavery dead, and dead beyond a resurrection.
The God in whom he believed, whom he trusted, to whom
he prayed, who sustained and led him " amid the encircling
gloom " when he was weighted down to the earth with bur
dens greater than it seemed possible that man could bear,
was merciful, gracious, and kind unto him. His eyes beheld
the salvation of his country ! He saw the imperious, cruel,
slaveholding oligarchy, which drew the sword against the
nation, totter to its ruin ; its dreams of an empire on
the Gulf of Mexico shattered and buried in the dust ; the
Union saved.
He signed the death-warrant of slavery, which was em
bodied in the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of
the United States, and passed by the necessary two-thirds
55
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
vote of both Houses of Congress : " Neither slavery, nor
involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime,
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist
in the United States, or any place subject to their juris
diction." ' The final passage of this amendment, probably
the most momentous legislative Act passed up to that time
in the whole history of the American Congress, was not re
ceived in the rancor of party-spirit, nor with the huzzas of
partisan triumph, but on the contrary with most profound,
aye, holy emotions. Mr. Ingersoll of Illinois said : " Mr.
Speaker, in honor of this immortal and sublime event, I
move that this House do now adjourn."
Mr. Blaine said : " The action was of transcendent impor
tance — lofty in conception, masterful in execution. Slavery
in the United States was dead. To succeeding and not dis
tant generations its existence in a republic for three-quarters
of a century, the duration of the organized government of
the United States up to that time, will be an increasing
marvel."
When Mr. Lincoln was waited upon to be apprised of its
passage, and was congratulated, he said : " In the midst of
your joyous expressions, He 'from whom all blessings flow1
must first be remembered." Here is a true exhibition of
the real spirit of the man ; his eyes beheld salvation for the
negro; the salvation of a race from a bondage of despair,
black, bitter, brutal ; slavery dead and entombed — and he the
master of the ceremonies. His joy was full, complete. So
ever shall he wear the " crown, a martyr's diadem, his jewels
millions of ransomed slaves."
Still strong he stood among the crowd,
His head above the clamor loud,
Unmoved by trial or dismay,
The sunshine on his face alway.
Like some firm cliff that guards the strand,
So Lincoln stood to save the land."
56
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE"
With the elevation of Andrew Johnson to the presidency
after the death of Lincoln, there began the second effort
at reconstruction. General Lee surrendered at Appomat-
tox, April 9, 1865. President Lincoln, « the beloved of all
hearts,"" expired on the 15th of the same month; Mr. John
son took the oath of office just a few hours after Lincoln's
death.
It was on the 29th day of May, 1865, that President John
son issued his Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon to all
who took part in the Rebellion, except the few thousands
who held high official positions in the civil, military, or diplo
matic service of the United States at the breaking out of
the war, or held similar positions in the Confederacy; but
providing that such persons may receive full pardon by
applying for the same to the President. Thus the rank and
file of Southerners were let in, and the door kept ajar for the
exceptions. The conditions imposed on the white people
of the South were that they would henceforth " faithfully
support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United
States and the Union of the States thereunder ; abide by and
faithfully support all laws and proclamations which have
been made during the existing Rebellion with reference to
the emancipation of slaves." Could there have been greater
magnanimity, wiser generosity to the white people of the
South ?
The Emancipation Proclamation had been endorsed and
confirmed by an overwhelming vote of the people of the
loyal states, and by the sweeping and triumphant re-election
of Lincoln in the preceding November.
The Thirteenth Amendment had passed both Houses of
Congress by more than the necessary two-thirds vote, and had
been signed by President Lincoln. The white people of the
South were commissioned to reconstruct the seceding states
and bring them back into their proper and normal relations
with the Union. They were given an absolutely free hand ;
57
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
their oath bound them to respect the changed conditions
"with reference to the emancipation of slaves." But how
did they use this high prerogative, this unfettered power, so
graciously restored to their hands ? They held, with light
ning-like rapidity, state conventions, and their legislatures,
composed entirely of ex-Confederates, were summoned in
special sessions, within a few months immediately following
the war; and they proceeded forthwith to enact a Black
Code of Laws, with reference to the colored people who were
emancipated, and whose emancipation their Amnesty oath
bound them to respect, that is the scandal and shame of
civilization. Not a single right dear to a freeman did these
men respect, " with reference to the emancipation of slaves.""
Not a single law or proclamation did they honestly observe.
These men, in the language of one of old, practically said to
the colored people : " My little finger shall be thicker than
my father's loins. For whereas my father put a heavy yoke
upon you, I will put more to your yoke ; my father chastised
you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.""
We come now to the consideration of the specific points in
this code of laws that the Southern whites considered proper
for the government of the emancipated negro.
Mr. Blaine, in his " Twenty Years of Congress," gives such
a masterly review of the Black Code of Laws passed by
Southern legislatures after President Johnson's Amnesty
Proclamation and when the ex- Confederates had unfettered
power to reconstruct the Southern states, that it is repro
duced here, as follows :
" That which was no offence in a white man was made a
misdemeanor, a heinous crime, if committed by a negro.
Both in the civil and criminal code his treatment was differ
ent from that to which the white man was subjected. He
was compelled to work under a series of labor laws appli
cable only to his own race. The laws of vagrancy were
so changed as, in many of their provisions, to apply only
58
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE"
to him, and under their operation all freedom of movement
and transit was denied. The liberty to sell his time at
a fair market rate was destroyed by the interposition of
apprentice laws. Avenues of usefulness and skill in which
he might specially excel, were closed against him, lest he
should compete with white men. In short, his liberty in all
directions was so curtailed that it was a bitter mockery to
refer to him in the statutes as a 4 freedman.' The truth was
that his liberty was merely of form and not of fact, and the
slavery which was abolished by the organic law of a nation
was now to be revived by the enactment of a state.
" Some of these enactments were peculiarly offensive, not
to say atrocious. In Alabama, which might indeed serve as
an example for the other rebellious states, ' stubborn or re
fractory servants ' and ' servants who loiter away their time '
were declared by law to be c vagrants,' and might be brought
before a justice of the peace and fined fifty dollars; and in
default of payment, they might be ' hired out,1 on three days'
notice by public outcry, for the period of 4 six months.' No
fair man could fail to see that the whole effect, and presum
ably the direct intent, of this law was to reduce the helpless
negro to slavery for half the year — a punishment that could
be repeated whenever desired, a punishment sure to be desired
for that portion of each recurring year when his labor was
specially valuable in connection with the cotton crop, while
for the remainder of the time he might shift for himself.
By this detestable process, the ' master ' had the labor of
the ' servant ' for a mere pittance ; and even that pittance
did not go to the servant, but was paid into the treasury
of the county, and thus relieved the white men from their
proper share of taxation. There may have been more cruel
laws enacted, but the statute books of the world might be
searched in vain for one of meaner injustice.
" The foregoing, a process for restoring slavery in a modi
fied form, was applicable to men or women of any age. But
59
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
for ' minors ' a more speedy and more sweeping method was
contrived by the law-makers of Alabama, who had just given
their assent to the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitu
tion. They made it the 'duty of all sheriffs, justices of the
peace, and other civil officers of the several counties,' to report
the 'names of all minors under the age of eighteen years,
whose parents have not the means, or who refuse to support
said minors,' and thereupon it was made the duty of the
Court to ' apprentice said minor to some suitable person, on
such terms as the Court may direct.1 Then follows a sug
gestive proviso, directing that ' if said minor be the child of
a freedman ' (as if any other class were really referred to !),
' the f owner owner of said minor shall have the preference ' ;
and 'the judge of probate shall make a record of all the
proceedings,' for which he should be entitled to a fee of one
dollar in each case, to be paid, as this atrocious law directed,
by ' the master or mistress.' To tighten the grasp of owner
ship on the minor, who was now styled an apprentice, it was
enacted in almost the precise phrase of the old slave code
that ' whoever shall entice said apprentice from his master
or mistress, or furnish food or clothing to him or her, with
out said consent, shall be fined in a sum not exceeding five
hundred dollars.'
" The ingenuity of Alabama legislators in contriving
schemes to re-enslave the negroes was not exhausted by the
odious and comprehensive statutes already cited. They passed
an act to incorporate the city of Mobile, substituting a new
charter for the old one. The city had suffered much from
the suspension and decay of trade during the war, and it
was in great need of labor to make repairs to streets, culverts,
sewers, wharves, and all other public property. By the new
charter, the mayor, aldermen, and common council were em
powered ' to cause all vagrants,' . . . 'all such as have no
visible means of support,' . . . 'all who can show no reason
able cause of employment or business in the city,' . . . 'all
60
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE"
who have no fixed residence or cannot give a good account
of themselves,1 . . . ' or are loitering in or about tippling
houses,1 . . . ' to give security for their good behavior for a
reasonable time and to indemnify the city against any charge
for their support, and in case of their inability or refusal to
give such security, to cause them to be confined to labor for
a limited time, not exceeding six calendar months, which said
labor shall be designated by the said mayor, aldermen, and
common council, for the benefit of said city.1
" It will be observed even by the least intelligent that the
charge made in this city ordinance was, in substance, the
poverty of the classes quoted — a poverty which was of course
the inevitable result of slavery. To make the punishment
for no crime effective, the city government was empowered
4 to appoint a person or persons to take those sentenced to
labor from their place of confinement to the place ap
pointed for their working, and to watch them while at labor
and return them before sundown to their place of confine
ment ; and, if they shall be found afterwards offending, such
security may again be required, and for want thereof the like
proceeding may again be had from time to time, as often as may
be necessary.' The plain meaning of all this was, that these
helpless and ignorant men, having been robbed all their lives
of the fruit of their labor by slavery, and being necessarily
and in consequence poor, must be punished for it by being
robbed again of all they had honestly earned. If they stub
bornly continued in their poverty, the like proceeding (of
depriving them of the fruit of their labor) 4 may again be
had from time to time, as often as may be necessary.1 It
would, of course, be found ' necessary,1 just so long as the city
of Mobile was in need of their labor without paying for it.
"It has been abundantly substantiated, by impartial evi
dence, that when these grievous outrages were committed,
under the forms of law, by the joint authority of the Ala
bama legislature and the city government of Mobile, the
61
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
labor of thousands of willing men could be hired for the low
wages of twenty-five cents per day, with an allowance of a
peck of corn meal and four pounds of bacon for each man
per week. It does not change the character of the crime
against these humble laborers, but it certainly enhances its
degree that the law-makers of Alabama preferred an oppres
sive fraud to the honest payment of a consideration so small
as to be almost nominal. A man must be in abject poverty
when he is willing to work an entire week for a sum usually
accorded in the Northern states for the labor of one day.
But only a community blind to public justice and to public
decency as well could enact a ]aw that in effect declares the
poverty of the laborer to be a crime, in consideration of
which he shall be deprived of the beggarly mite for which he
is willing to give the sweat of his face.
" Apparently fearing that the operations of the law already
referred to would not secure a sufficient number of laborers
for the work required in the city, the law-makers of Alabama
authorized the municipal government of Mobile to 'restrain
and prohibit the nightly and other meetings or disorderly
assemblies of all persons, and to punish for such offences by
affixing penalties not exceeding fifty dollars for any one
offence ; and in case of the inability of any such person to
pay and satisfy said fine or penalty and the cost thereof, to
sentence such person to labor for said city for such reason
able time, not exceeding six calendar months, for any one
offence, as may be deemed equivalent to such penalty and
costs, which labor shall be such as may be designated by the
\ mayor, aldermen, and common-council men of the city/
" Power was thus given to consider any evening meeting
of colored persons a disorderly one, and to arrest all who were
participating in it. Nothing was more natural than that the
negroes, with their social and even gregarious habits, should,
in their new estate of freedom, be disposed to assemble for
the purpose of considering their own interests and their
62
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE"
future prospects. It is eminently to the discredit of the
state of Alabama and of the city of Mobile that so innocent
a purpose should be thwarted, perverted, made criminal and
punished.
" The fact will not escape attention that in these enact
ments the words ' master,1 ' mistress,1 and ' servant ' are con
stantly used, and that under the operation of the laws a form
of servitude was re-established, more heartless and more cruel
than the slavery which had been abolished. Under the
institution of slavery a certain attachment would spring up
between the master and his slave, and with it came a certain
protection to the latter against want and against suffering in
his old age. With all its wrongfulness and its many cruel
ties, there were ameliorations in the slave system which soft
ened its asperities and enabled vast numbers of people
possessing conscience and character to assume the relation of
master. But in the treatment of the colored man now pro
posed, there was absolute heartlessness and rank injustice.
It was proposed to punish him for no crime, to declare the
laborer not worthy of his hire, to leave him friendless and
forlorn, without sympathy, without rights under the law,
socially an outcast and industrially a serf — a serf who had
no connection with the land he tilled, and who had none of
the protection which even the autocracy of Russia extended
to the lowliest creature that acknowledged the sovereignty
of the Czar.
" These laws were framed with malignant cunning so as not
to be limited in specific form of words to the negro race, but
they were exclusively confined to that race in their execu
tion. It is barely possible that a white vagrant of excep
tional depravity might, now and then, be arrested ; but the
negro was arrested by wholesale on a charge of vagrancy
which rested on no foundation except an arbitrary law
specially enacted to fit his case. Loitering around tippling-
shops, one of the offences enumerated, was in far larger
63
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
proportion the habit of white men, but they were left un
touched and the negro alone was arrested and punished. In
the entire code this deceptive form, of apparently including
all persons, was a signally dishonest feature. The makers of
the law evidently intended that it should apply to the negro
alone, for it was administered on that basis with rigorous
severity. The general phrasing was to deceive people outside,
and, perhaps, to lull the consciences of some objectors at
home, but it made no difference whatever in the execution of
the statutes. White men who had no more visible means of
support than the negro were left undisturbed, while the
negro, whose visible means of support were in his strong
arms and his willingness to work, was prevented from using
the resources conferred upon him by nature, and reduced not
merely to the condition of a slave, but subjected to the de
moralization of being adjudged a criminal.
"In Florida the laws resembled those of Alabama, but
were perhaps more severe in their penalties. The ' vagrant '
there might be hired out for full twelve months, and the
money arising from his labor, in case the man had no wife
and children, was directed to be applied for ' the benefit of
the orphans and poor of the county,' although the negro had
been declared a vagrant because he had no visible means of
support, and was therefore quite as much in need of the
avails of his labor as those to whom the law diverted them.
Among the curious enactments of that state was one to
establish and organize a criminal court for each county, em
powered to exercise jurisdiction in the trial of all offences
where the punisment did not affect the life of the offender.
It is obvious that the law was originated mainly for the
punishment of negroes; and to expedite its work it was
enacted that ' in the proceedings of said court, no present
ment, indictment, or written pleading shall be required, but
it shall be sufficient to pub the party accused upon his or her
trial, that the offence and facts are plainly set forth with
64
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE"
reasonable certainty in the warrant of arrest.1 It was further
provided that where fines were imposed and the party was
unable to pay them, ' the county commissioner may hire out,
at public outcry, the said party to any person who will take
him or her for the shortest time, and pay the fine imposed
and the cost of prosecution.1 The fines thus paid went into
the county treasury for the general expenses of the county.
The law was thus cunningly contrived to hurry the negro
into an odious form of slavery, and to make the earnings
which came from his hard labor pay the public expenses,
which were legitimately chargeable upon the property of the
county.
" Accompanying the act establishing this court was a law
prescribing additional penalties for the commission of offences
against the state ; and this, like the former, was framed
especially for the negro. Its first section provided that
where punishment of an offence had hitherto been limited to
fine or imprisonment, there should be superadded, as an
alternative, the punishment of standing in the pillory for one
hour, or whipping, not exceeding thirty-nine lashes, on the
bare back. The latter punishment was reserved expressly for
the negro. It was provided further that it ' shall not be
lawful for any negro, mulatto, or person of color to own, use,
or keep any bowie-knife, dirk, sword, firearms, or ammunition
of any kind, unless he first obtain a license to do so from the
judge of probate for the county in which he is a resident.1
The judge could issue the license to him only upon recom
mendation of two respectable white men. Any negro at
tempting to keep arms of any kind was to be deemed guilty
of a misdemeanor, compelled to * forfeit the arms for the use
of the informer, stand in the pillory1 (and be pelted by the
mob) ' for one hour, and then whipped with thirty-nine lashes
on the bare back.1 The same penalty was prescribed for any
person of color 6 who shall intrude himself into any religious
or other public assembly of white persons, or into any rail-
5 65
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
road-car or other vehicle set apart f >r the accommodation of
white persons ; ' and with a mock show of impartiality it was
provided that a white man intruding himself into an assem
bly of negroes, or into a negro-car, might be subjected to a
like punishment. This restriction upon the negro was far
more severe than that imposed in the days of slavery, when,
in many of the Southern states, the gallery of the church
was permitted to be freely occupied by them. A peculiarly
atrocious discrimination against the negro was included in
the sixth section of the law from which these quotations are
made. It was provided therein that ' if any person or persons
shall assault a white female with intent to commit rape, or
be accessory thereto, he or they, upon conviction, shall suffer
death ; ' but there was no prohibition and no penalty pre
scribed for the same crime against a negro woman. She was
left unprotected by law against the brutal lust and the vio
lence of white men.
" In the laws of South Carolina the oppression and injustice
towards the negro were conspicuously marked. The restric
tion as to firearms, which was general to all the states, was
especially severe. A negro found with any kind of weapon
in his possession was punished by 'a fine equal to twice the
value of the weapon so unlawfully kept, and, if that be not
immediately paid, by corporal punishment.'* Perhaps the
most radically unjust of all the statutes was reserved for this
state. The legislature enacted that 'no person of color
shall pursue the practice, art, trade, or business of an artisan,
mechanic, or shopkeeper, or any other trade or employment
besides that of husbandry, or that of a servant under contract
for labor, until he shall have obtained a license from the
judge of the district court, which license shall be good for
one year only.' If the license was granted to the negro to
be a shopkeeper or peddler, he was compelled to pay a hun
dred dollars a year for it; and if he wished to pursue the
rudest mechanical calling he was compelled to pay a license-
66
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE"
fee of ten dollars. No such fees were exacted of white men,
and no such fees were exacted of the free black man during
the era of slavery. Every avenue for improvement was
closed against him ; and in a state which boasted somewhat
indelicately of its chivalric dignity, the negro was merci
lessly excluded from all chances to better his condition
individually, or to improve the character of his race.
" Mississippi followed in the general line of penal enact
ments prescribed in South Carolina, though her code was
possibly somewhat less severe in the deprivations to which
the negro was subjected. It was, however, bad enough to
stir the indignation of every lover of justice. The legisla-
lature had enacted a law that ' if the laborer shall quit the
service of the employer before the expiration of his term of
service without just cause, he shall forfeit his wages for that
year up to the time of quitting.1 Practically the negro was
himself never permitted to judge whether the cause which
drove him to seek employment elsewhere was just, the white
man being the sole arbiter in the premises. It was provided
that ' every civil officer shall, and every person may, arrest
and carry back to his or her legal employer any freedman,
free negro or mulatto, who shall have quit the service of his
or her employer before the expiration of his term of service
without good cause, and said officer shall be entitled to
receive for arresting and carrying back every deserting em
ployee aforesaid the sum of five dollars, and ten cents per mile
from the place of arrest to the place of delivery, and these
sums shall be held by the employer as a set-off for so much
against the wages of said deserting employee ; provided that
said arrested party, after being so returned home, may appeal
to a justice of the peace, or a member of the board of police,
who shall summarily try whether said appellant is legally
employed by the alleged employer."
" It requires little familiarity with Southern administration
of justice between a white man and a negro to know that
67
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
such appeal was always worse than fruitless, and that its
only effect, if attempted, would be to secure even harsher
treatment than if the appeal had not been made. The pro
visions for enticing a negro from his employer, included in
this act, were in the same spirit and almost in the same
language as the provisions of the slave-code applicable to the
negro before the era of emancipation. The person ' giving
or selling to any deserting freedman, free negro, or mulatto,
any food, raiment, or other things, shall be guilty of a mis
demeanor,1 and might be punished by a fine of two hundred
dollars and costs, or he might be put into prison, and be
also sued by the employer for damages. For attempting to
entice any freedman or free negro beyond the limits of the
state, the person offending might be fined five hundred dol
lars ; and if not immediately paid, the court could sentence
the delinquent to imprisonment in the county jail for six
months. The entire code of Mississippi for freedmen was in
the spirit of the laws quoted. Justice was defied, and injus
tice incorporated as the very spirit of the laws. It was
altogether a shameless proclamation of indecent wrong on
the part of the Legislature of Mississippi.
" Louisiana probably attained the worst eminence in this
vicious legislation. At the very moment when the Thirty-
ninth Congress was assembling to consider the condition of
the Southern states and the whole subject of their Recon
struction, it was found that a bill was pending in the Legis
lature of Louisiana providing that ' every adult freed man or
woman shall furnish themselves with a comfortable home and
visible means of support within twenty days after the passage
of this act? and that 6 any freed man or woman failing to
obtain a home and support as thus provided shall be imme
diately arrested by any sheriff or constable in any parish, or
by the police officer in any city or town in said parish where
said freedman may be, and by them delivered to the Recorder
of the parish, and by him hired out, by public advertisement,
68
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE"
to some citizen, being the highest bidder, for the remainder
of the year/ And in case the laborer should leave his em
ployer's service without his consent, ' he shall be arrested and
assigned to labor on some public works without compensa
tion until his employer reclaims him.'' The laborers were
not to be allowed to keep any live-stock, and all time spent
from home without leave was to be charged against them at
the rate of two dollars per day, and worked out at that rate.
Many more provisions of the same general character were
contained within the bill, the whole character and scope of
which were forcibly set before the Senate by Mr. Wilson of
Massachusetts. It was not only a proof of cruelty enacted
into law, but was such a defiance to the spirit of the Eman
cipation Amendment that it subjected the legislature which
approved the amendment and enacted these laws to a charge
of inconsistency so grave as to make the former act appear in
the light of both a legal and moral fraud. It was declaring
the negro to be free by one statute, and immediately pro
ceeding to re-enslave him by another.
" By a previous law Louisiana had provided that all agri
cultural laborers should be compelled to ' make contracts for
labor during the first ten days of January for the entire
year/ With a demonstrative show of justice it was provided
that ' wages due shall be a lien on the crop, one-half to be
paid at times agreed by the parties, the other half to be
retained until the completion of the contract ; but in case
of sickness of the laborer, wages for the time shall be de
ducted, and where the sickness is supposed to be feigned for
the purpose of idleness, double the amount shall be deducted ;
and should the refusal to work extend beyond three days, the
negro shall be forced to labor on roads, levees, and public
works without pay.' The master was permitted to make
deductions from the laborer's wages for 'injuries done to
animals or agricultural implements committed to his care, or
for bad or negligent work,' he, of course, being the judge.
69
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
' For every act of disobedience a fine of one dollar shall be
imposed upon the laborer ; ' and among the cases deemed to
be disobedience were ' impudence, swearing, or using indecent
language in the presence of the employer, his family, or his
agent, or quarrelling or fighting among one another." It has
been truthfully said of this provision that the master or his
agent might assail the ear with profaneness aimed at the
negro man, and outrage every sense of decency in foul lan
guage addressed to the negro woman ; but if one of the help
less creatures, goaded to resistance and crazed under tyranny,
should answer back with impudence, or should relieve his
mind with an oath, or retort indecency upon indecency, he
did so at the cost to himself of one dollar for every outburst.
The agent referred to in the statute was the well-known
overseer of the cotton region, who was always coarse and
often brutal, sure to be profane, and scarcely knowing the
border-line between ribaldry and decency. The care with
which the law-makers of Louisiana provided that his delicate
ears and sensitive nerves should not be offended with an oath
or with an indelicate word from a negro, will be appreciated
by all who have heard the crack of the whip on a Southern
plantation.
" The wrongs inflicted under the name of law, thus far re
cited, were still further aggravated in a majority of the re
bellious states by the exaction of taxes from the colored men
to an amount altogether disproportionate to their property.
Indeed, of property they had none. Just emerging from a
condition of slavery in which their labor had been constantly
exacted without fee or reward of any kind, it was impossible
that they could be the owners of anything except their own
bodies. Notwithstanding this fact, the negroes, en masse,
were held to be subjects of taxation in the state governments
about to be reorganized. In Georgia, for example, a state
tax of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars was levied
in the first year of peace. The property of the state, even
70
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE"
after all the ruin of the war, exceeded two hundred and fifty
million dollars. This tax, therefore, amounted to less than
one-seventh of one per cent upon the aggregate valuation
of the state, — equal to the imposition of only a dollar and
a half upon each thousand dollars of property. The legis
lature of the state decreed, however, that a large proportion
of this small levy should be raised by a poll-tax of a dollar
per head upon every man in the state between the ages of
twenty-one and sixty years. There were in Georgia at the
time from eighty-five thousand to ninety thousand colored
men subject to the tax ; perhaps, indeed, the number reached
one hundred thousand. It was thus ordained that the
negroes, who had no property at all, should pay one-third
as much as the white men, who had two hundred and fifty
millions of property in possession. This odious and unjust
tax was stringently exacted from the negro. To make sure
that not one should escape, the tax was held as a lien upon
his labor, and the employer was under distraint to pay it.
In Alabama they levied for the same purpose two dollars on
every person between the ages of eighteen and fifty, causing
a still larger proportion of the total tax to fall on the negro
than the Georgia law-makers deemed expedient.
" Texas followed with a capitation tax of a dollar per head,
while Florida levied upon every inhabitant between the ages of
twenty-one and fifty-five years a capitation tax of three dollars,
and upon failure or refusal to pay the same the tax-collector
was 'authorized and required to seize the body of the de
linquent, and hire him out, after five days* public notice
before the door of the court house, to any person who will
pay the said tax and the costs incident to the proceedings
growing out of said arrest, for his services for the shortest
period of time.' As the costs as well as the capitation tax
were to be worked out by the negro, it is presumable that,
in the spirit of this tax-law, they were enlarged to the
utmost limit that decency, according to the standard set up
71
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
by this law, would permit. It is fair to presume that, in any
event, the costs would not be less than the tax, and might,
indeed, be double or treble that amount. As a negro could
not, at that time, be hired out for more than seven dollars
and a half per month, the plain inference is that for the sup
port of the state of Florida the negro might be compelled to
give one month's labor yearly. Even by the capitation tax
alone, without the incident of the costs, every negro man was
compelled to give the gains and profits of nearly two weeks'
labor.
" A poll-tax, though not necessarily limited in this man
ner, has usually accompanied the right of suffrage in the
different states of the Union, but in the late rebellious
states it conferred no franchise. It might be supposed that
ordinary generosity would have devoted it to the education
of the ignorant class from which it was forcibly wrung, but
no provision of the kind was even suggested. . . .
" It was at once seen that if the party which had insisted
upon the emancipation of the slave as a final condition of
peace should now abandon him to his fate, and turn him
over to the anger and hate of the class from whose ownership
he had been freed, it would countenance and commit an act
of far greater wrong than was designed by the most ma
lignant persecutor of the race in any one of the Southern
states. When the Congress of the United States, acting
independently of the executive power of the nation, decreed
emancipation by amending the Constitution, it solemnly
pledged itself, with all its power, to give protection to the
emancipated at whatever cost and at whatever sacrifice. No
man could read the laws which have been here briefly re
viewed without seeing and realizing that, if the negro were
to be deprived of the protecting power of the nation that
had set him free, he had better at once be remanded to
slavery, and to that form of protection which cupidity, if not
humanity, would always inspire.*'
72
THE SOUTHERN "BLACK CODE"
" The objectionable and cruel legislation of the Southern
states — examples of which might be indefinitely cited in
addition to those already given " — fairly and forcefully illus
trates the spirit and temper of the white people of the South,
and their utter contempt for the unexampled generosity
on the part of the nation which gave them commission,
carte blanche, to reconstruct their states. They responded
with a cruel and barbarous code which was an affront to
Christian civilization.
73
CHAPTER III
SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO
RECONSTRUCTION
THE white people of the South thus took the whip hand
in carrying out reconstruction, free and unhampered.
They did not improve the opportunity ; rather they
shamefully abused it. In the same spirit they elected mem
bers, senators and representatives, to the Congress, every
one of them former leaders in the Confederacy. These mem
bers presented themselves as early as December, 1865, but
the Senate and the House of Representatives each refused to
receive or admit the Southern delegations. Thus an issue
was raised. A great struggle was on. Who can say that
God was not leading a people? For out of this issue and
struggle the ballot finally came to the negro. The ballot
probably would not have been bestowed upon him, certainly
not at the time nor in the way and manner it was, if the
South had been lenient toward him and had shown a dispo
sition to respect the Emancipation Proclamation and the
Thirteenth Amendment as accomplished results ; and pro
tected him in life and property, the right of contract, mar
riage relations, locomotion, the privileges of schools, and
other just and equitable relations, irrespective of the ballot,
which make for the peace, prosperity, and well-being of the
community.
But the determination of the Southerners to suppress the
colored man and take vengeance on him for their defeat on
the field of battle, and by Black Codes make his condition
worse under emancipation than it was under slavery, depriv
ing him of every protection, making him an outcast, with
every man's hand against him, fired the hearts of the people
of the North and aroused their keener sense of justice and
deeper feelings of humanity as nothing else could have done.
74
SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO RECONSTRUCTION
It should be borne in mind that the Black Code of laws,
partially outlined above, was only the first instalment of
oppressive measures against the negro. Other and more
cruel laws would certainly have followed the admission of the
Southern delegates to seats in Congress. Besides, the ad
mission of the Southern delegates at this time would have
intrenched the doctrines of state lights in their most obnox
ious and menacing forms. The ex-Confederates would have
been masters of the situation. The solid South combined
with a few scattering Northern votes would have ruled. The
conquered would have dictated terms to the conqueror.
The hands of the nation would have been tied hard and fast.
The insistence on state rights would have prevented any
legislation by the Congress which might have interfered with
the Black Code. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend
ments to the Constitution of the United States, would, ob
viously, have been impossible. The Black Code would have
been enlarged, and the Thirteenth Amendment legislated out
of existence. The cry would have been, " Slavery is dead !
Long live slavery ! " The barren victory of crushing the
rebellion would have gone to the North, the fruits of the
victory to the South. The very extremity to which the arro
gance of the South carried it in the enactment of the Black
Code, its open defiance, saved the situation.
The rejection of the Southern delegations by Congress, and
the universal condemnation of the Black Code throughout
the North, and as well by the whole civilized world, were
to the Southerners like the throwing of a lighted match into
a powder magazine. They w$re enraged beyond expression.
They inaugurated the reign of violence, terrorism, and blood
letting, which has continued under different guises, in full
force and without lapse, until the present time. Their ven
geance was visited without mercy on those white men who
were known to be loyal to the Union, murdering or driving
them from their homes ; and as for the colored people, they
75
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
were nobody's property, so they were often killed for the
sport of the killing. These two classes they blamed for their
woes, and on them they heaped their wrath with ruthless and
indiscriminate slaughter.
On September 3, 1866, just a little over a year after Pres
ident Johnson's Amnesty Proclamation, the Southern loyal
ists, all whites, met in national convention at Philadelphia
and issued an address to the nation, appealing for protection
and denouncing the outrages and murders inflicted on the
loyalists of the South. In this address they said : " Our
last hope under God is in the unity and firmness of the states
that elected Abraham Lincoln and defeated Jefferson Davis.
. . . Every original Unionist in the South . . . has been
ostracized. . . . More than one thousand devoted Union
soldiers have been murdered in cold blood since the surrender
of Lee, and in no case have their assassins been brought to
j udgment."
More than a thousand negroes also had been slaughtered.
On July 20, 1866, at New Orleans, the Union men
were holding a state convention. This was raided and
broken up by ex-Confederates, and over two hundred Union
men were killed and wounded. It is very important to bear
in mind that when these harrowing occurrences were taking
place, when this unrestrained violence and blood-shedding
was sweeping over the South like a " prairie fire," the Southern
whites themselves, the ex-Confederates, had control of the gov
ernment of every one of the Southern states. They had the
state legislatures and all other offices ; and their senators
and Representatives, all ex-Confederates, were knocking at
the doors of Congress. Not a single negro in the South
was a voter ; not a " carpet-bagger " was in office in all the
land.
The South thus threw away its opportunity. By the en
actment of the Black Code, the practical nullification of the
Thirteenth Amendment, and the inauguration of the reign of
76
SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO RECONSTRUCTION
terrorism, violence, and bloodshed, the South openly defied
the nation, struck it a hard blow, spurned its magnanimity
and clemency, and challenged the further assertion of its
sovereignty. This introduces the third effort at recon
struction.
Events were moving rapidly. There was much heat and
estrangement, — not only between the North and the South,
but between President Johnson, who sided with the South,
and Congress, backed by the great body of the people of the
North. The great masses of the American people are
humane, and have an innate love for justice and fair play,
and in the long run are sure to assert these principles with
irresistible force.
It was soon discovered that, as President Johnson upheld
the contention of the ex-Confederates, any reconstructionary
measures passed by Congress would have to run the gantlet
of his veto. And as a matter of fact, all such measures of
reconstruction were vetoed by him and had to be repassed
over his veto by a two-thirds vote.
The Republican party that had brought the war to a
successful termination saved the Union and freed the slave
was in control of the government. Its line of duty was
plain. It neither doubted nor faltered. It knew that
" to doubt would be disloyalty, to falter would be sin."
There were some internal dissensions, it is true, and some few
members or followers dropped by the wayside ; but the party
as a whole responded to the call of duty and faced the issues
with firmness and determination. It was admirably led by
Charles Sumner, William Pitt Fessenden, Benjamin F. Wade
in the Senate, and Thaddeus Stevens, Lyman Trumbull,
Henry Winter Davis, and Samuel Shellabarger in the House.
They made haste slowly. Their measures of reconstruction
were taken gradually by easy stages. No more was under
taken than the circumstances and necessities of the case
actually required, and the public sentiment of the North
77
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
would approve and justify. A joint committee on recon
struction was appointed. The Freedmen's Bureau was es
tablished, and General O. O. Howard, who had lost an arm
in the Virginia campaign at Fair Oaks, and also had hurled
back the flower and chivalry of the South at Cemetery Ridge in
the battle of Gettysburg, and had rendered other distin
guished services throughout the war, was placed at its head.
He was distinctively a Christian soldier, the Havelock of the
American army. The Bureau " was primarily designed as a
protection to the freedmen of the South, and to the class of
white men known as ' refugees,1 driven from their homes by the
rebels on account of their loyalty to the Union." Its powers
were enlarged so as to not only enable it to protect these
two classes in life, but all property and civil rights.
The Congress now applied itself to the more serious question
of the reconstruction of the lately rebellious states. On the
30th of April, 1866, Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, in behalf of the
Committee on Reconstruction, reported a joint resolution
proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United
States.
The amendment as finally adopted constitutes the Four
teenth Amendment to the Constitution, and is as follows :
SECTION 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States,
and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
States, and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall
make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States ; nor shall any State
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due pro
cess of law ; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws.
SECT. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the seve
ral States according to their respective numbers, counting the
whole number of persons in each, excluding Indians not taxed.
But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of
electors for President and Vice-President of the United States,
78
SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO RECONSTRUCTION
representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of
a State, or members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any
of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of
age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged,
except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of
representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which
the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number
of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. . . .
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was
passed by Congress on the 13th day of June, 1866. The
principles of this amendment had been presented and debated
in one form or another from the early part of this session
until finally formulated and passed as it stands to-day and
will stand forever.
The South had trampled the Thirteenth Amendment under
its feet and treated with scorn the national good-will. The
Fourteenth Amendment was the nation's answer to the South
ern Black Code. Other legislation made it incumbent on
each of the seceding states to accept and adopt this amend
ment before they would be recognized as assuming their
practical and proper relations with the Union. But neither
this amendment nor any other legislation of Congress dis
franchised the masses of ex-Confederates. Amnesty was open
to all.
It is the chief complaint of leading Southerners that " the
white people of the South were suppressed and that the ballot
was given to the negro over their heads and for the purpose
of perpetuating the Republican party in power." This charge
is not tenable. He who says that the Republican party " was
playing politics " and gave the negro the ballot with sinister
motives speaks without knowledge of the facts in the case, or
states what he knows to be untrue. The Fourteenth Amend-
79
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
ment simply assured to the negro the ordinary natural rights
of citizenship which belong to every member of the state, such,
for instance, as belong to women and children, but it did not
bestow the ballot.
The ballot, the exercise of the election franchise, still rested
with the state. Each Southern state could give it or with
hold it as it might please. But no Southern state withhold
ing the ballot from the colored people could count the colored
population in the matter of representation in Congress or for
presidential electors.
The Fourteenth Amendment did destroy the Southern
Black Code and gave the colored people a legal status, and it
made the ballot possible. It did not actually make a single
negro voter in all the South. Was this " playing politics " ?
How could this in any way tend " to perpetuate the
Republican party in power " ?
At this time neither Congress nor the people of the
North contemplated bestowing suffrage on the negro. But
the minds of both were fully made up to preserve the fruits
of emancipation and protect the colored people in all their
civil and natural rights and prevent all discrimination against
them on account of " race, color, or previous condition of
servitude," " at any sacrifice." And on this issue they held
that there was no ground for compromise.
The white people of the South received the Fourteenth
Amendment with a wild tempest of rage. Every Southern state
still in the hands of ex-Confederates, except Tennessee, re
jected it. Outrages, murders, and violence on Unionists and
especially on the colored people, increased.
In the rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment the South
threw away its second opportunity to reconstruct the seced
ing states in harmony with the changed conditions and yet
without bestowing the ballot on the colored people. Its
acceptance of the Fourteenth Amendment would have made
unnecessary the Fifteenth Amendment.
80
SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO RECONSTRUCTION
The Congress, however, was imperturbable. It knew its
power. It dared to do. It met the defiance, hostility,
and violence of the South with the mailed hand of martial
law. It promptly accepted the gage of battle laid down
by the South. It divided the ten seceding States into five
military districts and General Grant by direction appointed
for each district a commander of the rank above a brigadier-
general. These commanders were empowered to arrange for
the registration of citizens above the age of twenty-one
"without regard to race or color,11 and without prejudice
to the masses of ex- Confederates, who should vote for a
constitutional convention. This convention should adopt
a state constitution, prohibiting slavery and recognizing the
results of the war, and it should establish a complete ma
chinery of state and local government and provide for
the election of senators and representatives to Congress.
The course of events in the South in the meanwhile, the
indecent haste in enacting the Black Code, with its barbarous
inflictions, the reign of violence and murder on helpless
colored people and u refugee" Unionists, the defiant rejection
of the Fourteenth Amendment by every Southern state except
Tennessee, the general scorn of the nation's good-will and
clemency, and the open hostility to national authority, had
the effect of ripening public sentiment in every Northern
state in favor of negro suffrage. The South had shown its
hand. It was perfectly apparent that it could not be trusted
to do justly or even act humanely towards the colored people
or the white " refugees " who were loyal to the Union. The
critical point was reached, the hour had struck when the
nation must look to others than the ex-Confederates and
their sympathizers to reconstruct the lately rebellious states
" with reference to the emancipation of slaves " and bring
them into harmonious relations with the Union.
Mr. Elaine, touching this point, said : " The South had
its choice, and it deliberately and after fair warning decided
« 81
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
to reject the magnanimous offer of the North and to insist
upon an advantage in representation against which a common
sense of justice revolted. The North, foiled in its original
design of reconstruction by the perverse course of the South,
was compelled, under the providence of the Ruler of nations,
to deal honestly and justly with the colored people. ... A
higher than human power controlled these great events.
The wrath of man was made to praise the righteous works
of God. Whatever were the deficiencies of the negro race
in education for the duties and responsibilities of citizenship,
they had exhibited the one vital qualification of an in
stinctive loyalty and, as far as lay in their power, a steadfast
helpfulness to the cause of the national Union, — ... his
race contributing nearly a quarter of a million troops to
the national service."
The famous Reconstruction Act, placing the South under
martial law, was passed on March 2, 1867. It embodied
negro suffrage. Under God, justice had come. The ex-Con
federates had been exercising full control over the govern
ment of every Southern state for two years after the war, and
had defied the national laws and authority, and had per
sistently thwarted the work of reconstruction.
In debating this act in Congress, placing the South under
military law, Mr. Garfield, afterwards President of the
United States, said : " I call attention to the fact that from
the collapse of the Rebellion to the present hour, Congress
has undertaken to restore the States lately in rebellion by
co-operation with their people, and that our efforts in that
direction have proven a complete and disastrous failure. . . .
The constitutional amendment (the Fourteenth Amendment)
did not come up to the full height of the great occasion.
It did not meet all I desired in the way of guarantees to
liberty, but if the rebel States had adopted it as Tennessee
did, I should have felt bound to let them in on the same
terms prescribed for Tennessee. I have been in favor of
82
SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO RECONSTRUCTION
waiting to give them full time to deliberate and act. They
deliberated. They have acted. The last one of the sinful
ten has at last, with contempt and scorn, flung back in our
teeth the magnanimous offer of a generous nation. It is
now our turn to act. They would not co-operate with us
in building what they destroyed. We must remove the
rubbish and build from the bottom.'1''
Mr. Brandegee of Connecticut said : " The American
people demand that we shall do something, and quickly.
Already fifteen hundred Union men have been massacred in
cold blood (more than the entire population of some of the
towns in my district), whose only crime has been loyalty to your
flag. ... In all the revolted states, upon the testimony of
your ablest generals, there is no safety to property or lives of
loyal men. Is this what the loyal North has been fighting
for ? Thousands of loyal white men, driven like partridges
over the mountains, homeless, houseless, penniless, to-day
throng this capital. They fill the hotels, they crowd the
avenues, they gather in these marble corridors, they look
down from these galleries, and with supplicating eye ask
protection from the flag that hangs above the Speaker's
chair, — a flag which thus far has unfurled its stripes, but
concealed the promise of its stars."
Mr. Lawrence of Ohio said : " For myself, I am ready to
set aside by law all these illegal governments. They have
rejected all fair terms of reconstruction. They have rejected
the constitutional amendments we have tendered them. They
are engines of oppression against all loyal men."
Mr. Boutwell of Massachusetts said : " To-day there are
eight millions or more of people, occupying six hundred and
thirty thousand square miles of territory in this country, who
are writhing under cruelties nameless in their character, and
injustices such as have not been permitted to exist in any
other country of modern times. ... It is the vainest delu
sion, the wildest of hopes, the most dangerous of aspirations,
83
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
to contemplate the reconstruction of civil government until
the rebel despotisms enthroned in power in these ten States
shall be broken up.""
Mr. Kelly of Pennsylvania said : " The passage of this bill
or its equivalent is required by the manhood of this Congress,
to save it from the hissing scorn and reproach of every South
ern man who has been compelled to seek a home in the
by-ways of the North, of every homeless widow and orphan
of a Union soldier in the South, who should have been
protected by the government."
Mr. Allison of Iowa, now United States Senator, said :
"Believing as I do that this measure is essential to the
preservation of the Union men of the South, believing that
their lives, property, and liberty cannot be secured except
through military law, I am for this bill."
Mr. Elaine's amendment to the bill provided that " the
elective franchise shall be enjoyed equally and impartially by
all male citizens of the United States twenty-one years of age
and upwards, without regard to race, color, or previous con
dition of servitude." He said : " I believe the true inter
pretation of the election of 1866 was that, in addition to
the proposed constitutional amendment, impartial suffrage
should be the basis of reconstruction. Why not declare it
so ? Why not, when you send out this military police
through the lately rebellious States, send with it that im
pressive declaration ? "
It was even so. The declaration was sent. Under these
circumstances the ballot came to the negro. The Congress
and the nation now had to look to others than ex-Confed
erates to do the work of reconstruction. The negro was
commanded to share in it. How otherwise could these
states have been reconstructed in accordance with the national
sentiment and the emancipation laws ? It was plain that
the ex-Confederates would not do it. It was equally clear
that the colored people composed the only possible large
84
SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO RECONSTRUCTION
constituency in the South to be depended on ; and that by
giving them the ballot, and enlisting the support of the
loyalist and of the more conservative Southerners, and the
assistance of the Union soldiers who had settled in the South,
the work of reconstruction could be carried out ; but even
then only under the protection of martial law.
These three elements — the large colored populations, the
Union soldiers who had settled in the South after the close
of the war, more than two years before, and the loyalists and
conservative Southerners who accepted the new situation —
constituted the agency through which the Southern states
were reconstructed and brought back into their practical and
proper relations with the Union. They gave the Southern
states constitutions in harmony with the changed conditions
and the emancipation laws. They established orderly gov
ernments, and because of their necessary participation in
these governments, there arose the cry of " negro domina
tion,1' " carpet-baggers,11 and " scalawags.11
It is quite pertinent to remark here that, notwithstanding
all the protest of the Southern whites, no one has yet shown —
not even Senator Tillman or Senator Money — how the seced
ing Southern states could have been brought back into their
normal and proper relation with the Union by the formal
acceptance of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to
the Constitution of the United States and the guaranties for
the protection of life, liberty, and property, " without regard
to race, color, or previous condition of servitude,11 otherwise
than through this very agency which they and others so heat
edly and intemperately denounce.
The reconstruction which proceeded under martial law
was a necessity. It was an unusual as well as undesir
able resort, but there was no alternative ; the attitude
of the ex-Confederates made it necessary — it is a full
justification.
The business and financial interests of the country and
85
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
every other interest demanded a settlement of the questions
growing out of the war. The nation, righteously, would not
have the Black Code and its accompaniments ; the South,
unrighteously, would have nothing else. And yet recon
struction must be accomplished. To put the whole South
under martial law indefinitely or until its passions were cooled
down was far more objectionable and dangerous than to put
it under martial law for a limited period and until the states
could be reconstructed with the assistance of the colored vote
and the conservative and loyal elements. The American
people will not tolerate martial law save as a temporary
necessity. Suppose the ex-Confederates had said to Congress
and the nation, " Put us under martial law, if you choose.
We will stay under your martial law forever before we will
strike one line from the Black Code, before we will accept
your Fourteenth Amendment or any other law objectionable
to us. Do your worst. We defy you." And that was the real
position taken by the South, declared in its press and by its
leaders on the rostrum, — that they " would never submit to
the Fourteenth Amendment." What then? A little child
can lead a horse to the water, but a giant can't make it drink.
There was no power by which the Congress could coerce the
ex-Confederates to reconstruct the Southern states against
their will.
Let it be observed here that, as in the course of the
war the Emancipation Proclamation, as a war measure, was
necessary to save the Union, increasing as it did its material
and moral forces at home and abroad, and correspondingly
decreasing the material and moral forces of the Confederacy
and destroying with a few strokes of the pen its mightiest
pillar of support, just so, in the course of reconstruction, the
bestowal of the ballot on the negro, as a reconstruction meas
ure, was absolutely necessary to restore the seceding states
to their former relations in the Union. The enforcement of
martial law for an indefinite period would have proved most
86
SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO RECONSTRUCTION
injurious to the national cause, and increasingly so every day
after the South had been normally pacified.
For the Southern leaders would have temporarily desisted
from acts of violence and murder, until they gained their
point, the recognition of their states and the admission of
their members into Congress. Then, fortified by the heresies
of state rights, they would have " turned loose the dogs of
war "on the helpless colored people, and the fugitive white
Unionists, and the lives of these people would have been
made intolerable. The cruelty and brutalism inflicted on
the colored people to-day when they are equal citi/ens show
what might have been expected without the protection of
the constitutional amendments ; and are likewise an ample,
a complete vindication of the wisdom, justice, and humanity
of reconstruction legislation.
The Southern people could have appealed to the nation
and to the Supreme Court of the United States for autonomy,
declaring that disorder had ceased in their states, that there
was no resistance to any national law, that the Black Code
rested upon the rights of the states to regulate domestic
affairs, and that rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment was
not resisting the national authority, as that amendment was
not a law of the land until approved by three-fourths of all the
states. What then ? The Southerners, finally, would have
won. The waiting policy would have acted tremendously in
their favor. They could have forced a compromise, demand
ing pay for the slaves ; reimbursement for certain losses by
the war ; refused to pension Union soldiers unless Confeder
ates were also pensioned ; declined to accept the national
debt unless certain debts of the Confederacy were also ac
cepted; legislated as to the colored people according to their
own capricious will ; and, intrenched behind the doctrines of
state rights in their most objectionable and dangerous forms,
they could have hampered and harassed the national govern
ment without limit ; and the world would have beheld the
87
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
amazing and bewildering spectacle of a great and powerful
nation, triumphant in the greatest war of history, standing
utterly limp and helpless in the presence of the conquered,
and meekly yielding to their dictation. For the Fourteenth
Amendment not only gave the negro a legal status, but its
fourth section made inviolable the public debt, provided
for pensions, prohibited payment for slaves, and made void
all debts of the Confederacy. Without negro suffrage, these
would remain open questions.
It was the ballot in the hands of the negro that saved the
nation from unspeakable humiliations, established beyond
question its supremacy and sovereignty, destroyed forever
the menacing and dangerous forms of state rights, and
preserved "the jewel of liberty in the family of freedom,"
thus fulfilling in a most signal^ unexpected, and remarkable
manner Lincoln's prophecy that " they would probably
help in some trying time in the future to keep the jewel of
liberty in the family of freedom."
Under the desperate and chaotic conditions existent in
the South at this time, it is not surprising that in the
selection and election of men to carry out the work of recon
struction serious blunders were made ; that some thieves and
plunderers forged to the front and filled some of the offices.
It is the universal experience in governmental affairs that
under normal conditions, in times of profound peace, bad
men and thieves have been elected to offices and have be
trayed their trusts. It was unavoidable, it could not have
been otherwise during the Reconstruction era. The cir
cumstances were propitious for this. The South had gone
far beyond her financial ability in the prosecution of a
disastrous and wasteful war. She had no public moneys,
and her private fortunes were wrecked ; a billion dollars in
slave property had evaporated. Money was needed to
operate state and local government. Taxes were assessed.
Bonds were issued. From 25 to 75 per cent of the par value
88
SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO RECONSTRUCTION
of these bonds remained in the safes and lockers of the
bondholders in the North ; in fact, the Northern bondholders
got a larger proportion of money which should have been
used to run these state governments than it was possible for
the " carpet-baggers " to steal.
Those Southern leaders who attribute the poverty of the
South following the war to the stealings of " carpet-baggers "
are unwise in their utterances. This poverty was due more
to the waste of war, the unsettled conditions, and the low
price of Southern bonds than to the stealings of the " carpet-
baggers.11 Much stealing has been done since the passing of
these conditions ; millions have been stolen in later years by
defaulters, embezzlers, grafts, and boodlers.
But after all that may be charged against the blundering
and plundering of the carpet-bag governments in the South,
it is probably true that the Tweed ring in New York City
actually stole and squandered more of the peopled money
than all the " carpet-baggers " in the South combined.
It is also noteworthy that some of the seceding states were
never under the so-called carpet-bag government ; such were
Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas ; others were so controlled
for only a short time, as, for instance, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Virginia, Alabama, and Arkansas, for three or four years ;
North Carolina for about six years ; and only Florida and
South Carolina for about eight years. So it will be seen at
a glance that the so-called carpet-bag government of the
South was neither so general nor so extended in time as
Southern leaders pretend.
But the rank and file of the Northern men who settled
in the South after the close of the war were not unworthy
men, nor were they thieves ; nor were the rank and file of
the loyalists, and those conservative Southerners who ac
cepted the changed conditions, unworthy men or thieves ;
and as to the colored people, they were far too inflated with
the ideas of freedom, too happy in their new life of liberty,
89
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
too deeply impressed and concerned about the " sovereignty
under the hat," too busily engaged in trying to trace the
members of their families — husband, wife, daughter, son,
sister, brother, father, mother, and other kindred — who had
been scattered to the four corners of the earth by the in
human and brutal system of the slave-pen and the slave
auction-block — to give even a thought about money making
in politics.
These Northern men who had settled in the South, and
whom the ex-Confederates called " carpet-baggers," responded
to the call of their country to assist in reconstructing the
Southern states in the same spirit of patriotism which they
displayed when Sumter was fired on. The loyalists of the
South, who had borne contumacy and outrage during the
four years of the war and the two years following it, and
whom the ex-Confederates called " scalawags," applying this
term also to those Southerners who accepted the situa
tion, responded to the call to assist in reconstructing the
Southern states, because they rejoiced that the day of judg
ment had come to the South, and with their help Old Glory
would flutter over a restored Union.
And the colored people ! They bubbled over with re
joicings ; there was nothing that they would not have
done for " the Lincoln government " and to sustain the
North. There was not a colored man in the South who
would not have borne arms in defence of the nation. If
the South had tried " guerilla warfare " after General Lee's
surrender, then the very last guerilla would have been driven
to cover, simply by arming the 700,000 colored men.
These three classes rendered the nation services of in
estimable value in a most critical and perilous hour, —
services for which the nation owes a lasting and incalculable
debt of gratitude. There has been entirely too much ran
dom abuse of " carpet-baggers " and " scalawags." It is time
to call a halt to these indiscriminate denunciations. Vilifi-
90
SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO RECONSTRUCTION
cation and abuse are not arguments. The services which
they rendered at a grave crisis were as necessary and indis
pensable in reconstructing the Southern states as were the
march of Sherman to the sea, the triumphs of Grant at
Vicksburg, Banks at Port Hudson, Meade at Gettysburg,
Farragut at New Orleans and Mobile Bay, the " Monitor "
over the " Merrimac " in Hampton Roads, and Sheridan's
famous ride down the valley of the Shenandoah, in strangling
and stamping out the Rebellion. The perplexing problem
of reconstruction was as threatening to the nation's sove
reignty as the war to the nation's life. The white people
of the South themselves are responsible for the so-called
negro domination and carpet-bag governments. They threw
away two opportunities to reconstruct, and for a third time
refused even to share in the work of reconstruction. If
some stealing and plundering accompanied the performance,
theirs was the blame.
Among the so-called "carpet-baggers" and "scalawags'"
there were men as pure in purpose, as lofty in patriotism,
as bright In intellect, as unselfish in the discharge of public
duties, and «as honest, courageous, and noble in spirit as
America has ever produced. Because the Southerners could
not rule, or because they were not permitted to work ruin,
they sulked ; and their sulking brought about the very
evils of which they so loudly and bitterly complain. For it
should always be borne in mind that, while there was a
sufficiently numerous constituency in the large colored popu
lation of the Southern states, augmented and supported bv
the strong and important body of Northern settlers and
reinforced by the large number of loyalists and pacified
Southerners, to achieve their reconstruction, yet there was no
inhibition against the great mass of white Southerners par
ticipating in the reconstruction of their respective states.
The great masses of the ex-Confederates could freely register
and vote under the provisions of the same act which be-
91
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
stowed the ballot on the colored people. In deliberately
choosing to sulk and defy the nation, and in large measure
allow the elections to pass by default so far as they were
concerned, they became even more responsible for all the
evils which followed.
In the meantime, nevertheless, the work of reconstructing
the Southern states proceeded under the law authorized by
the Congress. The " voters of twenty-one years of age and
upward " were registered " without regard to race or color,11
and without prejudice to the great masses of ex-Confederates,
who for a third time spurned and rejected the nation's good
will. Elections were held ; constitutional conventions as
sembled; constitutions were framed and submitted to the
electorate as registered in the several states for their ap
proval ; complete machinery for state and local governments
was put in operation ; senators and representatives were
elected to the Congress. Tennessee had already abolished
slavery, ratified the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments,
and had resumed her place in the Union, July 23, 1866 ;
Arkansas was restored to her place in the Union June 22, 1868 ;
North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana,
and Georgia, June 25, 1868 ; Virginia, January 26 ; Mis
sissippi, February 23; and Texas, March 30, 1870, the
delay being due to non-fulfilment of requirements. The
state of Georgia expelled the colored men elected to her
legislature, and this raised the question of the right to
hold office. Whereupon Congress took action and passed a
bill December 16, 1869, declaring that " the exclusion of
persons from the legislature upon the ground of race,
color, or previous condition of servitude would be illegal and
revolutionary and is hereby prohibited." Georgia's senators
and representatives were denied admission to Congress until
the colored members were reinstated. Thus the question of
the right of colored men to hold office was promptly met
and settled.
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SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO RECONSTRUCTION
The reconstruction of the Southern states was now com
pleted, all the seceding states being restored to their autonomy
in the Union, under a bill providing in each case that the
said state "is entitled and admitted to representation in
Congress, as one of the states of the Union upon the follow
ing fundamental condition : that the Constitution of [naming
the state] shall 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 now felonies at the common law, whereof they shall have
been duly convicted."
It was under this solemn compact that the lately rebellious
states were declared admitted to the Union. The question
pertinently arises: Has not each of those Southern states,
adopting new constitutions with the "grandfather clause"
or other device to deprive the colored people of their right to
vote, violated, both in letter and spirit, this solemn compact,
and broken faith with the nation ? And again, if South
Carolina and Louisiana can violate the " fundamental con
dition " in relation to the ballot, upon which they were ad
mitted to the Union, what is to prevent Utah and other
states that may choose to do so, from violating their solemn
compact with the nation in relation to polygamy ? A state
is in honor bound to respect and observe its compact with the
nation. The violation of such a compact is an act of bad
faith which the people of a state cannot afford to uphold ;
and in case the compact is violated the nation, through
Congress or the courts, may make intervention. The nation
may sometime wake up to realize that what is " sauce " for
the South Carolina " goose " to-day will be " sauce " for the
Utah "gander" to-morrow.
The success attained in organizing these governments did
not have the effect of softening the animosities or allaying the
bitter resentment and hostility of the white people. It greatly
93
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
aggravated them. The South had now suffered two defeats,
and in each the negro was an important factor. In the war,
the negro as a soldier was potent. In reconstruction, the
negro as a voter was indispensable.
In suffering and blood, the white people of the South have
exacted a staggering price from the colored people for their
loyalty and service to the nation. And the end is not yet.
The Confederate army was practically reorganized into a
secret, oath-bound society — the Ku Klux Klans — covering
all the Southern states. They made onslaughts on the
governments established, and war on their supporters. They
killed and murdered, by day and by night, loyalists, pacified
Southerners, and negroes without discrimination and without
mercy. Mr. Blaine said : " In prosecuting their purposes
these clans and organizations hesitated at no cruelty, were
deterred by no considerations of law or humanity. They rode
by night, were disguised with masks, were armed as freeboot
ers. They whipped, maimed, or murdered the victims of
their wrath. White men who were co-operating with the
colored population politically were visited with punishments
of excessive cruelty." " Over two thousand persons were
killed, wounded, and otherwise injured in " Louisiana " within
a few weeks of the presidential election of 1868 ; " . . . the
state " was overrun by violence, midnight raids, secret mur
ders, and open riots. " In one parish " the Ku Klux killed
and wounded over two hundred Republicans, hunting and
chasing them for two days through fields and swamps."
" Over twenty-five bodies were found at one place in the
woods."
The horrors and cruelties of the Ku Klux Klans in Louis
iana were fully rivalled in Mississippi, and more or less largely
sustained in each of the Southern states. It is estimated by
persons well acquainted with the situation that from forty to
fifty thousand colored people, white loyalists, and Northern
men were murdered in cold blood during this era. The blood
94
SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO RECONSTRUCTION
of these martyrs to liberty and the Union cries out from the
ground !
Some of the members of the Ku Klux Klan were captured,
indicted, and put on trial. A number were arraigned before
the United States Court in South Carolina. The white people
of the state engaged the most eminent counsel for their de
fence. Their leading lawyer was the noted and learned Rev-
erdy Johnson of Maryland, who, after hearing the evidence,
much of it confessions by the Ku Klux themselves, his honest
nature revolting, refused to make a plea for his clients, but
left them to the mercy of the Court, saying : " I have listened
with unmixed horror to some of the testimony which has been
brought before you. The outrages proved are shocking to
humanity ; they admit of neither excuse nor justification ;
they violate every obligation which law and nature impose
upon man ; they show that the parties engaged were brutes,
insensible to the obligations of humanity and religion. The
day will come, however, if it has not already arrived, when
they will deeply lament it. Even if justice shall not overtake
them, there is one tribunal from which there is no hope. It
is their own judgment ; that tribunal which sits in the breast
of every living man ; that small, still voice that thrills through
the heart, the soul, and the mind, and as it speaks gives happi
ness or torture ; the voice of the conscience, the voice of God.
If it has not already spoken to them in tones which have
startled them to the enormity of their conduct, I trust, in the
mercy of Heaven, that that voice will speak before they shall
be called above to account for the transactions of this world ;
that it will so speak as to make them penitent, and that
trusting in the dispensations of Heaven, whose justice is dis
pensed with mercy, when they shall be brought before the
bar of their great tribunal, so to speak, that incomprehensible
tribunal, there will be found in the fact of their penitence or
their previous lives some grounds upon which God may say,
'Pardon/"
95
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
When it is considered that Reverdy Johnson was a South
erner by birth and education, that his sympathies were
with the Southern people in their contentions, and that lie
strongly opposed the Fourteenth Amendment and denounced
the great Reconstruction Act, his language constitutes as
strong an indictment as can be brought against a civilized
people.
Governor Daniel H. Chamberlain of South Carolina, one
of the ablest of the so-called 4< carpet-baggers," in appealing
to President Grant for military assistance to guarantee a fair
and peaceful election in South Carolina, after detailing the
ruthless slaughter of colored citizens in the Hamburg riot,
said : " My first duty is to seek to restore and preserve public
peace and order, to the end that every man in South Carolina
may freely and safely enjoy all his civil rights and privileges,
including the right to vote. . . . But I deem it my solemn
duty to do my utmost to secure a fair and free election in
this State, to protect every man in the free enjoyment of his
political rights, and to see to it, that no man or combination
of men of any political party, shall overawe, or put in fear or
danger, any citizen of South Carolina, in the exercise of his
civil rights. ... I understand that an American citizen has
a right to vote as he pleases ; to vote one ticket as freely and
as safely as another ; . . . and I know that whenever, upon
whatsoever pretext, large bodies of citizens can be coerced
by force or fear into absenting themselves from the polls, or
voting in a way contrary to their judgment or inclination,
the foundations of every man's civil freedom is deeply, if not
fatally, shaken."
Replying to this letter, President Grant wrote to Governor
Chamberlain to go on in the discharge of his duties, and that
he would have the full sympathy and co-operation of the
national government. Commenting on the general condi
tions prevailing in the South, General Grant used these strong
and forceful words : " The scene at Hamburg, as cruel, blood-
96
SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO RECONSTRUCTION
thirsty, wanton, unprovoked, and as uncalled for as it was, is
only a repetition of the same that has been pursued in other
Southern states within the last few years, notably in Missis
sippi and Louisiana. Mississippi is governed to-day by offi
cials chosen through fraud and violence, such as would scarcely
be accredited to savages, much less to a civilized and Christian
people. . . . How long these things are to continue, or what
is to be the final remedy, the Great Ruler of the Universe
only knows. . . . Nothing is claimed for one state that is
not freely accorded to all the others, unless it may be the
right to kill negroes and Republicans without fear of pun
ishment, and without the loss of caste or reputation. This
has seemed to be a privilege claimed by a few states."
Concerning the Ku Klux Klan, it may be said that " mur
der with them was an occupation, and perjury was a pastime.1''
Many of their bloodiest and blackest crimes on the colored
people have been sealed in the stillness of the death of their
victims.
The Southland in some respects and at many points had
now become a charnel-house and chamber of horrors. The
foul and bloody work so relentlessly carried on by the
whites, and the general demoralization consequent thereto
caused the Congress to divine that additional guarantees to
preserve the civil and political liberties of the colored people
were necessary. There was no ground for hope of just or
humane treatment for them on the part of the whites. Up
to this time suffrage rested in the states, but the adoption
of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States, which was ratified March 30, 1870, made suffrage
national and impartial.
So far as the organic law of the land is concerned, the
civil and political rights of the colored people are safe and
secure forevermore. The right of suffrage in this republic-
is now and forever national. It is now and forever im
partial. Its abrogation is morally inconceivable, practically
7 97
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
impossible. The words of this great charter of liberty
are:
" The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not
be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State,
on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
The leaders of the South have been protesting so loud and
long about the " crime " committed in this Reconstruction
era that the great masses of its people have probably fully
persuaded themselves that a crime really was committed.
And because of the bitter and continuous denunciation of
" carpet-baggers,1'' " scalawags " and " negro domination " —
some good people in the North, who have not taken the
trouble to investigate the facts in the case, have been almost
persuaded that a serious blunder was made in the bestowal
of the ballot on the negro.
The Reverend Dr. C. H. Parkhurst, a most distinguished
divine and the pastor of a wealthy and influential church in
the city of New York, representing this class, in a public
address says : " The instance of the convict is in principle
exactly what occurred in the case of the blacks. Emancipa
tion pushed the bolt for them. There was a great deal of
heroism in the course of the war, North and South, but there
was not much statesmanship in the construction of the peace,
and one of the radical mistakes made was in supposing that
altering the colored man's condition altered the colored
man ; that letting a wolf out of a cage domesticates the
wolf; that substituting coat and trousers for swaddling
clothes makes an infant a man, and that emancipation not
only relieved the slave of his fetters, but qualified him to be
a citizen." Dr. Parkhurst also says through the public
press : " Since my return from the South, I have been in
formed that some of my critics have accused me of expressing
regrets that slavery days are over. That is not true. I
have merely said that most of the ' niggers ' are unfit for the
responsibilities of citizenship.
98
SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO RECONSTRUCTION
" The ' niggers ** will never be assimilated by the nation.
They never, never will contribute, in any part, toward form
ing the national type of the Americans of the future. They
grow blacker and blacker every day. Their color forms a
physical barrier which even time, the great leveller, cannot
sweep away.
" Persons who talk of assimilation in connection with the
race problem do not understand what they speak of. Future
generations of our race will be very much as we are. The
physical barrier that separates the blacks from the whites
to-day will be just as broad and as high throughout all the
centuries to come."
Aside from the unparliamentary and unchristian language
of this minister of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ —
the decisive answer is forthcoming that the Proclamation
of Amnesty, pardoning the ex-Confederates, had quite as
little effect in altering their condition, or lessening in the
least degree their animosities, or transforming them into
law-abiding, liberty-loving, patriotic American citizens ; and
that moreover the ex-Confederates had actually demonstrated
their unfitness to legislate with wisdom, to deal justly or
even humanely with either the freedmen or with white men
who were loyal to the Union, or to accept in good faith the
clemency of a magnanimous nation. And the further argu
ment is conclusive, that the people of " the North believed,
and believed wisely, that a poor man, an ignorant man, and
a black man who was thoroughly loyal, was a safer and a
better voter than a rich man, an educated man, and a white
man who in his heart was disloyal to the Union/1
The Honorable Carl Schurz, who was appointed by Presi
dent Johnson after the close of the war as a Commissioner
to visit the South and examine into and report upon the
condition of things there, in his report says : The loyalty
of the Southern people " consists in submitting to necessity."
There was generally " an entire absence of that national
99
THE AFTERMATH OP SLAVERY
spirit which forms the basis of true loyalty. ... It will
hardly be possible to secure the freedmen against oppressive
legislation and private persecution unless he be endowed
with a certain measure of political power. . . . The exten
sion of the franchise to the colored people, upon the develop
ment of free labor, and upon the security of human rights in
the South, being the principal object in view, the objection
raised upon the ground of the ignorance of the freedmen
becomes unimportant. . . . The only manner in which the
Southern people can be induced to grant to the freedmen
some measure of self-protecting power, in the form of suf
frage, is to make it a condition precedent to readmission."
Contemplate this report, made in 1866, in the light of the
attitude of the South to-day, with all the wrongs imposed on
the colored people, and Carl Schurz will at once take rank as
a wise seer with the gift of a prophet.
Some of Dr. Parkhurst's friends might do well to inform
him that assimilation is not necessarily of blood ; that a
people may thoroughly, through the course of the years,
assimilate the civilization of another people and become a
most pronounced type of that civilization, and yet not be of
the same blood. As a matter of fact, the assimilation of a
civilization is far more important than the assimilation of
blood. It is the former, and not the latter that makes the
type. There are many thousands of colored people in the
South who have already assimilated American civilization ;
who are thorough -going, patriotic, law-abiding Americans
in every tissue and fibre of their being. There are also in
the South many thousands of whites who are unassimilated
and are as alien to the standards and ideals of American
civilization as if they had not been born and raised in a land
where the gospel of the Christ is preached from every hill
top and in every valley, and where the chief glory of the
people is their dedication to the principle that all men are
equal before the law. The color of a man's skin can no
100
SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO IlECONSTH ACTION
more affect " the national type of the American of the future "
than will the color of his hair, the heaviness of his eyebrows,
or the size of his feet ; but, rather, he will be marked by the
quality and achievement of his intellect, the purity and good
ness of his heart, the nobility of his soul and purpose, the
strength and breadth of his patriotism, his loyalty to the
truth and to his God, and his love and services for man —
not white man, not black man, but Man. Race barrier or
no race barrier, he will best represent the type who best
represents the civilization, whether he be as white as the
driven snow or as black as the ace of spades.
As to " the national type of the American of the future,"
the colored people can well afford to leave that in the hands
of Almighty God, whom Dr. Parkhurst may perhaps regard
as being abundantly able to rule over it wisely, beneficently,
to the well-being of the human family and to His own glory
and hoi. or. Dr. Parkhurst's ungracious insult, unprovoked
and unwarranted, to the colored people who have served
their country nobly in war and faithfully and well in peace,
by stigmatizing and applying to the whole race the offensive
and degrading epithet, the " niggers," and comparing them
with " convicts " and " wolves," belittles him and impeaches
his own right to be regarded as a consistent disciple of
the Christ, or a faithful preacher of righteousness. Much
learning, great eloquence, and a pure white skin, good and
helpful as they are, yet are not the only nor the chief
requisites of a Christian minister. These, without the spirit
and mind of the Christ, are " as sounding brass and a tinkling
cymbal." Would it not be a happy event for Dr. Parkhurst
to go into his closet and wrestle with his God, and himself
"assimilate" the mind and teachings of Jesus, the Christ;
giving heed to the injunction of the Apostle Paul, the great
apostle to the Gentiles : " Let this mind be in you, which
was also in Christ Jesus." Without this spirit all preaching
is in vain.
101
THE. AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Would Dr. Parkhurst dare to apply offensive and degrad
ing epithets to all the white people of the South ? Why did
he gratuitously and grossly insult every self-respecting colored
man and woman in the United States ? He knew that the
negro is prostrate and helpless, and he felt that he might
" dance a jig " on the negro's chest with entire safety to him
self. He may continue his jig dancing on the chest of the
prostrate negro, but it may yet come to him that he owes
the colored people — who have never done him aught of harm
and against whom he has no grievance — an apology for thus
stigmatizing them ; and as long as that apology is withheld
considerate thinking people not only in the North and South
but the world over will regard him as unmanly, and as not com
porting himself with the dignity and honor of the scrupulous
citizen, the punctilious man, or an ambassador of the Christ.
No one would, perhaps, challenge the correctness of the
principle that wars are unusual occurrences and therefore
they call for the exercise of unusual powers, not only in con
ducting them but also in the settlement of complex and per
plexing questions growing out of them. A nation's life or
sovereignty is paramount.
So it was with the Civil War, and so it was with recon
struction. And with reference to negro suffrage, it is
all-important to consider the fundamental truths connected
therewith.
The giving of the ballot to the negro became the necessary
means for the accomplishment of the rehabilitation of the
Southern states ; and the use of the ballot in the hands of
the negro was effective in achieving the following results : —
First : It established the sovereignty of the nation.
Second : It utterly destroyed all that was vicious, mis
chievous, and menacing in the doctrines of state rights.
Third : It made effective the Thirteenth Amendment, and
enacted the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the
Constitution of the United States — giving rise to the
102
SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO RECONSTRUCTION
strange paradox, unique in the history of the world, that
the ballot of the ex-slave had become necessary to save the
face of a conquering nation, preserve the fruits of victory,
and assist in the enactment of laws which made his own
freedom secure ; and it wrote his own citizenship inefface-
ably into the Constitution, the organic law of the land.
Fourth : It was effective in causing the adoption of free
constitutions for the Southern states, the establishment of
orderly government in them, and, in a word, rehabilitating
them and restoring them to practical and proper relations
with the Union.
Fifth : It gave the South its first system of Free Public
Schools, a benefaction and blessing of incalculable value.
It is not, therefore, too much to say that the glory and
the power of the republic to-day — the foremost and most
powerful nation in the world — may be traced to the effec
tive use of the negro as a soldier and as a voter in the
most stormy and perilous hour of its existence. He was
unquestionably the deciding factor. " The truth is delight,"
and in the light of the truth these facts blaze forth.
It must, therefore, appear evident to every serious, patri
otic American who has more regard for liberty and Union
than for race hatred and caste prejudice, that the bestowal of
the ballot on the colored people, under the circumstances, and
at the time, and in the manner that it was bestowed, was not
only not a crime, but, on the contrary, was perhaps the
sublimest act of enlightened statesmanship.
All the specious pleas, vituperation, and misrepresentations
on the part of Southern leaders and their Northern sym
pathizers cannot efface or darken the light of this blazing
truth, which shines forth, and will shine with increasing and
resplendent glory —
'* Until seas shall waste,
And the sky in smoke decay. "
103
CHAPTER IV
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
THE ballot in the hands of the colored man — this
is the crux of the Southern problem.
The ballot is the citadel of the colored man's
safety ; the guarantor of his liberty ; the protector of his
rights ; the defender of his immunities and privileges ; the
savior of the fruits of his toil ; his weapon of offence and
defence ; his peace maker ; his Nemesis that watches and
guards over him with sleepless eye by day and by night.
With the ballot the negro is a man ; an American among
Americans.
Without the ballot he is a serf, less than a slave ; a thing.
It is not at all singular, therefore, that his ballot, this
fortress of his power, should be beleaguered and stormed
by all who would oppress, or degrade, or out-law him, or
alienate him from human society.
The negrophobists of the South thoroughly understand
that, in order to annul him as a factor to be reckoned
with in American life and civilization, his ballot, which keeps
open " the door of hope, the door of opportunity," must
first be demolished.
For this reason the dominant Southern leaders, from the
reconstruction day to the present time, have been discharg
ing their heaviest artillery, oratorically speaking, at negro
suffrage ; their Maxim, machine, and Gatling guns have kept
up an incessant roar, through the public press, against
negro suffrage ; their repeating rifles and small arms, through
stump-speakers and otherwise, have been turned upon it
without intermission. All this has been accompanied by
the ruthless murder of many thousands of innocent colored
people as a bloody feint and demonstration. So common
has the killing of colored people become that the murder
104
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
of half a dozen or more, or the driving out of a score, an
hundred, or even a thousand, from their homes, and the loot
ing and burning of their property provokes scarcely more
than a perfunctory protest here and there and fails to arouse
public attention in any part of the country.
It is one of the most serious aspects of the Southern
question that the determination to destroy the negroes
ballot by violence and keep the colored people in subjec
tion is encouraged by many of its " best citizens." Senator
Tillman of South Carolina has recently advocated the killing
of thirty thousand colored men in that state. Is there not
" a better way " to secure good government in South Caro
lina? Is not Senator Tillman himself a greater menace to
all that is decent in politics, orderly in government, laudable
in citizenship, praiseworthy in manhood, pure in Christianity,
and humane in society than the worst negro in his state ?
It is not a difficult matter in the South to deal with a negro,
man, woman, or child, whether there are any evidences of
crime or not. In public lectures Senator Tillman has re
peatedly boasted of the part he took in shooting down
" niggers." For instance, in a lecture in Detroit, Michigan,
he said : " On one occasion we killed seven niggers ; I don't
know how many I killed personally, but I shot to kill and I
know I got my share." Not one of these unfortunate colored
people had committed, or had even been charged with any
offence. They simply attempted to exercise their rights as
American citizens and cast their ballots. For this they were
shot to death.
The desideratum of any nation is good government and
the preservation of liberty. Sometimes this may be secured
by a government of the few; sometimes by a government
of the many ; and sometimes by a government of the whole
people.
The special value of republican institutions is that good
government can be more safely fostered and assured and
105
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
liberty made impregnable by a government of the whole
people.
This does not mean government by the ignorant and
vicious, or by revolutionists, or by those who believe in
killing negroes to get rid of their votes, any more than by
anarchists who believe in assassinating rulers to get rid of
established governments. It does mean the rule of the
people ; the sway of their opinion, expressed through the
ballot-box, in the establishment and enforcement of laws
under which all the people shall find equal protection of life,
liberty, and property and in the pursuit of happiness, and all
who measure up to a fixed standard, and that a reasonable
one, shall have a common share in the government.
It does not follow that the whole people, or even most
of them will always vote wisely ; no, not even in the best
governed communities. On the contrary, experience has
shown that they have often made serious mistakes. But the
redeeming element in republican government is that, despite
all defects, more of good comes to the people, and liberty is
better safe-guarded, when they are collectively their own
master and can elect rulers and enact laws at regular in
tervals, than by other methods ; and that although unscru
pulous leaders may fool the people some of the time,
they can't fool them all the time. It is not conceivable
that the body of the white people of the 'South will stay
fooled all the time, for this would mean the failure of
civilization.
The nobler and more Christian manhood and womanhood
of the South must surely arouse themselves and cast out the
evil spirits which have possessed the corporate body dominat
ing Southern life and have produced the present intolerable
conditions. Never among any civilized people has there
existed a condition wherein oppression was so heartless and
wide-spread ; the denial of liberty and the simplest of human
rights so general; justice such a mockery; humiliations and
106
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
gross injustices so atrocious ; withering wrongs so multiplied,
and human life held so cheap. The leaders aim at the
destruction of the ballot in the hands of the colored man, and,
as a necessary sequence, his elimination as an entity in Amer
ican life, his relegation to serfdom.
To compass this end the most reprehensible methods have
been employed. Notwithstanding the two hundred and fifty
years of patient and profitable labor which the negro race
gave to the South ; notwithstanding the four years of splen
did service which they gave to the whites in guarding their
families and protecting their property during the war, the
Southern leaders have done their utmost to prejudice man
kind against this race. They press with great vigor and mal
evolence against the race three specific charges: first, Poverty ;
second, Ignorance ; third, Immorality.
If it were strictly true that the negro is poor, and ignorant,
and immoral, this certainly is not a sufficient reason for his
further debasement ; it ought rather to elicit sympathy for
his misfortune. For these are not inherent qualities ; they are
incidental conditions in the evolution of a people. Outlawry
is not a remedial a^ent.
If the white people would respect and protect the black
man's home, and set a worthy example for him, reinforce
the school facilities, and encourage the Church to do its holy
work unfettered, these evils would largely disappear.
If the white people of the South will go back far enough
in history they can behold their race in a far worse condition
than the negro is to-day. But would that have constituted
a just ground for their oppression, and denial of the right
to rise to the full height of manhood ? Even at the present
time are there not many thousands of whites in the South,
who are actually as poor, as ignorant, as immoral as are some
negroes, and without the excuse of the latter ? On the other
hand, are there not many thousands of negroes, possessors
of property, who are educated and clean in character ?
107
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Not all the unfortunates and the degraded are on the
negro side of the race lines. The Southerners cannot afford
to impeach the negro race on these grounds. After de
spoiling the negro race absolutely of all the fruits of its toil
for two hundred and fifty years, it is not becoming for these
people to taunt the negro with his poverty.
After enforcing ignorance on the negro race for two and
a half centuries, making it a punishable offence for a negro
even to be caught with a spelling-book in his possession,
these people are not in a position to sneer at the negro
because of his ignorance.
After claiming complete ownership of the negro for eight
long generations and after enforcing on him day by day
object lessons of immorality of the most debasing kind, as
the enormous amount of Anglo-Saxon blood in negro veins
abundantly testifies, it is the height of inconsistency for these
people to reproach the negro race on the ground of immoral
ity. All that is true in these charges makes for the greater
misfortune of the colored people, and for the shame of the
whites.
Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, in an article in the
Atlantic Monthly* says : " Supposing, for the sake of argument,
that there is to be found in the colored race, especially in
the former slave states, a lower standard of chastity than
among whites, it is hard to imagine any reasoning more
grotesque than that which often comes from those who claim
to represent the white race there.
" For my own part, I have been for many years in the
position to know the truth, even on its worst side, upon this
subject. Apart from the knowledge derived in college days
from Southern students, then very numerous at Harvard,
with whom I happened to be much thrown through a South
ern relative, my classmate, I have evidence much beyond this.
I have in my hands written evidence, unfit for publication,
but discovered in a captured town during the Civil War, —
108
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
evidence to show that Rome in its decline was not more
utterly degraded, as to the relation between the sexes, than
was the intercourse often existing between white men and
colored women on American slave plantations. How could
it be otherwise where one sex had all the power and the
other had no means of escape ?
"It may be assumed, therefore, that there is no charge
more unfounded than that frequently made, to the effect that
the negro was best understood by his former masters. This
principle may be justly borne in mind in forming an opinion
upon the very severest charges still brought against him.
" It was only the Abolitionists who saw him as he was.
They never doubted that he would have human temptations
— to idleness, folly, wastefulness, even sensuality. They
knew that he would need, like any abused and neglected
race, education, moral instruction, and, above all, high ex
ample. They knew, in short, all that we know about him
now. They could have predicted the outcome of such half-
freedom as has been given him, — a freedom tempered by
chain-gangs, lynching, and the lash/1
Colonel Higginson also refers to Rufus Choate as among
the most conservative men of his time and quotes him as
saying that, " for the colored woman, the condition of slavery
was ' simply hell.1 ""
It is instructive to note certain stock phrases in use in the
South, phrases that are used with the purpose of increasing
race animosities. Among these are " social equality,11 " white
man's country,11 " negro inferiority,11 u negro domination,11 ,
"race prejudice.11 Such phrases are "the bloody shirt " of
the South. Their effect has been to nullify, for the time
being, the benefits guaranteed by the Constitution of the
United States.
Since these are weapons aimed at the ballot of the negro
they invite close examination. Race prejudice is the most
elastic of them. It can and does cover a multitude of sins.
109
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
The leaders depend much upon it. Senator Money of
Mississippi, in a speech in the United States Senate, declared
with great bravado, " I am glad we have race prejudice, I
rejoice in it, I thank God for it." But the Holy Scriptures
tell of a Pharisee who lived some centuries before him who
was also glad and thanked God that he was not as other men.
The Saviour of the world, however, did not send him away
justified.
Race prejudice is variously designated, and is thus made
into a handy five-chamber weapon. Sometimes it is called
inborn race prejudice, and then again it is labelled inbred ;
and some declare it is taken in with the mothers milk, while
others heatedly contend that it is an instinct ; but all agree
that it is ineradicable and must therefore control in Southern
life.
This inborn, inbred, motherVmilk, instinctive, ineradi
cable race prejudice is set forth as the chief, and sometimes
as the sufficient cause for the mistreatment of the colored
people, and the denial to them of civil and political rights
and the protection of the law.
The New York World says : " Deeper than the question
of suffrage, of education, or of political privilege is this ques
tion of "racial instinct" or prejudice. If it is to prevail
and dominate our land, where is it to stop? Is it compatible
with the precepts of a religion based upon ' the fatherhood
of God and the brotherhood of man ' ? Can it be reconciled
with the principles of a government founded upon the
' inalienable rights ' of all men, and ordaining in its Con
stitution equal rights and equal privileges for equal citizens ?
If, for example, Booker Washington, with his heart and
brain and capacity for elevating his race, cannot enter the
front door of the White House without arousing a clamor
of unreasonable protest, or hold any public office, simply and
solely because he is black, is not the republic a mockery to
nine millions of its citizens ?
110
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
" There was something more than rhetoric or sentiment in
President Roosevelt^s pregnant phrase, ' the door of hope '
for the negro. When this door leads to education, to in
dustry, thrift, and the patriotism that inspires men to fight
and die for their country, as our negroes did in Cuba, must
the usual rewards of such character and conduct be denied
to them because they are black ? This is the real ' negro
question.1 "
The contention for inborn, inbred, motherVmilk, instinctive,
ineradicable race prejudice is itself not only dangerous to the
social organism, but it is also fallacious. It lacks the saving
grace of even a half-truth. It is a Gibraltar of straw to be
destroyed by the first volley from the battery of Common-
Sense.
In the darkest day of slavery, the colored children of
household and other servants played and romped freely with
the children of the masters ; they as freely took " bites " in
turn from the same apple, and sometimes from the same
cherry. They never knew the difference in station except as
they were taught. The colored nurse would shower her
kisses on the white child, cool its food with her breath, and
taste it with her tongue. The important question with the
parents was not the race or color, but the health of the
nurse. Nurses frequently slept with the children, and cared
for them with a tenderness and devotion which won their
affections forevermore. Many were the instances in which
the white child showed preference for the attendance and
companionship of the colored nurse to that of the white
mother. And this is not unusual even to-day.
Kindness wins, and always will win the hearts and confi
dence of children without regard to race prejudice of which
they know nothing and care less. Many of the very best
white women in the South never failed to bestow praises and
kisses on their black " mammies " who had fondled them in
childhood, and whom they loved and venerated.
Ill
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
More significant still, many of the children of the leading
Southern families drank the milk of their black "mammies'1
alone ; and many in maturity, like the late Henry W. Grady
of Atlanta, Georgia, never ceased to express their love and
veneration for these black " mammies " who nursed them with
a mother's solicitude and guided their early footsteps. If
race prejudice is an instinct, inborn, and inbred, how could
the whites drink and thrive on the milk of these black
" mammies " in childhood, and in the maturity of manhood
and womanhood lavishly display such glowing respect and
devotion to these black "mammies'"?
There are numbers of authenticated cases of white children
being raised entirely by colored families, who never recog
nized any difference between themselves and the colored
children, notwithstanding, " inborn, inbred " race prejudice.
For obvious reasons they had been given over to colored
" mammies " to be raised, and they were most happy in these
relations during childhood ; and in maturity, when apprised
of their identity and offered privileges, some of them in
dignantly refused to give up their colored "mammies'" who
had always shown them a mother's care, fidelity, and love.
Some such continued to live, and married, among the colored
people, and became to all intents members of that race.
The case is too plain for cavil that any white child raised
entirely in a colored family may grow to old age without
recognizing its race identity. And the prejudice would be
against the whites, and not the colored. How is it to be
explained that this "inborn, inbred, motherVmilk, instinctive,
ineradicable" race prejudice does not reveal itself to its own
possessor ? And it may be pertinently asked, of what value
is it if it cannot reveal itself?
Conductors of railway trains and street cars in the South
are of course supposed to have this race prejudice, and they
are paid to enforce it. But they have repeatedly caused
awkward and sometimes ugly situations by mistaking white
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
persons for colored persons and colored persons for white
persons — producing a "comedy of errors."
Race or color does not necessarily affect the peace or happi
ness of a child, or of an adult. Men and women of different
races have mutually reciprocated good offices and enjoyed
friendly relations, cherishing the highest respect for each
other ; while men and women of the same race, sometimes of
the same family, have despised one another. The white child
smiles as radiantly with the colored coachman or gardener as
with its father. It will coo alike to its father, the colored
nurse, the cat, or rubber doll.
Race prejudice is largely a matter of teaching and training.
Any people can teach their children to hate or despise an
other people, or even to hate and despise a branch of the
family of their own blood relations. Also parents can indoc
trinate the young in the principles of the Sermon on the
Mount and the teachings of the lowly Nazarene, and the
result will be as different as day from night.
Again, there are other cases, fully authenticated, of per
sons possessing African blood and yet passing for white.
Some are doing so to-day in the North as well as in the
South.
It is a great pity — a lamentable evil — that race preju
dice should so operate as to compel a man to conceal his race
identity, and pose as a member of another race in order to
secure fair or decent treatment or a chance to make an honest
living. In this particular race prejudice not only harms the
negro, but it injures the entire social organism. It is most
creditable to the negro race, to their growing self-respect and
race pride that only a few of their numbers in sheer despera
tion resort to the trick of passing for what they are not. It
should be noted in this connection that in South Carolina
and other Southern states there are certain settlements of
persons possessing African blood who, nevertheless, are not
treated as a part of the black race, but as whites. When
8 113
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
they remove away from their homes, passing for whites, they
live and move among whites and even marry among them.
And no one is the wiser.
Senator Tillman on the floor of the Constitutional Conven
tion of South Carolina, more specifically called for the purpose
of disfranchising the colored people, made a special plea for
these particular settlements of people with African blood in
that state, but who were passing for and accepted as white
people, saying : " Some of them owned slaves before the war,
all of them sympathized with the Confederacy, and many of
them fought in its army ; therefore they should be regarded
and treated as whites." Is this not a cruel blow to " inborn,
inbred, motherVmilk, instinctive, ineradicable " race preju
dice? Does not the logic of it expose the fallacy of the
contention ?
The whole case falls to the ground ; for here the " ineradi
cable " is eradicated. But Senator Tillman's specious plea is
worthy of more than a casual glance. Those for whom and
in whose interest he made it were admittedly colored people,
possessing African blood. But they in most instances were
set free by their white fathers before the war of the Rebel
lion ; and some of them inherited their father's slaves and
thus became slave owners. They intermarried among white
and colored ; and because some of them were slave owners,
and because all of them sympathized with the Southern Con
federacy, and because many of them fought in the Confeder
ate army, — therefore all of them were transformed from
"niggers" into white folks.
Here is the plain enunciation of the doctrine that loyalty
to the late Confederacy shall count as paramount in fixing
the status of citizenship in the South, and can even metamor
phose a " nigger " into a white man.
But there were four millions of other colored people who
were " true-hearted, whole-hearted, faithful, and loyal " to
the Union and responsive to its martial music. None of these
114
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
owned slaves ; all of these sympathized with the Union ; and,
momentous fact, 200,000 of these rushed to the national
defence and faced the chivalry of the South.
Shall not the republic show as much concern in the pro
tection of the lives and liberty of those who freely offered
themselves on its altar as the ex-Confederates and their sons
show in protecting the handful of mixed-bloods who joined
with th9in in the effort to " shoot the government to death ? "
The " motherVmilk, instinct," argument to bolster up race
prejudice is worthless. Instinct acts spontaneously, and not
by promptings ; naturally, and not by moral force or suasion ;
independently, uniformly ; it peremptorily rejects the incom
patible. But there has been no uniformity of race prejudice
in the South against the colored people. On the contrary,
there have been many relations, in some cases of the closest
kind.
The deplorable conditions existing in the South are not
natural or spontaneous, but artificial. They are the direct
result of the vicious and mischievous teachings of the leaders.
As to the " mothers-milk " end of the argument, this is
sure to put some veiy good Southerners into a very bad
dilemma. For if " logic is logic," the prejudice should trend
in favor of the source of the milk. Natural-motherVmilk
prejudice should be in favor of the natural mother.
u Black-mammy's "-milk prejudice should be in favor of the
"black mammy."
CowVmilk prejudice should be in favor of the cow.
Goafs- milk prejudice should be in favor of the goat.
No milk, then no prejudice.
And as to " Prepared Food," " that is the question " which
will command all the acumen and store of legal lore of the
proverbial Philadelphia lawyer to solve, as to whether prej
udice should run in favor of some one manufacturer, or
what particular component element of his "Food."
"Logic is logic," — that is all.
115
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
It is plain, however, that the milk or other food which
nourishes the child has no more to do in creating race prej
udice in the child than corned beef and cabbage, the juicy
bivalves, Boston baked beans, or Chinese " Chop Suey " have
in producing race prejudice in the full-grown man.
Ineradicable, race prejudice ! What hypocrisy ! A greater
proportion than three out of every five negroes met casually
in the street or seen in public gatherings will show traces of
Anglo-Saxon blood.
A matter of very great importance and one not to be over
looked herewith is that the negro race in the United States
is practically a new race. The race in America is far removed
from the ancestral African — in language, in method of
thought, in religion and civilization. Its basic element is in
the strong and virile blood of the fatherland, but built upon
by the blood of all the great races. It is sure to become a
strong and powerful people in the future. It will not seek
close affiliations with the white race, for the reason that it
will have all the colors and blendings of every race within
itself, from the fairest Caucasian to the darkest ebony — mak
ing it truly the Colored Race. As a rule, the law of race
pride and clan allegiance will be the law of natural selection.
To the simple question of prejudice no great importance is
to be attached. The history of ages record its existence.
There is abundant prejudice between white and white ;
colored and colored ; white and colored ; English and Irish ;
French and German ; English and French ; Irish and Ger
man ; and the Jews and the rest of the world.
But it should be borne in mind that there is prejudice and
prejudice. Every man has prejudices ; and these may control
his personal habits, his recreations, his associations, his friend
ships, his politics, his religion, and all his relations of life. He
may wear shoes without socks, or go barefoot if his prejudices
lead him to do so ; but he would not be tolerated if he tried
to compel a neighbor to become a " Sockless Simpson." The
116
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
white people of the South are at liberty to have and to hold
their prejudices against the colored people or against Yankees ;
and against this liberty it is not for public opinion to protest
nor for the government to make objection.
To eliminate prejudice from the hearts of men and emanci
pate the people from its evil effects is a work generally dele
gated to the doctrinaires of religion. But when the white
people of the South convert their prejudice into an engine of
hostility, a force of oppression and destruction to others, it
then becomes the imperative duty of public opinion to protest,
and the obligation of the government to intervene.
The Honorable Carl Schurz, writing in McClure's Magazine^
referring to this attempt to subjugate the negro race, says :
" And now the reactionists are striving again to burden the
Southern people with another 'peculiar institution,' closely
akin to its predecessor in character, as it will be in its inevitable
effects if fully adopted by the Southern people, — that is, if
the bulk of the laboring class is again to be kept in stupid
subjection, without the hope of advancement and without the
ambition of progress. For, as the old pro-slavery man was on
principle hostile to general negro education, so the present
advocate of semi-slavery is perfectly logical in his contempt
for the general education of the colored people, and in his
desire to do away with the negro school. What the reactionist
really wants is a negro just fit for the task of a plantation hand
and for little, if anything, beyond.
" Therefore, quite logically, the reactionist abhors the edu
cated negro. In fact the political or social recognition of the
educated negro is especially objectionable to him for the
simple reason that it would be an encouragement of higher
aspirations among the colored people generally.
" The reactionist wishes to keep the colored people, that
is, the great mass of the laboring force in the South as igno
rant as possible, to the end of keeping it as submissive and
obedient as possible. . . . And now imagine the moral, intel-
117
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
lectual, and economic condition of a community whose prin
cipal and most anxious — I might say historic — care is the
solution of the paramount problem 4 how to keep the nigger
down,1 — that is, to reduce a large part of its laboring popu
lation to stolid brutishness. . . . That is not all. The reac
tionist fiercely insists that the South ' must be let alone 7 in
dealing with the negro.
" This was the cry of the pro-slavery men of the old ante
bellum time. But the American people outside of the South
took a lively interest in the matter, and finally the South was
not let alone, . . . they can hardly hope to be ' let alone.'
Thus it may be said without exaggeration that by striving to
keep up in the Southern States a condition of things which
cannot fail to bring forth constant irritation and unrest,
which threatens to burden the South with another ' peculiar
institution ' by making the bulk of its laboring force again a
clog to progressive development, — and to put the South once
more in a position provokingly offensive to the moral sense
and the enlightened spirit of the world outside, — the reac
tionists are the worst enemies the Southern people have to
fear."
The white people of the South would hotly resent any sug
gestion of their incapacity for self-government. But their
policy is their own condemnation. For if they cannot rise
above the low level of race prejudice and vulgar assumptions
in the making and the enforcement of the law, is it not self-
evident that they fail in the vital requisites and capacity for
self-government? A people who cannot, or will not, main
tain orderly government in their local affairs invite distrust
in broader or national affairs. The law of the spiritual life
prevails here, — he who is faithful over a few things shall be
made ruler over " many things."
The republic is governed by law, and not by race preju
dice. Race prejudice is not law. Its operation is akin to
anarchy. To give it the sanction, prestige, and force of law
118
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
is to subvert American institutions and to destroy liberty and
civilization. The result is certain. If once justified as law,
where and when is it to end ? If the colored people are to
be the victims of it to-day, who are to feel its fell and ruinous
blow to-morrow ? Shall liberty, truth, and righteousness be
sacrificed to race prejudice? Is race prejudice everything,
and the Constitution of the United States and the laws of
God nothing?
Good citizenship measures up to the Constitution. The
Constitution does not and cannot contract to the narrow
confines of local prejudices, "inborn, inbred," or otherwise;
for this would mean the ruin of all that has been gained, as
well as all that is hoped for in the evolution of man and the
march of civilization.
When the white people of the South set themselves delib
erately and with the purpose aforethought to the work of
reducing the colored race, as Mr. Schurz says, " to stolid
brutishness," and keep them "in stupid subjection without
the hope of advancement and the ambition of progress,1' and
plead as a justification therefor " inborn, inbred, motherV
milk, instinctive, ineradicable" race prejudice, they trans
gress against the moral sentiment of Christendom.
That they should demand that the strong arm of the Fed
eral government shall be brought into requisition to aid them
in consummating so diabolical a work by turning every col
ored person out of every Federal office, and discharging every
colored man from the army and navy, and forcing every
colored person into inferior relations in every walk of life
and into serfdom, — this but accentuates the folly and frenzy
which has possessed the head and heart of the South. That
the white people of the South are practically united in
this reactionary, an ti -Christian policy does not lessen its
heinousness.
That some well-meaning men in the North look upon it with
sympathy or approval does not add one glimmer of virtue to
119
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
it. By condoning oppression and outlawry, such apologists
encourage further disorders and violence. The policy of the
South is wrong. No number of adherents and advocates for
it can make it right. Its consummation in the dawn of the
twentieth century and after forty years of heroic struggle
against the most tremendous odds, and in the light of the
wonderful, unsurpassed progress and achievements of the
negro race in civilization, — would be the crime of these
centuries.
God Almighty did not grant to the white people of the
South a perpetual lien on the labor and toils of the colored
people, nor the right to rule, oppress, and outrage them to
their hearts' content. If the whole South approves, then the
whole South is wrong. But the evidence is not conclu
sive that the whole South does approve. There are more
than murmurs of emphatic dissent from many noble-hearted
Southerners, who see the blistering disgrace and burning
shame which overshadow their fair land and discredit its
civilization. But, at any rate, even the whole South should
not be permitted to commit the republic to the nefarious
policy of destroying the hope of millions of its own citizens.
Many people who approved of slavery, endorsed the hanging
of John Brown whose "soul goes marching on," and ac
claimed secession with joy and enthusiasm, now regret with
pangs indescribable the existence of one and the occurrence
of the others.
Some good men have gone wrong on every great moral
issue of the past, and some good men are sure to go wrong
on every great moral question of the future. This seems to
be inevitable. But in the end the Right will win. The
Right leads the trek of humanity, and God leads the Right.
Furthermore, the white people of the South themselves dis
play grave suspicions of the durability of this race prejudice.
If this prejudice is all that they claim, why is it necessary
to hedge it about, buttress it around, prop it up, shield it
120
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
over, and hostile it over with prescriptive, oppressive, and
unlawful laws? Why inaugurate a reign of terror and
bloodshed to cultivate it?
After all, to every serious American it will be manifest
that all the smoke and noise and deadly work of this five-
barrel weapon — this " inborn, inbred, mothers-milk, in
stinctive, ineradicable" race prejudice — are intended to cover
the enactment of a tragedy in the Southland : the over
throw of the ballot of the colored man, the despoiling and
subjugation of a people.
The Reverend Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis, who fills the
Plymouth pulpit at Brooklyn, New York, made famous by
Henry Ward Beecher, in a recent sermon said : " Just now
the whole country is suffering from a reaction on the negro
question, and the colored race have known a month of such
depression and sorrow and heartache as they have not known
in forty vears — and there is reason for the depression.
Consider the Presbyterian preacher in New York who last
week said that the emancipation of the slaves was like the
release of criminals from the penitentiary, and that the
future of the 'nigger1 was blacker and blacker and more
hopeless. Consider that editorial in the Richmond paper
that, commenting on the speech of a Southerner and of a
great religious editor in New York, said that the two men
evidently might have exchanged addresses. Think of the
Southern soldier who insists in his article that the negro is
an animal ; that, like the dog and horse, he has by associa
tion borrowed some of man's characteristics, but that he is
without soul, and that he fears like the animal and never
can have a home.
" In 1866 Mr. Beecher said here that we must insist on
suffrage for the negro ; that races, like children, are trained
by responsibility ; that the poorest government of an ignorant
man who governs himself is better than the best government
that is imposed upon him from without. Mr. Beecher also
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
said that in view of two centuries of injustice and slavery it
might take a century before we would see the outcropping of
an occasional orator, an occasional colored educator. What
if Mr. Beecher could return to-day ? He would find that
the greatest orator, from many points of view, in the country
is a negro, and a black man to-day receives $150 to $300 a
night, and there is only one other man in the country who
receives as much.
" The colored people are needlessly alarmed. The reaction
is an eddy from the South itself. All the enemies of liberty,
whether they want to or not, have to help the forces of
liberty."
True words these ! " All the enemies of liberty, whether
they want to or not, have to help the forces of liberty.'"
The violent outburst of Southern wrath on the colored
people and the extreme and cruel persecution of them " will
help the forces of liberty. " Intended for evil, they " will
work together for good.''1 These things will not be without
value as an object lesson exposing the mind and purpose of
the South, — an object lesson of which the nation will not
fail to take note ; an object lesson which will serve to rally
" the forces of liberty," and assure the decisive defeat of the
conspiring " enemies of liberty."
A white man's country ! This phrase is often pressed
into service, and it has the effect chiefly of exciting race
intolerance. It has been used with great detriment to
the colored people, causing many of them to be driven
from their homes ; and some to be killed because they stood
on the principle that " a man's home is his castle."
It would deny them the right of domicile on American
soil. And if they have not the right of domicile, it would
follow that they have not the right of citizenship nor the
ballot, nor the protection of the law. It would place
the race in the position of interlopers, subject to expul
sion at the whim of any party, at any place or at any
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
time, or to be driven helter-skelter by the blind fury of
the mob.
A little incident, indeed a very little one, occurred recently
at Washington City, which throws a flood of light on
this pretension and dissolves its logic. It happened in
this wise : A prominent Indian chief went from the Western
prairies to visit the President at the White House. He was
received and entertained in the cordial and hearty manner
characteristic of Mr. Roosevelt. The Indian chief was
greatly delighted. After the conference with the Great
Father, he left the White House and soon after this en
countered a leading Southerner. In the conversation which
followed, the Southerner inquired of the Indian chief if
he did not think it would be a good thing to send all the
negroes back to Africa. Without a moment's hesitation
the great chief bluntly replied, " Yes, all the negroes ought
to be sent back to Africa," and added with true Indian
sternness, "and all the Chinese to China, and all the
Germans to Germany, and all the French to France, and
all the English to England, and all the Italians to Italy ;
and all the other people too should be sent back to their
own countries, and America should be given back to the
Indians to whom it rightfully belongs.""
This was truly a rebuff to the Southerner. He got his
answer, and with it a corollary which he had not expected.
He found that the Indian chief was no respecter of persons.
The rugged common-sense, the innate honesty, and the irre
sistible logic of the answer of this noble son of the plains will
be applauded by every one. And the probability is that the
Southern leaders will attain as little success in proving at the
bar of public opinion that the colored people have no right to
a domicile in this country as this particular Southerner had
in demonstrating it to the satisfaction of the Indian chief.
As a matter of history the white Southerners have barely
eight years of priority on American soil over the colored
123
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Southerners. So that if the colored people were obliged
to make their departure in this year of grace, or at any other
time, the white Southerners, to be chronologically consistent,
would have to pack their "carpet-bags'" and vacate the
country just eight years later.
As a matter of history also, the negroes were here even
before the ever memorable and historic settlement at Ply
mouth Rock which has crowned this country with honor and
glory.
A country rightfully belongs to its inhabitants. All in
common, whatever their race, have vested interests in the
soil. If the colored people have no such rights, then none
of the heterogeneous peoples inhabiting the country possess
them.
If long and continued residence establishes the right, the
colored people possess it, for they have been here practically
as long as the whites. If an entrance which was not an in
trusion or a trespass would give the right, the colored
people have a much stronger claim than the whites, for they
were not only the unwilling, but the forcefully entreated and
detained occupant guests.
If centuries of hard and faithful toil, the toil which
develops the natural resources of a country, and which
causes " the wilderness to bloom as the rose," would make
perfect such a right, the colored people would have a claim
superior to that of Southern whites.
If the loyalty and patriotism which move men to offer
their services, spill their blood, and fight and die in defence
of their country, would seal the right of inheritance and
vested interests in the soil, here too the colored people would
have peculiar advantages over many of their white neighbors
and would take at least equal rank with any class of the
population.
The blood of Crispus Attucks, a negro, was the first blood
that was shed in the Revolutionary War. He was the first
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
to fall from the volley of the " red coats " in the " Boston
massacre." Thus a negro's blood actually sealed American
Independence.
The City of Boston has erected on her Common, a monu
ment to the first martyrs of American liberty, and at the
head of the list is a negro, the selfsame Crispus Attucks.
Peter Salem, a negro, fought side by side with Warren and
his comrades in the battle of Bunker Hill.
Colored men fought under Washington in several of his
campaigns. General Greene, in writing to Alexander Ham
ilton, the 10th of January, 1781, from the vicinity of Camden,
South Carolina, said : " There is a great spirit of enterprise
among the black people, and those that have come out as
volunteers are not a little formidable to the enemy.""
The negro was with Perry in his great victory on Lake
Erie.
Andrew Jackson, whom the South has delighted to honor,
fought with negroes at the battle of New Orleans, and
praised their heroism in his official report. The colored
soldiers held the extreme right of the American lines and
drove back the British at the point of the bayonet.
There is certainly no room for equivocation or doubt as to
the meaning of these words which General Jackson, in his
proclamation to the negroes dated September 21, 1814,
used : " To every noble-hearted, generous freeman of color
volunteering to serve during the present contest with Great
Britain and no longer, there will be paid the same bounty,
in money and lands, now received by the white soldiers of
the United States, namely, one hundred and twenty-four
dollars in money, and one hundred and sixty acres of land.
The non-commissioned officers and privates will also be
entitled to the same monthly pay and daily rations and
clothes furnished to any American soldier. To assure you
of the sincerity of my intentions, and my anxiety to engage
your invaluable services to our country, I have communicated
125
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
my wish to the Governor of Louisiana, who is fully informed
as to the manner of enrolment, and will give you every
necessary information on the subject of this address."
Furthermore, on December 18, 1814, General Jackson, in
an address to his colored soldiers, said: "To the men of
color. Soldiers ! From the shores of Mobile I collected you
to arms ; I invited you to share in the perils and to divide the
glory of your white countrymen. I expected much from you ;
for I was not uninformed of those qualities which render you
so formidable to an invading foe. I knew that you could
endure hunger and thirst and all the hardships of war.
But you surpassed my hopes. I have found in you, united to
these qualities, that noble enthusiasm which impels to great
deeds. Soldiers ! The President of the United States shall
be informed of your conduct on the present occasion ; and the
voice of Representatives of the American nation shall applaud
your valor, as your General now praises your ardor."
That foremost patriot and expounder of the Constitution,
Alexander Hamilton, in a letter to John Jay, March 14,
1779, said : " I have not the least doubt that the negroes
will make very excellent soldiers with proper management ;
and I will venture to pronounce that they cannot be put
into better hands than those of Mr. Laurens [Colonel Laurens
of South Carolina]. . . .
" An essential part of the plan is to give them their free
dom with their muskets."
The Honorable Henry Laurens, father of Colonel John
Laurens of South Carolina, a great figure in the Revolutionary
War, writing to General Washington, March 16, 1779, says :
" Had we arms for three thousand such black men as I could
select in Carolina, I should have no doubt of success in driv
ing the British out of Georgia and subduing East Florida
before the end of July."
A fact of transcendent interest may be recorded here, to
wit : that the Congress of the United States on March 29,
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THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
1779, passed a series of resolutions (see " Secret Journals of
Congress," pages 107-110) in part as follows :
" Resolved, That it be recommended to the States of
South Carolina and Georgia, if they shall think the same
expedient, to take measures immediately for raising three
thousand able-bodied negroes." . . . And further " Resolved^
That Congress will make provision for paying the proprietors
of such negroes as shall be enlisted for the service of the
United States during the war a full compensation for the
property at a rate not exceeding one thousand dollars for
each active, able-bodied negro man of standard size, not ex
ceeding thirty-five years of age, who shall be so enlisted and
pass muster."
Congress also passed on the same day the following reso
lution : " Whereas John Laurens, Esq., who has heretofore
acted as aid-de-camp to the Commander-in-Chief, is desirous
of repairing to South Carolina, with a design to assist in
defence of the Southern States : —
"Resolved, That a commission of Lieutenant-Colonel be
granted to the said John Laurens, Esq."
Thus Colonel Laurens of South Carolina, who was commis
sioned by special resolution of the Congress, was foremost in
" carrying the plan of the black levees into execution."
The Honorable William Eustis of Massachusetts, who was
a soldier through the Revolutionary War and afterwards Gov
ernor of Massachusetts and member of Congress, in a speech
in the Congress, Dec. 12, 1820, said : " At the commencement
of the Revolutionary War, there were found in the Middle
and Northern states many blacks, and other people of color,
capable of bearing arms ; a part of them free, the greater-
part slaves. The freemen entered our ranks with the whites.
The time of those who were slaves was purchased by the
states ; and they were induced to enter the service in conse
quence of a law by which, on condition of their serving in
the ranks during the war, they were made freemen.
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" In Rhode Island, where their numbers were more consid
erable, they were formed under the same considerations into
a regiment commanded by white officers ; and it is required,
in justice to them, to add that they discharged their duty
with zeal and fidelity. The gallant defence of Red Bank, in
which this black regiment bore a part, is among the proofs of
their valor.
"Among the traits which distinguished this regiment was
their devotion to their officers ; when their brave Colonel
Greene was afterwards cut down and mortally wounded, the
sabres of the enemy reached his body only through the limbs
of his faithful guard of blacks, who hovered over him and
protected him, every one of whom was killed and whom he
was not ashamed to call his children.
" The services of this description of men in the navy are also
well known. I should not have mentioned either, but for
the information of the gentleman from Delaware, whom I
understood to say that he did not know that they had served
in any considerable numbers.
" The war over and peace restored, these men returned to
their respective states ; and who could have said to them, on
their return to civil life, after having shed their blood in com
mon with the whites in the defence of the liberties of the coun
try, ' You are not to participate in the rights secured by the
struggle, or the liberty for which you have been fighting ' ?
" Certainly no white man in Massachusetts."
Straight to the point are the positive utterances of the Hon
orable Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, who, in a speech
in the Congress, December, 1820, said : " They [the negroes]
were, as they still are, as valuable a part of our population
to the Union as any other equal number of inhabitants.
They were in numerous instances the pioneers, and, in all,
the laborers, of your armies. To their hands were owing the
erection of the greatest part of the fortifications raised for
the protection of our country ; some of which, particularly
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Fort Moultrie, gave, at that early period of the inexpe
rience and untried valor of our citizens, immortality to Ameri
can arms ; and in the Northern states numerous bodies of
them were enrolled into, and fought by the sides of the
whites, the battles of the Revolution."
The conclusion is unavoidable that these brave and much
praised black patriots, whose u invaluable services " were un
grudgingly acknowledged by leading men North and South,
were, with their descendants, gradually forced back into
slavery. And as the institution grew and flourished they
were lost in it and their identity and services forgotten.
The great services of the negroes on land and at sea in the
War of the Rebellion are well known. Admiral Porter, in
his Naval History of the Civil War, says : " A remarkable
instance of patriotism on the part of the colored people was
evinced in the bringing out of the armed steamer ' Planter '
from Charleston and delivering her over to the naval officers
blockading that port. . . . [This act] would have done credit
to any one, but the cleverness with which the whole affair
was conducted deserves more than a passing notice.1'1 Robert
Smalls, a mulatto, was the pilot of the Confederate steamer
" Planter." Seizing the vessel while the white officers were
on shore, with the assistance of the negro crew he cast off
the hawser under the very eyes of a sentinel, steamed down
the bay performing the proper salutes, passed Fort Sumter,
and proceeded to sea before the Confederates realized that
the vessel was bound for the blockading fleet. Smalls1 heroic
services were recognized by Congress, and he afterwards
became a member of Congress from South Carolina.
Colonel Le Grand B. Cannon, in a volume entitled " Per
sonal Reminiscences of the Rebellion," makes this most inter
esting recital : " Some little time after the duel in Hampton
Roads, early in the month of April, four big steamships —
the " Vanderbilt," the " Arago," the "Ericsson," and the
" Illinois " — came down to Fort Monroe, to be in the harbor
9
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
in readiness to attack the "Merrimac" if she came out, and
to destroy her by running her down. Captain Gadsden of
the " Arago," a merchant ship chartered for this service, on
reaching Fort Monroe and opening his orders, found that his
ship was to be a ram. His crew in some way got to know
the nature of the mission their ship was in, and the danger
ous character of the work in which they were to engage, and
promptly deserted in a body.
" The next morning Captain Gadsden found he had not a
man aboard his ship except his officers. He went to the
admiral of the fleet and stated his dilemma. The admiral
said he had not a man to spare. General Wool (of the land
forces) brought Captain Gadsden to me, and the latter re
lated to me the condition of affairs. He said negroes \vould
do for his purposes quite as well as white men, and asked me
if I would give him fifty negroes.
" ' Yes,' I answered, ' I will let you have all the negroes you
want under certain conditions.'
" ' What are they ? ' asked Captain Gadsden.
" ' They must be volunteers,' I said.
" ' What will be the pay,' I asked.
" ' Thirteen dollars a month and rations,' he answered.
" 'All right,' I said, 'you come to me at 12 o'clock.'
"At 12 o'clock Captain Wilder had three hundred and
fifty sturdy negro stevedores drawn up in double lines. I
addressed them saying : ' I do not know what the result of
this war will be in regard to your condition. I hope it will
result in your freedom. Some have got to shed their blood,
and others to lay down their lives. You have seen the battle
which has been fought between the " Merrimac " and our
vessels of war. We have brought down four big ships to
destroy the " Merrimac " by ramming her. The enterprise
is a hazardous one, but it is one of glory. From on board
one ship the white sailors have deserted because of the hazard
of the service. It is my privilege to offer to fifty of you the
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THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
opportunity to volunteer to go on that ship. Every man
who survives will be a hero, and those who fall will be mar
tyrs. Now, those boys who will volunteer to go on board
this fighting ship will move three paces to the front.1
"And the whole line moved up in a solid column, as
though actuated by a single impulse. It was a thrilling
response, and the most remarkable and impressive scene I
ever witnessed. We picked out fifty of the most likely men,
and they were sent at once on board the "Arago." They
were escorted down to the boats by all the negroes round
about, with shouting, singing, and praying, and every demon
stration of exultant joy. It was a most exciting and inspir
ing sight.
"The volunteers put aboard the "Arago" proved them
selves most apt and willing workers, and soon proved their
value and justified our confidence. A week or two after this
incident Captain Fox, First Assistant Secretary of the Navy,
came down to Fort Monroe. I told him what we had done,
and he was greatly pleased and interested and saw the men,
and inquired fully as to their capabilities and value. Shortly
afterward he issued an order that the fleets should be re
cruited entirely from negroes. Thus were negroes, fugitives,
slaves, enlisted in the naval service of the United States, as
free men and free agents, on the same footing as the white
volunteers, nine months before the Proclamation of Emanci
pation by President Lincoln."
Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, of Boston, who in
turn commanded both white and colored soldiers, in a recent
issue of the Atlantic Monthly, of the colored soldiers says :
" As to the general facts of courage and reliability, I think
that no officer in our camp ever thought of there being any
essential difference between black and white ; and surely the
judgment of these officers, who were risking their lives at
every moment, month after month, on the fidelity of their
men, was worth more than the opinion of the world besides.
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
As the negroes were intensely human at these points, they
were equally so in pointing out that they had more to fight
for than the white soldier. They loved the United States
flag, and I remember one zealous corporal, a man of natural
eloquence, pointing to it during a meeting on the Fourth of
July, and saying with more zeal than statistical accuracy,
' Dar 's dat flag, we hab lib under it for eighteen hundred
and sixty-two years, and we 11 lib and die for it now.1 But
they could never forget that, besides the flag and the Union,
they had home and wife and child to fight for. War was a
very serious matter to them. They took a grim satisfaction
when orders were issued that the officers of colored troops
should be put to death on capture. It helped their esprit de
corps immensely. Their officers, like themselves, were hence
forward to fight with ropes around their necks. Even when
the new black regiments began to come down from the North,
the Southern blacks pointed out this difference, that in case
of ultimate defeat, the Northern troops, black or white, must
sooner or later be exchanged and returned to their homes,
whereas, they themselves must fight it out or be re-enslaved.
All this was absolutely correct reasoning and showed them
human. And further, no matter how reckless in bearing they
might be, those negroes were almost fatalists in their confi
dence that God would watch over them ; and if they died it
would be because their time had come. ' If each one of us
was a praying man,"* said one of my corporals in a speech, ' it
appears to me that we could fight as well with prayers as with
bullets, for the Lord has said that if you have faith even as a
grain of mustard seed cut into four parts, you can say to the
sycamore tree "Arise," and it will come up." And though
Corporal Long's botany may have got a little confused, his
faith proved itself by works, for he volunteered to go many
miles on a solitary scouting expedition into the enemy's
country in Florida, and got back safe after he had been
given up for lost."
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THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
The Reverend Dr. Joseph E. Roy, now residing at Oak Park,
Illinois, in an article in The New Englander and Yak Review,
on " ( )ur Indebtedness to the Negroes for their Conduct dur
ing the War,1'' speaks of Wagner, Port Hudson, the " Tragedy
of the Crater" at Petersburg, and Fort Pillow as giving the
severest test of these black soldiers and as winning the favor
and the admiration of the army and of the country.
He quotes the opinions of General Grant, General Burn-
side, Captain Jewett, Colonel Bassett, General Hunter,
Captain Pease, Governor Rush of Wisconsin, and others, who
were in touch with colored soldiers and knew their value.
He then proceeds : " It would be edifying to our patriotism
to follow them through the two hundred and forty-nine bat
tles and engagements in which they participated, down the
Atlantic coast, down the Mississippi, and along with the
armies of the Potomac, the James, and Cumberland. In such
a tour we would find them at Ship Island successfully resisting
the assault of Confederate veterans twice their number ; we
would find them at Milli ken's Bend, whipping the enemy that
came yelling, ' No quarter ! ' at Fort Powhatan, where the
ex-slaves met three charges from the Virginia masters under
Fitzhugh Lee and held out for a five hours'1 fight, carrying
the day ; at Bermuda Hundred, where they took six redoubts
with their connecting rifle-pits and captured seven pieces of
artillery ; at Decatur, capturing a battery with a loss of six
officers and sixty men ; at Dalton, where an inspecting cap
tain reported to General Steedman, 'The regiment over
there is holding dress parade under fire "* ; at Honey Hill,
where in a battle that had twenty-three hundred union sol
diers killed or wounded, as Captain Jewett tells me, his men,
lying down to protect a battery, would beg permission and
go out, a few at a time, to join in the fight, only a part of
them coming back ; and at Nashville, where a negro division
was put forward to open the battle, and where, as Captain
Lyman told me, his colored regiment, in making the sixty
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rods to capture a bastion, had fifty-six men killed and one
hundred and twenty-eight wounded.
" Captain H. V. Freeman, of Chicago, addressing the stu
dents of Hampton upon the bravery of the colored troops,
said : ' It was the second day of the battle of Nashville that
the charge on Overton Hill occurred. Three regiments of
General Thomas's brigade — the 12th, 13th, and 100th —
were colored troops. These were put in with a division of
colored troops — General Wood's 4th Army Corps — for the
charge on Overton Hill. The first charge was not successful,
owing to the wounding of General Post of the 4th Army
Corps, and also to the difficulty of crossing the ploughed
ground. You know what Tennessee clay soil is when it gets
wet — there seems no bottom to it. Going through that
corn field, it seemed as if there was no bottom to it, and as
we pulled our feet out — all the while the cannons playing
on us from the hill — each foot seemed to weigh a ton. At
the bottom of the hill we got over a rail fence — all that were
left of us — and found ourselves on good turf. It seemed then
as if we could fly ; but there were tree tops cut down and as
I saw my men struggling through them, they seemed to be
sticking to them like flies in a spider's web, the rebel cannon
sending in grape shot and canister upon them. The result
was that the only men who reached the ramparts were men
of the colored regiments. They scaled the ramparts, and
every man who did was shot down. The first charge, as I
said, was not a success, but the regiments did not retreat.
Those left lay down at the foot of the hill, and at the next
order to charge, with the whole line they swept over the
ramparts/ "
Dr. Roy also quotes General S. C. Armstrong, as follows :
" At the siege of Richmond, I received an order to push my
regiment — the 9th U. S. Colored Infantry — to the flank of
General Terry's division, which was being hard pressed.
Standing there in line we were harassed by an unseen foe
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THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
hidden in the bushes. It was impossible to hold the position
and I ordered my men to fall back, and, to avoid a panic
and stampede, I ordered them to walk ; and they did so the
whole distance — shot at by the unseen enemy as they went,
and having to climb over fallen trees and go through rough
ground. They got back panting with fatigue and lay down
exhausted. As they lay there the order came from our
brigade commander to go back over the same ground and
retake the position. I knew that meant death for every one
of us, but a soldier has only to obey, so I gave the order and
we started. But General Terry saw us going, and under
standing the position, ordered us back and saved us. What
struck me was that every man went forward. Exhausted as
they were, knowing as they did the difficulty of the way and
the certainty of death before them, not one man faltered."
At Fort Harrison, within five miles of Richmond, where
the rebel garrison cried out, " Come on, darkies, we want your
muskets ! " they did come on, shouting, " Remember Fort
Pillow ! " to capture those taunting cavaliers and their strong
hold ; of which exploit General Butler, on the floor of Con
gress, said : " It became my painful duty, sir, to follow in
the track of that charging column, and there, in a space not
wider than the clerk's desk, and three hundred yards long,
lay the dead bodies of five hundred and forty-three ebony-
colored comrades, slain in the defence of their country, who
had laid down their lives to uphold its flag and its honor as
a willing sacrifice.
" Our indebtedness to these people for their conduct during
the war — who can reckon it up ? We early set about
discharging a part of that obligation. We gave them their
freedom. We clothed them with citizenship. We conferred
upon them the suffrage. The Government is in covenant,
before God and the nations, with these allies, whose late
coming was like that of Blucher to our Waterloo. It main
tains the rights of only an intended citizen everywhere
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
around the globe. Will it keep faith with ten millions
of native Americans, whose citizenship has been sealed in
blood ?
" They are Americans, baptized as such by the sprinkling
of blood. We must honor their rights of inheritance and of
baptism."
The testimony of two other important witnesses may be
inserted here.
Gdneral George H. Thomas, the hero of the battle at
Nashville, Tennessee, after riding over the field and viewing
the bodies of white and colored soldiers mingled together,
said : " This day proves the manhood of the negro.'"
And President Lincoln said : " I was, in my best judgment,
driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union and
with it the Constitution, or of laying strong hands upon the
colored element. I chose the latter.1'
He also said : " Take 200,000 [black soldiers] from our
side and put them in the battlefield or cornfield against us
and we would be compelled to abandon the war in three
weeks."" And again : " Then there will be some black men
who can remember that, with silent tongue, with clinched
teeth, with steady eye, and with well poised bayonet, they
have helped mankind on to this great consummation [the
preservation of free institutions], while I fear that there will
be some white men unable to forget that with malignant
heart and deceitful speech they have striven to hinder it."
In the Spanish- American war the negro soldier won renown
for American arms.
Mr. James Creelman, the war correspondent, reported in
the New York Journal as follows : " A perfect storm of shot
and shell swept the hillside. There was a moment of hesi
tation along the line. Then the order was, Forward, charge !
Roosevelt was in the lead waving his sword. Out into the
open and up the hill where death seemed certain, in the face
of the continuous crackle of the Mauser, came the Rough
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THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
Riders with the Tenth (colored) Cavalry alongside. Not a
man flinched, all continuing to fire as they ran. Roosevelt
was a hundred feet ahead of his troops, yelling like a Sioux,
while his own men and the colored cavalry cheered him as
they charged up the hill. There was no stopping as men's
neighbors fell, but on they went faster and faster.
" It was something terrible to watch these men race up
that hill with death. Fast as they were going it seemed
that they would never reach the crest. . . . We could
clearly see the wonderful work the dusky veterans of the
Tenth were doing. Such splendid shooting was probably
never done under these conditions. As fast as the Spanish
fire thinned their ranks the gaps were closed up, and after
an eternity they gained the top of the hill and rushed the
few remaining yards to the Spanish trenches. The position
was won. Across the gulch the soldiers wildly cheered the
gallant Tenth. The Tenth gave tongue with an answering
cheer and rush on to drive the enemy further. Over the
Spanish trenches they tore, passing the Spanish dead."
Associate Justice Curtis, of the Supreme Court of the
United States, in his dissenting opinion from Chief Justice
Taney in the celebrated Dred Scott case, says : " At the time
of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, all free
native-born inhabitants of the states of New Hampshire, Mass
achusetts, New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, though
descendants from African slaves, were not only citizens of
those states, but such of them as had the other qualifications
possessed the franchise of electors, on equal terms with other
citizens. It has already been shown that, in five of the
thirteen original states, colored persons then possessed the
elective franchise, and were among those by whom the Con
stitution was ordained and established. If so, it is not true,
in point of fact, that the Constitution was made exclusively
by the white race. And that it was made exclusively for the
white race is, in my opinion, not only an assumption not
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
warranted by anything in the Constitution, but contradicted
by its opening declaration, that it was ordained and es
tablished by the people of the United States for themselves
and their posterity. And as free colored persons were then
citizens of at least five states, and so in every sense, part of
the people of the United States, they were among those for
whom and whose posterity the Constitution was ordained
and established."
Thus it is absolutely indisputable that the colored man
not only fought for American independence but also assisted
as a voter in ordaining and establishing the Constitution of
the United States.
In view of these and many other things, it may appear,
after all, that the negro can establish a very clear title to his
rights and domicile on American soil — a title as clean and
as perfect in every respect as that of his persecutors and
oppressors.
A white man's country forsooth ! There is but one step
further for these Southern leaders to take, and that is to
claim that the God of the universe is a white man's God ; the
Redeemer of the world is a white man's Redeemer ; the sun,
moon, and stars are the white man's possession ; the cooling
zephyr, the air that is breathed, the mighty deep, and all the
waters which bear the traffic and commerce of the world on
their bosom, and all the bountiful gifts of nature belong to
the white man. After this these leaders can wrap them
selves in the mantle of their vast and superb superiority and
wait and watch and even weep for other claims to stake.
It will seem, however, to rational people, and there are a
great many such in the South, that this " white-man's-coun-
try" argument is so monstrously stupid, so silly and inane,
that the mere statement of its logical inferences is sufficient
to destroy it.
Social equality ! This is the bogy-man of the South.
And it appears that he is nowadays frightening, not the
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THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
children, but the old folks ; and doubtless many are in a state
of perturbation bordering on hysteria.
Some twenty years or so ago, when the white people of the
South first displayed this bogy-man, Mr. George W. Cable,
himself a Southerner, a man gifted with the courage of his
convictions, killed the bogy-man with this simple short,
piercing sentence, " Social equality is the dream of a fool.""
The nation instantly accepted this declaration as a verity.
The poor old bogy-man was laid away in his grave and had
almost gone "out of the memory of man." But lo, and
behold, the leaders of the South have dug him up, taken
off his grave clothes, put strange robes on him, electrified
him, and made him all over into a most " horrible fright,1'
and now present him once more like an automaton to the
public. By the deft touch of the Southern magicians, he is
made to pose first this way, and then that way, and still other
ways, creating wild and violent excitement among the whites
and carrying violence and death to the colored people.
The gyrations of the galvanically manipulated old bogy-
man have been so industriously and effectually worked by
the Southern leaders that the white people of the South have
themselves been thrown into a strange panic ; while the
people of the nation at large, self-possessed, are either hot
with indignation, or are grimly humorous over the excite
ment of the leaders of this movement, with their ravings and
comical and crazy antics, regarding it as a free show by the
hysterical, frenzied social-equality Southern leaders.
Social equality ! It is fitful, transient, elusive. Shall this
visionary, fleeting, intangible thing, with its many-sidedness,
dominate the life of the republic? Is it to be a new test of
American manhood and citizenship ? If so, then who is to
act as judge in regard to it? The social-equality man of
to-day is the convict in the prison cell on the to-morrow.
Shall not character, good citizenship, competencv, talent,
honest manhood, faithful service, and patriotism outweigh
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
the fooFs dream of social equality ? What matters it,
whether the prime virtues and graces of life are found under
the white or the ebony skin ? Did not the same God make
both ? Does He not plant His divinity in both alike ? Can
the color of the skin lessen the character and merit of the
man ?
Is it not true that
" All men are equal in God's sight ;
There is no black, there is no white " ?
In the constitution of human society social equality has
never existed anywhere, it does not exist anywhere, and it
never can exist anywhere. There are circles, and circles
within circles; there are sets and grades and cliques and
clans within sets and grades and cliques and clans. Which,
then, is the real thing ?
What are the lines of differentiation which would shut out
every colored person — for this is the plain purpose of the
Southern leaders — from consideration as a member of the
social organism which would not be an impeachment of
common-sense, Christianity, and civilization ? Members of
the same family and household are not necessarily social
equals ; one member may be good, and another bad ; one
talented and refined, and another ignorant and coarse ; one
magnificent and glorious in usefulness to the world, and
another a curse to humanity.
What of social equality? Human life does not move
smoothly on a dead level. Its course is up, down ; down, up.
Many born to station, luxury, and wealth have died in
poverty, in the slums, and in the gutter.
What of social equality? Many have risen from the
ranks of the lowliest, the most destitute, and even from the
abandoned classes, to the highest walks of life, and some
such have been crowned with a people's respect, love, and
homage.
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THE WAR; ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
What of social equality ? The lowly born do not always
remain lowly. The high born do not always stay on top.
Each rank is continuously recruiting the other. What of
social equality ?
Alexandra Dumas with his strain of negro blood is counted
an honor to France. There are thousands of colored people
in the South who in every one of the essentials of life —
in intelligence, education, refinement, culture, industry, as
holders of property and tax-payers, as good citizens living
orderly and decent lives, as public-spirited and useful mem
bers of the community, in moral worth — are superior to
some thousands of whites. Why should these people be
crushed and offered as a sacrifice to the social-equality bogy ?
Are free institutions, "government of the people, for the
people, and by the people11 to give place to government of
social equality, for social equality, and by social equality ?
The glory of the republic is that it has been governed by
the people. No social-equality set has ever ruled it. It is a
presumption for these leaders to mark dividing lines and say
that an American citizen shall not rise beyond them in life,
in honor, in the respect of his fellows, in usefulness, in the
service of the nation. The idea is alien, extremely vicious,
pernicious, mischievous, hideous.
If this cry of social equality at one time destroys the
liberty and rights of the colored people, what is to prevent
it at another time from crushing out the liberty and rights
of the Jews, or the Irish, or the Italians, or the Poles, or the
Swedes, or any other people ? Tyranny or oppression grows
by what it feeds on. It ever seeks a victim. This nation
is cosmopolitan, embracing representatives of all the peoples
of the world. At many places or localities these representa
tives may be few, or may not be influential. What is to
save their liberties and rights from destruction ? Just and
equal laws for all the people are the only safety of all the
people.
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If the republic were in peril, and called on its citizens for
its defence, who would dare to raise social equality as a test
or standard for service ? All who are competent to bear
arms and face the enemy would be welcomed. Many were
the loyal and patriotic citizens who responded to the call of
their country in 1861, and who never so much as heard of
such a thing as social equality. They went in with muskets
on their shoulders, and as unknown quantities. Many came
out rich in the affection, and amid the glare of trumpets and
the cheers and shouts, of a great and free people, who will
never forget their deeds of valor, nor allow the fruitage of
their sacrifices to be destroyed.
When the republic is at peace it savors of effrontery for
any one to presume to make social equality a passport to the
public service. Are there not men of high social standing
who are absolutely unfit for the duties of the public service ?
And on the other hand, are there not men without such
standing who are qualified to discharge the most delicate
and arduous duties of the official life?
The question naturally arises, Are all the white Southern
office-holders men of the equality type ? If they are, then
some facts generally known bespeak a condition of social order
among them which cannot be regarded as encouraging.
Fresh in the minds of the public are these happenings : A
lieutenant-governor of South Carolina presided over the
Senate with a brace of revolvers in his hip pockets, and went
straight from the Senate chamber to the streets and shot
down an unarmed and highly respected citizen ; a lieutenant-
governor of Louisiana was shot to death in a street brawl ; a
lieutenant-governor of Missouri was forced to resign from
his office, admitting under oath that he was a bribe taker
and bribe giver ; a United States senator and a congressman
battered each other in a curbstone fight in Arkansas ; two
United States senators from South Carolina tried conclusions
in a pugilistic encounter on the floor of the United States
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
Senate and in open session ; a United States senator from
Texas demonstrated his ability as an all-round " scrapper "
by the manner in which he "punched" a most reputable
member of that body ; a mayor of the leading city in Georgia
was repeatedly haled to court for intoxication ; a congressman
from Missouri assaulted and attempted to stab a street-car
conductor in the city of Washington rather than pay a five-
cent fare ; a governor of Alabama and a judge of a court in
that state argued their difference with the strenuosity of
fisticuffs ; a son of a governor of Kentucky who was also his
private secretary was shot to death for dishonoring a home,
and his victim with him ; grave senators and members of a
state legislature have confessed under oath to receiving
bribes and giving bribes for votes on matters of legislation ;
city aldermen and leading citizens more than a score have
been charged and convicted of betraying their trusts, re
ceiving and disbursing bribe money ; feuds have flourished,
thirty-eight citizens having been assassinated in one Kentucky
county in a brief period of time ; defalcations and embezzle
ments have been frequent — Tennessee lost $500,000 by the
defalcation of its state treasurer ; Alabama lost $400,000 ;
three other Southern states also suffered heavy losses ; and
as to county treasurers, a long list of them have embezzled
the people's money and voluntarily exiled themselves from
their homes between the setting and rising of the sun.
And this is not the half that might be said along these
lines ; but it is enough to prick the bubble of Southern
nonsense that social equality shall be the test for holding
public office. The question is asked again, Do these men —
for some of them are still in office — represent the ideal of
Southern social equality ?
It is a false pretext to claim that the possession of a public
office establishes social equality. If it were true, the Bowery
and Fifth Avenue would fraternize ; and there would be no
difference socially between the typical east-side politician and
143
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Grover Cleveland, Judge Parker, or Mayor Low ; and the
dive-keeping alderman might lead the " Grand March " at
the most fashionable event of the season. Public office does
not and cannot establish social equality. The governor of a
state cannot go into a citizen's home and enjoy his social
board unless the citizen invites him to come.
If the appointment or election of a white man to office
does not make him the social equal of every other white per
son, by what species of logic can it be demonstrated that the
holding of office would make the colored people social equals
of the white people? It is a travesty on common-sense to
say that a man cannot transact any public, or even private
business with another man without offering his daughter
in marriage to him, or tendering him the hospitality of his
home.
Outside of the South, the world over, men have learned
how to treat a public official with becoming decency and
dignity without raising the question of social privileges or
proffering their daughters in marriage to such officials ; and
they have also learned how " to break bread " with a cultured
or reputable man of any race without suggesting a marriage
during or at the close of the meal. Truly, as Mr. Schurz
says, these leaders " are the worst enemies the Southern
people have to fear."
Again, is Southern social equality in public affairs so elas
tic that it can take under its protecting wings murderers,
brawlers, moral lepers, amateur pugilists, bribe givers, bribe
takers, drunkards, embezzlers, defaulters, and what not, since
they are white ? And is it yet so lofty in its own self-esteem
that it can afford to assassinate the liberty of a people, and
deny to such men as Lyons, Crum, Dancy, Allgood, and
Washington, the lawful rights of American citizenship because
of their color ?
It is of interest to note the attitude of the influential
Northern press in this matter.
144
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
The New York World asks these pointed questions : " But
why is the question of ' social equality ' never raised by the
appointment of white men to office or by their attendance
upon any public meeting — no matter how ignorant, de
praved, or even dirty they may be ? When a man is
appointed Collector of the Port of New York does any body
think of his ' social equality ' ? Does any one feel obliged to
invite a white official to dinner, or does such a man consider
that his commission affects his social status ? "
The Boston Herald declares : " Americans are fond of
quoting Robert Burns1 immortal line, ' A man "s a man for
a1 that, for a" that.1 His ' a" that ' meant more than poverty
and weakness. It was a noble soul's protest against all the
ignoble prejudices based on conditions of fortune. ' For sC
that ' means notwithstanding color as much as notwithstand
ing ignorance and humbleness. Manliness is a matter of
character, and does not depend on the color of the skin nor
on the strain of race. God has not made any race forever
incapable of it, nor any race forever incapable of recognizing
and honoring it. The habit of distributing humanity in fixed
castes according to the accident of birth, from which there
is no escape, is a trait of immaturity and unreason. Chris
tianity wars against it, enlightenment wars against it, de
mocracy wars against it. The tendency of civilization is to
break the arbitrary fetters of manhood, whether of fortune,
race, or color, and acknowledge and honor the virtues, in
whomsoever they are found.1'*
And the Detroit (Michigan) Free Press uses the following
language: "This Southern childishness in relation to the
social side of the race question can hardly be treated with
patience. People of the North, who are quite as good as the
people of the South, sometimes meet negroes at receptions
without having the bloom rubbed off their social prestige.
The social standing of Theodore Roosevelt is, we think, quite
as good as that of any Southern congressmen, but Mr.
10 145
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Roosevelt is not constantly tormented by the fear that he
will be thought no better than a ' blue-gummed nigger ' if
a respectable negro happens to cross the sill of the White
House.'1
This alarm over social equality is a part of the stock in
trade of the Southern leaders, by which the whites are in
flamed and the colored people oppressed. That it should
scare so many good people in the South is amazing, in view
of the fact that for forty years colored men have been hold
ing offices and white men have repeatedly petitioned for their
appointment and have repeatedly voted for colored men in
local elections and have signed their bonds.
But the ascendency of the Tillmans, the Vardamans, the
Graves, the Walkers, the Aycocks, the Candlers, the Baileys,
Carmacks, Richardsons, and other reactionists has broken the
bonds of mutual regard between the races, and by their
wicked harangues they have confused the minds of the white
people on the race question.
These men are "the worst enemies the Southern people
have to fear/' It would be a day of jubilee to the Southland
and to the whole country if these fire-eaters could be deported
to some distant, uninhabited island in the Pacific ; there to
end their days. They would be alive but a short time ; for in
the absence of negroes to oppress and lynch and burn, they
would soon be oppressing and lynching and burning each
other, and it would not be long before the last of the brood
would be reaping what they have sown. But as this cannot
be done, the country will have to bear their shame, and the
negroes their violence, for some time to come, and until
returning reason — " the moral sense and the enlightened
spirit " — shall assert the true manhood of the South.
" Negro inferiority " is a phrase which appeals more to the
great masses than to the classes among the Southern whites,
and the lower the social strata, the more effective is the
appeal. One can readily see how it ministers to the pride
146
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
and vanity of the lowest element, " no matter how ignorant,
depraved, or even dirty they may be," to feel and be assured
that they are better than any negro.
Under other circumstances, the negro of character, educa
tion, and property would receive a degree of consideration
and respect from the whites who are less prosperous.
The better class of whites have always held in high esteem
character, education, and property ; and they would not
have gone to extremes in refusing all recognition to colored
people possessing these. Indeed, many among this class have
given public expression of their surprise and gratification at
the progress made by the colored people since their emanci
pation. There are notable instances of true and hearty
friendship and ungrudging appreciation between some of the
whites and colored people.
The former slave has in a number of instances provided
for the support of the family of the former master which was
in indigent circumstances. Some have willed their property
to the former master. And in many cases the former master
has been sympathetic and helpful to the former slave.
To destroy respect for the negro among the masses, and all
interest in the negro among the classes, the leaders boldly pro
claim the doctrine that the negro is necessarily an inferior
to the white man and that there can be no common inter
est between them; that the lowest white man is the supe
rior of the best negro, and should therefore receive greater
consideration.
This means that the white criminal or degenerate is above
the colored man of probity and standing. Is it true that
the mere tint of a man's skin makes him either superior or
inferior to another man ? The leaders know better, but it
serves their purpose to declare it. And such teaching has
brought incredible woes upon the negro.
There are many well known cases of white criminals and
degenerates who have been pardoned from the penitentiaries,
147
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
and yet who have the freedom of the ballot, a privilege de
nied to colored men of moral and material value to the
community.
And these white criminals and degenerates have also other
privileges of a white man, while the same are denied to colored
persons. Even in the state prisons white criminals are
placed on an entirely different footing from colored criminals.
The idea of negro inferiority enters into the framing and
the execution of the law. It has been molded into custom
and unwritten law. It is enforced with fierceness and cruelty
unspeakably shocking. It permeates every phase of Southern
life, and the visible proofs of it are to be seen in every direc
tion in which one may cast the eye.
It has resulted in the passage of " Jim Crow " laws which
can be fitly described only when called barbarous ; and the
appropriate apellation for the makers of such laws would be
the "Jim Crow" politicians. These "Jim Crow" politicians
have "Jim-Crowed" all railway trains, stations, lunch-counters,
dining-rooms, waiting-rooms ; they have " Jim-Crowed " all
libraries, theatres, museums, art galleries, public parks, and
places of public resort and amusements ; they have " Jim-
Crowed" the street cars; they have " Jim-Crowed " all ferry
boats and steamboats ; they have " Jim -Crowed " some of the
trades and callings ; they have " Jim-Crowed " the churches
and schools and colleges and other institutions of learning ;
they have "Jim-Crowed" the elevators in stores, office build
ings, public buildings, and other places; they have "Jim-
Crowed " restaurants, cafes, ice-cream parlors, hotels, saloons,
and even the soda-water fountains ; they have " Jim-Crowed "
the courts, the making and the administration of the law ;
they have "Jim-Crowed" all offices, municipal, county, and
state ; they have " Jim-Crowed " the jury-box ; they have
" Jim-Crowed " the ballot-box. In short, they have " Jim-
Crowed " everything. They have " Jim-Crowed "the beauti
ful "Sunny South " into the "Jim Crow South."
148
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
And controlled by a perverted moral sense and a diseased
mind, a mania on the questions affecting the negro, some of
these leaders are now making a bold, desperate, even reckless
effort to "Jim-Crow" the President of the United States
and to "Jim-Crow" the government of the United States
and to " Jim-Crow " this great Christian nation of eighty
millions of free people into a " Jim Crow nation." Surely
the cup of iniquity of the "Jim Crow" politicans is not only
full, but is running over. Is it not time for the decent
public sentiment of the South to crystallize itself and, re
inforced by the irresistible public opinion of the nation,
call a halt to " Jim Crow " politicians, and strangle Jim
Crowism ?
This " Jim-Crowing " of the South by unequal laws, or by
statutes which contravene the spirit of the Constitution of
the United States, and by barbarous customs, is intended to
place all colored persons on a different footing from the
whites before the law and in every other relation of life, and
thus force the race into hopeless degradation. It means the
revival of the ante bellum doctrine that negroes have no
rights which white men are bound to respect.
Governor Aycock of North Carolina said : " We will force
every negro in the South to hold an inferior relation to every
white man ! " Perhaps so, perhaps not. For this work of
compulsion may encounter opposing forces which Mr. Aycock
has not taken into consideration, — the opposition of honest
men ; the antagonism of Christian men ; the overruling
power of a just God "who loveth righteousness and hateth
iniquity."
Who would pretend to say that this frenzy for "Jim-
Crowing" promotes good government? It is destructive
to every incentive to good government. It is intended to
keep the whites inflamed against the colored. His eminence
Cardinal Gibbons writes to a leading citizen, saying : " In
reply to your letter of yesterday, I hasten to say that the
149
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
introduction of the ' Jim Crow ' bill into the Maryland
legislature is very distressing to me. Such a measure must
of necessity engender very bitter feelings in the colored peo
ple against the whites.
" Peace and harmony can never exist when there is unjust
discrimination, and what the members of every community
must constantly strive for is peace."
It may also be noted that the advocates of negro subjuga
tion have invaded the North and have been propagating
their principles in lecture tours, newspaper interviews, and in
the endless writing of letters to the press. Some have ob
tained positions in newspaper offices, in pulpits, and elsewhere,
and have used these as opportunities of injuring the negro.
This statement does not include the many excellent South
erners in the North, men of high character and who stand for
liberty and fair play for the negro.
Some of these emissaries have visited the annual and other
meetings of great organizations held under Northern skies
and have attempted to "Jim-Crow" them. And the mem
bers of some of these great organizations have sat as if in a
trance and meekly permitted themselves to be bulldozed
into taking the "Jim Crow " cure. It is a wonder that the
spirits of their fathers did not rise up before them !
The Boston Evening Record, referring to the meeting of an
important organization held in that city, says : " Boston was
a curious place in the world for the stationary engineers to
meet in, if they expected endorsement or sympathy for their
action in barring the negro from membership.
"But that is what the association has just done. The
question was decided almost unanimously against the negro,
but not until after the delegates of the North, and especially
those from Massachusetts, had expressed themselves in a most
passionate manner.
" Grant of New Orleans made the demand to have the
word ' white ' prefixed to the word ' engineers ' in one of the
150
THE WAR ON NEGRO SUFFRAGE
articles of the constitution. Mr. Grant said that the busi
ness men in the South look upon the engineers1 association as
one of standing ; and should the negro be allowed the social
equality which he does not deserve, the association would be
ruined in the South and the Southern branches would drop
out. ' This is the white man's country. Africa is where the
negro belongs,1 he said. Grant was loudly applauded.
"Mr. Optenberg of Wisconsin upheld the negro. Mr.
Babbit of Worcester declared he would stand for the colored
man at all times. C. S. Howarth of Fall River, speaking for
the negro, was hissed for at least a full minute, and cries of
' Put him out ! ' were heard all over the convention floor. The
speaker, after exalting the negro, said, ' Why, there are men
in this room whom I would rather discard than the negro.' ""
So the " Jim Crowites " of the South are using the free
men of the North to strike down the negroes on the ground
of color alone ; and deny them the right to use their talents
to make an honest living. Such organizations control in
large measure the employment of workmen.
It is not a little amazing that great educational institu
tions in the North should invite to their lecture platform the
worst specimens, the most rabid and frenzied " Jim Crow "
leaders — well knowing their reputation for abusive and
intemperate attacks on the negro ; and each attack creates
race antagonism. There were colored students in these uni
versities, young men and women of character, scholarship, and
promise. These students were compelled to sit quietly and
hear their race denounced in bitter and violent language.
This is not in keeping with the fitness of things. The efforts
of these emissaries are designed to break the bond of peace
between the negro and the Northern white man and stir up
race strife and Southernize the North.
The policy and methods of the reactionists are a direct
challenge to the Church. They are incompatible with the
essentials of Christianity. The Church will not assent to the
151
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
teaching that the color of the skin is superior to character,
intelligence, thrift, godliness ; that the tint of a man's skin is
sufficient reason to deny him the rights of citizenship in a free
republic, for the creation and preservation of which his blood
was spilled ; that this tint is a justifiable ground to deny
him manhood right and to bar every place against him in
the public service. " God moves in a mysterious way his
wonders to perform," and it may be that the very madness
of the policy and acts of the Southern politicians who are
bent on destroying the suffrage of the negro, and alienating
him from membership in human society, may be God's way
of bringing discomfiture to them, safety to the negro, and
peace and honor to the republic.
152
CHAPTER V
THE FALSE ALARM OF NEGRO
DOMINATION
ALTHOUGH, owing to the entailments of slavery, a
majority of the white people of the South may, at the
present time, be opposed to negro suffrage, and al
though a few people of the North may sneer at it, neverthe
less, facts and figures will show that the ballot in the hands
of the negro has been of priceless value to the republic. It
is a national asset to be depended upon in emergencies. By
its service to the republic in trying ordeals it has demon
strated its right to exist. No element of the population is
so broadly and intensely national in character as the negro.
The Reverend E. F. Williams, D. D., of Chicago, recently said :
" We need the negro as much as he needs us. In war he
shouldered the musket and knew how to shoot straight. His
ballot has been cast, when allowed to be cast, for the good of
the nation. As we have needed him in the past, we shall
certainly need him in the future.""
There is no danger in negro suffrage. It is rather a safety-
valve. The cry of negro domination is a false alarm.
In the following table are given the states which may come
under the general designation of Southern states ; also the
total white and the total colored population of each, as well
as the total white and the total colored vote of each, accord
ing to the census of 1900. A glance at this table will show
the absurdity of the alarm of negro domination. It will be
seen that in the South as a whole there are more than two
white men to every colored man. So that the frightful
apparition of negro domination does not loom up with such
hideousness on the political horizon as the alarmists would
make one believe.
153
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
States
Total
White
Population
Total
Colored
Population
Total
White
Vote
Total
Colored
Vote
Alabama, .
1,001,152
827,307
232 294
181,471
944,580
366,866
226,597
87,157
Florida
297,333
230,730
77,962
61,417
Georgia . .
1,181,294
1,034,813
277,496
223,073
Kentucky
Louisiana ......
1,862,309
769,612
284,706
650,804
469,206
177,878
74,728
147,348
Maryland. .....
952 424
235,064
260,979
60,406
641,200
907,630
150,530
197,936
Missouri ......
2,944,843
161,234
809,797
46,418
North Carolina ....
South Carolina ....
Tennessee
1,263,603
.557,807
1 540,186
624,469
782,321
480,243
289,263
130,375
375,046
127,114
152,860
112,236
Texas
2,426,669
1,192,855
620,722
660,722
599,961
301,379
136,875
146,122
West Virginia ....
915,233
13,49-9
233,129
14,786
Special note should be made of the important fact that in
only two of the Southern states does the colored population
exceed that of the whites; that is in South Carolina and
Mississippi. In all the other Southern states, the white
population predominates over the colored. So that the cry
of negro domination is insincere. If the matter were, how
ever, reduced to the simple question of the procurement of
good government in the Southern states, no patriotic citizen
in the republic would utter a single protest against any law
treating all races alike.
Every intelligent colored man would allow that the race
can work out its destiny under equal laws, but would be
cruelly handicapped if they are made unequal and oppressive.
Under normal conditions Collector Crum, Register Lyons,
Recorder Dancy, Principal Washington, and the army of
negro school-teachers, preachers, professional men, mechanics,
and hardy toilers would all line up on the side of good
government. This has occurred repeatedly, in local elec-
154
FALSE ALARM OF NEGRO DOMINATION
tions : as in Atlanta, Nashville, and other places, when the
more reputable whites, men and women, were freely admitted
to address meetings in colored churches for the purpose of
rallying the colored voters to aid them in overthrowing " ring
government." This met with success in every case.
When the liberty of the colored man has not been at
stake, he has never failed to respond to the kindly entreaties
of the better class of whites. He wants good and just gov
ernment : it is his salvation. But when the Southern leaders
set themselves to the work of disfranchising by the whole
sale the colored race without regard to their merit, and grant
the franchise to every white man regardless of his demerit, —
the immorality and unrighteousness of the act is without
question ; and a definite, a direct issue is joined between
justice and injustice, humanity and inhumanity, the friends
of liberty and the enemies of liberty.
Let us briefly analyze the statistics regarding the voters in
the states which have passed or are contemplating the enact
ment of wholesale disfranchisement.
In Alabama there are 232,294 white voters against 181,471
colored voters : the whites having a clear majority over the
negroes of 50,823. Any kind of a fair education or property
qualification, or both, would probably reduce the colored vote
not far from fifty per cent, while the white vote would not
be largely affected. What, then, becomes of the apparition
of negro domination ? Why resort under false pretences to
wholesale disfranchisement ?
In Louisiana the white vote is 177,878 ; against 147,348
colored voters : the whites having a clear majority of 30,530.
Here again, any kind of a fair education or property qualifi
cation, or both, would operate to cut the colored vote in half,
making the white vote at the ballot-box twice as large as the
the colored vote. What chance would one colored man in
Louisiana have in outvoting two white men ? Wholesale
disfranchisement is a subterfuge.
155
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
In North Carolina the white vote is 289,263 against
127,114 colored voters : the whites having a clear majority
over the negroes of 162,149 ; this majority itself being
35,035 more than the total colored vote. And under a fair
educational or property qualification, or both, the whites
would be impregnable, — having at the ballot-box probably
not less than three white men to one colored man. In this
instance the cry of negro domination is a hollow mockery,
and wholesale disfranchisement is the perpetration of a fraud.
In Virginia the white vote is 301,379 against 146,122
colored voters : the whites having a clear majority over the
negroes of 155,257 ; this majority by itself being nearly
10,000 larger than the total colored vote. In this case too,
a fair educational or property qualification, or both, would
intrench the whites in power, — giving them three white men
to one colored man, with some thousands to spare. The
evidence is cumulative that the alarm of negro domination is
a sham, and that wholesale disfranchisement is an outrage.
In Maryland, where the Southern " bloody shirt " is being
waved so vigorously by Senator Gorman, and where he is
making the effort of his life to destroy the liberties of the
colored people — the total white vote is 260,979 against
barely 60,406 colored voters; the whites having a clear
majority of 200,573 over the negroes. There are actually
more than four white men in the state to every colored man.
Here disfranchisement is a crime. Senator Gorman is fas
tening a foul blot on the good name and honor of Maryland.
In Kentucky the Southern " bloody shirt " is also being
flaunted with even greater recklessness, and the liberty of the
negroes hangs in the balance. There are in this state
469,206 white voters against but 74,728 colored voters : the
whites having a clear majority of 394,478 over the negroes,
and there being about six white men in the state to every
colored man. In these latter two cases, the cry of negro
domination is too ridiculous for consideration, and the dis-
156
FALSE ALARM OF NEGRO DOMINATION
franchisement of the race is a proceeding of which a civilized
people ought to be incapable. May the nobler spirit of
" Old Kentucky " keep this stain from her proud escutcheon !
As before mentioned, South Carolina and Mississippi are
the two exceptions where the colored population are in the
majority.
In South Carolina the total white vote is 130,375 against
152,860 colored voters : the colored having a clear ma-
ority over the whites of 22,485. But a fair educational
or property qualification, or both, would probably reduce
the colored vote below 75,000 ; thus giving the whites a
safe margin.
In Mississippi the total white vote is 150,530 against
197,936 colored voters : the colored having a clear majority
over the whites of 47,406 voters. But here again, a fair
educational or property qualification, or both, would proba
bly cut the total colored vote in half, giving the whites above
50,000 majority at the ballot-box. If the "district system "
which already applies to Mississippi should also be adopted
in South Carolina, white control would be absolutely cer
tain without the demoralizing evils and the deadly effects
on Southern conscience and public morality of wholesale
disfranchisement. Under this " district system " the " black "
counties are consolidated or formed into one " district,1'
with a limited number of representatives and senators in
the legislature, while the great bulk of representatives and
senators are elected from a number of other "districts." The
more important local officers, as the conditions require for
the good of all, are made appointive by the governor.
If in an honest effort it shall seem necessary in the case of
South Carolina and Mississippi to take precautionary meas
ures to secure good government, and laws are made which are
reasonable, and humane, and life and property are protected,
and the civil and political rights are respected of all, without
regard to race, who measure up to the fixed qualification, —
157
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
then there can be no reasonable ground of complaint from
any person. As we have seen, in not one of the other
Southern states does the colored vote portend negro domina
tion. In most of them, it is but a minor fraction of the
whole vote. In all of them, under just and equal laws, good
government could be assured.
But wholesale disfranchisement has bearing on others be
sides the negro.
The New York World speaks most advisedly when it
says : " If the Southern Democrats who are forcing these
measures do not perceive their ultimate inevitable conse
quence they are lacking in political understanding. The
preponderating vote of the Northern states will not con
sent permanently to representation, in Congress and in the
electoral college, of millions of disfranchised inhabitants in
the Southern states. Especially is this true when the dis
franchising qualifications apply and are intended to operate,
not against illiteracy or shiftlessness or unworthiness, but
solely against color.
" In the few states of the ' dark belt ' where the colored
population outnumbers the white, precautions against ' negro
rule ' are justified, even by residents from the North living
there, by the ' higher law ' of necessity. But in border
states like Maryland and Kentucky, where white preponder
ance is overpowering, no such excuse can be urged. Nor do
the Democrats who are pushing these measures seem to have
calculated the possible effect upon their party in doubtful
Northern states of arraying solidly against it the very con
siderable negro vote. This issue may make the South solid,
but it has another side.
" Back, however, of the questions of political expediency
and of the inequality growing out of the representation of
non-voters, is the deeper question of constitutional guaranties
and of the anomaly and danger in a republic of an enormous
number of citizens disfranchised for their color alone."
158
FALSE ALARM OF NEGRO DOMINATION
" Disfranchised for their color alone " is the burning
shame, the condemning truth in this whole wretched affair.
And it is clap-trap to urge in justification that the negroes
pay but a very small fraction of the taxes.
The state of South Carolina has a total colored population
of 782, 321. To say that these negroes are not the tax-payers
of that state is the merest twaddle. They are more than the
tax-payers ; they are pre-eminently the tax-makers. And
the makers of the taxes are quite as important to the well-
being and prosperity of the state as the payers of the taxes.
The negroes are the producing element, the backbone of
every department of labor and industry. To still their hands
would bring about the paralysis and ruin of every business
interest in the state. For they represent the ^productive
and the industrial life. What would the Custom House in
Charleston amount to without the patronage of negro pro
ductivity ? How could the city of Charleston itself flourish
without the toil of the thousands of negroes within her
gates, and the hundreds of thousands of them in the state, —
the fruits of whose labor, like a never ending stream, are
poured into her lap ? Without the negro productivity in
this state, the commercial and other great interests would
drop to nil. Further, the great educational system, and all
the charitable and benevolent institutions of the state are
dependent on negro productivity. It is not to be inferred
from this that there are no white toilers, for there are many ;
but neither in numbers, nor in the variety of work, nor in
the total fruitfulness of toil, do they approach unto the
colored people. If the resources of the state were limited
to the fruits of white labor, South Carolina would be in
hopeless, irretrievable bankruptcy.
The denial, then, of the colored man's liberty, the refusal to
allow him any share in the government under which he lives
and of which he is a copartner and to the support of which
he is not only the largest, but the indispensable contributor,
159
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
is a wrong which must invoke the condemnation of honest
men and the frowning displeasure of a righteous God.
What has been related herewith in reference to South
Carolina would hold true also as regards Mississippi, with
her total colored population of 907,630. The negroes are
the mainstay of her productivity, — the tillers of her soil,
the makers of her taxes, the guarantors of her prosperity, the
supporters of her institutions. Without the fruitfulness
of the negroes'* toil Mississippi would be in stagnation as a
commonwealth, helpless, beggared.
In the several other Southern states, while the proportion
of the negroes is not so large, yet their vast productivity
and their varied labors, especially as the tillers of the soil,
are generally regarded as the factors of paramount importance
in the development and prosperity of the South. Agricul
ture is the life of the South, and negro labor is the life of
agriculture.
But in the wholesale disfranchisement of the colored race,
a question of greater gravity and far wider scope is involved
than that of cheating the Constitution of the United States
in order to destroy the liberty of the negro. This other
issue affects the constitutional rights of great states and all
their people. It destroys representative government. For
the wholesale disfranchisement of the colored race in the
South necessarily results in the "partial disfranchisement
of every state in the North, by lessening the propor
tional share of every Northern man in the government of
his country.
Concerning this, the New York Press says : " The fraudu
lent misrepresentation, in Congress and the electoral college,
of the 10,000,000 American blacks, chiefly resident in the
Southern states, is no more a question to be hushed up and
put off than was that of the felonious servitude of their
4,000,000 predecessors. Northern manhood revolted then
at the spectacle of a great party paltering with a national
160
FALSE ALARM OF NEGRO DOMINATION
sin because it was the darling of a powerful section. North
ern manhood will revolt again if the spectacle is repeated.
" It has stood for a good while the glaring violation of its
rights by which one vote between the Potomac and the Gulf
counts for two between the Potomac and the Lakes. But it
will not stand much longer, we verily believe, the gag that
chokes in the old Calhoun fashion all utterance upon a
peculiar institution of the South in the halls of Congress."
The Wisconsin Evening Journal, of Milwaukee, speaks to
the point in saying : " Henry Watterson, of Louisville, . . .
addressed the Hamilton Club of Chicago, last night. . . .
" Watterson's whole speech was directed to the point that
the negro should be disfranchised in the Southern states as
unfit for the privilege of suffrage. There are many white
men throughout the country who are unfit for the ballot, and
they are permitted to vote merely because they have a white
skin. While Watterson was urging the disfranchisement of
the Southern blacks he did not say a word in favor of reduc
ing the Southern representation in Congress on account of the
diminished vote in the Southern states. Watterson ignored
the paramount principle, which is this : The disfranchisement
of the negro is a gross injustice to white people in the North,
for one white vote in South Carolina or Virginia is equal to
five white votes in Wisconsin. This establishes a permanent
Southern aristocracy to rule the Union. Watterson affects
to be a Democrat, but he is certainly a false one, because
such inequality of suffrage cannot be permitted in a republic.
"The South will find before it gets through with this
matter that it will be sorely punished by the reduction of its
representation in Congress. The North begins to wake up
on this question. The Union League Club of New York,
one of the strongest and most influential organizations in the
United States, perceives that by the disfranchisement of the
negro the nation is drifting into the condition which brought
on the great Civil War. Cornelius N. Bliss, one of the first
11 161
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
citizens in the great metropolis, and Secretary of the Interior
under President McKinley, has taken hold of the matter and
has issued a thousand circulars to the leading political organi
zations in the United States pointing out the dangers that
will inure to our country if the Southern blacks are disfran
chised. This disfranchisement will not only be a gross viola
tion of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, but
will establish an aristocracy of white voters in the Southern
states which will rule the nation as despotically as did the
slaveholders before the Civil War."
When the South disfranchises the negro, and at the same
time appropriates to itself the full quota of representatives
in the Congress and members in the electoral college based
on negro citizenship, it does by this act unduly increase its
power in the government and destroys the equality of repre
sentation which should exist among the people of all the
states.
But more significant still : when the South denies the
negro his rights as a citizen, and at the same time counts
the very last one of them to increase its representation —
thus offsetting the entire negro population against an
equal number of Northern white people — is this hot equiv
alent to saying that, while the negro shall not be the equal
of the Southern white man at the ballot-box, he shall be
the equal of the Northern white man and shall offset his
vote ?
The South is thus using the negro to increase her propor
tional representation in the national council, in order ulti
mately to accomplish the Southern domination of the republic
and intrench the traditions of a barbarous system of slavery.
For instance, the state of Connecticut has a white popula
tion of 892,424 ; the state of Mississippi has a colored popu
lation of 907,630; thus Mississippi, by playing its colored
population against the white population of Connecticut,
completely offsets and neutralizes the power of this great
162
FALSE ALARM OF NEGRO DOMINATION
state in the House of Representatives and in the electoral
college.
The state of Maine has a white population of 692,226 ;
the state of Virginia has a colored population of 660,722 ; thus
Virginia, by playing its colored population against the white
population of Maine, puts the quietus on every white man
in that state, and makes the voice of that state of non-effect
in the House and in the electoral college.
The state of Minnesota has a white population of 1,737,036 ;
the states of Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida have a combined
colored population of 1,708,841 ; thus Alabama, Louisiana,
and Florida, by playing their colored population against the
white population of Minnesota, neutralize the voice and power
of this great state in the House of Representatives and in
the electoral college. It is hardly necessary to continue
these comparisons further, as it must be apparent that the
wholesale disfranchisement of the negro in the South, in its
practical effects, may be the wholesale disfranchisement of
great states in the North. It is beyond question the partial
disfranchisement of every Northern state.
The colored people are either citizens or they are not
citizens. If they are not citizens, the South has no ground
in law or morals to claim representation for them. If they
are citizens, their disfranchisement is a crime against citizen
ship. For the colored people, who are denied citizenship en
masse in the South, are nevertheless counted and used as
equal citizens en masse to neutralize the effectiveness of citi
zenship in the North ; thus bringing about the curious
anomaly that the colored man is not a citizen to cast his
own vote, or share in the government, but he is a citizen, an
equal citizen, to offset or nullify a Northern citizen"^ vote and
promote Southern domination of the government.
But this condition must be regarded from still another
point of view. South Carolina has a white population of
557,807, while Colorado has a white population of about the
163
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
same size, being 529,046 ; and yet the white men of South
Carolina elect seven members of the House of Representatives,
while the same number of white men in Colorado elect only
three members.
North Carolina and Virginia have a combined white popu
lation of 2,456,458 ; Indiana has a white population of
2,458,502 ; and yet the white men of North Carolina and
Virginia jointly elect twenty members of the House, while
the same number of white men in Indiana elect only thirteen
members.
Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida have a combined white
population of 2,068,097 ; Wisconsin has a white population
of 2,057,911 ; and yet the white men of Alabama, Louisiana,
and Florida jointly elect nineteen members of the House,
while the same number of white men in Wisconsin elect only
eleven members. Georgia, Mississippi, and Arkansas have a
combined white population of 2,767,074 ; Massachusetts has
a white population of 2,769,074 ; and yet the white men of
Georgia, Mississippi, and Arkansas jointly elect twenty-six
members of the House, while the same number of white men
in Massachusetts elect only fourteen members.
Again, Louisiana with a white population of 769,612
elects seven members of the House, while Connecticut with a
white population of 892,424 elects only five members, and
Nebraska with a white population of 1,056,529 elects only six
members.
Mississippi with a white population of 641,200 elects eight
members of the House, while Kansas with a white population
of 1,416,319 elects only eight members. Georgia with a white
population of 1,181,294 elects eleven members of the House,
while Iowa with a white population of 2,218,667 elects only
eleven members. South Carolina with a white population of
557,807 elects seven members of the House, while Maine,
New Hampshire, and Delaware with a combined white popu
lation of 1,255,994 elect only seven members. Florida with
164
FALSE ALARM OF NEGRO DOMINATION
a white population of 297,333 elects three members of the
House, while Rhode Island with a white population of
419,050 elects only two members.
Expressed in the popular vernacular, it may be said that the
Southern leaders are playing their game with loaded dice.
Furthermore, as recounted, through the disfranchisement of
the colored race, the white people of the South elect about
fifty members of the House and about fifty members in the
electoral college which are based on the count of the negro
population.
The power thus gained and wielded is a standing peril to
republican government. It has happened in the memory,
not of "the oldest inhabitant," but of a majority of the
people now living, that a single vote in the electoral college
decided the election of a president of the United States.
Mr. Hayes was elected by a bare majority of one vote : re
ceiving 185 votes, to 184 for Mr. Tilden.
Not once but many times in the history of the govern
ment a single vote, or a small number of votes, has decided
the fate of a measure of greatest national importance in
Congress.
In a close and exciting campaign, or even in calm delibera
tion, these fifty votes unrighteously and unlawfully seized
and cast by the white people of the South may not only
determine the election of a president of the United States,
but may also revolutionize the great national policies of the
government. As we have seen, some of the great states of
the North would be practically disfranchised or deprived of
an equal share in the election of a president, and an equal
voice in matters of legislation. Such a miscarriage of justice
might occur at any time as would bring ruin to the great
financial, commercial, and industrial life of the nation. A
condition of affairs so manifestly unequal and unjust, and so
perilous, would seem to demand the application of a drastic
treatment.
165
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Another feature of this matter which should command the
serious attention of the American people is the decadence
of popular government in the South under the ascendency
of the present leadership. It is no longer the government of
the people, but the government of the " Jim Crow " leaders,
for the " Jim Crow " leaders, and by the " Jim Crow "
leaders.
The Honorable John S. Wise, a descendant of a former
governor of Virginia, in a public address said : " No re
publican form of government exists in Virginia to-day. The
Czar of Russia does not hold more absolute sway than is held
by the fractional oligarchy of whites in the Southern states.
By the present system of registration in Virginia, 100,000
names have been stricken from the lists in the last twelve
months.
"The government of the United States should say that
such a practice is either right or wrong. It must be one or
the other. The government has the right and the power to
stop it if it will but enforce that power. The indifference of
the government is forcing the colored men of the South to
become law-breakers. A crisis is surely approaching.""
The New York World says : " The World has noted the
travesty on popular government in South Carolina, where at
the recent election less than 40,000 votes were cast in a state
having more than 280,000 men of voting age.
" The showing in Louisiana was even worse. This Gulf
state has 325,000 citizens of voting age, yet the total vote
cast on November 4 was only 26,265, of which 22,218 were
Democratic and 4,047 Republican. The Times- Democrat
puts it in another way in saying that ' about one out of six
of the persons who can vote under the constitutional pro
visions took the trouble to pay their poll-tax, get registered,
go to the polls, and cast their ballots.' The negroes, some
thing less than half the population, are, of course, for the most
part disfranchised.
166
FALSE ALARM OF NEGRO DOMINATION
"Here is a state having six representatives in Congress
elected by 22,218 voters — the republican candidates getting
on an average only 578 votes each. There are several separ
ate Congressional districts in this city that cast more votes
than were polled in the entire state of Louisiana. This is a
state government neither republican in form nor democratic
in fact."
The following table will show the votes cast in the eight
congressional districts in Mississippi, as compared with the
first eight districts of Indiana : —
IKDIANA. MISSISSIPPI
First District 41,397 8,245
Second District 42,788 2,528
Third District 38,007 1,146
Fourth District 41,793 2,834
Fifth District 47,333 3,081
Sixth District 44,705 1,774
Seventh District 48,456 2,022
Eighth District 49,693 1,433
Total 354,172 23,063
Such wholesale disfranchisement of the negroes has reacted
on the whites. They have ceased to go to the ballot-box.
And this gives the " Jim Crow " leaders their opportunity to
establish a corrupt oligarchy which rules with a rod of iron.
Fair and just election laws would result in bringing prac
tically every colored voter to the polls at every election ; for
the negro, whenever the opportunity is given him, takes
pride in the exercise of sovereignty. And the knowledge
that the colored vote would be cast at any election would
arouse and bring forth the white vote. Thus a healthy
political condition would result. Nothing would do so much
to promote good government in the South as the expectation
that large bodies of colored voters were sure to be at the
polls. It would rally the whites and secure the nomination
of the best men for offices. But this, the " Jim Crowites "
do not want, for their occupation would be gone.
167
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
These states are in the control of an imperious and un
scrupulous oligarchy, and, when the people fail to vote, it
fraudulently counts and makes such returns of votes as it
pleases.
For instance: the new disfranchising Constitution of
Alabama received a total of 108,613 votes ; but there are
232,294 white voters, and 181,471 colored voters in that
state — making 413,765 of both races. So that only
about one-fourth of the voters gave approval to the new
constitution.
In the counting of these votes, numbering 108,613, glaring
frauds were committed. In Chambers county 4,604 votes
were returned for the Constitution ; yet the total white vote
of the county is only 3,457. Dallas county returned 8,125
votes for the Constitution ; yet Dallas county has but 2,525
white voters. Hale county returned 4,696 votes for the
Constitution ; yet this county has only 1,385 white voters.
Perry county returned 3,209 votes for the Constitution ; yet
this county has only 1,559 white voters. Wilcox county
returned 4,652 votes for the Constitution ; yet this county
has only 1,704 white voters.
This is the way officers are elected and laws and constitu
tions are made in the South. Palpable fraud is plainly
written on the face of these returns.
The plan is to use repeaters, or to keep the colored voters
from the ballot-box, and still count their votes to swell the
returns. County after county in Alabama show frauds in
the election returns.
Mr. Joseph C. Manning, a leading white citizen of Ala
bama, in a speech before the Middlesex Club of Boston,
Massachusetts, says: "The registered vote of about 181,000
voters in Alabama, out of a population of the voting age of
413,765, is notice to the country upon the part of the gov
erning power of this state that a majority of the voting
population is without a republican form of government, for
168
FALSE ALARM OF NEGRO DOMINATION
232,765 citizens of voting age in Alabama have, with but
scant exception, been illegally, unjustly, and outrageously
deprived of suffrage. Of the number of registered colored
voters there are not 3,000.
" Out of the total colored male population of over 21 years
of age in the State of Alabama there are 73,533 literate citi
zens. There are 11,123 colored citizens who own farms in
Alabama, 2,871 part owners, 116 owners and tenants, 72
managers, 56,202 cash tenants, 23,689 share tenants. The
report of the department of education of Alabama states
that 940 colored male teachers drew money from the public
funds in 1902. A stringent examination as to character and
education is required of applicants for license to teach in the
public schools of Alabama. There are fully 1,000 colored
male teachers engaged in the public and private schools of
the state. In Alabama there are also colored merchants,
colored bankers, colored artisans, colored physicians, colored
lawyers, colored editors, colored ministers, all of these num
bering not less than 5,000 citizens. Surely the 5,000 citizens
engaged in these various callings, surely the 1,000 colored
male teachers and the many thousand colored owners of their
own farm homes — I declare that surely these citizens should
come up to the requirements of good citizenship and of
character at least under which test no white citizen whatever
was excluded by the board of registrars in 1902. Had the
registration been impartial no negro applying for a certificate
would have been refused registration, for certainly no white
man who applied was denied this privilege. Only one negro
was allowed to vote in my county, Tallapoosa, with a colored
population of 2,055. The negro principal of the colored
public school in the town in which I live was denied registra
tion. He was repeatedly told that the registrars were not
registering negroes at that day. It was never his day. This
man was fully qualified to register. Negroes of property and
good standing were humiliated by the same treatment
169
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
"Fellow-countrymen, there is a God of nations and of
men ; there is a standard of honor for governments and indi
viduals ; there is justice and there is injustice. Not in all the
history of the conduct of Christian governments and acts of
civilized men can there be found a parallel to the depravity
to which this Alabama autocracy, the progeny of the former
slave-holding Democracy, has come."
In South Carolina, Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia,
and other states where disfranchising constitutions and laws
have been put in force, not a third of the voters of the states
have sanctioned with their ballots these constitutions. In
some cases the constitution was promulgated without being
submitted to the voters. The leaders were afraid of the
condemnation of the people. Many Southerners are opposed
to laws which can only be made and sustained through fraud
and force. Ex-Governor MacCorkle of West Virginia, at
the Montgomery conference, said :
"The franchise system, as it is at present constituted in
many of the states of the South, is, to say the least, practi
cally the policy of repression. Repression has been tried at
every stage of the world's history, and always with the same
unvarying result, utter and tremendous failure. It leads
nowhere. It raises no man. It demands no education. It
holds ignorance as dense as ever. It drives away intelligence.
It breeds discontent. It represses any rising inspiration of
the heart. It leaves the land at the end of the cycle just as
it found it at the beginning. It is the policy of deadly
inaction overridden by discontent."
The objective of such laws is not good government, but to
build up an office-holding oligarchy by keeping the races at
strife.
Another matter of importance connected with this sub
ject is the manner in which the colored man has used
his ballot. Has that ballot been cast on the side of good
government and for the national weal ? Have the larger
170
FALSE ALARM OF NEGRO DOMINATION
interests of the whole people been promoted by negro
suffrage ?
In the Reconstruction era, and in the years immediately
following, the negro's vote was cast strictly in accordance
with good sense, the dictates of humanity, and the highest
welfare of the republic. Even the temporary " carpet
bag" rule established by the negro's vote was demanded
by national exigency, and was preferable to the infamous
Black Code, which nullified the Proclamation of Eman
cipation and the Thirteenth Amendment, and practically
re-established slavery. There was no middle ground ; it
was a choice between the Black Code and all it meant,
and the temporary evils in such free government as could be
organized.
And the negro voted for free government. In so doing he
rendered an inestimable service to the nation. Let every
serious American reflect on this, — that it was the negro
vote which elected General Grant as President of the United
States in 1868. That is to say, if the negro vote had been
suppressed in 1868 as it is to-day — the votes of the solid
South added to the eighty scattering votes which Mr.
Seymour received in the North would have elected him
President over General Grant the hero of Appomattox. So
that in the very first presidential election following the war, it
was the negro's vote which saved from humiliating defeat the
greatest military genius of the age, — the man above all
others then living to whom the nation owes its life. If Mr.
Seymour had been elected and the South had come back into
the Union, and by its solidity had gained the ascendency in
the government in- 1868, the gravity of the cotaplications
which would have ensued cannot be exaggerated.
In 1876 the negro vote again decided the presidential
election, giving the electoral vote of South Carolina, Florida,
and Louisiana to Mr. Hayes, whom a single vote would have
defeated.
171
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Mr. Roosevelt, in his canvass for the governorship of New
York, was elected by about 17,000 majority ; and no one
doubts that it was 31,425 colored voters of the state of New
York who sealed his election. Governor Odell was elected
by about 9,000 majority, and without the colored vote his
canvass would have been hopeless.
At many points in the North the negro's vote has effected
the election of members of Congress and has been decisive in
local elections; and it has been cast on the side of good
government.
Probably the best demonstration of the safety and value
of the negro as a voter, of late years, is revealed in the
election returns for the year 1896. An examination of those
returns will prove beyond a doubt that the negro vote de
feated Mr. Bryan and elected Mr. McKinley as President of
the United States.
There are the facts : California gave Mr. McKinley eight
electoral votes by 2,797 majority ; but California has 3,711
colored voters. Delaware gave Mr. McKinley three electoral
votes by 3,630 majority; but Delaware has 8,374 colored
voters. Indiana gave Mr. McKinley fifteen electoral votes
by 18,181 majority ; but Indiana has 18,186 colored voters.
Kentucky gave Mr. McKinley twelve electoral votes by 281
majority ; but Kentucky has 74,728 colored voters. Mary
land gave Mr. McKinley eight electoral votes by 32,264
majority; but Maryland has 60,406 colored voters. West
Virginia gave Mr. McKinley six electoral votes by 11,487
majority ; but West Virginia has 14,726 colored voters. These
six states gave Mr. McKinley 52 electoral votes.
There can be no doubt of the colored vote being the decid
ing factor in each of these states, as that vote outnumbered
the majority in each state, and the colored vote is practically
wholly republican. If this vote were suppressed in these
states, Mr. McKinley's majorities would be wiped out in
each case. If these 52 votes are subtracted from the 271
172
FALSE ALARM OF NEGRO DOMINATION
electoral votes which Mr. McKinley received, it would leave
him 219. If these 52 votes be added to the 176 electoral
votes cast for Mr. Bryan, it would give him 228 electoral votes,
a majority of nine over Mr. McKinley, and he would have
been made president.
The evidence seems thus conclusive that, in the most
exciting campaign of a generation, a campaign involving
directly the vast financial interest of the nation, and with
it every business enterprise of whatsoever nature, and the
direct and immediate interest and welfare of every man,
woman, and child, — that in this momentous campaign the
negro vote was the saving factor. It prevented a result
which would have ruinously affected every class of population.
The negro vote saved the country from the follies and crime
of free silver, free trade, and free riot.
An examination of the election returns of 1880 in Con
necticut, Colorado, Indiana, New York, Oregon, and Rhode
Island will also show that it was the negro vote in these
states which elected General Garfield to the presidency.
The returns of the election of 1888 also disclose the fact
that the negro vote in Illinois, Indiana, New York, Ohio, and
Rhode Island determined the election of General Benjamin
Harrison as president.
The credit is given to the negro vote because it is the only
vote that is contested, and gigantic efforts have been made
and are being made to destroy it. If it had been fully sup
pressed throughout the country, then, as we have seen, the
solid South would have defeated Grant in 1868, Hayes in
1876, Garfield in 1880, Harrison in 1888, and McKinley
in 1896. Besides, neither the McKinley nor the Dingley
tariff measures would have been possible if the negro vote
had been suppressed throughout the country as it is in
South Carolina and Mississippi to-day.
It has so happened that in each instance the majority in
the House of Representatives which has enacted the great
173
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
national policies of the government from the time of recon
struction, 1868, to the present has been due to the ballot in
the hands of the colored man. It thus becomes evident that if
by defamation and persecution of the colored man, his ballot
can be destroyed, the autocrats of the solid South would
have a clear chance to gain control of the government, shape
its destiny, and intrench the barbarous traditions of slavery.
The majority in the 58th Congress which passed the Panama
Canal bill and other important legislation is due to the negro
ballot.
Senator Blair of New Hampshire, in a recent address at
Washington, said : " The colored people are the only ones in
the South that have sense enough to vote the Republican
ticket, and disfranchisement is not only unwise, and unjust,
but a crime."
Here is the kernel of a great truth. The white people of
the South have voted persistently and solidly against every
measure of great national benefit for forty years. The
colored people have voted as persistently and as solidly,
wherever permitted to do so, in favor of such measures ; so
that while the white vote of the South has been inimical to
the great interests of the country, these have been saved by
the colored vote.
Thus the colored vote has proved a veritable godsend to
the nation. Without this vote the most important and
fruitful national policies would have been impossible of in
auguration. The negro vote is a failure only when it is sup
pressed by the intimidation, fraud, and shot-guns of the
whites.
The Union League Club of the city of New York, one of
the most influential of all political organizations aside from
the two great parties, has recently taken action which will
have important bearings on the whole question. This club
rendered the republic invaluable services in the dark days of
the rebellion, and it has proved a tower of strength in the
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FALSE ALARM OF NEGRO DOMINATION
emergencies of subsequent years. At a recent meeting, it
unanimously adopted the following resolutions : —
" Resolved, That the Government be requested to instruct
the district attorneys in the various states where an illegal
suppression of votes is alleged, to prosecute every case where
there has been a violation of the laws of the United States
in respect of the suffrage, if adequate evidence can be
obtained to justify a submission of such case to the grand
jury.
"Resolved, First, That Congress be requested and re
spectfully urged to investigate with thoroughness and impar
tiality the charges of a suppression of votes contrary to the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution
of the United States, and in every case where such reduction
is accomplished by a limitation of the franchise for any
reason, and that in proportion to the number of votes so dis
franchised, the representation of such state in Congress be
reduced ; and also to see that the Fifteenth Amendment be
in no way violated, either directly or by subterfuge ; and,
"Second, That where the decisions of the courts or the
practices at elections disclose the fact that the present statutes
are inadequate, amendatory acts be passed remedying the
defects disclosed."
These resolutions were based on a report of a committee
which had thoroughly investigated every phase of the ques
tion, and which was summarized as follows : —
" The demoralizing effect of such a condition as this every
one must admit. The idea that the people of this country,
great and small, old and young, of every nation, kindred, and
tongue, are to be educated upon the theory that a continued
and wholesale violation of the fundamental law of the nation
can go unpunished must produce a frightful effect ; and there
has never been a time in the history of the country, when, if
it be true that these violations exist, there was a condition
at all like the present.
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
" If the facts asserted in regard to this matter be true,
there is a deliberate nullification of the Constitution of the
United States, — a thing which no country can or ought to
permit while it cherishes the idea that it is governed by law.
If this condition exists, we are far from our great ideal, for
we are a government of some of the people, by some of the
people, and for some of the people.""
Here is a moderate, conservative, dignified petition to the
Government of the United States to investigate certain evils,
wrongs, and crimes against a whole class of American citizens ;
evils, wrongs, and crimes which every man in the republic
knows to exist, and which are repugnant to civilization, ini
mical to good order, and in open violation of the Constitution
of the United States.
The Government is petitioned to use its lawful authority
to ameliorate these conditions. How is this calm, dispassion
ate, and dignified petition received ?
The "Jim Crowites" were greatly stirred up. Mr. Robert
C. Ogden, a prominent business man of New York, prac
tically voicing Southern sentiment, declared that the influence
of the petition would be as follows : —
First. To injure the material, political, and educational
interest of the negro in the Southern states.
Second. To discourage the growth of academic freedom
in the South. The recent action of the board of trustees of
one of the most important of Southern colleges was a notable
victory for intellectual independence. The movement toward
academic freedom will be hindered just in proportion to
Northern use of the negro in party politics.
Third. A prominent representative of the opposition party
is seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidency
upon the negro issue. If the proposed action is taken it
will contribute powerfully toward securing that nomination.
Fourth. The Northern introduction of the color question
into Republican politics will make doubly sure the continuity
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FALSE ALARM OF NEGRO DOMINATION
of the Democratic solidity of the South, and supply the very
weapons that Democracy needs in the fight against Republi
canism, thus adding to the difficulty of electing our national
candidate.
Fifth. It will retard and hinder the further progress of
the sober public opinion of the best South in the effort to
secure justice for the negro.
Mr. Ogden also affirms that he believes in the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Amendments. He is like unto the old deacon
in Maine, who "believed in prohibition, but was agin its
enforcement.11
Let us examine in detail Mr. Ogden's specific statements.
His first reason is the same old argument so vigorously em
ployed by the Southern leaders — that if the nation shall
dare to interfere with them in their work of subjugating a
people they will take reprisals on the negro, cut down his
school privileges, deny him protection of the law, make life
hard for him, and otherwise maltreat him, or even lynch him.
They can at will foment race slaughter, like that at Kishineff,
and dignify such acts as race riots, but the whole world will
know that there was a race massacre.
But the Government should not be moved by such consider
ation ; it should go straight ahead and do what is right and
proper in the premises. When these leaders stir up race riots,
the Government and the great legions of law-abiding people
in the South can take care of that matter. There is a large
and increasing element among the Southern people who be
lieve that the leaders have gone entirely too far and have
brought nothing but disgrace on the South.
Mr. Ogden^s second reason is an insult to the Southern
people. " Academic freedom ? " Is not the South civilized ?
Is it not a Christian people ? Do they need " academic
freedom11 to decide whether law and order should be ob
served ; whether an equal citizen should be outlawed and
forced into servitude, and the laws of the land and the laws
19 177
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
of God set at nought ; whether the Constitutional guaran
ties of American citizenship and manhood are myths ; and
whether a man living in South Carolina should be three
times as potential in Congress and in the electoral college
as a man in New Hampshire or Colorado ?
Does Mr. Ogden not know that while " academic freedom "
is incubating the Southern leaders are going straight ahead
fastening the chains of serfdom around the neck of a whole
race? Will he kindly inform the public just how long it
will be necessary to suspend the Constitution of the United
States in order to achieve this " academic freedom " ?
His third reason is childish. He is afraid that, if the
proposed action is taken, the South will "get mad," and
through the Democratic party nominate a man like Mr.
Gorman or Mr. Tillman for the presidency. Everybody
knows that the Democratic party has done rash things, but
it has done nothing so foolhardy as this. And if it should
make such a nomination, the day of election would disclose
that the Democratic party in the North was not only " out
of business," but stiff in the grasp of rigor mortis. Mr.
Ogden may rest contented. His fears will not materialize.
The Democratic party will not commit suicide.
His fourth reason would seem to indicate, if we did not
have good evidence to the contrary, that he had been asleep
forty years, twice as long as good old Rip Van Winkle. He
says, "The Northern introduction of the color question into
Republican politics will make doubly sure the continuity of
the Democratic solidity of the South."
If Mr. Ogden should jog his memory just a little, it would
tell him that the color question was in Republican politics at
the birth of the party, and it has been very much alive in
Republican politics ever since. The one thing that has dis
tinguished that party and has made it " the party of grand
moral ideas," that has caused it to represent before the world
the conscience of the American people, and brought to it its
178
FALSE ALARM OF NEGRO DOMINATION
greatest victories, is the color question in its politics. Its
highest glory and most magnificent achievements in peace
and in war are inseparably associated with the color question
in its politics.
If, because the Republican party upholds the Constitution
of the United States and demands that the vital issues settled
by the War of the Rebellion shall stay settled, and that serf
dom shall not take the place of slavery, and that all Ameri
can citizens shall have equal rights before the law, without
regard to race or color — if these things shall " make doubly
sure the continuity of the Democratic solidity of the South,"
then may the good Lord have mercy on the South.
Mr. Ogden?s fifth reason is a flagrant impeachment of the
" best South." If this petition " will retard and hinder the
further progress of the sober public opinion of the best
South," then indeed the conditions of the social organism in
the South are worse than the average American would like
to believe. This would seem to prove that the barbarism
of slavery is a greater handicap on the whites than on the
colored people.
The " best South " ought to welcome most heartily any
lawful steps by the Government which will promote law and
order, and bring about an honest and righteous settlement of
the race question, guaranteeing the equal protection of the
rights and liberty of all classes and restoring the equality of
representation among the states.
Alexander Hamilton, the trusted supporter of George
Washington, and exponent of the Constitution, said :
"There can be no truer principle than this, that every
individual of the community has an equal right to the pro
tection of Government. Can this be a righteous government
if partial distinctions are maintained?"
The French Constitution of 1 793 holds aloft this torch for
the illumination of the world : " Government is instituted
to insure to man the free use of his natural and inalienable
179
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
rights. These rights are equality, liberty, security, property.
All men are equal by nature and before the law. Law is the
same for all, be it protective or penal. Freedom is the power
by which men can do what does not interfere with the rights
of another ; its basis is nature ; its standard is justice ; its
protection is law ; its moral boundary is the maxim, ' Do not
unto others what you do not wish they should do unto
you.' "
Inequalities before the law lead surely to abuses, wrongs,
oppression, and inhumanities. Unsettled questions exist re
gardless of the peace of a nation. There can be no peace
until South Carolina and Mississippi shall be as just in gov
ernment as Massachusetts and Minnesota ; until liberty and
law, for one and for all, shall be respected by all, even as
it is written in the Constitution of the republic.
The Supreme Court of the United States has rendered a
decision covering the vital questions of the Thirteenth, Four
teenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of
the United States. Let that decision (see Wallace's Reports,
16th volume) speak for itself.
Associate-Justice Miller, speaking for the court, said:
" The process of restoring to their proper relations with the
Federal Government and with other states those which had
sided with the Rebellion, undertaken under the proclamation
of President Johnson in 1865, and before the assembling of
Congress, developed the fact that, notwithstanding the formal
recognition by those states of the abolition of slavery, the
condition of the slave race would, without further protection
of the Federal Government, be almost as bad as it was before.
Among the first acts of legislation adopted by several of the
states in the legislative bodies which claimed to be in their
normal relations with the Federal Government, were laws
which imposed upon the colored race onerous disabilities and
burdens, and curtailed their rights in the pursuit of life,
liberty, and property to such an extent that their freedom
180
FALSE ALARM OF NEGRO DOMINATION
was of little value, while they had lost the protection which
they had received from their former owners from motives
both of interest and humanity.
" They were in some states forbidden to appear in the
towns in any other character than menial servants.
"They were required to reside on and cultivate the
soil, without the right to own it or purchase it. They
were excluded from any occupation or gain, and were
not permitted to give testimony in the courts in any
case where a white man was a party. It was said that
their lives were at the mercy of bad men, either because
the laws for their protection were insufficient or were not
enforced.
"These circumstances, whatever of falsehood or miscon
ception may have been mingled with their presentation,
forced upon the statesmen who had conducted the Federal
Government in safety through the crisis of the Rebellion, and
who supposed that by the Thirteenth Article of Amendment
they had secured the results of their labors, the conviction
that something more was necessary in the way of Constitu
tional protection to the unfortunate race who had suffered so
much. They accordingly passed through Congress the pro
position for the Fourteenth Amendment, and they declined
to treat as restored to their full participation in the govern
ment of the Union the states which had been in insurrection
until they ratified that article by a formal vote of their
legislative bodies.
" Before we proceed to examine more critically the pro
visions of this amendment, on which the plaintiffs in error
rely, let us complete and dismiss the history of the recent
amendments, as that history relates to the general purpose
which pervades them all.
" A few years' experience satisfied the thoughtful men who
had been the authors of the other two amendments, that, not
withstanding the restraints of these articles on the state, and
181
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
the laws passed under the additional powers granted to Con
gress, these were inadequate for the protection of life, liberty,
and property, without which freedom to the negro was no boon.
They were in all those states denied the right of suffrage.
The laws were administered by the white man alone. It was
urged that a race of men distinctly marked as was the negro,
living in the midst of another and dominant race, could never
be fully secured in their person and their right without the
right of suffrage.
" Hence the Fifteenth Amendment, which declares that
6 the right of a citizen of the United States to vote shall not
be denied or abridged by any state on account of race, color,
or previous condition of servitude.1
" The negro, having by the Fourteenth Amendment been
declared to be a citizen of the United States, is thus made a
voter in every state of the Union.
" We repeat, then, in the light of this recapitulation of
events almost too recent to be called history, but which are
familiar to us all on the most casual examination of the
language of these amendments, no one can fail to be im
pressed with the one pervading purpose found in them all,
lying at the foundation of each, and without which none of
them would have been suggested : WE MEAN THE FREEDOM
OF THE SLAVE RACE, THE SECURITY AND FIRM ESTABLISHMENT OF
THAT FREEDOM, AND THE PROTECTION OF THE NEWLY MADE
FREEMAN AND CITIZEN FROM THE OPPRESSION OF THOSE WHO HAD
FORMERLY EXERCISED UNLIMITED DOMINION OVER HIM.
" It is true that only the Fifteenth Amendment in terms
mentions the negro by speaking of his color and his slavery.
But it is just as true that each of the other articles was
addressed to the grievances of that race, and designed to
remedy them, as was the Fifteenth. "
This clean-cut, invincible decision of the highest tribunal
of the republic destroys every contention of the enemies of
liberty and makes impregnable the position of its friends.
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CHAPTER VI
THE NEGRO IN POLITICS
THREE pen pictures have been made of President
Roosevelt which, taken together, show us the man.
One is drawn by the Honorable John D. Long, a
political partisan and personal friend, formerly Governor of
Massachusetts, and Secretary of the Navy during the Spanish-
American War. Another is painted by the New York
World, a political opponent, but honestly critical. The
third is drawn by a non-partisan, or independent, President
Eliot of Harvard University, the foremost educator in the
land, the Dean of American scholars. There are no more
discriminating nor more trustworthy sources by which a true
estimate of a man may be formed.
These are the pictures presented. John D. Long, depicts
him as follows: "Theodore Roosevelt. What an American
career ! What a fitting for his present great place ! Child
of the great metropolis, graduate of our own Harvard, a
citizen of the Western plains, touching indeed every phase
of our national life, a student of our history, a soldier of our
army, Governor of the Empire State, honest, earnest, brave,
high-minded, direct, forceful, and always, let us say here, a
true Republican, whoever else falls off! The people like him.
He preaches them sermons of manliness and right living,
fidelity to duty, and they believe that he is himself even a
better sermon than his sermons. There is no great question
that he does not face, whether it be the trusts, or the tariff,
or our duty to Cuba and the Philippines, or the purity of
the civil service, or the development of our trade, or the
welfare of the East, or West, or North, or South ! He
voices even more than the spirit of a party — he voices the
spirit of the people."
183
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
The New York World, his most powerful political oppo
nent, paints him thus : " President Roosevelt does not
carry his ideas of democratic equality quite so far as Thomas
Jefferson did. He respects all the conventions of official
society in public, but in his private and personal relations he
is a pretty thorough-going democrat. He often goes to
shake the grimy hand of an engine-driver who has carried
him safely on a railway journey. He is ' hail-fellow well
met ' with his old friends among the cowboys and the Rough-
Riders. And just now he has in Washington, as his guest,
his old Maine woods guide, with his wife and some friends,
who have all taken lunch with the President and Mrs.
Roosevelt in the White House.
" It is safe to say that none of our mushroom aristocracy,
and very few even of the older growth, would be thus familar
with their 'plain' friends — though a good type of the
independent native guide of the Adirondacks or the Maine
woods is at heart as thorough a gentleman, in the real mean
ing of the word, and is certainly much better company than
one half of the vapid men-folk who help to make up what is
called ' society.'
" Yet, Mr. Roosevelt could boast, if he were weak enough,
of fine old ' Knickerbocker blood,' and, though not rich in
the modern meaning of the word, he has always lived in an
atmosphere of \yealth, refinement, and culture.
" That he still believes, in respect to sterling worth un
adorned with either wrealth or book-learning or social graces,
that 'a man 's a man for a' that,' and that, though occupying
the highest station in the land, he has the courage of his
likings and the fortitude of his friendships, is a trait of his
character which explains something of that popularity which
the politicians do not understand and which even his mistakes
do not seriously impair. A very few Americans may ' dearly
love a lord.' The great mass of them love and admire a
democrat like Lincoln, Grant, McKinley, and Roosevelt."
184
THE NEGRO IN POLITICS
And President Eliot draws this portrait of him : " Theodore
Roosevelt, President of the United States, from his youth
a member of this society of scholars, now in his prime a
true type of the sturdy gentleman, and the high-minded
public servant in a democracy. Harvard delights to honor
him."
These three pictures, taken together, faithfully and clearly
represent the man.
The Right Honorable James Bryce of England, perhaps
the greatest living student of history — learned, dispassion
ate, and philosophical — says of President Roosevelt: "He is
among the greatest presidents America has had, and is to be
mentioned only with Washington and Lincoln."
It would naturally be supposed that in a republic of free
men where — in President Roosevelt's own words — " no
man is above the law and no man below it," the whole citi
zenry would have a just pride in such a chief-magistrate.
But the fact is that no President of the United States, with
the exception of Lincoln, has been so roundly abused, and so
heatedly denounced, as Theodore Roosevelt.
It has happened repeatedly in the South that the mere
mention of his name, or the presentation of his pictures in
theatres and public halls has brought forth storms of hisses.
He has even been burned in effigy. Southerners who take
part in such performances or approve or condone them, or fail
to protest against them, injure themselves, by forfeiting the
respect of law-abiding people. Lincoln ! Roosevelt ! — these
are the two men seemingly appointed of God to face the
hate and rancor of Southern leadership. Lincoln's victory
was complete, absolute. Roosevelt's triumph has come in
the overwhelming majority by which he has been elected to
succeed himself in the presidency. God and the right were
with Lincoln ; God and the right are with Roosevelt.
There are also noteworthy coincidences in the lives of
these men.
185
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Lincoln was born in the South. Roosevelt is of Southern
extraction on his maternal side. But in this the South finds
no appeasement.
Again, Lincoln stood between the colored race and their
continued enslavement. Roosevelt stands between the colored
race and a debasing and hopeless serfdom which does not even
afford the protection of slavery. Both stand firmly on the
Gospel of Christ and the Declaration of Independence. In
the lives of both, the laws of God and the laws of the re
public find their high exemplification.
What, then, is the head of the offending of President
Roosevelt, that he should be the object of such abuse and
resentment ?
These are facts : There are ten millions of colored people in
the United States, one-eighth of the entire population. The
vast body of them reside in the South. Though equal citizens
under the law, they are yet in an abnormal condition — subject
to great wrongs, hardships, and inhumanities, not of their own
making. Mr. Roosevelt wished to consult with some well-
known, responsible persons with reference to the condition of
these people ; for he is the President of the South as well as
of the North, the President of the colored people just as he
is of the white people. No man who is worthy to be the
President of the United States would fail to have a deep
concern for the welfare of ten millions of loyal, patriotic
American citizens, especially were they seen to be under
grievous burdens, serious disadvantage, and debasing in
equalities. He therefore invited Principal Booker T. Wash
ington's presence at the White House for consultation.
Mr. Washington is the most widely known educator in the
colored race ; a man of sterling character ; conservative almost
to a fault, many think to the injury of his race ; of remarkable
mental gifts ; an executive of great ability ; a genius in diplo
macy. No white man in the South surpasses him ; few, if
any, equal him. In fact, a leading Southern white educator
186
THE NEGRO IN POLITICS
has declared that he is the greatest man the South has pro
duced since the masterful Robert E. Lee.
Mr. Washington, in compliance with the President's invita
tion, travelled hundreds of miles to meet him in Washington
City. What was more natural or becoming than that the
President should invite him to dinner ?
This was President Roosevelt^s first offending. It was a
simple act of courtesy as a gentleman; it was an act which
any ruler or high official in any country might have per
formed with perfect grace and propriety. Yet it set the
South ablaze with rage. And oh ! how the big " Jim
Crowites," and the little "Jim Crowites," and the " me too "
"Jim Crowites," and the wee wee "Jim Crowites" did smite
the air with clenched fists and denounce the President !
The following quotations show the exact nature of their
utterances : —
Senator Carmack of Tennessee fires this hot shot : " It is
an out-and-out damnable outrage ! "
Senator Tillman of South Carolina, true to his nature,
demands blood and declares : " Now that Roosevelt has
eaten with that nigger Washington, we shall have to kill
a thousand niggers to get them back to their places."
The Scimitar, a paper published at Memphis, Tennessee,
makes this declaration : " The most damnable outrage
which has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United
States was committed yesterday by the President, when he
invited a nigger to dine with him at the White House."
The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tennessee, says :
" The example of president or potentate cannot change our
views. If some coarse-fibred men cannot understand them
it is not the concern of the Southern people."
The News, Richmond, Virginia, declares : " At one stroke
and by one act he has destroyed regard for him. He has put
himself further from us than any man who has ever been in
the White House."
187
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Governor Candler of Georgia, with vulgar assumption,
thus explodes : " No self-respecting man can ally himself
with the President, after what has occurred. . . . And no
Southerner can respect any white man who would eat with a
negro."
The Times-Democrat, New Orleans, Louisiana, makes this
plaintive appeal : " The President of the United States has
entertained a negro at dinner in the White House. White
men of the South, how do you like it? White women of
the South, how do you like it ? "
Governor McSweeney of South Carolina declares : " No
white man who has eaten with a negro can be respected ;
it is simply a question of whether those who are invited
to dine are fit to marry the sisters and daughters of their
hosts."
But Japanese, Chinese, and Indians have eaten at the
White House without raising the thought of a marriage. Is
it in vogue among any order of society, that an invitation
to dine carries with it the expectation or the obligation of
marrying off sisters and daughters ?
The Enterprise, Birmingham, Alabama, says : " The in
cident of counselling with a negro and dining him establishes
a precedent humiliating to the South."
His reverence, Bishop Kelly of Savannah, Georgia, uses
the following intemperate language : " The recreant son of
a Southern mother, who can hobnob with the Kaiser's brother
and sit cheek by jowl with an Alabama negro."
And Senator Money of Mississippi, with a hypocrisy that
is at once amazing and amusing, declares : " Any white man
who should sit down to a meal with a negro would be ever
lastingly disgraced in the eyes of the South."
Bishop Kelly well knows, Senator Money well knows, and
the whole country well knows that white men of the South
have come into closer relations with negroes and committed
far grosser sins than that of sitting down to meat with a
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THE NEGRO IN POLITICS
reputable and representative colored person ; and in the eyes
of their fellows they suffered no disgrace. So that in this
particular they are certainly guilty of the charge of " strain
ing at a gnat and swallowing a camel."11
During the sessions of the Congress, especially, and also at
other times, the President is accustomed to give receptions at
which the Supreme Court justices, the foreign ambassadors,
senators, and members of the House of Representatives, offi
cials of the army and navy, and high government function
aries and distinguished individuals may be bidden to come.
There are series of such receptions. To one of these recep
tions the President invited Mr. Lyons, the Register of the
Treasury of the United States, who happens to be a colored
man. The reception was given to officers of his class. Would
it have comported with the dignity and honor of the Presi
dent of the United States to invite every other government
official of this particular class and deliberately ignore the
Register of the United States simply on the ground of
color ?
If he was unworthy to be invited to the reception, he was
not worthy to be the Register of the Treasury. President
Roosevelt only fulfilled the considerations of official etiquette
and propriety and his duty as the President of all the people
when he invited Mr. Lyons.
This simple, gentlemanly act is the second offending of the
South on the part of the President. But the haters of the
negro railed at the President, in a manner shown by the fol
lowing brief quotations.
Judge William E. Eve, Augusta, Georgia, said : " The
invitation is a blow aimed not only at the South, but at the
whole white race, and should be resented, and the President
should be regarded and treated on the same plane with
negroes.11 He seems to be oblivious of the fact that the
whole white race outside of the South most heartily com
mends and applauds the President.
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Governor Terrell of Georgia declared that he looked upon
the President and such a scandal with silent contempt.
Ex- Attorney- General Boykin Wright said : u It has done
great harm and is the greatest mistake ever made by a
president."
Representative Martin Calvin declared : " It is a blow
at every white man and woman."
Senator J. Rice Smith said : " The invitation was the
most disgusting act ever heard of on the part of any public
man."
The News, Richmond, Virginia, prints the following:
"There is just one thing for the Southern people to do.
They can and should hold themselves absolutely aloof from
any social recognition of Mr. Roosevelt. He should be
treated by Southern people precisely as if he were a negro.
" Our representatives in Congress should confine their
dealings with the President to the strictest formality. If he
should come South, he should be left to associate with the
negroes, whom he has chosen to regard as equals. He should
be treated in all respects by Southern people precisely as if
he were a negro, and with absolute indication that he is not
of our race or in any respect socially an equal with us or a
fit associate for us or any of us."
The country is familiar with various forms of the boycott,
but with nothing like this. What audacity ! what arrogance !
A social boycott is declared against the President of the
United States by the lordly aristocracy of the South, and the
President is to be " treated in all respects by Southern people
precisely as if he were a negro," and with direct intimation
that "he is not of our race, or in any respect socially an
equal with us or a fit associate for us or any of us " —
because he invited the Register of the Treasury, who happens
to be a colored man, to an official function !
The third offence of the President is political in its nature.
The colored people compose about one-third of the total
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THE NEGRO IN POLITICS
population of the South. In some of the states they are
pre-eminently the tax-makers ; in all, their varied labors and
toils are valuable contributions to the public weal ; yet they
have been ruthlessly brushed aside by intimidations and by
the shot-gun policy, and have been denied representation
in the government. That the 557,807 whites of South
Carolina should by brute force seize the government of that
state and deny all representation to the 782,321 colored
people who make the taxes which support the government ;
or that the 641,200 whites of Mississippi should by murderous
methods seize that state and refuse all representation to the
907,630 colored people without whose fruitful toil the state
would be in hopeless decay and bankruptcy, is a wrong that
cries to Heaven.
The colored people are thus denied all representation in
the state and local governments. If, now, in addition to
this, they should be denied representation in the Federal
Government the door of hope would be closed hard and fast
against them. The influences which hold them to the politi
cal and civil life of the nation would be broken ; ceasing to
be citizens, they would cease to be treated as men. They
would become nondescripts, without a definite status. They
would be derelicts on the political sea,. and the nation would
have a far greater problem than ever before.
All other things being equal, the colored man has iden
tically the same right to office as the white man. The strong
arm of the Federal Government cannot be used to destroy
his status as a citizen of the United States, completing the
work of his enemies who have already sought to eliminate
him as a citizen of the state. The appointment of colored
men to Federal offices is not only just, but is absolutely
necessary to maintain the status of the race as citizens of the
United States.
President Roosevelt recognized this principle by appointing
to Federal offices properly equipped colored men as a just
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and righteous act, where their numbers and importance as
toilers warrant it. The appointment of Dr. William D. Crum
as Collector of the port of Charleston, South Carolina, was
entirely just and proper, but it stirred up a tempest of wrath
among the Southern leaders.
If the Federal Government should for one moment concede
that a citizen shall be denied the right to hold a public office
on the ground of his color or race, it would by such conces
sion negative the amendments to the Constitution, and thus
become a violator of the laws it has sworn to uphold and
enforce, and play directly into the hands of the lawless
elements. The right of citizenship and the ballot carries
with it the right to hold a public office. Nothing could be
more absurd, foolish, and even suicidal than the proposition
which is sometimes made to the effect that the colored man
should waive his right to public office and the ballot for
about fifty years with the hope of appeasing the implacable
elements of the South. Such a waiver would be tantamount
to alienation, and would put the race outside the pale of
citizenship. What guaranty is to be given, and who is to
give it, and how is it to be made secure, that political suicide
to-day will be incarnated into the blessings of liberty fifty
or a hundred years hence ? This, indeed, is the paradise of
a fool. Liberty is gained by eternal vigilance, and not by
political suicide. The upward struggles of mankind show
that the liberty and political and civil rights of a people
are to be regarded as more precious than meat or drink,
or houses and lands, and are more to be valued than even
life itself. Liberty and their manhood rights being estab
lished, these and all things shall be gradually added. Profit
ing by his past experience the colored man will not waive a
single right of an American citizen for fifty years, nor even
for fifty seconds. What free man would waive his liberty and
his rights at the behest of a class that is bent on forging
the chains of servitude around his neck ? Connivance with
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THE NEGRO IN POLITICS
the South in violating the Constitution would prove embar
rassing to the government and perilous to the social organism.
The upheavals which are shaking the foundations of Russia,
and the cry of the proletariat for liberty cast their shadows
and point their lessons. America ! the greatest and freest
country in the world will eschew the civilization that de
grades manhood and will hold true to her ideals of liberty
and the equality of her citizenship.
The fourth cause of offence by the President was also of a
political character. The post-office at Indianola, Mississippi,
a small town, three-fourths of its inhabitants being colored
people, had been filled for seven or eight years by Mrs. Cox,
an estimable and efficient postmistress. She is a refined
woman of unblemished character, and thoroughly competent
to discharge the duties of her office. She had given entire
satisfaction in the performance of all the obligations of this
little office for over seven years, and there was no complaint
against her. But she is colored, and the men who had
carried through the wholesale disfranchisement of the colored
race and had decided on its subjugation, held a public meet
ing and demanded her resignation, — not because she was
incompetent, but on the ground of color alone. By brutal
and lawless intimidation she was expelled from her office and
exiled from the town.
The President declined to approve this flagrant violation
of law and unreasonable assault on an officer of the United
States Government, or to accept under such conditions the
resignation of the exiled postmistress, and requested that
the law-abiding element give her protection of the law.
Less than this he could not have done. Nevertheless, this
simple stand for law and order caused the most bitter hostility
throughout the South.
Senator Money of Mississippi declared : " No colored man,
no matter what his qualifications may be, should hold a
Federal office ; " and he added that the white people of the
13 193
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
South would have all colored men excluded from the army
and navy.
Mr. W. C. Chevis, editor of the Daily States, New Orleans,
said : " The Indianola incident and the Crum appointment,
determined upon after mature consideration on the part of
the President and his cabinet, cannot be interpreted as mean
ing anything else than a determination to cram an insult
down the throats of the white men of the South, and it is
accepted in this spirit here."
Mr. Charles W. Miller, editor of the Nashville Democrat,
said : " There is no doubt the action of President Roose
velt in these two cases has severed the last connecting link in
the chain of sympathy which bound him to the South."
Mr. J. S. McNeily, editor of the Vicksburg Herald, said :
" If there were a poll now, it would be found that the Presi
dent has completely alienated Southern sympathy by the
Crum appointment and closing the Indianola post-office."
Mr. J. C. Hempill, editor of the Charleston News-Courier,
declared that " The opening of the c door of hope ' to
Crum, President Roosevelt's selection for Collector of the
Port of Charleston, will be the closing of the ' door of hope '
to many of Crum's race. In a thousand ways and in no way
that will be in violation of law, Crum's race will be the
sufferer." This is a distinct threat that the whites will take
reprisal on the colored people. That is, if they are not per
mitted to snuff out the liberty of that race, destroy their
citizenship, and force them into serfdom, they will in a thou
sand ways harass and torment them and make their life
unbearable.
The press despatches reported that " Messages are hourly
coming in from all parts of the surrounding country offering
assistance, arms, money, and men if they are needed."
Mayor J. L. Davis of Indianola said : " Conditions are
such that I would not advise Mrs. Cox to open the post-
office."
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THE NEGRO IN POLITICS
Major M. C. House, commanding the First Squadron of
Cavalry of Arkansas, sent this telegram to the governor of the
state : " Subject to your order, I tender my services with one
hundred and fifty cavalry to the good people of Indianola
for their protection against negro domination. " Such is the
Southern chivalry in the twentieth century. This gallant,
brave, and heroic major offers to march his squadron of cavalry,
one hundred and fifty strong, across the state of Arkansas into
the state of Mississippi, to prevent one little, lone, helpless
woman, who with her heart in her mouth had taken flight,
and whose life was at the mercy of a Mississippi lynching
mob, from forcing negro domination on Indianola, and maybe
from compelling all the whites of the state to pass under the
yoke. This valiant major is verily a subject for caricature.
The Atlanta News said : " The News has repeatedly
stated its reasons for objecting to the appointment of negroes
to Federal office ; it gives the negro a hope that he shall con
tinue as a political factor."
Senator Tillman said : " There might be no alternative
for the Southern people but to kill negroes to prevent them
from holding office. There are still ropes and guns in the
South."
The Atlanta Journal declared : " No matter how worthy
certain members of the African race may be in character and
capacity, yet they are unacceptable as office-holders to the
white people of the Southern States." The press despatches
reported " great excitement," " high feelings," " threats "
against " all negro postal clerks, letter carriers, and other
officials, in different parts of the South." A New Orleans
newspaper boldly demanded the assassination of colored men
appointed to Federal offices.
Governor James K. Vardaman of Mississippi declared that
*' Anything that causes the negro to aspire above the
plow handle, the cook pot, in a word the functions of a ser
vant, will be the worst thing on earth for the negro," But
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
the Boston Herald warns the Governor that "hitching a
negro to a mule will not settle the race question."
This same Governor Vardaman published in his own
newspaper the following insult to President Roosevelt :
" It is said that men follow the bent of their geniuses, and
that prenatal influences are often potent in shaping thoughts
and ideas in after life. Probably old lady Roosevelt, during
the period of gestation, was frightened by a dog, and that
fact may account for the qualities of the male pup that are
so prominent in Teddy. I would not do either an injustice,
but am disposed to apologize to the dog for mentioning it."
In reference to Principal Booker T. Washington, Governor
Vardaman has this to say : " I am opposed to negro voting ;
it matters not what his advertised moral and mental qualifi
cations may be. I am just as much opposed to Booker Wash
ington as a voter, with all his Anglo-Saxon reinforcements, as
I am to the cocoanut-headed, chocolate-colored, typical little
coon, Andy Dotson, who blacks my shoes every morning.
Neither is fit to perform the supreme functions of citizenship."
Governor Vardaman denounces the education of negroes and
publicly advocates murdering and lynching ; concerning which
the Boston Herald says: "It is a safe judgment that the
white men of Mississippi who want liberty to murder negroes
with impunity, or to beat them, or condemn them to the
slavery called peonage, or to cheat them of the wages of their
labor, or to debauch their daughters are, as a rule, supporters
of Vardaman."
These criticisms and denunciations of the President, al
though not the hundredth part of those which have appeared,
are sufficiently indicative of the dominant Southern senti
ment. Well might these people offer the prayer —
" O ! wad some power the giftie gie us,
To see oursel's as ithers see us. "
At the recent Constitutional Convention of South Carolina,
called for the purpose of annulling certain provisions of the
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THE NEGRO IN POLITICS
Constitution of the United States by cancelling the citizenship
of the colored race, an influential politician of the state de
livered the valedictory address after the convention had
completed its work, saying : " We can all hope a great deal
from the Constitution we have adopted. It is not such an
instrument as we would have made if we had been a free
people. We are not a free people. We have not been since
the war. I fear it will be some time before we can call our
selves free. I have had that fact very painfully impressed
upon me for several years. If we were free, instead of hav
ing negro suffrage, we would have negro slavery ; instead of
having the United States Government, we would have the Con
federate States Government ; instead of paying $3,000,000
pension tribute, we would be receiving it ; instead of hav
ing many things that we have, we would have other and
better things. But to the extent that we are permitted to
govern ourselves and pay pension tribute to our conquerors,
we have framed as good an organic law, take it as a
whole, as the wisdom and patriotism of the state could have
desired/'1
These utterances were received with hearty and prolonged
applause and cheering.
The presiding officer of the Louisiana Constitutional Con
vention, which was called for the same purpose, used these
words in his closing speech : " What care I whether it
[the Constitution] be more or less ridiculous or not ? Does n't
it meet the case ? Does n't it let the white man vote, and
does n't it stop the negro from voting ? — and isn't that what
we came here for ? "
And another leading Southerner has declared with great
warmth and in language strenuously emphatic, if not ele
gant : " We have got our heel on the neck of the niggers and
we can hold them down ; and we have got a clutch on the
craw of the Yankees, and we can choke down their throats
our sentiments on the negro question."
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
In the midst of all these things President Roosevelt stands
calm, firm, serene. He could borrow the language of the
Apostle Paul and say : " None of these things move me."
He has beaten no retreat, evaded no responsibility, made
no apologies, but has met the issues in the only way that a
man worthy to be the President of the United States could
meet them and has defined his position as follows : " If I
could be absolutely assured of my election as president by
turning my back on the principles of human liberty as enun
ciated by Abraham Lincoln, I would be incapable of doing it
and unfit for president if I could be capable of doing it. I do
not expect to be elected president by those who would close
the door of hope against the Afro- American as a citizen.
If I am elected to this high office it must be on my record as
the executor of the law without favors or discriminations.
"The great majority of my appointments in every state
have been of white men. North and South alike, it has been
my sedulous endeavor to appoint only men of high character
and good capacity, whether white or black. But it has been
my consistent policy in every state where the numbers war
ranted it to recognize colored men of good repute and stand
ing in making appointments to office. I cannot consent to
take the position that the door of hope — the door of oppor
tunity — is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy,
purely upon the grounds of race or color. . . . Such an
attitude would be, according to my convictions, funda
mentally wrong. ... It seems to me that it is a good
thing from every standpoint to let the colored man know
that if he shows in marked degree the qualities of good
citizenship — the qualities which in a white man we feel
are entitled to reward — then he will not be cut off from all
hope of similar reward."
President Roosevelt further says : " In this country of
all others, it behooves us to show an example to the world,
not by words only, but by deeds, that we have faith in the
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THE NEGRO IN POLITICS
doctrine that each man should be treated on his own worth
as a man, without regard to his creed or his race.1'
The line of cleavage between the President and the domi
nant Southern sentiment is unmistakable. Which of these
sentiments represents American civilization ? Which repre
sents American Christianity? Which represents the spirit
of humanity and the ideals of republican government? Is
there the slightest doubt that if the American people were
to be judged by the dominant Southern sentiment, they
would be regarded in the eyes of the civilized world as a
backward, retrograde people ? But happily there is a wide
gulf between " Jim Crowism " and Americanism. In no sense
does " Jim Crowism " represent American public opinion.
It does not represent even the sober second thought of the
South. It is the outgrowth of a diseased mind, — a mind
infected by the virus of slavery ; and by a combination of
circumstances it has wrought much havoc. Although the
Southern leaders have organized secret, oath-bound societies
sworn to destroy the negro as a man, as a citizen, and as a
member of the social organization, yet, it is as certain as fate
that an aroused Southern conscience, and an enlightened
moral sense, and the irresistible public opinion of this re
public will ultimately triumph.
In this conflict, forced on the President by the reactionary
and retrograde elements in the South, the people of the
nation at large have not been indifferent spectators. They
have given him emphatic endorsement, and he has not been
without whole-souled supporters among the more thoughtful
and conservative Southerners. The spirit of the North, as in
the case of that at the South, is best represented by quoting
the actual words of some of the opinions that have been
vouchsafed.
President Eliot of Harvard has thus expressed himself:
" Harvard dined Booker Washington at the table last com
mencement, and Harvard conferred an honorary degree upon
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
him. This ought to show what Harvard thinks about the
matter."
President Hadley of Yale, President Tucker of Dartmouth,
President Angell of the University of Michigan, and other
leading educators give Mr. Roosevelt unqualified endorse
ment. They have entertained Mr. Washington and sat at
vneat with colored guests.
Bishop Potter of New York said : " He is fit to sit at
any table in the land. Yes, I see the Bourbons are in a fit
again ! As I entertained Mr. Washington at my table last
winter, and know that no more courteous and exact man
exists, I naturally feel that there is no reason in the outcry.""
The Methodist ministers of Philadelphia and vicinity, at
their regular meeting, commend the " courageous and broad-
minded act of our President, and we hail it with joy as an
auspicious omen that the weight of the great office of the
President of the United States is to be cast in the interest of
the equal rights of all our citizens before God under the laws
of the land." Other religious bodies in Chicago and in every
part of the North strongly uphold the President ; many
churches, separately, also endorsed his actions.
Governor Richard Yates of Illinois, son of the great war
governor, has said : " When we were in the crisis of a
great war we were not so particular about social equality,
whatever that is. We needed the negro and he helped us,
\ and now we will stand by him. All things being equal, he
* has exactly the same rights to the courtesies of the White
House that a white man has."
Some additional personal opinions are equally to the
point : —
" It is time for Northern justice to demand that the negro
citizen be accorded the same honor and privileges which are
accorded to the white citizen. ... I marvel at the patience
of the negro. . . . He is demanding his rightful citizenship
and must have it." [Reverend G. S. Rollins of Minneapolis.]
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" Our President, following in the wake of the immortal
Lincoln and the crowned McKinley, has contended and still
contends for the rights of the colored citizens. This has
called forth a storm of abuse in certain quarters. Two
million men gave themselves to help the negro to freedom,
and millions are ready to maintain him there." [Reverend
E. J. Smith of Cleveland, Ohio.]
"Every good citizen of the country admires President
Roosevelt, and every good citizen admires his guest." [Rev
erend George A. Gordon, D.D.]
" I have invited Booker Washington to my house. He
has been my guest at my table. When he comes to Boston
I shall be glad to do it again." [Major Henry L. Higginson.]
" I uphold the President in the bold stand he has taken."
[Professor Charles Eliot Norton.]
" The President is just right." [Moorfield Storey.]
" I think that President Roosevelt did perfectly right in
inviting Booker T. Washington to dine with him. The
President did a gracious act in inviting him to partake of his
hospitality." [Mrs. Mary A. Livermore.]
" If I were in Roosevelt's place, I would do the same thing
myself." [Professor Nathaniel S. Shaler, Dean of the Scien
tific School of Harvard University.]
"I heartily approve of President Roosevelt's course."
[Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson.]
"The President did just right." [Reverend Paul Revere
Frothingham.]
" I think the action of President Roosevelt in entertaining
Mr. Booker T. Washington at the Executive Mansion was
eminently wise, timely, and proper." [Henry B. Blackwell.]
" The President should have the privilege of inviting any
citizen of the United States to his dinner table, regardless of
race, color, or creed." [Major Charles G. Davis.]
"It was a fine object lesson and most encouraging. It
was the act of a gentleman, an act of unconscious, natural
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
simplicity. A democracy should be color blind."" [William
Lloyd Garrison.]
" It is not necessary for me to defend the conduct of the
President of the United States. He is well able to do that
himself. I cannot understand why men should criticise the
Christian act of a Christian magistrate in breaking bread with
one of the foremost figures of this age, simply because of his
color." [Reverend George C. Lorirner.]
"Our President at Washington recently invited to his
table a good man, a Christian man, a scholar, a gentleman ;
and any man who is privileged to have Booker Washington
to eat with him at his table should feel himself honored."
[Reverend Charles M. Sheldon, Topeka, Kansas.]
And the following expressions may be regarded as repre
senting the press of the North. The Boston Herald says :
" There has been no incident in politics for a score of years
that has so united the men who originally comprised the
Republican party in opinion with regard to a subject as the
attack upon President Roosevelt for calling Booker Washing
ton to his dining-table. Incidents which induced a lower
tone as regards public affairs have notoriously parted many
men of character and ability from that party association dur
ing that time ; but the raising of the color issue in this way
has been to them like a rallying note to the old standard.
. . . Here is genuine Republicanism of better days. They
stand by the President in being true to it. No men endorsed
his action in this matter more promptly and unreservedly
than those who have felt compelled to separate from the
Republican organization because its course has been objec
tionable in other respects. . . .
"Booker Washington is a superior man without regard
to his color. No man can see him and escape the feeling
that here is a superior example of human nature in its best
development, aside from accidental conditions as to race or
birth. The man rises above these, and appeals to something
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they cannot seriously affect. He illustrates their unimpor
tance, as weighed in the scale of intellect and manhood, with
an effectiveness which makes race prejudice appear at its
worst when brought into operation against him.11
The New York World says : " The President has right and
reason on his side in insisting upon a vote by the Senate upon
the nomination of Dr. Crum, the colored man whose nomina
tion as Collector of Customs at Charleston has been reported
adversely by the Committee on Commence. His position is
that he made the nomination deliberately, after ascertaining
the fitness of Dr. Crum for the office, and that as no objec
tion except his color is urged against the nominee he desires
to have a direct expression of the judgment of the Senate
upon the question at issue — whether men, the represent
atives of 8,000,000 citizens equal in political rights, are to be
debarred from office at the South, on account of ' race, color,
or previous condition of servitude.' We certainly hope that
the President will adhere to this attitude. The Republican
senators should not be permitted to escape a record upon
this question. If they are prepared to abandon these princi
ples and professions of their party in the past, they ought to
have the courage of their apostasy. If they are ready to
stand with the President in refusing to consent that 'the
door of hope, the door of opportunity,' is to be shut upon
any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of
race or color, they ought to be willing and even anxious to
let the country know it.
"The World does not hesitate to say that it thinks the
Southern whites are making a serious mistake in reviving the
race issue in its extremest form against a President who has
made fewer appointments of colored men to office than any of
his predecessors."
The Evening Sun says : " The Indianola post-office row
seems to be a tempest in a teapot. Mississippi will hardly
secede or the South fly to arms, because the negro post-
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
mistress has retired to Alabama and the office is temporarily
closed. That excitable New Orleans sheet which accuses the
President of deliberately ' offending and insulting the white
people of the South ' does not understand Mr. Roosevelt's
position, and it seems to forget that the postmistress at
Indianola was an old incumbent who had shown herself
capable and trustworthy. The appointment and protection
of postmasters is a Federal matter and the Government must
not show weakness or vacillation in asserting its authority."
The Press says : " Those who applaud the President's
militant chivalry, however, must gain no little compensation
from the savage attitude struck by such organs as the New
Orleans States, which says : ' If President Roosevelt has
made up his mind to outrage and insult people of the South
by appointing and keeping in office obnoxious negroes [not
incompetent or corrupt negroes, mark you, but merely ob
noxious negroes, for all negroes are obnoxious to those people
of the South for whom this New Orleans paper speaks],
his negro appointees will be killed, just as the negro
appointees of other Republican Presidents have been put out
of the way? Yet if the enemies of his race policy will range
themselves alongside those for whom the New Orleans assassin
is spokesman the difficult road he must travel will be made
much easier."
The Tribune says : " The President has chosen exactly
the right moment to send to the Senate his long contem
plated nomination of Dr. Crum, to be Collector of the port
of Charleston. The persecution of the capable and respect
able postmistress of Indianola, Miss., solely on account of
color, has made an issue to be faced. The office of Collector
is considered too sacred to be profaned by an occupant with
a black skin, just as the postoffice at Indianola is considered
too sacred to be profaned by a woman with black skin, though
she profaned it for several years to the satisfaction of the
white community, until some of the loafers thought it was
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time to assert their aristocratic Caucasianism and teach
4 niggers ' their place. Under such circumstances the dignity
of government and respect for the principles of its Constitu
tion call for an emphatic stand, not for negro office-holding
in general, but for the Government's right to appoint negroes
to office when it sees fit. The agitation against Dr. Crum
has practically amounted to a denial of that right, and the
President correctly judges that the way to defend the right
is to exercise it."
" Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." The republic
has not been vigilant in the safeguarding of the liberty of
its citizens. In this matter it has fallen into apathy, and this
apathy was the opportunity of the reactionists.
In 1890 Mississippi violated the Constitution of the
United States, defied the national Government, and disre
garded the decision of the Supreme Court of the United
States, by the wholesale disfranchisement of the colored race.
If this movement had been promptly met by the reduction
of her representatives in the Congress and the electoral
college to the basis of her white population plus the actual
number of registered colored voters, no Southern state would
have followed her example. Nor would the white people of
Mississippi have consented to the reduction of their repre
sentatives in the Congress and the electoral college simply
for the glory of disfranchising the negroes.
If in the early stages the republic had displayed the same
horror over the various acts of violence in the South that
they did show over the Kishineff shame in far-off Russia, mob
rule and lynch law would not have become so firmly intrenched
on American soil. But the nation has remained quiescent,
notwithstanding the repeated nullification of its organic laws,
and the long train of frightful horrors that followed. This
quiescence has been interpreted by the reactionists as ac
quiescence, and they feel emboldened to proceed to crush and
keep in subjugation the colored race.
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
In dillydallying with the reactionists, the nation has been
playing with fire, and it is being burnt. These reactionists
are so well organized into secret clans that by the mere
" touch of the button " they can bring forth complaints and
threats at any time from every Southern centre in the form
of interviews on the necessity of " teaching the negroes their
place." It is, however, all for effect.
The attempt to " Jim-Crow " the President of the United
States and coerce the Government of the United States to dis
regard its own citizens on the ground of color alone and deny
them all share in the government is preposterous. But
neither Mr. Roosevelt nor the many thousands of people in the
North, churchmen, professional men, capitalists, bankers, men
of affairs, educators, sons of toil, and in fact representatives
of all classes who have broken bread at a feast where there was
a colored guest, will feel alarmed at the threats of violence, or
be degraded by the social " boycott " declared against them
by the Southern aristocrats.
The race problem has reached an acute stage in its de
velopment. The serpent of slavery was coddled and nursed
in the nations bosom and warmed into life ; it gained in
strength and power until it all but stung the republic to
death. If the more subtle and treacherous monster, serfdom,
shall be allowed to wind itself around the vitals of the re
public, it will strangle liberty and constitutional government.
Its sting may be even more destructive than that of the
serpent of slavery.
It ought not to be admitted even for a moment that any
class of citizens is above the law or any class is below the
law. Nor, on the ground of color alone, shall a citizen —
otherwise entirely worthy and capable — be denied the right
to participate in the government or hold an office under it.
It is true that any interference with plans of the reaction
ists to subjugate the colored race may produce more or less
trouble. Expressions of defiance are to be expected. Re-
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THE NEGRO IN POLITICS
prisals threatened on the colored people may be carried out
to some extent. But all that they can do is inconsequential
in comparison with the great national object to be attained.
To use the language of the decision of the Supreme Court of
the United States, " We mean the freedom of the slave race,
the security and Jirm establishment of that freedom, and the
protection of the newly made freeman and citizen from, the
oppression of those who had formerly exercised unlimited
dominion over him" The path of duty is plain.
We have now to consider the political conditions in the
South which may be included under the significant term
" Lily-whitism." For some years there has been much
speculation about the organization of a new republican party
in the South. The old organization had rendered signal and
invaluable services to the republic in the hour of its greatest
need. To it belongs the credit of the establishment of the
first free governments in the South. It also gave the South
its first system of free public schools. Through it the nation
reconstructed the Southern states at the close of the War of
the Rebellion, and without it reconstruction with free govern
ment would have been impossible, and the fruits of the war
could not have been preserved.
But its constituency was largely colored men ; its leaders
were conservative Southerners and Northern men who had
settled in the South. Naturally these became a mark for the
great body of the Southern white people, because they stood
athwart the purposes of the latter and foiled their plans.
Nevertheless, these Republicans elected presidential electors,
and United States senators and representatives in Congress ;
notwithstanding the fact that in recent years they have been
opposed by the shot-gun policy.
Gross and serious charges of corruption were laid against
the old organization, but not always justly. For when one
considers the surrounding circumstances, the inflamed passions,
and chaotic conditions at the close of a great war, the cross
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
purposes of the contending parties, and how the organization
was hedged about and hampered by the great mass of the
whites — it will be seen that great blunders and venality
were invited. But the organization was republican in princi
ples ; it was patriotic, it was liberty-loving, and it was just
to colored and white men alike.
The "Lily-white" Republican party which assumes in some
of the states to take the place of the old Republican party is
composed mainly of disappointed Democrats, men whose ambi
tions for power and thirst for office were not satisfied in their
own party. After bitterly opposing the Republican party for
years, and not receiving the recognition they sought in the
Democratic organization, they deserted to the Republican
party and proceeded at once by the same oppressive methods
formerly employed to harass and defeat republicanism, to
seize control of the Republican organization and oust those
who had been loyal and true to its standards for forty
years.
There is absolutely nothing to choose between the democ
racy of Tillman and Vardaman and this " Lily-whitism."
They are equally brutal, unrepublican, unmoral. The chief
aim of both is to oppress and degrade the members of the
colored race, destroy their manhood and citizenship, and
appropriate the offices.
In the course of American history there have arisen a
number of political parties, but each party has hitherto
stood for some definite principle, even though it may have
been some wild fad or quack nostrum, to be enforced as the
policy of the government. The Federalists, the Democrats,
the Whigs, the Free-Soilers, the Republicans, the Green-
backers, the Populists, the Prohibitionists — these all stand
for certain governmental policies.
But what do the " Lily-white " Republicans stand for ?
Their platform might be expressed in a single sentence.
Condensed into common Southern speech, it would be:
208
THE NEGRO IN POLITICS
" Down imd de niggers ; gin us de offices ; dot ^s what we stan
fir."
The " Lily-whites'" have demanded the control of the Federal
patronage as a necessary condition for voting the Republican
ticket. They plaintively appealed to McKinley and took
the public into their confidence, — promising that, if they
only had control of the Federal offices in the South, they
" would build up a respectable white Republican party."
The idea that these politicians, who publicly repudiate the
cardinal doctrine of republicanism — the equality of rights
before the law for all American citizens — and who have
assumed the name Republican for purposes of revenue only,
will " build up a respectable white Republican party " through
the use of the Federal patronage, is absurdly chimerical.
This " Lily-white " party is unique in American politics. Its
emblem should be the buzzard. It deserves to be known as
the " buzzard " party. It scents the carrion of office from
afar, and where the carrion is, there it will be found. Lily-
whitism is the antithesis of republicanism. If the Republi
can leaders coquette with this party they will cause the
disappearance of republican principles in the South. The
few ineffective votes gained in the South — bought and in
fluenced through the bribes of Federal patronage — will be
more than offset by the manifold loss of effective votes in
the North.
The republican conscience of the North will not uphold
"Lilv-whitism." The logical and immediate effect of recog
nizing or temporizing with this political movement will be to
encourage and strengthen "Jim Crowism," and thus further
complicate an already embarrassing and hazardous situation.
It will always be true that honorable Southerners, or those
without sinister motives, who may wish to vote the Republican
ticket will do so independently of the bribes of Federal
patronage. Such patronage has never built up a respectable
party. The Republican party itself came into power without
l* 209
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
the possession of a single Federal office. And it has been
twice " put out of action " in spite of its possession of the
Federal offices.
Wherever the " Lily- whites," by their high-handed and
nnrepublican methods, have conquered Republican organiza
tions in the South, they have seriously injured the Repub
lican party. Their touch is death to republicanism. They
have rejected colored delegates regularly elected by the pre
cincts and have prohibited them from participating in district
and state conventions, solely on the ground of color, and
have expelled them from the floor of the convention. They
have in some cases obtained offices and used the power thereof
to oppress and degrade the colored voter, and it has been
necessary for the President repeatedly to intervene for the
protection of the colored citizen by dismissing them from the
public service.
In the removal of a " Lily-white " from office in Alabama,
Postmaster-general Payne, speaking for the President, said :
" Neither the administration nor the Republican party of the
North will stand for the exclusion of any section of our
people by reason of their race or color, . . . and the action
of the [Lily-white] Republican state convention referred to,
in arbitrarily excluding them, is not approved."
These men have no respect for the principles of the Re
publican party. They despise its history and cherish open
contempt for its great leaders and its legions of adherents.
This was shown by the conduct and words of Mr. W. S.
Robinson, the u Lily-white " member of the national com
mittee from North Carolina, at the dinner given by Senator
Hanna to the national Republican committee. This com
mittee was convened at Washington for the purpose of ar
ranging for the national Republican convention to nominate
a president of the United States. Senator Hanna, the
national chairman, gave a dinner complimentary to the
committee, at the Arlington Hotel. One of the members of
210
THE NEGRO IN POLITICS
the committee, Mr. Judson Lyons, is a colored man. And it
may be stated that Mr. Lyons holds the high and important
position of Register of the Treasury of the United States.
Senator Hanna, with his guests — some fifty-odd members
of the national Republican committee — had seated themselves
around the banquet board. At this moment Mr. W. S.
Robinson, the " Lily-white " member from North Carolina, ar
rived. And on entering the room and seeing Mr. Lyons,
the colored member from Georgia, at one of the tables, he
"strode out in high dudgeon," and with great show of indig
nation exclaimed, " I came here a gentleman, and I shall cer-
tainlv go back one." He also said that no white man who
was a gentleman could eat in the same dining-room where
there was a negro seated at one of the tables.
This, surely, is a singular way for a gentleman to show his
high breeding. Mr. Robinson could have absented himself
from Senator Hannahs banquet or declined the invitation,
and that probably would have been the end of the matter.
But the manner in which he left the banquet-room, and the
excuse he gave to the press reporter implied that Senator
Hanna and his assembled guests were not gentlemen since
they could sit at meat with Register Lyons. His language
was, therefore, an insult to his host, an insult to every guest
at that banquet board, an insult to the national Republican
party in whose name they had assembled. Who will say
that such a man is a fit representative of the Republican
party in a state where there are 624,469 colored citizens ?
The more serious aspect of the case is that Mr. Robinson
has been indorsed by the " Lily- whites " of the South. These
men by treachery and force have seized some of the local
Republican organizations and shorn them of the Republican
principles and are making an audacious attempt to stampede
the national organization, or drag it from its moorings. This
incident is not a matter to be lightly regarded. It shows the
temper, spirit, and purpose of " Lily-whitism " — to rule or
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
ruin. The national organization had to combat this same spirit
in the South in the great crises of the Reconstruction period.
Men of this character are not Republicans, but interlopers,
"wolves in sheep's clothing," who would rend and destroy
the organization and trample its principles under their
feet. They are a reproach to the party, an ulcer on the
organization.
Under such circumstances it is clearly the duty of the
national Republican organization, or the national commit
tee, to carry out such plans as may seem wise in reorganiz
ing the party along republican lines in the states where the
organization has been conquered by unrepublican methods,
and where the men who have loyally stood by the organiza
tion for forty years, and suffered untold hardships and risked
their lives for its principles, have been unjustly thrown out
by the interlopers, in order that the latter might place a lien
on the Federal offices.
Mr. Crumpacker in a recent speech in Congress utters a
warning to which it would be well for the nation to give ear :
" I have said enough, Mr. Speaker, to warn the House and
the country that the situation is rapidly crystallizing into a
policy of complete subjugation of the colored race in all the
fields of activity, . . . and slavery is its inevitable result. . . .
I have been admonished that if the race question were let
alone and the Constitution were ignored the ' solid South '
would go to pieces politically and a white Republican party
would be built upon the ruins. A white Republican party in
the South is only possible by universal assent to the practical
enslavement of the negro. If that imaginary party should
at any time show any friendship for the colored man or any
sympathy with his struggles to better his condition, it would
at once fall under the ban of the hereditary prejudices, and
social and business proscription would be its fate.
" If the country will consent that the 8,000,000 colored
citizens shall be deprived of their rights, that lynching may go
THE NEGRO IN POLITICS
on without let or hindrance as a necessary part of the process
of subjugation, there may be a white Republican party in the
South, but not otherwise.
" But can we afford the price ? A white Republican party ?
Shades of Lincoln and Seward, of Sumner and Chase! A
white Republican party only a little over a generation after
the death of the emancipator ! It is an impossibility. The
Republican party is the party of human liberty and equal
rights. It is based upon manhood, and not upon race or
color. The old Whig party forfeited its conscience and lost
its character temporizing with wrong, injustice, and human
oppression over half a century ago. The Republican party
will never make that mistake. Let the South continue to be
' solid ' if it will, let the Republican party go down in defeat
if it must, but it will never surrender the great principles of
human liberty of which it was the born champion."
The national organization, in dealing with its loyal sup
porters in the South, cannot respect the wholesale disfranchise-
ment which contravenes the Constitution of the United States.
It must regard the fundamental condition of the Reconstruc
tion. It must stand for equal laws for all. Therefore it
must take the only just ground, that any citizen who has
voted the Republican ticket at any previous congressional
or presidential election, and wishes to continue as a member
of the Republican party of his state, shall have equal rights to
participate in the councils and elections of the party without
regard to unlawful disfranchisements. If the " Lily- whites "
shall wish in this event to return to their democratic or
populistic allegiance, then let them do that.
The Charleston News and Courier, a leading Southern
journal, very pointedly says : " There is no question about
it that the men who have gone into the Republican party
in the South in nine cases out of ten have gone in for the
money they could make out of it, for the prominence it
would give them, for the influence they would be able to
213
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
exert toward the accomplishment of their mean, selfish pur
poses. There ought to be no room in the Democratic party
for the returning ' Lily-whites.' "
And these discredited creatures boast about organizing a
respectable white Republican party ! Republicanism is based
on the eternal certitudes of liberty, justice, equal rights, and
honest and orderly government. And in the onward sweep
of civilization these principles are sure to triumph. It will
assuredly prove true that no party, Democratic, Republican
or other, can gain and hold the favor of the great masses of
the American people which does not raise aloft and defend
these principles.
In the South the Republican party can afford to bide its
time. It can afford to be overborne by fraud and violence.
It can stand and suffer persecution for its cause's sake. But
it cannot afford to be un-American, un -republican, oppressive.
As " Lily-whitism " and "Jim Crowism," twin evils of bar
barism, shall wane in power, as they must, decreasing race
passions and strife, and as the South shall take the second
sober thought, many white people in the South will be at
tracted to the Republican party, not for the sake of the
offices, but because they accept the righteousness of its car
dinal principles and favor the great national policies of
government which it would enforce.
CHAPTER VII
\
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
THE colored race, like the white race, like every race,
has its criminals. It has many of them. Some people
think and say that it has more than its share in pro
portion to the other part of the population. This may be
true, or it may not be true. To discuss a matter of this
kind intelligently and fairly, attention must be given to the
conditions and environments of the class from which the
criminals come.
It is not to be disputed that while the web of the law
catches here and there a member from the higher or more
prosperous element of the social body, it most frequently
drags in criminals from the less fortunate, poorer, laboring
classes. The record of the police and other courts day by
day would show scores of the latter to one of the former.
Among the Southern whites, the preponderating element
consists of the higher or more prosperous class. A man who
can command good wages and steady employment, even
though he is obliged to work for a living, should be properly
classed among the higher or more prosperous element of the
community. The large majority of the whites belong to this
class.
On the other hand, the man who must take the most
menial places and receives small pay, at times hardly more
than enough to keep soul and body together, or must depend
on odd jobs and finds them unremunerative and scarce as a
rule, belongs to the less fortunate, poorer or common laboring
class. The great majority of the colored people belong to
this class.
It is true, however, that many thousands of colored people
are engaged in business pursuits, and to such an extent that
there is not a field of business in which they are not engaged ;
215
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
and many have achieved remarkable success, some having even
gained a competency. Scores of thousands are the owners of
their own homes and farms and may be justly rated as
prosperous.
Many occupy commanding places in the professions, law,
medicine, theology, dentistry, and pharmacy. Some thirty
thousands of them are teachers in the public schools and in
stitutions of higher learning. Thousands are also in the
employment of the National Government, from the Register
of the Treasury of the United States and other important
Federal offices down through the various grades of clerkships
to the scrub-women. Some thousands are in the army and
navy.
Indeed there is not a walk or calling in American life in
which the negro has not forged ahead and won success. But
nevertheless, it would be unreasonable to suppose that in the
brief forty years of struggle in the rise from abject, demor
alizing slavery, — in the face of tremendous odds and diffi
culties, — the proportion of negroes commanding first-rate
positions and receiving remunerative wages would be as
great as among the whites with their long line of free
ancestry.
The general progress of the American negro has not only
been commensurate with his opportunities, but to many it
has been one of the wonders of the age. Nevertheless it
must be admitted that the great body of the colored people
belong to the less fortunate, the poorer or ordinary laboring
class. Their very condition — the entailment of slavery —
bears heavily upon them ; their lack of means and the denial
of remunerative employment and a fair chance for advance
ment handicaps them enormously in the race of life ; and
their environments are a serious detriment to them, living
as they do under degradingly oppressive laws and among
a people hostile to the recognition of their manhood and
citizenship.
216
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
Inasmuch as the great majority of the whites are in
cluded in the more fortunate element of the community, and
the larger body of the colored people — through no fault of
their own, but because of the greed, avarice, and oppressions
of the whites — constitute the less fortunate class, it is
obviously unfair and unreasonable to judge the Southern
negroes without regard to their opportunities, relations, and
surroundings. The many and disheartening disadvantages
under which they labor materially affect the question of
crime among them.
If, then, the total number of colored criminals — waiving
for the time being the blighting and deadly effects of the
operation of race prejudice — should be compared with the
total number of criminals who come, not from the whole
white race, but from that portion of it nearest to the colored
people in opportunities and circumstances, and which con
stitutes the ordinary laboring class of the whites, it may or
it may not be shown that the colored people have more than
their proportional share of criminals. But, be this as it may,
there are forces, manifold forces, irresistible and deadly forces,
such as no white man ever feels, no matter how ignorant,
depraved, or even dirty he may be, that are brought to bear
day bv day upon every member of the colored race, and
which are productive of criminality. Satan could hardly de
vise a scheme better arranged for manufacturing criminals in
the largest numbers and with the greatest expedition and
thoroughness, than the policy and methods adopted towards
the negro by the reactionists who at present are supported
by the dominant elements of the white people of the South.
The colored people are equal citizens ; they are copartners
in the government ; they are a material factor in its support
and defence; they are peaceful and law-abiding. When,
therefore, a wide-spread reign of terror, violence, and blood-
shedding is inaugurated to accomplish their abasement and
degradation ; when they are stripped of the protection of the
217
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
law, their manhood is trampled in the dust, and they are
made the victims of open, unremitting, and flagrant persecu
tions by a religious people, — conditions exist which inevi
tably tend to the multiplication of criminals and the increase
of crime. The whites thus place themselves above the law,
and force the colored people below it.
Two immediate results follow. First, the whites, regarding
themselves as above the law, will hold it in contempt and will
be a law unto themselves — recognizing and being controlled
by no law, save their own unrestrained passions, in dealing
with the colored man. They will feel free to treat him
according to their whims, whether good or evil. In the
second place, it depresses the colored man ; it blunts his
moral perceptions ; it confuses his moral conceptions ; it
deadens his sense of security under the law ; it chills in his
heart respect for the law and his faith in the honesty of the
whites; his faith in the justice of the courts is undermined;
he is enveloped in an atmosphere of doubt, distrust, despair,
or desperation.
Many of the weaker-minded among the negroes are driven
into crime ; some of the stronger- minded are perverted. Is
it not plain that when the idle, thriftless, or weaker- minded
negro, or the one criminally bent, sees the white people treat
with scorn, contempt, and even violence the legitimate aspira
tions and ambitions of the negro of probity, substance, and
intelligence, and refuse him the considerations due an honest
man and good citizen, simply because of the color of his skin,
he should naturally conclude that these things are of little or
no value, that being a " good negro " is of no moment, and
that the bad one is just as well off as a good one ?
The white people of the South are the only people in the
history of the world — aside from the Boer republics of South
Africa, which a just and avenging God has removed from the
face of the earth after exacting a terrible and bloody atone
ment — who with deliberation and premeditation have sought
218
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
to prevent a people as free as themselves under the law of the
land from making the most of their opportunities to advance
in a Christian civilization.
The Holy Scriptures say that out of the mouth of two or
three witnesses shall the truth be established. But any
number of Southerners, men in the highest stations of life,
may be put in the witness chair to testify against the South
in the wilful, deliberate, and violent persecution of the
colored people.
Mr. George W. Cable, formerly of Louisiana, and proba
bly the foremost literary man that the South has produced
since the War of the Rebellion, says : " There is scarcely one
public relation of life in the South where the negro is not
arbitrarily and unlawfully compelled to hold toward the
white man the attitude of an alien, a menial, and a probable
reprobate by reason of his color " ; and that the white man
"spurns his ambition, tramples upon his languishing self-
respect and indignantly refuses to let him either buy with
money or earn by excellence of inner life or outward behavior
the most momentary immunity from these public indignities,
even for his wife and daughters. Steamboat landing, railway
platform, theatre, concert hall, art display, public library,
public school, court-house, church, everything — flourish the
hot branding iron of ignominious distinction.""
Mr. J. Temple Graves of Georgia says : " The negro, whom
a million died to free, is in present bond and future promise
still a slave, whipped by circumstances, trodden under foot of
iron and ineradicable prejudice ; shut out forever from the
heritage of liberty, and holding in his black hand the hollow
parchment of his franchise as a free man looks through a
slave's eyes at the impossible barriers which imprison him
forever. Straighten the hair and whiten the skin of the
negro, and the issue is closed."
Senator McEnery of Louisiana says : " The negro is in
ferior in every essential of manhood ; he ought not to aspire
219
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
to office ; he will be compelled to occupy an inferior and sub
ject place."
Mr. A. F. Thomas, of Lynchburg, Virginia, in discussing
the race question in a booklet written especially to influence
the recent Constitutional Convention of Virginia, says : " The
negro has progressed wonderfully ; his relative position is
much nearer the white man's standard of civilization now than
thirty years ago ; yet the fact is apparent that the races are
farther apart than they were the day the negro was emanci
pated. The nearer the negro approaches to the white man's
standard of civilization, the less love there is between them.
Looking backward to the time when our black mammies
were, in our esteem, second only to our mothers, and when
we played in perfect harmony with the negro children, and
contrasting it with the clearly defined relations that exist be
tween the races to-day, we readily see the difference. . . .
" A black man who has never committed a crime, who has
always lived up to his highest ideals, who has cultivated his
mind, whose moral character is roundly developed, who has
been frugal and industrious, and has accumulated wealth,
goes to a soda fountain to slake his thirst ; he offers in
exchange his money, but is refused for no other reason than
that he is black and belongs to a different race. A man, in
the land of his nativity, with the money to pay for the goods,
cannot, on account of race, buy the articles that are publicly
offered for sale. This condition exists to-day, thirty years
after the United States Constitution had proclaimed the civil
and political equality of all of its citizens. . . .
"If we take the view that the negro will remain here
indefinitely, then the only solution consistent with existence
is entire subordination. If this be true, it is the greatest
folly to educate him further than education may make him
more efficient in the sphere which he must occupy. Viewed
from this standpoint, he should be educated, not with a pur
pose of lifting him to a higher plane, but to increase his
220
THE N-EGRO AND THE LAW
power to do those things which would make him most useful
to his masters. It should be an education of the hand rather
than the head. This condition, however much freedom the
race might nominally have, would be practically a mild form
of slavery."
Thus Mr. Thomas admits that the Southern leaders are
aiming at the establishment of "a mild form of slavery."
But the old system of slavery began as a comparatively mild
condition and gradually descended into the grossest form,
and almost wrecked the republic. A new "mild form of
slavery " would degenerate into even greater cruelties and in
humanities, and its inauguration would mark the beginning of
the end of republican government. It would be the death-
knell of free institutions.
At a recent meeting of the State Medical Association of
Georgia, one of its members, Dr. E. C. Ferguson, read a
paper intended to demonstrate that the negro is not a
human being. He attacked the negro's skin, mouth, lips,
chin, hair, nose, nostril, ears, and navel ; and compared him
with the horse, cow, and dog, and other animals. He
declared that the " negro is monkeylike ; has no sympathy
for his fellow-man ; has no regard for the truth, and when
the truth would answer his purpose the best, he will lie. He
is without gratitude or appreciation of anything done for
him ; is a natural born thief, — will steal anything, no matter
how worthless.
" He has no morals. Turpitude is his ideal of all that
pertains to life. His progeny are not provided for at home
and are allowed to roam at large without restraint, and seek
subsistence as best they can, growing up like any animal."
Some of the things that Dr. Ferguson said in his address
are really not fit to print. And yet a body of scientific men
— Southern gentlemen — listened with approval and heartily
applauded this foul assault on a people who nursed with the
tenderest affection and all of a mother's love, their fathers
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers, and themselves ;
and whose devotion, fidelity, and kindheartedness were never
challenged in two hundred and fifty years of service. If Dr.
Ferguson had a sense of humor, he would realize that his
sweeping and unqualified statement makes him not only a
dangerous competitor with the ablest negro in the art of
fabrication, but marks him as a man who may eclipse the
cleverest negro who " will lie even when the truth would
answer his purpose the best."
The Reverend Thomas Dixon. Jr., of North Carolina,
speaking at a church in Baltimore, said : " My deliberate
opinion of the negro is that he is not worth hell-room. If
I were the devil I would not let him in hell.1"
This same divine, in a book that he published, says : " The
more you educate, the more impossible you make his position
in a democracy. Education ! Can you change the color of
his skin, the kink of his hair, the bulge of his lips, the spread
of his nose, or the beat of his heart, with a spelling-book ?
The negro is a human donkey. You can train him, but you
can't make him a horse. Mate him with horse, you lose the
horse and get a larger donkey called a mule, incapable of
preserving his species." The moral obliquity, the want of
charity, the absence of dignity indicated by these words,
mark off their author as seriously beneath the standards
of thousands of educated colored men, whose life, words, and
conduct shame these critics into insignificance.
The Reverend Henry Frank advocates the re-establish
ment of slavery, and further says of the negro : " His native
sluggishness, and the evidence of his general extinction since
his emancipation, his imperceptible improvement since libera
tion, his startling lapse into barbarism, all must incline think
ing people to conclude that the freeing of the negro was a
disastrous failure."
Senator Tillman of South Carolina, the Mad Mullah of
American politics, has used on the floor of the United States
222
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
Senate and on the lecture platform these expressions : " Yes,
we have stuffed ballot-boxes, and will stuff them again;
we have cheated niggers in elections, and will cheat them
again ; we have disfranchised niggers, and will disfranchise
all we want to ; we have killed and lynched niggers and will
kill and lynch others ; we have burned niggers at the stake
and will burn others ; a nigger has no right to live anyhow,
unless a white man wants him to live. If you don't like it
you can lump it."
Cruel and scurrilous attacks and defamations of this char
acter against the colored people could be quoted in sufficient
quantities to fill a volume. But those just mentioned, taken
in connection with others recorded in these pages, may serve
to indicate the fierce and consuming flames of persecution
in the midst of which the colored man lives and moves and
has his being.
A people so vilely abused and outrageously persecuted
are made an easy mark for malevolence and race hatred.
Unrestrained abuse of the colored man leads surely to un
restrained oppression and violence. And these are not con
ditions which inspire a high morality or favor the upbuilding
of character ; they rather tend to strangle the self-respect and
debase the souls of the hapless victims and shape many of
them into criminals. The whites cannot sow to the wind
without reaping the whirlwind.
As might be expected, illustrations in the concrete of the
operation of this bitter persecution abound on every hand.
Laws are enacted and enforced in the spirit of persecution,
and the colored people are the victims of such laws ; often
they are condemned without even the form or semblance
of law.
Regarding the latter, planters have combined or conspired
— in defiance of the law — to arrest under false charges the
number of colored men needed for service, hold mock trials,
one of the conspirators acting as judge, condemn and sentence
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
the helpless creatures to penal servitude; and then divide
the laborers among themselves, put them in chains, and
work them for long periods of time on their plantations.
And this crime is committed against liberty and humanity
rather than pay the small wages which agricultural laborers
command in the South !
And as to the former, it would be difficult to find more
striking examples of " man's inhumanity to man" than some
of the crimes committed in the name and under the forms
of law on the colored people. In Alabama, Mississippi,
Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, and some of the other
states, labor and contract laws are deliberately framed with
the view of facilitating the seizure of colored men and selling
them into practical slavery.
In a speech recently made in Congress touching this matter,
Mr. Edgar D. Crumpacker of Indiana said : " Under exist
ing conditions the standard of living among the colored peo
ple of the South is low, and the rate of wages is on the same
basis. The colored laborer is completely at the mercy of the
employer. In the state of South Carolina to-day there is a
qualified condition of industrial serfdom. Farm laborers are
compelled by the penal laws of the state to carry out their
contracts of employment, however unjust and unfair they
may be. They must perform all ' the labor reasonably re
quired ' of them by the contract or go to jail. If any one
knowingly shall employ a laborer in any kind of service who
is under contract to labor for another, he, too, is liable to
fine and imprisonment, even though the workman or his
family may be on the verge of starvation.'1'1
Under these laws the great mass of the colored laborers are
placed in the merciless grasp of the planters, who can readily
force them to accept any form of contract whatsoever. Some
of the planters, under a carefully devised system of paying the
laborers off in plantation " scrip " or " checks," which are
heavily discounted mediums, or by compelling the laborers
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
to buy their supplies at the " plantation store," where exor
bitant rates are charged, or by " padding "" the accounts of the
laborers, manage to bring them out in debt at the close of
each year.
And this system is carried on year after year, and the
colored man never gets ahead and so cannot leave his plan
tation prison-pen. The planter holds the laborer in debt as
long as it suits his convenience to do so. The laborer has
no relief in the law of the state. Such hardships drive many
colored people from the plantations to the cities.
In the name of the law, colored men may also be arrested
for debt and sold at public auction, into servitude. And
those laborers are compelled to work without pay while their
families are exposed to want and made to suffer ; the wages
which they ought to receive being divided between the
planters and the magistrates.
The following press despatch throws some light on this
matter: "The Federal grand jury at Montgomery is ex
pected to return indictments against ten prominent ' slave
holders ' to-morrow. They will be charged with the almost
forgotten crime of peonage. Robert M. Franklin is already
under indictment on the charge of keeping a negro in servi
tude for a year.
" The system was called to the attention of the Department
of Justice a month ago, and Chief Wilkie sent Captain
Dickey to Montgomery to investigate. His reports indicate
collusion between magistrates and plantation owners who
wanted cheap help.
" The plan is for a negro to be brought before the magis
trate on charges on which he is heavily fined. Some white
man offers to pay his fine and save him from jail if he will
agree to work for him until his wages reach the amount of
the fine. The negroes, it is alleged, are herded together and
treated like convicts. When they protest, so it is charged,
they are whipped and beaten until they are cowed, and when
15 225
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
they run away they are chased with dogs, and in case of
recapture, compelled to work in chains. They are constantly
under the eyes of armed guards, and are driven to the limit
of human endurance. They are fed only enough to keep
them alive."
As a further illustration of the operations of the system
the following press despatch will prove of interest : " The evi
dence in the case of Samuel W. Tyson in the Federal court
which ended yesterday makes it plain that slavery still exists
in the United States. Tyson was ordered to pay a thousand
dollars fine, but he handed over only one hundred and fifty
dollars and the remainder was suspended by the sympathetic
judge.
" Tyson runs a lumber mill in Coffee County. There were
three cases against him. He was charged with holding Will
Brown, Will Thornton, and Nick Anderson, all negroes, in
peonage. Anderson was fined five dollars for assault and
battery. E. L. Warren, a white man, confessed judgment for
Anderson. He sold Anderson to a white man named Grumpier
for sixty dollars, who in turn swapped him to Tyson for a
negro, Jerry Stoval, and a money consideration.
" The case of Brown was that Brown borrowed a dollar from
H. B. Grumpier and failed to pay it back. He was arrested,
put in jail, handcuffed, and sold to Tyson for ninety-six dollars
and fifty cents. Tyson later sold Brown to George Stephens
for thirty-six dollars and fifty cents. Thornton owed C. D.
Clemens some money that he could not pay. Clemens got
him and sold him to Tyson, who worked him under guard for
three months.11
And again other press despatches, which are fully sustained
by the best authority, reveal with circumstantial detail the
criminal practices of planters, who, with the connivance of
the magistrates, imprison both colored men and women on
their plantations and rob them of the fruits of their labor.
" The Department of Justice is preparing to take up again
226
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
the subject of peonage in the South. Additional reports
have been received indicating that negroes are held in ser
vitude. Assistant Attorney General Purdy has issued in
structions to the United States attorney for the western
district of Louisiana to investigate a number of alleged
cases of peonage on plantations near Monroe, Ouachita parish,
and other points in that vicinity. Information regarding
these cases came to the department from Judge McDaniel,
assistant attorney for the southern district of Texas, to whom
complaint had been made by relatives of a number of negroes
alleged to have been illegally held. Some of the stories told
are sensational in the extreme.
" In addition to the charges made by negroes, the Texas
officials have forwarded the statement of a white man living
in Houston, who has made several trips through northern
Louisiana recently, and who says that many colored people
of both sexes are being illegally restrained of their liberty in
that region.
" A feature of the affair which makes it of unusual interest
is the intimation that some of the peace officers are in collusion
with those who are alleged to be holding the negroes. One
man, who claimed that he had escaped from a plantation south
of Shreveport, asked Judge McDanieFs assistance in securing
the release of his brother, who was still detained there. This
person asserted that whenever negroes who tried to escape
were caught, they were soundly beaten and taken back.
" If they succeeded in getting as far as Shreveport, he said,
they were taken in charge by the officers and immediately
returned. The owner of the plantation lived at Shreveport,
he claimed, and the officers worked in collusion with him.
" Not long ago A. U. Crenshaw, a negro, who lives at
Ledbetter, Texas, showed Judge McDaniel and Marshal
Hanson a letter from his brother, who, it was alleged, was
held in bondage near Monroe. This communication told of
awful conditions among the negroes there.
227
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
" Crenshaw gave Marshal Hanson a sum of money, which
Hanson forwarded to the marshal of the western district of
Louisiana, with instructions that it be given to Crenshaw's
brother. Later the money order was returned by a man who
said he was the deputy marshal and was acting in the place of
the marshal, who had died, but that he could do nothing in
the premises, since the order was not payable to him. The
necessary change was made and the order sent on again.
Considerable time has elapsed and nothing has been heard
of it.
" A negro named Johnson, whose character has been
vouched for by white people who knew him in Texas, has
also written to Houston, claiming that he and his wife are
being held in bondage and are refraining from attempting to
escape because they fear they will be recaptured and beaten
or killed.
" All such letters have been sent out surreptitiously, the
writers being afraid to forward them through the regular
channels.
" Judge McDaniel expresses the opinion that hundreds of
negroes are being held in the region indicated."
The Independent of New York City, a leading family
journal, commissioned one of its representatives to examine
into this new form of slavery in the South, and it spreads
before its readers in a recent issue a typical case of a colored
man held in slavery for thirteen years. The narrative is har
rowing indeed, and the saddest reflection is that it is only one
of many thousands that may be chronicled in the same
state in which this occurred.
An additional feature is that a state senator, a maker of
the laws, was the owner of the slave camp, and thus the
oppressor of those who were equal citizens, subjecting them,
men and women, to the most humiliating treatment, and
filching from them all the fruits of their hard and exacting
toil. The experiences and observation of this colored man,
228
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
who was held in bondage and treated as a slave for that
length of time, as told by himself, are in part as follows : —
" The senator had bought an additional thousand acres of
land, and to his already large cotton plantation he added two
great big saw-mills and went into the lumber business.
Within two years the senator had in all nearly two hun
dred negroes working on his plantation. . . .
" Two or three years before, or about a year and a half
after the senator had started his camp, he had established a
large store, which was called the commissary. All of us free
laborers were compelled to buy our supplies — food, clothing,
etc. — from that store. We never used any money in our
dealings with the commissary, only tickets or orders, and we
had a general settlement once each year, in October. In this
store we were charged all sorts of high prices for goods, be
cause every year we would come out in debt to our employer.
If not that, we seldom had more than five or ten dollars
coming to us — and that for a whole year's work. Well, at
the close of the tenth year, when we kicked and meant to
leave the senator, he said to some of us with a smile (and I
never will forget that smile — I can see it now) : ' Boys, I 'm
sorry you Ye going to leave me. I hope you will do well in
your new places — so well that you will be able to pay me
the little balances which most of you owe me.'
" Word was sent out for all of us to meet him at the com
missary at two o'clock. There he told us that, after we had
signed what he called a written acknowledgment of our
debts we might go and look for new places. The store
keeper took us one by one and read to us statements of our
accounts. According to the books there was no man of us
who owed the senator less than $100; some of us were put
down for as much as $200. I owed 8165, according to the
bookkeeper. No one of us would have dared to dispute a
white man's word — oh, no — we were after getting away ;
and we had been told that we might go, if we signed the
229
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
acknowledgments. We would have signed anything, just to
get away. So we stepped up, we did, and made our marks.
That same night we were rounded up by a constable and ten
or twelve white men, who aided him, and were locked up,
every one of us, in one of the senator's stockades. The next
morning it was explained to us by the two guards appointed
to watch us that, in the papers we had signed the day before,
we had not only made acknowledgment of our indebtedness,
but that we had also agreed to work for the senator until
the debts were paid by hard labor. And from that day
forward we were treated just like convicts. Really we had
made ourselves lifetime slaves, or peons, as the laws called us.
But, call it slavery, peonage, or what not, the truth is we
lived in a hell on earth what time we spent in the senator's
peon camp.
" My wife fared better than I did, as did the wives of some
of the other negroes, because the white men about the camp
used these unfortunate creatures as their mistresses. When
I was first put in the stockade my wife was still kept for a
while in the ' Big House,1 but my little boy, who was only nine
years old, was given away to a negro family across the river
in South Carolina, and I never saw or heard of him after
that. When I left the camp my wife had had two children
for some one of the white bosses, and she was living in fairly
good shape in a little house off to herself. But the poor
negro women who were not in the class with my wife fared
almost as bad as the helpless negro men. Most of the time
the women who were peons or convicts were compelled to wear
men's clothes. Sometimes, when I have seen them dressed
like men, and plowing or hoeing or hauling logs, or working
at the blacksmith's trade, just the same as men, my heart
would bleed and my blood would boil, but I was powerless to
raise a hand. It would have meant death on the spot to
have said a word. Of the first six women brought to the
camp, two of them gave birth to children after they had been
230
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
there not more than tvvel\7e months — and the babies had
white men for their fathers !
" The stockades in which we slept were, I believe, the filth
iest places in the world. They were cesspools of nastiness.
During the thirteen years that I was there I am willing to
swear that a mattress was never moved after it had been
brought there, except to turn it over once or twice a month.
No sheets were used, only dark-colored blankets. Most of
the men slept every night in the clothing that they had
worked in all day. Some of the worst characters were made
to sleep in chains. The doors were locked and barred each
night, and tallow candles were the only lights allowed.
Really the stockades were but little more than cow-lots,
horse-stables or hog-pens. Strange to say, not a great num
ber of these people died while I was there, though a great
many came away maimed and bruised, and, in some cases,
disabled for life.
" It was a hard school, that peon camp was, but I learned
more there in a few short months by contact with those poor
fellows from the outside world than ever I had known before.
Most of what I learned was evil, and I now know that I
should have been better off without the knowledge, but much
of what I learned was helpful to me. Barring two or three
severe and brutal whippings which I received, I got along
very well, all things considered ; but the system is damnable.
A favorite way of whipping a man was to strap him down to
a log, flat on his back, and spank him forty or sixty times on
his bare feet and limbs with a shingle or a huge piece of
plank. When the man would get up with sore and blistered
feet and an aching body, if he could not then keep up with
the other men at work he would be strapped to the log
again, this time face downward, and would be lashed with a
buggy trace on his bare back. . . .
"One of the usual ways to secure laborers for a large
peonage camp is for the proprietor to send out an agent to
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
the little courts in the towns and villages ; and where a man
charged with some petty offence has no friends or money, the
agent will urge him to plead guilty, with the understanding
that the agent will pay his fine, and in that way save him
from the disgrace of being sent to jail or the chain-gang!
For this high favor the man must sign beforehand a paper
signifying his willingness to go to the farm and work out the
amount of the fine imposed. When he reaches the farm he
has to be fed and clothed, to be sure, and these things are
charged up to his account. By the time he has worked out
his first debt another is hanging over his head, and so on and
so on, by a sort of endless chain, for an indefinite period ; as
in every case the indebtedness is arbitrarily arranged by the
employer. In many cases it is very evident that the court
officials are in collusion with the proprietors or agents, and
that they divide the 'graft1 among themselves. As an
example of this dickering among the whites, every year many
convicts were brought to the senator's camp from a certain
county in South Georgia, way down in the turpentine district.
The majority of these men were charged with adultery. . . .
" I have been here in the district since they released me,
and I reckon 1 11 die either in a coal mine or an iron furnace :
it don't make much difference which. Either is better than
a Georgia peon camp. And a Georgia peon camp is hell
itself!"
This unfortunate man also relates the cruel and revolting
manner in which colored women were thrown across a barrel
and brutally flogged.
The New York World prints a picture of a "Stockade
Pen" in South Carolina, showing the hapless negroes at
work in convict garbs, surrounded by bloodhounds and
guards. And after stating that the negroes whom Abraham
Lincoln emancipated and whose emancipation a million men
died to seal are still held and treated as slaves, proceeds to
give these details : " Convict slaves are traded freely among
232
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
the land owners. They are forced to labor, for which they
receive no pay ; they are flogged, made to work when ill,
made the victims of ' man-hunts,"* and otherwise ill-used.
Women are treated with similar cruelty.
" When the stock of convicts gives out, innocent negroes,
it is now proved, are railroaded into the penitentiary, and
thence obtained by the men who become their masters. The
system has continued for years in open defiance of law and
humanity. These are facts now officially verified.
" The offenders are so well protected by money and influ
ence that it is doubtful if they can be punished, or even that
the practice can be stopped. If these proceedings are not at
first clear, here are the details : William A. Neal, of Ander
son, who was superintendent of the state penitentiary, and
who was tried in court for being short in his accounts, was
the first man to introduce the convict lease system in Ander
son County. A stockade was built and convicts from the
penitentiary, which was overcrowded with criminals, were
sent under guard to the place; it being arranged that the
state was to receive a revenue.
"The plan worked splendidly for the planters. The
expense was small, and the lash, freely administered, made the
negroes give the best of their efforts for the managers.
" At this time plans were quietly put on foot to seize
ignorant negroes, have mock trials, and commit them to the
stockades where their labor could be had for the scant food
offered and the expense of the convict garb and shackles.
" From the state stockade relatives of the managers built
private prisons on the big farms and a ransom was paid for
every negro seized and sent in. It was the same system of
' shanghaiing ' transferred from the sea to the farm.
" Recent developments have given an inside view into the
operation of the prisons, and the discovery of the private
stockades has shown a more terrible condition than was at
first imagined. . . .
233
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
" Not one of the freed slaves has dared to testify against
the man who outrageously ill-used him. There are too many
sharp eyes about, too many pistols, too many bloodhounds,
and the unfortunate creatures were long since cowed out of
every likeness to their manhood. More potent than any law
on earth is the unreasoning fear which the brutal slave
owners have succeeded in infusing into the very life-blood of
the creatures they have deprived of liberty. . . .
"The death of Will Hull, a poor negro, who had been
seized on a trumped-up charge and illegally committed to the
stockade, led to the investigation. Hull protested against
his incarceration, asked for a fair trial, and got a blow from a
club. Then the negro planned to escape, and at night, with
the chains still binding his legs, he stole forth.
" But the guards had orders to watch him. As Hull was
going away, a bullet from a 54-calibre rifle bored its way into
his brain and he fell dead. . . .
" The most appalling of the abuses is that women were
seized and made to work. They were whipped with cat-o-
nine- tails because they failed to scrub and work when com
mon humanity showed that they should have been in
hospitals ; and there was no protest. . . .
"When sport got dull on the stockade plantations, the
bloodhounds were called forth, and the speediest negroes were
unshackled.
" Sunday was the big day for sporting blood to boil, and
this thirst could only be satisfied with a vicious ' man-hunt.'
The negroes were unshackled and sent running through
the swamps and over the hills. There was no danger of
making an effectual escape. Two hours after the negroes
left the pen, the dogs were unleashed. Men on horseback
were ready for the start, and with yelping and crying the
trail was followed and the 'man-hunt' was on. Once a
negro failed to reach safety in a tree, and he was mangled
fearfully.
234
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
" The so-called contracts by which these negroes were
jailed gave the owners the right to sell or trade them as
they saw fit. They were used and handled as convicts, when
in fact they were free citizens. But laws are not a figure in
these dens of iniquity.
"The men had to wear stripes; and they had to bear
shackles. When night came and work had to stop they were
sent to the pens, locked in, and guarded. Long before day
light they were called out, and with the first dawn they were
toiling in the fields. When sickness made them unfit for
work, they were whipped and lashed for trifling. Even the
hot iron is said to have been used, and the grand jury is
searching for the slaves who were branded like wild cattle.11
The World also says that the grand jury by its " verdict
accuses scores of wealthy South Carolinians of practices of
atrocious villany.r>
The Chicago Tribune of recent date prints this press de
spatch : " A special to the Tribune from Savannah says that
state senator Foye of Egypt, Georgia, has been brought here
under arrest by Federal officers on a charge of holding negroes
in bondage. Foye is one of the wealthiest men in south
Georgia and is a Democratic leader. He conducts several
large turpentine farms near Egypt, and Federal officers assert
that he is holding many negroes as slaves. The negroes are
confined at night in stockades and are worked in chains
during the day.11
The gravity of the situation is emphasized in a recent event.
The Honorable William H. Moody, Attorney-General of the
United States, in filing a brief with the Supreme Court of
the United States, in a peonage case recently brought before
that high tribunal from Georgia, uses these startling words:
" Immediately upon the certification of this case to the su
preme court, several of the district judges in the fifth circuit,
in which numerous prosecutions for violations of this statute
were pending, refused to try any of the cases, and postponed
235
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
the same to await the decision of the court in this case. It
is therefore quite evident that the executive arm of the law,
so far at least as the enforcement of this statute is concerned,
is practically paralyzed, even in the most typical and flagrant
cases. We think we may truthfully say that upon the decision
of this case hangs the liberty of thousands of persons, mostly
colored, it is true, who are now being held in a condition of
involuntary servitude, in many cases worse than slavery itself,
by the unlawful acts of individuals, not only in violation of
the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, but in viola
tion of the law which we have here under consideration."
Thus it is shown that forty years after the destruction of
slavery, a new system of servitude is in operation, concerning
which the Attorney-General of the United States informs the
Supreme Court of the United States that the executive arm
of the Government is paralyzed in dealing with it. If
the Southern leaders are given a free hand for fifty or a
hundred years more, the fate of the colored man will be worse
than in the blackest day of slavery.
The legislature of Georgia, a few years ago, appointed a
committee to investigate the operations of the penal system
of the state. The committee reported a shocking state of
affairs, both in chain-gangs and in many convict stockades
scattered over the state. It showed that colored men and
women were poorly fed ; worked to the limit of human
endurance and beyond it ; that the sick forced to work, in
some cases, had died while at the task ; that men were held
for years after their sentences had expired, because they were
profitable workmen ; that convicts were brutally flogged — in
some cases whipped to death ; that they were shot to death at
times without justification ; and that they were subject to
many other inhumanities. But it appears that the condition
of these unfortunate people has not been bettered.
An official investigation of the penal system of Florida dis
closed even greater abuses. In this state it was shown that
236
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
convicts were murdered because they dared to protest against
being held after their sentences had expired ; and any com
plaint meant floggings and probable death.
The chain-gangs in Atlanta, Georgia, reek with horrible
inhumanities. In that city colored girls of tender age, who
were guilty of no other offence than that of " sassing back "
at the "Missus," have been sent to the chain-gang stockade.
The lesson of abject submission must be enforced. In this
stockade colored men and women are brutally beaten on the
slightest pretext.
Another horrible feature of the terrible system is that
colored women and girls are used for the purpose of training
the bloodhounds. These unfortunates, in some cases so poorly
and lightly clad as to sicken the moral sense of the ordinary
citizen, are summoned to " quarters," and at the crack of the
driver's whip they flee to the woods, and must climb trees be
fore the yelping bloodhounds can overtake them, or else their
bodies will be fearfully mangled. This is oft repeated.
A writer in the Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican
says : " As one who has been in close contact with the social
systems of the Southern states and knows very well the work
ings of this penal system, particularly of Georgia, let me say
to you that the system of criminal justice, or rather injustice,
applied to the negro is but a system of the worst slavery in
itself. It is justified in the minds of men by the seldom
spoken, yet because silent, nevertheless potent, belief and con
viction that the ' nigger ought to be a slave anyway.1
" Slavery fostered and has bequeathed to the population of
the South a cruelty and a crudity of criminal punishment
foreign to the humane spirit of our age ; and so outrageous is
the system that it would long ago have been abolished if it
were not for the fact that it is the negro who suffers most by
it. The penitentiaries, or convict settlements, for there are
no penitentiaries, are simply unspeakable. And the treat
ment of the convicts in the camps by lessees who pay the
237
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
state eleven dollars a year for an able-bodied man, is such
that an average of three years and five months of life in one
of these camps is the record, while no man has ever been
known to survive more than seventeen years.
" A few of the many cases that came under my personal
observation might be of general interest. I saw a boy twelve
years old sent to one of these camps for larceny, for a term of
three years. There are no places for juvenile offenders, and it
is not strange if their own chickens come home to roost in the
shape of rape and theft and general cussedness by young
criminals who have been schooled in these prisons.
44 1 saw a man who had served a term under a convict lease
in a brick company's camp and the condition of that man's
hands from handling hot bricks, and the condition of his back
from stripes received were suggestive of the very limit, not
only of human cruelty but the limit of human endurance as
well.
" I saw a man returned after a term of four years, and the
sides of the fellow, his elbows, his shoulders, hips, and the
side of his legs were hard and calloused from lying on his
sides in the mine, where the opening was not allowed to be
made sufficiently large for comfortable work, and where, he
told me, he had often worked far into the night, to send
up his ' stint" before the bucket came down with the order
to get in and come up ; only to return at sun-up in the
morning.
" A mother, half white, with her daughter lighter still,
about fifteen years old, came to me one day to inquire if any
redress could be had against the convict authorities for the
inhuman treatment of the girl, while serving a year's sentence
in the stockade for some trivial offence. She had been
whipped unmercifully, as scars on her shoulders and upper
back plainly showed, and I was afterward told by the
physician to whom I sent her for treatment that she had a
running sore on her hip, caused by a cut made by a strap in
238
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
the hands of the ' whipping boss.' The ' whipping boss,1 be
it known, is a legal functionary and an invariable and much
overworked adjunct to every convict settlement. This child,
for she was not more, and frail at that, was at the time I saw
her, shortly after her release, four months pregnant by one of
the guards ; which one she did not know. The mother's grief
was pitiful. There was nothing to be done. It is easy to
surmise what the remedy would have been had the color of
the skins of the respective parties been reversed.
" Two stalwart fellows came with a friend one night to
consult me about their situation. It was a sorry plight,
indeed. They had escaped from the chain-gang, after being
unmercifully beaten. Both were so cut and bruised across
the back that their shirts stuck in places to the open sores.
They were desperate and frantic with fear lest they should be
apprehended, and declared they would rather die than return
to the camp. This friend, at a loss to know what to do for
them, fearing to be seen in their company, brought them to
me. I could do nothing for them, but advised them to get
out of the country. They took the hint and started.
"The one least injured was overtaken by the bloodhounds
next day, and brought into court to be resentenced as an
' escape,"1 which means, under the law, doubling his sentence.
He was shot a few weeks later, as it was said, in an attempt
to escape. The other I never heard from. This is no tale
of sixteenth-century barbarity, but of living, existing facts of
our own day and in our own land. I can make no more tell
ing comment on the negro-con vict-lease system than to quote
the language of one of Georgia's men, who sees in it a blot
upon our civilization and a disgrace to humanity. Dr. Felton,
a few years ago, while a member of the Georgia legislature,
said : ' If the fiends of hell had undertaken to devise a penal
system, devilish, barbarous, and malignant, they could not
have succeeded more fully than Georgia has succeeded in her
system.' And what is true of Georgia is also true of the
239
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
whole South on this subject. Such a system is only possible
where two centuries of slavery have blunted human hearts to
all the finer instincts concerning the rights of the subject
race. One is prone to believe with Samuel Clemens that,
'while there are many humorous things, one of the most
ludicrous is the fact that the white man thinks he is less
savage than the other savages.' "
So the penal system in the South, which ought to be oper
ated for the punishment or correction of criminals, is proved
by the records of the United States courts and competent
witnesses to be itself an organized system of crime ; and is
administered in many instances by criminal officials who are
more deserving of punishment than the criminals in stripes.
These records also show that the makers of the law, the
magistrates of the law, and the sheriffs or guardians of the
law are in many instances participes criminis in the breaking
of the law and the violation of the liberty of citizens.
After a colored man or woman has passed through the
hands of such " schoolmasters'" and such a " school of crime,'1''
what hope is there for such a being ? The state courts take
no cognizance of these things. The white people have all
the power necessary to blot out these terrible evils in a week.
This must be conclusive, if one would but consider what
would be done if the case was reversed ? Suppose that colored
farmers were arresting white men and women on trumped-up
charges and working them by day in chains and sleeping them
in stockades and subjecting them to the same abuses which
colored men and women are now compelled to endure. Would
the whites submit to such conditions for twenty-four hours ?
If necessary, to wipe out such crimes, would not negro blood
flow as free as water ? These evils can be remedied and that
quickly, if there were a disposition to accomplish it.
They are allowed to exist because they are tributary to
the plans of the reactionists, to depress the spirit of the
colored people and aid in making them a subject race by
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THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
closing " the door of hope " to them. The leaders are acting
on the principle that every humiliation, oppression, or out
rage inflicted on the colored people helps to undermine the
itwrale of the race and make alienation and subjugation
easier.
There are illustrations in the concrete of other and more
sanguinary persecutions of which the colored people are the
helpless victims. These are riots and lynchings. The reac
tionists through secret societies, on the order of the Ku Klux
Klan, are thoroughly organized. They can produce riots
and lynchings as by clockwork. At Wilmington, North
Carolina, after rioting and shooting down colored men on
the streets for three days, the rioters were called off as sud
denly as they had assembled.
When the leaders pass the word for the rioters to act —
they act. When they say stop — the rioters stop. If they
decide that a lesson must be taught and negroes must be
lynched — lynching takes place. If they think that there is
no particular need for lynching and the courts may act in a
given case — the courts act. The white people can put down
lynchings and curb riotings whenever and wherever they may
make up their minds to do so.
Those lynchings and riots are a fearful strain on the nerves
of the colored people. No one is safe when the mob starts
out on its bloody work. Innocent people, who had not even
heard that a crime had been committed and who were not
suspecting the existence of the mob and by mere chance
came within its sphere of operation, have been done to
the death.
The lynchings in Statesboro1, Georgia, on the 16th and
17th of August, 1904, show order and method in the per
formance — they were directed by a leading mind. A murder
had been committed. Two negroes were condemned to
death. Others were under arrest in jail awaiting trial. The
judge congratulates the community on its respect for law
16
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
and order. All was quiet the night before. All is quiet
in the morning. But suddenly the mob appears, the two
negroes convicted are seized and burned alive at the stake.
There were guards on hand ; they had guns, but no bullets,
and so were brushed aside. The negroes were taken from
the court house — the temple of justice. The judge and
others protested. But what does a Georgia mob care for
judges, justice, or law ? Members of the secret clans can get
on the jury and save their fellows from the penalty of the
law.
The affair is described in part by the following press de
spatch to the New York Sun : " Men, as they passed on the
street during the evening, looked at each other significantly,
as men lately initiated into the same mysteries, but there was
little said or heard in public. . . .
" There was no effort of any sort made on the part of the
mob at disguise. Everything was done in the broad open
daylight, without masks or other concealment. Men who
represented the wealth and the worth of the town openly
joined in the work of leading the mob. These were the ones
who led the rush on the court house and up the stairs to the
little room in which the prisoners were confined. The mob,
with its victims closely hemmed in, then proceeded to the
place of execution. Everything had been prepared. The
stake was a light-wood stump about seven feet high. The
negroes were bound to this by a stout chain. At their feet
light-wood knots were piled, and brushwood and splinters
reached to their waists.
" This done, a man mounted the top of the stump and
can after can of kerosene were handed up to him. Probably
twenty gallons were poured over them in liberal quantities
and they were ready for fire. Without a pause these prepa
rations had gone on. As they were finished a man stepped
forward and applied the match. The flames rose over the
negroes and they uttered a simultaneous groan.
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
" Reed seemed to bear the torture with fortitude and died
quickly. Within three minutes he had ceased to utter sounds,
and the only sign of life was the convulsive bending of the
left arm at the elbow. This soon ceased and he was burned
to a crisp.
" Cato seemed to die harder. Long after the life had left
Reed's body he continued to utter cries and to writhe in the
flames, which seemed to have less play at him than Reed.
Finally one of the mob leaned over and with a bludgeon
smashed Cato's head open and he seemed to give up the ghost.
His body then turned and took a horizontal position in the
fire and slowly burned to a crisp and then to ashes.""
After its work, the mob dispersed. The town was again
quiet until the next dav, when the mob suddenly renewed its
work and lynched three more negroes.
A special despatch to the New York World says : " * Regu
lators " are riding Bullock County ; one unidentified negro
has been riddled with bullets, two others perhaps fatally shot,
and everywhere negroes are being unmercifully whipped by
the bands.
" An absolute reign of terror exists throughout the coun
try. A crowd passed the house of Albert Roberts, an old
negro, living near Register, and fired a broadside into it.
The old negro, a thoroughly peaceable man, was mortally
wounded, and his seventeen -year-old son, Raymond, was
struck by several bullets. The negro was seventy-odd years
of age. . . .
" Wild spirits from surrounding counties have flocked to
Statesboro' and are aiding in the whipping and assaulting of
the inoffensive negroes. . . .
" The unidentified body of a negro was found lying by the
roadside riddled with bullets eight miles from here. It was
at first believed to be that of Handy Bell, but men who
know him say that it was not he/1
The World editorially says :
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
" The burning of negroes by a mob at Statesboro', Georgia,
yesterday, was one of the most barbarous and wanton crimes
ever committed in the name of lynch law.
" The victims had been convicted of murder, after a prompt
and fair trial, and had been sentenced to be hanged on Sep
tember 9th. So that the usual excuse of uncertain or delayed
legal justice was not present. Yet the mob 'overpowered
the militia ' — without a shot having been fired, apparently —
and took the condemned prisoners to the woods and burned
them at the stake. If ' Darkest Africa ' is any blacker than
this, travellers have failed to report it. Even the savages1
rude forms of justice are respected."
The Southern leaders and their apologists are accustomed
to justify lynchings on the ground of the protection of
womanhood. Whenever they speak in public, in Congress
or elsewhere, the blood of negroes lynched is spattered on the
head of womanhood. To push womanhood to the front and
make it bear the brunt of barbarous crimes committed on
the negroes from " stark blood-lust overwhelming the appeal
to reason," which is absolutely true of the great majority of
lynchings, is unwise and merits the condemnation of chivalric
manhood. Negroes have been lynched in the South for every
crime ; and they have been lynched when no crime whatever
has been charged. The negro man, the woman, the youth
fourteen years of age, the child three years of age, the babe in
the mother's arms who could not lisp the word " mamma,"
have been the victims of the lynching mobs.
The records of lynchings kept by the Chicago Tribune, a
reliable authority, show that only two or three out of every
ten colored persons lynched are even charged with the name
less offence. It has been proved that some of those charged
with the crime were innocent. In a particular instance a
white man who killed his wife while in a passion charged
one of the negroes who worked on his place with having
assaulted and murdered his wife. And this white man
244
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
headed the mob which lynched the negro. He made a full
confession on his death-bed of the negro's innocence.
Riotings and lynchings have become dominant features in
Southern life and their reflex influence has caused the enact
ment of bloody deeds in a few Northern communities. It
does not help matters to say that in Illinois, Kansas, or
Delaware a mob can burn a negro at the stake with all the
cruelties of a Georgia, Mississippi, or Texas mob. It is due
to Southern example ; and it has been proved that men from
the South have been the leaders of Northern mobs. It is
also true that many Southern men residing in the North,
and also visiting Southerners, seize every opportunity to
discredit the colored man and inflame passions against
him.
Senator Tillman, while on a visit North, referring to the
violence committed by a Northern mob, said : " I see you are
learning how to kill and burn ' niggers.1 That 's right ; let
the good work go on. Keep it up; you are getting some
sense." Other Southerners, through the press and in addresses,
have made statements calculated to inflame certain elements,
and doubtless have caused much mischief. The good people
of the North can and should call a halt to those Southerners
who are seeking to create strife between the races in the
North. The " strikes" among a few school children against
colored teachers or pupils are due to the barbarous teachings
of these Southern leaders.
The truth remains, however, that lynch-law does not
dominate any Northern state. It does dominate Southern
states. It has become a part of Southern civilization and is
publicly defended by many leading Southern men. The
ISKjrthern man in public life who should advocate lynching
would be disgraced. The Southern men who defend or
endorse it, like Tillman, Carmack, Vardaman, Richardson,
Graves, and Money, are honored in public life and kept in
high places.
245
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
To indicate how general lynchings have become in the
South, and to emphasize, if possible, the infamy of it, the
following cases may be cited : At Carrollton, Louisiana,
a negro man and two women were lynched : they were sus
pected of being implicated in a murder. In Smith County,
Mississippi, four negro men and one woman were lynched, and
eight or ten badly beaten, and most of the negroes ordered
to leave : they were suspected of wounding two white men.
In Mississippi, a negro woman was lynched ; " the mob
visited the woman's house and after tying her hands behind
her, took her to the bridge over Lick Creek. Here she was
shot through the head and her lifeless body was thrown into
the stream " : her offence was that her brother was charged
with stealing a pocket-book and she could not tell the mob
of his whereabouts, and so was lynched.
In Louisiana, a young negro was lynched because he
could not tell the whereabouts of his brother, who was
charged with theft. At Lewisburg, Tennessee, a negro was
lynched in the court-house yard : he was suspected of murder.
In St. James Parish, Louisiana, a negro charged with murder
was burned at the stake. At Florence, Alabama, a negro
was lynched by being " hamstrung, hung up by the heels like
a hog, and allowed slowly to bleed to death " : his offence was
that he had protested loudly against the killing of innocent
negroes. At or near Tuscombia, Alabama, three negroes
were lynched, because one had resisted arrest.
In South Carolina, a negro man and wife were intercepted
while on the way to Abbeville jail, taken from the sheriff, and
hanged on a bridge, and their bodies riddled with bullets :
they were suspected of murder. At Langley, South Carolina,
two negroes who had been wounded in a fight in the " Jim
Crow " car set apart for colored people, and which had been
invaded by whites, and whom the doctor said could not
possibly live, were taken from the jail and lynched. At
Newbern, Tennessee, two negroes were lynched : they were
246
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
suspected of murder. At Memphis, Tennessee, four negroes
were lynched for starting a grocery store, in competition with
a white man, in a colored settlement.
At Joplin, Missouri, several negroes were lynched, a number
of their homes were burned, and over a thousand were driven
out in one day. The home of postmaster Baker, of South
Carolina, was surrounded at night ; oil was poured on the
house and it was set on fire. When the family attempted to
escape, the mob opened fire on them. Mr. Baker was killed ;
his young babe in his arms was killed; his wife and two
daughters and a son were also shot. His only offence was
that he was a negro who held a Federal office. In Louisiana,
a leading negro minister was lynched because he advised
the colored people to become the owners of their own homes
and farms. In the same state, near Girard, a negro was
lynched ; the only offence that he was charged with was the
stealing of a bottle of " pop."
At Hodenville, Kentucky, a negro was lynched on the
court-house steps : he was charged with causing a white
boy to steal. At Brookside, Alabama, three white men shot
down an inoffensive negro just for fun — one saying, " Watch
the ' coon ' jump." The negro was shot dead.
In one case a young white girl was made the executioner.
She put the rope around the victim's neck ; he was then
placed on the back of a horse ; the end of the rope was
thrown over the limb of a tree, and the little girl took
hold of the bridle of the horse and led it away, leaving
the victim hanging. The body was then riddled with bul
lets. Where else in civilization could such a spectacle be
witnessed ?
At Beach Still, Georgia, the negroes were having a dance,
when the hall was fired upon by white men ; two negroes
were killed, and nine wounded, including three women. In
Gunterville, Alabama, a negro was lynched ; the charge was
barn-burning. In South Carolina five negroes were lynched :
247
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
they were suspected of having burned a barn. It was after
wards proven that they were innocent.
The Boston Journal cites this case : " Viewed from any
standpoint the lynching of negro Robert White in Alabama
was a cowardly murder. A white man had killed all of
White's chickens. This resulted in a row and shots were
exchanged. No white participant in the affair was troubled,
but the negro was arrested, and while in the hands of an
officer, going to jail, he was seized by a mob of white men
and put to death. Every man in that mob was nothing less
than a murderer and should be so treated ; but the victim
was only a ' nigger ' who had no rights which white folks of
that sort respect, and the murderer will go scot free."
In Salisbury, North Carolina, two negro boys were taken
from the jail and lynched : they were suspected of murder.
Pierce City, Missouri, shows this record : " For nearly
fifteen hours to-day this town of 3,000 people has been in
the hands of a mob of armed men, determined to drive out
every negro. In addition to the lynching last night of
William Godley, accused falsely, it is believed, of murder,
and the shooting of his grandfather, French Godley, the mob
to-day burned Peter Hampton, an aged negro, alive in his
home, set the torch to the houses of five blacks and with the
aid of state militia rifles, stolen from the local company's
arsenal, drove dozens of negroes from town. After noon the
excitement died down, the mob gradually dispersing, more
from lack of negroes upon whom to wreak their hatred than
from any other cause. Many of the negroes who fled the
city are hiding in the surrounding woods, while others have
gone greater distances in seeking safety."
A colored camp-meeting in Mississippi was raided by
whites ; thirty colored people engaged in the worship of God
were killed, including the pastor, his wife, a daughter twelve
years of age, his younger child three years of age, and a
minister who was assisting in the meetings. The whites in-
248
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
terfered with the meeting. The killing was wanton ; there
were no charges against any of the colored people.
In South Carolina a number of colored men appeared at
the polls to vote, and a riot was started. Seven of the colored
men were captured and made to stand up on a log, and were
there shot to death : their offence was that they had at
tempted to vote. The white man who was running for
Congress and for whom they wanted to vote was also shot.
In Arkansas, fifteen negroes were lynched as a result of a
dispute in which a colored man doubted a white man's
word over a grocery bill.
The New York World) reviewing the crimes of 1901, says :
u Lynchings show one hundred and seven cases in the South,
nil colored . . . Race hatred is the cause of many crimes . . .
Thus ten persons were killed for no other cause than race
prejudice in the South last year.11 Many of those lynched
for " cause " were innocent of crime.
The New York Journal describes a case in these words :
" Call to your mind the picture of the negro, with a rope
hanging around his neck, escaping from the mob the other
day and running to the sheriff with his face battered in. The
mob had wanted to lynch him because he would not confess
that some one else was guilty of arson." The Journal, re
ferring to another case, said : " Negroes are lynched for being
born into the world.1'1
The Nashville (Tennessee) American gives an account of a
lynching in Mississippi as follows : "But there was a lynching
in that state that for fiendish brutality has not yet been sur
passed, even when the victims have been roasted at the stake.
It occurred at Doddsville, recently, and these are the circum
stances as related by local newspapers : Luther Holbert, a
negro, had a quarrel with a white man and, following the
usual Mississippi method, they exchanged shots, the negro
escaping and the white man being killed. The negro,
knowing the penalty for killing a white man in that section,
249
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
fled, of course, accompanied by his wife, who had had no
part in the quarrel. They were captured by the mob and
this is what was done to them, according to the statement of
an eye-witness in the Vicksburg Herald.
" ' When the two negroes were captured they were tied to
trees, and while the funeral pyres were being prepared they
were forced to suffer the most fiendish tortures. The blacks
were forced to hold out their hands while one finger at a time
was chopped off. The fingers were distributed as souvenirs.
The ears of the murderers were cut off. Holbert was
severely beaten, his skull was fractured, and one of his eyes,
knocked out with a stick, hung by a shred from the socket.
Neither the man nor the woman begged for mercy, nor made
a groan or plea. When the executioners came forward to
lop off fingers, Holbert extended his hand without being
asked. The most excruciating form of punishment consisted
in the use of a large corkscrew in the hands of one of the
mob. This instrument was bored into the flesh of the man
and the woman, in the arms, legs, and body, and pulled out,
the spiral tearing out big pieces of raw, quivering flesh every
time it was withdrawn.
" ' After these tortures the mutilated bodies were burned.
Had this negro outraged a white woman ? Oh, no ; he had
merely killed a white man who was shooting at him. His
wife had committed no crime, but simply fled with her hus
band. Yet she was made to share his fate, and with him to
suffer the most cruel and brutal tortures the devilish in
genuity of the degraded savages could devise."* ""
During the last ten years lynchings have averaged one hun
dred and fifty a year. Many of the victims were known to
be innocent at the time, but when the mob starts out it must
have blood, whether the victims are guilty or innocent.
Numerous riots and expulsions have also taken place.
A feature in connection herewith, worthy of note, is that
the coroner's jury, impanelled to uphold the law, as a rule
250
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
renders the stereotyped verdict that " The party or parties
came to their death at the hands of persons unknown.'1 And
this in the face of the fact that the press publishes the names
of the leaders of the mob, and of the man who fires the first
shot or lights the fire to burn the victim. Sometimes the
jury treats the matter as a joke ; in one case they rendered
the verdict that " the deceased came to his death by swinging
in the air." Again, that " the deceased came to his death by
taking too great a bite of hemp rope." At other times their
verdict is a direct incentive to crime ; as for instance this :
" We do not know who killed the deceased, but we con
gratulate the parties on their work." Members of the mobs
have also served on the coroner's jury. A grand jury re
turned this verdict in Louisiana : " The men who par
ticipated in the burning were among the best citizens of the
county, and nothing but a desire to protect those who are
nearest and dearest to them would move them to undertake
such measures." As to the savagery of the tortures inflicted
upon the victims, these additional facts may be given : Red-
hot iron has been used to burn the tongue from the mouth ; to
burn the flesh from the breast and back ; to burn out the eyes ;
to burn the flesh from the arms and legs ; to burn off the ears
and nose. The heart and the liver have been removed from
the body and cut into small pieces and sold as souvenirs of
the lynching. Repeatedly, events have occurred which showed
that the negroes who were lynched were entirely innocent.
Press despatches gave the following case : " Charleston,
South Carolina, March 2, 1904. After taking a prominent
part in lynching three negroes, section-foreman Jones, of the
Atlantic Coast line, to-day confessed to the murder of his
wife, for which the innocent men were mobbed.
" One morning during the early part of May, 1902, the body
of Mrs. Jones was found in the dog house, in the rear of her
yard, at Ravenel. Her throat was cut from ear to ear and
her head crushed in.
251
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
"The news of the terrible crime soon spread over Coileton
county and armed parties were organized and the woods were
scoured for negroes, it having been stated that three negro
men were seen in the vicinity of the Jones house the morning
of the tragedy. The description of the negroes corresponded
with that of Jim Black, James Ford, and Thomas Fryer, who
had been in the neighborhood, but who had suddenly dis
appeared.
"After searching for the negroes for a week they were
arrested, taken to the scene of the crime, and swung to the
limbs of trees. Jones was present and was given the oppor
tunity of firing the first shots into their bodies.
" Several weeks ago section-foreman Jones was taken sick,
and Dr. Willis was called in to treat him ; but he had passed
all medical aid, for the disease with which he was afflicted had
wrecked his constitution, and he began to sink. Realizing
that he was about to die, Jones confessed to killing his wife.
" ' I know I am going to die, but I can't die until I tell all
about killing my wife,1 he said to his physician. He then
recited the details of the crime, declaring that he killed his
wife in a moment of passion that morning in May before he
left for his work. He then carried the body from the house
and dumped it into the dog house, where it was found by his
little daughter a few hours afterward. Immediately after
making the confession he expired."
The first thought that may impress the average mind from
these recitals is that the negroes are not the only, or the chief,
or the worst criminals in the South. Colored criminals may
outnumber white criminals in the penal institutions, but they
may not be numerically stronger outside the penitentiary.
Practically all colored criminals, and many not criminals go
to the penitentiary, but many white criminals go to Canada,
or into political offices, or become " guards " or " bosses."
Crime has increased among the colored people since emanci
pation, but it should be remembered that there are nearly
252
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
three times as many colored people now as were emancipated.
Crime has also increased among the whites. Forty years ago
there were practically no whites in penitentiaries in the South,
but now there are thousands ; besides, there are hundreds of
white females in prison, — a condition unheard of before the
War of the Rebellion. One of the greatest scandals of recent
times in the South was the brutal flogging of a white woman
in a prison in Georgia.
Another thought that will suggest itself is : Why are these
inhumanities permitted to exist in Christian, civilized com
munities ? The answer is : It is because of the virus of
slavery in the brain of the whites, called into activity by the
leaders to compass the subjugation of the colored race. It is
a part of a carefully evolved plan by the leaders. It is de
signed to put the race under the contempt of the whites and
to destroy its morale.
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, in the Atlantic Monthly,
shows that the reign of terror and lynchings are in defence
neither of law nor of chastity, but " It is in defence of caste."
And he further says : " What the whole nation needs is
to deal with the negro race no longer as outcasts, but simply
as men and women. " The Boston Herald says : " In all the
years since the war it is probable that fifty negroes have been
murdered by white men for every white man murdered by
negroes, and a hundred negro women have been debauched
by white men for every white woman outraged by a negro.11
Mies Caroline Pemberton, of one of the first families of
Philadelphia, in a communication to the Public Ledger of
that city, says : " In the first place, the crime of assault is
not peculiar to the negro race. It is practically unknown in
the West Indies, in South Africa, and South America, and
was never charged against the Southern negro until political
and social conditions ripened in the minds of Southern whites
a frantic desire to stigmatize the whole negro race as unworthy
to possess the rights of men. The crime of assault so fre-
253
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
quently charged against the negro as a race is part of the
political conspiracy to deprive him of his legal rights. It
has been proved over and over again that only a very small
proportion of negroes who are lynched in the South are even
charged with this crime ; and of those who are charged with
it, it is safe to conclude that a fair proportion is innocent. I
reach this last conclusion from knowledge of the fact that
the charge is often made against men of all races under con
ditions that make their comparative innocence almost a fore
gone conclusion.
" In regard to negro criminality, let me assure you that I
speak from personal experience when I assert that the average
working negro is as free from pronounced criminal tendencies
as the white man of the same class. I have for years employed
colored people in my own household, and found them both
trustworthy and efficient. . . .
" I have travelled over the muddy roads of Eastern Virginia
for many miles, and through the Black Belt of Alabama for
several days, with no other protector in each case than a negro
driver, and with no thought of harm coming to me. I have
visited colored schools in the South, taught by white Northern
women whose sole protectors were their black students and
a few colored instructors. The only people these gentle
women feared were the white men of the neighborhood,
whose threats against the school had at one time caused them
grave anxiety. The loyal devotion of the blacks to these
white women was something beautiful to see, and was proof
enough that the faithful character of the negro has not
changed since slavery ."
Mr. James S. Stemons, in the Philadelphia Record, says :
" Shame ! But who can point to any negro crime so loathsome
as the assault and murder by four white men of Jennie Bos-
schieter, in Paterson, New Jersey, four years ago ; or as that
of the two men in Wheeling, West Virginia, who, two years
ago, took a seventeen-year-old girl from her escort at the point
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
of a pistol, assaulted and murdered her, and threw her body
into the Ohio River ; of the nine men who a few days ago
assaulted a young girl in this city ; of the two brothers who
assaulted a five-year-old child ; or that of the more than a
dozen men who have within the past four years assaulted, in
some cases at the point of a pistol, their own daughters,
nieces, and cousins ? "
All these cases were committed by white men. And it
may be noted here that the Confederate Congress, in resolu
tions formally adopted in October, 1862, made this same charge
against the soldiers of the Union army. It was unjustly
pressed then ; it is unjustly pressed now, against the colored
people. No large body of people should be held responsible
for the acts of a few brutal individuals. All races have
developed brutal men. But neither in the North nor in the
South has the colored race developed the most elusive, danger
ous, and brutal criminals.
The colored race has produced no criminals or desperadoes
of heartless cruelty like the James brothers ; or the man
Holmes, who killed so many people, including several wives
and his own children, that he did not keep trace of them ; or
the Chicago boy bandits ; or the trained nurse who wiped out
several families by poisoning ; or some of the guards and
officials of the stockades or penitentiaries and the leaders of
the lynching mobs.
The Chicago Chronicle, referring to an editorial in the
Atlanta News, edited by Mr. John Temple Graves, in which
he advocates the systematic establishment of a reign of terror
and lynching, says :
" In his leading editorial last Friday he advocates not only
lynching, but a revival of the Ku Klux Klan. In that
editorial he declares that ' neither law nor statutes, nor
public opinion, nor armed forces, nor Federal courts, nor any
other courts will prevent the stern expression of the popular
horror ' of crime when it is committed by a negro — expression
255
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
by burning at the stake the negro suspected of the crime
without trial or proof of any kind.
" This man threatens to revive the masked night-riding
murderers if an attempt is made to invoke national law and
courts for the protection not only of negroes but for the
preservation of Southern society from lapsing into that sav
agery and anarchy into which by admission of the Governor
of Georgia it has almost fallen in that state already."
In order to accomplish the subjugation of the colored race
and the destruction of its citizenship, these leaders would
plunge the South into a state of anarchy.
For forty years the negro has been harassed and harried on
the right and on the left, in front and behind. He has been
on the run, and has not had a moment to pause and catch his
breath or take his bearings. He has been, and is, fearfully
handicapped. Some of the whites of the South have been
kind, friendly, and helpful to him ; many have sympathized
with him in his tribulations and woes, but lacked the courage
to manifest it ; and a few have spoken out boldly against the
outrages and outlawry of which he has been the victim. But
the leaders and the organized South have allowed him no
quarter, shown him no mercy.
The proscriptions and oppressions which are laid on the
colored man either North or South on the ground of color
alone have made him extremely sensitive to any infraction
of his rights and liberty. And in desperation he has at times
struck back at the oppressor, although the lyncher's noose was
dangling in his face.
Much of the violence of which he is guilty, especially in
the North, is due to resentment that certain elements in the
North should seek to outrage him simply because of his
color. A community which denies a man a fair chance to
earn an honest living because of his color, thus driving him
into idleness, is in a manner responsible for the increase of
its criminals.
256
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
Every municipal or state law bearing on him enacted in
the South since his emancipation has been to degrade,
ostracize, and alienate him, and deprive him of his liberty, or
restrict him in the realization of his dreams of freedom. On
the other hand, it is a cheering truth that every law passed
in the North touching the negro has been to confirm and
make secure his freedom, protect his civil rights, guarantee
his ballot, and put him on the same footing with all other
citizens before the law.
In the passage of such laws in the North, Democrats and
members of other political parties have nobly aided the
Republicans in achieving the security and firm establish
ment of the liberty and rights of the colored citizen.
In the South, in the state of Texas, a colored man who had
been carrying the mail to and fro from the State House to
the post-office for fifteen years was discharged under the
new order of things, which prohibits the negro from being
recognized in any public or semi-public relation in the South.
Such repression is general. The Richmond, Virginia, city
council passed a resolution prohibiting the negro from being
employed in any position around the City Hall. The brother
hood of locomotive and steamboat firemen of the South at
their meeting at Norfolk, Virginia, passed resolutions protest
ing against the employment of negroes as firemen on loco
motives or steamboats. Other labor organizations have
placed the boycott on him. He is being driven to the wall.
The increase of crime is coincident with the increase of
oppression and outlawry. The organized South is respon
sible for the growth in crime.
How far — how long — are these things to go on ?
Ella Wheeler Wilcox has published in the New York
Journal, a poem which, in part, runs as follows : —
" Out of the wilderness, out of the night,
Has the black man crawled to the dawn of light ;
Beaten by lashes and bound by chains,
n 257
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
A beast of burden with soul and brains.
He has come through sorrow and need and woe,
And the cry of his heart is to know, to know !
" Red with anguish his way has been.
This suffering brother of dusky skin,
For centuries fettered and bound to earth.
Slow his unfolding to freedom's birth —
Slow his rising from burden and ban
To fill the stature of mortal man.
You must give him wings ere you tell him to fly —
You must set the example and bid him try ;
Let the white man pay for the white man's crime —
Let him work in patience and bide God's time.
" Out of the wilderness, out of the night,
Has the black man crawled to the dawn of light ;
He has come through the valley of great despair —
He has borne what no white man ever can bear —
He has come through sorrow and pain and woe,
And the cry of his heart is to know, to know ! "
258
CHAPTER VIII
THE RISE AND ACHIEVEMENTS
OF THE COLORED RACE
PRESIDENT ALDERMAN of Tulane University,
New Orleans, Louisiana, a well-bred, high-minded, and
highly cultured Southerner, who holds his equipoise even
in that city which is the storm-centre of " Jim Crowism," in a
public address said : " Progress is measured by the distance
one has travelled as well as to the point one has reached."
He was speaking on the race question. The colored race,
judged by this standard, measured by this mete-wand, may
confidently invite comparison in their forty years of struggles
and ascent in civilization with any people in the world's
history.
Another Southerner, the Right Reverend Bishop Haygood,
one of the greatest men, greatest in heart, greatest in brain,
that the South has produced, speaking of the progress of the
colored race, said : " It 's a marvel. It overturns all of our
preconceived ideas about the negro. We thought we knew
him, but we did n't. We must in honesty confess that he has
surprised us and taught us much we did not know and would
not have believed."
The Reverend A. B. Curry, D. D., of Memphis, Tennessee,
who at present represents a small but important class in
Southern life, but a class like " the mustard seed " of the
parable, that will certainly multiply and predominate as the
South shall take the sober second thought, preached a sermon
in his home city on the 27th of November, 1904, in which he
pays a deserved tribute to the colored man and paints a word
portrait of him which should command consideration because
of its truthfulness. The sermon was published in the Mem
phis Commercial Appeal, and carries its own commendation
of the mind and heart of the minister.
259
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Dr. Curry said in part : " I am not ashamed to say that I
have a tender feeling in my heart for the negro. I believe I
would be an ingrate if I did not have such feeling. My
helpless infancy and early childhood were watched over with
a tender care and affection second only to those of the
mother who bore me, and it was those of my faithful negro
nurse on the old plantation home in southern Georgia. . . .
" We criticise him and complain of him, but we don't want
to give him up. Let a labor agent go through the South,
seeking to induce the negroes to leave the country and he
becomes at once, to say the least, persona non grata. I have
known such agents in some localities to be fined and imprisoned.
That means that our country needs him. He is the best
laborer, for the kind of labor that needs to be done in the
South, that we have ever found. . . .
"A year ago, when there was a disagreement between
our steamboat companies and their negro roustabouts, an
effort was made to replace the latter with white men ; but it
was not successful. The white men could not do the work
satisfactorily ; and when I went up to St. Louis the past
summer on the river, I understood it. I do not believe there
is the white race living or any other race, not even the patient
Chinamen, who either could or would do the work the negro
roustabouts do, in the way they are required to do it. The
negro's great muscular-strength, his powers of endurance, his
healthfulness in a Southern climate, and his docility of spirit
make him an invaluable factor in the labor problem of the
South, and the present material development of the South is
due in no small measure to the brawn and muscle and willing
industry of the negro. . . .
" Twenty white tramps come to my door, begging, to one
negro. An able-bodied negro is almost never a beggar. What
he asks, and what the white man owes him, is a chance to
work along every avenue for which his mind and his hand
capacitate him, with a fair wage fully and promptly paid. . . .
260
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE COLORED RACE
" There is no more docile man, nor loyal friend than
the negro, when convinced of your disinterested love for
him.
" But we are told by some that the game is not worth the
candle ; that after all, the negro is incapable of a high civili
zation and of valuable achievement ; that he is destitute of
the noble traits of human nature. I cannot believe this, for
I remember when, during the Civil War, my two oldest
brothers, both still in their teens, went to the front, and my
father was called away on a similar mission, leaving my
mother and her little children to the care and protection of
the negro slaves, that sacred trust was kept with the utmost
fidelity ; and there were men among them who, if need arose,
would have laid down their lives through devotion to their
trust. . . .
" I have heard of a negro man, who, after freedom, re
moved from his old home in Virginia to Macon, Georgia.
There through industry and thrift he amassed a nice amount
of property. Hearing that his old master and mistress in
Virginia, unable to adjust themselves to changed conditions,
had become homeless and poor, he built them a comfortable
little home in Macon, brought them to it, and cared for them
till they died, and then carried their bodies back to the old
Virginia home for burial.
" When I was in the Palace of Fine Arts in St. Louis this
summer, I saw a picture before which I stood and wept. In
the distance was a battle scene ; the dust of tramping men
and horses, the smoke of cannon and rifles filled the air;
broken carriages and dead and dying men strewed the
ground. In the foreground was the figure of a stalwart
negro man, bearing in his strong arms the form of a fair-
haired Anglo-Saxon youth. It was the devoted body ser
vant of a young Southerner, bearing the dead body of his
young master from the field of carnage, not to pause or rest
till he had delivered it to those whose love for it only sur-
261
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
passed his own ; and underneath the picture were these
words: 'Faithful Unto Death'; and there are men before
me who have seen the spirit of that picture illustrated on
more than one field of battle.
" I do not think a race possessed of such qualities of heart,
capable of such noble, unselfish deeds, is to be despised among
the families of the earth. There is a place for it, and a work
for it to do, in the world. Is it asked, what will be the final
destiny of the negro in America ? We cannot tell, but let
us do our duty to the poor man at our gate in the spirit of
Christ, and leave results with God. We need not fear ; they
will be satisfactory.11
Mr. Sarge Plunkett of Georgia, a sane Southerner on the
negro question, writing to the Atlanta Constitution, says :
" No matter how others may feel or have felt, the negro
in the South has been such a surprise to me that I am slow
to say what he will or will not accomplish ; I am even
slow to say that he is as inferior as we have heard he was.
The negro must lift himself, and while it goes mighty hard
with me to acknowledge it, he is lifting himself, and he will
keep on lifting up and up at every opportunity. On lines of
accumulation, the negro has done better than an old timer
would have ever thought he could do. I know negroes,
and we all know negroes, who could fc buy,' as the saying
goes, every child of his old master. And I can tell you, as
a truth, that negroes who are able to do this that I have
hinted have more prestige, are more respectable if you please,
than these children I have mentioned. Sit down coolly and
contemplate the negroes as they were at the end of our war
and as they are to-day ; do this, after laying aside the preju
dice that you have and I have, and I feel more than a great
majority will have to acknowledge that the negro is not so
inferior as we thought he was.
" How well can many now living remember what a picture
they made about the time of Lee's surrender !
262
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE COLORED RACE
" I admit that I was fooled about their capacity, and I
know that thousands of others were the same. If we had
been told then that there would be a black man developed
into what we know that Washington is, we would have
honestly thought it foolish and passed it as a joke. When I
pass out about the big negro colleges around Atlanta and
look upon the students there, I am bound to admit that they
are beyond anything that I ever dreamed they could be.""
And speaking of the possibilities of a great foreign war,
and the availability of the negro for service in the United
States army, Mr. Plimkett further urges : " If we should have
such a war as is contemplated, I take it that the negroes will
join our armies just as white men join. They will march
under the same Hag, wear the same uniform, and are bound
by right to be accorded all the honors that their actions
mav deserve. It is more than probable — it is certain — that
there will develop heroes and heroines from out of the race
of whom the poets will sing, and when this is accomplished,
then many other things will belong to them by right and the
natural consequences. When we get up such a war as will
call for the need of these negroes, and they are formed into
regiments and brigades, put on the blue, rally around the
flag, charge batteries, and do all the duties in a soldierly way,
then they will feel that they have rights here that they never
had before, and millions of people outside of their race will
feel the same about the matter."
This is precisely true. In the wars in which the negroes
have worn the blue, they have rallied around the flag,
charged on batteries even unto the jaws of death, and per
formed all their duties in such a soldierly way that millions
of people outside of their race believe them to be entitled
to all the honors that their actions may deserve — even the
full enjoyment of American citizenship.
But it must be evident to Mr. Plunkett that the dominant
leaders of the South are not the kind of men who could be
263
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
moved by the influences of which he speaks, or by humane
or Christian or patriotic impulses. Neither the negro soldier
who charged Fort Wagner or San Juan Hill, nor the negro
educator who has been pronounced to be among the greatest
of living men, would be recognized by them as an American
among Americans.
What then becomes of the contention that it is the white
man of the South alone who knows the negro ?
The rise and achievements of the race have not been along
one line, or two lines, or three lines, but they have been
witnessed in every vocation, avenue, and calling of American
life. In the brief space of a single generation, the manu
mitted race has conquered places in all the multiple phases
of modern activities. Verily, " the republic is opportunity/'1
The abolitionists, philanthropists, Christians, and human
itarians of the North, and those scattering, but greatly
deserving Southerners who in wisdom " faced the rising sun,""
probably built better than they knew — guided and upheld
by the wisdom and power of Jehovah, God — when they
decided on the kind of education that should be open to the
colored race at the close of the war. They refused to regard
the colored race as a special race, and therefore needing a
special kind of education. They acted on the principle that
as the colored people were a part of the human race, then
any kind and every kind of education that was good enough
for a white man, was good enough for them. The putting
in force of this simple, common-sense idea made possible the
wonderful success of the colored people.
If they had yielded to a " craze " for industrial education
and devoted their strength to it, the colored race could not
have gained in a hundred years the great advance in civiliza
tion and the splendid achievements which now stand to its
credit after only a single generation of endeavor. For empha
sis on industrial education would have circumscribed the
mental vision, limited the aspirations, narrowed the ambitions,
264
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE COLORED RACE
stunted all higher and broader growth, and held the race
close down to the lines of hewers of wood and drawers of
water, which was the endless routine under the slave regime.
The colored race can work, it knows how to work, it will
work, and in an experience of two hundred and fifty years it
proved its value as the hardiest of toilers in every Southern
community.
The South acknowledged the value and profitableness of
the negro as a toiler and producer when it went to war and
fought four years with vast loss in blood and treasure to hold
him a»s a part of its system. It was divinely wise that the
colored race in beginning its new life of liberty was taught
to look also on the higher and greater things of life ; that the
mind was taken beyond its accustomed sphere ; that the
things denied it in slavery were open to it in freedom ; that
the mind might expand with the height and breadth of the
universe.
Schools were planted : the lower grades ; the preparatory
schools ; the normal schools ; the colleges ; the professional
schools. They began work almost simultaneously, — in
some cases while the shock of war was still on ; in other
cases the instant that peace was declared. The work was
earned on with such rapidity and thoroughness, and there
was such hearty and overwhelming response from the colored
people — who crowded and overflowed school-houses with their
children, and, for lack of room in-doors, sessions were held out-
of-doors under the oak and elm trees — that the white
people of the South stood sullenly surprised, and the people
of the North gladly amazed. It meant a revolution in the
Southland irresistible, sweeping, all-embracing. It meant a
New South!
For a time this work of education was supported by the
National Government, supplemented by Northern benevolence
and by a nominal fee which was charged the colored parent
for each child. The people of the North contributed money
265
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
for this cause without stint ; chiefly through the several
religious denominations. In this work the Congregationalists,
Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Unitarians,
Friends, and other denominations, and hosts of individuals
heartily co-operated. But greater and better than the
money contributions, they gave thousands of their conse
crated, devoted, self-denying sons and daughters to this
humane, patriotic, Christ-like work. The brave men, and
it may be said, braver women, who left comforts, luxuries,
refinements of their Northern homes and went to the South
at the close of the war to teach and lift up a despised and
prostrate people, performed a service for humanity, for the
republic, for the kingdom of God in the world that will
go on with ever-increasing power and beneficent fruitage
through all the countless ages to come.
True, they were frequently hampered in their work by
irreconcilable Southerners ; their school-houses were some
times burned to the ground ; their homes stoned in the
night ; they were insulted on the streets ; they were, and
still are, socially boycotted ; they were sometimes murdered.
But their work went on. They conquered. The best South
to-day, notwithstanding the clamor and outlawry inspired
by " Jim Crowism," is being converted to the education of
the colored people. Some have materially assisted in the
work ; others have given it the support of tongue and pen ;
and still others have become efficient teachers.
Among the Northern men who rendered distinguished and
lasting service in the uplifting of the race was the Reverend
William W. Patton, D.D., late President of Howard Uni
versity, Washington, D. C. He was a man with a history ;
and the impress of his great life was stamped on thousands of
colored youths. He left school an ardent and uncompromis
ing abolitionist. His father was a distinguished Presbyterian
minister. But he entered the Congregational denomination,
as it offered and encouraged the greatest freedom for the
266
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE COLORED RACE
expression of his antislavery views. For ten years he was
the pastor of the Fourth Congregational Church at Hartford,
Connecticut, and made it a great antislavery centre.
In 1856, because of his antislavery reputation, he was
called to the First Congregational Church at Chicago, Illinois.
His sermons, lectures, and addresses soon made him a great
favorite in the West among all antislavery elements. He
aided in the organization of the American Missionary Asso
ciation, which was an organized protest against slavery, and
which, through its numerous schools, colleges, universities,
and churches has bestowed countless blessings on the South
and the nation. He also aided in organizing the Chicago
Theological Seminary. He was editor of the Advance.
Dr. Patton is the author of the words of the famous
" John Brown " song, which " express the moral issues of the
war in relation to slavery." It was as follows : —
I
" Old John Brown's body lies a-raouldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage, whom he ventured all to save ;
But though he lost his life in struggling for the slave,
His soul is marching on ! O Glory Hallelujah !
II
" John Brown he was a hero, undaunted, true and brave.
And Kansas knew his valor, where he fought, her rights to save,
And now, though the grass grows green above his grave,
His soul is marching on ! O Glory Hallelujah !
Ill
" He captured Harper's Ferry with his nineteen men so few,
And he frightened ** Old Virginny," till she trembled through and
through ;
They hung him for a traitor, themselves a traitor crew,
But his soul is marching on ! O Glory Hallelujah !
IV
" John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see —
Christ who of the bondman shall the Liberator be ;
And soon throughout the sunny South the slaves shall all be free,
For his soul is marching on ! O Glory Hallelujah ! "
267
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
The entire song was afterward printed in the Chicago
Tribune, and became wonderfully popular in the Western
army. The " Jubilee Singers,'1 some years after, adopted
two of the stanzas for their use, thus giving them yet wider
currency. Wendell Phillips was accustomed at times to
quote the third stanza with great effect.
When the war came Dr. Patton announced from his
pulpit that the lecture-room of his church should be used
for the purpose of drilling the soldiers. He was made Vice-
President of the Sanitary Commission of the Northwest
and became its chief executive officer, visiting the seat of
war and looking after the sick and wounded soldiers and the
sanitary condition of hospitals. He was the inspirer of, and
chief figure in, the great mass meeting at Chicago which
sent a memorial to President Lincoln, urging him to issue a
proclamation freeing the slaves. He was chairman and
spokesman of the committee which bore the memorial ;
and he was ably assisted by Dr. John Dempster and the
Honorable Charles Walker.
President Lincoln talked with them freely. After the
conference Secretary Stanton said to Mr. Medill of the
Chicago Tribune : " Tell those Chicago clergymen who waited
on the President about the Proclamation of Emancipation,
that their interview finished the business." It was even so.
The Emancipation Proclamation was issued shortly afterward.
Scholar, preacher, editor, lecturer, organizer, teacher, president
of a university, invincible foe of slavery. Behold him !
This recital will give some insight into the mental and
moral stamina and high character of the men and women who
planned and laid the foundation for the education and the
uplifting of the colored race. Among the pioneers in this
work, there should be mentioned : the Reverends M. E.
Strieby, James Powell, Simeon Gilbert, E. M. Cravath, E. A.
Ware, John G. Fee, G. W. Andrews, John Braden, John W.
Alvord, S. C. Logan, Luke Dorland [and his wife], R. S.
268
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE COLORED RACE
Rust, J. M. Walden, A. Webster [and his wife and son], L.
M. Dunton [and his wife], J. C. Hartzell, J. W. Hamilton,
E. ¥. Williams, Amos Billings [and his wife], Samuel Loom is
[and his wife], Richard H. Allen, Alfred Owen, Theodore E.
Balch, D. W. Phillips, M. R. Miller, E. C. Mitchell, E. P.
Cowan, Isaac Rendall, A. Wescott, Dr. Tupper [and his
wife]; Professors C. W. Francis, A. K. Spence, Henry S.
Bennett, C. H. Richards, John A. Cole, A. J. Steele, Helen
C. Morgan ; Miss Cahill, Miss Welles, Miss Kate Moorehead,
Miss Helen Bayden , Mrs. S. J. Neil [widow of a Union
officer] ; Generals Clinton B. Fisk, George Whipple, E.
Whittlesey, Charles H. Howard, S. C. Armstrong, Alvord,
William Birney ; and Doctors G. W. Hubbard, D. S. Lamb,
and N. F. Graham, who have had such great success in pro
moting the education of colored youths in medicine, dentistry,
and pharmacy. Bishops Haven and Mallalieu were also
potent forces. General O. O. Howard who was at the head
of the Freedmen's Bureau was the mentor and rendered in
valuable services. It was a work in which thousands were
engaged, so that the above mention of a few individuals
to show the character of the whole will not appear invidious.
Every man and woman who enlisted in this second army of
invasion of the South, with spelling-books instead of muskets,
is worthy of mention and deserving of praise. All of them
faced ostracism, some fell martyrs.
In certain instances the law of compensation operated
most directly. Libby prison, which had become infamous
because of great cruelty inflicted upon Union soldiers impris
oned within it, was occupied and used as the first school for
the education of the colored race in Richmond, the Capital
of the Confederacy. The school which was started in this
former prison pen by the Reverends Nathaniel Colver and
Charles H. Correy has grown into Union University, the
leading institution conducted for the education of colored
youths by the Baptists of the North.
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Hampton Institute, which has the name of General Arm
strong so inseparably connected with it, had its beginning
under a colored teacher, Mrs. Mary S. Peake, who was em
ployed by the American Missionary Association to open and
conduct this school. General Armstrong afterwards took
charge of it and gave it wide and deserved fame, but it was
organi/ed by a colored person.
It was also in harmony with the law of compensation that
a number of colored people who had escaped from slavery
and settled in the North or in Canada and had taken ad
vantage of the schools, as also some who had been born free
or set free by the slaveholders, and some others who despite
the watchfulness of the master class had stolen a knowledge
of the three " R's " in the dead of the night by the light of
the light- wood torch — that these, with more or less intel
lectual preparation, should have entered with enthusiasm
upon the work of educating their race. Among such may be
mentioned : Bishops Daniel A. Payne, H. M. Turner, and J.
W. Hood; Reverends H. R. Revell, J. B. Reeves, T. W.
Henderson, and Henry Highland Garnett ; Professors R. T.
Greener, F. L. Cardoza, John M. Langston, J. M. Gregory,
W. H. Crogman, and William S. Scarborough, the latter
being well known as a Greek scholar ; and William H. Jones,
James A. Bowley, John Shackelford, and P. B. S. Pinchback.
Naturally, this class was not large in numbers, but it was
important and forceful, and a great inspiration to the colored
people in their entrance upon the new life of liberty. Some of
these, and many other colored men whose chief qualification
was " mother wit," became leaders in religious and political
affairs among the colored people. Robert Brown Elliot and
Joseph H. Rainey, as members of Congress from South Caro
lina, and Major Martin R. Delaney of the Black Regiment,
are among the most conspicuous colored men of this period.
The graded schools and universities established were nu
merous and strategetically distributed. It is to these workers
270
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE COLORED RACE
and to these schools, and to the workers and to the schools
that followed, that may be attributed the regeneration of the
colored race which has been wrought. As a result of this
impetus the colored man can make this showing in a single
generation :
Educationally, his illiteracy has been cut down forty-seven
per cent, although there are nearly three times as many
colored people to-day as were emancipated. He fills the
common schools with 1,200,000 of his children ; 30,000 are
in schools for higher learning, and trade schools ; over 200 are
pursuing studies in Northern universities, or taking special
courses in European institutions.
There are about 2,000 negro graduates from colleges ;
more than 400 of these have graduated from white colleges
in the North or from institutions in Europe. Among the
Northern colleges and universities that have sent out colored
graduates are : Harvard, Yale, Michigan, Oberlin, Dartmouth,
Columbia, Brown, Kansas, Stanford, Iowa College, Ohio, Illi
nois, Bates, Williams, Indiana, Boston, Middlebury College,
Minnesota, Wellesley, Smith, Bowdoin, Denver, Amherst,
Beloit, New York University, Northwestern, Nebraska, Olivet,
Vassar, Radcliffe, Adelbert, Colby, Rutgers, Chicago, and the
Catholic University ; there are besides a score of others.
A number of negro students have won honors in Northern
colleges, as for instance R. T. Greener, W. M. Trotter, R. C.
Bruce, at Harvard, Marshall at Michigan, Pickens at Yale ;
and there are others that might be mentioned.
It may be noted that 278 colored women are among the
graduates of colleges ; many of them from colleges at the
North. American negroes have graduated from French,
German, and English institutions and some have prosecuted
successfully studies in Rome.
The following leading theological seminaries of the North
have sent out colored graduates : Andover, Princeton, Oberlin,
General Theological Seminary, Yale, Newton, Drew, Episcopal
271
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Theological School of Cambridge, Union, Hartford, Boston,
and others. In all about two hundred colored men have
graduated from Northern theological seminaries.
The Central Christian Advocate, one of the organs of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, pertinently remarks : " What
kind of negroes does America want ? The negro is here.
Nothing can uproot him from our soil. He is multiplying
rapidly. He is millions strong. He is walking about amid
our institutions, our rights, our constitutional guarantees.
What kind of a negro does America want ? That is a ques
tion that a generation hence will make the republic pause.
" No country is safe where vast masses of its citizens are
forced down under the proper exercise of their capacities.
That is but damming the flood that presses heavier on what
is, with each new repression and scorn.
" The long and the short of it is : The negro is capable of
being a man, and therefore he has a right to a man's chance.
Professor Shaler of Harvard says : ' The negro has mas
tered the English in a very remarkable manner. There are
tens of thousands of untrained blacks in this country who,
by their command of English phrase, are entitled to rank as
educated men. I believe, in general, that our negroes have
a better sense of English than the peasant class of Great
Britain.1 "
Secretary Thirkield, in his address at the annual meeting
at Lincoln, Nebraska, said further : " The capacity of the negro
for genuine scholarship has never been more strongly stated
than by the Reverend J. E. Edwards, D.D., of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South, in the Methodist Review for April,
1882 : ' In many instances it must be admitted — and exam
ples are in this city (Petersburg, Virginia) — that not only do
they make as rapid advances as the whites, but really acquire
thorough scholarship in the different departments of learn
ing and carry off medals for proficiency in mathematics and
in the languages that would be creditable to any one of any
272
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE COLORED RACE
race or color. It is idle, and only shows the inveteracy of
our prejudice, to shut our eyes to the fact that the negroes of
the coming generation are just as capable of scholarship and
culture as the whites.1
" There is but one way to measure a man — and that is by
his capacity. We did not do that when we kept the negro
in slavery. Let us beware failing to do it now, lest the God
whose thunderbolts are hot bring the republic once more to
a judgment day."
The colored man and woman quickly learned to put their
education into service ; it was not allowed to become a drug on
the market : about thirty thousand of them are now teachers
in the public and other schools, and hundreds are filling
professorships in institutions devoted more especially to the
higher education of their race. They have organized and
have complete control over a number of colleges, academies,
and industrial schools conducted by the several denominations,
as well as some independent schools. They are the patrons
of fifty high schools, five law schools, five medical schools,
and twenty-five theological schools devoted to the educa
tion of the race.
About two thousand negroes are now engaged in the prac
tice of law ; perhaps fifteen hundred are in the medical pro
fession, in which some have become specialists along various
lines; some have built and are conducting hospitals, as Doc
tors Williams in Chicago, Boyd in Nashville, McClennan in
Charleston, Mossel in Philadelphia, Purvis in Washington,
and others in other cities. There are several hundred dentists
and pharmacists. They have written and published four hun
dred books ; they own and publish three hundred newspapers,
and twelve magazines, some illustrated, and others devoted
to higher literature and criticism.
In the public service, individual distinctions have been
numerous. Two negroes have been members of the United
States Senate, Revells and Bruce ; and in the House of Repre-
18 273
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
sentatives these have seen service : Elliot, De Large, Cain,
Haralson, Lynch, Nash, Rainey, Ransier, Wells, Rapier,
Smalls, Turner, Ling, Lee, Cheatham, Murray, and White —
and not one of these violated the decorum of his environments
by fisticuffs, or brought other scandal on himself or his race.
There have been in the diplomatic service of the United States,
in foreign countries : Bassett, Langston, Douglass, Greener,
Van Home, Garnet, Smyth, Astwood, Turner, Powell, Grimkc,
and Lyons. Negroes have filled the offices of Register of the
Treasury of the United States and Recorder of Deeds of the
District of Columbia ; Terrell and Hewlett are now exercis
ing judicial functions in the city of Washington. A number
have served as postmasters ; a few as collectors of ports —
as Dancy, Smalls, and Crum.
Negroes have been employed in the United States secret
service and in other important positions. W. H. Lewis is
now assistant district attorney of the United States Court
at Boston, Massachusetts. One of the complaints of the
reactionists is that the people of the North are forcing negro
office-holders on the white people of the South, but do not
sanction the election or appointment of negroes to office in
the North. In discussing this matter the Atlanta Consti
tution has repeatedly referred to the Northerners who hold
that all things being equal the negro has the same right to
hold office as the white man, as " Yankee long-range phil
anthropists." This complaint is entirely without founda
tion. The liberty, the civil and political rights of the colored
man, so far as impartial laws can make them secure, are
absolutely assured in the North. Under them the colored man
is working out his destiny. Besides, the people of the North
have encouraged every effort he has made to free himself from
the blighting evils of slavery and rise to the stature of a man.
Colored men have been repeatedly elected or appointed to
offices in the North by the white people. D. A. Straker was
elected and re-elected to a judicial office in Detroit, Michi-
274
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE COLORED RACE
gan ; Ruffin was appointed a judge at Boston, Massachusetts ;
Mathews was elected a judge at Albany, New York ; Carr is an
assistant in the district attorney's office of New York City; a
colored lawyer fills a similar position in the city of Chicago ;
the city of Cleveland, Ohio, has elected Green and Smith,
colored men, to the state Senate and the House of Represen
tatives respectively ; Chicago has elected Morris to the legis
lature of Illinois ; Detroit elected Pelham and others ; Boston
has repeatedly elected colored men to the legislature : Reed,
Teamoh, and others; and colored men are enrolled in her
city council ; a colored man was chosen a member of the
governor's council in Massachusetts ; Philadelphia has elected
colored men to her city council, and hundreds have been
appointed on her police force and to various lines of service
in the city government. Rhode Island has repeatedly elected
colored men to her legislature, and Pennsylvania in the last
national election chose a colored man, J. W. Holmes, as a
presidential elector.
The Boston Herald, referring to the colored men who have
held positions in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says : " The list
includes an alderman, two representatives in the legislature,
seven members of the common council, a chief of the fire depart
ment, where he was the only man of African blood, a police
man in the service for nineteen years, a municipal bacteriolo
gist, a commander of a white post of the Grand Army of the
Republic, a trustee of the public library, and a woman almost
purely African in blood as principal of a public school in a
first-class residential district, with six white teachers as her
subordinates and with several hundred white pupils. Besides,
Harvard University has paid distinguished honors to not a few
men of color who have studied there. Cambridge is a city
which in its rank as a civilized community can certainly com
pare with any south of Mason and Dixon's line. And yet
none of its citizens would ever dream that in thus honoring
certain of their fellows with negro blood in their veins they
275
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
would render themselves liable to have a negro ask the hand
of their daughter in marriage — a contingency that proverbi
ally is submitted for consideration as a poser when questions
as to negro equality are asked in the South. The thing is
that in Cambridge, as in many other intelligent and corres
pondingly unprejudiced communities, a man, whatever his
race, is regarded according to his capacity as a human being,
and not by the color of his skin, any more than by the
color of his eyes or hair.""
These are but a few of the instances of the election and
appointment of colored men to office in the North ; and they
are alike complimentary to the colored man, as evidence of
his rise in civilization, and to the broad, patriotic, and benev
olent policy of the people of the North in dealing with him.
Practically in every Northern state from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, and from the Mason-Dixon line to the Great
Lakes, colored men have been and are enjoying political
preferment with the sanction of the great body of the people.
The number of colored men and women who are in the
employment of the Government of the United States in the
departments at Washington, and other places, will probably
be a surprise to many people. These colored men and
women reached the positions held, not through political pull
or favoritism, but by merit — generally through the civil
service examinations.
The table on page 277, compiled from official data, shows
the number of colored employees in the service of the
Government, exclusive of the United States Capitol and the
judiciary.
In the activities of church life the colored man has prob
ably scored his greatest success. As a minister he was
unhampered by race prejudice ; his work was among his own
people. To this work he gave himself with an earnestness
and a spirit of self-sacrifice difficult to surpass. He freely
offered to God and his people the service of the best talents he
276
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE COLORED RACE
COLORED OFFICERS, CLERKS, AND OTHER EMPLOYEES IN THE SERVICE
OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNSIENT, 1904.
No.
Salaries
Diplomatic and consular service
13
$32 000
Department service :
State
10
7 600
596
391,834
War
122
94,910
42
29,736
Post-Office
103
66,840
Interior
219
167 260
17
13,520
Agriculture ....
100
53 272
Commerce and labor
125
78,856
Government Printing1 Office
320
210 874
Interstate Commerce Commission ....
District government, Washington, D. C. . .
Recorder of deeds ....
4
1,891
22
2,280
847,055
14,050
Service at large :
Customs and internal revenue
258
205,047
Post-Office at large
750
611,140
Land Office, New Orleans
3
7,800
Miscellaneous ...
5
2,400
Army Officers .
10
17,260
Total
4,610
$2,853,734
Recapitulation by localities :
At foreign stations
13
$32,000
At Washington, D. C
At New York City
3,663
188
2,056,727
153,982
At New Orleans, Louisiana ....
108
96,740
At Atlanta, Georgia
Q4
65,780
At Savannah, Georgia .
42
32,766
At Augusta, Georgia
At Baltimore, Maryland ....
12
40
8,120
31,444
50
37,820
At miscellaneous points
390
321,095
Army Officers
10
17,260
Total
4 610
$2 853 734
possessed. He was, and in many cases is at the present time,
deficient in book learning, but there are essential qualities of
277
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
mind and heart which he did possess and knew how to use to
the glory of God and well-being of his fellow-men. Above
all else, the colored minister has demonstrated the ability of
the negro to organize great masses of the people into solid,
compact bodies, hold them under discipline, enforce laws in
the spirit of love, and make millions subservient to the teach
ings of the Christ.
In the religious denominations, the colored man has demon
strated his capacity for self-government. Take, for instance,
the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It has 6,429
ministers, 5,715 churches, 728,354 communicants, arid prop
erty valued at nearly $12,000,000 ; it conducts 25 schools, the
property value of which is $855,000 ; it publishes two weekly
papers and a monthly magazine ; it has a publishing house for
its Sunday School literature at Nashville, Tennessee, and a
publishing house at Philadelphia for books and periodicals ;
it has over 2,000 missions and about 15,000 members in
Africa, and, in addition, it has missions in Canada, Hayti,
and Bermuda, and also conducts schools in Sierra Leone,
Monrovia, and Cape Town, Africa, and in Bermuda and
Hayti. To operate this vast machinery over $500,000 is
now collected and expended annually. It has twelve bishops
and thirteen general officers ; one of the bishops is assigned to
Africa to watch over the work on that continent.
Another denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal
Zion, close in name and closer in sympathy and work to the
African Methodist Episcopal Church, operates along similar
lines. It has 3,810 ministers, 2,985 churches, and 542,422
members ; it has all the machinery of its sister body, and its
Christian Endeavor work is especially prosperous — having
over 600 societies with more than 30,000 members. It has
seven bishops, a full complement of general offices, publishing
plants, and twelve colleges and schools, with Livingstone
College, Salisbury, North Carolina, founded by the eloquent
J. C. Price, at the head of its educational system. There
278
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE COLORED RACE
are several other colored Methodist bodies working along
these same general lines.
The colored Baptists are numerically the strongest denomi
nation among the colored people, having 10,726 ministers,
15,583 churches, and 1,615,321 communicants. It carries on
important missionary work in Africa, and has a large printing
and publishing plant at Nashville. And a unique fact is that
about forty-five newspapers in various cities are published in
the name of this denomination. It conducts a number of
schools. Not only in those just mentioned but practically in
all the denominations, the colored man has found a home
congenial to himself for the worship of God.
Dr. H. K. Carroll reports the following membership of
negro church bodies in the United States, not including
foreign mission membership, for the year 1903 :
Denominations
Ministers
Churches
Communi
cants
Baptists
10,729
15,614
1,625,330
Union American Methodists . . .
African Methodists
180
6,500
205
5,800
16,500
785,000
African Union Methodist Protestants
African Zion Methodists
Congregational Methodists ....
68
3,386
5
2,159
68
3,042
5
1,497
2,930
551,591
319
207,723
Cumberland Presbyterians ....
450
400
39,000
Total
23,477
26,631
3,228,393
A number of colored people are connected with separate
churches which are not independent denominations, but are
in fellowship with white denominations, and these may be
recorded as shown in the table, page 280.
These figures vary so slightly from those of another au
thority as to be practically the same. It is a matter of great
significance that colored men should be operating great or
ganizations, co-extensive with the jurisdiction of the republic
279
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Denominations
Ministers
Churches
Membership
Methodists (Methodist Episcopal)
245,954
Con^recrationalists
139
230
12 155
Episcopalians
85
200
15,000
Presbyterian s
209
353
21 341
and reaching beyond into foreign countries, touching in the
most direct way the hearts, interests, and welfare of millions
of people. This work goes on year after year so smoothly
that even many who are influenced by it scarcely realize its
proportions. These colored denominations own $41,000,000
in church property. A large percentage of the college-bred
colored men are in the colored ministry. Many thousands
of the colored ministers have had high, normal, or prepara
tory school training, and several thousands have had thor
ough theological training. There are colored physicians with
incomes of $5,000 a year and upwards, and colored lawyers
who earn equally large sums.
The colored race has successfully applied its education in
all the vocations of life ; in business enterprises in various
lines : life insurance ; building associations ; organized chari
ties ; slum, prison, and temperance work ; kindergartens,
and mother's meetings ; hospitals, nurseries, orphanages, and
homes ; benevolent club work ; farming and truck-gardens ;
savings-banks ; contributing to newspapers ; contributing to
magazines ; lectures ; papers before various bodies ; college
and student aid ; fraternal societies and orders ; theatricals ;
athletics ; stenography and typewriting ; telegraph operating ;
instrumental and vocal music ; inventions ; the several trades ;
and on through the long list of human endeavor.
In some of these it has won world-wide fame. In the
colored race there is probably more pathos and humor than
in any other race, probably than in all other races combined.
280
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE COLORED RACE
The Irish is the only other race that approaches it. These
two races furnish the humor that kills dull and heavy cares
and makes the people laugh.
The colored Jubilee singers have made their impress on
the civilized world. People of every degree have been
swayed and moved by them. In minstrelsy, Billy Kersands,
Sam Lucas, Tom Mclntosh, and others, will not be soon for
gotten. Several regular theatrical companies have delighted
audiences in this country and in Europe. " The South be
fore the War,11 " In old Kentucky," " The Smart Set," and
the superb company, "Williams and Walker," and other
combinations have ministered to the public with satisfaction
and profit. In these lines the negro has been frequently
imitated, but not always with success.
In athletics, Harte, of Boston, won the championship as a
pedestrian ; Taylor, " the whirlwind " bicycle rider, broke
and made records and won fame in America, Europe, and Aus
tralia ; and in the " manly sport," Peter Jackson and George
Dixon held the championship for years against all comers.
About five hundred patents have been taken out by colored
men. A negro patented the first machine for pegging shoes.
Elijah McCoy has taken out twenty-seven patents, mostly for
lubricating ; Granville T. Woods, twenty-two, mostly elec
trical ; W. R. Purvis, sixteen ; Frank J. Farrell, ten. The
patents taken out by negroes cover appliances in domestic
and personal service, agriculture, transportation, manufactur
ing, and mining, and other lines of inventions.
In the fraternal and beneficial organizations the negro has
gained great triumphs. The order of True Reformers is
probably the leading fraternal organization. It was organ
ized in 1881 by William H. Browne, and chartered in 1883
under the laws of Virginia, with headquarters at Richmond.
It started with 100 members, and without capital. It now
numbers 72,000 members ; conducts a savings-bank with a
capital stock, paid up, of SI 00,000; has $300,000 on de-
281
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
posit ; 10,000 depositors ; conducts five stores in as many
cities, and which do a business of $100,000 a year ; it oper
ates two hotels ; it owns $400,000 worth of real estate ; it
employs over 800 negroes, and the total business transacted
aggregates $8,000,000. In its beneficiary department, it has
paid out in death claims $902,092.75 ; in sick benefits, it has
paid out a million dollars. It publishes its own newspaper
and its membership is represented in twenty-six states.
Hundreds of thousands of colored people are also in other
orders, including the Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights of
Pythias, Foresters, Elks, Good Templars, and other societies
intended to care for the sick and bury the dead.
But it is as artisans and as tillers of the soil that the negroes
meet with their greatest success. The colored man has put
his brain and his brawn into the trades and into farming
and domestic occupations.
The largely increased crops produced by negro laborers —
the cotton crop alone has been doubled since emancipation —
attest their increased efficiency and industry. The millions
of Afro-Americans engaged in agriculture, mining, manufac
turing industries, mechanical vocations and trades, fishing,
commerce, and transportation, and in domestic service and in
other lines make themselves felt in the life of the nation.
Mr. Henry W. Grady of Atlanta, just before his death about
ten years ago, in a speech in Boston, declared that the negro
through his labor contributed a billion dollars a year to the
wealth of the nation. He is contributing more than that
amount at the present time.
Mr. Morrell of Pennsylvania, in a speech in Congress, says :
"In forty years the number of farms operated by white
farmers increased 371,414, and of that number 148,601, or
40 per cent, were those of owners or managers, and 222,813,
or 60 per cent, those of tenants. In the period which wit
nessed this addition of white farmers in the South Atlantic
states 287,933 negroes had acquired control of farm land in
282
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE COLORED RACE
those states, of whom 202,578, or 70.4 per cent, were tenants,
and 85,355, or 29.6 per cent, were owners or managers.
" In considering these comparative figures, account should
be taken of the following facts : The negroes at the close of
the Civil War were just starting out upon their career as wage-
earners. They had no land and no experience as farm owners
or tenants, and none of them became farm owners by inheri
tance nor inherited money with which to buy land. Of the
371,414 white farmers added since 1860, very many were the
children of landowners and came into the possession of farm
land, or the wherewithal to purchase the same, by inheritance.
When this difference in the industrial condition of the two
races in 1860 is taken into account, the fact that the relative
number of owners among the negro farmers in the South
Atlantic states in 1900 was practically three-fourths as great
as the relative number of owners among the white farmers of
those states added in the same period marks a most note
worthy achievement.
"The statistics for the South Central states show about
the same proportions.
" As already stated, the total number of farms in the United
States operated by negroes in 1900 was 746,717. The value
of these farms, including buildings, tools, machinery, and live
stock, was $499,943,734. The value of the products of these
farms, inclusive of products fed to live stock on the premises,
was $255,751,145, and exclusive of products fed to live stock,
$229,907,702. The value of the negro farms was about 2J
per cent of the total valuation of the farm property of the
United States, while the value of the products of the negro
farms was about 6 per cent of the total value of the farm
products of the United States.
" Turning to the Southern states again, we find that the
corresponding proportions are greatly increased. In round
numbers the values of all the farm property in those states,
and of the negro farm property, were in 1900 as follows : —
283
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
States
Total farm
values
Negro farm
values
Virginia
$323,000,000
$25,000,000
North Carolina . .
234,000,000
28 000 000
South Carolina
153,000,000
44,000,000
Georgia ....
228,000,000
49,000 000
Florida
54,000,000
6,000,000
Alabama .
179,000,000
47,000 000
Mississippi
204,000,000
86,000,000
Louisiana
198,000,000
38 000 000
Texas
962,000,000
56,000,000
Arkansas
181 000 000
34 000 000
Total
$2,716,000,000
$413,000,000
" In other words, the value of the negro farm property in
these ten states is about 15 per cent of the total farm
property in those states, and if Texas be eliminated, a state
which is in much of its area not closely affiliated with the
South, and in which the negroes have comparatively small
interests, the proportion would be over 20 per cent.
" The figures in regard to the relative values of farm
products at the South are still more striking: —
States
Total farm
products
Negro farm
products
$73,000,000
$8,000,000
North Carolina
79,000,000
13,000,000
62,000,000
25,000,000
92,000,000
27,000,000
16,000,000
3,000,000
81,000,000
27,000,000
Mississippi
91,000,000
47,000,000
66,000,000
19,000,000
Texas
209,000,000
21,000,000
Arkansas
66,000,000
16,000,000
Total
$835,000,000
$206,000,000
" Here the proportion of the products of negro farms, as
compared with the total farm products of the ten states, is
284
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE COLORED RACE
seen to be nearly 25 per cent, or, taking out Texas, nearly
30 per cent.
" In all parts of the country except the far West the per
centage of improved lands on farms operated by negroes is
greater than those of white farmers. In the South Central
states the farms of negroes had 68.3 per cent, while the
whites had but 28 per cent. The total acreage of negro
farms is about 40,000,000 acres."
The New York Workl, speaking of the achievements of the
colored man since his emancipation, says : " He owns 137,000
farms and homes worth 8725,000,000 ; he has personal
property to the value of $165,000,000 ; and he has raised
$10,000,000 for his own education ; his per capita possessions
amount to $72.50. To propose that the nation shall
step backward in the face of such a stepping forward, is a
curious way to argue the superiority of the dominant white
man/'1
This is a practical age, and in such an age, it is the results
that count. The achievements briefly outlined above are
the direct results of the system of education which was planned
and executed by the pioneers who laid the foundation for the
rise of a race. They were men and women of mature thought,
ripe experience, broad-gauged intellect, great faith in God
and in the colored man as responsive to the same influences
as other men ; and their mental vision swept the whole field
of life rather than one phase of it. They acted on the advice
of Colonel Higginson forty years before he phrased it, to wit :
" What the whole nation needs is to deal with the negro race
no longer as outcasts, but simply as men and women." The
Afro-American must not permit himself to be " specialized."
Frederick Douglass was accustomed to say : " It is vastly
better for the race to be a part of the whole American people,
in the same sense as other races, than to be a little whole unto
itself." The splendid record which has been made would
have been absolutely impossible if emphasis had been put on
285
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
industrial education and the race had been treated as a special
order of humanity.
The leaders of the South ofttimes make the claim that the
white people are taxing themselves to educate the negroes,
and that they have spent on negro education over a hundred
million dollars since the emancipation. This is not a fair state
ment ; it is not the truth ; it is a myth. While the bulk of
the taxes in the South is paid by the white people, it is also
true that the productivity of the labor of the colored race on
farm and field, in the rice swamps and wooded lands, in
mines, factories, and workshops, and in all the diversified
forms of toil, constitutes an important element in those taxes.
The New York World is authority for the statement that
19,000 persons own the property of that city. Suppose
these 19,000 people should claim that they were taxing
themselves to educate the children of that city. The reply
would be quickly made that labor pays the taxes.
There are towns and cities in New England where one
family or a few families own the industries which give pros
perity to the communities. If the members of such family
or families should proclaim that they are taxing themselves
to educate the children of the thousands of working people —
the answer would be given that labor pays the taxes.
In the South the masses of colored people are laborers ;
and the colored mari^s labor in the South pays the taxes for
the education of his children, exactly in the same sense that
a white man's labor in the North pays the taxes for the
education of his children. It may also be borne in mind
that the colored man contributes more than a billion dollars
a year, by his labor, to the wealth of the nation. So that
he contributes in a single year, ten times as much to the
common weal as the South has expended on his education
in forty years. Besides, much of the accumulated wealth of
the South represents the two hundred and fifty years of the
unrequited toil of the negro. In all fairness it can be said
286
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE COLORED RACE
that the colored man by direct and indirect taxes and by the
productivity of his toil is carrying his share of the burden
in educating his children. For generations his labor edu
cated the masters.
In the evolution of the home life the colored man has
accomplished notable triumphs.
The chief curse of slavery was the obliteration of the home.
As the home is the foundation of the social organism, the
colored people had to unlearn many things which the master
class had taught by precept and example for two and a
half centuries, before it was possible to begin aright the
development of the home life.
Under the old regime the country life was darker intellect
ually, morally, and spiritually than the city life, and the
closer contact of city life had its leavening influence.
Barriers apparently unsurmountable have been overcome.
The newly awakened desire for homes became a strenuous
passion, which has led to the secure establishment of the
family life on the legal and scriptural foundations.
While the colored man has been the master of his own
home for only forty years, yet in this brief period he has
bridged the chasm which divided him from his wife and
separated him from his children — has unlearned the lessons
taught day by day in the years of his bondage — has met
with heartiness all the responsibilities involved in the family
life, and now reaps and realizes to the full its joys, fruitage,
and blessedness.
No others among the cosmopolitan population of the
republic make greater sacrifices for the care and education
of their children, or are more solicitous about their future,
or take greater pride in their successes than these humble
people.
The colored mother, almost too poor for her poverty to
be understood, yet with a mother's love and anxiety for her
children will waste herself away in the kitchen or over the
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
wash-tub that her offspring may have the advantages of the
schools. Unmindful of herself, the pittance she earns goes
almost wholly to assist her children through college and
into the professions.
The illiterate father lengthens his hours of toil on the
plantation and practises economy and self-denial in many
directions in order that his promising sons and daughters
may receive an education and enter upon a life of broad
usefulness.
To this true appreciation of the home and the recognition
of its obligations may be ascribed not only much of the pros
perity, progress, and happiness which freedom has brought to
the colored race, but it is also the rock on which the race
must build to insure its salvation and a glorious future.
The negro race is struggling upward. It should have the
kind, the sympathetic hand. It has surpassed the expecta
tions of its friends ; and it has put to confusion its enemies
who have taken their last stand on the ground of color alone.
The rise and achievements of the race in American life and
civilization overthrow all their preconceived ideas. But
color cannot be a perpetual barrier in a republic. Manhood,
patriotism, thrift, and the nobler qualities of mind and heart
are superior to color and will break down such a barrier.
The colored people need only to continue to develop
along all lines and stand firmly for liberty ; be faithful to
the Church, patronize the school, support the colored press,
encourage professional men, cultivate the home life, practise
thrift and economy, be helpful to each other in all the lines
of endeavor, honor those North and South who champion the
cause of freedom, and love the flag of their country, and
these shall be unto them the forces of the Lord of Hosts
which shall overturn the oppressor and redeem a people.
It is noteworthy that no dangerous or un-American ten
dency has developed among the negroes. They are Americans
of Americans, and national to the core.
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ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE COLORED RACE
The late Reverend Dr. J. E. Rankin, for many years
President of Howard University in the city of Washington,
a man as strong and inflexible in character as the granite
hills of his New England home, and whose presence was the
balm of light and sweetness, and who has accomplished a
grand and noble work to the uplift of humanity and the
glory of God, wrote these beautiful lines : —
" I know no difference of race,
Of African or Saxon,
Of tawny skin, or rose-cheek face,
Of hair of crisp, or flaxen.
The soul within, that is the man,
There is God's image hidden,
And there He looks each guest to scan,
The bidden, and unbidden.
" One God in love broods over all,
One prayer to Him is taught us,
One name for mercy when we call,
One ransom Christ has brought us ;
One heart of meekness, lowly mind,
Life's counter-currents breasting,
One Father's house, we hope to find,
In God's own bosom resting."
M. Taine, in his " History of English Literature," Chap
ter I, gives a description of a certain people who may not
now be readily recognized. It is as follows : " Huge, white
bodies, with fierce, blue eyes, ravenous stomachs, of a cold
temperament, slow to love, home stayers, prone to brutal
drunkenness ; pirates at first, sea-faring, war, and pillage their
only idea of a freeman's work. Of all barbarians the most
cruelly ferocious. Torture and carnage, greed of danger,
fury of destruction, obstinate and frenzied, bravery of an
over-strung temperament, with a great and coarse appetite.
To shout, to drink, to gesticulate, to feel their veins heated
and swollen with wine, to hear and see around them the riotous
orgies, this was the first need of the Barbarians.
19 289
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
"They left the land and flocks to the women. They sold
as slaves their nearest relatives, and even their own children.
The Latin race never at first glance see in them aught but
large gross beasts, clumsy and ridiculous when not dangerous
and enraged/1
To what people does M. Taine refer ? This language
describes in one stage of their evolution the proud and
powerful Anglo-Saxon race, who are to-day the leaders and
light-bearers in the world's thought and civilization. In the
blaze of this bit of history, there is no ground for despair of
the American negro.
Christian education wrought the change in the Anglo-
Saxon. It will in any people. Let the adherents of the
Christian faith and the advocates of the commonalty of man
push the work of Christian education, and every step of its
advancement will strengthen the foundations of the republic,
promote the peace of society and the purity of the Church,
and multiply and realize the grand possibilities of Afro-
American citizens. And they and the whole nation may
sing, with a new meaning and power, Julia Ward Howe's
Battle Hymn of the Republic : —
" Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord ;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored ;
He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible, swift sword ;
His day is marching on.
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah.
" He has sounded forth a trumpet that shall never call retreat ;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat ;
Oh ! be swift my soul to answer him, be jubilant my feet ;
His truth is marching on.
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah.
" In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me ;
As he died to make men holy let us die to make men free ;
His word is marching on.
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah."
290
CHAPTER IX
THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE
NEGRO
THIS work would be regarded as incomplete if it did
not at least venture to point out a way to some prac
tical and substantial relief, and thus help to pave the
path for the amelioration and ultimate obliteration of in
tolerable conditions. That something can be done, that
something ought to be done, is the verdict of every patriotic
citizen. The unwisdom of permitting matters to drift along
until a dangerously acute state of affairs shall exist in the
South, breeding serious trouble, must be patent to all.
The Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican, the Chicago
Tribune., and the New York Evening Post, three of the most
important and conservative journals in the country, have
repeatedly called the people's attention to the painfully
anomalous and threatening conditions in the South. Other
journals and leading citizens have sounded the alarm. The
nation remains amazingly apathetic, seemingly believing that
somehow in the order of Providence these evils will " pass
away."
It was so with regard to slavery. But deep-seated evils do
not cure themselves, and seldom die of their own corruption.
Is it either common-sense or prudent patriotism to drift
on until a settled condition, in essential respects worse than
slavery, disastrous and volcanic in its possibilities — shall be
established in the South ? Is it not far better to face these
evils and eliminate them ? The manhood, the womanhood,
the statesmanship, the all-pervading principles of Christian
ity of the mighty republic are entirely competent to bring
this question to an equitable and righteous settlement. No
other settlement will be enduring. Compromise may post-
291
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
pone, but it cannot settle fundamental questions of liberty
and human rights.
" Truth crushed to earth shall rise again :
Th' eternal years of God are hers."
The journals above mentioned have shown that the colored
people are becoming restless under long continued persecu
tions, ostracisms, and outrages. Here and there they are
beginning to take a stand under pressure. They have been
wonderfully blessed with conservative and Christian leaders,
who have succeeded in restraining all attempts at retaliation.
" Have faith in God : trust the American people : continue
to develop along all lines : all things are sure to come right "
— this is the teaching of the colored leadership.
No people have ever displayed greater forbearance and
long-suffering than the free men of color. Colonel Higgin-
son, in an interesting magazine article, has taken great pains
to show that the colored man is " intensely human " in all
things and at every point. And here lies the danger, for
there is a limit to human endurance.
The dominant elements in the South make a fatal error
in assuming that they alone must have the final word on
the question — utterly ignoring the colored man whose
interests are coequal with their own, and contemptuously
disregarding the nation whose interests, of necessity, are
paramount.
If the final word were in harmony with the Constitution
and laws of the United States there would indeed be no
problem. But when the final word contravenes or super
sedes the Constitution and laws of the United States, neither
the colored people nor the nation can or will accept its final
ity. The lesson of history should impress itself here : slavery
was forced on the nation by a radical and minor element
determined on building up a peculiar institution, and which
finally dragged the whole South into its support.
292
THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
The War of the Rebellion was made on the life of the
republic by a radical and minor element determined on per
petuating this peculiar institution, and which dragooned the
whole South into it.
The peace of the nation is now blasted by a radical and
minor element determined on the destruction of the liberty
of the colored citizen and the building up of a new peculiar
institution ; and which has by incendiary speeches and writ
ings and by the machinations of secret conclaves, working
more stealthily than the Ku Klux Klans, united the white
people of the South against liberty and human progress,
without regard for the majesty of the law.
The Honorable Josiah Quincy, referring to the early days
of slavery, said : " Disgust at it was so general as to be little
less than universal. Among slaveholders, the language and
hope of putting an end to the evil as soon as possible was on
all tongues ; but alas ! it was far from being in all their
hearts. Some of the leaders saw the advantages derived
from it by the unity and identity of action and motive to
which it tended, and its effect in making Slave states move in
phalanx over the Free states. They clung to the institution
for the sake of power over the other states of the Union, and
while they were open in decrying it, they were assiduous in
promoting its interests and extending its influence. By
constantly declaring a detestation of slavery, they threw dust
into the eyes of the people of the Free states, while they never
ceased to seize every opportunity to embarrass the measures
which would advance the interests of the Free states, and at
the same time to strengthen and extend the interests of
the Slave states. We can trace their policy in history.
We now realize the result. With all their pretensions, the
leading slaveholders never lost sight for one moment of
perpetuating its existence and power."
There may be discerned a sameness in the methods of the
ante-bellum and the post-bellum leadership of the South.
293
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
"Dust," much dust, is being thrown into the eyes of the
people now by stock -phrases, dire threats, and bald subter
fuges. In the " Solid South " now there is the same " unity
and identity of action and motive," and its power in the
government is unduly magnified. Equal laws for all is the
antidote. In the light of history it is clear that a majority
of the American people did not at any time, from the begin
ning up to the present time, approve or justify the institu
tion of human slavery. Yet it grew and flourished and all
but brought death and destruction to the republic.
The vast majority of the American people are now uncom
promising in their opposition to a new and peculiar institution.
The fierce fires of war consumed the dross in the Constitu
tion, and that grand instrument as it stands, and the laws
made in connection therewith, leave no room for doubt that
the people demand a truly free republic with equal rights
for all Americans.
This simplifies the question and indicates the remedy.
First : The people should zealously and jealously guard
the offices of president and vice-president, and preserve them
from defilement and desecration by any persons tinctured
with caste or sectional prejudices, and who would exalt
these above the Constitution and laws of the land.
It is axiomatic that no citizen is worthy to be the presi
dent of the whole people who does not stand for equal laws
for the whole people. The Constitution and laws of the
United States are the paramount plank of any platform on
which a president may be elected : these make all citizens
equal before the law, and positively and absolutely forbid
all discrimination on account of race, color, or previous con
dition of servitude. Race or color should be neither a
credential to public favor or participation in the govern
ment, nor a bar against the full enjoyment of any immunity
or privilege under the government.
The people should see to it that only such men as measure
294
THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
up to the constitutional standard shall be elevated to the
presidential office, or to the vice-presidency.
In guarding these offices, they will also be guarding
the various cabinet chairs, and thus the administration of
the government will be uninfluenced by the brutalism
of the traditions of slavery, or the "Jim Crowism" which at
present rules the South.
It is a travesty on free institutions, a jeer and sneer at
a righteous national sentiment which demands equality of
rights for all under the law, that the very men who are
foremost in working for the wholesale disfranchisement of the
colored people contrary to justice, reason, and the Consti
tution, and subjecting these people, who are equal citizens
with themselves, to gross humiliations and degradations, and
inflicting on them many inhumanities — that these men are
now contending that one of their own number shall be
placed in the presidential or vice-presidential chair. Is this
not a mockery on civilization, — a burlesque on republican
government ?
At the Virginia State Convention to elect delegates to the
National Democratic Convention, Governor Montague in an
address advocated the nomination of a Southern man on the
ticket, and at the very same time President Roosevelt was
roundly denounced because " he eateth with negroes and
drin keth with them."
Mississippi, at her state convention, nominated the Honor
able John Sharp Williams for vice-president, and yet this
Southerner, in a recent speech in the Congress, vociferously
declaimed against the recognition of the political and man
hood status of the colored man. Yoking the negro to a mule
is his loftiest idea of Americanism and humanitarianism.
Such a man the leader in a republic !
It may interest the country to know that Mr. Williams
was elected by a total vote of 1,433, scarcely enough votes to
elect a constable in a Northern township. This shows the
295
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
farcical character of a Mississippi election. Think of it:
1,433 votes elect a member of the Congress from Mississippi
when the population basis is nearly 200,000.
Other Southern states are also urging favorite sons for
these highest offices, without a sign of compunction of con
science at the general nullification of the organic law and the
shameful injustices and persecutions forced on ten millions of
American citizens.
These men have already wrought the general ostracism of
the colored race throughout the South, and by imposing on
them systematic humiliations and degradations they seek to
take heart and hope out of the race and bring about its utter
demoralization, and then plead these very conditions which
they designedly created as the justification for harsher and
more oppressive laws. The possession of the office of presi
dent or of vice-president would greatly stimulate them in
putting the final touches on the heinous work, for it would be
construed as an endorsement by the people.
The Atlanta Constitution, a leading Southern journal,
with a snarl demands that the South be represented in one of
these offices. General Montague of Virginia cynically in
quires : " Is this not a reunited nation ? "
The following statement from the Boston Herald would
seem to cover the issue : " The people of the Northern states
do not carry their willingness to forgive and forget to the
extent of ignoring the attitude of a representative Southern
man toward questions of personal rights and public duty
that are living questions.
" For example, the people of the North, as a rule, believe in
the supremacy of the laws of the land and of the orderly
processes of the courts of justice in dealing with violators of
the law. They are not upholders of mob government and
lynch law, and they will be likely to distrust the influence in
the highest office of administration of one who has a record of
approval, or of tolerance, of lynch law in his own state.
296
THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
They would object to a man of that kind from any section of
the country.
" But, in consideration of the notorious facts that this man
ner of lawlessness is more rife in the Southern states than
anywhere else, that it is sustained, apparently, by a more
powerful public sentiment, that vindictive murder by a mob
is rarely followed by any punishment of the murderers, any
Southern candidate for the chief magistracy of the nation
would need to have an especially clear and conspicuous record
of active fidelity to principles of orderly justice and Christian
humanity in order to obtain the confidence of communities
which have, and desire to continue having, assurance of the
reign of law, according to the standards of civilization.
" Again, the people of the North, as a rule, have a strong
feeling that there should be equality of rights at the ballot-
box. They do not object to a high standard of qualification,
and especially not to an educational qualification, nor strenu
ously, if it be deemed necessary anywhere, to a property
qualification. But they do not think it to be consistent with
democratic principles that men who are otherwise qualified
should be permanently debarred from exercise of this high
function of citizenship, on account of race, or of accidents of
birth or fortune, not necessarily involving moral turpitude
nor inability to understand, exercise, and conform to the obli
gations and the duties of a good citizen. They believe in
the equality of all men before the law, and they are afraid,
not without reason, that politicians who will resort to such
tricks and subterfuges as have been resorted to in several
Southern states, to keep intelligent and moral colored citizens
from the ballot-box, while allowing unintelligent and immoral
white citizens to have the suffrage, are not to be trusted with
implicit confidence to protect the rights of any citizens whose
opinions may not be agreeable to them.
"Furthermore, there is a prejudice in the North, not so
general and exacting as it ought to be, perhaps, that poli-
297
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
ticians should be trustworthy in the matter of keeping their
formal pledges to the people. The people are disposed to
hold their public men to a rather strict accountability in this
respect. They do not relish being fooled by men who ask
for power on a specific agreement that they will not exercise
it in a certain way, and, when power is obtained, use it in pre
cisely the way they assured the people they would not. The
recent action of the Constitutional Convention of Virginia, in
proclaiming a constitution without submitting it to the rati
fication of the people of the state, in violation of the condi
tions upon which a convention was authorized, is a case in
point. Nothing has happened in the last ten years, hardly
anything since Southern conventions chosen to oppose seces
sion voted for it, more influential to make Northern people
reluctant to trust Southern politicians. Men who will do
such a thing as if it were honorable must not complain if
their professions of public policy are regarded with sus
picion. This is not because they are Southern men, but be
cause of the exhibition of untrustworthiness they have given.
Northern men doing a similar thing could not command
Northern support as these Southern men seem to command
Southern support.
" Considering the matter in another light, it is to be said
that the people of the states where political opinion is free
and where the public men of either party are, as a rule, mut
ually tolerant and regardful of the rights of a]l citizens, have
a not unreasonable distrust of the narrowness of view and the
partiality of conduct of a statesman hailing from a section
where practically there is but one party, where generous tol
eration of differences of judgment concerning public affairs
is not the characteristic of the people, a state controlled, as
several Southern states are, by an oligarchy, instead of the
sovereign people, a state which is not democratic in the gen
eric sense of the term. It is not because these men belong to
a geographical section, but because they are of a certain char-
298
THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
acter and represent a type of statesmanship which does not
stand broadly for the substantial ideals of American institu
tions — equal rights and equal opportunities, secured by
impartial laws justly enforced.'1'1
When the South shall produce a man of broad and national
instincts, a devotee at the shrine of liberty, a man whose char
acter and public services shall give evidence that he is more
an American than a Southerner, who is true to the letter
and spirit of the Constitution and laws of this country, is
not the slave of caste or race prejudice, upholds the prin
ciples of equal rights, regarding " no man above the law and
none below it " — the American people will welcome the day
as the harbinger of the era for which they have prayed and
wrought, and no honor in their power would be too great or
lofty for such a man.
Second : National aid for education is an imperative
necessity.
Among the colored people general illiteracy was the chief
heritage of slavery. Among the whites a heritage of dense
ignorance existed in great areas. Statutes and penal codes
prohibited the spelling-book to the colored people ; and the
policy pursued to keep the negro's mind in darkness also had
the effect of blackening the mental vision of the whites.
The strength of " Jim Crowism " lies largely in the illit
eracy among both the white and the colored people of the
South, powerfully sustained and influenced, of course, by the
virus of slavery in the brain of the whites. This, in a word,
is the true explanation of the distressing, disheartening,
demoralizing conditions in the Southland.
Education will raise the veil of mental darkness, and chase
away the clouds of ignorance, dispelling unreasonable antipa
thies, and ameliorating conditions generally.
It is not claimed here that education is the panacea or
" cure-all " for every ill under the sun. But it is affirmed,
without the least reservation or fear of contradiction, that
299
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Christian education is the greatest force in God's universe
for the regeneration and uplifting of the people and the
harmonizing of a nation.
In former years the three " R's ", reading, Yiting and Arith
metic, had the right of way in the education of the people ;
but in these later days these have given place to the three
" H's ", the education of the head, the hand and the
heart.
There is no risk in assuming that when this threefold,
symmetrical education, the highest type of Christian civili
zation, shall have become as general throughout the be
nighted South as it is in the great, free and prosperous North
— great and prosperous, because educated and free, — then
truly the vile " Jim Crowism " and its attendant lawlessness
will cease to disgrace the American name. This work of
education in the Southland is even now advancing.
The people of the North, patrons and devotees of educa
tion, sent the spelling-book in the trail of their armies
throughout their marches in the War of the Rebellion. And
when a place was captured, almost before the smoke of battle
had cleared away, the work of the schoolmaster was begun.
Children, young people, middle-aged people, old men and old
women were gathered into schools, both in the day-time and
at night, and the foundation for the education of a race was
laid. The barracks occupied by soldiers were, when vacated,
turned over to the community to be used for schools. Out
of such beginnings was developed the present school system
of the South.
The Republican organizations which achieved the recon
struction of the South at the close of the war took the cue
from this and gave the South its first system of free public
schools. These schools have grappled with the problem and
have been nobly reinforced by Northern benevolence. A
vast work has been done, but a work as vast, probably more
so, yet remains to be accomplished.
300
THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
The financial power of the several states, ably seconded
though it is by Northern benevolence, falls far short of
meeting the emergency. Neither the several states nor the
benevolence of the North seem to have the capacity to
increase their working forces materially.
Supplemental aid from the national treasury is an abso
lute necessity, if the illiteracy which hangs over the South
like a black pall is to be lifted, thereby eliminating the
blighting and cankerous evils which are gnawing into the
heart of the republic and are a constant irritation and an
ever present disturber of the people's peace and prosperity.
The census of 1900 places the total number of white
illiterates, above ten years of age, at 3,200,746. The total
number of negro illiterates is given as 2,853,194. So that in
the country at large there are more illiterate whites than
negroes. It is therefore manifestly unjust to single out the
negro and make him the target for denunciations and the
object of oppression on the ground of illiteracy. The census
also reveals the rather startling truth that while the South
ern states have only twenty-four per cent of the total white
population of the United States, yet they nevertheless have
sixty-four per cent of the white illiterates over ten years of
age. Naturally, the mass of colored illiterates are also in
the South. The total negro school population — that is,
from five to twenty years of age, aggregates 3,485,188. The
school facilities of the South do not reach half of the negro
children of school age; and a large percentage of the
whites are also without school privileges. If the utter inade
quacy of the length of the school term should be taken into
consideration — a school term in many cases being from four
to eight vveeks in the year — it could be said that the large
majority of the children of both races in the South are
growing up practically in ignorance and will greatly rein
force the present large army of illiterates which mark the
danger line in the life of the nation.
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
President Charles W. Dabney of the University of Tenn
essee, in an address before the Southern Educational Society,
said : " Our duty to the new time in the South is the duty
of educating all the people. It is the task set by Jefferson
for Virginia in 1779, only changed and made more urgent
by the extension of suffrage to another race. This is the
real Southern problem : How shall we educate and train the
people ? It is the problem of the whole country, in fact.
How shall we educate all the people for intelligent citizen
ship, for complete living, and the true service of their God
and fellow-men ?
" Our conception of public education has grown very greatly
in these last years. It has grown in two ways : first, in
content, and second, in kind. This conception now includes
every human being ; we realize, now, that all must be edu
cated — that every human being has a right to an educa
tion. God has a purpose in every soul He sends into the
world. The poorest, most helpless infant is not an accident,
a few molecules of matter, merely, but a plan of God, and
as such deserves to be trained for its work. Every child has
a right to a chance in life because God made him and made
him to do something. . . .
" But we must consider our problem more nearly and in
more detail. Our problem is the education of all the people
of the South. First, Who are this people ? In 1900 these
states south of the Potomac and east of the Mississippi con
tained, in round numbers, 16,400,000 people, 10,400,000 of
them white and 6,000,000 black. In these states there are
3,981,000 white and 2,420,000 colored children of school age
(5 to 20 years), a total of 6,401,000. They are distributed
among the states as follows. [See table on the next page.]
Only 60 per cent of them were enrolled in schools in
1900. The average daily attendance was only 70 per cent of
these enrolled. Only 42 per cent are actually at school. One
half of the negroes get no education whatever. ... In North
302
THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
White
Colored
Total
436,000
269,000
705,000
West Virginia ....
342,000
15,000
357,000
491,000
263,000
754,000
South Carolina ....
218 000
342,000
560,000
Georgia
458,000
428,000
886,000
Florida
110,000
87 000
197 000
Alabama
390,000
340,000
730,000
Mississippi . . .
253 000
380 000
633 000
590,000
191,000
781 000
Kentucky .
693 000
105 000
798 000
Total
3 981 000
2 420 000
6 401 000
Carolina the average citizen gets only 2.6 years, in South
Carolina 2.5 years, in Alabama 2.4 years of schooling, both
private and public. . . .
" But why is it that the children get so little education ?
Have we no schools in the country ? Yes, but what kind of
schools ? The average value of a school property in North
Carolina is $180, in South Carolina $178, in Georgia $523,
and in Alabama $212. The average salary of a teacher in
North Carolina is $23.36, in South Carolina $23.20, in
Georgia $27, and in Alabama $27.50. The schools are open
in North Carolina an average of 70.8 days, in South Carolina
88.4, in Georgia 112, and in Alabama 78.3. The average
expenditure per pupil in average attendance is, in North Caro
lina 84.34, in South Carolina $4.44, in Georgia $6.64, and in
Alabama $3.10 per annum. In other words, in these states,
in schoolhouses costing an average of $276 each, under teachers
receiving the average salary of $25 a month, we are giving the
children in actual attendance 5 cents worth of education a day
for 87 days only in the year. In 1900 the percentage of illit
erates among males over 21 — native whites, mind you, the
sons of native parents — was, in Virginia 12.5, in North Caro
lina 19, in South Carolina 12.6, in Georgia 12.1, in Alabama
14.2, in Tennessee 14.5, and in Kentucky 15.5."
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
This exposition of the school facilities in the South, as
discouraging as it is, does not expose the worst side of the
question. The colored people are touched near to the heart,
for the provisions for the education of the millions of colored
children are woefully and alarmingly inadequate. Commis
sioner Harris of the Bureau of Education furnished the infor
mation that the state of Florida provides $1.89 per capita for
a full year, for the education of colored children, North Car
olina $1.02, and South Carolina only $.73. When it is con
sidered that Massachusetts spends $38.11 per capita for the
year on her school children, New York, $41.68, and Illinois,
$25.16 — the contrast must leave a disturbing impression on
the mind of every thoughtful citizen.
It is evident the South cannot handle this problem alone.
More than half of its children of school age are practically
without schools to attend. The nation should come to the
rescue. A system of national schools under the Bureau of
Education, especially in the agricultural districts, generously
supported for about fifteen years, would efface illiteracy and
remove the excuse for unrighteous laws. And this would add
vastly more to the strength of the republic than more battle
ships and a larger army.
Horace Mann said : " Every follower of God and friend of
mankind will find the only sure means of carrying forward the
particular reform to which he is devoted, in universal edu
cation. In whatever department of philanthropy he may be
engaged, he will find that department to be only a segment
of the great circle of beneficence of which universal education
is the centre and circumference."
Third : Equalization of representation in the Congress and
the electoral college by reducing the number of Southern
representatives.
In a previous chapter the inequality of representation
has been clearly demonstrated. All that has been said there
would apply here. A white man in the South is entitled to
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THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
one marfs share in the government, but not more than one
man's share. When by circumventing the Constitution he
usurps power which makes him three times as strong at the
ballot-box as a man in New England, or the great West,
then the equilibrium of representative government is de
stroyed.
The Constitution of the United States says : " Represen-
tatives shall be apportioned among the several states accord
ing to their respective numbers, counting the whole number
of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But
when the right to vote at any election for the choice of elec
tors for President and Vice-President of the United States,
representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers
of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied
to any of the male inhabitants of such state being 21 years
of age and citizens of the United States, or in any way
abridged except for participation in rebellion or other crime,
the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the
proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear
to the whole number of male citizens 21 years of age in such
state. The Congress shall have power to enforce by appro
priate legislation the provisions of this article/1
So that the Constitution imposes on Congress the duty
of fixing representation and preserving the equilibrium of
the states in the government.
When the white people of several of the Southern states
summoned state conventions with the avowed purpose, pro
claimed boldly and above-board, to disfranchise the colored
voters and remove them from all share in the government,
they well knew the penalty provided in the Constitution to
meet such a case. They acted with their eyes wide open.
They ought not to haggle or balk now that the time has
come for Congress to act.
The National Republican Convention recently held in
Chicago wrote this plank in its platform : " We favor such
20 305
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Congressional action as shall determine whether by special
discrimination the elective franchise in any state has been
unconstitutionally limited, and, if such is the case, we demand
that representation in Congress and in the electoral college,
shall be proportionally reduced as directed by the Constitu
tion of the United States/'1
This plank, which is directly in line with the Constitution,
and simply seeks the equalization, the due proportioning, of
the several states in the affairs of the government, has set
the South ablaze.
But the country has come to know from exasperating ex
periences that anything and everything which would bring
to the reputable, talented, prosperous colored citizen a just
meed of recognition, or which would tend to prevent the
South from having unfair, undue advantage in the affairs of
the Government, would most certainly set the South ablaze.
The following expressions from representative Southern
sources will disclose how unreasoning and unreasonable is the
Southern mind on questions which may even remotely and
indirectly affect the colored people.
Colonel Watterson of Kentucky says : " President Roosevelt,
by injecting this dreadful racial problem into the contest, has
invited inevitable defeat."
Mr. Thomas F. Ryan of Virginia says : " Its real spirit is
found in that deliberate declaration about Southern repre
sentation, — a spirit which foreshadows a new force bill and
makes inevitable a concerted movement to revive all the
evil passions to which such an appeal is made."
Colonel Henry B. Gray of Alabama says : " It boldly de
clares, in effect, that the Republican party is a negro party,
playing the negro above the Southern white man. It means
negro domination."
The Montgomery Advertiser says : u But there is one result
that is sure to follow this movement, and that is, that it will
still further solidify the South."
306
THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
Congressman Patterson of Tennessee says : " The plank in
the Republican platform which threatens a reduction in the
representation of the Southern states is a revival of the worst
days of the bloody shirt ; is an insult to Southern manhood."
The Atlanta Constitution says : " The South got a slap in
the face in the shape of the Crumpacker threat to reduce its
representation because of local suffrage laws."
Senator Tillman of South Carolina says : " If Roosevelt
wants to force negro social equality on the South, we are
ready to meet that issue, and we will meet it, I think, to
begin with, in our platform."
Governor Vardaman of Mississippi says : " I sincerely hope
that the Democrats will accept the challenge and come out
squarely for the white man^s government. I do not believe
that any announcement that could be made by the conven
tion at St. Louis would go quite so straight to the heart of
the white American voters as a clear-cut declaration against
permitting negroes to participate in the government of the
nation."
These are a few of the multitudinous comments of leading
Southerners. The plank has not the remotest relation to
the question of social equality. The reduction of Southern
representation according to the constitutional limitations
would not alter or in any way affect the standing of a single
colored man in the whole South.
It would not add one single colored voter to the electorate
of any of the states. It would not disqualify a single white
voter. The Southern leaders could continue to carry elec
tions unopposed or by a practically unanimous vote. For the
colored man would be as much out of politics as at present.
There are two expressions bearing on this plank which are
of unusual interest. The Honorable John Sharp Williams,
in his kevnote speech at the National Democratic Convention
at St. Louis, said :
" The real object of the Republican party, in so far as the
307
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
plank is concerned, however specious the phraseology in
which it is clothed, is to reduce Southern representation,
without reducing that of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and
other states, or wherever the negroes are disfranchised, not
as such, but because of ignorance, by an educational qualifi
cation, or because of any other right reason, in any other
constitutional way.
" Disfranchisement of a negro in Mississippi for ignorance
is a horrible thing, disfranchisement of a white man for ig
norance in Massachusetts or Connecticut is a part of New
England ' higher education.1
" Let not the business interest of the country deceive it
self ; let those controlling it prepare, if Roosevelt is elected
on this platform, for another period of uncertainty, unrest,
business disturbance, and race war in the Southern states, in
stead of that peace and prosperity, which both races now
enjoy and which has been rendered possible only by home
rule and by white supremacy.
" In keeping with all this, consider the negro Santo Bam
bino scene in the Republican National Convention ; the wild
adoration of ' my little Alabama coon ', or was it a Georgia
6 coon ' ? Why was it all thus prearranged, and by whom ?
Who were the two little white girls placed on the same plat
form with the little negro boy to march around with him
carrying flags ? Who pretends that it was accidental ?
What was the pretended lesson to be taught? What is
the subtle, symbolical meaning of it all ? It is the begin
ning over of the old scheme, revived for political advantage,
to retain as a Republican asset the solid negro vote in In
diana, Illinois, New Jersey and like-conditioned states —
this time without price in money paid — by disturbing all
over the Southland peace and order, by demoralizing reviv
ing industries, unsettling business and labor, disintegrating
society, and, as a remote effect, if successful, hybridizing the
race there and Africanizing its civilization."
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THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
Are not these the utterances of the ranting negrophobist
playing to the mob to excite and inflame race passions and
strife, rather than those of the calm and wise statesman hand
ling a delicate and weighty question? Every man in this
country knows, and Mr. Williams himself knows, despite his
evasions, that the colored man is disfranchised in Mississippi
and other Southern states on the ground of color alone.
There is not a reputable citizen, white or colored, who
would protest against the disfranchisement of the ignorant
or degraded white or black man. The demand is that there
shall be one law, applicable alike to both races. Such a law
applies in every Northern state.
The people of the North have, at the solicitation of South
erners, during late years invested considerable money in the
railways and street-car systems of the South, and other large
sums have been invested in factories and various industries
and in building up the waste places. This generous outpour
ing of Northern capital, coupled with Northern hustle and
brains and the hard and faithful toil and drudgery of the
colored people, are the two greatest factors in the development
of prosperity of the former slave states — the New South.
Nevertheless, Mr. Williams has the hardihood to threaten
the American people with the direst consequences if, in the
exercise of their sovereign will as free men, they shall dare elect
Mr. Roosevelt as the President of the United States. " Pre
pare," says he, " if Roosevelt is elected on this platform, for
another period of uncertainty, unrest, business disturbance,
and race war in the Southern states.11 This is a reckless
challenge.
It means that if the reactionists, a radical and minor
element, are not permitted to force on the republic a new
peculiar institution with incalculable possibilities for evil, —
destructive of liberty and constitutional government, degrad
ing the white man as well as the colored, burdening the
country with a problem greater and graver than slavery, and
309
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
securing through this institution enhanced and undue politi
cal power, which would be a revolting injustice to every state
of the North and West, — then they will make reprisal on
Northern capital invested in the South and bring about a
race war on the negroes.
However, he will not be able to make good his threat so far
as the business interests of the South are concerned, — the
good sense of Southern business men will take care of that ;
but he or his friends can make reprisal on the negroes or
make "bonfires" of them at will. But public opinion can be
depended upon to stay the hand.
What possible connection is there between the reduction
of Southern representation to the proper, constitutional
basis and the "hybridizing" of the South?
Such reduction certainly does not bring the races any
closer together. It does not alter the status one way or
another of a single colored man, nor change the status of a
white man.
As to the hybridizing plaint, Mr. Williams should go slow.
For all the hybrids in the South are children of white men.
All the hybridizing which has been done there is the work
of white men. But why denounce the hybrids ? They have
absolutely no responsibility in the matter. Would Mr.
Williams dare to go a step further and pour the vials of
wrath and indignation on all the fathers of the hybrids ?
The colored man is far more concerned about keeping the
white man from entering his back door than he is about
knocking at the white man's front door for social recognition.
Such good offices as may come to him, he may accept, but
he does not clamor for more.
The truth is that "hybridizing" can progress in the South
only so far as the whites themselves shall carry it. And the
colored man would rejoice in the day when the honor of his
wife and daughter shall be respected and they shall become
immune from the taint.
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THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
The people of the North will not go into hysterics because
a white child and a colored child waved the flag of the
United States in the presence of ten thousand American
patriots. Colored men fought and died for that flag even
when threatened with death, if captured, by those for whom
Mr. Williams speaks.
The people of the North want the colored child to love
and honor "Old Glory" even as the white child honors and
loves it. And it may come to pass that the little colored
boy, James B. Cashin, the son of a reputable colored citizen,
whom Mr. Williams denounces as an Alabama " coon," in his
maturity shall fight and die in the defence and honor of the
flag of his country. In all the days of slavery colored chil
dren and white children, boys and girls, freely played and
romped together and ate out of the same plate with their
fingers. There was no protest against it.
Another expression of surpassing interest is the plank in
the platform adopted at the National Democratic Convention,
which reads as follows : " The race question has brought
countless woes to this country. The calm wisdom of the
American people should see to it that it brings no more.
"To revive the dead and hateful race and sectional ani
mosities in any part of our common country means confusion,
distraction of business, and the reopening of wounds now
happily healed. North, South, East, and West have but
recently stood together in line of battle, from the walls of
Peking to the hills of Santiago, and as sharers of a common
glory and a common destiny we should share fraternally the
common burdens.
"We therefore deprecate and condemn the Bourbon-like,
selfish, and narrow spirit of the recent Republican Convention
at Chicago, which sought to kindle anew the embers of
racial and sectional strife, and we appeal from it to the
sober common-sense and patriotic spirit of the American
people."
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
The chief significance of this plank is the fact that it is
a demonstration that the reactionists and radical leaders of
the South have accomplished the remarkable feat of captur
ing the National Democratic party, horse and foot, and have
"Jim-Crowed "it.
The thoughts in this plank are simply the echo of the
speech of Mr. Williams, supplemented by the views of Sena
tor Tillman and Governor Vardaman. The merest glance
at the proceedings of this convention will show that it was
dominated by the extreme reactionists of the South. For
instance : Congressman Williams of Mississippi was the tem
porary chairman and keynote speech-maker; Congressman
Champ Clark of Missouri was permanent chairman ; Senator
Daniels of Virginia was chairman of the committee on res
olutions; Senator Tillman of South Carolina was the " High-
cockalorum " ; and he and Senator Carmack of Tennessee,
Governor Vardaman of Mississippi, and Senator Bailey of
Texas were the referees and censors and directors of the entire
proceedings from the beginning to the end. It would seem
a joke to regard these men as representing Americanism.
Who would urge their fitness to fix the standard of American
life and shape the destiny of the American republic ?
It was an ill omen that this great national gathering should
have been, to all practical purposes and intents, turned into a
sectional, a Southern pow-wow. And it is noticeable that in
this aggregation not once was the commanding voice of an
eminent or a trusted Northern leader heard above the din,
nor was such a leader assigned an important post. The
South was in the saddle and the extreme reactionists held
the reins.
What, indeed, could be more preposterous than that this
free nation of 80,000,000 people should surrender their gov
ernment to the control or influence of Tillman and Varda
man and their cohorts that dominated the convention ? The
thought of it makes the brain reel.
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THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
Mr. James S. Henry, a special and responsible newspaper
correspondent, reports in the Philadelphia Press that, " From
Pettigrevv, of South Dakota, who was a member of the com
mittee (on resolutions), it is learned that the South's only
vigorous contention was for something against the ' nigger 1."
And the South got its " Jim Crow " plank, as predicted by
Senator Tillman and Governor Vardaman.
A strange fatuity has followed the Democratic party by
reason of overbearing Southern leaders. In the days of
slavery it became the helpless tool of the slaveholder. In
1864, in the great crisis of the war, and a year after the chi-
valric Lee had been hopelessly beaten and driven back from
Gettysburg and the invasion of the North, it declared "the
experiment of war a failure."
In 1868 it declared the reconstruction of the South as
" unconstitutional, revolutionary, null and void.11
In 1876 a streak of sanity came to it, and it " recognized
the questions of slavery and secession as having been settled
for all time to come by the war.11
In 1884 Mr. Cleveland saved it from "daftness.1'
In 1894, in the midst of President Cleveland^ second ad
ministration, it broke loose from all restraint, and not even
the well-known firmness and cleverness of the President could
"doctor11 its mania. It "pitch-forked11 him, repudiated
him, threw him overboard, and went wildly daft.
In 1896 it fell a victim to Populism, free silver, and other
fads. In 1900 it did likewise. And in 1904 it became the
helpless prey to the microbes of " Jim Crowism ", and adopted
a "Jim Crow " plank which is intended by its sponsors to
get the people's endorsement for a new peculiar institution,
more dangerous and less excusable than slavery.
Not a word of criticism is here directed against Judge
Parker, the eminent New York jurist who was nominated for
the presidency of the United States, and not a syllable un
favorable against Senator Davis, the distinguished citizen of
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
West Virginia who was nominated for the vice-presidency, —
for they both represent the best class of Americans ; and not
a word of disparagement to the progressive and prosperous
commonwealth of West Virginia, which is rather to be con
gratulated on having such a worthy and distinguished citizen
within her borders.
But the " Jim-Crowing" of the convention was a national
misfortune, as it lends plausibility to the Southerner's declara
tion : " We have got our heel on the neck of the niggers
and we can hold them down ; and we have got a clutch in
the craw of the Yankees and we will choke down their
throats our views on the negro question."
Successful choking was done when the convention swal
lowed the " Jim Crow " plank. This plank is a compound of
cupidity, cunning, hypocrisy, and mendacity, and will confuse
no one. Historically it was not " the race question," but in
truth the slaveholders — a minor element of the people,
who threatened, at the time of the founding of the govern
ment, not to enter the Union unless slavery was recognized,
saying that it was temporary, and promising its certain
abolition, and who afterwards strengthened and fastened the
barbarous institution on the republic — who are responsible
for the countless woes to this country.
And it is those who have inherited the ideas of the slave
holders that are now exerting all their powers and chican
ery — in defiance of the laws of God and the laws of their
country and the moral sentiment of mankind, and regard
less of a most costly and bitter experience — along lines
which, if continued, will as certainly bring other countless
woes to this country. Indeed, the calm wisdom of the
American people should see to it, yes, will see to it, that
the South is saved from the folly of its leaders, and the
republic from the crime of serfdom.
" North, South, East, and West have but recently stood
together in line of battle, from the walls of Peking to the
314
THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
hills of Santiago." This is mendacious ! Was ever the
truth so mutilated in order to serve a mean and base
purpose ? It is a matter of public knowledge that the very
first regiment summoned from the Western barracks to the
front in the Spanish- American War, by General Miles, who
was at that time at the head of the army, was a colored
regiment.
It was ungrudgingly stated at the time and universally
accepted, that the chief honors won in the fights around the
hills of Santiago were fully shared by colored soldiers, the
Ninth and Tenth colored cavalry, and the Twenty-fourth
and Twenty-fifth colored infantry. It is not intended to
underrate to any degree the invaluable services of their white
comrades in arms who contributed to the victory ; but
while there were of course others, Colonel Roosevelt's Rough
Riders and the Ninth and Tenth colored cavalry were the
two forces which make forever memorable the Santiago
campaign. But for the timely and heroic charge of these
colored soldiers, San Juan Hill would to-day mark the great
est defeat and humiliation that American arms have ever
met.
Colonel Roosevelt, by far the most heroic figure in that
war, said : " I know the bravery and character of the negro
soldier. He saved my life at Santiago and I have had occa
sion to say so in many articles and speeches. The Rough
Riders were in a bad position when the Ninth and Tenth
Cavalry (colored) came rushing up the hill carrying every
thing before them."
The New York Journal, concerning this battle, said : " The
two most picturesque and most characteristically American
commands in General Shatter's army bore off the great
honors of the day, in which all won honor. No man can
read the story in to-day's Journal of the Rough Riders'
charge on the block house at El Caney, of Theodore Roose
velt's mad daring in the face of what seemed certain death,
315
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
without having his pulses beat faster and some reflected light
of the fire of battle gleam from his eyes.
"And over against this scene of the cowboy and the
college graduate, the New York man about town and the
Arizona bad man, united in one coherent war machine,
set the picture of the Tenth United States Cavalry —
the famous colored regiment. Side by side with Roose
velt's men they fought — these black men. Scarce used
to freedom themselves, they are dying that Cuba may be
free.
"Their marksmanship was magnificent, say the eye-wit
nesses. Their courage was superb. They bore themselves
like veterans and gave proof positive that out of natures
naturally peaceful, careless, and playful, military discipline
and an inspiring cause can make soldiers worthy to rank with
Caesar's legions or Cromwell's army.
"The Rough Riders and the Black Regiment. In these
two commands is an epitome of almost our whole national
character.""
And further : hard by the walls of Peking, and in the Philip
pine Islands, the colored soldiers, at the command of the
Government of the United States, in defence of its flag, have
but recently stood together in line of battle with their white
compatriots and moistened the parched sands of that tropical
land with their warm life-blood.
The late President McKinley, in an address to the State
Normal and Industrial School for colored persons at Prairie
View, Texas, shortly before his death, said : " In our recent
war with Spain your race displayed distinguished qualities of
gallantry upon more than one field. You were in the fight
at El Caney, and San Juan Hill ; the black boys helping
to emancipate the oppressed people of Cuba ; and your race
is in the Philippines carrying the flag, and they have carried
it stainless in honor and in its glory." He also said : " Your
race is moving on and has a promising future before it. It
316
THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
has been faithful to the government of the United States. It
has been true and loyal and law-abiding. "
Be true, then, to the truth and history. The colored sol
diers are the Southerners who won the greatest glory in the
Spanish-American War.
Is it a " Bourbon-like, selfish, and narrow spirit,11 to demand
that no section of the country shall enjoy unfair and undue
advantage in representation in the government over any
other section ? Should it " kindle anew the embers of racial
and sectional strife," to equalize representation in a repre
sentative government according to the basis and limitations
of the Constitution ? For what does the Constitution exist ?
Or is the " solid South " above and beyond the Constitution
of the United States ?
Are the immense, incalculable business, financial, industrial,
and commercial interests of this republic best safeguarded
by giving a white man in South Carolina or Mississippi three
times as much power at the ballot-box, in the electoral col
lege and in the Congress, as a man in New York, or Wiscon
sin, or Indiana, or New Jersey, or Connecticut ? Did not the
" solid South '' vote for free silver and free trade in the last
two national elections ?
The facts and figures given in a previous chapter prove
beyond all cavil or question that it was the negro vote that
elected Mr. McKinley in 1896 and saved the country from
disasters and woes which words can hardly overstate.
The New York World., speaking of some of the grave and
serious consequences the nation escaped through Mr. Bryan's
defeat in 1896 and for whom the " solid South11 voted, says :
"The 'free-riot1 plank was quite as obnoxious as the free-
silver plank. The resolution proposing to deny the right of
private contract in money transactions was likewise bad.
The intimation that the Supreme Court would be packed to
secure the reversal of distasteful decisions was scandalous.
The postponement of tariff reform ' until the money question
317
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
has been settled ' as the cheap-money men wanted it settled,
was a betrayal of the traditional Democratic principle upon
which the party has elected its only presidents since the
war. The opposition to the use by Federal courts of the
writ of injunction was calculated to leave the Government
powerless in the face of emergencies requiring prompt ac
tion to protect life, industry, and property against mobs and
conspiracies.""
The votes unjustly wielded by the " solid South " are the
greatest menace that faces the nation, and may in a close or
doubtful election produce embarrassments bordering on chaos.
The South has seized powers unlawfully, by wholesale dis-
franchisements. And wholesale disfranchisement in the
South effects the partial disfranchisement of every Northern
state.
The demand, therefore, for equalization of representation
in the electoral college and in the Congress, and the preser
vation of the balance of power among the states of the
Union is of vital concern to the whole people.
It is a condition, not a theory, that faces the country.
The combined white population of South Carolina and
Mississippi, according to the census of 1900, is 1,199,007, and
these two states elect 15 members to the Congress; while the
combined white population of the states of Minnesota and
Nebraska is 2,793,562, being 1,594,555 greater than the
white population of South Carolina and Mississippi, and yet
they elect only 15 Congressmen. The states of Maine, New
Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut have a
total white population of 2,757,262, being 1,558,417 greater
than the white population of South Carolina and Mississippi,
and yet they elect only 15 members of the Congress.
By this Southern method 1,594,555 white people in Min
nesota and Nebraska or 1,558,417 white people in the New
England states named above have no voice in their govern
ment and are practically disfranchised.
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THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana have a total
white population of 1,928,719 and elect 22 Congressmen ;
while Ohio has a white population of 4,060,204, being
2,031,485 greater than that of the three named Southern
states, yet elects only 21 members of Congress.
The states of Indiana and New Jersey have a total white
population of 4,270,825, being 2,242,146 greater than
the combined white population of South Carolina, Missis
sippi, and Louisiana, and yet elect only 23 members of
Congress.
By this Southern method 2,031,485 white people in Ohio
or 2,342,106 white people in Indiana and New Jersey are
deprived of a political status and are without a share in their
government.
By massing the colored population of South Carolina, Miss
issippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, and Alabama, the injus
tice and inequality will appear even more flagrant and
condemnable.
The total colored population of these states is 4,433,605.
The Southern leaders refuse to recognize the colored man as
the equal of the white man at the ballot-box in the South,
nevertheless they count him, and play him as the equal of
the white man in the North in order to secure unfair, undue
representation in the government.
By appropriating to themselves full representation for
these 4,433,605 colored citizens and playing them against
great Northern states, they can effectively achieve the political
effacement of the 4,060,204 white citizens of Ohio ; or the
4,734,873 white citizens of Illinois ; or the 4,270,825 white
citizens of Indiana and New Jersey ; or the 4,456,474 white
citizens of the north central states Wisconsin and Michigan ;
or the 4,209,881 white citizens of Kansas, Minnesota, and
Nebraska, or even completely neutralize, nullify in the elec
toral college and in Congress the voice of the great Empire
City of New York with its imperial interests, together with
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THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island and Delaware
thrown in for good measure.
Furthermore, by taking representation on these 4,433,605
colored people they completely offset, negative in Congress
and the electoral college, the entire white population of all
the states west of the Rocky Mountains, namely California,
Washington, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah, to
which we can add North Dakota and South Dakota, and still
have 1,153,508 negroes left to overwhelm and negative white
voters in other states.
It is as true now as in the days of slavery that the " solid
South " grasps the " advantages derived from the unity and
identity of action and motive," and would 4< move in phalanx "
over the great states of the North, by dividing them, and
catching here and there a few Congressmen and presidential
electors.
But will not the methods employed to make and keep a
"solid South " also make a solid rather than a divided
North? A North solid, however, only for justice, the right,
and constitutional government.
The " solid South " wields approximately 50 votes in the
electoral college and also in Congress based on its colored
citizens. All the New England states taken together have
only 29 votes. What freeman of the North, whether Demo
crat or Republican, Socialist or Prohibitionist, or of whatsoever
party, would condone this flaming injustice and crying wrong,
which destroys representative government and menaces free
institutions ? He must regard himself as the third-of-a-man,
for the white man in South Carolina or Mississippi is three
times as potential at the ballot-box and in the affairs of the
government as he.
This question is greater than party. It cannot be
smothered or brushed aside by the hypocritical shrieks of
sectionalism. The only sectionalism in this republic is that
which is fomented, kept alive, and forced on the people by
320
THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
the un-American, perverse attitude of the leaders of the
"solid South."
The Constitution of the United States is plain, explicit,
mandatory. It imposes on the Congress the duty of equalizing
representation in the government. Whether the Southern
constitutions which have wrought wholesale disfranchisement
of the colored citizen are constitutional or unconstitutional, in
whole or in part, is not a matter of particular concern to
Congress in equalizing representation in the government.
The Southern leaders have proved themselves experts and
pastmasters in framing laws for the oppression and degrada
tion of others. They may, by circumlocutory wordings and
cunningly devised phrases, and the skilful manipulation of
sentences, have succeeded to some extent, at least, in cheating
the Constitution of the United States. But it may be dis
covered that cheating one section by " a grandfather clause,"
does not invalidate other sections.
But the disfranchising constitutions and laws of the South
ern states are not constitutional, for the reason that they are
a fraudulent restraint on liberty and representative govern
ment, and were so intended to be.
The presiding officer of the Louisiana Constitutional Con
vention, in his closing address, said : " What care I whether
it [the Constitution] be more or less ridiculous, or not?
Does n't it meet the case ? Does n't it let the white man
vote, and does n't it stop the negro from voting ? — and is n't
that what we came here to accomplish ? " Thus these lead
ers themselves brand their constitutions as frauds, and even
glory in the fraudulent work. But Congress is master of the
situation.
So that it matters not a particle whether the Southern
constitutions are constitutional in whole or in part, if the
fact exists that there are bodies of " the male inhabitants, . . .
21 years of age and citizens of the United States " in sufficient
numbers to attract attention and destroy the equilibrium of
21 321
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
representation in the government, and who have not " par
ticipated in rebellion or other crime," and yet are denied
" the right to vote " ; in whatsoever state such bodies of
" male citizens " are denied " the right to vote," it is the
imperative duty of Congress to reduce " the basis of repre
sentation therein to the proportion which the number of
such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male
citizens 21 years of age in such state."
The enforcement of this section of the Constitution of the
United States will prevent the republic from being ruled by
an oligarchy. For although an oligarchy may seize states
and under one pretence or another disfranchise large bodies
of the citizens, it cannot count those so disfranchised as a
basis of its representation in the government. This too
must promote and strengthen the broader liberty of the
people.
Mr. Hardwick of Georgia, in a recent speech in the Con
gress, said : " If Congress should be unwise enough to elect to
exercise this discretionary power vested in it by section 5 of
Article XIV, it will not only be the most serious strain of the
present cordial relations so happily existing between the sec
tions, but it will require a readjustment of the basis of rep
resentation that will not start at the Potomac and at Rio
Grande, but will stretch from Hatteras to the Golden Gate,
from Maine to Florida, and will embrace in its majestic sweep
every state and Territory in the Union and even our new
islands of the sea." This threat is characteristically Southern.
The only " cordial relations " that can bind together the
sections of a republic are based on the equality of representa
tion. Inequality destroys cordiality ; they cannot coexist.
The fundamental guarantee of "cordial relations," between
the sections is the equal obedience of the sections to the
Constitution of the United States.
In equalizing representation, it would be fair, wise, and
just to yield every Southern state full representation for its
322
THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
entire white citizenship, supplemented by the number of
colored citizens actually enrolled as voters. This informa
tion is easily accessible. As the laws and constitution of
some of the Southern states were made for the expressed
purpose, openly and publicly avowed, of disfranchising the
colored citizens, it would not be necessary to follow the in
tricacies, windings, and tricks as to how the details are worked
out. The main purpose and results only are worthy of
consideration.
The Northern states should have identically the same
basis ; its entire white citizenship plus its registered colored
votes. But as no colored man in the North is disfranchised,
practically the whole colored citizenship would be counted.
The South is estopped from all complaints, because it
would have the full and unrestricted power to enlarge, at
any time, its electorate and thus increase its representation.
Reducing Southern representation would not of course
settle the question of suffrage, but it would be a start in
the right direction. It would chill the disposition of the
states for wholesale disfranchisement. States covet more,
not less power. The struggle will go on until impartial laws
shall regulate the suffrage in every state. The better South
will assert itself. The Fifteenth Amendment is an impreg
nable fortress, and no law which the reactionist's ingenuity
:an invent can keep all colored men from the ballot-box.
No one who now has the franchise can lose it.
The work of the schoolroom will gradually remove all the
artificial barriers which now exist and the approach to the
ballot-box will be greatly facilitated.
Some fears have been expressed that the Southern leaders
might even accept reduction of representation in order to get
rid of the negro vote, and that such reduction might be con
strued as an endorsement by the nation of wholesale dis
franchisement. These fears are illogical and groundless, and are
entirely without a basis in reason, political science, or history.
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
In the first place, the Southern leaders would oppose re
duction of representation to the limit of their power, for
the sake of their own political salvation. But even if they
should accept it, it must still be remembered that the South
ern leaders are not the Southern people, but only a very small
fraction of them. A majority of the whites would not view
reduction of representation with the same complacency that
they show for the disfranchisement of the colored race. As
a matter of fact, many Southerners are opposed to wholesale
disfranchisement, and regard the " grandfather clause "as a
subterfuge reproachful to Southern manhood. The inflamed
South is not the sober South. The sober South would never
give up one third of its representatives in Congress and also
in the electoral college in order to uphold a flagrantly un
moral and disastrous policy. More than this — the sober
South would shrink from thus publicly and directly impeach
ing itself in the eyes of civilization and Christianity.
There should be no temporizing or half-way measures, but
reduction should be based, in full, on that proportion of the
colored population not represented on the list of registered
voters. The South being thus shorn of one third of its
power, it would be much easier to enact such additional laws
as the nation may adjudge necessary to enforce the Fifteenth
Amendment. But nothing can be more certain than that
O
the sober South will break away from the reactionists at this
point, or before it is reached, rather than provoke the nation
to the enactment of further legislation. It is already realized
that the madness of the reactionists has produced the woes of
the South. As sure as the sun shall shine the Southern people,
under a patriotic, noble-hearted, and broad-minded leadership,
will rise in revolt and overthrow the " Jim Crowites " andj
reactionists and wipe out any policy which would thus de-r
stroy the power, dignity, and standing of their states, and
which would relegate such states to the position of " pocket-
boroughs," or " sage-brush " communities.
324
THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
In the second place, the reduction of representation would
not be an endorsement of wholesale disfranchisement, but
only the application of the penalty. If a man commits a
theft or any other offence, and the law is invoked and he is
duly punished, no sane person would ever pretend that the
invocation of the law and the punishment of the offender is
an endorsement of the crime. Such reasoning would over
turn civilization. Penalties operate correctionallv, and not
as endorsements of offences whatever their character. Re
duction of representation would punish, and also, at the same
time, work out the correction of the offence of wholesale dis
franchisement. How ? Such reduction would have the im
mediate effect of making the entire colored population a
valuable asset in the political life of the South ; whereas, as
things stand now, the colored man is a political nonentity.
The reactionists disfranchised him because they saw that
under present conditions nothing was to be gained by allow
ing him the ballot, and that by denying him the ballot noth
ing was to be lost. The colored man was thus counted, in so
far as his own recognition was concerned, simply as a cipher
in the political equation of Southern life. In politics, as in
other matters, things go by values. In the economy of life,
everything of value is put to use. Make the negro of politi
cal value to the South, just as he is of industrial value, and
the South will protect his ballot because it will serve its
interests to do so. Reduction of representation would in
stantly reverse present conditions and put a political value
on the head of every colored man. The reactionists could
not then treat the colored man as a cipher, and at the same
time profit by the full representation based on the colored
population to strengthen their oligarchy. The colored man
would have inherent political value ; and to secure its bene
fits, the South would be compelled to recognize his right to
cast his own ballot. He would thus be transformed from a
cipher into a unit ; from a mere abstraction into a political
325
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
personality. His ballot would be restored under just and
equal laws, and he would be protected and assisted in the
wise use of it by the conservative and patriotic elements.
For it would mean five more votes in Congress and as
many in the electoral college for Georgia ; four votes each
for North Carolina, Texas, South Carolina, Virginia, and
Alabama ; five more for Mississippi, and a corresponding
increase in other states according to the colored population.
Is any man crazy enough to believe that a majority of the
white people of South Carolina, that old and historic com
monwealth, rich in renown and prestige, would surrender four
of her seven representatives in the Congress and the electoral
college at the beck of Senator Tillman, simply to carry out
a degrading, unmoral, and unrighteous policy, injurious alike
to its white and colored citizens ; or that Mississippi would
give up five of her eight Congressmen and electors at the
dictation of Governor Vardaman ; or that the great state of
Georgia would cut her congressional and electoral delegation
in half to humor the frenzy of the Honorable John Temple
Graves, or as a tribute to the social-equality bogyman ?
Such a condition, even if it were possible, would only be
transient. It would provoke revolt. The liberal and patri
otic elements would desire and could have no better platform
than such an issue on which to appeal to the people to save
the prestige, power, and honor of their commonwealths and
demand fair and equal laws for all the people.
When the white people of the South shall thus approach
the suffrage question with honest purposes, and in the broad
spirit of patriotism and humanity, and enact fair and honest
election laws, taking every needful precaution to insure good
government by the rule of intelligence, thrift, character, and
property ; punishing alike the man who sells his vote and the
man who bribes it ; prohibiting the use of money in cam
paigns except for specified purposes ; eliminating from poli
tics the ignorant, vicious, shiftless, and criminal classes whether
326
THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
white or colored ; discarding the unholy and un-American
policy of the reactionists in violating the Constitution and
subjugating the colored race; assuring the colored man of
the protection of his civil and political rights ; giving him
considerate treatment, recognizing his right to representa
tion in the government and so dividing his vote, — they shall
have the hearty good-will, applause, and benediction of every
honest man and patriotic citizen of the land ; for the race
question will then be solved, and in the only way that it can
be solved, by respecting the ethics of the Christ and by the
due observance of the organic law of the republic ; and it
will be removed from the arena of politics.
The solemn appeals and warnings of two eminent Amer
icans may fittingly close this chapter. One is of the South,
the other of the North. Both are of national reputation,
and represent the best type of American manhood.
Ex-Governor William O. Bradley, of Kentucky, in a recent
address, said : " Men of the North, we come from the battle
field, consecrated to freedom with the blood of your brave
sons. In their names, and by their memories, the disfran
chised South appeals to you for justice. Shall it be said that
your sons marched and fought and died in vain ? Shall it
be said that a nation can exist part slave and part free?
Are people free who are forced to bear the burden and yet
denied the highest privilege of citizenship? If it be true
that warrant may not be found in the Constitution to pre
vent disfranchisement, then we beg that you no longer permit
the disfranchised and oppressed to be estimated for the pur
pose of increasing the electoral strength of their oppressors.11
And the late Mr. James G. Blaine, in the North American
Review, after affirming that the South " wrongfully gains "
a " great number of electoral votes,11 " by reason of its
unlawful seizure of political power,11 goes on to say : " Our
institutions have been tried by the fiery test of war and have
survived. It remains to be seen whether the attempt to
327
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
govern the country by the power of a ' solid South ' unlaw
fully consolidated, can be successful. No thoughtful man can
consider these questions without deep concern. The mighty
power of a republic with a continent for its possession, can
only be wielded permanently by being wielded honestly.
In a fair and generous struggle for partisan power let us not
forget those issues and those ends which are above party.
Organized wrong will ultimately be met by organized resist
ance. . . . Impartial suffrage is our theory. It must become
our practice. Any party of American citizens can bear to
be defeated. No party of American citizens will bear to be
defrauded. The men who are interested in a dishonest count
are units. The men who are interested in an honest count
are millions. I wish to speak for the millions of all political
parties, and in their name to declare that the republic must
be strong enough, and shall be strong enough, to protect the
weakest of its citizens in all their rights. To this simple and
sublime principle let us, in the lofty language of Burke,
' attest the retiring generations, let us attest the advancing
generations, between which, as a link in the great chain of
eternal order, we stand.' "
And there may be added these forceful words from the
New York World : " If the Southern Democrats who are
forcing these measures do not perceive their ultimate inevita
ble consequences, they are lacking in political understanding.
The preponderating vote of the Northern states will not con
sent permanently to representation in Congress and in the
electoral college of millions of disfranchised inhabitants in
the Southern states. Especially is this true when the dis
franchising qualifications apply and are intended to operate
not against illiteracy or shiftlessness or unworthiness, but
solely against color. . . .
" Back, however, of the questions of political expediency
and of the equality growing out of the representation of
non-voters is the deeper question of constitutional guarantees
328
THE NATIONAL DUTY TO THE NEGRO
and of the anomaly and danger in a republic of an enormous
number of citizens disfranchised for their color alone.'11
Colonel T. VV. Higginson read a poem before the Phi
Beta Kappa Society at the late Commencement of Harvard
College, which concludes as follows : —
** The humbler friends who ne'er betrayed a trust,
And never in defeat yet turned their back,
Stood firm till gunshot strewed them in the dust.
Why need they pardon ? For their faces black !
" A hundred thousand negroes filled your ranks,
When most depleted, with their manhood strong.
Shall we not still keep warm the nation's thanks
While lingering days those modest lives prolong ?
" They saved you ; charged Fort Wagner ; they held out,
Held the coast safe that Sherman might pass through,
You built Shaw's statue; can you calmly doubt
That those who marched with him should vote, like you ?
" ' Not fit to live,' some say ; ' an alien race,
Oh, set them all aside ! ' advisers cry.
' Their birth a shame, their color a disgrace.'
Not fit to live ? You trusted them to die !
** Not on these walls your tribute need be paid,
But in that outer world your teachings rule ;
Here by your thoughts a nobler conscience made
Gives to the nation's life a loftier school.
" To praise one's self by flattering all the great —
How easy ! Worthier honors then were won
When Harvard kept her cherished laurels late
And placed them on a humbler Washington.
" Within this hall she cried, * Protect the low,'
Till all earth's children from this life are whirled
To see fulfilled the debts we vainly owe,
And find God's justice in a nobler world. "
CHAPTER X
PUBLIC OPINION OMNIPOTENT
PRINCE TALLEYRAND, probably the most resource
ful, astute, and remarkable European diplomatist of
his day, said : " There is one who is wiser than Vol
taire, and has more understanding than Napoleon and all
ministers; and that one is — Public Opinion."
In the equitable settlement of complex and vital issues
incident to the life of a free and self-governing nation — the
arbitrament of the sword being eliminated — public opinion
is the court of last resort. Its mandates are imperative and
final. From its inexorable decrees there is no escape. It
inspires, formulates, and executes the laws of a people. The
public opinion of the nation is and of necessity must be para
mount : the peace and prosperity, the honor and dignity, the
good order and safety, and the perpetuity and sovereignty of
the nation are dependent on this. For the laws of a self-
governing nation represent the consensus of the public opin
ion of the nation.
If South Carolina and Mississippi can violate with open
defiance and impunity certain sections of the Constitution
of the United States at will, what is to prevent Utah and
Wyoming from overthrowing other sections, and still other
states from nullifying remaining sections ? How much of
the Constitution is to be left intact ?
If this wonderful instrument, the grandest charter of
liberty on the face of the earth — " the hope of man " — can
thus be torn into tatters and threads, of what avail is the con
sensus of public opinion, the saving salt of a nation's life ?
What becomes of national honor, authority, sovereignty?
When the public opinion of this nation shall cease to be
sovereign — then the republic is dead. The public opinion
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PUBLIC OPINION OMNIPOTENT
of this nation, in the free exercise of its plenary and sovereign
powers, removed the fetters of slavery, and made the colored
people citizens; acknowledging to them the birthright which
belongs to every man — " the inalienable rights " of " life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness" ; and it is the preroga
tive and binding duty of the nation to make the full enjoy
ment of these natural rights and privileges secure and
complete.
The United States being a nation, the allegiance and
loyalty of the citizen is not to a state or section, but to the
nation. It must necessarily follow, as a corollary, that the
highest, the supreme, prerogative of the nation is the pro
tection of the citizen. The relation is reciprocal. This in
volves the very life of the nation itself. In the protection
of its citizens the nation finds its own protection.
President Lincoln, in the heat of the antislavery agitation,
declared: "This nation cannot continue to exist half free
and half slave." He was right.
President Garfield, in his inaugural address, twenty years
after the slaveholders1 unsuccessful rebellion against the re
public, said: "There is no middle ground for the negro race
between slavery and equal citizenship." He was right.
There was no peace with the nation half free and half
slave. There can be no peace with the nation half free and
half serf. "Men may cry peace! peace! but there is no
peace." The extreme and unreasonable, the unchristian
and un-American attitude of the South is "the fly in the
ointment," the disturber of the public peace.
No one will deny that it ought to be, and is, a most ardent
and even sacred desire of every good citizen, that peace and
concord, unity and good fellowship shall exist between the
several sections of the country and among all of its inhabi
tants. But the essential, the elementary condition of this
consummation most devoutly to be wished for, is a fair and
faithful, a just and honorable administration of the law for
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
all the people "without regard to race, color or previous
condition of servitude."
The policy pursued by the South, and portrayed in these
pages and proved by evidence unquestioned and incontrover
tible — a policy of mob rule and lynch law; oppressive, pre
scriptive, and unlawful legislation ; harsh persecutions and
general ostracism; and debasement of all colored people,
regardless of their moral worth, their thrift and industry,
their superior mental endowments, their value to the com
munity, or their service and sacrifices for the nation in the
storm and stress of war — is not constructive of the peace of
the nation, but on the contrary is destructive of the very
foundations of peace.
When one class of citizens seize local governments and
inflict gross wrongs and inhumanities on another class of
equal citizens, in defiance of the organic law, it is a matter
of concern to the whole people. The familiar phrases " hands
off," "no interference," "we will settle the question to suit
ourselves," smack of haughtiness but not wisdom, of audacity
but not honesty, and will deceive no one.
"Hands off'" — when the liberty and hope of ten millions
of American citizens are being openly assassinated ?
" No interference " — when these people are being stripped
and despoiled of every essential manhood right of a free
American ?
"We will settle the question to suit ourselves" — when
that settlement leads to serfdom with abuses even blacker
and more bestial than slavery ?
If a colored man pre-eminent in character and of superior
talent, a high officer of the government is invited to a func
tion at the White House, or another of admitted ability and
standing is appointed to a Federal office, the churlish and
childish plaint is made: "It is an insult to the white
people of the South." A social boycott is flauntingly pro
claimed against the President of the United States and the
PUBLIC OPINION OMNIPOTENT
demand made that he shall "be treated in all respects by
Southern people precisely as if he were a negro, and with
absolute indication that he is not of our race, or in any re
spect socially an equal with us or a fit associate for us or
any of us." The press reports show that many leading
Southerners have absented themselves from the social func
tions at the White House, as if by this childish act they
could coerce the President to violate the liberty and rights
of citizens whom his oath of office binds him to protect.
If a Northern man has the temerity to make a manly plea
for fair and honorable treatment of the colored people and
condemns oppression, he is met with the charge of " stirring
up sectional strife", "waving the bloody shirt % and is de
nounced as the " fool-friend " of the negro.
The social and business boycott is rigorously applied to
any white person in the South who may treat the educated
and cultured negro with the courtesy due a gentleman. The
Northern man residing in the South and who is the victim of
this un-American code and who does not show the colored
man the kindness or courtesy he would show if residing in
the North, is paraded as being as hostile as the Southerner
to the recognition of the colored man.
Principal Booker T. Washington, admittedly the most
distinguished Southerner living — and pronounced by Mr.
Carnegie one of the greatest men of the age, registers in an
Indiana hotel : the next morning a white chambermaid re
fuses to make up his bed, because a "nigger" had slept in it.
She at once becomes the heroine of every " Jim Crowite " in
the South. Letters of congratulation are poured in upon her.
Subscriptions are made up in various parts of the South, and
thousands of dollars are showered upon her. Her coura
geous act consisted in offering an unprovoked insult to an un
offending gentleman. Mr. Washington sends his daughter
to a Northern boarding-school : the demand is made that
Southern white girls shall leave the school.
333
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
An Italian, keeping a restaurant in a Mississippi town,
sells a colored man a meal ; his place is immediately raided
and he is driven from his home. Any incident is seized upon
to inflame passions against the colored man.
During the riots in New Orleans, a Northern white man
was arrested, and fined twenty-five dollars for protesting
against the killing of innocent negroes and admitting to
the judge he had said that "A negro in body and soul
is as good as a white man." At Memphis, Tennessee, a
Northern white man who justified President Roosevelt in
dining Principal Booker T. Washington was promptly
thrashed. And the cry has gone forth that " no quarter "
shall be given to any one who shall dare to interpose against
this policy. Is this not choking Southern ideas down North
ern throats with a remarkable vehemence ?
These things are sufficient to cause the patriots of 1861 to
turn in their graves. Did they destroy slavery and save the
Union only to have the cardinal doctrine of the Southern
Confederacy re-enacted into law throughout the Southland,
and forced on the nation as slavery was forced on it ? This
is not a basis which makes for the peace of the republic, nor
will the people be silent in the consummation of such a sin
against Heaven and crime against humanity.
The American people lack neither courage nor conscience.
The issues thus raised must be bravely met and overcome, as
have other issues equally perplexing and menacing.
The South was wrong, even if it was united, on the slavery
question — but public opinion destroyed slavery.
The South was wrong, even if it was united, in making war
on the republic — but public opinion saved the republic.
The South was wrong, even if it was united, in its threats
to shoot colored soldiers and their white officers when cap
tured — but public opinion kept the colored soldiers on the
firing line and protected them.
The South was wrong, even if it was united, in passing the
334
PUBLIC OPINION OMNIPOTENT
Black Code — but public opinion destroyed the Black
Code.
The South was wrong, even if it was united, in its hos
tility to the great measures of reconstruction — but public
opinion achieved the reconstruction it wanted.
The South is wrong, even if it is united, in the extreme un-
American, and unholy attitude assumed to-day — and public
opinion will be found equal to the task of dealing with it.
Public opinion spoke through the ballot-box in the na
tional election held in the fall of 1904. The overwhelming
vote given in support of the victorious candidate attests the
adherence of the people to the principles advocated in these
pages. Never before in the history of the republic have the
people, the true American sovereigns, given such an emphatic
demonstration of their power through the instrumentality
of the ballot-box, and so splendidly and gloriously confirmed
their devotion to the principles of liberty and constitutional
government.
Every state in which there was a free and fair expression
of public opinion was carried by President Roosevelt by ma
jorities which daze the political mind. New York gave
175,000 majority, Illinois 300,000, Michigan 206,000, Kansas
126,000, Minnesota 126,000, Wisconsin 130,000, Nebraska
85,000, Massachusetts 92,000, California 125,000, Ohio
240,000, Connecticut 75,000, Indiana nearly 100,000, Wash
ington 72,000, and Pennsylvania over 500,000. In ten
states his majority ranged from 100,000 to more than
500,000 ; and his combined majorities in fifteen states ex
ceeded Judge Parker's total vote.
The total vote cast in the thirteen Southern states, includ
ing Maryland, which Judge Parker carried, was 2,033,226, of
which he received 1,238,878. The total vote polled in the
thirty-two states carried by President Roosevelt was
11,475,270. But it must be remembered that the South,
while casting only 15 per cent of the whole number of votes
335
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
polled, nevertheless has 34 per cent of the presidential elec
tors. About one-third of these electors are based on the
colored population, who in large measure are disfranchised by
trick election laws. This is like killing the sheep, and yet
still expecting to possess and be benefited by the annual crop
of wool.
The continuance of such gross inequality invites gravest
consequences in case of a close election. It is a most impres
sive fact that President Roosevelt's majorities alone in the
four states of New York, Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania
were greater in the aggregate than the total vote cast for
Judge Parker in the thirteen Southern states, including
Maryland. President Roosevelt's popular majority, at large,
was 2,547,578, being more than twice as great as the whole
number of votes polled by his opponent in the " solid South."
The political cataclysm struck and shook to the centre the
border states, and West Virginia and Missouri enrolled
themselves on the side of progress and humanity ; Maryland
half yielded, and " Old Kentucky " weakened.
The former seceding states stand alone, isolated, embit
tered, out of touch with the liberal and progressive ideas of
the sister states, without reconciliation to the popular will,
and refusing to keep step in the march of civilization and to
the " music of the Union." The following post-election ex
pressions from leaders of the " solid South " will disclose the
poverty of the South, in its public life, in capable, sober,
constructive, statesmanlike leadership. The Louisville
Courier- Journal says : " From Theodore Roosevelt we ask no
quarter and expect none. He is infinitely a worse enemy of
the white men and women of the South than any of the radi
cal leaders of the past."
In the Huntsville, Alabama, Mercury, Mr. Robert T. Bently
says : " It appearing that Theodore Roosevelt, the head and
front of the Republican party, which represents the danger
ous policies of civilization, protective tariff, imperialism, and
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PUBLIC OPINION OMNIPOTENT
social equality, has been elected President of the United
States by a strictly sectional vote, and has established an in
surmountable barrier between the North and South, I feel
constrained to express my humble opinion, as a true and
patriotic American citizen of the South, that, if the Republi
can party should continue its dangerous policies for the next
four years and should triumph in the next national election,
the thirteen states which voted for Alton B. Parker should
secede from the union and by force of arms resist an oppres
sion which means the early fall of our great republic."
In an interview, General John W. A. Sanford, one of the
oldest and best-known citizens of the South, says that " the
South is practically ostracized. There is one policy for
the South to pursue that it may retain its prestige, its honor,
and all it holds dear in its social as well as political life.
Abjure national politics, participate in no future national
political conventions. Allow the Northern Democrats and
Northern Republicans to hold their own conventions and
vote their own tickets. Let the South select and elect its
own electoral ticket and vote in the electoral college for that
party or candidate whose principles are more in accord with
our own policies, and whose policies will promote in the
greatest degree the peace, power, and prosperity of the
Southern people. And when we become more populous and
more wealthy, the Northerners will court the Southerners,
our interests will be more respected, and our views of govern
ment will receive greater consideration from the political
parties of the Northern states."
The Atlanta Journal says : " Let the South remain true
to its traditions, true to the principle of white supremacy,
true to the principles of democracy, and let it stand by itself in
national politics until its support is sought on its own terms"
The Journal and the Atlanta Constitution also demand that
the South shall nominate its own candidate for the presi
dency at the next election.
22 337
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
Judge J. M. Chilton says : " We had as well recognize
this position and make the best of it. In my opinion the
South ought never again, at least for several years to come,
enter a national Democratic convention or any sort of
national political convention. The Southern states which
have been thus driven to solidification should hold a Southern
convention and align themselves with that one of the North
ern parties which will promise us most. Let them fight it out
with their own reds and socialists. Let the South give its
aid to that one of the parties which is least objectionable.
In such a position the South will hold the balance of power,
and it will not be long before we will be accorded the
position and influence to which we are justly entitled."
The News and Courier, Charleston, South Carolina, says :
" The North was also solid, and solid without cause ; solid
on sectional lines for a sectional party, a sectional candidate,
and for sectional purposes.11
The Columbia State declares that, "if trouble is provoked,
the negroes will be the chief sufferers, and a dozen Roosevelts
cannot help them.'"
Senator Car mack of Tennessee denounces " the pharisaical
people of New England," and " the rotten politicians of the
North," and " the press of the North " for " misrepresenting
the Southern people."
The Honorable John Sharp Williams of Mississippi goes
to South Carolina, the cradle of the former secession, and
preaches a new rebellion against the republic. This time,
however, thanks to his discretion, it is to be a bloodless war.
He advises the South to uphold its nullification of the Con
stitution of the United States by refusing to obey any law
the sovereign people of the republic may enact through their
representatives in Congress to equalize representation.
The New York World makes the following comment on
Mr. Williams1 speech : " Martyrdom was joined to nullifica
tion in the doctrine of ' passive resistance ' which John
338
PUBLIC OPINION OMNIPOTENT
Sharp Williams, the Democratic leader of the House, preached
to the people of Spartanburg, South Carolina, Friday night.
" On the assumption that Congress might reduce Southern
representation in accordance with the provisions of the Four
teenth Amendment, Mr. Williams proceeded to lay out a
programme of ' passive resistance ' for the South. ' I know
of no power on earth or in heaven, except a direct interven
tion of God/ he said, * that can force a state legislature to
pass a bill redistricting a state so that it shall contain four
or five or six Congressional districts instead of seven or
eight.1
" Mr. Williams then advised the Southern states to pay
no attention to an act reducing representation, if one should
be passed, but to elect their Representatives on the old basis
and send them to Washington. The House would refuse
to seat them and would withhold the payment of salaries.
Judicial proceedings could then be instituted to determine
whether the act of Congress was constitutional. In the
mean time all the Southern states would be without repre
sentation and would stand as ' a visible object-lesson ' to the
flinty-hearted brethren of the North. . . .
" But if the question of reducing representation in accord
ance with the Fourteenth Amendment were under serious con
sideration in Republican councils, the blame would rest upon
the South alone — or, more specifically, upon the sinister
cunning that devised 'the grandfather clause ' and the
other discriminating franchise provisions in the new state
constitutions.
" Nobody in the North is disposed to quarrel with the
South for disfranchising ignorance, for disfranchising vicious-
ness, or for disfranchising shiftlessness. The objection is to
a policy that disfranchises only negro ignorance, viciousness,
and shiftlessness, while assuring the franchise to the most
worthless ' white trash' that can prove a voting grandfather
or get a political committee to pay his poll taxes. . . .
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
" Mr. Williams gives his whole case away when he says
that he and his friends would be willing to submit gracefully
to reduced representation if the country would repeal the
Fifteenth Amendment. What the Southern politicians wish
to do is not to withhold the suffrage from the elements that
pollute it, but to disfranchise forever such men as Booker
T. Washington and Professor Du Bois, along with the most
depraved levee loafers, for the crime of not having white
skins.
" To such a programme the country will never give its
consent, and Mr. Williams wastes his breath in suggesting
it. The American people are not yet ready to surrender the
fundamental principle of their institutions — that in respect
of political rights ' all men are created equal,' and that ' the
republic is opportunity."* When the South asks this sur
render it is asking the impossible.""
The plan of Congressman 1—4-33 Williams (the numerals
indicate the total number of votes he received in his canvass
for Congress) has about as much common-sense in it as that
of the man who attempted to drain the ocean by emptying
buckets of water on the beach. The republic will not be
coerced, nor can the government be destroyed by sulking.
A way will be found under the Constitution to elect dele
gations at large, and voters will be found to vote for them.
The South must repeal its "grandfather" constitutions and
other trick election laws which defraud the people of an
equal share in their government, and enact fair laws, or
representation must be reduced.
These leaders present the South in a pitiable plight before
the eyes of the world. It is indeed a matter for deep lamen
tation and profound regret that a land so wonderfully blessed
by nature, and with the members of one class of its population,
at their best, so hospitable and chivalric, and with the other
class so peaceful, responsive, and hard-toiling, should become
the prey of unbalanced leaders and wild reactionists. The
340
PUBLIC OPINION OMNIPOTENT
justice which man owes to man ; the righteousness which God
exacts of all ; the peace and fraternity which are the nation's
meed ; and the love, charity, and helpfulness which the Christ
teaches apparently find no place in their minds, hearts, or
works.
Why does not the South accept with the same heartiness
and in the same spirit of patriotism and fraternity the result
of the election that has been made manifest in every hamlet
of other sections of the republic ? Why should it remain
offensively sectional, to its own detriment and the marring of
the peace of the nation ? Why does it cling so tenaciously to
the barbarous traditions of slavery which are out of harmony
with the age, repugnant to the national conscience and ideals,
and frowned upon and disowned by the whole civilized world ?
The Honorable Thomas E. Watson of Georgia, candidate
of the People's party for president in the last campaign,
gives the philosophy of the matter in a recent speech in say
ing : " The politicians keep the negro question alive in the
South to perpetuate their hold on public office. The negro
question is the joy of their lives. It is their very existence.
They fatten on it. With one shout of ' nigger ' ! — they can
run the native Democrats into their holes at any hour of the
day." Nevertheless, the tremendous uprising of the people
on election day and the unprecedented avalanche of ballots
which carried Mr. Roosevelt to the presidential chair, after a
campaign of abuse and detraction, cannot fail to have a so
bering effect ; and the prophecy may even be ventured that a
show of firmness in upholding the Constitution by an aroused
public opinion will mark the opening of a new era in the
Southland — the beginning of the end of the dominion of
incapable, rancorous, implacable reactionaries. The hand
writing is on the wall. The people have spoken. The
meaning of the election is plain.
It means that the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth
Amendments to the Constitution of the United States are
341
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
incontestable ; that the liberty and citizenship of the colored
man are no longer open to challenge and are not to be the
foot-ball of " cheap- John " politicians ; that he shall take his
place before the law in common with other races and thus
work out his destiny. It means the overwhelming condem
nation of wholesale disfranchisement, lynch-law and burnings
at the stake, prescriptive laws, the attempt to inaugurate a
new form of slavery, and the rampant and unbridled "Jim
Crowism " which was constantly flaunted in the face of the
nation and offered gross insults and indignities to the
President of the United States.
For, indeed, it was not the tariff, nor the gold standard,
nor the trusts, nor imperialism, nor the Philippines, nor large
expenditures for the army and navy, nor all of these com
bined that aroused and rallied the sovereigns of the land to
the Roosevelt standard. The party in opposition did not
propose any summary or radical changes along any of these
lines. But it was because "the people loved him for the
enemies he has made," and because he stood as firm as ad
amant against the assaults and traducings of the reactionists
and proclaimed his ceaseless devotion to the ideals of liberty
as held by Abraham Lincoln, and for a republic of law, or
derly government, equal rights and opportunities, and " the
door of hope " for all Americans without regard to race,
color, or creed, or whether rich or poor — because his per
sonality embodied the American ideal.
The New York World, which has been repeatedly quoted,
is generally regarded as the leading Democratic organ of the
country. It has always been friendly to the South and has
rendered it invaluable services. No one would accuse it of
leaning toward the colored man or fawning upon him. But
in its discussion of the race question it has been fair, firm,
and fearless. It has emphasized some thoughts since the
election which the white people should ponder over, calmly
weigh, and digest. In various issues it says :
PUBLIC OPINION OMNIPOTENT
" The American people will never accept the dictum that
a negro scholar is the inferior of a white ignoramus, that a
negro gentleman is the inferior of a white blackguard, that a
man's title to consideration rests on the color of his skin and
not on his character and his achievements.
" The World hopes that this little lesson has finally been
thoroughly learned. . . .
" Never before in our history were so many votes cast for
a candidate for office. Black and white, Protestant and
Catholic, Jew and Gentile, vied with one another in testify
ing at the ballot-box their faith in Mr. Roosevelt's purposes
and their confidence in his statesmanship. . . .
" If the South wishes to take the negro question out of
national politics the quickest way is to stop burning negroes
at the stake and to abandon the un-American notion that the
meanest of white scoundrels is better than the most industri
ous, intelligent, honorable negro.
" If the race question played any part in the recent cam
paign, the South alone is to blame. It was the South that
raised the Booker T. Washington issue. It was the South
that advanced the monstrous doctrine that the better quali
fied a negro was to hold a Federal office the more objection
able was his appointment. . . .
" You cannot convince the people of the North that it is a
heinous crime for a President of the United States to lunch
with a Booker T. Washington, whatever the color of the
Washington's skin may be. They will no more worry about
equality between American and African than about equality
between American and Chinese, when the President invites
the Chinese Minister to dinner. "
The white people of the South must come back to the first
principles of liberty, constitutional government, and fraternity.
They are in fact and by right, and should be in spirit, a har
monious part of the Union — cheerfully co-operating with
other sections in enacting and administering just and equal
343
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
laws and adding to the moral grandeur of the republic.
Isolation is a mistaken policy. It bodes no good to the
South. It keeps alive sectionalism and bitterness. The
South is the chief sufferer. The policy is childish. It rests
absolutely in the power of the South, and it alone, to destroy
sectionalism. This will be a truly harmonious nation arid
the last vestige of sectionalism will disappear when the white
people of the South, like the people of the North, shall ac
cept in good faith the constitutional amendments which
manumitted the slave and restored him to his place in the
brotherhood of men. And in recornposing the relations
between the races there are two elemental truths which
will count mightily in an honorable, a righteous, and lasting
settlement.
The first of these is, that the white people, deep down in
their hearts, do not hate the colored people. As paradoxical
as it may sound, they really love them. They would not
exchange them for any class of laborers in the wide world.
The second is this : The colored people do not hate the
whites ; on the contrary, they cherish genuine friendship and
affection for them. The races are not as far apart as it may
seem.
The excessive bitterness, rank intolerance and contempt,
and the extreme and violent forms of prejudice displayed
toward the whole colored race are not an expression of the
true heart of the whites. They are rather due to the arti
ficial conditions and influences purposely created by the
Bourbons, the pernicious and mischievous leaders, to
strengthen and aggrandize their political power and establish
an oligarchy. The entailments of slavery made it possible
for them to inflame the whites beyond reason and drive the
mass of them into stark madness on the race question.
To undo their work : the repeal of all prescriptive laws ; the
enactment of impartial suffrage and acknowledgment of the
right of its rewards to office based on good citizenship and
344
PUBLIC OPINION OMNIPOTENT
merit ; the protection of life, liberty and property ; the due
punishment of all criminals according to law and not color ;
the protection of the laborer and the elimination of all
forms of peonage ; the overthrow of mob-rule and the guar
anty of equal rights before the law for all, white and colored
alike — these should become the self-imposed task of the best
and decent elements of the South. Thus could they bring
peace to the nation, and reconciliation between the races ;
thus could they vindicate the honor of the South and eman
cipate its name from shame.
From the womb of the South itself, there surely will come
men with the honesty, courage and statesmanship of those
beacon lights in the early history of the nation — men like
Henry and John Laurens, Pinckney and Gadsden of South
Carolina ; Jefferson, George Mason, Madison, and Randolph
of Virginia ; and Luther Martin of Maryland — who cried
out against the wrong of oppression and servitude at the
very incipiency of the nation's birth. What they denounced
as a wrong then is a crime in the light of to-day.
The advent into public life of men of their mental calibre,
political honesty, and moral courage — men broad in states
manship, liberal-minded, invincible to passion and prejudice,
devoted to free institutions — will be the harbinger of better
days for both the white and colored people of the Sunny
South, as it will also mean the overturn and banishment
into political oblivion of the reactionists, the negrophobists,
the "Jim Crowites" and the whole brood of those who fatten
on public office or public patronage by preaching hatred and
strife between the races, and who are the worst enemies the
Southern people have to fear.
The nation longs for peace, but peace which is purchased
at the sacrifice of the dictates of justice and humanity and
the vital principles of Christianity is not only too costly in
price but it is a worthless peace. It is worthless because the
conscience of the American people will not accept it. It
345
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
would not even bridge over matters. The mere announce-
ment of peace purchased at such a price would open wide
the flood gates of agitation and strife.
The dominant leadership of the South is endeavoring to
turn back the hands of the dial of time and engraft on the
republic the leading principles of the Southern Confederacy.
Thus they would achieve by indirect action what failed oi
accomplishment by open rebellion, — the perpetual subjuga
tion and servitude of a people.
The Honorable Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President oi
the Confederacy, made this historical declaration in a speech
delivered at Savannah, Georgia, on the 21st of March, 1861,
less than a month before " Old Glory " was fired on at Fort
Sumter : " The new Constitution has put at rest forever all
the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution —
African slavery as it exists among us, the proper status of
the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immedi
ate cause of the rupture and present revolution. Jefferson,
in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the ' rock upon which
the old Union would split.1 He was right. What was con
jecture with him is now a realized fact. But whether he
fully comprehended the great truth upon which that great
rock stood and stands may be doubted.
"The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the
leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old
Constitution, were, that the enslavement of the African was
in violation of the laws of nature ; that it was wrong in
principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil
they knew not well how to deal with ; but the general
opinion of the men of the day was that, somehow or other
in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent
arid pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the
Constitution, was the prevailing idea at the time.
"The Constitution, it is true, secured every essential
guarantee to the institution while it should last ; and hence
346
PUBLIC OPINION OMNIPOTENT
no argument can be justly used against the Constitutional
guaranties thus secured, because of the common sentiment of
the day. These ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong.
They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races.
This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea
of a government built upon it : — when the ' storm came and
the wind blew,' it fell. Our new government is founded upon
exactly the opposite ideas. Its foundations are laid, its
corner-stone rests, upon the truth that the negro is not
equal to the white man ; that slavery, subordination to the
superior race, is his natural and normal condition.
" This, our new government, is the first, in the history of
the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and
moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its
development, like all other truths in the various departments
of science. It has been so even among us. Many who hear
me, perhaps, can recollect well that this truth was not gener
ally admitted, even in this day."
Mr. Stephens emphasizes the statement that the Confeder
ate government was " the first in the history of the world "
to make human slavery its foundation-stone. It will probably
be the last.
He lived to learn, however, that no government in the his
tory of the world ever had such a fitful, transient, and mal
odorous existence. It died a-borning, in the very throes and
agonies of its own travail, and without the pity of a single
civilized nation. The Almighty did not permit it to darken
the earth or curse humanity with its presence — save as a
scourge and punishment to the nation, and to cleanse and
purge it of the sin and crime of slavery.
When the storm came and the wind blew, it fell. But the
government based on the immortal and divine principles of
justice and equality for all stood the severest tests and
shocks of the greatest war of these ages, and vindicated the
principles held by Jefferson arid most of the leading states-
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
men of his time that " the enslavement of the African was
in violation of the laws of nature ; that it was wrong in
principle, socially, morally, and politically."
It may also be noted that Mr. Stephens further said of the
Southern Confederacy, that "its foundations are laid, its
corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not
equal to the white man ; that slavery, subordination to the
superior race, is his natural and normal condition.1'
The principles enunciated by Mr. Stephens are monstrously
inhuman. The people of the United States are superior in
many things to the people of the Latin republics of South
America, but does that give the right to North America to
conquer or deport the inhabitants of South America and hold
them in " slavery, subordination to the superior race," as
their "natural and normal condition"?
Some nations in Europe are distinctly superior to other
nations. But what nation, arrogating its superiority would
dare to make the attempt to conquer or deport the inhabi
tants of a weaker country and make slaves of them ?
Mr. Stephens, however, speaking in 1861, was uttering the
exact thoughts and even words that are proclaimed by
Southern leaders to-day, on the floors of the Congress, in the
halls of legislation, on the lecture platform, sometimes in the
pulpit, and frequently in the public press. Truly, some
neither learn nor forget.
Mr. Lincoln was far wiser than Mr. Stephens ; he said :
" If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong."
And it would seem to follow that " if outraging and op
pressing a man on the ground of color is not wrong, then
nothing is wrong."
The truth of God, the sentiment of civilization, and the
public opinion of the country were with Mr. Lincoln; and
because of this, in the Constitution of the United States it is
written : " Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, ex
cept as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have
348
PUBLIC OPINION OMNIPOTENT
been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.11
— " All persons born or naturalized in the United States
and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the
United States and of the state wherein they reside/1 —
" No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge
the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."
— " Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty,
or property without due process of law, nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws." — " The right of the citizens of the United States to
vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or
by any state, on account of race, color, or previous condition
of servitude."
There are also guaranties for the right to the writ of
habeas corpus ; for freedom of speech ; for a free press ;
to keep and bear arms ; for a public and speedy trial ; to
be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation ; to
be confronted with the witnesses ; to compulsory process for
the attendance of one's own witnesses ; to have counsel ; to
trial by jury ; immunity from bill of attainder ; from ex
post facto laws ; from unreasonable searches and seizures ;
from trial for a capital or otherwise infamous crime
unless on presentment or indictment of a grand jury ;
from being compelled to testify against one's self; from
excessive bail ; from excessive fines ; from cruel or unusual
punishment.
Not one of these righteous, humane laws is honestly ob
served in the South with regard to the colored man. There
is, on the contrary, a general repudiation of them ; and in
many essential respects, the South is governed by the galvan
ized corpse of the Southern Confederacy rather than by the
Constitution of the United States. It has often been demon
strated that the life of a colored man is not held as sacred in
the South as the life of a robin on the Boston Common, or
a swan on the lakes of Lincoln Park in Chicago.
349
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
But two vital considerations may apply here : one divine ;
one human.
First, "the thunderbolts of God are still hot," and "right
eousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne."
Second, the American people have shown in their history
that when they make up their minds to do a thing, they do
it ; when they determine to accomplish a result, they will find
a way or make it.
The particular manner of the co-operation between the
divine and the human powers may not be thoroughly under
stood. The fact of the co-operation, however, human history
abundantly illustrates. God's hand can be plainly seen in
the history of this republic. There is more than euphony in
these words of Holy Writ : " Righteousness exalteth a nation ;
but sin is a reproach to any people." Sin is not without its
wages.
Thomas Jefferson wrote : " Indeed I tremble for my
country when I reflect that God is just ; that His justice
cannot sleep forever."
The hour came; God's justice did awaken; the country
was convulsed and shocked from centre to circumference, and
the best blood of the nation paid the atonement. The lesson
should not be forgotten.
The humiliations, outrages, and inhumanities now forced
on the colored man, contrary to law, human and divine, are
a sin and a reproach to the nation. Public opinion is the
remedial agent ; it is all-potent because the truth and God
are behind it.
A cloud of witnesses speak from the skies. Some of these
were " workmen who laid the keel," and were on the deck at
the launching of the Ship of State. Others were at quarters,
on guard, and at the wheel through all the trying ordeals
and the perilous voyages of a century and a quarter. The
voices of the most eminent men and women now living are
also heard with no uncertain sound. They plead for right-
350
PUBLIC OPINION OMNIPOTENT
eousness, for justice, for humanity ; and in the name of
God.
Fundamentally, a nation is wise in so far as it is righteous ;
it is strong and powerful in so far as it is just ; it is safe and
invincible in so far as it has the favor of the God of battles.
From the depth of hearts warmed with the fire of liberty,
and with love for their country, faith in humanity, and
abiding confidence in the Almighty and Righteous Ruler
of the universe — the illustrious fathers and the glorious sons
of the republic speak out. Will the South give ear ? Will
the nation take heed ? Hear them !
Thomas Jefferson says : " And with what execration
should the statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half the
citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms
those into despots, and these into enemies ; destroys the
morale of the one part, and the amor patriae of the
other. . . . And can the liberties of a nation be thought
secure when we have removed their only firm basis — a con
viction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the
gift of God, — that they are not to be violated but with His
wrath ? "
Mr. Bancroft, writing of Mr. Jefferson says : " The heart
of Jefferson in writing the Declaration, and of Congress in
adopting it, beat for all humanity ; the assertion of right
was made for all mankind and all coming generations, with
out any exception whatever ; for the proposition which
admits of exceptions can never be self-evident."
The last public act of Benjamin Franklin was the signing
and presentation of a memorial to Congress as President of
the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, in which these words
occur : " That mankind are all formed by the same Al
mighty Being, alike objects of His care, and equally designed
for the enjoyment of happiness, the Christian religion teaches
us to believe, and the political creed of Americans fully coin
cides with the position. They have observed, with real
351
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
satisfaction, that many important and salutary powers are
vested in you for ' promoting the welfare and securing the
blessings of liberty to the people of the United States ' ; and
as they conceive that these blessings ought rightfully to
be administered without distinction as to color, to all de
scriptions of people, so they indulge themselves in the pleas
ing expectations that nothing which can be done for the
relief of the unhappy objects of their care will be omitted
or delayed.
" From the persuasion that equal liberty was originally the
position, and is still the birthright, of all men, and influ
enced by the strong ties of humanity and the principles of
their institutions, your memorialists conceive themselves
bound ... to promote a general enjoyment of the bless
ings of freedom."
To General Lafayette, who denounced slavery as " a crime
blacker than any African's face," and labored for its aboli
tion, George Washington wrote : " Would to God a like
spirit might diffuse itself generally into the minds of the
people of this country."
Washington also declared that, " the propitious smiles of
Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards
the eternal rules of order and right."
The Honorable Henry Laurens of South Carolina, Presi
dent of the Continental Congress, minister to Holland, and
commissioner with Franklin and Jay to negotiate peace with
Great Britain, left on record these emphatic words : " I am
not one of those who arrogate the peculiar care of Providence
in each fortunate event ; nor one of those who dare trust
in Providence for defence and security of their own liberty,
while they enslave and wish to continue in slavery thousands
who are as well entitled to freedom as themselves."
The Reverend Isaac Backus of Massachusetts, says : " The
American Revolution was built upon the principle that all men
are born with an equal right to liberty and property."
352
PUBLIC OPINION OMNIPOTENT
The voices of George Mason of Virginia, and Livingston of
New York ; Gadsden of South Carolina, and the Adamses of
Massachusetts ; Alexander Hamilton of New York, and
John Tyler of Virginia; Roger Sherman of Connecticut,
and Luther Martin of Maryland ; Joshua Atherton of New
Hampshire, and George Tucker of Virginia ; Rufus King of
Massachusetts, and Edmund Randolph of Virginia, and a
host of others — these all express the sentiment of liberty
and humanity.
Of special significance are the declarations of the Honor
able John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
of the United States, and thus the first final authority in in
terpreting the Constitution and laws under it ; he says : " I
believe that God governs the world ; and I believe it to be a
maxim in His as in our Court, that those who ask for equity
ought to do it." And again : "Till America comes into this
measure her prayers to Heaven for liberty will be impious.11
And further : " To contend for our own liberty and to deny
that blessing to others involves an inconsistency not to be
excused. . . .
" What act of public or private justice and philanthropy
can occasion more pleasing emotions in the breast of Chris
tians, or be more agreeable to Him who shed His blood for
the redemption of men, than such as tend to restore the
oppressed to their natural rights, and to raise unfortunate
members of the same great family with ourselves from the
abject situation of beasts of burden, bought and sold and
worked for the benefit and at the pleasure of persons who
were not created more free, more rational, more immortal,
nor with more extensive rights and privileges, than they were."
Concerning the discordant note of Chief Justice Taney,
which was the embodiment of the slaveholders1 idea, that the
negro " had no rights which the white man was bound to re
spect,11 Mr. George Livermore, in his Historical Research, says :
"It shocked the moral sentiment of our own community,
23 353
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
and excited the indignant rebuke of some of the most eminent
jurists and statesmen of Europe, who declared the sentiments
to be 'so execrable as to be almost incredible.'" The
Honorable George Bancroft says : " He has not only denied
the rights of manhood, the liberties of mankind, but has not
left a foothold for the liberty of the white man to rest upon.
. . . No nation can adopt that judgment as its rule, and live ;
the judgment has in it no element of political vitality."
If black men can be put into practical slavery, or be op
pressed, the same kind of power can force white men into
practical slavery, or under the rod of oppression.
'* Fleecy locks and dark complexions,
Do not alter nature's claim ;
Skins may differ, but affections
Dwell in black and white the same."
i
This idea of Justice Taney, however, is the central idea
in the plan of campaign of Southern leaders. And this ac
counts for the "Jim Crow" laws and the "Jim Crowism"
which disgraces the South and is the shame of the nation.
A press despatch recently reports : " Thomas Grades, a well-
dressed negro, is more familiar to-day with the 6 Jim Crow '
laws of Virginia than he was when he left New York. He
was dragged from a train at Alexandria and taken to the
station house, where he said he was unfamiliar with the law,
and on payment of $10 collateral for his appearance was re
leased. Grades had travelled from New York in comfortable
fashion, but at the Virginia end of the long bridge the con
ductor requested him to go forward to the little pen set aside
for negroes. He refused, and at Alexandria the entire force
was employed to drag him from the car. After depositing
the $10 he proceeded on his journey in the 'Jim Crow1
pen."
Is this civilization ? Is it Christianity ? Is it not barbar
ous ? Yet every colored person regardless of the excellence
of his inner life, or outward behavior, whatever his talents,
PUBLIC OPINION OMNIPOTENT
possessions, or high standing in the republic, is subject to
these barbarous laws of the South. A colored woman or
schoolgirl is treated the same way. In every case first-class
fare is demanded and paid, and " Jim Crow " accommodations
are forced on them. Sad, indeed, that the ineffable mean
ness of it does not appeal to the higher sense of justice, the
spirit of humanity or the Christian ethics of the white people
of the South.
A colored man travels from the city of Washington,
the nation's capital, to the Pacific coast. The time required
is about five days, and the distance is over three thousand
miles. He may be a high official of the government, de
spatched on public business. The train stops at various
places for breakfast, for dinner, for luncheon, for supper.
Every person on board of the train, except a colored person,
can freely buy refreshments or meals. But no colored person,
not even the Register of the Treasury of the United States,
who is a colored man, can cross the threshold of a single
dining-room, or even slake his thirst with a cup of coffee, or
munch a sandwich at a lunch counter. And yet it is written
in the Holy Scriptures : "And whosoever shall give to
drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only,
in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you he shall not
lose his reward.11 " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of
the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.11
The colored man. government official, minister, or bishop of
a great denomination, with money in his pockets, cannot buy
food and drink to refresh his body. Not in all civili/ation
outside the boundary of the South is such a condition possi
ble, nor even among semi-civilized people, and hardly among
the savages. The negro has " no right which the white man
[that is, the Southern white man] is bound to respect."
The harsh and discordant words of Chief Justice Taney
may, however, serve to emphasize the strength of the spirit
of liberty in the American heart. That spirit has survived
355
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
every assault and is the abiding heritage of the American
people.
But the sons of the republic, like the fathers, also speak
for liberty and humanity. President Garfield said : " And
this thing we will remember ; we will remember our allies
who fought with us. Soon after the struggle began, we
looked behind the army of white rebels, and saw four millions
of black people condemned to toil as slaves for our enemies ;
and we found that the hearts of these four millions were
God-inspired with the spirit of liberty, and that they were
our friends. We have seen white men betray the flag, but in
all that long, dreary war we never saw a traitor in a black
skin. Our prisoners escaping from the starvation of prisons,
fleeing to our lines by the light of the North Star, never
feared to enter the black man's cabin and ask for bread. In
all that period of suffering and danger no Union soldier was
ever betrayed by a black man or woman. And now that we
have made them free, so long as we live we will stand by
these black allies. We will stand by them until the sun of
liberty, fixed in the firmament of our Constitution, shall shine
with equal ray upon every man, black or white, throughout
the Union."
General Sherman said : " The South went out of the
Union ; it came back with five-fifths voting power based on
the negro population. And it is not fair ; it is not just ; it
is not honorable for the South to suppress the negro vote."
Mr. Elaine said : " No human right on this continent is
more completely guaranteed than the right against dis-
franchisement on account of race, color, or previous condition
of servitude, as embodied in the Fifteenth Amendment of the
Constitution of the United States." And he further says :
" Without the right of citizenship his (the negro V) freedom
could be maintained only in name, and without the elective
franchise his citizenship would have no legitimate and no
authoritative protection."
356
PUBLIC OPINION OMNIPOTENT
General Grant in his Memoirs, said : " Four millions of
human beings held as chattels have been liberated ; the ballot
has been given to them ; the free schools of the country have
been opened to their children. The nation still lives, and
the people are just as free to avoid social intimacy with the
blacks as ever they were, or as they are with white people."
President Benjamin Harrison said : " As long as free
suffrage shall be held by our people to be a jewel above
price ; as long as each for himself shall claim its free exer
cise and shall generously and manfully insist upon an equally
free exercise of it by every other man, our government will
be preserved and our development will not find its climax
until the purpose of God in establishing this government
shall have spread throughout the world — government of the
people, for the people, and by the people."
And with the voices of these sons of the republic are
heard the voices of Logan, John Sherman, Stanton, Chase,
Sheridan, Longfellow, Whittier, Joshua R. Giddings, McKin-
ley, and a mighty host of others — a glorious company speak
ing as it were from the skies to the American people.
The vast body of the American people to-day think the
same thoughts and would say the same words. And their
O J
voice is the voice of God speaking through the human heart.
Public opinion is omnipotent. Let it speak in thunder
tones ! Its commanding voice will be heard, respected, and
obeyed.
It will prevail because it carries with it the grandeur of
noble conviction, the majesty of the truth, the sovereignty of
the right, and the power and determination of execution.
Kipling's " Recessional," penned in celebration of the fif
tieth anniversary of the reign of Victoria, that most gracious
queen and sovereign of a world empire, in essentials perhaps
the most illustrious ruler the world has ever seen, embodies at
once the hopes, doubts, vanities, and fears; the struggles,
triumphs, and prayers of a people.
357
THE AFTERMATH OF SLAVERY
It points the way to greatness and glory because it points
the way to the mind of God.
Its lesson cannot fail to impress the American heart.
** God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far flung battle line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine —
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget !
" The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget !
" Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre !
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget !
** If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boasting as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law —
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget !
" For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word —
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord !
"Amen."
358
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A Diary Record of Conversations kept by
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In preparing the diary for publication Mr. Traubel has made
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