The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 - Various 14 стр.

of a lifetime of agitation and anxiety. Now they were called upon to undo it all, but they seemed incapable of understanding the true position of affairs, and were totally ignorant of what had been accomplished by the war and blind to the logic of events.

For instance, one of the questions early raised and referred to the judiciary committee was whether Negroes should be allowed to testify in the courts. Judge Frost of Charleston introduced a resolution that the ordinance fixing the status of the Negro upon this question should be passed by the convention. Chancelor Ingalls, who recently died in Baltimore, opposed the proposition, claiming that a sovereign convention called as this was for a special purpose, ought not to legislate. Upon the question of discharging the committee from further consideration of the subject, there were but two votes in the negative, Judge Frost, the mover, a man of 80 years, and myself.

Isolated as I was from the start, I was treated by the convention with the utmost courtesy, and when I occasionally rose to speak, I received the

of the members, and the rather obtrusive attention of the ladies who filled the galleries. Such remarks could be heard as: "There, that Yankee is going to speak."

Another point that agitated the convention was, what laws should be passed to fix the status of the Negro, and, after a long discussion, a committee was appointed to frame a code of laws to be submitted to the legislature, which should assemble under the constitution adopted by this convention. The product of that commission was "The Black Code." Its intentions and provisions were foreshadowed in the debates of the convention. At the close of the debate I spoke for five minutes, closing with the prediction that if the convention thought that its work would be of any value to the state, they were mistaken. If the convention thought it possible to provide a different code of laws for the government of the loyal black citizens of the United States, from that which governed the disloyal white citizens of South Carolina, they did not understand what the war had accomplished. I said that I knew more of the

than it was possible for any man in that convention or all of them to know. While I spoke with modesty before men who had occupied high political positions in the past, I spoke with confidence as to the opinion of the people of the North who had waged a successful war against secession and slavery. Speaking for them I predicted that their laws would be made by major-generals and executed by provost-marshals until the last man present would fall into his grave before the North would admit the state into the Union under a constitution which did not recognize that all men were equal before the law. When I sat down there was a dead silence and solemn faces.

To show the opposition I excited, let me give another anecdote.

James L. Orr came to my room one evening and asked me not to be offended if he requested that upon a certain question he proposed to bring before the convention the next day I would not speak in its favor. He said: "There are fools enough in this convention that do not want anything that you do want, and every time you speak on a measure you hinder its adoption." The proposition he had at hand was to

requisite to obtain citizenship in the state from three years to one, and after much difficulty he persuaded the convention to make the change. He also wished to abolish the property qualification for state senators. Tillman appealed to him in an eloquent speech to spare this last relic of South Carolina conservatism. Orr, in reply, asked what in God's name had South Carolina conservatism done for South Carolina. He pointed to what its condition was once and what it now was, and charged South Carolina conservatism with the result. His speech was a powerful one, and brought the convention to his views, and no property qualification was thereafter imposed upon any officer.

Near the close of the convention I asked leave to present a petition from 250 colored property owners of the city of Charleston, who asked that the right of suffrage be extended to them. This, I suppose, was the first petition of the kind ever offered in the slave states. A member of the convention immediately moved that the petition be returned to me and not received by the convention. Mr. Orr said that the petition was respectful in form and ought to be received. He moved that it be laid on the table. Another delegate moved that

of the reception of the petition be made in the journal. I then rose to speak upon the last of these motions, but the president of the convention entertained a motion to adjourn, and the convention did so.

The convention made a constitution which was not, however, submitted to the people for their approval. Under it a governor and legislature were elected.

was ratified by the legislature, and many preposterous laws relating to the Negroes were passed. It was evident that the freedman was to be reduced to a condition worse than slaveryhe was to be made a serf, attached to the land, and to be under all the disabilities of slavery without having the protection of the property interest of the owner. Congress took charge of the reconstruction, and the new government of South Carolina fell to pieces, after a brief and inglorious existence.

Although I was the first "carpet bagger," I did not pursue the occupation. I never held office again in the state, although I continued to live there for sixteen years, and taking part in politics as the editor of the Beaufort Republican and the Columbia Union-Herald.

BOOK REVIEWS

The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1865-1902. By Richard L. Morton, Ph.D., Phelps Stokes Fellow in the University of Virginia, 1917-1918. Charlottesville, Virginia, 1919. Pp. 199. Price, $1.50.

This is the fourth number of a series of studies in the race problem promoted by the Phelps Stokes Fund with a view to interesting a larger number of southern white scholars in this field. The seriousness of the problem during recent years has driven home the thought that without scientific investigation it will be extremely difficult to find a rational basis upon which the two races may cooperate for the greatest good of the greatest number. These monographs are very much like the addresses and studies of the University Commission making an effort to meet this need. Judged from the value of the monographs hitherto produced, however, one must express the regret that these works do not measure up to the desired standard. The chief difficulty lies in the misconception that the whole matter of readjustment may be effected by using the white man only. He is to do the thinking, outline the method of attack, and direct the movement. The Negro, the other half of the equation, has not been invited to share this work and the writers making these investigations are unfortunately biased rather than scientific.

The purpose of this monograph is to show the bad effects of Negro suffrage which had no place in Lincoln's plan of Reconstruction or in the early Congressional plan, but was forced upon the South by a group of aggressive radicals led by Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner as a means of their personal aggrandizement and of executing punishment and revenge upon the Southern States. It is not true that these two statesmen desired to force Negro rule upon the South. They tried to give that section a democratic government. At first they advised the Negroes to choose for their leaders the intelligent southern whites and the Negroes entreated their former masters to serve them in this capacity. When the whites refused to coöperate, therefore, Congress could do nothing else but make the Negroes the basis of the reconstructed governments. From this partisan point of view only then the monograph is very much of a success. The writer suffered from a preoccupation of mind and in his researches was governed accordingly. He knew what he wanted to write and found facts to assist him toward this end.

The book covers in detail form the beginnings of Negro suffrage in Virginia, the campaign of 1867 in which radicals and Negroes drew the color line, the constitutional convention of 1867-68, the committee of nine, the campaign of 1869, the restoration of Virginia, the elimination of the Carpetbaggers from 1869 to 1879, the Readjuster movement in Virginia from 1879 to 1883, politics and race friction from 1885 to 1900, the constitutional convention of 1901-1902, and the new constitution. He, therefore, discusses certain topics already treated in J.A.C. Chandler's Representation in Virginia, and The History of Suffrage in Virginia; J.P. McConnell's Negroes and their Treatment in Virginia from 1865-1867; H.J. Eckenrode's The Political History of Virginia during Reconstruction; and C.C. Pearson's The Readjuster Movement in Virginia.

The author makes a survey of the situation prior to the Civil War, explaining why the aristocratic Virginians long since accustomed to rule even by excluding the poor whites from the electorate could not tolerate the enfranchisement of the Negroes. An effort is made also to show that inasmuch as most of the Northern States prior to the Civil War had not accepted Negro suffrage, it was natural for the southern people to be opposed to such a policy. To strengthen this point he refers to such authorities as Oliver P. Morton, Governor Andrew and Abraham Lincoln.

The author considers the Negro a failure in politics and supports his contention by a quotation from George W. Murray, who felt that it was the mistake of the nineteenth century to attempt to make the ex-slave a governor before he had learned to be governed and of Booker T. Washington who said, "There is no doubt but that we made a mistake at the beginning of our freedom of putting the emphasis on the wrong end. Politics and the holding of office were too largely emphasized almost to the exclusion of every interest."

Since the Negro has been eliminated, the author seems to rejoice that the races in Virginia now work together in harmony and are friends. He believes that this relationship will continue only so long as no exterior factor disturbs the equilibrium and concludes with a quotation from John Sharp Williams who feels that "It will be well that wise men think more, that good men pray more and that all men talk less and curse less." If the author really intends to set forth the views of such radicals as John Sharp Williams as those upon which the races may expect to coöperate in the South, he might have added his recent pronunciamento that "when it comes to maintaining the honor of a white woman the South respects no law human or divine."

These observations are sufficient to establish the idea of the book. The Negro during the Reconstruction period was a failure. The white man who has been restored to absolute power so as to establish social ostracism, segregation and lynching is a success. In other words, the whole study is from the white man's point of view. The Negro has no political rights which the white man should respect and unless things are in conformity with the white man's prejudice they are wrong.

No one would gainsay that the enfranchisement of all ex-slaves was a mistake. Oliver P. Morton, and Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, were to some extent right in their criticism of such a policy. It would have been much better to have followed Abraham Lincoln's plan of enfranchising those Negroes who were owners of property or able to read and write and those white men who had not taken any part in the Rebellion. While it should not have been expected that ex-slaves could administer the affairs of the country it could not, on the other hand, have been imagined that their masters who had begrudgingly abandoned their title to men as property would in a few years deal with them as one should with human beings. As a matter of fact the black codes which the Southern States enacted immediately after the war show the inability of the aristocratic southerners to deal humanely with a subject people. If, therefore, Abraham Lincoln's policy, of gradually recruiting voters from such blacks as gave evidence of wealth and education and from such whites as manifested a disposition to do the right thing by the country and by the freedmen had been followed, the mistakes of the Reconstruction would have been avoided.

The Negro Trail Blazers of California. By Delilah L. Beasley, Los Angeles, California, 1919. Pp. 317.

This is, according to the author, a compilation of records from the California Archives in the Bancroft Library at the University of California and from the diaries, papers and conversations of pioneers in the State of California. It includes also a record of present-day Negroes in that State. The book is illustrated with portraits exhibiting the life of the people past and present. The work is divided into three parts, the first being historical, the second biographical, and the third an account of the present-day Negro.

Taking up the historical task, the author accounts for the discovery of California and mentions the important roles played by Estevanecito and the Negro priest accompanying the explorers. She then discusses the rule of Spain in California, the Bear Flag Party, the landing of Commodore John D. Sloate, the admission of California to the Union, the Pony Express, the right of testimony, the homestead law, the elective franchise, slavery in California, and freedom papers. Although intended as a continuous sketch, however, this portion of the work, like most of it, is a mixture of narratives and documents.

In the second part of the book giving biographical sketches there is a chapter on the first Negro settlers on the Pacific coast, a pioneer list and the Forty-Niners of color engaged in mining. Into this are worked all sorts of personal narratives without any organizing or unifying scheme as to place or achievement. Not much attention is paid to proportion. The author seemingly wrote all she had heard or collected in each case regardless of the worth of these personal achievements.

The same style holds in the treatment of the present-day Negro of California. There is something about almost everything. The Negro churches and the Negro in education, law and music have considerable space. The author next takes up distinguished women of color, doctors, dentists, literary persons, Negroes at the Panama Pacific International Exposition, and Negroes in the army. Then follow the notes on the text which, instead of being given throughout the work as footnotes are placed at the end of the work.

Judged from the point of view of the scientific investigator, the work is neither a popular nor a documented account. When one considers the numerous valuable facts in the book, however, he must regret that the author did not write the work under the direction of some one well grounded in English composition. As it is, it is so much of a hodge-podge that one is inclined to weep like the minister who felt that his congregation consisted of too many to be lost but not enough to be saved.

A History of South Africa. By Dorothea Fairbridge, Oxford University Press, London, 1918. Pp. 319.

One hears much nowadays about the history of South Africa and the development of that recently enlarged domain under the direction of Great Britain adds further interest to the story. The present volume differs, however, from the type of most recent accounts of South Africa in that it is a small illustrated work within the reach of those too busy or not sufficiently well grounded in the social sciences to read an intensively scientific treatise. As such, it has a place in the current historical volumes growing out of the reconstruction of the countries revolutionized by the world war.