CHAPTER I.

SHALL THE NEGRO BE GIVEN POLITICAL RIGHTS ?-CON

GRESS PROPOSES A FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT.

The chief obstacle to national peace and harmony, it might seem, had now been removed by the abolition of slavery, but this radical change in the American system. of government, affecting the condition of nearly five millions of the population compelled other changes equally radical, but more difficult. There were at this time over a million negroes in the country above twenty years of age, and, save some sixty-two thousand, all were in the former slaveholding States. Of white males over twenty years, there were about two millions in these States and nearly five and a half millions in the old free States. In other words, in the South, there was one negro of voting age to every two whites; in the North, eighty-four whites' to every negro. In South Carolina and Mississippi, the negro males, above twenty years of age, outnumbered the whites; in Louisiana, the races were equal in number; and in Georgia, Alabama and Florida, nearly so. In the aggregate, one-seventh of the male population of the country, old enough to vote, consisted of negroes."

But North and South had long been hostile to negro suf

1 See a table of the white and the negro population of voting age in 1860, given by Roscoe Conkling in a speech in the House of Representatives, January 22, 1866. Globe, First Session, Thirtyninth Congress, p. 357. Taking the census of 1860 as a basis and computing the number of whites and negroes at the ratio of increase reported in the census of 1870, the number of negro males over 20 years of age in the former slave-holding States in 1865 was 1,230,967; in the North (free States), 63,731. The number of white males over 20 years of age in the South was 2,400,262; in the North, 5,403,937.

236

THE SOUTH PROTESTS.

frage. True, hostility had raged during the slaveholding period, but this was not yet so remote as seriously to change opinion on the subject, either North or South. The abolition of slavery suddenly necessitated a change in public sentiment. The Southern States did not hesitate, even now, while under military rule, to protest against the suggestion of negro suffrage, and several had ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, with the understanding, on their part, that its second clause which gives authority for its enforcement should not be construed as empowering Congress to extend the elective franchise to the negro. The South had always insisted that slavery was a domestic institution, and it now insisted that the political status of the freedmen was to be fixed by each State for itself. This claim of right was historical and founded on sound and ample legal authority; for no principle was better established than the right of each Commonwealth to prescribe the qualifications of its electors.

In abolishing slavery, the people of the Southern States, yielding to necessity, had not modified their estimate of the negro. They now expressed themselves willing to tolerate him as a free man, and to give him the right to be a witness in cases to which he was a party, but the value of his testimony should be determined by the court; they were willing to allow negroes to make contracts for services, and, generally, to have all the legal protection accorded to whites. This is evident from the laws enacted by their legislatures at this time. In thus granting the negro civil rights the South felt that it was doing all that it could do for him. It did not offer to educate him, for it felt too poor to establish separate negro schools; and the thought of the co-education of blacks and whites was intolerable. "The North had freed the negro, let it educate him." The South was worse than exhausted; it was bank

THE SOUTH PROTESTS.

237

rupt and its condition deplorable. War had scattered, consumed or destroyed personal property, and had damaged real estate almost beyond the power of restoration. Excluding slaves, the people of the South, within five years, had lost in property, in funds and by the increase of indebtedness, nearly three thousand millions of dollars. They were owing the merchants of the North for goods purchased and money borrowed, four hundred and eight millions more. Their indebtedness exceeded by nearly fourteen hundred millions the assessed value of all property in the Confederate States in 1865, and was more than two hundred millions greater than the national debt at its highest point. The war left them without money, or credit, and almost without the means of subsistence. Long before the war closed, the National Government was distributing millions of dollars to feed, clothe and shelter destitute Southerners of both races.1

But poverty and the disorganization of industry did not disturb the southern people as did the prospect of negro suffrage. They could endure poverty and hardship, but negro domination, never. It was easy, they said, for the North, where there were eighty-four white men to one negro, to talk about equal political rights; but what would the North do if two-fifths of its population were African, and every third man a negro old enough to vote? Even more, what would any seven States of the North do if

1 The total loss by the rebellion in property, assets and debts, State and Confederate, can never be known. Many estimates have been made, one of which is as follows: Total loss, $5,262,303,554.26; loss excluding slaves was $2,976,145,955.90. In 1865 the Freedmen's Bureau expended for reliefs and education $13,230,277.40. The Confederate debt on the 1st of April, 1865, was estimated at $2,345,297,823, as reported by William W. Belknap, Secretary of War, February 7, 1872. See report of Job E. Stevenson of Ohio on the Finances of the Insurrectionary States, Washington Government Printing Office, 1872, pp. 115-119.

their population were divided between the two races, as was that of the Gulf States?

It is not strange that from the time of the abolition of slavery should date that racial hostility in the South which continues to the present hour. The southern slaveholders had been the most merciful the world had ever known. Cruelty to the slave had been the exception. To judge the South by its slave code is as unjust, as to judge the North solely by its criminal laws. The Thirteenth Amendment practically abolished the slave code and at the same time obliterated much of the old patriarchal feeling of the white race toward the black. The negro was henceforth looked upon as a confederate of that northern power which had changed his condition. He was an enemy within the household, and was soon made to bear all the pains and penalties of his new condition. The conflict of races had begun and a new question had suddenly arisen. What was to be done with the freedmen?

With this conflict began that counter revolution, which followed the civil war and which raised new problems, the mode difficult to solve, on account of the form and dual nature of our government. Complaints of the abuse of freedmen reached Congress from all parts of the South. They were denied the equal protection of the laws; they were not allowed to make contracts, or, making them, were denied their wages, or their portion of the crops. They were terrorized by marauders, were robbed, maltreated and brutally murdered; they were excluded from the basis of representation; they had neither their former protection as slaves, nor the rights of freedmen; their condition was anomalous.

But how should these wrongs be righted and by what authority? Had the National Government the right to address itself to the freedmen as individuals and protect